THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Seventy-five years have passed since Lingard completed his HISTORY OFENGLAND, which ends with the Revolution of 1688. During that periodhistorical study has made a great advance. Year after year the mass ofmaterials for a new History of England has increased; new lights havebeen thrown on events and characters, and old errors have beencorrected. Many notable works have been written on various periods ofour history; some of them at such length as to appeal almost exclusivelyto professed historical students. It is believed that the time has comewhen the advance which has been made in the knowledge of English historyas a whole should be laid before the public in a single work of fairlyadequate size. Such a book should be founded on independent thought andresearch, but should at the same time be written with a full knowledgeof the works of the best modern historians and with a desire to takeadvantage of their teaching wherever it appears sound. 

The vast number of authorities, printed and in manuscript, on which aHistory of England should be based, if it is to represent the existingstate of knowledge, renders co-operation almost necessary and certainlyadvisable. The History, of which this volume is an instalment, is anattempt to set forth in a readable form the results at present attainedby research. It will consist of twelve volumes by twelve differentwriters, each of them chosen as being specially capable of dealing withthe period which he undertakes, and the editors, while leaving to eachauthor as free a hand as possible, hope to insure a general similarityin method of treatment, so that the twelve volumes may in theircontents, as well as in their outward appearance, form one History. 

As its title imports, this History will primarily deal with politics, with the History of England and, after the date of the union withScotland, Great Britain, as a state or body politic; but as the life ofa nation is complex, and its condition at any given time cannot beunderstood without taking into account the various forces acting uponit, notices of religious matters and of intellectual, social, andeconomic progress will also find place in these volumes. The 'footnotes'will, so far as is possible, be confined to references to authorities, and references will not be appended to statements which appear to bematters of common knowledge and do not call for support. Each volumewill have an Appendix giving some account of the chief authorities, original and secondary, which the author has used. This account will becompiled with a view of helping students rather than of making longlists of books without any notes as to their contents or value. That theHistory will have faults both of its own and such as will always in somemeasure attend co-operative work, must be expected, but no pains havebeen spared to make it, so far as may be, not wholly unworthy of thegreatness of its subject. 

Each volume, while forming part of a complete History, will also initself be a separate and complete book, will be sold separately, andwill have its own index, and two or more maps. 

Vol. I. To 1066. By Thomas Hodgkin, D. C. L. , Litt. D. , Fellow ofUniversity College, London; Fellow of the British Academy. 

Vol. II. 1066 to 1216. By George Burton Adams, M. A. , Professor ofHistory in Yale University, New Haven Connecticut. 

Vol. III. 1216 to 1377. By T. F. Tout, M. A. , Professor of Medieval andModern History in the Victoria University of Manchester; formerly Fellowof Pembroke College. Oxford. 

Vol. IV. 1377 to 1485. By C. Oman, M. A. , Fellow of All Souls' College, and Deputy Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. 

Vol. V. 1485 to 1547. By H. A. L. Fisher, M. A. , Fellow and Tutor of NewCollege, Oxford. 

Vol. VI. 1547 to 1603. By A. F. Pollard, M. A. , Professor ofConstitutional History in University College, London. 

Vol. VII. 1603 to 1660. By F. C. Montague, M. A. , Professor of History inUniversity College, London; formerly Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. 

Vol. VIII. 1660 to 1702. By Richard Lodge, M. A. , Professor of History inthe University of Edinburgh; formerly Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. 

Vol. IX. 1702 to 1760. By I. S. Leadam, M. A. , formerly Fellow ofBrasenose College, Oxford. 

Vol. X. 1760 to 1801. By the Rev. William Hunt, M. A. , D. Litt. , TrinityCollege, Oxford. 

Vol. XI. 1801 to 1837. By the Hon. George C. Brodrick, D. C. L. , lateWarden of Merton College, Oxford, and J. K. Fotheringham, M. A. , MagdalenCollege, Oxford, Lecturer in Classics at King's College, London. 

Vol. XII. 1837 to 1901. By Sidney J. Low, M. A. , Balliol College, Oxford, formerly Lecturer on History at King's College, London. 

THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF ENGLANDIN TWELVE VOLUMES

Edited by William Hunt, D. Litt. , andReginald L. Poole, M. A. 

II. 

THE HISTORY OF ENGLANDFROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE DEATH OF JOHN(1066-1216)

By

GEORGE BURTON ADAMSProfessor of History in Yale University

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

A. D. Oct. , 1066. After the battle of HastingsNov. The march on London Winchester occupied London submits25 Dec. The coronation of WilliamJan. , 1067. Regulations for government The confiscation of lands The introduction of feudalism Power of the Norman dukeMarch-Dec. William in Normandy Revolts in England

CHAPTER II

Feb. -March, 1068. Conquest of the south-west Coronation of Matilda Summer. Final conquest of the north Raid of Harold's sons1069. Danish invasion; the north rebelsDec. The harrying of NorthumberlandJan. -Feb. , 1070. Conquest of the west Reformation of the ChurchAug. Lanfranc made primate Effect of the conquest on the Church The king and the Church

CHAPTER III

1070-4. The revolt in Ely Norman families in England Centralization of the State The New ForestAug. , 1072. William invades Scotland1073. He subdues Maine1075. Revolt of Earls Roger and Ralph1082. The arrest of Bishop Odo William's son Robert1086. The Domesday Book9 Sept. , 1087. The death of William

CHAPTER IV

26 Sept. , 1087. Coronation of William II. Apr. -June, 1088. The barons rebel. Nov. The trial of William of St. Calais1095. The revolt of Robert of Mowbray28 May, 1089. The death of Lanfranc Ranulf Flambard Troubles in NormandyApril, 1090. The court resolves on warFeb. , 1091. William invades Normandy Malcolm attacks England1092. William occupies CarlisleNov. , 1093. Death of Malcolm and Margaret

CHAPTER V

Lent, 1093. Illness of William IIMarch. Anselm named archbishop Conditions on which he acceptedJan. , 1094. His first quarrel with the king19 March. William crosses to Normandy1095. Second quarrel with AnselmMarch. The case tried at Rockingham1096. Robert mortgages Normandy1097. Renewed quarrel with AnselmNov. Anselm leaves England1098. Wars on the continent2 Aug. , 1100. William II killed

CHAPTER VI

2 Aug. , 1100. Henry claims the crown5 Aug. His coronation His characterAug. His coronation charter23 Sept. Return of Anselm11 Nov. Henry's marriage Beginning of investiture strife Merits of the caseJuly, 1101. Robert invades England He yields to Henry1102. Robert of Bellême punished1101-2. Fruitless embassies to Rome27 April, 1103. Anselm again leaves England

CHAPTER VII

1104. Henry visits Normandy1103-5. Dealings with Anselm21 July, 1105. Meeting with Anselm and AdelaAug. , 1106. The compromise and reconciliation

CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME

A. D. 28 Sept. , 1106. The battle of Tinchebrai Terms of investiture compromise21 April, 1109. Anselm's last years, and death1109-11. Reform of local courts1109-14. Marriage of Matilda and Henry V1109-13. War with Louis VI of France Growing power of the Church

CHAPTER VIII

March, 1116. William recognized as heir Renewed war with France1120. An advantageous peace25 Sept. , 1120. Henry's son William drowned Robert made Earl of Gloucester1123. Revolt of Norman baronsJan. , 1127. Matilda made Henry's heir She marries Geoffrey of Anjou1129. A period of peace1130. The Pipe Roll of 1130 The Exchequer Henry's charter to London1 Dec, 1135. His death

CHAPTER IX

Dec. , 1135. Stephen of Boulogne secures London Obtains support of the Church His coronation Normandy accepts Stephen1136. Charter to the Church Matilda appeals to Rome The first revolt The impression created by Stephen1137. Stephen in Normandy

CHAPTER X

1138. The beginning of civil war The revolt around Bristol22 Aug. The battle of the StandardJune, 1139. The arrest of the bishops Matilda in England1140. Stephen's purchase of support2 Feb. , 1141. The battle of Lincoln

CHAPTER XI

March, 1141. Matilda received in Winchester24 June, 1141. She is driven from London Stephen released1142-4. Geoffrey conquers Normandy1144. The fall of Geoffrey de Mandeville1149. Henry of Anjou in England1152. He marries Eleanor of Aquitaine1153. Henry again in EnglandNov. He makes peace with Stephen

CHAPTER XII

 The character of Henry II19 Dec. , 1154. His coronation1155. The pope's grant of IrelandJan. , 1156. Henry in Normandy1158. Treaty with Louis VIIJune, 1159. Attack on Toulouse New forms of taxation1162. Thomas Becket made primate

CHAPTER XIII

1162. The position of BecketJuly, 1163. First disagreement with Henry The question of criminous clerks1164. The constitutions of ClarendonOct. The trial of Becket Becket flees from England1165-70. War between king and primate14 June, 1170. Young Henry crownedJuly. Henry and Becket reconciled29 Dec. Murder of Becket

CHAPTER XIV

Oct. , 1171. Henry II in IrelandMay, 1172. Reconciled with the Church Henry and his sons Discontent of young Henry1173. Plans of Henry II in the southeast Young Henry and the barons rebel12 July, 1174. Henry II's penance at Canterbury12 July. The king of Scotland captured6 Aug. Henry returns to Normandy30 Sept. Peace concluded

CHAPTER XV

1175. Government during peace The homage of Scotland Judicial reforms Itinerant justices and jury The common law1176. Young Henry again discontented Affairs in Ireland1177. Dealings with France1180. Philip II king of France1183. War between Henry's sons11 June. Death of young Henry

CHAPTER XVI

1183. Negotiations with France1184-5. The question of a crusade1185. John in Ireland1186. Philip II and Henry's sons1187. War with Philip II Renewed call for a crusade1188. The Saladin tithe A new war with PhilipNov. Richard abandons his father4 July, 1189. Peace forced on Henry6 July. Death of Henry II

CHAPTER XVII

1189. Richard's first acts Methods of raising money Arrangements for Richard's absence Conduct of William LongchampJune, 1190. Richard goes on the crusade1191. Events of the third crusade Strife of John and LongchampOct. Longchamp deposed Philip II intrigues with John

CHAPTER XVIII

Dec. , 1192. Richard imprisoned in Germany1193. Negotiations for his release16 March, 1194. He reaches London War with Philip II Hubert Walter justiciar15 Jan. , 1196. Treaty with France Renewed war7 Dec. , 1197. Bishop Hugh refuses Richard's demand1198. Financial difficulties6 April, 1199. The death of Richard The growth of English towns

CHAPTER XIX

April, 1199. John succeeds in Normandy27 May. Crowned in Westminster Philip II takes Arthur's side1200. John's second marriage1202. Trial and sentence of John1 Aug. John captures Arthur1203. Siege of Château-Gaillard24 June, 1204. Capture of Rouen1205. French conquest checked in Poitou

CHAPTER XX

1205. Question of the Canterbury election17 June, 1207. The pope consecrates Langton Taxation of the clergy24 March, 1208. The interdict proclaimed Power of the kingNov. , 1209. John excommunicated1210. Expedition to Ireland1212. Alliance against France Philip II plans to invade EnglandMay, 1213. John yields to the pope

CHAPTER XXI

20 July, 1213. The king absolved Henry I's charter producedFeb. , 1214. John invades Poitou27 July. Battle of Bouvines The barons resist the king The charter demanded15 June, 1215. Magna Carta granted Civil strife renewed The crown offered to Louis of France21 May, 1216. Louis lands in England19 Oct. , 1216. The death of John

APPENDIX

On authorities

INDEX

MAPS(AT THE END OF THE VOLUME)

1. England and the French Possessions of William I. (1087)2. England and France, July, 1185

CHAPTER I

THE CONQUEST

The battle of the 14th of October, 1066, was decisive of the struggle forthe throne of England, but William of Normandy was in no haste to gatherin the results of the victory which he had won. The judgment of heavenhad been pronounced in the case between him and Harold, and there was nomistaking the verdict. The Saxon army was routed and flying. It couldhardly rally short of London, but there was no real pursuit. The Normansspent the night on the battlefield, and William's own tent was pitched onthe hill which the enemy had held, and in the midst of the Saxon wounded, a position of some danger, against which his friend and adviser, WalterGiffard, remonstrated in vain. On the next day he fell back with his armyto Hastings. Here he remained five days waiting, the Saxon Chronicletells us, for the nation to make known its submission; waiting, it ismore likely, for reinforcements which were coming from Normandy. So keena mind as William's probably did not misjudge the situation. With theonly real army against him broken to pieces, with the only leaders aroundwhom a new army could rally dead, he could afford to wait. He may nothave understood the rallying power of the Saxon soldiery, but he probablyknew very well the character of the public men of England, who were leftalive to head and direct a new resistance. The only candidate for thethrone upon whom all parties could unite was a boy of no pronouncedcharacter and no experience. The leaders of the nobility who should havestood forth in such a crisis as the natural leaders of the nation weremen who had shown in the clearest way their readiness to sacrificeEngland to their personal ambitions or grievances. At the head of theChurch were men of but little higher character and no greater capacityfor leadership, undisguised pluralists who could not avoid the charge ofdisregarding in their own selfish interests the laws they were bound toadminister. London, where the greater part of the fugitives had gathered, could hardly have settled upon the next step to be taken when Williambegan his advance, five days after the battle. His first objective pointwas the great fortress of Dover, which dominated that importantlanding-place upon the coast. On the way he stopped to give an example ofwhat those might expect who made themselves his enemies, by punishing thetown of Romney, which had ventured to beat off with some vigour a body ofNormans, probably one that had tried to land there by mistake. 

Dover had been a strong fortress for centuries, perched on its cliffs ashigh as an arrow can be shot, says one who may have been present at theseevents, and it had been recently strengthened with new work. Williamdoubtless expected a difficult task, and he was correspondingly pleasedto find the garrison ready to surrender without a blow, an omen even morepromising than the victory he had gained over Harold. If William hadgiven at Romney an example of what would follow stubborn resistance, hegave at Dover an example of how he proposed to deal with those who wouldsubmit, not merely in his treatment of the surrendered garrison of thecastle, but in his payment of the losses of the citizens; for his army, disappointed of the plunder which would have followed the taking of theplace by force, had burned the town or part of it. At Dover Williamremained a week, and here his army was attacked by a foe often moredeadly to the armies of the Middle Ages than the enemies they had comeout to fight. Too much fresh meat and unaccustomed water led to anoutbreak of dysentery which carried off many and weakened others, who hadto be left behind when William set out again. But these losses werebalanced by reinforcements from Normandy, which joined him here or soonafterwards. His next advance was towards Canterbury, but it had hardlybegun when delegations came up to meet him, bringing the submission ofthat city and of other places in Kent. Soon after leaving Dover the dukehimself fell ill, very possibly with the prevailing disease, but if wemay judge by what seems to be our best evidence, he did not allow this tointerrupt his advance, but pushed on towards London with only a briefstop at any point. [1] Nor is there any certain evidence to be had ofextensive harrying of the country on this march. His army was obliged tolive on what it could take from the inhabitants, and this foraging wasunquestionably accompanied with much unnecessary plundering; but there isno convincing evidence of any systematic laying waste of large districtsto bring about a submission which everything would show to be coming ofitself, and it was not like William to ravage without need. He certainlyhesitated at no cruelty of the sort at times, but we can clearly enoughsee reasons of policy in most at least of the cases, which may have madethe action seem to him necessary. Nearly all are instances either ofdefensive action or of vengeance, but that he should systematicallyravage the country when events were carrying out his plan as rapidly ascould be expected, we have no reason to consider in accordance withWilliam's policy or temper. In the meantime, as the invading army wasslowly drawing near to London, opinion there had settled, for the time atleast, upon a line of policy. Surviving leaders who had been defeated inthe great battle, men high in rank who had been absent, some purposelystanding aloof while the issue was decided, had gathered in the city. Edwin and Morcar, the great earls of north and middle England, heads ofthe house that was the rival of Harold's, who seem to have been willingto see him and his power destroyed, had now come in, having learned theresult of the battle. The two archbishops were there, and certain of thebishops, though which they were we cannot surely tell. Other names we donot know, unless it be that of Esegar, Harold's staller and portreeve ofLondon, the hero of a doubtful story of negotiations with the approachingenemy. But other nobles and men of influence in the state were certainlythere, though their names are not recorded. Nor was a military forcelacking, even if the "army" of Edwin and Morcar was under independent andnot trustworthy command. It is clear that the tone of public opinion wasfor further resistance, and the citizens were not afraid to go out toattack the Conqueror on his first approach to their neighbourhood. Butfrom all our sources of information the fatal fact stands out plainly, ofdivided counsels and lack of leadership. William of Malmesbury believed, nearly two generations later, and we must agree with him, that if theEnglish could have put aside "the discord of civil strife, " and have"united in a common policy, they could have amended the ruin of thefatherland. " But there was too much self-seeking and a lack ofpatriotism. Edwin and Morcar went about trying to persuade people thatone or the other of them should be made king. Some of the bishops appearto have opposed the choice of any king. No dominating personality aroseto compel agreement and to give direction and power to the popularimpulse. England was conquered, not by the superior force and genius ofthe Norman, but by the failure of her own men in a great crisis of herhistory. 

The need of haste seems an element in the situation, and under thecombined pressure of the rapid approach of the enemy and of the publicopinion of the city--citizens and shipmen are both mentioned--the leadersof Church and State finally came to an agreement that Edgar athelingshould be made king. It was the only possible step except that ofimmediate submission. Grandson of Edmund Ironside, the king who hadoffered stubborn and most skilful resistance to an earlier foreigninvader, heir of a house that had been royal since the race had had ahistory, all men could unite upon him, and upon him alone, if there mustbe a king. But there was no other argument in his favour. Neither theblood of his grandfather nor the school of adversity had made of him theman to deal with such a situation. In later life he impressed people as awell-mannered, agreeable, and frank man, but no one ever detected in himthe stuff of which heroes are made. He was never consecrated king, thoughthe act would have strengthened his position, and one wonders if the factis evidence that the leaders had yielded only to a popular pressure inagreeing upon him against their own preference, or merely of the hasteand confusion of events. One act of sovereignty only is attributed tohim, the confirmation of Brand, who had been chosen by the monks Abbotof Peterborough, in succession to Leofric, of the house of Edwin andMorcar, who had been present at the battle of Hastings and had diedsoon after. William interpreted this reference of the election to Edgarfor confirmation as an act of hostility to himself, and fined the newabbot heavily, but to us the incident is of value as evidence of thecharacter of the movement, which tried to find a national king in thislast male of Cerdic's line. 

From Canterbury the invading army advanced directly upon London, and tookup a position in its neighbourhood. From this station a body of fivehundred horsemen was sent forward to reconnoitre the approaches to thecity, and the second battle of the conquest followed, if we may call thata battle which seems to have been merely one-sided. At any rate, thecitizens intended to offer battle, and crossed the river and advancedagainst the enemy in regular formation, but the Norman knights made shortwork of the burgher battalions, and drove them back into the city withgreat slaughter. The suburb on the south bank of the Thames fell into thehands of the enemy, who burned down at least a part of it. Williamgained, however, no further success at this point. London was not yetready to submit, and the river seems to have been an impassable barrier. To find a crossing the Norman march was continued up the river, thecountry suffering as before from the foraging of the army. The desiredcrossing was found at Wallingford, not far below Oxford and nearly fiftymiles above London. That he could have crossed the river nearer the citythan this, if he had wished, seems probable, and considerations ofstrategy may very likely have governed William's movements. Particularlymight this be the case if he had learned that Edwin and Morcar, withtheir army, had abandoned the new king and retired northward, as some ofthe best of modern scholars have believed, though upon what is certainlynot the best of evidence. If this was so, a little more time would surelyconvince the Londoners that submission was the best policy, and the bestposition for William to occupy would be between the city and this army inthe north, a position which he could easily reach, as he did, from hiscrossing at Wallingford. If the earls had not abandoned London, this wasstill the best position, cutting them off from their own country and thecity from the region whence reinforcements must come if they came at all. A long sweep about a hostile city was favourite strategy of William's. 

From some point along this line of march between Dover and Wallingford, William had detached a force to secure the submission of Winchester. Thiscity was of considerable importance, both because it was the old royalresidence and still the financial centre of the state, and because itwas the abode of Edith, the queen of Edward the Confessor, to whom ithad been assigned as part of her dower. The submission of the city seemsto have been immediate and entirely satisfactory to William, who confirmedthe widowed Lady of England in her rights and showed later some favour tothe monks of the new minster. William of Poitiers, the duke's chaplain, who possibly accompanied the army on this march, [2] and wrote an accountof these events not long afterwards, tells us that at Wallingford Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, came in and made submission to his master. Thereis no reason to doubt this statement, though it has been called inquestion. The best English chroniclers omit his name from the list ofthose who submitted when London surrendered. The tide of success had beenflowing strongly one way since the Normans landed. The condition of thingsin London afforded no real hope that this tide could be checked. A man ofStigand's type could be depended upon to see that if William's success wasinevitable, an early submission would be better than a late one. IfStigand went over to William at Wallingford, it is a clear commentary onthe helplessness of the party of resistance in London. 

From Wallingford William continued his leisurely march, leaving a trailof devastation behind him through Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, andHertfordshire, where he turned south towards London. But the city wasnow convinced of the impossibility of resistance and was ready to yieldto the inevitable. How near the enemy was allowed to approach beforethe step of actual surrender was taken is not quite certain. Thegenerally accepted opinion, on the authority of English chroniclers, isthat the embassy from London went to meet William at Berkhampsted, thirty miles away, but if we could accept the suggestion which has beenmade that Little Berkhampsted was the place intended, the distancewould agree better with the express statement of the chaplain, Williamof Poitiers, that the city was in sight from the place of conference. It is hard to avoid accepting William's statement, for it is preciselythe kind of thing which the men of the duke's army--which had been solong approaching the city and thinking of its capture--would be likelyto notice and remember. It also agrees better with the probabilitiesof the case. Thirty miles was still a safe distance, especially inthose days, and would allow much time for further debate and for theunexpected to happen. Wherever the act of submission occurred, it wasin form complete and final for the city and for the chief men ofEngland. Edgar came to offer his useless and imperfect crown; Aldred, Archbishop of York, was there to complete the submission of the Church;bishops of several sees were also present, and chief men of the state, among whom Edwin and Morcar are mentioned by one of the chroniclers whohad earlier sent them home to the north. Possibly he is right in bothstatements, and the earls had returned to make their peace when theysaw that resistance was hopeless. These men William received mostkindly and with good promises, and Edgar in particular he embraced andtreated like a son. 

This deputation from London, headed by their nominal king, came to offerthe crown to William. For him and for the Normans the decisive moment ofthe expedition was now come. A definite answer must be made. According tothe account we are following, a kind of council of war of the Norman andother barons and the leaders of the army seems to have been held, and tothis council William submitted the question whether it would be better totake the crown now, or to wait until the country was more completelysubdued and until his wife Matilda could be present to share the honourwith him. This is the question which we are told was proposed, but theconsiderations which seem to have led to the final decision bear lessupon this than upon the question whether William should be king at all ornot. We have before this date no record of any formal decision of thisquestion. It had been doubtless tacitly understood by all; the crown wasmore or less openly the object of the expedition; but the time had nowcome when the question stood as a sharp issue before William and beforehis men and must be frankly met. If the Duke of the Normans was to betransformed into the King of the English, it could be done only with theloyal support of his Norman followers; nor is it at all likely that, in astate so thoroughly feudal as Normandy, the suzerain would have venturedto assume so great an increase of rank and probable power without theexpress consent of his vassals, in disregard of what was certainly theusual feudal practice. The decision of the council was favourable, andWilliam accepted the crown. Immediately a force of men was sent forwardto take military possession of the city and build, after the Normanfashion, some kind of defences there, and to make suitable preparationfor the coming of the king who was to be. The interval William occupiedin his favourite amusement of the chase, and his army in continuing toprovide for their various wants from the surrounding country and thatwith no gentle hand. 

Whatever may have prevented the coronation of Edgar, there was to be nounnecessary delay about William's. Christmas day, the nearest greatfestival of the Church, was fixed upon for the ceremony, which was totake place in the new abbey church of Westminster, where Harold had beencrowned and where the body of Edward lay. The consecration was to beperformed by Aldred, Archbishop of York. No Norman, least of all William, who had come with the special blessing of the rightful pope, could allowthis sacred office to Stigand, whose way to the primacy had been openedby the outlawry of the Norman archbishop Robert, and whose paillium wasthe gift of a schismatic and excommunicated pope. With this slightdefect, from which Harold's coronation also suffered, the ceremony wasmade as formal and stately as possible. Norman guards kept order aboutthe place; a long procession of clergy moved into the church, with theduke and his supporting bishops at the end. Within, the old ritual ofcoronation was followed as nearly as we can judge. Englishmen andFrenchmen were asked in their own languages if they would have William tobe king, and they shouted out their approval; William then took oath todefend the Church, to rule justly, to make and keep right law, and toprevent disorders, and at last he was anointed and crowned and becameKing of the English in title and in law. But all this had not taken placewithout some plain evidence of the unusual and violent character of theevent. The Normans stationed without had mistaken the shouts of approvalwhich came from within for shouts of anger and protest, and in trueNorman fashion had at once fallen on whatever was at hand, people andbuildings, slaying and setting fire, to create a diversion and to be sureof vengeance. In one point at least they were successful; the church wasemptied of spectators and the ceremony was finished, king and bishopsalike trembling with uncertain dread, in the light of burning buildingsand amid the noise of the tumult. 

At the time of his coronation William was not far from forty years ofage. He was in the full tide of a vigorous physical life, in height andsize, about the average, possibly a trifle above the average, of the menof his time, and praised for his unusual strength of arm. In mental giftshe stood higher above the general run of men than in physical. As asoldier and a statesman he was clear-headed, quick to see the right thingto do and the right time to do it; conscious of the ultimate end and ofthe combination of means, direct and indirect, slowly working out, whichmust be made to reach it. But the characteristic by which he is mostdistinguished from the other men of his time is one which he shares withmany of the conquerors of history--a characteristic perhaps indispensableto that kind of success--an utterly relentless determination to succeed, if necessary without hesitation at the means employed, and withoutconsidering in the least the cost to others. His inflexible will greatlyimpressed his own time. The men who came in contact with him were afraidof him. His sternness and mercilessness in the enforcement of law, in thepunishment of crime, and in the protection of what he thought to be hisrights, were never relaxed. His laws were thought to be harsh, hismoney-getting oppressive, and his forest regulations cruel and unjust. And yet William intended to be, and he was, a good ruler. He gave hislands, what was in those days the best proof of good government, and tobe had only of a strong king, internal peace. He was patient also, anddid not often lose control of himself and yield to the terrible passionwhich could at last be roused. For thirty years, in name at least, he hadruled over Normandy, and he came to the throne of England with a longexperience behind him of fighting against odds, of controlling aturbulent baronage, and of turning anarchy into good order. 

William was at last crowned and consecrated king of the English. But thekingdom over which he could exercise any real rule embraced little morethan the land through which he had actually passed; and yet this factmust not be understood to mean too much. He had really conquered England, and there was no avoiding the result. Notwithstanding all thedifficulties which were still before him in getting possession of hiskingdom, and the length of time before the last lingering resistance wassubdued, there is no evidence anywhere of a truly national movementagainst him. Local revolts there were, some of which seemed for a momentto assume threatening proportions; attempts at foreign intervention withhopes of native aid, which always proved fallacious; long resistance bysome leaders worthy of a better support, the best and bravest of whombecame in the end faithful subjects of the new king: these things therewere, but if we look over the whole period of the Conquest, we can onlybe astonished that a handful of foreign adventurers overcame so easily astrong nation. There is but one explanation to be found, the one to whichsuch national overthrow is most often due, the lack of leadership. 

The panegyrist of the new king, his chaplain, William of Poitiers, leadsus to believe that very soon after the coronation William adoptedsomewhat extensive regulations for the settlement of his kingdom and forthe restraint of disorders in his army. We may fairly insist upon somequalification of the unfailing wisdom and goodness which thissemi-official historian attributes to his patron, but we can hardly dootherwise than consider his general order of events correct, and hisaccount of what was actually done on the whole trustworthy. England hadin form submitted, and this submission was a reality so far as all wereconcerned who came into contact with William or his army. And now the newgovernment had to be set going at once. Men must know what law was to beenforced and under what conditions property was to be secure. The king'sown followers, who had won his kingdom for him, must receive the rewardswhich they had expected; but the army was now a national and not aninvading army, and it must be restrained from any further indiscriminateplunder or rioting. Two acts of William which we must assign to this timegive some evidence that he did not feel as yet altogether sure of thetemper of London. Soon after the ceremony at Westminster he retired toBarking, a few miles distant, and waited there while the fortification inthe city was completed, which probably by degrees grew into the Tower. And apparently at this time, certainly not long afterwards, he issued tothe bishop and the portreeve his famous charter for the city, probablydrawn up originally in the English language, or if not, certainly with anEnglish translation attached for immediate effect. In this charter theclearest assurance is given on two points about which a great commercialcity, intimately concerned in such a revolution, would be mostanxious, --the establishment of law and the security of property. The kingpledges himself to introduce no foreign law and to make no arbitraryconfiscations of property. To win the steady adhesion of that mostinfluential body of men who were always at hand to bring the pressure oftheir public opinion to bear upon the leaders of the state, theinhabitants of London, this measure was as wise as was the building ofthe Tower for security against the sudden tumults so frequent in themedieval city, or even more dangerous insurrections. 

At the same time strict regulations were made for the repression ofdisorders in the army. The leaders were exhorted to justice and to avoidany oppression of the conquered; the soldiers were forbidden all acts ofviolence, and the favourite vices of armies were prohibited, --too muchdrinking, we are told, lest it should lead to bloodshed. Judges wereappointed to deal with the offences of the soldiers; the Norman membersof the force were allowed no special privileges; and the control of lawover the army, says the king's chaplain, proudly, was made as strict asthe control of the army over the subject race. Attention was given alsoto the fiscal system of the country, to the punishment of criminals, andto the protection of commerce. Most of this we may well believe, thoughsome details of fact as well as of motive may be too highly coloured, forour knowledge of William's attitude towards matters of this kind is notdependent on the words of any panegyrist. 

While William waited at Barking, other English lords in addition to thosewho had already acknowledged him came in and made submission. The Normanauthorities say that the earls Edwin and Morcar were the chief of these, and if not earlier, they must have submitted then. Two men, Siward andEldred, are said to have been relatives of the last Saxon king, but inwhat way we do not know. Copsi, who had ruled Northumberland for a timeunder Tostig, the brother of Harold, impressed the Norman writers withhis importance, and a Thurkill is also mentioned by name, while "manyother nobles" are classed together without special mention. Another greatname which should probably be added to this list is that of Waltheof, Earl of Northampton and Huntingdon, of distinguished descent and destinedlater to an unhappy fate. All of these the king received most kindly. Heaccepted their oaths, restored to them all their possessions, and heldthem in great honour. 

But certainly not in all cases did things go so easily for the English. Two bits of evidence, one in the Saxon Chronicle, that men bought theirlands of the king, and one in Domesday Book, a statement of thecondition of a piece of land "at the time when the English redeemed theirlands, " lead us to infer that William demanded of the English that theyobtain from him in form a confirmation of their possessions for whichthey were obliged to pay a price. No statement is made of the reasons bywhich this demand was justified, but the temptation to regard it as anapplication of the principle of the feudal relief is almost irresistible;of the relief paid on the succession of a new lord, instead of theordinary relief paid on the recognition of the heir to the fief. If theevidence were greater that this was a common practice in feudalism ratherthan an occasional one, as it seems only to have been, it would give usthe simplest and most natural explanation of this act of William's. Toconsider that he regarded all the land of the kingdom as rightlyconfiscate, which has been suggested as an explanation, because of aresistance which in many cases never occurred, and in most had not at thetime when this regulation must have been made, is a forced and unnaturaltheory, and not in harmony with William's usual methods. To suppose thathe regarded this as an exceptional case, in which a relief on a change oflords could be collected, is a less violent supposition. Possibly it wasan application more general than ordinary of the practice which was usualthroughout the medieval world of obtaining at a price, from a new king, confirmations of the important grants of his predecessors. But anyexplanation of the ground of right on which the king demanded thisgeneral redemption of lands must remain from lack of evidence a mereconjecture. The fact itself seems beyond question, and is an indicationof no little value of the views and intentions of the new king. Thekingdom was his; all the land must be held of him and with his formalconsent, but no uncalled-for disturbance of possession was to occur. 

Beyond reasonable doubt at this time was begun that policy of actualconfiscation, where reasons existed, which by degrees transformed thelanded aristocracy from English into Norman. Those who had gained thecrown for the new king must receive the minor rewards which they had hadin view for themselves, and with no unnecessary delay. A new nobilitymust be endowed, and policy would dictate also that at the earliestmoment the country should be garrisoned by faithful vassals of the king'sown, supplied with means of defending themselves and havingproportionately as much at stake in the country as himself. The lands andproperty of those who had fought against him or who were irreconcilablewould be in his hands to dispose of, according to any theory of hisposition which William might hold. The crown lands of the old kings wereof course his, and in spite of all the grants that were made during thereign, this domain was increased rather than diminished under William. The possessions of Harold's family and of all those who had fallen in thebattle with him were at once confiscated, and these seem to have sufficedfor present needs. Whatever may have been true later, we may accept theconclusion that "on the whole William at this stage of his reign warredrather against the memory of the dead than against the lives or fortunesof the living. "

These confiscated lands the king bestowed on the chiefs of his army. Wehave little information of the way in which this change was carried out, but in many cases certainly the possessions held by a given Saxon thanein the days of Edward were turned over as a whole to a given Norman withno more accurate description than that the lands of A were now to be thelands of B. What lands had actually belonged to A, the old owner, wasleft to be determined by some sort of local inquiry, but with this theking did not concern himself beyond giving written orders that the changewas to be made. Often this turning over to a Norman of the estate of adispossessed Saxon resulted in unintended injustice and in legal quarrelswhich were unsettled years afterwards. Naturally the new owner consideredhimself the successor of the old one in all the rights which hepossessed. If for some of his manors the Saxon was the tenant of a churchor of an abbey, the Norman often seized upon these with the rest, as ifall were rightfully confiscated together and all held by an equally cleartitle, and the Church was not always able, even after long litigation, toestablish its rights. We have little direct evidence as to therelationship which such grants created between the recipient and theking, or as to the kind of tenure by which they were held, but theindirect evidence is constantly accumulating, and may be said to be nowindeed conclusive, that the relation and the tenure made use of were theonly ones with which the Normans were at this time familiar or whichwould be likely to seem to them possible, --the relationship of vassal andlord; and that with these first grants of land which the king made to hisfollowers was introduced into England that side of the feudal systemwhich Saxon England had never known, but which was, from this time on, for nearly two centuries, to be the ruling system in both public andprivate law. 

In saying that the feudal system was introduced into England by thesegrants, we must guard against a misconception. The feudal system, if weuse that name as we commonly do to cover the entire relations of thesociety of that age, had two sides to it, distinct in origin, character, and purpose. To any clear understanding of the organization of feudalsociety, or of the change which its establishment made in Englishhistory, it is necessary, although it is not easy, to hold these twosides apart. There was in the practices and in the vocabulary offeudalism itself some confusion of the two in the borderland that laybetween them, and the difficulty is made greater for us by the fact thatboth sides were primarily concerned with the holding of land, andespecially by the fact that the same piece of land belonged at once toboth sides and was held at the same time by two different men, by twodifferent kinds of tenure, and under two different systems of law. Theone side may be called from its ruling purpose economic and the otherpolitical. The one had for its object the income to be drawn from theland; the other regarded chiefly the political obligations joined to theland and the political or social rank and duties of the holders. 

The economic side concerned the relations of the cultivators of the soilwith the man who was, in relation to them, the owner of that soil; itregulated the tenures by which they held the little pieces which theycultivated, their rights over that land and its produce, theirobligations to the owner of service in cultivating for him the landswhich he reserved for his own use, and, in addition, of payments to himin kind and perhaps in money on a variety of occasions and occurrencesthroughout the year; it defined and practically limited, also, theowner's right of exaction from these cultivators. These regulations werepurely customary; they had grown up slowly out of experience, and theywere not written. But this was true also of almost all the law of thatage, and this law of the cultivators was as valid in its place as theking's law, and was enforced in its own courts. It is true that most ofthese men who cultivated the soil were serfs, at least not entirely free;but that fact made no difference in this particular; they had theirstanding, their voice, and their rights in their lord's "customary"court, and the documents which describe to us these arrangements callthem, as they do the highest barons of the realm, "peers, "--that is, peers of these customary courts. Not all, indeed, were serfs; manyfreemen, small farmers, possibly it would not be wrong to say all who hadformerly belonged to that class, had been forced by one necessity oranother to enter into this system, to surrender the unqualified ownershipof their lands, and to agree to hold them of some lord, though traces oftheir original full ownership may long have lingered about the land. Whenthey did this, they were brought into very close relations with theunfree cultivators; they were parts of the same system and subject tosome of the same regulations and services but their land was usually heldon terms that were economically better than the serfs obtained, and theyretained their personal freedom. They were members of the lords' courts, and there the serfs were their peers; but they were also members of theold national courts of hundred and shire, and there they were the peersof knights and barons. 

This system, this economic side of feudalism, is what we know as themanorial system. Its unit was the manor, an estate of land larger orsmaller, but large enough to admit of this characteristic organization, managed as a unit, usually from some well-defined centre, the manorhouse, and directed by a single responsible head, the lord's steward. Theland which constituted the manor was divided into two clearlydistinguished parts, the "domain" and the "tenures. " The domain was thepart of each manor that was reserved for the lord's own use, andcultivated for him by the labour of his tenants under the direction ofthe steward, as a part of the services by which they held their lands;that is, as a part of the rent paid for them. The returns from thesedomain lands formed a very large part, probably the largest part, of theincome of the landlord class in feudal days. The "tenures" were theholdings of the cultivators, worked for themselves by their own labour, of varying sizes and held on terms of varying advantage, and usuallyscattered about the manor in small strips, a bit here and another there. Besides these cultivated lands there were also, in the typical manor, common pasture lands and common wood lands, in which the rights of eachmember of this little community were carefully regulated by the customarylaw of the manor. This whole arrangement was plainly economic incharacter and purpose it was not in the least political. Its object wasto get the soil cultivated, to provide mankind with the necessary foodand clothing, and the more fortunate members of the race with theirincomes. This purpose it admirably served in an age when local protectionwas an ever present need, when the labouring man had often to look to therich and strong man of the neighbourhood for the security which he couldnot get from the state. Whatever may have been the origin of this system, it was at any rate this need which perpetuated it for centuries from thefall of Rome to the later Middle Ages; and during this long time it wasby this system that the western world was fed and all its activitiessustained. 

This economic side of feudalism, this manorial system, was not introducedinto England by the Norman Conquest. It had grown up in the Saxon states, as it had on the continent, because of the prevalence there of thegeneral social and economic conditions which favoured its growth. It wasdifferent from the continental system in some details; it used differentterms for many things; but it was essentially the same system. It had itsbody of customary law and its private courts; and these courts, liketheir prototypes in the Prankish state, had in numerous cases usurped orhad been granted the rights and functions of the local courts of thenation, and so had annexed a minor political function which did notnaturally belong to the system. Indeed, this process had gone so far thatwe may believe that the stronger government of the state established bythe Conqueror found it necessary to check it and to hold the operation ofthe private courts within stricter limits. This economic organizationwhich the Normans found in England was so clearly parallel with thatwhich they had always known that they made no change in it. Theyintroduced their own vocabulary in many cases in place of the Saxon; theyidentified in some cases practices which looked alike but which were notstrictly identical; and they had a very decided tendency to treat thefree members of the manorial population, strongly intrenched as they werein the popular courts, as belonging at the same time to both sides offeudalism, the economic and the political: but the confusion of languageand custom which they introduced in consequence is not sufficient todisguise from us the real relationships which existed. Nor should it bein the opposite process, which was equally easy, as when the Saxonchronicler, led by the superficial resemblance and overlooking the greatinstitutional difference, called the curia of William by the Saxon nameof witenagemot. 

With the other side of feudalism, the political, the case was different. That had never grown up in the Saxon world. The starting-points incertain minor Roman institutions from which it had grown, seem to havedisappeared with the Saxon occupation of Britain. The general conditionswhich favoured its development--the almost complete breakdown of thecentral government and the difficult and interrupted means ofcommunication--existed in far less degree in the Saxon states than in themore extensive Frankish territories. Such rudimentary practices as seemparallel to early stages of feudal growth were more so in appearance thanin reality, and we can hardly affirm with any confidence that politicalfeudalism was even in process of formation in England before theConquest, though it would undoubtedly have been introduced there by someprocess before very long. 

The political feudal organization was as intimately bound up with thepossession of land as the economic, but its primary object was different. It may be described as that form of organization in which the duties ofthe citizen to the state had been changed into a species of land rent. Aset of legal arrangements and personal relationships which had grown upwholly in the field of private affairs, for the serving of private ends, had usurped the place of public law in the state. Duties of the citizenand functions of the government were translated into its terms andperformed as incidents of a private obligation. The individual no longerserved in the army because this service was a part of his obligation as acitizen, but because he had agreed by private contract to do so as a partof the rent he was to pay for the land he held of another man. Thejudicial organization was transformed in the same way. The nationalcourts disappeared, and their place was taken by private courts made upof tenants. The king summoned at intervals the great men of Church andState to gather round him in his council, law court, and legislature, inso far as there was a legislature in that age, the curia regis, themother institution of a numerous progeny; but he did not summon them, andthey came no longer, because they were the great men of Church and State, the wise men of the land, but because they had entered into a privateobligation with him to attend when called upon, as a return for landswhich he had given them; or, in other words, as Henry II told the bishopsin the Constitutions of Clarendon, because they were his vassals. Publictaxation underwent the same change, and the money revenue of the feudalstate which corresponds most nearly to the income of taxation, was madeup of irregular payments due on the occurrence of specified events fromthose who held land of the king, and these in turn collected likepayments of their tenants; the relief, for instance, on the succession ofthe heir to his father's holding, or the aids in three cases, on theknighting of the lord's eldest son, the marrying of his eldest daughter, and the ransom of his own person from imprisonment. The contact of thecentral government with the mass of the men of the state was broken offby the intervening series of lords who were political rulers each of theterritory or group of lands immediately subject to himself, and exercisedwithin those limits the functions which the general government shouldnormally exercise for the whole state. The payments and services whichthe lord's vassals made to him, while they were of the nature of rent, were not rent in the economic sense; they were important to the suzerainless as matters of income than as defining his political power andmarking his rank in this hierarchical organization. The state as a wholemight retain its geographical outlines and the form of a commongovernment, but it was really broken up into fragments of varying size, whose lords possessed in varying degrees of completeness the attributesof sovereignty. 

This organization, however, never usurped the place of the state socompletely as might be inferred. It had grown up within the limits of astate which was, during the whole period of its formation, nominallyruled over by a king who was served by a more or less centralizedadministrative system. This royal power never entirely disappeared. Itsurvived as the conception of government, it survived in the exercise ofsome rights everywhere, and of many rights in some places, even in themost feudal of countries. Some feeling of public law and public dutystill lingered. In the king's court, the curia regis, whether inEngland or in France, there was often present a small group of members, at first in a minor and subordinate capacity, who were there, not becausethey were the vassals of the king, but because they were the workingmembers of a government machine. The military necessity of the state inall countries occasionally called out something like the old generallevy. In the judicial department, in England at least, one importantclass of courts, the popular county courts, was never seriously affectedby feudalism, either in their organization or in the law which theyinterpreted. Any complete description of the feudal organization must beunderstood to be a description of tendencies rather than of a realizedsystem. It was the tendency of feudalism to transform the state into aseries of principalities rising in tiers one above the other, and to getthe business of the state done, not through a central constitutionalmachine, but through a series of graded duties corresponding to thesesuccessive stages and secured by private agreements between thelandholders and by a customary law which was the outgrowth of suchagreements. 

At the date of the Norman Conquest of England, this tendency was morenearly realized in France than anywhere else. Within the limits of thatstate a number of great feudal principalities had been formed, duchiesand counties, round the administrative divisions of an earlier time astheir starting-point, in many of which the sovereign of the state couldexercise no powers of government. The extensive powers which the earliersystem had intrusted to the duke or count as an administrative officer ofthe state he now exercised as a practically independent sovereign, andthe state could expect from this portion of its territory only the feudalservices of its ruler, perhaps ill-defined and difficult to enforce. Insome cases, however, this process of breaking up the state into smallerunits went no further. Normandy, with which we are particularlyconcerned, was an instance of this fact. The duke was practically thesole sovereign of that province. The king of France was entirely shutout. Even the Church was under the unlimited control of the duke. Andwith respect to his subjects his power was as great as with respect tohis nominal sovereign. Very few great baronies existed in Normandy formedof contiguous territory and capable of development into independentprincipalities, and those that did exist were kept constantly in thehands of relatives of the ducal house and under strong control. Politicalfeudalism existed in Normandy in even greater perfection and in a morelogical completeness, if we regard the forms alone, its practices andcustoms, than was usual in the feudal world of that age; but it existednot as the means by which the state was broken into fragments, but as themachinery by which it was governed by the duke. It formed the bond ofconnexion between him and the great men of the state. It defined theservices which he had the right to demand of them, and which they in turnmight demand of their vassals. It formed the foundation of the army andof the judicial system. Every department of the state was influenced byits forms and principles. At the same time the Duke of Normandy was morethan a feudal suzerain. He had saved on the whole, from the feudaldeluge, more of the prerogatives of sovereignty than had the king ofFrance. He had a considerable non-feudal administrative system, though itmight not reach all parts of the duchy. The supreme judicial power hadnever been parted with, and the Norman barons were unable to exercise inits full extent the right of high justice. The oath of allegiance fromall freemen, whosesoever vassals they might be, traces of which are to befound in many feudal lands and even under the Capetian kings, wasretained in the duchy. Private war, baronial coinage, engagements withforeign princes to the injury of the duke, --these might occur inexceptional cases during a minority or under a weak duke, or in time ofrebellion; but the strong dukes repressed them with an iron hand, and noNorman baron could claim any of them as a prescriptive right. Feudalismexisted in Normandy as the organization of the state, and as the systemwhich regulated the relations between the duke and the knights and thenobles of the land, but it did not exist at the expense of the sovereignrights of the duke. 

This was the system which was introduced fully formed into England withthe grants of land which the Conqueror made to his barons. It was theonly system known to him by which to regulate their relations to himselfand their duties to the state. To suppose a gradual introduction offeudalism into England, except in a geographical sense, as theconfiscation spread over the land, is to misunderstand both feudalismitself and its history. This system gave to the baron opportunities whichmight be dangerous under a ruler who could not make himself obeyed, butthere was nothing in it inconsistent with the practical absolutismexercised by the first of the Norman kings and by the more part of hisimmediate successors. Feudalism brought in with itself two ideas whichexercised decisive influence on later English history. I do not mean toassert that these ideas were consciously held, or that they could havebeen formulated in words, though of the first at least this was verynearly true, but that they unconsciously controlled the facts of the timeand their future development. One was the idea that all holders of landin the kingdom, except the king, were, strictly speaking, tenants ratherthan owners, which profoundly influenced the history of English law; theother was the idea that important public duties were really privateobligations, created by a business contract, which as profoundlyinfluenced the growth of the constitution. Taken together, theintroduction of the feudal system was as momentous a change as any whichfollowed the Norman Conquest, as decisive in its influence upon thefuture as the enrichment of race or of language; more decisive in onerespect, since without the consequences in government and constitution, which were destined to follow from the feudalization of the Englishstate, neither race nor language could have done the work in the worldwhich they have already accomplished and are yet destined to perform instill larger measure. 

But, however profound this change may have been, it affected but a smallclass, comparatively speaking. The whole number of military units, ofknights due the king in service, seems to have been something less thanfive thousand. [3] For the great mass of the population, the workingsubstratum, whose labours sustained the life of the nation, the NormanConquest made but little change. The interior organization of the manorwas not affected by it. Its work went on in the same way as before. There was a change of masters; there was a new set of ideas to interpretthe old relationship; the upper grades of the manorial populationsuffered in some parts of England a serious depression. But in the main, as concerned the great mass of facts, there was no change of importance. Nor was there any, at first at least, which affected the position of thetowns. The new system allowed as readily as the old the rights whichthey already possessed. In the end, the new ideas might be a seriousmatter for the towns in some particulars, but at present the conditionsdid not exist which were to raise these difficulties. At the time, tothe mass of the nation, to everybody indeed, the Norman Conquest mighteasily seem but a change of sovereigns, a change of masters. It isbecause we can see the results of the changes which it really introducedthat we are able to estimate their profound significance. 

The spoiling of England for the benefit of the foreigner did not consistin the confiscation of lands alone. Besides the forced redemption oftheir lands, William seems to have laid a heavy tax on the nation, andthe churches and monasteries whose lands were free from confiscation seemto have suffered heavy losses of their gold and silver and preciousstuffs. The royal treasure and Harold's possessions would pass intoWilliam's hands, and much confiscated and plundered wealth besides. Thesethings he distributed with a free hand, especially to the churches of thecontinent whose prayers and blessings he unquestionably regarded as astrong reinforcement of his arms. Harold's rich banner of the fightingman went to Rome, and valuable gifts besides, and the Normanecclesiastical world had abundant cause to return thanks to heaven forthe successes which had attended the efforts of the Norman military arm. If William despatched these gifts to the continent before his own returnto Normandy, they did not exhaust his booty, for the wonder andadmiration of the duchy is plainly expressed at the richness and beautyof the spoils which he brought home with him. 

Having settled the matters which demanded immediate attention, the kingproceeded to make a progress through those parts of his kingdom whichwere under his control. Just where he went we are not told, but he canhardly have gone far outside the counties of southern and eastern Englandwhich were directly influenced by his march on London. In such a progresshe probably had chiefly in mind to take possession for himself and hismen of confiscated estates and of strategic points. No opposition showeditself anywhere, but women with their children appeared along the way tobeseech his mercy, and the favour which he showed to these suppliants wasthought worthy of special remark. Winchester seems to have been visited, and secured by the beginning of a Norman castle within the walls, and thejourney ended at Pevensey, where he had landed so short a time before inpursuit of the crown. William had decided that he could return toNormandy, and the decision that this could be safely done with so small apart of the kingdom actually in hand, with so few castles already builtor garrisons established, is the clearest possible evidence of William'sopinion of the situation. He would have been the last man to venture sucha step if he had believed the risk to be great. And the event justifiedhis judgment. The insurrectionary movements which called him back clearlyappear to have been, not so much efforts of the nation to throw off aforeign yoke, as revolts excited by the oppression and bad government ofthose whom he had left in charge of the kingdom. 

On the eve of his departure he confided the care of his new kingdom totwo of his followers whom he believed the most devoted to himself, thesouth-east to his half brother Odo, and the north to William Fitz Osbern. Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, but less an ecclesiastic, according to the idealsof the Church, than a typically feudal bishop, was assigned theresponsibility for the fortress of Dover, was given large estates in Kentand to the west of it, and was probably made earl of that county at thistime. William Fitz Osbern was the son of the duke's guardian, who hadbeen murdered for his fidelity during William's minority, and they hadbeen boys together, as we are expressly told. He was appointed to beresponsible for Winchester and to hold what might be called the marches, towards the unoccupied north and west. Very probably at this time also hewas made Earl of Hereford? Some other of the leading nobles of theConquest had been established in their possessions by this date, as weknow on good evidence, like Hugh of Grantmesnil in Hampshire, but thechief dependence of the king was apparently upon these two, who arespoken of as having under their care the minor holders of the castleswhich had been already established. 

No disorders in Normandy demanded the duke's return. Everything had beenquiet there, under the control of Matilda and those who had beenappointed to assist her. William's visit at this time looks less like anecessity than a parade to make an exhibition of the results of hisventure. He took with him a splendid assortment of plunder and a longtrain of English nobles, among whom the young atheling Edgar, Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, Earls Edwin and Morcar, Waltheof, son ofSiward, the Abbot of Glastonbury, and a thane of Kent, are mentioned byname. The favour and honour with which William treated these men did notdisguise from them the fact that they were really held as hostages. Nobusiness of especial importance occupied William during his nine months'stay in Normandy. He was received with great rejoicing on every hand, especially in Rouen, where Matilda was staying, and his return andtriumphal progress through the country reminded his panegyrist of thesuccesses and glories of the great Roman commanders. He distributed witha free hand, to the churches and monasteries, the wealth which he hadbrought with him. A great assembly gathered to celebrate with him theEaster feast at the abbey of Fécamp. His presence was sought to add éclatto the dedication of new churches. But the event of the greatestimportance which occurred during this visit to the duchy was the fallingvacant of the primacy of Normandy by the death of Maurilius, Archbishopof Rouen. The universal choice for his successor was Lanfranc, theItalian, Abbot of St. Stephen's at Caen, who had already made evident toall the possession of those talents for government which he was toexercise in a larger field. But though William stood ready, in form atleast, to grant his sanction, Lanfranc declined the election, which thenfell upon John, Bishop of Avranches, a friend of his. Lanfranc was sentto Rome to obtain the pallium for the new archbishop, but his mission wasin all probability one of information to the pope regarding largerinterests than those of the archbishopric of Rouen. 

In the meantime, affairs had not run smoothly in England. We may easilyguess that William's lieutenants, especially his brother, had not failedon the side of too great gentleness in carrying out his directions tosecure the land with garrisons and castles. In various places unconnectedwith one another troubles had broken out. In the north, where Copsi hadbeen made Earl of Northumberland, an old local dynastic feud was stillunsettled, and the mere appointment of an earl would not bring it to anend. Copsi was slain by his rival, Oswulf, who was himself soon afterwardkilled, but the Norman occupation had still to be begun. In the west amore interesting resistance to the Norman advance had developed nearHereford, led by Edric, called the Wild, descendant of a noble Saxonhouse. He had enlisted the support of the Welsh, and in retaliation forattacks upon himself had laid waste a large district in Herefordshire. Odo had had in his county an insurrection which threatened for a momentto have most serious consequences, but which had ended in a completefailure. The men of Kent, planning rebellion, had sent across the channelto Eustace, Count of Boulogne, who believed that he had causes ofgrievance against William, and had besought him to come to their aid inan attempt to seize the fortress of Dover. Eustace accepted theinvitation and crossed over at the appointed time, but his allies had notall gathered when he arrived, and the unsteady character of the countwrecked the enterprise. He attacked in haste, and when he failed to carrythe castle by storm, he retired in equal haste and abandoned theundertaking. William judged him too important a man to treat withseverity, and restored him to his favour. Besides these signs whichrevealed the danger of an open outbreak, William undoubtedly knew thatmany of the English had left the country and had gone in variousdirections, seeking foreign aid. His absence could not be prolongedwithout serious consequences, and in December, 1067, he returned toEngland. 

[1] William of Poitiers, in Migne's Patrologia Latina, cxlix, 1258, and see F. Baring, in Engl. Hist. Rev. , xiii. 18 (1898). 

[2] Orderic Vitalis, ii. 158 (ed. Le Prevost). 

[3] Round, Feudal England, p. 292. 

CHAPTER II

THE SUBJUGATION OF LAND AND CHURCH

With William's return to England began the long and difficult task ofbringing the country completely under his control. But this was not atask that called for military genius. Patience was the quality mostdemanded, and William's patience gave way but rarely. There was no armyin the field against him. No large portion of the land was ininsurrection. No formal campaign was necessary. Local revolts had to beput down one after another, or a district dealt with where rebellion wasconstantly renewed. The Scandinavian north and the Celtic west were theregions not yet subdued, and the seats of future trouble. Three yearswere filled with this work, and the fifteen years that follow werecomparatively undisturbed. For the moment after his return, William wasoccupied with no hostilities. The Christmas of 1067 was celebrated inLondon with the land at peace, Normans and English meeting together toall appearance with cordial good-will. A native, Gospatric, was probablyat this time made Earl of Northumberland, in place of Copsi, who had beenkilled, though this was an exercise of royal power in form rather than inreality, since William's authority did not yet reach so far. A Norman, Remigius, was made Bishop of Dorchester, in place of Wulfwig, who haddied while the king was in Normandy, and William's caution in dealingwith the matter of Church reform is shown in the fact that the new bishopreceived his consecration from Stigand. It is possible also that anotherheavy tax was imposed at this time. 

But soon after Christmas, William felt himself obliged to take the field. He had learned that Exeter, the rich commercial city of the south-west, was making preparations to resist him. It was in a district where Haroldand his family had had large possessions. His mother was in the city, andperhaps others of the family. At least some English of prominence seem tohave rallied around them. The citizens had repaired and improved theiralready strong walls. They had impressed foreigners, merchants even, intotheir service, and were seeking allies in other towns. William's rule hadnever yet reached into that part of England, and Exeter evidently hopedto shut him out altogether. When the king heard of these preparations, heacted with his usual promptitude, but with no sacrifice of his diplomaticskill. The citizens should first be made to acknowledge their intentions. A message was sent to the city, demanding that the oath of allegiance tohimself be taken. The citizens answered that they would take no oath, andwould not admit him within the walls, but that they were willing to payhim the customary tribute. William at once replied that he was notaccustomed to have subjects on such conditions, and at once began hismarch against the city. Orderic Vitalis thought it worthy of note, thatin this army William was using Englishmen for the first time as soldiers. 

When the hostile army drew near to the town, the courage of some of theleading men failed, and they went out to seek terms of peace. Theypromised to do whatever was commanded, and they gave hostages, but ontheir return they found their negotiations disavowed and the citydetermined to stand a siege. This lasted only eighteen days. Some decidedadvantage which the Normans gained--the undermining of the walls seemsto be implied--induced the city to try again for terms. The clergy, with their sacred books and relics, accompanied the deputation, whichobtained from the king better promises than had been hoped for. For somereason William departed from his usual custom of severity to those whoresisted. He overlooked their evil conduct, ordered no confiscations, andeven stationed guards in the gates to keep out the soldiers who wouldhave helped themselves to the property of the citizens with someviolence. But as usual he selected a site for a castle within the walls, and left a force of chosen knights under faithful command, to completethe fortification and to form the garrison. Harold's mother, Gytha, leftthe city before its surrender, and finally found a refuge in Saint Omer, in Flanders. Harold's sons also, if they were in Exeter, made theirescape before its fall. 

After subduing Exeter, William marched with his army into Cornwall, andput down without difficulty whatever resistance he found there. Theconfiscation of forfeited estates was no doubt one object of his marchthrough the land, and the greater part of these were bestowed upon hisown half brother, Robert, Count of Mortain, the beginning of what grewultimately into the great earldom of Cornwall. In all, the grants whichwere made to Robert have been estimated at 797 manors, the largest madeto any one as the result of the Conquest. Of these, 248 manors were inCornwall, practically the whole shire; 75 in Dorset, and 49 inDevonshire. This was almost a principality in itself, and is alone nearlyenough to disprove the policy attributed to William of scattering aboutthe country the great estates which he granted. So powerful a possessionwas the earldom which was founded upon this grant that after a time thepolicy which had been followed in Normandy, in regard to the greatcounties, seemed the only wise one in this case also, and it was notallowed to pass out of the immediate family of the king until in thefourteenth century it was made into a provision for the king's eldestson, as it has ever since remained. These things done, William disbandedhis army and returned to spend Easter at Winchester. 

Once more for a moment the land seemed to be at peace, and William wasjustified in looking upon himself as now no longer merely the leader of amilitary adventure, seeking to conquer a foreign state, but as firmlyestablished in a land where he had made a new home for his house. Hecould send for his wife; his children should be born here. It should bethe native land of future generations for his family. Matilda came soonafter Easter, with a distinguished train of ladies as well as lords, andwith her Guy, Bishop of Amiens, who, Orderic tells us, had alreadywritten his poem on the war of William and Harold. At Whitsuntide, inWestminster, Matilda was crowned queen by Archbishop Aldred. Later in thesummer Henry, the future King Henry I, was born, and the new royal familyhad completely identified itself with the new kingdom. 

But a great task still lay before the king, the greatest perhaps that hehad yet undertaken. The north was his only in name. Scarcely had anyEnglish king up to this time exercised there the sort of authority towhich William was accustomed, and which he was determined to exerciseeverywhere. The question of the hour was, whether he could establish hisauthority there by degrees, as he seemed to be trying to do, or onlyafter a sharp conflict. The answer to this question was known very soonafter the coronation of Matilda. What seemed to the Normans a greatconspiracy of the north and west was forming. The Welsh and Englishnobles were making common cause; the clergy and the common people joinedtheir prayers; York was noted as especially enthusiastic in the cause, and many there took to living in tents as a kind of training for theconflict which was coming. The Normans understood at the time that therewere two reasons for this determination to resist by force any furtherextension of William's rule. One was, the personal dissatisfaction ofEarl Edwin. He had been given by William some undefined authority, andpromoted above his brother, and he had even been promised a daughter ofthe king's as his wife. Clearly it had seemed at one time very necessaryto conciliate him. But either that necessity had passed away, or Williamwas reluctant to fulfil his promise; and Edwin, discontented with thedelay, was ready to lead what was for him at least, after he had acceptedso much from William, a rebellion. He was the natural leader of such anattempt; his family history made him that. Personal popularity and hiswide connexions added to his strength, and if he had had in himself thegifts of leadership, it would not have been even then too late to disputethe possession of England on even terms. The second reason given us isone to which we must attach much greater force than to the personalinfluence of Edwin. He in all probability merely embraced an opportunity. The other was the really moving cause. This is said to have been thediscontent of the English and Welsh nobles under the Norman oppression, but we must phrase it a little differently. No direct oppression had asyet been felt, either in the north or west, but the severity of Williamin the south and east, the widespread confiscations there, wereundoubtedly well known, and easily read as signs of what would follow inthe north, and already the borders of Wales were threatened n with thepushing forward of the Norman lines, which went on so steadily and for solong a time. 

Whether or not the efforts which had been making to obtain foreign helpagainst William were to result finally in bringing in a reinforcement ofScots or Danes, the union of Welshmen and Englishmen was itselfformidable and demanded instant attention. Early in the summer of 1068the army began its march upon York, advancing along a line somewhat tothe west of the centre of England, as the situation would naturallydemand. As in William's earlier marches, so here again he encountered noresistance. Whatever may have been the extent of the conspiracy or theplans of the leaders, the entire movement collapsed before the Norman'sfirm determination to be master of the kingdom. Edwin and Morcar hadcollected an army and were in the field somewhere between Warwick andNorthampton, but when the time came when the fight could no longer bepostponed, they thought better of it, besought the king's favour again, and obtained at least the show of it. The boastful preparations at Yorkbrought forth no better result. The citizens went out to meet the king onhis approach, and gave him the keys of the city and hostages from amongthem. 

The present expedition went no further north, but its influence extendedfurther. Ethelwin, the Bishop of Durham came in and made his submission. He bore inquiries also from Malcolm, the king of Scots, who had beenlistening to the appeals for aid from the enemies of William, andpreparing himself to advance to their assistance. The Bishop of Durhamwas sent back to let him know what assurances would be acceptable toWilliam, and he undoubtedly also informed him of the actual state ofaffairs south of his borders, of the progress which the invader had made, and of the hopelessness of resistance. The Normans at any rate believedthat as a result of the bishop's mission Malcolm was glad to send down anembassy of his own which tendered to William an oath of obedience. It isnot likely that William attached much weight to any profession of theScottish king's. Already, probably as soon as the failure of thisnorthern undertaking was apparent, some of the most prominent of theEnglish, who seem to have taken part in it, had abandoned England andgone to the Scottish court. It is very possible that Edgar and his twosisters, Margaret and Christina, sought the protection of Malcolm at thistime, together with Gospatric, who had shortly before been made Earl ofNorthumberland, and the sheriff Merleswegen. These men had earliersubmitted to William, Merleswegen perhaps in the submission atBerkhampsted, with Edgar, and had been received with favour. Under whatcircumstances they turned against him we do not know, but they had verylikely been attracted by the promise of strength in this effort atresistance, and were now less inclined than the unstable Edwin to professso early a repentance. Margaret, whether she went to Scotland at thistime or a little later, found there a permanent home, consenting againsther will to become the bride of Malcolm instead of the bride of theChurch as she had wished. As queen she gained, through teaching her wildsubjects, by the example of gentle manners and noble life, a widermission than the convent could have furnished her. The conditions whichMalcolm accepted evidently contained no demand as to any Englishfugitives, nor any other to which he could seriously object. William wasusually able to discern the times, and did not attempt the impracticable. 

William intended this expedition of his to result in the permanentpacification of the country through which he had passed. There is norecord of any special severity attending the march, but certainly no onewas able to infer from it that the king was weak or to be trifled with. The important towns he secured with castles and garrisons, as he had inthe south. Warwick and Northampton were occupied in this way as headvanced, with York at the north, and Lincoln, Huntingdon, and Cambridgealong the east as he returned. A great wedge of fortified posts was thusdriven far into that part of the land from which the greatest trouble wasto be expected, and this, together with the general impression which hismarch had made, was the most which was gained from it. Sometime duringthis summer of 1068 another fruitless attempt had been made to disturbthe Norman possession of England. Harold's sons had retired, perhapsafter the fall of Exeter, to Ireland, where their father had formerlyfound refuge. There it was not difficult to stir up the love ofplundering raids in the descendants of the Vikings, and they returned atthis time, it is said with more than fifty ships, and sailed up theBristol Channel. If any among them intended a serious invasion of theisland, the result was disappointing. They laid waste the coast lands;attacked the city of Bristol, but were beaten off by the citizens; landedagain further down in Somerset, and were defeated in a great battle byEdnoth, who had been Harold's staller, where many were killed on bothsides, including Ednoth himself; and then returned with nothing gainedbut such plunder as they succeeded in carrying off. The next year theyrepeated the attempt in the same style, and were again defeated, evenmore disastrously, this time by one of the newcomers, Brian of Britanny. Such piratical descents were not dangerous to the Norman government, norwas a rally to beat them off any test of English loyalty to William. 

Even the historian, Orderic Vitalis, half English by descent and whollyso by birth, but writing in Normandy for Normans and very favourable toWilliam, or possibly the even more Norman William of Poitiers, whom hemay have been following, was moved by the sufferings of the land underthese repeated invasions, revolts, and harryings, and notes at the closeof his account of this year how conquerors and conquered alike wereinvolved in the evils of war, famine, and pestilence. He adds that theking, seeing the injuries which were inflicted on the country, gatheredtogether the soldiers who were serving him for pay, and sent them homewith rich rewards. We may regard this disbanding of his mercenary troopsas another sign that William considered his position secure. 

In truth, however, the year which was coming on, 1069, was another yearof crisis in the history of the Conquest. The danger which had beenthreatening William from the beginning was this year to descend upon him, and to prove as unreal as all those he had faced since the great battlewith Harold. For a long time efforts had been making to induce someforeign power to interfere in England and support the cause of theEnglish against the invader. Two states seemed especially fitted for themission, from close relationship with England in the past, --Scotland andDenmark. Fugitives, who preferred exile to submission, had early soughtthe one or the other of these courts, and urged intervention upon theirkings. Scotland had for the moment formally accepted the Conquest. Denmark had not done so, and Denmark was the more directly interested inthe result, not perhaps as a mere question of the independence ofEngland, but for other possible reasons. If England was to be ruled by aforeign king, should not that king on historical grounds be a Dane ratherthan a Norman? Ought he not to be of the land that had already furnishedkings to England? And if Sweyn dreamed of the possibility of extendinghis rule, at such a time, over this other member of the empire of hisuncle, Canute the Great, he is certainly not to be blamed. 

It is true that the best moment for such an intervention had been allowedto slip by, the time when no beginning of conquest had been made in thenorth, but the situation was not even yet unfavourable. William was tolearn, when the new year had hardly begun, that he really held no more ofthe north than his garrisons commanded. Perhaps it was a rash attempt totry to establish a Norman earl of Northumberland in Durham before theland had been overawed by his own presence; but the post was important, the two experiments which had been made to secure the country through theappointment of English earls had failed, and the submission of theprevious summer might prove to be real. In January Robert of Comines wasmade earl, and with rash confidence, against the advice of the bishop, hetook possession of Durham with five hundred men or more. He expected, nodoubt, to be very soon behind the walls of a new castle, but he wasallowed no time. The very night of his arrival the enemy gathered andmassacred him and all his men but two. Yorkshire took courage at this andcut up a Norman detachment. Then the exiles in Scotland believed the timehad come for another attempt, and Edgar, Gospatric, and the others, withthe men of Northumberland at their back, advanced to attack the castle inYork. This put all the work of the previous summer in danger, and at thecall of William Malet, who held the castle for him, the king advancedrapidly to his aid, fell unexpectedly on the insurgents, and scatteredthem with great slaughter. As a result the Norman hold on York wastightened by the building of a second castle, but Northumberland wasstill left to itself. 

William may have thought, as he returned to celebrate Easter atWinchester, that the north had learned a lesson that would be sufficientfor some time, but he must have heard soon after his arrival that the menof Yorkshire had again attacked his castles, though they had been beatenoff without much difficulty. Nothing had been gained by any of theseattempts, but they must have been indications to any abroad who werewatching the situation, and to William as well, that an invasion ofEngland in that quarter might hope for much local assistance. It wasnearly the end of the summer before it came, and a summer that was on thewhole quiet, disturbed only by the second raid of Harold's sons in theBristol Channel. 

Sweyn of Denmark had at last made up his mind, and had got ready anexpedition, a somewhat miscellaneous force apparently, "sharked up" fromall the Baltic lands, and not too numerous. His fleet sailed along theshores of the North Sea and first appeared off south-western England. Afoolish attack on Dover was beaten off, and three other attempts to landon the east coast, where the country was securely held, were easilydefeated. Finally, it would seem, off the Humber they fell in with someships bearing the English leaders from Scotland, who had been waiting forthem. There they landed and marched upon York, joined on the way by themen of the country of all ranks. And the mere news of their approach, theprospect of new horrors to be lived through with no chance of mitigatingthem, proved too much for the old archbishop, Aldred, and he died a fewdays before the storm broke. William was hunting in the forest of Dean, on the southern borders of Wales, when he heard that the invaders hadlanded, but his over-confident garrison in York reported that they couldhold out for a year without aid, and he left them for the present tothemselves. They planned to stand a siege, and in clearing a space aboutthe castle they kindled a fire which destroyed the most of the city, including the cathedral church; but when the enemy appeared, they tried abattle in the open, and were killed or captured to a man. 

The fall of York gave a serious aspect to the case, and called forWilliam's presence. Soon after the capture of the city the Danes had goneback to the Humber, to the upper end of the estuary apparently, and therethey succeeded in avoiding attack by crossing one river or another as thearmy of the king approached. In the meantime, in various places along thewest of England, insurrections had broken out, encouraged probably byexaggerated reports of the successes of the rebels in the north. Only oneof these, that in Staffordshire, required any attention from William, andin this case we do not know why. In all the other cases, in Devon, inSomerset, and at Shrewsbury, where the Welsh helped in the attack on theNorman castle, the garrisons and men of the locality unassisted, orassisted only by the forces of their neighbours, had defended themselveswith success. If the Danish invasion be regarded as a test of thesecurity of the Conquest in those parts of England which the Normans hadreally occupied, then certainly it must be regarded as complete. 

Prom the west William returned to the north with little delay, andoccupied York without opposition. Then followed the one act of theConquest which is condemned by friend and foe alike. When William hadfirst learned of the fate of his castles in York, he had burst out intoungovernable rage, and the mood had not passed away. He was determined toexact an awful vengeance for the repeated defiance of his power. War inits mildest form in those days was little regulated by any considerationfor the conquered. From the point of view of a passionate soldier therewas some provocation in this case. Norman garrisons had been massacred;detached parties had been cut off; repeated rebellion had followed everypacification. Plainly a danger existed here, grave in itself and invitinggreater danger from abroad. Policy might dictate measures of unusualseverity, but policy did not call for what was done, and clearly in thiscase the Conqueror gave way to a passion of rage which he usually held incheck, and inflicted on the stubborn province a punishment which thestandard of his own time did not justify. 

Slowly he passed with his army through the country to the north of York, drawing a broad band of desolation between that city and Durham. Fugitives he sought out and put to the sword, but even so he was notsatisfied. Innocent and guilty were involved in indiscriminate slaughter. Houses were destroyed, flocks and herds exterminated. Supplies of foodand farm implements were heaped together and burned. With deliberatepurpose, cruelly carried out, it was made impossible for men to livethrough a thousand square miles. Years afterwards the country was still adesert; it was generations before it had fully recovered. The Normanwriter, Orderic Vitalis, perhaps following the king's chaplain andpanegyrist William of Poitiers, while he confesses here that he gladlypraised the king when he could, had only condemnation for this deed. Hebelieved that William, responsible to no earthly tribunal, must one dayanswer for it to an infinite Judge before whom high and low are alikeaccountable. 

Christmas was near at hand when William had finished this business, andhe celebrated at York the nativity of the Prince of Peace, doubtless withno suspicion of inconsistency. Soon after Christmas, by a short butdifficult expedition, William drove the Danes from a position on thecoast which they had believed impregnable, and forced them to take totheir ships, in which, after suffering greatly from lack of supplies, they drifted southward as if abandoning the land. During this expeditionalso, we are told, Gospatric, who had rebelled the year before, andWaltheof who had "gone out" on the coming of the Danes, made renewedsubmission and were again received into favour by the king. The hopeswhich the coming of foreign assistance had awakened were at an end. 

One thing remained to be done. The men of the Welsh border must be taughtthe lesson which the men of the Scottish border had learned. Theinsurrection which had called William into Staffordshire the previousautumn seems still to have lingered in the region. The strong city ofChester, from which, or from whose neighbourhood at least, men had joinedthe attack on Shrewsbury, and which commanded the north-eastern parts ofWales, was still unsubdued. Soon after his return from the coast Williamdetermined upon a longer and still more difficult winter march, acrossthe width of England, from York to Chester. It is no wonder that his armymurmured and some at least asked to be dismissed. The country throughwhich they must pass was still largely wilderness. Hills and forests, swollen streams and winter storms, must be encountered, and the strifewith them was a test of endurance without the joy of combat. Oneexpedition of the sort in a winter ought to be enough. But Williamtreated the objectors with contempt. He pushed on as he had planned, leaving those to stay behind who would, and but few were ready for openmutiny. The hazardous march was made with success. What remained of theinsurrection disappeared before the coming of the king; it has left to usat least no traces of any resistance. Chester was occupied withoutopposition. Fortified posts were established and garrisons left there andat Stafford. Some things make us suspect that a large district on thisside of England was treated as northern Yorkshire had been, and homelessfugitives in crowds driven forth to die of hunger. The patience whichpardoned the faithlessness of Edwin and Waltheof was not called for indealing with smaller men. 

From Chester William turned south. At Salisbury he dismissed with richrewards the soldiers who had been faithful to him, and at Winchester hecelebrated the Easter feast. There he found three legates who had beensent from the pope, and supported by their presence he at last took upthe affairs of the English Church. The king had shown the greatestcaution in dealing with this matter. It must have been understood, almostif not quite from the beginning of the Norman plan of invasion, that ifthe attempt were successful, one of its results should be the revolutionof the English Church, the reform of the abuses which existed in it, as the continental churchman regarded them, and as indeed they were. During the past century a great reform movement, emanating from themonastery of Cluny, had transformed the Catholic world, but in thisEngland had but little part. Starting as a monastic reformation, ithad just succeeded in bringing the whole Church under monastic control. Henceforth the asceticism of the monk, his ideals in religion andworship, his type of thought and learning, were to be those of theofficial Church, from the papal throne to the country parsonage. Itwas for that age a true reformation. The combined influence of the twogreat temptations to which the churchmen of this period of the MiddleAges were exposed--ignorance so easy to yield to, so hard to overcome, and property, carrying with it rank and power and opening the way toambition for oneself or one's posterity--was so great that a rule ofstrict asceticism, enforced by a powerful organization with fearfulsanctions, and a controlling ideal of personal devotion, alone couldovercome it. The monastic reformation had furnished these conditions, though severe conflicts were still to be fought out before they wouldbe made to prevail in every part of western Europe. Shortly before theappointment of Stigand to the archbishopric of Canterbury, these newideas had obtained possession of the papal throne in the person of LeoIX, and with them other ideas which had become closely and almostnecessarily associated with them, of strict centralization under thepope, of a theocratic papal supremacy, in line certainly with thehistory of the Church, but more self-consciously held and logicallyworked out than ever before. 

In this great movement England had had no permanent share. Cut off fromeasy contact with the currents of continental thought, not merely by thechannel but by the lack of any common interests and natural incentives tocommon life, it stood in an earlier stage of development inecclesiastical matters, as in legal and constitutional. In organization, in learning, and in conduct, ecclesiastical England at the eve of theNorman Conquest may be compared not unfairly to ecclesiastical Europe ofthe tenth century. There was the same loosening of the bonds of a commonorganization, the same tendency to separate into local units shut up tointerest in themselves alone. National councils had practically ceased tomeet. The legislative machinery of the Church threatened to disappear inthat of the State. An outside body, the witenagemot, seemed about toacquire the right of imposing rules and regulations upon the Church, andanother outside power, the king, to acquire the right of appointing itsofficers. Quite as important in the eyes of the Church as the lack oflegislative independence was the lack of judicial independence, which wasalso a defect of the English Church. The law of the Church as it boreupon the life of the citizen was declared and enforced in the hundred orshire court, and bishop and ealdorman sat together in the latter. Onlyover the ecclesiastical faults of his clergy did the bishop haveexclusive jurisdiction, and this was probably a jurisdiction less welldeveloped than on the continent. The power of the primate over hissuffragans and of the bishop within his diocese was ill defined andvague, and questions of disputed authority or doubtful allegiancelingered long without exact decision, perhaps from lack of interest, perhaps from want of the means of decision. 

In learning, the condition was even worse. The cloister schools hadundergone a marked decline since the great days of Theodore and Alcuin. Not merely were the parish priests ignorant men, but even bishops andabbots. The universal language of learning and faith was neglected, andin England alone, of all countries, theological books were written in thelocal tongue, a sure sign of isolation and of the lack of interest in thecommon philosophical life of the world. In moral conduct, while theEnglish clergy could not be held guilty of serious breaches of thegeneral ethical code, they were far from coming up to the specialstandard which the canon law imposed upon the clergy, and which themonastic reformation was making the inflexible law of the time. Marriedpriests abounded; there were said to be even married bishops. Simony wasnot infrequent. Every churchman of high rank was likely to be apluralist, holding bishoprics and abbacies together, like Stigand, whoheld with the primacy the bishopric of Winchester and many abbeys. Thatsuch a man as Stigand, holding every ecclesiastical office that he couldmanage to keep, depriving monasteries of their landed endowments with nomore right than the baron after him, refused recognition by every legallyelected pope, and thought unworthy to crown a king, or even in most casesto consecrate a bishop, should have held his place for so many years asunquestioned primate in all but the most important functions, is evidenceenough that the English Church had not yet been brought under theinfluence of the great religious reformation of the eleventh century. 

This was the chief defect of the England of that time--a defect upon allsides of its life, which the Conquest remedied. It was an isolated land. It stood in danger of becoming a Scandinavian land, not in blood merely, or in absorption in an actual Scandinavian empire, but in withdrawal fromthe real world, and in that tardy, almost reluctant, civilization whichwas possibly a necessity for Scandinavia proper, but which would havebeen for England a falling back from higher levels. It was the mission ofthe Norman Conquest--if we may speak of a mission for great historicalevents--to deliver England from this danger, and to bring her into thefull current of the active and progressive life of Christendom. 

It was more than three years after the coronation of William before thetime was come for a thorough overhauling of the Church. So far as weknow, William, up to that time, had given no sign of his intentions. Theearly adhesion of Stigand had been welcomed. The Normans seem to havebelieved that he enjoyed great consideration and influence among theSaxons, and he had been left undisturbed. He had even been allowed toconsecrate the new Norman bishop of Dorchester, which looks like an actof deliberate policy. It had not seemed wise to alarm the Church so longas the military issue of the invasion could be considered in any sensedoubtful, and not until the changes could be made with the powerfulsupport of the head of the Church directly expressed. It is a naturalguess, though we have no means of knowing, that Lanfranc's mission toRome in 1067 had been to discuss this matter with the Roman authorities, quite as much as to get the pallium for the new Archbishop of Rouen. Nowthe time had come for action. 

Three legates of the pope were at Winchester, and there a council wassummoned to meet them. Two of the legates were cardinals, then arelatively less exalted rank in the Church than later, but making plainthe direct support of the pope. The other was Ermenfrid, Bishop of Sion, or Sitten, in what is now the Swiss canton of the Vallais. He had alreadybeen in England eight years earlier as a papal legate, and he would bringto this council ideas derived from local observation, as well as trieddiplomatic skill. Before the council met, the papal sanction of theConquest was publicly proclaimed, when the cardinal legates placed thecrown on the king's head at the Easter festival. On the octave of Easter, in 1070, the council met. Its first business was to deal with the case ofStigand. Something like a trial seems to have been held, but its resultcould never have been in doubt. He was deprived of the archbishopric, and, with that, of his other preferments, on three grounds: he had heldWinchester along with the primacy; he had held the primacy while Robertwas still the rightful archbishop according to the laws of the Church;and he had obtained his pallium and his only recognition from theantipope Benedict X. His brother, the Bishop of Elmham, was also deposed, and some abbots at the same time. 

An English chronicler of a little later date, Florence of Worcester, doubtless representing the opinion of those contemporaries who wereunfavourable to the Normans, believed that for many of these depositionsthere were no canonical grounds, but that they were due to the king'sdesire to have the help of the Church in holding and pacifying his newkingdom. We may admit the motive and its probable influence on the actsof the time, without overlooking the fact that there would be likely tobe an honest difference in the interpretation of canonical rights andwrongs on the Norman and the English sides, and that the Normans weremore likely to be right according to the prevailing standard of theChurch. The same chronicler gives us interesting evidence of thecontemporary native feeling about this council, and the way the rights ofthe English were likely to be treated by it, in recording the fact thatit was thought to be a bold thing for the English bishop Wulfstan, ofWorcester, to demand his rights in certain lands which Aldred had kept inhis possession when he was transferred from the see of Worcester to thearchbishopric of York. The case was postponed, until there should be anarchbishop of York to defend the rights of his Church, but the bravebishop had nothing to lose by his boldness. The treatment of the Churchthroughout his reign is evidence of William's desire to act according toestablished law, though it is also evidence of his ruling belief that thenew law was superior to the old, if ever a conflict arose between them. 

Shortly after, at Whitsuntide, another council met at Windsor, andcontinued the work. The cardinals had returned to Rome, but Ermenfrid wasstill present. Further vacancies were made in the English Church in thesame way as by the previous council--by the end of the year only two, orat most three, English bishops remained in office--but the main businessat this time was to fill vacancies. A new Archbishop of York, Thomas, Canon of Bayeux, was appointed, and three bishops, Winchester, Selsey, and Elmham, all of these from the royal chapel. But the most importantappointment of the time was that of Lanfranc, Abbot of St. Stephen's atCaen, to be Archbishop of Canterbury. With evident reluctance he acceptedthis responsible office, in which his work was destined to be almost asimportant in the history of England as William's own. Two papal legatescrossing from England, Ermenfrid and a new one named Hubert, a synod ofthe Norman clergy, Queen Matilda, and her son Robert, all urged him toaccept, and he yielded to their solicitation. 

Lanfranc was at this time sixty-five years of age. An Italian by birth, he had made good use of the advantages which the schools of that landoffered to laymen, but on the death of his father, while still a youngman, he had abandoned the path of worldly promotion which lay open beforehim in the profession of the law, in which he had followed his father, and had gone to France to teach and finally to become a monk. By 1045 hewas prior of the abbey of Bec, and within a few years he was famousthroughout the whole Church as one of its ablest theologians. In thecontroversy with Berengar of Tours, on the nature of the Eucharist, hehad argued with great skill in favour of transubstantiation. Still moreimportant was the fact that his abilities and ideas were known toWilliam, who had long relied upon his counsel in the government of theduchy, and that entire harmony of action was possible between them. Hehas been called William's "one friend, " and while this perhaps undulylimits the number of the king's friends, he was, in the greatest affairsof his reign, his firm supporter and wise counsellor. 

From the moment of his consecration, on August 29, 1070, the reformationof the English Church went steadily on, until it was as completelyaccomplished as was possible. The first question to be settled was perhapsthe most important of all, the question of unity of national organization. The new Archbishop of York refused Lanfranc's demand that he should takethe oath of obedience to Canterbury, and asserted his independence andcoordinate position, and laid claim to three bordering bishoprics asbelonging to his metropolitan see, --Worcester, Lichfield, and Dorchester. The dispute was referred to the king, who arranged a temporary compromisein favour of Lanfranc, and then carried to the pope, by whom it was againreferred back to be decided by a council in England. This decision wasreached at a council in Windsor at Whitsuntide in 1072, and was in favourof Lanfranc on all points, though it seems certain that the victory wasobtained by an extensive series of forgeries of which the archbishophimself was probably the author. [4] It must be added, however, that themoral judgment of that age did not regard as ours does such forgeries inthe interest of one's Church. If the decision was understood at the timeto mean that henceforth all archbishops of York should promise canonicalobedience to the Archbishop of Canterbury, it did not permanently securethat result. But the real point at issue in this dispute, at least for thetime being, was no mere matter of rank or precedence; it was as necessaryto the plans of Lanfranc and of the Church that his authority should berecognized throughout the whole kingdom as it was to those of William. Norwas the question without possible political significance. The politicalindependence of the north--still uncertain in its allegiance--would be fareasier to establish if it was, to begin with, ecclesiasticallyindependent. 

Hardly less important than the settlement of this matter was theestablishment of the legislative independence of the Church. From the twolegatine councils of 1070, at Winchester and Windsor, a series begins ofgreat national synods, meeting at intervals to the end of the reign. Complete divorce from the State was not at first possible. The councilwas held at a meeting of the court, and was summoned by the king. He waspresent at the sessions, as were also lay magnates of the realm, but thequestions proper to the council were discussed and decided by thechurchmen alone, and were promulgated by the Church as its own laws. Thiswas real legislative independence, even if the form of it was somewhatdefective, and before very long, as the result of this beginning, theform came to correspond to the reality, and the process became asindependent as the conclusion. 

William's famous ordinance separating the spiritual and temporal courtsdecreed another extensive change necessary to complete the independenceof the Church in its legal interests. The date of this edict is notcertain, but it would seem from such evidence as we have to have beenissued not very long after the meeting of the councils of 1070. Itwithdrew from the local popular courts, the courts of the hundred, allfuture enforcement of the ecclesiastical laws, subjected all offendersagainst these laws to trial in the bishop's court, and promised thesupport of the temporal authorities to the processes and decisions of theChurch courts. This abolishing by edict of so important a prerogative ofthe old local courts, and annulling of so large a part of the old law, was the most violent and serious innovation made by the Conqueror in theSaxon judicial system; but it was fully justified, not merely by the morehighly developed law which came into use as a result of the change, butby the necessity of a stricter enforcement of that law than would ever bepossible through popular courts. 

With these more striking changes went others, less revolutionary butequally necessary to complete the new ecclesiastical system. The Saxonbishops had many of them had their seats in unimportant places in theirdioceses, tending to degrade the dignity almost to the level of a ruralbishopric. The Norman prelates by degrees removed the sees to the chieftowns, changing the names with the change of place. Dorchester wasremoved to Lincoln, Selsey to Chichester, Sherborne to Old Sarum, andElmham by two removes to Norwich. The new cities were the centres of lifeand influence, and they were more suitable residences for barons of theking, as the Norman bishops were. The inner organization of thesebishoprics was also improved. Cathedral chapters were reformed; inRochester and Durham secular canons were replaced by monastic clergyunder a more strict regime. New offices of law and administration wereintroduced. The country priests were brought under strict control, andearnest attempts were made to compel them to follow more closely thedisciplinary requirements of the Church. 

The monastic system as it existed at the time of the Conquest underwentthe same reformation as the more secular side of the Church organization. It was indeed regarded by the new ecclesiastical rulers as the source ofthe Church's strength and the centre of its life. English abbots werereplaced by Norman, and the new abbots introduced a better discipline andimprovement in the ritual. The rule was more strictly enforced. Worship, labour, and study became the constant occupations of the monks. Speedilythe institution won a new influence in the life of the nation. The numberof monks grew rapidly; new monasteries were everywhere established, ofwhich the best remembered, the Conqueror's abbey of Battle, with the highaltar of its church standing where Harold's standard had stood in thememorable fight, is only an example. Many of these new foundations weredaughter-houses of great French monasteries, and it is a significant factthat by the end of the reign of William's son Henry, Cluny, the source ofthis monastic reformation for the world, had sent seventeen colonies intoEngland. Wealth poured into these establishments from the gifts of kingand barons and common men alike. Their buildings grew in number and inmagnificence, and the poor and suffering of the realm received theirshare in the new order of things, through a wider and better organizedcharity. 

With this new monastic life began a new era of learning. Schools wereeverywhere founded or renewed. The universal language of Christendom tookonce more its proper place as the literary language of the cloister, although the use of English lingered for a time here and there. Englandcaught at last the theological eagerness of the continent in the age whenthe stimulus of the new dialectic method was beginning to be felt, and soondemanded to be heard in the settlement of the problems of the thinkingworld. Lanfranc continued to write as Archbishop of Canterbury. [5] Evensomething that may be called a literary spirit in an age of generalbarrenness was awakened. Poems were produced not unworthy of mention, andthe generation of William's sons was not finished when such histories hadbeen written as those of Eadmer and William of Malmesbury, superior inconception and execution to anything produced in England since the days ofBede. In another way the stimulus of these new influences showed itself inan age of building, and by degrees the land was covered with those vastmonastic and cathedral churches which still excite our admiration andreveal to us the fact that the narrow minds of what we were once pleased tocall the dark ages were capable, in one direction at least, of great andlofty conceptions. Norman ideals of massive strength speak to us as clearlyfrom the arches of Winchester or the piers of Gloucester as from the firmhand and stern rule of William or Henry. 

In general the Conquest incorporated England closely, as has already beensaid, with that organic whole of life and achievement which we callChristendom. This was not more true of the ecclesiastical side of thingsthan of the political or constitutional. But the Church of the eleventhcentury included within itself relatively many more than the Church ofto-day of those activities which quickly respond to a new stimulus andreveal a new life by increased production. The constitutional changesinvolved in the Conquest, and directly traceable to it through a longline of descent, though more slowly realized and for long in lessstriking forms, were in truth destined to produce results of greaterpermanence and a wider influence. The final result of the Norman Conquestwas a constitutional creation, new in the history of the world. Nothinglike this followed in the sphere of the Church. But for a generation ortwo the abundant vigour which flowed through the renewed religious lifeof Europe, and the radical changes which were necessary to bring Englandinto full harmony with it, made the ecclesiastical revolution seem themost impressive and the most violent of the changes which took place inthis age in English public organization and life. If we may trust a laterchronicler, whose record is well supported by independent and earlierevidence, in the same year in which these legatine councils met, and inwhich the reformation of the Church was begun, there was introduced aninnovation, so far as the Saxon Church is concerned, which would haveseemed to the leaders of the reform party hostile to their cause had theynot been so familiar with it elsewhere, or had they been conscious of thefull meaning of their own demands. Matthew Paris, in the thirteenthcentury, records that, in 1070, the king decreed that all bishoprics andabbacies which were holding baronies, and which heretofore had been freefrom all secular obligations, should be liable to military service; andcaused to be enrolled, according to his own will, the number of knightswhich should be due from each in time of war. Even if this statement werewithout support, it would be intrinsically probable at this or some neardate. The endowment lands of bishopric and abbey, or rather a part ofthese lands in each case, would inevitably be regarded as a fief held ofthe crown, and as such liable to the regular feudal services. This wasthe case in every feudal land, and no one would suppose that there shouldbe any exception in England. The amount of the service was arbitrarilyfixed by the king in these ecclesiastical baronies, just as it was in thelay fiefs. The fact was important enough to attract the notice of thechroniclers because the military service, regulated in this way, wouldseem to be more of an innovation than the other services by which thefief was held, like the court service, for example, though it was not soin reality. 

This transformation in life and culture was wrought in the English Churchwith the full sanction and support of the king. In Normandy, as well as inEngland, was this the case. The plans of the reform party had been carriedout more fully in some particulars in these lands than the Church alonewould have attempted at the time, because they had convinced the judgmentof the sovereign and won his favour. At every step of the process wherethere was need, the power of the State had been at the command of theChurch, to remove abuses or to secure the introduction of reforms. Butwith the theocratic ideas which went with these reforms in the teaching ofthe Church William had no sympathy. The leaders of the reformation mighthold to the ideal supremacy of pope over king, and to the superior missionand higher power of the Church as compared with the State, but there couldbe no practical realization of these theories in any Norman land so longas the Conqueror lived. In no part of Europe had the sovereign exerciseda greater or more direct power over the Church than in Normandy. Alldepartments of its life were subject to his control, if there was reasonto exert it. This had been true for so long a time that the Church wasaccustomed to the situation and accepted it without complaint. This powerWilliam had no intention of yielding. He proposed to exercise it inEngland as he had in Normandy, [6] and, even in this age of fierce conflictwith its great temporal rival, the emperor, the papacy made no sharplydrawn issue with him on these points. There could be no question of theheadship of the world in his case, and on the vital moral point he was toonearly in harmony with the Church to make an issue easy. On the importanceof obeying the monastic rule, the celibacy of the clergy, and the purchaseof ecclesiastical office, he agreed in theory with the disciples ofCluny. [7] But, if he would not sell a bishopric, he was determined thatthe bishop should be his man; he stood ready to increase the power andindependence of the Church, but always as an organ of the State, as a partof the machine through which the government was carried on. 

It is quite within the limits of possibility that, in his negotiationswith Rome before his invasion of England, William may have given the popeto understand, in some indefinite and informal way, that if he won thekingdom, he would hold it of St. Peter. In accepting the consecratedbanner which the pope sent him, he could hardly fail to know that hemight be understood to be acknowledging a feudal dependence. When thekingdom was won, however, he found himself unwilling to carry out such anarrangement, whether tacitly or openly promised. To Gregory VII's demandfor his fealty he returned a respectful but firm refusal. The sovereigntyof England was not to be diminished; he would hold the kingdom as freelyas his predecessors had done. Peter's pence, which it belonged of rightto England to pay, should be regularly collected and sent to Rome, but noright of rule, even theoretical, over king or kingdom, could be allowedthe pope. 

An ecclesiastical historian whose childhood and early youth fell inWilliam's reign, and who was deeply impressed with the strong controlunder which he held the Church, has recorded three rules to govern therelation between Church and State, which he says were established byWilliam. [8] These are: 1, that no one should be recognized as pope inEngland except at his command, nor any papal letters received without hispermission; 2, that no acts of the national councils should be bindingwithout his sanction; 3, that none of his barons or servants should beexcommunicated, even for crimes committed, without his consent. Whetherthese were consciously formulated rules or merely generalizations from hisconduct, they state correctly the principles of his action, and exhibitclearly in one most important sphere the unlimited power established bythe Norman Conquest. 

To this year, 1070, in which was begun the reformation of the Church, was assigned at a later time another work of constitutional interest. The unofficial compiler of a code of laws, the Leges Edwardi, writtenin the reign of Henry I, and drawn largely from the legislation of theSaxon kings, ascribed his work, after a fashion not unusual withwriters of his kind, to the official act of an earlier king. He relatesthat a great national inquest was ordered by King William in this year, to ascertain and establish the laws of the English. Each county electeda jury of twelve men, who knew the laws, and these juries comingtogether in the presence of the king declared on oath what were thelegal customs of the land. So runs the preface of the code which wasgiven out as compiled from this testimony. Such a plan and procedurewould not be out of harmony with what we know of William's methodsand policy. The machinery of the jury, which was said to be employed, was certainly introduced into England by the first Norman king, andwas used by him for the establishment of facts, both in nationalundertakings like the Domesday Book and very probably in local casesarising in the courts. We know also that he desired to leave the oldlaws undisturbed so far as possible, and the year 1070 is one in whichan effort to define and settle the future legal code of the state wouldnaturally fall. But the story must be rejected as unhistorical. Anevent of such importance as this inquisition must have been, if ittook place, could hardly have occurred without leaving its traces incontemporary records of some sort, and an official code of this kindwould have produced results in the history of English law of which wefind no evidence. The Saxon law and the machinery of the local courtsdid survive the Conquest with little change, but no effort was made toreduce the customs of the land to systematic and written form until alater time, until a time indeed when the old law was beginning to giveplace to the new. 

[4] See H. Bohmer, Die Falschungen Erzbischof Lanfranks van Canterbury(Leipzig, 1902). 

[5] Böhmer, Kirche und Staat in England und in der Normandie, pp. 103-106. 

[6] Eadmer, Historia Novorum, p. 9. 

[7] Böhmer, Kirche und Staat, pp. 126 ff. 

[8] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. , p. 10. 

CHAPTER III

WILLIAM'S LATER YEARS

Political events had not waited for the reformation of the Church, andlong before these reforms were completed, England had become a thoroughlysettled state under the new king. The beginning of the year 1070 is aturning-point in the reign of William. The necessity for fighting was notover, but from this date onwards there was no more fighting for theactual possession of the land. The irreconcilables had still to be dealtwith; in one small locality they retained even yet some resisting power;the danger of foreign invasion had again to be met: but not for onemoment after William's return from the devastation of the north and westwas there even the remotest possibility of undoing the Conquest. 

The Danes had withdrawn from the region of the Humber, but they had notleft the country. In the Isle of Ely, then more nearly an actual islandthan in modern times, was a bit of unsubdued England, and there theylanded for a time. In this position, surrounded by fens and interlacingrivers, accessible at only a few points, occurred the last resistancewhich gave the Normans any trouble. The rich mythology which found itsstarting-point in this resistance, and especially in its leader, Hereward, we no longer mistake for history; but we should not forget thatit embodies the popular attitude towards those who stubbornly resistedthe Norman, as it was handed on by tradition, and that it reveals almostpathetically the dearth of heroic material in an age which should haveproduced it in abundance. Hereward was a tenant in a small way of theabbey of Peterborough. What led him into such a determined revolt we donot know, unless he was among those who were induced to join the Danesafter their arrival, in the belief that their invasion would besuccessful. Nor do we know what collected in the Isle of Ely a band ofmen whom the Peterborough chronicler was probably not wrong, from anypoint of view, in calling outlaws. A force of desperate men could hope tomaintain themselves for some time in the Isle of Ely; they could not hopefor anything more than this. The coming of the Danes added little realstrength, though the country about believed for the moment, as it haddone north of the Humber, that the tide had turned. The first act of theallies was the plunder and destruction of the abbey and town ofPeterborough shortly after the meeting of the council of Windsor. TheEnglish abbot Brand had died the previous autumn, and William hadappointed in his place a Norman, Turold, distinguished as a good fighterand a hard ruler. These qualities had led the king to select him for thisspecial post, and the plundering of the abbey, so far as it was not meremarauding, looks like an answering act of spite. The Danes seem to havebeen disposed at first to hold Peterborough, but Turold must have broughtthem proposals of peace from William, which induced them to withdraw atlast from England with the secure possession of their plunder. 

Hereward and his men accomplished nothing more that year, but othersgradually gathered in to them, including some men of note. Edwin andMorcar had once more changed sides, or had fled from William's court toescape some danger there. Edwin had been killed in trying to make his waythrough to Scotland, but Morcar had joined the refugees in Ely. BishopEthelwin of Durham was also there, and a northern thane, Siward Barn. In1074 William advanced in person against the "camp of refuge. " A fleet wassent to blockade one side while the army attacked from the other. It wasfound necessary to build a long causeway for the approach of the army andaround this work the fiercest fighting occurred; but its building couldnot be stopped, and just as it was finished the defenders of the Islesurrendered. The leaders were imprisoned, Morcar in Normandy for the restof William's reign. The common men were mutilated and released. Herewardescaped to sea, but probably afterwards submitted to William and receivedhis favour. Edric the Wild, who had long remained unsubdued on the Welshborders, had also yielded before the surrender of the Isle of Ely, andthe last resistance that can be called in any sense organized was at anend. 

The comparatively easy pacification of the land, the early submission totheir fate of so strong a nation, was in no small degree aided by thecompleteness with which the country was already occupied by Normancolonies, if we may call them so. Probably before the surrender of Elyevery important town was under the immediate supervision of some Normanbaron, with a force of his own. In all the strategically important placesfortified posts had been built and regular garrisons stationed. Even thecountry districts had to a large extent been occupied in a similar way. It is hardly probable that as late as 1072 any considerable area inEngland had escaped extensive confiscations. Everywhere the Norman hadappeared to take possession of his fief, to establish new tenants, or tobring the old ones into new relations with himself, to arrange for theadministration of his manors, and to leave behind him the agents who wereresponsible to himself for the good conduct of affairs. If he made butlittle change in the economic organization of his property, and disturbedthe labouring class but slightly or not at all, he would give to a widedistrict a vivid impression of the strength of the new order and of thehopelessness of any resistance. 

Already Norman families, who were to make so much of the history of thecoming centuries, were rooted in the land. Montfort and Mortimer; Percy, Beauchamp, and Mowbray; Ferrets and Lacy; Beaumont, Mandeville, andGrantmesnil; Clare, Bigod, and Bohun; and many others of equal or nearlyequal name. All these were as yet of no higher than baronial rank, but ifwe could trust the chroniclers, we should be able to make out in additiona considerable list of earldoms which William had established by thisdate or soon afterwards, in many parts of England, and in these wereother great names. According to this evidence, his two half brothers, thechildren of his mother by her marriage with Herlwin de Conteville, hadbeen most richly provided for: Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, as Earl of Kent, and Robert, Count of Mortain, with a princely domain in the south-west asEarl of Cornwall. One of the earliest to be made an earl was his oldfriend and the son of his guardian, William Fitz Osbern, who had beencreated Earl of Hereford; he was now dead and was succeeded by his sonRoger, soon very justly to lose title and land. Shrewsbury was held byRoger of Montgomery; Chester by Hugh of Avranches, the second earl;Surrey by William of Warenne; Berkshire by Walter Giffard. Alan Rufus ofBritanny was Earl of Richmondshire; Odo of Champagne, Earl of Holderness;and Ralph of Guader, who was to share in the downfall of Roger FitzOsbern, Earl of Norfolk. One Englishman, who with much less justice wasto be involved in the fate which rightly befell these two Norman earls, was also earl at this time, Watheof, who had lately succeeded Gospatricin the troubled earldom of Northumberland, and who also held the earldomsof Northampton and Huntingdon. These men certainly held importantlordships in the districts named, but whether so many earldoms, in formand law, had really been established by the Conqueror at this date, orwere established by him at any later time, is exceedingly doubtful. Theevidence of the chroniclers is easily shown to be untrustworthy in thematter of titles, and the more satisfactory evidence which we obtain fromcharters and the Domesday Book does not justify this extensive list. But the historian does not find it possible to decide with confidence inevery individual case. Of the earldoms of this list it is nearly certainthat we must drop out those of Cornwall, Holderness, Surrey, Berkshire, and Richmond, and almost or quite certain that we may allow to standthose of Waltheof and William Fitz Osbern, of Kent, Chester, andShrewsbury. 

Independently of the question of evidence, it is difficult to see whatthere was in the general situation in England which could have led theConqueror to so wide a departure from the established practice of theNorman dukes as the creation of so many earls would be. In Normandy thetitle of count was practically unknown outside the ducal family. Thefeudal count as found in other French provinces, the sovereign of alittle principality as independent of the feudal holder of the provinceas he himself was of the king, did not exist there. The four lordshipswhich bore the title of count, Talou or Arques, Eu, Evreux, and Mortain, were reserved for younger branches of the ducal house, and carried withthem no sovereign rights. The tradition of the Saxon earldom undoubtedlyexercised by degrees a great influence on the royal practice in England, and by the middle of the twelfth century earls existed in considerablenumbers; but the lack of conclusive evidence for the existence of manyunder William probably reflects the fact of his few creations. But in thecases which we can certainly trace to William, it was not the old Saxonearldom which was revived. The new earldom, with the possible exceptionof one or two earls who, like the old Prankish margrave, or the laterpalatine count, were given unusual powers to support unusual militaryresponsibilities, was a title, not an office. It was not a government ofprovinces, but a mark of rank; and the danger involved in the olderoffice, of the growth of independent powers within the state under localdynasties which would be, though existing under other forms, as difficultto control as the local dynasties of feudal France, was removed once forall by the introduction of the Norman centralization. That no serioustrouble ever came from the so-called palatine earldoms is itself evidenceof the powerful monarchy ruling in England. 

This centralization was one of the great facts of the Conquest. In itresided the strength of the Norman monarchy, and it was of the utmostimportance as well in its bearing on the future history of England. Delolme, one of the earliest of foreign writers on the Englishconstitution, remarks that the explanation of English liberty is to befound in the absolute power of her early kings, and the most carefulmodern student can do no more than amplify this statement. That thiscentralization was the result of any deliberate policy on the part ofWilliam can hardly be maintained. A conscious modification of the feudalsystem as he introduced it into England, with a view to the preservationof his own power, has often been attributed to the Conqueror. But thepolitical insight which would have enabled him to recognize the eviltendencies inherent in the only institutional system he had ever known, and to plan and apply remedies proper to counteract these tendencies butnot inconsistent with the system itself, would indicate a higher qualityof statesmanship than anything else in his career shows him to possess. More to the purpose is the fact that there is no evidence of any suchmodification, while the drift of evidence is against it. William wasdetermined to be strong, not because of any theory which he had formed ofthe value of strength, or of the way to secure it, but because he wasstrong and had always been so since he recovered the full powers of asovereign in the struggles which followed his minority. The concentrationof all the functions of sovereignty in his own hands, and the reservationof the allegiance of all landholders to himself, which strengthened hisposition in England, had strengthened it first in Normandy. 

Intentional weakening of the feudal barons has been seen in the fact thatthe manors which they held were scattered about in different parts ofEngland, so that the formation of an independent principality, or a quickconcentration of strength, would not be possible. That this was a factcharacteristic of England is probably true. But it is sufficientlyaccounted for in part by the gradual spread of the Norman occupation, andof the consequent confiscations and re-grants, and in part by the factthat it had always been characteristic of England, so that when theholding of a given Saxon thane was transferred bodily to the Normanbaron, he found his manors lying in no continuous whole. In any case, however, the divided character of the Norman baronies in England must notbe pressed too far. The grants to his two half brothers, and the earldomsof Chester and Shrewsbury on the borders of Wales, are enough to showthat William was not afraid of principalities within the state, and otherinstances on a somewhat smaller scale could be cited. Nor oughtcomparison to be made between English baronies, or earldoms even, andthose feudal dominions on the continent which had been based on thecounties of the earlier period. In these, sovereign rights over a largecontiguous territory, originally delegated to an administrative officer, had been transformed into a practically independent power. The propercomparison is rather between the English baronies of whatever rank andthose continental feudal dominions which were formed by natural processhalf economic and half political, without definite delegation ofsovereign powers, within or alongside the provincial countships, and thiscomparison would show less difference. 

If the Saxon earl did not survive the Conquest in the same position asbefore, the Saxon sheriff did. The office as the Normans found it inEngland was in so many ways similar to that of the viscount, vicecomes, which still survived in Normandy as an administrative office, that it wasvery easy to identify the two and to bring the Norman name into commonuse as an equivalent of the Saxon. The result of the new conditions waslargely to increase the sheriff's importance and power. As the specialrepresentative of the king in the county, he shared in the increasedpower of his master, practically the whole administrative system of thestate, as it affected its local divisions, was worked through him. Administrator of the royal domains, responsible for the most importantrevenues, vehicle of royal commands of all kinds, and retaining thejudicial functions which had been associated with the office in Saxontimes, he held a position, not merely of power but of opportunity. Evidence is abundant of great abuse of power by the sheriff at theexpense of the conquered. Nor did the king always escape these abuses, for the office, like that of the Carolingian count, to which it was inmany ways similar, contained a possibility of use for private andpersonal advantage which could be corrected, even by so strong asovereign as the Anglo-Norman, only by violent intervention at intervals. 

Some time after the Conquest, but at a date unknown, William set aside aconsiderable portion of Hampshire to form a hunting ground, the NewForest, near his residence at Winchester. The chroniclers of the nextgeneration describe the formation of the Forest as the devastation of alarge tract of country in which churches were destroyed, the inhabitantsdriven out, and the cultivated land thrown back into wilderness, and theyrecord a contemporary belief that the violent deaths of so many membersof William's house within the bounds of the Forest, including two of hissons, were acts of divine vengeance and proofs of the wickedness of thedeed. While this tradition of the method of making the Forest is stillgenerally accepted, it has been called in question for reasons that makeit necessary, in my opinion, to pronounce it doubtful. It is hardlyconsistent with the general character of William. Such statements ofchroniclers are too easily explained to warrant us in accepting themwithout qualification. The evidence of geology and of the history ofagriculture indicates that probably the larger part of this tract wasonly thinly populated, and Domesday Book shows some portions of theForest still occupied by cultivators. [9] The forest laws of the Normankings were severe in the extreme, and weighed cruelly on beasts and menalike, and on men of rank as well as simple freemen. They excited ageneral and bitter hostility which lasted for generations, and prepared anatural soil for the rapid growth of a partially mythical explanation toaccount in a satisfactory way for the dramatic accidents which followedthe family of the Conqueror in the Forest, by the direct and tangiblewickedness which had attended the making of the hunting ground. It isprobable also that individual acts of violence did accompany the making, and that some villages and churches were destroyed. But the likelihood isso strong against a general devastation that history should probablyacquit William of the greater crime laid to his charge, and refuse toplace any longer the devastation of Hampshire in the same class with thatof Northumberland. 

After the surrender of Ely, William's attention was next given toScotland. In 1070 King Malcolm had invaded northern England, but withoutresults beyond laying waste other portions of that afflicted country. Itwas easier to show the Scots than the Danes that William was capable ofstriking back, and in 1072, after a brief visit to Normandy, an armyunder the king's command advanced along the east coast with anaccompanying fleet. No attempt was made to check this invasion in thefield, and only when William had reached Abernethy did Malcolm come tomeet him. What arrangement was made between them it is impossible to say, but it was one that was satisfactory to William at the time. ProbablyMalcolm became his vassal and gave him hostages for his good conduct, butif so, his allegiance did not bind him very securely. Norman feudalismwas no more successful than the ordinary type, in dealing with a reigningsovereign who was in vassal relations. 

The critical years of William's conquest of England had been undisturbedby any dangers threatening his continental possessions. Matilda, whospent most of the time in Normandy, with her councillors, had maintainedpeace and order with little difficulty; but in the year after hisScottish expedition he was called to Normandy by a revolt in his earlyconquest, the county of Maine, which it required a formidable campaign tosubdue. William's plan to attach this important province to Normandy by amarriage between his son Robert and the youngest sister of the last counthad failed through the death of the proposed heiress, and the county hadrisen in favour of her elder sister, the wife of the Italian Marquis Azoor of her son. Then a successful communal revolution had occurred in thecity of Le Mans, anticipating an age of rebellion against the feudalpowers, and the effort of the commune to bring the whole county intoalliance with itself, though nearly successful for the moment at least, had really prepared the way for the restoration of the Norman power bydividing the party opposed to it. William crossed to Normandy in 1073, leading a considerable army composed in part of English. The campaign wasa short one. Revolt was punished, as William sometimes punished it, bybarbarously devastating the country. Le Mans did not venture to stand asiege, but surrendered on William's sworn promise to respect its ancientliberty. By a later treaty with Fulk of Anjou, Robert was recognized asCount of Maine, but as a vassal of Anjou and not of Normandy. 

William probably returned to England after the settlement of theseaffairs, but of his doings there nothing is recorded, and for some timetroubles in his continental dominions occupied more of his attention thanthe interests of the island. He was in Normandy, indeed, during the wholeof that "most severe tempest, " as a writer of the next generation calledit, which broke upon a part of England in the year 1075; and the firstfeudal insurrection in English history was put down, as more serious oneswere destined to be before the fall of feudalism, by the king's officersand the men of the land in the king's absence. To determine the causes ofthis insurrection, we need to read between the lines of the story as itis told us by the writers of that and the next age. Elaborate reasons fortheir hostility to William's government were put into the mouths of theconspirators by one of these writers, but these would mean nothing morethan a general statement that the king was a very severe and stern ruler, if it were not for the more specific accusation that he had rewardedthose who had fought for him very inadequately, and through avarice hadafterward reduced the value even of these gifts. [10] A passage in a letterof Lanfranc's to one of the leaders of the rebellion, Roger, Earl ofHereford, written evidently after Roger's dissatisfaction had become knownbut before any open rebellion, gives us perhaps a key to the last part ofthis complaint. [11] He tells him that the king, revoking, we infer, formerorders, has directed his sheriffs not to hold any more pleas in the earl'sland until he can return and hear the case between him and the sheriffs. In a time when the profits of a law court were important to the lord whohad the right to hold it, the entry of the king's officers into a"liberty" to hear cases there as the representative of the king, and tohis profit, would naturally seem to the baron whose income was affected adiminution of the value of his fief, due to the king's avarice. Nothingcould show us better the attitude natural to a strong king towards feudalimmunities than the facts which these words of Lanfranc's imply, andthough we know of no serious trouble arising from this reason for acentury or more, it is clear that the royal view of the matter neverchanged, and finally like infringements on the baronial courts became oneof the causes of the first great advance towards constitutional liberty, the Magna Carta. 

This letter of Lanfranc's to Roger of Hereford is a most interestingillustration of his character and of his diplomatic skill, and it showsus clearly how great must have been his usefulness to William. Though itis perfectly evident to us that he suspects the loyalty of Roger to beseriously tempted, there is not a word of suspicion expressed in theletter, but the considerations most likely to keep him loyal are stronglyurged. With the exception of the sentence about the sheriffs, and formalphrases at the beginning and end, the letter runs thus: "Our lord, theking of the English, salutes you and us all as faithful subjects of hisin whom he has great confidence, and commands us that as much as we areable we should have care of his castles, lest, which God avert, theyshould be betrayed to his enemies; wherefore I ask you, as I ought toask, most dear son, whom, as God is witness, I love with my whole heartand desire to serve, and whose father I loved as my soul, that you takesuch care of this matter and of all fidelity to our lord the king thatyou may have the praise of God, and of him, and of all good men. Holdalways in your memory how your glorious father lived, and how faithfullyhe served his lord, and with how great energy he acquired many things andheld them with great honour. . . . I should like to talk freely with you; ifthis is your will, let me know where we can meet and talk together ofyour affairs and of our lord the king's. I am ready to go to meet youwherever you direct. "

The letter had no effect. Roger seems to have been a man of violenttemper, and there was a woman in this case also, though we do not knowthat she herself influenced the course of events. The insurrection issaid to have been determined upon, and the details of action planned, at the marriage of Roger's sister to Ralph Guader, Earl of Norfolk, amarriage which William had forbidden. 

 There was that bride-ale That was many men's bale, said the Saxon chronicler, and it was so indeed. The two chiefconspirators persuaded Earl Waltheof to join them, at least for themoment, and their plan was to drive the king out of England and todivide the kingdom between them into three great principalities, "forwe wish, " the Norman historian Orderic makes them say, "to restore inall respects the kingdom of England as it was formerly in the time ofKing Edward, " a most significant indication of the general opinionabout the effect of the Conquest, even if the words are not theirs. 

After the marriage the Earls of Norfolk and Hereford separated to raisetheir forces and bring them together, when they believed they would betoo strong for any force which could be raised to act against them. Theycounted on the unpopularity of the Normans and on the king's difficultiesabroad which would prevent his return to England. The king did notreturn, but their other hope proved fallacious. Bishop Wulfstan ofWorcester and Abbot Ethelwy of Evesham, both English prelates, with someNorman help, cut off the line of communication in the west, and EarlRoger could not force his way through. The two justiciars, William ofWarenne and Richard of Bienfaite, after summoning the earls to answer inthe king's court, with the aid of Bishop Odo and the Bishop of Coutances, who was also a great English baron, raised an army of English as well asNormans, and went to meet Earl Ralph, who was marching westwards. Something like a battle took place, but the rebels were easily defeated. Ralph fled back to Norwich, but it did not seem to him wise to stopthere. Leaving his wife to stand a siege in the castle, he sailed off tohasten the assistance which had already been asked for from the Danes. ADanish fleet indeed appeared off the coast, but it did nothing beyondmaking a plundering raid in Yorkshire. Emma, the new-made wife of EarlRalph, seems to have been a good captain and to have had a good garrison. The utmost efforts of the king's forces could not take the castle, andshe at last surrendered only on favourable terms. She was allowed toretire to the continent with her forces. The terms which were grantedher, as they are made known in a letter from Lanfranc to William, areespecially interesting as giving us one of the earliest glimpses we haveof that extensive dividing out of land to under-vassals, the process ofsubinfeudation, which must already have taken place on the estatesgranted to the king's tenants in chief. A clear distinction was madebetween the men who were serving Ralph because they held land of him, andthose who were merely mercenaries. Ralph's vassals, although they were inarms against Ralph's lord, the king, were thought to be entitled tobetter terms, and they secured them more easily than those who served himfor money. Ralph and Emma eventually lived out the life of a generationof those days, on Ralph's Breton estates, and perished together in thefirst crusade. 

Their fellow-rebels were less fortunate. Roger surrendered himself to betried by the king's court, and was condemned "according to the Normanlaw, " we are told, to the forfeiture of his estates and to imprisonmentat the king's pleasure. From this he was never released. The family ofWilliam's devoted guardian, Osbern, and of his no less devoted friend, William Fitz Osbern, disappears from English history with the fall ofthis imprudent representative, but not from the country. It has beenreserved for modern scholarship co prove the interesting fact of thecontinuance for generations of the male line of this house, though inminor rank and position, through the marriage of the son of Earl Roger, with the heiress of Abergavenny in Wales. [12] The fate of Waltheof waseven more pathetic because less deserved. He had no part in the actualrebellion. Whatever he may have sworn to do, under the influence of theearls of stronger character, he speedily repented and made confession toLanfranc as to his spiritual adviser. Lanfranc urged him to cross at onceto Normandy and make his confession to the king himself. William receivedhim kindly, showed no disposition to regard the fault as a serious one, and apparently promised him his forgiveness. Why, on his return toEngland, he should have arrested him, and after two trials before hiscourt should have allowed him to be executed, "according to English law, "we do not surely know. The hatred of his wife Judith, the king's niece, is plainly implied, but is hardly enough to account for so radical adeparture from William's usual practice in this the only instance of apolitical execution in his reign. English sympathy plainly took the sideof the earl. The monks of the abbey at Crowland, which he had favoured inhis lifetime, were allowed the possession of his body. Soon miracles werewrought there, and he became, in the minds of monks and people, anunquestioned martyr and saint. 

This was the end of William's troubles in England which have any realconnexion with the Conquest. Malcolm of Scotland invaded Northumberlandonce more, and harried that long-suffering region, but without result;and an army of English barons, led by the king's son Robert, whichreturned the invasion soon after, was easily able to force the king ofthe Scots to renew his acknowledgment of subjection to England. Thefailure of Walcher, Bishop of Durham, to keep his own subordinates inorder, led to a local riot, in which the bishop and many of his officersand clergy were murdered, and which was avenged in his usual pitilessstyle by the king's brother Odo. William himself invaded Wales with alarge force; received submissions, and opened the way for the extensionof the English settlements in that country. The great ambition of BishopOdo, and the increase of wealth and power which had come to him throughthe generosity of his brother, led him to hope for still higher things, and he dreamed of becoming pope. This was not agreeable to William, andmay even have seemed dangerous to him when the bishop began to collecthis friends and vassals for an expedition to Italy. Archbishop Lanfranc, who had not found his brother prelate a comfortable neighbour in Kent, suggested to the king, we are told, the exercise of his feudal rightsagainst him as his baron. The scene must have been a dramatic one, whenin a session of the curia regis William ordered his brother's arrest, andwhen no one ventured to execute the order laid hands upon him himself, exclaiming that he arrested, not the Bishop of Bayeux, but the Earl ofKent. William must have had some strong reason for this action, for herefused to consent to the release of his brother as long as he lived. Atone time what seemed like a great danger threatened from Denmark, in theplans of King Canute to invade England with a vast host and deliver thecountry from the foreigner. William brought over from Normandy a greatarmy of mercenaries to meet this danger, and laid waste the countryalong the eastern coast that the enemy might find no supplies on landing;but this Danish threat amounted to even less than the earlier ones, forthe fleet never so much as appeared off the coast. All these events arebut the minor incidents which might occur in any reign; the Conquest hadlong been finished, and England had accepted in good faith her newdynasty. 

Much more of the last ten years of William's life was spent in Normandythan in England. Revolts of unruly barons, attacks on border towns orcastles, disputes with the king of France, were constantly occupying himwith vexatious details, though with nothing of serious import. Mostvexatious of all was the conduct of his son Robert. With the eldest sonof William opens in English history a long line of the sons and brothersof kings, in a few cases of kings themselves, who are gifted with popularqualities, who make friends easily, but who are weak in character, whocannot control men or refuse favours, passionate and selfish, hardlystrong enough to be violently wicked as others of the line are, butcauses of constant evil to themselves and their friends, and sometimes tothe state. And with him opens also the long series of quarrels in theroyal family, of which the French kings were quick to take advantage, andfrom which they were in the end to gain so much. The ground of Robert'srebellion was the common one of dissatisfaction with his position and hisfather's refusal to part with any of his power in his favour. Robert wasnot able to excite any real insurrection in Normandy, but with the aid ofhis friends and of the French king he maintained a border war for sometime, and defended castles with success against the king. He is saideven, in one encounter, to have wounded and been on the point of slayinghis father. For some time he wandered in exile in the Rhine valley, supported by gifts sent him by his mother, in spite of the prohibition ofher husband. Once he was reconciled with his father, only to begin hisrebellion again. When the end came, William left him Normandy, but peoplethought at least that he did it unwillingly, foreseeing the evil whichhis character was likely to bring on any land over which he ruled. 

The year 1086 is remarkable for the formation of one of the most uniquemonuments of William's genius as a ruler, and one of the most instructivesources of information which we have of the condition of England duringhis reign. At the Christmas meeting of the court, in 1085, it wasdecided, apparently after much debate and probably with special referenceto the general land-tax, called the Danegeld, to form by means ofinquiries, officially made in each locality, a complete register of theoccupied lands of the kingdom, of their holders, and of their values. Thebook in which the results of this survey of England were recorded wascarefully preserved in the royal treasury, and soon came to be regardedas conclusive evidence in disputed questions which its entries wouldconcern. Not very long after the record was made it came to be popularlyknown as the Domesday Book, and a hundred years later the writer on theEnglish financial system of the twelfth century, the author of the"Dialogue concerning the Exchequer, "[13] explained the name as meaningthat the sentences derived from it were final, and without appeal, likethose of the last great day. 

An especially interesting feature of this survey is the method which wasemployed to make it. Two institutions which were brought into England bythe Conquest, the king's missi and the inquest, the forerunners of thecircuit judge and of the jury, were set in motion for this work; and theorganization of the survey is a very interesting foreshadowing of theorganization which a century later William's great-grandson was to giveto our judicial system in features which still characterize it, notmerely in England but throughout great continents of which William neverdreamed. Royal commissioners, or missi, were sent into each county. Nodoubt the same body of commissioners went throughout a circuit ofcounties. In each the county court was summoned to meet thecommissioners, just as later it was summoned to meet the king's justiceon his circuit. The whole "county" was present to be appealed to onquestions of particular importance or difficulty if it seemed necessary, but the business of the survey as a rule was not done by the countycourt. Each hundred was present by its sworn jury, exactly as in thelater itinerant justice court, and it was this jury which answered onoath the questions submitted to it by the commissioners, exactly again asin the later practice. Their knowledge might be reinforced, or theirreport modified, by evidence of the men of the vill, or other smallersub-division of the county, who probably attended as in the older countycourts, and occasionally by the testimony of the whole shire; but ingeneral the information on which the survey was made up was derived fromthe reports of the hundred juries. The questions which were submitted tothese juries show both the object of the survey and its thoroughcharacter. They were required to tell the name of each manor and the nameof its holder in the time of King Edward and at the time of the inquiry;the number of hides it contained; the number of ploughs employed in thecultivation of the lord's domain land, and the number so used on thelands held by the lord's men, --a rough way of determining the amount ofland under cultivation. Then the population of the manor was to be givenin classes: freemen and sokemen; villeins, cotters, and serfs; the amountof forest and meadow; the number of pastures, mills, and fish-ponds; andwhat the value of the manor was in the time of King Edward, at the dateof its grant by King William, and at the time of the inquiry. In somecases evidently the jurors entered into such details of the live stockmaintained by the manor as to justify the indignant words of the Saxonchronicler, that not "an ox nor a cow nor a swine was left that was notset down in his writing. "

The object of all this is plain enough. It was an assessment of theproperty of the kingdom for purposes of taxation. The king wished to findout, as indeed we are told in what may be considered a copy or anabstract of the original writ directing the commissioners as to theirinquiries, whether he could get more from the kingdom in taxes than hewas then getting. But the record of this inquest has served far differentpurposes in later times. It is a storehouse of information on many sidesof history, personal, family, geographical, and especially economic. Ittells us much also of institutions, but less than we could wish, and lessthan it would have told us if its purpose had been less narrowlypractical. Indeed, this limiting of the record to a single definitepurpose, which was the controlling interest in making it, renders theinformation which it gives us upon all the subjects in which we are nowmost interested fragmentary and extremely tantalizing, and forces us touse it with great caution. It remains, however, even with thisqualification, a most interesting collection of facts, unique in all theMiddle Ages, and a monument to the practical genius of the monarch whodevised it. 

On August 1 of the same year in which the survey was completed, in agreat assembly on Salisbury Plain, an oath of allegiance to the king wastaken by all the land-holding men of England, no matter of whom theyheld. This has been represented as an act of new legislation of greatinstitutional importance, but the view cannot be maintained. It isimpossible to suppose that all land-owners were present or that such anoath had not been generally taken before; and the Salisbury instance waseither a renewal of it such as was occasionally demanded by kings of thisage, or possibly an emphatic enforcement of the principle in cases whereit had been neglected or overlooked, now perhaps brought to light by thesurvey. 

Already in 1083 Queen Matilda had died, to the lasting and sincere griefof her husband; and now William's life was about to end in events whichwere a fitting close to his stormy career. Border warfare along theFrench boundary was no unusual thing, but something about a raid of thegarrison of Mantes, into Normandy, early in 1087, roused William'sespecial anger. He determined that plundering in that quarter shouldstop, and reviving old claims which had long been dormant he demanded therestoration to Normandy of the whole French Vexin, of which Mantes wasthe capital city. Philip treated his claims with contempt, and added acoarse jest on William's corpulence which roused his anger, as personalinsults always did, to a white heat. The land around Mantes was cruellylaid waste by his orders, and by a sudden advance the city was carriedand burnt down, churches and houses together. The heat and exertion ofthe attack, together with an injury which he received while ridingthrough the streets of the city, by being thrown violently against thepummel of his saddle by the stumbling of his horse, proved too much forWilliam in his physical condition, and he was carried back to Rouen todie after a few weeks. 

A monastic chronicler of a little later date, Orderic Vitalis, gives us adetailed account of his death-bed repentance, but it was manifestlywritten rather for the edification of the believer than to recordhistorical fact. It is interesting to note, however, that while Williamis made to express the deepest sorrow for the numerous acts of wrongwhich were committed in the process of the Conquest of England, there isno word which indicates any repentance for the Conquest itself or beliefon William's part that he held England unjustly. He admits that it didnot come to him from his fathers, but the same sentence which containsthis admission affirms that he had gained it by the favour of God. It hasbeen strongly argued from these words, and from others like them, whichare put into the mouth of William later in this dying confession, when hecomes to dispose of his realms and treasures, that William was consciousto himself that he did not possess any right to the kingdom of Englandwhich he could pass on hereditarily to his heirs. These words mightwithout violence be made to yield this meaning, and yet it is impossibleto interpret them in this way on any sound principle of criticism, certainly not as the foundation of any constitutional doctrine. There isnot a particle of support for this interpretation from any other source;everything else shows that his son William succeeded him in England bythe same right and in the same way that Robert did in Normandy. Williamspeaks of himself in early charters, as holding England by hereditaryright. He might be ready to acknowledge that it had not come to him bysuch right, but never that once having gained it he held it for himselfand his family by any less right than this. The words assigned to Williamon his death-bed should certainly be interpreted by the words of the samechronicler, after he has finished the confession; and these indicate somedoubt on William's part as to the effect of his death on the stability ofhis conquest in England, and his great desire to hasten his son Williamoff to England with directions to Lanfranc as to his coronation beforethe news of his own death should be spread abroad. They imply that he isnot sure who may actually become king in the tumults which may arise whenit becomes known that his own strong rule is ended; that rests with God:but they express no doubt of the right of his heirs, nor of his own rightto determine which one among them shall succeed him. 

With reluctance, knowing his disposition, William conceded Normandy toRobert. The first-born son was coming to have special rights. Moreimportant in this case was the fact that Robert's right to Normandy hadbeen formally recognized years before, and that recognition had neverbeen withdrawn. The barons of the duchy had sworn fealty to him as hisfather's successor, and there was no time to put another heir in hisplace, or to deal with the opposition that would surely result from theattempt. William was his father's choice for England, and he wasdespatched in all haste to secure the crown with the aid of Lanfranc. ToHenry was given only a sum of money, joined with a prophecy that heshould eventually have all that the king had had, a prophecy which wascertainly easy after the event, when it was written down, and which maynot have been difficult to a father who had studied carefully thecharacter of his sons. William was buried in the church of St. Stephen, which he had founded in Caen, and the manner in which such foundationswere frequently made in those days was illustrated by the claim, loudlyadvanced in the midst of the funeral service, that the land on which theparticipants stood had been unjustly taken from its owners for theConqueror's church. It was now legally purchased for William's burialplace. The son, who was at the moment busy securing his kingdom inEngland, afterwards erected in it a magnificent tomb to the memory of hisfather. 

[9] Round, Victoria History of Hampshire, i. 412-413. But SeeF. Baring in Engl. Hist. Rev. Xvi. 427-438 (1901). 

[10] Orderic Vitalis, ii. 260. 

[11] Lanfranc, Opera (ed. Giles), i. 64. 

[12] Round, Peerage Studies, pp. 181 ff. 

[13] Dialogus de Scaccario, i. 16 (ed. Hughes, p. 108). 

CHAPTER IV

FEUDALISM AND A STRONG KING

William, the second son of the Conqueror, followed with no filialcompunction his father's command that he should leave his death-bed andcross the channel at once to secure the kingdom of England. At the portof embarkation he learned that his father had died, but he did not turnback. Probably the news only hastened his journey, if this were possible. In England he went first to Winchester to get possession of his father'sgreat treasure, and then to Canterbury with his letter to Lanfranc. Nowhere is there any sign of opposition to his succession, or of anymovement in favour of Robert, or on Robert's part, at this moment. If thearchbishop had any doubts, as a man of his good judgment might well havehad, knowing the new king from his boyhood, they were soon quieted or heresolved to put them aside. He had, indeed, no alternative. There isnothing to indicate that the letter of his dying master allowed him anychoice, nor was there any possible candidate who gave promise of a betterreign, for Lanfranc must have known Robert as well as he knew William. Together they went up to London, and on September 26, 1087, hardly morethan two weeks after he left his father's bedside, William was crownedking by Lanfranc. The archbishop took of him the customary oath to rulejustly and to defend the peace and liberty of the Church, exacting aspecial promise always to be guided by his advice; but there is noevidence of any unusual assembly in London of magnates or people, of anynegotiations to gain the support of persons of influence, or of anyconsent asked or given. The proceedings throughout were what we shouldexpect in a kingdom held by hereditary right, as the chancery of theConqueror often termed it, and by such a right descending to the heir. This appearance may possibly have been given to these events by haste andby the necessity of forestalling any opposition. Men may have foundthemselves with a new king crowned and consecrated as soon as theylearned of the death of the old one; but no objection was ever made. Within a few months a serious insurrection broke out among those whohoped to make Robert king, but no one alleged that William's title wasimperfect because he had not been elected. If the English crown was heldby the people of the time to be elective in any sense, it was not in thesense which we at present understand by the word "constitutional. "

Immediately after the coronation, the new king went back to Winchester tofulfil a duty which he owed to his father. The great hoard which theConqueror had collected in the ancient capital was distributed with afree hand to the churches of England. William II was as greedy of moneyas his father. His exactions pressed even more heavily on the kingdom, and the Church believed that it was peculiarly the victim of hisfinancial tyranny, but he showed no disposition to begrudge thesebenefactions for the safety of his father's soul. Money was sent to eachmonastery and church in the kingdom, and to many rich gifts of otherthings, and to each county a hundred pounds for distribution to the poor. 

Until the following spring the disposition of the kingdom which Lanfranchad made was unquestioned and undisturbed. William II wore his crown atthe meeting of the court in London at Christmas time, and nothing duringthe winter called for any special exertion of royal authority on hispart. But beneath the surface a great conspiracy was forming, for thepurpose of overthrowing the new king and of putting his brother Robert inhis place. During Lent the movers of this conspiracy were especiallyactive, and immediately after Easter the insurrection broke out. It wasan insurrection in which almost all the Norman barons of England tookpart, and their real object was the interest neither of king nor ofkingdom, but only their own personal and selfish advantage. A purelyfeudal insurrection, inspired solely by those local and separatisttendencies which the feudal system cherished, it reveals, even moreclearly than the insurrection of the Earls of Hereford and Norfolk underWilliam I, the solid reserve of strength in the support of the nationwhich was the only thing that sustained the Norman kingship in Englandduring the feudal age. 

The writers upon whom we depend for our knowledge of these eventsrepresent the rebellious barons as moved by two chief motives. Of thesethat which is put forward as the leading motive is their opposition tothe division of the Norman land into two separate realms, by thesuccession of the elder brother in Normandy and of the younger inEngland. The fact that these barons held fiefs in both countries, andunder two different lords, certainly put them in an awkward position, butin one by no means uncommon throughout the feudal world. A suzerain ofthe Norman type, however, in the event of a quarrel between the king andthe duke, could make things exceedingly uncomfortable for the vassals whoheld of both, and these men seem to have believed that their dividedallegiance would endanger their possessions in one land or the other. They were in a fair way, they thought, to lose under the sons theincrease of wealth and honours for which they had fought under thefather. A second motive was found in the contrasted characters of the twobrothers. Our authorities represent this as less influential than thefirst, but the circumstances of the case would lead us to believe that ithad equal weight with the barons. William they considered a man ofviolence, who was likely to respect no right; Robert was "moretractable. " That Robert was the elder son, that they had already swornallegiance to him, while they owed nothing to William, which aresuggested as among their motives, probably had no real influence indeciding their action. But the other two motives are so completely inaccord with the facts of the situation that we must accept them as givingthe reasons for the insurrection. The barons were opposed to theseparation of the two countries, and they wished a manageable suzerain. 

The insurrection was in appearance an exceedingly dangerous one. Almostevery Norman baron in England revolted and carried his vassals with him. Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, the king's uncle, was the prime mover in theaffair. He had been released from his prison by the Conqueror on hisdeath-bed, and had been restored by William II to his earldom of Kent;but his hope of becoming the chief counsellor of the king, as he hadbecome of Robert in Normandy, was disappointed. With him was his brother, Robert of Cornwall, Count of Mortain. The other great baron-bishop of theConquest, Geoffrey of Coutances, was also in insurrection, and with himhis nephew, Robert of Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland. Another leadingrebel was Roger, Earl of Shrewsbury, with his three sons, the chief ofwhom, Robert of Bellême, was sent over from Normandy by Duke Robert, withEustace of Boulogne, to aid the insurrection in England until he shouldhimself be able to cross the channel. The treason of one man, William ofSt. Calais, Bishop of Durham, was regarded by the English writers asparticularly heinous, if indeed we are right in referring their words tohim and not to Bishop Odo; it is at least evident from the sequel thatthe king regarded his conduct in that light. The reason is not altogetherclear, unless it be that the position of greatest influence in England, which Bishop Odo had desired in vain, had been given him by the king. Other familiar names must be added to these: William of Eu, Roger ofLacy, Ralph of Mortimer, Roger Bigod, Hugh of Grantmesnil. On the king'sside there were few Norman names to equal these: Hugh of Avranches, Earlof Chester, William of Warenne, and of course the vassals of the greatArchbishop Lanfranc. But the real strength of the king was not derivedfrom the baronial elements. The castles in most of the great townsremained faithful, and so did nearly all the bishops and the Church as awhole. But the weight which turned the scale and gave the decision to theking, was the support of the great mass of the nation, of the English asopposed to the Norman. 

For so great a show of strength, the insurrection was very short-lived, and it was put down with almost no fighting. The refusal of the barons tocome to the Easter court, April 14, was their first overt act ofrebellion, though it had been evident in March that the rebellion wascoming, and before the close of the summer confiscation or amnesty hadbeen measured out to the defeated rebels. We are told that the crown wasoffered to Robert and accepted by him, and great hopes were entertainedof decisive aid which he was to send; but nothing came of it. Two sieges, of Pevensey castle and of Rochester castle, were the most importantmilitary events. There was considerable ravaging of the country by therebels in the west, and some little fighting there. The Bishop ofCoutances and his nephew seized Bristol and laid waste the country about, but were unsuccessful in their siege of Ilchester. Roger of Lacy andothers collected a force at Hereford, and advanced to attack Worcester, but were beaten off by the Norman garrison and the men of BishopWulfstan. Minor incidents of the same kind occurred in Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Norfolk, and the north. But the decisive events were inthe south-east, in the operations of the king against his uncle Odo. AtLondon William called round him his supporters, appealing especially tothe English, and promising to grant good laws, to levy no unjust taxes, and to allow men the freedom of their woods and of hunting. With an armywhich did not seem large, he advanced against Rochester, where the Bishopof Bayeux was, to strike the heart of the insurrection. 

Tunbridge castle, which was held for Odo, was first stormed, and on thenews of this Odo thought it prudent to betake himself to Pevensey, wherehis brother, Robert of Mortain, was, and where reinforcements from Robertof Normandy would be likely to land. William at once turned from hismarch to Rochester and began the siege of Pevensey. The Normanreinforcements which Robert finally sent were driven back with greatloss, and after some weeks Pevensey was compelled to surrender. BishopOdo agreed to secure the surrender of Rochester, and then to retire fromEngland, only to return if the king should send for him. But Williamunwisely sent him on to Rochester with a small advance detachment, tooccupy the castle, while he himself followed more slowly with the mainbody. The castle refused to surrender. Odo's expression of face madeknown his real wishes, and was more convincing than his words. A suddensally of the garrison overpowered his guards, and the bishop was carriedinto the castle to try the fortune of a siege once more. For this siegethe king again appealed to the country and called for the help of allunder the old Saxon penalty of the disgraceful name of "nithing. " Thedefenders of the castle suffered greatly from the blockade, and were sooncompelled to yield upon such terms as the king pleased, who was withdifficulty persuaded to give up his first idea of sending them all to thegallows. 

The monk Orderic Vitalis, who wrote an account of these events ageneration after they occurred, was struck with one characteristic ofthis insurrection, which the careful observer of any time would hardlyfail to notice. He says: "The rebels, although they were so many andabundantly furnished with arms and supplies, did not dare to join battlewith the king in his kingdom. " It was an age, to be sure, when wars weredecided less by fighting in the open field than by the siege and defenceof castles; and yet the collapse of so formidable an insurrection asthis, after no resistance at all in proportion to its apparent fightingstrength, is surely a significant fact. To notice here but one inferencefrom it, it means that no one questioned the title of William Rufus tothe throne while he was in possession. Though he might be a younger son, not elected, but appointed by his father, and put into the kingship bythe act of the primate alone, he was, to the rebellious barons as to hisown supporters, the rightful king of England till he could be overthrown. 

The insurrection being put down, a general amnesty seems to have beenextended to the rebels. The Bishop of Bayeux was exiled from England;some confiscations were made, and some rewards distributed; but almostwithout exception the leaders escaped punishment. The most notableexception, besides Odo, was William of St. Calais, the Bishop of Durham. For some reason, which does not clearly appear, the king found itdifficult to pardon him. He was summoned before the king's court toanswer for his conduct, and the account of the trial which followed inNovember of this year, preserved to us by a writer friendly to the bishopand present at the proceedings, is one of the most interesting andinstructive documents which we have from this time. William of St. Calais, as the king's vassal for the temporalities of his bishopric, wassummoned before the king's feudal court to answer for breach of hisfeudal obligations. William had shown, in one of the letters which he hadsent to the king shortly before the trial, that he was fully aware ofthese obligations; and the impossibility of meeting the accusation wasperfectly clear to his mind. With the greatest subtlety and skill, hesought to take advantage of his double position, as vassal and as bishop, and to transfer the whole process to different ground. With equal skill, and with an equally clear understanding of the principles involved, Lanfranc met every move which he made. [14]

From the beginning the accused insisted upon the privileges of his order. He would submit to a canonical trial only. He asked that the bishopsshould appear in their pontificals, which was a request that they judgehim as bishops, and not as barons. Lanfranc answered him that they couldjudge him well enough clad as they were. William demanded that hisbishopric should be restored to him before he was compelled to answer, referring to the seizing of his temporalities by the king. Lanfrancreplied that he had not been deprived of his bishopric. He refused toplead, however, until the point had been formally decided, and on thedecision of the court against him, he demanded the canonical grounds onwhich they had acted. Lanfranc replied that the decision was just, andthat he ought to know that it was. He requested to be allowed to takecounsel with the other bishops on his answer, and Lanfranc explained thatthe bishops were his judges and could not be his counsel, his answerresting on a principle of the law necessary in the courts of publicassembly, one which gave rise to elaborate regulations in some feudalcountries. Bishop William finally refused to accept the judgment of thecourt on several grounds, but especially because it was against thecanons; and Lanfranc explained at greater length than before, that he hadnot been put on trial concerning his bishopric, but concerning his fief, as the Bishop of Bayeux had been tried under William I. But all argumentwas in vain. The bishop could not safely yield, and he insisted on hisappeal to Rome. On his side the king insisted on the surrender of thebishop's castle, the last part of his fief which he still held, and wassustained by the court in this demand. The bishop demurred, but at lastyielded the point to avoid arrest, and after considerable delay, he wasallowed to cross over to the continent. There he was welcomed by Robertand employed in Normandy, but he never went any farther nor pushed hisappeal to Rome, which in all probability he had never seriously intended, though there is evidence that the pope was disposed to take up his cause. Throughout the case the king was acting wholly within his right, regarding the bishop as his vassal; and Lanfranc's position in the trialwas in strict accordance with the feudal law. 

This was the end of serious rebellion against King William Rufus. Sevenyears later, in 1095, a conspiracy was formed by some of the barons whohad been pardoned for their earlier rebellion, which might have resultedin a widespread insurrection but for the prompt action of William. Robertof Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, who had inherited the 280 manors ofhis uncle, the Bishop of Coutances, and was now one of the most powerfulbarons of the kingdom, had been summoned to the king's court, probablybecause the conspiracy was suspected, since it was for a fault whichwould ordinarily have been passed over without remark, and he refused toappear. The king's hands were for the moment free, and he marched at onceagainst the earl. By degrees the details of the conspiracy came out. FromNottingham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was accompanying the march, was sent back to Kent to hold himself in readiness at a moment's noticeto defend that part of England against an expected landing from Normandy. This time it had been planned to make Stephen of Aumale, a nephew of theConqueror, king in William's place; but no Norman invasion occurred. Thewar was begun and ended by the siege and surrender of Mowbray's twocastles of Tynemouth and Bamborough. In the siege of the latter, Mowbrayhimself was captured by a trick, and his newly married wife was forced tosurrender the castle by the threat of putting out his eyes. The earl wasthrown into prison, where, according to one account, he was held forthirty years. Treachery among the traitors revealed the names of theleaders of the plot, and punishments were inflicted more generally thanin 1088, but with no pretence of impartiality. A man of so high rank andbirth as William of Eu was barbarously mutilated; one man of minor rankwas hanged; banishment and fines were the penalties in other cases. William of St. Calais, who had been restored to his see, fell again underthe suspicion of the king, and was summoned to stand another trial, buthe was already ill when he went up to the court, and died before he couldanswer the charges against him. There were reasons enough in the heavyoppressions of the reign why men should wish to rebel against William, but he was so fixed in power, so resolute in action, and so pitilesstowards the victims of his policy, that the forming of a dangerouscombination against him was practically impossible. 

The contemporary historians of his reign tell us much of William'spersonality, both in set descriptions and in occasional reference andanecdote. It is evident that he impressed in an unusual degree the men ofhis own time, but it is evident also that this impression was not so muchmade by his genius as a ruler or a soldier, by the possession of thegifts which a great king would desire, as by something in his spirit andattitude towards life which was new and strange, something out of thecommon in words and action, which startled or shocked men of the commonlevel and seemed at times to verge upon the awful. In body he was shorterthan his father, thick-set and heavy, and his red face gave him the nameRufus by which he was then and still is commonly known. Much of hisfather's political and military ability and strength of will haddescended to him, but not his father's character and high purpose. Everyking of those times thought chiefly of himself, and looked upon the stateas his private property; but the second William more than most. The moneywhich he wrung from churchman and layman he used in attempts to carry outhis personal ambitions in Normandy, or scattered with a free hand amonghis favourites, particularly among the mercenary soldiers from thecontinent, with whom he especially loved to surround himself, and whoselicensed plunderings added greatly to the burden and tyranny of hisreign. But the ordinary doings of a tyrant were not the worst thingsabout William Rufus. Effeminate fashions, vices horrible and unheard-ofin England, flourished at his court and threatened to corrupt the nation. The fearful profanity of the king, his open and blasphemous defiance ofGod, made men tremble, and those who were nearest to him testified "thathe every morning got up a worse man than he lay down, and every eveninglay down a worse man than he got up. "

In the year after the suppression of the first attempt of the baronsagainst the king, but before other events of political importance hadoccurred, on May 28, 1089, died Lanfranc, the great Archbishop ofCanterbury, after nearly nineteen years of service in that office. Bestof all the advisers of the first William, he was equally with himconqueror of England, in that conquest of laws and civilization whichfollowed the mere conquest of arms. Not great, though famous as atheologian and writer, his powers were rather of a practical nature. Hewas skilful in the management of men; he had a keen appreciation of legaldistinctions, and that comprehensive sight at the same time of ends andmeans which we call the organizing power. He was devoted to that greatreformation in the religious and ecclesiastical world which occurredduring his long life, but he was devoted to it in his own way, as hisnature directed. He saw clearly, for one thing, that the success of thatreformation in England depended on the maintenance of the stronggovernment of the Norman kings; and from his loyalty to them he neverswerved, serving them with wise counsel and with all the resources at hiscommand. Less of a theologian and idealist than his successor Anselm, more of a lawyer and statesman, he could never have found himself, foranother thing, in that attitude of opposition to the king which fills somuch of his successor's pontificate. 

As his life had been of constant service to England, his death was animmediate misfortune. We cannot doubt the opinion expressed by more thanone of the writers of the next reign, that a great change for the worsetook place in the actions of the king after the death of Lanfranc. Theaged archbishop, who had been in authority since his childhood, who mightseem to prolong in some degree the reign or the influence of his father, acted as a restraining force, and the true character of William expresseditself freely only when this was removed. In another way also the deathof Lanfranc was a misfortune to England. It dates the rise to influencewith the king of Ranulf Hambard, whose name is closely associated withthe tyranny of Rufus; or if this may already have begun, it marks hisvery speedy attainment of what seems to have been the complete control ofthe administrative and judicial system of the kingdom. Of the earlyhistory of Ranulf Flambard we know but little with certainty. He was oflow birth, probably the son of a priest, and he rose to his position ofauthority by the exercise of his own gifts, which were not small. Apleasing person, ingratiating manners, much quickness and ingenuity ofmind, prodigality of flattery, and great economy of scruples, --these weretraits which would attract the attention and win the favour of a man likeWilliam II. In Ranulf Flambard we have an instance of the constantlyrecurring historical fact, that the holders of absolute power are alwaysable to find in the lower grades of society the ministers of theirdesigns who serve them with a completeness of devotion and fidelity whichthe master rarely shows in his own interest, and often with a geniuswhich he does not himself possess. 

Our knowledge of the constitutional details of the reign either ofWilliam I or William II is very incomplete, and it is therefore difficultfor us to understand the exact nature of the innovations made by RanulfFlambard. The chroniclers leave us no doubt of the general opinion ofcontemporaries, that important changes had been made, especially in thetreatment of the lands of the Church, and that these changes were all inthe direction of oppressive exactions for the benefit of the king. Thecharter issued by Henry I at the beginning of his reign, promising thereform of various abuses of his brother's reign, confirms this opinion. But neither the charter nor the chroniclers enable us to say withconfidence exactly in what the innovations consisted. The feudal systemas a system of military tenures and of judicial organization hadcertainly been introduced by William the Conqueror, and applied to thegreat ecclesiastical estates of the kingdom very early in his reign. Thatall the logical deductions for the benefit of the crown which werepossible from this system, especially those of a financial nature, hadbeen made so early, is not so certain. In the end, and indeed before verylong, the feudal system as it existed in England became more logical indetails, more nearly an ideal feudalism, with reference to the rights ofthe crown, than anywhere else in Christendom. It is quite within thebounds of possibility that Ranulf Flambard, keen of mind, working underan absolute king, whose reign was followed by the longer reign of anotherabsolute king, not easily forced to keep the promises of his coronationcharter, may have had some share in the logical carrying out of feudalprinciples, or in their more complete application to the Church, whichwould be likely to escape feudal burdens under a king of the character ofthe first William. Indeed, such a complete application of the feudalrights of the crown to the Church, the development of the so-calledregalian rights, was at this date incomplete in Europe as a whole, andaccording to the evidence which we now have, the Norman in England was apioneer in that direction. 

The loudest complaints of these oppressions have come down to us inregard to Canterbury and the other ecclesiastical baronies which fellvacant after the death of Lanfranc. This is what we should expect: thewriters are monks. It seems from the evidence, also, that in most casesno exact division had as yet been made between those lands belonging to amonastic bishop or an abbot, which should be considered particularly toform the barony, and those which should be assigned to the support of themonastic body. Such a division was made in time, but where it had notbeen made before the occurrence of a vacancy, it was more than likelythat the monks were placed on very short commons, and the right of theking to the revenues interpreted in the most ample sense. The charter ofHenry I shows that in the case of lay fiefs the rights of the king, logically involved in the feudal system, had been stretched to theirutmost limit, and even beyond. It would be very strange if this were notstill more true in the case of ecclesiastical fiefs. The monks, we may besure, had abundant grounds for their complaints. But we should noticethat what they have in justice to complain of is the oppressive abuse ofreal rights. The system of Ranulf Flambard, so far as we can determinewhat it was, does not differ in its main features from that which was inoperation without objection in the time of Henry II. The vacantecclesiastical, like the vacant lay, fief fell back into the king'sdomain. It is difficult to determine just what its legal status was thenconsidered to be, but it was perhaps regarded as a fief reverting onfailure of heirs. Certainly it was sometimes treated as only an escheatedor forfeited lay fief would be treated. Its revenues might be collectedby the ordinary machinery, as they had been under the bishop, and turnedinto the king's treasury; or it might be farmed out as a whole to thehighest bidder. There could be no valid objection to this. If the legalposition which Lanfranc had so vigorously defended was correct, that abishop might be tried as a baron by a lay court and a lay process, withno infringement of his ecclesiastical rights, then there could be nodefence against this further extension of feudal principles. Relief, wardship, and escheat were perfectly legitimate feudal rights, and therewas no reason which the state would consider valid why they should not beenforced in all fiefs alike. The case of the Bishop of Durham, in 1088, had already established a precedent for the forfeiture of anecclesiastical barony for the treason of its holder, and in that case theking had granted fiefs within that barony to his own vassals. Still moreclearly would such a fief return to the king's hands, if it were vacant. But if the right was clear, it might still be true that the enforcementof it was new and accompanied with great practical abuses. Of this muchprobably we must hold Ranulf Flambard guilty. 

The extension and abuse of feudal law, however, do not fill up themeasure of his guilt. Another important source of royal revenue, thejudicial system, was put under his control, and was forced to contributethe utmost possible to the king's income. That the justiciarship was atthis time as well defined an office, or as regularly recognized a part ofthe state machinery, as it came to be later, is hardly likely. But thatsome officer should be clothed with the royal authority for a specialpurpose, or in the absence of the king for general purposes, was not anuncommon practice. In some such way as this Ranulf Flambard had beengiven charge of the king's interests in the judicial system, and had muchto do by his activities in that position with the development of theoffice of justiciar. Exactly what he did in this field is as uncertain asin that of feudal law, though the one specific instance which we have onrecord shows him acting in a capacity much like that of the lateritinerant justice. However this may be, the recorded complaints of hisoppressions as judge, though possibly less numerous and detailed than ofhis mistreatment of the Church, are equally bitter. He was the despoilerof the rich, the destroyer of the poor. Exactions already heavy andunjust he doubled. Money alone decided cases in the courts. Justice andthe laws disappeared. The rope was loosened from the very neck of therobber if he had anything of value to promise the king; while the popularcourts of shires and hundreds were forced to become engines of extortion, probably by the employment of the sheriffs, who were allowed to summonthem, not according to the old practice, but when and where it suitedtheir convenience. The machinery of the state and the interpretation ofits laws were, in days like these, completely at the mercy of a tyrannousking and an unscrupulous minister. No system of checks on absolute powerhad as yet been devised; there were no means of expressing publicdiscontent, nor any form of appeal but insurrection, and that washopeless against a king so strong as Rufus. The land could only sufferand wait, and at last rejoice that the reign was no longer. In themeantime, from the beginning of Robert's rule in the duchy across thechannel, the condition of things there had been a standing invitation tohis brother to interfere. Robert is a fair example of the worst type ofmen of the Norman-Angevin blood. Not bad in intention, and not withoutabilities, he was weak with that weakness most fatal of all in times whenthe will of the ruler gave its only force to law, the inability to sayno, the lack of firm resisting power. The whole eleventh century had beennourishing the growth, in the favouring soil of feudalism, of the mannersand morals of chivalry. The generation to which William and Robertbelonged was more strongly influenced in its standards of conduct by theideals of chivalry than by any other ethical code, and both these princesare examples of the superior power of these ideals. In the age ofchivalry no princely virtue was held of higher worth than that of"largesse, " the royal generosity which scattered gifts on all classeswith unstinted hand; but Robert's prodigality of gifts was greater thanthe judgment of his own time approved, and, combined with the inabilityto make himself respected or obeyed, which often goes with suchgenerosity, it was the source of most of his difficulties. His idealseemed to be that every man should have what he wanted, and soon it wasapparent that he had retained very little for himself. 

The castles of Normandy were always open to the duke, and William theConqueror had maintained garrisons of his own in the most important ofthem, to insure the obedience of their holders. The first move that wasmade by the barons of Normandy, on the news of William's death, was toexpel these garrisons and to substitute others of their own. The examplewas set by Robert of Bellême, the holder of a powerful composite lordshipon the south-west border and partly outside the duchy. On his way toWilliam's court, he heard of the duke's death, and he instantly turnedabout, not merely to expel the ducal garrisons from the castles of hisown fiefs, but to seize the castles of his neighbours which he had reasonto desire, and some of these he destroyed and some he held for himself. This action is typical of the influence of Robert's character ongovernment in Normandy. Contempt for the authority of the duke meant notmerely that things which belonged to him would be seized upon and hisrights denied, but also that the property and rights of the weak, andeven of those who were only a little weaker than their neighbours, wereat the mercy of the stronger. 

Duke Robert's squandering of his resources soon brought him to a want ofready money intolerable to a prince of his nature, and his mind turned atonce with desire to the large sum in cash which his father had left toHenry. But Henry was not at all of the stamp of Robert. He was perfectlyclear headed, and he had no foolish notions about the virtue ofgenerosity. He preferred to buy rather than to give away. A bargain wasstruck between them, hardly six months after their father's death, andthe transaction is characteristic of the two brothers. For three thousandpounds of silver, Henry purchased what people of the time regarded as athird of Robert's inheritance, the lordship of the Cotentin, with itsimportant castles, towns, and vassals. The chroniclers call him now Countof the Cotentin, and he there practised the art of government for a time, and, in sharp contrast to Robert, maintained order with a strong hand. During the same summer of 1088, Henry crossed over to England to getpossession of the lands of his mother Matilda, which she had bequeathedto him on her death. This inheritance he does not seem to have obtained, at least not permanently; but there was no quarrel between him andWilliam at that time. In the autumn he returned to Normandy, taking withhim Robert of Bellême. Robert had been forgiven his rebellion by theking, and so clear was the evidence that Henry and Robert of Bellême hadentered into some kind of an arrangement with King William to assist hisdesigns on Normandy, or so clear was it made to seem to Duke Robert, thaton their landing he caused them both to be arrested and thrown intoprison. On the news of this the Earl of Shrewsbury, the father of Robertof Bellême, crossed over from England to the aid of his son, and a shortcivil war followed, in the early part of the next year, in which themilitary operations were favourable to the duke, but his inconstancy andweakness of character were shown in his releasing Robert of Bellême atthe close of the war as if he had himself been beaten. Henry also wassoon released, and took up again his government of the Cotentin. 

William may have felt that Robert's willingness to accept the crown ofEngland from the rebel barons gave him the right to take what he couldget in Normandy, though probably he was not particularly troubled by thequestion of any moral justification of his conduct. Opportunity would befor him the main consideration, and the growing anarchy in the duchyfurnished this. Private war was carried on without restraint in more thanone place, and though the reign of a weak suzerain was to the advantageof the rapacious feudal baron, many of the class preferred a strongerrule. The arguments also in favour of a union of the kingdom and theduchy, which had led to the rebellion against William, would now, sincethat attempt had failed, be equally strong against Robert. For William nomotive need be sought but that of ambition, nor have we much right to saythat in such an age the ambition was improper. The temptation which theNorman duchy presented to a Norman king of England was natural andirresistible, and we need only note that with William II begins thatdetermination of the English kings to rule also in continental dominionswhich influences so profoundly their own history, and hardly lessprofoundly the history of their island kingdom, for centuries to come. ToWilliam the Conqueror no such question could ever present itself, but themoment that the kingdom and the duchy were separated in different handsit must have arisen in the mind of the king. 

But if William did not himself care for any moral justification of hisplans, he must make sure of the support of his English vassals in such anundertaking; and the policy of war against Robert was resolved upon in ameeting of the court, probably the Easter meeting of 1090. But open wardid not begin at once. William contented himself for some months withsending over troops to occupy castles in the north-eastern portion ofNormandy, which were opened to him by barons who were favourable to hiscause or whose support was purchased. The alarm of Robert was soonexcited by these defections, and he appealed to his suzerain, King PhilipI of France, for aid. If the policy of ruling in Normandy was natural forthe English king, that of keeping kingdom and duchy in different handswas an equally natural policy for the French king. It is hardly so earlyas this, however, that we can date the beginning of this which comes inthe end to be a ruling motive of the Capetian house. Philip responded tohis vassal's call with a considerable army, but the money of the king ofEngland quickly brought him to a different mind, and he retired from thefield, where he had accomplished nothing. 

In the following winter, early in February of 1091, William crossed overinto Normandy to look after his interests in person. The money which hewas wringing from England by the ingenuity of Ranulf Flambard hescattered in Normandy with a free hand, to win himself adherents, andwith success. Robert could not command forces enough to meet him in thefield, and was compelled to enter into a treaty with him, in which, inreturn for some promises from William, he not merely accepted hisoccupation of the eastern side of the duchy, which was alreadyaccomplished, but agreed to a similar occupation by William of thenorth-western corner. 

Cherbourg and Mont-Saint-Michel, two of the newly ceded places, belongedto the dominions which "Count" Henry had purchased of his brother, andmust be taken from him by force. William and Robert marched togetheragainst him, besieged him in his castle of Mont-Saint-Michel, andstripped him of his lordship. Robert received the lion's share of theconquest, but William obtained what he wished. Henry was once morereduced to the condition of a landless prince, but when William returnedto England in August of this year both his brothers returned with him, and remained there for some time. 

William had been recalled to England by the news that King Malcolm ofScotland had invaded England during his absence and harriedNorthumberland almost to Durham. Malcolm had already refused to fulfilhis feudal obligations to the new king of England, and William marchedagainst him immediately on his return, taking his two brothers with him. At Durham Bishop William of St. Calais, who had found means to reconcilehimself with the king, was restored to his rights after an exile of threeyears. The expedition to Scotland led to no fighting. William advancedwith his army to the Firth of Forth. Malcolm met him there with an armyof his own, but negotiations were begun and conducted for William by hisbrother Robert, and for Malcolm by the atheling Edgar, whose expulsionfrom Normandy had been one of the conditions of the peace between Williamand Robert. Malcolm at last agreed to acknowledge himself the man ofWilliam II, with the same obligations by which he had been bound to hisfather, and the king returned to England, as he had gone, by way ofDurham. Very likely something in this expedition suggested to Williamthat the north-western frontier of England needed rectification anddefence. At any rate, early in the spring of the next year, 1092, hemarched against Carlisle, expelled Dolphin, son of the Gospatric ofWilliam the Conqueror's time, who was holding it under Malcolm ofScotland, built and garrisoned a castle there, and after his return tothe south sent a colony of English families to occupy the adjacentcountry. This enlargement of the area of England was practically aconquest from the king of Scotland, and it may have been, in violation ofthe pledge which William had just given, to restore to Malcolm all hisformer possessions. Something, at least, led to immediate complaints fromMalcolm, which were without avail, and a journey that he made byinvitation the next year, to confer with William at Gloucester, resultedonly in what he regarded as further humiliating treatment. On his returnto Scotland he immediately took arms, and again invaded Northumberland. This, however, was destined to be the last of his incursions, for he waskilled, together with his eldest son, Edward, near Alnwick, on theeastern coast. The news of the death of her husband and son at onceproved fatal to Queen Margaret. A reaction followed against Englishinfluence in the state, which she had supported, and a conflict ofparties and a disputed succession gave to William an opportunity tointerfere in favour of candidates of his own, though with little realsuccess. At least the north of England was relieved of the danger ofinvasion. This year was also marked by important advances in the conquestof South Wales by the Norman barons of the country. 

[14] Dugdale, Monasticon, ed. 1846, 1. 244 ff--and Symeon of Durham, Deinjusta Vexations (Rolls series), i. 170 ff. 

CHAPTER V

WILLIAM RUFUS AND ANSELM

In following the history of Malcolm of Scotland we have passed by eventsof greater importance which make the year 1093 a turning-point in thereign of William Rufus. The appointment of Anselm to the archbishopric ofCanterbury divides the reign into two natural divisions. In the firstperiod William secures his hold on power, develops his tyrannousadministrative system and his financial extortions, begins his policy ofconquest in Normandy, forces Scotland to recognize his supremacy, androunds off his kingdom towards the north-west. The second period is moresimple in character, but its events are of greater importance. Apart fromthe abortive rebellion of Robert of Mowbray, which has already beennarrated, William's authority is unquestioned. Flambard's machine appearsto run smoothly. Monks record their groans and give voice to theirhorror, but the peace of the state is not disturbed, nor are precautionsnecessary against any foreign enemy. Two series of events fill up thehistory of the period, both of great and lasting interest. One is thelong quarrel between the king and the archbishop, which involve thewhole question of the relation between Church and State in the feudalage; and the other is the king's effort to gain possession of Normandy, the introductory chapter of a long history. 

Early in Lent, 1093, or a little earlier, King William fell sick at aroyal manor near to Gloucester, and was carried in haste into that city. There he lay during the rest of Lent, so ill that his death was expectedat any moment, and it was even reported that he had died. Brought face toface with death, the terrors of the world to come seized hold of him. Themedieval sinner who outraged the moral sentiment of his time, as Williamdid, was sustained by no philosophical doubt of the existence of God orbelief in the evolutionary origin of ethics. His life was a recklessdefiance or a careless disregard of an almighty power, whosedetermination and ability to punish him, if not bought off, he did notquestion. The torments of a physical hell were vividly portrayed on alloccasions, and accepted by the highest as well as the lowest as anessential part of the divine revelation. William was no exception to thisrule. He became even more shockingly defiant of God after his recoverythan he had been before. God, he declared to the Bishop of Rochester, should never have in him a good man because of the evil which He had donehim. And God let him have what he wished, adds the pious historian, according to the idea of good which he had formed. And yet, if he hadbeen allowed time for a death-bed repentance at the end of his life, hewould have yielded undoubtedly to the same vague terrors, and have made ahasty bid for safety with gifts and promises. At any rate now, when thenobles and bishops who came to visit him suggested that it was time forhim to make atonement for his evil deeds, he eagerly seized upon thechance. He promised to reform his life, to protect the churches, and notput them up any more for sale, to annul bad laws, and to decree goodones; and bishops were sent to lay these promises on the altar. Some ofhis good resolutions could only be carried out by virtue of a royal writ, and an order was drawn up and sealed, commanding the release ofprisoners, the remission of debts due the crown, and the forgiving ofoffences. Great was the rejoicing at these signs of reformation, andprayers were, everywhere offered for so good a king, but when he had oncerecovered, his promises were as quickly forgotten as the very similarones which he had made in the crisis of the rebellion of loss. Williamprobably still believed, when he found himself restored to health, thatnobody can keep all his promises, as he had answered when Lanfrancremonstrated with him on the violation of his coronation pledges. Beforehis recovery, however, he took one step in the way of reformation fromwhich he did not draw back. He appointed a new Archbishop of Canterbury. It was the fear of death alone which wrung this concession from the king, and it shows a clear consciousness on his part of the guilt of retainingthe archbishopric in his hands. Only a few weeks earlier, at the meetingof the Christmas court, when the members had petitioned that he would begraciously pleased to allow prayers to be offered that he might be led tosee the wrong which he was doing, he had answered with contempt, "Pray asmuch as you like; I shall do what I please. Nobody's praying is going tochange my mind. " Now, however, he was praying himself, and anxious to getrid of this guilt. The man whom all England with one voice declared to bethe ideal archbishop was at hand, and the king besought him mostearnestly to accept the appointment, and so to aid him in his endeavourto save his soul. 

This man was Anselm, now abbot of the famous monastery of Bec, whereLanfranc had been at one time prior. Born sixty years before, at Aosta, in the kingdom of Burgundy, in the later Piedmont, he had crossed intoFrance, like Lanfranc, led by the desire of learning and the religiouslife. Finally he had become a monk at Bec, and had devoted himself tostudy and to theological writing. Only with great reluctance, and alwaysimperfectly, did he attend to the administrative duties which fell to himas he was made first prior and then abbot of the monastery. His cast ofmind was wholly metaphysical, his spirit entirely of the cloister and theschool. The monastic life, free from the responsibilities of office, exactly suited him, and he was made for it. When all England wasimportuning him to accept the primacy, he shrank back from it with areluctance which was wholly genuine, and an obstinacy which belonged alsoto his nature. He felt himself unfitted for the place, and he foresaw theresult. He likened his future relation with the king to that of a weakold sheep yoked with an untamed bull. In all this he was perfectly right. That harmony which had existed between Lanfranc and the Conqueror, because each understood the other's position and rights and wasinterested in his work, was never for a moment possible between Anselmand William Rufus; and this was only partly due to the character of theking. So wholly did the archbishop belong to another world than theking's that he never appreciated the double position in which his officeplaced him. One side of it only, the ecclesiastical, with its duties andrights and all their logical consequences, he clearly saw. At thebeginning of his primacy, he seemed to understand, and he certainlyaccepted, the feudal relationship in which he was placed to the king, butthe natural results of this position he never admitted. His mind was toocompletely taken up with the other side of things; and with his fixednessof purpose, almost obstinacy of character, and the king's wilfulness, conflict was inevitable. 

It was only with great difficulty that Anselm was brought to accept theappointment. Being in England on a visit to Hugh, Earl of Chester, he hadbeen brought to the king's bedside when he fell sick, as the man bestable to give him the most certain spiritual comfort; and when William hadbeen persuaded of his guilt in keeping the primacy so long vacant, Anselmwas dragged protesting to the presence of the sick man, and his fingerswere partially forced open to receive the pastoral staff which Williamextended to him. Then he was carried off, still protesting, to a churchnear by, where the religious ceremonies usual on the appointment of abishop were performed. Still Anselm refused to yield to this friendlyviolence. He returned immediately to the king, predicted his recovery, and declared that he had not accepted the primacy, and did not accept it, in spite of all that had been done. For some reason, however, Williamadhered to this much of his reformation. He gave order for the immediatetransfer to his appointee of all that pertained to the archbishopric, andsent to Normandy for the consent of the secular and ecclesiasticalsuperiors of Anselm, the duke and the Archbishop of Rouen, and of themonks of his abbey. At length Anselm yielded, not because his judgmenthad been changed as to the wisdom of the appointment, but sacrificinghimself rather, in the monastic spirit, to the call of Heaven. 

It was near the end of September, however, before the new archbishop wasenthroned. Several matters had first to be arranged to the satisfactionof Anselm, and among these were three conditions which he presented to beagreed to by the king. William was probably ready to agree withouthesitation that he would take the archbishop as his guide and director inreligious matters, and equally ready to pay no attention to the promiseafterward. A more difficult condition was, that all the lands which hadbelonged to the church of Canterbury at Lanfranc's death should berestored, including, evidently, certain lands which William had grantedto his own men. This condition would show that the king had treated thearchbishopric as a forfeited fief, and that its lands had been alienatedon terms unfavourable to the Church. William hesitated long on thiscondition, and tried to persuade Anselm to waive it; but the letters ofthe future archbishop show that his conscience was deeply engaged andwould not permit him to agree to anything that would impoverish his see, and the king must have yielded in the end. The third condition was, thatAnselm should be allowed to continue in the obedience of Pope Urban II, whom he had already acknowledged in Normandy. This must also have been adisagreeable condition to the king. The divided state of Christendom, into which it had been thrown by the conflict between the pope and theemperor on the question of investitures, was favourable to thatautocratic control of the Church which William Rufus desired to maintain. He had no wish to decide between the rival popes, nor was he willing tomodify his father's rule that no pope should be recognized by the EnglishChurch without the king's consent. We are not told that in thisparticular he made anything more than a vague promise to do what he oughtto do, but very likely Anselm may have regarded this point more as awarning to the king of his own future action than as a necessarycondition of his acceptance of the archbishopric. 

All these preliminaries being settled in some form satisfactory toAnselm, he yielded to the universal desire, and was enthroned onSeptember 25. The rejoicing of this day at Canterbury was not allowed togo on, however, without interruption by the king. Ranulf Flambardappeared in person and served a writ on the new archbishop, summoning himto answer in some suit in the king's court. The assurance of Anselm'sfriend and biographer, Eadmer, that this action concerned a matter whollywithin the province of the Church, we can hardly accept as conclusiveevidence of the fact; but Anselm was certainly right in regarding such anact on this day as foreboding greater troubles to come. On December 4, Anselm was consecrated at an assembly of almost all the bishops ofEngland, including Thomas, Archbishop of York. The occasion is noteworthybecause the Archbishop of York interrupted the proceedings to object tothe term "metropolitan of all Britain, " applied to the church ofCanterbury, calling attention to the fact that the church of York wasknown to be metropolitan also. The term primate was at once substitutedfor that of metropolitan, since the archbishops of Canterbury did notclaim the right to exercise an administrative authority within the see ofYork. 

It is interesting to notice, in view of the conflict on investitureswhich was before long to begin in England, and which had already been foryears so bitterly fought upon the continent, that all these eventshappened without the slightest questioning on the part of any one of theking's sole right to dispose of the highest see of the realm as hepleased. There was no suggestion of the right of election, no objectionto lay investiture, no protest from any one. Anselm accepted investiturewith the staff from the hand of the king without remark. He acknowledgedhis feudal relation to him, swore fealty to him as a vassal, [15] and wasready to perform his obligations of feudal service, at least upon his owninterpretation of their extent. A little later, in 1095, after the firstserious conflict between himself and the king, when the papal legate inEngland took of him his oath of fealty to the pope, the oath contained theusual Norman clause reserving his fealty to the king. A clause in thebishop's oath to the pope so unusual as this could not have passed inthat age without notice. It occasioned instant criticism from strictecclesiastics on the continent, and it must have been consciously insertedby Anselm and consciously accepted by the legate. Such facts as these, combined with the uncompromising character of Anselm, are more strikingevidence of the absolutism of the Norman monarchy than anything whichoccurred in the political world during this period. 

Within a few days after his consecration, Anselm set out from Canterburyto attend the Christmas meeting of the king's court at Gloucester. Therehe was well received by the king, but the most important business beforethe court was destined to lead to the first breach between them. Robertof Normandy had grown tired of his brother's long delay in keeping thepromises which he had made in the treaty of Caen. Now there appeared atGloucester a formal embassy from him, authorized to declare Williamforsworn and faithless, and to renounce all peace and agreement with himunless he held to the treaty or exculpated himself in due form. Therecould be no hesitation about an answer to this demand. It is more thanlikely that William himself, within a short time, would have sought forsome excuse to begin again his conquest of Normandy, if Robert had notfurnished him this one. War was at once resolved upon, and preparationsmade for an immediate campaign. The most important preliminary question, both for William and for England, was that of money, and on this questionthe scruples of Anselm and the will of the king first came intocollision. Voluntary aids, donations of money for the specialundertakings or necessities of the king, were a feature of William'sfinancial management, though their voluntary character seems often tohave been more a matter of theory than of reality. If the sum offered wasnot so large as the king expected, he refused to accept it and withdrewhis favour from the delinquent until he received the amount he thoughtproper. Anselm was persuaded by his friends to conform to this custom, and hoping that he might in this way secure the favour and support of theking in his ecclesiastical plans, he offered him five hundred pounds ofsilver. At first William was pleased with the gift and accepted it, buthis counsellors advised him that it was too small, and Anselm wasinformed that it would not be received. The archbishop's attempt topersuade William to take the money only called out an angry answer. "Keepyour own to yourself, " the king said, "I have enough of mine;" and Anselmwent away rejoicing that now evil-minded men would have no occasion tosay that he had bought his office, and he promised the money to the poor. The archbishop was acting here entirely within his legal rights, but itwas not an auspicious beginning of his pontificate. Within a few weeksthe prelates and nobles of England were summoned to meet again--atHastings, from which port the king intended to cross to Normandy. Theweather was for some weeks unfavourable, and during the delay the churchof the new abbey of Battle was dedicated; Robert Bloet, who had beenappointed Bishop of Lincoln while the king was in fear of death, wasconsecrated, though Anselm himself had not as yet received his palliumfrom the pope; and Herbert Losinga, Bishop of Thetford, who had boughthis bishopric from the king and afterwards, apparently in repentance, hadpersonally sought the confirmation of the pope, was suspended from hisoffice because he had left the realm without the permission of the kingand had sought from the unacknowledged Pope Urban the bishopric which theking asserted his full right to confer. He afterwards recovered William'sfavour and removed his see to Norwich. At Hastings, in a personalinterview with the king, Anselm sought permission to hold a synod of thekingdom, which had not up to this time been allowed during the reign, andremonstrated with him in the plainest language for keeping so manymonasteries without abbots while he used their revenues for wars andother secular purposes. In both respects William bluntly refused tochange his conduct, and when Anselm sought through the bishops therestoration of his favour, refused that also "because, " he said, "I donot know why I should grant it. " When it was explained to Anselm thatthis was a formula of the king's which meant that his favour was to bebought, he refused on grounds of policy as well as of principle toincrease, or even to renew, his former offer. This seemed like a finalbreach with the king. William's anger was great when he heard of Anselm'sdecision. He declared that he would hate him constantly more and more, and never would hold him for his spiritual father or a bishop. "Let himgo home as soon as he likes, " he cried, "he need not wait any longer togive his blessings to my crossing over" and Anselm departed at once fromHastings. 

On March 19, 1094, William at last crossed to Normandy. The campaignwhich followed was without decisive results. He was no nearer theconquest of the duchy at the end than at the beginning. Indeed, we canhardly say that the campaign had an end. It died away by degrees, but noformal peace was made, and the duchy came finally into the hands ofWilliam, not by conquest, but by other means. On William's landing anattempt was made to renew the peace at an interview between him andRobert, but without avail. Then those who had signed the treaty of Caenas guarantors, twelve barons for Robert and twelve for William, werecalled upon to say who was acting in violation of the treaty. Theydecided, apparently without disagreement, against William, but he refusedto be bound by their verdict. The war which followed was a typical feudalwar, the siege of castles, the capture of men and towns. Robert called inonce more his suzerain, Philip of France, to his aid, and captured twoimportant castles, that of Argentan towards the south, and that of LaHoulme in the north-west. William then took a step which illustratesagain the extent of his power and his arbitrary use of it. He ordered alevy of ten thousand men from England to be sent him in Normandy, andwhen they had assembled at Hastings, Ranulf Flambard, by the king'sorders we are told, took from them the ten shillings which each man hadbeen furnished for his expenses, and sent them home. Robert and Philipwere now marching against William at Eu, and it was probably by theliberal use of this money that "the king of France was turned back bycraft and all the expedition dispersed. " About the same time William sentfor his brother Henry to join him. Henry had reappeared in westernNormandy not long before, and had begun the reconstruction of his powerthere. Invited by the inhabitants of Domfront to protect them againstRobert of Bellême, he had made that place a starting-point from which hehad recovered a considerable part of his earlier possessions. Now Williamsent ships to bring him by sea to Eu, probably wishing to use hismilitary skill against their common enemy. For some reason, however, theships departed from their course, and on the last day of October helanded at Southampton, where he stayed some weeks. On December 28, William also returned to England, and in the spring, Henry was sent backto Normandy with supplies of money to keep up the war against Robert. 

The year 1094 had been a hard one for both England and Normandy. Theduchy had suffered more from the private wars which prevailed everywhere, and which the duke made no effort to check, than from the invasion ofWilliam. England in general had had peace, under the strong hand of theking, but so heavy had been the burden of the taxation which the war inNormandy had entailed that agriculture declined, we are told, and famineand pestilence followed. In the west the Welsh had risen against theNorman lords, and had invaded and laid waste parts of the English bordercounties. In Scotland William's ally, Duncan, had been murdered, and hisuncle, Donald, who represented the Scottish national party, had been madeking in his place. William found difficulties enough in England to occupyhim for some time, particularly when, as was told above, the refusal ofRobert of Mowbray to appear at court in March revealed the plans of thebarons for another insurrection. 

Before he could attempt to deal with any of these difficulties, however, another question, more troublesome still, was forced upon the king. A fewweeks after his landing Anselm came to him and asked leave to go to Rometo get his pallium from the pope. "From which pope?" asked the king. Anselm had already given warning of the answer which he must make, and atonce replied, "From Urban. " Here was joined an inevitable issue betweenthe king and the archbishop; inevitable, not because of the character ofthe question but because of the character of the two men. No conflictneed have arisen upon this question. When Anselm had remonstrated withthe king on the eve of his Norman expedition, about the vacant abbeysthat were in his hands, William in anger had replied that Lanfranc wouldnever have dared to use such language to his father. We may be sure forone thing, that Lanfranc would have dared to oppose the first Williamwith all his might, if he had thought the reason sufficient, but alsothat his more practical mind would never have allowed him to regard thisquestion as important enough to warrant the evils that would follow inthe train of an open quarrel between king and primate. During the lastyears of Lanfranc's life, at least from 1084, no pope had been formallyrecognized in England. To Anselm's mind, however, the question was one ofvital importance, where delay would be the sacrifice of principle toexpediency. On the other hand, it seems clear to us, looking back onthese events, that William, from the strength of his position in England, could have safely overlooked Anselm's personal recognition of Urban, andcould have tacitly allowed him even to get his pallium from the popewithout surrendering anything of his own practical control of the Church. William, however, refused to take this course. Perhaps he had come to seethat a conflict with Anselm could not be avoided, and chose not to allowhim any, even merely formal, advantages. The student of this crisis istempted to believe, from the facts of this case, from the king's takingaway "the staff" from the Bishop of Thetford, if the words used refer toanything more than a confiscation of his fief, and especially from hissteady refusal to allow the meeting of a national council, that Williamhad conceived the idea of an independent Church under his supreme controlin all that pertained to its government, and that he was determined to berid of an Archbishop of Canterbury, who would never consent to such aplan. 

Of the dispute which followed we have a single interesting and detailedaccount, written by Eadmer who was in personal attendance on Anselmthrough it all, but it is the account of a devoted partisan of thearchbishop which, it is clear, we cannot trust for legal distinctions, and which is not entirely consistent with itself. According to thisnarrative, William asserted that Anselm's request, as amounting to anofficial recognition of one of the two popes, was an attack upon hissovereignty as king. This Anselm denied, --he could not well appreciatethe point, --and he affirmed that he could at the same time be true to thepope whom he had recognized and to the king whose man he was. This wasperfectly true from Anselm's point of view, but the other was equallytrue from William's. The fundamental assumptions of the two men wereirreconcilable. The position of the bishop in a powerful feudal monarchywas an impossible one without some such practical compromise of tacitconcessions from both sides, as existed between Lanfranc and William I. Anselm desired that this question, whether he could not at the same timepreserve his fidelity to both pope and king, be submitted to the decisionof the king's court, and that body was summoned to meet at Rockinghamcastle at an early date. The details of the case we cannot follow. Theking appears to have been desirous of getting a condemnation of Anselmwhich would have at least the practical effect of vacating thearchbishopric, but he met with failure in his purpose, whatever it was, and this it seems less from the resistance of the bishops to his willthan from the explicit refusal of the lay barons to regard Anselm as nolonger archbishop. The outcome of the case makes it clear that there wasin Anselm's position no technical violation of his feudal obligations tothe king. At last the actual decision of the question was postponed to ameeting to be held on the octave of Whitsuntide, but in the meantime theking had put into operation another plan which had been devised foraccomplishing his wish. He secretly despatched two clerks of his chapelto Italy, hoping, so at least Anselm's biographer believed, to obtain, asthe price of his recognition of Urban, the deposition of Anselm by theauthority of the pope for whom he was contending. The opportunity waseagerly embraced at Rome. A skilful and not over-scrupulous diplomatist, Walter, Cardinal-Bishop of Albano, was immediately sent back to Englandwith the messengers of Rufus, doubtless with instructions to get as muchas possible from the king without yielding the real principle involved inAnselm's case. In the main point Walter was entirely successful. The manof violent temper is not often fitted for the personal conflicts ofdiplomacy; at least in the strife with the papal legate the king came offsecond best. It is more to be wondered at that a man of so acute a mindas William of St. Calais, who was now one of the king's most intimateadvisers, did not demand better guarantees. 

Cardinal Walter carefully abstained at first from any communication withAnselm. He passed through Canterbury without the archbishop's knowledge;he seemed to acquiesce in the king's view of the case. William believedthat everything was going as he wished, and public proclamation was madethat Urban was to be obeyed throughout his dominions. But when he pressedfor a deposition of Anselm, he found that this had not been included inthe bargain; nor could he gain, either from the legate or from Anselm, the privilege of bestowing the pallium himself. He was obliged to yieldin everything which he had most desired; to reconcile himself publiclywith the archbishop, and to content himself with certain not unimportantconcessions, which the cardinal wisely yielded, but which brought uponhim the censure of the extreme Church party. Anselm promised to observefaithfully the laws and customs of the kingdom; at this time also wassworn his oath of fidelity to the pope, with the clause reserving hisfealty to the king; and Cardinal Walter formally agreed that legatesshould be sent to England only with the consent of the king. But in themost important points which concerned the conflict with the archbishopthe king had been defeated. Urban was officially recognized as pope, andthe legate entered Canterbury in solemn procession, bearing the pallium, and placed it on the altar of the cathedral, from which Anselm took it asif he had received it from the hands of the pope. 

Inferences of a constitutional sort are hardly warranted by the characterof our evidence regarding this quarrel, but the facts which we know seemto imply that even so powerful and arbitrary a king as William Rufuscould not carry out a matter on which his heart was so set as thiswithout some pretence of legal right to support him, at least in the caseof so high a subject as the Archbishop of Canterbury; and that the baronsof the kingdom, with the law on their side, were able to hold the king'swill in check. Certainly the different attitude of the barons in thequarrel of 1097, where Anselm was clearly in the wrong, is verysuggestive. 

Already before the close of this business the disobedience of Robert ofMowbray had revealed to the king the plot against him, and a considerablepart of the summer of 1095 was occupied in the reduction of thestrongholds of the Earl of Northumberland. In October the king invadedWales in person, but found it impossible to reach the enemy, and retiredbefore the coming on of winter. In this year died the aged Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, the last of the English bishops who survived theConquest. His bishopric fell into the hands of Flambard, and furnishes usone of the best examples we have of his treatment of these fiefs. On thefirst day of the next year died also William of St. Calais, Bishop ofDurham, who had once more fallen under the king's displeasure for somereason, and who had been compelled to come up to the Christmas court, though too ill to travel. He left incomplete his new cathedral of Durham, which he had begun on a splendid scale soon after his return from exileearly in the reign, beginning also a new period in Norman architecture oflighter and better-proportioned forms, with no sacrifice of theimpression of solid strength. 

This year of 1096, which thus began for England with the death of one ofthe ablest of her prelates, is the date of the beginning for Europe as awhole of one of the most profound movements of medieval times. Thecrusades had long been in preparation, but it was the resolution andeloquence of Pope Urban which turned into a definite channel the strongascetic feeling and rapidly growing chivalric passion of the west, andopened this great era. The Council of Clermont, at which had occurredUrban's famous appeal and the enthusiastic vow of the crusaders, had beenheld in November, 1095, and the impulse had spread rapidly to all partsof France. The English nation had no share in this first crusade, and butlittle in the movement as a whole; but its history was from the beginninggreatly influenced by it. Robert of Normandy was a man of exactly thetype to be swept away by such a wave of enthusiasm, and not to feel thestrength of the motives which should have kept him at home. His duty assovereign of Normandy, to recover the castles held by his brother, and toprotect his subjects from internal war, were to him as nothing whencompared with his duty to protect pious pilgrims to the tomb of Christ, and to deliver the Holy Land from the rule of the infidel. William Rufus, on the other hand, was a man to whom the motives of the crusader wouldnever appeal, but who stood ready to turn to his own advantage everyopportunity which the folly of his brother might offer. Robert's mostpressing need in such an undertaking was for money, and so much moreimportant did this enterprise seem to him than his own proper businessthat he stood ready to deliver the duchy into the hands of his brother, with whom he was even then in form at war for its possession, if he couldin that way obtain the necessary resources for his crusade. William wasas eager to get the duchy as Robert was to get the money, and a bargainwas soon struck between them. William carried over to Normandy 10, 000marks--the mark was two-thirds of a pound--and received from Robert, as apledge for the payment of the loan, the possession of the duchy for aperiod of at least three years, and for how much longer we cannot nowdetermine with certainty, but for a period which was probably intended tocover Robert's absence. The duke then set off at once on his crusade, satisfied with the consciousness that he was following the plain path ofduty. With him went his uncle, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, to die in Sicily inthe next winter. 

William had bought the possession of Normandy at a bargain, but he didnot propose to pay for it at his own cost. The money which he had spent, and probably more than that, he recovered by an extraordinary tax inEngland, which excited the bitter complaints of the ecclesiasticalwriters. If we may trust our interpretation of the scanty accounts whichhave reached us, this money was raised in two ways, by a general land-taxand by additional personal payments from the king's own vassals. By grantof the barons of England a Danegeld of four shillings on the hide, doublethe usual tax, was collected, and this even from the domain lands of theChurch, which it was asserted, though with doubtful truth, had alwaysbeen exempt. The clergy paid this tax, but entered formal protest againstit, probably in order to prevent, if possible, the establishment of aprecedent against their liberties. The additional payment suggested bysome of the chroniclers is to be seen in detail in the case of Anselm, who regarded this as a reasonable demand on the part of the king, andwho, besides passing over to the treasury what he collected from his men, made on advice a personal payment of 200 marks, which he borrowed fromthe Canterbury monks on the security of one of his domain manors. Notall the churches were so fortunate as to have the ready money in thetreasury, and in many cases ornaments and sacred utensils weresacrificed, while the lay lords undoubtedly recovered their payments bylike personal auxilia from their men, until the second tax reallyrested like the first upon the land. The whole formed a burden likely tocripple seriously the primitive agriculture of the time, as we are toldthat it did. 

Having taken possession of Normandy, William returned to England atEaster in 1097. The Welsh had been making trouble again, and the kingonce more marched against them in person; but a country like Wales waseasily defended against a feudal army, and the expedition accomplishedlittle and suffered much, especially in the loss of horses. Williamreturned probably in no very amiable mood, and at once sent off a letterto Anselm complaining that the contingent of knights which he had sent tomeet his obligation of service in the campaign was badly furnished andnot fit for its duties, and ordered him to be ready to do him rightaccording to the sentence of the king's court whenever he should bringsuit against him. To this letter Anselm paid no attention, and heresolved to let the suit against him go by default, on the ground thateverything was determined in the court by the will of the king, and thathe could get no justice there. In taking this position, the archbishopwas putting himself in the wrong, for the king was acting clearly withinhis legal rights; but this fact Anselm probably did not understand. Hecould not enter into the king's position nor his own in relation to him, but he might have remembered that two years before, for once at least, the king had failed to carry through his will in his court. 

The case came on for trial at the Whitsuntide court at Windsor, butbefore anything was determined Anselm sent by certain barons to ask theking's leave to go to Rome, which was at once refused. This action wasevidently not intended by Anselm as an appeal of the case to Rome, norwas it so understood by the king; but for some reason the suits againsthim were now dropped. Anselm's desire to visit Rome apparently arose fromthe general condition of things in the kingdom, from his inability tohold synods, to get important ecclesiastical offices filled, or to reformthe evils of government and morals which prevailed under William. Inother words, he found himself nominally primate of England andmetropolitan of the great province of Canterbury, but in reality withneither power nor influence. Such a condition of things was intolerableto a man of Anselm's conscientiousness, and he had evidently been forsome time coming to the conclusion that he must personally seek theadvice of the head of the Church as to his conduct in such a difficultsituation. He had now definitely made up his mind, and as the Bishop ofWinchester told him at this time, he was not easy to be moved from athing he had once undertaken. He repeated his request in August, andagain in October of the same year. On the last occasion William lost histemper and threatened him with another suit in the court for hisvexatious refusal to abide by the king's decision. Anselm insisted on hisright to go. William pointed out to him, that if he was determined to go, the result would be the confiscation of the archbishopric, --that is, ofthe barony. Anselm was not moved by this. Then the bishops attempted toshow him the error of his ways, but there was so little in common betweentheir somewhat worldly position as good vassals of the king, and hisentire other-worldliness, that nothing was gained in this way. Finally, William informed him that if he chose he might go, on the conditionswhich had been explained to him, --that is, of the loss of all that heheld of the king. This was permission enough for Anselm, and he at oncedeparted, having given his blessing to the king. 

No case could be more typical than this of the irreconcilable conflictbetween Church and State in that age, irreconcilable except by mutualconcessions and compromise, and the willingness of either to stand partlyin the position of the other. If we look at the matter from the politicalside, regarding the bishop as a public officer, as a baron in a feudallyorganized state, the king was entirely right in this case, and fullyjustified in what he did. Looking at the Church as a religiousinstitution, charged with a spiritual mission and the work of moralreformation, we must consider Anselm's conduct justified, as the onlymeans by which he could hope to obtain freedom of action. Both were in avery real sense right in this quarrel, and both were wrong. Not oftenduring the feudal period did this latent contradiction of rights come toso open and plain an issue as this. That it did so here was due in partto the character of the king, but in the main to the character of thearchbishop. Whether Lanfranc could have continued to rule the Church inharmony with William Rufus is an interesting question, but one which wecannot answer. He certainly would not have put himself legally in thewrong, as Anselm did, and he would have considered carefully whether thegood to be gained for the cause of the Church from a quarrel with theking would outweigh the evil. Anselm, however, was a man of theidealistic type of mind, who believed that if he accepted as theconditions of his work the evils with which he was surrounded, andconsented to use the tools that he found ready to his hand, he had made, as another reformer of somewhat the same type once said of theconstitution of the United States in the matter of slavery, "a covenantwith death and an agreement with hell. "

Anselm left England early in November, 1097, not to return during thelifetime of William. If he had hoped, through the intervention of thepope, to weaken the hold of the king on the Church of England, and to beput in a position where he could carry out the reforms on which his heartwas set, he was doomed to disappointment. After a stay of some months atLyons, with his friend Archbishop Hugh, he went on to Rome, where he wastreated with great ceremonial honour by the pope, but where he learnedthat the type of lofty and uncompromising independence which he himselfrepresented was as rare in the capital of the Christian world as he hadfound it among the bishops of England. There, however, he learned astricter doctrine on the subject of lay investitures, of appointments toecclesiastical office by kings and princes, than he had yet held, so thatwhen he finally returned to England he brought with him the germs ofanother bitter controversy with a king, with whom but for this he mighthave lived in peace. 

In the same month with Anselm, William also crossed to Normandy, butabout very different business. Hardly had he obtained possession of theduchy when he began to push the claims of the duke to bordering lands, tothe French Vexin, and to the county of Maine, claims about which hisbrother had never seriously concerned himself and which, in one case, even his father had allowed to slumber for years. Robert had, indeed, asserted his claim to Maine after the death of his father, and had beenaccepted by the county; but a revolt had followed in 1190, the Normanrule had been thrown off, and after a few months Elias of La Fleche, abaron of Maine and a descendant of the old counts, had made himselfcount. He was a man of character and ability, and the peace which heestablished was practically undisturbed by Robert; but the second Williamhad no mind to give up anything to which he could lay a claim. Hedemanded of the French king the surrender of the Vexin, and warned Elias, who had taken the cross, that the holy errand of the crusade would notprotect his lands during his absence. War followed in both cases, simultaneous wars, full of the usual incidents, of the besieging ofcastles, the burning of towns, the laying waste of the open country; warsin which the ruin of his peasantry was almost the only way of coercingthe lord. William's operations were almost all successful, but he diedwithout accomplishing all that he had hoped for in either direction. Inthe Vexin he captured a series of castles, which brought him almost toParis; in Maine he captured Le Mans, lost it again, and finally recoveredits possession, but the southern part of the county and the castles ofElias there he never secured. 

In the year 1098 Magnus, king of Norway, had appeared for a moment with ahostile fleet off the island of Anglesey. Some reason not certainly knownhad brought him round Scotland, perhaps to make an attack on Ireland. Hewas the grandson of the King Harold of Norway, who had invaded England onthe eve of the Norman Conquest and perished in the battle of StamfordBridge, and he had with him, it is said, a son of Harold of England: tohim the idea of a new invasion of England would not seem strange. At anyrate, after taking possession of the Isle of Man, he came to the help ofthe Welsh against the earls, Hugh of Chester and Hugh of Shrewsbury, whowere beginning the conquest of Anglesey. The incident is noteworthybecause, in the brief fighting which occurred, the Earl of Shrewsbury wasslain. His death opened the way for the succession of his brother, Robertof Bellême, to the great English possessions of their father in Wales, Shropshire, and Surrey, to which he soon added by inheritance the largeholdings of Roger of Bully in Yorkshire and elsewhere. Theseinheritances, when added to the lands, almost a principality inthemselves, which he possessed in southern Normandy and just over theborder in France, made him the most powerful vassal of the English king. In character he had inherited far more from his tyrannous and cruelmother, Mabel, daughter of William Talvas of Bellême, than from his morehigh-minded father, Roger of Montgomery, the companion of the Conqueror. As a vassal he was utterly untrustworthy, and he had become too powerfulfor his own safety or for that of the king. 

Some minor events of these years should be recounted. In 1097 William hadsent Edgar the atheling to Scotland with an army, King Donald had beenoverthrown, and Edgar's nephew, himself named Edgar, with the support ofthe English king, had been made king. In 1099 Ranulf Flambard receivedthe reward of his faithful services, and was made Bishop of Durham, insome respects the most desirable bishopric in England. Greater prospectsstill of power and dominion were opened to William a few months beforehis death, by the proposition of the Duke of Aquitaine to pledge him hisgreat duchy for a sum of money to pay the expenses of a crusade. To addto the lands he already ruled those between the Loire and the Garonnewould be almost to create a new monarchy in France and to threaten moredangerously at this moment the future of the Capetian kingdom than didtwo generations later the actual union of these territories and moreunder the king of England. 

But William was now rapidly approaching the term of his life. Themonastic chronicles, written within a generation or two later, recordmany visions and portents of the time foreshadowing the doom which wasapproaching, but these are to us less records of actual facts thanevidences of the impression which the character and government of theking had made, especially upon the members of the Church. On August 2, 1100, William rode out to hunt in the New Forest, as was his frequentcustom. In some way, how we do not know, but probably by accident, he washimself shot with an arrow by one of his company, and died almostinstantly. Men believed, not merely that he was justly cut off in hissins with no opportunity for the final offices of the Church, but thathis violent death was an instance, the third already, of the doom whichfollowed his father's house because of the evil that was done in themaking of the Forest. The king's body was brought to Winchester, where itwas buried in the old minster, but without the ordinary funeral rites. One of his companions that day, Walter Tirel, a French baron who had beenattracted to the service of the king by the prospect of rich reward whichit offered, was thought to have been responsible for his death, and hefled in haste and escaped to his home; but he afterwards solemnlydeclared, when there would have been no danger to himself in confession, that it was not his arrow that slew the king, and whose it was will neverbe known. 

[15] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. , p. 41. 

CHAPTER VI

THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER

In the hunting party which William Rufus led out on August 2, 1100, tohis mysterious death in the New Forest, was the king's younger brother, Henry. When the cry rang through the Forest that the king was dead, Henryseized the instant with the quick insight and strong decision which weremarked elements of his genius. He rode at once for Winchester. We do noteven know that he delayed long enough to make sure of the news by goingto the spot where his brother's body lay. He rode at full speed toWinchester, and demanded the keys of the royal treasury, "as true heir, "says Ordesic Vitalis, one of the best historians of Henry's reign, recording rather, it is probable, his own opinion than the words of theprince. Men's ideas were still so vague, not yet fixed and precise aslater, on the subject of rightful heirship, that such a demand asHenry's--a clear usurpation according to the law as it was finally tobe--could find some ground on which to justify itself; at least this, which his historian suggests and which still meant much to English minds, that he was born in the purple, the son of a crowned king. 

But not every one was ready to admit the claim of Henry. Between him andthe door of the treasury William of Breteuil, who also had been of thehunting party and who was the responsible keeper of the hoard, took hisstand. Against the demand of Henry he set the claim of Robert, the betterclaim according even to the law of that day, though the law which heurged was less that which would protect the right of the eldest born thanthe feudal law regarding homage done and fealty sworn. "If we are goingto act legally, " he said to Henry, "we ought to remember the fealty whichwe have promised to Duke Robert, your brother. He is, too, the eldestborn son of King William, and you and I, my Lord Henry, have done himhomage. We ought to keep faith to him absent in all respects as if hewere present. " He followed his law by an appeal to feeling, referring toRobert's crusade. "He has been labouring now a long time in the serviceof God, and God has restored to him, without conflict, his duchy, which asa pilgrim he laid aside for love of Him. " Then a strife arose, and acrowd of men ran together to the spot. We can imagine they were notmerely men of the city, but also many of the king's train who must haveridden after Henry from the Forest. Whoever they were, they supportedHenry, for we are told that as the crowd collected the courage of the"heir who was demanding his right" increased. Henry drew his sword anddeclared he would permit no "frivolous delay. " His insistence and thesupport of his friends prevailed, and castle and treasury were turnedover to him. [16]

This it was which really determined who should be king. Not that thequestion was fully settled then, but the popular determination whichshowed itself in the crowd that gathered around the disputants inWinchester probably showed itself, in the days that followed, to be thedetermination of England in general, and thus held in check those whowould have supported Robert, while Henry rapidly pushed events to aconclusion and so became king. There is some evidence that, after theburial of William, further discussion took place among the barons whowere present, as to whether they would support Henry or not, and thatthis was decided in his favour largely by the influence of Henry ofBeaumont, Earl of Warwick, son of his father's friend and counsellor, theCount of Meulan. But we ought not to allow the use of the word witan inthis connexion, by the Saxon chronicler, or of "election" by otherhistorians or by Henry himself, to impose upon us the belief in aconstitutional right of election in the modern sense, which could no morehave existed at that time than a definite law of inheritance. In everycase of disputed succession the question was, whether that one of theclaimants who was on the spot could secure quickly enough a degree ofsupport which would enable him to hold the opposition in check until hebecame a crowned king. A certain amount of such support was indispensableto success. Henry secured this in one way, Stephen in another, and Johnagain in a third. In each case, the actual events show clearly that asmall number of men determined the result, not by exercising aconstitutional right of which they were conscious, but by deciding forthemselves which one of the claimants they would individually support. Some were led by one motive, and some by another. In Henry's case wecannot doubt that the current of feeling which had shown itself inWinchester on the evening of the king's death had a decisive influence onthe result, at least as decisive as the early stand of London wasafterwards in Stephen's case. 

Immediately, before leaving Winchester, Henry performed one royal act ofgreat importance to his cause, and skilfully chosen as a declaration ofprinciples. He appointed William Giffard, who had been his brother'schancellor, Bishop of Winchester. This see had been vacant for nearlythree years and subject to the dealings of Ranulf Flambard. The immediateappointment of a bishop was equivalent to a proclamation that thesedealings should now cease, that bishoprics should no longer be keptvacant for the benefit of the king, and it was addressed to the Church, the party directly interested and one of the most powerful influences inthe state in deciding the question of succession. The speed with whichHenry's coronation was carried through shows that the Church accepted hisassurances. 

There was no delay in Winchester. William was killed on the afternoon ofThursday, August 2; on Sunday, Henry was crowned in Westminster, byMaurice, Bishop of London. Unhesitating determination and rapid actionmust have filled the interval. Only a small part of England could havelearned of William's death when Henry was crowned, and he must have knownat the moment that the risk of failure was still great. But everythingindicates that Henry had in mind a clearly formed policy which hebelieved would lead to success, and he was not the man to be afraid offailure. The Archbishop of Canterbury was still in exile; the Archbishopof York was far away and ill; the Bishop of London readily performed theceremony, which followed the old ritual. In the coronation oath of theold Saxon formula, Henry swore, with more intention of remembering itthan many kings, that the Church of God and all Christian people he wouldkeep in true peace, that he would forbid violence and iniquity to allmen, and that in all judgments he would enjoin both justice and mercy. 

The man who thus came to the throne of England was one of her ablestkings. We know far less of the details of his reign than we could wish. Particularly scanty is our evidence of the growth in institutions whichwent on during these thirty-five years, and which would be of especialvalue in illustrating the character and abilities of the king. But weknow enough to warrant us in placing Henry beyond question in the notlong list of statesmen kings. Not without some trace of the passionswhich raged in the blood of the Norman and Angevin princes, he exceededthem all in the strength of his self-control. This is the one most markedtrait which constantly recurs throughout the events of his long reign. Always calm, we are sometimes tempted to say even cold, he never lostcommand of himself in the most trying circumstances. Perfectlyclear-headed, he saw plainly the end to be reached from the distantbeginning, and the way to reach it, and though he would turn aside fromthe direct road for policy's sake, he reached the goal in time. He knewhow to wait, to allow circumstances to work for him, to let men work outtheir own destruction, but he was quick to act when the moment for actioncame. Less of a military genius than his father, he was a greaterdiplomatist. And yet perhaps we call him less of a military genius thanhis father because he disliked war and gave himself no opportunitieswhich he could avoid; but he was a skilful tactician when he was forcedto fight a battle. But diplomacy was his chosen weapon, and by its meanshe won battles which most kings would have sought to win by the sword. With justice William of Malmesbury applied to him the words of ScipioAfricanus: "My mother brought me forth a general, not a mere soldier. "

These were the gifts of nature. But when he came to the throne, he was aman already disciplined in a severe school. Ever since the death of hisfather, thirteen years before, when he was not yet twenty, the eventswhich had befallen him, the opportunities which had come to him, theinferences which he could not have failed to make from the methods of hisbrothers, had been training him for the business of his life. It was notas a novice, but as a man experienced in government, that he began toreign. And government was to him a business. It is clear that Henry hadalways far less delight in the ordinary or possible glories of thekingship than in the business of managing well a great state; and a nameby which he has been called, "The Lion of Justice, " records a judgment ofhis success. Physically Henry followed the type of his house. He wasshort and thick-set, with a tendency to corpulence. He was not "the Red";the mass of his black hair and his eyes clear and serene struck theobserver. Naturally of a pleasant disposition and agreeable to thoseabout him, he was quick to see the humorous side of things and carriedeasily the great weight of business which fell to him. He was called"Beauclerc, " but he was never so commonly known by this name as Williamby his of "Rufus. " But he had, it would seem with some justice, thereputation of being a learned king. Some doubtful evidence has beeninterpreted to mean that he could both speak and read English. Certainlyhe cherished a love of books and reading remarkable, at that time, in aman of the world, and he seems to have deserved his reputation of aready, and even eloquent, speaker. 

It was no doubt partly due to Henry's love of business that we may datefrom his reign the beginning of a growth in institutions after theConquest. The machinery of good government interested him. Efforts toimprove it had his support. The men who had in hand its daily working incuria regis and exchequer and chancery were certain of his favour, whenthey strove to devise better ways of doing things and more efficientmeans of controlling subordinates. But the reign was also one of advancein institutions because England was ready for it. In the thirty-fiveyears since the Conquest, the nation which was forming in the island hadpassed through two preparatory experiences. In the first the Norman, withhis institutions, had been introduced violently and artificially, andplanted alongside of the native English. It had been the policy of theConqueror to preserve as much as possible of the old while introducingthe new. This was the wisest possible policy, but it could produce as yetno real union. That could only be the work of time. A new nation and anew constitution were foreshadowed but not yet realized. The elementsfrom which they should be made had been brought into the presence of eachother, but not more than this was possible. Then followed the reign ofWilliam II. In this second period England had had an experience of oneside, of the Norman side, carried to the extreme. The principles offeudalism in favour of the suzerain were logically carried out for thebenefit of the king, and relentlessly applied to the Church as to the laysociety. That portion of the old English machinery which the Conquerorhad preserved fell into disorder, and was misused for royal, and worsestill, for private advantage. This second period had brought a vividexperience of the abuses which would result from the exaggeration of oneof the elements of which the new state was to be composed at the expenseof the other. One of its most important results was the reaction whichseems instantly to have shown itself on the death of William Rufus, thereaction of which Henry was quick to avail himself, and which gives usthe key to an understanding of his reign. 

It is not possible to cite evidence from which we may infer beyond thechance of question, either a popular reaction against the tyranny ofWilliam Rufus, or a deliberate policy on the part of the new king to makehis hold upon the throne secure by taking advantage of such a reaction. It is perhaps the duty of the careful historian to state his belief inthese facts, in less dogmatic form. And yet, when we combine together thefew indications which the chroniclers give us with the actual events ofthe first two years of Henry's reign, it is hardly possible to avoid sucha conclusion. Henry seems certainly to have believed that he had much togain by pledging himself in the most binding way to correct the abuseswhich his brother had introduced, and also that he could safely trust hiscause to an English, or rather to a national, party against the elementin the state which seemed unassimilable, the purely Norman element. 

On the day of his coronation, or at least within a few days of thatevent, Henry issued, in form of a charter, --that is, in the form of alegally binding royal grant, --his promise to undo his brother's misdeeds;and a copy of this charter, separately addressed, was sent to everycounty in England. Considered both in itself as issued in the year 1100, and in its historical consequences, this charter is one of the mostimportant of historical documents. It opens a long list of similarconstitutional documents which very possibly is not yet complete, and itis in form and spirit worthy of the best of its descendants. Consideringthe generally unformulated character of feudal law at this date, it isneither vague nor general. It is to be noticed also, that the practicalcharacter of the Anglo-Saxon race rules in this first charter of itsliberties. It is as business-like and clean cut as the Bill of Rights, oras the American Declaration of Independence when this last gets to thebusiness in hand. 

The charter opens with an announcement of Henry's coronation. In truemedieval order of precedence, it promises first to the Church freedomfrom unjust exactions. The temporalities of the Church shall not be soldnor put to farm, nor shall anything be taken from its domain land norfrom its men during a vacancy. Then follows a promise to do away with allevil customs, and a statement that these in part will be enumerated. Thusby direct statement here and elsewhere in the charter, its provisions areimmediately connected with the abuses which William II had introduced, and the charter made a formal pledge to do away with them. The firstpromises to the lay barons have to do with extortionate reliefs and theabuse of the rights of wardship and marriage. The provision inserted inboth these cases, that the barons themselves shall be bound by the samelimitations in regard to their men, leads us to infer that William'sabuses had been copied by his barons, and suggests that Henry was lookingfor the support of the lower ranks of the feudal order. Other promisesconcern the coinage, fines, and debts due the late king, the right todispose by will of personal property, excessive fines, and the punishmentof murder. The forests Henry announces he will hold as his father heldthem. To knights freedom of taxation is promised in the domain landsproper of the estates which they hold by military service. The law ofKing Edward is to be restored with those changes which the Conqueror hadmade, and finally any property of the crown or of any individual whichhas been seized upon since the death of William is to be restored underthreat of heavy penalty. 

So completely does this charter cover the ground of probable abuses inboth general and local government, when its provisions are interpreted asthey would be understood by the men to whom it was addressed, that it isnot strange if men thought that all evils of government were at an end. Nor is it strange in turn, that Henry was in truth more severe upon thetyranny of his brother while he was yet uncertain of his hold upon thecrown, than in the practice of his later years. As a matter of fact, notall the promises of the charter were kept. England suffered much fromheavy financial exactions during his reign, and the feudal abuses whichhad weighed most heavily on lay and ecclesiastical barons reappeared intheir essential features. They became, in fact, recognized rights of thecrown. Henry was too strong to be forced to keep such promises as hechose to forget, and it was reserved for a later descendant of his, weaker both in character and in might of hand, to renew his charter at atime when the more exact conception, both of rights and of abuses, whichhad developed in the interval, enabled men not merely to enlarge itsprovisions but to make them in some particulars the foundation of a newtype of government. Events rapidly followed the issue of the charterwhich were equally emphatic declarations of Henry's purpose of reform, and some of which at least would seem like steps in actual fulfilment ofthe promises of the charter. Ranulf Flambard was arrested and thrown intothe Tower; on what charge or under what pretence of right we do not know, but even if by some exercise of arbitrary power, it must have been a verypopular act. Several important abbacies which had been held vacant wereat once filled. Most important of all, a letter was despatched toArchbishop Anselm, making excuses for the coronation of the king in hisabsence, and requesting his immediate return to England. Anselm was atthe abbey of La Chaise Dieu, having just come from Lyons, where he hadspent a large part of his exile, when the news came to him of the deathof his royal adversary. He at once started for England, and was on hisway when he was met at Cluny by Henry's letter. Landing on September 23, he went almost immediately to the king, who was at Salisbury. There twoquestions of great importance at once arose, in one of which Anselm wasable to assist Henry, while the other gave rise to long-continueddifferences between them. 

The question most easily settled was that of Henry's marriage. Accordingto the historians of his reign, affection led Henry to a marriage whichwas certainly most directly in line with the policy which he was carryingout. Soon after his coronation, he proposed to marry Edith, daughter ofMalcolm, king of Scotland, and of Margaret, sister of the atheling Edgar. She had spent almost the whole of her life in English monasteries, a goodpart of it at Romsey, where her aunt Christina was abbess. Immediatelythe question was raised, whether she had not herself taken the veil, which she was known to have worn, and therefore whether the marriage waspossible. This was the question now referred to Anselm, and he made amost careful examination of the case, and decision was finally pronouncedin a council of the English Church. The testimony of the young womanherself was admitted and was conclusive against any binding vow. She hadbeen forced by her aunt to wear the veil against her will as a means ofprotection in those turbulent times, but she had always rejected it withindignation when she had been able to do so, nor had it been her father'sintention that she should be a nun. Independent testimony confirmed herassertion, and it was formally declared that she was free to marry. Themarriage took place on November 11, and was celebrated by Anselm, whoalso crowned the new queen under the Norman name of Matilda, which sheassumed. 

No act which Henry could perform would be more pleasing to the nation asa whole than this marriage, or would seem to them clearer proof of hisintention to rule in the interest of the whole nation and not of himselfalone, or of the small body of foreign oppressors. It would seem like theexpression of a wish on Henry's part to unite his line with that of theold English kings, and to reign as their representative as well as hisfather's, and it was so understood, both by the party opposed to Henryand by his own supporters. Whatever we may think of the dying prophecyattributed to Edward the Confessor, that the troubles which he foresawfor England should end when the green tree--the English dynasty--cut offfrom its root and removed for the space of three acres' breadth--threeforeign reigns--should without human help be joined to it again and bringforth leaves and fruit, the fact that it was thought, in Henry's reign, to have been fulfilled by his marriage with Matilda and by the birth oftheir children, shows plainly enough the general feeling regarding themarriage and that for which it stood. The Norman sneer, in which the kingand his wife are referred to as Godric and Godgifu, is as plain anindication of the feeling of that party. Such a taunt as this could nothave been called out by the mere marriage, and would never have beenspoken if the policy of the king, in spite of the marriage, had been onein sympathy with the wishes of the extreme Norman element. 

But if it was Henry's policy to win the support of the nation as a whole, and to make it clear that he intended to undo the abuses of his brother, he had no intention of abandoning any of the real rights of the crown. The second question which arose on the first meeting of Anselm and Henryinvolved a point of this kind. The temporalities of the Archbishop ofCanterbury were still in the king's hands, as seized by William Rufus onAnselm's departure. Henry demanded that Anselm should do homage for thisfief, as would any baron of the king, and receive it from his hand. Tothe astonishment of every one, Anselm flatly refused. In answer toinquiries, he explained the position of the pope on the subject of layinvestiture, declared that he must stand by that position, and that ifHenry also would not obey the pope, he must leave England again. Here wasa sharp issue, drawn with the greatest definiteness, and one which it wasvery difficult for the king to meet. He could not possibly afford torenew the quarrel with Anselm and to drive him into exile again at thismoment, but it was equally impossible for him to abandon this right ofthe crown, so long unquestioned and one on which so much of the stateorganization rested. He proposed a truce until Easter, that the questionmight be referred to the pope, in the hope that he would consent tomodify his decrees in view of the customary usages of the kingdom, andagreeing that the archbishop should, in the meantime, enjoy the revenuesof his see. To this delay Anselm consented, though he declared that itwould be useless. 

According to the archbishop's devoted friend and biographer, Eadmer, whowas in attendance on him at this meeting at Salisbury, Anselm virtuallyadmitted that this was a new position for him to take. He had learnedthese things at Rome, was the explanation which was given; and this wascertainly true, though his stay at Lyons, under the influence of hisfriend, Archbishop Hugh, a strong partisan of the papal cause, was equallydecisive in his change of views. [17] He had accepted investitureoriginally from the hand of William Rufus without scruple; he had neverobjected to it with regard to any of that king's later appointments. Inthe controversy which followed with Henry, there is nothing which showsthat his own conscience was in the least degree involved in the question. He opposed the king with his usual unyielding determination, not becausehe believed himself that lay investiture was a sin, but because pope andcouncil had decided against it, and it was his duty to maintain theirdecision. 

This was a new position for Anselm to take; it was also raising a newquestion in the government of England. For more than a quarter of acentury the papacy had been fighting this battle against lay investiturewith all the weapons at its disposal, against its nearest rival, theemperor, and with less of open conflict and more of immediate success inmost of the other lands of Europe. But in the dominions of the Normanprinces the question had never become a living issue. This was notbecause the papacy had failed to demand the authority there which it wasstriving to secure elsewhere. Gregory VII had laid claim to an even morecomplete authority over England than this. But these demands had met withno success. Even as regards the more subordinate features of theHildebrandine reformation, simony and the celibacy of the clergy, theresponse of the Norman and English churches to the demand forreformation had been incomplete and half-hearted, and not even thebeginning of a papal party had shown itself in either country. Thisexceptional position is to be accounted for by the great strength of thecrown, and also by the fact that the sovereign in his dealings with theChurch was following in both states the policy marked out by a longtradition. Something must also be attributed, and probably in Normandy aswell as in England, to the clearness with which Lanfranc perceived thedouble position of the bishop in the feudal state. The Church was animportant part of the machinery of government, and as such its officerswere appointed by the king, and held accountable to him for a large partat least of their official action. This was the theory of the Normanstate, and this theory had been up to this time unquestioned. It ishardly too much to call the Norman and English churches, from thecoronation of William I on to this time, practically independent nationalchurches, with some relationship to the pope, but with one so external inits character that no serious inconvenience would have been experiencedin their own government had some sudden catastrophe swept the papacy outof existence. 

It was, however, in truth impossible for England to keep itself free fromthe issue which had been raised by the war upon lay investiture. The realquestion involved in this controversy was one far deeper than thequestion of the appointment of bishops by the sovereign of the state. That was a point of detail, a means to the end; very important andessential as a means, but not the end itself. Slowly through centuries oftime the Church had become conscious of itself. Accumulated precedents ofthe successful exercise of power, observation of the might oforganization, and equally instructive experience of the weakness ofdisorganization and of the danger of self-seeking, personal or political, in the head of the Christian world, had brought the thinking party in theChurch to understand the dominant position which it might hold in theworld if it could be controlled as a single organization and animated bya single purpose. It was the vision of the imperial Church, free from alldistracting influence of family or of state, closely bound together intoone organic whole, an independent, world-embracing power: more than thiseven, a power above all other powers, the representative of God, onearth, to which all temporal sovereigns should be held accountable. 

That the Church failed to gain the whole of that for which it strove wasnot the fault of its leaders. A large part of the history of the world inthe eleventh and twelfth centuries is filled with the struggle to create, in ideal completeness, this imperial Church. The reformation of Cluny hadthis for its ultimate object. From the beginning made by that movement, the political genius of Hildebrand sketched the finished structure andpointed out the means to be employed in its completion. That the emperorwas first and most fiercely attacked was not due to the fact that he wasa sinner above all others in the matter of lay investiture or simony. Itwas the most urgent necessity of the case that the papacy should makeitself independent of that power which in the past had exercised the mostdirect sovereignty over the popes, and before the conflict should end beable to take its seat beside the empire as an equal, or even a superior, world power. But if the empire must be first overcome, no state could beleft out of this plan, and in England as elsewhere the issue must sooneror later be joined. 

It must not be understood that mere ambition was at the bottom of thiseffort of the Church. Of ambition in the ordinary sense it is more thanprobable that no leader of this movement was conscious. The cause of theChurch was the cause of God and of righteousness. The spiritual powerought justly to be superior to the temporal, because the spiritualinterests of men so far outweigh their temporal. If the spiritual poweris supreme, and holds in check the temporal, and calls the sovereign toaccount for his wrong-doing, the way of salvation will be easier for allmen, and the cause of righteousness promoted. If this kind of a Church isto be organized, and this power established in the world, it is essentialthat so important an officer in the system as the bishop should be chosenby the Church alone, and with reference alone to the spiritual interestswhich he is to guard, and the spiritual duties he must perform. Selectionby the state, accountability to the state, would make too serious a flawin the practical operation of this system to be permitted. The argumentof the Church against the practice of lay investiture was entirely sound. 

On the other hand, the argument of the feudal state was not less sound. It is difficult for us to get a clear mental picture of the organizationof the feudal state, because the institutions of that state have left fewtraces in modern forms of government. The complete transformation of thefeudal baronage into a modern nobility, and the rise on the ruins of thefeudal state of clearly defined, legislative, judicial, andadministrative systems have obscured the line of direct descent. But thefeudal baron was very different from a modern noble, and there was nobureaucracy and no civil service in the feudal state beyond their merebeginnings in the personal servants of the king. No function ofgovernment was the professional business of any one, but legislative, judicial, administrative, financial, and military operations were allincidental to something else. This may not seem true of the sheriff; butthat he had escaped transformation, after the feudalization of England, into something more than an administrative officer makes the Norman statesomewhat exceptional at that time, and the history of this office, evenunder the most powerful of kings, shows the strength of the tendencytoward development in the direction of a private possession. Even whileremaining administrative, the office was known to the Normans by a namewhich to some extent in their own home, and generally elsewhere, had cometo be an hereditary feudal title, --the viscount. In this system ofgovernment, the baron was the most essential feature. Every kind ofgovernment business was performed in the main through him, and asincidental to his position as a baron. The assembly of the barons, thecuria regis, whether the great assembly of all the barons of thekingdom, meeting on occasions by special summons, or the smaller assemblyin constant attendance on the king, was the primitive andundifferentiated machine by which government was carried on. If thebaronage was faithful to the crown, or if the crown held the baronageunder a strong control, the realm enjoyed good government and the nationbore with comparatively little suffering the burdens which were alwaysheavy. If the baronage was out of control, government fell to pieces, andanarchy and oppression took its place. 

In this feudal state, however, a bishop was a baron. The lands whichformed the endowment of his office--and in those days endowment couldtake no other form--constituted a barony. The necessity of a large incomeand the generosity of the faithful made of his endowment a great fief. Itis important to realize how impossible any other conception than this wasto the political half of the world. In public position, influence uponaffairs, wealth, and popular estimation, the bishop stood in the sameclass with the baron. The manors which were set aside from the generalproperty of the Church to furnish his official income would, in manycases, provide for an earldom. In fitness to perform the manifoldfunctions of government which fell to him, the bishop far exceeded theordinary baron. The state could not regard him as other than a baron; itcertainly could not dispense with his assistance. It was a matter ofvital importance to the king to be able to determine what kind of menshould hold these great fiefs and occupy these influential positions inthe state, and to be able to hold them to strict accountability. Theargument of the state in favour of lay investiture was as sound as theargument of the Church against it. 

Here was a conflict of interests in which no real compromise waspossible. Incidental features of the conflict might be found upon whichthe form of a compromise could be arranged. But upon the one essentialpoint, the right of selecting the man, one or the other of the partieswhose interests were involved must give way. It is not strange that inthe main, except where the temporary or permanent weakness of thesovereign made an exception, that interest which seemed to the generalrun of men of most immediate and pressing importance gained the day, andthe spiritual gave way to the temporal. But in England the conflict wasnow first begun, and the time of compromise had not yet come. Henry'sproposal to Anselm of delay and of a new appeal to the pope was chiefly amove to gain time until the situation of affairs in England should turnmore decidedly in his favour. He especially feared, Eadmer tells us, lestAnselm should seek out his brother Robert and persuade him--as he easilycould--to admit the papal claims, and then make him king of England. 

Robert had returned to Normandy from the Holy Land before the arrival ofAnselm in England. He had won much glory on the crusade, and in the rushof events and in the constant fighting, where responsibility for themanagement of affairs did not rest upon him alone, he had shown himself aman of energy and power. But he came back unchanged in character. Evenduring the crusade he had relapsed at times into his more indolent andcareless mood, from which he had been roused with difficulty. In southernItaly, where he had stopped among the Normans on his return, he hadmarried Sibyl, daughter of Geoffrey of Conversana, a nephew of RobertGuiscard, but the dowry which he received with her had rapidly meltedaway in his hands. He was, however, now under no obligation to redeemNormandy. The loan for which he had pledged the duchy was regarded as apersonal debt to William Rufus, not a debt to the English crown, andHenry laid no claim to it. Robert took possession of Normandy withoutopposition from any quarter. It is probable that if Robert had been leftto himself, he would have been satisfied with Normandy, and that hiseasy-going disposition would have led him to leave Henry in undisturbedpossession of England. But he was not left to himself. The events whichhad occurred soon after the accession of William Rufus repeatedthemselves soon after Henry's. No Norman baron could expect to gain anymore of the freedom which he desired under Henry than he had had underWilliam. The two states would also be separated once more if Henryremained king of England. Almost all the Normans accordingly applied toRobert, as they had done before, and offered to support a new attempt togain the crown. Robert was also urged forward by the advice of RanulfFlambard, who escaped from the Tower in February, 1101, and found arefuge and new influence in Normandy. Natural ambition was not wanting toRobert, and in the summer of 1101 he collected his forces for an invasionof England. 

Though the great Norman barons stood aloof from him--Robert of Bellêmeand his two brothers Roger and Arnulf, William of Warenne, WalterGiffard, and Ivo of Grantmesnil, with others--Henry was stronger inEngland than Robert. No word had yet been received from Rome in answer tothe application which he had made to the pope on the subject of theinvestiture; and in this crisis the king was liberal with promises to thearchbishop, and Anselm was strongly on his side with the Church as awhole. His faithful friends, Robert, Count of Meulan, and his brotherHenry, Earl of Warwick, were among the few whom he could trust. But hismost important support he found, as his brother William had found it insimilar circumstances, in the mass of the nation which would now be evenmore ready to take the side of the king against the Norman party. 

Henry expected the invaders to land at Pevensey, but apparently, with thehelp of some part of the sailors who had been sent against him, Robertlanded without opposition at Portsmouth, towards the end of July, 1101. Thence he advanced towards London, and Henry went to meet him. The twoarmies came together near Alton, but no battle was fought. In a conflictof diplomacy, Henry was pretty sure of victory, and to this he preferredto trust. A meeting of the brothers was arranged, and as a result Robertsurrendered all the real advantages which he had crossed the channel towin, and received in place of them gains which might seem attractive tohim, but which must have seemed to Henry, when taken all together, acheap purchase of the crown. Robert gave up his claim to the throne andreleased Henry, as being a king, from the homage by which he had formerlybeen bound. Henry on his side promised his brother an annual payment ofthree thousand marks sterling, and gave up to him all that he possessedin Normandy, except the town of Domfront, which he had expressly promisednot to abandon. It was also agreed, as formerly between Robert andWilliam Rufus, that the survivor should inherit the dominions of theother if he died without heirs. A further provision concerned theadherents of each of the brothers during this strife. Possessions inEngland of barons of Normandy, which had been seized by Henry because oftheir fidelity to Robert, should be restored, and also the Norman estatesof English barons seized by Robert, but each should be free to deal withthe barons of his own land who had proved unfaithful. This stipulationwould be of especial value to Henry, who had probably not found itprudent to deal with the traitors of his land before the decision of thecontest; but some counter-intrigues in Normandy in favour of Henry wereprobably not unknown to Robert. 

Robert sent home at once a part of his army, but he himself remained inEngland long enough to witness in some cases the execution by his brotherof the provision of the treaty concerning traitors. He took with him, onhis return to Normandy, Orderic Vitalis says, William of Warenne and manyothers disinherited for his sake. Upon others the king took vengeance oneat a time, on one pretext or another, and these included at least Robertof Lacy, Robert Malet, and Ivo of Grantmesnil. The possessions of Ivo inLeicestershire passed into the hands of the faithful Robert, Count ofMeulan--faithful to Henry if not to the rebel who sought his help--andsomewhat later became the foundation of the earldom of Leicester. 

Against the most powerful and most dangerous of the traitors, Robert ofBellême, Henry felt strong enough to take steps in the spring of 1102. Ina court in that year Henry brought accusation against Robert onforty-five counts, of things done or said against himself or against hisbrother Robert. The evidence to justify these accusations Henry had beencarefully and secretly collecting for a year. When Robert heard thisindictment, he knew that his turn had come, and that no legal defence waspossible, and he took advantage of a technical plea to make his escape. He asked leave to retire from the court and take counsel with his men. Asthis was a regular custom leave was granted, but Robert took horse atonce and fled from the court. Summoned again to court, Robert refused tocome, and began to fortify his castles. Henry on his side collected anarmy, and laid siege first of all to the castle of Arundel. The record ofthe siege gives us an incident characteristic of the times. Robert's men, finding that they could not defend the place, asked for a truce that theymight send to their lord and obtain leave to surrender. The request wasgranted, the messengers were sent, and Robert with grief "absolved themfrom their promised faith and granted them leave to make concord with theking. " Henry then turned against Robert's castles in the north. AgainstBlyth he marched himself, but on his approach he was met by the townsmenwho received him as their "natural lord. " To the Bishop of Lincoln hegave orders to besiege Tickhill castle, while he advanced towards thewest, where lay Robert's chief possessions and greatest strength. 

In his Shrewsbury earldom Robert had been preparing himself for the finalstruggle with the king ever since he had escaped his trial in the court. He counted upon the help of his two brothers, whose possessions were alsoin those parts, Arnulf of Pembroke, and Roger called the Poitevin, whohad possession of Lancaster. The Welsh princes also stood ready, as theircountrymen stood for centuries afterwards, to combine with any party ofrebellious barons in England, and their assistance proved of as littlereal value then as later. With these allies and the help of Arnulf helaid waste a part of Staffordshire before Henry's arrival, the Welshcarrying off their plunder, including some prisoners. Robert's chiefdependence, however, must have been upon his two very strong castles ofBridgenorth and Shrewsbury, both of which had been strengthened andprovisioned with care for a stubborn resistance. 

Henry's first attack with what seems to have been a large force was onBridgenorth castle. Robert had himself chosen to await the king's attackin Shrewsbury, and had left three of his vassals in charge ofBridgenorth, with a body of mercenaries, who often proved, notwithstanding the oaths of vassals, the most faithful troops of feudaldays. He had hoped that his Welsh friends would be able to interfereseriously with Henry's siege operations, but in this he was disappointed. The king's offers proved larger than his, at least to one of the princes, and no help came from that quarter. One striking incident of this siege, though recorded by Orderic Vitalis only, is so characteristic of thesituation in England, at least of that which had just preceded therebellion of Robert, and bears so great an appearance of truth, that itdeserves notice. The barons of England who were with the king began tofear that if he were allowed to drive so powerful an earl as Robert ofBellême to his ruin the rest of their order would be henceforth at hismercy, and no more than weak "maid-servants" in his sight. Accordingly, after consulting among themselves, they made a formal attempt to inducethe king to grant terms to Robert. In the midst of an argument which theking seems to have been obliged to treat with consideration, the shoutsof 3000 country soldiers stationed on a hill near by made themselvesheard, warning Henry not to trust to "these traitors, " and promising himtheir faithful assistance. Encouraged by this support, the king rejectedthe advice of the barons. 

The siege of Bridgenorth lasted three weeks. At the end of that time, Henry threatened to hang all whom he should capture, unless the castlewere surrendered in three days; and despite the resistance of Robert'smercenaries, the terms he offered were accepted. Henry immediately sentout his forces to clear the difficult way to Shrewsbury, where Robert, having learned of the fall of Bridgenorth, was awaiting the issue, uncertain what to do. One attempt he made to obtain for himselfconditions of submission, but met with a flat refusal. Unconditionalsurrender was all that Henry would listen to. Finally, as the kingapproached, he went out to meet him, confessed himself a traitor andbeaten, and gave up the keys of the town. Henry used his victory to theuttermost. Personal safety was granted to the earl, and he was allowed todepart to his Norman possessions with horses and arms, but this was allthat was allowed him. His vast possessions in England were whollyconfiscated; not a manor was left him. His brothers soon afterwards fellunder the same fate, and the most powerful and most dangerous Normanhouse in England was utterly ruined. For the king this result was notmerely the fall of an enemy who might well be feared, and the acquisitionof great estates with which to reward his friends; it was a lesson of thegreatest value to the Norman baronage. Orderic Vitalis, who gives us thefullest details of these events states this result in words which cannotbe improved upon: "And so, after Robert's flight, the kingdom of Albionwas quiet in peace, and King Henry reigned prosperously three and thirtyyears, during which no man in England dared to rebel or to hold anycastle against him. "

From these and other forfeitures Henry endowed a new nobility, men ofminor families, or of those that had hitherto played no part in thehistory of the land. Many of them were men who had had their training andattracted the king's attention in the administrative system which he didso much to develop, and their promotion was the reward of faithfulservice. These "new men" were settled in some numbers in the north, andscholars have thought they could trace the influence of theiradministrative training and of their attitude towards the older and morepurely feudal nobility in the events of a century later in the strugglefor the Great Charter. 

These events, growing directly out of Robert's attempt upon England, havecarried us to the autumn of 1102; but in the meantime the equallyimportant conflict with Anselm on the subject of investitures had beenadvanced some stages further. The answer of Pope Paschal II to therequest which had been made of him, to suspend in favour of England thelaw of the Church against lay investitures, had been received at leastsoon after the treaty with Robert. The answer was a flat refusal, writtenwith priestly subtlety, arguing throughout as if what Henry had demandedwas the spiritual consecration of the bishops, though it must be admittedthat in the eyes of men who saw only the side of the Church thedifference could not have been great. So far as we know, Henry saidnothing of this answer. He summoned Anselm to court, apparently while hisbrother was still in England, and peremptorily demanded of him that heshould become his man and consecrate the bishops and abbots whom he hadappointed, as his predecessors had done, or else immediately leave thecountry. It is uncertain whether the influence of Robert had anything todo with this demand, as Eadmer supposed, but the recent victory which theking had gained, and the greater security which he must have felt, doubtless affected its peremptory character. Anselm again based hisrefusal of homage on his former position, on the doctrine which he hadlearned at Rome. Of this Henry would hear nothing; he insisted upon thecustomary rights of English kings. The other alternative, however, whichhe offered the archbishop, or with which he threatened him, of departurefrom England, Anselm also declined to accept, and he returned toCanterbury to carry on his work quietly and to await the issue. 

This act of Anselm's was a virtual challenge to the king to use violenceagainst him if he dared, and such a challenge Henry was as yet in nocondition to take up. Not long after his return to Canterbury, Anselmreceived a friendly letter from the king, inviting him to come toWestminster, to consider the business anew. Here, with the consent of theassembled court, a new truce was arranged, and a new embassy to Romedetermined on. This was to be sent by both parties and to consist ofecclesiastics of higher rank than those of the former embassy, who wereto explain clearly to the pope the situation in England, and to convincehim that some modification of the decrees on the subject would benecessary if he wished to retain the country in his obedience. Anselm'srepresentatives were two monks, Baldwin of Bee and Alexander ofCanterbury; the king's were three bishops, Gerard of Hereford, latelymade Archbishop of York by the king, Herbert of Norwich, and Robert ofCoventry. 

The embassy reached Rome; the case was argued before the pope; heindignantly refused to modify the decrees; and the ambassadors returnedto England, bringing letters to this effect to the king and to thearchbishop. Soon after their return, which was probably towards the endof the summer, 1102, Anselm was summoned to a meeting of the court atLondon, and again required to perform homage or to cease to exercise hisoffice. He of course continued to refuse, and appealed to the pope'sletters for justification. Henry declined to make known the letter he hadreceived, and declared that he would not be bound by them. His positionwas supported by the three bishops whom he had sent to Rome, who on thereading of the letter to Anselm declared that privately the pope hadinformed them that so long as the king appointed suitable men he wouldnot be interfered with, and they explained that this could not be statedin the letters lest the news should be carried to other princes and leadthem to usurp the rights of the Church. Anselm's representativesprotested that they had heard nothing of all this, but it is evident thatthe solemn assertion of the three bishops had considerable weight, andthat even Anselm was not sure but that they were telling the truth. 

On a renewed demand of homage by the king, supported by the bishops andbarons of the kingdom, Anselm answered that if the letters hadcorresponded to the words of the bishops, very likely he would have donewhat was demanded as the case stood, he proposed a new embassy to Rome toreconcile the contradiction, and in the meantime, though he would notconsecrate the king's nominees, he agreed not to regard them asexcommunicate. This proposal was at once accepted by Henry, who regardedit as so nearly an admission of his claim that he immediately appointedtwo new bishops: his chancellor, Roger, to Salisbury, and his larderer, also Roger, to Hereford. 

Perhaps in the same spirit, regarding the main point as settled, Henrynow allowed Anselm to hold the council of the English Church whichWilliam Rufus had so long refused him. The council met at Westminster andadopted a series of canons, whose chief object was the complete carryingout of the Gregorian reformation in the English Church. The mostimportant of them concerned the celibacy of the priesthood, and enactedthe strictest demands of the reform party, without regard to existingconditions. No clerics of any grade from subdeacon upward, were to beallowed to marry, nor might holy orders be received hereafter without aprevious vow of celibacy. Those already married must put away theirwives, and if any neglected to do so, they were no longer to beconsidered legal priests, nor be allowed to celebrate mass. One canon, which reveals one of the dangers against which the Church sought to guardby these regulations, forbade the sons of priests to inherit theirfather's benefices. It is very evident from these canons, that this partof the new reformation had made but little, if any, more headway inEngland than that which concerned investiture, and we know from othersources that the marriage of secular clergy was almost the rule, and thatthe sons of priests in clerical office were very numerous. Less is saidof the other article of the reform programme, the extinction of the sinof simony, but three abbots of important monasteries, recently appointedby the king, were deposed on this ground without objection. Thislegislation, so thorough-going and so regardless of circumstances, is aninteresting illustration of the uncompromising character of Anselm, though it must be noticed that later experience raised the question inhis mind whether some modifications of these canons ought not to be made. 

That Henry on his side had no intention of surrendering anything of hisrights in the matter of investiture is clearly shown, about the sametime, by his effort to get the bishops whom he had appointed to acceptconsecration from his very useful and willing minister, Gerard, Archbishop of York. Roger the larderer, appointed to Hereford, had diedwithout consecration, and in his place Reinelm, the queen's chancellor, had been appointed. When the question of consecration by York was raised, rather than accept it he voluntarily surrendered his bishopric to theking. The other two persons appointed, William Giffard of Winchester, andRoger of Salisbury, seemed willing to concede the point, but at the lastmoment William drew back and the plan came to nothing. The bishops, however, seem to have refused consecration from the Archbishop of Yorkless from objection to royal investiture than out of regard to the claimsof Canterbury. William Giffard was deprived of his see, it would seem byjudicial sentence, and sent from the kingdom. 

About the middle of Lent of the next year, 1103, Henry made a new attemptto obtain his demands of Anselm. On his way to Dover he stopped threedays in Canterbury and required the archbishop to submit. What followedis a repetition of what had occurred so often before. Anselm offered tobe guided by the letters from Rome, in answer to the last referencethither, which had been received but not yet read. This Henry refused. Hesaid he had nothing to do with the pope. He demanded the rights of hispredecessors. Anselm on his side declared that he could consent to amodification of the papal decrees only by the authority which had madethem. It would seem as if no device remained to be tried to postpone acomplete breach between the two almost co-equal powers of the medievalstate; but Henry's patience was not yet exhausted, or his practicalwisdom led him to wish to get Anselm out of the kingdom before the breachbecame complete. He begged Anselm to go himself to Rome and attempt whatothers had failed to effect. Anselm suspected the king's object in theproposal, and asked for a delay until Easter, that he might take theadvice of the king's court. This was unanimous in favour of the attempt, and on April 27, 1103, he landed at Wissant, not an exile, but with hisattendants, "invested with the king's peace. "

Four years longer this conflict lasted before it was finally settled bythe concordat of August, 1107; but these later stages of it, though notless important considered in themselves, were less the pressing questionof the moment for Henry than the earlier had been. They were ratherincidents affecting his gradually unfolding foreign policy, and in turngreatly affected by it. From the fall of Robert of Bellême to the end ofHenry's reign, the domestic history of England is almost a blank. If weput aside two series of events, the ecclesiastical politics of the time, of which interested clerks have given us full details, and the changes ininstitutions which were going on, but which they did not think posteritywould be so anxious to understand, we know of little to say of this longperiod in the life of the English people. The history which has survivedis the history of the king, and the king was in the main occupied uponthe continent. But in the case of Henry I, this is not improperly Englishhistory. It was upon no career of foreign conquest, no seeking afterpersonal glory, that Henry embarked in his Norman expeditions. It was toprotect the rights of his subjects in England that he began, and it wasbecause he could accomplish this in no other way that he ended with theconquest of the duchy and the lifelong imprisonment of his brother. Therewere so many close bonds of connexion between the two states that Englandsuffered keenly in the disorders of Normandy, and the turbulence anddisobedience of the barons under Robert threatened the stability ofHenry's rule at home. 

[16] Ordetic Vitalis, iv. 87 f. 

[17] Liebermami, Anselm und Hugo van Lyon, in Aufsätze demAndenken an Georg Waitz gewidmet. 

CHAPTER VII

CONFLICT WITH THE CHURCH

Robert of Bellême had lost too much in England to rest satisfied with theposition into which he had been forced. He was of too stormy adisposition himself to settle down to a quiet life on his Norman lands. Duke Robert had attacked one of his castles, while Henry was making warupon him in England, but, as was usual in his case, totally failed; butit was easy to take vengeance upon the duke, and he was the first tosuffer for the misfortunes of the lord of Bellême. All that part ofNormandy within reach of Robert was laid waste; churches and monasterieseven, in which men had taken refuge, were burned with the fugitives. Almost all Normandy joined in planning resistance. The historian, Orderic, living in the duchy, speaks almost as if general government haddisappeared, and the country were a confederation of local states. Butall plans were in vain, because a "sane head" was lacking. Duke Robertwas totally defeated, and obliged to make important concessions to Robertof Bellême. At last Henry, moved by the complaints which continued tocome to him from churchmen and barons of Normandy, some of whom came overto England in person, as well as from his own subjects, whose Normanlands could not be protected, resolved himself to cross to Normandy. Thishe did in the autumn of 1104, and visited Domfront and other towns whichbelonged to him. There he was joined by almost all the leading barons ofNormandy, who were, indeed, his vassals in England, but who meant morethan this by coming to him at this time. 

The expedition, however, was not an invasion. Henry did not intend tomake war upon his brother or upon Robert of Bellême. It was his intentionrather to serve notice on all parties that he was deeply interested inthe affairs of Normandy and that anarchy must end. To his brother Roberthe read a long lecture, filled with many counts of his misconduct, bothto himself personally and in the government of the duchy. Robert fearedworse things than this, and that he might turn away his brother's wrath, ceded to him the county of Evreux, with the homage of its count, William, one of the most important possessions and barons of the duchy. Already inthe year before Robert had been forced to surrender the pension Henry hadpromised him in the treaty which they had made after Robert's invasion. This was because of a rash visit he had paid to England withoutpermission, at the request of William of Warenne, to intercede for therestoration of his earldom of Surrey. By these arrangements Robert wasleft almost without the means of living, but he was satisfied to escapeso easily, for he feared above all to be deprived of the name of duke andthe semblance of power. Before winter came on the king returned toEngland. 

In this same year, following out what seems to have been the deliberatepurpose of Henry to crush the great Norman houses, another of the mostpowerful barons of England was sent over to Normandy, to furnish in theend a strong reinforcement to Robert of Bellême, a man of the same stampas himself, namely William of Mortain, Earl of Cornwall, the king's owncousin. At the time of Henry's earliest troubles with his brother Robert, William had demanded the inheritance of their uncle Odo, the earldom ofKent. The king had delayed his answer until the danger was over, had thenrefused the request, and shortly after had begun to attack the earl bysuits at law. This drove him to Normandy and into the party of the king'sopen enemies. On Henry's departure, Robert with the help of William beganagain his ravaging of the land of his enemies, with all the formerhorrors of fire and slaughter. The peasants suffered with the rest, andmany of them fled the country with their wives and children. 

If order was to be restored in Normandy and property again to becomesecure, it was clear that more thorough-going measures than those ofHenry's first expedition must be adopted. These he was now determined totake, and in the last week of Lent, 1105, he landed at Barfleur, andwithin a few days stormed and destroyed Bayeux, which had refused tosurrender, and forced Caen to open its gates. Though this formed theextent of his military operations in this campaign, a much larger portionof Normandy virtually became subject to him through the voluntary actionof the barons. And in a quite different way his visit to Normandy was ofdecisive influence in the history of Henry and of England. As thenecessity of taking complete possession of the duchy, in order to securepeace, became clear to Henry, or perhaps we should say as the vision ofNormandy entirely occupied and subject to his rule rose before his mind, the conflict with Anselm in which he was involved began to assume a newaspect. As an incident in the government of a kingdom of which he wascompletely master, it was one thing; as having a possible bearing on thesuccess with which he could conquer and incorporate with his dominionsanother state, it was quite another. 

Anselm had gone to Rome toward the end of the summer of 1103. There hehad found everything as he had anticipated. The argument of Henry'srepresentative that England would be lost to the papacy if thisconcession were not granted, was of no avail. The pope stood firmly bythe decrees against investiture. But Henry's ambassador was charged witha mission to Anselm, as well as to the pope; and at Lyons, on the journeyback, the archbishop was told that his return to England would be verywelcome to the king when he was ready to perform all duties to the kingas other archbishops of Canterbury had done them. The meaning of thismessage was clear. By this stroke of policy, Henry had exiled Anselm, with none of the excitement or outcry which would have been occasioned byhis violent expulsion from the kingdom. 

On the return of his embassy from Rome, probably in December, 1103, Henrycompleted the legal breach between himself and Anselm by seizing therevenues of the archbishopric into his own hands. This, from hisinterpretation of the facts, he had a perfect right to do, but there isvery good ground to suppose that he might not have done it even now, ifhis object had been merely to punish a vassal who refused to perform hiscustomary services. Henry was already looking forward to intervention inNormandy. His first expedition was not made until the next summer, but itmust by this time have been foreseen, and the cost must have beencounted. The revenues of Canterbury doubtless seemed quite worth having. Already, in 1104, we begin to get complaints of the heavy taxation fromwhich England was suffering. In the year of the second expedition, 1105, these were still more frequent and piteous. Ecclesiastics and Churchlands bore these burdens with the rest of the kingdom, and before theclose of this year we are told that many of the evils which had existedunder William Rufus had reappeared. [18]

True to his temporizing policy, when complaints became loud, as early as1104, Henry professed his great desire for the return of Anselm, providedalways he was willing to observe the customs of the kingdom, and hedespatched another embassy to Rome to persuade the pope to someconcession. This was the fifth embassy which he had sent with thisrequest, and he could not possibly have expected any other answer thanthat which he had already received. Soon a party began to form among thehigher clergy of England, primarily in opposition to the king, and, morefor this reason probably than from devotion to the reformation, insupport of Anselm, though it soon began to show a disposition to adoptthe Gregorian ideas for which Anselm stood. This disposition was lessdue to any change of heart on their part than to the knowledge which theyhad acquired of their helplessness in the hands of an absolute king, andof the great advantage to be gained from the independence which theGregorian reformation would secure them. Even Gerard of York earlyshowed some tendency to draw toward Anselm, as may be seen from a letterwhich he despatched to him in the early summer of 1105, with someprecautions, suppressing names and expressions by which the writer mightbe identified. [19] Toward the end of the year he joined with five otherbishops, including William Giffard, appointed by Henry to Winchester, ina more open appeal to Anselm, with promise of support. How early Henrybecame aware of this movement of opposition is not certain, but we may besure that his department of secret service was well organized. We shallnot be far wrong if we assign to a knowledge of the attitude of powerfulchurchmen in England some weight among the complex influences which ledthe king to the step which he took in July of this year. 

In March, 1105, Pope Paschal II, whose conduct throughout thiscontroversy implies that he was not more anxious to drive matters to openwarfare than was Henry, advanced so far as to proclaim theexcommunication of the Count of Meulan and the other counsellors of theking, and also of those who had received investiture at his hand. Thismight look as if the pope were about to take up the case in earnest andwould proceed shortly to excommunicate the king himself. But Anselmevidently interpreted it as the utmost which he could expect in the wayof aid from Rome, and immediately determined to act for himself. He leftLyons to go to Reims, but learning on the way of the illness of theCountess of Blois, Henry's sister Adela, he went to Blois instead, andthen with the countess, who had recovered, to Chartres. This broughttogether three persons deeply interested in this conflict and of muchinfluence in England and with the king Anselm, who was directlyconcerned; the Countess Adela, a favourite with her brother and onintimate terms with him and Bishop Ivo of Chartres, who had written muchand wisely on the investiture controversy. And here it seems likely weresuggested, probably by Bishop Ivo, and talked over among the three, theterms of the famous compromise by which the conflict was at last ended. 

Anselm had made no secret of his intention of proceeding shortly to theexcommunication of Henry. The prospect excited the liveliest apprehensionin the mind of the religiously disposed Countess Adela, and she bestirredherself to find some means of averting so dread a fate from her brother. Henry himself had heard of the probability with some apprehension, thoughof a different sort from his sister's. The respect which Anselm enjoyedthroughout Normandy and northern France was so great that, as Henrylooked forward to an early conquest of the duchy, he could not afford todisregard the effect upon the general feeling of an open declaration ofwar by the archbishop. The invitation of the king of France to Anselm, toaccept an asylum within his borders, was a plain foreshadowing of whatmight follow. [20] Considerations of home and foreign politics alikedisposed Henry to meet halfway the advances which the other side waswilling to make under the lead of his sister. 

With the countess, Anselm entered Normandy and met Henry at Laigle onJuly 21, 1105. Here the terms of the compromise, which were more than twoyears later adopted as binding law, were agreed upon between themselves, in their private capacity. Neither was willing at the moment to beofficially bound. Anselm, while personally willing, would not formallyagree to the concessions expected of him, until he had the authority ofthe pope to do so. Subsequent events lead us to suspect that once moreHenry was temporizing. Anselm was not in good health. He was shortlyafter seriously ill. It is in harmony with Henry's policy throughout, andwith his action in the following months, to suppose that he believed theapproaching death of the archbishop would relieve him from even theslight concessions to which he professed himself willing to agree. It isnot the place here to state the terms and effect of this agreement, butin substance Henry consented to abandon investiture with the ring andstaff, symbols of the spiritual office; and Anselm agreed that theofficers of the Church should not be excommunicated nor deniedconsecration if they received investiture of their actual fiefs from thehand of the king. Henry promised that an embassy should be at oncedespatched to Rome, to obtain the pope's consent to this arrangement, inorder that Anselm, to whom the temporalities of his see were nowrestored, might be present at his Christmas court in England. 

Delay Henry certainly gained by this move. The forms of friendlyintercourse were restored between himself and Anselm. The excommunicationwas not pronounced. The party of the king's open enemies in Normandy, orof those who would have been glad to be his open enemies in France, ifcircumstances had been favourable, was deprived of support from anypopular feeling of horror against an outcast of the Church. But he madeno change in his conduct or plans. By the end of summer he was back inEngland, leaving things well under way in Normandy. Severer exactionsfollowed in England, to raise money for new campaigns. One invention ofsome skilful servant of the king's seemed to the ecclesiasticalhistorians more intolerable and dangerous than anything before. Theking's justices began to draw the married clergy before the secularcourts, and to fine them for their violation of the canons. Byimplication this would mean a legal toleration of the marriage, onpayment of fines to the king, and thus it would cut into the rights ofthe Church in two directions. It was the trial of a spiritual offence ina secular court, and it was the virtual suspension of the law of theChurch by the authority of the State. Still no embassy went to Rome. Christmas came and it had not gone. Robert of Bellême, alarmed at theplans of Henry, which were becoming evident, came over from Normandy totry to make some peaceable arrangement with the king, but was refused allterms. In January, 1106, Robert of Normandy himself came over, to get, ifpossible, the return of what he had lost at home; but he also couldobtain nothing. All things were in Henry's hands. He could afford torefuse favours, to forget his engagements, and to encourage his servantsin the invention of ingenious exactions. 

But Anselm was growing impatient. New appeals to action were constantlyreaching him from England. The letter of the six bishops was sent towardthe close of 1105. He himself began again to hint at extreme measures, and to write menacing letters to the king's ministers. Finally, early in1106, the embassy was actually sent to Rome. Towards the end of March theRoman curia took action on the proposal, and Anselm was informed, in aletter from the pope, that the required concessions would be allowed. Thepope was disposed to give thanks that God had inclined the king's heartto obedience; yet the proposal was approved of, not as an acceptedprinciple, but rather as a temporary expedient, until the king should beconverted by the preaching of the archbishop, to respect the rights ofthe Church in full. But Anselm did not yet return to England. Before theenvoys came back from Rome, Henry had written to him of his expectationof early crossing into Normandy. On learning that the compromise would beaccepted by the pope, Henry had sent to invite him at once to England, but Anselm was then too ill to travel, and he continued so for some time. It was nearly August before Henry's third expedition actually landed inNormandy, and on the 15th of that month the king and the archbishop metat the Abbey of Bee, and the full reconciliation between them took place. Anselm could now agree to the compromise. Henry promised to makereformation in the particulars of his recent treatment of the Church, ofwhich the archbishop complained. Then Anselm crossed to Dover, and wasreceived with great rejoicing. 

The campaign upon which Henry embarked in August ended by the close ofSeptember in a success greater than he could have anticipated. He firstattacked the castle of Tinchebrai, belonging to William of Mortain, andleft a fortified post there to hold it in check. As soon as the king hadretired, William came to the relief of his castle, reprovisioned it, andshut up the king's men in their defences. Then Henry advanced in turnwith his own forces and his allies, and began a regular siege of thecastle. The next move was William's, and he summoned to his aid DukeRobert and Robert of Bellême, and all the friends they had left inNormandy. The whole of the opposing forces were thus face to face, andthe fate of Normandy likely to be settled by a single conflict. Orderic, the historian of the war, notes that Henry preferred to fight rather thanto withdraw, as commanded by his brother, being willing to enter uponthis "more than civil war for the sake of future peace. "

In the meantime, the men of religion who were present began to exertthemselves to prevent so fratricidal a collision of these armies, betweenwhose opposing ranks so many families were divided. Henry yielded totheir wishes, and offered to his brother terms of reconciliation whichreveal not merely his belief in the strength of his position in thecountry and his confidence of success, but something also of his generalmotive. The ardour of religious zeal which the historian makes Henryprofess we may perhaps set aside, but the actual terms offered speak forthemselves. Robert was to surrender to Henry all the castles and thejurisdiction and administration of the whole duchy. This being done, Henry would turn over to him, without any exertion on his part, therevenues of half the duchy to enjoy freely in the kind of life that bestpleased him. If Robert had been a different sort of man, we shouldcommend his rejection of these terms. Possibly he recalled Henry'searlier promise of a pension, and had little confidence in the certaintyof revenues from this source. But Henry, knowing the men whose adviceRobert would ask before answering, had probably not expected his terms tobe accepted. 

The battle was fought on September 28, and it was fiercely fought, thehardest fight and with the largest forces of any in which Normans orEnglishmen had been engaged for forty years. The main body of both armiesfought on foot. The Count of Mortain, in command of Robert's firstdivision, charged Henry's front, but was met with a resistance which hecould not overcome. In the midst of this struggle Robert's flank wascharged by Henry's mounted allies, under Count Elias of Maine, and hisposition was cut in two. Robert of Bellême, who commanded the reardivision, seeing the battle going against the duke, took to flight andleft the rest of the army to its fate. This was apparently to surrenderin a body. Henry reports the number of common soldiers whom he had takenas ten thousand, too large a figure, no doubt, but implying the captureof Robert's whole force. His prisoners of name comprised all the leadersof his brother's side except Robert of Bellême, including the dukehimself, Edgar the English atheling, who was soon released, and Williamof Mortain. The victory at once made Henry master of Normandy. Therecould be no further question of this, and it is of interest to note thatthe historian, William of Malmesbury, who in his own person typifies theunion of English and Norman, both in blood and in spirit, records thefact that the day was the same as that on which the Conqueror had landedforty years earlier, and regards the result as reversing that event, andas making Normandy subject to England. This was not far from its realhistorical meaning. 

Robert clearly recognized the completeness of Henry's success. By hisorders Falaise was surrendered, and the castle of Rouen; and he formallyabsolved the towns of Normandy in general from their allegiance tohimself. At Falaise Robert's young son William, known afterwards asWilliam Clito, was captured and brought before Henry. Not wishing himselfto be held responsible for his safety, Henry turned him over to theguardianship of Elias of Saint-Saens, who had married a natural daughterof Robert's. One unsought-for result of the conquest of Normandy was thatRanulf Flambard, who was in charge of the bishopric of Lisieux, succeededin making his peace with the king and obtained his restoration to Durham, but he never again became a king's minister. Only Robert of Bellêmethought of further fighting. As a vassal of Elias, Count of Maine, heapplied to him for help, and promised a long resistance with histhirty-four strong castles. Elias refused his aid, pointed out theunwisdom of such an attempt, defended Henry's motives, and advisedsubmission, promising his good influences with Henry. This advice Robertconcluded to accept. Henry, on his side, very likely had some regard tothe thirty-four castles, and decided to bide his time. Peace, for thepresent, was made between them. 

Some measures which Henry considered necessary for the security ofNormandy, he did not think it wise to carry out by his own unsupportedaction. In the middle of October a great council of Norman barons wascalled to meet at Lisieux. Here it was decreed that all possessions whichhad been wrongfully taken from churches or other legitimate holdersduring the confusion of the years since the death of William theConqueror should be restored, and all grants from the ducal domain tounworthy persons, or usurpations which Robert had not been able toprevent, were ordered to be resumed. It is of especial interest that theworst men of the prisoners taken at Tinchebrai were here condemned toperpetual imprisonment. The name of Robert is not mentioned among thoseincluded in this judgment, and later Henry justifies his conduct towardhis brother on the ground of political necessity, not of legal right. Theresult of all these measures--we may believe it would have been theresult of the conquest alone--was to put an end at once to the disorder, private warfare, and open robbery from which the duchy had so longsuffered. War enough there was in Normandy, in the later years of Henry'sreign, but it was regular warfare. The license of anarchy was at an end. Robert was carried over to England, to a fate for which there could belittle warrant in strict law, but which was abundantly deserved and fullysupported by the public opinion of the time. He was kept in prison in oneroyal castle or another until his death twenty-eight years later. IfHenry's profession was true, as it probably was, that he kept him as aroyal prisoner should be kept, and supplied him with the luxuries heenjoyed so much, the result was, it is possible, not altogetherdisagreeable to Robert himself. Some time later, when the poperemonstrated with Henry on his conduct, and demanded the release ofRobert, the king's defence of his action was so complete that the popehad no reply to make. Political expediency, the impossibility ofotherwise maintaining peace, was the burden of his answer, and this, ifnot actual justice, must still be Henry's defence for his treatment ofhis brother. 

Henry returned to England in time for the Easter meeting of his court, but the legalization of the compromise with Anselm was deferred toWhitsuntide because the pope was about to hold a council in France, fromwhich some action affecting the question might be expected. AtWhitsuntide Anselm was ill, and another postponement was necessary. Atlast, early in August, at a great council held in the king's palace inLondon, the agreement was ratified. No formal statement of the terms ofthis compromise has been given us by any contemporary authority, but suchaccounts of it as we have, and such inferences as seem almost equallydirect, probably leave no important point unknown. Of all his claims, Henry surrendered only the right of investiture with ring and staff. These were spiritual symbols, typical of the bishop's relation to hisChurch and of his pastoral duties. To the ecclesiastical mind theconferring of them would seem more than any other part of the procedurethe actual granting of the religious office, though they had been used bythe kings merely as symbols of the fief granted. Some things would seemto indicate that the forms of canonical election were more respectedafter this compromise than they had been before, but this is true offorms only, and if we may judge from a sentence in a letter to the pope, in which Anselm tells him of the final settlement, this was not one ofthe terms of the formal agreement, and William of Malmesbury saysdistinctly that it was not. In all else the Church gave way to the king. He made choice of the person to be elected, with such advice and counselas he chose to take, and his choice was final. He received the homage andconferred investiture of the temporalities of the office of the newprelate as his father and brother had done. Only when this was completedto the king's satisfaction, and his permission to proceed received, wasthe bishop elect consecrated to his spiritual office. 

To us it seems clear that the king had yielded only what was a mere form, and that he had retained all the real substance of his former power, andprobably this was also the judgment of the practical mind of Henry and ofhis chief adviser, the Count of Meulan. We must not forget, however, thatthe Church seemed to believe that it had gained something real, and thata strong party of the king's supporters long and vigorously resistedthese concessions in his court. The Church had indeed set an example, foritself at least, of successful attack on the absolute monarchy, and hadshown that the strongest of kings could be forced to yield a pointagainst his will. Before the century was closed, in a struggle even morebitterly fought and against a stronger king, the warriors of the Churchlooked back to this example and drew strength from this success. It ispossible, also, that these cases of concession forced from reluctantkings served as suggestion and model at the beginning of a politicalstruggle which was to have more permanent results. All this, however, layyet in the future, and could not be suspected by either party to thisearliest conflict. 

The agreement ratified in 1107 was the permanent settlement of theinvestiture controversy for England, and under it developed the practiceon ecclesiastical vacancies which we may say has continued to the presenttime, interrupted under some sovereigns by vacillating practice or by amore or less theoretical concession of freedom of election to the Church. Henry's grandson, Henry II, describes this practice as it existed in hisday, in one of the clauses of the Constitutions of Clarendon. The clauseshows that some at least of the inventions of Ranulf Flambard had notbeen discarded, and there is abundant evidence to show that the king wasreally stating in it, as he said he was, the customs of his grandfather'stime. The clause reads: "When an archbishopric or bishopric or abbey orpriory of the king's domain has fallen vacant, it ought to be in theking's hands, and he shall take thence all the returns and revenues asdomain revenues, and when the time has come to provide for the Church, the king shall call for the chief persons of the Church [that is, summona representation of the Church to himself], and in the king's chapel theelection shall be made with the assent of the king and with the counselof those ecclesiastics of the kingdom whom he shall have summoned forthis purpose, and there the elect shall do homage and fealty to the king, as to his liege lord, of his life and limb and earthly honour, saving hisorder, before he shall be consecrated. "

This long controversy having reached a settlement which Anselm was atleast willing to accept, he was ready to resume the long-interruptedduties of primate of Britain. On August 11, assisted by an imposingassembly of his suffragan bishops, and by the Archbishop of York, heconsecrated in Canterbury five bishops at once, three of these oflong-standing appointment, --William Giffard of Winchester, Roger ofSalisbury, and Reinelm of Hereford; the other two, William of Exeter andUrban of Landaff, recently chosen. The renewed activity of Anselm as headof the English Church, which thus began, was not for long. His health hadbeen destroyed. His illness returned at frequent intervals, and in lessthan two years his life and work were finished. These months, however, were filled with considerable activity, not all of it of the kind weshould prefer to associate with the name of Anselm. Were we shut up tothe history of this time for our knowledge of his character, we should belikely to describe it in different terms from those we usually employ. The earlier Anselm, of gentle character, shrinking from the turmoil ofstrife and longing only for the quiet of the abbey library, hadapparently disappeared. The experiences of the past few years had been, indeed, no school in gentleness, and the lessons which he had learned atRome were not those of submission to the claims of others. In the greatcouncil which ratified the compromise, Anselm had renewed his demand forthe obedience of the Archbishop of York, and this demand he continued topush with extreme vigour until his death, first against Gerard, who diedearly in 1108, and then against his successor, Thomas, son of BishopSamson of Worcester, appointed by Henry. A plan for the division of thelarge diocese of Lincoln, by the creation of a new diocese of Ely, thoughby common consent likely to improve greatly the administration of theChurch, he refused to approve until the consent of the pope had beenobtained. He insisted, against the will of the monks and the request ofthe king, upon the right of the archbishop to consecrate the abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, in whatever church he pleased, and again, inspite of the king's request, he maintained the same right in theconsecration of the bishop of London. The canon law of the Churchregarding marriage, lay or priestly, he enforced with unsparing rigour. Almost his last act, it would seem, before his death, was to send aviolent letter to Archbishop Thomas of York, suspending him from hisoffice and forbidding all bishops of his obedience, under penalty of"perpetual anathema, " to consecrate him or to communicate with him ifconsecrated by any one outside of England. On April 21, 1109, this stormyepiscopate closed, a notable instance of a man of noble character, and insome respects of remarkable genius, forced by circumstances out of thenatural current of his life into a career for which he was not fitted. 

For Henry these months since the conquest of Normandy and, the settlementof the dispute with Anselm had been uneventful. Normandy had settled intoorder as if the mere change of ruler had been all it needed, and inEngland, which now occupied Henry's attention only at intervals, therewas no occasion of anxiety. Events were taking place across the border ofNormandy which were to affect the latter years of Henry and the futuredestinies of England in important ways. In the summer of 1108, the longreign of Philip I of France had closed, and the reign, nearly as long, ofhis son, Louis VI, had begun, the first of the great Capetian kings, inwhose reign begins a definite policy of aggrandizement for the dynastydirected in great part against their rivals, the English kings. Justbefore the death of Anselm occurred that of Fulk Rechin, Count of Anjou, and the succession of his son Fulk V. He was married to the heiress ofMaine, and a year later this inheritance, the overlordship of which theNorman dukes had so long claimed, fell in to him. Of Henry's marriagewith Matilda two children had been born who survived infancy, --Matilda, the future empress, early in 1102, and William in the late summer orearly autumn of 1103. The queen herself, who had for a time accompaniedthe movements of her husband, now resided mostly at Westminster, whereshe gained the fame of liberality to foreign artists and of devotion topious works. 

It was during a stay of Henry's in England, shortly after the death ofAnselm, that he issued one of the very few documents of his reign whichgive us glimpses into the changes in institutions which were then takingplace. This is a writ, which we have in two slightly varying forms, oneof them addressed to Bishop Samson of Worcester, dealing with the localjudicial system. From it we infer that the old Saxon system of localjustice, the hundred and county courts, had indeed never fallen intodisuse since the days of the Conquest, but that they had been subjectedto many irregularities of time and place, and that the sheriffs had oftenobliged them to meet when and where it suited their convenience; and weare led to suspect that they had been used as engines of extortion forthe advantage both of the local officer and of the king. All this Henrynow orders to cease. The courts are to meet at the same times and placesas in the days of King Edward, and if they need to be summoned to specialsessions for any royal business, due notice shall be given. 

Even more important is the evidence which we get from this document of aroyal system of local justice acting in conjunction with the old systemof shire courts. The last half of the writ implies that there had arisenthus early the questions of disputed jurisdiction, of methods of trial, and of attendance at courts, with which we are familiar a few generationslater in the history of English law. Distinctly implied is a conflictbetween a royal jurisdiction on one side and a private baronialjurisdiction on the other, which is settled in favour of the lord'scourt, if the suit is between two of his own vassals; but if thedisputants are vassals of two different lords, it is decided in favour ofthe king's, --that is, of the court held by the king's justice in thecounty, who may, indeed, be no more than the sheriff acting in thiscapacity. This would be in strict harmony with the ruling feudal law ofthe time. But when the suit comes on for trial in the county court, it isnot to be tried by the old county court forms. It is not a case in thesheriffs county court, the people's county court, but one before theking's justice, and the royal, that is, Norman method of trial by duel isto be adopted. Finally, at the close of the writ, appears an effort todefend this local court system against the liberties and immunities ofthe feudal system, an attempt which easily succeeded in so far as itconcerned the king's county courts, but failed in the case of the purelylocal courts. [21]

If this interpretation is correct, this writ is typical of a process ofthe greatest interest, which we know from other sources wascharacteristic of the reign, a process which gave their peculiar form tothe institutions of England and continued for more than a century. Bythis process the local law and institutions of Saxon England, and theroyal law and central institutions of the Normans, were wrought into asingle and harmonious whole. This process of union which was long andslow, guided by no intention beyond the convenience of the moment, advances in two stages. In the first, the Norman administration, royaland centralized, is carried down into the counties and there united, forthe greater ease of accomplishing certain desired ends of administration, with the local Saxon system. This resulted in several very importantfeatures of our judicial organization. The second stage was somewhat thereverse of this. In it, certain features which had developed in the localmachinery, the jury and election, are adopted by the central governmentand applied to new uses. This was the origin of the English parliamentarysystem. It is of the first of these stages only that we get a glimpse, inthis document, and from other sources of the reign of Henry, and thesebits of evidence only allow us to say that those judicial arrangementswhich were put into organized form in his grandson's reign had theirbeginning, as occasional practices, in his own. Not long after the dateof this charter, a series of law books, one of the interesting featuresof the reign, began to appear. Their object was to state the old laws ofEngland, or these in connexion with the laws then current in the courts, or with the legislation of the first of the Norman kings. Privatecompilations, or at most the work of persons whose position in theservice of the state could give no official authority to their codes, their object was mainly practical; but they reveal not merely a generalinterest in the legal arrangements existing at the moment, but a clearconsciousness that these rested upon a solid substratum of ancient law, dating from a time before the Conquest. Towards this ancient law thenation had lately turned, and had been answered by the promise in Henry'scoronation charter. Worn with the tyranny of William Rufus, men hadlooked back with longing to the better conditions of an earlier age, andhad demanded the laws of Edward or of Canute, as, under the latter, menhad looked back to the laws of Edgar, demanding laws, not in the sense ofthe legislation of a certain famous king, but of the whole legal andconstitutional situation of earlier times, thought of as a golden agefrom which the recent tyranny had departed. What they really desired wasnever granted them. The Saxon law still survived, and was very likelyrenewed in particulars by Henry I, but it survived as local law and asthe law of the minor affairs of life. The law of public affairs and ofall great interests, the law of the tyranny from which men suffered, wasnew. It made much use of the local machinery which it found but in a newway, and it was destined to be modified in some points by the old law, but it was new as the foundation on which was to be built the laterconstitution of the state. The demand for the laws of an earlier time didnot affect the process of this building, and the effort to put theancient law into accessible form, which may have had this demand as oneof its causes, is of interest to the student of general history chieflyfor the evidence it gives of the great work of union which was then goingon, of Saxon and Norman, in law as in blood, into a new nation. 

It was during the same stay in England that an opportunity was offered toHenry to form an alliance on the continent which promised him greatadvantages in case of an open conflict with the king of France. AtHenry's Whitsuntide court, in 1109, appeared an embassy from Henry V ofGermany, to ask for the hand of his daughter, then less than eight yearsold. This request Henry would not be slow to grant. Conflicting policieswould never be likely to disturb such an alliance, and the probableinterest which the sovereign of Germany would have in common with himselfin limiting the expansion of France, or even in detaching lands from herallegiance, would make the alliance seem of good promise for the future. On the part of Henry of Germany, such a proposal must have come frompolicy alone, but the advantage which he hoped to gain from it is not soeasy to discover as in the case of Henry of England. If he entertainedany idea of a common policy against France, this was soon dropped, andhis purpose must in all probability be sought in plans within the empire. Henry's recent accession to the throne of Germany had been followed by--achange of policy. During the later years of his unfortunate father, whosestormy reign had closed in the triumph of the two enemies whom he hadbeen obliged to face at once, the Church of Gregory VII, contending withthe empire for equality and even for supremacy, and the princes ofGermany, grasping in their local dominions the rights of sovereignty, theambitious prince had fought against the king, his father. But when he hadat last become king himself, his point of view was changed. The conflictin which his father had failed he was ready to renew with vigour and withhope of success. That he should have believed, as he evidently did, thata marriage with the young English princess was the most useful one hecould make in this crisis of his affairs is interesting evidence, notmerely of the world's opinion of Henry I, but also of the rank of theEnglish monarchy among the states of Europe. 

Just as she was completing her eighth year, Matilda was sent over toGermany to learn the language and the ways of her new country. A statelyembassy and a rich dower went with her, for which her father had providedby taking the regular feudal aid to marry the lord's eldest daughter, atthe rate of three shillings per hide throughout England. On April 10, 1110, she was formally betrothed to the emperor-elect at Utrecht. On July25, she was crowned Queen of Germany at Mainz. Then she was committed tothe care of the Archbishop of Trier, who was to superintend hereducation. On January 7, 1114, just before Matilda had completed hertwelfth year, the marriage was celebrated at Mainz, in the presence of agreat assembly. All things had been going well with Henry. In Germany andin Italy he had overcome the princes and nobles who had ventured tooppose him. The clergy of Germany seemed united on his side in the stillunsettled investiture conflict with the papacy. The brilliant assembly ofprinces of the empire and foreign ambassadors which gathered in the cityfor this marriage was in celebration as well of the triumph of theemperor. On this great occasion, and in spite of her youth, Matilda boreherself as a queen, and impressed those who saw her as worthy of theposition, highest in rank in the world, to which she had been called. Tothe end of her stay in Germany she retained the respect and she won thehearts of her German subjects. 

By August, 1111, King Henry's stay in England was over, and he crossedagain to Normandy. What circumstances called him to the continent we donot know, but probably events growing out of a renewal of war with LouisVI, which seems to have been first begun early in 1109. [22] However thismay be, he soon found himself in open conflict all along his southernborder with the king of France and the Count of Anjou, with Robert ofBellême and other barons of the border to aid them. Possibly Henry feareda movement in Normandy itself in favour of young William Clito, or learnedof some expression of a wish not infrequent among the Norman barons intimes a little later, that he might succeed to his father's place. At anyrate, at this time, Henry ordered Robert of Beauchamp to seize the boy inthe castle of Elias of Saint-Saens, to whom he had committed him fiveyears before. The attempt failed. William was hastily carried off toFrance by friendly hands, in the absence of his guardian. Elias joined himsoon after, shared his long exile, and suffered confiscation of his fiefin consequence. It would not be strange if Henry was occasionallytroubled, in that age of early but full-grown chivalry, by the sympathy ofthe Norman barons with the wanderings and friendless poverty of theirrightful lord; but Henry was too strong and too severe in his punishmentof any treason for sympathy ever to pass into action on any scale likelyto assist the exiled prince, unless in combination with some strong enemyof the king's from without. 

Henry would appear at first sight greatly superior to Louis VI of Francein the military power and resources of which he had immediate command, ashe certainly was in diplomatic skill. The Capetian king, master only ofthe narrow domains of the Isle of France, and hardly of those until theconstant fighting of Louis's reign had subdued the turbulent barons ofthe province; hemmed in by the dominions, each as extensive as his own, of the great barons nominally his vassals but sending to his wars asscanty levies as possible, or appearing openly in the ranks of hisenemies as their own interests dictated; threatened by foreign foes, thekings of England and of Germany, who would detach even these loosely heldprovinces from his kingdom, --the Capetian king could hardly have defendedhimself at this epoch from a neighbour so able as Henry I, wielding theunited strength of England and Normandy, and determined upon conquest. The safety of the Capetian house was secured by the absence of both theseconditions. Henry was not ambitious of conquest; and as his troubles withFrance increased so did dissensions in Normandy, which crippled hisresources and divided his efforts. The net result at the close of Henry'sreign was that the king of England was no stronger than in 1110, unlesswe count the uncertain prospect of the Angevin succession; while the kingof France was master of larger resources and a growing power. 

It seems most likely that it was in the spring of 1109 that the rivalryof the two kings first led to an open breach. This was regarding thefortress of Gisors, on the Epte, which William Rufus had built againstthe French Vexin. Louis summoned Henry either to surrender or to demolishit, but Henry refused either alternative, and occupied it with histroops. The French army opposed him on the other side of the river, butthere was no fighting. Louis, who greatly enjoyed the physical pleasureof battle, proposed to Henry that they should meet on the bridge whichcrossed the river at this point, in sight of the two armies, and decidetheir quarrel by a duel. Henry, the diplomatist and not the fighter, laughed at the proposition. In Louis's army were two men, one of whom hadlately been, and the other of whom was soon to be, in alliance withHenry, Robert of Jerusalem, Count of Flanders, and Theobald, Count ofBlois, eldest son of Henry's sister and brother of his successor as king, Stephen of England. Possibly a truce had soon closed this first war, butif so, it had begun again in the year of Henry's crossing, 1111; and theCount of Blois was now in the field against his sovereign and defeatedLouis in a battle in which the Count of Flanders was killed. The war withLouis ran its course for a year and a half longer without battles. Against Anjou Henry built or strengthened certain fortresses along theborder and waited the course of events. 

On November 4, 1112, an advantage fell to Henry which may have gone farto secure him the remarkable terms of peace with which the war wasclosed. He arrested Robert of Bellême, his constant enemy and the enemyof all good men, "incomparable in all forms of evil since the beginningof Christian days. " He had come to meet the king at Bonneville, to bringa message from Louis, thinking that Henry would be obliged to respect hischaracter as an envoy. Probably the king took the ground that by hisconduct Robert had forfeited all rights, and was to be treatedpractically as a common outlaw. At any rate, he ordered his arrest andtrial. On three specific counts--that he had acted unjustly toward hislord, that summoned three times to appear in court for trial he had notcome, and that as the king's viscount he had failed to render account ofthe revenues he had collected--he was condemned and sentenced toimprisonment. On Henry's return to England he was carried over and keptin Wareham castle, where he was still alive in 1130. The Norman historianOrderic records that this action of Henry's met with universal approvaland was greeted with general rejoicing. 

During Lent of the next year, 1113, Henry made formal peace with both hisenemies, the king of France and the Count of Anjou. The peace with thelatter was first concluded. It was very possibly Fulk's refusal torecognize Henry's overlordship of Maine that occasioned the war. To thishe now assented. He did homage for the county, and received investitureof it from the hand of the king. He also promised the hand of hisdaughter Matilda to Henry's son William. Henry, on his side, restored tofavour the Norman allies of Fulk. A few days later a treaty was made atGisors, with the king of France. Louis formally conceded to Henry theoverlordship of Bellême, which had not before depended upon the duchy ofNormandy, and that of Maine, and Britanny. In the case of Maine and ofBritanny this was the recognition of long-standing claims and ofaccomplished facts, for Count Alan Fergant of Britanny, as well as Fulkof Anjou, had already become the vassal of Henry, and had obtained thehand of a natural daughter of the king for his son Conan, who in thisyear became count. But the important lordship of Bellême was a newcession. It was not yet in Henry's hands, nor had it been reckoned as apart of Normandy, though the lords of Bellême had been also Normanbarons. Concessions such as these, forming with Normandy the area of manya kingdom, were made by a king like Louis VI, only under the compulsionof necessity. They mark the triumph of Henry's skill, of his vigorousdetermination, and of his ready disregard of the legal rights of others, if they would not conform to his ideas of proper conduct or fit into hissystem of government. The occupation of Bellême required a campaign. William Talvas, the son of Robert, while himself going to defend hismother's inheritance of Ponthieu, had left directions with the vassals ofBellême for its defence, but the campaign was a short one. Henry, assisted by his new vassal, the Count of Anjou, and by his nephew, Theobald of Blois, speedily reduced city and lordship to submission. 

Orderic Vitalis, who was living in Normandy at this time, in themonastery of St. Evroul, declares that following this peace, made in thespring of 1113, for five years, Henry governed his kingdom and his duchyon the two sides of the sea with great tranquillity. These years, to thegreat insurrection of the Norman barons in 1118, were not entirelyundisturbed, but as compared with the period which goes before, or withthat which follows, they deserve the historian's description. One greatarmy was led into Wales in 1114, and the Welsh princes were forced torenew their submission. Henry was apparently interested in the slowincorporation of Wales in England which was going forward, but prudentlyrecognized the difficulties of attempting to hasten the process byviolence. He was ready to use the Church, that frequent medieval engineof conquest, and attempted with success, both before this date and later, to introduce English bishops into old Welsh sees. From the early part ofthis reign also dates the great Flemish settlement in Pembrokeshire, which was of momentous influence on all that part of Wales. 

These years were also fully occupied with controversies in the Church, whose importance for the state Henry clearly recognized. Out of theconflict over investitures, regarded from the practical side, the Normanmonarchy had emerged, as we have seen, in triumph, making but one slightconcession, and that largely a matter of form. From the struggle withthe empire on the same issue, which was at this date still unsettled, theChurch was destined to gain but little more, perhaps an added point ofform, depending for its real value on the spirit with which the finalagreement was administered. In the matter of investitures, the Churchcould claim but little more than a drawn battle on any field; and yet, inthat great conflict with the monarchies of Europe into which the papacyhad been led by the genius of Hildebrand, it had gained a real and greatvictory in all that was of the most vital importance. The pope was nolonger the creature and servant of the emperor; he was not even a bishopof the empire. In the estimation of all Christendom, he occupied an equalthrone, exercised a co-ordinate power, and appeared even more directly asthe representative of the divine government of the world. Under his rulewas an empire far more extensive than that which the emperor controlled, coming now to be closely centralized with all the machinery ofgovernment, legal, judicial, and administrative, highly organized andpervaded from the highest to the lowest ranks with a uniform theory ofthe absolute right of the ruler and of the duty of unquestioningobedience which the most perfect secular absolutism would strive in vainto secure. To have transformed the Church, which the emperor Henry IIIhad begun to reform in 1046, into that which survived the last year ofhis dynasty, was a work of political genius as great as history records. 

It was not before the demand of the pope in the matter of investiturethat the Norman absolute government of the Church went down. It fellbecause the Norman theory of the national Church, closely under thecontrol of the state in every field of its activity, a part of the statemachinery, and a valuable assistant in the government of the nation, wasundermined and destroyed by a higher, and for that age a more useful, conception. When the idea of the Church as a world-wide unity, moreclosely bound to its theocratic head than to any temporal sovereign, andwith a mission and responsibility distinct from those of the state, tookpossession of the body of the clergy, as it began to do in the reign ofHenry, it was impossible to maintain any longer the separateness of theNorman Church. But the incorporation of the Norman and English churchesin the papal monarchy meant the slipping from the king's hands of powerin many individual cases, which the first two Norman kings had exercisedwithout question, and which even the third had continued to exercise. 

The struggle of York to free itself from the promise of obedience toCanterbury was only one of the many channels through which these newideas entered the kingdom. A new tide of monasticism had arisen on thecontinent, which did not spend itself even with the northern borders ofEngland. The new orders and the new spirit found many abiding places inthe kingdom, and drew laity as well as clergy under their stronginfluence. This was especially, though not alone, true of the Augustiniancanons, who possessed some fifty houses in England at the close ofHenry's reign, and in the later years of his life, of the Cistercians, with whose founding an English saint, Stephen Harding, had had much todo, and some of whose monasteries founded in this period, Tintern, Rievaulx, Furness, and Fountains, are still familiar names, famous forthe beauty of their ruins. This new monasticism had been founded whollyin the ideas of the new ecclesiastical monarchy, and was an expression ofthem. The monasteries it created were organized, not as parts of thestate in which they were situated, but as parts of a great order, international in its character, free from local control, and, though itshouses were situated in many lands, forming almost an independent stateunder the direct sovereignty of the pope. The new monarchical papacy, which emerged from the conflicts of this period, occupied Christendomwith its garrisons in these monastic houses, and every house was a sourcefrom which its ruling ideas spread widely abroad. 

A new education was also beginning in this same period, and was growingin definiteness of content and of organization, in response to a demandwhich was becoming eager. At many centres in Europe groups of scholarswere giving formal lectures on the knowledge of the day, and wereattracting larger and larger numbers of students by the fame of theireloquence, or by the stimulus of their new method. The beginnings ofOxford as a place of teachers, as well as of Paris, reach back into thistime. The ambitious young man, who looked forward to a career in theChurch, began to feel the necessity of getting the training which thesenew schools could impart. The number of students whom we can name, whowent from England to Paris or elsewhere to study, is large for the time;but if we possessed a list of all the English students, at home orabroad, of this reign, we should doubtless estimate the force of thisinfluence more highly, even in the period of its beginning. For the ideaswhich now reigned in the Church pervaded the new education as they didthe new monasticism. There was hardly a source, indeed, from which thestudent could learn any other doctrine, as there has remained none in thelearning of the Roman Church to the present day. The entire literature ofthe Church, its rapidly forming new philosophy and theology, its alreadygreatly developed canon law, breathed only the spirit of a divinelyinspired centralization. And the student who returned, very likely torapid promotion in the English Church, did not bring back these ideas forhimself alone. He set the fashion of thinking for his less fortunatefellows. 

It was by influences like these that the gradual and silent transformationwas wrought which made of the English Church a very different thing at theend of these thirty-five years from what it had been at the beginning ofthe reign. The first two Norman kings had reigned over a Church which knewno other system than strict royal control. Henry I continued to exerciseto the end of his reign, with only slight modification and the faintbeginnings of change, the same prerogatives, but it was over a Churchwhose officers had been trained in an opposing system, and now profoundlydisbelieved in his rights. How long would it avail the Norman monarchyanything to have triumphed in the struggle of investitures, when it couldno longer find the bishop to appoint who was not thoroughly devoted to thehighest papal claims? The answer suggested, in its extreme form, is toostrong a statement for the exact truth; for in whatever age, or underwhatever circumstances, a strong king can maintain himself, there he canalways find subservient tools. But the interested service of individualsis a very different foundation of power from the traditional andunquestioning obedience of a class. The history of the next age showsthat the way had been prepared for rapid changes, when politicalconditions would permit; and the grandson of the first Henry foundhimself obliged to yield, in part at least, to demands of the Churchentirely logical in themselves, but unheard of in his grandfather's time. 

[18] Eadmer, p. 172. 

[19] Liebermann, Quadripartitus, p. 155. 

[20] Anselm, Epist. Iv. 50, 51; Luchaire, Louis VI, Annales, No. 31. 

[21] See American Historical Review, viii, 478. 

[22] Luchaire, Louis VI, Annales, p. Cxv. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE KING'S FOREIGN INTERESTS

We need not enter into the details of the long struggle betweenCanterbury and York. The archbishopric of Canterbury was vacant for fiveyears after the death of Anselm; its revenues went to support the variousundertakings of the king. In April, 1114, Ralph of Escures, Bishop ofRochester, was chosen Anselm's successor. The archbishopric of York hadbeen vacant only a few months, when it was filled, later in the summer, by the appointment of Thurstan, one of the king's chaplains. The questionof the obligation of the recently elected Archbishop of York to bindhimself to obedience to the primate of Britain, whether settled as aprinciple or as a special case, by an English council or by the king orunder papal authority, arose anew with every new appointment. In theperiod which follows the appointment of Thurstan, a new element ofinterest was added to the dispute by the more deliberate policy of thepope to make use of it to gain a footing for his authority in England, and to weaken the unity and independence of the English Church. Thisattempt led to a natural alliance of parties, in which, while the issuewas at bottom really the same, the lines of the earlier investitureconflict were somewhat rearranged. The pope supported the claim of York, while the king defended the right of Canterbury as bound up with his own. 

At an important meeting of the great council at Salisbury, in March, 1116, the king forced upon Thurstan the alternative of submission toCanterbury or resignation. The barons and prelates of the realm had beenbrought together to make formal recognition of the right to thesuccession of Henry's son William, now fourteen years of age. Already inthe previous summer this had been done in Normandy, the barons doinghomage and swearing fealty to the prince. Now the English barons followedthe example, and, by the same ceremony, the strongest tie known to thefeudal world, bound themselves to accept the son as their lord on thedeath of his father. The prelates, for their part, took oath that if theyshould survive Henry, they would recognize William as king, and then dohomage to him in good faith. The incident is interesting less as anexample of this characteristic feudal method of securing the succession, for this had been employed since the Conquest both in Normandy and inEngland, than because we are told that on this occasion the oath wasdemanded, not merely of all tenants in chief, but of all inferiorvassals. If this statement may be accepted, and there is no reason todoubt it, we may conclude that the practice established by the Conquerorat an earlier Salisbury assembly had been continued by his sons. This wasa moment when Henry was justified in expressing his will, even on amatter of Church government, in peremptory command, and when no one waslikely to offer resistance. Thurstan chose to surrender thearchbishopric, and promised to make no attempt to recover it; butapparently the renunciation was not long regarded as final on eitherside. He was soon after this with the king in Normandy, but he wasrefused the desired permission to go to Rome, a journey which ArchbishopRalph soon undertook, that he might try the influence of his presencethere in favour of the cause of Canterbury and against other pretensionsof the pope. 

From the date of this visit to Normandy, in the spring of 1116, Henry'scontinental interests mix themselves with those of the absolute ruler ofthe English Church, and he was more than once forced to choose upon whichside he would make some slight concession or waive some right for themoment. Slowly the sides were forming themselves and the opposinginterests growing clear, of a great conflict for the dominion of northernFrance, a conflict forced upon the English king by the necessity ofdefending the position he had gained, rather than sought by him in thespirit of conquest, even when he seemed the aggressor; a conflict inwhich he was to gain the victory in the field and in diplomacy, but to beovercome by the might of events directed by no human hand and not to beresisted by any. 

The peace between Henry and Louis, made in the spring of 1113, was brokenby Henry's coming to the aid of his nephew, Theobald of Blois. Theobaldhad seized the Count of Nevers on his return from assisting Louis in acampaign in the duchy of France in 1115. The cause was bad, but Henrycould not afford to see so important an ally as his nephew crushed by hisenemies, especially as his dominions were of peculiar strategical valuein any war with the king of France. To Louis's side gathered, as the wardeveloped, those who had reason from their position to fear what lookedlike the policy of expansion of this new English power in north-westernFrance, especially the Counts of Flanders and of Anjou. The marriage ofHenry's son William with Fulk's daughter had not yet taken place, and theCount of Anjou might well believe--particularly from the close allianceof Henry with the rival power of Blois--that he had more to fear than tohope for from the spread of the Norman influence. At the same time thedivision began to show itself among the Norman barons, of those who werefaithful to Henry and those who preferred the succession of Robert's sonWilliam; and it grew more pronounced as the war went on, for Louis tookup the cause of William as the rightful heir of Normandy. In doing thishe began the policy which the French kings followed for so many years, and on the whole with so little advantage, of fomenting the quarrels inthe English royal house and of separating if possible the continentalpossessions from the English. 

On Henry's side were a majority of the Norman barons and the counts ofBritanny and of Blois. For the first time, also, appeared upon the stageof history in this war Henry's other nephew, Stephen, who was destined todo so much evil to England and to Henry's plans before his death. Hisuncle had already made him Count of Mortain. The lordship of Bellême, which Henry had given to Theobald, had been by him transferred to Stephenin the division of their inheritance. It was probably not long after thisthat Henry procured for him the hand of Matilda, heiress of the county ofBoulogne, and thus extended his own influence over that importantterritory on the borders of Flanders. France, Flanders, and Anjoucertainly had abundant reason to fear the possible combination into onepower of Normandy, Britanny, Maine, Blois, and Boulogne, and that a powerwhich, however pacific in disposition, showed so much tendency toexpansion. For France, at least, the cause of this war was not thedisobedience of a vassal, nor was it to be settled by the siege andcapture of border castles. 

The war which followed was once more not a war of battles. Armies, largefor the time, were collected, but they did little more than makethreatening marches into the enemy's country. In 1118 the revolt of theNorman barons, headed by Amaury of Montfort, who now claimed the countyof Evreux, assumed proportions which occasioned the king manydifficulties. This was a year of misfortunes for him. The Count of Anjou, the king of France, the Count of Flanders, each in turn invaded some partof Normandy, and gained advantages which Henry could not prevent. Baldwinof Flanders, however, returned home with a wound from an arrow, of whichhe shortly died. In the spring of this year Queen Matilda died, praisedby the monastic chroniclers to the last for her good deeds. A month laterHenry's wisest counsellor, Robert of Meulan, died also, after a long lifespent in the service of the Conqueror and of his sons. The close of theyear saw no turn of the tide in favour of Henry. Evreux was captured inOctober by Amaury of Montfort, and afterwards Alençon by the Count ofAnjou. 

The year 1119, which was destined to close in triumph for Henry, openedno more favourably. The important castle of Les Andelys, commanding theNorman Vexin, was seized by Louis, aided by treachery. But before themiddle of the year, Henry had gained his first great success. He inducedthe Count of Anjou, by what means we do not know, --by money it wasthought by some at the time, --to make peace with him, and to carry outthe agreement for the marriage of his daughter with the king's son. Thecounty of Maine was settled on the young pair, virtually its transfer toHenry. At the same time, Henry granted to William Talvas, perhaps as oneof the conditions of the treaty, the Norman possessions which hadbelonged to his father, Robert of Bellême. In the same month, June, 1119, Baldwin of Flanders died of the wound which he had received in Normandy, and was succeeded by his nephew, Charles the Good, who reversed Baldwin'spolicy and renewed the older relations with England. The sieges ofcastles, the raiding and counter-raiding of the year, amounted to littleuntil, on August 20, while each was engaged in raiding, the opposingarmies commanded by the two kings in person unexpectedly found themselvesin the presence of one another. The battle of Bremule, the only encounterof the war which can be called a battle, followed. Henry and his menagain fought on foot, as at Tinchebrai, with a small reserve onhorseback. The result was a complete victory for Henry. The French armywas completely routed, and a large number of prisoners was taken, thoughthe character which a feudal battle often assumed from this time on isattributed to this one, in the fact reported that in the fighting andpursuit only three men were killed. 

A diplomatic victory not less important followed the battle of Bremule bya few weeks. The pope was now in France. His predecessor, Gelasius II, had been compelled to flee from Italy by the successes of the EmperorHenry V, and had died at Cluny in January, 1119, on his way to the north. The cardinals who had accompanied him elected in his stead the Archbishopof Vienne, who took the name of Calixtus II. Gelasius in his short andunfortunate reign had attempted to interfere with vigour in the disputebetween York and Canterbury, and had summoned both parties to appearbefore him for the decision of the case. This was in Henry's year ofmisfortunes, 1118, and he was obliged to temporize. The early death ofGelasius interrupted his plan, but only until Calixtus II was ready to goon with it. He called a council of the Church to meet at Reims inOctober, to which he summoned the English bishops, and where he proposedto decide the question of the obedience of York to Canterbury. Henrygranted a reluctant consent to the English bishops to attend thiscouncil, but only on condition that they would allow no innovations inthe government of the English Church. To Thurstan of York, to whom he hadrestored the temporalities of his see, under the pressure ofcircumstances nearly two years before, he granted permission to attend oncondition that he would not accept consecration as archbishop from thepope. This condition was at once violated, and Thurstan was consecratedby the pope on October 19. Henry immediately ordered that he should notbe allowed to return to any of the lands subject to his rule. 

At this council King Louis of France, defeated in the field and nowwithout allies, appealed in person to the pope for the condemnation ofthe king of England. He is said, by Orderic Vitalis who was probablypresent at the council and heard him speak, to have recited the evildeeds of Henry, from the imprisonment of Robert to the causes of thepresent war. The pope himself was in a situation where he needed toproceed with diplomatic caution, but he promised to seek an interviewwith Henry and to endeavour to bring about peace. This interview tookplace in November, at Gisors, and ended in the complete discomfiture ofthe pope. Henry was now in a far stronger position than he had been atthe beginning of the year, and to the requests of Calixtus he returneddefinite refusals or vague and general answers of which nothing was to bemade. The pope was even compelled to recognize the right of the Englishking to decide when papal legates should be received in the kingdom. Henry was, however, quite willing to make peace. He had won over Louis'sallies, defeated his attempt to gain the assistance of the pope, andfinally overcome the revolted Norman barons. He might reasonably havedemanded new advantages in addition to those which had been granted himin the peace of 1113, but all that marks this treaty is the legalrecognition of his position in Normandy. Homage was done to Louis forNormandy, not by Henry himself, for he was a king, but by his son Williamfor him. It is probable that at no previous date would this ceremony havebeen acceptable, either to Louis or to Henry. On Louis's part it was notmerely a recognition of Henry's right to the duchy of Normandy, but itwas also a formal abandonment of William Clito, and an acceptance ofWilliam, Henry's son, as the heir of his father. This act was accompaniedby a renewal of the homage of the Norman barons to William, whether madenecessary by the numerous rebellions of the past two years, or desirableto perfect the legal chain, now that William had been recognized as heirby his suzerain, a motive that would apply to all the barons. 

This peace was made sometime during the course of the year 1120. InNovember Henry was ready to return to England, and on the 25th he setsail from Barfleur, with a great following. Then suddenly came upon him, not the loss of any of the advantages he had lately gained nor anyimmediate weakening of his power, but the complete collapse of all thathe had looked forward to as the ultimate end of his policy. His sonWilliam embarked a little later than his father in the White Ship, witha brilliant company of young relatives and nobles. They were in a veryhilarious mood, and celebrated the occasion by making the crew drunk. Probably they were none too sober themselves; certainly Stephen of Bloiswas saved to be king of England in his cousin's place, by withdrawing toanother vessel when he saw the condition of affairs on the White Ship. It was night and probably dark. About a mile and a half from Barfleur theship struck a rock, and quickly filled and sank. It was said that Williamwould have escaped if he had not turned back at the cries of his sister, Henry's natural daughter, the Countess of Perche. All on board weredrowned except a butcher of Rouen. Never perished in any similar calamityso large a number of persons of rank. Another child of Henry's, hisnatural son Richard, his niece Matilda, sister of Theobald and Stephen, anephew of the Emperor Henry V, Richard, Earl of Chester, and his brother, the end of the male line of Hugh of Avranches, and a crowd of others ofonly lesser rank. Orderic Vitalis records that he had heard that eighteenladies perished, who were the daughters, sisters, nieces, or wives ofkings or earls. Henry is said to have fallen to the ground in a faintwhen the news was told him, and never to have been the same man again. 

But if Henry could no longer look forward to the permanence in the secondgeneration of the empire which he had created, he was not the man tosurrender even to the blows of fate. The succession to his dominions ofRobert's son William, who had been so recently used by his enemiesagainst him, but who was now the sole male heir of William the Conqueror, was an intolerable idea. In barely more than a month after the death ofhis son, the king took counsel with the magnates of the realm, at a greatcouncil in London, in regard to his remarriage. In less than anothermonth the marriage was celebrated. Henry's second wife was Adelaide, daughter of Geoffrey, Duke of Lower Lorraine, a vassal of his son-in-law, the emperor, and his devoted supporter, as well as a prince whosealliance might be of great use in any future troubles with France orFlanders. This marriage was made chiefly in hope of a legitimate heir, but it was a childless marriage, and Henry's hope was disappointed. 

For something more than two years after this fateful return of the kingto England, his dominions enjoyed peace scarcely broken by a briefcampaign in Wales in 1121. At the end of 1120, Archbishop Thurstan, forwhose sake the pope was threatening excommunication and interdict, wasallowed to return to his see, where he was received with great rejoicing. But the dispute with Canterbury was not yet settled. Indeed, he hadscarcely returned to York when he was served with notice that he mustprofess, for himself at least, obedience to Canterbury, as hispredecessors had done. This he succeeded in avoiding for a time, and atthe beginning of October, in 1122, Archbishop Ralph of Canterbury died, not having gained his case. An attempt of Calixtus II to send a legate toEngland, contrary to the promise he had made to Henry at Gisors, was metand defeated by the king with his usual diplomatic skill, so far as theexercise of any legatine powers is concerned, though the legate wasadmitted to England and remained there for a time. In the selection of asuccessor to Ralph of Canterbury a conflict arose between the monasticchapter of Christ church and the bishops of the province, and was decidedundoubtedly according to the king's mind in favour of the latter, by theelection of William of Corbeil, a canon regular. Another episcopalappointment of these years illustrates the growing importance in thekingdom of the great administrative bishop, Roger of Salisbury, who seemsto have been the king's justiciar, or chief representative, during hislong absences in Normandy. The long pontificate of Robert Bloet, thebrilliant and worldly Bishop of Lincoln, closed at the beginning of 1123by a sudden stroke as he was riding with the king, and in his place wasappointed Roger's nephew, Alexander. 

During this period also, probably within a year after the death of hisson William, Henry took measures to establish the position of one of hisillegitimate sons, very likely with a view to the influence which hemight have upon the succession when the question should arise. Robert ofCaen, so called from the place of his birth, was created Earl ofGloucester, and was married to Mabel, heiress of the large possessions ofRobert Fitz Hamon in Gloucester, Wales, and Normandy. Robert ofGloucester, as he came to be known, was the eldest of Henry'sillegitimate sons, born before his father's accession to the throne, andhe was now in the vigour of young manhood. He was also, of all Henry'schildren of whom we know anything, the most nearly like himself, of morethan average abilities, patient and resourceful, hardly inheriting infull his father's diplomatic skill but not without gifts of the kind, andearning the reputation of a lover of books and a patron of writers. Ahundred years earlier there would have been no serious question, in thecircumstances which had arisen, of his right to succeed his father, atleast in the duchy of Normandy. That the possibility of such a successionwas present in men's minds is shown by a contemporary record that thesuggestion was made to him on the death of Henry, and rejected at oncethrough his loyalty to his sister's son. Whether this record is to bebelieved or not, it shows that the event was thought possible. [23]

Certainly there was no real movement, not even the slightest, in hisfavour, and this fact reveals the change which had taken place in men'sideas of the succession in a century. The necessity of legitimate birthwas coming to be recognized as indisputable, though it had not been bythe early Teutonic peoples. Of the causes of this change, the teachingsof the Church were no doubt the most effective, becoming of more forcewith its increasing influence, and especially since, as a part of theHildebrandine reformation, it had insisted with so much emphasis on thefact that the son of a married priest could have no right of successionto his father's benefice, being of illegitimate birth; but the teachingsof the sacredness of the marriage tie, of the sinfulness of illicitrelations, and of the nullity of marriage within the prohibited degrees, were of influence in the change of ideas. It is also true that men'snotions of the right of succession to property in general were becomingmore strict and definite, and very possibly the importance of thesuccession involved in this particular case had its effect. One mayalmost regret that this change of ideas, which was certainly an advancein morals, as well as in law, was not delayed for another generation; forif Robert of Gloucester could have succeeded on the death of Henrywithout dispute, England would have been saved weary years of strife andsuffering. 

The death of the young William was a signal to set Henry's enemies inmotion again. But they did not begin at once. Henry's position was stillunweakened. Very likely his speedy marriage was a notice to the world thathe did not propose to modify in the least his earlier plans. Probablyalso the absence of Fulk of Anjou, who had gone on a pilgrimage toJerusalem soon after his treaty of 1119 with Henry, was a cause of delay, for the natural first move would be for him to demand a return of hisdaughter and her dowry. Fulk's stay was not long in the land of which hewas in a few years to be king, and on his return he at once sent for hisdaughter, probably in 1121. She returned home, but as late as December, 1122, there was still trouble between him and Henry in regard to herdowry, which Henry no doubt was reluctant to surrender. 

About the same time, Henry's old enemy, Amaury of Montfort, disliking thestrictness of Henry's rule and the frequency of his demands for money, began to work among the barons of Normandy and with his nephew, the Countof Anjou, in favour of William Clito. It was already clear that Henry'shope of another heir was likely to be disappointed, and Normandy wouldnaturally be more easily attracted to the son of Robert than England Thefirst step was one which did not violate any engagement with Henry, butwhich was, nevertheless, a decided recognition of the claims of hisnephew, and an open attack on his plans. Fulk gave his second daughter, Sibyl, in marriage to William Clito, and with her the county of Maine, which had been a part of Matilda's dower on her marriage with Henry's sonWilliam. Under the circumstances, this was equivalent to an announcementthat he expected William Clito to be the Duke of Normandy. Early in 1123, Henry sent over troops to Normandy, and in June of that year he crossedhimself, to be on the spot if the revolt and war which were threateningshould break out. In September the discontented barons agreed together totake arms. It is of interest that among these was Waleran of Meulan, theson of the king's faithful counsellor, Count Robert. Waleran hadinherited his father's Norman possessions while his brother Robert hadbecome Earl of Leicester in England. 

In all this the hand of Louis, king of France, was not openly seen. Undoubtedly, however, the movement had his encouragement from thebeginning, and very likely his promise of open support when the timeshould come. The death of the male heir to England and Normandy wouldnaturally draw Henry's daughter Matilda, and her husband the emperor, nearer to him; and of this, while Henry was still in England, someevidence has come down to us though not of the most satisfactory kind. Any evidence at the time that this alliance was likely to become moreclose would excite the fear of the king of France and make him ready tosupport any movement against the English king. Flanders would feel thedanger as keenly, and in these troubles Charles the Good abandoned hisEnglish alliance and supported the cause of France. 

The contest which followed between the king and his revolted barons ishardly to be dignified with the name of war. The forced surrender of afew strongholds, the long siege of seven weeks, long for those days, ofWaleran of Meulan's castle, of Pont Audemer and its capture, and theoccupation of Amaury of Montfort's city of Evreux, filled the remainderof the year 1123, and in March of 1124 the battle of Bourgtheroulde, inwhich Ralph, Earl of Chester, defeated Amaury and Waleran and captured alarge number of prisoners, virtually ended the conflict. Upon the leaderswhom he had captured Henry inflicted his customary punishment of longimprisonment, or the worse fate of blinding. The Norman barons had takenarms, and had failed without the help from abroad which they undoubtedlyexpected. We do not know in full detail the steps which had been taken tobring about this result, but it was attributed to the diplomacy of Henry, that neither Fulk of Anjou nor Louis of France was able to attack him. 

Henry probably had little difficulty in moving his son-in-law, theemperor Henry V, to attack Louis of France. Besides the general reasonwhich would influence him, of willingness to support Matilda's father atthis time, and of standing unfriendliness with France, he was especiallyready to punish the state in which successive popes had found refuge andsupport when driven from Italy by his successes. The policy of an attackon Louis was not popular with the German princes, and the army with whichthe Emperor crossed the border was not a large one. To oppose him, Louisadvanced with a great and enthusiastic host. Taking in solemn ceremonyfrom the altar of St Denis the oriflamme, the banner of the holy defenderof the land, he aroused the patriotism of northern France as against ahereditary enemy. Even Henry's nephew, Theobald of Blois, led out hisforces to aid the king. The news of the army advancing against them didnot increase the ardour of the German forces; and hearing of aninsurrection in Worms, the Emperor turned back, having accomplishednothing more than to secure a free hand for Henry of England against theNorman rebels. 

Against Fulk of Anjou Henry seems to have found his ally in the pope. Themarriage of William Clito with Sibyl, with all that it might carry withit, was too threatening a danger to be allowed to stand, if in any way itcould be avoided. The convenient plea of relationship, convenient to beremembered or forgotten according to the circumstances, was urged uponthe pope. The Clito and his bride were related in no nearer degree thanthe tenth, according to the reckoning of the canon law, which prohibitedmarriage between parties related in the seventh degree, and Henry's ownchildren, William in his earlier, and Matilda in her later marriage, withthe sister and brother of Sibyl, were equally subject to censure. Butthis was a different case. Henry's arguments at Rome--Orderic tells usthat threats, prayers, and money were combined--were effective, and themarriage was ordered dissolved. Excommunication and interdict werenecessary to enforce this decision; but at last, in the spring of 1125, Fulk was obliged to yield, and William Clito began his wanderings oncemore, followed everywhere by the "long arm" of his uncle. 

At Easter time in 1125, probably a few days before the date of the papalbull of interdict which compelled the dissolution of the marriage ofWilliam and Sibyl, a papal legate, John of Crema, landed in England. Possibly this departure from Henry's practice down to this time was apart of the price which the papal decision cost. The legate made acomplete visitation of England, had a meeting with the king of Scots, andpresided at a council of the English Church held in September, where thecanons of Anselm were renewed in somewhat milder form. On his return toRome in October, he was accompanied by the Archbishops of Canterbury andYork, who went there about the still unsettled question of the obedienceof the latter. Not even now was this question settled on its merits, butWilliam of Corbeil made application, supported by the king, to beappointed the standing papal legate in Britain. This request was granted, and formed a precedent which was followed by successive popes andarchbishops. This appointment is usually considered a lowering of thepretensions of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and an infringement of theindependence of the English Church, and to a considerable extent this istrue. Under a king as strong as Henry I, with an archbishop no strongerthan William of Corbeil, or, indeed, with one not exceptionally strong, the papal authority gained very little from the arrangement. But it was aperpetual opportunity; it was a recognition of papal right. Under it thenumber of appeals to Rome increased; it marks in a legal way the advanceof papal authority and of a consciousness of unity in the Church sincethe accession of the king, and it must have been so regarded at Rome. Theappointment gave to Canterbury at once undoubted supremacy over York, butnot on the old grounds, and that question was passed on to the futurestill unsettled. 

In the spring of 1125 also occurred an event which again changed thedirection of Henry's plans. On May 23, the emperor Henry V died, withoutchildren by his marriage to Matilda. The widowed Empress, as she washenceforth called by the English though she had never received theimperial crown, obeyed her father's summons to return to him in Normandywith great reluctance. She had been in Germany since her early childhood, and she was now twenty-three years of age. She could have fewrecollections of any other home. She loved the German people, and wasbeloved by them. We are told even that some of them desired her to reignin her husband's stead, and came to ask her return of Henry. But thedeath of her husband had rendered her succession to the English throne amatter of less difficulty, and Henry had no mind to sacrifice his ownplans for the benefit of a foreign people. In September, 1126, hereturned with Matilda to England, and in January following, at a greatcouncil in London, he demanded and obtained of the baronage, lay andspiritual, an oath to accept Matilda as sovereign if he should diewithout a male heir. The inference is natural from the account William ofMalmesbury gives of this event, that in the argument before the councilmuch was made of the fact that Matilda was a descendant of the old Saxon, as well as of the Norman, line. It is evident, also, that there washesitation on the part of the barons, and that they yielded reluctantlyto the king's demand. 

The feudalism of France and England clearly recognized the right of womento succeed to baronies, even of the first importance, though with someirregularities of practice and the feudal right of marriage which theEnglish kings considered so important rested, in the case of femaleheirs, on this principle. The king's son, Robert of Gloucester, and hisnephew Stephen, now Count of Boulogne, who disputed with one another theright to take this oath to Matilda's succession next after her uncle, David, king of Scots, had both been provided for by Henry in this way. Still, even in these cases, a difference was likely to be felt betweensuccession to the barony itself, and to the title and political authoritywhich went with it, and the difference would be greater in the case ofthe highest of titles, of the throne of such a dominion as Henry hadbrought together. Public law in the Spanish peninsula had already, in onecase, recognized the right of a woman to reign, but there had been as yetno case in northern Europe. The dread of such a succession was natural, in days when feudal turbulence was held in check only by the reigningking, and when even this could be accomplished only by a king ofdetermined force. The natural feeling in such cases is undoubtedlyindicated by the form of the historian's statement referred to above, that Robert of Gloucester declined the suggestion that he should be kingout of loyalty to "his sister's son. " It was the feeling that the femaleheir could pass the title on to her son, rather than that she could holdit herself. 

William of Malmesbury states, in his account of these events, that he hadoften heard Bishop Roger of Salisbury say that he considered himselfreleased from this oath to Matilda because it had been taken on conditionthat she should not be married out of the kingdom except with the counselof the barons. [24] The writer takes pains at the same time to say that herecords this fact rather from his sense of duty as a historian thanbecause he believes the statement. It has, however, a certain amount ofinherent probability. To consult with his vassals on such a question wasso frequently the practice of the lord, and it was so entirely in linewith feudal usage, that the barons would have had some slight ground onwhich to consider themselves released from this oath, even if such aspecific promise had not been made, nor is it likely that Henry wouldhesitate to make it if he thought it desired. It is indeed quite possiblethat Henry had not yet determined upon the plan which he afterwardscarried out, though it may very likely have been in his mind, and that hewas led to this by events which were taking place at this very time inFrance. 

Matilda's return to her father, and Henry's evident intention to make herthe heir of his dominions, of Normandy as well as of England, seem tohave moved King Louis to some immediate action in opposition. Theseparation of the duchy from the kingdom, so important for theinterests of the Capetian house, could not be hoped for unless this planwas defeated. The natural policy of opposition was the support of WilliamClito. At a great council of his kingdom, meeting at the same time withHenry's court in which Matilda's heirship was recognized, the French kingbespoke the sympathy and support of his barons for "William of Normandy. "The response was favourable, and Louis made him a grant of the FrenchVexin, a point of observation and of easy approach to Normandy. At thesame time, a wife was given William in the person of Jeanne, half sisterof Louis's queen, and daughter of the Marquis of Montferrat. A few weekslater William advanced with an armed force to Gisors, and made formalclaim to Normandy. 

It was hardly these events, though they were equivalent to a formalnotification of the future policy of the king of France, which broughtHenry to a decision as to his daughter's marriage. On March 2, the Countof Flanders, Charles the Good, was foully murdered in the Church of St. Donatian at Bruges. He was without children or near relatives, andseveral claimants for the vacant countship at once appeared. Even Henry Iis said to have presented his claim, which he would derive from hismother, but he seems never seriously to have prosecuted it. Louis, on thecontrary, gave his whole support to the claim of William Clito, andsucceeded with little difficulty in getting him recognized by most of thebarons and towns as count. This was a new and most serious danger toHenry's plans, and he began at once to stir up troubles for the new countamong his vassals, by the support of rival claimants, and in alliancewith neighbouring princes. But the situation demanded measures of directdefence, and Henry was led to take the decisive step, so eventful for allthe future history of England, of marrying Matilda a second time. Immediately after Whitsuntide of 1127, Matilda was sent over to Normandy, attended by Robert of Gloucester and Brian Fitz Count, and at Rouen wasformally betrothed by the archbishop of that city to Geoffrey, son ofFulk of Anjou. The marriage did not take place till two years later. 

For this marriage no consent of English or Norman barons was asked, andnone was granted. Indeed, we are led to suspect that Henry considered itunlikely that he could obtain consent, and deemed it wiser not to let hisplans be known until they were so far accomplished as to make oppositionuseless. The natural rivalry and hostility between Normandy and Anjou hadbeen so many times passed on from father to son that such a marriage asthis could seem to the Norman barons nothing but a humiliation, and tothe Angevins hardly less than a triumph. The opposition, however, spentitself in murmurs. The king was too strong. Probably also the politicaladvantages were too obvious to warrant any attempt to defeat the scheme. Matilda herself is said to have been much opposed to the marriage, andthis we can easily believe. Geoffrey was more than ten years her junior, and still a mere boy. She had but recently occupied the position ofhighest rank in the world to which a woman could attain. She wasnaturally of a proud and haughty spirit. We are told nothing of thearguments which induced her to consent; but in this case again thepolitical advantage, the necessity of the marriage to the security of hersuccession, must have been the controlling motive. 

That these considerations were valid, that Henry was fully justified intaking this step in the circumstances which had arisen, is open to noquestion, if the matter is regarded as one of cold policy alone. To leaveMatilda's succession to the sole protection of the few barons of England, who were likely to be faithful, however powerful they might be, wouldhave been madness under the new conditions. With William Clito likely tobe in possession of the resources of a strong feudal state, heartilysupported by the king of France, felt by the great mass of Norman baronsto be the rightful heir, and himself of considerable energy of character, the odds would be decidedly in favour of his succession. The balancecould be restored only by bringing forward in support of Matilda's claima power equal to William's and certain not to abandon her cause. Henrycould feel that he had accomplished this by the marriage with Geoffrey, and he had every reason to believe that he had converted at the same timeone of the probable enemies of his policy into its most interesteddefender. Could he have foreseen the early death of William, he mighthave had reason to hesitate and to question whether some other marriagemight not lead to a more sure success. That this plan failed in the endis only a proof of Henry's foresight in providing, against an almostinevitable failure, the best defence which ingenuity could devise. 

William Clito's tenure of his countship was of but little more than ayear, and a year filled with fighting. Boulogne was a vassal county ofFlanders; but the new count, Stephen, undoubtedly carrying out thedirections of his uncle, refused him homage, and William endeavoured tocompel his obedience by force. Insurrections broke out behind him, due inpart to his own severity of rule; and the progress of one of his rivalswho was destined to succeed him, Dietrich of Elsass, was alarming. Louisattempted to come to his help, but was checked by a forward move of Henrywith a Norman army. The tide seemed about to turn in Henry's favour oncemore, when it was suddenly impelled that way by the death of William. Wounded in the hand by a spear, in a fight at Alost, he died a few dayslater. His father was still alive in an English prison, and was informedin a dream, we are told, of this final blow of fortune. But for Henrythis opportune death not merely removed from the field the most dangerousrival for Matilda's succession, but it also re-established the Englishinfluence in Flanders. Dietrich of Elsass became count, with the consentof Louis, and renewed the bond with England. Not long afterwards by theinfluence of Henry he obtained as wife, Geoffrey of Anjou's sister Sibyl, who had been taken from William Clito. 

Geoffrey and Matilda were married at Le Mans, on June g, 1129, by theBishop of Avranches, in the presence of a brilliant assembly of noblesand prelates, and with the appearance of great popular rejoicing. After astay there of three weeks, Henry returned to Normandy, and Matilda, withher husband and father-in-law, went to Angers. The jubilation with whichthe bridal party was there received was no doubt entirely genuine. Already before this marriage an embassy from the kingdom of Jerusalem hadsought out Fulk, asking him to come to the aid of the Christian state, and offering him the hand of the heiress of the kingdom with her crown. This offer he now accepted, and left the young pair in possession ofAnjou. But this happy outcome of Henry's policy, which promised to settleso many difficulties, was almost at the outset threatened with disasteragainst which even he could not provide. Matilda was not of gentledisposition. She never made it easy for her friends to live with her, andit is altogether probable that she took no pains to conceal her scorn ofthis marriage and her contempt for the Angevins, including very likelyher youthful husband. At any rate, a few days after Henry's return toEngland, July 7, 1129, he was followed by the news that Geoffrey hadrepudiated and cast off his wife, and that Matilda had returned to Rouenwith few attendants. Henry did not, however, at once return to Normandy, and it was two full years before Matilda came back to England. 

The disagreement between Geoffrey and Matilda ran its course as a familyquarrel. It might endanger the future of Henry's plans, but it caused himno present difficulty. His continental position was now, indeed, secureand was threatened during the short remainder of his life by none of hisenemies, though his troubles with his son-in-law were not yet over. Thedefeat of Robert and the crushing of the most powerful nobles had taughtthe barons a lesson which did not need to be repeated, and England wasnot easily accessible to the foreign enemies of the king. In Normandy thecase was different, and despite Henry's constant successes and hismerciless severity, no victory had been final so long as any claimantlived who could be put forward to dispute his possession. Now followedsome years of peace, in which the history of Normandy is as barren as thehistory of England had long been, until the marriage of Matilda raised upa new claimant to disturb the last months of her father's life. DuringHenry's last stay in Normandy death had removed one who had once filled alarge place in history, but who had since passed long years in obscurity. Ranulf Flambard died in 1128, having spent the last part of his life indoing what he could to redeem the earlier, by his work on the cathedralof Durham, where in worthy style he carried on the work of hispredecessor, William of St. Calais. Soon after died William Giffard, thebishop whom Henry had appointed before he was himself crowned, and in hisplace the king appointed his nephew, Henry of Blois, brother of CountStephen, who was to play so great a part in the troubles that were soonto begin. About the same time we get evidence that Henry had notabandoned his practice of taking fines from the married clergy, and ofallowing them to retain their wives. 

The year 1130, which Henry spent in England, is made memorable by avaluable and unique record giving us a sight of the activities of hisreign on a side where we have little other evidence. The Pipe Roll of thatyear has come down to us. [25] The Pipe Rolls, so called apparently fromthe shape in which they were filed for preservation, are the records ofthe accounting of the Exchequer Court with the sheriffs for the revenueswhich they had collected from their counties, and which they were bound tohand over to the treasury. From a point in the reign of Henry's grandson, these rolls become almost continuous, and reveal to us in detail manyfeatures of the financial system of these later times. This one recordfrom the reign of the first Henry is a slender foundation for ourknowledge of the financial organization of the kingdom, but from it weknow with certainly that this organization had already begun as it wasafterward developed. 

It has already been said that the single organ of the feudal state, bywhich government in all its branches was carried on, was the curiaregis. We shall find it difficult to realize a fact like this, or tounderstand how so crude a system of government operated in practice, unless we first have clearly in mind the fact that the men of that timedid not reason much about their government. They did not distinguish onefunction of the state from another, nor had they yet begun to think thateach function should have its distinct machinery in the governmentalsystem. All that came later, as the result of experience, or moreaccurately, of the pressure of business. As yet, business and machineryboth were undeveloped and undifferentiated. In a single session of thecourt advice might be given to the king on some question of foreignpolicy and on the making or revising of a law; and a suit between two ofthe king's vassals might be heard and decided: and no one would feel thatwork of different and somewhat inconsistent types had been done. Oneseemed as properly the function of the assembly as the other. In thecomposition of the court, and in the practice as to time and place ofmeeting, there was something of the same indefiniteness. The court wasthe king's. It was his personal machine for managing the business of hisgreat property, the state. As such it met when and where the kingpleased, certain meetings being annually expected; and it was composed ofany persons who stood in immediate relations with the king, and whosepresence he saw fit to call for by special or general summons, hisvassals and the officers of his household or government. If a vassal ofthe king had a complaint against another, and needed the assistance ofthe king to enforce his view of the case, he might look upon his standingin the curia regis as a right; but in general it was a burden, aservice, which could be demanded of him because of some estate or officewhich he held. 

In the reign of the first Henry we can indeed trace the beginnings ofdifferentiation in the machinery of government, but the process was asyet wholly unconscious. We find in this reign evidence of a largecuria regis and of a small curia regis. The difference had probablyexisted in the two preceding reigns, but it now becomes more apparentbecause the increasing business of the state makes it more prominent. More frequent meetings of the curia regis were necessary, but thebarons of the kingdom could not be in constant attendance at the courtand occupied with its business. The large court was the assembly of allthe barons, meeting on occasions only, and on special summons. Thesmall court was permanently in session, or practically so, and wascomposed of the king's household officers and of such barons or bishopsas might be in attendance on the king or present at the time. Thedistinction thus beginning was destined to lead to most importantresults, plainly to be seen in the constitution of to-day, but it waswholly unnoticed at the time. To the men of that time there was nodistinction, no division. The small curia regis was the same as thelarger; the larger was no more than the smaller. Who attended at agiven date was a matter of convenience, or of precedent on the threegreat annual feasts, or of the desire of the king for a larger body ofadvisers about some difficult question of policy; but the assembly wasalways the same, with the same powers and functions, and doing the samebusiness. Cases were brought to the smaller body for trial, and itsdecision was that of the curia regis. The king asked advice of it, and its answer was that of the council. The smaller was not a committeeof the larger. It did not act by delegated powers. It was the curiaregis itself. In reality differentiation of old institutions into newones had begun, but the beginning was unperceived. 

It was by a process similar to this that the financial business of thestate began to be set off from the legislative and judicial, though itwas long before it was entirely dissociated from the latter, and onlygradually that the Exchequer Court was distinguished from the curiaregis. The sheriffs, as the officers who collected the revenues of theking, each in his own county, were responsible to the curia regis. Probably from early times the mechanical labour of examining andrecording the accounts had been performed by subordinate officials; butany question of difficulty which arose, any disputed point, whetherbetween the sheriff and the state or between the sheriff and thetaxpayer, must have been decided by the court itself, though probably bythe smaller rather than by the larger body. Certainly it is the smallcuria regis which has supervision of the matter when we get our firstglimpse of the working of this machinery. Already at this date a procedurehad developed for examining and checking the sheriff's accounts, which isevidently somewhat advanced, but which is interesting to us because stillso primitive. Twice a year, at Easter and at Michaelmas, the court metfor the purpose, under an organization peculiar to this work, and withsome persons especially assigned to it; and it was then known as theExchequer. The name was derived from the fact that the method ofbalancing accounts reminded one of the game of chess. Court and sheriffsat about a table of which the cloth was divided into squares, sevencolumns being made across the width of the cloth, and these divided bylines running through the middle along the length of the table, thusforming squares. Each perpendicular column of squares stood for a fixeddenomination of money, pence, shillings, pounds, scores of pounds, hundreds of pounds, etc. The squares on the upper side of the tablestood for the sum for which the sheriff was responsible, and when thiswas determined the proper counters were placed on their squares to setout the sum in visible form, as on an abacus. The squares of the lowerside of the table were those of the sheriffs credits, and in themcounters were placed to represent the sum for which the sheriff couldsubmit evidence of payments already made. Such payments the sheriff wasconstantly making throughout the year, for fixed expenses of the state oron special orders of the king for supplies for the court, for transport, for the keeping of prisoners, for public works, and for various otherpurposes. The different items of debt and credit were noted down byclerks for the permanent record. When the account was over, a simpleprocess of subtracting the counters standing in the credit squares fromthose in the debit showed the account balanced, or the amount due fromthe sheriff, or the credit standing in his favour, as the case might be. 

At the Easter session of the court the accounts for the whole year werenot balanced, the payment then made by the sheriff being an instalmenton account, of about one-half the whole sum due for the year. For thishe received a tally stick as a receipt, in which notches of differentpositions and sizes stood for the sum he had paid. A stick exactlycorresponding was kept by the court, split off, indeed, from his, andthe matching of the two at the Michaelmas session, when the year'saccount was finally closed, was the sheriff's proof of his formerpayment. The revenue of which the sheriff gave account in this wayconsisted of a variety of items. The most important was the firmacomitatus, the farm or annual sum which the sheriff paid for hiscounty as the farmer of its revenue. This was made up of the estimatedreturns from two sources, the rents from the king's lands in the county, and the share of the fines which went to the king from cases tried inthe old popular courts of shire and hundred. The administration ofjustice was a valuable source of income in feudal days, whether to theking or to the lord who had his own court. But the fines which helpedto make up the ferm of the county were not the only ones for which thesheriff accounted. He had also to collect, or at least in a general wayto be responsible for, the fines inflicted in the king's courts as heldin his county by the king's justices on circuits, and these were frequentin Henry's time. If a Danegeld or an aid was taken during the year, thismust also be accounted for, together with such of the peculiarly feudalsources of income, ward-ships, marriages, escheats, etc. , as were in thesheriffs hands. On the roll appear also numerous entries of fees paid byprivate persons to have their cases tried in the king's courts, or tohave the king's processes or officers for the enforcement of theirrights. 

Altogether the items were almost as numerous as in a modern budget, butone chief source of present revenue, the customs duties, is conspicuouslyabsent, and the general aspect of the system is far more that of incomefrom property than in a modern state, even fines and fees having apersonal rather than a political character. A careful estimate of all therevenue accounted for in this Pipe Roll of 1130 shows that Henry's annualincome probably fell a little short of 30, 000 English pounds in the moneyof that day, which should be equal in purchasing power, in money of ourtime, to a million and a half or two million pounds. [26] This was a largerevenue for the age. Henry knew the value of money for the ends he wishedto accomplish, and though he accumulated large store of it, he spent itunsparingly when the proper time came. England groaned constantly underthe heavy burden of his taxes, and the Pipe Roll shows us that there wasground for these complaints. The Danegeld, the direct land-tax, had beentaken for some years before this date, with the regularity of a moderntax, and as it was taken at a rate which would make it in any age a heavyburden, we can well believe that it was found hard to bear in a timewhen the returns of agriculture were more uncertain than now, and whenthe frequently occurring bad seasons were a more serious calamity. Economically, however, England was well-to-do. She had enjoyed duringHenry's reign a long age of comparative quiet. For nearly a generationand a half, as the lives of men then averaged, there had been no war, public or private, to lay waste any part of the land. In fact, sinceearly in the reign of Henry's father, England had been almost withoutexperience of the barbarous devastation that went with war in feudaldays. Excessive taxation and licensed oppression had seemed at times aserious burden. Bad harvests and the hunger and disease against which themedieval man could not protect himself had checked the growth of wealthand population. Yet on the whole the nation had gained greatly in threegenerations. 

Especially is this to be seen in the development of the towns, in thegrowth of a rich burgher class containing many foreign elements, Norman, Flemish, and Jewish, and living with many signs of comfort and luxury, aswell as in the indications of an active and diversified commercial life. The progress of this portion of the nation, the larger portion in numbersbut making little show in the annals of barons and bishops whose moredramatic activities it supported is marked in an interesting way by acharter granted by Henry to London, in the last years of his reign. [27]His father had put into legal form a grant to the city, but it was not, strictly speaking, a city charter. It was no more than a promise that lawand property should be undisturbed. Henry's charter goes much beyond this, though it tells us no more of the internal government of the city. Inreturn for a rent of L300 a year, the king abandoned to the city all hisrevenues from Middlesex, and because he would have no longer any interestin the collection of these revenues the city might choose its own sheriff, and presumably collect them for itself. The king's pleas were surrendered, the city was to have its own justiciar, and to make this concession a realone, no citizen need plead in any suit outside the city walls. Danegeldand murder fines were also given up, and the local courts of the city wereto have their regular sittings. Behind a grant like this must lie someconsiderable experience of self-government, a developed and consciouscapacity in the citizens to organize and handle the machinery ofadministration. But of this there is no hint in the charter, nor do weknow much of the inner government of London till some time later. Of thewealth and power of the city the charter speaks still more plainly, and ofthis there was to be abundant evidence in the period which follows theclose of Henry's reign. 

Henry's stay in England at this time was not long. Towards the end of thesummer he returned to Normandy, though with what he was occupied there wehave little knowledge. A disputed election to the papacy had taken place, and the pope of the reform party, Innocent II, had come to France, wherethat party was strong. The great St. Bernard, the most influentialchurchman of his time, had declared for him, and through his influenceHenry, who met Innocent in January, 1131, recognized him as the rightfulpope. In the following summer he returned to England, and brought backwith him Matilda, who had now been two full years separated from herhusband; but about this time Geoffrey thought better of his conduct, ordetermined to try the experiment of living with his wife again, and sent arequest that Matilda be sent back to him. What answer should be given himwas considered in a meeting of the great council at Northampton, September8, almost as if her relationship with Geoffrey were a new proposition; andit was decided that she should go. A single chronicler records that Henrytook advantage of this coming together of the barons at the meeting of thecourt to demand fealty to Matilda, both from those who had formerly swornit and from those who had not. [28] Such a fact hardly seems consistentwith the same chronicler's record of the excuse of Roger, Bishop ofSalisbury, for violating his oath; but if it occurred, as this repetitionof the fealty was after Matilda's marriage with Geoffrey and immediatelyafter a decision of the baronage that she should return to him, it wouldmake the bishop's argument a mere subterfuge or, at best, an exceptionapplying to himself alone. Matilda immediately went over to Anjou, whereshe was received with great honour. 

Few things remain to be recorded of the brief period of life left to theking. He had been interested, as his brother had been, in the extensionof English influence in Cumberland, and now he erected that county into anew bishopric of Carlisle, in the obedience of the Archbishop of York. OnMarch 25, 1133, was born Matilda's eldest son, the future Henry II; andearly in August the king of England crossed the channel for the lasttime, undoubtedly to see his grandson. On June 1, of the next year, hissecond grandson, Geoffrey, was born. A short time before, the longimprisonment of Robert of Normandy closed with his death, and the futurefor which Henry had so long worked must have seemed to him secure. Buthis troubles were not over. The medieval heir was usually in a hurry toenter into his inheritance, and Geoffrey of Anjou, who probably felt hisposition greatly strengthened by the birth of his son, was no exceptionto the rule. He demanded possessions in Normandy. He made little wars onhis own account. Matilda, who seems now to have identified herself withher husband's interests, upheld his demands. Some of the Norman barons, who were glad of any pretext to escape from the yoke of Henry, addedtheir support, especially William Talvas, the son of Robert of Bellême, who might easily believe that he had a long account to settle with theking. But Henry was still equal to the occasion. A campaign of threemonths, in 1135, drove William Talvas out of the country and broughteverything again under the king's control, though peace was not yet madewith his belligerent son-in-law. Then came the end suddenly. On November25, Henry, still apparently in full health and vigour, planning a huntfor the next day, ate too heartily of eels, a favourite dish but alwaysharmful to him, and died a week later, December 1, of the illness whichresulted. Asked on his death-bed what disposition should be made of thesuccession, he declared again that all should go to Matilda, but made nomention of Geoffrey. 

Henry was born in 1068, and was now past the end of his sixty-seventhyear. His reign of a little more than thirty-five years was a long one, not merely for the middle ages, when the average of human life was short, but for any period of history. He was a man of unusual physical vigour. He had been very little troubled with illness. His health and strengthwere still unaffected by the labours of his life. He might reasonablyhave looked forward to seeing his grandson, who was now nearing the endof his third year, if not of an age to rule, at least of an age to beaccepted as king with a strong regency under the leadership of Robert ofGloucester. A few years more of life for King Henry might have savedEngland from a generation that laboured to undo his work. 

With the death of Henry I a great reign in English history closed. Considered as a single period, it does not form an epoch by itself. It israther an introductory age, an age of beginnings, which, interrupted by ageneration of anarchy, were taken up and completed by others. We aretempted to suspect that these others receive more credit for thecompleted result than they really deserve, because we know their work sowell and Henry's so imperfectly. Certainly, we may well note this fact, that every new bit of evidence which the scholar from time to timerescues from neglect tends to show that the special creations for whichwe have distinguished the reign of Henry's grandson, reach further backin time than we had supposed. To this we may add the fact that, whereverwe can follow in detail the action of the king, we find it the action ofa man of political genius. Did we know as much of Henry's activity ingovernment and administration as we do of the carrying out of his foreignpolicy, it is more than probable that we should find in it the clearmarks of creative statesmanship. Not the least important of Henry'sachievements of which we are sure was the peace which he secured andmaintained for England with a strong and unsparing hand. More than thirtyyears of undisturbed quiet was a long period for any land in the middleages, and during that time the vital process of union, the growingtogether in blood and laws and feeling of the two great races whichoccupied the land, was going rapidly forward. 

[23] Gesta Stephani (Rolls Series), p. 10. 

[24] William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, sec. 452. 

[25] Edited by Joseph Hunter and published by the Record Commissionin 1833. 

[26] Ramsay, Foundations of England, ii, 328. 

[27] Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, 347 ff. 

[28] W. Malm. , Historia Novella, sec. 455, and cf. Sec. 452. 

CHAPTER IX

BARGAINING FOR THE CROWN

Earls and barons, whom the rumour of his illness had drawn together, surrounded the death-bed of Henry I and awaited the result. Among themwas his natural son Robert of Gloucester; but his legal heiress, thedaughter for whom he had done so much and risked so much, was not there. The recent attempt of her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou, to gain by forcethe footing in Normandy which Henry had denied him, had drawn her awayfrom her father, and she was still in Anjou. It was afterward declaredthat Henry on his death-bed disinherited her and made Stephen of Boulogneheir in her place; but this is not probable, and it is met by thestatement which we may believe was derived directly from Robert ofGloucester, that the dying king declared his will to be still in herfavour. However this may be, no steps were taken by any one in Normandyto put Matilda in possession of the duchy, or formally to recognize herright of succession. Why her brother Robert did nothing and allowed theopportunity to slip, we cannot say. Possibly he did not anticipate ahostile attempt. At Rouen, whither Henry's body was first taken, thebarons adopted measures to preserve order and to guard the frontiers, which show that they took counsel on the situation; but nothing was doneabout the succession. 

In the meantime, another person, as deeply interested in the result, didnot wait for events to shape themselves. Stephen of Boulogne had been afavourite nephew of Henry I and a favourite at his uncle's court, and hehad been richly provided for. The county of Mortain, usually held by somemember of the ducal house, had been given him; he had shared in theconfiscated lands of the house of Bellême; and he had been married to theheiress of the practically independent county of Boulogne, which carriedwith it a rich inheritance in England. Henry might very well believe thatgratitude would secure from Stephen as faithful a support of hisdaughter's cause as he expected from her brother Robert. But in this hewas mistaken. Stephen acted so promptly on the news of his uncle's deaththat he must already have decided what his action would be. 

When he heard that his uncle had died, Stephen crossed at once toEngland. Dover and Canterbury were held by garrisons of Earl Robert's andrefused him admittance, but he pushed on by them to London. There he wasreceived with welcome by the citizens. London was in a situation to hailthe coming of any one who promised to re-establish order and security, and this was clearly the motive on which the Londoners acted in all thatfollowed. A reign of disorder had begun as soon as it was known that theking was dead, as frequently happened in the medieval state, for thepower that enforced the law, or perhaps that gave validity even to thelaw and to the commissions of those who executed it, was suspended whilethe throne was vacant. A great commercial city, such as London had grownto be during the long reign of Henry, would suffer in all its interestsfrom such a state of things. Indeed, it appears that a body ofplunderers, under one who had been a servant of the late king's, hadestablished themselves not far from the city, and were by theiroperations manufacturing pressing arguments in favour of the immediatere-establishment of order. It is not necessary to seek for any furtherexplanation of the welcome which London extended to Stephen. Immediatelyon his arrival a council was held in the city, probably the governingbody of the city, the municipal council if we may so call it, whichdetermined what should be done. Negotiations were not difficult betweenparties thus situated, and an agreement was speedily reached. The citybound itself to recognize Stephen as king, and he promised to put downdisorder and maintain security. Plainly from the account we have of thisarrangement, it was a bargain, a kind of business contract; and Stephenproceeded at once to show that he intended to keep his side of it bydispersing the robber band which was annoying the city and hanging itscaptain. 

It is unnecessary to take seriously the claim of a special right to fillthe throne when it was vacant, which the citizens of London advanced forthemselves according to a contemporary historian of these events. [29] Thisis surely less a claim of the citizens than one invented for them bya partisan who wishes to make Stephen's position appear as strong aspossible; and no one at the time paid any attention to it. Having securedthe support of London, after what can have been only a few days' stay, Stephen went immediately to Winchester. Before he could really believehimself king, he had to secure the royal treasures and more support thanhe had yet gained. Stephen's own brother Henry, who owed his promotion inthe Church, as Stephen did his in the State, to his uncle, was at thistime Bishop of Winchester; and it was due to him, as a contemporarydeclares, that the plan of Stephen succeeded, and the real decision of thequestion was made, not at London, but at Winchester. [30] Henry went outwith the citizens of Winchester to meet his brother on his approach, andhe was welcomed as he had been at London. Present there or coming in soonafter, were the Archbishop William of Canterbury, Roger, Bishop ofSalisbury, the head of King Henry's administrative system, and seemingly afew, but not many, barons. On the question of making Stephen king, thegood, though not strong, Archbishop of Canterbury, was greatly troubled bythe oath which had been sworn in the interest of Matilda. "There are notenough of us here, " his words seem to mean, "to decide upon so important astep as recognizing this man as king, when we are bound by oath torecognize another. "[31]

Though our evidence is derived from clerical writers, who mightexaggerate the importance of the point, it seems clear from a number ofreasons that this oath to Matilda was really the greatest difficulty inStephen's way. That it troubled the conscience of the lay world very muchdoes not appear, nor that it was regarded either in Normandy or Englandas settling the succession. If the Norman barons had been bound by thisoath as well as the English, as is altogether probable, they certainlyacted as if they considered the field clear for other candidates. But itis evident that the oath was the first and greatest difficulty to beovercome in securing for Stephen the support of the Church, and this wasindispensable to his success. The active condemnation of the breaking ofthis oath survived for a long time in the Church, and with characteristicmedieval logic the fate of those few who violated their oaths and metsome evil end was pointed to as a direct vengeance of God, while that ofthe fortunate majority of the faithless is passed over in silence, including the chief traitor Hugh Bigod, who, as Robert of Gloucesterafterwards declared, had twice sworn falsely, and made of perjury anelegant accomplishment. [32]

If the scruples of the archbishop were to be overcome, it could not bedone by increasing the number of those who were present to agree to theaccession of Stephen. No material increase of the party of his adherentscould be expected before the ceremony of coronation had made him actualking. It seems extremely probable that it was at this crisis of affairs, that the scheme was invented to meet the hesitation of the archbishop; andit was the only way in which it could have been overcome at the moment. Certain men stepped forward and declared that at the last Henry repentedof having forced his barons to take this oath, and that he released themfrom it. It is hardly possible to avoid the accumulated force of theevidence which points to Hugh Bigod as the peculiarly guilty person, or todoubt it was here that he committed the perjury of which so many accusedhim. He is said to have sworn that Henry cut off Matilda from thesuccession and appointed Stephen his heir; but he probably swore to nomore than is stated above. [33] That Matilda was excluded would be analmost necessary inference from it, and that Stephen was appointed heir inher place natural embroidery upon it. Nor can there be any reasonabledoubt, I think, that his oath was deliberately false. Who should be madeto bear the guilt of this scheme, if such it was, cannot be said. It ishardly likely that Henry of Winchester had any share in it. Whether trueor false, the statement removed the scruples of the archbishop and securedhis consent to Stephen's accession. 

With this declaration of Hugh Bigod's, however, was coupled anothermatter more of the nature of a positive inducement to the Church. BishopHenry seems to have argued with much skill, and very likely to havebelieved himself, that if they should agree to make his brother king, hewould restore to the Church that freedom from the control of the Statefor which it had been contending since the beginning of the reign ofHenry I, and which was now represented as having been the practice in thetime of their grandfather, William the Conqueror. Stephen agreed at onceto the demand. He was obliged to pay whatever price was set upon thecrown by those who had the disposal of it; but of all the promises whichhe made to secure it, this is the one which he came the nearest tokeeping. He swore to "restore liberty to the Church and to preserve it, "and his brother pledged himself that the oath would be kept. Besides theadhesion of the Church, Stephen secured at Winchester the royal treasurewhich had been accumulated by his uncle and which was not small, and theobedience of the head of the administrative system, Roger of Salisbury, who seems to have made no serious difficulty, but who excused hisviolation of his oath to Matilda by another pretext, as has already beenmentioned, than the one furnished by Hugh Bigod. 

With the new adherents whom he had gained, Stephen at once returned fromWinchester to London for his formal coronation. This took place atWestminster, probably on December 22, certainly within a very few days ofthat date. His supporters were still a very small party in the state. Very few of the lay barons had as yet declared for him. His chiefdependence must have been upon the two cities of London and Winchester, and upon the three bishops who had come to his coronation with him, andwho certainly held positions of influence and power in Church and Statefar beyond that of the ordinary bishop. At his coronation Stephen renewedhis oath to respect the liberty of the Church, and he issued a briefcharter to the nation at large which is drawn up in very general terms, confirming the liberties and good laws of Henry, king of the English, andthe good laws and good customs of King Edward, but this can hardly beregarded as anything more than a proclamation that he intended to make nochanges, a general confirmation of existing rights at the beginning of anew reign. The Christmas festival Stephen is said to have celebrated atLondon with great display. His party had not yet materially grown instrength, but he was now a consecrated king, and this fait accompli, asit has been called, was undoubtedly a decided argument with many in thenext few weeks. 

Throughout the three weeks that had elapsed since he had learned of hisuncle's death, Stephen had acted with great energy, rapidity, andcourage. Nor is there anything in the course of his reign to show that hewas at any time lacking in these qualities. The period of English historyupon which we enter with the coronation of Stephen is not merely a drearyperiod, with no triumphs abroad to be recorded, nor progress at home, with much loss of what had already been gained, temporary, indeed, butthreatening to be permanent. It is also one of active feudal strife andanarchy, lasting almost a generation, of the loosening of the bonds ofgovernment, and of suffering by the mass of the nation, the like of whichnever recurs in the whole of that history. But this misery fell upon thecountry in Stephen's time, not because he failed to understand the dutyof a king, nor because he lacked the energy or courage which a king musthave. The great defect of Stephen's character for the time in which helived was that he yielded too easily to persuasion. Gifted with thepopular qualities which win personal favour among men, he had also theweakness which so often goes with them; he could not long resist thepressure of those about him. He could not impress men with the fact thathe must be obeyed. His life after his coronation was a laborious one, andhe did not spare himself in his efforts to keep order and to put downrebellion; but the situation passed irrecoverably beyond his control assoon as men realized that his will was not inflexible, and that swift andcertain punishment of disobedience need not be feared. Stephen was atthis time towards forty years old, an age which promised mature judgmentand vigorous rule. His wife, who bore the name of Matilda, so common inthe Norman house, was a woman of unusual spirit and energy, and devotedlyattached to him. She stood through her mother, daughter of Malcolm andMargaret of Scotland, in the same relationship to the empress Matildathat her husband did, and her descendants would therefore be equally nearakin to the old Saxon dynasty as those of the Empress. 

If Stephen had seized the earliest opportunity, his cousin Matilda hadbeen scarcely less prompt, but she had acted with less decision and withless discernment of the strategic importance of England. As soon as shelearned of her father's death, she entered Normandy from the south, nearDomfront, and was admitted to that town and to Argentan and Exmes withoutopposition by the viscount of that region, who was one of King Henry's"new men" in Normandy, and who recognized her claims at once. In a fewdays she was followed by her husband, Geoffrey, who entered the duchy alittle farther to the east, in alliance with William Talvas, who openedto him Sees and other fortified places of his fief. So far all seemedgoing well, though as compared with the rapidity of Stephen's progressduring those same days, such successes would count but little. Then, forsome unaccountable reason, Geoffrey allowed his troops to plunder theNormans and to ravage cruelly the lands which had received him as afriend. The inborn fierceness of the Normans burst out at such treatment, and the Angevins were swept out of the country with as great cruelties asthey had themselves exercised. Whether this incident had any influence onthe action of the Norman barons it is not possible to say, but it musthave been about the same time that they met at Neubourg to decide thequestion of the succession. We have no account of what they did or ofwhat motives influenced their first decision. Theobald, Count of Bloisand of Champagne, Stephen's elder brother, was present apparently to urgehis own claim, and him they decided, or were on the point of deciding, torecognize as duke. At this moment a messenger from Stephen arrived andannounced that all the English had accepted Stephen and agreed that heshould be king. This news at once settled the question for the Normanbarons. The reason which we have seen acting so strongly on earlieroccasions--the fear of the consequences if they should try to hold theirlands of two different suzerains--was once more the controlling motive, and they determined to accept Stephen. Theobald acquiesced in thisdecision, though unwillingly, and retired to his own dominions, to showbut little interest in the long strife which these events began. 

In England the effect of Stephen's coronation soon made itself felt. Immediately after the Christmas festivities in London he went with hiscourt to Reading, whither the body of King Henry had now been broughtfrom Normandy. There it was interred with becoming pomp, in the presenceof the new king, in the abbey which Henry had founded and richly endowed. There Stephen issued a charter which is of especial historical value. Itrecords a grant to Miles of Gloucester, and is signed among others byPayne Fitz-John. Both these were among Henry's "new men. " Miles ofGloucester especially had received large gifts from the late king, andhad held important office under him. Such men would naturally supportMatilda. They might be expected certainly to hesitate until her cause washopeless. Their presence with Stephen, accepting him as king so soonafter his coronation, is evidence of great value as to the drift ofopinion in England about the chance of his success. The charter isevidence also of one of the difficulties in Stephen's way, and of thenecessity he was under of buying support, which we have seen already andwhich played so great a part in the later events of his reign. Thecharter confirms Miles in the possession of all the grants which had beenmade him in the late reign, and binds the king not to bring suit againsthim for anything which he held at the death of Henry. The questionwhether a new king, especially one who was not the direct heir of hispredecessor, would respect his grants was a question of great importanceto men in the position of Miles of Gloucester. 

At Reading, or perhaps at Oxford, where Stephen may have gone from theburial of Henry, news came to him that David, king of Scotland, hadcrossed the border and was taking possession of the north of England, from Carlisle to Newcastle. David professed to be acting in behalf of hisniece, Matilda, and out of respect to the oath he had sworn to supporther cause, and he was holding the plundering habits of his army well incheck. We are told that it was with a great army that Stephen marchedagainst him. He had certainly force enough to make it seem wise to David, who was on his way to Durham, to fall back and negotiate. Terms werequickly arranged. David would not conform to the usual rule and becomeStephen's man; and Stephen, still yielding minor matters to secure thegreater, did not insist. But David's son Henry did homage to Stephen, andreceived the earldom of Huntingdon, with a vague promise that he might begiven at some later time the other part of the possessions of hisgrandfather, Waltheof, the earldom of Northumberland, and with the moresubstantial present grant of Carlisle and Doncaster. The other placeswhich David had occupied were given up. 

From the north Stephen returned to London to hold his Easter court. Hewas now, he might well believe, king without question, and he intendedto have the Easter assembly make this plain. Special writs of summonswere sent throughout England to all the magnates of Church and State;and a large and brilliant court came together in response. Chartersissued at this date, when taken together, give us the names of threearchbishops--one, the Archbishop of Rouen--and thirteen bishops, fourbeing Norman, and thirty-nine barons and officers of the court who werepresent, including King David's son Henry, who had come with Stephen fromthe north. At this assembly Stephen's queen, Matilda, was crowned, and sobrilliant was the display and so lavish the expenditure that England wasstruck with the contrast to the last reign, whose economies had in partat least accumulated the treasure which Stephen might now scatter witha free hand to secure his position. The difficulties of his task areillustrated by an incident which occurred at this court. Mindful of thenecessity of conciliating Scotland, he gave to young Henry, at the Easterfeast, the seat of honour at his right hand; whereupon, the Archbishop ofCanterbury, offended because his claims of precedence had been set aside, left the court; and Ralph, Earl of Chester, angered because Carlisle, towhich he asserted claims of hereditary right, had been made over toHenry, cried out upon the young man, and with other barons insulted himso grievously that his father David was very angry in his turn. 

Immediately after the Easter festivities, the court as a body removed toOxford. Just after Easter Robert of Gloucester, the Empress's brother, had landed in England. Stephen had been importuning him for some time togive up his sister's cause and acknowledge him as king. So far as weknow, Robert had done nothing up to this time to stem the current ofevents, and these events were probably a stronger argument with him thanStephen's inducements. All England and practically all Normandy hadaccepted Stephen. The king of Scotland had abandoned the opposition. Geoffrey and Matilda had accomplished nothing, and seemed to be planningnothing. The only course that lay plainly open was to make the best termspossible with the successful usurper, and to await the further course ofevents. William of Malmesbury, who looked upon Earl Robert as his patronand who wrote almost as his panegyrist, thinking, perhaps, dissimulationa smaller fault than disregard of his oath, accounted for his submissionto Stephen by his desire to gain an opportunity to persuade the Englishbarons to saner counsels. This statement can hardly be taken as evidenceof Robert's intention, but at any rate he now joined the court at Oxfordand made his bargain with Stephen. He did him homage, and promised to behis man so long as the king should maintain him in his position and keepfaith with him. 

At this Oxford meeting another bargain, even more important to Stephenthan his bargain with the Earl of Gloucester, was put into a form whichmay be not improperly called a definitive treaty. This was the bargainwith the Church, to the terms of which Stephen had twice beforeconsented. The document in which this treaty was embodied is commonlyknown as Stephen's second charter; and, witnessed by nearly all those whowitnessed the London charters already referred to, and by the Earl ofGloucester in addition, it had the force of a royal grant confirmed bythe curia regis. Nothing could prove to us more clearly than thischarter how conscious Stephen was of the desperate character of theundertaking on which he had ventured, and of the vital necessity of thesupport of the Church. The grant is of the most sweeping sort. All thatthe Church had demanded in the conflict between Anselm and Henry I isfreely yielded, and more. All simony shall cease, vacancies shall becanonically filled; the possessions of the Church shall be administeredby its own men during a vacancy, --that is, the feudal rights which hadbeen exercised by the last two kings are given up; jurisdiction over allecclesiastical persons and property is abandoned to the Church;ecclesiastics shall have full power to dispose of their personal propertyby will; all unjust exactions, by whomsoever brought in, --including amongthese, no doubt, as Henry of Huntingdon expressly says, the Danegeld, which the Church had insisted ought not to be paid by its domainlands, --are to be given up. "These all I concede and confirm, " thecharter closes, "saving my royal and due dignity. " Dignity in the modernsense might be left the king, but not much real power over the Church ifthis charter was to determine future law and custom. The English Churchwould have reached at a stroke a nearer realization of the full programmeof the Hildebrandine reform than all the struggles of nearly a centuryhad yet secured in any other land, if the king kept his promises. As amatter of fact, he did not do so entirely, though the Church made morepermanent gain from the weakness of this reign than any other of thecontending and rival parties. 

One phrase at the beginning of this charter strikes us with surprise. Indeclaring how he had become king, Stephen adds to choice by clergy andpeople, and consecration by the archbishop, the confirmation of the pope. Since when had England, recognized the right of the pope to confirm itssovereigns or to decide cases of disputed succession? Or is the papacysecuring here, from the necessities of Stephen, a greater concession thanany other in the charter, a practical recognition of the claim which onceGregory VII had made of the Conqueror only to have it firmly rejected, and which the Church had not succeeded in establishing in any Europeanland? In reality England had recognized no claim of papal overlordship, nor was any such claim in the future based upon this confirmation. Thereference to the pope had been practically forced upon Stephen, whetherhe would have taken the step himself or not, and the circumstances madeit of the highest importance to him to proclaim publicly the papalsanction of his accession. Probably immediately on hearing the news ofStephen's usurpation, Matilda had despatched to Pope Innocent II, --thenresiding at Pisa because Rome was in possession of his rival, AnacletusII, --an embassy headed by the Bishop of Angers, to appeal to the popeagainst the wicked deeds of Stephen, in that he had defrauded her of herrights and broken his oath, as William of Normandy had once appealed tothe pope against the similar acts of Harold. [34] At Pisa this embassy wasopposed by another of Stephen's, whose spokesman was the archdeacon ofSees. It must have started at about the same time as Matilda's, and itbrought to the pope the official account of the bishops who had taken partin the coronation of Stephen. 

In the presence of Innocent something like a formal trial occurred. Thecase was argued by the champions of the two sides, on questions which itbelonged to the Church to decide, or which at least the Church claimedthe right to decide, the usurpation of an inheritance, and the violationof an oath. Against Matilda's claim were advanced the arguments which hadalready been used with effect in England, that the oath had been extortedfrom the barons by force, and that on his death-bed Henry had releasedthem from it; but more than this, Stephen's advocates suddenly sprang ontheir opponents a new and most disconcerting argument, one which wouldhave had great weight in any Church court, and which attacked both theirclaims at once. Matilda could not be the rightful heir, and so the oathitself could not be binding, because she was of illegitimate birth, beingthe daughter of a nun. One account of this debate represents Matilda'sside as nonplussed by this argument and unable to answer it. And theymight well be, for during the long generation since Henry's marriage, noquestion of its validity had ever been publicly raised. The suddenadvancing of the doubt at this time shows, however, that it had lingeredon in the minds of some in the Church. It is not likely that the pointwould have been in the end dangerous to Matilda's cause, for it would nothave been possible to produce evidence sufficient to warrant the Churchin reversing the decision which Archbishop Anselm had carefully made atthe time. But the pope did not allow the case to come to a decision. Hebroke off the debate, and announced that he would not decide the questionnor permit it to be taken up again. His caution was no doubt due to thedifficult position in which Innocent was then placed, with a rival inpossession of the capital of Christendom, the issue uncertain, and thesupport of all parties necessary to his cause. Privately, but not as anofficial decision, he wrote to Stephen recognizing him as king ofEngland. The letter reveals a reason in Stephen's favour which probablyavailed more with the pope than all the arguments of the English embassy, the pressure of the king of France. The separation of Anjou at least, ifnot of Normandy also, from England, was important to the plans of France, and the support of the king was essential to the pope. 

To Stephen the reasons for the pope's letter were less important than thefact that such decision as there was was in his favour. He could not dootherwise than make this public. The letter probably arrived in Englandjust before, or at the time of, the Easter council in London. To theChurch of England, in regard to the troublesome matter of the oath, itwould be decisive. There could be no reason why Stephen should not beaccepted as king if the pope, with full understanding of the facts, hadaccepted him. And so the Church was ready to enter into that formaltreaty with the king which is embodied in Stephen's second charter, whichis a virtual though conditional recognition of him, and which naturally, as an essential consideration, recites the papal recognition and calls itnot unnaturally a confirmation, though this word may be nothing more thanthe mere repetition of an ecclesiastical formula set down by a clericalhand, without especial significance. 

Stephen might now believe himself firmly fixed in the possession of power. His bold stroke for the crown had proved as successful as Henry I's, andeverything seemed to promise as secure and prosperous a reign. Theall-influential Church had declared for him, and its most influentialleader was his brother Henry of Winchester, who had staked his own honourin his support. The barons of the kingdom had accepted him, and hadattended his Easter court in unusual numbers as compared with anythingwe know of the immediately preceding reigns. Those who should have beenthe leaders of his rival's cause had all submitted, --her brother, Robertof Gloucester, Brian Fitz Count, Miles of Gloucester, Payne Fitz John, the Bishop of Salisbury, and his great ministerial family. The powerfulhouse of Beaumont, the earls of Warwick and of Leicester, who held almosta kingdom in middle England, promised to be as faithful to the newsovereign as it had been to earlier ones. Even Matilda herself and herhusband Geoffrey seemed to have abandoned effort, having met with nobetter success in their appeal to the pope than in their attack onNormandy. For more than two years nothing occurs which shakes thesecurity of Stephen's power or which seriously threatens it with thecoming of any disaster. 

And yet Stephen, like Henry I, had put himself into a position which onlythe highest gifts of statesmanship and character could maintain, and inthese he was fatally lacking. The element of weakness, which is moreapparent in his case, though perhaps not more real, than in Henry's, thathe was a king by "contract, " as the result of various bargains, and thathe might be renounced by the other parties to these bargains if heviolated their terms, was only one element in a general situation whichcould be dominated by a strong will and by that alone. These bargainsserved as excuses for rebellion, --unusually good, to be sure, from alegal point of view, --but excuses are always easy to find, or are oftenthought unnecessary, for resistance to a king whom one may defy withimpunity. The king's uncle had plainly marked out a policy which a rulerin his situation should follow at the beginning of his reign--to destroythe power of the most dangerous barons, one by one, and to raise up ontheir ruins a body of less powerful new men devoted to himself; but thispolicy Stephen had not the insight nor the strength of purpose to follow. His defect was not the lack of courage. He was conscious of his duty andunsparing of himself, but he lacked the clear sight and the fixedpurpose, the inflexible determination which the position in which he hadplaced himself demanded. To understand the real reason for the period ofanarchy which follows, to know why Stephen, with as fair a start, failedto rule as Henry I had done, one must see as clearly as possible how, inthe months when his power seemed in no danger of falling, he underminedit himself through his lack of quick perception and his unsteadiness ofwill. 

It would not be profitable to discuss here the question whether or notStephen was a usurper. Such a discussion is an attempt to measure the actsof that time by a standard not then in use. As we now judge of such thingshe was a usurper; in the forum of morals he must be declared a usurper, but no one at the time accused him of any wrong-doing beyond the breakingof his oath. [35] Of no king before or after is so much said, in chroniclesand formal documents, of "election" as is said of Stephen; but of anythingwhich may be called a formal or constitutional election there is no trace. The facts recorded indeed illustrate more clearly than in any other casethe process by which, in such circumstances, a king came to the throne. Itwas clearly a process of securing the adhesion and consent, one afteranother, of influential men or groups of men. In this case it was plainlybargaining. In every case there was probably something of that--as muchas might be necessary to secure the weight of support that would turn thescale. 

Within a few days of this brilliant assembly at the Easter festival, theseries of events began which was to test Stephen's character and toreveal its weakness to those who were eager in every reign of feudaltimes to profit by such a revelation. A rumour was in some way startedthat the king was dead. Instantly Hugh Bigod, who had been present at theOxford meeting, and who had shown his own character by his willingness totake on his soul the guilt of perjury in Stephen's cause, seized Norwichcastle. The incident shows what was likely always to happen on the deathof the king, --the seizure of royal domains or of the possessions ofweaker neighbours, by barons who hoped to gain something when the time ofsettlement came. Hugh Bigod had large possessions in East Anglia, and wasambitious of a greater position still. He became, indeed, in the end, earl, but without the possession of Norwich. Now he was not disposed toyield his prey, even if the king were still alive; he did so only whenStephen came against him in person, and then very unwillingly. That hereceived any punishment for his revolt we are not told. 

Immediately after this Stephen was called to the opposite side of thekingdom by news of the local depredations of Robert of Bampton, a minorbaron of Devonshire. His castle was speedily captured, and he was sentinto exile. But greater difficulties were at hand in that region. A baronof higher rank, Baldwin of Redvers, whose father before him, and himselfin succession, had been faithful adherents of Henry I from theadventurous and landless days of that prince, seized the castle of Exeterand attempted to excite a revolt, presumably in the interests of Matilda. The inhabitants of Exeter refused to join him, and sent at once toStephen for aid, which was hurriedly despatched and arrived just in timeto prevent the sacking of the town by the angry rebel. Here was a moreimportant matter than either of the other two with which the king had hadto deal, and he sat down to the determined siege of the castle. It wasstrongly situated on a mass of rock, and resisted the king's earlierattacks until, after three months, the garrison was brought to the pointof yielding by want of water. At first Stephen, by the advice of hisbrother Henry, insisted upon unconditional surrender, even thoughBaldwin's wife came to him in person and in great distress to move hispity. But now, as in Henry I's attack on Robert of Bellême at thebeginning of his reign, another influence made itself felt. The barons inStephen's camp began to put pressure on the king to induce him to grantfavourable terms. We know too little of the actual circumstances to beable to say to what extent Stephen was really forced to yield. In themore famous incident at Bridgenorth Henry had the support of the Englishcommon soldiers in his army. Here nothing is said of them, or of anysupport to the king. But with or without support, he yielded. Thegarrison of the castle were allowed to go free with all their personalproperty. Whether this was a concession which in the circumstancesStephen could not well refuse, or an instance of his easy yielding topressure, of which there are many later, the effect was the same. Contemporary opinion declared it to be bad policy, and dated from it moregeneral resistance to the king. It certainly seems clear from thesecases, especially from the last, that Stephen had virtually given noticeat the beginning of his reign that rebellion against him was not likelyto be visited with the extreme penalty. Baldwin of Redvers did not giveup the struggle with the surrender of Exeter castle. He had possessionsin the Isle of Wight, and he fortified himself there, got together someships, and began to prey on the commerce of the channel. Stephen followedhim up, and was about to invade the island when he appeared andsubmitted. This time he was exiled, and crossing over to Normandy he tookrefuge at the court of Geoffrey and Matilda, where he was received with awarm welcome. 

For the present these events were not followed by anything further of adisquieting nature. To all appearances Stephen's power had not been inthe least affected. From the coast he went north to Brampton nearHuntingdon, to amuse himself with hunting. There he gave evidence of howstrong he felt himself to be, for he held a forest assize and triedcertain barons for forest offences. In his Oxford charter he had promisedto give up the forests which Henry had added to those of the twopreceding kings, but he had not promised to hold no forest assizes, andhe could not well surrender them. There was something, however, about hisaction at Brampton which was regarded as violating his "promise to Godand to the people"; and we may regard it, considering the bitterness offeeling against the forest customs, especially on the part of the Church, as evidence that he felt himself very secure, and more important still asleading to the belief that he would not be bound by his promises. 

A somewhat similar impression must have been made at about this time, theimpression at least that the king was trying to make himself strongenough to be independent of his pledges, if he wished, by the fact thathe was collecting about him a large force of foreign mercenaries, especially men from Britanny and Flanders. From the date of the Conquestitself, the paid soldier, the mercenary drawn from outside the dominionsof the sovereign, had been constantly in use in England, not merely inthe armies of the king, but sometimes in the forces of the greaterbarons, and had often been a main support in both cases. When kept undera strong control, the presence of mercenaries had given rise to nocomplaints; indeed, it is probable that in the later part of reigns likethose of William I and Henry I their number had been comparativelyinsignificant. But in a reign in which the king was dependent on theiraid and obliged to purchase their support by allowing them liberties, aswhen William II proposed to play the tyrant, or in the time of Stephenfrom the weakness of the king, complaints are frequent of their crueltiesand oppressions, and the defenceless must have suffered whatever theychose to inflict. The contrast of the reign of Stephen, in the conductand character of the foreigners in England, with that of Henry, was notedat the time. In the commander of his mercenaries, William of Ypres, whohad been one of the unsuccessful pretenders to the countship of Flanderssome years before, Stephen secured one of his most faithful and ablestadherents. 

In the meantime a series of events in Wales during this same year wasrevealing another side of Stephen's character, his lack of clearpolitical vision, his failure to grasp the real importance of asituation. At the very beginning of the year, the Welsh had revolted inSouth Wales, and won a signal victory. From thence the movement spreadtoward the west and north, growing in success as it extended. Battleswere won in the field, castles and towns were taken, leaders among theNorman baronage were slain, and the country was overrun. It looked as ifthe tide which had set so steadily against the Welsh had turned at last, at least in the south-west, and as if the Norman or Flemish colonistsmight be driven out. But Stephen did not consider the matter importantenough to demand his personal attention, even after he was relieved ofhis trouble with Baldwin of Redvers, though earlier kings had thoughtless threatening revolts sufficiently serious to call for great exertionson their part. He sent some of his mercenaries, but they accomplishednothing; and he gave some aid to the attempts of interested barons torecover what had been lost, with no better result. Finally, we are toldby the writer most favourable to Stephen's reputation, he resolved toexpend no more money or effort on the useless attempt, but to leave theWelsh to weaken themselves by their quarrels among themselves. [36] Thewriter declares the policy successful, but we can hardly believe it wasso regarded by those who suffered from it in the disasters of this andthe following year, or by the barons of England in general. 

It might well be the case that Stephen's funds were running low. The heavytaxes and good management of his uncle had left him a full treasury withwhich to begin, but the demands upon it had been great. Much support hadundoubtedly been purchased outright by gifts of money. The brilliantEaster court had been deliberately made a time of lavish display;mercenary troops could have been collected only at considerable cost; andthe siege of Exeter castle had been expensive as well as troublesome. Stephen's own possessions in England were very extensive, and the royaldomains were in his hands; but the time was rapidly coming when he mustalienate these permanent sources of supply, lands and revenues, to winand hold support. It was very likely this lack of ready money whichled Stephen to the second violation of his promises, if the naturalinterpretation of the single reference to the fact is correct. [37] InNovember of this year, 1136, died William of Corbeil, who had beenArchbishop of Canterbury for thirteen years and legate of the pope inEngland for nearly as long. Officers of the king took possession of hispersonal property, which Stephen had promised the Church should disposeof, and found hidden away too large a store of coin for the archbishop'sreputation as a perfect pastor, for he should have distributed it in hislifetime and then it would have gone to the poor and to his own credit. 

Whatever opinion about Stephen might be forming in England during thisfirst year of his reign, from his violation of his pledges, or hisdetermination to surround himself with foreign troops, or his selfishsacrificing of national interests, or his too easy dealing with revolt, there was as yet no further movement against him. Nobody seemed disposedto question his right to reign or to withhold obedience, and he could, without fear of the consequences, turn his attention to Normandy tosecure as firm possession of the duchy as he now had of the kingdom. About the middle of Lent, 1137, Stephen crossed to Normandy, and remainedthere till Christmas of the same year. Normandy had accepted him the yearbefore, as soon as it knew the decision of England, but there had been nogenerally recognized authority to represent the sovereign, and some partsof the duchy had suffered severely from private war. In the south-east, the house of Beaumont, Waleran of Meulan and Robert of Leicester, werecarrying on a fierce conflict with Roger of Tosny. In September, 1136, central Normandy was the scene of another useless and savage raid ofGeoffrey of Anjou, accompanied by William, the last duke of Aquitaine, William Talvas, and others. They penetrated the country as far asLisieux, treating the churches and servants of God, says Orderic Vitalis, after the manner of the heathen, but were obliged to retreat; andfinally, though he had been joined by Matilda, Geoffrey, badly wounded, abandoned this attempt also and returned to Anjou. 

The general population of the duchy warmly welcomed the coming ofStephen, from whom they hoped good things and especially order; but thebarons seem to have been less enthusiastic. They resented his use ofFlemish soldiers and the influence of William of Ypres, and they showedthemselves as disposed as in England to prevent the king from gaining anydecisive success. Still, however, there was no strong party against him, and Stephen seemed to be in acknowledged control of the duchy, even if itwas not a strong control. In May he had an interview with Louis VI ofFrance, and was recognized by him as duke, on the same terms as Henry Ihad been, his son Eustace doing homage in his stead. This arrangementwith France shows the strength of Stephen's position, though theacknowledgment was no doubt dictated as well by the policy of Louis, butevents of the same month showed Stephen's real weakness. In May Geoffreyattempted a new invasion with four hundred knights, this time intendingthe capture of Caen. But Stephen's army, the Flemings under William ofYpres, and the forces of some of the Norman barons, blocked the way. William was anxious to fight, but the Normans refused, and William withhis Flemings left them in disgust and joined Stephen. Geoffrey, however, gave up his attempt on Caen and drew back to Argentan. In June, onStephen's collecting an army to attack Geoffrey, the jealousies betweenthe Normans and the hired soldiers broke out in open fighting, many wereslain, and the Norman barons withdrew from the army. Geoffrey and Stephenwere now both ready for peace. Geoffrey, it is said, despaired ofaccomplishing anything against Stephen, so great was his power andwealth; and Stephen, on the contrary, must have been influenced by theweakness which recent events had revealed. In July a truce for two yearswas agreed to between them. 

Closely connected with these events, but in exactly what way we do notknow, were others which show us something of the relations between theking and the Earl of Gloucester, and which seem to indicate the growth ofsuspicion on both sides. Robert had not come to Normandy with Stephen, but on his departure he had followed him, crossing at Easter. What he hadbeen doing in England since he had made his treaty with the king atOxford, or what he did in Normandy, where he had extensive possessions, we do not know; but the period closes with an arrangement between him andStephen which looks less like a renewal of their treaty than a truce. Inthe troubles in the king's army during the summer campaign againstGeoffrey, Robert was suspected of treason. At one time William of Ypresset some kind of a trap for him, in which he hoped to take him at adisadvantage, but failed. The outcome of whatever happened was, evidentlythat Stephen found himself placed in a wrong and somewhat dangerousposition, and was obliged to take an oath that he would attempt nothingfurther against the earl, and to pledge his faith in the hand of theArchbishop of Rouen. Robert accepted the new engagements of the king inform, and took no open steps against him for the present; but it is clearthat the relation between them was one of scarcely disguised suspicion. It was a situation with which a king like Henry I would have known how todeal, but a king like Henry I would have occupied by this time a strongerposition from which to move than Stephen did, because his character wouldhave made a far different impression. 

While these events were taking place in Normandy, across the border inFrance other events were occurring, to be in the end of as great interestin the history of England as in that of France. When William, Duke ofAquitaine, returned from his expedition with Geoffrey, he seems to havebeen troubled in his conscience by his heathenish deeds in Normandy, andhe made a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella to seek the pardon ofheaven. In this he seemed to be successful, and he died there before thealtar of the apostle, with all the comforts of religion. When he knewthat his end was approaching, he besought his barons to carry out theplan which he had formed of conveying the duchy to the king of France, with the hand of his daughter and heiress Eleanor for his son Louis. Theproposition was gladly accepted, the marriage took place in July atBordeaux, and the young sovereign received the homage of the vassals of aterritory more than twice his father's in area, which was thus unitedwith the crown. Before the bridal pair could return to Paris, the reignof Louis VI had ended, and Louis the Young had become king as Louis VII. He was at this time about seventeen years old. His wife was two yearsyounger, and Henry of Anjou, the son of Matilda, whose life was to beeven more closely associated with hers, had not yet finished his fifthyear. 

During Stephen's absence in Normandy there had been nothing to disturbthe peace of England. Soon after his departure the king of Scotland hadthreatened to invade the north, but Thurstan, the aged Archbishop ofYork, went to meet him, and persuaded him to agree to a truce until thereturn of King Stephen from Normandy. This occurred not long beforeChristmas. Most of the barons of Normandy crossed over with him, butRobert of Gloucester again took his own course and remained behind. Therewas business for Stephen in England at once. An embassy from David ofScotland waited on him and declared the truce at an end unless he wereprepared to confer the half-promised earldom of Northumberland on Henrywithout further delay. Another matter, typical of Stephen and of thetimes, demanded even earlier attention. Stephen owed much, as had all theNorman kings, to the house of Beaumont, and he now attempted to make somereturn. Simon of Beauchamp, who held the barony of Bedford and thecustody of the king's castle in that town, had died shortly before, leaving a daughter only. In the true style of the strong kings, hispredecessors, Stephen proposed, without consulting the wishes of thefamily, to bestow the hand and inheritance of the heiress on Hugh, knownas "the Poor, " because he was yet unprovided for, brother of Robert ofLeicester and Waleran of Meulan, and to give him the earldom of Bedford. The castle had been occupied with his consent by Miles of Beauchamp, Simon's nephew, and to him Stephen sent orders to hand the castle over toHugh and to do homage to the new Earl of Bedford for whatever he held ofthe king. It was to this last command apparently that Miles especiallyobjected, and he refused to surrender the castle unless his owninheritance was secured to him. In great anger, Stephen collected a largearmy and began the siege of the castle, perhaps on Christmas day itself. The castle was stoutly defended. The siege had to be turned into ablockade. Before it ended the king was obliged to go away to defend thenorth against the Scots. After a siege of five weeks the castle wassurrendered to Bishop Henry of Winchester, who seems for some reason tohave opposed his brother's action in the case from the beginning. 

[29] Gesta Stephani, 5. 

[30] W. Malm. , Hist. Nov. , sec. 460. 

[31] Gesta Stefhani, 8. 

[32] Henry of Huntingdon, 270. 

[33] See Round, G. De Mandeville, 6. 

[34] Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, 250-261; and Böhmer, Kircheund Staat, 333-335. 

[35] Freeman, Norman Conquest, Vol. V, App. DD. , is right in callingattention to the fact but wrong in the use he makes of it. 

[36] Gesta Stephani, 14. 

[37] Ibid. , 7. 

CHAPTER X

FEUDALISM UNDER A WEAK KING

The year 1138, which began with the siege of Bedford castle, has to bereckoned as belonging to the time when Stephen's power was still to allappearance unshaken. But it is the beginning of the long period ofcontinuous civil warfare which ended only a few months before his death. Judgment had already been passed upon him as a king. It is clear thatcertain opinions about him, of the utmost importance as bearing on thefuture, had by this time fixed themselves in the minds of those mostinterested--that severe punishment for rebellion was not to be fearedfrom him; that he was not able to carry through his will against strongopposition, or to force obedience; and that lavish grants of money andlands were to be extorted from him as a condition of support. Theattractive qualities of Stephen's personality were not obscured by hisfaults or overlooked in passing this judgment upon him, for chroniclersunfavourable to him show the influence of them in recording their opinionof his weakness; but the general verdict is plainly that which was statedby the Saxon Chronicle under the year 1137, in saying that "he was a mildman, and soft, and good, and did no justice. " Such traits of character inthe sovereign created conditions which the feudal barons of any landwould be quick to use to their own advantage. 

The period which follows must not be looked upon as merely the strifebetween two parties for the possession of the crown. It was so to thecandidates themselves; it was so to the most faithful of theirsupporters. But to a large number of the barons most favourably situated, or of those who were most unprincipled in pursuit of their own gain, itwas a time when almost anything they saw fit to demand might be won fromone side or the other, or from both alternately by well-timed treason. Itwas the time in the history of England when the continental feudalprincipality most nearly came into existence, --the only time after theConquest when several great dominions within the state, firmly unitedround a local chief, obtained a virtual, or even it may be a formal, independence of the sovereign's control. These facts are quite ascharacteristic of the age as the struggle for the crown, and they accountfor the continuance of the conflict more than does the natural balance ofthe parties. No triumph for either side was possible, and the war endedonly when the two parties agreed to unite and to make common causeagainst those who in reality belonged to neither of them. 

From the siege of Bedford castle, Stephen had been called to march to thenorth by the Scottish invasion, which early in January followed thefailure of David's embassy. All Scottish armies were mixed bodies, butthose of this period were so not merely because the population ofScotland was mixed, but because of the presence of foreign soldiers andEnglish exiles, and many of them were practically impossible to control. Portions of Northumberland down to the Tyne were ravaged with the usualbarbarities of Scottish warfare before the arrival of Stephen. On hiscoming David fell back across the border, and Stephen made reprisals on asmall district of southern Scotland. But his army would not support himin a vigorous pushing of the campaign. The barons did not want to fightin Lent, it seemed. Evidences of more open treason appear also to havebeen discovered, and Stephen, angry but helpless, was obliged to abandonfurther operations. 

Shortly after Easter David began a new invasion, and at about the sametime rebellion broke out in the south-west of England, in a way thatmakes the suspicion natural that the two events were parts of a concertedmovement in favour of Matilda. This second Scottish invasion was hardlymore than a border foray, though it penetrated further into the countrythan the first, and laid waste parts of Durham and Yorkshire. Lack ofdiscipline in the Scottish army prevented any wider success. The movementin the south-west, however, proved more serious, and from it may be datedthe beginning of continuous civil war. Geoffrey Talbot, who had acceptedStephen two years before, revolted and held Hereford castle against him. From Gloucester, where he was well received, the king advanced againstHereford about the middle of May, and took the castle after a month'sblockade, letting the garrison off without punishment, Talbot himselfhaving escaped the siege. But by the time this success had been gained, or soon after, the rebellion had spread much wider. 

Whether the insurrection in the south and west had become somewhatgeneral before, or was encouraged by it to begin, the chief eventconnected with it was the formal notice which Robert of Gloucester servedon the king, by messengers from Normandy, who reached Stephen about themiddle of June, that his allegiance was broken off. A beginning ofrebellion, at least, as in England, had occurred somewhat earlier acrossthe channel. In May Count Waleran of Meulan and William of Ypres had goneback to Normandy to put down the disturbances there. In June, Geoffrey ofAnjou entered the duchy again with an armed force, and is said to havepersuaded Robert to take the side of his sister. Probably Robert hadquite as much as Geoffrey to do with the concerted action which seems tohave been adopted, and himself saw that the time had come for an openstand. He had been taking counsel of the Church on the ethics of thecase. Numerous churchmen had informed him that he was endangering hischances of eternal life by not keeping his original oath. He had evenapplied to the pope, and had been told, in a written and formal reply, that he was under obligation to keep the oath which he had sworn in thepresence of his father. Whether Innocent II was deciding an abstractquestion of morals in this answer, or was moved by some temporary changeof policy, it is impossible to say. Robert's conscience was not troubledby the oath he had taken to Stephen except because it was in violation ofthe earlier one. That had been a conditional oath, and Robert declaredthat Stephen had not kept the terms of the agreement; besides he had noright to be king and therefore no right to demand allegiance. Robert'spossessions in England were so wide, including the strong castles ofBristol and Dover, and his influence over the baronage was so great, thathis defection, though Stephen must have known for some time that it wasprobable, was a challenge to a struggle for the crown more desperate thanthe king had yet experienced. 

It is natural to suppose that the many barons who now declared againstthe king, and fortified their castles, were influenced by a knowledge ofRobert's action, or at least by a knowledge that it was coming. No one ofthese was of the rank of earl. William Peverel, Ralph Lovel, and Robertof Lincoln, William Fitz John, William of Mohun, Ralph Paganel, andWilliam Fitz Alan, are mentioned by name as holding castles against theking, besides a son of Robert's and Geoffrey Talbot who were at Bristol, and Walkelin Maminot who held Dover. The movement was confined to thesouthwest, but as a beginning it was not to be neglected. Stephen actedwith energy. He seized Robert's lands and destroyed his castles whereverhe could get at them. A large military force was summoned. The queen wassent to besiege Dover castle, and she drew from her county of Boulogne anumber of ships sufficient to keep up the blockade of the harbour. Theking himself advanced from London, where he had apparently gone fromHereford to collect his army and arrange his plans, against Bristol whichwas the headquarters of Robert's party. 

Bristol was strong by nature, protected by two rivers and open to thesea, and it had been strongly fortified and prepared for resistance. There collected the main force of the rebels, vassals of Robert, or menwho, like Geoffrey Talbot, had been dispossessed by Stephen, and manymercenaries and adventurers. Their resources were evidently much lessthan their numbers, and probably to supply their needs as well as toweaken their enemies they began the ravaging of the country and thosecruel barbarities quickly imitated by the other side, and by many baronswho rejoiced in the dissolution of public authority--the plundering ofthe weak by all parties--from which England suffered so much during thewar. The lands of the king and of his supporters were systematically laidwaste. Cattle were driven off, movable property carried away, and mensubjected to ingenious tortures to force them to give up the valuablesthey had concealed. Robert's son, Philip Gai, acquired the reputation ofa skilful inventor of new cruelties. These plundering raids were carriedto a distance from the city, and men of wealth were decoyed or kidnappedinto Bristol and forced to give up their property. The one attempt ofthese marauders which was more of the nature of regular warfare, beforethe king's approach, illustrates their methods as well. Geoffrey Talbotled an attack on Bath, hoping to capture the city, but was himself takenand held a prisoner. On the news of this a plot was formed in Bristol forhis release. A party was sent to Bath, who besought the bishop to comeout and negotiate with them, promising under oath his safe return; butwhen he complied they seized him and threatened to hang him unlessGeoffrey were released. To this the bishop, in terror of his life, atlast agreed. Stephen shortly after came to Bath on his march againstBristol, and was with difficulty persuaded not to punish the bishop bydepriving him of his office. 

Stephen found a difficult task before him at Bristol. Its capture byassault was impracticable. A siege would have to be a blockade, and thisit would be very hard to make effective because of the difficulty ofcutting off the water communication. Stephen's failure to command thehearty and honest support of his own barons is also evident here as inalmost every other important undertaking of his life. All sorts ofconflicting advice were given him, some of it intentionally misleading weare told. [38] Finally he was persuaded that it would be better policy togive up the attempt on Bristol for the present, and to capture as many aspossible of the smaller castles held by the rebels. In this he was fairlysuccessful. He took Castle Gary and Harptree, and, after somewhat moreprolonged resistance, Shrewsbury, which was held by William Fitz Alan, whose wife was Earl Robert's niece. In this last case Stephen departedfrom his usual practice and hanged the garrison and its commander. Theeffect of this severity was seen at once. Many surrenders and submissionstook place, including, probably at this time, the important landing placesof Dover and Wareham. 

In the meantime, at almost exactly the date of the surrender ofShrewsbury, affairs in the north had turned even more decidedly in theking's favour. About the end of July, King David of Scotland, very likelyas a part of the general plan of attack on Stephen, had crossed theborders into England, for the third time this year, with a large armygathered from all his dominions and even from beyond. Treason to Stephen, which had before been suspected, now in one case at least openly declareditself. Eustace Fitz John, brother of Payne Fitz John, and like him oneof Henry I's new men who had been given important trusts in the north, but who had earlier in the year been deprived by Stephen of the custodyof Bamborough Castle on suspicion, joined King David with his forces, andarranged to give up his other castles to him. David with his motley hostcame on through Northumberland and Durham, laying waste the land andattacking the strongholds in his usual manner. On their side the baronsof the north gathered in York at the news of this invasion, the greatestdanger of the summer, but found themselves almost in despair at theprospect. Stephen, occupied with the insurrection in the south, couldgive them no aid, and their own forces seemed unequal to the task. Againthe aged Archbishop Thurstan came forward as the real leader in thecrisis. He pictured the sacred duty of defence, and under his influencebarons and common men alike were roused to a holy enthusiasm, and the warbecame a crusade. He promised the levies of the parishes under the parishpriests, and was with difficulty dissuaded, though he was ill, fromencouraging in person the warriors on the battlefield itself. A sacredbanner was given them under which to fight--the standard from which thismost famous battle of Stephen's reign gets its name--a mast erected on awagon, carrying the banners of St. Peter of York, St. John of Beverly, and St. Wilfrid of Ripon, and with a pyx at the top containing the Host, that, "present in his body with them, Christ might be their leader in thebattle. " The army was full of priests and higher clergy, who movedthrough the ranks before the fighting began, stimulating the highreligious spirit with which all were filled. 

The list of the barons who gathered to resist this invasion contains anunusual number of names famous in the later history of England. Theleader, from his age and experience and the general respect in which hewas held, was Walter Espec; the highest in rank was William of Aumale. Others were Robert of Bruce, William of Percy, Ilbert of Lacy, Richard ofCourcy, Robert of Stuteville, William Fossard, Walter of Ghent, and Rogerof Mowbray, who was too young, men thought, to be in battle. Stephen hadsent a small reinforcement under Bernard of Balliol, and Robert ofFerrers was there from Derbyshire, and William Peverel even, though hiscastles were at the time defying the king in the further south. As thearmies were drawing near each other, Bruce and Balliol went together toremind the Scottish king of all that his family owed to the kings ofEngland, and to persuade him to turn back, but they were hailed astraitors because they owed a partial allegiance to Scotland, and theirmission came to nothing. 

The battle was fought early in the day on August 22 near Northallerton. The English were drawn up in a dense mass round their standard, all onfoot, with a line of the best-armed men on the outside, standing "shieldto shield and shoulder to shoulder, " locked together in a solid ring, andbehind them the archers and parish levies. Against this "wedge" KingDavid would have sent his men-at-arms, but the half-naked men of Gallowaydemanded their right to lead the attack. "No one of these in armour willgo further to-day than I will, " cried a chieftain of the highlands, andthe king yielded. But their fierce attack was in vain against the "ironwall"; they only shattered themselves. David's son Henry made a gallantthough badly executed attempt to turn the fortunes of the day, but thisfailed also, and the Scottish army was obliged to withdraw defeated toCarlisle. There was little pursuit, but the Scottish loss was heavy, andgreat spoil of baggage and armour abandoned in their hasty retreat wasgathered by the English. David did not at once give up the war, but thecapture of Wark and a few border forays of subordinates were of noinfluence on the result. The great danger of a Scottish conquest of thenorth or invasion of central England was for the present over. 

In a general balance of the whole year we must say that the outcome wasin favour of Stephen. The rebellion had not been entirely subdued. Bristol still remained a threatening source of future danger. Stephenhimself had given the impression of restless but inefficient energy, ofrushing about with great vigour from one place to another, to besiege onecastle or another, but of accomplishing very little. As compared with thebeginning of the year he was not so strong or so secure as he had been;yet still there was no serious falling off of power. There was nothing inthe situation which threatened his fall, or which would hold out to hisenemies any good hope of success. In Normandy the result of the year wasbut little less satisfactory. Geoffrey's invasion in June had beenchecked and driven back by Count Waleran and William of Ypres. In theautumn the attempt was renewed, and with no better result, thoughArgentan remained in Geoffrey's hands. The people of the duchy hadsuffered as much as those of England from private war and unlicensedpillage, but while such things indicated the weakness of authority theyaccomplished little towards its overthrow. 

During this year, 1138, Stephen adopted a method of strengthening himselfwhich was imitated by his rival and by later kings, and which had a mostimportant influence on the social and constitutional history of England. We have noticed already his habit of lavish gifts. Now he began toinclude the title of earl among the things to be given away to securefidelity. Down to this time the policy of William the Conqueror had beenfollowed by his successors, and the title had been very sparinglygranted. Stephen's first creation was the one already mentioned, that ofHugh "the Poor, " of Beaumont, as Earl of Bedford, probably just at theend of 1137. In the midst of the insurrection of the south-west, Gilbertof Clare, husband of the sister of the three Beaumont earls, was madeEarl of Pembroke. As a reward for their services in defeating King Davidat the battle of the standard, Robert of Ferrers was made Earl of Derby, and William of Aumale Earl of Yorkshire. Here were four creations in lessthan a year, only a trifle fewer than the whole number of earls inEngland in the last years of Henry I. In the end Stephen created nineearls. Matilda followed him with six others, and most of these new titlessurvived the period in the families on which they were conferred. It isfrom Stephen's action that we may date the entry of this title intoEnglish history as a mark of rank in the baronage, more and more freelybestowed, a title of honour to which a family of great possessions orinfluence might confidently aspire. But it must be remembered that theearldoms thus created are quite different from those of the Anglo-Saxonstate or from the countships of France. They carried with them increaseof social consideration and rank, usually some increase of wealth ingrants from crown domains accompanying the creation, and very probablyincreased influence in state and local affairs, but they did not ofthemselves, without special grant, carry political functions or power, orany independence of position. They meant rank and title simply, notoffice. 

Just at the close of the year the archbishopric of Canterbury was filled, after being a twelvemonth in the king's hands. During the vacancy the popehad sent the Bishop of Ostia as legate to England. He had been receivedwithout objection, had made a visitation of England, and at Carlisle hadbeen received by the Scottish king as if that city were a part of hiskingdom. The ambition of Henry of Winchester to become primate of Britainwas disappointed. He had made sure of the succession, and seems actuallyto have exercised some metropolitan authority; perhaps he had even beenelected to the see during the time when his brother's position was indanger. But now Stephen declared himself firmly against his preferment, and the necessary papal sanction for his translation from one see toanother was not granted. Theobald, Abbot of Bec, was elected by a processwhich was in exact accordance with that afterwards described in theConstitutions of Clarendon, following probably the lines of the compromisebetween Henry and Anselm;[39] and he departed with the legate to receivehis pallium, and to attend with other bishops from England the councilwhich had been called by the pope. If Stephen's refusal to allow hisbrother's advancement had been a part of a systematic policy, carefullyplanned and firmly executed, of weakening and finally overthrowing thegreat ecclesiastics and barons of England who were so strong as to bedangerous to the crown, it would have been a wise act and a step towardsfinal success. But an isolated case of the sort, or two or three, badlyconnected and not plainly parts of a progressive policy, could only beexasperating and in truth weakening to himself. We are told that Henry'sanger inclined him to favour the Empress against his brother, and thoughit may not have been an actual moving cause, the incident was probably notforgotten when the question of supporting Matilda became a pressing one. 

The year 1139, which was destined to see the king destroy by his own actall prospect of a secure and complete possession of the throne, openedand ran one-half its course with no change of importance in thesituation. In April, Queen Matilda, who was in character and abilitiesbetter fitted to rule over England than her husband, succeeded in makingpeace with King David of Scotland, who stood in the same relation to heras to the other Matilda, the Empress, since she was the daughter of hissister Mary. The earldom of Northumberland was at last granted to Henry, except the two strong castles of Newcastle and Barnborough, and undercertain restrictions, and the Scots gave hostages for the keeping of thepeace. At the same date, in the great Lateran council at Rome, to whichthe English bishops had gone with the legate, the pope seems to have puthis earlier decision in favour of Stephen into formal and public shape. In Stephen's mind this favour of the pope's was very likely balanced byanother act of his which had just preceded it, by which Henry ofWinchester had been created papal legate in England. By this appointmenthe was given supreme power over the English Church, and gained nearly allthat he had hoped to get by becoming Archbishop of Canterbury. PersonallyStephen was occupied during the early months of the year, as he had beenthe year before, in attacking the castles which were held against him;but in the most important case, the siege of Ludlow castle, he met withno success. 

At the end of June the great council of the kingdom came together atOxford, and there it was that Stephen committed the fatal mistake whichturned the tide of affairs against him. Of all the men who had beenraised to power in the service of Henry I, none occupied so commanding aposition as Roger, Bishop of Salisbury. As a priest he had attracted theattention of Henry before he became king by the quickness with which hegot through the morning mass; he was taken into his service, and steadilyrose higher and higher until he became the head of the wholeadministrative system, standing next to the king when he was in England, and exercising the royal authority, as justiciar, when he was absent. Inhis rise he had carried his family with him. His nephew Alexander wasBishop of Lincoln. Another nephew Nigel was Bishop of Ely. His son Rogerwas chancellor of the kingdom. The administrative and financial systemwas still in the hands of the family. The opportunities which they hadenjoyed for so many years to enrich themselves from the public revenues, very likely as a tacitly recognized part of the payment of theirservices, they had not neglected. But they had gone further than this. Evidently with some ulterior object in view, but with precisely what wecan only guess, they had been strengthening royal castles in their hands, and even building new ones. That bishops should fortify castles of theirown, like barons, was not in accordance with the theory of the Church, nor was it in accordance with the custom in England and Normandy. Theexample had been followed apparently by Henry of Winchester, who hadunder his control half a dozen strongholds. The situation would initself, and in any circumstances, be a dangerous one. In the presentcircumstances the suspicion would be natural that a family which owed somuch to King Henry was secretly preparing to aid his daughter in anattempt to gain the throne, and this suspicion was generally held by theking's party. To this may be added the fact that, in the blow which henow struck, we very possibly have an attempt on Stephen's part to carryfurther the policy of weakening, in the interest of the crown, the toostrong ecclesiastical and baronial element in the state, which he hadbegun in refusing the archbishopric of Canterbury to his brother. Thewealth of the family may have been an additional incentive, and intriguesagainst these bishops by the powerful house of Beaumont are mentioned. There is no reason to suppose, however, that the Beaumonts were notacting, as they had so often done, in the real interests of the king, which plainly demanded the breaking up of this threatening power. Therewas nothing to indicate that the present was not a favourable time toundertake it, and the best accounts of these events give us theimpression that Stephen was acting throughout with much confidence and afeeling of strength and security. 

Whatever may have been his motive, Stephen's first move at the beginningof the Oxford meeting was the extreme one of ordering the arrest ofbishops Roger and Alexander. The pretext for this was a street brawlbetween some of their men and followers of the Beaumonts, and theirsubsequent refusal to surrender to the king the keys of their castles. Astep of this kind would need clear reasons to justify it and much realstrength to make it in the end successful. Taken on what looked like amere pretext arranged for the purpose, it was certain to excite the alarmand opposition of the Church. Stephen himself hesitated, as perhaps hewould have in any circumstances. The historian most in sympathy with hiscause expresses his disapproval. [40] The familiar point was urged that thebishops were arrested, not as bishops, but as the king's ministers; andthis would have been sufficient under a king like the first two Williams. But the arrest was not all. The bishops were treated with much indignity, and were compelled to deliver up their castles by fear of something worse. In Roger's splendid castle of Devizes were his nephew, the Bishop of Ely, who had escaped arrest at Oxford, and Maud of Ramsbury, the mother of hisson Roger the Chancellor. William of Ypres forced its surrender by makingready to hang the younger Roger before the walls, and Newark castle wasdriven to yield by threatening to starve Bishop Alexander. 

The indignation of the clergy is expressed by every writer of the time. It was probably especially bitter because Stephen was so deeply indebtedto them for his success and had recently made them such extensivepromises. Henry of Winchester, who may have had personal reasons foralarm, was not disposed to play the part of Lanfranc and defend the kingfor arresting bishops. He evidently believed that the king was not strongenough to carry through his purpose, and that the Church was in aposition to force the issue upon him. Acting for the first time under hiscommission as legate which he had received in the spring of the year, hecalled a council to meet at Winchester, and summoned his brother toanswer before it for his conduct. The council met on August 30. TheChurch was well represented. The legate's commission was read, and hethen opened the subject in a Latin speech in which he denounced hisbrother's acts. The king was represented by Aubrey de Vere and theArchbishop of Rouen, the baron defending the king's action point bypoint, and the ecclesiastic denying the right of the bishops to holdcastles, and maintaining the right of the king to call for them. Theattempt of Henry did not succeed. His demand that the castles should begiven back to the bishops until the question should be settled wasrefused, and the bishops were threatened with exile if they carried thecase to Rome. The council ended without taking any action against theking. Some general decrees were adopted against those who laid hands onthe clergy or seized their goods, but it was also declared, if we areright in attributing the action to this body, that the castles of thekingdom belonged to the king and to his barons to hold, and that theduties of the clergy lay in another direction. Stephen retained thebishops' castles and the treasures which he had found in them; and whenBishop Roger died, three months later, his personal property was seizedinto the king's hands. 

While these events were going on, the Empress and her brother had decidedthat the time was favourable for a descent on England. In advance oftheir coming, Baldwin of Redvers landed with some force at Wareham andintrenched himself in Corfe castle against the king. Matilda and Robertlanded at Arundel on the last day of September with only one hundred andforty men. Stephen had abandoned the siege of Corfe castle on the newsthat they were about to cross, and had taken measures to prevent theirlanding; but he had again turned away to something else, and theirlanding was unopposed. Arundel castle was in possession of Adelaide, thewidowed queen of Henry I, now the wife of William of Albini. It is notpossible to suppose that this place was selected for the invasion withouta previous understanding; and there, in the keeping of her stepmother, Robert left his sister and set out immediately on his landing forBristol, taking with him only twelve men. On hearing of this Stephenpursued, but failed to overtake him, and turned back to besiege Arundelcastle. Then occurred one of the most astonishing events of Stephen'scareer--astonishing alike to his contemporaries and to us, but typical ina peculiar degree of the man. 

Queen Adelaide became alarmed on the approach of Stephen, and began totake thought of what she had to lose if the king should prove successful, as there was every reason to suppose he would; and she proposed toabandon Matilda's cause and to hand her over at once to Stephen. Here wasan opportunity to gain a most decided advantage--perhaps to end the wholestrife. With Matilda in his hands, Stephen would have been master of thesituation. He could have sent her back to Normandy and so have ended theattempt at invasion. He could have kept her in royal captivity, or havedemanded the surrender of her claims as the price of her release. Insteadof seizing the occasion, as a Henry or a William would certainly havedone, he was filled with chivalrous pity for his cousin's strait, andsent her with an escort under Henry of Winchester and Waleran of Meulanto join her brother at Bristol. The writers of the time explain hisconduct by his own chivalrous spirit, and by the treasonable persuasionsof his brother Henry, who, we may believe, had now reasons fordisloyalty. The chivalrous ideals of the age certainly had great powerover Stephen, as they would have over any one with his popular traits ofmind and manners; and his strange throwing away of this advantage wasundoubtedly due to this fact, together with the readiness with which heyielded to the persuasions of a stronger spirit. The judgment of OrdericVitalis, who was still writing in Normandy, is the final judgment ofhistory on the act: "Surely in this permission is to be seen the greatsimplicity of the king or his great stupidity, and he is to be pitied byall prudent men because he was unmindful of his own safety and of thesecurity of his kingdom. "

This was the turning-point in Stephen's history. Within the brief spaceof two months, by two acts surprisingly ill-judged and even of folly, hehad turned a position of great strength, which might easily have beenmade permanently secure, into one of great weakness; and so long as thestruggle lasted he was never able to recover what he had lost. By histreatment of the bishops he had turned against himself the party in thestate whose support had once been indispensable, and whose power toinjure him he was soon to feel. By allowing Matilda and her brother toenter Bristol, he had given to all the diverse elements of opposition inEngland the only thing they still needed; a natural leadership, and froman impregnable position. Either of these mistakes alone might not havebeen fatal. Their coming together as they did made then irretrievableblunders. 

No sudden falling off of strength marks the beginning of Stephen'sdecline. Two barons of the west who had been very closely connected withHenry I and with Robert, but who had both accepted Stephen, declared nowfor Matilda, Brian Fitz Count of Wallingford, and Miles of Gloucester. Other minor accessions in the neighbourhood seem to have followed. Aboutthe middle of October the Empress went on to Gloucester, where herfollowers terrorized city and country as they had at Bristol. Stephenconducted his counter-campaign in his usual manner, attacking place afterplace without waiting to finish any enterprise. The recovery ofMalmesbury castle, which he had lost in October, was his only success, and this was won by persuasion rather than by arms. Hereford andWorcester suffered severely from attacks of Matilda's forces, andHereford was captured. The occupation of Gloucester and Hereford was themost important success of the Empress's party, and with Bristol they markthe boundaries of the territory she may be said to have gained, with someoutlying points like Wallingford, which the king had not been able torecover. On December 11, Bishop Roger of Salisbury died, probably neverhaving recovered from the blow struck by Stephen in August. He hadoccupied a great place in the history of England, but it had been inpolitical and constitutional, not in religious history. It may verylikely have seemed to him, in the last three months of his life, that thework to which he had given himself, in the organization of theadministrative and financial machinery of the government, was about to bedestroyed in the ruin of his family and the anarchy of civil war; butsuch forebodings, if he felt them, did not prove entirely true. 

The year 1140 is one of the most dreary in the slow and wearing conflictwhich had now begun. No event of special interest tempts us to lingerupon details. The year opens with a successful attack by the king onNigel, Bishop of Ely, who had escaped at the time of his uncle's arrest, and who was now preparing for revolt in his bishopric. Again the bishophimself escaped, and joined Matilda's party, but Stephen took possessionof the Isle of Ely. An effort to add Cornwall to the revolted districtswas equally unsuccessful. Reginald of Dunstanville, a natural son ofHenry I, appeared there in the interest of his sister, who, imitating themethods of Stephen, created him, at this time or a little later, Earl ofCornwall; but his rule was unwise, and Stephen advancing in person had nodifficulty in recovering the country. The character which the war wasrapidly assuming is shown by the attempt of Robert Fitz Hubert, a Flemishmercenary, to hold the strong castle of Devizes, which he had seized bysurprise, in his own interest and in despite of both parties. He fell avictim to his own methods employed against himself, and was hanged byRobert of Gloucester. In the spring a decided difference of opinion arosebetween the king and his brother Henry about the appointment of asuccessor to Roger of Salisbury, which ended in the rejection of boththeir candidates and a long vacancy in the bishopric. Henry of Winchesterwas, however, not yet ready openly to abandon the cause of his brother, and he busied himself later in the year with efforts to bring about anunderstanding between the opposing parties, which proved unavailing. Ameeting of representatives of both sides near Bath led to no result, anda journey of Henry's to France, perhaps to bring the influence of hisbrother Theobald and of the king of France to bear in favour of peace, was also fruitless. During the summer Stephen gained an advantage insecuring the hand of Constance, the sister of Louis VII of France, forhis son Eustace, it was believed at the time by a liberal use of thetreasures of Bishop Roger. 

At Whitsuntide and again in August the restlessness of Hugh Bigod in EastAnglia had forced Stephen to march against him. Perhaps he felt that hehad not received a large enough reward for the doubtful oath which he hadsworn to secure the king his crown. Stephen at any rate was now in asituation where he could not withhold rewards, or even refuse demands incritical cases; and it was probably at this time, certainly not longafter, that, following the policy he had now definitely adopted, hecreated Hugh Earl of Norfolk. A still more important and typical case, which probably occurred in the same year, is that of Geoffrey deMandeville. Grandson of a baron of the Conquest, he was in succession tohis father, constable of the Tower in London, and so held a position ofgreat strategic importance in turbulent times. Early in the strife forthe crown he seems to have seen very clearly the opportunity forself-aggrandizement which was offered by the uncertainty of Stephen'spower, and to have resolved to make the most of it for his own gainwithout scruple of conscience. His demand was for the earldom of Essex, and this was granted him by the king. Apparently about the same timeoccurred a third case of the sort which completes the evidence that theweakness of Stephen's character was generally recognized, and that in theresulting attitude of many of the greater barons we have the key to hisreign. One of the virtually independent feudal principalities created inEngland by the Conqueror and surviving to this time was the palatineearldom of Chester. The then earl was Ralph II, in succession to hisfather Ralph Meschin, who had succeeded on the death of Earl Richard inthe sinking of the White Ship. It had been a grievance of the firstRalph that he had been obliged by King Henry to give up his lordship ofCarlisle on taking the earldom, and this grievance had been made morebitter for the second Ralph when the lordship had been transferred to theScots. There was trouble also about the inheritance of his mother Lucy, in Lincolnshire, in which another son of hers, Ralph's half-brother, William of Roumare, was interested. We infer that toward the end of theyear 1140 their attitude seemed threatening to the king, for he seems tohave visited them and purchased their adherence with large gifts, granting to William the earldom of Lincoln. 

Then follows rapidly the series of events which led to the crisis of thewar. The brothers evidently were not yet satisfied. Stephen had retainedin his hands the castle of Lincoln and this Ralph and William seized by astratagem. Stephen, informed of what had happened by a messenger from thecitizens, acted with his characteristic energy at the beginning of anyenterprise, broke up his Christmas court at London, and suddenly, to thegreat surprise of the earls, appeared in Lincoln with a besieging army. Ralph managed to escape to raise in Chester a relieving army, and at oncetook a step which becomes from this time not infrequent among the baronsof his stamp. He applied for help to Robert of Gloucester, whoseson-in-law he was, and offered to go over to Matilda with all that heheld. He was received, of course, with a warm welcome. Robert recognizedthe opportunity which the circumstances probably offered to strike adecisive blow, and, gathering the strongest force he could, he advancedfrom Gloucester against the king. On the way he was joined by the Earl ofChester, whose forces included many Welsh ready to fight in an Englishquarrel but badly armed. The attacking army skirted Lincoln and appearedon the high road leading to it from the north, where was the bestprospect of forcing an entrance to the city. 

The approach of the enemy led, as usual in Stephen's armies, to dividedcounsels. Some were in favour of retreating and collecting a larger army, others of fighting at once. To fight at once would be Stephen's naturalinclination, and he determined to risk a battle, which he must have knownwould have decisive consequences. His army he drew up in three bodiesacross the way of approach. Six earls were with the king, reckoning theCount of Meulan, but they had not brought strong forces and there werefew horsemen. Five of these earls formed the first line. The second wasunder William of Ypres and William of Aumale, and was probably made upof the king's foreign troops. Stephen himself, with a strong band ofmen all on foot, was posted in the rear. The enemy's formation wassimilar. The Earl of Chester claimed the right to lead the attack, because the quarrel was his, but the men upon whom Robert most dependedwere the "disinherited, " of whom he had collected many, --men raised upby Matilda's father and cast down by Stephen, and now ready to stake allon the hope of revenge and of restoration; and these he placed in thefirst line. Earl Ralph led the second, and himself the third. The battlewas soon over, except the struggle round the king. His first and secondlines were quickly swept away by the determined charge of Robert's menand took to flight, but Stephen and his men beat off several attacksbefore he was finally overpowered and forced to yield. He surrenderedto Robert of Gloucester. Many minor barons were taken prisoners withhim, but the six earls all escaped. The citizens of Lincoln were punishedfor their adhesion to the king's side by a sacking of the city, in whichmany of them were slain. Stephen was taken to Gloucester by Robert, andthen sent to imprisonment in the castle of Bristol, the most secure placewhich Matilda possessed. 

[38] Gesta Stephani, 42. 

[39] Gervase of Canterbury, i. 109. But see Ralph de Diceto, i. 252, n. 2, and Böhmer, Kirche und Staat, 375. 

[40] Gesta Stephani, 47. 

CHAPTER XI

THE LAST STAGE OF THE CIVIL WAR

The victory at Lincoln changed the situation of affairs at a blow. Fromholding a little oval of territory about the mouth of the Severn as theutmost she had gained, with small immediate prospect of enlarging it, Matilda found the way to the throne directly open before her withno obstacle in sight not easily overcome. She set out at once forWinchester. On his side, Bishop Henry was in no mood to stake hisposition and influence on the cause of his brother. Stephen's attitudetowards him and towards the Church had smoothed the way for Matilda atthe point where she might expect the first and most serious check. Thenegotiations were not difficult, but the result shows as clearly as inthe case of Stephen the disadvantage of the crown at such a crisis, andthe opportunity offered to the vassal, whether baron or bishop, who helda position of independent strength and was determined to use it in hisown interests. The arrangement was called at the time a pactus--atreaty. The Empress took oath to the bishop that all the more importantbusiness of England, especially the filling of bishoprics and abbacies, should be done according to his desire, and her oath was supported bythose of her brother and of the leading barons with her. The bishop inturn received her as "Lady of England, " and swore fealty to her as longas she should keep this pact. The next day, March 3, she entered thecity, took possession of the small sum of money which had been left inthe treasury by Stephen and of the royal crown which was there, enteredthe cathedral in solemn procession, supported by Henry and the Bishop ofSt. David's, with four other bishops and several abbots present, and hadherself proclaimed at once "lady and queen of England, " whatever thedouble title may mean. Certainly she intended to be and believed herselfnothing less than reigning queen. [41] Without waiting for any ceremonyof coronation, she appointed a bishop, created earls, and spoke in aformal document of her kingdom and her crown. 

Directly after these events Henry of Winchester had summoned a council, to learn, very likely to guide, the decision of the Church as to a changeof allegiance. The council met in Winchester on April 7. On that day thelegate met separately, in secret session, the different orders of theclergy, and apparently obtained from them the decision which he wished. The next day in a speech to the council, he recited the misgovernment ofhis brother, who, he declared, had, almost immediately after hisaccession to power, destroyed the peace of the kingdom; and without anyallusion to his deposition, except to the battle of Lincoln as a judgmentof God, and with no formal action of the council as a whole, he announcedthe choice of the Church in favour of Matilda. The day following, arequest of the Londoners and of the barons who had joined them for therelease of Stephen, and one of his queen's to the same effect, wasrefused. The Empress was not present at the council. She spent Easter atOxford, receiving reports, no doubt, of the constant successes her partywas now gaining in different parts of England. It was not, however, tillthe middle of June that London, naturally devoted to Stephen, was readyto receive her. 

Her reception in London marks the height of her success. She bought thesupport of the powerful Geoffrey de Mandeville by confirming to him theprice which he had extorted from Stephen, the earldom of Essex, and bybidding higher than her rival with gifts of lands, revenues, andprivileges which started him on the road to independence of the crown, which he well knew how to follow. Preparations were no doubt at oncebegun for her coronation. Her uncle King David came down from Scotland tolend it dignity, but it was destined never to occur. Her fall was asrapid as her rise, and was due, even more clearly than Stephen's, to herown inability to rule. The violent and tyrannical blood of her uncle, William Rufus, showed itself in her as plainly as the irresolute blood ofRobert Curthose in her cousin, but she did not wait to gain her uncle'ssecurity of position to make violence and tyranny possible. Already, before she came up to London, she had offended her followers by thearrogance and harshness of her conduct. Now these traits of characterproved fatal to her cause. She greatly offended the legate, to whom shewas as deeply indebted as Stephen had been, and whose power to injure hershe might easily understand, by refusing to promise that Eustace mighthold his father's continental counties of Boulogne and Mortain. Equallyunwise was her attitude towards London. She demanded a large subsidy. Therequest of the citizens for a confirmation of the laws of King Edward, because her father's were too heavy for them, she sternly refused. QueenMatilda, "acting the part of a man, " advanced with her forces to theneighbourhood of the city and brought home to the burghers the evils ofcivil war. They were easily moved. A sudden uprising of the city forcedthe Empress to "ignominious" flight, leaving her baggage behind. Sheretreated to Oxford, and Matilda the queen entered the recovered city. Geoffrey de Mandeville at once brought his allegiance to the new marketand obtained, it is probable, another advance of price and Henry ofWinchester was easily persuaded to return to his brother's side. "Behold, " says the historian of the Empress's party, "while she wasthinking that she could immediately possess all England, everythingchanged. " He adds that the change was her own fault, and in this he wasright. [42]

But Matilda was not ready to accept calmly so decided a reverse, nor toallow Winchester to remain in undisturbed possession of her enemies, andher brother Robert was not. They had been driven from London on June 24. At the end of July, with a strong force, they attacked the older capitalcity, took possession of a part of it, forced the bishop to flee, andbegan the siege of his castle. At once the leaders of Stephen's cause, encouraged by recent events, gathered against them. While the Empressbesieged the bishop's men from within, she was herself besieged fromwithout by superior forces. At last the danger of being cut off from allsupplies forced her to retreat, and in the retreat Robert of Gloucester, protecting his sister's flight, was himself captured. This was a greatstroke of fortune, because it balanced for practical purposes the captureof Stephen at the battle of Lincoln, and it at once suggested an evenexchange. Negotiations were not altogether easy. Robert modestly insistedthat he was not equal to a king, but the arrangement was too obvious toadmit of failure, and the exchange was effected at the beginning ofNovember. 

Since the middle of June the course of affairs had turned rapidly infavour of the king, but he was still far from having recovered theposition of strength which he occupied before the landing of Matilda. Oxford was still in her hands, and so was a large part of the west ofEngland. The Earl of Chester was still on her side, though he hadsignified his willingness to change sides if he were properly received. Stephen had yet before him a hard task in recovering his kingdom, and henever accomplished it. The war dragged on its slow length for more thanten years. Its dramatic period, however, was now ended. Only the story ofMatilda's flight from Oxford enlivens the later narrative. Siege andskirmish, treason and counter-treason, fill up the passing months, butbring the end no nearer, until the entry of the young Henry on the scenelends a new element of interest and decision to the dull movement ofevents. 

At first after his release Stephen carried on the work of restorationrapidly and without interruption. London received him with joy. AtChristmas time he wore his crown at Canterbury; he was probably, indeed, re-crowned by the archbishop, to make good any defect which hisimprisonment might imply. Already, on December 7, a new council, assembling in Westminster, had reversed the decisions of the council ofWinchester, and, supported by a new declaration of the pope in a letterto the legate, had restored the allegiance of the Church to Stephen. Atthe Christmas assembly Geoffrey de Mandeville secured from the king thereward of his latest shift of sides, in a new charter which increased apower already dangerous and made him an almost independent prince. In thecreation of two new earls a short time before, William of Albini as Earlof Sussex or Arundel, and Gilbert of Clare as Earl of Hertford, Stephensought to confirm a doubtful, and to reward a steady, support. No eventof importance marks the opening months of 1142. Lent was spent in a royalprogress through eastern England, where as yet the Empress had obtainedno footing, to York. On the way, at Stamford, he seems to have recoveredthe allegiance of the Earl of Chester and of his brother, the Earl ofLincoln, a sure sign of the change which had taken place since the battlein which they had overcome him so disastrously a year before. 

In the summer Stephen again assumed the offensive and pushed the attackon his enemies with energy and skill. After a series of minor successeshe advanced against the Empress herself at Oxford, where she had made herheadquarters since the loss of London. Her brother Robert, who was thereal head of her party, was now in Normandy, whither he had gone topersuade Geoffrey to lend the support of his personal presence to hiswife's cause in England, but he had made sure, as he believed, of hissister's safety before going. The fortifications of Oxford had beenstrengthened. The barons had pledged themselves to guard Matilda, andhostages had been exacted from some as a check on the fashion of freedesertion. It seems to have been felt, however, that Stephen would notventure to attack Oxford, and there had been no special concentration ofstrength in the city; so that when he suddenly appeared on the south, having advanced down the river from the west, he was easily able todisperse the burghers who attempted to dispute his passage of the river, and to enter one of the gates with them in their flight. The town wassacked, and the king then sat down to a siege of the castle. The siegebecame a blockade, which lasted from the end of September to nearChristmas time, though it was pushed with all the artillery of the age, and a blockade in which the castle was carefully watched day and night. Stephen seems to have changed his mind since the time when he hadbesieged Matilda in Arundel castle, and to have been now determined totake his rival prisoner. The barons who had promised to protect theEmpress gathered at Wallingford, but did not venture to attempt a directraising of the siege. Robert of Gloucester returned from Normandy aboutDecember 1, but Stephen allowed him to win a small success or two, andkept steadily to his purpose. 

As it drew near to Christmas provisions became low in the castle, and thenecessity of surrender unpleasantly clear. Finally Matilda determined toattempt a bold escape. It was a severe winter and the ground was entirelycovered with snow. With only a few attendants--three and five are bothmentioned--she was let down with ropes from a tower, and, clad all inwhite, stole through the lines of the besiegers, detected only by asentry, who raised no alarm. With determined spirit and endurance shefled on foot through the winter night and over difficult ways toAbingdon, six miles away. There she obtained horses and rode on toWallingford, where she was safe. The castle of Oxford immediatelysurrendered to Stephen, but the great advantage for which he had strivenhad escaped him when almost in his hands. Robert of Gloucester, who waspreparing to attempt the raising of the siege, at once joined his sisterat Wallingford, and brought with him her son, the future Henry II, sentover in place of his father, on his first visit to England. Henry was nowin his tenth year, and for four years and more he remained in England inthe inaccessible stronghold of Bristol, studying with a tutor under theguardianship of his uncle. Robert's mission of the previous summer, toget help for Matilda in England, proved more useful to Geoffrey than tohis wife. During a rapid campaign the conquest of the duchy had at lastbeen really begun, and in the two following years it was carried to asuccessful conclusion. On January 20, 1144, the city of Rouen surrenderedto the Count of Anjou, though the castle held out for some time longer. Even Waleran of Meulan recognized the new situation of affairs, and gavehis aid to the cause of Anjou, and before the close of the year Louis VIIformally invested Geoffrey with the duchy. This much of the plan of HenryI was now realized; Stephen never recovered possession of Normandy. Butwithout England, it was realized in a way which destroyed the planitself, and England was still far from any union with the Angevindominions. 

By the time the conquest of Normandy was completed, events of equalinterest had taken place in England, involving the fall of the powerfuland shifty Earl of Essex, Geoffrey de Mandeville. Soon after Easter, 1142, he had found an opportunity for another prudent and profitablechange of sides. The king had fallen ill on his return from the north, and, once more, as at the beginning of his reign, the report of his deathwas spread abroad. Geoffrey seems to have hurried at once to the Empress, as a probable source of future favours, and to have carried with him asmall crowd of his friends and relatives, including the equallyunscrupulous Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk. Matilda, who was then atOxford, and had no prospect of any immediate advance, was again ready togive him all he asked. Her fortunes were at too low an ebb to warrant hercounting the cost, and in any case what she was buying was of great valueif she could make sure that the sellers would keep faith. Geoffrey, withhis friends, and Nigel, Bishop of Ely, who was already on her side, controlling Essex, Hertford, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridge, could giveher possession of as large a territory on the east of England as she nowheld on the west, and this would very likely carry with it the occupationof London once more, and would threaten to cut the kingdom of Stepheninto two detached fragments. Geoffrey was in a position to drive a goodbargain, and he did so. New lands and revenues, new rights andprivileges, were added to those he had already extorted from both sides;the Empress promised to make no peace without his consent with his"mortal enemies, " the burghers of London, towards whom she probably hadherself just then no great love. Geoffrey's friends were admitted toshare with him in the results of his careful study of the conditions ofthe market, especially his brother-in-law, Aubrey de Vere, who was madeEarl by his own choice of Cambridge, but in the end of Oxford, probablybecause Matilda's cousin, Henry of Scotland, considered that Cambridgewas included in his earldom of Huntingdon. What price was offered to HughBigod, or to Gilbert Clare, Earl of Pembroke, who seems to have been ofthe number, we do not know. 

As a matter of fact, neither Geoffrey nor the Empress gained anythingfrom this bargaining. Stephen was not dead, and his vigorous campaign ofthe summer of 1142 evidently made it seem prudent to Geoffrey to hold hisintended treason in reserve for a more promising opportunity. It isprobable that Stephen soon learned the facts, before very long theybecame common talk, but he awaited on his side a better opportunity tostrike. The earl had grown too powerful to be dealt with withoutconsidering ways and means. Contemporary writers call him the mostpowerful man in England, and they regard his abilities with as muchrespect as his possessions and power. Stephen took his opportunity in theautumn of 1143, at a court held at St. Albans. The time was not wiselychosen. Things had not been going well with him during the summer. AtWilton he had been badly defeated by the Earl of Gloucester, and nearlyhalf of England was in Matilda's possession or independent of his owncontrol. But he yielded to the pressure of Geoffrey's enemies at thecourt, and ordered and secured his arrest on a charge of treason. Thestroke succeeded no better than such measures usually did with Stephen, for he was always satisfied with a partial success. A threat of hangingforced the earl to surrender his castles, including the Tower of London, and then he was released. Geoffrey was not the man to submit to such asudden overthrow without a trial of strength. With some of his friends heinstantly appealed to arms, took possession of the Isle of Ely, where hewas sure of a friendly reception, seized Ramsey Abbey, and turning outthe monks made a fortress of it, and kept his forces in supplies bycruelly ravaging the surrounding lands. 

It has been thought that the famous picture of the sufferings of thepeople of England during the anarchy of Stephen's reign, which waswritten in the neighbouring city of Peterborough, where the last of theEnglish Chronicles was now drawing to its close, gained its vividnessfrom the writer's personal knowledge of the horrors of this time; andthis is probable, though he speaks in general terms. His pitiful accountruns thus in part: "Every powerful man made his castles and held themagainst him [the king]; and they filled the land full of castles. Theycruelly oppressed the wretched men of the land with castle-works. Whenthe castles were made, they filled them with devils and evil men. Thentook they those men that they thought had any property . . . And put themin prison for their gold and silver, and tortured them with unutterabletorture; for never were martyrs so tortured as they were. They hangedthem up by the feet and smoked them with foul smoke; they hanged them bythe thumbs or by the head and hung armour on their feet; they put knottedstrings about their heads and writhed them so that they went into thebrain. They put them in dungeons in which were adders, and snakes, andtoads, and killed them so. . . . Then was corn dear, and flesh, and cheese, and butter; for there was none in the land. Wretched men died of hunger;some went seeking alms who at one while were rich men; some fled out ofthe land. Never yet had more wretchedness been in the land, nor ever didheathen men do worse than they did; for oftentimes they forbore neitherchurch nor churchyard, but took all the property that was therein andthen burned the church and all together. . . . However a man tilled, theearth bare no corn; for the land was all fordone by such deeds; and theysaid openly that Christ and his saints slept. "

Geoffrey de Mandeville's career of plundering and sacrilege was notdestined to continue long. Towards the end of the summer of 1144, he waswounded in the head by an arrow, in an attack on a fortified post whichthe king had established at Burwell to hold his raids in check; and soonafter he died. His body was carried to the house of the Templars inLondon, but for twenty years it could not be received into consecratedground, for he had died with his crimes unpardoned and under the ban ofthe Church, which was only removed after these years by the efforts ofhis younger son, a new Earl of Essex. To the great power for whichGeoffrey was playing, to his independent principality, or to his possiblyeven higher ambition of controlling the destinies of the crown ofEngland, there was no successor. His eldest son, Ernulf, shared hisfather's fall and condemnation, and was disinherited, though from himthere descended a family holding for some generations a minor position inOxfordshire. Twelve years after the death of Geoffrey, his secondson--also Geoffrey--was made Earl of Essex by Henry II, and his faithfulservice to the king, and his brother's after him, were rewarded byincreasing possessions and influence that almost rivalled their father's;but the wilder designs and unscrupulous methods of the first Earl ofEssex perished with him. 

The years 1144 and 1145 were on the whole prosperous for Stephen. Anumber of minor successes and minor accessions from the enemy made up ageneral drift in his favour. Even the Earl of Gloucester's son Philip, with a selfishness typical of the time, turned against his father; butthe most important desertion to the king was that of the Earl of Chester, who joined him in 1146 and made a display of zeal, real or pretended, inhis service. Starting with greater power and a more independent positionthan Geoffrey de Mandeville, and perhaps less openly bartering hisallegiance to one side and the other at a constantly rising price, he hadstill pursued the same policy and with even greater success. His designwas hardly less than the carving out of a state for himself from westernand northern England, and during much of this disjointed time he seems tohave carried himself with no regard to either side. To go over to theking so soon after the fall of the Earl of Essex was, it is likely, totake some risk, and as in the former case there was a party at the courtwhich influenced Stephen against him. His refusal, notwithstanding hiszeal, to restore castles and lands belonging to the king, and his attemptto induce Stephen to aid him against the Welsh, which was considered aplot to get possession of the king's person, led to his arrest. AgainStephen followed his habitual policy of forcing the surrender of hisprisoner's castles, or certain of them, and then releasing him; and againthe usual result followed, the instant insurrection of the earl. His realpower had hardly been lessened by giving up the king's castles, --to whichhe had been forced, --and it was not easy to attack him. On a later visitof the young Henry to England, he obtained from him, and even from theking of Scotland, to whom he had long been hostile, large additions tohis coveted principality in the west and north; but Stephen at once bidhigher, and for a grant including the same possessions and more heabandoned his new allies. On Henry's final visit, in 1153, when the tidewas fairly turning in his favour, another well-timed treason secured theearl his winnings and great promises for the future; but in this sameyear he died, poisoned, as it was believed, by one whose lands he hadobtained. Out of the breaking up of England and the helplessness of herrulers arose no independent feudalism. Higher titles and wider lands manybarons did gain, but the power of the king emerged in the end stillsupreme, and the worst of the permanent evils of the feudal system, adivided state, though deliberately sought and dangerously near, was atlast averted. 

With the death of Pope Innocent II, in September, 1143, a new periodopened in the relation of the English Church and of the English kingtowards the papacy. Innocent had been on the whole favourable toStephen's cause. His successor, Celestine II, was as favourable to Anjou, but his papacy was so short that nothing was done except to withhold arenewal of Henry of Winchester's commission as legate. Lucius II, whosucceeded in March, 1144, sent his own legate to England; but he was nota partisan of either side, and seems even--perhaps by way ofcompensation--to have taken steps towards creating an independentarchbishopric in the south-west in Henry's favour. His papacy againlasted less than a year, and his successor, Eugenius III, whose reignlasted almost to the end of Stephen's, was decidedly unfriendly. Henry ofWinchester was for a time suspended; and the king's candidate for thearchbishopric of York, William Fitz Herbert, afterwards St. William ofYork, --whose position had long been in doubt, for though he had beenconsecrated he had not received his pallium, --was deposed, and in hisplace the Cistercian Abbot of Fountains, Henry Murdac, was consecrated bythe Cistercian pope. This was the beginning of open conflict. HenryMurdac could not get possession of his see, and Archbishop Theobald wasrefused permission to attend a council summoned by the pope at Reims forMarch, 1148. He went secretly, crossing the channel in a fishing boat, and was enthusiastically received by the pope. The Bishop of Winchesterwas again suspended, and other bishops with him; several abbots weredeposed; and Gilbert Foliot, a decided partisan of Matilda's, wasdesignated Bishop of Hereford. The pope was with difficulty persuaded topostpone the excommunication of Stephen himself, and steps were actuallytaken to reopen before the Roman court the question of his right to thethrone. Stephen, on his side, responded with promptness and vigour. Herefused to acknowledge the right of the pope to reopen the main question. The primate was banished and his temporalities confiscated. Most of theEnglish clergy were kept on the king's side, and in some way--there issome evidence that the influence of Queen Matilda was employed--theserious danger which threatened Stephen from the Church in the spring of1148 was averted. Peace was made in November with Archbishop Theobald, who had ineffectually tried an interdict, and he was restored to his seeand revenues. The practical advantage, on the whole, remained with theking; but in the course of these events a young man, Thomas Becket, inthe service of the archbishop, acquired a training in ideas and inmethods which was to serve him well in a greater struggle with a greaterking. 

In the spring of the next year, young Henry of Anjou made an attempt onEngland, and found his enemies still too strong for him. In the intervalsince his first visit, Robert of Gloucester, the wisest of the leadersof the Angevin cause, had died in his fortress of Bristol in 1174; andin February of 1148, Matilda herself had given up her long and nowapparently hopeless struggle in England, and gone back to the home ofher husband, though she seems to have encouraged her son in his newenterprise by her presence in England at least for a time. [43] The oldergeneration was disappearing from the field; the younger was preparing togo on with the conflict. In 1149 Henry was sixteen years old, a matureage in that time, and it might well have been thought that it was wiseto put him forward as leader in his own cause. The plan for this yearseems to have been an attack on Stephen from the north by the king ofScotland in alliance with the Earl of Chester, and Henry passed rapidlythrough western England to Carlisle, where he was knighted by KingDavid. Their army, which advanced to attack Lancaster, accomplishednothing, because, as has been related, the allegiance of Ralph ofChester, on whom they depended, had been bought back by Stephen; andStephen himself, waiting with his army at York, found that he hadnothing to do. The Scottish force withdrew, and Henry, againdisappointed, was obliged to return to Normandy. 

Three years later the young Henry made another and finally successfulattempt to win his grandfather's throne, but in the interval greatchanges had occurred. Of these one fell in the year next following, 1150. Soon after Henry's return from England, his father had handed over to himthe only portion of his mother's inheritance which had yet beenrecovered, the duchy of Normandy, and retired himself to his hereditarydominions. Geoffrey had never shown, so far as we know, any interest inhis wife's campaigns in England, and had confined his attention toNormandy, in which one who was still primarily a count of Anjou wouldnaturally have the most concern; and of all the efforts of the familythis was the only one which was successful. Now while still a young man, with rare disregard of self, he gave up his conquest to his son, who hadbeen brought up to consider himself as belonging rather to England thanto Anjou. On the other side of the channel, during this year 1150, Stephen seems to have decided upon a plan which he bent every effort inthe following years to carry out, but unsuccessfully, --the plan ofsecuring a formal recognition of his son Eustace as his successor in thethrone, or even as king with him. At least this is the naturalexplanation of the reconciliation which took place near the close of theyear, between Eustace and his father on one side and Henry Murdac on theother, by which the archbishop was at last admitted to his see of York, and then set off immediately for Rome to persuade the pope to recognizeEustace, and even to consecrate the young man in person. 

In England the practice of crowning the son king in the father's lifetimehad never been followed, as it had been in some of the continentalstates, notably in France; but the conditions were now exactly thosewhich would make such a step seem desirable to the holder of the crown. By this means the Capetian family had maintained undisputed possession ofthe throne through turbulent times with little real power of their own, and they were now approaching the point when they could feel that thecustom was no longer necessary. The decision to attempt this method ofsecuring the succession while still in possession of power, rather thanto leave it to the uncertain chances that would follow his death, was forStephen natural and wise. It is interesting to notice how indispensablethe consent of the Church was considered, as the really deciding voice inthe matter, and it was this that Stephen was not able to secure. Thepope--this was about Easter time of 1151--rejected almost withindignation the suggestion of Murdac, on the ground of the violated oath, and forbade any innovation to be made concerning the crown of England, because this was a subject of litigation; he also directed, very probablyat this time, the Archbishop of Canterbury, it was said at the suggestionof Thomas Becket, to refuse to crown Eustace. 

With his duchy of Normandy, Henry had inherited at the same time thedanger of trouble with the king of France, for his father had greatlydispleased Louis by laying siege to the castle of a seditious vassal ofAnjou who happened to be a favourite of the king. It would seem that thisstate of things suggested to Eustace an attack on Normandy in alliancewith King Louis, but the attempt was fruitless. Twice during the summerof 1151 French armies invaded Normandy; the first led by the kinghimself. Both invasions were met by Henry at the head of his troops, butno fighting occurred on either occasion. On the second invasion, Louiswas ill of a fever in Paris, and negotiations for peace were begun, theChurch interesting itself to this end. Geoffrey and Henry certainly hadno wish for war. The king's friend, who had been captured, was handedover to him; the Norman Vexin was surrendered to France; and in returnLouis recognized Henry as Duke of Normandy and accepted his homage. Henryat once ordered an assembly of the Norman barons, on September 14, toconsider the invasion of England; but his plans were interrupted by thesudden death of his father a week before this date. Geoffrey was then inhis thirty-ninth year. The course of his life had been marked out for himby the plans of others, and it is obscured for us by the deeper interestof the struggle in England, and by the greater brilliancy of his son'shistory; but in the conquest of Normandy he had accomplished a work whichwas of the highest value to his house, and of the greatest assistance tothe rapid success of his son on a wider field. 

Events were now steadily moving in favour of Henry. At the close of 1151, the death of his father added the county of Anjou to his duchy ofNormandy. Early in 1152 a larger possession than these together, and amost brilliant promise of future power, came to him through no effort ofhis own. We have seen how at the beginning of the reign of Stephen, whenHenry himself was not yet five years old, Eleanor, heiress of Aquitaine, had been married to young Louis of France, who became in a few weeks, bythe death of his father, King Louis VII. Half a lifetime, as men lived inthose days, they had spent together as man and wife, with no serious lackof harmony. The marriage, however, could never have been a very happyone. Incompatibility of temper and tastes must long have made itself feltbefore the determination to dissolve the marriage was reached. Masculinein character, strong and full of spirit, Eleanor must have looked withsome contempt on her husband, who was losing the energy of his youngerdays and passing more and more under the influence of the darker and moresuperstitious elements in the religion of the time, and she probably didnot hesitate to let her opinion be known. She said he was a monk and nota king. To this, it is likely, was added the fact--it may very possiblyhave been the deciding consideration--that during the more than fourteenyears of the marriage but two daughters had been born, and the Capetianhouse still lacked an heir. Whatever may have been the reason, a divorcewas resolved upon not long after their return in 1149 from the secondcrusade. The death in January, 1152, of Louis VI's great minister, Suger, whose still powerful influence, for obvious political reasons, hadhindered the final steps, made the way clear. In March an assembly ofclergy, with many barons in attendance, declared the marriage void on theconvenient and easily adjustable principle of too near relationship, andEleanor received back her great inheritance. 

It was not likely that a woman of the character of Eleanor and of herunusual attractions, alike of person and possessions, would quietlyaccept as final the position in which this divorce had left her. Afterescaping the importunate wooings of a couple of suitors who sought tointercept her return to her own dominions, she sent a message to Henry ofAnjou, and he responded at once. In the third week of May they weremarried at Poitiers, two months after the divorce. In a few weeks' time, by two brief ecclesiastical ceremonies, the greatest feudal state ofFrance, a quarter of the kingdom, had been transferred from the king toan uncontrollable vassal who practically held already another quarter. The king of France was reduced as speedily from a position of greatapparent power and promise to the scanty territories of the Capetiandomain, and brought face to face with the danger of not distant ruin tothe plans of his house. To Henry, at the very beginning of his career, was opened the immediate prospect of an empire greater than any whichexisted at that time in Europe under the direct rule of any othersovereign. If he could gain England, he would bear sway, as king inreality if not in name, from Scotland to the Pyrenees, and from such abeginning what was there that might not be gained? Why these hopes werenever realized, how the Capetian kings escaped this danger, must fill alarge part of our story to the death of Henry's youngest son, King John. At the date of his marriage Henry had just entered on his twentieth year. Eleanor was nearly twelve years older. If she had sought happiness in hernew marriage, she did not find it, at least not permanently; and manylater years were spent in open hostility with Henry, or closely confinedin his prisons; but whatever may have been her feelings towards him, shefound no occasion to regard her second husband with contempt. Theireldest son, William, who did not survive infancy, was born on August 17, 1153, and in succession four other sons were born to them and threedaughters. 

The first and most obvious work which now lay before Henry was theconquest of England, and the plans which had been earlier formed forthis object and deferred by these events were at once taken up. By theend of June the young bridegroom was at Barfleur preparing to cross thechannel with an invading force. But he was not to be permitted to enjoyhis new fortunes unchallenged. Louis VII in particular had reasons forinterfering, and the law was on his side. The heiress Eleanor had noright to marry without the consent of her feudal suzerain. A summons, itis said, was at once served on Henry to appear before the king's courtand answer for his conduct, [44] and this summons, which Henry refused toobey, was supported by a new coalition. Louis and Eustace were again inalliance, and they were joined by Henry's own brother Geoffrey, whocould make considerable trouble in the south of Henry's lands, by Robertof Dreux, Count of Perche, and by Eustace's cousin Henry, Count ofChampagne. Stephen's brother Theobald had died at the beginning of theyear, and his great dominions had been divided, Champagne and Bloisbeing once more separated, never to be reunited until they were absorbedat different dates into the royal domain. This coalition was strongenough to check Henry's plan of an invasion of England, but it did notprove a serious danger, though the allies are said to have formed a planfor the partition of all the Angevin empire among themselves. For somereason their campaign does not seem to have been vigorously pushed. Theyoung duke was able to force his brother to come to terms, and hesucceeded in patching up a rather insecure truce with King Louis. Onthis, however, he dared to rely enough--or perhaps he trusted to thesituation as he understood it--to venture at last, in January, 1153, onhis long-deferred expedition to recover his mother's kingdom. Stephenhad begun the siege of the important fortress of Wallingford, and a newcall for aid had come over to Normandy from the hard-pressed garrison. 

In the meantime, during the same days when the divorce and remarriage ofEleanor of Aquitaine were making such a change in the power and prospectsof his competitor for the crown, Stephen had made a new attempt to securethe possession of that crown firmly to his son Eustace. A meeting of thegreat council of the kingdom, or of that part which obeyed Stephen, wascalled at London early in April, 1152. This body was asked to sanctionthe immediate consecration of Eustace as king. The barons who werepresent were ready to agree, and they swore allegiance to him andprobably did homage, which was as far as the barons by themselves couldgo. The prelates, however, under the lead of the Archbishop ofCanterbury, --Henry of Winchester is not mentioned in this case, --flatlyrefused to perform the consecration. The papal prohibition of any suchact still held good, and the clergy of England had been given, as theywould recall the past, no reason to disobey the pope in the interests ofKing Stephen. The king, in great anger, appealed to force against them, but without avail. Temporary imprisonment of the prelates at the council, in a house together, even temporary confiscation of the baronies of someof them, did not move them, and Stephen was obliged to postpone his planonce more. The archbishop again escaped to the continent to await thecourse of events, and Stephen appealed to the sword to gain some newadvantage to balance this decided rebuff. Then followed the vigoroussiege of Wallingford, which called Henry into England at the beginning ofJanuary. 

The force which Henry brought with him crossed the channel in thirty-sixships, and was estimated at the time at 140 men-at-arms and 3000foot-soldiers, a very respectable army for that day; but the duke'sfriends in England very likely formed their ideas of the army he wouldbring from the breadth of his territories, and they expressed theirdisappointment. Henry was to win England, however, not by an invasion, but by the skill of his management and by the influence of events whichworked for him here as on the continent without an effort of his own. Nowit was that Ralph of Chester performed his final change of sides and soldto Henry, at the highest price which treason reached in any transactionof this long and favourable time, the aid which was so necessary to theAngevin success. Henry's first attempt was against the important castleof Malmesbury, midway between Bristol and Wallingford, and Stephen wasnot able to prevent its fall. Then the garrison of Wallingford wasrelieved, and the intrenched position of Stephen's forces over againstthe castle was invested. The king came up with an army to protect hismen, and would gladly have joined battle and settled the question on thespot, but once more his barons refused to fight. They desired nothingless than the victory of one of the rivals, which would bring the chanceof a strong royal power and of their subjection to it. Apparently Henry'sbarons held the same view of the case, and assisted in forcing theleaders to agree to a brief truce, the advantage of which would inreality fall wholly to Henry. 

From Wallingford Henry marched north through central England, where townsand castles one after another fell into his hands. From Wallingford also, Eustace withdrew from his father, greatly angered by the truce which hadbeen made, and went off to the east on an expedition of his own whichlooks much like a plundering raid. Rashly he laid waste the lands of St. Edmund, who was well known to be a fierce protector of his own and tohave no hesitation at striking even a royal robber. Punishment quicklyfollowed the offence. Within a week Eustace was smitten with madness anddied on August 17, a new and terrible warning of the fate of thesacrilegious. This death changed the whole outlook for the future. Stephen had no more interest in continuing the war than to protecthimself. His wife had now been dead for more than a year. His next son, William, had never looked forward to the crown, and had never beenprominent in the struggle. He had been lately married to the heiress ofthe Earl of Surrey, and if he could be secured in the quiet andundisputed possession of this inheritance and of the lands which hisfather had granted him, and of the still broader lands in Normandy andEngland which had belonged to Stephen before he seized the crown, thenthe advantage might very well seem to the king, near the close of hisstormy life, greater than any to be gained from the desperate strugglefor the throne. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who had by some meansreturned to England, proposed peace, and undertook negotiations betweenthe king and the duke, supported by Henry of Winchester. Henry of Anjoucould well afford to wait. The delay before he could in this way obtainthe crown would probably not be very long and would be amply compensatedby a peaceful and undisputed succession, while in the meantime he couldgive himself entirely to the mission which, since he had landed inEngland, he had loudly proclaimed as his of putting an end to plunderingand oppression. On November 6 the rivals met at Winchester to make peace, and the terms of their agreement were recited in a great council of thekingdom, probably the first which was in any sense a council of the wholekingdom that had met in nearly or quite fifteen years. First, the kingformally recognized before the assembly the hereditary right of Henry tothe kingdom of England. Then the duke formally agreed that Stephen shouldhold the throne so long as he should live; and king, and bishops, andbarons bound themselves with an oath that on Stephen's death Henry shouldsucceed peacefully and without any contradiction. It was also agreedunder oath, that all possessions which had been seized by force should berestored to their rightful owners, and that all castles which had beenerected since the death of Henry I should be destroyed, and the number ofthese was noted at the time as 1115, though a more credible statementgives the number as 375. The treaty between the two which had no doubtpreceded these ceremonies in the council contained other provisions. Stephen promised to regard Henry as a son--possibly he formally adoptedhim--and to rule England by his advice. Henry promised that Williamshould enjoy undisturbed all the possessions which he had obtained withhis wife or from his father, and all his father's private inheritance inEngland and Normandy. Allegiance and homage were paid by Henry to Stephenas king and by William to Henry, and Henry's barons did homage to Stephenand Stephen's to Henry, with the usual reservation. The king's Flemishmercenaries were to be sent home, and order was to be establishedthroughout the land, the king restoring to all their rights and resuminghimself those which had been usurped during the disorders of civilstrife. 

This programme began at once to be carried out. The war came to an end. The "adulterine" castles were destroyed, not quite so rapidly as Henrydesired, but still with some energy. The unprincipled baron, friend ofneither side and enemy of all his neighbours, deprived of his opportunityby the union of the two contending parties, was quickly reduced to order, and we hear no more of the feudal anarchy from which the defenceless hadsuffered so much during these years. Henry and Stephen met again atOxford in January, 1154; they journeyed together to Dover, but as theywere returning, Henry learned of a conspiracy against his life amongStephen's Flemish followers, some of whom must still have remained inEngland, and thought it best to retire to Normandy, where he began theresumption of the ducal domains with which his father had been obliged topart in the time of his weakness. Stephen went on with the work ofrestoration in England, but not for long. The new day of peace and stronggovernment was not for him. On October 25, 1154, he died at Dover, "andwas buried where his wife and his son were buried, at Faversham, themonastery which they had founded. "

Out of this long period of struggle the crown gained nothing. Out of theopportunity of feudal independence and aggrandizement which the conflictoffered them, the barons in the end gained nothing. One of the parties tothe strife, and one only, emerged from it with great permanent gains ofpower and independence, the Church. The one power which had held back theEnglish Church from taking its share in that great European movement bywhich within a century the centralized, monarchical Church had risen upbeside the State, indeed above it, for it was now an international andimperial Church, --the restraining force which had held the English Churchin check, --had been for a generation fatally weakened. With a bound theChurch sprang forward and took the place in England and in the worldwhich it would otherwise have reached more slowly during the reign ofHenry. It had been prepared by experience and by the growth of its ownconvictions, to find its place at once alongside of the continentalnational churches in the new imperial system. Unweakened by thedisorganization into which the State was falling, it was ready to showitself at home the one strong and steady institution in the confusion ofthe time, and to begin at once to exercise the rights it claimed but hadnever been able to secure. It began to fill its own great appointmentsaccording to its own rules, and to neglect the feudal duties which shouldgo with them. Its jurisdiction, which had been so closely watched, expanded freely and ecclesiastical courts and cases rapidly multiplied. It called its own councils and legislated without permission, and evenasserted its exclusive right to determine who should be king. Intercoursewith the papal curia grew more untrammelled, and appeals to Romeespecially increased to astonishing frequency. With these gains inpractical independence, the support on which it all rested grew strong atthe same time, --its firm belief in the Hildebrandine system. If a futureking of England should ever recover the power over the Church which hadbeen lost in the reign of Stephen, he would do so only by a struggleseverer than any of his predecessors had gone through to retain it; andin these events Thomas Becket, who was to lead the defence of the Churchagainst such an attack, had been trained for his future work. 

Monasticism also flourished while the official Church was growing strong, and many new religious houses and new orders even were established in thecountry. More of these "castles of God, " we are told by one who himselfdwelt in one of them, were founded during the short reign of Stephen thanduring the one hundred preceding years. In the buildings which thesemonks did not cease to erect, the severer features of the Norman stylewere beginning to give way to lighter and more ornamental forms. Scholarsin greater numbers went abroad. Books that still hold their place in theintellectual or even in the literary history of the world were written bysubjects of the English king. Oxford continued to grow towards the laterUniversity, and students there listened eagerly to the lectures on Romanlaw of the Italian Vacarius until these were stopped by Stephen. In spiteof the cruelties of the time, the real life of England went on and wasscarcely even checked in its advance to better things. 

[41] See Rössler, Kaiserin Mathilde, 287 ff. 

[42] William of Malmesbury, sec. 497. 

[43] See the Athenaeum, February 6, 1904, p. 177. 

[44] But see Lot, Fidèles ou Vassaux (1904), 205-212. 

CHAPTER XII

THE KING'S FIRST WORK

Henry of Anjou, for whom the way was opened to the throne of hisgrandfather so soon after the treaty with Stephen, was then in histwenty-second year. He was just in the youthful vigour of a life of morethan usual physical strength, longer in years than the average man's ofthe twelfth century, and brilliant in position and promise in the eyes ofhis time. But his life was in truth filled with annoying and hamperingconflict and bitter disappointment. Physically there was nothing fine orelegant about him, rather the contrary. In bodily and mentalcharacteristics there was so much in common between the Angevin house andthe Norman that the new blood had made no great changes, and in physiqueand in spirit Henry II continued his mother's line quite as much as hisfather's. Certainly, as a modern writer has remarked, he could never havebeen called by his father's name of "the Handsome. " He was of middleheight, strongly built, with square shoulders, broad chest, and arms thatreminded men of a pugilist. His head was round and well shaped, and hehad reddish hair and gray eyes which seemed to flash with fire when hewas angry. His complexion also was ruddy and his face is described asfiery or lion-like. His hands were coarse, and he never wore glovesexcept when necessary in hawking. His legs were hardly straight. Theywere made for the saddle and his feet for the stirrups. He was heedlessof his person and his clothes, and always cared more for action and deedsthan for appearances. 

In the gifts of statesmanship and the abilities which make a great rulerHenry seemed to his own time above the average of kings, and certainlythis is true in comparison with the king who was his rival during so muchof his reign, Louis VII of France. Posterity has also agreed to call himone of the greatest, some have been inclined to say the greatest, ofEnglish sovereigns. The first heavy task that fell to him, theestablishment of peace and strong government in England, he fullyachieved; and this work was thankfully celebrated by his contemporaries. All his acts give us the impression of mental and physical power, and norecasting of balances is ever likely to destroy the impression of greatabilities occupied with great tasks, but we need perhaps to be remindedthat to his age his position made him great, and that even upon us itseffect is magnifying. Except in the pacification of England he won nosignal success, and the schemes to which he gave his best days ended infailure or barely escaped it. It is indeed impossible to say that in hislong reign he had before him any definite or clear policy, except to be astrong king and to assert vigorously every right to which he believed hecould lay claim. The opportunity which his continental dominions offeredhim he seems never to have understood, or at least not as it would havebeen understood by a modern sovereign or by a Philip Augustus. It isaltogether probable that the successful welding together of the variousstates which he held by one title or another into a consolidated monarchywould have been impossible; but that the history of his reign gives noclear evidence that he saw the vision of such a result, or studied themeans to accomplish it, forces us to classify Henry, in one importantrespect at least, with the great kings of the past and not with those ofthe coming age. In truth he was a feudal king. Notwithstanding the severeblows which he dealt feudalism in its relation to the government of thestate, it was still feudalism as a system of life, as a source of idealsand a guide to conduct, which ruled him to the end. He had been broughtup entirely in a feudal atmosphere, and he never freed himself from it. He was determined to be a strong king, to be obeyed, and to allow noinfringement of his own rights, --indeed, to push them to the farthestlimit possible, --but there seems never to have been any conflict in hismind between his duties as suzerain or vassal and any newer conception ofhis position and its opportunities. 

It was in England that Henry won his chief and his only permanentsuccess. And it was indeed not a small success. To hold under a stronggovernment and to compel into good order, almost unbroken, a generationwhich had been trained in the anarchy and license of Stephen's reign wasa great achievement. But Henry did more than this. In the machinery ofcentralization, he early began a steady and systematic development whichthreatened the defences of feudalism, and tended rapidly toward anabsolute monarchy. In this was his greatest service to England. Theabsolutism which his work threatened later kings came but little nearerachieving, and the danger soon passed away, but the centralization whichhe gave the state grew into a permanent and beneficent organization. Inthis work Henry claimed no more than the glory of following in hisgrandfather's footsteps, and the modern student of the age is more andmore inclined to believe that he was right in this, and that his truefame as an institution maker should be rather that of a restorer than ofa founder. He put again into operation what had been already begun; hecombined and systematized and broadened, and he created the conditionswhich encouraged growth and made it fruitful: but he struck out no newway either for himself or for England. 

In mind and body Henry overflowed with energy. He wearied out his courtwith his incessant and restless activity. In learning he never equalledthe fame of his grandfather, Henry Beauclerc, but he loved books, and hisknowledge of languages was such as to occasion remark. He had thepassionate temper of his ancestors without the self-control of Henry I, and sometimes raved in his anger like a maniac. In matters of morals alsohe placed no restraints upon himself. His reputation in this regard hasbeen kept alive by the romantic legend of Rosamond Clifford; and, thoughthe pathetic details of her story are in truth romance and not history, there is no lack of evidence to show that Eleanor had occasion enough forthe bitter hostility which she felt towards him in the later years of hislife. But Henry is not to be reckoned among the kings whose policy orpublic conduct were affected by his vices. More passionate and lessself-controlled than his grandfather, he had something of his patienceand tenacity of purpose, and a large share of his diplomatic skill; andthe slight scruples of conscience, which on rare occasions interferedwith an immediate success, arose from a very narrow range of ethicalideas. 

An older man and one of longer training in statecraft and the managementof men might easily have doubted his ability to solve the problem whichlay before Henry in England. To control a feudal baronage was never aneasy task. To re-establish a strong control which for nearly twenty yearshad been greatly relaxed would be doubly difficult. But in truth the workwas more than half done when Henry came to the throne. Since the peacedeclared at Winchester much had been accomplished, and most of allperhaps in the fact that peace deprived the baron of the even balancingof parties which had been his opportunity. On all sides also men wereworn out with the long conflict, and the material, as well as theincentive, to continue it under the changed conditions was lacking. It islikely too that Henry had made an impression in England, during the shorttime that he had stayed there, very different from that made by Stephenearly in his reign; for it is clear that he knew what he wanted and howto get it, and that he would be satisfied with nothing less. Nor didthere seem to be anything to justify a fear that arrangements which hadbeen made during the war in favour of individual men were likely to bedisturbed. So secure indeed did everything seem that Henry was in nohaste to cross to England when the news of Stephen's death reached him. 

The Duke of Normandy had been occupied with various things since hisreturn from England in April, with the recovery of the ducal lands, withrepressing unimportant feudal disorders, and with negotiations with theking of France. On receiving the news he finished the siege of a castlein which he was engaged, then consulted his mother, whose counsel heoften sought to the end of her life, in her quiet retreat near Rouen, andfinally assembled the barons of Normandy. In about a fortnight he wasready at Barfleur for the passage, but bad winds kept back the unskilfulsailors of the time for a month. In England there was no disturbance. Everybody, we are told, feared or loved the duke and expected him tobecome king, and even the Flemish troops of Stephen kept the peace. Ifany one acted for the king, it was Archbishop Theobald, but there is noevidence that there was anything for a regent to do. At last, at the endof the first week in December, Henry landed in England and went up atonce to Winchester. There he took the homage of the English barons, andfrom thence after a short delay he went on to London to be crowned. Thecoronation on the 19th, the Sunday before Christmas, must have been abrilliant ceremony. The Archbishop of Canterbury officiated in thepresence of two other archbishops and seventeen bishops, of earls andbarons from England and abroad, and an innumerable multitude of people. 

Henry immediately issued a coronation charter, but it is, like Stephen's, merely a charter of general confirmation. No specific promises are made. The one note of the charter, the keynote of the reign for England thusearly struck, is "king Henry my grandfather. " The ideal of the youngking, an ideal it is more than likely wholly satisfactory to hissubjects, was to reproduce that reign of order and justice, the time towhich men after the long anarchy would look back as to a golden age. Orwas this a declaration, a notice to all concerned, flung out in a time ofgeneral rejoicing when it would escape challenge, that no usurpationduring Stephen's reign was to stand against the rights of the crown? Thattime is passed over as a blank. No man could plead the charter asguaranteeing him in any grant or privilege won from either side duringthe civil war. To God and holy Church and to all earls and barons and allhis men, the king grants, and restores and confirms all concessions anddonations and liberties and free customs which King Henry his grandfatherhad given and granted to them. Also all evil customs which hisgrandfather abolished and remitted he grants to be abolished andremitted. That is all except a general reference to the charter of HenryI. Neither Church nor baron could tell from the charter itself whatrights had been granted or what evil customs had been abolished. But inall probability no one at the moment greatly cared for more specificstatement. The proclamation of a general policy of return to theconditions of the earlier age was what was most desired. 

The first work before the young king would be to select those who shouldaid him in the task of government in the chief offices of the state. Heprobably already had a number of these men in mind from his knowledge ofEngland and of the leaders of his mother's party. In the peace withStephen, Richard de Lucy had been put in charge of the Tower and ofWindsor castle. He now seems to have been made justiciar, perhaps thefirst of Henry's appointments, as he alone signs the coronation charterthough without official designation. Within a few days, however, Robertde Beaumont, Earl of Leicester, was apparently given office with the sametitle, and together they fill this position for many years, Robertcompleting in it the century and more of faithful service which hisfamily had rendered to every successive king. The family of Roger ofSalisbury was also restored to the important branch of the service whichit had done so much to create, in the person of Nigel, Bishop of Ely, whowas given charge of the exchequer. The most important appointment in itsinfluence on the reign was that to the chancellorship. ArchbishopTheobald, who was probably one of Henry's most intimate counsellors, hada candidate in whose favour he could speak in the strongest terms andwhose services in the past the king would gratefully recall. This was theyoung Thomas Becket, who had done so much to prevent the coronation ofEustace. 

Immediately after his coronation, at Christmas time, Henry held atBermondsey the first of the great councils of his reign. Here the wholestate of the kingdom was discussed, and it was determined to proceed withthe expulsion of Stephen's mercenaries, and with the destruction of theunlawful castles. The first of these undertakings gave no trouble, andWilliam of Ypres disappears from English history. The second, especiallywith what went with it, --the resumption of Stephen's grants to great aswell as small, --was a more difficult and longer process. To begin it inthe proper way, the king himself set out early in 1155 for the north. Forsome reason he did not think it wise at this time to run the risk of aquarrel with Hugh Bigod, and it was probably on this journey atNorthampton that he gave him a charter creating him Earl of Norfolk, thetitle which he had obtained from Stephen. The expedition was especiallydirected against William of Aumale, Stephen's Earl of Yorkshire, and hewas compelled to surrender a part of his spoils including the strongcastle of Scarborough. William Peverel of the Peak also, who was accusedof poisoning the Earl of Chester, and who knew that there were otherreasons of condemnation against him, took refuge in a monastery, makingprofession as a monk when he heard of Henry's approach, and finally fledto the continent and abandoned everything to the king. Some time afterthis, but probably during the same year, another of Stephen's earls, William of Arundel or Sussex, obtained a charter of confirmation of thethird penny of his county. 

One of the interesting features of Henry's first year is the frequency ofgreat councils. Four were held in nine months. It was the work ofresumption, and of securing his position, which made them necessary. Theexpressed support of the baronage, as a whole, was of great value to himas he moved against one magnate and then another, and demanded therestoration of royal domains or castles. The second of these councils, which was held in London in March, and in which the business of thecastles was again taken up, did not, however, secure the king against alldanger of resistance. Roger, Earl of Hereford, son of Miles ofGloucester, who had been so faithful to Henry's mother, secretly left theassembly determined to try the experiment of rebellion rather than tosurrender his two royal castles of Hereford and Gloucester. In thisattitude he was encouraged by Hugh Mortimer, a baron of the Welsh Marchesand head of a Conquest family of minor rank which was now rising toimportance, who was also ready to risk rebellion. Roger did not persistin his plans. He was brought to a better mind by his kinsman, the Bishopof Hereford, Gilbert Foliot, and gave up his castles. Mortimer venturedto stand a siege in his strongholds, one of which was Bridgenorth whereRobert of Bellême had tried to resist Henry I in similar circumstances, but he was forced to surrender before the middle of the summer. This wasthe only armed opposition which the measures of resumption excited, because they were carried out by degrees and with wise caution in theselection of persons as well as of times. It was probably in this spiritthat in January of the next year Henry regranted to Aubrey de Vere histitle of Earl of Oxford and that of the unfaithful Earl of Essex to theyounger Geoffrey de Mandeville. It was twenty years after Henry'saccession and in far different circumstances that he first found himselfinvolved in conflict with a dangerous insurrection of the English barons. 

Before the submission of Hugh Mortimer the third of the great councils ofthe year had been held at Wallingford early in April, and there thebarons had been required to swear allegiance to Henry's eldest sonWilliam, and in case of his death to his brother Henry who had been borna few weeks before. The fourth great council met at Winchester in thelast days of September, and there a new question of policy was discussedwhich led ultimately to events of great importance in the reign, and ofconstantly increasing importance in the whole history of England to thepresent day, --the conquest of Ireland. Apparently Henry had alreadyconceived the idea, to which he returns later in the case of his youngestson, of finding in the western island an appanage for some unprovidedmember of the royal house. Now he thought of giving it to his youngestbrother William. Religious and political prejudice and racial pride havebeen so intensely excited by many of the statements and descriptions inthe traditional account of Henry's first steps towards the conquest, which is based on contemporary records or what purports to be such, thatevidence which no one would think of questioning if it related to humdrumevents on the dead level of history has been vigorously assailed, andalmost every event in the series called in question. The writer ofhistory cannot narrate these events as they seem to him to have occurredwithout warning the reader that some element of doubt attaches to hisaccount, and that whatever his conclusions, some careful students ofthe period will not agree with him. 

A few days before Henry landed in England to be crowned, NicholasBreakspear, the only Englishman who ever became pope, had been electedBishop of Rome and had taken the name of Hadrian IV. He was the son of anEnglish clerk, who was later a monk at St. Albans, and had not seemed tohis father a very promising boy; but on his father's death he wentabroad, studied at Paris, and was made Abbot of St. Rufus in Provence. Then visiting Rome because of trouble, with his monks, he attracted thenotice of the pope, was made cardinal and papal legate, and finally washimself elected pope in succession to Anastasius IV. We cannot say, though we may think it likely, that the occupation of the papal throne bya native Englishman made it seem to Henry a favourable time to secure sohigh official sanction for his new enterprise. Nor is it possible to saywhat was the form of Henry's request, or the composition of the embassywhich seems certainly to have been sent, or the character of the pope'sreply, though each of these has been made the subject of differingconjectures for none of which is there any direct evidence in the sourcesof our knowledge. The most that we can assert is what we are told by Johnof Salisbury, the greatest scholar of the middle ages. 

John was an intimate friend of the pope's and spent some months with himin very familiar intercourse in the winter of 1155-1156. He relates ina passage at the close of his Metalogicus, which he wrote, if we mayjudge by internal evidence, on learning of Hadrian's death in 1159, andwhich there is no reason to doubt, that at his request the pope made awritten grant of Ireland to Henry to be held by hereditary right. Hedeclares that the ground of this grant was the ownership of all islandsconveyed to the popes by the Donation of Constantine, and he adds thatHadrian sent Henry a ring by which he was to be invested with the rightof ruling in Ireland. Letter and ring, he says, are preserved in Englandat the time of his writing. The so called Bull "Laudabiliter" has beentraditionally supposed to be the letter referred to by John of Salisbury, but it does not quite agree with his description, and it makes no grantof the island to the king. [45] The probability is very strong that itis not even what it purports to be, a letter of the pope to the kingexpressing his approval of the enterprise, but merely a student'sexercise in letter writing. But the papal approval was certainlyexpressed at a later time by Pope Alexander III. No doubt can attach, however, to the account of John of Salisbury. As he describes thegrant it would correspond fully with papal ideas current at the time, and it would be closely parallel with what we must suppose was theintention of an earlier pope in approving William's conquest of England. If Henry had asked for anything more than the pope's moral assent to theenterprise, he could have expected nothing different from this, nor doesit seem that he could in that case have objected to the terms or form ofthe grant described by John of Salisbury. 

The expedition, however, for which Henry had made these preparations wasnot actually undertaken. His mother objected to it for some reason whichwe do not know, and he dropped the plan for the present. About the sametime Henry of Winchester, who had lived on into a new age, which heprobably found not wholly congenial, left England without the king'spermission and went to Cluny. This gave Henry a legal opportunity, and heat once seized and destroyed his castles. No other event of importancefalls within the first year of the reign. It was a great work which hadbeen done in this time. To have plainly declared and successfully begunthe policy of reigning as a strong king, to have got rid of Stephen'sdangerous mercenaries without trouble, to have recovered so many castlesand domains without exciting a great rebellion, and to have restored thefinancial system to the hands best fitted to organize and perfect it, might satisfy the most ambitious as the work of a year. "The history ofthe year furnishes, " in the words of the greatest modern student of theage, "abundant illustration of the energy and capacity of a king oftwo-and-twenty. "

Early in January, 1156, Henry crossed to Normandy. His brother Geoffreywas making trouble and was demanding that Anjou and Maine should beassigned to him. We are told an improbable story that their father on hisdeathbed had made such a partition of his lands, and that Henry had beenrequired blindly to swear that he would carry out an arrangement whichwas not made known to him. If Henry made any such promise as heir, heimmediately repudiated it as reigning sovereign. He could not well dootherwise. To give up the control of these two counties would be to cuthis promising continental empire into two widely separated portions. Geoffrey attempted to appeal to arms in the three castles which had beengiven him earlier, but was quickly forced to submit. All this year anduntil April of the next, 1157, Henry remained abroad, and before hisreturn to England he was able to offer his brother a compensation for hisdisappointment which had the advantage of strengthening his own position. The overlordship of the county of Britanny had, as we know, been claimedby the dukes of Normandy, and the claim had sometimes been allowed. ToHenry the successful assertion of this right would be of great value asfilling out his occupation of western France. Just at this time Britannyhad been thrown into disorder and civil strife by a disputed succession, and the town of Nantes, which commanded the lower course of the Loire, soimportant a river to Henry, refused to accept either of the candidates. With the aid of his brother, Geoffrey succeeded in planting himself thereas Count of Nantes, in a position which promised to open for the house ofAnjou the way into Britanny. 

The greater part of the time of his stay abroad Henry spent in passingabout from one point to another in his various provinces, after the usualcustom of the medieval sovereign. In Eleanor's lands he could exert muchless direct authority than in England or Normandy; the feudal baron ofthe south was more independent of his lord; but the opposition which waslater to be so disastrous had not yet developed, and the year went bywith nothing to record. Soon after his coming to Normandy he had aninterview with Louis VII who then accepted his homage both for hisfather's and his wife's inheritance. If Louis had at one time intended todispute the right of Eleanor to marry without his consent, he could notafford to continue that policy, so strong was Henry now. It was the partof wisdom to accept what could not be prevented, to arrange some way ofliving in peace with his rival, and to wait the chances of the future. 

It is in connexion with this expedition to Normandy that there firstappears in the reign of Henry II the financial levy known as "scutage"--aform of taxation destined to have a great influence on the financial andmilitary history of England, and perhaps even a greater on itsconstitutional history. The invention of this tax was formerly attributedto the statesmanship of the young king, but we now know that it goes backat least to the time of his grandfather. The term "scutage" may beroughly translated "shield money, " and, as the word implies, it was a taxassessed on the knight's fee, and was in theory a money payment acceptedor exacted by the king in place of the military service due him under thefeudal arrangements. The suggestion of such a commutation no doubt arosein connexion with the Church baronies, whose holders would find manyreasons against personal service in the field, especially in theprohibition of the canon law, and who in most cases preferred not toenfeoff on their lands knights enough to meet their military obligationsto the king. In such cases, when called on for the service, they would beobliged to hire the required number of knights, and the suggestion thatthey should pay the necessary sum to the king and let him find thesoldiers would be a natural one and probably agreeable to both sides. Thescutage of the present year does not seem to have gone beyond thispractice. It was confined to Church lands, and the wider application ofthe principle, which is what we may attribute to Henry II or to someminister of his, was not attempted. 

Returning to England in April, 1157, Henry took up again the work whichhad been interrupted by the demands of his brother Geoffrey. He was readynow to fly at higher game. Stephen's son William, whose great possessionsin England and Normandy his father had tried so carefully to secure inthe treaty which surrendered his rights to the crown, was compelled togive up his castles, and Hugh Bigod was no longer spared but was forcedto do the same. David of Scotland had died before the death of Stephen, and his kingdom had fallen to his grandson Malcolm IV. The new king hadtoo many troubles at home to make it wise for him to try to defend thegains which his grandfather had won from England, and before the close ofthis year he met Henry at Chester and gave up his claim on the northerncounties, received the earldom of Huntingdon, and did homage to hiscousin, but for what, whether for his earldom or his kingdom, was notclearly stated. Wales Stephen had practically abandoned, but Henry had nomind to do this, and a campaign during the summer in which there was somesharp fighting forced Owen, the prince of North Wales, to become his man, restored the defensive works of the district, and protected the Marcherlords in their occupation. The Christmas court was held at Lincoln; butwarned perhaps by the recent ill luck of Stephen in defying the localsuperstition, Henry did not attempt to wear his crown in the city. Crownwearing and ceremony in general were distasteful to him, and at the nextEaster festival at Worcester, together with the queen, he formallyrenounced the practice. 

Half of the year 1158 Henry spent in England, but the work which laybefore him at his accession was now done. Much work of importance andmany events of interest concern the island kingdom in the later years ofthe reign, but these arise from new occasions and belong to a new age. The age of Stephen was at an end, the Norman absolutism was once moreestablished, and the influence of the time of anarchy and weakness wasfelt no longer. It was probably the death of his brother and the questionof the occupation of Nantes that led Henry to cross to Normandy inAugust. He went first of all, however, to meet the king of France nearGisors. There it was agreed that Henry's son Henry, now by the death ofhis eldest brother recognized as heir to the throne, should marry Louis'sdaughter Margaret. The children were still both infants, but thearrangement was made less for their sakes than for peace between theirfathers and for substantial advantages which Henry hoped to gain. Firsthe desired Louis's permission to take possession of Nantes, and later, onthe actual marriage of the children, was to come the restoration of theNorman Vexin which Henry's father had been obliged to give up to Francein the troubles of his time. Protected in this way from the onlyopposition which he had to fear, Henry had no difficulty in forcing hisway into Nantes and in compelling the count of Britanny to recognize hispossession. This diplomatic success had been prepared, possibly secured, by a brilliant embassy undertaken shortly before by Henry's chancellorThomas Becket. One of the biographers of the future saint, one indeed whodwells less upon his spiritual life and miracles than on his externalhistory, rejoices in the details of this magnificent journey, thegorgeous display, the lavish expenditure, the royal generosity, whichseem intended to impress the French court with the wealth of England andthe greatness of his master, but which lead us to suspect the chancellorof a natural delight in the splendours of the world. 

With his feet firmly planted in Britanny, in a position where he couldeasily take advantage of any future turn of events to extend his power, Henry next turned his attention to the south where an even greateropportunity seemed to offer. The great county of Toulouse stretched fromthe south-eastern borders of Eleanor's lands towards the Mediterraneanand the Rhone over a large part of that quarter of France. A claim ofsome sort to this county, the exact nature of which we cannot now decidefrom the scanty and inconsistent accounts of the case which remain to us, had come down to Eleanor from the last two dukes of Aquitaine, her fatherand grandfather. The claim had at any rate seemed good enough to LouisVII while he was still the husband of the heiress to be pushed, but hehad not succeeded in establishing it. The rights of Eleanor were now inthe hands of Henry and, after consulting with his barons, he determinedto enforce them in a military campaign in the summer of 1159. 

By the end of June the attacking forces were gathering in the south. Theyoung king of Scotland was there as the vassal of the king of England andwas knighted by his lord. Allies were secured of the lords to the eastand south, especially the assistance of Raymond Berenger who was Count ofBarcelona and husband of the queen of Aragon, and who had extensiveclaims and interests in the valley of the Rhone. His daughter was to bemarried to Henry's son Richard, who had been born a few months before. Negotiations and interviews with the king of France led to no result, andat the last moment Louis threw himself into Toulouse and prepared tostand a siege with the Count, Raymond V, whose rights he now looked atfrom an entirely different point of view. This act of the king led to aresult which he probably did not anticipate. Apparently the feudal spiritof Henry could not reconcile itself to a direct attack on the person ofhis suzerain. He withdrew from the siege, and the expedition resultedonly in the occupation of some of the minor towns of the county. HereThomas the chancellor appears again in his worldly character. He had ledto the war a body of knights said to have been 700 in number, the finestand best-equipped contingent in the field. Henry's chivalry in refusingto fight his suzerain seemed to him the height of folly, and he protestedloudly against it. This chivalry indeed did not prevent the vassal fromattacking some of his lord's castles in the north, but no importantresults were gained, and peace was soon made between them. 

Far more important in permanent consequences than the campaign itselfwere the means which the king took to raise the money to pay for it. Itwas at this time, so far as our present evidence goes and unless aprecedent had been made in a small way in a scutage of 1157 for thecampaign in Wales, that the principle of scutage was extended fromecclesiastical to lay tenants in chief. Robert of Torigny, Abbot ofMont-Saint-Michel, tells us that Henry, having regard to the length anddifficulty of the way, and not wishing to vex the country knights and themass of burgesses and rustics, took from each knight's fee in Normandysixty shillings Angevin (fifteen English), and from all other persons inNormandy and in England and in all his other lands what he thought best, and led into the field with him the chief barons with a few of their menand a great number of paid knights. 

Our knowledge of the treasury accounts of this period is not sufficientto enable us to explain every detail of this taxation, but it issufficient to enable us to say that the statement of the abbot is ingeneral accurate. The tax on the English knight's fee was heavier thanthat on the Norman; payment does not seem to have been actually requiredfrom all persons outside the strict feudal bond, nor within it for thatmatter; and the exact relationship between payment and service in thefield we cannot determine. Two things, however, of interest in thehistory of taxation in relation both to earlier and later times seemclear. In the first place a new form of land-tax had been discovered ofspecial application to the feudal community, capable of transforming alimited and somewhat uncertain personal service into a far moresatisfactory money payment, capable also of considerable extension and, in the hands of an absolute king, of an arbitrary development whichapparently some forms of feudal finance had already undergone. This wassomething new, --that is, it was as new as anything ever is inconstitutional history. It was the application of an old process to a newuse. In the second place large sums of money were raised, in a purelyarbitrary way, it would seem, both as to persons paying and sums paid, from members of the non-feudal community and also from some tenants inchief who at the same time paid scutage. These payments appear to haverested on the feudal principle of the gracious or voluntary aid and tohave been called "dona, " though the people of that time were in generalmore accurate in the distinctions they made between things than in theuse of the terms applied to them. There was nothing new about this formof taxation. Glimpses which we get here and there of feudalism inoperation lead us to suspect that, in small matters and with muchirregularity of application to persons, it was in not infrequent use. These particular payments, pressing as they did heavily on the Church andexciting its vigorous objection, carry us back with some interest to thebeginning of troubles between Anselm and the Red King over a point of thesame kind. 

In theory and in strict law these "gifts" were voluntary, both as towhether they should be made at all and as to their amount, but under asovereign so strong as Henry II or William Rufus, the king must besatisfied. Church writers complained, with much if not entire justice, that this tax was "contrary to ancient custom and due liberty, " and theyaccused Thomas the chancellor of suggesting it. As a matter of fact thistax was less important in the history of taxation than the extension ofthe principle of scutage which accompanied it. The contribution which itmade to the future was not so much in the form of the tax as in theprecedent of arbitrary taxation, established in an important instance oftaxation at the will of the king. This precedent carried over and appliedto scutage in its new form becomes in the reign of Henry's son one of thechief causes of revolutionary changes, and thus constitutes "the scutageof Toulouse" of 1159, if we include under that term the double taxationof the year, one of the great steps forward of the reign of Henry. 

At the close of the Toulouse campaign an incident of some interestoccurred in the death of Stephen's son William and the ending of the maleline of Stephen's succession. His Norman county of Mortain was at oncetaken in hand by Henry as an escheated fief, and was not filled againuntil it was given years afterwards to his youngest son. To BoulogneHenry had no right, but he could not afford to allow his influence in thecounty to decline, though the danger of its passing under the influenceof Louis VII was slight. Stephen's only living descendant was hisdaughter Mary, now Abbess of Romsey. The pope consented to her marriageto a son of the Count of Flanders, and Boulogne remained in the circle ofinfluence in which it had been fixed by Henry I. The wide personalpossessions of William in England were apparently added to the royaldomain which had already increased so greatly since the death of Stephen. 

A year later the other branch of Stephen's family came into a newrelationship to the politics of France and England. At the beginning ofOctober, 1160, Louis's second wife died, leaving him still without a maleheir. Without waiting till the end of any period of mourning, within afortnight, he married the daughter of Stephen's brother, Theobald ofBlois, sister of the counts Henry of Champagne and Theobald of Blois, whowere already betrothed to the two daughters of his marriage with Eleanor. This opened for the house of Blois a new prospect of influence and gain, and for the king of England of trouble which was in part fulfilled. Henrysaw the probable results, and at once responded with an effort to improvehis frontier defences. The marriage of the young Henry and Margaret ofFrance was immediately celebrated, though the elder of the two was stilla mere infant. This marriage gave Henry the right to take possession ofthe Norman Vexin and its strong castles, and this he did. The war whichthreatened for a moment did not break out, but there was much fortifyingof castles on both sides of the frontier. 

It is said that the suggestion of this defensive move came from ThomasBecket. However this may be, Thomas was now near the end of his career ofservice to the state as chancellor, and was about to enter a field whichpromised even greater usefulness and wider possibilities of service. Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury died on April 18, 1161. For some monthsthe king gave no sign of his intentions as to his successor. Then hedeclared his purpose. Thomas, the chancellor, was about to cross toEngland to carry out another plan of Henry's. The barons were to be askedto swear fealty to the young Henry as the direct heir to the crown. Bornin February, 1155, Henry was in his eighth year when this ceremony wasperformed. Some little time before he had been committed by his father tothe chancellor to be trained in his courtly and brilliant household, andthere he became deeply attached to his father's future enemy. Theswearing of fealty to the heir, to which the barons were now accustomed, was performed without objection, Thomas himself setting the example byfirst taking the oath. 

This was his last service of importance as chancellor. Before hisdeparture from Normandy on this errand, the king announced to him hisintention to promote him to the vacant primacy. The appointment would bea very natural one. Archbishop Theobald is said to have hoped and prayedthat Thomas might succeed him, and the abilities which the chancellor hadabundantly displayed would account for a general expectation of such astep, but Thomas himself hesitated. We are dependent for our knowledge ofthe details of what happened at this time on the accounts of Thomas'sfriends and admirers, but there is no reason to doubt their substantialaccuracy. It is clear that there were better grounds in fact for thehesitation of Thomas than for the insistence of Henry, but they wereapparently concealed from the king. His mother is said to have tried todissuade him, and the able Bishop of Hereford, Gilbert Foliot, recordshis own opposition. But the complete devotion to the king's will and thezealous services of Thomas as chancellor might well make Henry believe, if not that he would be entirely subservient to his policy when madearchbishop, at least that Church and State might be ruled by themtogether in full harmony and co-operation, and the days of William andLanfranc be brought back. Becket read his own character better and knewthat the days of Henry I and Anselm were more likely to return, and thatnot because he recognized in himself the narrowness of Anselm, butbecause he knew his tendency to identify himself to the uttermost withwhatever cause he adopted. 

Thomas had come to the chancellorship at the age of thirty-seven. He hadbeen a student, attached to the household of Archbishop Theobald, and hemust long have looked forward to promotion in the Church as the naturalfield of his ambition, and in this he had just taken the first step inhis appointment to the rich archdeaconry of Canterbury by his patron. Aschancellor, however, he seems to have faced entirely about. He threwhimself into the elegant and luxurious life of the court with anabandon and delight which, we are tempted to believe, reveal hisnatural bent. The family of a wealthy burgher of London in the last partof the reign of Henry I may easily have been a better school of mannersand taste than the court of Anjou. Certainly in refinement, and in theorder and elegance of his household as it is described, the chancellorsurpassed the king. Provided with an ample income both from beneficeswhich he held in the Church and from the perquisites of his office, heindulged in a profusion of expenditure and display which the kingprobably did not care for and certainly did not equal, and collectedabout himself such a company of clerks and laymen as made his household abetter place for the training of the children of the nobles than theking's. In the king's service he spent his money with as lavish a hand asfor himself, in his embassy to the French court or in the war againstToulouse. He had the skill to avoid the envy of either king or courtier, and no scandal or hint of vice was breathed against him. The way to thehighest which one could hope for in the service of the state seemed openbefore him, and he felt himself peculiarly adapted to enjoy and renderuseful such a career. One cannot help speculating on the interesting buthopeless problem of what the result would have been if Becket hadremained in the line of secular promotion and the primacy had gone to thenext most likely candidate, Gilbert Foliot, whose type of mind would haveled him to sympathize more naturally with the king's views and purposesin the questions that were so soon to arise between Church and State inEngland. 

The election of Becket to the see of Canterbury seems to have followedclosely the forms which had come into use since the compromise betweenHenry I and Anselm, and which were soon after described in theConstitutions of Clarendon. The justiciar, Richard de Lucy, with threebishops went down to Canterbury and made known the will of the king andsummoned the monks to an election. Some opposition showed itself amongthem, apparently because of the candidate's worldly life and the factthat he was not a monk, but they gave way to the clearly expressed willof the king. The prior and a deputation of the monks went up to London;and there the formal election took place "with the counsel of" thebishops summoned for the purpose, and was at once confirmed by the youngprince acting for his father. At the same time Henry, Bishop ofWinchester, made a formal demand of those who were representing the kingthat the archbishop should be released from all liability for the way inwhich he had handled the royal revenues as chancellor and treasurer, andthis was agreed to. On the next Sunday but one, June 3, 1162, Thomas wasconsecrated Archbishop at Canterbury by the Bishop of Winchester, as thesee of London was vacant. As his first official act the new prelateordained that the feast in honour of the Trinity should be henceforthkept on the anniversary of his consecration. 

[45] See the review of the whole controversy in Thatcher, Studies Concerning Adrian IV (1903). 

CHAPTER XIII

KING AND ARCHBISHOP

Thomas Becket, who thus became the head of the English Church, wasprobably in his forty-fourth year, for he seems to have been born onDecember 21, 1118. All his past had been a training in one way or anotherfor the work which he was now to do. He had had an experience of manysides of life. During his early boyhood, in his father's house in London, he had shared the life of the prosperous burgher class; he had been astudent abroad, and though he was never a scholar, he knew something ofthe learned world from within; he had been taken into the household ofArchbishop Theobald, and there he had been trained, with a little circleof young men of promise of his own age, in the strict ideas of theChurch; he had been employed on various diplomatic missions, and hadaccomplished what had been intrusted to him, we are told, with skill andsuccess; last of all, he had been given a high office in the state, andhad learned to know by experience and observation the life of the court, its methods of doing or preventing business, and all its strength andweakness. 

As Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket became almost the independentsovereign of a state within the state. Lanfranc had held no such place, nor had Anselm. No earlier archbishop indeed had found himself at hisconsecration so free from control and so strong. The organization apartfrom the state, the ideal liberty of the Church, to which Anselm hadlooked forward somewhat vaguely, had been in some degree realized sincehis time. The death of Henry I had removed the restraining hand which hadheld the Church within its old bounds. For a generation afterwards it wasfree--free as compared with any earlier period--to put into practice itstheories and aspirations, and the new Archbishop of Canterbury inheritedthe results still unquestioned and undiminished. Henry II had come to thethrone young and with much preliminary work to be done. Gradually, itwould seem, the reforms necessary to recover the full royal power, and toput into most effective form the organization of the state, were takingshape in his mind. It is possible, it is perhaps more than possible, thathe expected to have from his friend Thomas as archbishop sympathy andassistance in these plans, or at least that he would be able to carrythem out with no opposition from the Church. This looks to us now like abad reading of character. At any rate no hope was ever more completelydisappointed. In character, will, and ideals, at least as these appearfrom this time onward, sovereign and primate furnished all the conditionsof a most bitter conflict. But to understand this conflict it is alsonecessary to remember the strength of Becket's position, the fact that hewas the ruler of an almost independent state. 

What was the true and natural character of Thomas Becket, what werereally the ideals on which he would have chosen to form his life if hehad been entirely free to shape it as he would, is a puzzle which this isnot the place to try to solve. Nor can we discuss here the criticalquestions, still unsettled, which the sources of our knowledge present. Fortunately no question affects seriously the train of events, and, inregard to the character of the archbishop, we may say with someconfidence that, whatever he might have chosen for himself, he threwhimself with all the ardour of a great nature into whatever work he wascalled upon to do. As chancellor, Thomas's household had been a centre ofluxurious court life. As archbishop his household was not less lavishlysupplied, nor less attractive; but its elegance was of a more sober cast, and for himself Thomas became an ascetic, as he had been a courtier, andpractised in secret, according to his biographers, the austerities andgood works which became the future saint. 

Six months after the consecration of the new archbishop, King Henrycrossed from Normandy to England, at the end of January, 1163, but beforehe did so word had come to him from Becket which was like a declarationof principles. Henry had hoped to have him at the same time primate ofthe Church and his own chancellor. Not merely would this add adistinction to his court, but we may believe that the king would regardit as a part of the co-operation between Church and State in the reformshe had in mind. To Thomas the retention of his old office would probablymean a pledge not to oppose the royal will in the plans which he no doubtforesaw. It would also interfere seriously with the new manner of lifewhich he proposed for himself, and he firmly declined to continue in theold office. In other ways, unimportant as yet, the policy of the primateas it developed was coming into collision with the king's interests, inhis determined pushing of the rights of his Church to every piece of landto which it could lay any claim, in some cases directly against the king, and in his refusal to allow clerks in the service of the State to holdpreferments in the Church, of which he had himself been guilty; but allthese things were still rather signs of what might be expected thanimportant in themselves. There was for several months no breach betweenthe king and the archbishop. 

For some time after his return to England Henry was occupied, as he hadbeen of late on the continent, with minor details of government of nopermanent importance. The treaty of alliance with Count Dietrich ofFlanders was renewed. Gilbert Foliot was translated to the importantbishopric of London. A campaign in South Wales brought the prince of thatcountry to terms, and was followed by homage from him and other Welshprinces rendered at a great council held at Woodstock during the firstweek of July, 1163. It was at this meeting that the king first met withopen and decided opposition from the archbishop, though this was still inregard to a special point and not to a general line of policy. Therevenue of the state which had been left by the last reign in adisordered condition was still the subject of much concern and carefulplanning. Recently, as our evidence leads us to believe, the king hadgiven up the Danegeld as a tax which had declined in value until it wasno longer worth collecting. At Woodstock he made a proposition to thecouncil for an increase in the revenue without an increase in thetaxation. It was that the so-called "sheriffs aid, " a tax said to be oftwo shillings on the hide paid to the sheriffs by their counties as acompensation for their services, should be for the future paid into theroyal treasury for the use of the crown. That this demand was in thedirection of advance and reform can hardly be questioned, especially if, as is at least possible, it was based on the declining importance of thesheriffs as purely local officers, and their increasing responsibilitiesas royal officers on account of the growing importance of the king'scourts and particularly of the itinerant justice courts. So decided achange, however, in the traditional way of doing business could only bemade with consent asked and obtained. There is no evidence thatopposition came from any one except Becket. He flatly refused to consentto any such change, as he had a right to do so far as his own lands wereconcerned, and declared that this tax should never be paid from them tothe public treasury. The motive of his opposition does not appear and isnot easy to guess. He stood on the historical purpose of the tax andrefused to consider any other use to which it might be put. Henry wasangry, but apparently he had to give up his plan. At any rateunmistakable notice had been served on him that his plans for reform werelikely to meet with the obstinate opposition of his former chancellor. 

This first quarrel was the immediate prelude to another concerning a farmore important matter and of far more lasting consequences. Administration and jurisdiction, revenue and justice, were so closelyconnected in the medieval state that any attempt to increase the revenue, or to improve and centralize the administrative machinery, raised at oncethe question of changes in the judicial system. But Henry II was notinterested in getting a larger income merely, or a closer centralization. His whole reign goes to show that he had a high conception of the duty ofthe king to make justice prevail and to repress disorder and crime. Butthis was a duty which he could not begin to carry out without at onceencountering the recognized rights and still wider claims of the Church. Starting from the words of the apostle against going to law beforeunbelievers, growing at first as a process of voluntary arbitrationwithin the Church, adding a criminal side with the growth of disciplinarypowers over clergy and members, and greatly stimulated and widened by thelegislation of the early Christian emperors, a body of law and ajudicial organization had been developed by the Church which rivalledthat of the State in its own field and surpassed it in scientific formand content. In the hundred years since William the Conqueror landed inEngland this system had been greatly perfected. The revival of the Romanlaw in the schools of Italy had furnished both model and material, butmore important still the triumph of the Cluniac reformation, of the ideasof centralization and empire, had given an immense stimulus to thisgrowth, and led to clearer conceptions than ever before of what to do andhow to do it. When the state tardily awoke to the same consciousness ofopportunity and method, it found a large part of what should have beenits own work in the hands of a rival power. 

In no state in Christendom had the line between these conflictingjurisdictions been clearly drawn. In England no attempt had as yet beenmade to draw it; the only legislation had been in the other direction. The edict of William I, separating the ecclesiastical courts from thetemporal, and giving them exclusive jurisdiction in spiritual causes, must be regarded as a beneficial regulation as things then were. The samething can hardly be said of the clause in Stephen's charter to the Churchby which he granted it jurisdiction over all the clergy; yet under thisclause the Church had in fifteen years drawn into its hands, as nearly aswe can judge, more business that should naturally belong to the statethan in the three preceding reigns. This rapid attainment of what Anselmcould only have wished for, this enlarged jurisdiction of the Church, stood directly in the way of the plans of the young king as he took upthe work of restoring the government of his grandfather. He had found outthis fact before the death of Archbishop Theobald and had taken somesteps to bring the question to an issue at that time, but he had beenobliged to cross to France and had not since been able to go on with thematter. Now the refusal of Archbishop Thomas to grant his request aboutthe sheriff's aid probably did not make him any less ready to push whathe believed to be the clear rights of the state against the usurpationsof the clergy. 

As the state assumed more and more the condition of settled order underthe new king, and the courts were able to enforce the laws everywhere, the failures of justice which resulted from the separate position of theclergy attracted more attention. The king was told that there had beenduring his reign more than a hundred murders by clerks and great numbersof other crimes, for none of which had it been possible to inflict theordinary penalties. Special cases began to be brought to his attention. The most important of these was the case of Philip of Broi, a man of somefamily and a canon of Bedford, who, accused of the murder of a knight, had cleared himself by oath in the bishop's court. Afterwards the king'sjustice in Bedford summoned him to appear in his court and answer to thesame charge, but he refused with insulting language which the justice atonce repeated to the king as a contempt of the royal authority. Henry wasvery angry and swore "by the eyes of God, " his favourite oath, that aninsult to his minister was an insult to himself and that the canon mustanswer for it in his court. "Not so, " said the archbishop, "for laymencannot be judges of the clergy. If the king complains of any injury, lethim come or send to Canterbury, and there he shall have full justice byecclesiastical authority. " This declaration of the archbishop was theextreme claim of the Church in its simplest form. Even the king could notobtain justice for a personal injury in his own courts, and the strengthof Becket's position is shown by the fact that, in spite of all hisanger, Henry was obliged to submit. He could not, even then, get the caseof the murder reopened, and in the matter of the insult to his judge thepenalties which he obtained must have seemed to him very inadequate. 

It seems altogether probable that this case had much to do with bringingHenry to a determination to settle the question, what law and whatsovereign should rule in England. So long as such things were possible, there could be no effective centralization and no supremacy of thenational law. Within three months of the failure of his plan of taxationin the council at Woodstock the king made a formal demand of the Churchto recognize the right of the State to punish criminous clerks. Thebishops were summoned to a conference at Westminster on October 1. Tothem the king proposed an arrangement, essentially the same as thatafterwards included in the Constitutions of Clarendon, by which thequestion of guilt or innocence should be determined by the Church court, but once pronounced guilty the clerk should be degraded by the Church andhanded over to the lay court for punishment. The bishops were not atfirst united on the answer which they should make, but Becket had nodoubts, and his opinion carried the day. One of his biographers, Herbertof Bosham, who was his secretary and is likely to have understood hisviews, though he was if possible of an even more extreme spirit than hispatron, records the speech in which the archbishop made known to the kingthe answer of the Church. Whether actually delivered or not, the speechcertainly states the principles on which Becket must have stood, andthese are those of the reformers of Cluny in their most logical form. TheChurch is not subject to an earthly king nor to the law of the Statealone: Christ also is its king and the divine law its law. This is provedby the words of our Lord concerning the "two swords. " But those who areby ordination the clergy of the Church, set apart from the nations of menand peculiarly devoted to the work of God, are under no earthly king. They are above kings and confer their power upon them, and far from beingsubject to any royal jurisdiction they are themselves the judges ofkings. There can be no doubt but that Becket in his struggle with theking had consciously before him the model of Anselm; but these words, whether he spoke them to the king's face or not, forming as they did theprinciples of his action and accepted by the great body of the clergy, show how far the English Church had progressed along the road into whichAnselm had first led it. 

Henry's only answer to the argument of the archbishop was to adoptexactly the position of his grandfather in the earlier conflict, and toinquire whether the bishops were willing to observe the ancient customsof the realm. To this they made answer together and singly that theywere, "saving their order. " This was of course to refuse, and theconference came to an end with no other result than to define moreclearly the issue between Church and State. In the interval whichfollowed Becket was gradually made aware that his support in the Churchat large was not so strong as he could wish. The terror of the king'sanger still had its effect in England, and some of the bishops went overto his side and tried to persuade the archbishop to some compromise. Thepope, Alexander III, who had taken refuge in France from the Emperor andhis antipope, saw more clearly than Becket the danger of driving anotherpowerful sovereign into the camp of schism and rebellion and counselledmoderation. He even sent a special representative to England, withletters to Becket to this effect, and with instructions to urge him tocome to terms with the king. 

At last Becket was persuaded to concede the form of words desired, thoughhis biographers asserted that he did this on the express understandingthat the concession should be no more than a form to save the honour ofthe king. He had an interview with Henry at Oxford and engaged that hewould faithfully observe the customs of the realm. This promise Henryreceived gladly, though not, it was noticed, with a return of hisaccustomed kindness to the archbishop; and he declared at once that, asthe refusal of Thomas to obey the customs of the realm had been public, so the satisfaction made to his honour must be public and the pledge begiven in the presence of the nobles and bishops of the kingdom. To thisBecket apparently offered no objection, nor to the proposal whichfollowed, according to his secretary at the suggestion of thearchbishop's enemies, but certainly from Henry's point of view the nextnatural step, that after the promise had been given, the customs of therealm should be put into definite statement by a "recognition, " or formalinquiry, that there might be no further danger of either civil orclerical courts infringing on the jurisdiction of the other. 

For this double purpose, to witness the archbishop's declaration and tomake the recognition, a great council met at Clarendon, near Salisbury, towards the end of January, 1164. Some questions both of what happened atthis council and of the order of events are still unsettled, but theessential points seem clear. Becket gave the required promise with noqualifying phrase, and was followed by each of the bishops in the sameform. Then came the recognition, whether provided for beforehand or not, by members of the council who were supposed to know the ancient practice, for the purpose of putting into definite form the customs to which theChurch had agreed. The document thus drawn up, which has come down to usknown as the Constitutions of Clarendon, records in its opening paragraphthe fact and form of this agreement and the names of the consentingbishops. It is probable, however, that this refers to the earlierengagement, and that after the customs were reduced to definitestatement, no formal promise was made. The archbishop in the discussionurged his own ignorance of the customs, and it is quite possible that, receiving his training in the time of Stephen and believing implicitly inthe extreme claims of the Church, he was really ignorant of what could beproved by a historical study of the ancient practice. The king demandedthat the bishops should put their seals to this document, but this theyevidently avoided. Becket's secretary says that he temporized anddemanded delay. Henry had gained, however, great advantage from thecouncil, both in what he had actually accomplished and in position forthe next move. 

To all who accepted the ideas which now ruled the Church there wasmuch to complain of, much that was impossible in the Constitutions ofClarendon. On the question of the trial of criminous clerks, which hadgiven rise to these difficulties, it was provided, according to thebest interpretation, that the accused clerk should be first broughtbefore a secular court and there made to answer to the charge. Whateverhe might plead, guilty or not guilty, he was to be transferred to theChurch court for trial and, if found guilty, for degradation from thepriesthood; he was then to be handed over to the king's officer whohad accompanied him to the bishop's court for sentence in the king'scourt to the state's punishment of his crime. [46] Becket and his partyregarded this as a double trial and a double punishment for a singleoffence. But this was not all. The Constitutions went beyond theoriginal controversy. Suits to determine the right of presentationto a living even between two clerks must be tried in the king's court, as also suits to determine whether a given fee was held in free alms oras a lay fee. None of the higher clergy were to go out of the kingdomwithout the king's permission, nor without his consent were appealsto be taken from ecclesiastical courts to the pope, his barons to beexcommunicated or their lands placed under an interdict. The feudalcharacter of the clergy who held in chief of the king was stronglyinsisted on. They must hold their lands as baronies, and answer forthem to the royal justices, and perform all their feudal obligationslike other barons; and if their fiefs fell vacant, they must pass intothe king's hand and their revenues be treated as domain revenues duringthe vacancy. A new election must be made by a delegation summoned bythe king, in his chapel, and with his consent, and the new prelatemust perform liege homage and swear fealty to the king before hisconsecration. 

In short, the Constitutions are a codification of the ancient customs onall those points where conflict was likely to arise between the old ideasof the Anglo-Norman State and the new ideas of the Hildebrandine Church. For there can be little doubt that Henry's assertion that he was butstating the customs of his grandfather was correct. There is not so muchproof in regard to one or two points as we should like, but all theevidence that we have goes to show that the State was claiming nothingnew, and about most of the points there can be no question. Nor was thistrue of England only. The rights asserted in the Constitutions had beenexercised in general in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries by everystrong state in Europe. The weakness of Henry's position was not in itshistorical support, but in the fact that history had been making sincehis grandfather's day. Nor was the most important feature of the historythat had been made in the interval the fact that the State in itsweakness had allowed many things to slip out of its hands. For Henry'spurpose of recovery the rise of the Church to an equality with the State, its organization as an international monarchy, conscious of the value ofthat organization and powerful to defend it, was far more important. TheAnglo-Norman monarchy had been since its beginning the strongest inEurope. Henry II was in no less absolute control of the State than hisancestors. But now there stood over against the king, as there never hadbefore, a power almost as strong in England as his own. Thomas understoodthis more clearly than Henry did. He not merely believed in the justiceand necessity of his cause, but he believed in his ability to make itprevail. Thomas may have looked to Anselm as his model and guide ofconduct, but in position he stood on the results of the work which Anselmhad begun, and he was even more convinced than his predecessor had beenof the righteousness of his cause and of his power to maintain it. Thisconflict was likely to be a war of giants, and at its beginning no mancould predict its outcome. 

Even if the council of Clarendon closed, as we have supposed it did, withno definite statement on Thomas's part of his attitude towards theConstitutions, and not, as some accounts imply, with a flat refusal toaccept them, he probably left the council fully determined not to do so. He carried away with him an official copy of the Constitutions asevidence of the demands which had been made and shortly afterwards hesuspended himself from his functions because of the promise which he hadoriginally given to obey them, and applied to the pope for absolution. For some months matters drifted with no decisive events. Both sides madeapplication to the pope. The archbishop attempted to leave Englandwithout the knowledge of the king, but failed to make a crossing. Thecourts were still unable to carry out the provisions of theConstitutions. Finally a case arose involving the archbishop's own court, and on his disregard of the king's processes he was summoned to answerbefore the curia regis at Northampton on October 6. 

It is to be regretted that we have no account of the interesting anddramatic events of this assembly from a hand friendly to the king andgiving us his point of view. In the biographies of the archbishop, written by clerks who were not likely to know much feudal law, it is noteasy to trace out the exact legal procedure nor always to discover thetechnical right which we may be sure the king believed was on his side inevery step he took. At the outset it was recorded that as a mark of hisdispleasure Henry omitted to send to the archbishop the customarypersonal summons to attend the meeting of the court and summoned him onlythrough the sheriff, but, though the omission of a personal summons toone of so high rank would naturally be resented by his friends, as he wasto go, not as a member of the court, but as an accused person to answerbefore it, the omission was probably quite regular. Immediately after theorganization of the court, Becket was put on his trial for neglect toobey the processes of the king's court in the earlier case. Summonedoriginally on an appeal for default of judgment, he had neither gone tothe court himself nor sent a personal excuse, but he had instructed hisrepresentatives to plead against the legality of the appeal. This hemight have done himself if personally before the court, but, as he hadnot come, there was technically a refusal to obey the king's commandswhich gave Henry his opportunity. Before the great curia regis the casewas very simple. The archbishop seems to have tried to get before thecourt the same plea as to the illegality of the appeal, but it was ruledout at once, as "it had no place there. " In other words, the case was nowa different one. It was tried strictly on the ground of the archbishop'sfeudal obligations, and there he had no defence. Judgment was givenagainst him, and all his movables were declared in the king's mercy. 

William Fitz Stephen, one of Becket's biographers who shows a moreaccurate knowledge of the law than the others, and who was present at thetrial, records an interesting incident of the judgment. A dispute arosebetween the barons and the bishops as to who should pronounce it, eachparty trying to put the unpleasant duty on the other. To the barons'argument that a bishop should declare the decision of the court becauseBecket was a bishop, the bishops answered that they were not sittingthere as bishops but as barons of the realm and peers of the lay barons. The king interposed, and the sentence was pronounced by the aged Henry, Bishop of Winchester. Becket seems to have submitted without opposition, and the bishops who were present, except Gilbert Foliot of London, unitedin giving security for the payment of the fine. 

A question that inevitably arises at this point and cannot be answeredis, why Henry did not rest satisfied with the apparently great advantagehe had gained. He had put into operation more than one of the articles ofthe Constitutions of Clarendon, and against the archbishop in person. Becket had been obliged to recognize the jurisdiction of the curiaregis over himself and to submit to its sentence, and the whole body ofbishops had recognized their feudal position in the state and had actedupon it. Perhaps the king wished to get an equally clear precedent in acase which was a civil one rather than a misdemeanour. Perhaps he was soexasperated against the archbishop that he was resolved to pursue him tohis ruin, but, though more than one thing points to this, it does notseem a reasonable explanation. Whatever may have been his motive, theking immediately, --the accounts say on the same day with the firsttrial;--demanded that his former chancellor should account for £300derived from the revenues of the castles of Eye and Berkhampsted held byhim while chancellor. Thomas answered that the money had been spent inthe service of the state, but the king refused to admit that this hadbeen done by his authority. Again Becket submitted, though notrecognizing the right of the court to try him in a case in which he hadnot been summoned, and gave security for the payment. 

Still this was not sufficient. On the next day the king demanded thereturn of 500 marks which he had lent Becket for the Toulouse campaign, and of a second 500 which had been borrowed of a Jew on the king'ssecurity. This was followed at once by a further demand for an account ofthe revenues of the archbishopric and of all other ecclesiastical fiefswhich had been vacant while Thomas was chancellor. To pay the sum whichthis demand would call for would be impossible without a surrender of allthe archbishop's sources of income for several years, and it almost seemsas if Henry intended this result. The barons apparently thought as much, for from this day they ceased to call at Becket's quarters. The next daythe clergy consulted together on the course to be taken and there wasmuch difference of opinion. Some advised the immediate resignation of thearchbishopric, others a firm stand accepting the consequence of theking's anger; and there were many opinions between these two extremes. During the day an offer of 2000 marks in settlement of the claim was sentto the king on the advice of Henry of Winchester, but it was refused, andthe day closed without any agreement among the clergy on a common courseof action. 

The next day was Sunday, and the archbishop did not leave his lodgings. On Monday he was too ill to attend the meeting of the court, much toHenry's anger. The discussions of Saturday and the reflections of thefollowing days had apparently led Becket to a definite decision as to hisown conduct. The king was in a mood, as it would surely seem to him, toaccept nothing short of his ruin. No support was to be expected from thebarons. The clergy, even the bishops, were divided in opinion and itwould be impossible to gain strength enough from them to escape anythingwhich the king might choose to demand. We must, I think, explain Becket'sconduct from this time on by supposing that he now saw clearly that allconcessions had been and would be in vain, and that he was resolved toexert to the utmost the strength of passive opposition which lay in theChurch, to put his case on the highest possible grounds, and to gain forthe Church the benefits of persecution and for himself the merits, ifneeds be, of the martyr. 

Early the next morning the bishops, terrified by the anger of the king, came to Becket and tried to persuade him to yield completely, even togiving up the archbishopric. This he refused. He rebuked them for theiraction against him already in the court, forbade them to sit in judgmenton him again, himself appealing to the pope, and ordered them, if anysecular person should lay hands on him in punishment, to excommunicatehim at once. Against this order Gilbert Foliot immediately appealed. Thebishops then departed, and Becket entered the monastery church andcelebrated the mass of St. Stephen's day, opening with the words of thePsalm, "Princes did sit and speak against me. " This was a most audaciousact, pointed directly at the king, and a public declaration that heexpected and was prepared for the fate of the first martyr. Naturally theanger of the court was greatly increased. From the celebration of themass, Becket went to the meeting of the court, his cross borne before himin the usual manner, but on reaching the door of the meeting-place, hetook it from his cross-bearer and carrying it in his own hands enteredthe hall. Such an unusual proceeding as this could have but one meaning. It was a public declaration that he was in fear of personal violence, andthat any one who laid hands on him must understand his act to be anattack on the cross and all that it signified. Some of the bishops triedto persuade him to abandon this attitude, but in vain. So far as we canjudge the mood of Henry, Becket had much to justify his feeling, and ifhe were resolved not to accept the only other alternative of completesubmission, but determined to resist to the utmost, the act was notunwise. 

When the bishops reported to the king the primate's order forbidding themto sit in trial of him again, it was seen at once to be a violation ofthe Constitutions of Clarendon; and certain barons were sent to him toinquire if he stood to this, to remind him of his oath as the king'sliege-man, and of the promise, equivalent to an oath, which he had madeat Clarendon to keep the Constitutions "in good faith, without guile, andaccording to law, " and to ask if he would furnish security for thepayment of the claims against him as chancellor. In reply Becket stoodfirmly to his position, and renewed the prohibition and the appeal to thepope. The breach of the Constitutions being thus placed beyond question, the king demanded the judgment of the court, bishops and barons together. The bishops urged the ecclesiastical dangers in which they would beplaced if they disregarded the archbishop's prohibition, and suggestedthat instead they should themselves appeal to Rome against him as aperjurer. To this the king at last agreed, and the appeal was declared byHilary, Bishop of Chichester, who had throughout inclined to the king'sside, and who urged upon the archbishop with much vigour the oath whichthey had all taken at Clarendon under his leadership and which he was nowforcing them to violate. Becket's answer to this speech is the weakestand least honest thing that he did during all these days of trial. "Wepromised nothing at Clarendon, " he said, "without excepting the rights ofthe Church. The very clauses to which you refer, 'in good faith, withoutguile, and according to law, ' are saving clauses, because it isimpossible to observe anything in good faith and according to law if itis contrary to the laws of God and to the fealty due the Church. Nor isthere any such thing as the dignity of a Christian king where the libertyof the Church which he has sworn to observe has perished. "

The court then, without the bishops, found the archbishop guilty ofperjury and probably of treason. The formal pronunciation of the sentencein the presence of Becket was assigned to the justiciar, the Earl ofLeicester, but he was not allowed to finish. With violent words Thomasinterrupted him and bitterly denounced him for presuming as a layman tosit in judgment on his spiritual father. In the pause that followed, Becket left the hall still carrying his cross. As he passed out, thespirit of the chancellor overcame for a moment that of the bishop, and heturned fiercely on those who were saying "perjured traitor" and criedthat, if it were not for his priestly robes and the wickedness of theact, he would know how to answer in arms such an accusation. During thenight that followed, Becket secretly left Northampton, and by aroundabout way after two weeks succeeded in escaping to the continent indisguise. The next day the court held its last session. After somediscussion it was resolved to allow the case to stand as it was, and noteven to take the archbishop's fief into the king's hands until the popeshould decide the appeal, a resolution which shows how powerful was theChurch and how strong was the influence of the bishops who were actingwith the king. At the same time an embassy of great weight and dignitywas appointed to represent the king before the pope, consisting of theArchbishop of York, the Bishops of London, Chichester, Exeter, andWorcester, two earls and two barons, and three clerks from the king'shousehold. They were given letters to the King of France and to the Countof Flanders which said that Thomas, "formerly Archbishop of Canterbury, "had fled the kingdom as a traitor and should not be received in theirlands. 

In the somewhat uncertain light in which we are compelled to view theseevents, this quarrel seems unnecessary, and the guilt of forcing it onChurch and State in England, at least at this time and in thesecircumstances, appears to rest with Henry. The long patience of hisgrandfather, which was willing to wait the slow process of events andcarefully shunned the drawing of sharp issues when possible, he certainlydoes not show in this case. It is more than likely, however, that thefinal result would have been the same in any case. No reconciliation waspossible between the ideas or the characters of the two chiefantagonists, and the necessary constitutional growth of the state madethe collision certain. It was a case in which either the Church or theState must give way, but greater moderation of action and demand wouldhave given us a higher opinion of Henry's practical wisdom; and theessential justice of his cause hardly excuses such rapid and violentpushing of his advantage. On the other hand Thomas's conduct, which musthave been exceedingly exasperating to the hot blood which Henry hadinherited, must be severely condemned in many details. We cannot avoidthe feeling that much about it was insincere and theatrical, and even anintentional challenging of the fate he seemed to dread. But yet it doesnot appear what choice was left him between abjectly giving up all thathe had been trained to believe of the place of the Church in the worldand entering on open war with the king. 

The war now declared dragged slowly on for six years with few events thatseemed to bring a decision nearer till towards the end of that period. Henry's embassy returned from the pope at Christmas time and reportedthat no formal judgment had been rendered on the appeal. The king thenput in force the ordinary penalty for failure of service and confiscatedthe archbishop's revenues. He went even further than this in some actsthat were justifiable and some that were spiteful. He ordered theconfiscation of the revenues of the archbishop's clerks who hadaccompanied him, prohibited all appeals to the pope, and ordered Becket'srelatives to join him in exile. As to the archbishop, whatever one maythink of his earlier attitude we can have but little sympathy with hisconduct from this time on. He went himself to the pope after thedeparture of Henry's messengers, but though Alexander plainly inclined tohis side, he did not obtain a formal decision. Then he retired to theabbey of Pontigny in Burgundy, where he resided for some time. 

Political events did not wait the settlement of the conflict with theChurch, though nothing of great interest occurred before its close. Henrycrossed to Normandy in the spring of 1165, where an embassy came to himfrom the Emperor which resulted in the marriage of his daughter Matildawith Henry the Lion, of the house of Guelf. Two clerks who returned withthis embassy to Germany seem to have involved the king in someembarrassment by promises of some kind to support the emperor against thepope. It does not appear, however, that Henry ever intended to recognizethe antipope; and, whatever the promises were, he promptly disavowedthem. Later in the year two campaigns in Wales are less interesting froma military point of view than as leading to further experiments intaxation. The year 1166 is noteworthy for the beginning of extensivejudicial and administrative reforms which must be considered hereafterwith the series to which they belong. In that year also Becket began adirect attack upon his enemies in England. 

He began by sending to the king three successive warnings, all based onthe assumption that in such a dispute the final decision must remain withthe Church and that the State must always give way. His next step was thesolemn excommunication of seven supporters of the king, mostly clerks, but including Richard of Lucy, the justiciar. The king was warned toexpect the same fate himself, and all obedience to the Constitutions ofClarendon was forbidden. The effect of this act was not what Becketanticipated. It led rather to a reaction of feeling against him from itsunnecessary severity, and a synod of the clergy of the archbishopricentered an appeal against it. A new embassy was sent to the pope who wasthen at Rome to get the appeal decided, and was much more favourablyreceived by Alexander who seems to have been displeased with Becket'saction. He promised to send legates to Henry to settle the whole questionwith him. The occupation of Britanny by which it was brought underHenry's direct control and a short and inconclusive war with the king ofFrance took up the interval until the legates reached Normandy inOctober, 1167. Their mission proved a failure. Becket, who came in personto the inquiry which they held, refused to accept any compromise or tomodify in any way his extreme position. On the other side Henry was veryangry because they refused to deprive the archbishop. 

The year 1168 was a troubled one for Henry, with revolts in Poitou andBritanny, supported by the king of France, and with useless negotiationswith Louis. Early in 1169 the pope sent new envoys to try to reconcileking and primate with instructions to bring pressure to bear on bothparties. The king of France also came to the meeting and exerted hisinfluence, but the result was a second failure. Becket had invented a newsaving clause which he thought the king might be induced to accept. Hewould submit "saving the honour of God, " but Henry understood the pointand could see no difference between this and the old reservation. Becketfinally stood firmly against the pressure of the envoys and the influenceof Louis, and Henry was not moved by the threats which the pope haddirected to be made if necessary. A third embassy later in the yearseemed for a moment about to find a possible compromise, but ended inanother failure, both parties refusing to make any real concession. Theinterval between these two attempts at reconciliation Becket had used toexcommunicate about thirty of his opponents in England, mostly churchmen, including the Bishops of London and Salisbury. 

For more than a year longer the quarrel went on, the whole Churchsuffering from the results, and new points arising to complicate theissue. The danger that England would be placed under an interdictHenry met by most stringent regulations against the admission of anycommunications from the pope, or any intercourse with pope orarchbishop. On the question which arose in the constant negotiationsas to the compensation which should be made to Becket for his loss ofrevenue since he had left England, he showed himself as unyielding ason every other point, and demanded the uttermost farthing. For sometime the king had wished to have his son Henry crowned, and on June14, 1170, that ceremony was actually performed at Westminster by theArchbishop of York, who had, as Henry believed or asserted, a specialpermission from the pope for the purpose. Of course Becket resentedthis as a new invasion of his rights and determined to exact for itthe proper penalties. Finally, towards the end of July, an agreementwas reached which was no compromise; it simply ignored the points indispute and omitted all the qualifying phrases. The king agreed toreceive the archbishop to his favour and to restore him hispossessions, and Becket accepted this. The agreement can hardly havebeen regarded by either side as anything more than a truce. Neitherintended to abandon any right for which he had been contending, butboth were exhausted by the conflict and desired an interval forrecovery, perhaps with a hope of renewing the strife from a betterposition. 

It was December 1 before Thomas actually landed in England. He thencame bringing war, not peace. He had sent over, in advance of his owncrossing, letters which he had solicited and obtained from the pope, suspending from their functions all the bishops who had taken part inthe coronation of the young king, and reviving the excommunications ofthe Bishops of London and Salisbury. Then, landing at Sandwich, he wenton to Canterbury, where he was received with joy. But there was littlereal joy for Becket or his friends in the short remainder of his life, unless it may have been the joy of conflict and of anticipatedmartyrdom. To messengers who asked the removal of the sentence againstthe bishops, he refused any concession except on their unconditionalpromise to abide by the pope's decision; and the three prelates mostaffected--York, London, and Salisbury--went over to Normandy to theking. A plan to visit the court of the young king at London was stoppedby orders to return to Canterbury. On Christmas day, at the close of asermon from the text "Peace on earth to men of good-will, " he issued newexcommunications against some minor offenders, and bitterly denounced, in words that seemed to have the same effect, those who endangered thepeace between himself and the king. 

It was on the news of this Christmas proclamation, or perhaps on thereport of the bishops who had come from England, that Henry gave way tohis violent temper, and in an outburst of passion denounced those whom hehad cherished and covered with favours, because they could not avenge himof this one priest. On these words four knights of his household resolvedto punish the archbishop, and, leaving the court secretly, they went overto England. They were Reginald Fitz Urse, William of Tracy, Hugh ofMorville, and Richard le Breton. An attempt to stop them when theirdeparture was observed did not succeed, and, collecting supporters fromthe local enemies of the archbishop, they forced their way into hispresence on the afternoon of December 29. Their reproaches, demands, andthreats Becket met with firmness and dignity, refusing to be influencedby fear. Finding that they could gain nothing by words, they withdrew toget their arms, and Becket was hurried into the cathedral by his friends. As they were going up the steps from the north-west transept to thechoir, their enemies met them, calling loudly for "the traitor, ThomasBecket. " The archbishop turned about and stepped down to the floor of thetransept, repelling their accusations with bitter words and accusationsof his own, and was there struck down by their swords and murdered; notbefore the altar, as is sometimes said, though within the doors of hisown church. 

[46] See Maitland, Henry II and the Criminous Clerks, in hisCanon Law in the Church of England (1898). (Engl. Hist. , Rev. Vii, 224. )

CHAPTER XIV

CONQUEST AND REBELLION

The martyrdom of Thomas Becket served his cause better than hiscontinuance in life could have done. Even if his murderers foolishlythought to serve the king by their deed, Henry himself was under nodelusion as to its effect. He was thunderstruck at the news, and, in afrenzy of horror which was no doubt genuine, as well as to mark hisrepudiation of all share in the deed, he fasted and shut himself fromcommunication with the court for days. But the public opinion of Europewould not acquit Henry of the guilt. Letters poured in upon the popedenouncing him and demanding his punishment. The interdict of his Normandominions which had been threatened was proclaimed by the Archbishop ofSens, but suspended again by an appeal to the pope. Events moved slowlyin the twelfth century, and before the pope could take any active stepsin the case, an embassy which left Normandy almost immediately had timeto reach him and to promise on the part of the king his completesubmission to whatever the pope should decree after examination of thefacts. Immediate punishment of any severity was thus avoided, and theembassy of two cardinals to Normandy which the pope announced could actonly after some delay. 

In the meanwhile in England Thomas the archbishop was being rapidlytransformed into Thomas the saint. Miracles were reported almost at once, and the legend of his saintship took its rise and began to throw a newlight over the events of his earlier life. The preparation of his bodyfor the grave had revealed his secret asceticism, --the hair garments nexthis skin and long unchanged. The people believed him to be a true martyr, and his popular canonization preceded by some time the official, thoughthis followed with unusual quickness even for the middle ages. It waspronounced by the pope in whose reign he had died on February 21, 1173. For generations he remained the favourite saint of England, and hispopularity in foreign lands is surprising, though it must be rememberedthat he was a great and most conspicuous martyr of the official Church, of the new Hildebrandine Church, of the spirit and ideas which were bythat date everywhere in command. 

This long and bitter struggle between Church and State, unworthy of boththe combatants, was now over except for the consequences which werelasting, and the interest of Henry's reign flows back into the politicalchannel. The king did not wait in seclusion the report of the pope'smission. It may have been, as was suggested even at the time, that he wasglad of an excuse to escape from Normandy before the envoys' coming andto avoid a meeting with them until time had done something to soften thefeeling against him. Before his departure his hold on Britanny wasstrengthened by the death, in February, 1171, of Conan the candidate whomhe had recognized as count. Since 1166 the administration of the countryhad been practically in his hands; and in that year his son Geoffrey hadbeen betrothed to Constance, the daughter and heiress of Conan. Geoffreywould now succeed to the countship, but he was still a child; andBritanny was virtually incorporated in Henry's continental empire. 

The refuge which the repentant Henry may have sought from the necessityof giving an answer to the pope at once, or a kind of preliminary penancefor his sin, he found in Ireland. Since he received so early in his reignthe sanction of Pope Hadrian IV of his plan of conquest, he had donenothing himself towards that end, but others had. The adventurous baronsof the Welsh marches, who were used to the idea of carving out lordshipsfor themselves from the lands of their Celtic enemies, were easilypersuaded to extend their civilizing operations to the neighbouringisland, where even richer results seemed to be promised. In 1166 Dermot, the dispossessed king of Leinster, who had found King Henry too busilyoccupied with affairs in France to aid him, had secured with the royalpermission the help he needed in Wales, and thus had connected with thefuture history of Ireland the names of "Strongbow" and Fitzgerald. Thenative Irish, though the bravest of warriors, were without armour, andtheir weapons, of an earlier stage of military history, were no match forthe Norman; especially had they no defence against the Norman archers. The conquest of Leinster, from Waterford to Dublin, and including thosetwo cities, occupied some years, but was accomplished by a few men. "Strongbow" himself, Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, did not crossover till the end of August, 1170, when the work was almost completed. Hemarried the daughter of Dermot and was recognized as his heir, but thedeath of his father-in-law in the next spring was followed by a generalinsurrection against the new rulers, and this was hardly under controlwhen the earl was summoned to England to meet the king. 

Henry could not afford to let the dominion of Ireland, to which he hadlooked forward for himself, slip from his hands, nor to risk the dangerthat an independent state might be formed so close to England by his ownvassals. Already the Earl of Pembroke was out of favour; it was said thathis lands had been forfeited, and he might easily become a rebeldifficult to subdue in his new possessions. At the moment he certainlyhad no thought of rebellion, and he at once obeyed the summons toEngland. Henry had crossed from Normandy early in September, 1171, hadpaid a brief visit to Winchester, where Henry of Blois, once so powerfulin Church and State, was now dying, and then advanced with his armythrough southern Wales into Pembrokeshire whence he crossed to Ireland inthe middle of October. As he passed from Waterford to Cashel, and thenagain from Waterford to Dublin, chiefs came in from all sides, many ofwhom had never submitted to the Norman invaders, and acknowledged hisoverlordship. Only in the remoter parts of the west and north did theyremain away, except Roderick of Connaught, the most powerful of the Irishkings, who was not yet ready to own himself a vassal, but claimed thewhole of Ireland for himself. The Christmas feast Henry kept in Dublin, and there entertained his new subjects who were astonished at thesplendour of his court. 

A few weeks later a council of the Irish Church was held at Cashel, andattended by all the prelates of the island except the Archbishop ofArmagh whose age prevented his coming. The bishops swore allegiance toHenry, and each of them is said to have made a formal declaration, written and sealed, recognizing the right of Henry and his heirs to thekingdom of Ireland. The canons adopted by the council, putting into forcerules of marriage and morals long established in practice in the greaterpart of Christendom, reveal the reasons that probably led the Church tofavour the English conquest and even to consider it an especially piousact of the king. A report of Henry's acceptance by the Irish kings and ofthe acts of the council was sent at once to the pope, who replied inthree letters under date of September 20, 1172, addressed to Henry, tothe Irish bishops, and to the Irish kings, approving fully of all thathad been done. 

It is not clear that Henry had in mind any definite plan for thepolitical government of the conquest which he had made. The allegiance ofthose princes who were outside the territories occupied by the Normanadventurers could have been no more than nominal, and no attempt seems tohave been made to rule them. Meath was granted as a fief to Hugh of Lacyon the service of fifty knights. He was also made governor of Dublin andjusticiar of Ireland, but this title is the only evidence that he was tobe regarded as the representative of the king. Waterford and Wexford weremade domain towns, as well as Dublin, and the earl of Pembroke, who gaveup the royal rights which he might inherit from King Dermot, wasenfeoffed with Leinster on the service of a hundred knights. Plainly thepart of Ireland which was actually occupied was not treated in practiceas a separate kingdom, whatever may have been the theory, but as atransplanted part of England under a very vague relationship. As a matterof fact, it was a purely feudal colony, under but the slightest controlby a distant overlord, and doomed both from its situation in the midst ofan alien, only partly civilized, and largely unconquered race, and fromits own organization or lack of organization, to speedy troubles. 

Henry returned to England at Easter time, and went on almost at once tomeet the papal legates in Normandy. By the end of May his reconciliationwith the Church was completed. First, Henry purged himself by solemn oathin the cathedral at Avranches of any share in the guilt of Thomas'sassassination, and then the conditions of reconciliation were sworn to byhimself and by the young king. These conditions are a very faircompromise, though Becket could never have agreed to them nor probablywould Henry have done so but for the murder. The Church insisted on theone thing which was most essential to its real interests, the freedom ofappeals to the pope. The point most important to the State, which had ledoriginally to the quarrel--the question of the punishment of criminousclerks by the lay courts--was passed over in silence, a way out of thedifficulty being found by requiring of the king a promise which he couldreadily make, that he would wholly do away with any customs which hadbeen introduced against the churches of the land in his time. This wouldnot be to his mind renouncing the Constitution of Clarendon. Thetemporalities of Canterbury and the exiled friends of the archbishop wereto be restored as before the quarrel, and Henry promised not to withdrawhis obedience from the catholic pope or his successors. The otherconditions were of the nature of penance. The king promised to assume thecross at the next Christmas for a crusade of three years, and in themeantime to provide the Templars with a sum of money which in theirjudgment would be sufficient to maintain 200 knights in the Holy Land fora year. 

Henry no doubt felt that he had lost much, but in truth he had everyreason to congratulate himself on the lightness of his punishment for thecrime to which his passionate words had led. He did not get all which hehad set out to recover from the Church, but his gains were large andsubstantial. The agreement is a starting-point of some importance in thelegal history of England. It may be taken as the beginning, with morefull consciousness of field and boundaries, of the development of twolong lines of law and jurisdiction, running side by side for manygenerations, each encroaching somewhat on the occupied or natural groundof the other, but with no other conflict of so serious a character asthis. The criminal jurisdiction of the state did not recover quite allthat the Constitutions of Clarendon had demanded. Clerks accused of theworst offences, of felonies, except high treason, were tried and punishedby the Church courts, and from this arose the privilege known as benefitof clergy with all its abuses, but in all minor offences no distinctionwas made between clerk and layman. In civil cases also, suits whichinvolved the right of property, even the right of presentation tolivings, the state courts had their way. Two large fields of law, on theother hand, --marriage, and wills, --the Church, much to its profit, hadentirely to itself. 

The interval of peace for Henry was not a long one. Hardly was he freedfrom one desperate struggle when he found himself by degrees involved inanother from which he was never to find relief. The policy which he wasto follow towards his sons had been already foreshadowed in thecoronation of the young Henry in 1170, but we do not find it easy toaccount for it or to reconcile it with other lines of policy which he wasas clearly following. The conflict of ideas, the subtle contradictions ofthe age in which he lived, must have been reflected in the mind of theking whose dominions themselves were an empire of contrasts. Of all themiddle ages there is perhaps no period that saw the ideal which chivalryhad created of the wholly "courteous" king and prince more nearlyrealized in practice than the last half of the twelfth century--the bravewarrior and great ruler, of course, but always also the generous giver, who considered "largesse" one of the chiefest of virtues and first ofduties, and bestowed with lavish hand on all comers money and food, robesand jewels, horses and arms, and even castles and fiefs, recognizing thenatural right of each one to the gift his rank would seem to claim. Thatsuch an ideal was actually realized in any large number of cases it wouldbe absurd to maintain. It is not likely that any one ever sought to equalin detail the extravagant squandering of wealth in gifts which figures inthe poetry of the age--the rich mantles which Arthur hung about the hallsat a coronation festival to be taken by any one, or the thirty bushels ofsilver coins tumbled in a heap on the floor from which all might helpthemselves. But these poems record the ideal, and probably no other agesaw more men, from kings down to simple knights, who tried to patternthemselves on this model and to look on wealth as an exhaustless store ofthings to be given away. But in the mind of kings who reigned in a worldmore real than the romances of chivalry, this duty had always to contendwith natural ambition and with their responsibility for the welfare ofthe lands they ruled. The last half of the twelfth century saw theseconsiderations grow rapidly stronger. The age that formed and applaudedthe young Henry also gave birth to Philip Augustus. 

The marriage with Eleanor added to the strange mixture of blood in theNorman-Angevin house a new and warmer strain. It showed itself, careless, luxurious, self-indulgent, restless at any control, in her sons. But themarriage had also its effect on the husband and father. It gave a strongimpetus to the conquest, which had already begun, of the colder andslower north by the ideals of duty and manners which had blossomed outinto a veritable theory of life in the more tropical south. Henry couldnot keep himself from the spell of these influences, though they nevercontrolled him as they did his children. It seems impossible to doubt, however, that he really believed it to be his duly to give his sons theposition that belonged to them as princes, where they could form courtsof their own, surrounded by their barons and knights, and display thevirtues which belonged to their station. They had a rightful claim tothis, which the ruling idea of conduct befitting a king would not allowhim to deny. The story of Henry's waiting on his son at table after hiscoronation "as seneschal" and the reply of the young king to those whospoke of the honour done him, that it was a proper thing for one who wasonly the son of a count to wait on the son of a king, is significant ofdeeper things than mere manners. But, though he might be under the spellof these ideals, to partition his kingdom in very truth, to divesthimself of power, to make his sons actually independent in the provinceswhich he gave them, was impossible to him. The power of his empire hecould not break up. The real control of the whole, and even the greaterpart of the revenues, must remain in his hands. The conflict of ideas inhis mind, when he tried to be true to them all in practice, ledinevitably to a like conflict of facts and of physical force. 

The coronation of the young Henry as king of England, considered byitself, seems an unaccountable act. Stephen had tried to secure thecoronation of his son Eustace in his own lifetime, but there was a clearreason of policy in his case. The Capetian kings of France had longfollowed the practice, but for them also it had plainly been for manygenerations of the utmost importance for the security of the house. Therehad never been any reason in Henry's reign why extraordinary steps shouldseem necessary to secure the succession, and there certainly was nonefifteen years after its beginning. No explanation is given us in anycontemporary account of the motives which led to this coronation, and itis not likely that they were motives of policy. It is probable that itwas done in imitation of the French custom, under the influence of theideas of chivalry. But even if the king looked on this as chiefly afamily matter, affecting not much more than the arrangements of thecourt, he could not keep it within those limits. His view of the positionto which his sons were entitled was the most decisive influence shapingthe latter half of his reign, and through its effect on their charactersalmost as decisive for another generation. 

Not long after his brother's coronation Richard received his mother'sinheritance, Aquitaine and Poitou; Geoffrey was to be Count of Britannyby his marriage with the heiress; Normandy, Maine, and Anjou wereassigned to the young king; while the little John, youngest of thechildren of Henry and Eleanor, received from his father only the name"Lackland" which expresses well enough Henry's idea that his position wasnot what it ought to be so long as he had no lordship of his own. Troubleof one kind had begun with the young king's coronation, for Louis ofFrance had been deeply offended because his daughter Margaret had notbeen crowned queen of England at the same time. This omission wasrectified in August, 1172, at Winchester, when Henry was again crowned, and Margaret with him. But more serious troubles than this were nowbeginning. 

Already while Henry was in Ireland, the discontent of the young king hadbeen noticed and reported to him. It had been speedily discovered thatthe coronation carried with it no power, though the young Henry was of anage to rule according to the ideas of the time, --of the age, indeed, atwhich his father had begun the actual government of Normandy. But hefound himself, as a contemporary called him, "our new king who hasnothing to reign over. " It is probable, however, that the scantiness ofthe revenues supplied him to support his new dignity and to maintain hiscourt had more to do with his discontent than the lack of politicalpower. The courtly virtue of "largesse, " which his father followed withsome restraint where money was concerned, was with him a more controllingideal of conduct. A brilliant court, joyous and gay, given up tominstrelsy and tournaments, seemed to him a necessity of life, and itcould not be had without much money. Contemporary literature shows thatthe young king had all those genial gifts of manner, person, and spirit, which make their possessors universally popular. He was of more thanaverage manly beauty, warm-hearted, cordial, and generous. He won thepersonal love of all men, even of his enemies, and his early death seemedto many, besides the father whom he had so sorely tried, to leave theworld darker. Clearly he belongs in the list of those descendants of theNorman house, with the Roberts and the Stephens, who had the gifts whichattract the admiration and affection of men, but at the same time theweakness of character which makes them fatal to themselves and to theirfriends. To a man of that type, even without the incentive of the spiritof the time, no amount of money could be enough. It is hardly possible todoubt that the emptiness of his political title troubled the mind of theyoung Henry far less than the emptiness of his purse. [47]

There was no lack of persons, whose word would have great influence withthe young king, to encourage him in his discontent and even in plans ofrebellion. His father-in-law, Louis VII, would have every reason to urgehim on to extremes, those of policy because of the danger whichthreatened the Capetian house from the undivided Angevin power, those ofpersonal feeling because of the seemingly intentional slights which hisdaughter Margaret had suffered. Eleanor, at once wife and mother, bornprobably in 1122, had now reached an age when she must have felt that shehad lost some at least of the sources of earlier influence andconsideration. Proud and imperious of spirit, she would bitterly resentany lack of attention on her husband's part, and she had worse thingsthan neglect to excite her anger. From the beginning, we are told, whileHenry was still in Ireland, she had encouraged her son to believe himselfbadly treated by his father. The barons, many of them at least, throughall the provinces of Henry's empire, were restless under his strongcontrol and excited by the evidence, constantly increasing as thejudicial and administrative reforms of the reign went on, that the kingwas determined to confine their independence within narrower and narrowerlimits. Flattering offers of support no doubt came in at any sign thatthe young king would head resistance to his father. 

The final step of appealing directly to armed force the young Henry didnot take till the spring of 1173. A few weeks after his second coronationhe was recalled to Normandy, but was allowed to go off at once to visithis father-in-law, ostensibly on a family visit. Louis was anxious to seehis daughter. Apparently it was soon after his return that he made thefirst formal request of his father to be given an independent position insome one of the lands which had been assigned to him, urged, it was said, by the advice of the king of France and of the barons of England andNormandy. The request was refused, and he then made up his mind to rebelas soon as a proper opportunity and excuse should offer. These he foundin the course of the negotiations for the marriage of his brother Johnabout the beginning of Lent, 1173. 

Marriage was the only way by which Henry could provide for his youngestson a position equal to that which he had given to the others, and thishe was now planning to do by a marriage which would at the same timegreatly increase his own power. The Counts of Maurienne in the kingdom ofBurgundy had collected in their hands a variety of fiefs east of theRhone extending from Geneva on the north over into the borders of Italyto Turin on the south until they commanded all the best passes of thewestern Alps. The reigning count, Humbert, had as yet no son. His elderdaughter, a child a little younger than John, would be the heiress of hisdesirable lands. The situation seems naturally to have suggested to himthe advantage of a close alliance with one whose influence and allianceswere already so widely extended in the Rhone valley as Henry's. It neededno argument to persuade Henry of the advantage to himself of such arelationship. He undoubtedly looked forward to ruling the lands his sonwould acquire by the marriage as he ruled the lands of Geoffrey and ofhis other sons; and to command the western Alps would mean not merely aclear road into Italy if he should wish one, but also, of more immediatevalue, a strategic position on the east from which he might hope to cutoff the king of France from any further interference in the south likethat which earlier in his reign had compelled him to drop his plansagainst Toulouse. Belley, which would pass into his possession when thistreaty was carried out, was not very far from the eastern edge of hisduchy of Aquitaine. South-eastern France would be almost surrounded byhis possessions, and it was not likely that anything could prevent itfrom passing into his actual or virtual control. Whether Henry dreamed ofstill wider dominion, of interference even in Italy and possibly ofcontending for the empire itself with Frederick Barbarossa, as somesuspected at the time and as a few facts tend to show, we may leaveunsettled, since the time never came when he could attempt seriously torealize such a dream. 

The more probable and reasonable objects of his diplomacy seemed about tobe attained at once. At Montferrand in Auvergne in February he met theCount of Maurienne, who brought his daughter with him, and there thetreaty between them was drawn up and sworn to. At the same place appearedhis former ally the king of Aragon and his former opponent the Count ofToulouse. Between them a few days later at Limoges peace was made; anyfurther war would be against Henry's interests. The Count of Toulousealso frankly recognized the inevitable, and did homage and swore fealtyto Henry, to the young Henry, and to his immediate lord, Richard, Duke ofAquitaine. From the moment of apparent triumph, however, dates thebeginning of Henry's failure. Humbert of Maurienne, who was making somagnificent a provision for the young couple, naturally inquired whatHenry proposed to do for John. He was told that three of the moreimportant Angevin castles with their lands would be granted him. But thenominal lord of these castles was the young king, and his consent wasrequired. This he indignantly refused, and his anger was so great thatpeaceable conference with him was no longer possible. He was now broughtto the pitch of rebellion, and as they reached Chinon on their return toNormandy, he rode off from his father and joined the king of France. Onthe news Eleanor sent Richard and Geoffrey to join their brother, but washerself arrested soon after and held in custody. 

Both sides prepared at once for war. Henry strengthened his frontiercastles, and Louis called a great council of his kingdom, to which camehis chief vassals, including the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne, whoselong alliance with England made their action almost one of rebellion. There it was decided to join the war against the elder king of England. The long list of Henry's vassals who took his son's side, even if wededuct the names of some whose wavering inclination may have been fixedby the promises of lands or office which the younger Henry distributedwith reckless freedom, reveals a widespread discontent in the feudalbaronage. The turbulent lords of Aquitaine might perhaps be expected torevolt on every occasion, but the list includes the oldest names andleading houses of England and Normandy. Out of the trouble the king ofScotland hoped to recover what had been held of the last English king, and it may very well have seemed for a moment that the days of Stephenwere going to return for all. The Church almost to a man stood by theking who had so recently tried to invade its privileges, and Henryhastened to strengthen himself with this ally by filling numerousbishoprics which had for a long time been in his hands. Canterbury waswith some difficulty included among them. An earlier attempt to fill theprimacy had failed because of a dispute about the method of choice, andnow another failed because the archbishop selected refused to takeoffice. At last in June Richard, prior of St. Martin's at Dover, waschosen, but his consecration was delayed for nearly a year by an appealof the young king to the pope against a choice which disregarded hisrights. The elder Henry had on his side also a goodly list of Englishearls: the illegitimate members of his house, Hamelin of Surrey, Reginaldof Cornwall, and William of Gloucester; the earls of Arundel, Pembroke, Salisbury, Hertford, and Northampton; the son of the traitor of hismother's time, William de Mandeville, Earl of Essex; and William ofBeaumont, Earl of Warwick, whose cousins of Leicester and Meulan were ofthe young king's party. The new men of his grandfather's making were alsowith him and the mass of the middle class. 

The war was slow in opening. Henry kept himself closely to the defensiveand waited to be attacked, appearing to be little troubled at theprospect and spending his time mostly in hunting. Early in July youngHenry invaded Normandy with the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne, andcaptured Aumale, Eu, and a few other places, but the Count of Boulognewas wounded to the death, and the campaign came to an end. At the sametime King Louis entered southern Normandy and laid siege to Verneuil, oneward of which he took and burnt by a trick that was considereddishonourable, and from which he fled in haste on the approach of Henrywith his army. In the west, at the end of August, Henry's Brabantinemercenaries, of whom he is said to have had several thousand in hisservice, shut up a number of the rebel leaders in Dol. In a forced marchof two days the king came on from Rouen, and three days later compelledthe surrender of the castle. A long list is recorded of the barons andknights who were made prisoners there, of whom the most important was theEarl of Chester. A month later a conference was held at Gisors betweenthe two parties, to see if peace were possible. This conference was held, it is said, at the request of the enemies of the king of England; but heoffered terms to his sons which surprise us by their liberality aftertheir failure in the war, and which show that he was more moved by hisfeelings as a father than by military considerations. He offered to Henryhalf the income of the royal domains in England, or if he preferred tolive in Normandy, half the revenues of that duchy and all those of hisfather's lands in Anjou; to Richard half the revenues of Aquitaine; andto Geoffrey the possession of Britanny on the celebration of hismarriage. Had he settled revenues like these on his sons when henominally divided his lands among them, there probably would have been norebellion; but now the king of France had much to say about the terms, and he could be satisfied only by the parcelling out of Henry's politicalpower. To this the king of England would not listen, and the conferencewas broken off without result. 

In England the summer and autumn of 1173 passed with no more decisiveevents than on the continent, but with the same general drift in favourof the elder Henry. Richard of Lucy, the justiciar and specialrepresentative of the king, and his uncle, Reginald of Cornwall, were thechief leaders of his cause. In July they captured the town of Leicester, but not the castle. Later the king of Scotland invaded Northumberland, but fell back before the advance of Richard of Lucy, who in his turn laidwaste parts of Lothian and burned Berwick. In October the Earl ofLeicester landed in Norfolk with a body of foreign troops, but wasdefeated by the justiciar and the Earl of Cornwall, who took him and hiswife prisoners. The year closed with truces in both England and Francerunning to near Easter time. The first half of the year 1174 passed inthe same indecisive way. In England there was greater suffering from thedisorders incident to such a war, and sieges and skirmishes wereconstantly occurring through all the centre and north of the land. 

By the middle of the year King Henry came to the conclusion that hispresence was more needed in the island than on the continent, and on July8 he crossed to Southampton, invoking the protection of God on his voyageif He would grant to his kingdom the peace which he himself was seeking. He brought with him all his chief prisoners, including his own queen andhis son's. On the next day he set out for Canterbury. The penance of aking imposed upon him by the Church for the murder of Thomas Becket hemight already have performed to the satisfaction of the pope, but thepenance of a private person, of a soul guilty in the sight of heaven, hehad still to take upon himself, in a measure to satisfy the world andvery likely his own conscience. For such a penance the time was fitting. Whatever he may have himself felt, the friends of Thomas believed thatthe troubles which had fallen upon the realm were a punishment for thesins of the king. A personal reconciliation with the martyr, to beobtained only as a suppliant at his tomb, was plainly what he shouldseek. 

As Henry drew near the city and came in sight of the cathedral church, hedismounted from his horse, and bare-footed and humbly, forbidding anysign that a king was present, walked the remainder of the way to thetomb. Coming to the door of the church, he knelt and prayed; at the spotwhere Thomas fell, he wept and kissed it. After reciting his confessionto the bishops who had come with him or gathered there, he went to thetomb and, prostrate on the floor, remained a long time weeping andpraying. Then Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, made an address to thosepresent, declaring that not by command or knowledge was the king guiltyof the murder, but admitting the guilt of the hasty words which hadoccasioned it. He proclaimed the restoration of all rights to the churchof Canterbury, and of the king's favour to all friends of the latearchbishop. Then followed the formal penance and absolution. Laying offhis outer clothes, with head and shoulders bowed at the tomb, the kingallowed himself to be scourged by the clergy present, said to havenumbered eighty, receiving five blows from each prelate and three fromeach monk. The night that followed he spent in prayer in the church, still fasting. Mass in the morning completed the religious ceremonies, but on Henry's departure for London later in the day he was given, as amark of the reconciliation, some holy water to drink made sacred by therelics of the martyr, and a little in a bottle to carry with him. 

The medieval mind overlooked the miracle of Henry's escape from thesanitary dangers of this experience, but dwelt with satisfaction onanother which seemed the martyr's immediate response and declaration offorgiveness. It was on Saturday that the king left Canterbury and went upto London, and there he remained some days preparing his forces for thewar. On Wednesday night a messenger who had ridden without stopping fromthe north arrived at the royal quarters and demanded immediate admittanceto the king. Henry had retired to rest, and his servants would not atfirst allow him to be disturbed, but the messenger insisted: his news wasgood, and the king must know it at once. At last his importunityprevailed, and at the king's bedside he told him that he had come fromRanulf Glanvill, his sheriff of Lancashire, and that the king of Scotlandhad been overcome and taken prisoner. The news was confirmed by othermessengers who arrived the next day and was received by the king and hisbarons with great rejoicing. The victory was unmistakably the answer ofSt. Thomas to the penance of Henry, and a plain declaration ofreconciliation and forgiveness, for it soon became known that it was onthe very day when the penance at Canterbury was finished, perhaps at thevery hour, that this great success was granted to the arms of thepenitent king. 

The two spots of danger in the English insurrection were the north, wherenot merely was the king of Scotland prepared for invasion, but the Bishopof Durham, Hugh of Puiset, a connexion of King Stephen, was ready toassist him and had sent also for his nephew, another Hugh of Puiset, Count of Bar, to come to his help with a foreign force; and the east, where Hugh Bigod, the old earl of Norfolk, was again in rebellion and wasexpecting the landing of the Count of Flanders with an army. It was inthe north that the fate of the insurrection was settled and without theaid of the king. The king of Scotland, known in the annals of his countryas William the Lion, had begun his invasion in the spring after theexpiration of the truce of the previous year, and had raided almost thewhole north, capturing some castles and failing to take others such asBamborough and Carlisle. In the second week of July he attacked Prudhoecastle in southern Northumberland. Encouraged perhaps by the landing ofKing Henry in England, the local forces of the north now gathered tocheck the raiding. No barons of high rank were among the leaders. Theywere all Henry's own new men or the descendants of his grandfather's. Twosheriffs, Robert of Stuteville of Yorkshire and Ranulf Glanvill ofLancashire, probably had most to do with collecting the forces andleading them. At the news of their arrival, William fell back toward thenorth, dividing up his army and sending detachments off in variousdirections to plunder the country. The English followed on, and atAlnwick castle surprised the king with only a few knights, his personalguard. Resistance was hopeless, but it was continued in the true fashionof chivalry until all the Scottish force was captured. 

This victory brought the rebellion in England to an end. On hearing thenews Henry marched against the castle of Huntingdon, which had been forsome time besieged, and it at once surrendered. There his natural sonGeoffrey, who had been made Bishop of Lincoln the summer before, joinedhim with reinforcements, and he turned to the east against Hugh Bigod. Apart of the Flemish force which was expected had reached the earl, but hedid not venture to resist. He came in before he was attacked, and gave uphis castles, and with great difficulty persuaded the king to allow him tosend home his foreign troops. Henry then led his army to Northamptonwhere he received the submission of all the rebel leaders who were left. The Bishop of Durham surrendered his castles and gained reluctantpermission for his nephew to return to France. The king of Scotland wasbrought in a prisoner. The Earl of Leicester's castles were given up, andthe Earl of Derby and Roger Mowbray yielded theirs. This was on the lastday of July. In three weeks after Henry's landing, in little more thantwo after his sincere penance for the murder of St. Thomas, the dangerousinsurrection in England was completely crushed, --crushed indeed for allthe remainder of Henry's reign. The king's right to the castles of hisbarons was henceforth strictly enforced. Many were destroyed at the closeof the war, and others were put in the hands of royal officers who couldeasily be changed. It was more than a generation after this date andunder very different conditions that a great civil war again broke out inEngland between the king and his barons. 

But the war on the continent was not closed by Henry's success inEngland. His sons were still in arms against him, and during his absencethe king of France with the young Henry and the Count of Flanders hadlaid siege to Rouen. Though the blockade was incomplete, an attack on thechief city of Normandy could not be disregarded. Evidently that wasHenry's opinion, for on August 6 he crossed the channel, taking with himhis Brabantine soldiers and a force of Welshmen, as well as his prisonersincluding the king of Scotland. He entered Rouen without difficulty, andby his vigorous measures immediately convinced the besiegers that allhope of taking the city was over. King Louis, who was without militarygenius or spirit, and not at all a match for Henry, gave up theenterprise at once, burned his siege engines, and decamped ignominiouslyin the night. Then came messengers to Henry and proposed a conference tosettle terms of peace, but at the meeting which was held on September 8nothing could be agreed upon because of the absence of Richard who was inAquitaine still carrying on the war. The negotiations were accordinglyadjourned till Michaelmas on the understanding that Henry should subduehis son and compel him to attend and that the other side should give theyoung rebel no aid. Richard at first intended some resistance to hisfather, but after losing some of the places that held for him and alittle experience of fleeing from one castle to another, he lost heartand threw himself on his father's mercy, to be received with the easyforgiveness which characterized Henry's attitude toward his children. 

There was no obstacle now to peace. On September 30 the kings of Englandand France and the three young princes met in the adjourned conferenceand arranged the terms. Henry granted to his sons substantial revenues, but not what he had offered them at the beginning of the war, nor did heshow any disposition to push his advantage to extremes against any ofthose who had joined the alliance against him. The treaty in which theagreement between father and sons was recorded may still be read. Itprovides that Henry "the king, son of the king, " and his brothers and allthe barons who have withdrawn from the allegiance of the father shallreturn to it free and quit from all oaths and agreements which they mayhave made in the meantime, and the king shall have all the rights overthem and their lands and castles that he had two weeks before thebeginning of the war. But they also shall receive back all their lands asthey had them at the same date, and the king will cherish no ill feelingagainst them. To Henry his father promised to assign two castles inNormandy suitable for his residence and an income of 15, 000 Angevinpounds a year; to Richard two suitable castles and half the revenue ofPoitou, but the interesting stipulation is added that Richard's castlesare to be of such a sort that his father shall take no injury from them;to Geoffrey half the marriage portion of Constance of Britanny and theincome of the whole when the marriage is finally made with the sanctionof Rome. Prisoners who had made fine with the king before the peace wereexpressly excluded from it, and this included the king of Scotland andthe Earls of Chester and Leicester. All castles were to be put back intothe condition in which they were before the war. The young king formallyagreed to the provision for his brother John, and this seems materiallylarger than that originally proposed. The concluding provisions of thetreaty show the strong legal sense of King Henry. He was ready to pardonthe rebellion with great magnanimity, but crimes committed and lawsviolated either against himself or others must be answered for in thecourts by all guilty persons. Richard and Geoffrey did homage to theirfather for what was granted them, but this was excused the young Henrybecause he was a king. In another treaty drawn up at about the same timeas Falaise the king of Scotland recognized in the clearest terms forhimself and his heirs the king of England as his liege lord for Scotlandand for all his lands, and agreed that his barons and men, lay andecclesiastic, should also render liege homage to Henry, according to theNorman principle. On these conditions he was released. Of the king ofFrance practically nothing was demanded. 

The treaty between the two kings of England established a peace whichlasted for some years, but it was not long before complaints of thescantiness of his revenues and of his exclusion from all politicalinfluence began again from the younger king and from his court. There wasundoubtedly much to justify these complaints from the point of view ofHenry the son. Whatever may have been the impelling motive, byestablishing his sons in nominal independence, Henry the father hadclearly put himself in an illogical position from which there was noescape without a division of his power which he could not make whenbrought to the test. The young king found his refuge in a way thoroughlycharacteristic of himself and of the age, in the great athletic sport ofthat period--the tournament, which differed from modern athletics in theimportant particular that the gentleman, keeping of course the rules ofthe game, could engage in it as a means of livelihood. The capturing ofhorses and armour and the ransoming of prisoners made the tournament aprofitable business to the man who was a better fighter than other men, and the young king enjoyed that fame. At the beginning of his independentcareer his father had assigned to his service a man who was to serve thehouse of Anjou through long years and in far higher capacity--WilliamMarshal, at that time a knight without lands or revenues but skilled inarms, and under his tuition and example his pupil became a warrior ofrenown. It was not exactly a business which seems to us becoming to aking, but it was at least better than fighting his father, and theopinion of the time found no fault with it. 

[47] Robert of Torigni, Chronicles of Stephen, iv, 305; L'Histoirede Guillaume le Maréchal, 11. 1935-5095. 

CHAPTER XV

HENRY AND HIS SONS

For England peace was now established. The insurrection was suppressed, the castles were in the king's hands, even the leaders of the revoltedbarons were soon reconciled with him. The age of Henry I returned, an agenot so long in years as his, but yet long for any medieval state, ofinternal peace, of slow but sure upbuilding in public and private wealth, and, even more important, of the steady growth of law and institutionsand of the clearness with which they were understood, an indispensablepreparation for the great thirteenth century so soon to begin--the crisisof English constitutional history. For Henry personally there was no ageof peace. England gave him no further trouble; but in his unruly southerndominions, and from his restless and discontented sons, the respite fromrebellion was short, and it was filled with labours. 

In 1175 the two kings crossed together to England, though the young king, who was still listening to the suggestions of France and who professed tobe suspicious of his father's intentions, was with some difficultypersuaded to go. He also seems to have been troubled by his father'srefusal to receive his homage at the same time with his brothers'; at anyrate when he finally joined the king on April 1, he begged with tears forpermission to do homage as a mark of his father's love, and Henryconsented. At the end of the first week in May they crossed the channelfor a longer stay in England than usual, of more than two years, and onethat was crowded with work both political and administrative. The king'sfirst act marks the new era of peace with the Church, his attendance at acouncil of the English Church held at London by Archbishop Richard ofCanterbury; and his second was a pilgrimage with his son to the tomb ofSt. Thomas. Soon after the work of filling long-vacant sees and abbacieswas begun. At the same time matters growing out of the insurrectionreceived attention. William, Earl of Gloucester, was compelled to give upBristol castle which he had kept until now. Those who had been opposed tothe king were forbidden to come to court unless ordered to do so by him. The bearing of arms in England was prohibited by a temporary regulation, and the affairs of Wales were considered in a great council atGloucester. 

One of the few acts of severity which Henry permitted himself after therebellion seems to have struck friend and foe alike, and suggests asituation of much interest to us which would be likely to give us a gooddeal of insight into the methods and ideas of the time if we understoodit in detail. Unfortunately we are left with only a bare statement of thefacts, with no explanation of the circumstances or of the motives of theking. Apparently at the Whitsuntide court held at Reading on the firstday of June, Henry ordered the beginning of a series of prosecutionsagainst high and low, churchmen and laymen alike, for violations of theforest laws committed during the war. At Nottingham, at the beginning ofAugust, these prosecutions were carried further, and there the incidentoccurred which gives peculiar interest to the proceedings. Richard ofLucy, the king's faithful minister and justiciar, produced before theking his own writ ordering him to proclaim the suspension of the laws inregard to hunting and fishing during the war. This Richard testified thathe had done as he was commanded, and that the defendants trusting to thiswrit had fearlessly taken the king's venison. We are simply told inaddition that this writ and Richard's testimony had no effect against theking's will. It is impossible to doubt that this incident occurred orthat such a writ had been sent to the justiciar, but it seems certainthat some essential detail of the situation is omitted. To guess what itwas is hardly worth while, and we can safely use the facts only as anillustration of the arbitrary power of the Norman and Angevin kings, which on the whole they certainly exercised for the general justice. 

From Nottingham the two kings went on to York, where they were met byWilliam of Scotland with the nobles and bishops of his kingdom, preparedto carry out the agreement which was made at Falaise when he was releasedfrom imprisonment. Whatever may have been true of earlier instances, theking of Scotland now clearly and beyond the possibility of controversybecame the liege-man of the king of England for Scotland and all thatpertained to it, and for Galloway as if it were a separate state. Thehomage was repeated to the young king, saving the allegiance due to thefather. According to the English chroniclers all the free tenants of thekingdom of Scotland were also present and did homage in the same way tothe two kings for their lands. Some were certainly there, though hardlyall; but the statement shows that it was plainly intended to apply toScotland the Norman law which had been in force in England from the timeof the Conquest, by which every vassal became also the king's vassal withan allegiance paramount to all other feudal obligations. The bishops ofScotland as vassals also did homage, and as bishops they swore to besubject to the Church of England to the same extent as their predecessorshad been and as they ought to be. The treaty of Falaise was againpublicly read and confirmed anew by the seals of William and his brotherDavid. There is nothing to show that King William did not enter into thisrelationship with every intention of being faithful to it, nor did heendeavour to free himself from it so long as Henry lived. The Normaninfluence in Scotland was strong and might easily increase. It is quitepossible that a succession of kings of England who made that realm andits interests the primary objects of their policy might have created fromthis beginning a permanent connexion growing constantly closer, and havesaved these two nations, related in so many ways, the almost civil warsof later years. 

From these ceremonies at York Henry returned to London, and there, beforeMichaelmas, envoys came to him to announce and to put into legal formanother significant addition to his empire, significant certainly of itsimposing power though the reasons which led to this particular step arenot known to us. These envoys were from Roderick, king of Connaught, who, when Henry was in Ireland, had refused all acknowledgment of him, andthey now came to make known his submission. In a great council held atWindsor the new arrangement was put into formal shape. In the documentthere drawn up Roderick was made to acknowledge himself the liege-man ofHenry and to agree to pay a tribute of hides from all Ireland except thatpart which was directly subject to the English invaders. On his sideHenry agreed to recognize Roderick as king under himself as long as heshould remain faithful, and also the holdings of all other men whoremained in his fealty. Roderick should rule all Ireland outside theEnglish settlement, at least for the purposes of the tribute, and shouldhave the right to claim help from the English in enforcing his authorityif it should seem necessary. Such an arrangement would have in allprobability only so much force as Roderick might be willing to allow itat any given time, and yet the mere making of it is a sign ofconsiderable progress in Ireland and the promise of more. At the samecouncil Henry appointed a bishop of Waterford, who was sent over with theenvoys on their return to be consecrated. 

At York the king had gone on with his forest prosecutions, and there asbefore against clergy as well as laity. Apparently the martyrdom ofArchbishop Thomas had secured for the Church nothing in the matter ofthese offences. The bishops did not interfere to protect the clergy, saysone chronicler; and very likely in these cases the Church acknowledgedthe power rather than the right of the king. At the end of October apapal legate, Cardinal Hugo, arrived in England, but his missionaccomplished nothing of importance that we know of, unless it be hisagreement that Henry should have the right to try the clergy in his owncourts for violations of the forest law. This agreement at any rateexcited the especial anger of the monastic chroniclers who wrote him downa limb of Satan, a robber instead of a shepherd, who seeing the wolfcoming abandoned his sheep. In a letter to the pope which the legate tookwith him on his return to Rome, Henry agreed not to bring the clergy inperson before his courts except for forest offences and in casesconcerning the lay services due from their fiefs. On January 25, 1176, agreat council met at Northampton, and there Henry took up again thejudicial and administrative reforms which had been interrupted by theconflict with Becket and by the war with his sons. 

The task of preserving order in the medieval state was in the main thetask of repressing and punishing crimes of violence. Murder and assault, robbery and burglary, fill the earliest court records, and on the civilside a large proportion of the cases, like those under the assizes ofMort d'Ancestor and Novel Disseisin, concerned attacks on property notvery different in character. The problem of the ruler in this departmentof government was so to perfect the judicial machinery and procedure asto protect peaceable citizens from bodily harm and property from violententry and from fraud closely akin to violence. An additional andimmediate incentive to the improvement of the judicial system arose fromthe income which was derived from fines and confiscations, both heavierand more common punishments for crime than in the modern state. It wouldbe unfair to a king like Henry II, however, to convey the impression thatan increase of income was the only, or indeed the main, thing sought inthe reform of the courts. Order and security for land and people werealways in his mind to be sought for themselves, as a chief part of theduty of a king, and certainly this was the case with his ministers whomust have had more to do than he with the determining and perfecting ofdetails. 

This is not the place to describe the judicial reforms of the reign intechnical minuteness or from the point of view of the student ofconstitutional history. The activity of a great king, the effect onpeople and government are the subjects of interest here. The series offormal documents in which Henry's reforming efforts are embodied openswith the Constitutions of Clarendon in 1164. Of the king's purpose inthis--not new legislation, but an effort to bring the clergy underresponsibility to the state for their criminal acts according to theancient practice, --and of its results, we have already had the story. Thesecond in the series, the Assize of Clarendon, the first that concernsthe civil judicial system, though we have good reason to suspect that itwas not actually Henry's first attempt at reform, dates from early in theyear 1166. It dealt with the detection and punishment of crime, andgreatly improved the means at the command of the state for thesepurposes. In 1170, to check the independence of the sheriffs and theirabuse of power for private ends, of which there were loud complaints, heordered strict inquiry to be made, by barons appointed for the purpose, into the conduct of the sheriffs and the abuses complained of, andremoved a large number of them, appointing others less subject to thetemptations which the local magnate was not likely to resist. This was ablow at the hold of the feudal baronage on the office, and a step in itstransformation into a subordinate executive office, which was rapidlygoing on during the reign. In 1176, in the Assize of Northampton, theprovisions of the Assize of Clarendon for the enforcement of criminaljustice were made more severe, and new enactments were added. In 1181 theAssize of Arms made it compulsory on knights and freemen alike to keep intheir possession weapons proportionate to their income for the defence ofking and realm. In 1184 the Assize of the Forest enforced the vexatiousforest law and decreed severe penalties for its violation. In the yearbefore the king's death, in 1188, the Ordinance of the Saladin Titheregulated the collection of this new tax intended to pay the expenses ofHenry's proposed crusade. 

This list of the formal documents in which Henry's reforms wereproclaimed is evidence of no slight activity, but it gives, nevertheless, a very imperfect idea of his work as a whole. That was nothing less thanto start the judicial organization of the state along the lines it hasever since followed. He did this by going forward with beginnings alreadymade and by opening to general and regular use institutions which, so faras we know, had up to this time been only occasionally employed inspecial cases. The changes which the reign made in the judicial systemmay be grouped under two heads: the further differentiation and moredefinite organization of the curia regis and the introduction of thejury in its undeveloped form into the regular procedure of the courtsboth in civil and criminal cases. 

Under the reign of the first Henry we noticed the twofold form of theking's court, the great curia regis, formed by the barons of the wholekingdom and the smaller in practically permanent session, and the latteralso acting as a special court for financial cases--the exchequer. Now wehave the second Henry establishing, in 1178, what we may call anothersmall curia regis--apparently of a more professional character--to bein permanent session for the trial of cases. The process ofdifferentiation, beginning in finding a way for the better doing offinancial business, now goes a step further, though to the men of thattime--if they had thought about it at all--it would have seemed aclassification of business, not a dividing up of the king's court. Thegreat curia regis, the exchequer, and the permanent trial court, usually meeting at Westminster, were all the same king's court; but astep had really been taken toward a specialized judicial system and anofficial body of judges. 

In the reign of Henry I we also noticed evidence which proved theoccasional, and led us to suspect the somewhat regular employment ofitinerant justices. This institution was put into definite and permanentform by his grandson. The kingdom was at first divided into six circuits, to each of which three justices were sent. Afterwards the number ofjustices was reduced. These justices, though not all members of the smallcourt at Westminster, were all, it is likely, familiar with its work, andto each circuit at least one justice of the Westminster court wasprobably always assigned. What they carried into each county of thekingdom as they went the round of their districts was not a new court andnot a local court; it was the curia regis itself, and that too in itsadministrative as well as in its judicial functions indeed it is easy tosuspect that it was quite as much the administrative side of itswork, --the desire to check the abuses of the sheriffs by investigation onthe spot, and to improve the collection of money due to the crown, as itsjudicial, --as the wish to render the operation of the law more convenientby trying cases in the communities where they arose, that led to thedevelopment of this side of the judicial system. Whatever led to it, thisis what had begun, a new branch of the judicial organization. 

It was in these courts, these king's courts, --the trial court atWestminster and the court of the itinerant justices in the differentcounties, --that the institution began to be put into regular use that hasbecome so characteristic a distinction of the Anglo-Saxon judicialsystem--the jury. The history of the jury cannot here be told. It issufficient to say that it existed in the Frankish empire of the earlyninth century in a form apparently as highly developed as in the Normankingdom of the early twelfth. From Charles the Great to Henry II itremained in what was practically a stationary condition. It was only onEnglish soil, and after the impulse given to it by the broader uses inwhich it was now employed that it began the marvellous development fromwhich our liberty has gained so much. At the beginning it was a processbelonging to the sovereign and used solely for his business, or employedfor the business of others only by his permission in the special case. What Henry seems to have done was to generalize this use, to establishcertain classes of cases in which it might always be employed by hissubjects, but in his courts only. In essence it was a process for gettinglocal knowledge to bear on a doubtful question of fact of interest to thegovernment. Ought A to pay a certain tax? The question is usually to besettled by answering another: Have his ancestors before him paid it, orthe land which he now holds? The memory of the neighbours can probablydetermine this, and a certain number of the men likely to know aresummoned before the officer representing the king, put on oath, andrequired to say what they know about it. 

In its beginning that is all the jury was. But it was a process of easyapplication to other questions than those which interested the king. Thequestion of fact that arose in a suit at law--was the land in disputebetween A and B actually held by the ancestor of B?--could be settled inthe same way by the memory of the neighbours, and in a way much moresatisfactory to the party whose cause was just than by an appeal to thejudgment of heaven in the wager of battle. If the king would allow theprivate man the use of this process, he was willing to pay for theprivilege. Such privilege had been granted since the Conquest inparticular cases. A tendency at least in Normandy had existed beforeHenry II to render it more regular. This tendency Henry followed ingranting the use of the primitive jury generally to his subjects incertain classes of cases, to defendants in the Great Assize to protecttheir freehold, to plaintiffs in the three assizes of Mort d'Ancestor, Novel Disseisin, and Darrein Presentment to protect their threatenedseisin. As a process of his own, as a means of preserving order, he againbroadened its use in another way in the Assize of Clarendon, finding init a method of bringing local knowledge to the assistance of thegovernment in the detection of crime, the function of the modern grandjury and its origin as an institution. 

The result of Henry's activities in this direction--changes we may callthem, but hardly innovations, following as they do earlier precedents andlying directly in line with the less conscious tendencies of hispredecessors, --this work of Henry's was nothing less than to create ourjudicial system and to determine the character and direction of itsgrowth to the present day. In the beginning of these three things, of aspecialized and official court system, of a national judiciary bringingits influence to bear on every part of the land, and of a most effectiveprocess for introducing local knowledge into the trial of cases, Henryhad accomplished great results, and the only ones that he directlysought. But two others plainly seen after the lapse of time are of quiteequal importance. One of these was the growth at an early date of anational common law. 

Almost the only source of medieval law before the fourteenth century wascustom, and the strong tendency of customary law was to break into localfragments, each differing in more or less important points from the rest. Beaumanoir in the thirteenth century laments the fact that everycastellany in France had a differing law of its own, and Glanville stillearlier makes a similar complaint of England. But the day was rapidlyapproaching in both lands when the rise of national consciousness undersettled governments, and especially the growth of a broader and moreactive commerce, was to create a strong demand for a uniform nationallaw. What influences affected the forming constitutions of the states ofEurope because this demand had to be met by recourse to the imperial lawof Rome, the law of a highly centralized absolutism, cannot here berecounted. From these influences, whether large or small, from thenecessity of seeking uniformity in any ready-made foreign law, Englandwas saved by the consequences of Henry's action. The king's court rapidlycreated a body of clear, consistent, and formulated law. The itinerantjustice as he went from county to county carried with him this law andmade it the law of the entire nation. From these beginnings arose thecommon law, the product of as high an order of political genius as theconstitution itself, and now the law of wider areas and of more millionsof men than ever obeyed the law of Rome. 

One technical work, at once product and monument of the legal activity ofthis generation, deserves to be remembered in this connexion, theTreatise on the Laws of England. Ascribed with some probability toRanulf Glanvill, Henry's chief justiciar during his last years, it wascertainly written by some one thoroughly familiar with the law of thetime and closely in touch with its enforcement in the king's court. To usit declares what that law was at the opening of its far-reaching history, and in its definiteness and certainty as well as in its arrangement itreveals the great progress that had been made since the law books of thereign of Henry I. That progress continued so rapid that within a hundredyears Glanvill's book had become obsolete, but by that time it had beensucceeded by others in the long series of great books on our common law. Nor ought we perhaps entirely to overlook another book, as interesting inits way, the Dialogue of the Exchequer. Written probably by RichardFitz Neal, of the third generation of that great administration familyfounded by Roger of Salisbury and restored to office by Henry II, thebook gives us a view from within of the financial organization of thereign as enlightening as is Glanvill's treatise on the common law. 

But besides the growth of the common law, these reforms involved andcarried with them as a second consequence a great change in the machineryof government and in the point of view from which it was regarded. Wehave already seen how in the feudal state government functions wereundifferentiated and were exercised without consciousness ofinconsistency by a single organ, the curia regia, in which, as in allpublic activities, the leading operative element was the feudal baronage. The changes in the judicial system which were accomplished in the reignof Henry, especially the giving of a more fixed and permanent characterto the courts, the development of legal procedure into more complicatedand technical forms, and the growth of the law itself in definiteness andbody, --these changes meant the necessity of a trained official class andthe decline of the importance of the purely feudal baronage in thecarrying on of government. This was the effect also of the gradualtransformation of the sheriff into a more strictly ministerial officerand the diminished value of feudal levies in war as indicated by theextension of scutage. In truth, at a date relatively as early for thistransformation as for the growth of a national law, the English state wasbecoming independent of feudalism. The strong Anglo-Norman monarchy wasattacking the feudal baron not merely with the iron hand by whichdisorder and local independence were repressed, but by finding out betterways of doing the business of government and so destroying practicallythe whole foundation on which political feudalism rested. Of thethreatening results of these reforms the baronage was vaguely conscious, and this feeling enters as no inconsiderable element into the troublesthat filled the reign of Henry's youngest son and led to the first steptowards constitutional government. 

For a moment serious business was now interrupted by a bit of comedy, atleast it seems comedy to us, though no doubt it was a matter seriousenough to the actors. For many years there had been a succession ofbitter disputes between the Archbishops of Canterbury and York overquestions of precedence and various ceremonial rights, or to state itmore accurately the Archbishops of York had been for a long time tryingto enforce an exact equality in such matters with the Archbishops ofCanterbury. At mid-Lent, 1776 Cardinal Hugo, the legate, held a councilof the English Church in London, and at its opening the dispute led toactual violence. The cardinal took the seat of the presiding officer, andRichard of Canterbury seated himself on his right hand. The Archbishop ofYork on entering found the seat of honour occupied by his rival, andunwilling to yield, tried to force himself in between Richard and thecardinal. One account says that he sat down in Richard's lap. Instantlythere was a tumult. The partisans of Canterbury seized the offendingarchbishop, bishops we are told even leading the attack, dragged himaway, threw him to the floor, and misused him seriously. The legateshowed a proper indignation at the disorder caused by the defenders ofthe rights of Canterbury, but found himself unable to go on with thecouncil. 

For a year past the young king had been constantly with his father, keptalmost a prisoner, as his immediate household felt and as we may wellbelieve. Now he began to beg permission to go on a pilgrimage to thefamous shrine of St. James of Compostella, and Henry at last gave hisconsent, though he knew the pilgrimage was a mere pretext to escape tothe continent. But the younger Henry was detained at Portchester sometime, waiting for a fair wind; and Easter coming on, he returned toWinchester, at his father's request, to keep the festival with him. Inthe meantime, Richard and Geoffrey had landed at Southampton, coming totheir father with troubles of their own, and reached Winchester the daybefore Easter Sunday. Henry and his sons were thus together for thefeast, much to his joy we are told; but it is not said that QueenEleanor, who was then imprisoned in England, very likely in Winchesteritself, was allowed any part in the celebration. Richard's visit toEngland was due to a dangerous insurrection in his duchy, and he had cometo ask his father's help. Henry persuaded the young king to postpone hispilgrimage until he should have assisted his brother to re-establishpeace in Aquitaine, and with this understanding they both crossed to thecontinent about a fortnight after Easter, but young Henry on landing atonce set off with his wife to visit the king of France. Richard was nownearly nineteen years old, and in the campaign that followed he displayedgreat energy and vigour and the skill as a fighter for which he wasafterwards so famous, putting down the insurrection almost withoutassistance from his brother, who showed very little interest in anytroubles but his own. The young king, indeed, seemed to be making readyfor a new breach with his father. He was collecting around him KingHenry's enemies and those who had helped him in the last war, and wasopenly displaying his discontent. An incident which occurred at this timeillustrates his spirit. His vice-chancellor, Adam, who thought he owedmuch to the elder king, attempted to send him a report of his son'sdoings; but when he was detected, the young Henry, finding that he couldnot put him to death as he would have liked to do because the Bishop ofPoitiers claimed him as a clerk, ordered him to be sent to imprisonmentin Argentan and to be scourged as a traitor in all the towns throughwhich he passed on the way. 

About the same time an embassy appeared in England from the Norman courtof Sicily to arrange for a marriage between William II of that kingdomand Henry's youngest daughter, Joanna. The marriages of each of Henry'sdaughters had some influence on the history of England before the deathof his youngest son. His eldest daughter Matilda had been married in 1168to Henry the Lion, head of the house of Guelf in Germany, and his seconddaughter, Eleanor, to Alphonso III of Castile, in 1169 or 1170. Theambassadors of King William found themselves pleased with the littleprincess whom they had come to see, and sent back a favourable report, signifying also the consent of King Henry. In the following February shewas married and crowned queen at Palermo, being then a little more thantwelve years old. Before the close of this year, 1176, Henry arranged foranother marriage to provide for his youngest son John, now ten years old. The infant heiress of Maurienne, to whom he had been years beforebetrothed, had died soon after, and no other suitable heiress had sincebeen found whose wealth might be given him. The inheritance which hisfather had now in mind was that of the great Earl Robert of Gloucester, brother and supporter of the Empress Matilda, his father's mother. Robert's son William had only daughters. Of these two were alreadymarried, Mabel to Amaury, Count of Evreux, and Amice to Richard of Clare, Earl of Hertford. Henry undertook to provide for these by pensions on theunderstanding that all the lands of the earldom should go to John on hismarriage with the youngest daughter Isabel. To this plan Earl Williamagreed. The marriage itself did not take place until after the death ofKing Henry. 

An income suitable for his position had now certainly been secured forthe king's youngest son, for in addition to the Gloucester inheritancethat of another of the sons of Henry I, Reginald, Earl of Cornwall whohad died in 1175, leaving only daughters, was held by Henry for his use, and still earlier the earldom of Nottingham had been assigned him. Atthis time, however, or very soon after, a new plan suggested itself tohis father for conferring upon him a rank and authority proportionate tohis brothers'. Ireland was giving more and more promise of shaping itselfbefore long into a fairly well-organized feudal state. If it seems to usa turbulent realm, where a central authority was likely to secure littleobedience, we must remember that this was still the twelfth century, theheight of the feudal age, and that to the ruler of Aquitaine Irelandmight seem to be progressing more rapidly to a condition of what passedas settled order than to us. Since his visit to the island, Henry hadkept a close watch on the doings of his Norman vassals there and had heldthem under a firm hand. During the rebellion of 1173 he had had notrouble from them. Indeed, they had served him faithfully in thatstruggle and had been rewarded for their fidelity. In the interval sincethe close of the war some advance in the Norman occupation had been made. There seemed to be a prospect that both the south-west and thenorth-east--the southern coast of Munster and the eastern coast ofUlster--might be acquired. Limerick had been temporarily occupied, and itwas hoped to gain it permanently. Even Connaught had been successfullyinvaded. Possibly it was the hope of securing himself against attacks ofthis sort which he may have foreseen that led Roderick of Connaught toacknowledge himself Henry's vassal by formal treaty. If he had anyexpectation of this sort, he was disappointed; for the invaders ofIreland paid no attention to the new relationship, nor did Henry himselfany longer than suited his purpose. 

We are now told that Henry had formed the plan of erecting Ireland into akingdom, and that he had obtained from Alexander III permission to crownwhichever of his sons he pleased and to make him king of the island. Verypossibly the relationship with Scotland, which he had lately put intoexact feudal form, suggested the possibility of another subordinatekingdom and of raising John in this way to an equality with Richard andGeoffrey. At a great council held at Oxford in May, 1177, the preliminarysteps were taken towards putting this plan into operation. Someregulation of Irish affairs was necessary. Richard "Strongbow, " Earl ofPembroke and Lord of Leinster, who had been made justiciar after therebellion, had died early in 1176, and his successor in office, WilliamFitz Adelin, had not proved the right man in the place. There were alsonew conquests to be considered and new homages to be rendered, if theplan of a kingdom was to be carried out. His purpose Henry announced tothe council, and the Norman barons, some for the lordships originallyassigned them, some for new ones like Cork and Limerick, did homage inturn to John and to his father, as had been the rule in all similarcases. Hugh of Lacy, Henry's first justiciar, was reappointed to thatoffice, but there was as yet no thought of sending John, who was theneleven years old, to occupy his future kingdom. 

It was a crowded two years which Henry spent in England. Only the mostimportant of the things that occupied his attention have we been able tonotice, but the minor activities which filled his days make up a greatsum of work accomplished. Great councils were frequently held; thejudicial reforms and the working of the administrative machinery demandedconstant attention; the question of the treatment to be accorded to oneafter another of the chief barons who had taken part in the rebellion hadto be decided; fines and confiscations were meted out, and finally theterms on which the offenders were to be restored to the royal favour weresettled. The castles occasioned the king much anxiety, and of those thatwere allowed to stand the custodians were more than once changed. Theaffairs of Wales were frequently considered, and at last the king seemedto have arranged permanent relations of friendship with the princes ofboth north and south Wales. In March, 1177, a great council decided aquestion of a kind not often coming before an English court. The kings ofCastile and Navarre submitted an important dispute between them to thearbitration of King Henry, and the case was heard and decided in a greatcouncil in London--no slight indication of the position of the Englishking in the eyes of the world. 

Ever since early February, 1177, Henry had been planning to cross over toNormandy with all the feudal levies of England. There were reasons enoughfor his presence there, and with a strong hand. Richard's troubles werenot yet over, though he had already proved his ability to deal with themalone. Britanny was much disturbed, and Geoffrey had not gone home withRichard, but was still with his father. The king of France was pressingfor the promised marriage of Adela and Richard, and it was understoodthat the legate, Cardinal Peter of Pavia, had authority to lay allHenry's dominions under an interdict if he did not consent to animmediate marriage. The attitude of the young Henry was also one to causeanxiety, and his answers to his father's messages were unsatisfactory. One occasion of delay after another, however, postponed Henry's crossing, and it was the middle of August before he landed in Normandy. We hearmuch less of the army that actually went with him than of the summons ofthe feudal levies for the purpose, but it is evident that a strong forceaccompanied him. The difficulty with the king of France first demandedattention. The legate consented to postpone action until Henry, who haddetermined to try the effect of a personal interview, should have aconference with Louis. This took place on September 21, near Nonancourt, and resulted in a treaty to the advantage of Henry. He agreed in theconference that the marriage should take place on the originalconditions, but nothing was said about it in the treaty. This concernedchiefly a crusade, which the two kings were to undertake in closealliance, and a dispute with regard to the allegiance of the county ofAuvergne, which was to be settled by arbitrators named in the treaty, After this success Henry found no need of a strong military force. Various minor matters detained him in France for nearly a year, the mostimportant of which was an expedition into Berri to force the surrender tohim of the heiress of Déols under the feudal right of wardship. July 15, 1178, Henry landed again in England for another long stay of nearly twoyears. As in his previous sojourn this time was occupied chiefly in afurther development of the judicial reforms already described. 

While Henry was occupied with these affairs, events in France wererapidly bringing on a change which was destined to be of the utmostimportance to England and the Angevin house. Louis VII had now reigned inFrance for more than forty years. His only son Philip, to be known inhistory as Philip Augustus, born in the summer of 1165, was now nearlyfifteen years old, but his father had not yet followed the example of hisancestors and had him crowned, despite the wishes of his family and theadvice of the pope. Even so unassertive a king as Louis VII was consciousof the security and strength which had come to the Capetian house withthe progress of the last hundred years. Now he was growing ill and felthimself an old man, though he was not yet quite sixty, and he determinedto make the succession secure before it should be too late. This decisionwas announced to a great council of the realm at the end of April, 1179, and was received with universal applause. August 15 was appointed as theday for the coronation, but before that day came the young prince wasseriously ill, and his father was once more deeply anxious for thefuture. Carried away by the ardour of the chase in the woods ofCompiegne, Philip had been separated from his attendants and had wanderedall one night alone in the forest, unable to find his way. Acharcoal-burner had brought him back to his father on the second day, butthe strain of the unaccustomed dread had been too much for the boy, andhe had been thrown into what threatened to be a dangerous illness. ToLouis's troubled mind occurred naturally the efficacy of the new andmighty saint, Thomas of Canterbury, who might be expected to recall withgratitude the favours which the king of France had shown him while he wasan exile. The plan of a pilgrimage to his shrine, putting the kingpractically at the mercy of a powerful rival, was looked upon by many ofLouis's advisers with great misgiving, but there need have been no fear. Henry could always be counted upon to respond in the spirit of chivalryto demands of this sort having in them something of an element ofromance. He met the royal pilgrim on his landing, and attended him duringhis short stay at Canterbury and back to Dover. This first visit of acrowned king of France to England, coming in his distress to seek the aidof her most popular saint, was long remembered there, as was also hisgenerosity to the monks of the cathedral church. The intercession of St. Thomas availed. The future king of France recovered, selected tobecome--it was believed that a vision of the saint himself sodeclared--the avenger of the martyr against the house from which he hadsuffered death. 

Philip recovered, but Louis fell ill with his last illness. As he drewnear to Paris on his return a sudden shock of paralysis smote him. Hiswhole right side was affected, and he was unable to be present at thecoronation of his son which had been postponed to November 1. At thisceremony the house of Anjou was represented by the young King Henry, whoas Duke of Normandy bore the royal crown, and who made a markedimpression on the assembly by his brilliant retinue, by the liberal scaleof his expenditure and the fact that he paid freely for everything thathe took, and by the generosity of the gifts which he brought from hisfather to the new king of France. The coronation of Philip II opens a newera in the history both of France and England, but the real change didnot declare itself at once. What seemed at the moment the most noteworthydifference was made by the sudden decline in influence of the house ofBlois and Champagne, which was attached to Louis VII by so many ties, andwhich had held so high a position at his court, and by the rise of CountPhilip of Flanders to the place of most influential counsellor, almost tothat of guardian of the young king. With the crowning of his son, Louis'sactual exercise of authority came to an end; the condition of his healthwould have made this necessary in any case, and Philip II was in factsole king. His first important step was his marriage in April, 1180, tothe niece of the Count of Flanders, Isabel of Hainault, the childlesscount promising an important cession of the territory of south-westernFlanders to France to take place on his own death, and hoping no doubt tosecure a permanent influence through the queen, while Philip probablyintended by this act to proclaim his independence of his mother's family. 

These rapid changes could not take place without exciting the anxiousattention of the king of England. His family interests, possibly also hisprestige on the continent, had suffered to some extent in the completeoverthrow and exile of his son-in-law Henry the Lion by the EmperorFrederick I, which had occurred in January, 1180, a few weeks before themarriage of Philip II, though as yet the Emperor had not been able toenforce the decision of the diet against the powerful duke. Henry ofEngland would have been glad to aid his son-in-law with a strong forceagainst the designs of Frederick, which threatened the revival of theimperial power and might be dangerous to all the sovereigns of the westif they succeeded, but he found himself between somewhat conflictinginterests and unable to declare himself with decision for either withoutthe risk of sacrificing the other. Already, before Philip's marriage, theyoung Henry had gone over to England to give his father an account of thesituation in France, and together they had crossed to Normandy early inApril. But the marriage had taken place a little later, and May 29 Philipand his bride were crowned at St. Denis by the Archbishop of Sens, anintentional slight to William of Blois, the Archbishop of Reims. Troopswere called into the field on both sides and preparations made for war, while the house of Blois formed a close alliance with Henry. But thegrandson of the great negotiator, Henry I, had no intention of appealingto the sword until he had tried the effect of diplomacy. On June 28 Henryand Philip met at Gisors under the old elm tree which had witnessed somany personal interviews between the kings of England and France. HereHenry won another success. Philip was reconciled with his mother'sfamily; an end was brought to the exclusive influence of the Count ofFlanders; and a treaty of peace and friendship was drawn up between thetwo kings modelled closely on that lately made between Henry and LouisVII, but containing only a general reference to a crusade. Henceforth, for a time, the character of Henry exercised a strong influence over theyoung king of France, and his practical statesmanship became a model forPhilip's imitation. 

At the beginning of March, 1182, Henry II returned to Normandy. Eventswhich were taking place in two quarters required his presence. In France, actual war had broken out in which the Count of Flanders was now inalliance with the house of Blois against the tendency towards a strongmonarchy which was already plainly showing itself in the policy of youngPhilip, Henry's sons had rendered loyal and indispensable assistance totheir French suzerain in this war, and now their father came to his aidwith his diplomatic skill. Before the close of April he had made peace tothe advantage of Philip. His other task was not so easily performed. Troubles had broken out again in Richard's duchy. The young duke was asdetermined to be master in his dominions as his father in his, but hismethods were harsh and violent; he was a fighter, not a diplomatist; theimmorality of his life gave rise to bitter complaints; and policy, methods, and personal character combined with the character of the landhe ruled to make peace impossible for any length of time. Now thetroubadour baron, Bertran de Born, who delighted in war and found thechosen field for his talents in stirring up strife between others, in aringing poem called on his brother barons to revolt. Henry, coming to aidhis son in May, 1182, found negotiation unsuccessful, and together in thefield they forced an apparent submission. But only for a few months. 

In the next act of the constantly varied drama of the Angevin family inthis generation the leading part is taken by the young king. For sometime past the situation in France had almost forced him into harmony withhis father, but this was from no change of spirit. Again he began todemand some part of the inheritance that was nominally his, and fled tohis customary refuge at Paris on a new refusal. With difficulty and bymaking a new arrangement for his income, his father was able to persuadehim to return, and Henry had what satisfaction there could be to him inspending the Christmas of 1182 at Caen with his three sons, Henry, Richard, and Geoffrey, and with his daughter Matilda and her exiledhusband, the Duke of Saxony. This family concord was at once broken byRichard's flat refusal to swear fealty to his elder brother forAquitaine. Already the Aquitanian rebels had begun to look to the youngHenry for help against his brother, and Bertran de Born had been busysowing strife between them. In the rebellion of the barons that followed, young Henry and his brother Geoffrey acted an equivocal and mostdishonourable part. Really doing all they could to aid the rebels againstRichard, they repeatedly abused the patience and affection of theirfather with pretended negotiations to gain time. Reduced to straits formoney, they took to plundering the monasteries and shrines of Aquitaine, not sparing even the most holy and famous shrine of Rocamadour, Immediately after one of the robberies, particularly heinous according tothe ideas of the time, the young king fell ill and grew rapidly worse. His message, asking his father to come to him, was treated with thesuspicion that it deserved after his recent acts, and he died with onlyhis personal followers about him, striving to atone for his life of sinat the last moment by repeated confession and partaking of the sacrament, by laying on William Marshal the duty of carrying his crusader's cloak tothe Holy Land, and by ordering the clergy present to drag him with a ropearound his neck on to a bed of ashes where he expired. 

CHAPTER XVI

HENRY OUTGENERALLED

The prince who died thus pitifully on June 11, 1183, was near the middleof his twenty-ninth year. He had never had an opportunity to show what hecould do as a ruler in an independent station, but if we may trust theindications of his character in other directions, he would have belongedto the weakest and worst type of the combined houses from which he wasdescended. But he made himself beloved by those who knew him, and hisearly death was deeply mourned even by the father who had suffered somuch from him. Few writers of the time saw clearly enough to discern thefrivolous character beneath the surface of attractive manners, and to thepoets of chivalry lament was natural for one in whom they recognizedinstinctively the expression of their own ideal. His devoted servant, William Marshal, carried out the mission with which he had been charged, and after an absence of two years on a crusade for Henry the son, hereturned and entered the service of Henry the father. 

The death of a king who had never been more than a king in name made nodifference in the political situation. It was a relief to Richard whoonce more and quickly got the better of his enemies. It must also in manyways have been a relief to Henry, though he showed no disposition to takefull advantage of it. The king had learned many things in the experienceof the years since his eldest son was crowned, but the conclusions whichseem to us most important, he appears not to have drawn. He had hadindeed enough of crowned kings among his sons, and from this time on, though Richard occupied clearly the position of heir to the crown, therewas no suggestion that he should be made actually king in the lifetime ofhis father. There is evidence also that after the late war the importantfortresses both of Aquitaine and Britanny passed into the possession ofHenry and were held by his garrisons, but just how much this meant it isnot easy to say. Certainly he had no intention of abandoning the plan ofparcelling out the great provinces of his dominion among his sons assubordinate rulers. It almost seems as if his first thought after thedeath of his eldest son was that now there was an opportunity ofproviding for his youngest. He sent to Ranulf Glanvill, justiciar ofEngland, to bring John over to Normandy, and on their arrival he sent forRichard and proposed to him to give up Aquitaine to his brother and totake his homage for it. Richard asked for a delay of two or three days toconsult his friends, took horse at once and escaped from the court, andfrom his duchy returned answer that he would never allow Aquitaine to bepossessed by any one but himself. 

The death of young Henry led at once to annoying questions raised byPhilip of France. His sister Margaret was now a widow without children, and he had some right to demand that the lands which had been ceded byFrance to Normandy as her marriage portion should be restored. These werethe Norman Vexin and the important frontier fortress of Gisors. In thetroublous times of 1151 Count Geoffrey might have felt justified insurrendering so important a part of Norman territory and defences to theking of France in order to secure the possession of the rest to his son, but times were now changed for that son, and he could not consent to openup the road into the heart of Normandy to his possible enemies. Hereplied to Philip that the cession of the Vexin had been final and thatthere could be no question of its return. Philip was not easilysatisfied, and there was much negotiation before a treaty on the subjectwas finally made at the beginning of December, 1183. At a conference nearGisors Henry did homage to Philip for all his French possessions, aliberal pension was accepted for Margaret in lieu of her dower lands, andthe king of France recognized the permanence of the cession to Normandyon the condition that Gisors should go to one of the sons of Henry on hismarriage with Adela which was once more promised. This marriage in theend never took place, but the Vexin remained a Norman possession. 

The year 1184 was a repetition in a series of minor details, familyquarrels, foreign negotiations, problems of government, and acts oflegislation, of many earlier years of the life of Henry. After Christmas, 1183, angered apparently by a new refusal of Richard to give up Aquitaineto John, or to allow any provision to be made for him in the duchy, Henrygave John an army and permission to make war on his brother to force fromhim what he could. Geoffrey joined in to aid John, or for his ownsatisfaction, and together they laid waste parts of Richard's lands. Hereplied in kind with an invasion of Britanny, and finally Henry had tointerfere and order all his sons over to England that he might reconcilethem. In the spring of the year he found it necessary to try to makepeace again between the king of France and the Count of Flanders. Theagreement which he had arranged in 1182 had not really settled thedifficulties that had arisen. The question now chiefly concerned thelands of Vermandois, Amiens, and Valois, the inheritance which theCountess of Flanders had brought to her husband. She had died just beforethe conclusion of the peace in 1182, without heirs, and it had been thenagreed that the Count should retain possession of the lands during hislife, recognizing certain rights of the king of France. Now he hadcontracted a second marriage in the evident hope of passing on his claimsto children of his own. Philip's declaration that this marriage shouldmake no difference in the disposition of these lands which were to provethe first important accession of territory made by the house of Capetsince it came to the throne, was followed by a renewal of the war, andthe best efforts of Henry II only succeeded in bringing about a truce fora year. 

Still earlier in the year died Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury, andlong disputes followed between the monks of the cathedral church and thesuffragan bishops of the province as to the election of his successor. The monks claimed the exclusive right of election, the bishops claimedthe right to concur and represented on this occasion the interests of theking. After a delay of almost a year, Baldwin, Bishop of Worcester, wasdeclared elected, but no final settlement was made of the disputed rightsto elect. In legislation the year is marked by the Forest Assize, whichregulated the forest courts and re-enacted the forest law of the earlyNorman kings in all its severity. One of its most important provisionswas that hereafter punishments for forest offences should be inflictedstrictly upon the body of the culprit and no longer take the form offines. Not merely was the taking of game by private persons forbidden, but the free use of their own timber on such of their lands as lay withinthe bounds of the royal forests was taken away. The Christmas feast ofthe year saw another family gathering more complete than usual, for notmerely were Richard and John present, but the Duke and Duchess of Saxony, still in exile, with their children, including the infant William, whohad been born at Winchester the previous summer, and whose directdescendants were long afterwards to come to the throne of his grandfatherwith the accession of the house of Hanover. Even Queen Eleanor waspresent at this festival, for she had been released for a time at therequest of her daughter Matilda. 

One more year of the half decade which still remained of life to Henrywas to pass with only a slight foreshadowing, near its close, of theanxieties which were to fill the remainder of his days. The firstquestion of importance which arose in 1185 concerned the kingdom ofJerusalem. England had down to this time taken slight and only indirectpart in the great movement of the crusades. The Christian states in theHoly Land had existed for nearly ninety years, but with slowly decliningstrength and defensive power. Recently the rapid progress of Saladin, creating a new Mohammedan empire, and not merely displaying greatmilitary and political skill, but bringing under one bond of interestthe Saracens of Egypt and Syria, whose conflicts heretofore had beenamong the best safeguards of the Christian state, threatened the mostserious results. The reigning king of Jerusalem at this moment wasBaldwin IV, grandson of that Fulk V, Count of Anjou, whom we saw, morethan fifty years before this date, handing over his French possessions tohis son Geoffrey, newly wedded to Matilda the Empress, and departing forthe Holy Land to marry its heiress and become its king. Baldwin wastherefore the first cousin of Henry II, and it was not unnatural that hiskingdom should turn in the midst of the difficulties that surrounded itto the head of the house of Anjou now so powerful in the west. Theembassy which came to seek his cousin's help was the most dignified andimposing that could be sent from the Holy Land, with Heraclius thepatriarch of Jerusalem at its head, supported by the grand-masters of theknights of the Temple and of the Hospital. The grand-master of theTemplars died at Verona on the journey, but the survivors landed inEngland at the end of January, 1185, and Henry who was on his way to Yorkturned back and met them at Reading. There Heraclius described the evilsthat afflicted the Christian kingdom so eloquently that the king and allthe multitude who heard were moved to sighs and tears. He offered toHenry the keys of the tower of David and of the holy sepulchre, and thebanner of the kingdom, with the right to the throne itself. 

To such an offer in these circumstances there was but one reply to make, and a king like Henry could never have been for a moment in doubt as towhat it should be. His case was very different from his grandfather'swhen a similar offer was made to him. Not merely did the responsibilityof a far larger dominion rest on him, with greater dangers within andwithout to be watched and overcome, but a still more importantconsideration was the fact that there was no one of his sons in whosehands his authority could be securely left. His departure would be thesignal for a new and disastrous civil war, and we may believe that thecharacter of his sons was a deciding reason with the king. But such anoffer, made in such a way, and backed by the religious motives so strongin that age, could not be lightly declined. A great council of thekingdom was summoned to meet in London about the middle of March toconsider the offer and the answer to be made. The king of Scotland andhis brother David, and the prelates and barons of England, debated thequestion, and advised Henry not to abandon the duties which rested uponhim at home. It is interesting to notice that the obligations which thecoronation oath had imposed on the king were called to mind asdetermining what he ought to do, though probably no more was meant bythis than that the appeal which the Church was making in favour of thecrusade was balanced by the duty which he had assumed before the Churchand under its sanction to govern well his hereditary kingdom. Apparentlythe patriarch was told that a consultation with the king of France wasnecessary, and shortly after they all crossed into Normandy. Before themeeting of the council in London Baldwin IV had closed his unhappy reignand was succeeded by his nephew Baldwin V, a child who never reached hismajority. In France the embassy succeeded no better. At a conferencebetween the kings the promise was made of ample aid in men and money, butthe great hope with which the envoys had started, that they might bringback with them the king of England, or at least one of his sons, to leadthe Christian cause in Palestine, was disappointed; and Heraclius set outon his return not merely deeply grieved, but angry with Henry for hisrefusal to undertake what he believed to be his obvious religious duty. 

Between the meeting of the council in London and the crossing intoNormandy, Henry had taken steps to carry out an earlier plan of his inregard to his son John. He seems now to have made up his mind thatRichard could never be induced to give up Aquitaine or any part of it, and he returned to his earlier idea of a kingdom of Ireland. Immediatelyafter the council he knighted John at Windsor and sent him to takepossession of the island, not yet as king but as lord (dominus). OnApril 25 he landed at Waterford, coming, it is said, with sixty ships anda large force of men-at-arms and foot-soldiers. John was at the timenearly nineteen years old, of an age when men were then expected to havereached maturity, and the prospect of success lay fair before him; but hemanaged in less than six months to prove conclusively that he was, as yetat least, totally unfit to rule a state. The native chieftains who hadaccepted his father's government came in to signify their obedience, buthe twitched their long beards and made sport before his attendants oftheir uncouth manners and dress, and allowed them to go home with angerin their hearts to stir up opposition to his rule. The Archbishop ofDublin and the barons who were most faithful to his father offered himtheir homage and support, but he neglected their counsels and evendisregarded their rights. The military force he had brought over, ampleto guard the conquests already made, or even to increase them, hedissipated in useless undertakings, and kept without their pay that hemight spend the money on his own amusements, until they abandoned him innumbers, and even went over to his Irish enemies. In a few months hefound himself confronted with too many difficulties, and gave up hispost, returning to his father with reasons for his failure that put theblame on others and covered up his own defects. Not long afterwards diedPope Lucius III, who had steadily refused to renew, or to put into legalform, the permission which Alexander III had granted to crown one ofHenry's sons king of Ireland; and to his successor, Urban III, newapplication was at once made in the special interest of John, and thistime with success. The pope is said even to have sent a crown made ofpeacock's feathers intertwined with gold as a sign of his confirmation ofthe title. 

John was, however, never actually crowned king of Ireland, and indeed itis probable that he never revisited the island. In the summer of the nextyear, 1186, news came, in the words of a contemporary, "that a certainIrishman had cut off the head of Hugh of Lacy. " Henry is said to haverejoiced at the news, for, though he had never found it possible to getalong for any length of time without the help of Hugh of Lacy in Ireland, he had always looked upon his measures and success with suspicion. Now heordered John to go over at once and seize into his hand Hugh's land andcastles, but John did not leave England. At the end of the year legatesto Ireland arrived in England from the pope, one object of whose missionwas to crown the king of Ireland, but Henry was by this time so deeplyinterested in questions that had arisen between himself and the king ofFrance because of the death of his son Geoffrey, the Count of Britanny, that he could not give his attention to Ireland, and with the legates hecrossed to Normandy instead, having sent John over in advance. 

Affairs in France had followed their familiar course since the conferencebetween Henry and Philip on the subject of the crusade in the spring of1185. Immediately after that meeting Henry had proceeded with great vigouragainst Richard. He had Eleanor brought over to Normandy, and thencommanded Richard to surrender to his mother all her inheritance underthreat of invasion with a great army. Richard, whether moved by the threator out of respect to his mother, immediately complied, and, we aretold, [48] remained at his father's court "like a well-behaved son, " whileHenry in person took possession of Aquitaine. In the meantime the warbetween Philip II and the Count of Flanders had gone steadily on, the kingof England declining to interfere again. At the end of July, 1185, thecount had been obliged to yield, and had ceded to Philip Amiens and mostof Vermandois, a very important enlargement of territory for the Frenchmonarchy. This first great success of the young king of France wasfollowed the next spring by the humiliation and forced submission of theDuke of Burgundy. 

In all these events the king of England had taken no active share. He wasa mere looker-on, or if he had interfered at all, it was rather to theadvantage of Philip, while the rival monarchy in France had not merelyincreased the territory under its direct control, but taught the greatvassals the lesson of obedience, and proclaimed to all the world that therights of the crown would be everywhere affirmed and enforced. It wasclearly the opening of a new era, yet Henry gave not the slightestevidence that he saw it or understood its meaning for himself. While itis certain that Philip had early detected the weakness of the Angevinempire, and had formed his plan for its destruction long before he wasable to carry it out, we can only note with surprise that Henry made nochange in his policy to meet the new danger of which he had abundantwarning. He seems never to have understood that in Philip Augustus he hadto deal with a different man from Louis VII. That he continued steadilyunder the changed circumstances his old policy of non-interventionoutside his own frontiers, of preserving peace to the latest possiblemoment, and of devoting himself to the maintenance and perfection of astrong government wherever he had direct rule, is more creditable to thecharacter of Henry II than to the insight of a statesman responsible forthe continuance of a great empire, and offered the realization of a greatpossibility. To Philip Augustus it was the possibility only which wasoffered; the empire was still to be created: but while hardly more than aboy, he read the situation with clear insight and saw before him the goalto be reached and the way to reach it, and this he followed with untiringpatience to the end of his long reign. 

When Henry returned to England at the end of April, 1186, he abandonedall prospect of profiting by the opportunity which still existed, thoughin diminished degree, of checking in its beginning the ominous growth ofPhilip's power, an opportunity which we may believe his grandfather wouldnot have overlooked or neglected. By the end of the summer all chance ofthis was over, and no policy of safety remained to Henry but a trial ofstrength to the finish with his crafty suzerain, for Philip had notmerely returned successful from his Burgundian expedition, but he hadalmost without effort at concealment made his first moves against theAngevin power. His opening was the obvious one offered him by thedissensions in Henry's family, and his first move was as skilful as thelatest he ever made. Richard was now on good terms with his father; itwould even appear that he had been restored to the rule of Aquitaine; atany rate Henry's last act before his return to England in April had beento hand over to Richard a great sum of money with directions to subduehis foes. Richard took the money and made successful and cruel war on theCount of Toulouse, on what grounds we know not. Geoffrey, however, offered himself to Philip's purposes. Henry's third son seems to havebeen in character and conduct somewhat like his eldest brother, the youngking. He had the same popular gifts and attractive manners; he enjoyed analmost equal renown for knightly accomplishments and for the knightlyvirtue of "largesse"; and he was, in the same way, bitterly dissatisfiedwith his own position. He believed that the death of his brother ought toimprove his prospects, and his mind was set on having the county of Anjouadded to his possessions. When Richard and his father refused him this, he turned to France and betook himself to Paris. Philip received him withopen arms, and they speedily became devoted friends. Just what theirimmediate plans were we cannot say. They evidently had not been madepublic, and various rumours were in circulation. Some said that Geoffreywould hold Britanny of Philip; or he had been made seneschal of France, an office that ought to go with the county of Anjou; or he was about toinvade and devastate Normandy. It is probable that some overt actionwould have been undertaken very shortly when suddenly, on August 19, Geoffrey died, having been mortally hurt in a tournament, or from anattack of fever, or perhaps from both causes. He was buried in Paris, Philip showing great grief and being, it is said, with difficultyrestrained from throwing himself into the grave. 

The death of Geoffrey may have made a change in the form of Philip'splans, and perhaps in the date of his first attempt to carry them out, but not in their ultimate object. It furnished him, indeed, with a newsubject of demand on Henry. There had been no lack of subjects in thepast, and he had pushed them persistently: the question of Margaret'sdower lands, --the return of the Norman Vexin, --and of the payment of hermoney allowance, complicated now by her second marriage to Bela, king ofHungary; the standing question of the marriage of Philip's sister Adela;the dispute about the suzerainty of Auvergne still unsettled; and finallyRichard's war on the Count of Toulouse. Now was added the question of thewardship of Britanny. At the time of his death one child had been born toGeoffrey of his marriage with Constance, --a daughter, Eleanor, who wasrecognized as the heiress of the county. Without delay Philip sent anembassy to Henry in England and demanded the wardship of the heiress, with threats of war if the demand was not complied with. The justice ofPhilip's claim in this case was not entirely clear since he was not theimmediate lord of Britanny, but kings had not always respected the rightsof their vassals in the matter of rich heiresses, and possibly Geoffreyhad actually performed the homage to Philip which he was reported to beplanning to do. In any case it was impossible for Henry to acceptPhilip's view of his rights, but war at the moment would have beeninconvenient, and so he sent a return embassy with Ranulf Glanvill at itshead, and succeeded in getting a truce until the middle of the winter. Various fruitless negotiations followed, complicated by an attack made bythe garrison of Gisors on French workmen found building an opposingcastle just over the border. Henry himself crossed to Normandy about themiddle of February, 1187, but personal interviews with Philip led to noresult, and the situation drifted steadily toward war. The birth of aposthumous son to Geoffrey in March--whom the Bretons insisted on callingArthur, though Henry wished to give him his own name, a sure sign oftheir wish for a more independent position--brought about no change. Philip had protected himself from all danger of outside interference byan alliance with the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and was determined onwar. By the middle of May both sides were ready. Henry divided his armyinto four divisions and adopted a purely defensive policy. 

Philip's attack fell on the lands of disputed allegiance on the easternedge of the duchy of Aquitaine near his own possessions, and after a fewminor successes he laid siege to the important castle of Châteauroux. Thiswas defended by Richard in person, with his brother John, but Philippressed the siege until Henry drew near with an army, when he retired ashort distance and awaited the next move. Negotiations followed, in thecourse of which the deep impression that the character of Philip hadalready made on his great vassals is clearly to be seen. [49] Henry'sdesire was to avoid a battle, and this was probably the best policy forhim; it certainly was unless he were willing, as he seems not to havebeen, to bring on at once the inevitable mortal struggle between thehouses of Capet and Anjou. Unimportant circumstances on both sides came into favour Henry's wish and to prevent a battle, and finally Henry himself, by a most extraordinary act of folly, threw into the hands of Philip theopportunity of gaining a greater advantage for his ultimate purposes thanhe could hope to gain at that time from any victory. Henry's great dangerwas Richard. In the situation it was incumbent on him from everyconsideration of policy to keep Richard satisfied, and to prevent notmerely the division of the Angevin strength, but the reinforcement ofthe enemy with the half of it. He certainly had had experience enoughof Richard's character to know what to expect. He ought by that time tohave been able to read Philip Augustus's. And yet he calmly proceeded toa step from which, it is hardly too much to say, all his later troublescame through the suspicion he aroused in Richard's mind, --a step sounaccountable that we are tempted to reject our single, rather doubtfulaccount of it. He wrote a letter to Philip proposing that Adela should bemarried to John, who should then be invested with all the French fiefsheld by the house of Anjou except Normandy, which with the kingdom ofEngland should remain to Richard. [50] If Henry was blind enough to supposethat the Duke of Aquitaine could be reconciled to such an arrangement, Philip saw at once what the effect of the proposal would be, and he sentthe letter to Richard. 

The immediate result was a treaty of peace to continue in force for twoyears, brought about apparently by direct negotiations between Richardand Philip, but less unfavourable to Henry than might have been expected. It contained, according to our French authorities, the very probableagreement that the points in dispute between the two kings should besubmitted to the decision of the curia regis of France, and Philip wasallowed to retain the lordships of Issoudun and Fréteval, which he hadpreviously occupied, as pledges for the carrying out of the treaty. Theultimate result of Philip's cunning was that Richard deserted his fatherand went home with the king of France, and together they lived for a timein the greatest intimacy. Philip, it seemed, now loved Richard "as hisown soul, " and showed him great honour. Every day they ate at table fromthe same plate, and at night they slept in the same bed. One is remindedof Philip's ardent love for Geoffrey, and certain suspicions inevitablyarise in the mind. But at any rate the alarm of Henry was excited by thenew intimacy, and he did not venture to go over to England as he wishedto do until he should know what the outcome was to be. He sent frequentmessengers to Richard, urging him to return and promising to grant himeverything that he could justly claim, but without effect. At one timeRichard pretended to be favourably inclined, and set out as if to meethis father, but instead he fell upon the king's treasure at Chinon andcarried it off to Aquitaine to use in putting his own castles into astate of defence. His father, however, forgave even this and continued tosend for him, and at last he yielded. Together they went to Angers, andthere in a great assembly Richard performed liege homage to his fatheronce more and swore fealty to him "against all men, " a fact which wouldseem to show that Richard had in some formal way renounced his fealtywhile at Philip's court, though we have no account of his doing so. During this period, in September, 1187, an heir was born to King Philip, the future Louis VIII. 

As this year drew to its close frequent letters and messengers from theHoly Land made known to the west one terrible disaster after another. Saladin with a great army had fallen on the weak and divided kingdom andhad won incredible successes. The infant king, Baldwin V, had died beforethese events began, and his mother Sibyl was recognized as queen. Sheimmediately, against the expressed wish of the great barons, gave thecrown to her husband, Guy of Lusignan. He was a brave man and an earnestdefender of the Holy Land, but he could not accomplish the impossibletask of maintaining a kingdom, itself so weak, in the face of open andsecret treachery. In October the news reached Europe of the utter defeatof the Christians, of the capture of the king, and worse still of thetrue Cross by the infidels. The pope, Urban III, died of grief at thetidings. His successor, Gregory VIII, at once urged Europe to a newcrusade in a long and vigorous appeal. Very soon afterwards followed thenews of the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin. The Emperor Frederick wasanxious to put himself at the head of the armies of Christendom, as hewas entitled to do as sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire, and lead themto recover the holy places. But while most princes delayed and waited toknow what others would do, the impulsive and emotional Richard took thecross the next morning, men said, after he had learned the news. This hedid without the knowledge of his father who was shocked to learn of it, and shut himself up for days, understanding more clearly than did his sonwhat the absence of the heir to the throne on such a long and uncertainexpedition would mean at such a time. 

The advisability, the possibility even, of such a crusade would alldepend upon Philip, and the movements of Philip just then were verydisquieting. About the beginning of the new year, 1188, he returned froma conference with the Emperor Frederick, which in itself could bode nogood to the father-in-law and supporter of Henry the Lion, andimmediately began collecting a large army, "impudently boasting, " saysthe English chronicler of Henry's life, "that he would lay waste Normandyand the other lands of the king of England that side the sea, if he didnot return to him Gisors and all that belonged to it or make his sonRichard take to wife Adela the daughter of his father Louis. " Philipevidently did not intend to drop everything to go to the rescue ofJerusalem nor was he inclined at any expense to his own interests to makeit easy for those who would. Henry who was already at the coast on thepoint of crossing to England, at once turned back when he heard ofPhilip's threats, and arranged for a conference with him on January 21. Here was the opportunity for those who were urging on the crusade. Thekings of France and England with their chief barons were to be togetherwhile the public excitement was still high and the Christian duty ofchecking the Saracen conquest still keenly felt. The Archbishop of Tyre, who had come to France on this mission, gave up all his otherundertakings as soon as he heard of the meeting and resolved to makethese great princes converts to his cause. It was not an easy task. Neither Henry nor Philip was made of crusading material, and both werefar more interested in the tasks of constructive statesmanship which theyhad on hand than in the fate of the distant kingdom of Jerusalem. Agreater obstacle than this even was their fear of each other, of whatevil one might do in the absence of the other, the unwillingness ofeither to pledge himself to anything definite until he knew what theother was going to do, and the difficulty of finding any arrangementwhich would bind them both at once. It is practically certain that theyyielded at last only to the pressure of public opinion which must havebeen exceedingly strong in the excitement of the time and under theimpassioned eloquence of a messenger direct from the scene of the recentdisasters. It was a great day for the Church when so many men of thehighest rank, kings and great barons, took the cross, and it was agreedthat the spot should be marked by a new church, and that it should bearthe name of the Holy Field. 

Whatever may be true of Philip, there can, I think, be no doubt that, whenHenry took the cross, he intended to keep his vow. It was agreed betweenthem that all things should remain as they were until their return; andHenry formally claimed of his suzerain the protection of his lands duringhis absence, and Philip accepted the duty. [51] A few days after taking thecross Henry held an assembly at Le Mans and ordered a tax in aid of hiscrusade. This was the famous Saladin tithe, which marks an important stepin the history of modern taxation. It was modelled on an earlier tax forthe same purpose which had been agreed upon between France and Englandin 1166, but it shows a considerable development upon that, both inconception and in the arrangements for carrying out the details of thetax. The ordinance provided for the payment by all, except those who werethemselves going on the crusade, of a tenth, a "tithe, " of both personalproperty and income, precious stones being exempt and the necessary toolsof their trade of both knights and clerks. Somewhat elaborate machinerywas provided for the collection of the tax, and the whole was placed underthe sanction of the Church. A similar ordinance was shortly adopted byPhilip for France, and on February 11, Henry, then in England, held acouncil at Geddington, in Northamptonshire, and ordained the same tax forEngland. 

In the meantime the crusade had received a check, and partly, at least, through the fault of its most eager leader, Richard of Poitou. Arebellion had broken out against him, and he was pushing the war with hisusual rapidity and his usual severities, adopting now, however, theinteresting variation of remitting all other penalties if his prisonerswould take the cross. If Richard was quickly master of the rebellion, itserved on the one hand to embitter him still more against his father, from the report, which in his suspicious attitude he was quick tobelieve, that Henry's money and encouragement had supported the rebelsagainst him; and on the other, to lead to hostilities with the Count ofToulouse. The count had not neglected the opportunity of Richard'stroubles to get a little satisfaction for his own grievances, and hadseized some merchants from the English lands. Richard responded with araid into Toulouse, in which he captured the chief minister of the countand refused ransom for him. Then the count in his turn arrested a coupleof English knights of some standing at court, who were returning from apilgrimage to St. James of Compostella. Still Richard refused eitherransom or exchange, and an appeal to the king of France led to no result. Richard told his father afterwards that Philip had encouraged his attackon the count. Soon, however, his rapid successes in Toulouse, where hewas taking castle after castle, compelled Philip to more decidedinterference; probably he was not sorry to find a reason both to postponethe crusade and to renew the attack on the Angevin lands. First he sentan embassy to Henry in England to protest against Richard's doings, andreceived the reply that the war was against Henry's will, and that hecould not justify it. With a great army Philip then invaded Auvergne, captured Châteauroux and took possession of almost all Berri. An embassysent to bring Philip to a better mind was refused all satisfaction, andHenry, seeing that his presence was necessary in France, crossed thechannel for the last of many times and landed in Normandy on July 1, 1188. 

All things were now, indeed, drawing to a close with Henry, who was notmerely worn out and ill, but was plunged into a tide of events flowingswiftly against all the currents of his own life. Swept away by thestrong forces of a new age which he could no longer control, driven andthwarted by men, even his own sons, whose ideals of conduct and ambitionwere foreign to his own and never understood, compelled to do thingshe had striven to avoid, and to see helplessly the policy of his longreign brought to naught, the coming months were for him full of bitterdisasters which could end only, as they did, in heartbreak and death. Not yet, however, was he brought to this point, and he got together agreat army and made ready to fight if necessary. But first, true to hispolicy of negotiation, he sent another embassy to Philip and demandedrestitution under the threat of renouncing his fealty. Philip's answerwas a refusal to stop his hostilities until he should have occupied allBerri and the Norman Vexin. War was now inevitable, but it lingered forsome time without events of importance, and on August 16 began a newthree days' conference at the historic meeting-place of the kings nearGisors. This also ended fruitlessly; some of the French even attacked theEnglish position, and then cut down in anger the old elm tree under whichso many conferences had taken place. Philip was, however, in no conditionto push the war upon which he had determined. The crusading ardour ofFrance which he himself did not feel, and which had failed to bring abouta peace at Gisors, expressed itself in another way; and the Count ofFlanders and Theobald of Blois and other great barons of Philip notifiedhim that they would take no part in a war against Christians until aftertheir return from Jerusalem. 

Philip's embarrassment availed Henry but little, although his own forceremained undiminished. A sudden dash at Mantes on August 30, led only tothe burning of a dozen or more French villages, for Philip by a veryhurried march from Chaumont was able to throw himself into the city, andHenry withdrew without venturing a pitched battle. On the next dayRichard, who till then had been with his father, went off to Berri topush with some vigour the attack on Philip's conquests there, promisinghis father faithful service. A double attack on the French, north andsouth, was not a bad plan as Philip was then situated, but for somereason not clear to us Henry seems to have let matters drift and made nouse of the great army which he had got together. The king of France, however, saw clearly what his next move should be, and he sent to proposepeace to Henry on the basis of a restoration of conquests on both sides. Henry was ever ready for peace, and a new conference took place atChatillon on the Indre, where it was found that Philip's proposition wasthe exchange of his conquests in Berri for those of Richard in Toulouse, and the handing over to him of the castle of Pacy, near Mantes, as apledge that the treaty would be kept. It is difficult to avoid theconclusion that Philip knew that this demand would be refused, as it was, and that he had only made the proposal of peace in order to gain time tocollect a new force. In this he must now have succeeded, for heimmediately took the offensive in Berri and added somewhat to hisconquests, probably by hiring the German mercenaries whom we learn heshortly afterwards defrauded of their pay. 

In the meantime Richard and Philip were drawing together again, in whatway exactly we do not know. We suspect some underhanded work of Philip'swhich would be easy enough. Evidently Richard was still very anxiousabout the succession, and it seems to have occurred to him to utilize hisfather's desire for peace on the basis of Philip's latest proposition, togain a definite recognition of his rights. At any rate we are told thathe brought about the next meeting between the kings, and that he offeredto submit the question of the rights or wrongs of his war with Toulouseto the decision of the French king's court. This dramatic and fatefulconference which marks the success of Philip's intrigues began onNovember 18 at Bonmoulins, and lasted three days. Henry was ready toaccept the proposal now made that all things should be restored on bothsides to the condition which existed at the taking of the cross, but hereRichard interposed a decided objection. He could not see the justice ofbeing made to restore his conquests in Toulouse which he was holding indomain, and which were worth a thousand marks a year, to get back himselfsome castles in Berri which were not of his domain but only held of him. Then Philip for him, evidently by previous agreement, brought forward thequestion of the succession. The new proposition was that Richard andAdela should be married and that homage should be paid to Richard as heirfrom all the Angevin dominions. It seems likely, though it is not sostated, that on this condition Richard would have agreed to the evenexchange of conquests. As time went on the discussion, which had been atfirst peaceable and calm, became more and more excited so that on thethird day the attendants came armed. On that day harsh words and threatswere exchanged. To Richard's direct demand that he should make him securein the succession, Henry replied that he could not do it in the existingcircumstances, for, if he did, he would seem to be yielding to threatsand not acting of his own will. Then Richard, crying out that he couldnow believe things that had seemed incredible to him, turned at once toPhilip, threw off his sword, and in the presence of his father and allthe bystanders offered him his homage for all the French fiefs, includingToulouse, saying his father's rights during his lifetime and his ownallegiance to his father. Philip accepted this offer without scruple, andpromised to Richard the restoration of what he had taken in Berri, withIssoudun and all that he had conquered of the English possessions sincethe beginning of his reign. 

To one at least of the historians of the time Richard's feeling about thesuccession did not seem strange, nor can it to us. [52] For this act ofRichard, after which peace was never restored between himself and hisfather, Henry must share full blame with him. Whether he was actuated bya blind affection for his youngest son, or by dislike and distrust ofRichard, or by a remembrance of his troubles with his eldest son, hisrefusal to recognize Richard as his heir and to allow him to receive thehomage of the English and French barons, a custom sanctioned by thepractice of a hundred years in England and of a much longer period inFrance, was a political and dynastic blunder of a most astonishing kind. Nothing could show more clearly how little he understood Philip Augustusor the danger which now threatened the Angevin house. As for Richard, hemay have been quick-tempered, passionate, and rash, not having thewell-poised mind of the diplomatist or the statesman, at least not one ofthe high order demanded by the circumstances, and deceived by his ownanger and by the machinations of Philip; yet we can hardly blame him foroffering his homage to the king of France. Nor can we call the actillegal, though it was extreme and unusual, and might seem almostrevolutionary. An appeal to his overlord was in fact the only legal meansleft him of securing his inheritance, and it bound Philip not to recognizeany one else as the heir of Henry. Philip was clearly within his legalrights in accepting the offer of Richard, and the care with whichRichard's declaration was made to keep within the law, reserving all therights which should be reserved, shows that however impulsive his act mayhave seemed to the bystanders, it really had been carefully considered andplanned in advance. The conference broke up after this with no otherresult than a truce to January 13, and Richard rode off with Philipwithout taking leave of his father. 

For all that had taken place Henry did not give up his efforts to bringback Richard to himself, but they were without avail. He himself, burdened with anxiety and torn by conflicting emotions, was growing moreand more ill. The scanty attendance at his Christmas court showed him theopinion of the barons of the hopelessness of his cause and the prudenceof making themselves secure with Richard. He was not well enough to meethis enemies in the conference proposed for January 13, and it waspostponed first to February 2 and then to Easter, April 9. It was now, however, too late for anything to be accomplished by diplomacy. Henrycould not yield to the demands made of him until he was beaten in thefield, nor were they likely to be modified. Indeed we find at this timethe new demand appearing that John should be made to go on the crusadewhen Richard did. Even the intervention of the pope, who was representedat the conferences finally held soon after Easter and early in June, by acardinal legate, in earnest effort for the crusade, served only to showhow completely Philip was the man of a new age. To the threat of thelegate, who saw that the failure to make peace was chiefly due to him, that he would lay France under an interdict if he did not come to termswith the king of England, Philip replied in defiant words that he did notfear the sentence and would not regard it, for it would be unjust, sincethe Roman Church had no right to interfere within France between the kingand his rebellious vassal and he overbore the legate and compelled him tokeep silence. 

After this conference events drew swiftly to an end. The allies pushedthe war, and in a few days captured Le Mans, forcing Henry to a suddenflight in which he was almost taken prisoner. A few days later stillPhilip stormed the walls of Tours and took that city. Henry was almost afugitive with few followers and few friends in the hereditary county fromwhich his house was named. He had turned aside from the better fortifiedand more easily defended Normandy against the advice of all, and nowthere was nothing for him but to yield. Terms of peace were settled in afinal conference near Colombières on July 4, 1189. At the meeting Henrywas so ill that he could hardly sit his horse, though Richard and Philiphad sneered at his illness and called it pretence, but he resolutelyendured the pain as he did the humiliation of the hour. Philip's demandsseem surprisingly small considering the man and the completeness of hisvictory, but there were no grounds on which he could demand from Henryany great concession. One thing he did insist upon, and that was for himprobably the most important advantage which he gained. Henry mustacknowledge himself entirely at his mercy, as a contumacious vassal, andaccept any sentence imposed on him. In the great task which PhilipAugustus had before him, already so successfully begun, of building up inFrance a strong monarchy and of forcing many powerful and independentvassals into obedience to the crown, nothing could be more useful thanthis precedent, so dramatic and impressive, of the unconditionalsubmission of the most powerful of all the vassals, himself a crownedking. All rights over the disputed county of Auvergne were abandoned. Richard was acknowledged heir and was to receive the homage of allbarons. Those who had given in their allegiance to Richard should remainwith him till the crusade, which was to be begun the next spring, and20, 000 marks were to be paid the king of France for his expenses on thecaptured castles, which were to be returned to Henry. 

These were the principal conditions, and to all these Henry agreed as hemust. That he intended to give up all effort and rest satisfied with thisresult is not likely, and words he is said to have used indicate thecontrary, but his disease and his broken spirits had brought him nearerthe end than he knew. One more blow, for him the severest of all, remained for him to suffer. He found at the head of the list of those whohad abandoned his allegiance the name of John. Then his will forsook himand his heart broke. He turned his face to the wall and cried: "Leteverything go as it will; I care no more for myself or for the world. " OnJuly 6 he died at Chinon, murmuring almost to the last, "Shame on aconquered king, " and abandoned by all his family except his eldest sonGeoffrey, the son, it was said, of a woman, low in character as in birth. 

[48] Gesia Henrici, i. 338. 

[49] Gervase of Canterbury, i. 371; Giraldus Cambrensis, De PrincipisInstructione, iii. 2. (Opera, viii. 231. )

[50] Giraldus Cambrensis, De Principis Instructione. (Opera, viii. 232. )

[51] Ralph de Diceto, ii. 55. 

[52] Gervase of Canterbury, i. 435. 

CHAPTER XVII

RICHARD I AND THE CRUSADE

The death of Henry II may be taken to mark the close of an epoch inEnglish history, the epoch which had begun with the Norman Conquest. Wemay call it, for want of a better name, the feudal age, --the age duringwhich the prevailing organization, ideals, and practices had beenNorman-feudal. It was an age in which Normandy and the continentalinterests of king and barons, and the continental spirit and methods, hadimposed themselves upon the island realm. It was a time in which thegreat force in the state and the chief factor in its history had been theking. The interests of the barons had been on the whole identical withhis. The rights which feudal law and custom gave him had been practicallyunquestioned, save by an always reluctant Church, and baronial oppositionhad taken the form of a resistance to his general power rather than of adenial of special rights. Now a change had silently begun which was soonto show itself openly and to lead to great results. This change involvedonly slowly and indirectly the general power of the king, but it takesits beginning from two sources: the rising importance of England in thetotal dominions of the king, and the disposition to question certain ofhis rights. Normandy was losing its power over the English baron, or ifthis is too strong a statement for anything that was yet true, he wasbeginning to identify himself more closely with England and to feel lessinterest in sacrifices and burdens which inured only to the benefit ofthe king and a policy foreign to the country. To the disposition toquestion the king's actions and demands Henry had himself contributed nota little by the frequency and greatness of those demands, and by thesmall regard to the privileges of his vassals shown in the development ofhis judicial reforms and in his financial measures these last indeedunder Henry II violated the baronial rights less directly but, as theywere carried on by his sons, they attacked them in a still more decisiveway. When once this disposition had begun, the very strength of theNorman monarchy was an element of weakness, for it gave to individualcomplaints a unity and a degree of importance and interest for thecountry which they might not otherwise have had. In this development thereign of Richard, though differing but little in outward appearance fromhis father's, was a time of rapid preparation, leading directly to thestruggles of his brother's reign and to the first great forward step, theact which marks the full beginning of the new era. 

Richard could have felt no grief at the death of his father, and he madeno show of any. Geoffrey had gone for the burial to the nunnery ofFontevrault, a favourite convent of Henry's, and there Richard appearedas soon as he heard the news, and knelt beside the body of his father, which was said to have bled on his approach, as long as it would take tosay the Lord's prayer. Then we are told he turned at once to business. The first act which he performed, according to one of our authorities, onstepping outside the church was characteristic of the beginning of hisreign. One of the most faithful of his father's later servants wasWilliam Marshal, who had been earlier in the service of his son Henry. Hehad remained with the king to the last, and in the hurried retreat fromLe Mans he had guarded the rear. On Richard's coming up in pursuit he hadturned upon him with his lance and might have killed him as he waswithout his coat of mail, but instead, on Richard's crying out to bespared, he had only slain his horse, and so checked the pursuit, thoughhe had spared him with words of contempt which Richard must haveremembered: "No, I will not slay you, " he had said; "the devil may slayyou. " Now both he and his friends were anxious as to the reception hewould meet with from the prince, but Richard was resolved to start fromthe beginning as king and not as Count of Poitou. He called WilliamMarshal to him, referred to the incident, granted him his full pardon, confirmed the gift to him which Henry had recently made him of the handof the heiress of the Earl of Pembroke and her rich inheritance, andcommissioned him to go at once to England to take charge of the king'sinterests there until his own arrival. This incident was typical ofRichard's action in general. Henry's faithful servants suffered nothingfor their fidelity in opposing his son; the barons who had abandoned himbefore his death, to seek their own selfish advantage because theybelieved the tide was turning against him, were taught that Richard wasable to estimate their conduct at its real worth. 

Henry on his death-bed had made no attempt to dispose of the succession. On the retreat from Le Mans he had sent strict orders to Normandy, togive up the castles there in the event of his death to no one but John. But the knowledge of John's treason would have changed that, even if ithad been possible to set aside the treaty of Colombières. There was nodisposition anywhere to question Richard's right. On July 20 at Rouen hewas formally girt with the sword of the duchy of Normandy, by thearchbishop and received the homage of the clergy and other barons. He atonce confirmed to his brother John, who had joined him, the grants madeor promised him by their father: £4000 worth of land in England, thecounty of Mortain in Normandy, and the hand and inheritance of theheiress of the Earl of Gloucester. To his other brother, Geoffrey, hegave the archbishopric of York, carrying out a wish which Henry hadexpressed in his last moments; and Matilda, the daughter of Henry theLion, was given as his bride to another Geoffrey, the heir of the countyof Perche, a border land whose alliance would be of importance in case oftrouble with France. Two days later he had an interview with King Philipat the old meeting-place near Gisors. There Philip quickly made evidentthe fact that in his eyes the king of England was a different person fromthe rebellious Count of Poitou, and he met Richard with his familiardemand that the Norman Vexin should be given up. Without doubt the pointof view had changed as much to Richard, and he adopted his father'stactics and promised to marry Adela. He also promised Philip 4000 marksin addition to the 20, 000 which Henry had agreed to pay. With thesepromises Philip professed himself content. He received Richard's homagefor all the French fiefs, and the treaty lately made with Henry wasconfirmed, including the agreement to start on the crusade the nextspring. 

In the meantime by the command of Richard his mother, Eleanor, was setfree from custody in England; and assuming a royal state she made aprogress through the kingdom and gave orders for the release ofprisoners. About the middle of August Richard himself landed in Englandwith John. No one had any grounds on which to expect a particularly goodreign from him, but he was everywhere joyfully received, especially byhis mother and the barons at Winchester. A few days later the marriage ofJohn to Isabel of Gloucester was celebrated, in spite of a formal protestentered by Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, because the parties wererelated within the prohibited degrees. The coronation took place onSunday, September 3, and was celebrated apparently with much care tofollow the old ritual correctly and with much formal pomp and ceremony, so that it became a new precedent for later occasions down to the presentday. 

Richard was then just coming to the end of his thirty-second year. Inphysical appearance he was not like either the Norman or the Angevintype, but was taller and of a more delicate and refined cast, and hisportrait shows a rather handsome face. In character and ambitions also hewas not a descendant of his father's line. The humdrum business of rulingthe state, of developing its law and institutions, of keeping order anddoing justice, or even of following a consistent and long-continuedpolicy of increasing his power or enlarging his territories, was littleto his taste. He was determined, as his father had been, to be a strongking and to put down utterly every rebellion, but his determination to beobeyed was rather a resolution of the moment than a means to any foreseenand planned conclusion. He has been called by one who knew the time mostthoroughly "the creation and impersonation of his age, " and nothingbetter can be said. The first age of a self-conscious chivalry, delighting intensely in the physical life, in the sense of strength andpower, that belonged to baron and knight, and in the stirring scenes ofcastle and tournament and distant adventure, the age of the troubadour, of an idealized warfare and an idealized love, the age which hadexpressed one side of itself in his brother Henry, expressed a more manlyside in Richard. He was first of all a warrior; not a general but afighter. The wild enthusiasm of the hand-to-hand conflict, the matchingof skill against skill and of strength against strength, was an intensepleasure to him, and his superiority in the tactics of the battle-field, in the planning and management of a fight, or even of a series of attacksor defences, a march or a retreat, placed him easily in the front rank ofcommanders in an age when the larger strategy of the highest order ofgeneralship had little place. Of England he had no knowledge. He was bornthere, and he had paid it two brief visits before his coronation, but heknew nothing of the language or the people. He had spent all his life inhis southern dominions, and the south had made him what he was. Hisinterest in England was chiefly as a source of supplies, and to him thecrusade was, by the necessities of his nature, of greater importance thanthe real business of a king. For England itself the period was one duringwhich there was no king, though it was by the authority of an absent kingthat a series of great ministers carried forward the development of themachinery and law which had begun to be put into organized form inHenry's reign, and carried forward also the training of the classes whohad a share in public affairs for the approaching crisis of theirhistory. From this point of view the exceedingly burdensome demands ofRichard upon his English subjects are the most important feature of histime. 

At the beginning of his reign Richard had, like his father, a great workto do, great at least from his point of view; but the difference betweenthe two tasks shows how thoroughly Henry had performed his. Richard'sproblem was to get as much money as possible for the expenses of thecrusade, and to arrange things, if possible, in such a shape that theexisting peace and quiet would be undisturbed during his absence. Aboutthe business of raising money he set immediately and thoroughly. Themedieval king had many things to sell which are denied the modernsovereign: offices, favour, and pardons, the rights of the crown, and evenin some cases the rights of the purchaser himself. This was Richard'schief resource. "The king exposed for sale, " as a chronicler of the timesaid, [53] "everything that he had"; or as another said, [54] "whoeverwished, bought of the king his own and others' rights": not merely was thewilling purchaser welcome, but the unwilling was compelled to buy whereverpossible. Ranulf Glanvill, the great judge, Henry's justiciar and "the eyeof the king, " was compelled to resign and to purchase his liberty with thegreat sum, it is asserted, of £15, 000. In most of the counties the formersheriffs were removed and fined, and the offices thus vacated were sold tothe highest bidder. The Bishop of Durham, Hugh de Puiset, bought theearldom of Northumberland and the justiciarship of England; the Bishop ofWinchester and the Abbot of St. Edmund's bought manors which belonged ofright to their churches; the Bishop of Coventry bought a priory and thesheriffdoms of three counties; even the king's own devoted follower, William of Longchamp, paid £3000 to be chancellor of the kingdom. Saleslike these were not unusual in the practice of kings, nor would they haveoccasioned much remark at the time, if the matter had not been carried tosuch extremes, and the rights and interests of the kingdom so openlydisregarded. The most flagrant case of this sort was that relating to theliege homage of the king of Scotland, which Henry had exacted by formaltreaty from William the Lion and his barons. In December, 1189, KingWilliam was escorted to Richard at Canterbury by Geoffrey, Archbishop ofYork and the barons of Yorkshire, and there did homage for his Englishlands, but was, on a payment of 10, 000 marks, released from whateverobligations he had assumed in addition to those of former Scottish kings. Nothing could show more clearly than this how different were the interestsof Richard from his father's, or how little he troubled himself about thefuture of his kingdom. 

Already before this incident, which preceded Richard's departure by onlya few days, many of his arrangements for the care of the kingdom in hisabsence had been made. At a great council held at Pipewell abbey nearGeddington on September 15, vacant bishoprics were filled with men whosenames were to be conspicuous in the period now beginning. Richard'schancellor, William Longchamp, was made Bishop of Ely; Richard FitzNigel, of the family of Roger of Salisbury, son of Nigel, Bishop of Ely, and like his ancestors long employed in the exchequer and to be continuedin that service, was made Bishop of London; Hubert Walter, a connexion ofRanulf Glanvill, and trained by him for more important office than wasnow intrusted to him, became Bishop of Salisbury; and Geoffrey'sappointment to York was confirmed. The responsibility of thejusticiarship was at the same time divided between Bishop Hugh of Durhamand the Earl of Essex, who, however, shortly died, and in his place wasappointed William Longchamp. With them were associated as assistantjustices five others, of whom two were William Marshal, now possessingthe earldom of Pembroke, and Geoffrey Fitz Peter himself afterwardsjusticiar. At Canterbury, in December, further dispositions were made. Richard had great confidence in his mother, and with good reason. Although she was now nearly seventy years of age, she was still vigorousin mind and body, and she was always faithful to the interests of hersons, and wise and skilful in the assistance which she gave them. Richardseems to have left her with some ultimate authority in the state, and herichly provided for her wants. He assigned her the provision which hisfather had already made for her, and added also that which Henry I hadmade for his queen and Stephen for his, so that, as was remarked at thetime, she had the endowment of three queens. John was not recognized asheir nor assigned any authority. Perhaps Richard hoped to escape in thisway the troubles of his father, but, perhaps remembering also how much ascanty income had had to do with his brother Henry's discontent, he gavehim almost the endowment of a king. Besides the grants already made tohim in Normandy, and rich additions since his coming to England, he nowconferred on him all the royal revenues of the four south-westerncounties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset. He already held thecounties of Derby and Nottingham. Richard plainly intended that politicalrights should not go with these grants, but he shows very littleknowledge of John's character or appreciation of the temptation which heput in his way in the possession of a great principality lacking only thefinishing touches. 

John's position was not the only source from which speedy trouble wasthreatened when Richard crossed to Normandy on December 11. He hadprepared another, equally certain, in the arrangement which had been madefor the justiciarship. It was absurd to expect Hugh of Puiset and WilliamLongchamp to work in the same yoke. In spirit and birth Hugh was anaristocrat of the highest type. Of not remote royal descent, a relativeof the kings both of England and France, he was a proud, worldly-minded, intensely ambitious prelate of the feudal sort and of great power, almosta reigning prince in the north. Longchamp was of the class of men whorise in the service of kings. Not of peasant birth, though but littleabove it, he owed everything to his zealous devotion to the interests ofRichard, and, as is usually the case with such men, he had an immenseconfidence in himself; he was determined to be master, and he was asproud of his position and abilities as was the Bishop of Durham of hisblood. Besides this he was naturally of an overbearing disposition andvery contemptuous of those whom he regarded as inferior to himself in anyparticular. Hugh in turn felt, no doubt, a great contempt for him, butLongchamp had no hesitation in measuring himself with the bishop. Soonafter the departure of the king he turned Hugh out of the exchequer andtook his county of Northumberland away from him. Other high-handedproceedings followed, and many appeals against his chancellor werecarried to Richard in France. To rearrange matters a great council wassummoned to meet in Normandy about the end of winter. The result was thatRichard sustained his minister as Longchamp had doubtless felt sure wouldbe the case. The Humber was made a dividing line between the twojusticiars, while the pope was asked to make Longchamp legate in Englandduring the absence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was going on thecrusade. Perhaps Richard now began to suspect that he had been preparingtrouble for England instead of peace, for at the same time he exacted anoath from his brothers, Geoffrey, whose troubles with his church of Yorkhad already begun, and John, not to return to England for three years;but John was soon after released from his oath at the request of hismother. 

Richard was impatient to be gone on the crusade, and he might now believethat England could be safely left to itself; but many other thingsdelayed the expedition, and the setting out was finally postponed, byagreement with Philip, to June 24. The third crusade is the mostgenerally interesting of all the series, because of the place which ithas taken in literature; because of the greatness of its leaders andtheir exploits; of the knightly character of Saladin himself; of thepathetic fate of the old Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who lost his lifeand sacrificed most of his army in an attempt to force his way overlandthrough Asia Minor; and of its real failure after so great an expenditureof life and effort and so many minor successes--the most brilliant of allthe crusades, the one great crusade of the age of chivalry: but itconcerns the history of England even less than does the continentalpolicy of her kings. It belongs rather to the personal history ofRichard, and as such it serves to explain his character and to show whyEngland was left to herself during his reign. 

Richard and Philip met at Vézelai at the end of June, 1190, to begin thecrusade. There they made a new treaty of alliance and agreed to the equaldivision of all the advantages to be gained in the expedition, and fromthence Richard marched down the Rhone to Marseilles, where he took shipon August 7, and, by leisurely stages along the coast of Italy, went onto Messina which he reached on September 23. Much there was to occupyRichard's attention in Sicily. Philip had already reached Messina beforehim, and many questions arose between them, the most important of whichwas that of Richard's marriage. Towards the end of the winter QueenEleanor came to Sicily, bringing with her Berengaria, the daughter of theking of Navarre, whom Richard had earlier known and admired, and whom hehad now decided to marry. Naturally Philip objected, since Richard haddefinitely promised to marry his sister Adela; but now he flatly refusedto marry one of whose relations with his father evil stories were told. By the intervention of the Count of Flanders a new treaty was made, andRichard was released from his engagement, paying 10, 000 marks to the kingof France. Quarrels with the inhabitants of Messina, due partly to thelawlessness of the crusaders and partly to Richard's overbearingdisposition, led to almost open hostilities, and indirectly to jealousyon the part of the French. Domestic politics in the kingdom of Sicilywere a further source of trouble. Richard's brother-in-law, King William, had died a year before the arrival of the crusaders, and the throne wasin dispute between Henry VI, the new king of Germany, who had marriedConstance, William's aunt and heiress, and Tancred, an illegitimatedescendant of the Norman house. Tancred was in possession, and toRichard, no doubt, the support of Sicily at the time seemed moreimportant than the abstract question of right or the distant effect ofhis policy on the crusade. Accordingly a treaty was made, Tancred wasrecognized as king, and a large sum of money was paid to Richard; but toHenry VI the treaty was a new cause of hostility against the king ofEngland, added to his relationship with the house of Guelf. The winter inSicily, which to the modern mind seems an unnecessary waste of time, hadadded thus to the difficulties of the crusade new causes of ill-feelingbetween the French and English, and given a new reason for suspicion tothe Germans. 

It was only on April 10, 1191, that Richard at last set sail on the realcrusade. He sent on a little before him his intended bride, Berengaria, with his sister Joanna, the widowed queen of Sicily. The voyage proved along and stormy one, and it was not until May 6 that the fleet cametogether, with some losses, in the harbour of Limasol in Cyprus. Theruler of Cyprus, Isaac, of the house of Comnenus, who called himselfemperor, showed so inhospitable a mein that Richard felt called upon toattack and finally to overthrow and imprison him and to take possessionof the island. This conquest, in a moment of anger and quite inaccordance with the character of Richard, though hardly to be justifiedeven by the international law of that time, was in the end the mostimportant and most permanent success of the third crusade. Shortly beforehis return home Richard gave the island to Guy of Lusignan, to make up tohim his loss of the kingdom of Jerusalem; and his descendants and theirsuccessors retained it for four centuries, an outpost of Christendomagainst the advancing power of the Turks. In Cyprus Richard was marriedto Berengaria, and on June 5 he set sail for Acre, where he arrived onthe 8th. 

The siege of the important port and fortress of Acre, which had beentaken by Saladin shortly before the fall of Jerusalem, had been begun byGuy of Lusignan at the end of August, 1189, as the first step toward therecovery of his kingdom. Saladin, recognizing the importance of the post, had come up with an army a few days later, and had in turn besieged thebesiegers. This situation had not materially changed at the time ofRichard's arrival. Both the town and the besiegers' camp had remainedopen to the sea, but though many reinforcements of new crusaders had cometo the Christians almost from the beginning of the siege, little realprogress had been made; even the arrival of King Philip in April had madeno important change. Richard, on landing, found a condition of thingsthat required the exercise of the utmost tact and skill. Not merely wasthe military problem one of the greatest difficulty, but the bitterfactional dissensions of the native lords of Palestine made a successfulissue almost hopeless. Guy of Lusignan had never been a popular king, andduring the siege his wife Sibyl and their two daughters had died, whilehis rival, Conrad marquis of Montferrat, had persuaded his sister Isabelto divorce her husband and to marry him. The result was a conflict forthe crown, which divided the interests and embittered the spirits ofthose whom the crusaders had come to aid. Philip had declared for Conrad. Guy was a man somewhat of Richard's own type, and he would have beenattracted to him apart from the natural effect of Philip's action. Onewho is disposed to deny to Richard the qualities of the highestgeneralship must admit that he handled the difficult and complicatedaffairs he had to control with great patience and unusual self-command, and that he probably accomplished as much in the circumstances as any onecould have done. 

The siege was now pressed with more vigour, and before the middle ofJuly, Acre surrendered. Then Philip, whose heart was always in his plansat home, pleaded ill health and returned to France. After this began theslow advance on Jerusalem, Saladin's troops hanging on the line of marchand constantly attacking in small bodies, while the crusaders sufferedgreatly from the climate and from lack of supplies. So great were thedifficulties which Richard had not foreseen that at one time he wasdisposed to give up the attempt and to secure what he could by treaty, but the negotiations failed. The battle of Arsuf gave him an opportunityto exercise his peculiar talents, and the Saracens were badly defeated;but the advance was not made any the easier. By the last day of the yearthe army had struggled through to within ten miles of the holy city. There a halt was made; a council of war was held on January 13, 1192, andit was decided, much against the will of Richard, to return and occupyAscalon before attempting to take and hold Jerusalem--probably a wisedecision unless the city were to be held merely as material fornegotiation. Various attempts to bring the war to an end by treaty hadbeen going on during the whole march; Richard had even offered hissister, Joanna, in marriage to Saladin's brother, whether seriously ornot it is hardly possible to say; but the demands of the two partiesremained too far apart for an agreement to be reached. The winter andspring were occupied with the refortification of Ascalon and with thedissensions of the factions, the French finally withdrawing fromRichard's army and going to Acre. In April the Marquis Conrad wasassassinated by emissaries of "the Old Man of the Mountain"; Guy hadlittle support for the throne except from Richard; and both parties foundit easy to agree on Henry of Champagne, grandson of Queen Eleanor andLouis VII, and so nephew at once of Philip and Richard, and he wasimmediately proclaimed king on marrying Conrad's widow, Isabel. Richardprovided for Guy by transferring to him the island of Cyprus as a newkingdom. On June 7 began the second march to Jerusalem, the army thistime suffering from the heats of summer as before they had suffered fromthe winter climate of Palestine. They reached the same point as in thefirst advance, and there halted again; and though all were greatlyencouraged by Richard's brilliant capture of a rich Saracen caravan, hehimself was now convinced that success was impossible. On his arrivalRichard had pushed forward with a scouting party until he could see thewalls of the city in the distance, and obliged to be satisfied with this, he retreated in July to Acre. One more brilliant exploit of Richard's ownkind remained for him to perform, the most brilliant of all perhaps, therelief of Joppa which Saladin was just on the point of taking whenRichard with a small force saved the town and forced the Saracens toretire. On September 2 a truce for three years was made, and the thirdcrusade was at an end. The progress of Saladin had been checked, a seriesof towns along the coast had been recovered, and the kingdom of Cyprushad been created; these were the results which had been gained by theexpenditure of an enormous treasure and thousands of lives. Who shall saywhether they were worth the cost. 

During all the summer Richard had been impatient to return to England, and his impatience had been due not alone to his discouragement with thehopeless conditions in Palestine, but partly to the news which hadreached him from home. Ever since he left France, in fact, messages hadbeen coming to him from one and another, and the story they told was notof a happy situation. Exactly those things had happened which ought tohave been expected. Soon after the council in Normandy, William Longchamphad freed himself from his rival Hugh of Durham by placing him underarrest and forcing him to surrender everything he had bought of the king. Then for many months the chancellor ruled England as he would, goingabout the country with a great train, almost in royal state, so that achronicler writing probably from personal observation laments the factthat a house that entertained him for a night hardly recovered from theinfliction in three years. Even more oppressive on the community as awhole were the constant exactions of money which he had to make for theking's expenses. The return of John to England in 1190, or early in 1191, made at first no change, but discontent with the chancellor's conductwould naturally look to him for leadership, and it is likely John wasmade ready to head an active opposition by the discovery of negotiationsbetween Longchamp and the king of Scotland for the recognition of Arthurof Britanny as the heir to the kingdom, negotiations begun--so thechancellor said--under orders from Richard. About the middle of summer, 1191, actual hostilities seemed about to begin. Longchamp's attempt todiscipline Gerard of Camville, holder of Lincoln castle and sheriff ofLincolnshire, was resisted by John, who seized the royal castles ofNottingham and Tickhill. Civil war was only averted by the interventionof Walter of Coutances, Archbishop of Rouen, who had arrived in Englandin the spring with authority from the king to interfere with theadministration of Longchamp if it seemed to him and the council wise todo so. By his influence peace was made, at an assembly of the barons atWinchester, on the whole not to the disadvantage of John, and embodied ina document which is almost a formal treaty. One clause of this agreementis of special interest as a sign of the trend of thought and asforeshadowing a famous clause in a more important document soon to bedrawn up. The parties agreed that henceforth no baron or free tenantshould be disseized of land or goods by the king's justices or servantswithout a trial according to the customs and assizes of the land, or bythe direct orders of the king. The clause points not merely forward butbackward, and shows what had no doubt frequently occurred since thedeparture of the king. 

About the middle of September a new element of discord was brought intothe situation by the landing of Geoffrey, who had now been consecratedArchbishop of York, and who asserted that he, as well as John, hadRichard's permission to return. Longchamp's effort to prevent his comingfailed; but on his landing he had him arrested at the altar of the Prioryof St. Martin's, Dover, where he had taken sanctuary, and he was carriedoff a prisoner with many indignities. This was a tactical mistake onLongchamp's part. It put him greatly in the wrong and furnished a newcause against him in which everybody could unite. In alarm he declared hehad never given orders for what was done and had Geoffrey released, but itwas too late. The actors in this outrage were excommunicated, and thechancellor was summoned to a council called by John under the forms of agreat council. At the first meeting, held between Reading and Windsor onOctober 5, he did not appear, but formal complaint was made against him, and his deposition was moved by the Archbishop of Rouen. The meeting wasthen adjourned to London, and Longchamp, hearing this, left Windsor at thesame time and took refuge in the Tower. For both parties, as in formertimes of civil strife, the support of the citizens of London was of greatimportance. They were now somewhat divided, but a recognition of theopportunity inclined them to the stronger side; and they signified to Johnand the barons that they would support them if a commune were granted tothe city. [55] This French institution, granting to a city in its corporatecapacity the legal position and independence of the feudal vassal, had asyet made no appearance in England. It was bitterly detested by the greatbarons, and a chronicler of the time who shared this feeling was no doubtright in saying that neither Richard nor his father would have sanctionedit for a million marks, but as he says London found out that there was noking. [56] John was in pursuit of power, and the price which Londondemanded would not seem to him a large one, especially as the day ofreckoning with the difficulty he created was a distant one and might nevercome. The commune was granted, and Longchamp was formally deposed. Johnwas recognized as Richard's heir, fealty was sworn to him, and he was maderegent of the kingdom; Walter of Rouen was accepted as justiciar; and thecastles were disposed of as John desired. Longchamp yielded under protest, threatening the displeasure of the king, and was allowed to escape to thecontinent. 

The action of John and the barons in deposing Longchamp made littleactual change. John gained less power than he had expected, and found thenew justiciar no more willing to give him control of the kingdom than theold one. The action was revolutionary, and if it had any permanentinfluence on the history of England, it is to be found in the training itgave the barons in concerted action against a tyrannous minister, revolutionary but as nearly as possible under the forms of law. Whilethese events were taking place, Philip was on his way from Tyre toFrance. He reached home near the close of the year, ready for thebusiness for which he had come, to make all that he could out ofRichard's absence. Repulsed in an attempt to get the advantage of theseneschal of Normandy he applied to John, perhaps with more hope ofsuccess, offering him the hand of the unfortunate Adela with theinvestiture of all the French fiefs. John was, of course, alreadymarried, but that was a small matter either to Philip, or to him. He wasready to listen to the temptation, and was preparing to cross to discussthe proposition with Philip, when his plans were interrupted by hismother. She had heard of what was going on and hastily went over toEngland to interfere, where with difficulty John was forced to give upthe idea. The year 1192 passed without disturbance. When Longchamp triedto secure his restoration by bribing John, he was defeated by a higherbid from the council. An attempt of Philip to invade Normandy wasprevented by the refusal of his barons to serve, for without accusing theking, they declared that they could not attack Normandy withoutthemselves committing perjury. At the beginning of 1193 the news reachedEngland that Richard had been arrested in Germany and that he was held inprison there. 

[53] Benedict of Peterborough, ii. 90. 

[54] Roger of Howden, iii. 18. 

[55] Round, Commune of London, ch. Xi. 

[56] Richard of Devizes, Chronicles of Stephen, iii. 416. 

CHAPTER XVIII

WAR AND FINANCE

Richard was indeed in prison in Germany. To avoid passing throughToulouse on account of the hostility of the count he had sailed up theAdriatic, hoping possibly to strike across into the northern parts ofAquitaine, and there had been shipwrecked. In trying to make his way indisguise through the dominions of the Duke of Austria he had beenrecognized and arrested, for Leopold of Austria had more than one groundof hatred of Richard, notably because his claim to something like anequal sovereignty had been so rudely and contemptuously disallowed in thefamous incident of the tearing down of his banner from the walls of Acre. But a greater sovereign than Leopold had reason to complain of theconduct of Richard and something to gain from his imprisonment, and theduke was obliged to surrender his prisoner to the emperor, Henry VI. 

When the news of this reached England, it seemed to John that hisopportunity might at last be come, and he crossed over at once to thecontinent. Finding the barons of Normandy unwilling to receive him in theplace of Richard, he passed on to Philip, did him homage for the Frenchfiefs, and even for England it was reported, took oath to marry Adela, and ceded to him the Norman Vexin. In return Philip promised him a partof Flanders and his best help to get possession of England and hisbrother's other lands. Roger of Howden, who records this bargain, distinguishes between rumour and what he thought was true, and it may betaken as a fair example of what it was believed John would agree to inorder to dispossess his imprisoned brother. He then returned to Englandwith a force of mercenaries, seized the castles of Wallingford andWindsor, prepared to receive a fleet which Philip was to send to his aid, and giving out that the king was dead, he demanded the kingdom of thejustices and the fealty of the barons. But nobody believed him; thejustices immediately took measures to resist him and to defend thekingdom against the threatened invasion, and civil war began anew. Justthen Hubert Walter, Bishop of Salisbury, arrived from Germany, bringing aletter from Richard himself. It was certain that the king was not dead, but the news did not promise an immediate release. The emperor demanded agreat ransom and a crowd of hostages of the barons. The justices must atonce set about raising the sum, and a truce was made with John untilautumn. 

The terms of his release which Richard had stated in his letter did notprove to be the final ones. Henry VI was evidently determined to make allthat he could out of his opportunity, and it was not till after the middleof the year 1193 that a definite agreement was at last made. The ransomwas fixed at 150, 000 marks, of which 100, 000 were to be on hand in Londonbefore the king should go free. It was on the news of this arrangementthat Philip sent his famous message to John, "Take care of yourself: thedevil is loosed. " In John's opinion the best way to take care of himselfwas to go to Philip's court, and this he did on receiving the warning, either because he was afraid of the view Richard might take of his conducton his return, or because he suspected that Philip would throw him overwhen he came to make a settlement with Richard. There were, however, stilltwo obstacles in the way of Richard's return: the money for the ransommust be raised, and the emperor must be persuaded to keep his bargain. Philip, representing John as well, was bidding against the terms to whichRichard had agreed. They offered the emperor 80, 000 marks, to keep himuntil the Michaelmas of 1194; or £1000 a month for each month that he wasdetained; or 150, 000 marks, if he would hold him in prison for a year, orgive him up to them. Earlier still Philip had tried to persuade Henry tosurrender Richard to him, but such a disposition of the case did not suitthe emperor's plans, and now he made Philip's offers known to Richard. Ifhe had been inclined to listen, as perhaps he was, the German princes, their natural feeling and interest quickened somewhat by promises of moneyfrom Richard, would have insisted on the keeping of the treaty. OnFebruary 4, 1194, Richard was finally set free, having done homage to theemperor for the kingdom of England and having apparently issued letterspatent to record the relationship, [57] a step towards the realization ofthe wide-reaching plans of Henry VI for the reconstruction of the RomanEmpire, and so very likely as important to him as the ransom in money. 

The raising of this money in England and the other lands of the king wasnot an easy task, not merely because the sum itself was enormous for thetime, but also because so great an amount exceeded the experience, oreven the practical arithmetic of the day, and could hardly be accuratelyplanned for in advance. It was, however, vigorously taken in hand byEleanor and the justices, assisted by Hubert Walter, who had now becomeArchbishop of Canterbury by Richard's direction and who was soon madejusticiar, and the burden seems to have been very patiently borne. Themethod of the Saladin tithe was that first employed for the generaltaxation by which it was proposed to raise a large part of the sum. Allclasses, clerical and feudal, burgess and peasant, were compelled tocontribute according to their revenues, the rule being one-fourth of theincome for the year, and the same proportion of the movable property; allprivileges and immunities of clergy and churches as well as of laymenwere suspended; the Cistercians even who had a standing immunity from allexactions gave up their whole year's shearing of wool, and so did theorder of Sempringham; the plate and, jewels of the churches andmonasteries, held to be properly used for the redemption of captives, were surrendered or redeemed in money under a pledge of their restorationby the king. The amount at first brought in proved insufficient, and theofficers who collected it were suspected of peculation, possibly withjustice, but possibly also because the original calculation had beeninaccurate, so that a second and a third levy were found necessary. Itwas near the end of the year 1193 before the sum raised was accepted bythe representatives of the emperor as sufficient for the preliminarypayment which would secure the king's release. 

Richard, set free on February 4, did not feel it necessary to be inhaste, and he only reached London on March 6. There he found things in asunsettled a state as they had been since the beginning of hisimprisonment. He had made through Longchamp a most liberal treaty withPhilip to keep him quiet during his imprisonment; he had also inducedJohn by a promise of increasing his original grants to return to hisallegiance to himself: but neither of these agreements had proved bindingon the other parties. John had made a later treaty with Philip, purchasing his support with promises of still more extensive cessions ofthe land he coveted, and under this treaty the king of France had takenpossession of parts of Normandy, while the justiciar of England, learningof John's action, had obtained a degree of forfeiture against him from acouncil of the barons and had begun the siege of his castles. This war onJohn was approved by Richard, who himself pushed it to a speedy andsuccessful end. Then on March 30 the king met a great council of therealm at Nottingham. His mother was present, and the justiciar, andLongchamp, who was still chancellor, though he had not been allowed toreturn to England to remain until now. By this council John was summonedto appear for trial within forty days on pain of the loss of all hispossessions and of all that he might expect, including the crown. Richard's chief need would still be money both for the war in France andfor further payments on his ransom; and he now imposed a new tax of twoshillings on the carucate of land and called out one-third of the feudalforce for service abroad. Many resumptions of his former grants were alsomade, and some of them were sold again to the highest bidders. Two weekslater the king was re-crowned at Winchester, apparently with somethingless of formal ceremony than in his original coronation, but with muchmore than in the annual crown-wearings of the Norman kings, a practicewhich had now been dropped for almost forty years. Whether quite acoronation in strict form or not, the ceremony was evidently regarded asof equivalent effect both by the chroniclers of the time and officially, and it probably was intended to make good any diminution of sovereigntythat might be thought to be involved in his doing homage to the emperorfor the kingdom. 

Immediately after this the king made ready to cross to France, where hisinterests were then in the greatest danger, but he was detained bycontrary winds till near the middle of May. In the almost exactly fiveyears remaining of his life Richard never returned to England. Hebelonged by nature to France, and England must have seemed a very foreignland to him; but in passing judgment on him we must not overlook the factthat England was secure and needed the presence of the king but little, while many dangers threatened, or would seem to Richard to threaten, hiscontinental possessions. Even a Henry I would probably have spent thosefive years abroad. Richard found the king of France pushing a new attackon Normandy to occupy the lands which John had ceded him, but the Frenchforces withdrew without waiting to try the issue of a battle. Richard hadhardly landed before another enemy was overcome, by his own prudencealso, and another example given of the goodness of Richard's heart towardhis enemies and of his willingness to trust their professions. He hadsaid that his brother would never oppose force with force, and now Johnwas ready to abandon the conflict before it had begun. He came toRichard, encouraged by generous words of his which were repeated to him, and threw himself at his feet; he was at once pardoned and treated as ifhe had never sinned, except that the military advantages he had had inEngland through holding the king's castles were not given back to him. Along all the border the mere presence of Richard seemed to checkPhilip's advance and to bring to a better mind his own barons who hadbeen disposed to aid the enemy. About the middle of June almost all thedetails of a truce were agreed upon by both sides, but the plan at lastfailed, because Richard would not agree that the barons who had been onthe opposing sides in Poitou should be made to cease all hostilitiesagainst each other, for this would be contrary, he said, to the ancientcustom of the land. The war went on a few weeks longer with no decisiveresults. Philip destroyed Evreux, but fell back from Freteval so hastily, to avoid an encounter with Richard, that he lost his baggage, includinghis official records, and barely escaped capture himself. On November 1 atruce for one year was finally made, much to the advantage Philip, butsecuring to the king of England the time he needed for preparation. 

When Richard crossed to Normandy not to return, he left England in thehands of his new justiciar, Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, andsoon to be appointed legate of the pope, at once the head of Church andState. No better man could have been found to stand in the place of theking. Nephew of the wife of Glanvill, the great judge of Henry II's time, spending much of his youth in the household of his uncle and some littletime also in the service of the king, he was by training and by personalexperience fitted to carry on the administration of England along thelines laid down in the previous reign and even to carry forward law andinstitutions in harmony with their beginnings and with the spirit of thatgreat period. Indeed the first itinerant justices' commission in definiteform that has come down to us dates but a few weeks after the king'sdeparture, and is of especial interest as showing a decided progresssince the more vague provisions of the Assize of Clarendon. A possiblesource of danger to a successful ministry lay in the quarrelsome andself-assertive Archbishop of York, the king's brother Geoffrey; but soonafter Richard's departure Hubert deprived him of power by a sharp strokeand a skilful use of the administrative weapons with which he wasfamiliar. On complaint of Geoffrey's canons against him he sent acommission of judges to York to examine the case, who ordered Geoffrey'sservants to be imprisoned on a charge of robbery, and on the archbishop'srefusal to appear before them to answer for himself they decreed theconfiscation of his estates. Geoffrey never recovered his position inRichard's time. 

The year 1195 in England and abroad passed by with few events ofpermanent interest. Archbishop Hubert was occupied chiefly withecclesiastical matters and with the troubles of Geoffrey of York, andconditions in the north were further changed by the closing of the longand stormy career of the bishop, of Durham, Hugh of Puiset. In France thetruce was broken by Philip in June, and the war lingered until Decemberwith some futile efforts at peace, but with no striking militaryoperations on either side. Early in December the two kings agreed on theconditions of a treaty, which was signed on January 15, 1196. The termswere still unfavourable to Richard; for Philip at last had Gisors and theNorman Vexin ceded to him by competent authority and a part of his otherconquests and the overlordship of Angoulème, while Richard on his sidewas allowed to retain only what he had taken in Berri. 

As this treaty transferred to France the old frontier defences ofNormandy and opened the way down the Seine to a hostile attack uponRouen, the question of the building of new fortifications became animportant one to both the kings. The treaty contained a provision thatAndely should not be fortified. This was a most important strategicposition on the river, fitted by nature for a great fortress andcompletely covering the capital of Normandy. At a point where the Seinebends sharply and a small stream cuts through the line of limestonecliffs on its right bank to join it, a promontory of rock three hundredfeet above the water holds the angle, cut off from the land behind itexcept for a narrow isthmus, and so furnished the feudal castle-builderwith all the conditions which he required. The land itself belonged tothe Archbishop of Rouen, but Richard, to whom the building of a fortressat the place was a vital necessity, did not concern himself seriouslywith that point, and began the works which he had planned soon after thesigning of the treaty in which he had promised not to do so. Thearchbishop who was still Walter of Coutances, Richard's faithful ministerof earlier days, protested without avail and finally retired to Rome, laying the duchy under an interdict. Richard was no more to be stopped inthis case by an interdict than by his own promises, and went steadily onwith his work, though in the end he bought off the archbishop'sopposition by a transfer to him in exchange of other lands worthintrinsically much more than the barren crag that he had seized. Thebuilding occupied something more than a year, and when it was completed, the castle was one of the strongest in the west. Richard had made use inits fortification of the lessons which he learned in the Holy Land, wherethe art of defence had been most carefully studied under compulsion; andthe three wards of the castle, its thick walls and strong towers, and thedefences crossing the river and in the town of New Andely at its foot, seemed to make it impregnable. Richard took great pride in his creation. He called it his fair child, and named it Chateau-Gaillard or "saucycastle. "

Philip had not allowed all this to go on without considering the treatyviolated, but the war of 1196 is of the same wearisome kind as that ofthe previous year. The year brought with it some trouble in Britannyarising from a demand of Richard's for the wardship of his nephew Arthur, and resulting in the barons of Britanny sending the young prince to thecourt of Philip. In England the rising of a demagogue in London toprotest against the oppression of the poor is of some interest. Theking's financial demands had never ceased; they could not cease, in fact, and though England was prosperous from the long intervals of peace shehad enjoyed and bore the burden on the whole with great patience, it wasnone the less heavily felt. In London there was a feeling not merely thatthe taxes were heavy, but that they were unfairly assessed and collected, so that they rested in undue proportion on the poorer classes. Of thisfeeling William Fitz Osbert, called "William with the Beard, " madehimself the spokesman. He opposed the measures of the ruling class, stirred up opposition with fiery speeches, crossed over to the king, and, basing on the king's interest in the subject a boast of his support, threatened more serious trouble. Then the justiciar interfered by force, dragged him out of sanctuary, and had him executed. The incident had apermanent influence in the fact that Hubert Walter, who was alreadygrowing unpopular, found his support from the clergy weakened because ofhis violation of the right of sanctuary. He was also aggrieved becauseRichard sent over from the continent the Abbot of Caen, experienced inNorman finance, to investigate his declining revenues and to hold aspecial inquisition of the sheriffs. The inquisition was not held becauseof the death of the abbot, but later in the year Hubert offered toresign, but finally decided to go on in office for a time longer. 

The year 1197 promised great things for Richard in his war with the kingof France, but yielded little. He succeeded in forming a coalition amongthe chief barons of the north, which recalls the diplomatic successes ofhis ancestor, Henry I. The young Count Baldwin of Flanders and Hainaulthad grievances of his own against Philip which he was anxious to avenge. Count Philip, who had exercised so strong an influence over King Philipat the time of his accession, had died early in the crusade, and theCount of Hainault on succeeding him had been compelled to give up toFrance a large strip of territory adjoining Philip's earlier annexation, and on his death Count Baldwin had had to pay a heavy relief. Thecoalition was joined by the Counts of Boulogne and Blois, and Britannywas practically under the control of Richard. Philip, however, escapedthe danger that threatened him by some exercise of his varied talents ofwhich we do not know the exact details. Led on in pursuit of the Count ofFlanders until he was almost cut off from return, he purchased hisretreat by a general promise to restore the count all his rights and tomeet Richard in a conference on the terms of peace. On Richard's side thesingle advantage gained during the campaign was the capture of the cousinof the French king, Philip of Dreux, the warlike Bishop of Beauvais, whose raids along the border and whose efforts at the court of Henry VIof Germany against his release from imprisonment had so enraged Richardthat he refused upon any terms or under any pressure to set him free aslong as he lived. The interview between the kings took place on September17, when a truce for something more than a year was agreed upon to allowtime for arranging the terms of a permanent peace. 

The year closed in England with an incident of great interest, but onewhich has sometimes been made to bear an exaggerated importance. At acouncil of the kingdom held at Oxford on December 7, the justiciarpresented a demand of the king that the baronage should unite to send himat their expense three hundred knights for a year's service with himabroad. Evidently it was hoped that the clergy would set a good example. The archbishop himself expressed his willingness to comply, and wasfollowed by the Bishop of London to the same effect. Then Bishop Hugh ofLincoln, being called upon for his answer, to the great indignation ofthe justiciar, flatly refused on the ground that his church was notliable for service abroad. The Bishop of Salisbury, next called upon, made the same refusal; and the justiciar seeing that the plan was likelyto fail dissolved the council in anger. One is tempted to believe thatsome essential point is omitted from the accounts we have of thisincident, or that some serious mistake has been made in them, either inthe speech of Bishop Hugh given us in his biography or in the terms ofRichard's demand recorded in two slightly different forms. Hubert musthave believed that the baronage in general were going to follow theexample given them by the two bishops and refuse the required service, orhe would not have dissolved the council and reported to the king that hisplan had failed. But to refuse this service on the ground that it couldnot be required except in England was to go against the unbroken practiceof more than a hundred years. Nor was there anything contrary toprecedent in the demand for three hundred knights to serve a year. Theunion of the military tenants to equip a smaller force than the wholeservice due to the lord, but for a longer time than the period ofrequired feudal service, was not uncommon. The demand implied a feudalforce due to the king from England of less than three thousand knights, and this was well within his actual rights, though if we accept the verydoubtful statement of one of our authorities that their expenses were tobe reckoned at the rate of three shillings per day, the total cost wouldexceed that of any ordinary scutage. 

Richard clearly believed, as did his justiciar, that he was making noillegal demand, for he ordered the confiscation of the baronies of thetwo bishops, and Herbert of Salisbury was obliged to pay a fine. It wasonly a personal journey to Normandy and the great reputation for sanctityof the future St. Hugh of Lincoln that relieved him from the samepunishment. The importance of the right of consent to taxation in thegrowth of the constitution has led many writers to attach a significanceto this incident which hardly belongs to it. Whatever were the grounds ofhis action, the Bishop of Lincoln could have been acting on no generalconstitutional principle. He must have been insisting on personal rightssecured to him by the feudal law. If his action contributed largely, asit doubtless did, to that change of earlier conditions which led to thebeginning of the constitution, it was less because he tried to revive aprinciple of general application, which as a matter of fact had neverexisted, than because he established a precedent of careful scrutiny ofthe king's rights and of successful resistance to a demand possibly ofdoubtful propriety. It is as a sign of the times, as the mark of anapproaching revolution, that the incident has its real interest. 

About the time that Richard sent over to England his demand for threehundred knights news must have reached him of an event which would seemto open the way to a great change in continental affairs. Thefar-reaching plans of the emperor, Henry VI, had been brought to an endby his death in Sicily on September 28, 1197, in the prime of his life. His son, the future brilliant Emperor Frederick II, was still an infant, and there was a prospect that the hold of the Hohenstaufen on the empiremight be shaken off. About Christmas time an embassy reached Richard fromthe princes of Germany, summoning him on the fealty he owed the empire toattend a meeting at Cologne on February 22 to elect an emperor. This hecould not do, but a formal embassy added the weight of his influence tothe strong Guelfic party; and his favourite nephew, who had been broughtup at his court, was elected emperor as Otto IV. The Hohenstaufen partynaturally did not accept the election, and Philip of Suabia, the brotherof Henry VI, was put up as an opposition emperor, but for the moment theGuelfs were the stronger, and they enjoyed the support of the young andvigorous pope, Innocent III, who had just ascended the papal throne, sothat even Philip II's support of his namesake of Suabia was of littleavail. 

From the change Richard gained in reality nothing. It was still an agewhen the parties to international alliances sought only ends to be gainedwithin their own territories, or what they believed should be rightfullytheir territories, and the objects of modern diplomacy were not yetregarded. The truce of the preceding September, which was to last throughthe whole of the year 1198, was as little respected as the others hadbeen. As soon as it was convenient, the war was reopened, the baronialalliance against the king of France still standing, and Baldwin ofFlanders joining in the attack. At the end of September Richard totallydefeated the French, and drove their army in wild flight through the townof Gisors, precipitating Philip himself into the river Epte by thebreaking down of the bridge under the weight of the fugitives, andcapturing a long list of prisoners of distinction, three of them, aMontmorency among them, overthrown by Richard's own lance, as he boastedin a letter to the Bishop of Durham. Other minor successes followed, andPhilip found himself reduced to straits in which he felt obliged to askthe intervention of the pope in favour of peace. Innocent III, anxiousfor a new crusade and determined to make his influence felt in everyquestion of the day, was ready to interfere on his own account; and hislegate, Cardinal Peter, brought about an interview between the two kingson January 13, 1199, when a truce for five years was verbally agreedupon, though the terms of a permanent treaty were not yet settled. 

In the meantime financial difficulties were pressing heavily upon theking of England. Scutages for the war in Normandy had been taken in 1196and 1197. In the next year a still more important measure of taxationwas adopted, which was evidently intended to bring in larger sums to thetreasury than an ordinary scutage. This is the tax known as the GreatCarucage of 1198. The actual revenue that the king derived from it is amatter of some doubt, but the machinery of its assessment is describedin detail by a contemporary and is of special interest. [58] The unit ofthe new assessment was to be the carucate, or ploughland, instead ofthe hide, and consequently a new survey of the land was necessary totake the place of the old Domesday record. To obtain this, practicallythe same machinery was employed as in the earlier case, but to thecommissioners sent into each county by the central government two localknights, chosen from the county, were added to form the body before whomthe jurors testified as to the ownership and value of the lands in theirneighbourhoods. Thanks to the rapid judicial advance and administrativereforms of the past generation, the jury was now a familiar institutioneverywhere and was used for many purposes. Its employment in this caseto fix the value of real property for taxation, and of personal propertyas in the Saladin tithe of 1188, though but a revival of its earlier useby William I, marks the beginning of a continuous employment of jurorsin taxation in the next period which led to constitutional results--thebirth of the representative system, and we may almost say to the originof Parliament in the proper meaning of the term--results of even greatervalue in the growth of our civil liberty than any which came from it inthe sphere of judicial institutions important as these were. 

Now in the spring of 1199 a story reached Richard of the finding of awonderful treasure on the land of the lord of Chalus, one of his undervassals in the Limousin. We are told that it was the images of anemperor, his wife, sons, and daughters, made of gold and seated round atable also of gold. If the story were true, here was relief from hisdifficulties, and Richard laid claim to the treasure as lord paramount ofthe land. This claim was of course disputed, and with his mercenaries theking laid siege to the castle of Chalus. It was a little castle andpoorly defended, but it resisted the attack for three days, and on thethird Richard, who carelessly approached the wall, was shot by a crossbowbolt in the left shoulder near the neck. The wound was deep and was madeworse by the surgeon in cutting out the head of the arrow. Shortlygangrene appeared, and the king knew that he must die. In the time thatwas left him he calmly disposed of all his affairs. He sent for hismother who was not far away, and she was with him when he died. Hedivided his personal property among his friends and in charity, declaredJohn to be his heir, and made the barons who were present swear fealty tohim. He ordered the man who had shot him to be pardoned and given a sumof money; then he confessed and received the last offices of the Church, and died on April 6, 1199, in the forty-second year of his age. 

The twelfth century was drawing to its end when Richard died, but theclose of the century was then as always in history a purely artificialdividing line. The real historical epoch closed, a new age began with thegranting of the Great Charter. The date may serve, however, as a pointfrom which to review briefly one of the growing interests of England thatbelongs properly within the field of its political history--its organizedmunicipal life. The twelfth century shows a slow, but on the whole aconstant, increase in the number, size, and influence of organized townsin England, and of the commerce, domestic and foreign, on which theirprosperity rested. Even in the long disorder of Stephen's reign theinterruption of this growth seems to have been felt rather in particularplaces than in the kingdom as a whole, and there was no serious set-backof national prosperity that resulted from it. Not with the rapidity ofmodern times, but fairly steadily through the century, new articlesappear in commerce; manufactures rise to importance, like that of cloth;wealth and population accumulate in the towns, and they exert anunceasing pressure on the king, or on the lords in whose domain they are, for grants of privileges. 

Such grants from the king become noticeably frequent in the reign ofRichard and are even more so under John. The financial necessities ofboth kings and their recklessness, at least that of Richard, in thechoice of means to raise money, made it easy for the boroughs to purchasethe rights or exemptions they desired. The charters all follow a certaingeneral type, but there was no fixed measure of privilege granted bythem. Each town bargained for what it could get from a list of possibleprivileges of some length. The freedom of the borough; the right of thecitizens to have a gild merchant; exemption from tolls, specified orgeneral, within a certain district or throughout all England or alsothroughout the continental Angevin dominions; exemption from the courtsof shire and hundred, or from the jurisdiction of all courts outside theborough, except in pleas of the crown, or even without this exception;the right to farm the revenues of the borough, paying a fixed "firma, " orrent, to the king, and with this often the right of the citizens to electtheir own reeve or even sheriff to exempt them from the interference ofthe king's sheriff of the county. This list is not a complete one of thevarious rights and privileges granted by the charters, but only of themore important ones. 

To confer these all upon a town was to give it the fullest right obtainedby English towns and to put it practically in the position which Londonhad reached in the charter of Henry I's later years. London, if we maytrust our scanty evidence, advanced at one time during this period to aposition reached by no other English city, to the position of the Frenchcommune. [59] Undoubtedly the word "commune, " like other technical words, was sometimes used at the time loosely and vaguely, but in its strict andlegal sense it meant a town raised to the position of a feudal vassal andgiven all the rights as well as duties of a feudal lord, a seigneuriecollective populaire, as a French scholar has called it. [60] Thusregarded, the town had a fulness of local independence to be obtainedin no other way. To such a position no English city but London attained, and it may be thought that the evidence in London's case is not fullenough to warrant us in believing that it reached the exact legal statusof a commune. 

We find it related as an incident of the struggle between John andLongchamp in 1191, when Longchamp was deposed, that John and the baronsconceded the commune of London and took oath to it, and about the sametime we have proof that the city had its mayor. Documentary evidence hasalso been discovered of the existence at the same date of the governingbody known on the continent as the échevins. But while the mayor and theéchevins are closely associated with the commune, their presence is notconclusive evidence of the existence of a real commune, nor is the use ofthe word itself, though the occurrence of the two together makes it moreprobable. Early in 1215, when John was seeking allies everywhere againstthe confederated barons, he granted a new charter to London, whichrecognized the right of the citizens to elect their own mayor and requiredhim to swear fealty to the king. If we could be sure that this oath wassworn for the city, it would be conclusive evidence, since the oath of themayor to the lord of whom the commune as a corporate person "held" was adistinguishing mark of this relationship. The probability that such wasthe case is confirmed by the fact that a few weeks later, in the famoustwelfth clause of the Great Charter, we find London put distinctly in theposition of a king's vassal. This evidence is strengthened by a comparisonwith the corresponding clause of the Articles of the Barons, a kind ofpreliminary draft of the Great Charter, and much less carefully drawn, where there is added to London a general class of towns whose legal rightto the privilege granted it would not have been possible to defend. [61]That London maintained its position among the king's vassals in thelegally accurate Great Charter is almost certain proof that it had someright to be classed with them. But even if London was for a time acommune, strictly speaking, it did not maintain the right in the nextreign, and that form of municipal organization plays no part in Englishhistory. [62] It is under the form of chartered towns, not communes, thatthe importance of the boroughs in English commercial and public lifecontinued to increase in the thirteenth as it had in the twelfth century. 

[57] Ralph de Diceto, ii, 113. 

[58] Roger of Howden, iv. 46. 

[59] Round, The Commune of London. 

[60] Luchaire, Communes Françaises, 97. 

[61] Articles of the Barons, c. 32; Stubbs, Select Charters, 393. 

[62] See London and the Commune in Engl. Hist. Rev. , Oct. 1904. 

CHAPTER XIX

THE LOSS OF NORMANDY

The death of Richard raised a question of succession new in the historyof England since the Norman Conquest. The right of primogeniture, thestrict succession of the eldest born, carrying with it the right of theson of a deceased elder brother to stand in the place of his father, theprinciple which was in the end to prevail, had only begun to establishitself. The drift of feeling was undoubtedly towards it, but thisappeared strongly in the present crisis only in the northwestern cornerof the Angevin dominions in France, where it was supported by stillstronger influences. The feudal law had recognized, and still recognized, many different principles of succession, and the prevailing feeling inEngland and Normandy is no doubt correctly represented in an incidentrecorded by the biographer of William Marshal. On receiving the news ofRichard's death at Rouen, William went at once to consult with thearchbishop and to agree on whom they would support as heir. Thearchbishop inclined at first to Arthur, the son and representative ofJohn's elder brother, Geoffrey, but William declared that the brotherstood nearer to his father and to his brother than the grandson, ornephew, and the archbishop yielded the point without discussion. Neitherin England nor in Normandy did there appear the slightest disposition tosupport the claims of Arthur, or to question the right of John, thoughpossibly there would have been more inclination to do so if the age ofthe two candidates had been reversed, for Arthur was only twelve, whileJohn was past thirty. 

Neither of the interested parties, however, was in the least disposed towaive any claims which he possessed. John had had trouble with Richardduring the previous winter on a suspicion of treasonable correspondencewith Philip and because he thought his income was too scanty, and he wasin Britanny, even at the court of Arthur, when the news of Richard'sdeath reached him. He at once took horse with a few attendants and rodeto Chinon, where the king's treasure was kept, and this was given upwithout demur on his demand by Robert of Turnharn, the keeper. Certainbarons who were there and the officers of Richard's household alsorecognized his right, on his taking the oath which they demanded, that hewould execute his brother's will, and that he would preserve inviolatethe rightful customs of former times and the just laws of lands andpeople. From Chinon John set out for Normandy, but barely escaped captureon the way, for Arthur's party had not been idle in the meantime. Hismother with a force from Britanny had brought him with all speed toAngers, where he was joyfully received. William des Roches, the greatestbaron of the country and Richard's seneschal of Anjou, had declared forhim at the head of a powerful body of barons, who probably saw in a weakminority a better chance of establishing that local freedom from controlfor which they had always striven than under another Angevin king. At LeMans Arthur was also accepted with enthusiasm as count a few hours aftera cold reception of John and his hasty departure. 

There Constance and her son were met by the king of France, who, as soonas God had favoured him by the removal of Richard, --so the Frenchregarded the matter, --seized the county of Evreux and pushed hisconquests almost to Le Mans. Arthur did homage to Philip for thecounties of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine; Tours received the young count asAngers and Le Mans had done; Philip's right of feudal wardship wasadmitted, and Arthur was taken to Paris under his secure protection, secure for his own designs and against those of John. Philip could hardlydo otherwise than recognize the rights of Arthur. It was perhaps the mostfavourable opportunity that had ever occurred to accomplish thetraditional policy of the Capetians of splitting apart the dominions ofthe rival Norman or Angevin house. That policy, so long and soconsistently followed by Philip almost from his accession to the death ofArthur, in the support in turn of young Henry, Richard, John, and Arthuragainst the reigning king, was destined indeed never to be realized inthe form in which it had been cherished in the past; but the devotion ofa part of the Angevin empire to the cause of Arthur was a factor of nosmall value in the vastly greater success which Philip won, greater thanany earlier king had ever dreamed of, greater than Philip himself haddared to hope for till the moment of its accomplishment. 

From Le Mans John went direct to Rouen. The barons of Normandy haddecided to support him, and on April 25 he was invested with the insigniaof the duchy by the archbishop, Walter of Coutances, taking the usualoath to respect the rights of Church and people. His careless andirreverent conduct during the ceremony displeased the clergy, as hisrefusal to receive the communion on Easter day, a week before, hadoffended Bishop Hugh of Lincoln, who came a part of the way with him fromChinon. As the lance, the special symbol of investiture, was placed inhis hand, he turned to make some jocular remark to his boon companionswho were laughing and chattering behind him, and carelessly let it fall, an incident doubtless considered at the time of evil omen, and easilyinterpreted after the event as a presage of the loss of the duchy. FromNormandy John sent over to England to assist the justiciar, Geoffrey FitzPeter, in taking measures to secure his succession, two of the mostinfluential men of the land, William Marshal and Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been in Normandy since the death ofRichard, while he himself remained a month longer on the continent, tocheck, if possible, the current in favour of Arthur. He took Le Mans anddestroyed its walls in punishment, and sent a force to aid his mother inAquitaine; but the threatening attitude of Philip made it impossible forhim to accomplish very much. No slight influence on the side of John wasthe strong support and vigorous action in his favour of that remarkablewoman, Eleanor of Aquitaine, then about eighty years of age. She seemsnever to have cared for her grandson Arthur, and for this his mother wasprobably responsible. Constance appears to have been a somewhat difficultperson, and what was doubtless still more important, she had neveridentified herself with the interests of her husband's house, but hadalways remained in full sympathy with the separatist tendencies andindependent desires of her own Britanny. [63] She had no right to counton any help from Eleanor in carrying out her ambitions, and Aquitainewas held as securely for John by his mother as Normandy was by thedecision of its leading barons. 

In England, although no movement in favour of Arthur is perceptible, there was some fear of civil strife, perhaps only of that disorder whichwas apt to break out on the death of the king, as it did indeed in thiscase, and many castles were put in order for defence. What disorder therewas soon put down by the representatives of the king, whom John hadappointed, and who took the fealty of the barons and towns to him. On thepart of a considerable number of the barons--the names that are recordedare those of old historic families, Beaumont, Ferrers, Mowbray, De Lacy, the Earls of Clare and Chester--there was found to be opposition totaking the oath of fealty on the ground of injustice committed by theadministration. Whether these complaints were personal to each baron, asthe language has been taken to mean, or complaints of injustice inindividual cases wrought by the general policy of the government, as thenumber of cases implies, it is hardly possible to say. The probability isthat both explanations are true. Certainly the old baronage could easilyfind grounds enough of complaint in the constitutional policy steadilyfollowed by the government of the first two Angevin kings. The crisis waswisely handled by the three able men whom John had appointed to representhim. They called an assembly of the doubtful barons at Northampton andgave to each one a promise that he should have his right (jus suum). Inreturn for these promises the oaths were taken, but the incident was asominous of another kind of trouble as the dropping of the lance at Rouen. We can hardly understand the reign of John unless we remember that at itsvery beginning men were learning to watch the legality of the king'sactions and to demand that he respect the limitations which the lawplaced on his arbitrary will. 

On May 25, John landed in England, and on the 27th, Ascension day, he wascrowned in Westminster by the Archbishop of Canterbury before a largeassembly of barons and bishops. The coronation followed the regular order, and no dissenting voice made itself heard, though a rather unusual displayof force seems to have been thought necessary. Two authorities, both yearslater and both untrustworthy, refer to a speech delivered during theceremony by the archbishop, in which he emphasized the fact that theEnglish crown was elective and not hereditary. Did not these authoritiesseem to be clearly independent of one another we should forthwith rejecttheir testimony, but as it is we must admit some slight chance that such aspeech was made. One of these accounts, in giving what purports to be theactual speech of Hubert Walter, though it must have been composed by thewriter himself, states a reason for it which could not possibly have beenentertained at the time. [64] The other gives as its reason the disputedsuccession, but makes the archbishop refer not to the right of Arthur, but to that of the queen of Castile, a reference which must also beuntrue. [65] If such a speech was made, it had reference unquestionably tothe case of Arthur, and it must be taken as a sign of the influence whichthis case certainly had on the development, in the minds of some at least, of something more like the modern understanding of the meaning ofelection, and as a prelude to the great movement which characterizes thethirteenth century, the rapid growth of ideas which may now without toogreat violence be called constitutional. If such a speech was made we maybe sure also that it was not made without the consent of John, and that itcontained nothing displeasing to him. One of his first acts as king was tomake Hubert Walter his chancellor, and apparently the first documentissued by the new king and chancellor puts prominently forward John'shereditary right, and states the share of clergy and people in hisaccession in peculiar and vague language. [66]

John had no mind to remain long in England, nor was there any reason whyhe should. The king of Scotland was making some trouble, demanding thecession of Cumberland and Northumberland, but it was possible to postponefor the present the decision of his claims. William Marshal was at lastformally invested with the earldom of Pembroke and Geoffrey Fitz Peterwith that of Essex. More important was a scutage, probably ordered atthis time, of the unusual rate of two marks on the knight's fee, twentyshillings having been the previous limit as men remembered it. By June 20John's business in England was done, and by July 1 he was again at Rouento watch the course of events in the conflict still undecided. On thatday a truce was made with Philip to last until the middle of August, andJohn began negotiations with the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne and withhis nephew, Otto IV of Germany, in a search for allies, from whom hegained only promises. On the expiration of the truce Philip demanded thecession of the entire Vexin and the transfer to Arthur of Poitou, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, --a demand which indicates his determination to goon with the war. For Poitou Philip had already received Eleanor's homage, and she in turn invested John with it as her vassal. In the beginning ofthe war which was now renewed Philip committed a serious error of policy, to which he was perhaps tempted by the steady drift of events in hisfavour since the death of Richard. Capturing the castle of Ballon inMaine he razed it to the ground. William des Roches, the leader ofArthur's cause, at once objected since the castle should belong to hislord, and protested to the king that this was contrary to theiragreement, but Philip haughtily replied that he should do as he pleasedwith his conquests in spite of Arthur. This was too early a declarationof intentions, and William immediately made terms with John, carryingover to him Arthur and his mother and the city of Le Mans. A slight studyof John's character ought to have shown to William that no dependencewhatever could be placed on his promise in regard to a point which wouldseem to them both of the greatest importance. William took the risk, however, binding John by solemn oath that Arthur should be dealt withaccording to his counsel, a promise which was drawn up in formal charter. On the very day of his arrival, it is said, Arthur was told of John'sintention to imprison him, and he fled away with his mother to Angers;but William des Roches remained for a time in John's service. 

The year 1199 closed with a truce preliminary to a treaty of peace whichwas finally concluded on May 18. Philip II was at the moment in nocondition to push the war. He was engaged in a desperate struggle withInnocent III and needed to postpone for the time being every otherconflict. Earlier in his reign on a political question he had defied apope, and with success; but Innocent III was a different pope, and on thepresent question Philip was wrong. In 1193 he had repudiated his secondwife, Ingeborg of Denmark, the day after the marriage, and later marriedAgnes of Meran whom he had hitherto refused to give up at the demand ofthe Church. At the close of 1199 France was placed under an interdictuntil the king should yield, and it was in this situation that the treatywith John was agreed to. Philip for the moment abandoned his attemptagainst the Angevin empire. John was recognized as rightful heir of theFrench fiefs, and his homage was accepted for them all, includingBritanny, for which Arthur then did homage to John. These concessionswere not secured, however, without some sacrifices on the English side. John yielded to Philip all the conquests which had been made fromRichard, and agreed to pay a relief of 20, 000 marks for admission to hisfiefs. The peace was to be sealed by the marriage of John's niece, thefuture great queen and regent of France, Blanche of Castile, to Philip'sson Louis, and the county of Evreux was to be ceded as her dower. Theaged but tireless Eleanor went to Spain to bring her granddaughter, andthe marriage was celebrated four days after the signing of the treaty, Louis at the time being thirteen years old and Blanche twelve. 

While his mother went to Spain for the young bride, John crossed toEngland to raise money for his relief. This was done by ordering acarucage at the rate of three shillings on the ploughland. The Cistercianorder objected to paying the tax because of the general immunity whichthey enjoyed, and John in great anger commanded all the sheriffs torefuse them the protection of the courts and to let go free of punishmentany who injured them, in effect to put them outside the law. This decreehe afterwards modified at the request of Hubert Walter, but he refused anoffer of a thousand marks for a confirmation of their charters andliberties, and returned to Normandy in the words quoted by thechronicler, "breathing out threatenings and slaughter against theservants of Christ. "

John was now in a position where he should have used every effort tostrengthen himself against the next move of Philip, which he should haveknown was inevitable, and where, if ever, he might hope to do so. Insteadof that, by a blunder in morals, in which John's greatest weakness lay, by an act of passion and perfidy, he gave his antagonist a better excusethan he could have hoped for when he was at last ready to renew the war. John had now been for more than ten years married to Isabel ofGloucester, and no children had been born of the marriage. In thesituation of the Angevin house he may well have wished for a direct heirand have been ready to adopt the expedient common to sovereigns in suchcases. At any rate about this time he procured from the Bishops ofNormandy and Aquitaine a divorce, a formal annulling of the marriage onthe ground of consanguinity, the question raised at the time of theirmarriage never, it would seem, having been settled by dispensation. Thenhe sent off an embassy to ask for a daughter of the king of Portugal. Inthe meantime he went on a progress through the French lands which hadbeen secured to him by treaty with Philip, and met the beautiful Isabel, daughter of the Count of Angoulème, then twelve years of age, anddetermined to marry her out of hand. The fact that she was alreadybetrothed to Hugh "the Brown, " son and heir of his own vassal the Countof La Marche, and that she was then living in the household of herintended father-in-law, made no more difference to him than his ownembassy to Portugal. It seems possible indeed that it was in the verycastle of the Count of La Marche that the plan was formed. Isabel'sfather also did not hesitate in the choice of sons-in-law, and hisdaughter having been brought home, she was at once married to John. Anact of this kind was a most flagrant violation of the feudal contract, nor was the moral blunder saved from being a political one by the factthat the injured house was that of the Lusignans, great barons and longturbulent and unruly vassals of Aquitaine. John had given them now alegal right of appeal to his suzerain and a moral justification ofrebellion. 

After his marriage John went back to England for the coronation of hisqueen, which took place on October 8. At Lincoln he received the homageof William of Scotland and made peace with the Cistercians, and then wenton a progress through the north as far as Carlisle. In the meantime, aswas to be expected, hostilities had begun with the family of the Count ofLa Marche, and the king sent out a summons to the barons of England tomeet him at Portsmouth at Whitsuntide prepared for service abroad. Onreceipt of this notice the earls held a meeting at Leicester and byagreement replied to the king that they would not go over sea with himunless he restored to them their rights. There is no evidence in thesingle account we have of this incident that the earls intended to denytheir liability to service abroad. It is probable they intended to taketheir position on the more secure principle that services due to thesuzerain who violated the rights of his vassal were for the time being, at least, suspended. If this is so, the declaration of the earls is thefirst clear evidence we have that the barons of England were beginning torealize their legal right of resistance and to get sight of the greatprinciple which was so soon to give birth to the constitution. The resultof the opposition to John's summons we do not know, unless the statementwhich follows in the chronicle that the king was demanding the castles ofthe barons, and taking hostages if they retained them, was his answer totheir demand. At any rate they appeared as required at Portsmouth readyfor the campaign abroad, but John, instead of sending them over toFrance, took away the money which they had brought to spend in hisservice, and let them go home. 

From the time of John's landing in Normandy, about June 1, 1201, untilthe same time the next year, he was occupied with negotiating rather thanwith fighting. Philip was not yet ready to take part himself in the war, but he kept a careful watch of events and made John constantly aware thathe was not overlooking his conduct toward his vassals. Several interviewswere held between the kings of a not unfriendly character; the treaty ofthe previous year was confirmed, and John was invited to Paris by Philipand entertained in the royal palace. It was at first proposed that thecase between John and the Lusignans should be tried in his own court asCount of Poitou, but he insisted upon such conditions that the trial wasrefused. Meanwhile Philip's affairs were rapidly becoming settled and hewas able to take up again his plans of conquest. The death of Agnes ofMeran made possible a reconciliation with the Church, and the death ofthe Count of Champagne added the revenues of that great barony to his ownthrough his wardship of the heir. In the spring of 1202 he was ready foraction. The barons of Poitou had already lodged an appeal with him asoverlord against the illegal acts of John. This gave him a legalopportunity without violating any existing treaty. After an interviewwith John on March 25, which left things as they were, a formal summonswas issued citing John to appear before Philip's court and answer to anycharges against him. He neither came nor properly excused himself, thoughhe tried to avoid the difficulty. He alleged that as Duke of Normandy hecould not be summoned to Paris for trial, and was answered that he hadnot been summoned as Duke of Normandy but as Count of Poitou. He demandeda safe conduct and was told that he could have one for his coming, butthat his return would depend on the sentence of the court. He said thatthe king of England could not submit to such a trial, and was answeredthat the king of France could not lose his rights over a vassal becausehe happened to have acquired another dignity. Finally, John's legalrights of delay and excuse being exhausted, the court decreed that heshould be deprived of all the fiefs which he held of France on the groundof failure of service. All the steps of this action from its beginning toits ending seem to have been perfectly regular, John being tried, ofcourse, not on the appeal of the barons of Poitou which had led to theking's action, but for his refusal to obey the summons, and the severesentence with which it closed was that which the law provided, though itwas not often enforced in its extreme form, and probably would not havebeen in this case if John had been willing to submit. [67]

The sentence of his court Philip gladly accepted, and invaded Normandyabout June 1, capturing place after place with almost no opposition fromJohn. Arthur, now sixteen years old, he knighted, gave him theinvestiture of all the Angevin fiefs except Normandy, and betrothed himto his own daughter Mary. On August 1 occurred an event which promised atfirst a great success for John, but proved in its consequences a maincause of his failure, and led to the act of infamy by which he has eversince been most familiarly known. Arthur, hearing that his grandmotherEleanor was at the castle of Mirebeau in Poitou with a small force, laidsiege to the castle to capture her as John's chief helper, and quicklycarried the outer works. Eleanor had managed, however, to send off amessenger to her son at Le Mans, and John, calling on the fierce energyhe at times displayed, covered the hundred miles between them in a dayand a night, surprised the besiegers by his sudden attack, and capturedtheir whole force. To England he wrote saying that the favour of God hadworked with him wonderfully, and a man more likely to receive the favourof God might well think so. Besides Arthur, he captured Hugh of Lusignanthe younger and his uncle Geoffrey, king Richard's faithful supporter inthe Holy Land, with many of the revolted barons and, as he reported withprobable exaggeration, two hundred knights and more. Philip, who wasbesieging Arques, on hearing the news, retired hastily to his own landand in revenge made a raid on Tours, which in his assault and John'srecapture was almost totally destroyed by fire. The prisoners and bootywere safely conveyed to Normandy, and Arthur was imprisoned at Falaise. 

Instantly anxiety began to be felt by the friends of Arthur as to hisfate. William des Roches, who was still in the service of John, went tothe king with barons from Britanny and asked that his prisoner be given upto them. Notwithstanding the written promise and oath which John had givento follow the counsel of William in his treatment of Arthur, he refusedthis request. William left the king's presence to go into rebellion, andwas joined by many of the barons of Britanny; at the end of October theygot possession of Angers. It was a much more serious matter that duringthe autumn and winter extensive disaffection and even open treason beganto show themselves among the barons of Normandy. What disposition shouldbe made of Arthur was, no doubt, a subject of much debate in the king'smind, and very likely with his counsellors, during the months thatfollowed the capture. John's lack of insight was on the moral side, notat all on the intellectual, and he no doubt saw clearly that so long asArthur lived he never could be safe from the designs of Philip. On theother hand he probably did not believe that Philip would seriously attemptthe unusual step of enforcing in full the sentence of the court againsthim, and underestimated both the danger of treason and the moral effect ofthe death of Arthur. What the fate of the young Count of Britanny reallywas no one has ever known. The most accurate statement of what we do knowis that of an English chronicler[68] who says that he was removed fromFalaise to Rouen by John's order and that not long after he suddenlydisappeared, and we may add that this disappearance must have been aboutthe Easter of 1203. Many different stories were in circulation at the timeor soon after, accounting for his death as natural, or accidental, or amurder, some of them in abundant detail, but in none of these can we haveany confidence. The only detail of the history which seems historicallyprobable is one we find in an especially trustworthy chronicler, whichrepresents John as first intending to render Arthur incapable of ruling bymutilation and sending men to Falaise to carry out this plan. [69] It wasnot done, though Arthur's custodian, Hubert de Burgh, thought it best togive out the report that it had been, and that the young man had died inconsequence. The report roused such a storm of anger among the Bretonsthat Hubert speedily judged it necessary to try to quiet it by evidencethat Arthur was still alive, and John is said not to have been angry thathis orders had been disobeyed. It is certain, however, that he learned nowisdom from the result of this experiment, and that Arthur finally diedeither by his order or by his hand. 

It is of some interest that in all the contemporary discussion of thiscase no one ever suggested that John was personally incapable of such aviolation of his oath or of such a murder with his own hand. He is of allkings the one for whose character no man, of his own age or later, hasever had a good word. Historians have been found to speak highly of hisintellectual or military abilities, but words have been exhausted todescribe the meanness of his moral nature and his utter depravity. Fullyas wicked as William Rufus, the worst of his predecessors, he makes onthe reader of contemporary narratives the impression of a man far lessapt to be swept off his feet by passion, of a cooler and more deliberate, of a meaner and smaller, a less respectable or pardonable lover of viceand worker of crimes. The case of Arthur exhibits one of his deepesttraits, his utter falsity, the impossibility of binding him, hisreadiness to betray any interest or any man or woman, whenever tempted toit. The judgment of history on John has been one of terrible severity, but the unanimous opinion of contemporaries and posterity is not likelyto be wrong, and the failure of personal knowledge and of later study tofind redeeming features assures us of their absence. As to the murder ofArthur, it was a useless crime even if judged from the point of view of aBorgian policy merely, one from which John had in any case little to gainand of which his chief enemy was sure to reap the greatest advantage. 

Soon after Easter Philip again took the field, still ignorant of the fateof Arthur, as official acts show him to have been some months later. Place after place fell into his hands with no serious check and no activeopposition on the part of John, some opening their gates on his approach, and none offering an obstinate resistance. The listless conduct of Johnduring the loss of Normandy is not easy to explain. The only suggestionof explanation in the contemporary historians is that of the generalprevalence of treason in the duchy, which made it impossible for the kingto know whom to trust and difficult to organize a sufficient defence tothe advance of Philip, and undoubtedly this factor in the case shouldreceive more emphasis than it has usually been given. Other kings had hadto contend with extensive treason on the part of the Norman barons, butnever in quite the same circumstances and probably never of quite thesame spirit. Treason now was a different thing from that of mere feudalbarons in their alliance with Louis VII in the reign of Henry I. It mightbe still feudal in form, but its immediate and permanent results werelikely to be very different. It was no temporary defection to be overcomeby some stroke of policy or by the next turn of the wheel. It was joiningthe cause of Philip Augustus and the France which he had done so muchalready to create; it was being absorbed in the expansion of a greatnation to which the duchy naturally belonged, and coming under theinfluence of rapidly forming ideals of nationality, possibly even inducedby them more or less consciously felt. This may have been treason inform, but in real truth it was a natural and inevitable current, andfrom it there was no return. John may have felt something of this. Its spirit may have been in the atmosphere, and its effect would beparalyzing. Still we find it impossible to believe that Henry I in thesame circumstances would have done no more than John did to stem the tide. He seemed careless and inert. He showed none of the energy of actionor clearness of mind which he sometimes exhibits. Men came to him withthe news of Philip's repeated successes, and he said, "Let him go on, Ishall recover one day everything he is taking now"; though what he wasdepending on for this result never appears. Perhaps he recognizedthe truth of what, according to one account, William Marshal told him tohis face, that he had made too many enemies by his personal conduct, [70]and so he did not dare to trust any one; but we are tempted after allexplanation to believe there was in the case something of that moralbreakdown in dangerous crises which at times comes to men of John'scharacter. 

By the end of August Philip was ready for the siege of theChâteau-Gaillard, Richard's great fortress, the key to Rouen and so tothe duchy. John seems to have made one attempt soon after to raise thesiege, but with no very large forces, and the effort failed; it may evenhave led to the capture of the fort on the island in the river and thetown of Les Andelys by the French. Philip then drew his lines round themain fortress and settled down to a long blockade. The castle wascommanded by Roger de Lacy, a baron faithful to John, and one who couldbe trusted not to give up his charge so long as any further defence waspossible. He was well furnished with supplies, but as the siege went onhe found himself obliged, following a practice not infrequent in themiddle ages, to turn out of the castle, to starve between the lines, somehundreds of useless mouths of the inhabitants of Les Andelys, who hadsought refuge there on the capture of the town by the French. Philipfinally allowed them to pass his lines. Chateau-Gaillard was at lasttaken not by the blockade, but by a series of assaults extending throughabout two weeks and closing with the capture of the third or inner wardand keep on March 6, 1204, an instance of the fact of which the historyof medieval times contains abundant proof, that the siege appliances ofthe age were sufficient for the taking of the strongest fortress unlessit were in a situation inaccessible to them. In the meantime John, seeingthe hopelessness of defending Normandy with the resources left him there, and even, it is said, fearing treasonable designs against his person, hadquitted the duchy in what proved to be a final abandonment and crossed toEngland on December 5. He landed with no good feeling towards the Englishbarons whom he accused of leaving him at the mercy of his enemies, and heordered at once a tax of one-seventh of the personal property of clergyand laymen alike. This was followed by a scutage at the rate of two markson the knight's fee, determined on at a great council held at Oxfordearly in January. But, notwithstanding these taxes and other ways ofraising money, John seems to have been embarrassed in his measures ofdefence by a lack of funds, while Philip was furnished with plenty toreinforce the victories of his arms with purchased support wherenecessary, and to attract John's mercenaries into his service. 

After the fall of Chateau-Gaillard events drew rapidly to a close. Johntried the experiment of an embassy headed by Hubert Walter and WilliamMarshal to see if a peace could be arranged, but Philip naturally set histerms so high that nothing was to be lost by going on with the war, however disastrous it might prove. He demanded the release of Arthur, or, if he were not living, of his sister Eleanor, with the cession to eitherof them of the whole continental possessions of the Angevins. In theinterview Philip made known the policy that he proposed to follow inregard to the English barons who had possessions in Normandy, for heoffered to guarantee to William Marshal and his colleague, the Earl ofLeicester, their Norman lands if they would do him homage. Philip'swisdom in dealing with his conquests, leaving untouched the possessionsand rights of those who submitted, rewarding with gifts and office thosewho proved faithful, made easy the incorporation of these new territoriesin the royal domain. By the end of May nearly all the duchy was in thehands of the French, the chief towns making hardly a show of resistance, but opening their gates readily on the offer of favourable terms. ForRouen, which was reserved to the last, the question was a more seriousone, bound as it was to England by commercial interests and likely tosuffer injury if the connexion were broken. Philip granted the city atruce of thirty days on the understanding that it should be surrenderedif the English did not raise the siege within that time. The messengerssent to the king in England returned with no promise of help, and on June24 Philip entered the capital of Normandy. 

With the loss of Normandy nothing remained to John but his mother'sinheritance, and against this Philip next turned. Queen Eleanor, eighty-two years of age, had closed her marvellous career on April 1, andno question of her rights stood in the way of the absorption of allAquitaine in France. The conquest of Touraine and Poitou was almost aseasy as that of Normandy, except the castles of Chinon and Loches whichheld out for a year, and the cities of Niort, Thouars, and La Rochelle. But beyond the bounds of the county of Poitou Philip made no progress. InGascony proper where feudal independence of the old type still survivedthe barons had no difficulty in perceiving that Philip Augustus was muchless the sort of king they wished than the distant sovereign of England. No local movement in his favour or national sympathy prepared the way foran easy conquest, nor was any serious attempt at invasion made. Most ofthe inheritance of Eleanor remained to her son, though not through anyeffort of his, and the French advance stopped at the capture of thecastles of Loches and Chinon in the summer of 1205. John had not remainedin inactivity in England all this time, however, without some impatience?but efforts to raise sufficient money for any considerable undertaking orto carry abroad the feudal levies of the country had all failed. At theend of May, 1205, he did collect at Portchester what is described as avery great fleet and a splendid army to cross to the continent, butHubert Walter and William Marshal, supported by others of the barons, opposed the expedition so vigorously and with so many arguments that theking finally yielded to their opposition though with great reluctance. 

The great duchy founded three hundred years before on the colonization ofthe Northmen, always one of the mightiest of the feudal states of France, all the dominions which the counts of Anjou had struggled to bringtogether through so many generations, the disputed claims on Maine andBritanny recognized now for a long time as going with Normandy, a parteven of the splendid possessions of the dukes of Aquitaine;--all these inlittle more than two years Philip had transferred from the possession ofthe king of England to his own, and all except Britanny to the royaldomain. If we consider the resources with which he began to reign, wemust pronounce it an achievement equalled by few kings. For the king ofEngland it was a corresponding loss in prestige and brilliancy ofposition. John has been made to bear the responsibility of this disaster, and morally with justice; but it must not be forgotten that, as themodern nations were beginning to take shape and to become conscious ofthemselves, the connexion with England would be felt to be unnatural, andthat it was certain to be broken. For England the loss of thesepossessions was no disaster; it was indeed as great a blessing as toFrance. The chief gain was that it cut off many diverting interests fromthe barons of England, just at a time when they were learning to bejealous of their rights at home and were about to enter upon a strugglewith the king to compel him to regard the law in his government of thecountry, a struggle which determined the whole future history of thenation. 

[63] See Walter of Coventry, ii. 196. 

[64] Matth. Paris, ii. 455. 

[65] Rymer, Foedera, i. 140. 

[66] Rymer, Foedera, i. 75. 

[67] But see Guilhiermoz, Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartes, lx. (1899), 45-85, whose argument is, however, not convincing. 

[68] Roger of Wendover, iii. 170. 

[69] Ralph of Coggeshall, 139-141. 

[70] L'Histoire de Guillaume la Maréchal, ll. 12737-12741. 

CHAPTER XX

CONFLICT WITH THE PAPACY

The loss of the ancient possessions of the Norman dukes and the Angevincounts marks the close of an epoch in the reign of John; but for thehistory of England and for the personal history of the king the period ismore appropriately closed by the death of Archbishop Hubert Walter onJuly 13, 1205, for the consequences which followed that event lead usdirectly to the second period of the reign. Already at the accession ofJohn one of the two or three men of controlling influence on the courseof events, trained not merely in the school of Henry II, but by theleading part he had played in the reign of Richard, there is no doubtthat he had kept a strong hand on the government of the opening years ofthe new reign, and that his personality had been felt as a decided checkby the new king. We may believe also that as one who had been brought upby Glanvill, the great jurist of Henry's time, and who had a large sharein carrying the constitutional beginnings of that time a further stageforward, but who was himself a practical statesman rather than a lawyer, he was one of the foremost teachers of that great lesson which Englandwas then learning, the lesson of law, of rights and responsibilities, which was for the world at large a far more important result of the legalreforms of the great Angevin monarch than anything in the field oftechnical law. It is easy to believe that a later writer records at leasta genuine tradition of the feeling of John when he makes him exclaim onhearing of the archbishop's death, "Now--for the first time am I king ofEngland. " In truth practically shut up now for the first time to hisisland kingdom, John was about to be plunged into that series of quarrelsand conflicts which fills the remainder of his life. 

For the beginning of the conflict which gives its chief characteristic tothe second period of his reign, the conflict with the pope and theChurch, John is hardly to be blamed, at least not from the point of viewof a king of England. With the first scene of the drama he had nothing todo; in the second he was doing no more than all his predecessors had donewith scarcely an instance of dispute since the Norman Conquest. There hadlong been two questions concerning elections to the see of Canterburythat troubled the minds of the clergy. The monks of the cathedral churchobjected to the share which the bishops of the province had acquired inthe choice of their primate, and canonically they were probably right. They also objected, and the bishops, though usually acting on the side ofthe king, no doubt sympathized with them, to the virtual appointment ofthe archbishop by the king. This objection, though felt by the clergysince the day when Anselm had opened the way into England to theprinciples of the Hildebrandine reformation, had never yet been givendecided expression in overt act or led to any serious struggle with thesovereign; and it is clear that it would not have done so in thisinstance if the papal throne had not been filled by Innocent III. Thatgreat ecclesiastical statesman found in the political situation of morethan one country of Europe opportunities for the exercise of his decidedgenius which enabled him to attain more nearly to the papacy of GregoryVII's ideal than had been possible to any earlier pope, and none of histriumphs was greater than that which he won from the opportunity offeredhim in England. 

On Archbishop Hubert's death a party of the monks of Canterburydetermined to be beforehand with the bishops and even with the king. Theysecretly elected their subprior to the vacant see, and sent him off toRome to be confirmed before their action should be known, but thepersonal vanity of their candidate betrayed the secret, and his boastingthat he was the elect of Canterbury was reported back from the continentto England to the anger of the monks, who then sent a deputation to theking and asked permission in the regular way to proceed to an election. John gave consent, and suggested John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, as hiscandidate, since he was "alone of all the prelates of England inpossession of his counsels. " The bishop was elected by the chapter; bothbishops and monks were induced to withdraw the appeals they had made toRome on their respective rights, and, on December 11, the new archbishopwas enthroned and invested with the fiefs of Canterbury by the king. Ofcourse the pallium from the pope was still necessary, and steps were atonce taken to secure it. Innocent took plenty of time to consider thesituation and did not render his decision until the end of March, 1206, declaring then against the king's candidate and ordering a deputation ofthe monks to be sent him, duly commissioned to act for the whole chapter. King and bishops were also told to be represented at the final decision. The pope's action postponed the settlement of the question for sixmonths, and the interval was spent by John in an effort to recoversomething of his lost dominions, undertaken this time with some promiseof success because of active resistance to Philip in Poitou. On thisoccasion no objection to the campaign was made by the barons, and with alarge English force John landed at La Rochelle on June 7. Encouraged byhis presence the insurrection spread through the greater part of Poitouand brought it back into his possession. He even invaded Anjou and heldits capital for a time, and reached the borders of Maine, but theseconquests he could not retain after Philip took the field against him inperson; but on his side Philip did not think it wise to attempt therecovery of Poitou. On October 26 a truce for two years was proclaimed, each side to retain what it then possessed, but John formally abandoningall rights north of the Loire during the period of the truce. 

John did not return to England until near the middle of December, buteven at that date Innocent III had not decided the question of theCanterbury election. On December 20 he declared against the claim of thebishops and against the first secret election by the monks, and under hisinfluence the deputation from Canterbury elected an Englishman andcardinal highly respected at Rome both for his character and for hislearning, Stephen of Langton. The representatives of the king at Romerefused to agree to this election, and the pope himself wrote to Johnurging him to accept the new archbishop, but taking care to make it clearthat the consent of the king was not essential, and indeed he did notwait for it. After correspondence with John in which the king's anger andhis refusal to accept Langton were plainly expressed, on June 17, 1207, he consecrated Stephen archbishop. John's answer was the confiscation ofthe lands of the whole archbishopric, apparently those of the convent aswell as those of the archbishop, and the expulsion of the monks from thecountry as traitors, while the trial in England of all appeals to thepope was forbidden. 

Before this violent proceeding against the Canterbury monks, thefinancial necessities of John had led to an experiment in taxation whichembroiled him to almost the same extent with the northern province. Notthe only one, but the chief source of the troubles of John's reign afterthe loss of Normandy, and the main cause of the revolution in which thereign closed, is to be found in the financial situation of the king. Thenormal expenses of government had been increasing rapidly in the lasthalf century. The growing amount and complexity of public and privatebusiness, to be expected in a land long spared the ravages of war, whichshowed itself in the remarkable development of judicial andadministrative machinery during the period, meant increased expenses inmany directions not to be met by the increased income from the newmachinery. The cost of the campaigns in France was undoubtedly great, andthe expense of those which the king desired to undertake was clearlybeyond the resources of the country, at least beyond the resourcesavailable to him by existing methods of taxation. Nor was John a savingand careful housekeeper who could make a small income go a long ways. Thecomplete breakdown of the ordinary feudal processes of raising revenue, the necessity forced upon the king of discovering new sources of income, the attempt within a single generation to impose on the country somethinglike the modern methods and regularity of taxation, these must be takeninto account as elements of decided importance in any final judgment wemay form of the struggles of John's reign and their constitutionalresults. Down to this date a scutage had been imposed every year sincethe king's accession, at the rate of two marks on the fee except on thelast occasion when the tax had been twenty shillings. Besides these therehad been demanded the carucage of 1200 and the seventh of personalproperty of 1204, to say nothing of some extraordinary exactions. Butthese taxes were slow in coming in; the machinery of collection was stillprimitive, and the amount received in any year was far below what the taxshould have yielded. 

At a great council held in London on January 8 the king asked the bishopsand abbots present to grant him a tax on the incomes of all beneficedclergy. The demand has a decidedly modern sound. Precedents for taxationof this sort had been made in various crusading levies, in the expedientsadopted for raising Richard's ransom, and in the seventh demanded by Johnin 1204, which was exacted from at least a part of the clergy, but thesewere all more or less exceptional cases, and there was no precedent forsuch a tax as a means of meeting the ordinary expenses of the state. Theprelates refused their consent, and the matter was deferred to a secondgreat council to be held at Oxford a month later. This council wasattended by an unusually large number of ecclesiastics, and the king'sproposition, submitted to them again, was again refused. The council, however, granted the thirteenth asked, to be collected of the incomes andpersonal property of the laity. But John had no mind to give up his planbecause it had not been sanctioned by the prelates in general assembly, and he proceeded, apparently by way of individual consent, doubtlesspractically compulsory as usual, to collect the same tax from the wholeclergy, the Cistercians alone excepted. A tax of this kind whether oflaity or clergy was entirely non-feudal, foreign both in nature andmethods to the principles of feudalism, and a long step toward moderntaxation, but it was some time before the suggestion made by it was takenup by the government as one of its ordinary resources. ArchbishopGeoffrey of York, the king's brother, who since the death of his fatherseemed never to be happy unless in a quarrel with some one, took it uponhimself to oppose violently the taxation of his clergy, though he hadenforced the payment of a similar tax for Richard's ransom. Finding thathe could not prevent it he retired from the country, excommunicating thedespoilers of the church, and his lands were taken in hand by the king. 

The expulsion of the monks of Canterbury was a declaration of war againstthe Church and the pope, and the Church was far more powerful, moreclosely organized, and more nearly actuated by a single ideal, than inthe case of any earlier conflict between Church and State in England, andthe pope was Innocent III, head of the world in his own conception of hisposition and very nearly so in reality. There was no chance that adeclaration of war would pass unanswered, but the pope did not actwithout deliberation. On the news of what the king had done he wrote tothe Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, directing them to try topersuade John to give way, and if he obstinately continued his course, toproclaim an interdict. This letter was written on August 27, but theinterdict was not actually put into force until March 24, 1208, negotiations going on all the winter, and John displaying, as he didthroughout the whole conflict, considerable ability in securing delay andin keeping opponents occupied with proposals which he probably neverintended to carry out. At last a date was set on which the interdictwould be proclaimed if the king had not yielded by that time, and he wasgiven an opportunity of striking the first blow which he did not neglect. He ordered the immediate confiscation of the property of all the clergywho should obey the interdict. 

The struggle which follows exhibits, as nothing else could do so well, the tremendous power of the Norman feudal monarchy, the absolute holdwhich it had on state and nation even on the verge of its fall. John hadnot ruled during these eight years in such a way as to strengthen hispersonal position. He had been a tyrant; he had disregarded the rights ofbatons as well as of clergy; he had given to many private reasons ofhatred; he had lost rather than won respect by the way in which he haddefended his inheritance in France his present cause, if looked at fromthe point of view of Church and nation and not from that of the royalprerogative alone, was a bad one. The interdict was a much dreadedpenalty, suspending some of the most desired offices of religion, and, while not certainly dooming all the dying to be lost in the world tocome, at least rendering their state to the pious mind somewhat doubtful;and, though the effect of the spiritual terrors of the Church had been alittle weakened by their frequent use on slight occasions, the age wasstill far distant when they could be disregarded. We should expect Johnto prove as weak in the war with Innocent as he had in that with Philip, and at such a test to find his power crumbling without recovery. What wereally find is a successful resistance kept up for years, almost withoutexpressed opposition, a great body of the clergy reconciling themselvesto the situation as best they could; a period during which the affairs ofthe state seem to go on as if nothing were out of order, the period ofJohn's greatest tyranny, of almost unbridled power. And when he wasforced to yield at last, it was to a foreign attack, to a foreign attackcombined, it is true, with an opposition at home which had been longaccumulating, but no one can say how long this opposition might have goneon accumulating before it would have grown strong enough to check theking of itself. 

The interdict seems to have been generally observed by the clergy. TheCistercians at first declared that they were not bound to respect it, butthey were after a time forced by the pope to conform. Baptism and extremeunction were allowed; marriages might be celebrated at the church door;but no masses were publicly said, and all the ordinary course of thesacraments was intermitted; the dead were buried in unconsecrated ground, and the churches were closed except to those who wished to makeofferings. Nearly all the bishops went into exile. Two only remained inthe end, both devoted more to the king than to the Church; John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, employed during most of the time in secular businessin Ireland, and Peter des Roches, appointed Bishop of Winchester in 1205, destined to play a leading part against the growing liberties of thenation in the next reign, and now, as a chronicler says, occupied lesswith defending the Church than in administering the king's affairs. Thegeneral confiscation of Church property must have relieved greatly thefinancial distress of the king, and during the years when these landswere administered as part of the royal domains, we hear less of attemptsat national taxation. John did not stop with confiscation of the goods ofthe clergy. Their exemption from the jurisdiction of the ordinary courtsof the state was suspended, and they were even in some cases denied theprotection of the laws. It is said that once there came to the king onthe borders of Wales officers of one of the sheriffs, leading a robberwith his hands bound behind his back, who had robbed and killed a priest, and they asked the king what should be done with him. "He has killedone of my enemies. Loose him and let him go, " ordered John. After theinterdict had been followed by the excommunication of the king, Geoffrey, Archdeacon of Norwich, urged upon his associates at the exchequer that itwas not safe for those who were in orders to remain in the service of anexcommunicate king, and left the court without permission and went home. John hearing this sent William Talbot after him with a band of soldiers, who arrested the archdeacon, and loaded him with chains, and threw himinto prison. There shortly after by the command of the king he waspressed to death. It was by acts like these, of which other instances areon record, that John terrorized the country and held it quiet under histyranny. 

Even the greatest barons were subjected to arbitrary acts of power of thesame kind. On the slightest occasion of suspicion the king demanded theirsons or other relatives, or their vassals, as hostages, a measure whichhad been in occasional use before, but which John carried to an extreme. The great earl marshal himself, who, if we may trust his biographer, wasnever afraid to do what he thought honour demanded, and was always ableto defend himself in the king's presence with such vigorous argument thatnothing could be done with him, was obliged to give over to the king'skeeping first his eldest and then his second son. The case of William deBraóse is that most commonly cited. He had been a devoted supporter ofJohn and had performed many valuable services in his interest, especiallyat the time of the coronation. For these he had received many marks ofroyal favour, and was rapidly becoming both in property and in familyalliances one of the greatest barons of the land. About the time of theproclamation of the interdict a change took place in his fortunes. Forsome reason he lost the favour of the king and fell instead under hisactive enmity. According to a formal statement of the case, which Johnthought well to put forth afterwards, he had failed to pay large sumswhich he had promised in return for the grants that had been made him;and the records support the accusation. [71] According to Roger ofWendover the king had a personal cause of anger. On a demand ofhostages from her husband, the wife of William had rashly declared tothe officers that her sons should never be delivered to the king becausehe had basely murdered his nephew Arthur, whom he was under obligationto guard honourably, and it is impossible to believe that it was merelydelay in paying money that excited the fierce persecution that followed. William with his family took refuge in Ireland, where he was received byWilliam Marshal and the Lacies, but John pursued him thither, and he wasagain obliged to fly. His wife and son, attempting to escape to Scotland, were seized in Galloway by a local baron and delivered to John, whocaused them to be starved to death in prison. 

It may seem strange at the present day that the absolutism of the kingdid not bring about a widespread rebellion earlier than it did. One ofthe chief causes of his strength is to be found in the bands of mercenarysoldiers which he maintained, ready to do any bidding at a moment'snotice, under the command of men who were entirely his creatures, likeGerald of Athies, a peasant of Touraine, who with some of his fellows wasthought worthy of mention by name in the Great Charter. The cost ofkeeping these bands devoted to his service was no doubt one of the largeexpenses of the reign. Another fact of greater permanent interest thathelped to keep up the king's power is the lack of unity among the barons, of any feeling of a common cause, but rather the existence of jealousies, and open conflicts even, which made it impossible to bring them togetherin united action in their own defence. The fact is of especial importancebecause it was the crushing tyranny of John that first gave rise to thefeeling of corporate unity in the baronage, and the growth of thisfeeling is one of the great facts of the thirteenth century. 

At the beginning of 1209 Innocent III had threatened the immediateexcommunication of John, but the king had known how to keep him, and thebishops who represented him in the negotiations, occupied with oneproposition of compromise after another until almost the close of theyear. The summer was employed in settling affairs with Scotland, whichdown to this time had not been put into form satisfactory to either king. A meeting at the end of April led to no result, but in August, afterarmies of the two countries had faced each other on the borders, a treatywas agreed upon. William the Lion was not then in a condition to insiststrongly on his own terms, and the treaty was much in favour of John. Theking of Scotland promised to pay 15, 000 marks, and gave over two of hisdaughters to John to be given in marriage by him. In a later treatyJohn was granted the same right with respect to Alexander, the heir ofScotland, arrangements that look very much like a recognition of theking of England as the overlord of Scotland. In Wales also quarrels amongthe native chieftains enabled John to increase his influence in the stillunconquered districts. In November the long-deferred excommunication fellupon the unrepentant king, but it could not be published in England. There were no bishops left in the country who were acting in theinterests of the pope, and John took care that there should be no meansof making any proclamation of the sentence in his kingdom. Theexcommunication was formally published in France, and news of it passedover to England, but no attention was paid to it there. For theindividual, excommunication was a more dreaded penalty than theinterdict. The interdict might compel a king to yield by the public fearand indignation which it would create, but an excommunication cut him offas a man completely from the Church and all its mercies, cast him out ofthe community of Christians, and involved in the same awful fate all whocontinued to support him, or, indeed, to associate with him in any way. Even more than the interdict, the excommunication reveals the terriblestrength of the king. When the time came for holding the Christmas courtof 1209, the fact that it had been pronounced was generally known, but itmade no difference in the attendance. All the barons are said to havebeen present and to have associated with the king as usual, though theremust have been many of them who trembled at the audacity of the act, andwho would have withdrawn entirely from him if they had dared. On hisreturn from the north John had demanded and obtained a renewal of homagefrom all the free tenants of the country. The men of Wales had even beencompelled to go to Woodstock to render it. It is quite possible that thisdemand had been made in view of the excommunication that was coming; thehomage must certainly have been rendered by many who knew that thesentence was hanging over the king's head. 

The year 1210 is marked by an expedition of John with an army to Ireland. Not only were William de Braóse and his wife to be punished, but theLacies had been for some time altogether too independent, and the conductof William Marshal was not satisfactory. The undertaking occasioned thefirst instance of direct taxation since the lands of the Church had beentaken in hand, a scutage, which in this case at least would have awarrant in strict feudal law. The clergy also were compelled to pay aspecial and heavy tax, and the Jews throughout the kingdom--perhaps anact of piety on the part of the king to atone somewhat for his treatmentof the Church--were arrested and thrown into prison and forced to partwith large sums of money. It was on this occasion that the often-quotedincident occurred of the Jew of Bristol who endured all ordinary torturesto save his money, or that in his charge, until the king ordered a toothto be drawn each day so long as he remained obstinate. As the eighth wasabout to be pulled, "tardily perceiving, " as the chronicler remarks, "what was useful, " he gave up and promised the 10, 000 marks demanded. 

John landed in Ireland about June 20, and traversed with his army all thatpart of the country which was occupied by Anglo-Norman settlers withoutfinding any serious opposition. William Marshal entertained his host fortwo days with all loyalty. The Lacies and William de Braóse's family fledbefore him from one place to another and finally escaped out of the islandto Scotland. Carrickfergus, in which Hugh de Lacy had thought to stand asiege, resisted for a few days, and then surrendered. At Dublin the nativekings of various districts, said by Roger of Wendover to have been morethan twenty in number, including the successor of Roderick, king ofConnaught, who had inherited a greatly reduced power, came in and didhomage and swore fealty to John. At the same time, we are told, the kingintroduced into the island the laws and administrative system of England, and appointed sheriffs. [72] John's march through the island and themeasures of government which he adopted have been thought to mark anadvance in the subjection of Ireland to English rule, and to form one ofthe few permanent contributions to English history devised by the king. Onhis departure Bishop John de Grey was left as justiciar, and toward theend of August John landed in England to go on with the work of exactingmoney from the clergy and the Jews that he had begun before he left thecountry. 

The two years which followed John's return from Ireland, from August, 1210 to August 1212, form the period of his highest power. No attempt atresistance to his will anywhere disturbed the peace of England. Llewelyn, Prince of north Wales, husband of John's natural daughter Joanna, involved in border warfare with the Earl of Chester, was not willing toyield to the authority of the king, but two expeditions against him in1211 forced him to make complete submission. A contemporary annalistremarks with truth that none of John's predecessors exercised so great anauthority over Scotland, Wales, or Ireland as he, and we may add thatnone exercised a greater over England. The kingdom was almost in a stateof blockade, and not only was unauthorized entrance into the countryforbidden, but departure from it as well, except as the king desired. During these two years John's relations with the Church troubled him butlittle. Negotiations were kept up as before, but they led to nothing. Onhis return from the Welsh campaign the king met representatives of thepope at Northampton, one of whom was the Roman subdeacon Pandulf, whomJohn met later in a different mood. We have no entirely trustworthyaccount of the interview, but it was found impossible to agree upon theterms of any treaty which would bring the conflict to an end. The popedemanded a promise of complete obedience from John on all the questionsthat had caused the trouble, and restoration to the clergy of all theirconfiscated revenues, and to one or both of these demands the kingrefused to yield. Now it is that we begin to hear of threats of furthersentences to be issued by the pope against John, or actually issued, releasing his subjects from their allegiance and declaring the kingincapable of ruling, but if any step of that kind was taken, it had forthe present no effect. The Christmas feast was kept as usual at Windsor, and in Lent of the next year John knighted young Alexander of Scotland, whose father had sent him to London to be married as his liege lord mightplease, though "without disparagement. "

In the spring of 1212 John seems to have felt himself strong enough totake up seriously a plan for the recovery of the lands which he had lostin France. The idea he had had in mind for some years was the formation ofa great coalition against Philip Augustus by combining various enemies ofhis or of the pope's. In May the Count of Boulogne, who was in troublewith the king of France, came to London and did homage to John. Otto IV, the Guelfic emperor and John's nephew, was now in as desperate conflictwith the papacy as if he were a Ghibelline, and Innocent was supportingagainst him the young Hohenstaufen Frederick, son of Henry VI andConstance of Sicily. Otto therefore was ready to promise help to any onefrom whom he could hope for aid in return, or to take part in anyenterprise from which a change of the general situation might be expected. Ferdinand of Portugal, just become Count of Flanders by marriage withJeanne, the heiress of the crusading Count Baldwin, the emperor Baldwin ofthe new Latin empire, had at the moment of his accession been made thevictim of Philip Augustus's ceaseless policy of absorbing the great fiefsin the crown, and had lost the two cities of Aire and St. Omer. He wasready to listen to John's solicitations, and after some hesitation anddelay joined the alliance, as did also most of the princes on thenorth-east between France and Germany. John laboured long and hard withmuch skill and final success, at a combination which would isolate theking of France and make it possible to attack him with overwhelming forceat once from the north and the south. With a view, in all probability, tocalling out the largest military force possible in the event of a war withFrance, John at this time ordered a new survey to be taken of the servicedue from the various fiefs in England. The inquest was made by juries ofthe hundreds, after a method very similar to that lately employed in thecarucage of 1198, and earlier in the Domesday survey by William theConqueror, though it was under the direction of the sheriffs, not ofspecial commissioners. The interesting returns to this inquiry have beenpreserved to us only in part. [73] If John hoped to be able to attack hisenemy abroad in the course of the year 1212, he was disappointed in theend. His combination of allies he was not able to complete. A new revoltof the Welsh occupied his attention towards the end of the summer and ledhim to hang twenty-eight boys, hostages whom they had given him the yearbefore. Worst of all, evidence now began to flow in to the king fromvarious quarters of a serious disaffection among the barons of the kingdomand of a growing spirit of rebellion, even, it was said, of an intentionto deprive him of the crown. We are told that on the eve of his expeditionagainst the Welsh a warning came to him from the king of Scotland that hewas surrounded by treason, and another from his daughter in Wales to thesame effect. Whatever the source of his information, John was evidentlyconvinced--very likely he needed but little to convince him--of a dangerwhich he must have been always suspecting. At any rate he did not ventureto trust himself to his army in the field, but sent home the levies andcarefully guarded himself for a time. Then he called for new declarationsof loyalty and for hostages from the barons; and two of them, Eustace deVescy and Robert Fitz Walter, fled from the country, the king outlawingthem and seizing their property. About the same time a good deal of publicinterest was excited by a hermit of Yorkshire, Peter of Pontefract, whowas thought able to foretell the future, and who declared that John wouldnot be king on next Ascension day, the anniversary of his coronation. Itwas probably John's knowledge of the disposition of the barons, andpossibly the hope of extorting some information from him, that led him, rather unwisely, to order the arrest of the hermit, and to question him asto the way in which he should lose the crown. Peter could only tell himthat the event was sure, and that if it did not occur, the king might dowith him what he pleased. John took him at his word, held him in prison, and hanged him when the day had safely passed. 

By that 23d of May, however, a great change had taken place in the formalstanding of John among the sovereigns of the world, a change which manybelieved fulfilled the prediction of Peter, and one which affected thehistory of England for many generations. As the year 1212 drew to itsclose, John was not merely learning his own weakness in England, but hewas forced by the course of events abroad to recognize the terriblestrength of the papacy and the small chance that even a strong king couldhave of winning a victory over it. [74] His nephew Otto IV had been obligedto retire, almost defeated, before the enthusiasm which the youngFrederick of Hohenstaufen had aroused in his adventurous expedition torecover the crown of Germany. Raymond of Toulouse, John's brother-in-law, had been overwhelmed and almost despoiled of his possessions in an attemptto protect his subjects in their right to believe what seemed to them thetruth. For the moment the vigorous action which John had taken after thewarnings received on the eve of the Welsh campaign had put an end to thedisposition to revolt, and had left him again all powerful. He had evenbeen able to extort from the clergy formal letters stating that the sumshe had forced them to pay were voluntarily granted him. But he had beenmade to understand on how weak a foundation his power rested. He musthave known that Philip Augustus had for some time been considering thepossibility of an invasion of England, whether invited by the barons toundertake it or not, and he could hardly fail to dread the results tohimself of such a step after the lesson he had learned in Normandy of theconsequences of treason. The situation at home and abroad forced upon himthe conclusion that he must soon come to terms with the papacy, and inNovember he sent representatives to Rome to signify that he would agree tothe proposals he had rejected when made by Pandulf early in the previousyear. [75] Even in this case John may be suspected, as so often before, ofmaking a proposition which he did not intend to carry out, or at least oftrying to gain time, for it was found that the embassy could not make aformally binding agreement; and it is clear that Innocent III, while readyto go on with the negotiations and hoping to carry them to success, wasnow convinced that he must bring to bear on John the only kind of pressureto which he would yield. 

There is reason to believe that after his reconciliation with the kingof England Innocent III had all the letters in which he had threatenedJohn with the severest penalties collected so far as possible anddestroyed. [76] It is uncertain, however, whether before the end of 1212he had gone so far as to depose the king and to absolve his subjectsfrom their allegiance, though this is asserted by English chroniclers. But there is no good ground to doubt that in January, 1213, he tookthis step, and authorized the king of France to invade England anddeprive John of his kingdom. Philip needed no urging. He collected anumerous fleet, we are told, of 1500 vessels, and a large army. Inthe first week of April he held a great council at Soissons, and theenterprise was determined on by the barons and bishops of France. Atthe same council arrangements were made to define the legal relationsto France of the kingdom to be conquered, The king of England was to bePhilip's son, Louis, who could advance some show of right through hiswife, John's niece, Blanche of Castile but during his father's lifetimehe was to make no pretension to any part of France, a provision whichwould leave the duchy of Aquitaine in Philip's hands, as Normandy was. Louis was to require an oath of his new subjects that they wouldundertake nothing against France, and he was to leave to his father thedisposal of the person of John and of his private possessions. Of therelationship between the two countries when Louis should succeed to thecrown of France, nothing was said. Preparations were so far advancedthat it was expected that the army would embark before the end of May. 

In the meantime John was taking measures for a vigorous defence. Orderswere sent out for all ships capable of carrying at least six horses toassemble at Portsmouth by the middle of Lent. The feudal levies and allmen able to bear arms were called out for April 21. The summons wasobeyed by such numbers that they could not be fed, and all but the bestarmed were sent home, while the main force was collected on Barham Down, between Canterbury and Dover, with outposts at the threatened ports. Johnhas been thought by some to have had a special interest in thedevelopment of the fleet; at any rate he knew how to employ here thedefensive manoeuvre which has been more than once of avail to England, and he sent out a naval force to capture and destroy the enemy's ships inthe mouth of the Seine and at Fécamp, and to take and burn the town ofDieppe. It was his plan also to defend the country with the fleet ratherthan with the army, and to attack and destroy the hostile armament on itsway across the channel. To contemporaries the preparations seemedentirely sufficient to defend the country, not merely against France, butagainst any enemy whatever, provided only the hearts of all had beendevoted to the king. 

While preparations were being made in France for an invasion of Englandunder the commission of the pope, Innocent was going on with the effortto bring John to his terms by negotiation. The messengers whom the kinghad sent to Rome returned bringing no modification of the papal demands. At the same time Pandulf, the pope's representative, empowered to make aformal agreement, came on as far as Calais and sent over two Templars toEngland to obtain permission for an interview with John, while he heldback the French fleet to learn the result. The answer of John toPandulf's messengers would be his answer to the pope and also hisdefiance of Philip. There can be no doubt what his answer would have beenif he had had entire confidence in his army, nor what it would have beenif Philip's fleet had not been ready. He yielded only because there wasno other way out of the situation into which he had brought himself, andhe made his submission complete enough to insure his escape. He sent forPandulf, and on May 13 met him at Dover and accepted his terms. Four ofhis chief barons, as the pope required, the Earl of Salisbury, the Countof Boulogne, and the Earls Warenne and Ferrers, swore on the king's soulthat he would keep the agreement, and John issued letters patent formallydeclaring what he had promised. Stephen Langton was to be accepted asArchbishop of Canterbury, and all the exiled bishops, monks, and laymenwere to be reinstated, and full compensation made them for theirfinancial losses. Two days later John went very much further than this:at the house of the Templars near Dover in the presence of the barons hesurrendered the kingdom to the pope, confirming the act by a charterwitnessed by two bishops and eleven barons, and received it back to beheld as a fief, doing homage to Pandulf as the representative of thepope, and promising for himself and his heirs the annual payment of 700marks for England and 300 for Ireland in lieu of feudal service. 

Whether this extraordinary act was demanded by Innocent or suggested byJohn, the evidence does not permit us to say. The balance ofprobabilities, however, inclines strongly to the opinion that it was avoluntary act of the king's. There is nothing in the papal documents toindicate any such demand, and it is hardly possible that the pope couldhave believed that he could carry the matter so far. On the other hand, John was able to see clearly that nothing else would save him. He hadevery reason to be sure that no ordinary reconciliation with the papacywould check the invasion of Philip or prevent the treason of the barons. If England were made a possession of the pope, the whole situation wouldtake on a different aspect. Not only would all Europe think Innocentjustified in adopting the most extreme measures for the defence of hisvassal, but also the most peculiar circumstances only would justify Philipin going on with his attack, and without him disaffection at home waspowerless. We should be particularly careful not to judge this act ofJohn's by the sentiment of a later time. There was nothing that seemeddegrading to that age about becoming a vassal. Every member of thearistocracy of Europe and almost every king was a vassal. A man passedfrom the classes that were looked down upon, the peasantry and thebourgeoisie, into the nobility by becoming a vassal. The English kings hadbeen vassals since feudalism had existed in England, though not for thekingdom, and only a few years before Richard had made even that a fief ofthe empire. There is no evidence that John's right to take this step wasquestioned by any one, or that there was any general condemnation of it atthat time. One writer a few years later says that the act seemed to many"ignominious, " but he records in the same sentence his own judgment thatJohn was "very prudently providing for himself and his by the deed. "[77]Even in the rebellion against John that closed his reign no objection wasmade to the relationship with the papacy, nor was the king's right to actas he did denied, though his action was alleged by his enemies to beillegal because it did not have the consent of the barons. John's charterof concession, however, expressly affirms this consent, and the barons onone occasion seem to have confirmed the assertion. [78]

[71] See J. H. Round's article on William in Dict. Nat. Biogr. , vi. 229. 

[72] See C. L. Falkiner in Proc. Royal Irish Acad. , xxiv. C. Pt. 4 (1903). 

[73] See Round, Commune of London, 261-277. 

[74] Ralph of Coggeshall, 164-165. 

[75] Walter of Coventry, ii, lviii. N. 4. 

[76] Innocent III, Epp. Xvi. 133. (Rymer, Foedera, i. 116. )

[77] Walter of Coventry, ii. 210. 

[78] Rymer, Foedera, i. 120. 

CHAPTER XXI

THE GREAT CHARTER

The king of France may have been acting, as he would have the worldbelieve, as the instrument of heaven to punish the enemy of the Church, but he did not learn with any great rejoicing of the conversion of Johnfrom the error of his ways. Orders were sent him at once to abstain fromall attack on one who was now the vassal of the pope, and he found itnecessary in the end to obey, declaring, it is said, that the victory wasafter all his, since it was due to him that the pope had subdued England. The army and fleet prepared for the invasion, he turned against his ownvassal who had withheld his assistance from the undertaking, the Count ofFlanders, and quickly occupied a considerable part of the country. CountFerdinand in his extremity turned to King John and he sent over a forceunder command of his brother, William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, whichsurprised the French fleet badly guarded in the harbour of Damme andcaptured or destroyed 400 ships. If Philip had any lingering hope that hemight yet be able to carry out his plan of invasion, he was forced now toabandon it, and in despair of preserving the rest of his fleet, or in afit of anger, he ordered it to be burned. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury landed in England in July, accompaniedby five of the exiled bishops, and a few days later met the king. Onthe 20th at Winchester John was absolved from his excommunication, swearing publicly that he would be true to his agreement withthe Church, and taking an additional oath in form somewhat like thecoronation oath, which the archbishop required or which perhaps thefact of his excommunication made necessary, "that holy Church and herministers he would love, defend, and maintain against all her enemiesto the best of his power, that he would renew the good laws of hispredecessors, and especially the laws of King Edward, and annul allbad ones, and that he would judge all men according to just judgmentsof his courts and restore to every man his rights. " It is doubtfulif we should regard this as anything more than a renewal of thecoronation oath necessary to a full restoration of the king from theeffects of the Church censure, but at any rate the form of words seemsto have been noticed by those who heard it, and to have been referredto afterwards when the political opposition to the king was takingshare, a sure sign of increasing watchfulness regarding the mutualrights of king and subjects. [79]

The king was no longer excommunicate, but the kingdom was still under theinterdict, and the pope had no intention of annulling it until thequestion of compensation for their losses was settled to the satisfactionof the bishops and others whose lands had been in the hands of the king. That was not an easy question to settle. It was not a matter of arrearsof revenue merely, for John had not been content with the annual incomeof the lands, but he had cut down forests and raised money in otherextraordinary ways to the permanent injury of the property. In the endonly a comparatively small sum was paid, and in all probability a fullpayment would have been entirely beyond the resources of the king, but atthe beginning John seems to have intended to carry out his agreement ingood faith. There is no reason to doubt the statement of a chronicler ofthe time that on the next day after his absolution the king sent outwrits to all the sheriffs, ordering them to send to St. Albans at thebeginning of August the reeve and four legal men from each township ofthe royal domains, that by their testimony and that of his own officersthe amount of these losses might be determined. This would be to allEngland a familiar expedient, a simple use of the jury principle, withnothing new about it except the bringing of the local juries together inone place, nor must it be regarded as in any sense a beginning ofrepresentation. It has no historic connexion with the growth of thatsystem, and cannot possibly indicate more than that the idea of unitinglocal juries in one place had occurred to some one. We have no evidencethat this assembly was actually held, and it is highly probable that itwas not. Nor can anything more be said with certainly of writs which wereissued in November of this year directing the sheriffs to send fourdiscreet men from each county to attend a meeting of the council atOxford. John himself was busily occupied with a plan to transport theforces he had collected into Poitou to attack the king of France there, and he appointed the justiciar, Geoffrey Fitz Peter, and the Bishop ofWinchester, Peter des Roches, as his representatives during his absence. These two held a great council at St. Albans in August at which formalproclamation was made of the restoration of good laws and the abolitionof bad ones as the king had promised, the good laws now referred to beingthose of Henry I; and all sheriffs and other officers were strictlyenjoined to abstain from violence and injustice for the future, but nodecision was reached as to the sum to be paid the clergy. 

In the meantime John was in difficulties about his proposed expedition toPoitou. When he was about to set out, he found the barons unwilling. Theydeclared that the money they had provided for their expenses had all beenused up in the long delay, and that if they went, the king must meet thecost, while the barons of the north refused, according to one account, because they were not bound by the conditions of their tenure to serveabroad. In this they were no doubt wrong, if services were to bedetermined, as would naturally be the case, by custom; but their refusalto obey the king on whatever ground so soon after he had apparentlyrecovered power by his reconciliation with the Church is very noteworthy. In great anger the king embarked with his household only and landed inJersey, as if he would conquer France alone, but he was obliged toreturn. His wrath, however, was not abated, and he collected a largeforce and marched to the north, intending to bring the unwilling baronsto their accustomed obedience; but his plan was interrupted by a new andmore serious opposition. Archbishop Stephen Langton seems to havereturned to England determined to contend as vigorously for the rights ofthe laity as for those of the Church. We are told by one chronicler thathe had heard it said that on August 25, while the king was on the marchto the north, Stephen was presiding over a council of prelates and baronsat St. Paul's, and that to certain of them he read a copy of Henry I'scoronation charter as a record of the ancient laws which they had a rightto demand of the king. There may be difficulties in supposing that suchan incident occurred at this exact date, but something of the kind musthave happened not long before or after. If we may trust the record wehave of the oath taken by John at the time of his absolution, it suggeststhat the charter of Henry I was in the mind of the man who drew it up. Now, at any rate, was an opportunity to interfere in protection ofclearly defined rights, and to insist that the king should keep the oathwhich he had just sworn. Without hesitation the archbishop went after theking, overtook him at Northampton, where John was on the 28th, andreminded him that he would break his oath if he made war on any of hisbarons without a judgment of his court. John broke out into a storm ofrage, as he was apt to do; "with great noise" he told the archbishop tomind his own business and let matters of lay jurisdiction alone, andmoved on to Nottingham. Undismayed, Langton followed, declaring that hewould excommunicate every one except the king who should take part in theattack, and John was obliged again to yield and to appoint a time for thecourt to try the case. 

The attempt to settle the indemnity to be paid the clergy dragged onthrough the remainder of the year, and was not then completed. Councilswere held at London, Wallingford, and Reading, early in October, November, and December respectively, in each of which the subject wasdiscussed, and left unsettled, except that after the Reading councilthe king paid the archbishop and the bishops who had been exiled 15, 000marks. At the end of September a legate from the pope, CardinalNicholas, landed in England, and to him John repeated the surrender ofthe crown and his homage as the pope's vassal. Along with the questionof indemnity, that of filling up the vacant sees was discussed, andwith nearly as little result. The local officers of the Church weredisposed to make as much as possible out of John's humiliation and thechapters to assert the right of independent election. The king was notwilling to allow this, and pope and legate inclined to support him. OnOctober 14 the justiciar, Geoffrey Fitz Peter, died. John's exclamationwhen he heard the news, as preserved in the tradition of the nextgeneration, --"When he gets to hell, let him greet Hubert Walter, " and, as earlier in the case of Hubert himself, "Now by the feet of God amI first king and lord of England, "--and, more trustworthy perhaps, the rapid decline of events after Geoffrey's death towards civil warand revolution, lead us to believe that like many a great judge heexercised a stronger influence over the actual history of his age thanappears in any contemporary record. 

It was near the middle of February, 1214, before John was able to carryout in earnest his plan for the recovery of Poitou. At that time helanded at La Rochelle with a large army and a full military chest, butwith very few English barons of rank accompanying him. Since the close ofactual war between them Philip had made gains in one way or anotherwithin the lands that had remained to John, and it was time for the Dukeof Aquitaine to appear to protect his own, to say nothing of any attemptto recover his lost territories. At first his presence seemed all thatwas necessary; barons renewed their allegiance, those who had done homageto Philip returned and were pardoned, castles were surrendered, and Johnpassed through portions of Poitou and Angoulème, meeting with almost noresistance. A dash of Philip's, in April, drove him back to the south, but the king of France was too much occupied with the more serious dangerthat threatened him from the coalition in the north to give much time toJohn, and he returned after a few days, leaving his son Louis to guardthe line of approach to Paris. Then John returned to the field, attackedthe Lusignans, took their castles, and forced them to submit. The Countof La Marche was the Hugh the Brown from whom years before he had stolenhis bride, Isabel of Angoulème, and now he proposed to strengthen thenew-made alliance by giving to Hugh's eldest son Isabel's daughterJoanna. On June 11 John crossed the Loire, and a few days later enteredAngers, whose fortifications had been destroyed by the French. Theoccupation of the capital of Anjou marks the highest point of his successin the expedition. To protect and complete his new conquest, John beganat once the siege of La Roche-au-Moine, a new castle built by William desRoches on the Loire, which commanded communications with the south. Against him there Louis of France advanced to raise the siege. Johnwished to go out and meet him, but the barons of Poitou refused, declaring that they were not prepared to fight battles in the field, andthe siege had to be abandoned and a hasty retreat made across the river. Angers at once fell into the hands of Louis, and its new ramparts weredestroyed. 

It was about July first that Louis set out to raise the siege of LaRoche-au-Moine, and on the 27th the decisive battle of Bouvines wasfought in the north before John had resolved on his next move. Thecoalition, on which John had laboured so long and from which he hoped somuch, was at last in the field. The emperor Otto IV, the Counts ofFlanders, Boulogne, Holland, Brabant, and Limburg, the Duke of Lorraine, and others, each from motives of his own, had joined their forces withthe English under the Earl of Salisbury, to overthrow the king of France. To oppose this combination Philip had only his vassals of northernFrance, without foreign allies and with a part of his force detached towatch the movements of the English king on the Loire. The odds seemed tobe decidedly against him, but the allies, attacking at a disadvantage theFrench army which they believed in retreat, were totally defeated nearBouvines. The Earl of Salisbury and the Counts of Flanders and Boulognewith many others were taken prisoners, and the triumph of Philip was ascomplete as his danger had been great. The popular enthusiasm with whichthe news of this victory was received in northern France shows howthorough had been the work of the monarchy during the past century andhow great progress had been made in the creation of a nation in feelingand spirit as well as in name under the Capetian king. The generalrejoicing was but another expression of the force before which in realitythe English dominion in France had fallen. 

The effects of the battle of Bouvines were not confined to France nor tothe war then going on. The results in German history--the fall of OttoIV, the triumph of Frederick II--we have no occasion to trace. In Englishhistory its least important result was that John was obliged to makepeace with Philip. The treaty was dated on September 18. A truce wasagreed upon to last for five years from the following Easter, everythingto remain in the meantime practically as it was left at the close of thewar. This might be a virtual recognition by John of the conquests whichPhilip had made, but for him it was a much more serious matter that theruin of his schemes left him alone, unsupported by the glamour of abrilliant combination of allies, without prestige, overwhelmed withdefeat, to face the baronial opposition which in the past few years hadbeen growing so rapidly in strength, in intelligent perception of thewrongs that had been suffered, and in the knowledge of its own power. 

About the middle of October John returned to England to find that thedisaffection among the barons, which had expressed itself in the refusalto serve in Poitou, had not grown less during his absence. The interdicthad been removed on July 2, John having given security for the payment ofa sum as indemnity to the Church which was satisfactory to the pope, butthe rejoicing over this relief was somewhat lessened by the fact that themonastic houses and the minor clergy were unprovided for and received nocompensation for their losses. The justiciar whom the king had appointedon the eve of his departure, the Bishop of Winchester, Peter des Roches, naturally unpopular because he was a foreigner and out of sympathy withthe spirit of the barons, had ruled with a strong hand and sternlyrepressed all expression of discontent, but his success in this respecthad only increased the determination to have a reckoning with the king. In these circumstances John's first important act after his returnbrought matters to a crisis. Evidently he had no intention of abandoningany of his rights or of letting slip any of his power in England becausehe had been defeated in France, and he called at once for a scutage fromthose barons who had not gone with him to Poitou. This raised again thequestion of right, and we are told that it was the northern barons whoonce more declared that their English holdings did not oblige them tofollow the king abroad or to pay a scutage when he went, John on his sideasserting that the service was due to him because it had been rendered tohis father and brother. In this the king was undoubtedly right. He could, if he had known it, have carried back his historical argument a centuryfurther, but in general feudal law there was justification enough for theposition of the barons to warrant them in taking a stand on the point ifthey wished to join issue with the king. This they were now determined todo. We know from several annalists that after John's return the baronscame to an agreement among themselves that they would demand of the kinga confirmation of the charter of Henry I and a re-grant of the libertiescontained in it. In one account we have the story of a meeting at BurySt. Edmunds, on pretence of a pilgrimage, in which this agreement wasmade and an oath taken by all to wage war on the king if he should refusetheir request which they decided to make of him in form after Christmas. Concerted action there must have been, and it seems altogether likelythat this account is correct. 

The references to the charter of Henry I in the historians of the timeprove clearly enough the great part which that document played at theorigin of the revolution now beginning. It undoubtedly gave to thediscontented barons the consciousness of legal right, crystallized theirideas, and suggested the method of action, but it is hardly possible tobelieve that a simple confirmation of this charter could now have beenregarded as adequate. The charter of Henry I is as remarkable a documentfor the beginning of the twelfth as the Great Charter is for thebeginning of the thirteenth century, but no small progress had takenplace in two directions in the intervening hundred years. In onedirection the demands of the crown--we ought really to say the demands ofthe government--were more frequent, new in kind, and heavier in amountthan at the earlier date. The reorganization of the judicial andadministrative systems had enlarged greatly the king's sphere of actionat the expense of the baron's. All this, and it forms together a greatbody of change, was advance, was true progress, but it seemed to thebaron encroachment on his liberties and denial of his rights, and therewas a sense in which his view was perfectly correct. It was partly due tothese changes, partly to the general on-going of things, that in theother direction the judgment of the baron was more clear, his view of hisown rights and wrongs more specific than a hundred years before, and, byfar most important of all, that he had come to a definite understandingof the principle that the king, as lord of his vassals, was just as muchunder obligation to keep the law as the baron was. Independent of thesetwo main lines of development was the personal tyranny of John, hiscontemptuous disregard of custom and right in dealing with men, hisviolent overriding of the processes of his own courts in arbitrary arrestand cruel punishment. The charter of Henry I would be a suggestive model;a new charter must follow its lines and be founded on its principles, butthe needs of the barons would now go far beyond its meagre provisions anddemand the translation of its general statements into specific form. 

According to the agreement they had made the barons came together atLondon soon after January 1, 1215, with some show of arms, and demandedof the king the confirmation of the charter of Henry I. John replied thatthe matter was new and important, and that he must have some time forconsideration, and asked for delay until the octave of Easter, April 26. With reluctance the barons made this concession, Stephen Langton, WilliamMarshal, and the Bishop of Ely becoming sureties for the king that hewould then give satisfaction to all. The interval which was allowed himJohn used in a variety of attempts to strengthen himself and to preparefor the trial of arms which he must have known to be inevitable. On the21st of the previous November he had issued a charter granting to thecathedral churches and monasteries throughout England full freedom ofelection, and this charter he now reissued a few days after the meetingwith the barons. If this was an attempt to separate the clergy fromthe cause of the barons, or to bring the archbishop over wholly to hisown side, it was a failure. About the same time he adopted a familiarexpedient and ordered the oath of allegiance to himself against all mento be taken throughout the country, but he added a new clause requiringmen to swear to stand by him against the charter. [80] Since the discussionof the charter had begun a general interest in its provisions had beenexcited, and the determination to secure the liberties it embodied hadgrown rapidly, so that now the king quickly found, by the opposition itaroused, that in this peculiar demand he had overshot the mark, and he wasobliged to recall his orders. Naturally John turned at once to the pope, who was now under obligation to protect him from his enemies, but hisenvoy was followed by Eustace de Vescy, who argued strongly for thebarons' side. The pope's letters to England in reply did not afforddecisive support to either party, though more in favour of the king's, whowas exhorted, however, to grant "just petitions" of the barons. On AshWednesday John went so far as to assume the cross of the crusader, mostlikely to secure additional favour from the pope, who was very anxious torenew the attempt that had failed in the early part of his reign, no doubthaving in mind also the personal immunities it would secure him. Fortroops to resist the barons in the field the king's reliance was chiefly, as it had been during all his reign, on soldiers hired abroad, and he madeefforts to get these into his service from Flanders and from Poitou, promising great rewards to knights who would join him from thence, as wellas from Wales. 

John's preparations alarmed the barons, and they determined not to waitfor April 26, the appointed day for the king's answer. They came togetherin arms at Stamford, advanced from thence to Northampton, and then on toBrackley to be in the neighbourhood of the king, who was then at Oxford. Their array was a formidable one. The list recorded gives us the names offive earls, forty barons, and one bishop, Giles de Braóse, who had familywrongs to avenge; and while the party was called the Northerners, becausethe movement had such strong support in that part of England, otherportions of the country were well represented. Annalists of the timenoticed that younger men inclined to the side of the insurgents, whilethe older remained with the king. This fact in some cases dividedfamilies, as in the case of the Marshals, William the elder staying withJohn, while William the younger was with the barons. That one abode inthe king's company does not indicate, however, that his sympathies inthis struggle were on that side. Stephen Langton was in form with theking and acted as his representative in the negotiations, though it wasuniversally known that he supported the reforms asked for. It is probablethat this was true also of the Earl of Pembroke. These two were sent byJohn to the barons to get an exact statement of their demands, andreturned with a "schedule, " which was recited to the king point by point. These were no doubt the same as the "articles" presented to the kingafterwards, on which the Great Charter was based. When John was made tounderstand what they meant, his hot, ancestral temper swept him away inan insane passion of anger. "Why do they not go on and demand the kingdomitself?" he cried, and added with a furious oath that he would never makehimself a slave by granting such concessions. 

When the barons received their answer, they decided on immediate war. Asthey viewed the case, this was a step justified by the feudal law. It wastheir contention that the reforms they demanded had been granted andrecognized as legal by former kings. In other words, their suzerain wasdenying them their hereditary rights, acknowledged and conceded by hispredecessors. To the feudal mind the situation which this fact createdwas simple and obvious. They were no longer bound by any fealty to him. It was their right to make war upon him until he should consent to grantthem what was their due. Their first step was to send to the king theformal diffidatio prescribed for such cases, withdrawing their fealtyand notifying him of their intention to begin war. Then choosing RobertFitz Walter their commander, under the title of Marshal of the Army ofGod and Holy Church, they began the siege of Northampton, but were unableto take it from lack of siege machinery. On May 17 the barons, having inthe meantime rejected several unsatisfactory proposals of the king, entered London at the request of the chief citizens, though the tower wasstill held by John's troops. The great strength of the barons at thistime as against the king was not, however, their possession of London, orthe forces which had taken the field in their cause, but the fact thatJohn had practically no part of England with him beyond the groundcommanded by the castles still held by his foreign soldiers. Pleas ceasedin the exchequer, we are told, and the operations of the sheriffs, because no one could be found who would pay the king anything or show himany obedience, and many of the barons, who up to this time had stood withhim, now joined the insurgents. No help could be had for some time fromthe pope. Langton refused to act at the king's request and excommunicatehis enemies. There was nothing for John to do but to yield and trust thattime would bring about some change to relieve him of the obligations hemust assume. 

On June 8 John granted a safe conduct to representatives of the barons tonegotiate with him to hold good until the 11th, and later extended theperiod until the 15th. He was then at Windsor, and the barons from Londoncame to Staines and camped in the field of Runnymede. The "Articles" werepresented to the king in form, and now accepted by him, and on the basisof them the Great Charter was drawn up and sealed on June 15, 1215. 

In the history of constitutional liberty, of which the Great Charter isthe beginning, its specific provisions are of far less importance thanits underlying principle. What we to-day consider the great safeguards ofAnglo-Saxon liberty are all conspicuously absent from the first of itscreative statutes, nor could any of them have been explained in themeaning we give them to the understanding of the men who framed thecharter. Consent to taxation in the modern sense is not there; neithertaxation nor consent. Trial by jury is not there in that form of it whichbecame a check on arbitrary power, nor is it referred to at all in theclause which has been said to embody it. Parliament, habeas corpus, bail, the independence of the judiciary, are all of later growth, or existedonly in rudimentary form. Nor can the charter be properly called acontract between king and nation. The idea of the nation, as we now holdit, was still in the future, to be called into existence by thecircumstances of the next reign. The idea of contract certainly pervadesthe document, but only as the expression of the always existent contractbetween the suzerain and his vassals which was the foundation of allfeudal law. On the other hand, some of the provisions of our civilliberty, mainly in the interest of individual rights, are plainlypresent. That private property shall not be taken for public use withoutjust compensation, that cruel and unusual punishments shall not beinflicted nor excessive fines be imposed, that justice shall be free andfair to all, these may be found almost in modern form. 

But it is in none of these directions that the great importance of thedocument is to be sought. All its specific provisions together asspecific provisions are not worth, either in themselves or in theirhistorical influence, the one principle which underlies them all andgives validity to them all--the principle that the king must keep thelaw. This it was that justified the barons in their rebellion. It was tosecure this from a king who could not be bound by the ordinary law thatthe Great Charter was drawn up and its clauses put into the form in whichthey stand. In other words, the barons contended that the king wasalready bound by the law as it stood, and that former kings hadrecognized the fact. In this they were entirely correct. The GreatCharter is old law. It is codification, or rather it is a selection ofthose points of the existing law which the king had constantly violated, for the purpose of stating them in such form that his specific pledge toregard them could be secured, and his consent to machinery for enforcingthem in case he broke his pledge. The source of the Great Charter, then, of its various provisions and of its underlying principle, must be soughtin the existing law that regulated the relations between the king and thebarons--the feudal law. 

From beginning to end the Great Charter is a feudal document. The mostimportant of its provisions which cannot be found in this law, thosewhich may perhaps be called new legislation, relate to the judicialsystem as recently developed, which had proved too useful and wasprobably too firmly fixed to be set aside, though it was considered bythe barons to infringe upon their feudal rights and had been used in thepast as an engine of oppression and extortion. In this one direction thedevelopment of institutions in England had already left the feudal systembehind. In financial matters a similar development was under rapid way, but John's effort to push forward too fast along that line was one causeof the insurrection and the charter, and of the reaction in thisparticular which it embodies. As a statement of feudal law the GreatCharter is moderate, conservative, and carefully regardful of the realrights of the king. As a document born in civil strife it is remarkablein this respect, or would be were this not true of all its progeny inAnglo-Saxon history. Whoever framed it must have been fair-minded andhave held the balance level between king and insurgents. Its provisionsin regard to wardship and marriage have been called weak. They are notweak; they are just, and as compared with the corresponding provisions ofthe charter of Henry I they are less revolutionary, and leave to the kingwhat belonged to him historically--the rights which all English kings hadexercised and which in that generation Philip of France also hadrepeatedly exercised, even against John himself. 

But the chief feature of the Great Charter apart from all its specificenactments, that on which it all rests, is this, that the king has noright to violate the law, and if he attempts to do so, may be constrainedby force to obey it. That also is feudal law. It was the fundamentalconception of the whole feudal relationship that the suzerain was bound torespect the recognized rights of his vassal, and that if he would not, hemight be compelled to do so; nor was it in England alone that this ideawas held to include the highest suzerain, the lord paramount of therealm. [81] Clause 61 which to the modern mind seems the most astonishingof the whole charter, legalizing insurrection and revolution, containsnothing that was new, except the arrangement for a body of twenty-fivebarons who were to put into orderly operation the right of coercion. Itis certainly not necessary to show by argument the supreme importance ofthis principle. It is the true corner-stone of the English constitution. It was the preservation of this right, its development into new formsto meet the changing needs of the state, that created and protectedconstitutional liberty, and it was the supreme service of the GreatCharter, far beyond any accomplished by any one clause or by all specificclauses together, to carry over from feudalism this right and to make itthe fostering principle of a new growth in which feudalism had noshare. [82]

It may be that the barons believed they were demanding nothing in theGreat Charter that had not been granted by former kings or that the kingwas not bound by the law to observe. It may be possible to prove thatthis belief was historically correct in principle if not in specificform; but the king could not be expected to take the same view of thecase. He had been compelled to renounce many things that he had beendoing through his whole reign, and some things, as he very well knew, that had been done by his father and brother before him. He may honestlyhave believed that he had been forced to surrender genuine royal rights. He certainly knew that if he faithfully kept its provisions, the task ofraising the necessary money to carry on the government, already not easy, would become extremely difficult if not impossible. It is not likely thatJohn promised to be bound by the charter with any intention of keepinghis promise. He had no choice at the moment but to yield, and if heyielded, the forces of the barons would probably scatter, and the chancesfavour such a recovery of his strength that with the help of the pope hecould set the charter aside. At first nothing could be done but toconform to its requirements, and orders were sent throughout the countryfor the taking of the oath in which all men were to swear to obey thetwenty-five barons appointed guardians of the charter. Juries were to bechosen to inquire into grievances, and some of the foreign troops weresent home. Suspicions began to be felt, however, in regard to theintentions of the king during the negotiations concerning details whichfollowed the signing of the charter. A council called to meet at Oxfordabout the middle of July, he refused to attend. Nor were provocations andviolations of the spirit of the charter wanting on the part of thebarons. Certain of the party, indeed, "Trans-Humbrians" they are called, probably the extreme enemies of the king, had withdrawn from theconference at Runnymede, and now refused to cease hostilities becausethey had had no part in making peace. The royal officers were maltreatedand driven off, and the king's manors plundered. 

By August John was rapidly preparing for a renewal of the war. He sentout orders to get the royal castles ready for defence. His emissarieswere collecting troops in Flanders and Aquitaine. Philip Augustus's Countof Britanny, Peter of Dreux, was offered the honour of Richmond, whichformer counts had held, if he would come to John's aid with a body ofknights. Money does not seem to have been lacking through the strugglethat followed, and John's efforts to collect mercenary troops wereabundantly successful. Dover was appointed as the gathering-place of hisarmy, both as a convenient landing-place for those coming from abroad andfor strategic reasons. As it became evident that the charter had notbrought the conflict to an end, the barons were obliged to consider whattheir next step should be. In clause 61 of the charter in regard tocoercing the king, they had bound themselves not to depose him, but thearrangements made in that clause were never put into operation, nor couldthey be. There was only one way of dealing with a king who obstinatelyinsisted on his rights, as he regarded them, against the law, and thatwas by deposition. The leaders of the barons now decided that this stepwas necessary, and an effort was made to unite all barons in taking it, but those who had been with the king before refused, and some members ofthe baronial party itself were not willing to go so far, nor were theclergy. The pope was making his position perfectly plain. Before themeeting at Runnymede he had ordered the excommunication of the disturbersof the king and kingdom; and when this sentence was published later, thebarons might pretend that the king was the worst disturber of thekingdom, but they really knew what the pope intended. In September theBishop of Winchester and Pandulf, representing the pope, suspendedArchbishop Langton because of his refusal to enforce the papal sentences. By the end of the month the news reached England of Innocent's bullagainst the charter itself, declaring it null and void, and forbiddingthe king to observe it or the barons to require it to be kept underpenalty of excommunication. Doubtless John expected this from the pope, and if his own view of the charter were correct, Innocent's action wouldbe entirely within his rights. No vassal had a right to enter into anyagreement which would diminish the value of his fief, and John had donethis if the rights that he was exercising in 1213 were really his. It wasapparently about this time that the insurgent barons determined totransfer their allegiance to Louis of France. We are told that theyselected him because, if he were king of England, most of John'smercenaries would leave his service since they were vassals of France;but Louis was really the only one available who could be thought torepresent in any way the old dynasty, and it would certainly beremembered that he had been proposed for the place in 1213. Negotiationswere begun to induce him to accept, but in the meantime John had secureda sufficient force to take the offensive, and was beginning to push thewar with unusual spirit and vigour. A part of his force he sent torelieve Northampton and Oxford, besieged by the barons, and he himselfwith the rest set out to take Rochester castle which was held againsthim. Repulsed at first, he succeeded in a second attempt to destroy thebridge across the Medway to cut off communication with London, and begana regular siege which he pressed fiercely. The garrison was not large, but they defended themselves with great courage, having reason to fearthe consequences of yielding, and prolonged the siege for seven weeks. Even after the keep had been in part taken by undermining the wall theymaintained themselves in what was left until they were starved intosurrender. It was only the threat that his mercenaries would leave himfor fear of reprisals that kept John from hanging his prisoners. Duringthis siege the barons in London had remained in a strange inactivity, making only one half-hearted attempt to save their friends, seeminglyafraid to meet the king in the field, and accused of preferring theselfish security and luxury of the capital. This was their conduct duringthe whole of the winter while their strongholds were captured and theirlands devastated in all parts of England by the forces of their enemy, for John continued his campaign. Soon after the capture of Rochester hemarched through Windsor to the north of London and, leaving a part of hisarmy under the Earl of Salisbury to watch the barons and to lay wastetheir lands in that part of the country, he passed himself through themidlands to the north, destroying everything belonging to his enemiesthat he could find and not always distinguishing carefully betweenfriends and foes. England had not for generations suffered such aharrying as it received that winter. So great was the terror created bythe cruelties practised that garrisons of the barons' castles, it issaid, fled on the news of the king's approach, leaving the castlesundefended to fall into his hands. The march extended as far as Scotland. Berwick was taken and burnt, and the parts of the country about were laidwaste in revenge for the favour which King Alexander had shown thebarons. In March, 1216, John returned to the neighbourhood of London, leaving a new track of devastation further to the east, and bringing withhim a great store of plunder. 

During the winter the barons had kept up their negotiations with Louis, and an agreement had finally been made. They had pledged themselves todo homage to Louis and accept him as king, and had sent to Francetwenty-four hostages "of the noblest of the land" in pledge of theirfidelity. Louis in return sent over small bodies of men to their aid andpromised himself to follow in person in the spring. To this step thebarons were indeed driven, unless they were prepared to submit, becauseof the strength the king had gained since the signing of the charter andtheir own comparative weakness. Why this change had taken place so soonafter the barons had been all-powerful cannot now be fully explained, butso far as we can see the opinion of a contemporary that they would havebeen overcome but for the aid of the French is correct. Against theinvasion of Louis, John had two lines of defence, the pope and the fleet. Innocent, who had once favoured a transfer of the English crown to Louis, must now oppose it. When he learned how far preparations for theexpedition had gone, he sent a legate, Cardinal Gualo, to France toforbid any further step. Gualo was received by Philip and his son atMelun on April 25. There before the king and the court the case wasargued between the cardinal and a knight representing Louis, as if itwere a suit at law to be decided in the ordinary way. Louis's case wasskilfully constructed to deprive the legate of his ground ofinterference, but his assertions were falsehoods or misrepresentations. John had been condemned to death for the murder of Arthur--the firstoccasion on which we hear of this--and afterwards rejected by the baronsof England for his many crimes, and they were making war on him to expelhim from the kingdom. John had surrendered the kingdom to the popewithout the consent of the barons, and if he could not legally do this, he could by the attempt create a vacancy, which the barons had filled bythe choice of Louis. The legate, apparently unable to meet theseunexpected arguments, asserted that John was a crusader and thereforeunder the protection of the apostolic see. For Louis it was answered thatJohn had been making war on him long before he took the cross and hadcontinued to do so since, so that Louis had a right to go on with thewar. The legate had no answer to this, though it was false, but heprohibited Louis from going and his father from allowing him to go. Louis, denying the right of his father to interfere with his claims in aland not subject to the king of France, and sending an embassy to arguehis case before the pope, went on with his preparations. Philip Augustuscarefully avoided anything that would bring him into open conflict withInnocent and threw the whole responsibility on his son. 

Louis landed in England in the Isle of Thanet on May 21. John hadcollected a large and strong fleet to prevent his crossing, but a stormjust at the moment had dispersed it and left the enemy a clear passage. John, then at Canterbury, first thought to attack the French with hisland forces, but fearing that his hired troops would be less loyal to amere paymaster than to the heir and representative of their suzerain inFrance, he fell back and left the way open for Louis's advance to London. Soon after landing, Louis sent forward a letter to the Abbot of St. Augustine's in Canterbury, who, he feared, was about to excommunicatehim. In this letter which was possibly intended also for generalcirculation, he repeated the arguments used against the legate with someadditional points of the same sort, and explained the hereditary claim ofhis wife and his own right by the choice of the barons. The document is apeculiar mixture of fact and falsehood, but it was well calculated toimpose on persons to whom the minor details of history would certainly beunknown. Rochester castle fell into the hands of the French with no realresistance; and on June 2, Louis was welcomed in London with greatrejoicing, and at once received the homage of the barons and of themayor. Louis's arrival seemed to turn the tide for the moment against theking. He retreated into the west, while the barons took the field oncemore, and with the French gained many successes in the east and north, particularly against towns and castles. On June 25, Louis occupiedWinchester. Barons who had been until now faithful to the king began tocome in and join the French as their rapid advance threatened theirestates; among them was even John's brother, the Earl of Salisbury. Earlyin July Worcester was captured and Exeter threatened, and John was forcedback to the borders of Wales. This marks, however, the limit of Louis'ssuccess. Instead of pushing his advance rapidly forward against the oneimportant enemy, the king himself, he turned aside to undertake somedifficult sieges, and made the further mistake of angering the Englishbarons by showing too great favour to his French companions. Dover castleseemed to the military judgment of the French particularly important as"key of England, " and for more than three months Louis gave himself up tothe effort to take it. 

For the first of these months, till the end of August, John remainedinactive on the borders of Wales. The death of Innocent III made nochange in the situation. His successor Honorius III continued his Englishpolicy. With the beginning of September the king advanced as if to raisethe siege of Windsor, but gave up the attempt and passed on east intoCambridgeshire, ravaging horribly the lands of his enemies. The baronspursued him, and he fell back on Lincoln from which as a centre he raidedthe surrounding country for more than a fortnight. On October 9, hemarched eastwards again to Lynn which, like most of the towns, wasfavourable to him, and there he brought on a dysentery by overeating. From that time his physical decline was rapid. His violent passions, utterly unbridled, tore him to pieces more and more fiercely as herecognized his own loss of strength and learned of one misfortune afteranother. He would not rest, and he would not listen to counsel. On the11th he went on to Wisbech, and on the next day he insisted on crossingthe Wash, without knowing the crossing or regarding the tide. He himselfpassed in safety, but he lost a part of his troops and all his baggagewith his booty, money, and jewels. At night at Swineshead abbey, hot withanger and grief, and feverish from his illness, he gave way to hisappetite again, as always, and ate to excess of peaches and new cider. After a rest of a day he pushed on with difficulty to Sleaford. Theremessengers reached him from his garrison in Dover asking his permissionto surrender if he could not relieve them at once, and the news broughton a new passion of anger. He insisted on going one stage further toNewark, although he had already recognized that his end was near. Therethree days later, on the 19th of October, he died. The teachings of theChurch which he had slighted and despised during his life he listened toas his end drew near, and he confessed and received the communion. Hedesignated his son Henry, now nine years old, as his heir, and especiallyrecommended him to the care of the Earl of Pembroke, and appointedthirteen persons by name to settle his affairs and to distribute hisproperty according to general directions which he left. At his desire hewas buried in Worcester cathedral and in the habit of a monk. 

It has already been suggested that the reigns of Richard and John form aperiod of transition to a new age. That period closes and the new ageopens with the granting of the Great Charter and the attemptedrevolution which followed. The reign of John was the culmination of along tendency in English history, most rapid since the accession of hisfather, towards the establishment of an absolutism in which the rightsof all classes would disappear and the arbitrary will of the king besupreme. The story of his reign should reveal how very near that resultwas of accomplishment. A monarchy had been forming in the last threereigns, and very rapidly in the reign of John, capable of crushing anyordinary opposition, disregarding public opinion and traditional rights, possessing in the new judicial system, if regarded as an organ of theking's will alone, an engine of centralization, punishment, andextortion, of irresistible force, and developing rapidly in financialmatters complete independence of all controlling principles. Though thebarons were acting rather from personal and selfish motives, freedom forall classes depended on the speedy checking of this steady drift of twogenerations. The reigns of Richard and John may be called transitionalbecause it is in them that the barons came to see clearly the principleson which successful resistance could be founded and the absolutisttendency checked. The embodiment of these principles in permanent formin the Great Charter to be accepted by the sovereign and enforced inpractice, introduces an age, the age of constitutional growth, new inthe history of England, and in the form and importance of its resultsnew in the history of the world. 

APPENDIX ON AUTHORITIES 1066-1216

While the material on which the history of any period of the Middle Agesis based is scanty as compared with the abundant supply at the service ofthe writer of modern history, the number of the original sources for theNorman and early Angevin period is so great as to render impossible anyattempt to characterize them all in this place. The more important ormore typical chroniclers have been selected to give an idea of the natureof the material on which the narrative rests. 

The medieval chronicler did not content himself with writing the historyof his own time. He was usually ambitious to write a general history fromthe beginning of the world or from the Christian era at least, and incomparatively few cases began with the origin of his own land. For aknowledge of times before his own he had to depend on his predecessors inthe same line, and often for long periods together the new book would beonly an exact copy or a condensation of an older one. If several earlierwriters were at hand, the new text might be a composite one, resting onthem all, but really adding nothing to our knowledge. As the writer drewnearer to his own time, local tradition or the documents preserved in hismonastery might give him information on new points or fuller informationon others. On such matters his narrative becomes an independent authorityof more or less value, and much that is important has been preserved tous in such additions to the earlier sources. Sometimes for a longer orshorter period before his own day the writer may be using materials allof which have been lost to us, and in such a case he is for our purposesan original and independent authority, although in reality he is notstrictly original. Then follows a period, sometimes a long one, sometimesonly a very few years, in which his narrative is contemporary and writtenfrom his own knowledge or from strictly first-hand materials. This isusually the most valuable portion for the modern writer of history. 

A large mass of material of great value cannot be described here. It ismade up of records primarily of value for constitutional history, charters, writs, laws, and documentary material of all kinds, from whichoften new facts are obtained for narrative history or light of greatvalue thrown on doubtful points, especially of chronology or of thehistory of individuals. Of such a kind are the various monasticcartularies, law-books like Glanvill's, records like the Patent, Close, and Charter Rolls, collections of letters, and modern collections ofdocuments like T. Rymer's Foedera or J. H. Round's Calendar ofDocuments Preserved in France. 

The Saxon Chronicle (with translation by B. Thorpe in the Rolls Series(1861), or C. Plummer's Two Saxon Chronicles, 1892-99) continues duringthe first part of this period with its earlier characteristics unchanged, though more full than for all but the last of the preceding age. TheConquest had no effect on its language, and it continued to be written inEnglish until the end. The Worcester chronicle closes with the year 1079, while the Peterborough book goes on to the coronation of Henry II in1154. Practically a contemporary record for the whole period, though notpreserved to us in a strictly contemporary form throughout, it is ofespecial value for the indications it gives of the feelings of theEnglish at a time when they were not often recorded. 

William, called of Poitiers, though a Norman, chaplain of William I andArchdeacon of Lisieux, wrote a biography of the king, Gesta WillelmiDuels Normannorum et Regis Anglice (in Migne's Patrologia Latina, 149), of much value for the period immediately following the Conquest. It hasbeen thought that he was not present at the battle of Hastings, but theaccount of William's movements between the battle and his coronationcontains several indications of first--hand knowledge, matters of detaillikely to be noted by an eye--witness; and though he was a strongpartisan and panegyrist of the king, his statements of what happened maygenerally be accepted. His comments and opinions, however, must be usedwith the greatest caution. His work originally ended in 1071, but thelast part is now wanting, and it ends abruptly in the spring of 1067. Theentire book was used, however, by Orderic Vitalis as one of the chiefsources of his narrative, and in that form we probably have all the mainfacts it contained. 

William of Malmesbury, born probably between 1090 and 1096, devotedhimself from early life to the study of history, seemingly attracted toit, as he tells us himself, by the pleasure which the record of the pastgave him and by its ethical value as a collection of practical examplesof virtues and vices. This confession gives the key to the character ofhis work. He prided himself on his Latin style, and with some justice. Heregarded himself not as a mere chronicler, but as a historian of a higherrank, the disciple and first continuator of Bede. The accurate telling offacts in their chronological order was to him less important than awell-written and philosophical account of events selected for theirimportance or interest and narrated in such a way as to bring out thecharacter of the actors or the meaning of the history. That he succeededin these objects cannot be questioned. His work is of a higher literaryand philosophical character than any written since his master Bede, orfor some time after himself. On this account, however, it gives lessdirect information as to the events of the time in which he lived than wecould wish, though it is a contemporary authority of considerable valueon the reign of Henry I, and of even more value on the first years ofStephen. 

His political history is contained in two works, the Gesta Regum, whichcloses with the year 1128, and the Historia Novella, which continuesthe narrative to December, 1142 (W. Stubbs, Rolls Series, 1887-89). Athird work, the Gesta Pontificum (N. E. S. A. Hamilton, Rolls Series, 1870), also contains some notices of value for the political history. William boasted a friendship with Robert, Earl of Gloucester, who was hispatron, and his sympathies were with the Empress's party in the civilwar, but he had also personal relations with Roger of Salisbury and Henryof Winchester, and was no blind partisan. 

EADMER, a monk of Canterbury, stands with William of Malmesbury in theforefront of the historians of the twelfth century. His work, lesspretentious than William's, is simpler and more straightforward. Eadmerwas of Saxon birth and was brought up from childhood in Christ Church, Canterbury. Affectionately attached to Anselm from an early time, hebecame his chaplain on his appointment as archbishop and was with himalmost constantly in his visits to court, in his troubled dealings withhis sovereigns, and in his exile abroad. With Anselm's successor, Archbishop Ralph, he stood in equally close relations, and he washonoured and respected in the ecclesiastical world of his time. He writesthroughout the greater part of his history, calmly and soberly, of thethings that he had seen and in which he had taken part. His chief work, the Historia Novorum (M. Rule, Rolls Series, 1884), begins with theConquest, but his main interest before the days of Anselm is in thepersonality and doings of Lanfranc. In the more detailed portion of hiswork his point of view is always the ecclesiastical. This is the interestwhich he desires to set forth most fully, but the policy of the Churchinvolved itself so closely in his day with that of the State that thehistory of the one is almost of necessity that of the other, and in theHistoria Novarum we have a contemporary history of English affairs, asthey came into touch with the Church, of the greatest value from theaccession of Henry I to 1121, and one which preserves a larger proportionof the important formal documents of the time than was usual with twelfthcentury historians. He wrote also in the latter part of this period aVita Anselmi in which the religious was even more the leading interestthan in his history, but it adds something to our knowledge of the time. 

One of the best authorities for the period from the Conquest to 1141 isthe Historia Ecclesiastica of ORDERIC VITALIS (A. Le Prevost, Societede l'Histoire de France, 1838-55). Born in England in 1075, of a Normanfather, a clerk, and an English mother, he was sent by his father at theage of ten to the monastery of St. Evroul, and there he spent his life. The atmosphere in this monastery was favourable to study. It had anextensive library, and Orderic had at his command good sources ofinformation, though he himself took no part in the events he describes. He paid some visits to England in which he obtained information, and ashe always looked upon himself as an Englishman, his history naturallyincludes England as well as Normandy. He began to write about 1123, andfrom that date on he may be regarded as a contemporary authority, butfrom the Conquest the book has in many places the value of an originalaccount. It is an exasperating book to use because of the extremeconfusion in which the facts are arranged, or left without arrangement, the account of a single incident being often in two widely separatedplaces. But the book rises much above the level of mere annals, and whileperhaps not reaching that of the philosophical historian, gives thereader more of the feeling that a living man is writing about living menthan is usual in medieval books. It reveals in the writer a livelyimagination, which, while it does not affect the historical value of thenarrative, gives it a pictorial setting. Orderic's interest in theminuter details of life and in the personality of the men of his timeimparts a strong human element to the book; nor is the least usefulfeature of the work the writer's critical judgment on men and events, generally on moral grounds, but often assisting our knowledge ofcharacter and the causes of events. 

HENRY, ARCHDEACON OF HUNTINGDON's Historia Anglorum (T. Arnold, RollsSeries, 1879) becomes original, to our present knowledge at least, withthe closing of the manuscript of the Saxon chronicle which he had beenfollowing, probably in 1121, and his narrative is contemporary from thelast years of that decade to the coronation of Henry II. He adds, however, surprisingly little to our knowledge of the twenty-five yearsduring which he was writing the history of his own time. He had an activeimagination and loved to embellish the facts which he had learned withlittle details that he thought likely to be true. The main value of theoriginal portion of his history lies in its confirmation of what we learnfrom other sources. 

The chronicle of FLORENCE OF WORCESTER (B. Thorpe, Engl. Hist. Soc. , 1848-49) is continued by John of Worcester as a source of primaryimportance to 1141 and by others afterwards. Florence himself died in1118, but at what point before this his own work breaks off it does notseem possible to determine. There is at no point any real change in thecharacter of the chronicle. The continental chronicle which Florence hadbeen using as the groundwork of his account, that of Marianus Scotus, ends with 1082, but his manuscript of the Saxon chronicle probably wenton for some distance further, and about the time of Florence's death muchuse is made of Eadmer. The account is annalistic throughout, even in thefull treatment of Stephen's reign; but in its original portions, or whatseem to us original, it has the value of a contemporary record, giving usfurther insight into the feelings of the English in William's reign andthe feelings and sufferings of the people of the south-west in Stephen'stime. 

An interesting chronicle of Stephen's reign is that by an unknown authorknown as the Gesta Stephani (R. Hewlett, Rolls Series, Chronicles ofStephen, Henry II, and Richard I, iii, 1866), which existed at thebeginning of the seventeenth century in a single manuscript since lost. It has been conjectured with some probability that it was written by achaplain of the king's brother, Henry, Bishop of Winchester. Certainlythe author had very good sources of information, writes often frompersonal knowledge, and though a strong partisan of Stephen's, is notblind to his weaknesses and faults. While the first part of the narrativewas not written precisely at the date, the work has all the value of acontemporary account from 1135, and from 1142 to 1147 it is almost ouronly authority. The manuscript from which it was first printed in 1619had been injured, and the book as it now exists breaks off in the middleof a sentence in 1147. 

ROBERT OF TORIGNI (R. Hewlett, Rolls Series. Chronicles of Stephen, etc. , iv, 1889) spent his life as a monk in Normandy, in the abbey ofBec till 1154 and afterwards as abbot of the monastery of Mont SaintMichel. He made apparently but two visits to England, of which we know noparticulars, but as a monk of Normandy, living in two of its most famousmonasteries, he was interested in the doings of the English kings, particularly in their continental policy, and more especially in thedeeds of the two great Henries. He began to write as a young man, and by1139, about the time he reached the age of thirty, he seems to havecompleted his account of the reign of Henry I, which he wrote as anadditional, an eighth? book to the History of the Normans of William ofJumieges. His more extended chronicle he had begun before leaving Bec, and he carried the work with him to Mont-Saint-Michel. Down to 1100this is the chronicle of Sigebert of Gemblours with additions, and itbecomes a wholly original chronicle only with 1147. Though of great valuefor the knowledge of facts, especially between 1154 and 1170, thechronicle never rises above the character of annals and was carelesslyconstructed, especially as to chronology; it was perhaps worked up bymonks of his house from a somewhat rough first draft of memoranda by theabbot. The book closes at the end of 1185, shortly before the death ofRobert. 

The writer of the twelfth century who comes the nearest to looking uponthe task of the historian as a modern writer would is WILLIAM OF NEWBURGH(R. Hewlett, Rolls Series, Chronicles of Stephen, etc. , i, and ii, 1884-85). His purpose is not merely to record what happened, with arather clear conception of the duty of the historian to be accurate andto use the best sources, but to make a selection of the facts, using themore important and those that will show the drift and meaning of the age, and combining them into something like an explanatory account of theperiod; and this he does with constant critical judgment of men andmeasures and great breadth of historical view. His Historia RerumAnglicarum, which may be said to begin with the reign of Stephen, aftera brief introduction on the three preceding reigns, appears to have beencomposed as a whole within two or three years at the close of the twelfthcentury. The probability is that no part of it is original, in the sensethat it was written solely from first-hand knowledge; but the sourcesfrom which he derived his material for the period from 1154 to 1173, andat later dates, have not come down to us, and he must have drawn fromsome personal knowledge in the last portion of his work. It isthroughout, however, a critical commentary of great value on the history, and an interpretation of it by a man of clear, impartial, and broadjudgment, and one not too far removed from the time of which he wrote tobe out of sympathy with it. 

For the last half of the reign of Henry II we have the advantage of avaluable and in some respects very interesting and attractive chronicle. This is the Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, associated with the name ofBENEDICT OF PETERBOROUGH (Rolls Series, 2 vols. ). Benedict, however, wasnot the author, and no certain evidence as to who he was can be derivedfrom any source, nor does the chronicle itself supply many of thoseincidental indications from which it is often possible to learn muchregarding the author of an anonymous book. The tentative suggestion ofBishop Stubbs that it may have been written by Richard Fitz Neal, theauthor of the Dialogus de Scaccario, is now generally regarded asinadmissible. The work begins in 1170, and from a date a year or twolater is evidently contemporaneous to its close in 1192, with perhaps aslight interruption at 1177. It is written in a simple andstraightforward way, and with a sure touch, unusual accuracy ofstatement, and a clear understanding of constitutional details; itsuggests an interesting personality in its author, with whom weconstantly desire a closer acquaintance. Whoever he was, he possessedgood sources of information, though apparently too great considerationfor king or court keeps him sometimes from saying all he knows orbelieves, and he has inserted in his work many letters and importantdocuments. 

The work known by the name of Benedict was taken up into his own andcarried forward to 1201 by an almost equally important chronicler, ROGEROF HOWDEN (W. Stubbs, Rolls Series, 1868-71). The writer was a northernerwho began his history with 732, using for all the first part of itnorthern historians, with some slight additions between 1149 and 1169. From 1170 he copies nearly all the Gesta Regis Henrici, adding to itoccasionally original information and some documents, but the knowledgeof value which we derive from his additions is disappointingly smallconsidering that he held official positions under the king and wasemployed by him on various missions. From 1192 to its close the work isan original and contemporary history, carefully written and of greatvalue, and containing an even larger proportion of documents thanBenedict. The chronicle excites less interest in the personality of itsauthor than does its predecessor; is of a somewhat more solemn type, andshows more plainly the traits of the ordinary ecclesiastical writer inits sympathy with current superstitions and its frequent moralizing. 

RALPH DE DICETO, Dean of St. Paul's during the last ten years of HenryII's reign and the whole of Richard's, began soon after he became dean achronicle which he called Imagines Historiarum, or Outlines of History(W. Stubbs, Rolls Series, 1876). It begins with 1148, to which date hehad brought down an abstract of earlier chronicles from the creation. Toabout 1183 the work is based on the writings of others, but from 1162 itbecomes more full and contains much that is original in form at least. From 1183 to its close in 1202 it is a contemporary account of thehighest value, especially for the reign of Richard. Ralph stood in closerelations with Richard Fitz Neal, from 1189 Bishop of London, for fortyyears treasurer of the kingdom, and himself the author of historicalbooks, and with William Longchamp King Richard's representative. Fromhis official position also he possessed unusually good opportunities ofinformation and means of forming those judgments on affairs which are afeature of his chronicle. He has embodied many important documents in hisnarrative though sometimes not with the true historian's feeling of theimportance of the exact language in such cases. His statements of factand of opinion both greatly aid our understanding of his times, and hiswriting has, like Benedict of Peterborough, a straightforward air whichitself carries weight. 

While the more important chroniclers were writing the secular history ofthe reigns of Henry II and Richard I, a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, of the name of GERVASE (W. Stubbs, Rolls Series, 1879-80), was also writing a chronicle in which he was chiefly interested topreserve the history of the troubles and ecclesiastical controversies ofhis house and of the archbishopric. Incidentally, however, he gives ussome information concerning political events and considerableconfirmatory evidence. He began writing about 1188, and his principalchronicle becomes contemporary soon after that date. It exactly covers acentury, opening with the accession of Henry I and closing with the deathof Richard I. A minor chronicle, entitled Gesta Regum, begun after theclose of the other, starts with the mythical Brutus, the Trojan who gavehis name to Britain, and comes rapidly down to the accession of John, abridging earlier works. For the reign of John it is a contemporarychronicle, not very full, but of real value. Gervase writes always as amonk, and even more narrowly, as a monk of Canterbury, influenced by thefeelings of his order and monastery. His attitude towards the kings underwhom he writes is unsympathetic, and his interest in political matters isalways very slight, but his references to them are not on that accountwithout a value of their own. 

RALPH, abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Coggeshall from 1207 to 1218, when he resigned because of illness, wrote a Chronicon Anglicanum (J. Stevenson, Rolls Series, 1875), which extends from 1066 to 1223. To 1186the entries are brief annals: with 1187 the history becomes more full, but the writer's interest is chiefly in the crusade, of which importantand interesting accounts are given from excellent sources; andcomparatively little is recorded concerning the history of England properbefore the accession of John. For the reign of John the book is one ofour most important and trustworthy contemporary sources. Ralph wasgreatly interested in mythical tales, especially in wonderful occurrencesin nature, and he records these at length as he heard of them, but thishabit does not affect the character of his historical record proper. As ahistorian he is very well informed, though he gives but few documents; hesaw clearly the essential point of things and had a sense of accuracy. 

A compilation from earlier historical works made, in the form in which wehave it, at the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenthcentury and known by the name of WALTER OF COVENTRY (W. Stubbs, RollsSeries, 1872-73), has preserved a continuation of Roger of Howden whichis of great value. This is a chronicle of John's reign and the earlyyears of Henry III, from 1202 to 1226, probably written in the monasteryof Barnwell about the time the narrative closes, and original andpractically contemporary at least from 1212. From 1202 to 1208 theentries are brief and annalistic, with occasionally a suggestive comment. With 1209 the notices begin to be longer, and with 1212 they form adetailed narrative. The writer has a better opinion of John, at least ofhis ability, than other chroniclers of the time, does not attribute hismisfortunes to the king's faults, and has little sympathy with the causeof the barons. He is accurate in his statements, clear in his narrative, and shows a tendency to reflect on the causes and relations of theleading facts. 

Besides these, most important of the primary authorities, there are anumber of others of hardly less value. SIMEON OF DURHAM's HistoriaRegum (T. Arnold, Rolls Series, 1882-85) becomes an independentchronicle from 1119 to 1129 and is continued by JOHN OF HEXHAM (ed. WithSimeon of Durham) to 1154 in a narrative not contemporary, but in manyplaces original, while RICHARD OF HEXHAM (Chronicles of Stephen, etc. , iii), perhaps John's predecessor as prior, wrote a contemporary historycovering the time from the death of Henry I to early in 1139. All theseare of especial value for the affairs of northern England. About the sametime Master GEOFFREY GAIMAR, the Trouvère, wrote a chronicle in Frenchverse which is mainly a translation from the Saxon chronicle and otherearlier writers (T. D. Hardy and C. T. Martin, Rolls Series, 1888-89). Itcloses with the death of William Rufus, and is chiefly of interest asgiving a glimpse of the opinion held by laymen of the noble class aboutthat king. Valuable evidence regarding the Becket controversy iscollected in the seven volumes in the Rolls Series, entitled Materialsfor the History of Thomas Becket (J. C. Robertson, 1875-85). They containnine contemporary lives of the archbishop and one later one, and threevolumes of letters of Becket and others. On the conquest of Ireland thereis an important French poem called the Song of Dermot and the Earl(G. H. Orpen, 1892) that was written in the next century, but based on acontemporary narrative; and GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS (J. S. Brewer, J. F. Dimock, and G. P. Warner, Rolls Series, 186191) gives a livelycontemporary account of the Conquest, and descriptions of Ireland as wellas of Wales. He also wrote later a book called De PrincipisInstructione, an avowed attack on Henry II and his sons, against whom hehad the grievance of disappointed ambition. The book relates in passingmany incidents that fill out our knowledge of the period, and itpossesses some value from the very fact of its unfriendly criticism. This, but not much more than this, is also true of RALPH NIGER'scontemporary chronicles of Henry II's reign, written in a spirit veryunfriendly to the king (R. Anstruther, Caxton Society, 1851). An accountof Richard's crusade is preserved in the Itinerarium Regis Ricardi (W. Stubbs, Rolls Series, Chronicles of Richard I, 1864), which is no morethan a translation from a contemporary French poem. A biography of St. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, who died in 1200, was written after his death byhis chaplain and contains many incidental references to public affairs--afew of great value (J. F. Dimock, Rolls Series, 1864). Another biography, written in French verse not quite contemporary, but based on informationfrom a companion of the subject, is the Histoire de Guillaume leMaréchal (P. Meyer, Soc. Hist. De France, 1891-1901). It follows thelife of William Marshal through the reigns of Henry II, Richard, andJohn, and to his death in 1219. It relates many facts, gives muchinformation as to life and manners and suggestions of interpretation froma layman's point of view. Foreign chronicles, of value on the foreignpolicy of the English kings, are that of GEOFFREY, Prior of VIGEOIS (inBouquet's Recueil des Historiens de France), on nearly the whole ofHenry II's reign, the contemporary histories of Philip Augustus byRIGORD, and GUILLAUME LE BRETON, and the Histoire des Ducs de Normandie(all in the collections of the Soc. Hist. De France). The last isoriginal and contemporary on the reign of John. Collections of letterslike those of Lanfranc, and monastic annals like those of Burton, Waverley, and Dunstable, aid materially in filling out our knowledge. Agreat school of historical writing was rising into prominence as thisperiod closed, in the monastery of St. Albans. Its first greathistoriographer, ROGER OF WENDOVER (H. O. COXE, Engl. Hist. Soc. , 1841-44), probably did not begin to write his chronicle until after thedeath of John, but his account of that king's reign, written not longafter its close, is original and has the practical value of acontemporary narrative. 

Of secondary authorities of importance who have written on this period atany length the list is unfortunately short. 

First and foremost for every student of Norman and early Angevin historyis the work of Bishop STUBBS. With a more direct, personal interest inthe growth of institutions, still in his Constitutional History and inhis prefaces to the volumes he edited for the Master of the Rolls hediscussed the narrative history of the whole age and very fully thereigns of Henry II and his two sons. The characteristic of BishopStubbs's work, which makes it of especial value to the student of thepresent generation, is the remarkable clearness with which he saw theessential meaning of his material and its bearing on the problem underdiscussion. While he generally neglected a wide range of material ofgreat value to the historian of institutions--the charters and legaldocuments--and did not always formulate clearly in his mind the exactproblem to be solved, yet the keenness with which he detected inimperfect material the real solution is often marvellous. Again and againthe later student finds but little more to do than to prove more fullyand from a wider range of material the intuitive conclusions of hismaster. 

For the reigns of the Conqueror and of William II we have the benefit ofthe minute studies of EDWARD A. FREEMAN in his History of the NormanConquest and his Reign of William Rufus. The faults of Mr. Freeman'swork are very serious, and they mar too greatly the results of long andpatient industry and much enthusiasm for his subject. The neglect ofunprinted material and of almost all that is strictly constitutional incharacter, and the personal bias arising from his strongly held theory ofTeutonic influence in early English history, make every conclusion one tobe accepted with caution, but his long books on these reigns furnish avast store of fact and suggestion of the greatest importance to thestudent. The Norman Conquest closes with a summary history to the deathof Stephen, which is of considerable value. 

The second volume of Sir JAMES RAMSAY's Foundations of England and hisAngevin Empire together form a continuous history of the whole age from1066 to 1216. These books are to be noticed for their careful inclusion ofdetails and their bringing all the sources together that bear on successivefacts, so as to furnish an almost complete index to the originalauthorities. 

Miss KATE NORGATE has written two books which form a continuous historyfrom the accession of Stephen to the death of John--England under theAngevin Kings and John Lackland. In the first book the influence ofJohn Richard Green is clearly traceable both in the style and in theselection of facts for treatment. It contains many discussions ofdifficult questions that must be taken into account in forming a finalopinion. The second book is a sober and careful study of John's career thatbrings out some new points of detail, especially in his last years, butgives little attention to constitutional changes. 

Three scholars whose work does not bear immediately upon the politicalhistory, or bears only upon portions of it, but who have yet contributedgreatly by their studies to our understanding of it, are Professor F. W. MAITLAND, Professor FELIX LIEBERMANN, and Mr. HORACE ROUND. ProfessorMaitland's field is that of legal history, in which he has done as greata work as that of Stubbs in constitutional history, and incidentallyhas thrown much light on problems which Stubbs discusses. His intimateknowledge and his scientific caution of statement give to any conclusionthat he puts in positive form an almost final authority. Of Dr. Liebermannit is to be said that probably no living man has so complete a knowledge ofthe material which the historian of this period must use, whether that bethe original material of the age itself or the scattered work of secondaryauthorities of different ages and many languages. His own work has beenmainly devoted to the preparation of scientifically edited texts, mostlyof legal material, but also of extracts from a considerable range ofchronicles--work unrivalled in its thoroughness and in its approach tofinality. Scattered in the introductions to these texts is a mass ofinformation on points of all kinds, which no student of the times canneglect; while an occasional formal article, like that on Anselm andArchbishop Hugh of Lyons, awakens regret that they are so few. The workof Mr. Round has nearly all appeared in short studies on isolated topics. In Geoffrey de Mandeville he has written one book on the reign ofStephen that approaches the character of narrative history. In hisFeudal England and Commune of London many articles on problems ofthis age have been collected in a form convenient for reference. Mr. Round's knowledge of the history of persons and families is unsurpassed;he subjects the material he uses to a minuteness of analysis that isunusual; and he has settled, so far as the evidence admits of it, someimportant questions and a large number of minor problems, both of thehistory of events and of institutions. 

We owe to foreign scholars many studies of value on particular questionsof Norman and Angevin history, like M. CHARLES BÉMONT's on the trial ofKing John for the murder of Arthur, and a few long works of firstimportance. Dr. H. BÖHMER's Kirche und Staat in England und der Normandieim XI und XII Jahrhundert is of great interest on the conflict of Anselmwith Henry I and the consequences that flowed from it. O. RÖESSLER'sKaiserin Mathilde is of particular value for the foreign policy of HenryI and for the reign of Stephen, though inclined to attach too much weightto what are really conjectures. M. A. LUCHAIRE's contribution to E. Lavisse's Histoire de France is a very interesting piece of work, dealing fully with the French side of English foreign relations, and ofespecial value for the first three Angevin kings. The same subject isreceiving also minute and careful treatment in Dr. ALEXANDER CARTELLIERI'sPhilip II Augustus, Koenig van Frankreich, the first volume of whichgoes to the death of Henry II, while M. PETIT-DUTAILLIS's Étude sur laVie et la Règne de Louis VIII is useful for the last years of John. 

It is impossible in a bibliography of this kind to speak of all the longlist of monographs and special studies, English and foreign, which alonemake possible the writing of a history of this age, and to which thewriter must acknowledge his obligations in general terms.