THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Volume One of Three
FROM THE INVASION OF JULIUS CÆSAR
TO THE END OF THE REIGN OF
JAMES THE SECOND,
BY DAVID HUME, ESQ.
1688
London: James S. Virtue, City Road and Ivy Lane
New York: 26 John
Street
1860
And
Philadelphia:
J. B.
Lippincott & Co.
March 17, 1901
In Three Volumes:
VOLUME ONE: The History Of England From The Invasion Of Julius VOLUME TWO: Continued from the Reign VOLUME THREE: From the Accession of George III. to the |
VOLUME ONE
Part A.
From Early Times to King John
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED A SHORT ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
[A click on any of the following images will enlarge them to
full size.]
THE LIFE OF DAVID HUME, ESQ.
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
MY OWN LIFE.
It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity;
therefore I shall be short. It may be thought an instance of vanity that I
pretend at all to write my life; but this narrative shall contain little
more than the history of my writings; as, indeed, almost all my life has
been spent in literary pursuits and occupations. The first success of most
of my writings was not such as to be an object of vanity.
I was born the twenty-sixth of April, 1711, old style, at Edinburgh. I was
of a good family, both by father and mother: my father’s family is a
branch of the earl of Home’s, or Hume’s; and my ancestors had been
proprietors of the estate which my brother possesses, for several
generations. My mother was daughter of Sir David Falconer, president of
the college of justice; the title of Lord Halkerton came by succession to
her brother.
My family, however, was not rich; and being myself a younger brother, my
patrimony, according to the mode of my country, was of course very
slender. My father, who passed for a man of parts, died when I was an
infant, leaving me, with an elder brother and a sister, under the care of
our mother, a woman of singular merit, who, though young and handsome,
devoted herself entirely to the rearing and educating of her children. I
passed through the ordinary course of education with success, and was
seized very early with a passion for literature, which has been the ruling
passion of my life, and the great source of my enjoyments. My studious
disposition, my sobriety, and my industry, gave my family a notion that
the law was a proper profession for me; but I found an insurmountable
aversion to every thing but the pursuits of philosophy and general
learning; and while they fancied I was poring upon Voet and Vinnius,
Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I was secretly devouring.
My very slender fortune, however, being unsuitable to this plan of life,
and my health being a little broken by my ardent application, I was
tempted, or rather forced, to make a very feeble trial for entering into a
more active scene of life. In 1734, I went to Bristol, with some
recommendations to several eminent merchants; but in a few months found
that scene totally unsuitable to me. I went over to France, with a view of
prosecuting my studies in a country retreat; and I there laid that plan of
life which I have steadily and successfully pursued. I resolved to make a
very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to maintain
unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible,
except the improvement of my talents in literature.
During my retreat in France, first at Rheims, but chiefly at La Fleche, in
Anjou, I composed my Treatise of Human Nature. After passing three years
very agreeably in that country, I came over to London in 1737. In the end
of 1738, I published my Treatise, and immediately went down to my mother
and my brother, who lived at his country house, and was employing himself
very judiciously and successfully in the improvement of his fortune.
Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human
Nature. It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such
distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots. But being
naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I very soon recovered the
blow, and prosecuted with great ardor my studies in the country. In 1742,
I printed at Edinburgh the first part of my Essays. The work was favorably
received, and soon made me entirely forget my former disappointment. I
continued with my mother and brother in the country, and in that time
recovered the knowledge of the Greek language, which I had too much
neglected in my early youth.
In 1745, I received a letter from the marquis of Annandale, inviting me to
come and live with him in England; I found also that the friends and
family of that young nobleman were desirous of putting him under my care
and direction, for the state of his mind and health required it. I lived
with him a twelve-month. My appointments during that time made a
considerable accession to my small fortune. I then received an invitation
from General St. Clair to attend him as a secretary to his expedition,
which was at first meant against Canada, but ended in an incursion on the
coast of France. Next year, to wit, 1747, I received an invitation from
the general to attend him in the same station in his military embassy to
the courts of Vienna and Turin. I then wore the uniform of an officer, and
was introduced at these courts as aid-de-camp to the general, along with
Sir Harry Erskine and Captain Grant, now General Grant. These two years
were almost the only interruptions which my studies have received during
the course of my life: I passed them agreeably, and in good company; and
my appointments, with my frugality, had made me reach a fortune which I
called independent, though most of my friends were inclined to smile when
I said so: in short, I was now master of near a thousand pounds.
I had always entertained a notion, that my want of success in publishing
the Treatise of Human Nature had proceeded more from the manner than the
matter, and that I had been guilty of a very usual indiscretion, in going
to the press too early. I, therefore, cast the first part of that work
anew in the Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, which was published
while I was at Turin. But this piece was at first little more successful
than the Treatise on Human Nature. On my return from Italy, I had the
mortification to find all England in a ferment, on account of Dr.
Middleton’s Free Inquiry, while my performance was entirely overlooked and
neglected, A new edition, which had been published at London, of my
Essays, moral and political, met not with a much better reception.
Such is the force of natural temper, that these disappointments made
little or no impression on me. I went down, in 1749, and lived two years
with my brother at his country house, for my mother was now dead. I there
composed the second part of my Essay, which I called Political Discourses,
and also my Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, which is another
part of my Treatise that I cast anew. Meanwhile, my bookseller, A. Millar,
informed me, that my former publications (all but the unfortunate
Treatise) were beginning to be the subject of conversation; that the sale
of them was gradually increasing, and that new editions were demanded.
Answers by reverends and right reverends came out two or three in a year;
and I found, by Dr. Warburton’s railing, that the books were beginning to
be esteemed in good company. However, I had fixed a resolution, which I
inflexibly maintained, never to reply to any body; and not being very
irascible in my temper, I have easily kept myself clear of all literary
squabbles. These symptoms of a rising reputation gave me encouragement, as
I was ever more disposed to see the favorable than unfavorable side of
things; a turn of mind which it is more happy to possess, than to be born
to an estate of ten thousand a year.
In 1751, I removed from the country to the town, the true scene for a man
of letters. In 1752 were published at Edinburgh, where I then lived, my
Political Discourses, the only work of mine that was successful on the
first publication. It was well received at home and abroad. In the same
year was published, at London, my Inquiry concerning the Principles of
Morals; which, in my own opinion, (who ought not to judge on that
subject,) is, of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary,
incomparably the best, It came unnoticed and unobserved into the world.
In 1752, the Faculty of Advocates chose me their librarian, an office from
which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the command of
a large library, I then formed the plan of writing the History of England;
but being frightened with the notion of continuing a narrative through a
period of seventeen hundred years, I commenced with the accession of the
house of Stuart, an epoch when, I thought, the misrepresentations of
faction began chiefly to take place. I was, I own, sanguine in my
expectations of the success of this work. I thought that I was the only
historian that had at once neglected present power, interest, and
authority, and the cry of popular prejudices; and as the subject was
suited to every capacity, I expected proportional applause. But miserable
was my disappointment; I was assailed by one cry of reproach,
disapprobation, and even detestation; English, Scotch, and Irish, whig and
tory, churchman and sectary, freethinker and religionist, patriot and
courtier, united in their rage against the man who had presumed to shed a
generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the earl of Stratford; and
after the first ebullitions of their fury were over, what was still more
mortifying, the book seemed to sink into oblivion. Mr. Millar told me that
in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five copies of it. I scarcely, indeed
head of one man in the three kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters,
that could endure the book. I must only except the primate of England, Dr.
Herring, and the primate of Ireland, Dr. Stone, which seem two odd
exceptions. These dignified prelates separately sent me messages not to be
discouraged.
I was, however, I confess, discouraged; and had not the war been at that
time breaking out between France and England, I had certainly retired to
some provincial town of the former kingdom, have changed my name, and
never more have returned to my native country. But as this scheme was not
now practicable, and the subsequent volume was considerably advanced, I
resolved to pick up courage and to persevere.
In this interval, I published, at London, my Natural History of Religion,
along with some other small pieces. Its public entry was rather obscure,
except only that Dr. Hurd wrote a pamphlet against it, with all the
illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility, which distinguish the
Warburtonian school. This pamphlet gave me some consolation for the
otherwise indifferent reception of my performance.
In 1756, two years after the fall of the first volume, was published the
second volume of my history, containing the period from the death of
Charles I. till the revolution. This performance happened to give less
displeasure to the whigs, and was better received. It not only rose
itself, but helped to buoy up its unfortunate brother.
But though I had been taught by experience that the whig party were in
possession of bestowing all places, both in the state and in Literature, I
was so little inclined to yield to their senseless clamor, that in above a
hundred alterations, which further study, reading, or reflection engaged
me to make in the reigns of the two first Stuarts, I have made all of them
invariably to the tory side. It is ridiculous to consider the English
constitution before that period as a regular plan of liberty.
In 1759, I published my history of the house of Tudor. The clamor against
this performance was almost equal to that against the history of the two
first Stuarts. The reign of Elizabeth was particularly obnoxious. But I
was now callous against the impressions of public folly, and continued
very peaceably and contentedly, in my retreat at Edinburgh, to finish, in
two volumes, the more early part of the English history, which I gave to
the public in 1761, with tolerable, and but tolerable, success.
But, notwithstanding this variety of winds and seasons, to which my
writings had been exposed, they had still been making such advances, that
the copy-money given me by the booksellers much exceeded any thing
formerly known in England; I was become not only independent, but opulent.
I retired to my native country of Scotland, determined never more to set
my foot out of it; and retaining the satisfaction of never having
preferred a request to one great man, or even making advances of
friendship to any of them. As I was now turned of fifty, I thought of
passing all the rest of my life in this philosophical manner: when I
received, in 1763, an invitation from the earl of Hertford, with whom I
was not in the least acquainted, to attend him on his embassy to Paris,
with a near prospect of being appointed secretary to the embassy; and, in
the mean while, of performing the functions of that office. This offer,
however inviting, I at first declined; both because I was reluctant to
begin connections with the great, and because I was afraid that the
civilities and gay company of Paris would prove disagreeable to a person
of my age and humor; but on his lordship’s repeating the invitation, I
accepted of it. I have every reason, both of pleasure and interest; to
think myself happy in my connections with that nobleman, as well as
afterwards with his brother, General Conway.
Those who have not seen the strange effects of modes, will never imagine
the reception I met with at Paris, from men and women of all ranks and
stations. The more I resiled from their excessive civilities, the more I
was loaded with them. There is, however, a real satisfaction in living at
Paris, from the great number of sensible, knowing, and polite company with
which that city abounds above all places in the universe. I thought once
of settling there for life.
I was appointed secretary to the embassy; and, in summer, 1765, Lord
Hertford left me, being appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland. I was chargé
d’affaires till the arrival of the duke of Richmond, towards the end of
the year. In the beginning of 1766, I left Paris, and next summer went to
Edinburgh, with the same view as formerly, of burying myself in a
philosophical retreat. I returned to that place, not richer, but with much
more money, and a much larger income, by means of Lord Hertford’s
friendship, than I left it; and I was desirous of trying what superfluity
could produce, as I had formerly made an experiment of a competency. But
in 1767, I received from Mr. Conway an invitation to be under-secretary;
and this invitation, both the character of the person, and my connections
with Lord Hertford, prevented me from declining. I returned to Edinburgh
in 1769, very opulent, (for I possessed a revenue of one thousand pounds a
year,) healthy, and though somewhat stricken in years, with the prospect
of enjoying long my ease, and of seeing the increase of my reputation.
In spring, 1775, I was struck with a disorder in my bowels, which at first
gave me no alarm, but has since, as I apprehend it, become mortal and
incurable. I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have suffered very
little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have,
notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment’s
abatement of my spirits; insomuch, that were I to name a period of my life
which I should most choose to pass over again, I might be tempted to point
to this later period. I possess the same ardor as ever in study, and the
same gayety in company. I consider, besides, that a man of sixty-five, by
dying, cuts off only a few years of infirmities; and though I see many
symptoms of my literary reputation’s breaking out at last with additional
lustre, I know that I could have but few years to enjoy it. It is
difficult to be more detached from life than I am at present.
To conclude historically with my own character: I am, or rather was, (for
that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which imboldens me
the more to speak my sentiments;) I was, I say, a man of mild disposition,
of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humor, capable of
attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in
all my passions. Even my love of literary fame, my ruling passion, never
soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. My company
was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious
and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest
women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from
them. In a word, though most men, anywise eminent, have found reason to
complain of Calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked, by her baleful
tooth; and though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil and
religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of their
wonted fury. My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one
circumstance of my character and conduct; not but that the zealots, we may
well suppose, would have been glad to invent and propagate any story to my
disadvantage, but they could never find any which they thought would wear
the face of probability. I cannot say there is no vanity in making this
funeral oration of myself, but I hope it is not a misplaced one; and this
is a matter of fact which is easily cleared and ascertained.
April 18, 1776.
LETTER FROM ADAM SMITH, LL. D. TO WILLLIAM STRAHAN, ESQ.
Kirkaldy, Fifeshire, Nov. 9, 1778.[**]
DEAR SIR,
It is with a real, though a very melancholy pleasure, that I sit down to
give you some account of the behavior of our late excellent friend, Mr.
Hume, during his last illness.
Though, in his own judgment, his disease was mortal and incurable, yet he
allowed himself to be prevailed upon, by the entreaty of his friends, to
try what might be the effects of a long journey. A few days before he set
out, he wrote that account of his own life, which, together with his other
papers, he has left to your care. My account, therefore, shall begin where
his ends.
He set out for London towards the end of April, and at Morpeth met with
Mr. John Home and myself, who had both come down from London on purpose to
see him, expecting to have found him at Edinburgh. Mr. Home returned with
him, and attended him during the whole of his stay in England, with that
care and attention which might be expected from a temper so perfectly
friendly and affectionate. As I had written to my mother that she might
expect me in Scotland, I was under the necessity of continuing my journey.
His disease seemed to yield to exercise and change of air; and when he
arrived in London, he was apparently in much better health than when he
left Edinburgh. He was advised to go to Bath to drink the waters, which
appeared for some time to have so good an effect upon him, that even he
himself began to entertain, what he was not apt to do, a better opinion of
his own health. His symptoms, however, soon returned with their usual
violence; and from that moment he gave up all thoughts of recovery, but
submitted with the utmost cheerfulness, and the most perfect complacency
and resignation. Upon his return to Edinburgh, though he found himself
much weaker, yet his cheerfulness never abated, and he continued to divert
himself, as usual, with correcting his own works for a new edition, with
reading books of amusement, with the conversation of his friends; and,
sometimes in the evening, with a party at his favorite game of whist. His
cheerfulness was so great, and his conversation and amusements ran so much
in their usual strain, that, notwithstanding all bad symptoms, many people
could not believe he was dying. “I shall tell your friend, Colonel
Edmonstone,” said Dr. Dundas, to him one day, “that I left you much
better, and in a fair way of recovery.” “Doctor,” said he, “as I believe
you would not choose to tell any thing but the truth, you had better tell
him that I am dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and
as easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire.” Colonel
Edmonstone soon afterwards came to see him, and take leave of him; and on
his way home he could not forbear writing him a letter, bidding him once
more an eternal adieu, and applying to him, as to a dying man, the
beautiful French verses in which the abbé Chaulieu in expectation of his
own death, laments his approaching separation from his friend the marquis
de la Fare. Mr. Hume’s magnanimity and firmness were such, that his most
affectionate friends knew that they hazarded nothing in talking or writing
to him as to a dying man, and that so far from being hurt by this
frankness, he was rather pleased and flattered by it. I happened to come
into his room while he was reading this letter, which he had just
received, and which he immediately showed me. I told him, that though I
was sensible how very much he was weakened, and that appearances were in
many respects very bad, yet his cheerfulness was still so great, the
spirit of life seemed still to be so very strong in him, that I could not
help entertaining some faint hopes. He answered, “Your hopes are
groundless. An habitual diarrhoea of more than a year’s standing, would be
a very bad disease at any age; at my age it is a mortal one. When I lie
down in the evening, I feel myself weaker than when I rose in the morning;
and when I rise in the morning, weaker than when I lay down in the
evening. I am sensible besides, that some of my vital parts are affected,
so that I must soon die.” “Well,” said I, “if it must be so, you have at
least the satisfaction of leaving all your friends, your brother’s family
in particular, in great prosperity.” He said that he felt that
satisfaction so sensibly, that when he was reading, a few days before,
Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead, among all the excuses which are alleged to
Charon for not entering readily into his boat, he could not find one that
fitted him: he had no house to finish, he had no daughter to provide for
he had no enemies upon whom he wished to revenge himself. “I could not
well imagine,” said he, “what excuse I could make to Charon in order to
obtain a little delay. I have done every thing of consequence which I ever
meant to do; and I could at no time expect to leave my relations and
friends in a better situation than that in which I am now likely to leave
them: I, therefore, have all reason to die contented.” He then diverted
himself with inventing several jocular excuses, which he supposed he might
make to Charon, and with imagining the very surly answers which it might
suit the character of Charon to return to them. “Upon further
consideration,” said he, “I thought I might say to him, ‘Good Charon, I
have been correcting my works for a new edition. Allow me a little time,
that I may see how the public receives the alterations.’ But Charon would
answer, ‘When you have seen the effect of these, you will be for making
other alterations. There will be no end of such excuses; so, honest
friend, please step into the boat.’ But I might still urge, ‘Have a little
patience, good Charon: I have been endeavoring to open the eyes of the
public. If I live a few years longer, I may have the satisfaction of
seeing the downfall of some of the prevailing systems of superstition.’
But Charon would then lose all temper and decency. ‘You loitering rogue,
that will not happen these many hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant
you a lease for so long a term? Get into the boat this instant, you lazy,
loitering rogue.’”
But, though Mr. Hume always talked of his approaching dissolution with
great cheerfulness, he never affected to make any parade of his
magnanimity. He never mentioned the subject but when the conversation
naturally led to it, and never dwelt longer upon it than the course of the
conversation happened to require; it was a subject indeed which occurred
pretty frequently, in consequence of the inquiries which his friends, who
came to see him, naturally made concerning the state of his health. The
conversation which I mentioned above, and which passed on Thursday the
eighth of August, was the last, except one, that I ever had with him. He
had now become so very weak, that the company of his most intimate friends
fatigued him; for his cheerfulness was still so great, his complaisance
and social disposition were still so entire, that when any friend was with
him, he could not help talking more, and with greater exertion, than
suited the weakness of his body. At his own desire, therefore, I agreed to
leave Edinburgh, where I was staying partly upon his account and returned
to my mother’s house here at Kirkaldy, upon condition that he would send
for me whenever he wished to see me; the physician who saw him most
frequently, Dr. Black, undertaking, in the mean time, to write me
occasionally an account of the state of his health.
On the twenty-second of August, the doctor wrote me the following letter;—
“Since my last, Mr. Hume has passed his time pretty easily, but is much
weaker. He sits up, goes down stairs once a day, and amuses himself with
reading, but seldom sees any body. He finds that even the conversation of
his most intimate friends fatigues and oppresses him; and it is happy that
he does not need it, for he is quite free from anxiety, impatience, or low
spirits, and passes his time very well with the assistance of amusing
books.”
I received, the day after, a letter from Mr. Hume himself, of which the
following is an extract:—
Three days after, I received the following letter from Dr. Black:—
Thus died our most excellent and never to be forgotten friend; concerning
whose philosophical opinions men will, no doubt, judge variously, every
one approving or condemning them, according as they happen to coincide or
disagree with his own; but concerning whose character and conduct there
can scarce be a difference of opinion. His temper, indeed, seemed to be
more happily balanced, if I may be allowed such an expression, than that
perhaps of any other man I have ever known. Even in the lowest state of
his fortune, his great and necessary frugality never hindered him from
exercising, upon proper occasions, acts both of charity and generosity. It
was a frugality founded not upon avarice, but upon the love of
independency. The extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either
the firmness of his mind or the steadiness of his resolutions. His
constant pleasantry was the genuine effusion of good nature and good
humor, tempered with delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest
tincture of malignity, so frequently the disagreeable source of what is
called wit in other men. It never was the meaning of his raillery to
mortify; and therefore, far from offending, it seldom failed to please and
delight, even those who were the objects of it. To his friends who were
frequently the objects of it, there was not perhaps any one of all his
great and amiable qualities which contributed more to endear his
conversation. And that gayety of temper, so agreeable in society, but
which is so often accompanied with frivolous and superficial qualities,
was in him certainly attended with the most severe application, the most
extensive learning, the greatest depth of thought, and a capacity in every
respect the most comprehensive. Upon the whole, I have always considered
him, both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to
the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of
human frailty will permit.
I ever am, dear sir,
Most affectionately yours,
HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
THE BRITONS.
The curiosity entertained by all civilized nations, of inquiring into the
exploits and adventures of their ancestors, commonly excites a regret that
the history of remote ages should always be so much involved in obscurity,
uncertainty, and contradiction. Ingenious men, possessed of leisure, are
apt to push their researches beyond the period in which literary monuments
are framed or preserved; without reflecting, that the history of past
events is immediately lost or disfigured when intrusted to memory and oral
tradition, and that the adventures of barbarous nations, even if they were
recorded, could afford little or no entertainment to men born in a more
cultivated age. The convulsions of a civilized state usually compose the
most instructive and most interesting part of its history; but the sudden,
violent, and unprepared revolutions incident to barbarians, are so much
guided by caprice, and terminate so often in cruelty, that they disgust us
by the uniformity of their appearance; and it is rather fortunate for
letters that they are buried in silence and oblivion. The only certain
means by which nations can indulge their curiosity in researches
concerning their remote origin, is to consider the language, manners, and
customs of their ancestors, and to compare them with those of the
neighboring nations. The fables, which are commonly employed to supply the
place of true history, ought entirely to be disregarded; or if any
exception be admitted to this general rule, it can only be in favor of the
ancient Grecian fictions, which are so celebrated and so agreeable, that
they will ever be the objects of the attention of mankind. Neglecting,
therefore, all traditions, or rather tales, concerning the more early
history of Britain, we shall only consider the state of the inhabitants as
it appeared to the Romans on their invasion of this country: we shall
briefly run over the events which attended the conquest made by that
empire, as belonging more to Roman than British story: we shall hasten
through the obscure and uninteresting period of Saxon annals; and shall
reserve a more full narration for those times, when the truth is both so
well ascertained, and so complete, as to promise entertainment and
instruction to the reader.
All ancient writers agree in representing the first inhabitants of Britain
as a tribe of the Gauls or Celtæ, who peopled that island from the
neighboring continent. Their language was the same, their manners, their
government, their superstition; varied only by those small differences
which time or a communication with the bordering nations must necessarily
introduce. The inhabitants of Gaul, especially in those parts which lie
contiguous to Italy, had acquired, from a commerce with their southern
neighbors, some refinement in the arts, which gradually diffused
themselves northwards, and spread but a very faint light over this island.
The Greek and Roman navigators or merchants (for there were scarcely any
other travellers in those ages) brought back the most shocking accounts of
the ferocity of the people, which they magnified, as usual, in order to
excite the admiration of their countrymen. The south-east parts, however,
of Britain had already, before the age of Cæsar, made the first and most
requisite step towards a civil settlement; and the Britons, by tillage and
agriculture, had there increased to a great multitude.[*]
The other inhabitants of the island still maintained themselves by
pasture: they were clothed with skins of beasts: they dwelt in huts, which
they reared in the forests and marshes, with which the country was
covered: they shifted easily their habitation, when actuated either by the
hopes of plunder or the fear of an enemy: the convenience of feeding their
cattle was even a sufficient motive for removing their seats and as they
were ignorant of all the refinements of life, their wants and their
possessions were equally scanty and limited.
The Britons were divided into many small nations or tribes and being a
military people, whose sole property was then arms and their cattle, It
was impossible, after they had acquired a relish of liberty for their
princes or chieftains to establish any despotic authority over them. Their
governments, though monarchical,[*] were free, as well as those of all the
Celtic nations; and the common people seem even to have enjoyed more
liberty among them,[**] than among the nations of Gaul,[***] from whom
they were descended. Each state was divided into factions within
itself:[****] it was agitated with jealousy or animosity against the
neighboring states: and while the arts of peace were yet unknown, wars
were the chief occupation, and formed the chief object of ambition, among
the people.
The religion of the Britons was one of the most considerable parts of
their government; and the druids, who were their priests, possessed great
authority among them. Besides ministering at the altar, and directing all
religious duties, they presided over the education of youth; they enjoyed
an immunity from wars and taxes; they possessed both the civil and
criminal jurisdiction; they decided all controversies among states as well
as among private persons, and whoever refused to submit to their decree
was exposed to the most severe penalties. The sentence of excommunication
was pronounced against him: he was forbidden access to the sacrifices or
public worship: he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow-citizens,
even in the common affairs of life: his company was universally shunned,
as profane and dangerous: he was refused the protection of law:[*] and
death itself became an acceptable relief from the misery and infamy to
which he was exposed. Thus the bands of government, which were naturally
loose among that rude and turbulent people, were happily corroborated by
the terrors of their superstition.
No species of superstition was ever more terrible than that of the druids.
Besides the severe penalties, which it was in the power of the
ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the eternal
transmigration of souls; and thereby extended their authority as far as
the fears of their timorous votaries. They practised their rites in dark
groves or other secret recesses;[*] and in order to throw a greater
mystery over their religion, they communicated their doctrines only to the
initiated, and strictly forbade the committing of them to writing, lest
they should at any time be exposed to the examination of the profane
vulgar.
Human sacrifices were practised among them: the spoils of war were often
devoted to their divinities; and they punished with the severest tortures
whoever dared to secrete any part of the consecrated offering: these
treasures they kept in woods and forests, secured by no other guard than
the terrors of their religion;[*] and this steady conquest over human
avidity may be regarded as more signal than their prompting men to the
most extraordinary and most violent efforts. No idolatrous worship ever
attained such an ascendant over mankind as that of the ancient Gauls and
Britons; and the Romans, after their conquest, finding it impossible to
reconcile those nations to the laws and institutions of their masters,
while it maintained its authority, were at last obliged to abolish it by
penal statutes; a violence which had never, in any other instance, been
practised by those tolerating conquerors.[**]
THE ROMANS.
The Britons had long remained in this rude but independent state, when
Cæsar, having overrun all Gaul by his victories, first cast his eye on
their island. He was not allured either by its riches or its renown; but
being ambitious of carrying the Roman arms into a new world, then mostly
unknown, he took advantage of a short interval in his Gaulic wars, and
made an invasion on Britain. The natives, informed of his intention, were
sensible of the unequal contest, and endeavored to appease him by
submissions, which, however, retarded not the execution of his design.
After some resistance, he landed, as is supposed, at Deal, [Anno ante, C.
55;] and having obtained several advantages over the Britons, and obliged
them to promise hostages for their future obedience, he was constrained,
by the necessity of his affairs, and the approach of winter, to withdraw
his forces into Gaul. The Britons relieved, from the terror of his arms,
neglected the performance of their stipulations; and that haughty
conqueror resolved next summer to chastise them for this breach of treaty.
He landed with a greater force; and though he found a more regular
resistance from the Britons, who had united under Cassivelaunus, one of
their petty princes, he discomfited them in every action. He advanced into
the country; passed the Thames in the face of the enemy; took and burned
the capital of Cassivelaunus; established his ally, Mandubratius, in the
sovereignty of the Trinobantes; and having obliged the inhabitants to make
him new submissions, he again returned with his army into Gaul, and left
the authority of the Romans more nominal than real in this island.
The civil wars which ensued, and which prepared the way for the
establishment of monarchy in Rome, saved the Britons from that yoke which
was ready to be imposed upon them. Augustus, the successor of Cæsar,
content with the victory obtained over the liberties of his own country,
was little ambitious of acquiring fame by foreign wars; and being
apprehensive lest the same unlimited extent of dominion, which had
subverted the republic, might also overwhelm the empire, he recommended it
to his successors never to enlarge the territories of the Romans.
Tiberius, jealous of the fame which might be acquired by his generals,
made this advice of Augustus a pretence for his inactivity.[*]
The mad sallies of Caligula, in which he menaced Britain with an invasion,
served only to expose himself and the empire to ridicule; and the Britons
had now, during almost a century, enjoyed their liberty unmolested, when
the Romans, in the reign of Claudius, began to think seriously of reducing
them under their dominion. Without seeking any more justifiable reasons of
hostility than were employed by the late Europeans in subjecting the
Africans and Americans, they sent over an army, [A. D. 43,] under the
command of Plautius, an able general, who gained some victories, and made
a considerable progress in subduing the inhabitants. Claudius himself,
finding matters sufficiently prepared for his reception, made a journey
into Britain, and received the submission of several British states, the
Cantii, Atrebates, Regni, and Trinobantes, who inhabited the south-east
parts of the island, and whom their possessions and more cultivated manner
of life rendered willing to purchase peace at the expense of their
liberty. The other Britons, under the command of Caractacus, still
maintained an obstinate resistance, and the Romans made little progress
against them; till Ostorius Scapula was sent over to command their armies.
[A. D. 50.] This general advanced the Roman conquests over the Britons;
pierced into the country of the Silures, a warlike nation, who inhabited
the banks of the Severn; defeated Caractacus in a great battle; took him
prisoner, and sent him to Rome, where his magnanimous behavior procured
him better treatment than those conquerors usually bestowed on captive
princes.[*]
Notwithstanding these misfortunes, the Britons were not subdued; and this
island was regarded by the ambitious Romans as a field in which military
honor might still be acquired. [A. D. 59.] Under the reign of Nero,
Suetonius Paulinus was invested with the command, and prepared to
signalize his name by victories over those barbarians. Finding that the
island of Mona, now Anglesey, was the chief seat of the druids, he
resolved to attack it, and to subject a place which was the centre of
their superstition, and which afforded protection to all their baffled
forces. The Britons endeavored to obstruct his landing on this sacred
island, both by the force of their arms and the terrors of their religion.
The women and priests were intermingled with the soldiers upon the shore;
and running about with flaming torches in their hands, and tossing their
dishevelled hair, they struck greater terror into the astonished Romans by
their bowlings, cries, and execrations, than the real danger from the
armed forces was able to inspire. But Suetonius, exhorting his troops to
despise the menaces of a superstition which they despised, impelled them
to the attack, drove the Britons off the field, burned the druids in the
same fires which those priests had prepared for their captive enemies,
destroyed all the consecrated groves and altars; and having thus triumphed
over the religion of the Britons, he thought his future progress would be
easy in reducing the people to subjection. But he was disappointed in his
expectations. The Britons, taking advantage of his absence, were all in
arms; and headed by Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, who had been treated in
the most ignominious manner by the Roman tribunes, had already attacked,
with success, several settlements of their insulting conquerors. Suetonius
hastened to the protection of London, which was already a flourishing
Roman colony; but found, on his arrival, that it would be requisite for
the general safety, to abandon that place to the merciless fury of the
enemy. London was reduced to ashes; such of the inhabitants as remained in
it were cruelly massacred; the Romans and all strangers, to the number of
seventy thousand, were every where put to the sword without distinction;
and the Britons, by rendering the war thus bloody, seemed determined to
cut off all hopes of peace or composition with the enemy. But this cruelty
was revenged by Suetonius in a great and decisive battle, where eighty
thousand of the Britons are said to have perished, and Boadicea herself,
rather than fall into the hands of the enraged victor, put an end to her
own life by poison.[*] Nero soon after recalled Suetonius from a
government, where, by suffering and inflicting so many severities, he was
judged improper for composing the angry and alarmed minds of the
inhabitants. After some interval, Cerealis received the command from
Vespasian, and by his bravery propagated the terror of the Roman arms,
Julius Frontinus succeeded Cerealis both in authority and in reputation:
but the general who finally established the dominion of the Romans in this
island, was Julius Agricola, who governed it in the reigns of Vespasian,
Titus, and Domitian, and distinguished himself in that scene of action.
This great commander formed a regular plan for subduing Britain, and
rendering the acquisition useful to the conquerors. He carried his
victorious arms northwards, defeated the Britons in every encounter,
pierced into the inaccessible forests and mountains of Caledonia, reduced
every state to subjection in the southern parts of the island, and chased
before him all the men of fiercer and more intractable spirits, who deemed
war and death itself less intolerable than servitude under the victors. He
even defeated them in a decisive action, which they fought under Galgacus,
their leader; and having fixed a chain of garrisons between the Friths of
Clyde and Forth, he thereby cut off the ruder and more barren parts of the
island, and secured the Roman province from the incursions of the
barbarous inhabitants.[*]
During these military enterprises, he neglected not the arts of peace. He
introduced laws and civility among the Britons, taught them to desire and
raise all the conveniences of life, reconciled them to the Roman language
and manners, instructed them in letters and science, and employed every
expedient to render those chains which he had forged both easy and
agreeable to them.[*]
The inhabitants, having experienced how unequal their own force was to
resist that of the Romans, acquiesced in the dominion of their masters,
and were gradually incorporated as a part of that mighty empire.
This was the last durable conquest made by the Romans, and Britain, once
subdued, gave no further inquietude to the victor. Caledonia alone,
defended by its barren mountains, and by the contempt which the Romans
entertained for it, sometimes infested the more cultivated parts of the
island by the incursions of its inhabitants. The better to secure the
frontiers of the empire, Adrian, who visited this island, built a rampart
between the River Tyne and the Frith of Solway; Lollius Urbicus, under
Antoninus Pius, erected one in the place where Agricola had formerly
established his garrisons, Severus, who made an expedition into Britain,
and carried his arms to the most northern extremity of it, added new
fortifications to the wall of Adrian; and during the reigns of all the
Roman emperors, such a profound tranquillity prevailed in Britain, that
little mention is made of the affairs of that island by any historian. The
only incidents which occur, are some seditions or rebellions of the Roman
legions quartered there, and some usurpations of the imperial dignity by
the Roman governors. The natives, disarmed, dispirited, and submissive,
had lost all desire and even idea of their former liberty and
independence.
But the period was now come, when that enormous fabric of the Roman
empire, which had diffused slavery and oppression, together with peace and
civility, over so considerable a part of the globe, was approaching
towards its final dissolution. Italy, and the centre of the empire,
removed during so many ages from all concern in the wars, had entirely
lost the military spirit, and were peopled by an enervated race, equally
disposed to submit to a foreign yoke, or to the tyranny of their own
rulers. The emperors found themselves obliged to recruit their legions
from the frontier provinces, where the genius of war, though languishing,
was not totally extinct; and these mercenary forces, careless of laws and
civil institutions, established a military government no less dangerous to
the sovereign than to the people. The further progress of the same
disorders introduced the bordering barbarians into the service of the
Romans; and those fierce nations, having now added discipline to their
native bravery, could no longer be restrained by the impotent policy of
the emperors, who were accustomed to employ one in the destruction of the
others. Sensible of their own force, and allured by the prospect of so
rich a prize, the northern barbarians, in the reign of Arcadius and
Honorius, assailed at once all the frontiers of the Roman empire; and
having first satiated their avidity by plunder, began to think of fixing a
settlement in the wasted provinces. The more distant barbarians, who
occupied the deserted habitations of the former, advanced in their
acquisitions, and pressed with their incumbent weight the Roman state,
already unequal to the load which it sustained. Instead of arming the
people in their own defence, the emperors recalled all the distant
legions, in whom alone they could repose confidence; and collected the
whole military force for the defence of the capital and centre of the
empire. The necessity of self-preservation had superseded the ambition of
power; and the ancient point of honor, never to contract the limits of the
empire, could no longer be attended to in this desperate extremity.
Britain by its situation was removed from the fury of these barbarous
incursions; and being also a remote province, not much valued by the
Romans, the legions which defended it were carried over to the protection
of Italy and Gaul. But that province, though secured by the sea against
the inroads of the greater tribes of barbarians, found enemies on its
frontiers, who took advantage of its present defenceless situation. The
Picts and Scots, who dwelt in the northern parts, beyond the wall of
Antoninus, made incursions upon their peaceable and effeminate neighbors;
and besides the temporary depredations which they committed, these
combined nations threatened the whole province with subjection, or, what
the inhabitants more dreaded, with plunder and devastation, The Picts seem
to have been a tribe of the native British race, who, having been chased
into the northern parts by the conquests of Agricola, had there
intermingled with the ancient inhabitants: the Scots were derived from the
same Celtic origin, had first been established in Ireland, had migrated to
the north-west coasts of this island, and had long been accustomed, as
well from their old as their new seats, to infest the Roman province by
piracy and rapine. 1
These tribes finding their more opulent neighbors exposed to invasion,
soon broke over the Roman wall, no longer defended by the Roman arms; and,
though a contemptible enemy in themselves, met with no resistance from the
unwarlike inhabitants. The Britons, accustomed to have recourse to the
emperors for defence as well as government, made supplications to Rome:
and one legion was sent over for their protection. This force was an
overmatch for the barbarians, repelled their invasion, touted them in
every engagement, and having chased them into their ancient limits,
returned in triumph to the defence of the southern provinces of the
empire.[*]
Their retreat brought on a new invasion of the enemy. The Britons made
again an application to Rome, and again obtained the assistance of a
legion, which proved effectual for their relief: but the Romans, reduced
to extremities at home, and fatigued with those distant expeditions,
informed the Britons that they must no longer look to them for succor,
exhorted them to arm in their own defence, and urged, that, as they were
now their own masters, it became them to protect by their valor that
independence which their ancient lords had conferred upon them.[*] That
they might leave the island with the better grace, the Romans assisted
them in erecting anew the wall of Severus, which was built entirely of
stone, and which the Britons had not at that time artificers skilful
enough to repair.[*]
And having done this last good office to the inhabitants, they bade a
final adieu to Britain, about the year 448, after being masters of the
more considerable part of it during the course of near four centuries.
THE BRITONS.
The abject Britons regarded this present of liberty as fatal to them; and
were in no condition to put in practice the prudent counsel given them by
the Romans, to arm in their own defence. Unaccustomed both to the perils
of war and to the cares of civil government, they found themselves
incapable of forming or executing any measures for resisting the
incursions of the barbarians. Gratian also and Constantine, two Romans who
had a little before assumed the purple in Britain, had carried over to the
continent the flower of the British youth; and having perished in their
unsuccessful attempts on the imperial throne, had despoiled the island of
those who, in this desperate extremity, were best able to defend it. The
Picts and Scots, finding that the Romans had finally relinquished Britain,
now regarded the whole as their prey, and attacked the northern wall with
redoubled forces. The Britons, already subdued by their own fears, found
the ramparts but a weak defence for them; and deserting their station,
left the country entirely open to the inroads of the barbarous enemy. The
invaders carried devastation and ruin along with them; and exerted to the
utmost their native ferocity, which was not mitigated by the helpless
condition and submissive behavior of the inhabitants.[*]
The unhappy Britons had a third time recourse to Rome, which had declared
its resolution forever to abandon them. Ætius, the patrician, sustained at
that time, by his valor and magnanimity, the tottering ruins of the
empire, and revived for a moment among the degenerate Romans the spirit,
as well as discipline, of their ancestors. The British ambassadors carried
to him the letter of their countrymen, which was inscribed, “The groans of
the Britons.” The tenor of the epistle was suitable to its superscription.
“The barbarians,” say they, “on the one hand, chase us into the sea; the
sea, on the other, throws us back upon the barbarians; and we have only
the hard choice left us of perishing by the sword or by the waves.”[*]
But Ætius, pressed by the arms of Attila, the most terrible enemy that
ever assailed the empire, had no leisure to attend to the complaints of
allies, whom generosity alone could induce him to assist.[*]
The Britons, thus rejected, were reduced to despair, deserted their
habitations, abandoned tillage, and flying for protection to the forests
and mountains, suffered equally from hunger and from the enemy. The
barbarians themselves began to feel the pressures of famine in a country
which they had ravaged; and being harassed by the dispersed Britons, who
had not dared to resist them in a body, they retreated with their spoils
into their own country.[*]
The Britons, taking advantage of this interval, returned to their usual
occupations; and the favorable seasons which succeeded, seconding their
industry, made them soon forget their past miseries, and restored to them
great plenty of all the necessaries of life. No more can be imagined to
have been possessed by a people so rude, who had not, without the
assistance of the Romans, art of masonry sufficient to raise a stone
rampart for their own defence; yet the monkish historians,[*] who treat of
those events, complain of the luxury of the Britons during this period,
and ascribe to that vice, not to their cowardice or improvident counsels,
all their subsequent calamities.
The Britons, entirely occupied in the enjoyment of the present interval of
peace, made no provision for resisting the enemy, who, invited by their
former timid behavior, soon threatened them with a new invasion. We are
not exactly informed what species of civil government the Romans, on their
departure, had left among the Britons, but it appears probable that the
great men in the different districts assumed a kind of regal, though
precarious authority, and lived in a great measure independent of each
other.[*]
To this disunion of counsels were also added the disputes of theology; and
the disciples of Pelagius, who was himself a native of Britain, having
increased to a great multitude, gave alarm to the clergy, who seem to have
been more intent on suppressing them, than on opposing the public
enemy.[*]
Laboring under these domestic evils, and menaced with a foreign invasion,
the Britons attended only to the suggestions of their present fears, and
following the counsels of Vortigern, prince of Dumnonium, who, though
stained with every vice, possessed the chief authority among them,[*] they
sent into Germany a deputation to invite over the Saxons for their
protection and assistance.
THE SAXONS.
Of all the barbarous nations, known either in ancient or modern times, the
Germans seem to have been the most distinguished both by their manners and
political institutions, and to have carried to the highest pitch the
virtues of valor and love of liberty; the only virtues which can have
place among an uncivilized people, where justice and humanity are commonly
neglected. Kingly government, even when established among the Germans,
(for it was not universal,) possessed a very limited authority; and though
the sovereign was usually chosen from among the royal family, he was
directed in every measure by the common consent of the nation over whom he
presided. When any important affairs were transacted, all the warriors met
in arms; the men of greatest authority employed persuasion to engage their
consent; the people expressed their approbation by rattling their armor,
or their dissent by murmurs; there was no necessity for a nice scrutiny of
votes among a multitude, who were usually carried with a strong current to
one side or the other; and the measure, thus suddenly chosen by general
agreement, was executed with alacrity, and prosecuted with vigor. Even in
war, the princes governed more by example than by authority, but in peace,
the civil union was in a great measure dissolved, and the inferior leaders
administered justice, after an independent manner, each in his particular
district. These were elected by the votes of the people in their great
councils; and though regard was paid to nobility in the choice, their
personal qualities, chiefly their valor, procured them, from the suffrages
of their fellow-citizens, that honorable but dangerous distinction. The
warriors of each tribe attached themselves to the[**possibly this word is
their] leader, with the most devoted affection and most unshaken
constancy. They attended him as his ornament in peace, as his defence in
war, as his council in the administration of justice. Their constant
emulation in military renown dissolved not that inviolable friendship
which they professed to their chieftain and to each other. To die for the
honor of their band was their chief ambition; to survive its disgrace, or
the death of their leader, was infamous. They even carried into the field
their women and children, who adopted all the martial sentiments of the
men: and being thus impelled by every human motive, they were invincible;
where they were no[**possibly the word is not] opposed, either by the
similar manners and institutions of the neighboring Germans, or by the
superior discipline, arms, and numbers of the Romans.[*]
The leaders and their military companions were maintained by the labor of
their slaves, or by that of the weaker and less warlike part of the
community whom they defended. The contributions which they levied went not
beyond a bare subsistence; and the honors, acquired by a superior rank,
were the only reward of their superior dangers and fatigues. All the
refined arts of life were unknown among the Germans: tillage itself was
almost wholly neglected; they even seem to have been anxious to prevent
any improvements of that nature; and the leaders, by annually distributing
anew all the land among the inhabitants of each village, kept them from
attaching themselves to particular possessions, or making such progress in
agriculture as might divert their attention from military expeditions, the
chief occupation of the community.[*]
The Saxons had been for some time regarded as one of the most warlike
tribes of this fierce people, and had become the terror of the neighboring
nations.[*]
They had diffused themselves from the northern parts of Germany and the
Cimbrian Chersonesus, and had taken possession of all the sea-coast from
the mouth of the Rhine to Jutland; whence they had long infested by their
piracies all the eastern and southern parts of Britain, and the northern
of Gaul.[*]
In order to oppose their inroads, the Romans had established an officer,
whom they called “Count of the Saxon shore;” and as the naval arts can
flourish among a civilized people alone, they seem to have been more
successful in repelling the Saxons than any of the other barbarians by
whom they were invaded. The dissolution of the Roman power invited them to
renew their inroads; and it was an acceptable circumstance that the
deputies of the Britons appeared among them, and prompted them to
undertake an enterprise to which they were of themselves sufficiently
inclined.[*]
Hengist and Horsa, two brothers, possessed great credit among the Saxons,
and were much celebrated both for their valor and nobility. They were
reputed, as most of the Saxon princes, to be sprung from Woden, who was
worshipped as a god among those nations, and they are said to be his great
grandsons;[*] a circumstance which added much to their authority.
We shall not attempt to trace any higher the origin of those princes and
nations. It is evident what fruitless labor it must be to search, in those
barbarous and illiterate ages, for the annals of a people, when their
first leaders, known in any true history, were believed by them to be the
fourth in descent from a fabulous deity, or from a man exalted by
ignorance into that character. The dark industry of antiquaries, led by
imaginary analogies of names, or by uncertain traditions, would in vain
attempt to pierce into that deep obscurity which covers the remote history
of those nations.
These two brothers, observing the other provinces of Germany to be
occupied by a warlike and necessitous people, and the rich provinces of
Gaul already conquered or overrun by other German tribes, found it easy to
persuade their countrymen to embrace the sole enterprise which promised a
favorable opportunity of displaying their valor and gratifying their
avidity. They embarked their troops in three vessels and about the year
449 or 450,[*] earned over one thousand six hundred men, who landed in the
Isle of Thanet, and immediately marched to the defence of the Britons
against the northern invaders. The Scots and Picts were unable to resist
the valor of these auxiliaries; and the Britons, applauding their own
wisdom in calling over the Saxons, hoped thenceforth to enjoy peace and
security under the powerful protection of that warlike people.
But Hengist and Horsa, perceiving, from their easy victory over the Scots
and Picts, with what facility they might subdue tae Britons themselves,
who had not been able to resist those feeble invaders, were determined to
conquer and fight for their own grandeur, not for the defence of their
degenerate allies. They sent intelligence to Saxony of the fertility and
riches of Britain, and represented as certain the subjection of a people
so long disused to arms, who, being now cut off from the Roman empire, of
which they had been a province during so many ages, had not yet acquired
any union among themselves, and were destitute of all affection to their
new liberties, and of all national attachments and regards.[**] The vices,
and pusillanimity of Vortigern, the British leader, were a new ground of
hope; and the Saxons in Germany, following such agreeable prospects, soon
reënforced Hengist and Horsa with five thousand men, who came over in
seventeen vessels. The Britons now began to entertain apprehensions of
their allies, whose numbers they found continually augmenting; but thought
of no remedy, except a passive submission and connivance. This weak
expedient soon failed them. The Saxons sought a quarrel, by complaining
that their subsidies were ill paid, and their provisions withdrawn;[***]
and immediately taking off the mask, they formed an alliance with the
Picts and Scots, and proceeded to open hostility against the Britons.
The Britons, impelled by these violent extremities, ana roused to
indignation against their treacherous auxiliaries, were necessitated to
take arms; and having deposed Vortigern, who had become odious from his
vices, and from the bad event of his rash counsels, they put themselves
under the Command of his son, Vortimer. They fought many battles with
their enemies; and though the victories in these actions be disputed
between the British and Saxon annalists, the progress still made by the
Saxons proves that the advantage was commonly on their side.
In one battle, however, fought at Faglesford, now Ailsford, Horsa, the
Saxon general, was slain and left the sole command over his countrymen in
the hands of Hengist. This active general, continually reënforced oy fresh
numbers from Germany, carried devastation into the most remote corners of
Britain; and being chiefly anxious to spread the terror of his arms, he
spared neither age, nor sex, nor condition, wherever he marched with his
victorious forces. The private and public edifices of the Britons were
reduced to ashes; the priests were slaughtered on the altars by those
idolatrous ravagers; the bishops and nobility shared the fate of the
vulgar; the people, flying to the mountains and deserts, were intercepted
and butchered in heaps: some were glad to accept of life and servitude
under their victors: others, deserting their native country, took shelter
in the province of Armorica; where, being charitably received by a people
of the same language and manners, they settled in great numbers, and gave
the country the name of Brittany.[*]
The British writers assign one cause which facilitated the entrance of the
Saxons into this island—the love with which Vortigern was at first
seized for Rovena, the daughter of Hengist, and which that artful warrior
made use of to blind the eyes of the imprudent monarch.[**] The same
historians add, that Vortimer died; and that Vortigern, being restored to
the throne, accepted of a banquet from Hengist, at Stonehenge, where three
hundred of his nobility were treacherously slaughtered, and himself
detained captive.[***] But these stories seem to have been invented by the
Welsh authors, in order to palliate the weak resistance made at first by
their countrymen, and to account for the rapid progress and licentious
devastations of the Saxons.[****]
After the death of Vortimer, Ambrosius, a Briton, though of Roman descent,
was invested with the command over his countrymen, and endeavored, not
without success, to unite them in their resistance against the Saxons.
Those contests increased the animosity between the two rations, and roused
the military spirit of the ancient inhabitants, which had before been sunk
into a fatal lethargy.
Hengist, however, notwithstanding their opposition, still maintained his
ground in Britain and in order to divide the forces and attention of the
natives he called over a new tribe of Saxons, under the command of his
brother Octa, and of Ebissa, the son of Octa; and he settled them in
Northumberland. He himself remained in the southern parts of the island,
and laid the foundation of their kingdom of Kent, comprehending the county
of that name Middlesex, Essex, and part of Surrey. He fixed his royal seat
at Canterbury, where he governed about forty years, and he died in or near
the year 488, leaving his new-acquired dominions to his posterity.
The success of Hengist excited the avidity of the other northern Germans;
and at different times, and under different leaders, they flocked over in
multitudes to the invasion of mis island. These conquerors were chiefly
composed of three tribes, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes,[*] who all passed
under the common appellation, sometimes, of Saxons, sometimes of Angles;
and speaking the same language, and being governed by the same
institutions, they were naturally led, from these causes, as well as from
their common interest, to unite themselves against the ancient
inhabitants. The resistance, however, though unequal, was still maintained
by the Britons; but became every day more feeble; and their calamities
admitted of few intervals, till they were driven into Cornwall and Wales,
and received protection from the remote situation or inaccessible
mountains of those countries.
The first Saxon state, after that of Kent, which was established in
Britain, was the kingdom of South Saxony. In the year 477,[**] Ælla, a
Saxon chief, brought over an army from Germany; and, landing on the
southern coast, proceeded to take possession of the neighboring territory.
The Britons, now armed, did not tamely abandon their possessions; nor were
they expelled till defeated in many battles by their war-like invaders.
The most memorable action, mentioned by historians, is that of Mearcredes
Burn;[***] where, though the Saxons seem to have obtained the victory,
they suffered so considerable a loss, as somewhat retarded the progress of
their conquests.
But Ælla, reénforced by fresh numbers of his countrymen, again took the
field against the Britons; and laid siege to Ancired Ceaster, which was
defended by the garrison and inhabitants with desperate valor.[*] The
Saxons, enraged by this resistance, and by the fatigues and dangers which
they had sustained, redoubled their efforts against the place; and, when
masters of it, put all their enemies to the sword without distinction.
This decisive advantage secured the conquests of Ælla, who assumed the
name of king, and extended his dominion over Sussex and a great part of
Surrey He was stopped in his progress to the east by the kingdom of Kent;
in that to the west by another tribe of Saxons, who had taken possession
of that territory.
These Saxons, from the situation of the country in which they settled,
were called the West Saxons, and landed in the year 495, under the
command of Cerdic, and of his son Kenric.[**] The Britons were, by past
experience, so much on their guard, and so well prepared to receive the
enemy, that they gave battle to Cerdic the very day of his landing; and,
though vanquished, still defended, for some time, their liberties against
the invaders. None of the other tribes of Saxons met with such vigorous
resistance, or exerted such valor and perseverance in pushing their
conquests. Cerdic was even obliged to call for the assistance of his
countrymen from the kingdoms of Kent and Sussex, as well as from Germany,
and he was thence joined by a fresh army under the command of Porte, and
of his sons Bleda and Megla.[***] Strengthened by these succors, he
fought, in the year 508, a desperate battle with the Britons, commanded by
Nazan Leod, who was victorious in the beginning of the action, and routed
the wing in which Cerdic himself commanded. But Kenric, who had prevailed
in the other wing, brought timely assistance to his father, and restored
the battle, which ended in a complete victory gained by the Saxons.[****]
Nazan Leod perished, with five thousand of his army; but left the Britons
more weakened than discouraged by his death. The war still continued,
though the success was commonly on the side of the Saxons, whose short
swords and manner of fighting gave them great advantage over the missile
weapons of the Britons.
Cerdic was not wanting to in good fortune; and in order to extend his
conquests, he laid siege to Mount Badon or Banesdowne, near Bath, whither
the most obstinate of the discomfited Britons had retired. The southern
Britons, in this extremity, applied for assistance to Arthur, prince of
the Silures, whose heroic valor now sustained the declining fate of his
country.[*] This is that Arthur so much celebrated in the songs of
Thaliessin, and the other British bards, and whose military achievements
have been blended with so many fables, as even to give occasion for
entertaining a doubt of his real existence. But poets, though they
disfigure the most certain history by their fictions, ana use strange
liberties with truth where they are the sole historians, as among the
Britons, have commonly some foundation for their wildest exaggerations.
Certain it is, that the siege of Badon was raised by the Britons in the
year 520; and the Saxons were there discomfited in a great battle.[**]
This misfortune stopped the progress of Cerdic; but was not sufficient to
wrest from him the conquests which he had already made. He and his son
Kenric, who succeeded him, established the kingdom of the West Saxons, or
of Wessex, over the counties of Hants, Dorset, Wilts, Berks, and the Isle
of Wight, and left their new-acquired dominions to their posterity. Cerdic
died in 534, Kenric in 560.
While the Saxons made this progress in the south, their countrymen were
not less active in other quarters. In the year 527, a great tribe of
adventurers, under several leaders, landed on the east coast of Britain;
and after fighting many battles, of which history has preserved no
particular account, they established three new kingdoms in this island.
Uffa assumed the title of king of the East Angles in 575; Crida, that of
Mercia in 585;[***] and Erkenwin, that of East Saxony, or Essex, nearly
about the same time; but the year is uncertain. This latter kingdom was
dismembered from that of Kent, and comprehended Essex, Middlesex, and part
of Hertfordshire; that of the East Angles, the counties of Cambridge,
Suffolk, and Norfolk: Mercia was extended over all the middle counties
from the banks of the Severn to the frontiers of these two kingdoms.
The Saxons, soon after the landing of Hengist, had been planted in
Northumberland; but as they met with an obstinate resistance, and made but
small progress in subduing the inhabitants, their affairs were in so
unsettled a condition, that none of their princes for a long time assumed
the appellation of king. At last, in 547,[*] Ida, a Saxon prince of great
valor,[**] who claimed a descent, as did all the other princes of that
nation, from Woden, brought over a reénforcement from Germany, and enabled
the Northumbrians to carry on their conquests over the Britons. He
entirely subdued the county now called Northumberland, the bishopric of
Durham, as well as some of the south-east counties of Scotland; and he
assumed the crown under the title of king of Bernicia. Nearly about the
same time, Ælla, another Saxon prince, having conquered Lancashire and the
greater part of Yorkshire, received the appellation of king of Deïri.[***]
These two kingdoms were united in the person of Ethelfrid, grandson of
Ida, who married Acca, the daughter of Ælla; and expelling her brother
Edwin, established one of the most powerful of the Saxon kingdoms, by the
title of Northumberland. How far his dominions extended into the country
now called Scotland is uncertain: but it cannot be doubted, that all the
lowlands, especially the east coast of that country, were peopled in a
great measure from Germany; though the expeditions, made by the several
Saxon adventurers, have escaped the records of history. The language
spoken in those countries, which is purely Saxon, is a stronger proof of
this event than can be opposed by the imperfect, or rather fabulous
annals, which are obtruded on us by the Scottish historians.
THE HEPTARCHY
Thus was established, after a violent contest of near a hundred and fifty
years, the Heptarchy, or seven Saxon kingdoms, in Britain; and the whole
southern part of the island, except Wales and Cornwall, had totally
changed its inhabitants, language, customs, and political institutions.
The Britons, under the Roman dominion, had made such advances towards arts
and civil manners, that they had built twenty-eight considerable cities
within their province, besides a great number of villages and country
seats; [*] but the fierce conquerors, by whom they were now subdued, threw
every thing back into ancient barbarity; and those few natives, who were
not either massacred or expelled their habitations, were reduced to the
most abject slavery.
None of the other northern conquerors, the Franks, Goths, Vandals, or
Burgundians, though they overran the southern provinces of the empire like
a mighty torrent, made such devastations in the conquered territories, or
were inflamed into so violent an animosity against the ancient
inhabitants. As the Saxons came over at intervals in separate bodies, the
Britons, however at first unwarlike, were tempted to make resistance; and
hostilities, being thereby prolonged, proved more destructive to both
parties, especially to the vanquished. The first invaders from Germany,
instead of excluding other adventurers, who must share with them the
spoils of the ancient inhabitants, were obliged to solicit fresh supplies
from their own country; and a total extermination of the Britons became
the sole expedient for providing a settlement and subsistence to the new
planters. Hence there have been found in history few conquests more
ruinous than that of the Saxons, and few revolutions more violent than
that which they introduced.
So long as the contest was maintained with the natives, the several Saxon
princes preserved a union of counsels and interests; but after the Britons
were shut up in the barren countries of Cornwall and Wales, and gave no
further disturbance to the conquerors, the band of alliance was in a great
measure dissolved among the princes of the Heptarchy. Though one prince
seems still to have been allowed, or to have assumed, an ascendant over
the whole, his authority, if it ought ever to be deemed regular or legal,
was extremely limited; and each state acted as if it had been independent,
and wholly separate from the rest Wars, therefore, and revolutions and
dissensions, were unavoidable among a turbulent and military people; and
these events, however intricate or confused, ought now to become the
objects of our attention But, added to the difficulty of carrying on at
once the history of seven independent kingdoms, there is great
discouragement to a writer, arising from the uncertainty, at least
barrenness, of the accounts transmitted to us. The monks, who were the
only annalists during those ages, lived remote from public affairs,
considered the civil transactions as entirely subordinate the
ecclesiastical, and, besides partaking of the ignorance and barbarity
which were then universal, were strongly infected with credulity, with the
love of wonder, and with a propensity to imposture; vices almost
inseparable from their profession and manner of life. The history of that
period abounds in names, but is extremely barren of events; or the events
are related so much without circumstances and causes, that the most
profound or most eloquent writer must despair of rendering them either
instructive or entertaining to the reader. Even the great learning and
vigorous imagination of Milton sunk under the weight; and this author
scruples not to declare, that the skirmishes of kites or crows as much
merited a particular narrative, as the confused transactions and battles
of the Saxon Heptarchy.[*] In order, however, to connect the events in
some tolerable measure, we shall give a succinct account of the
successions of kings, and of the more remarkable revolutions in each
particular kingdom; beginning with that of Kent, which was the first
established.
THE KINGDOM OF KENT
Escus succeeded his father, Hengist, in the kingdom of Kent; but seems not
to have possessed the military genius of that conqueror, who first made
way for the entrance of the Saxon arms into Britain. All the Saxons, who
sought either the fame of valor, or new establishments by arms, flocked to
the standard of Ælla, king of Sussex, who was carrying on successful war
against the Britons, and laying the foundations of a new kingdom. Escus
was content to possess in tranquillity the kingdom of Kent, which he left
in 512 to his son Octet, in whose time the East Saxons established their
monarchy, and dismembered the provinces of Essex and Middlesex from that
of Kent. His death, after a reign of twenty two years, made room for his
son Hermenric in 534, who performed nothing memorable during a reign of
thirty-two years; excepting associating with him his son Ethelbert in the
government, that he might secure the succession hi his family, and prevent
such revolutions as are incident to a turbulent and barbarous monarchy.
Ethelbert revived the reputation of his family, which had languished for
some generations. The inactivity of his predecessors, and the situation of
his country, secured from all hostility with the Britons, seem to have
much enfeebled the warlike genius of the Kentish Saxons; and Ethelbert, in
his first attempt to aggrandize his country, and distinguish his own name,
was unsuccessful.[*] He was twice discomfited in battle by Ceaulin, king
of Wessex, and obliged to yield the superiority in the Heptarchy to that
ambitious monarch, who preserved no moderation in his victory, and by
reducing the kingdom of Sussex to subjection, excited jealousy in all the
other princes. An association was formed against him; and Ethelbeit,
intrusted with the command of the allies, gave him battle, and obtained a
decisive victory.[**] Ceaulin died soon after; and Ethelbert succeeded as
well to his ascendant among the Saxon states, as to his other ambitious
projects. He reduced all the princes, except the king of Northumberland,
to a strict dependence upon him; and even established himself by force on
the throne of Mercia, the most extensive of the Saxon kingdoms.
Apprehensive, however, of a dangerous league against him, like that by
which he himself had been enabled to overthrow Ceaulin, he had the
prudence to resign the kingdom of Mercia to Webba, the rightful heir, the
son of Crida, who had first founded that monarchy. But governed still by
ambition more than by justice, he gave Webba possession of the crown on
such conditions, as rendered him little better than a tributary prince
under his artful benefactor.
But the most memorable event which distinguished the reign of this great
prince, was the introduction of the Christian religion among the English
Saxons. The superstition of the Germans, particularly that of the Saxons,
was of the grossest and most barbarous kind; and being founded on
traditional tales, received from their ancestors, not reduced to any
system, not supported by political institutions, like that of the druids,
it seems to have made little impression on its votaries, and to have
easily resigned its place to the new doctrine promulgated to them. Woden,
whom they deemed the ancestor of all their princes, was regarded as the
god of war, and, by a natural consequence, became their supreme deity, and
the chief object of their religious worship. They believed that, if they
obtained the favor of this divinity by their valor, (for they made less
account of the other virtues,) they should be admitted after their death
into his hall; and reposing on couches, should satiate themselves with ale
from the skulls of their enemies, whom they had slain in battle. Incited
by this idea of paradise, which gratified at once the passion of revenge
and that of intemperance, the ruling inclinations of barbarians, they
despised the dangers of war, and increased their native ferocity against
the vanquished by their religious prejudices.
We know little of the other theological tenets of the Saxons; we only
learn that they were polytheists; that they worshipped the sun and moon;
that they adored the god of thunder, under the name of Thor; that they had
images in their temples; that they practised sacrifices; believed firmly
in spells and enchantments; and admitted in general a system of doctrines
which they held as sacred, but which, like all other superstition must
carry the air of the wildest extravagance, if propounded to those who are
not familiarized to it from their earliest infancy.
The constant hostilities which the Saxons maintained against the Britons,
would naturally indispose them for receiving the Christian faith, when
preached to them by such inveterate enemies; and perhaps the Britons, as
is objected to them by Gildas and Bede, were not over-fond of
communicating to their cruel invaders the doctrine of eternal life and
salvation. But as a civilized people, however subdued by arms, still
maintain a sensible superiority over barbarous and ignorant nations, all
the other northern conquerors of Europe had been already induced to
embrace the Christian faith, which they found established in the empire;
and it was impossible but the Saxons, informed of this event, must have
regarded with some degree of veneration a doctrine which had acquired the
ascendant over all their brethren. However limited in their news, they
could not but have perceived a degree of cultivation in the southern
countries beyond what they themselves possessed; and it was natural for
them to yield to that superior knowledge, as well as zeal, by which the
inhabitants of the Christian kingdoms were even at that time
distinguished.
But these causes might long have failed of producing any considerable
effect, had not a favorable incident prepared the means of introducing
Christianity into Kent. Ethelbert, in his father’s lifetime, had married
Bertha, the only daughter of Cariben, king of Paris,[*] one of the
descendants of Clovis, the conqueror of Gaul.
But before he was admitted to this alliance, he was obliged to stipulate,
that the princess should enjoy the free exercise of her religion; a
concession not difficult to be obtained from the idolatrous Saxons.[*]
Bertha brought over a French bishop to the court of Canterbury; and being
zealous for the propagation of her religion, she had been very assiduous
in her devotional exercises, had supported the credit of her faith by an
irreproachable conduct, and had employed every an of insinuation and
address to reconcile her husband to her religious principles. Her
popularity in the court, and her influence over Ethelbert, had so well
paved the way for the reception of the Christian doctrine, that Gregory,
surnamed the Great, then Roman pontiff, began to entertain hopes of
effecting a project which lie himself, before he mounted the papal throne,
had once embraced, of converting the British Saxons.
It happened that this prelate, at that time in a private station, had
observed in the market place of Rome some Saxon youth exposed to sale,
whom the Roman merchants, in their trading voyages to Britain, had bought
of their mercenary parents. Struck with the beauty of their fair
complexions and blooming countenances, Gregory asked to what country they
belonged; and being told they were “Angles,” he replied that they ought
more properly to be denominated “angels.” it were a pity that the prince
of darkness should enjoy so fair a prey, and that so beautiful a
frontispiece should cover a mind destitute of internal grace and
righteousness. Inquiring further concerning the name of their province, he
was Informed, that it was “Deïri,” a district of Northumberland. “Deïri!”
replied he, “that is good! They are called to the mercy of God from his
anger—de ira. But what is the name of the king of that
province?” He was told it was “Ælla,” or “Alia.” “Alleluiah;” cried he,
“we must endeavor that the praises of God be sung in their country.” Moved
by these allusions, which appeared to him so happy, he deter mined to
undertake himself a mission into Britain; and having obtained the pope’s
approbation, he prepared for that perilous journey; but his popularity at
home was so great, that the Romans, unwilling to expose him to such
dangers, opposed his design, and he was obliged for the present to lay
aside all further thoughts of executing that pious purpose.[**]
The controversy between the pagans and the Christians was not entirely
cooled in that age; and no pontiff before Gregory had ever carried to
greater excess an intemperate zeal against the former religion. He had
waged war with all the precious monuments of the ancients, and even with
their writings, which, as appears from the strain of his own wit, as well
as from the style of his compositions, he had not taste or genius
sufficient to comprehend. Ambitious to distinguish his pontificate by the
conversion of the British Saxons, he pitched on Augustine, a Roman monk,
and sent him with forty associates to preach the gospel in this island.
These missionaries, terrified with the dangers which might attend their
proposing a new doctrine to so fierce a people, of whose language they
were ignorant, stopped some time in France, and sent back Augustine to lay
the hazards and difficulties before the pope, and crave his permission to
desist from the undertaking. But Gregory exorted them to persevere in
their purpose, advised them to choose some interpreters from among the
Franks, who still spoke the same language with the Saxons,[*] and
recommended them to the good offices of Queen Brunehaut, who had at this
time usurped the sovereign power in France. This princess, though stained
with every vice of treachery and cruelty, either possessed or pretended
great zeal for the cause; and Gregory acknowledged, that to her friendly
assistance was, in a great measure, owing the success of that
undertaking.[**]
Augustine, on his arrival in Kent in the year 597,[***] found the danger
much less than he had apprehended. Ethelbert, already well disposed
towards the Christian faith, assigned him a habitation in the Isle of
Thanet, and soon after admitted him to a conference. Apprehensive,
however, lest spells or enchantments might be employed against him by
priests, who brought an unknown worship from a distant country, he had the
precaution to receive them in the open air, where, he believed, the force
of their magic would be more easily dissipated,[****] Here Augustine, by
means of his interpreters, delivered to him the tenets of the Christian
faith, and promised him eternal joys above, and a kingdom in heaven
without end, if he would be persuaded to receive that salutary doctrine.
“Our words and promises,”[*] replied Ethelbert, “are fair; but because
they are new and uncertain, I cannot entirely yield to them, and
relinquish the principles which I and my ancestors have so long
maintained. You are welcome, however, to remain here in peace; and as you
have undertaken so long a journey, solely, as it appears, for what you
believe to be for our advantage, I will supply you with all necessaries,
and permit you to deliver your doctrine to my subjects.”[**]
Augustine, encouraged by this favorable reception, and seeing now a
prospect of success, proceeded with redoubled zeal to preach the gospel to
the Kentish Saxons. He attracted their attention by the austerity of his
manners, by the severe penances to which he subjected himself, by the
abstinence find self-denial which he practised; and having excited then
wonder by a course of life which appeared so contrary to nature, he
procured more easily their belief of miracles, which, it was pretended, he
wrought for their conversion. Influenced by these motives, and by the
declared favor of the court, numbers of the Kentish men were baptized; and
the king himself was persuaded to submit to that rite of Christianity. His
example had great influence with his subjects; but he employed no force to
bring them over to the new doctrine. Augustine thought proper, in the
commencement of his mission, to assume the appearance of the greatest
lenity; he told Ethelbert, that the service of Christ must be entirely
voluntary, and that no violence ought ever to be used in propagating so
salutary a doctrine.[****]
The intelligence received of these spiritual conquests afforded great joy
to the Romans, who now exulted as much in those peaceful trophies as their
ancestors had ever done in their most sanguinary triumphs and most
splendid victories. Gregory wrote a letter to Ethelbert, in which, after
informing him that the end of the world was approaching, he exhorted him
to display his zeal in the conversion of his subjects, to exert rigor
against the worship of idols, and to build up the good work of holiness by
every expedient of exhortation, terror, blandishment, or
correction;[*****] a doctrine more suitable to that age, and to the usual
papal maxims, than the tolerating principles which Augustine had thought
it prudent to inculcate.
The pontiff also answered some questions, which the missionary had put
concerning the government of the new church of Kent. Besides other
queries, which it is not material here to relate, Augustine asked,
“Whether cousins-german might be allowed to marry.” Gregory answered, that
that liberty had indeed been formerly granted by the Roman law; but that
experience had shown that no issue could ever come from such marriages;
and he therefore prohibited them. Augustine asked, “Whether a woman
pregnant might be baptized.” Gregory answered, that he saw no objection.
“How soon after the birth the child might receive baptism.” It was
answered, immediately, if necessary. “How soon a husband might have
commerce with his wife after her delivery.” Not till she had given suck to
her child; a practice to which Gregory exhorts all women. “How; soon a man
might enter the church, or receive the sacrament, after having had
commerce with his wife.” It was replied, that, unless he had approached
her without desire, merely for the sake of propagating his species, he was
not without sin; but in all cases it was requisite for him, before he
entered the church, or communicated, to purge himself by prayer and
ablution; and he ought not, even after using these precautions, to
participate immediately of the sacred duties.[*] There are some other
questions and replies still more indecent and more ridiculous.[**] And on
the whole it appears that Gregory and his missionary, if sympathy of
manners have any influence, were better calculated than men of more
refined understandings, for making a progress with the ignorant and
barbarous Saxons.
The more to facilitate the reception of Christianity, Gregory enjoined
Augustine to remove the idols from the heathen altars, but not to destroy
the altars themselves; because the people, he said, would be allured to
frequent the Christian worship, when they found it celebrated in a place
which they were accustomed to revere.
And as the pagans practised sacrifices, and feasted with the priests on
their offerings, he also exhorted the missionary to persuade them, on
Christian festivals, to kill their cattle in the neighborhood of the
church, and to indulge themselves in those cheerful entertainments to
which they had been habituated.[*] These political compliances show that,
notwithstanding his ignorance and prejudices, he was not unacquainted with
the arts of governing mankind. Augustine was consecrated archbishop of
Canterbury, was endowed by Gregory with authority over all the British
churches, and received the pall, a badge of ecclesiastical honor, from
Rome.[**] Gregory also advised him not to be too much elated with his gift
of working miracles;[***] and as Augustine, proud of the success of his
mission, seemed to think himself entitled to extend his authority over the
bishops of Gaul, the pope informed him that they lay entirely without the
bounds of his jurisdiction.[****]
The marriage of Ethelbert with Bertha, and, much more his embracing
Christianity, begat a connection of his subjects with the French,
Italians, and other nations on the continent, and tended to reclaim them
from that gross ignorance and barbarity, in which all the Saxon tribes had
been hitherto involved.[*****] Ethelbert also enacted,[******] with the
consent of the states of his kingdom, a body of laws, the first written
laws promulgated by any of the northern conquerors; and his reign was in
every respect glorious to himself and beneficial to his people. He
governed the kingdom of Kent fifty years; and dying in 616, left the
succession to his son, Eadbald. This prince, seduced by a passion for his
mother-in-law, deserted, for some time, the Christian faith, which
permitted not these incestuous marriages: his whole people immediately
returned with him to idolatry. Laurentius, the successor of Augustine
found the Christian worship wholly abandoned, and was prepared to return
to France, in order to escape the mortification of preaching the gospel
without fruit to the infidels.
Mellitus and Justus, who had been consecrated bishops of London and
Rochester, had already departed the kingdom,[*] when Laurentius, before he
should entirely abandon his dignity, made one effort to reclaim the king.
He appeared before that prince, and, throwing off his vestments, showed
his body all torn with bruises and stripes which he had received. Eadbald,
wondering that any man should have dared to treat in that manner a person
of his rank, was told by Laurentius, that he had received this
chastisement from St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, who had appeared
to him in a vision, and severely reproving him for his intention to desert
his charge, had inflicted on him these visible marks of his
displeasure.[**] Whether Eadbald was struck with the miracle, or
influenced by some other motive, he divorced himself from his
mother-in-law, and returned to the profession of Christianity:[***] his
whole people returned with him. Eadbald reached not the fame or authority
of his father, and died in 640, after a reign of twenty-five years,
leaving two sons, Erminfrid and Ercombert.
Ercombert, though the younger son, by Emma, a French princess, found means
to mount the throne. He is celebrated by Bede for two exploits—for
establishing the fast of Lent in his kingdom, and for utterly extirpating
idolatry, which, notwithstanding the prevalence of Christianity, had
hitherto been tolerated by the two preceding monarchs. He reigned
twenty-four years, and left the crown to Egbert, his son, who reigned nine
years. This prince is renowned for his encouragement of learning; but
infamous for putting to death his two cousins-german, sons of Erminfrid,
his uncle. The ecclesiastical writers praise him for his bestowing on his
sister, Domnona, some lands in the Isle of Thanet, where she founded a
monastery.
The bloody precaution of Egbert could not fix the crown on the head of his
son Edric. Lothaire, brother of the deceased prince, took possession of
the kingdom; and in order to secure the power in his family, he associated
with him Richard, his son, in the administration of the government. Edric,
the dispossessed prince, had recourse to Edilwach, king of Sussex, for
assistance; and being supported by that prince, fought a battle with his
uncle, who was defeated and slain. Richard fled into Germany, and
afterwards died in Lucca, a city of Tuscany. William of Malmsbury ascribes
Lothaire’s bad fortune to two crimes—his concurrence in the murder
of his cousins, and his contempt for relics.[*]
Lothaire reigned eleven years; Edric, his successor, only two. Upon the
death of the latter, which happened in 686 Widred, his brother, obtained
possession of the crown. But as the succession had been of late so much
disjointed by revolutions and usurpations, faction began to prevail among
the nobility; which invited Cedwalla, king of Wessex, with his brother
Mollo, to attack the kingdom. These invaders committed great devastations
in Kent; but the death of Mollo, who was slain in a skirmish,[**] gave a
short breathing time to that kingdom. Widred restored the affairs of Kent,
and, after a reign of thirty-two years,[***] left the crown to his
posterity. Eadbert, Ethelbert, and Alric, his descendants, successively
mounted the throne. After the death of the last, which happened in 794,
the royal family of Kent was extinguished; and every factious leader, who
could entertain hopes of ascending the throne, threw the state into
confusion.[****] Egbert, who first succeeded, reigned but two years;
Cuthred, brother to the king of Mercia, six years; Baldred, an
illegitimate branch of the royal family, eighteen; and after a troublesome
and precarious reign, he was, in the year 823, expelled by Egbert, king of
Wessex, who dissolved the Saxon Heptarchy, and united the several kingdoms
under his dominion.
THE KINGDOM OF NORTHUMBERLAND
Adelfrid, king of Bernicia, having married Acca, the daughter of Ælla,
king of Deïri, and expelled her infant brother, Edwin, had united all the
counties north of Humber into one monarchy, and acquired a great ascendant
in the Heptarchy. He also spread the terror of the Saxon arms to the
neighboring people; and by his victories over the Scots and Picts, as well
as Welsh, extended on all sides the bounds of his dominions. Having laid
siege to Chester, the Britons marched out with all their forces to engage
him; and they were attended by a body of twelve hundred and fifty monks
from the monastery of Bangor, who stood at a small distance from the field
of battle, in order to encourage the combatants by their presence and
exhortations. Adelfrid, inquiring into the purpose of this unusual
appearance, was told that these priests had come to pray against him:
“Then are they as much our enemies,” said he, “as those who intend to
fight against us;”[*] and he immediately sent a detachment, who fell upon
them, and did such execution, that only fifty escaped with their
lives.[**] The Britons, astonished at this event, received a total defeat:
Chester was obliged to surrender; and Adelfrid, pursuing his victory, made
himself master of Bangor, and entirely demolished the monastery, a
building so extensive, that there was a mile’s distance from one gate of
it to another; and it contained two thousand one hundred monks, who are
said to have been there maintained by their own labor.[***]
Notwithstanding Adelfrid’s success in war, he lived in inquietude on
account of young Edwin, whom he had unjustly dispossessed of the crown of
Deïri. This prince, now grown to man’s estate, wandered from place to
place, in continual danger from the attempts of Adelfrid; and received at
last protection in the court of Redwald, king of the East Angles; where
his engaging and gallant deportment procured him general esteem and
affection. Redwald, however, was strongly solicited, by the king of
Northumberland, to kill or deliver up his guest: rich presents were
promised him if he would comply, and war denounced against him in case of
his refusal. After rejecting several messages of this kind, his generosity
began to yield to the motives of interest; and he retained the last
ambassador, till he should come to a resolution in a case of such
importance. Edwin, informed of his friend’s perplexity, was yet determined
at all hazards to remain in East Anglia; and thought, that if the
protection of that court failed him, it were better to die than prolong a
life so much exposed to the persecutions of his powerful rival. This
confidence in Redwald’s honor and friendship, with his other
accomplishments, engaged the queen on his side; and she effectually
represented to her husband the infamy of delivering up to certain
destruction their royal guest, who had fled to them for protection against
his cruel and jealous enemies.[****] Redwald, embracing more generous
resolutions, thought it safest to prevent Adelfrid, before that prince was
aware of his intention, and to attack him while he was yet unprepared for
defence.
He marched suddenly with an army into the kingdom of Northumberland, and
fought a battle with Adelfrid; in which that monarch was defeated and
killed, after revenging himself by the death of Regner, son of Redwald.[*]
His own sons, Eanfrid. Oswald, and Oswy, yet infants, were carried into
Scotland; and Edwin obtained possession of the crown of Northumberland.
Edwin was the greatest prince of the Heptarchy in that age, and
distinguished himself, both by his influence over the other kingdoms,[**]
and by the strict execution of justice in his own dominions. He reclaimed
his subjects from the licentious life to which they had been accustomed;
and it was a common saying, that during his reign a woman or child might
openly carry every where a purse of gold, without any danger of violence
or robbery. There is a remarkable instance, transmitted to us, of the
affection borne him by his servants. Cuichelme, king of Wessex, was his
enemy; but finding himself unable to maintain open war against so gallant
and powerful a prince, he determined to use treachery against him, and he
employed one Eumer for that criminal purpose, The assassin, having
obtained admittance, by pretending to deliver a message from Cuichelme,
drew his dagger, and rushed upon the king. Lilla, an officer of his army,
seeing his master’s danger, and having no other means of defence,
interposed with his own body between the king and Burner’s dagger, which
was pushed with such violence, that, after piercing Lilla, it even wounded
Edwin; but before the assassin could renew his blow, he was despatched by
the king’s attendants.
The East Angles conspired against Redwald, their king; and having put him
to death, they offered their crown to Edwin, of whose valor and capacity
they had had experience, while he resided among them. But Edwin, from a
sense o£ gratitude towards his benefactor, obliged them to submit to
Earpwold, the son of Redwald; and that prince preserved his authority,
though on a precarious footing, under the protection of the Northumbrian
monarch.[***]
Edwin, after his accession to the crown, married Ethelburga, the daughter
of Ethelbert, king of Kent. This princess, emulating the glory of her
mother, Bertha, who had been the instrument for converting her husband and
his people to Christianity, carried Paullinus, a learned bishop, along
with her;[*] and besides stipulating a toleration for the exercise of her
own religion, which was readily granted her, she used every reason to
persuade the king to embrace it. Edwin, like a prudent prince, hesitated
on the proposal, but promised to examine the foundations of that doctrine,
and declared that, if he found them satisfactory, he was willing to be
converted.[**] Accordingly he held several conferences with Paullinus;
canvassed the arguments propounded with the wisest of his counsellors;
retired frequently from company, in order to revolve alone that important
question; and, after a serious and long inquiry, declared in favor of the
Christian religion;[***] the people soon after imitated his example.
Besides the authority and influence of the king, they were moved by
another striking example. Coifi, the high priest, being converted after a
public conference with Paullinus, led the way in destroying the images,
which he had so long worshipped, and was forward in making this atonement
for his past idolatry.[****]
This able prince perished with his son Osfrid, in a great battle which he
fought against Penda, king of Mercia, and Caedwalla, king of the
Britons.[*****] That event, which happened in the forty-eighth year of
Edwin’s age and seventeenth of his reign,[******] divided the monarchy of
Northumberland, which that prince had united in his person. Eanfrid, the
son of Adelfrid, returned with his brothers, Oswald and Oswy, from
Scotland, and took possession of Bernicia, his paternal kingdom; Osric,
Edwin’s cousin-german, established himself in Deïri, the inheritance of
his family, but to which the sons of Edwin had a preferable title.
Eanfrid, the elder surviving son, fled to Penda, by whom he was
treacherously slain. The younger son, Vuscfraea, with Yffi, the grandson
of Edwin, by Osfrid, sought protection in Kent, and not finding themselves
in safety there, retired into France to King Dagobert, where they
died.[*******]
Osric, king of Deïri and Eanfrid of Bernicia, returned to paganism; and
the whole people seem to have returned with them; since Paullinus, who was
the first archbishop of York; and who had converted them, thought proper
to retire with Ethelburga, the queen dowager, into Kent. Both these
Northumbrian kings perished soon after, the first in battle against
Caedwalla, the Briton; the second by the treachery of that prince. Oswald,
the brother of Eanfrid, of the race of Bernicia, united again the kingdom
of Northumberland in the year 634, and restored the Christian religion in
his dominions. He gained a bloody and well-disputed battle against
Caedwalla; the last vigorous effort which the Britons made against the
Saxons. Oswald is much celebrated for his sanctity and charity by the
monkish historians; and they pretend that his relics wrought miracles,
particularly the curing of a sick horse, which had approached the place of
his interment.[*]
He died in battle against Penda, king of Mercia, and was succeeded by his
brother Oswy, who established himself in the government of the whole
Northumbrian kingdom, by putting to death Oswin, the son of Osric, the
last king of the race of Deïri. His son Egfrid succeeded him; who
perishing in battle against the Picts, without leaving any children,
because Adelthrid, his wife, refused to violate her vow of chastity,
Alfred, his natural brother, acquired possession of the kingdom, which he
governed for nineteen years; and he left it to Osred, his son, a boy of
eight years of age. This prince, after a reign of eleven years, was
murdered by Kenred, his kinsman, who, after enjoying the crown only a
year, perished by a like fate. Osric, and after him Celwulph, the son of
Kenred, next mounted the throne, which the latter relinquished in the year
738, in favor of Eadbert, his cousin-german, who, imitating his
predecessor, abdicated the crown, and retired into a monastery. Oswolf,
son of Eadbert, was slain in a sedition, a year after his accession to the
crown; and Mollo, who was not of the royal family, seized the crown. He
perished by the treachery of Ailred, a prince of the blood; and Ailred,
having succeeded in his design upon the throne, was soon after expelled by
his subjects. Ethelred, his successor, the son of Mollo, underwent a like
fate. Celwold, the next king, the brother of Ailred, was deposed and slain
by the people; and his place was filled by Osred, his nephew, who, after a
short reign of a year, made way for Ethelbert, another son of Mollo whose
death was equally tragical with that of almost all his predecessors. After
Ethelbert’s death, a universal anarchy prevailed in Northumberland; and
the people having, by so many fatal revolutions, lost all attachment to
their government and princes, were well prepared for subjection to a
foreign yoke; which Egbert, king of Wessex, finally imposed upon them.
THE KINGDOM OF EAST ANGLIA
The history of this kingdom contains nothing memorable except the
conversion of Earpwold, the fourth king, and great-grandson of Una, the
founder of the monarchy. The authority of Edwin, king of Northumberland,
on whom that prince entirety depended, engaged him to take this step; but
soon after, his wife, who was an idolatress, brought him back to her
religion; and he was found unable to resist those allurements which have
seduced the wisest of mankind. After his death, which was violent, like
that of most of the Saxon princes that did not early retire into
monasteries, Sigebert, his successor and half-brother, who had been
educated in France, restored Christianity, and introduced learning among
the East Angles. Some pretend that he founded the university of Cambridge,
or rather some schools in that place. It is almost impossible, and quite
needless, to be more particular in relating the transactions of the East
Angles. What instruction or entertainment can it give the reader, to hear
a long bead-roll of barbarous names, Egric, Annas, Ethelbert, Ethelwald,
Aldulf, Elfwald, Beorne, Ethelred, Ethelbert, who successively murdered,
expelled, or inherited from each other, and obscurely filled the throne of
that kingdom? Ethelbert, the last of these princes, was treacherously
murdered by Offa, king of Mercia, in the year 792, and his state was
thenceforth [*mited] with that of Offa, as we shall relate presently.
THE KINGDOM OF MERCIA
Mercia, the largest, if not the most powerful, kingdom of the Heptarchy,
comprehended all the middle counties of England; and as its frontiers
extended to those of all the other kingdoms, as well as to Wales, it
received its name from that circumstance. Wibba, the son of Crida, founder
of the monarchy, being placed on the throne by Ethelbert, king of Kent,
governed his paternal dominions by a precarious authority; and after his
death, Ceorl, his kinsman, was, by the influence of the Kentish monarch,
preferred to his son Penda, whose turbulent character appeared dangerous
to that prince. Penda was thus fifty years of age before he mounted the
throne; and his temerity and restless disposition were found nowise abated
by time, experience, or reflection. He engaged in continual hostilities
against all the neighboring states; and, by his injustice and violence,
rendered himself equally odious to his own subjects and to strangers.
Sigebert, Egric, and Annas, three kings of East Anglia, perished
successively in battle against him; as did also Edwin and Oswald, the two
greatest princes that had reigned over Northumberland. At last Oswy,
brother to Oswald, having defeated and slain him in a decisive battle,
freed the world from this sanguinary tyrant. Peada, his son, mounted the
throne of Mercia in 655, and lived under the protection of Oswy, whose
daughter he had espoused. This princess was educated in the Christian
faith, and she employed her influence, with success, in converting her
husband and his subjects to that religion. Thus the fair sex have had the
merit of introducing the Christian doctrine into all the most considerable
kingdoms of the Saxon Heptarchy. Peada died a violent death.[*] His son
Wolfhere succeeded to the government; and, after having reduced to
dependence the kingdoms of Essex and East Anglia, he left the crown to his
brother Ethelred, who, though a lover of peace, showed himself not unfit
for military enterprises. Besides making a successful expedition into
Kent, he repulsed Egfrid, king of Northumberland, who had invaded his
dominions; and he slew in battle Elswin, the brother of that prince.
Desirous, however, of composing all animosities with Egfrid, he paid him a
sum of money as a compensation for the loss of his brother. After a
prosperous reign of thirty years, he resigned the crown to Kendred, son of
Wolfhere, and retired into the monastery of Bardney.[**]
This prince, who mounted the throne in 755,[*] had some great qualities,
and was successful in his warlike enterprises against Lothaire, king of
Kent, and Kenwulph, king of Wessex, He defeated the former in a bloody
battle, at Otford upon the Darent, and reduced his kingdom to a state of
dependence; he gained a victory over the latter at Bensington, in
Oxfordshire; and conquering that county, together with that of Glocester,
annexed both to his dominions. But all these successes were stained by his
treacherous murder of Ethelbert, king of the East Angles, and his violent
seizing of that kingdom. This young prince, who is said to have possessed
great merit, had paid his addresses to Elfrida, the daughter of Offa, and
was invited with all his retinue to Hereford, in order to solemnize the
nuptials: amidst the joy and festivity of these entertainments, he was
seized by Offa, and secretly beheaded; and though Elfrida, who abhorred
her father’s treachery, had time to give warning to the East Anglian
nobility, who escaped into their own country, Offa, having extinguished
the royal family, succeeded in his design of subduing that kingdom.[**]
The perfidious prince, desirous of reestablishing his character in the
world, and perhaps of appeasing the remorses of his own conscience, paid
great court to the clergy, and practised all the monkish devotion so much
esteemed in that ignorant and superstitious age. He gave the tenth of his
goods to the church;[***] bestowed rich donations on the cathedral of
Hereford, and even made a pilgrimage to Rome, where his great power and
riches could not fail of procuring him the papal absolution. The better to
ingratiate himself with the sovereign pontiff, he engaged to pay him a
yearly donation for the support of an English college at Rome,[****] and
in order to raise the sum, he imposed a tax of a penny on each house
possessed of thirty pence a year. This imposition, being afterwards levied
on all England, was commonly denominated Peter’s pence;[*****] and
though conferred at first as a gift, was afterwards claimed as a tribute
by the Roman pontiff.
Carrying his hypocrisy still further, Offa, feigning to be directed by a
vision from heaven, discovered at Verulam the relics of St Alban, the
martyr, and endowed a magnificent monastery in that place.[*] Moved by al
these acts of piety, Malmsbury, one of the best of the old English
historians, declares himself at a loss to determine[**] whether the merits
or crimes of this prince preponderated. Offa died, after a reign of
thirty-nine years, in 794.[***]
This prince was become so considerable in the Heptarchy, that the emperor
Charlemagne entered into an alliance and friendship with him; a
circumstance which did honor to Offa; as distant princes at that time had
usually little communication with each other. That emperor being a great
lover of learning and learned men, in an age very barren of that ornament,
Offa, at his desire, sent him over Alcuin, a clergyman much celebrated for
his knowledge, who received great honors from Charlemagne, and even became
his preceptor in the sciences. The chief reason why he had at first
desired the company of Alcuin, was that he might oppose his learning to
the heresy of Felix, bishop of Urgel, in Catalonia; who maintained that
Jesus Christ, considered in his human nature, could more properly be
denominated the adoptive than the natural son of God.[****] This heresy
was condemned in the council of Francfort, held in 794, and consisting of
three hundred bishops. Such were the questions which were agitated in that
age, and which employed the attention not only of cloistered scholars, but
of the wisest and greatest princes.[*****]
Egfrith succeeded to his father Offa, but survived him only five
months;[******] when he made way for Kenulph, a descendant of the royal
family. This prince waged war against Kent, and taking Egbert, the king,
prisoner, he cut off his hands, and put out his eyes; leaving Cuthred, his
own brother, in possession of the crown of that kingdom. Kenulph was
killed in an insurrection of the East Anglians, whose crown his
predecessor, Offa, had usurped. He left his son Kenelm, a minor; who was
murdered the same year by his sister Quendrade, who had entertained the
ambitious views of assuming the government.[*******]
But she was supplanted by her uncle Ceolulf; who, two years after, was
dethroned by Beornulf The reign of this usurper, who was not of the royal
family, was short and unfortunate; he was defeated by the West Saxons, and
killed by his own subjects, the East Angles.[*] Ludican, his successor,
underwent the same fate;[**] and Wiglaff, who mounted this unstable
throne, and found everything in the utmost confusion, could not withstand
the fortune of Egbert, who united all the Saxon kingdoms into one great
monarchy.
THE KINGDOM OF ESSEX.
This kingdom made no great figure in the Heptarchy; and the history of it
is very imperfect. Sleda succeeded to his father, Erkinwin, the founder of
the monarchy; and made way for his son Sebert, who, being nephew to
Ethelbert, king of Kent, was persuaded by that prince to embrace the
Christian faith.[***] His sons and conjunct successors, Sexted and Seward,
relapsed into idolatry, and were soon after slain in a battle against the
West Saxons. To show the rude manner of living in that age, Bede tells
us,[****] that these two kings expressed great desire to eat the white
bread, distributed by Mellitus, the bishop, at the communion.[*****] But
on his refusing them, unless they would submit to be baptized, they
expelled him their dominions. The names of the other princes, who reigned
successively in Essex, are Sigebert the little, Sigebert the good, who
restored Christianity, Swithelm, Sigheri, Offa. This last prince, having
made a vow of chastity, notwithstanding his marriage with Keneswitha, a
Mercian princess, daughter to Penda, went in pilgrimage to Rome, and shut
himself up during the rest of his life in a cloister. Selred, his
successor, reigned thirty-eight years; and was the last of the royal line;
the failure of which threw the kingdom into great confusion, and reduced
it to dependence under Mercia.[******] Switherd first acquired the crown,
by the concession of the Mercian princes; and his death made way for
Sigeric, who ended his life in a pilgrimage to Rome. His successor.
Sigered, unable to defend his kingdom, submitted to the victorious arms of
Egbert.
THE KINGDOM OF SUSSEX.
The history of this kingdom, the smallest in the Heptarchy, is still more
imperfect than that of Essex. Ælla, the founder of the monarchy, left the
crown to his son Cissa, who is chiefly remarkable for his long reign of
seventy-six years. During his time, the South Saxons fell almost into a
total dependence on the kingdom of Wessex; and we scarcely know the names
of the princes who were possessed of this titular sovereignty. Adelwalch,
the last of them, was subdued in battle by Ceadwalla, king of Wessex, and
was slain in the action; leaving two infant sons, who, falling into the
hand of the conqueror, were murdered by him. The abbot of Bedford opposed
the order for this execution; but could only prevail on Ceadwalla to
suspend it till they should be baptized. Bercthun and Audhum, two noblemen
of character, resisted some time the violence of the West Saxons; but
their opposition served only to prolong the miseries of their country; and
the subduing of this kingdom was the first step which the West Saxons made
towards acquiring the sole monarchy of England.[*]
THE KINGDOM OF WESSEX.
The kingdom of Wessex, which finally swallowed up all the other Saxon
states, met with great resistance on its first establishment; and the
Britons, who were now inured to arms, yielded not tamely their possessions
to those invaders. Cerdic, the founder of the monarchy, and his son
Kenric, fought many successful, and some unsuccessful battles, against the
natives; and the martial spirit, common to all the Saxons, was, by means
of these hostilities, carried to the greatest height among this tribe.
Ceaulin, who was the son and successor of Kenric, and who began his reign
in 560, was still, more ambitious and enterprising than his predecessors;
and by waging continual war against the Britons, he added a great part of
the counties of Devon and Somerset to his other dominions. Carried along
by the tide of success, he invaded the other Saxon states in his
neighborhood, and becoming terrible to all, he provoked a general
confederacy against him. This alliance proved successful under the conduct
of Ethelbert, king of Kent; and Ceaulin, who had lost the affections of
his own subjects by his violent disposition, and had now fallen into
contempt from his misfortunes, was expelled the throne,[**]and died in
exile and misery. Cuichelme, and Cuthwin, his sons, governed jointly the
kingdom, till the expulsion of the latter in 591, and the death of the
former in 593, made way for Cealric, to whom succeeded Ceobaîd in 593, by
whose death, which happened in 611, Kynegils inherited the crown.
This prince embraced Christianity,[*] through the persuasion of Oswald,
king of Northumberland, who had married his daughter, and who had Attained
a great ascendant in the Heptarchy. Kenwalch next succeeded to the
monarchy, and dying in 672, left the succession so much disputed, that
Sexburga, his widow, a woman of spirit,[**] kept possession of the
government till her death, which happened two years after. Escwin then
peaceably acquired the crown; and, after a short reign of two years, made
way for Kentwin, who governed nine years. Ceodwalla, his successor,
mounted not the throne without opposition; but proved a great prince,
according to the ideas of those times; that is, he was enterprising,
warlike, and successful. He entirely subdued the kingdom of Sussex, and
annexed it to his own dominions He made inroads into Kent; but met with
resistance from Widred, the king, who proved successful against Mollo,
brother to Ceodwalla, and slew him in a skirmish. Ceodwalla at last, tired
with wars and bloodshed, was seized with a fit of devotion; bestowed
several endowments on the church; and made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he
received baptism, and died in 689. Ina, his successor, inherited the
military virtues of Ceodwalla, and added to them the more valuable ones of
justice, policy, and prudence. He made war upon the Britons in Somerset;
and, having finally subdued that province, he treated the vanquished with
a humanity hitherto unknown to the Saxon conquerors. He allowed the
proprietors to retain possession of their lands, encouraged marriages and
alliances between them and his ancient subjects, and gave them the
privilege of being governed by the same laws. These laws he augmented and
ascertained; and though he was disturbed by some insurrections at home,
his long reign of thirty-seven years may be regarded as one of the most
glorious and most prosperous of the Heptarchy. In the decline of his age
he made a pilgrimage to Rome; and after his return, shut himself up in a
cloister, where he died.
Though the kings of Wessex had always been princes of the blood, descended
from Cerdic, the founder of the monarchy, the order of succession had been
far from exact; and a more remote prince had often found means to mount
the throne, in preference to one descended from a nearer branch of the
royal family. Ina, therefore, having no children of his own and lying much
under the influence of Ethelburga, his queen, left by will the succession
to Adelard, her brother, who was his remote kinsman; but this destination
did not take place without some difficulty. Oswald, a prince more nearly
allied to the crown, took arms against Adelard; but he being suppressed,
and dying soon after, the title of Adelard was not any further disputed;
and in the year 741, he was succeeded by his cousin Cudred. The reign of
this prince was distinguished by a great victory, which he obtained by
means of Edelhun, his general, over Ethelbald, king of Mercia. His death
made way for Sigebert, his kinsman, who governed so ill, that his people
rose in an insurrection, and dethroned him, crowning Cenulph in his stead.
The exiled prince found a refuge with Duke Cumbran, governor of Hampshire;
who, that he might add new obligations to Sigebert, gave him many salutary
counsels for his future conduct, accompanied with some reprehensions for
the past. But these were so much resented by the ungrateful prince, that
he conspired against the life of his protector, and treacherously murdered
him. After this infamous action, he was forsaken by all the world; and
skulking about in the wilds and forests, was at last discovered by a
servant of Cumbran’s, who instantly took revenge upon him for the murder
of his master.[*]
Cenulph, who had obtained the crown on the expulsion of Sigebert, was
fortunate in many expeditions against the Britons of Cornwall; but
afterwards lost some reputation by his ill success against Offa, king of
Mercia.[**] Kynehard also, brother to the deposed Sigebert, gave him
disturbance; and though expelled the kingdom, he hovered on the frontiers,
and watched an opportunity for attacking his rival. The king had an
intrigue with a young woman, who lived at Merton, in Surrey, whither
having secretly retired, he was on a sudden environed, in the night time,
by Kynehard and his followers, and after making a vigorous resistance, was
murdered, with all his attendants. The nobility and people of the
neighborhood, rising next day in arms, took revenge on Kynehard for the
slaughter of their king, and put every one to the sword who had been
engaged in that criminal enterprise. This event happened in 784.
Brthric next obtained possession of the government, though remotely
descended from the royal family; but he enjoyed not that dignity without
inquietude. Eoppa, nephew to King Ina, by his brother Ingild, who died
before that prince, had begot Eata, father to Alchmond, from whom sprung
Egbert,[*] a young man of the most promising hopes, who gave great
jealousy to Brithric, the reigning prince, both because he seemed by his
birth better entitled to the crown, and because he had acquired, to an
eminent degree, the affections of the people. Egbert, sensible of his
danger from the suspicions of Brithric, secretly withdrew into France;[**]
where he was well received by Charlemagne. By living in the court, and
serving in the armies of that prince, the most able and most generous that
had appeared in Europe during several ages, he acquired those
accomplishments which afterwards enabled him to make such a shining figure
on the throne. And familiarizing himself to the manners of the French,
who, as Malmsbury observes,[***] were eminent both for valor and civility
above all the western nations, he learned to polish the rudeness and
barbarity of the Saxon character: his early misfortunes thus proved of
singular advantage to him.
It was not long ere Egbert had opportunities of displaying his natural and
acquired talents. Brithric, king of Wessex, had married Eadburga, natural
daughter of Offa, king of Mercia, a profligate woman, equally infamous for
cruelty and for incontinence. Having great influence over her husband, she
often instigated him to destroy such of the nobility as were obnoxious to
her; and where this expedient failed, she scrupled not being herself
active in traitorous attempts against them. She had mixed a cup of poison
for a young nobleman, who had acquired her husband’s friendship, and had
on that account become the object of her jealousy; but unfortunately the
king drank of the fatal cup along with his favorite, and soon after
expired.[****] This tragical incident, joined to her other crimes,
rendered Eadburga so odious, that she was obliged to fly into France;
whence Egbert was at the same time recalled by the nobility, in order to
ascend the throne of his ancestors.[*****] He attained that dignity in the
last year of the eighth century.
In the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, an exact rule of succession was either
unknown or not strictly observed; and thence the reigning prince was
continually agitated with jealousy against all the princes of the blood,
whom he still considered as rivals, and whose death alone could give him
entire security in his possession of the throne. From this fatal cause,
together with the admiration of the monastic life, and the opinion of
merit attending the preservation of chastity even in a married state, the
royal families had been entirely extinguished in all the kingdoms except
that of Wessex; and the emulations, suspicions, and conspiracies, which
had formerly been confined to the princes of the blood alone, were now
diffused among all the nobility in the several Saxon states. Egbert was
the sole descendant of those first conquerors who subdued Britain, and who
enhanced their authority by claiming a pedigree from Woden, the supreme
divinity of their ancestors. But that prince, though invited by this
favorable circumstance to make attempts on the neighboring Saxons, gave
them for some time no disturbance, and rather chose to turn his arms
against the Britons in Cornwall, whom he defeated in several battles.[*]
He was recalled from the conquest of that country by an invasion made upon
his dominions by Bernulf, king of Mercia.
The Mercians, before the accession of Egbert, had very nearly attained the
absolute sovereignty in the Heptarchy: they had reduced the East Angles
under subjection, and established tributary princes in the kingdoms of
Kent and Essex. Northumberland was involved in anarchy; and no state of
any consequence remained but that of Wessex, which, much inferior in
extent to Mercia, was supported solely by the great qualities of its
sovereign. Egbert led his army against the invaders; and encountering them
at Ellandun, in Wiltshire, obtained a complete victory, and by the great
slaughter which he made of them in their flight, gave a mortal blow to the
power of the Mercians. Whilst he himself, In prosecution of his victory,
entered their country on the side of Oxfordshire, and threatened the heart
of their dominions, he sent an army into Kent, commanded by Ethelwolph,
his eldest son,[**] and, expelling Baldred. The tributary king, soon made
himself master of that county.
The kingdom of Essex was conquered with equal facility; and the East
Angles, from their hatred to the Mercian gov ernment, which had been
established over them by treachery and violence, and probably exercised
with tyranny, immediately rose in arms, and craved the protection of
Egbert.[*] Bernulf, the Mercian king, who marched against them, was feated
and siain; and two years after, Ludican, his successor, met with the same
fate. These insurrections and calamities facilitated the enterprises of
Egbert, who advanced into the centre of the Mercian territories, and made
easy conquests over a dispirited and divided people. In order to engage
them more easily to submission, he allowed Wiglef, their countryman, to
retain the title of king, whilst he himself exercised the real powers of
sovereignty.[**] The anarchy which prevailed in Northumberland tempted him
to carry still farther his victorious arms; and the inhabitants, unable to
resist his power, and desirous of possessing some established form of
government, were forward, on his first appearance, to send deputies, who
submitted to his authority, and swore allegiance to him as their
sovereign. Egbert, however, still allowed to Northumberland, as he had
done to Mercia, and East Anglia, the power of electing a king, who paid
him tribute, and was dependent on him.
Thus were united all the kingdoms of the Heptarchy in one great state,
near four hundred years after the first arrival of the Saxons in Britain;
and the fortunate arms and prudent policy of Egbert at last effected what
had been so often attempted in vain by so many princes.[***] Kent,
Northumberland, and Mercia, which had successively aspired to general
dominion, were now incorporated in his empire; and the other subordinate
kingdoms seemed willingly to share the same fate. His territories were
nearly of the same extent with what is now properly called England; and a
favorable prospect was afforded to the Anglo-Saxons of establishing a
civilized monarchy, possessed of tranquillity within itself, and secure
against foreign invasion. This great event happened in the year 827.[****]
The Saxons, though they had been so long settled in the island, seem not
as yet to have been much improved beyond their German ancestors, either hi
arts, civility, knowledge, humanity, justice, or obedience to the laws.
Even Christianity, though it opened the way to connections between their
and the more polished states of Europe, had not hitherto been very
effectual in banishing their ignorance, or softening their barbarous
manners. As they received that doctrine through the corrupted channels of
Rome, it carried along with it a great mixture of credulity and
superstition, equally destructive to the understanding and to morals. The
reverence towards saints and relics seems to have almost supplanted the
idoration of the Supreme Being; monastic observances were esteemed more
meritorious than the active virtues; the knowledge of natural causes was
neglected, from the universal belief of miraculous interpositions and
judgments; bounty to the church atoned for every violence against society;
and the remorses for cruelty, murder, treachery, assassination, and the
more robust vices, were appeased, not by amendment of life, but by
penances, servility to the monks, and an abject and illiberal devotion.[*]
The reverence for the clergy had been carried to such a height, that,
wherever a person appeared in a sacerdotal habit, though on the highway,
the people flocked around him, and, showing him all marks of profound
respect, received every word he uttered as the most sacred oracle.[**]
Even the military virtues, so inherent in all the Saxon tribes, began to
be neglected; and the nobility, preferring the security and sloth of the
cloister to the tumults and glory of war, valued themselves chiefly on
endowing monasteries, of which they assumed the government.[***] The
several kings too, being extremely impoverished by continual benefactions
to the church, to which the states of their kingdoms had weakly assented,
could bestow no rewards on valor or military services, and retained not
even sufficient influence to support their government.[****]
Another inconvenience which attended this corrupt species of Christianity,
was the superstitious attachment to Rome, and the gradual subjection of
the kingdom to a foreign jurisdiction. The Britons, having never
acknowledged any subordination to the Roman pontiff, had conducted all
ecclesiastical government by their domestic synods and councils;[*] but
the Saxons, receiving their religion from Roman monks, were taught at the
same time a profound reverence for that see, and were naturally led to
regard it as the capital of their religion. Pilgrimages to Rome were
represented as the most meritorious acts of devotion. Not only noblemen
and ladies of rank undertook this tedious journey,[**] but kings
themselves, abdicating their crowns, sought for a secure passport to
heaven at the feet of the Roman pontiff. New relics, perpetually sent from
that endless mint of superstition, and magnified by lying miracles,
invented in convents, operated on the astonished minds of the multitude.
And every prince has attained the eulogies of the monks, the only
historians of those ages, not in proportion to his civil and military
virtues, but to his devoted attachment towards their order, and his
superstitious reverence for Rome.
The sovereign pontiff, encouraged by this blindness and submissive
disposition of the people, advanced every day in his encroachments on the
independence of the English churches. Wilfrid, bishop of Lindisferne, the
sole prelate of the Northumbrian kingdom, increased this subjection in the
eighth century, by his making an appeal to Rome against the decisions of
an English synod, which had abridged his diocese by the erection of some
new bishoprics.[***] Agatho, the pope, readily embraced this precedent of
an appeal to his court; and Wilfrid, though the haughtiest and most
luxurious prelate of his age,[****] having obtained with the people the
character of sanctity, was thus able to lay the foundation of this papal
pretension.
The great topic by which Wilfrid confounded the imaginations of men, was,
that St. Peter, to whos custody the keys of heaven were intrusted, would
certainly refuse admittance to every one who should be wanting in respect
to his successor, This conceit, well suited to vulgar conceptions, made
great impression on the people during several ages, and has act even at
present lost all influence in the Catholic countries. Had this abject
superstition produced general peace and tranquillity, it had made some
atonement for the ills attending it; but besides the usual avidity of men
for power and riches, frivolous controversies in theology were engendered
by it, which were so much the more fatal, as they admitted not, like the
others, of any final determination from established possession. The
disputes, excited in Britain, were of the most ridiculous kind, and
entirely worthy of those ignorant and barbarous ages. There were some
intricacies, observed by all the Christian churches, in adjusting the day
of keeping Easter; which depended on a complicated consideration of the
course of the sun and moon; and it happened that the missionaries, who had
converted the Scots and Britons, had followed a different calendar from
that which was observed at Rome, in the age when Augustine converted the
Saxons. The priests also of all the Christian churches were accustomed to
shave part of their head; but the form given to this tonsure was different
in the former from what was practised in the latter. The Scots and Britons
pleaded the antiquity of their usages; the Romans and their
disciples, the Saxons, insisted on the universality of theirs. That
Easter must necessarily be kept by a rule, which comprehended both the day
of the year and age of the moon, was agreed by all; that the tonsure of a
priest could not be omitted without the utmost impiety, was a point
undisputed; but the Romans and Saxons called their antagonists
schismatics, because they celebrated Easter on the very day of the full
moon in March, if that day fell on a Sunday, instead of waiting till the
Sunday following; and because they shaved the fore part of their head from
ear to ear, instead of making that tonsure on the crown of the head, and
in a circular form. In order to render their antagonists odious, they
affirmed that, once in seven years, they concurred with the Jews in the
time of celebrating that festival;[*] and that they might recommend their
own form of tonsure, they maintained, that it imitated symbolically the
crown of thorns worn by Christ in his passion; whereas the other form was
invented by Simon Magus, without any regard to that representation.[**]
These controversies had, from the beginning, excited such animosity
between the British and Romish priests that, instead of concurring in
their endeavors to convert the idolatrous Saxons, they refused all
communion together, and each regarded his opponent as no better than a
pagan.[*] The dispute lasted more than a century; and was at last
finished, not by men’s discovering the folly of it, which would have been
too great an effort for human reason to accomplish, but by the entire
prevalence of the Romish ritual over the Scotch and British.[**] Wilfrid,
bishop of Lindisferne, acquired great merit, both with the court of Rome
and with all the southern Saxons, by expelling the quartodeciman schism,
as it was called, from the Northumbrian kingdom, into which the
neighborhood of the Scots had formerly introduced it.[***]
Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, called, in the year 680, a synod at
Hatfield, consisting of all the bishops in Britain,[****] where was
accepted and ratified the decree of the Lateran council, summoned by
Martin, against the heresy of the Monothelites. The council and synod
maintained, in opposition to these heretics, that, though the divine and
human nature in Christ made but one person, yet had they different
inclinations, wills, acts, and sentiments, and that the unity of the
person implied not any unity in the consciousness.[*****] This opinion it
seems somewhat difficult to comprehend; and no one, unacquainted with the
ecclesiastical history of those ages, could imagine the height of zeal and
violence with which it was then inculcated. The decree of the Lateran
council calls the Monothelites impious, execrable, wicked, abominable, and
even diabolical; and curses and anathematizes them to all
eternity.[******]
CHAPTER II.
The Saxons, from the first introduction of Christianity among them, had
admitted the use of images; and perhaps that religion, without some of
those exterior ornaments, had not made so quick a progress with these
idolaters; but they had not paid any species of worship or address to
images; and this abuse never prevailed among Christians, till it received
the sanction of the second council of Nice.
EGBERT.
827.
The kingdoms of the Heptarchy, though united by a recent conquest, seemed
to be firmly cemented into one state under Egbert; and the inhabitants of
the several provinces had lost all desire of revolting from that monarch,
or of restoring their former independent governments. Their language was
every where nearly the same, their customs, laws, institutions, civil and
religious; and as the race of the ancient kings was totally extinct in all
the subjected states, the people readily transferred their allegiance to a
prince who seemed to merit it by the splendor of his victories, the vigor
of hia administration, and the superior nobility of his birth. A union
also in government opened to them the agreeable prospect of future
tranquillity; and it appeared more probable that they would thenceforth
become formidable to their neighbors, than be exposed to their inroads and
devastations. But these flattering views were soon overcast by the
appearance of the Danes, who, during some centuries, kept the Anglo-Saxons
in perpetual inquietude, committed the most barbarous ravages upon them,
and at last reduced them to grievous servitude.
The emperor Charlemagne, though naturally generous and humane, had been
induced by bigotry to exercise great severities upon the pagan Saxons in
Germany, whom he subdued; and besides often ravaging their country with
fire and sword, he had, in cool blood, decimated all the inhabitants for
their revolts, and had obliged them, by the most rigorous edicts, to make
a seeming compliance with the Christian doctrine. That religion, which had
easily made its way among the British Saxons by insinuation and address,
appeared shocking to their German brethren, when imposed on them by the
violence of Charlemagne; and the more generous and warlike of these pagans
had fled northward into Jutland, in order to escape the fury of his
persecutions. Meeting there with a people of similar manners, they were
readily received among them; and they soon stimulated the natives to
concur in enterprises which both promised revenge on the haughty
conqueror, and afforded subsistence to those numerous inhabitants with
which the northern countries were now overburdened.[*] They invaded the
provinces of France, which were exposed by the degeneracy and dissensions
of Charlemagne’s posterity; and being there known under the general name
of Normans, which they received from their northern situation, they became
the terror of all the maritime and even of the inland countries. They were
also tempted to visit England in their frequent excursions; and being
able, by sudden inroads, to make great progress over a people who were not
defended by any naval force, who had relaxed their military institutions,
and who were sunk into a superstition which had become odious to the Danes
and ancient Saxons, they made no distinction in their hostilities between
the French and English kingdoms. Their first appearance in this island was
in the year 787,[**] when Brithric reigned in Wessex. A small body of them
landed in that kingdom, with a view of learning the state of the country;
and when the magistrate of the place questioned them concerning their
enterprise, and summoned them to appear before the king, and account for
their intentions, they killed him, and, flying to, their ships, escaped
into their own country. The next alarm was given to Northumberland in the
year 794,[***] when a body of these pirates pillaged a monastery; but
their ships being much damaged by a storm, and their leader slain in a
skirmish, they were at last defeated by the inhabitants, and the remainder
of them put to the sword. [Sidenote: 832] Five years after Egbert had
established his monarchy over England, the Danes landed in the Isle of
Shepey, and having pillaged it, escaped with impunity.[****] They were not
so fortunate in their next year’s enterprise, when they disembarked from
thirty-five ships, and were encountered by Egbert, at Charmouth, in
Dorsetshire. The battle was bloody; but though the Danes lost great
numbers, they maintained the post which they had taken, and thence made
good their retreat to their ships.[*****]
Having learned, by experience, that they must expect a vigorous resistance
from this warlike prince, they entered into an alliance with the Britons
of Cornwall; and, landing two years after in that country, made an inroad
with their confederates into the county of Devon, but were met at
Hengesdown by Egbert, and totally defeated.[*] While England remained in
this state of anxiety, and defended itself more by temporary expedients
than by any regular plan of administration, Egbert, who alone was able to
provide effectually against this new evil, unfortunately died, and left
the government to his son Ethelwolf.
ETHELWOLF.
This prince had neither the abilities nor the vigor of his father, and was
better qualified for governing a convent than a kingdom.[*] He began his
reign with making a partition of his dominions, and delivering over to his
eldest son, Athelstan, the new-conquered provinces of Essex, Kent, and
Sussex. But no inconveniences seem to have arisen from this partition as
the continual terror of the Danish invasions prevented all domestic
dissension. A fleet of these ravagers, consisting of thirty-three sail,
appeared at Southampton, but were repulsed with loss by Wolfhere, governor
of the neighboring country.[**] The same year, Æthelhelm, governor of
Dorsetshire, routed another band, which had disembarked at Portsmouth; but
he obtained the victory after a furious engagement, and he bought it with
the loss of his life.[***]
Next year, the Danes made several inroads into England, and fought
battles, or rather skirmishes, in East Anglia and Lindesey and Kent;
where, though they were sometimes repulsed and defeated, they always
obtained their end, of committing spoil upon the country, and carrying off
their booty. They avoided coming to a general engagement, which was not
suited to their plan of operations. Their vessels were small, and ran
easily up the creeks and rivers, where they drew them ashore, and, having
formed an intrenchment round them, which they guarded with part of their
number, the remainder scattered themselves every where, and carrying off
the inhabitants, and cattle, and goods, they hastened to their ships, and
quickly disappeared. If the military force of the county were assembled,
(for there was no time for troops to march from a distance,) the Danes
either were able to repulse them, and to continue their ravages with
impunity, or they betook themselves to their vessels, and, setting sail,
suddenly invaded some distant quarter, which was not prepared for their
reception.
Every part of England was held in continual alarm; and the inhabitants of
one county durst not give assistance to those of another, lest their own
families and property should in the mean time be exposed by their absence
to the fury of these barbarous ravagers.[*]
[* Alured. Beverl. p. 108.]
All orders of men were involved in this calamity; and the priests and
monks, who had been commonly spared in the domestic quarrels of the
Heptarchy, were the chief objects on which the Danish idolaters exercised
their rage and animosity. Every season of the year was dangerous, and the
absence of the enemy was no reason why any man could esteem himself a
moment in safety.
These incursions had now become almost annual; when the Danes, encouraged
by their successes against France as well as England, (for both kingdoms
were alike exposed to this dreadful calamity,) invaded the last in so
numerous a body as seemed to threaten it with universal subjection. But
the English, more military than the Britons, whom a few centuries before
they had treated with like violence, roused themselves with a vigor
proportioned to the exigency. Ceorle, governor of Devonshire, fought a
battle with one body of the Danes at Wiganburgh,[*] and put them to rout
with great slaughter.
King Athelstan attacked another at sea, near Sandwich, sunk nine of their
ships, and put the rest to flight.[*]
A body of them, however, ventured, for the first time, to take up winter
quarters in England; and receiving in the spring a strong reënforcement of
their countrymen, in three hundred and fifty vessels, they advanced from
the Isle of Thanet, where they had stationed themselves, burnt the cities
of London and Canterbury, and having put to flight Brichtric, who now
governed Mercia under the title of king, they marched into the heart of
Surrey, and laid every place waste around them. Ethelwolf, impelled by the
urgency of the danger, marched against them at the head of the West
Saxons; and, carrying with him his second son, Ethelbald, gave them battle
at Okely, and gained a bloody victory over them. This advantage procured
but a short respite to the English. The Danes still maintained their
settlement in the Isle of Thanet; and, being attacked by Ealher and Huda,
governors of Kent and Surrey, though defeated in the beginning of the
action, they finally repulsed the assailants, and killed both the
governors, removed thence to the Isle of Shepey, where they took up their
winter quarters, that they might farther extend their devastation and
ravages.
This unsettled state of England hindered not Ethelwolf from making a
pilgrimage to Rome, whither he carried his fourth and favorite son,
Alfred, then only six years of age.[*] He passed there a twelvemonth in
exercises of devotion; and failed not in that most essential part of
devotion, liberality to the church of Rome. Besides giving presents to the
more distinguished ecclesiastics, he made a perpetual grant of three
hundred mancuses[**] a year to that see; one third to support the lamps of
St. Peter’s, another those of St. Paul’s, a third to the pope
himself.[***] In his return home, he married Judith, daughter of the
emperor Charles the Bald; but, on his landing in England, he met with an
opposition which he little looked for.
His eldest son, Athelstan, being dead, Ethelbald, his second, who had
assumed the government, formed, in concert with many of the nobles, the
project of excluding his father from a throne which his weakness and
superstition seem to have rendered him so ill qualified to fill. The
people were divided between the two princes, and a bloody civil war,
joined to all the other calamities under which the English labored,
appeared inevitable, when Ethelwolf had the facility to yield to the
greater part of his son’s pretensions. He made with him a partition of the
kingdom; and, taking to himself the eastern part, which was always, at
that time, esteemed the least considerable, as well as the most
exposed,[****] he delivered over to Ethelbald the sovereignty of the
western. Immediately after, he summoned the states of the whole kingdom,
and with the same facility conferred a perpetual and important donation on
the church.
The ecclesiastics, in those days of ignorance, made rapid advances in the
acquisition of power and grandeur; and, inculcating the most absurd and
most interested doctrines, though they sometimes met, from the contrary
interests of the laity, with an opposition which it required time and
address to overcome, they found no obstacle in their reason or
understanding. Not content with the donations of land made them by the
Saxon princes and nobles, and with temporary oblations from the devotion
of the people, they had cast a wishful eye on a vast revenue, which they
claimed as belonging to them by a sacred and indefeasible title. However
little versed in the Scriptures, they had been able to discover that,
under the Jewish law, a tenth of all the produce of land was conferred on
the priesthood; and, forgetting what they themselves taught, that the
moral part only of that law was obligatory on Christians, they insisted
that this donation conveyed a perpetual property, inherent by divine right
in those who officiated at the altar. During some centuries, the whole
scope of sermons and homilies was directed to this purpose; and one would
have imagined, from the general tenor of these discourses, that all the
practical parts of Christianity were comprised in the exact and faithful
payment of tithes to the clergy.[*] Encouraged by their success in
inculcating these doctrines, they ventured farther than they were
warranted even by the Levitical law, and pretended to draw the tenth of
all industry, merchandise, wages of laborers, and pay of soldiers;[**]
nay, some canonists went so far as to affirm that the clergy were entitled
to the tithe of the profits made by courtesans in the exercise of their
profession.[***] Though parishes had been instituted in England by
Honorius, archbishop of Canterbury, near two centuries before,[****] the
ecclesiastics had never yet been able to get possession of the tithes;
they therefore seized the present favorable opportunity of making that
acquisition; when a weak, superstitious prince filled the throne, and when
the people, discouraged by their losses from the Danes, and terrified with
the fear of future invasions, were susceptible of any impression which
bore the appearance of religion.[*****] So meritorious was this concession
deemed by the English, that, trusting entirely to supernatural assistance,
they neglected the ordinary means of safety; and agreed, even in the
present desperate extremity, that the revenues of the church should be
exempted from all burdens, though imposed for national defence and
security.[******]
ETHELBALD AND ETHELBERT.
Ethelwolf lived only two years after making this grant; and by his will he
shared England between his two eldest sons, Ethelbald and Ethelbert; the
west being assigned to the former, the east to the latter. Ethelbald was a
profligate prince; and marrying Judith, his mother-in-law, gave great
offence to the people; but moved by the remonstrances of Swithun, bishop
of Winchester, he was at last prevailed on to divorce her. His reign was
short; and Ethelbert, his brother, succeeding to the government, behaved
himself, during a reign of five years, in a manner more worthy of his
birth and station. The kingdom, however, was still infested by the Danes,
who made an inroad and sacked Winchester, but were there defeated. A body
also of these pirates, who were quartered in the Isle of Thanet, having
deceived the English by a treaty, unexpectedly broke into Kent, and
committed great outrages.
ETHERED
Ethelbert was succeeded by his brother Ethered, who, though he defended
himself with bravery, enjoyed, during his whole reign, no tranquillity
from those Danish irruptions. His younger brother, Alfred, seconded him in
all his enterprises, and generously sacrificed to the public good all
resentment, which he might entertain on account of his being excluded by
Ethered from a large patrimony which had been left him by his father.
The first landing of the Danes, in the reign of Ethered, was among the
East Angles, who, more anxious for their present safety than for the
common interest, entered into a separate treaty with the enemy, and
furnished them with horses, which enabled them to make an irruption by
land into the kingdom of Northumberland. They there seized the city of
York, and defended it against Osbricht and Ælia, two Northumbrian princes,
who perished in the assault.[*] Encouraged by these successes, and by the
superiority which they had acquired in arms, they now ventured, under the
command of Hinguar and Hubba, to leave the sea-coast, and penetrating into
Mercia, they took up their winter quarters at Nottingham, where they
threatened the kingdom with a final subjection.
The Mercians, in this extremity, applied to Ethered for succor; and that
prince, with his brother Alfred, conducting a great army to Nottingham,
obliged the enemy to dislodge, and to retreat into Northumberland.
870.
Their restless disposition, and their avidity for plunder, allowed them
not to remain long in those quarters; they broke into East Anglia,
defeated and took prisoner Edmund, the king of that country, whom they
afterwards murdered in cool blood; and, committing the most barbarous
ravages on the people, particularly on the monasteries, they gave the East
Angles cause to regret the temporary relief which they had obtained, by
assisting the common enemy.
The next station of the Danes was at Reading; whence they infested the
neighboring country by their incursions. The Mercians, desirous of shaking
off their dependence on Ethered, refused to join him with their forces;
and that prince, attended by Alfred, was obliged to march against the
enemy with the West Saxons alone, his hereditary subjects. The Danes,
being defeated in an action, shut themselves up in their garrison; but
quickly making thence an irruption, they routed the West Saxons, and
obliged them to raise the siege. An action soon after ensued at Aston, in
Berkshire, where the English, in the beginning of the day, were in danger
of a total defeat. Alfred, advancing with one division of the army, was
surrounded by the enemy in disadvantageous ground; and Ethered, who was at
that time hearing mass, refused to march to his assistance till prayers
should be finished;[*] but, as he afterwards obtained the victory, this
success, not the danger of Alfred, was ascribed by the monks to the piety
of that monarch.
ALFRED.
This battle of Aston did not terminate the war; another battle was a
little after fought at Basing, where the Danes were more successful; and
being reënforced by a new army from their own country, they became every
day more terrible to the English. Amidst these confusions, Ethered died of
a wound which he had received in an action with the Danes; and left the
inheritance of his cares and misfortunes, rather than of his grandeur, to
his brother Alfred, who was now twenty-two years of age.
This prince gave very early marks of those great virtues and shining
talents, by which, during the most difficult times, he saved his country
from utter ruin and subversion. Ethelwolf, his father, the year after his
return with Alfred from Rome, had again sent the young prince thither with
a numerous retinue; and a report being spread of the king’s death, the
Pope, Leo III., gave Alfred the royal unction;[*] whether prognosticating
his future greatness from the appearances of his pregnant genius, or
willing to pretend, even in that age, to the right of conferring kingdoms.
Alfred, on his return home, became every day more the object of his
father’s affections; but being indulged in all youthful pleasures, he was
much neglected in his education; and he had already reached his twelfth
year, when he was yet totally ignorant of the lowest elements of
literature. His genius was first roused by the recital of Saxon poems, in
which the queen took delight; and this species of erudition, which is
sometimes able to make a considerable progress even among barbarians,
expanded those noble and elevated sentiments which he had received from
nature.[**] Encouraged by the queen, and stimulated by his own ardent
inclination, he soon learned to read those compositions; and proceeded
thence to acquire the knowledge of the Latin tongue, in which he met with
authors that better prompted his heroic spirit, and directed his generous
views. Absorbed in these elegant pursuits, he regarded his accession to
royalty rather as an object of regret than of triumph;[***] but being
called to the throne, in preference to his brother’s children, as well by
the will of his father,—a circumstance which had great authority
with the Anglo-Saxons[****]—as by the vows of the whole nation, and
the urgency of public affairs, he shook off his literary indolence, and
exerted himself in the defence of his people. He had scarcely buried his
brother, when he was obliged to take the field, in order to oppose the
Danes, who had seized Wilton, and were exercising their usual ravages on
the countries around.
He marched against them with the few troops which he could assemble on a
sudden, and, giving them battle, gained at first an advantage; but, by his
pursuing the victory too far, the superiority of the enemy’s numbers
prevailed, and recovered them the day. Their loss, however, in the action,
was so considerable, that, fearing Alfred would receive daily
reënforcements from his subjects, they were content to stipulate for a
safe retreat, and promised to depart the kingdom. For that purpose, they
were conducted to London, and allowed to take up winter quarters there;
but, careless of their engagements, they immediately set themselves to the
committing of spoil on the neighboring country. Burrhed, king of Mercia,
in whose territories London was situated, made a new stipulation with
them, and engaged them, by presents of money, to remove to Lindesey, in
Lincolnshire, a country which they had already reduced to ruin and
desolation. Finding, therefore, no object in that place, either for their
rapine or violence, they suddenly turned back upon Mercia, in a quarter
where they expected to find it without defence; and fixing their station
at Repton, in Derbyshire, they laid the whole country desolate with fire
and sword. Burrhed, despairing of success against an enemy whom no force
could resist, and no treaties bind, abandoned his kingdom, and, flying to
Rome, took shelter in a cloister.[*] He was brother-in-law to Alfred, and
the last who bore the title of king in Mercia.
The West Saxons were now the only remaining power in England; and though
supported by the vigor and abilities of Alfred, they were unable to
sustain the efforts of those ravagers, who from all quarters invaded them.
A new swarm of Danes came over this year under three princes, Guthrum,
Oscitel, and Amund; and having first joined their countrymen at Repton,
they soon found the necessity of separating, in order to provide for their
subsistence. Part of them, under the command of Haldene, their
chieftain,[**] marched into Northumberland, where they fixed their
residence; part of them took quarters at Cambridge, whence they dislodged
in the ensuing summer and seized Wereham, in the county of Dorset, the
very centre of Alfred’s dominions. That prince so straitened them in these
quarters, that they were content to come to a treaty with him, and
stipulated to depart his country. Alfred, well acquainted with their usual
perfidy, obliged them to swear upon the holy relics to the observance of
the treaty;[***] not that he expected they would pay any veneration to the
relics; but he hoped that, if they now violated this oath, their impiety
would infallibly draw down upon them the vengeance of Heaven.
But the Danes, little apprehensive of the danger suddenly, without seeking
any pretence, fell upon Alfred’s army; and having put it to rout, marched
westward, and took possession of Exeter. The prince collected new forces,
and exerted such vigor, that he fought in one year eight battles with the
enemy,[*] and reduced them to the utmost extremity. He hearkened, however,
to new proposals of peace, and was satisfied to stipulate with them, that
they would settle somewhere in England,[**] and would not permit the
entrance of more ravagers into the kingdom. But while he was expecting the
execution of this treaty, which it seemed the interest of the Danes
themselves to fulfil, he heard that another body had landed, and, having
collected all the scattered troops of their country men, had surprised
Chippenham, then a considerable town, and were exercising their usual
ravages all around them.
This last incident quite broke the spirit of the Saxons, and reduced them
to despair. Finding that, after all the miserable havoc which they had
undergone in their persons and in their property, after all the vigorous
actions which they had exerted in their own defence, a new band, equally
greedy of spoil and slaughter, had disembarked among them, they believed
themselves abandoned by Heaven to destruction, and delivered over to those
swarms of robbers which the fertile north thus incessantly poured forth
against them. Some left their country and retired into Wales, or fled
beyond sea; others submitted to the conquerors, in hopes of appeasing
their fury by a servile obedience.[***] And every man’s attention being
now engrossed in concern for his own preservation, no one would hearken to
the exhortations of the king, who summoned them to make, under his
conduct, one effort more in defence of their prince, their country, and
their liberties. Alfred himself was obliged to relinquish the ensigns of
his dignity, to dismiss his servants, and to seek shelter in the meanest
disguises from the pursuit and fury of his enemies. He concealed himself
under a peasant’s habit, and lived some time in the house of a neat-herd,
who had been intrusted with the care of some of his cows.[****]
There passed here an incident, which has been recorded by all the
historians, and was long preserved by popular tradition, though it
contains nothing memorable in itself, except so far as every circumstance
is interesting which attends so much virtue and dignity reduced to such
distress. The wife of the neat-herd was ignorant of the condition of her
royal guest; and observing him one day busy, by the fireside, in trimming
his bow and arrows, she desired him to take care of some cakes which were
toasting, while she was employed elsewhere in other domestic affairs. But
Alfred, whose thoughts were otherwise engaged, neglected this injunction;
and the good woman, on her return, finding her cakes all burnt, rated the
king very severely, and upbraided him, that he always seemed very well
pleased to eat her warm cakes though he was thus negligent in toasting
them.[*]
By degrees, Alfred, as he found the search of the enemy become more
remiss, collected some of his retainers, and retired into the centre of a
bog, formed by the stagnating waters of the Thone and Parret, in
Somersetshire. He here found two acres of firm ground; and building a
habitation on them, rendered himself secure by its fortifications, and
still more by the unknown and inaccessible roads which led to it, and by
the forests and morasses with which it was every way environed. This place
he called Æthelingay, or the Isle of Nobles;[**] and it now bears the name
of Athelney. He thence made frequent and unexpected sallies upon the
Danes, who often felt the vigor of his arm, but knew not from what quarter
the blow came. He subsisted himself and his followers by the plunder which
he acquired; he procured them consolation by revenge; and from small
successes, he opened their minds to hope that, notwithstanding his present
low condition, more important victories might at length attend his valor.
Alfred lay here concealed, but not inactive, during a twelvemonth; when
the news of a prosperous event reached his ears, and called him to the
field. Hubba the Dane, having spread devastation, fire, and slaughter over
Wales, had landed in Devonshire from twenty-three vessels, and laid siege
to the castle of Kinwith, a place situated near the mouth of the small
river Tau. Oddune, earl of Devonshire, with his followers, had taken
shelter there; and being ill supplied with provisions, and even with
water, he determined, by some vigorous blow, to prevent the necessity of
submitting to the barbarous enemy. He made a sudden sally on the Danes
before sun-rising; and taking them unprepared, he put them to rout,
pursued them with great slaughter, killed Hubba himself, and got
possession of the famous Reafen, or enchanted standard, in which the Danes
put great confidence.[*] It contained the figure of a raven, which had
been inwoven by the three sisters of Hinguar and Hubba, with many magical
incantations, and which, by its different movements, prognosticated, as
the Danes believed, the good or bad success of any enterprise.[**]
When Alfred observed this symptom of successful resistance in his
subjects, he left his retreat; but before he would assemble them in arms,
or urge them to any attempt, which, if unfortunate, might, in their
present despondency, prove fatal, he resolved to inspect himself the
situation of the enemy, and to judge of the probability of success. For
this purpose he entered their camp under the disguise of a harper, and
passed unsuspected through every quarter. He so entertained them with his
music and facetious humors, that he met with a welcome reception, and was
even introduced to the tent of Guthrum, their prince, where he remained
some days.[***] He remarked the supine security of the Danes, their
contempt of the English, their negligence in foraging and plundering, and
their dissolute wasting of what they gained by rapine and violence.
Encouraged by these favorable appearances, he secretly sent emissaries to
the most considerable of his subjects, and summoned them to a rendezvous,
attended by their warlike followers, at Brixton, on the borders of Selwood
Forest.[****] The English, who had hoped to put an end to their calamities
by servile submission, now found the insolence and rapine of the conqueror
more intolerable than all past fatigues and dangers; and at the appointed
day, they joyfully resorted to their prince. On his appearance, they
received him with shouts of applause,[*****] and could not satiate their
eyes with the sight of this beloved monarch, whom they had long regarded
as dead, and who now, with voice and looks expressing his confidence of
success, called them to liberty and to vengeance.
He instantly conducted them to Eddington, where the Danes were encamped;
and taking advantage of his previous knowledge of the place, he directed
his attack against the most unguarded quarter of the enemy. The Danes,
surprised to see an army of English, whom they considered as totally
subdued, and still more astonished to hear that Alfred was at their head,
made but a faint resistance, notwithstanding their superiority of number,
and were soon put to flight with great slaughter. The remainder of the
routed army, with their prince, was besieged by Alfred in a fortified camp
to which they fled; but being reduced to extremity by want and hunger,
they had recourse to the clemency of the victor, and offered to submit on
any conditions. The king, no less generous than brave, gave them their
lives, and even formed a scheme for converting them from mortal enemies
into faithful subjects and confederates. He knew that the kingdoms of East
Anglia and Northumberland were totally desolated by the frequent inroads
of the Danes, and he now proposed to repeople them, by settling there
Guthrum and his followers. He hoped that the new planters would at last
betake themselves to industry, when, by reason of his resistance, and the
exhausted condition of the country, they could no longer subsist by
plunder; and that they might serve him as a rampart against any future
incursions of their countrymen. But before he ratified these mild
conditions with the Danes, he required that they should give him one
pledge of their submission, and of their inclination to incorporate with
the English, by declaring their conversion to Christianity.[*] Guthrum and
his army had no aversion to the proposal; and, without much instruction,
or argument, or conference, they were all admitted to baptism. The king
answered for Guthrum at the font, gave him the name of Athelstan, and
received him as his adopted son.[**]
The success of this expedient seemed to correspond to Alfred’s hopes: the
greater part of the Danes settled peaceably in their new quarters: some
smaller bodies of the same nation, which were dispersed in Mercia, were
distributed into the five cities of Derby, Leicester, Stamford, Lincoln,
and Nottingham, and were thence called the Fif or Five-burgers. The more
turbulent and unquiet made an expedition into France, under the command of
Hastings;[*] and except by a short incursion of Danes, who sailed up the
Thames, and landed at Fulham, but suddenly retreated to their ships, on
finding the country in a posture of defence, Alfred was not for some years
infested by the inroads of those barbarians.[**]
The king employed this interval of tranquillity in restoring order to the
state, which had been shaken by so many violent convulsions; in
establishing civil and military institutions; in composing the minds of
men to industry and justice; and in providing against the return of like
calamities. He was, more properly than his grandfather Egbert, the sole
monarch of the English, (for so the Saxons were now universally called,)
because the kingdom of Mercia was at last incorporated in his state, and
was governed by Ethelbert, his brother-in-law, who bore the title of earl;
and though the Danes, who peopled East Anglia and Northumberland, were for
some time ruled immediately by their own princes, they all acknowledged a
subordination to Alfred, and submitted to his superior authority. As
equality among subjects is the great source of concord, Alfred gave the
same laws to the Danes and English, and put them entirely on a like
footing in the administration both of civil and criminal justice. The fine
for the murder of a Dane was the same with that for the murder of an
Englishman; the great symbol of equality in those ages.
The king, after rebuilding the ruined cities, particularly London,[*]
which had been destroyed by the Danes in the reign of Ethelwolf,
established a regular militia for the defence of the kingdom. He ordained
that all his people should be armed and registered; he assigned them a
regular rotation of duty; he distributed part into the castles and
fortresses, which he built at proper places;[**] he required another part
to take the field on any alarm, and to assemble at stated places of
rendezvous; and he left a sufficient number at home, who were employed in
the cultivation of the land, and who afterwards took their turn in
military service.[***]
The whole kingdom was like one great garrison; and the Danes could no
sooner appear in one place, than a sufficient number was assembled to
oppose them, without leaving the other quarters defenceless or
disarmed.[*]
But Alfred, sensible that the proper method of opposing an enemy who made
incursions by sea, was to meet them on their own element, took care to
provide himself with a naval force,[*] which, though the most natural
defence of an island, had hitherto been totally neglected by the English.
He increased the shipping of his kingdom both in number and strength, and
trained his subjects in the practice as well of sailing as of naval
action. He distributed his armed vessels in proper stations around the
island, and was sure to meet the Danish ships, either before or after they
had landed their troops, and to pursue them in all their incursions.
Though the Danes might suddenly, by surprise, disembark on the coast,
which was generally become desolate by their frequent ravages, they were
encountered by the English fleet in their retreat; and escaped not, as
formerly, by abandoning their booty, but paid, by their total destruction,
the penalty of the disorders which they had committed.
In this manner Alfred repelled several inroads of these piratical Danes,
and maintained his kingdom, during some years, in safety and tranquillity.
A fleet of a hundred and twenty ships of war was stationed upon the coast;
and being provided with warlike engines, as well as with expert seamen,
both Frisians and English, (for Alfred supplied the defects of his own
subjects by engaging able foreigners in his service,) maintained a
superiority over those smaller bands, with which England had so often been
infested.[*]
But at last Hastings, the famous Danish chief, having ravaged all the
provinces of France, both along the sea-coast and the Loire and Seine, and
being obliged to quit that country, more by the desolation which he
himself had occasioned, than by the resistance of the inhabitants,
appeared off the coast of Kent with a fleet of three hundred and thirty
sail. The greater part of the enemy disembarked in the Rother and seized
the fort of Apuldore. Hastings himself, commanding a fleet of eighty sail,
entered the Thames, and fortifying Milton, in Kent, began to spread his
forces over the country, and to commit the most destructive ravages. But
Alfred, on the first alarm of this descent, flew to the defence of his
people, at the head of a select band of soldiers, whom he always kept
about his person,[*] and, gathering to him the armed militia from all
quarters, appeared in the field with a force superior to the enemy. All
straggling parties, whom necessity, or love of plunder, had drawn to a
distance from their chief encampment, were cut off by the English;[**] and
these pirates, instead of increasing their spoil, found themselves cooped
up in their fortifications, and obliged to subsist by the plunder which
they had brought from France. Tired of this situation, which must in the
end prove ruinous to them, the Danes at Apuldore rose suddenly from their
encampment, with an intention of marching towards the Thames, and passing
over into Essex: but they escaped not the vigilance of Alfred, who
encountered them at Farnham, put them to rout,[***] seized all their
horses and baggage, and chased the runaways on board their ships, which
carried them up the Colne to Mersey, in Essex, where they intrenched
themselves. Hastings, at the same time, and probably by concert, made a
like movement; and deserting Milton, took possession of Bamflete, near the
Isle of Canvey, in the same county,[****] where he hastily threw up
fortifications for his defence against the power of Alfred.
Unfortunately for the English, Guthrum, prince of the East Anglian Danes,
was now dead; as was also Guthred, whom the king had appointed governor of
the Northumbrians; and those restless tribes, being no longer restrained
by the authority of their princes, and being encouraged by the appearance
of so great a body of their countrymen, broke into rebellion, shook off
the authority of Alfred, and yielding to their inveterate habits of war
and depredation,[*] embarked on board two hundred and forty vessels, and
appeared before Exeter, in the west of England. Alfred lost not a moment
in opposing this new enemy. Having left some forces at London to make head
against Hastings and the other Danes, he marched suddenly to the west,[**]
and, falling on the rebels before they were aware, pursued them to their
ships with great slaughter.
These ravagers, sailing next to Sussex, began to plunder the country near
Chichester; but the order which Alfred had everywhere established,
sufficed here, without his presence, for the defence of the place, and the
rebels, meeting with a new repulse, in which many of them were killed, and
some of their ships taken,[*] were obliged to put again to sea, and were
discouraged from attempting any other enterprise.
Meanwhile the Danish invaders in Essex, having united their force under
the command of Hastings, advanced into the inland country, and made spoil
of all around them; but soon had reason to repent of their temerity. The
English army left in London, assisted by a body of the citizens, attacked
the enemy’s intrenchments at Bamflete, overpowered the garrison, and
having done great execution upon them, carried off the wife and two sons
of Hastings.[*] Alfred generously spared these captives, and even restored
them to Hastings,[**] on condition that he should depart the kingdom.
But though the king had thus honorably rid himself of this dangerous
enemy, he had not entirely subdued or expelled the invaders. The piratical
Danes willingly followed in an excursion any prosperous leader who gave
them hopes of booty, but were not so easily induced to relinquish their
enterprise, or submit to return, baffled and without plunder, into their
native country. Great numbers of them, after the departure of Hastings,
seized and fortified Shobury, at the mouth of the Thames; and having left
a garrison there, they marched along the river, till they came to
Boddington, in the county of Glocester; where, being reënforced by some
Welsh, they threw up intrenchments, and prepared for their defence. The
king here surrounded them with the whole force of his dominions; [*] and
as he had now a certain prospect of victory, he resolved to trust nothing
to chance, but rather to master his enemies by famine than assault. They
were reduced to such extremities, that having eaten their own horses, and
having many of them perished with hunger,[**] they made a desperate sally
upon the English; and though the greater number fell in the action, a
considerable body made their escape.[***]
These roved about for some time in England, still pursued by the vigilance
of Alfred; they attacked Leicester with success, defended themselves in
Hartford, and then fled to Quatford, where they were finally broken and
subdued. The small remains of them either dispersed themselves among their
countrymen in Northumberland and East Anglia,[*] or had recourse again to
the sea, where they exercised piracy, under the command of Sigefert, a
Northumbrian.
This freebooter, well acquainted with Alfred’s naval preparations, had
framed vessels of a new construction, higher, and longer, and swifter than
those of the English; but the king soon discovered his superior skill, by
building vessels still higher, and longer, and swifter than those of the
Northumbrians; and falling upon them, while they were exercising their
ravages in the west, he took twenty of their ships; and having tried all
the prisoners at Winchester, he hanged them as pirates, the common enemies
of mankind.
The well-timed severity of this execution, together with the excellent
posture of defence established every where, restored full tranquillity in
England, and provided for the future security of the government. The East
Anglian and Northumbrian Danes, on the first appearance of Alfred upon
their frontiers, made anew the most humble submissions to him; and he
thought it prudent to take them under his immediate government, without
establishing over them a viceroy of their own nation.[*] The Welsh also
acknowledged his authority; and this great prince had now, by prudence,
and justice, and valor, established his sovereignty over all the southern
parts of the island, from the English Channel to the frontiers of
Scotland; when he died,
901.
in the vigor of his age and the full strength of his faculties, after a
glorious reign of twenty-nine years and a half,[**] in which he deservedly
attained the appellation of Alfred the Great, and the title of founder of
the English monarchy.
The merit of this prince, both in private and public life, may with
advantage be set in opposition to that of any monarch, or citizen, which
the annals of any age, or any nation, can present to us. He seems, indeed,
to be the model of that perfect character, which, under the denomination
of a sage or wise man, philosophers have been fond of delineating, rather
as a fiction of their imagination, than in hopes of ever seeing it really
existing; so happily were all his virtues tempered together, so justly
were they blended, and so powerfully did each prevent the other from
exceeding its proper boundaries. He knew how to reconcile the most
enterprising spirit with the coolest moderation; the most obstinate
perseverance with the easiest flexibility: the most severe justice with
the gentlest lenity; the greatest vigor in commanding with the most
perfect affability of deportment;[*] the highest capacity and inclination
for science with the most shining talents for action.
His civil and his military virtues are almost equally the objects of our
admiration; excepting only that the former, being more rare among princes,
as well as more useful, seem chiefly to challenge our applause. Nature,
also, as if desirous that so bright a production of her skill should be
set in the fairest light, had bestowed on him every bodily accomplishment—vigor
of limbs, dignity of shape and air, with a pleasing, engaging, and open
countenance. Fortune alone, by throwing him into that barbarous age,
deprived him of historians worthy to transmit his fame to posterity; and
we wish to see him delineated in more lively colors, and with more
particular strokes, that we may at least perceive some of those small
specks and blemishes, from which, as a man, it is impossible he could be
entirely exempted.
But we should give but an imperfect idea of Alfred’s merit, were we to
confine our narration to his military exploits, and were not more
particular in our account of his institutions for the execution of
justice, and of his zeal for the encouragement of arts and sciences.
After Alfred had subdued, and had settled or expelled the Danes, he found
the kingdom in the most wretched condition; desolated by the ravages of
those barbarians, and thrown into disorders which were calculated to
perpetuate its misery. Though the great armies of the Danes were broken,
the country was full of straggling troops of that nation, who, being
accustomed to live by plunder, were become incapable of industry; and who,
from the natural ferocity of their manners, indulged themselves in
committing violence, even beyond what was requisite to supply their
necessities. The English themselves, reduced to the most extreme indigence
by those continued depredations, had shaken off all bands of government;
and those who had been plundered to-day, betook themselves next day to a
like disorderly life, and, from despair, joined the robbers in pillaging
and ruining their fellow-citizens. These were the evils for which it was
necessary that the vigilance and activity of Alfred should provide a
remedy.
That he might render the execution of justice strict and regular, he
divided all England into counties: these counties he subdivided into
hundreds, and the hundreds into tithings. Every householder was answerable
for the behavior of his family and slaves, and even of his guests, if they
lived above three days in his house. Ten neighboring householders were
formed into one corporation, who, under the name of a tithing, decennary,
or fribourg, were answerable for each other’s conduct, and over whom, one
person, called a tithing-man, headbourg, or borsholder, was appointed to
preside. Every man was punished as an outlaw who did not register himself
in some tithing. And no man could change his habitation without a warrant
or certificate from the borsholder of the tithing to which he formerly
belonged.
When any person, in any tithing or decennary, was guilty of a crime, the
borsholder was summoned to answer for him; and if he were not willing to
be surety for his appearance, and his clearing himself, the criminal was
committed to prison, and there detained till his trial. If he fled, either
before or after finding sureties, the borsholder and decennary became
liable to inquiry, and were exposed to the penalties of law. Thirty-one
days were allowed them for producing the criminal; and if that time
elapsed without their being able to find him, the borsholder, with two
other members of the decennary, was obliged to appear, and, together with
three chief members of the three neighboring decennaries, (making twelve
in all,) to swear that his decennary was free from all privity, both of
the crime committed, and of the escape of the criminal. If the borsholder
could not find such a number to answer for their innocence, the decennary
was compelled by fine to make satisfaction to the king, according to the
degree of the offence.[*]
By this institution, every man was obliged, from his own interest, to keep
a watchful eye over the conduct of his neighbors; and was in a manner
surety for the behavior of those who were placed under the division to
which he belonged; whence these decennaries received the name of
frank-pledges.
Such a regular distribution of the people, with such a strict confinement
in their habitation, may not be necessary in times when men are more
inured to obedience and justice; and it might, perhaps, be regarded as
destructive of liberty and commerce in a polished state; but it was well
calculated to reduce that fierce and licentious people under the salutary
restraint of law and government. But Alfred took care to temper these
rigors by other institutions favorable to the freedom of the citizens; and
nothing could be more popular and liberal than his plan for the
administration of justice. The borsholder summoned together his whole
decennary to assist him in deciding any lesser differences which occurred
among the members of this small community. In affairs of greater moment,
in appeals from the decennary, or in controversies arising between members
of different decennaries, the cause was brought before the hundred, which
consisted of ten decennaries, or a hundred families of freemen, and which
was regularly assembled once in four weeks, for the deciding of causes.[*]
Their method of decision deserves to be noted, as being the origin of
juries; an institution admirable in itself, and the best calculated for
the preservation of liberty and the administration of justice that ever
was devised by the wit of man. Twelve freeholders were chosen, who, having
sworn, together with the hundreder, or presiding magistrate of that
division, to administer impartial justice,[**] proceeded to the
examination of that cause which was submitted to their jurisdiction. And
beside these monthly meetings of the hundred, there was an annual meeting,
appointed for a more general inspection of the police of the district; for
the inquiry into crimes, the correction of abuses in magistrates, and the
obliging of every person to show the decennary in which he was registered.
The people, in imitation of their ancestors, the ancient Germans,
assembled there in arms; whence a hundred was sometimes called a
wapentake, and its courts served both for the support of military
discipline and for the administration of civil justice.[***]
The next superior court to that of the hundred was the county court, which
met twice a year, after Michaelmas and Easter, and consisted of the
freeholders of the county, who possessed an equal vote in the decision of
causes. The bishop presided in this court, together with the alderman; and
the proper object of the court was, the receiving of appeals from the
hundreds and decennaries, and the deciding of such controversies as arose
between men of different hundreds. Formerly, the alderman possessed both
the civil and military authority; but Alfred, sensible that this
conjunction of powers rendered the nobility dangerous and independent,
appointed also a sheriff in each county, who enjoyed a coördinate
authority with the former in the judicial function.[*] His office also
impowered him to guard the rights of the crown in the county, and to levy
the fines imposed, which in that age formed no contemptible part of the
public revenue.
There lay an appeal, in default of justice, from all these courts, to the
king himself in council; and as the people, sensible of the equity and
great talents of Alfred, placed their chief confidence in him, he was soon
overwhelmed with appeals from all parts of England. He was indefatigable
in the despatch of these causes;[*] but finding that his time must be
entirely engrossed by this branch of duty, he resolved to obviate the
inconvenience, by correcting the ignorance or corruption of the inferior
magistrates, from which it arose.[**] He took care to have his nobility
instructed in letters and the laws; [***] he chose the earls and sheriffs
from among the men most celebrated for probity and knowledge; he punished
severely all malversation in office;[****] and he removed all the earls
whom he found unequal to the trust;[*****] allowing only some of the more
elderly to serve by a deputy, till their death should make room for more
worthy successors.
The better to guide the magistrates in the administration of justice,
Alfred framed a body of laws, which, though now lost, served long as the
basis of English jurisprudence, and is generally deemed the origin of what
is denominated the COMMON LAW. He appointed regular meetings of the states
of England twice a year, in London,[*] a city which he himself had
repaired and beautified, and which he thus rendered the capital of the
kingdom.
The similarity of these institutions to the customs of the ancient
Germans, to the practice of the other northern conquerors, and to the
Saxon laws during the Heptarchy, prevents us from regarding Alfred as the
sole author of this plan of government, and leads us rather to think,
that, like a wise-man, he contented himself with reforming, extending, and
executing the institutions which he found previously established. But, on
the whole, such success attended his legislation, that everything bore
suddenly a new face in England. Robberies and iniquities of all kinds were
repressed by the punishment or reformation of the criminals;[*] and so
exact was the general police, that Alfred, it is said, hung up, by way of
bravado, golden bracelets near the highways, and no man dared to touch
them.[**] Yet, amidst these rigors of justice, this great prince preserved
the most sacred regard to the liberty of his people; and it is a memorable
sentiment preserved in his will, that it was just the English should
forever remain as free as their own thoughts.[***]
As good morals and knowledge are almost inseparable, in every age, though
not in every individual, the care of Alfred for the encouragement of
learning among his subjects was another useful branch of his legislation,
and tended to reclaim the English from their former dissolute and
ferocious manners; but the king was guided, in this pursuit, less by
political views than by his natural bent and propensity towards letters.
When he came to the throne, he found the nation sunk into the grossest
ignorance and barbarism, proceeding from the continued disorders in the
government, and from the ravages of the Danes. The monasteries were
destroyed, the monks butchered or dispersed, their libraries burnt; and
thus the only seats of erudition in those ages were totally subverted.
Alfred himself complains, that on his accession he knew not one person,
south of the Thames, who could so much as interpret the Latin service, and
very few in the northern parts who had reached even that pitch of
erudition. But this prince invited over the most celebrated scholars from
all parts of Europe; he established schools every where for the
instruction of his people; he founded, at least repaired, the University
of Oxford, and endowed it with many privileges revenues, and immunities;
he enjoined by law all freeholders possessed of two hides[*] of land, or
more, to send their children to school, for their instruction; he gave
preferment both in church and state to such only as had made some
proficiency in knowledge; and by all these expedients he had the
satisfaction, before his death, to see a great change in the face of
affairs; and in a work of his, which is still extant, he congratulates
himself on the progress which learning, under his patronage, had already
made in England.
But the most effectual expedient, employed by Alfred for the encouragement
of learning, was his own example, and the constant assiduity with which,
notwithstanding the multiplicity and urgency of his affairs, he employed
himself in the pursuits of knowledge. He usually divided his time into
three equal portions: one was employed in sleep, and the refection of his
body by diet and exercise; another, in the despatch of business; a third,
in study and devotion; and that he might more exactly measure the hours,
he made use of burning tapers of equal length, which he fixed in
lanterns,[*] an expedient suited to that rude age, when the geometry of
dialling, and the mechanism of clocks and watches, were totally unknown.
And by such a regular distribution of his time though he often labored
under great bodily infirmities,[**] this martial hero, who fought in
person fifty-six battles by sea and land,[***] was able, during a life of
no extraordinary length, to acquire more knowledge, and even to compose
more books, than most studious men, though blessed with the greatest
leisure and application, have, in more fortunate ages, made the object of
their uninterrupted industry.
Sensible that the people, at all times, especially when their
understandings are obstructed by ignorance and bad education, are not much
susceptible of speculative instruction, Alfred endeavored to convey his
morality by apologues, parables, stories, apothegms, couched in poetry;
and besides propagating among his subjects former compositions of that
kind, which he found in the Saxon tongue,[*] he exercised his genius in
inventing works of a like nature,[**] as well as in translating from the
Greek the elegant Fables of Æsop. He also gave Saxon translations of
Orosius’s and Bede’s histories; and of Boethius concerning the consolation
of philosophy.[***] And he deemed it nowise derogatory from his other
great characters of sovereign, legislator, warrior, and politician, thus
to lead the way to his people in the pursuits of literature.
Meanwhile, this prince was not negligent in encouraging the vulgar and
mechanical arts, which have a more sensible, though not a closer
connection with the interests of society. He invited, from all quarters,
industrious foreigners to re-people his country, which had been desolated
by the ravages of the Danes.[*] He introduced and encouraged manufactures
of all kinds, and no inventor or improver of any ingenious art did he
suffer to go unrewarded.[**] He prompted men of activity to betake
themselves to navigation, to push commerce into the most remote countries,
and to acquire riches by propagating industry among their fellow-citizens.
He set apart a seventh portion of his own revenue for maintaining a number
of workmen, whom he constantly employed in rebuilding the ruined cities,
castles, palaces, and monasteries.[***] Even the elegances of life were
brought to him from the Mediterranean and the Indies;[****] and his
subjects, by seeing those productions of the peaceful arts, were taught to
respect the virtues of justice and industry, from which alone they could
arise. Both living and dead, Alfred was regarded by foreigners, no less
than by his own subjects, as the greatest prince, after Charlemagne, that
had appeared in Europe during several ages, and as one of the wisest and
best that had ever adorned the annals of any nation.
Alfred had, by his wife Ethelswitha, daughter of a Mercian earl, three
sons and three daughters. The eldest son, Edmund, died without issue, in
his father’s lifetime. The third, Ethelward, inherited his father’s
passion for letters, and lived a private life. The second, Edward,
succeeded to his power, and passes by the appellation of Edward the Elder,
being the first of that name who sat on the English throne.
EDWARD THE ELDER.
This prince, who equalled his father in military talents, though inferior
to him in knowledge and erudition,[*] found immediately on his accession,
a specimen of that turbulent life to which all princes, and even all
individuals, were exposed, in an age when men, less restrained by law or
justice, and less occupied by industry, had no aliment for their
inquietude out wars, insurrections, convulsions, rapine, and depredation.
Ethelwald, his cousin-german, son of King Ethelbert, the elder brother of
Alfred, insisted on his preferable title;[*] and arming his partisans,
took possession of Winburne, where he seemed determined to defend himself
to the last extremity, and to await the issue of his pretensions.[**] But
when the king approached the town with a great army, Ethelwald, having the
prospect of certain destruction, made his escape, and fled first into
Normandy, thence into Northumberland, where he hoped that the people, who
had been recently subdued by Alfred, and who were impatient of peace,
would, on the intelligence of that great prince’s death, seize the first
pretence or opportunity of rebellion. The event did not disappoint his
expectations: the Northumbrians declared for him,[***] and Ethelwald,
having thus connected his interests with the Danish tribes, went beyond
sea, and collecting a body of these freebooters, he excited the hopes of
all those who had been accustomed to subsist by rapine and violence.[****]
The East Anglian Danes joined his party; the Five-burgers, who were seated
in the heart of Mercia, began to put themselves in motion; and the English
found that they were again menaced with those convulsions from which the
valor and policy of Alfred had so lately rescued them. The rebels, headed
by Ethelwald, made an incursion into the counties of Glocester, Oxford,
and Wilts; and having exercised their ravages in these places, they
retired with their booty, before the king, who had assembled an army, was
able to approach them. Edward, however, who was determined that his
preparations should not be fruitless, conducted his forces into East
Anglia, and retaliated the injuries which the inhabitants had committed,
by spreading the like devastation among them. Satiated with revenge, and
loaded with booty, he gave orders to retire; but the authority of those
ancient kings, which was feeble in peace, was not much better established
in the field; and the Kentish men, greedy of more spoil, ventured,
contrary to repeated orders, to stay behind him, and to take up their
quarters in Bury. This disobedience proved, in the issue, fortunate to
Edward. The Danes assaulted the Kentish men, but met with so vigorous a
resistance, that, though they gained the field of battle, they bought that
advantage by the loss of their bravest leaders, and, among the rest, by
that of Ethelwald, who perished in the action.[*] The king, freed from the
fear of so dangerous a competitor, made peace on advantageous terms with
the East Angles.[**]
In order to restore England to such a state of tranquillity as it was then
capable of attaining, nought was wanting but the subjection of the
Northumbrians, who, assisted by the scattered Danes in Mercia, continually
infested the bowels of the kingdom. Edward, in order to divert the force
of these enemies, prepared a fleet to attack them by sea, hoping that when
his ships appeared on their coast, they must at least remain at home, and
provide for their defence. But the Northumbrians were less anxious to
secure their own property, than greedy to commit spoil on their enemy;
and, concluding that the chief strength of the English was embarked on
board the fleet, they thought the opportunity favorable, and entered
Edward’s territories with all their forces. The king, who was prepared
against this event, attacked them, on their return, at Tetenhall in the
county of Stafford, put them to rout, recovered all the booty, and pursued
them with great slaughter into their own country.
All the rest of Edward’s reign was a scene of continued and successful
action against the Northumbrians, the East Angles, the Five-burgers, and
the foreign Danes, who invaded him from Normandy and Brittany. Nor was he
less provident in putting his kingdom in a posture of defence, than
vigorous in assaulting the enemy. He fortified the towns of Chester,
Eddesbury, Warwick, Cherbury, Buckingham, Towcester, Maldon, Huntingdon,
and Colchester. He fought two signal battles at Temsford and Maldon.[*]
He vanquished Thurketill, a great Danish chief, and obliged him to retire
with his followers into France, in quest of spoil and adventures. He
subdued the East Angles, and forced them to swear allegiance to him: he
expelled the two rival princes of Northumberland, Reginald and Sidroc, and
acquired, for the present, the dominion of that province: several tribes
of the Britons were subjected by him; and even the Scots, who, during the
reign of Egbert, had, under the conduct of Kenneth, their king, increased
their power by the final subjection of the Picts, were nevertheless
obliged to give him marks of submission.[*] In all these fortunate
achievements, he was assisted by the activity and prudence of his sister
Ethelfleda, who was widow of Ethelbert, earl of Mercia, and who after her
husband’s death, retained the government of that province. This princess,
who had been reduced to extremity in childbed, refused afterwards all
commerce with her husband; not from any weak superstition, as was common
in that age, but because she deemed all domestic occupations unworthy of
her masculine and ambitious spirit.[**] She died before her brother; and
Edward, during the remainder of his reign, took upon himself the immediate
government of Mercia, which before had been intrusted to the authority of
a governor.[***] The Saxon Chronicle fixes the death of this prince in 925
his kingdom devolved to Athelstan, his natural son.
ATHELSTAN.
925.
The stain in this prince’s birth was not, in those times, deemed so
considerable as to exclude him from the throne; and Athelstan, being of an
age, as well as of a capacity, fitted for government, obtained the
preference to Edward’s younger children, who, though legitimate, were of
too tender years to rule a nation so much exposed both to foreign invasion
and to domestic convulsions. Some discontents, however, prevailed on his
accession; and Alfred, a nobleman of considerable power, was thence
encouraged to enter into a conspiracy against him. This incident is
related by historians, with circumstances which the reader, according to
the degree of credit he is disposed to give them, may impute either to the
invention of monks, who forged them, or to their artifice, who found means
of making them real. Alfred, it is said, being seized upon strong
suspicions, but without any certain proof, firmly denied the conspiracy
imputed to him; and, in order to justify himself, he offered to swear to
his innocence before the pope, whose person, it was supposed, contained
such superior sanctity, that no one could presume to give a false oath in
his presence, and yet hope to escape the immediate vengeance of Heaven.
The king accepted of the condition, and Alfred was conducted to Rome,
where, either conscious of his innocence, or neglecting the superstition
to which he appealed, he ventured to make the oath required of him, before
John, who then filled the papal chair; but no sooner had he pronounced the
fatal words, than he fell into convulsions, of which, three days after, he
expired. The king, as if the guilt, of the conspirator were now fully
ascertained, confiscated his estate, and made a present of it to the
monastery of Malmesbury,[*] secure that no doubts would ever thenceforth
be entertained concerning the justice of his proceedings.
The dominion of Athelstan was no sooner established over his English
subjects, than he endeavored to give security to the government, by
providing against the insurrections of the Danes, which had created so
much disturbance to his predecessors. He marched into Northumberland; and,
finding that the inhabitants bore with impatience the English yoke, he
thought it prudent to confer on Sithric, a Danish nobleman, the title of
king, and to attach him to his interests by giving him his sister Editha
in marriage. But this policy proved by accident the source of dangerous
consequences. Sithric died in a twelvemonth after; and his two sons by a
former marriage, Anlaf and Godfrid, founding pretensions on their father’s
elevation, assumed the sovereignty, without waiting for Athelstan’s
consent. They were soon expelled by the power of that monarch; and the
former took shelter in Ireland, as the latter did in Scotland, where he
received, during some time, protection from Constantine, who then enjoyed
the crown of that kingdom. The Scottish prince, however, continually
solicited, and even menaced by Athelstan, at last promised to deliver up
his guest; but secretly detesting this treachery, he gave Godfrid warning
to make his escape;[*] and that fugitive, after subsisting by piracy for
some years, freed the king, by his death, from any further anxiety.
Athelstan, resenting Constantine’s behavior, entered Scotland with an
army, and ravaging the country with impunity,[**] he reduced the Scots to
such distress, that their king was content to preserve his crown by making
submissions to the enemy. The English historians assert,[***] that
Constantine did homage to Athelstan for his kingdom; and they add, that
the latter prince, being urged by his courtiers to push the present
favorable opportunity, and entirely subdue Scotland, replied, that it was
more glorious to confer than conquer kingdoms.[****]
But those annals, so uncertain and imperfect in themselves, lose all
credit when national prepossessions and animosities have place; and, on
that account, the Scotch historians, who, without having any more
knowledge of the matter, strenuously deny the fact, seem more worthy of
belief.
Constantine, whether he owed the retaining of his crown to the moderation
of Athelstan, who was unwilling to employ all his advantages against him,
or to the policy of that prince who esteemed the humiliation of an enemy a
greater acquisition than the subjection of a discontented and mutinous
people thought the behavior of the English monarch more an object of
resentment than of gratitude. He entered into a confederacy with Anlaf,
who had collected a great body of Danish pirates, whom he found hovering
in the Irish seas, and with some Welsh princes, who were terrified at the
growing power of Athelstan; and all these allies made by concert an
irruption with a great army into England. Athelstan, collecting his
forces, met the enemy hear Brunsbury, in Northumberland, and defeated them
in a general engagement. This victory was chiefly ascribed to the valor of
Turketul, the English chancellor; for, in those turbulent ages, no one was
so much occupied in civil employments as wholly to lay aside the military
character.[*]
There is a circumstance, not unworthy of notice, which historians relate,
with regard to the transactions of this war. Anlaf, on the approach of the
English army, thought that he could not venture too much to insure a
fortunate event, and employing the artifice formerly practised by Alfred
against the Danes, he entered the enemy’s camp, in the habit of a
minstrel. The stratagem was, for the present, attended with like success.
He gave such satisfaction to the soldiers, who flocked about him, that
they introduced him to the king’s tent; and Anlaf, having played before
that prince and his nobles during their repast, was dismissed with a
handsome reward. His prudence kept him from refusing the present; Dut his
pride determined him, on his departure, to bury it while he fancied that
he was unespied by all the world. But a soldier in Athelstan’s camp, who
had formerly served under Anlaf, had been struck with some suspicion on
the first appearance of the minstrel, and was engaged by curiosity to
observe all his motions. He regarded this last action as a full proof of
Anlaf’s disguise; and he immediately carried the intelligence to
Athelstan, who blamed him for not sooner giving him information, that he
might have seized his enemy. But the soldier told him, that, as he had
formerly sworn fealty to Anlaf, he could never have pardoned himself the
treachery of betraying and ruining his ancient master; and that Athelstan
himself, after such an instance of his criminal conduct, would have had
equal reason to distrust his allegiance. Athelstan, having praised the
generosity of the soldier’s principles, reflected on the incident, which
he foresaw might be attended with important consequences. He removed his
station in the camp; and as a bishop arrived that evening with a
reënforcement of troops, (for the ecclesiastics were then no less warlike
than the civil magistrates,) he occupied with his train that very place
which had been left vacant by the king’s removal. The precaution of
Athelstan was found prudent; for no sooner had darkness fallen, than Anlaf
broke into the camp, and hastening directly to the place where he had left
the king’s tent, put the bishop to death, before he had time to prepare
for his defence.[*]
There fell several Danish and Welsh princes in the action of
Brunsbury;[**] and Constantine and Anlaf made their escape with
difficulty, leaving the greater part of their army on the field of battle.
After this success, Athelstan enjoyed his crown in tranquillity; and he is
regarded as one of the ablest and most active of those ancient princes. He
passed a remarkable law, which was calculated for the encouragement of
commerce, and which it required some liberality of mind in that age to
have devised—that a merchant, who had made three long sea voyages on
his own account, should be admitted to the rank of a thane or gentleman.
This prince died at Glocester, in the year 94l,[***] after a reign of
sixteen years, and was succeeded by Edmund, his legitimate brother.
EDMUND.
941.
Edmund, on his accession, met with disturbance from the restless
Northumbrians, who lay in wait for every opportunity of breaking into
rebellion. But marching suddenly with his forces into their country, he so
overawed the rebels that they endeavored to appease him by the most humble
submissions.[*]
In order to give him the surer pledge of their obedience, they offered to
embrace Christianity; a religion which the English Danes had frequently
professed, when reduced to difficulties, but which, for that very reason,
they regarded as a badge of servitude, and shook off as soon as a
favorable opportunity offered. Edmund, trusting little to their sincerity
in this forced submission, used the precaution of removing the
Five-burgers from the towns of Mercia, in which they had been allowed to
settle; because it was always found that they took advantage of every
commotion, and introduced the rebellious or foreign Danes into the heart
of the kingdom. He also conquered Cumberland from the Britons; and
conferred that territory on Malcolm, king of Scotland, on condition that
he should do him homage for it, and protect the north from all future
incursions of the Danes.
Edmund was young when he came to the crown; yet was his reign short, as
his death was violent. One day, as he was solemnizing a festival in the
county of Glocester, he remarked that Leolf, a notorious robber, whom he
had sentenced to banishment, had yet the boldness to enter the hall where
he himself dined, and to sit at table with his attendants. Enraged at this
insolence, he ordered him to leave the room; but on his refusing to obey,
the king, whose temper, naturally choleric, was inflamed by this
additional insult, leaped on him himself, and seized him by the hair; but
the ruffian, pushed to extremity, drew his dagger, and gave Edmund a wound
of which he immediately expired. This event happened in the year 946, and
in the sixth year of the king’s reign. Edmund left male issue, but so
young, that they were incapable of governing the kingdom; and his brother,
Edred, was promoted to the throne.
EDRED
946.
The reign of this prince, as those of his predecessors, was disturbed by
the rebellions and incursions of the Northumbrian Danes, who, though
frequently quelled, were never entirely subdued, nor had ever paid a
sincere allegiance to the crown of England. The accession of a new king
seemed to them a favorable opportunity for shaking off the yoke; but on
Edred’s appearance with an army, they made him their wonted submissions;
and the king, having wasted the country with fire and sword, as a
punishment of their rebellion, obliged them to renew their oaths of
allegiance; and he straight retired with his forces. The obedience of the
Danes lasted no longer than the present terror. Provoked at the
devastations of Edred, and even reduced by necessity to subsist on
plunder, they broke into a new rebellion, and were again subdued; but the
king, now instructed by experience, took greater precautions against their
future revolt. He fixed English garrisons in their most considerable
towns, and placed over them an English governor, who might watch all their
motions, and suppress any insurrection on its first appearance. He obliged
also Malcolm, king of Scotland, to renew his homage for the lands which he
held in England.
Edred, though not unwarlike, nor unfit for active life, lay under the
influence of the lowest superstition, and had blindly delivered over his
conscience to the guidance of Dunstan commonly called St. Dunstan,
abbot of Glastonbury, whom he advanced to the highest offices, and who
covered, under the appearance of sanctity, the most violent and most
insolent ambition. Taking advantage of the implicit confidence reposed in
him by the king, this churchman imported into England a new order of
monks, who much changed the state of ecclesiastical affairs, and excited,
on their first establishment, the most violent commotions.
From the introduction of Christianity among the Saxons, there had been
monasteries in England; and these establishments had extremely multiplied
by the donations of the princes and nobles, whose superstition, derived
from their ignorance and precarious life, and increased by remorses for
the crimes into which they were so frequently betrayed, knew no other
expedient for appeasing the Deity, than a profuse liberality towards the
ecclesiastics. But the monks had hitherto been a species of secular
priests, who lived after the manner of the present canons or prebendaries,
and were both intermingled, in some degree, with the world, and endeavored
to render themselves useful to it. They were employed in the education of
youth;[*] they had the disposal of their own time and industry; they were
not subjected to the rigid rules of an order; they had made no vows of
implicit to their superiors;[*] and they still retained the choice,
without quitting the convent, either of a married or a single life.[**]
But a mistaken piety had produced in Italy a new species of monks, called
Benedictines; who, carrying farther the plan sible principles of
mortification, secluded themselves entirely from the world, renounced all
claim to liberty, and made a merit of the most inviolable chastity. These
practices and principles, which superstition at first engendered, were
greedily embraced and promoted by the policy of the court of Rome. The
Roman pontiff, who was making every day great advances towards an absolute
sovereignty over the ecclesiastics, perceived that the celibacy of the
clergy alone could break off entirely their connection with the civil
power, and, depriving them of every other object of ambition, engage them
to promote, with unceasing industry, the grandeur of their own order. He
was sensible that so long as the monks were indulged in marriage, and were
permitted to rear families, they never could be subjected to strict
discipline, or reduced to that slavery, under their superiors, which was
requisite to procure to the mandates, issued from Rome, a ready and
zealous obedience. Celibacy, therefore, began to be extolled as the
indispensable duty of priests; and the pope undertook to make all the
clergy, throughout the western world, renounce at once the privilege of
marriage; a fortunate policy, but at the same time an undertaking the most
difficult of any, since he had the strongest propensities of human nature
to encounter, and found that the same connections with the female sex,
which generally encourage devotion, were here unfavorable to the success
of his project. It is no wonder, therefore, that this master-stroke of art
should have met with violent contradiction, and that the interests of the
hierarchy, and the inclinations of the priests, being now placed in this
singular opposition, should, notwithstanding the continued efforts of Rome
have retarded the execution of that bold scheme during the course of near
three centuries.
Dunstan was born of noble parents in the west of England; and being
educated under his uncle Aldhelm, then archbishop of Canterbury, had
betaken himself to the ecclesiastical life, and had acquired some
character in the court of Edmund. He was, however, represented to that
prince as a man of licentious manners;[*] and finding his fortune blasted
by these suspicions, his ardent ambition prompted him to repair his
indiscretions, by running into an opposite extreme. He secluded himself
entirely from the world; he framed a cell so small, that he could neither
stand erect in it, nor stretch out his limbs during his repose; and he
here employed himself perpetually either in devotion or in manual
labor.[**] It is probable that his brain became gradually crazed by these
solitary occupations, and that his head was filled with chimeras, which,
being believed by himself and his stupid votaries, procured him the
general character of sanctity among the people. He fancied that the devil,
among the frequent visits which he paid him, was one day more earnest than
usual in his temptations, till Dunstan, provoked at his importunity,
seized him by the nose with a pair of red-hot pincers, as he put his head
into the cell; and he held him there till that malignant spirit made the
whole neighborhood resound with his bellowings. This notable exploit was
seriously credited and extolled by the public; it is transmitted to
posterity by one, who, considering the age in which he lived, may pass for
a writer of some elegance;[***] and it insured to Dunstan a reputation
which no real piety, much less virtue, could, even in the most enlightened
period, have ever procured him with the people.
Supported by the character obtained in his retreat, Dunstan appeared again
in the world; and gained such an ascendent over Edred who had succeeded to
the crown, as made him not only the director of that prince’s conscience,
but his counsellor in the most momentous affairs of government. He was
placed at the head of the treasury,[*] and being thus possessed both of
power at court, and of credit with the populace, he was enabled to attempt
with success the most arduous enterprises. Finding that his advancement
had been owing to the opinion of his austerity, he professed himself a
partisan of the rigid monastic rules; and after introducing that
reformation into the convents of Glastonbury and Abingdon, he endeavored
to render it universal in the kingdom.
The minds of men were already well prepared for this innovation. The
praises of an inviolable chastity had been carried to the highest
extravagance by some of the first preachers of Christianity among the
Saxons: the pleasures of love had been represented as incompatible with
Christian perfection; and a total abstinence from all commerce with the
sex was deemed such a meritorious penance, as was sufficient to atone for
the greatest enormities. The consequence seemed natural, that those, at
least, who officiated at the altar, should be clear of this pollution; and
when the doctrine of transubstantiation, which was now creeping in,[**]
was once fully established, the reverence to the real body of Christ in
the eucharist bestowed on this argument an additional force and influence.
The monks knew how to avail themselves of all these popular topics, and to
set off their own character to the best advantage. They affected the
greatest austerity of life and manners; they indulged themselves in the
highest strains of devotion; they inveighed bitterly against the vices and
pretended luxury of the age; they were particularly vehement against the
dissolute lives of the secular clergy, their rivals; every instance of
libertinism in any individual of that order was represented as a general
corruption; and where other topics of defamation were wanting, their
marriage became a sure subject of invective, and their wives received the
name of concubine, or other more opprobrious appellation. The secular
clergy, on the other hand, who were numerous and rich, and possessed of
the ecclesiastical dignities, defended themselves with vigor and
endeavored to retaliate upon their adversaries. The people were thrown
into agitation; and few instances occur of more violent dissensions,
excited by the most material differences in religion; or rather by the
most frivolous; since it is a just remark, that the more affinity there is
between theological parties, the greater commonly is their animosity.
The progress of the monks, which was become considerable, was somewhat
retarded by the death of Edred, their partisan, who expired after a reign
of nine years. He left children; but as they were infants, his nephew
Edwy, son of Edmund, was placed on the throne.
EDWY
955.
Edwy, at the time of his accession, was not above sixteen or seventeen
years of age, was possessed of the most amiable figure, and was even
endowed, according to authentic accounts, with the most promising
virtues.[*] He would have been the favorite of his people, had he not
unhappily, at the commencement of his reign, been engaged in a controversy
with the monks, whose rage neither the graces of the body nor virtues of
the mind could mitigate, and who have pursued his memory with the same
unrelenting vengeance, which they exercised against his person and dignity
during his short and unfortunate reign. There was a beautiful princess of
the royal blood, called Elgiva, who had made impression on the tender
heart of Edwy; and as he was of an age when the force of the passions
first begins to be felt, he had ventured, contrary to the advice of his
gravest counsellors, and the remonstrances of the more dignified
ecclesiastics,[**] to espouse her; though she was within the degrees of
affinity prohibited by the canon law.[***]
As the austerity affected by the monks made them particularly violent on
this occasion, Edwy entertained a strong prepossession against them; and
seemed, on that account, determined not to second their project of
expelling the seculars from all the convents, and of possessing themselves
of those rich establishments. War was therefore declared between the king
and the monks; and the former soon found reason to repent his provoking
such dangerous enemies. On the day of his coronation, his nobility were
assembled in a great hall, and were indulging themselves in that riot and
disorder, which, from the example of their German ancestors, had become
habitual to the English;[*] when Edwy, attracted by softer pleasures,
retired into the queen’s apartment, and in that privacy gave reins to his
fondness towards his wife, which was only moderately checked by the
presence of her mother. Dunstan conjectured the reason of the king’s
retreat; and, carrying along with him Odo, archbishop of Canterbury, over
whom he had gained an absolute ascendant, he burst into the apartment,
upbraided Edwy with his lasciviousness, probably bestowed on the queen the
most opprobrious epithet that can be applied to her sex, and tearing him
from her arms, pushed him back, in a disgraceful manner, into the banquet
of the nobles.[**] Edwy, though young, and opposed by the prejudices of
the people, found an opportunity of taking revenge for this public insult.
He questioned Dunstan concerning the administration of the treasury during
the reign of his predecessor;[***] and when that minister refused to give
any account of money expended, as he affirmed, by orders of the late king,
he accused him of malversation in his office, and banished him the
kingdom. But Dunstan’s cabal was not inactive during his absence: they
filled the public with high panegyrics on his sanctity: they exclaimed
against the impiety of the king and queen; and having poisoned the minds
of the people by these declamations, they proceeded to still more
outrageous acts of violence against the royal authority. Archbishop Odo
sent into the palace a party of soldiers, who seized the queen; and having
burned her face with a rod-hot iron, in order to destroy that fatal beauty
which had seduced Edwy, they carried her by force into Ireland, there to
remain in perpetual exile.[****] Edwy, finding it in vain to resist, was
obliged to consent to his divorce, which was pronounced by Odo;[*****] and
a catastrophe still more dismal awaited the unhappy Elgiva. That amiable
princess being cured of her wounds, and having even obliterated the scars
with which Odo had hoped to deface her beauty, returned into England, and
was flying to the embraces of the king, whom she still regarded as her
husband; when she fell into the hands of a party whom the primate had sent
to intercept her. Nothing but her death could now give security to Odo and
the monks, and the most cruel death was requisite to satiate their
vengeance. She was hamstringed; and expired a few days after at Glocester
in the most acute torments.[******]
The English, blinded with superstition, instead of being shocked with this
inhumanity, exclaimed that the misfortunes of Edwy and his consort were a
just judgment for their dissolute contempt of the ecclesiastical statutes.
They even proceeded to rebellion against their sovereign; and having
placed Edgar at their head, the younger brother of Edwy, a boy of thirteen
years of age, they soon put him in possession of Mercia, Northumberland,
East Anglia, and chased Edwy into the southern counties. That it might not
be doubtful at whose instigation this revolt was undertaken, Dunstan
returned into England, and took upon him the government of Edgar and his
party. He was first installed in the see of Worcester, then in that of
London,[**] and, on Odo’s death, and the violent expulsion of Brithelm,
his successor, in that of Canterbury;[***] of all which he long kept
possession. Odo is transmitted to us by the monks under the character of a
man of piety: Dunstan was even canonized; and is one of those numerous
saints of the same stamp, who disgrace the Romish calendar. Meanwhile the
unhappy Edwy was excommunicated,[****] and pursued with unrelenting
vengeance; but his death, which happened soon after, freed his enemies
from all further inquietude, and gave Edgar peaceable possession of the
government.[*****] 2
EDGAR
959.
This prince, who mounted the throne in such early youth, soon discovered
an excellent capacity in the administration of affairs, and his reign is
one of the most fortunate that we meet with in the ancient English
history. He showed no aversion to war; he made the wisest preparations
against invaders; and, by this vigor and foresight, he was enabled without
any danger of suffering insults, to indulge his inclination towards peace,
and to employ himself in supporting and improving the internal government
of his kingdom. He maintained a body of disciplined troops; which he
quartered in the north, in order to keep the mutinous Northumbrians in
subjection, and to repel the inroads of the Scots. He built an supported a
powerful navy;[*] and that he might retain the seamen in the practice of
their duty, and always present a formidable armament to his enemies, he
stationed three squadrons off the coast, and ordered them to make, from
time to time, the circuit of his dominions.[**] 3 The foreign Danes dared not
to approach a country which appeared in such a posture of defence: the
domestic Danes saw inevitable destruction to be the consequence of their
tumults and insurrections: the neighboring sovereigns, the king of
Scotland, the princes of Wales, of the Isle of Man, of the Orkneys, and
even of Ireland,[***] were reduced to pay submission to so formidable a
monarch. He carried his superiority to a great height, and might have
excited a universal combination against him, had not his power been so
well established, as to deprive his enemies of hopes of shaking it It is
said, that residing once at Chester, and having purposed to go by water to
the abbey of St. John the Baptist, he obliged eight of his tributary
princes to row him in a barge upon the Dee.[****] The English historians
are fond of mentioning the name of Kenneth III., king of Scots, among the
number: the Scottish historians either deny the fact, or assert that their
king, if ever he acknowledged himself a vassal to Edgar, did him homage,
not for his crown, but for the dominions which he held in England.
But the chief means by which Edgar maintained his authority, and preserved
public peace, was the paying of court to Dunstan and the monks, who had at
first placed him on the throne, and who, by their pretensions to superior
sanctity and purity of manners, had acquired an ascendant over the people.
He favored their scheme for dispossessing the secular canons of all the
monasteries;[*****] he bestowed preferment on none but their partisans; he
allowed Dunstan to resign the see of Worcester into the hands of Oswald,
one of his creatures; [******] and to place Ethelwold, another of them, in
that of Winchester;[*******] he consulted these prelates in the
administration of all ecclesiastical and even in that of many civil
affairs; and though the vigor of his own genius prevented him from being
implicitly guided by them, the king and the bishops found such advantages
in their mutual agreement, that they always acted in concert, and united
their influence in preserving the peace and tranquillity of the kingdom.
In order to complete the great work of placing the new order of monks in
all the convents, Edgar summoned a general council of the prelates, and
the heads of the religious orders. He here inveighed against the dissolute
lives of the secular clergy; the smallness of their tonsure, which, it is
probable, maintained no longer any resemblance to the crown of thorns;
their negligence in attending the exercise of their function; their mixing
with the laity in the pleasures of gaming, hunting, dancing, and singing;
and their openly living with concubines, by which it is commonly supposed
he meant their wives. He then turned himself to Dunstan, the primate; and
in the name of King Edred, whom he supposed to look down from heaven with
indignation against all those enormities, he thus addressed him: “It is
you, Dunstan, by whose advice I founded monasteries, built churches, and
expended my treasure in the support of religion and religious houses. You
were my counsellor and assistant in all my schemes: you were the director
of my conscience: to you I was obedient in all things. When did you call
for supplies, which I refused you? Was my assistance ever wanting to the
poor? Did I deny support and establishments to the clergy and the
convents? Did I not hearken to your instructions, who told me that these
charities were, of all others, the most grateful to my Maker, and fixed a
perpetual fund for the support of religion? And are all our pious
endeavors now frustrated by the dissolute lives of the priests? Not that I
throw any blame on you: you have reasoned, besought, inculcated,
inveighed; but it now behoves you to use sharper and more vigorous
remedies; and conjoining your spiritual authority with the civil power, to
purge effectually the temple of God from thieves and intruders.”[*]
It is easy to imagine that this harangue had the desired effect; and that,
when the king and prelates thus concurred with popular prejudices, it was
not long before the monks prevailed, and established their new discipline
in almost all the convents.
We may remark, that the declamations against the secular clergy are, both
here and in all the historians, conveyed in general terms; and as that
order of men are commonly restrained by the decency of their character, it
is difficult to believe that the complaints against their dissolute
manners could be so universally just as is pretended. It is more probable
that the monks paid court to the populace by an affected austerity of
life; and representing the most innocent liberties taken by the other
clergy as great and unpardonable enormities, thereby prepared the way for
the increase of their own power and influence. Edgar, however, like a true
politician, concurred with the prevailing party; and he even indulged them
in pretensions, which, though they might, when complied with, engage the
monks to support royal authority during his own reign, proved afterwards
dangerous to his successors, and gave disturbance to the whole civil
power. He seconded the policy of the court of Rome, in granting to some
monasteries an exemption from episcopal jurisdiction; he allowed the
convents, even those of royal foundation, to usurp the election of their
own abbot; and he admitted their forgeries of ancient charters, by which,
from the pretended grant of former kings, they assumed many privileges and
immunities.[*]
These merits of Edgar have procured him the highest panegyrics from the
monks; and he is transmitted to us, not only under the character of a
consummate statesman and an active prince,—praises to which beseems
to have been justly entitled,—but under that of a great saint and a
man of virtue. But nothing could more betray both his hypocrisy in
inveighing against the licentiousness of the secular clergy, and the
interested spirit of his partisans in bestowing such eulogies on his
piety, than the usual tenor of his conduct, which was licentious to the
highest degree, and violated every law, human and divine. Yet those very
monks, who, as we are told by Ingulf, a very ancient historian, had no
idea of any moral or religious merit, except chastity and obedience, not
only connived at his enormities, but loaded him with the greatest praises.
History, however, has preserved some instances of his amours, from which,
as from a specimen, we may form a conjecture of the rest.
Edgar broke into a convent, carried off Editha, a nun, by force, and even
committed violence on her person.[**]
For this act of sacrilege he was reprimanded by Dunstan; and that he might
reconcile himself to the church, he was obliged, not to separate from his
mistress, but to abstain from wearing his crown during seven years, and to
deprive himself so long of that vain ornament;[*] a punishment very
unequal to that which had been inflicted on the unfortunate Edwy, who, for
a marriage, which in the strictest sense could only deserve the name of
irregular, was expelled his kingdom, saw his queen treated with singular
barbarity, was loaded with calumnies, and has been represented to us under
the most odious colors. Such is the ascendant which may be attained, by
hypocrisy and cabal, over mankind.
There was another mistress of Edgar’s, with whom he first formed a
connection by a kind of accident. Passing one day by Andover, he lodged in
the house of a nobleman, whose daughter, being endowed with all the graces
of person and behavior, inflamed him at first sight with the highest
desire; and he resolved by any expedient to gratify it. As he had not
leisure to employ courtship or address for attaining his purpose, he went
directly to her mother, declared the violence of his passion, and desired
that the young lady might be allowed to pass that very night with him. The
mother was a woman of virtue, and determined not to dishonor her daughter
and her family by compliance; but being well acquainted with the
impetuosity of the king’s temper, she thought it would be easier, as well
as safer, to deceive than refuse him. She feigned therefore a submission
to his will; but secretly ordered a waiting maid, of no disagreeable
figure, to steal into the king’s bed, after all the company should be
retired to rest. In the morning, before daybreak, the damsel, agreeably to
the injunctions of her mistress, offered to retire; but Edgar, who had no
reserve in his pleasures, and whose love to his bed-fallow was rather
inflamed by enjoyment, refused his consent, and employed force and
entreaties to detain her. Elfleda (for that was the name of the maid)
trusting to her own charms, and to the love with which, she hoped, she had
now inspired the king, made probably but a faint resistance; and the
return of light discovered the deceit to Edgar. He had passed a night so
much to his satisfaction, that he expressed no displeasure with the old
lady on account of her fraud; his love was transferred to Elfleda; she
became his favorite mistress, and maintained her ascendant over him, till
his marriage with Elfrida.[*]
The circumstances of his marriage with this lady were more singular and
more criminal. Elfrida was daughter and heir of Olgar, earl of Devonshire;
and though she had been educated in the country, and had never appeared at
court, she had filled all England with the reputation of her beauty. Edgar
himself, who was indifferent to no accounts of this nature, found his
curiosity excited by the frequent panegyrics which he heard of Elfrida;
and reflecting on her noble birth, he resolved, if he found her charms
answerable to their fame, to obtain possession of her on honorable terms.
He communicated his intention to Earl Athelwold, his favorite, but used
the precaution, before he made any advances to her parents, to order that
nobleman, on some pretence, to pay them a visit, and to bring him a
certain account of the beauty of their daughter. Athelwold, when
introduced to the young lady, found general report to have fallen short of
the truth; and being actuated by the most vehement love, he determined to
sacrifice to this new passion his fidelity to his master, and to the trust
reposed in him. He returned to Edgar, and told him, that the riches alone,
and high quality of Elfrida, had been the ground of the admiration paid
her, and that her charms, far from being any wise extraordinary would have
been overlooked in a woman of inferior station. When he had, by this
deceit, diverted the king from his purpose he took an opportunity, after
some interval, of turning again the conversation on Elfrida; he remarked,
that though the parentage and fortune of the lady had not produced on him,
as on others, any illusion with regard to her beauty, he could not forbear
reflecting, that she would, on the whole, be an advantageous match for
him, and might, by her birth and riches, make him sufficient compensation
for the homeliness of her person. If the king, therefore, gave his
approbation he was determined to make proposals in his own behalf to the
earl of Devonshire, and doubted not to obtain his, as well as the young
lady’s, consent to the marriage. Edgar, pleased with an expedient for
establishing his favorite’s fortune, not only exhorted him to execute his
purpose but forwarded his success by his recommendations to the parents of
Elfrida; and Athelwold was soon made happy in the possession of his
mistress. Dreading, however, the detection of the artifice, he employed
every pretence for detaining Elfrida in the country, and for keeping her
at a distance from Edgar.
The violent passion of Athelwold had rendered him blind to the necessary
consequences which must attend his conduct, and the advantages which the
numerous enemies, that always pursue a royal favorite, would, by its
means, be able to make against him. Edgar was soon informed of the truth;
but before he would execute vengeance on Athelwold’s treachery, he
resolved to satisfy himself, with his own eyes, of the certainty and full
extent of his guilt. He told him that he intended to pay him a visit in
his castle, and be introduced to the acquaintance of his new-married wife;
and Athelwold, as he could not refuse the honor, only craved leave to go
before him a few hours, that he might the better prepare every thing for
his reception. He then discovered the whole matter to Elfrida; and begged
her, if she had any regard either to her own honor or his life, to conceal
from Edgar, by every circumstance of dress and behavior, that fatal beauty
which had seduced him from fidelity to his friend, and had betrayed him
into so many falsehoods. Elfrida promised compliance, though nothing was
farther from her intentions. She deemed herself little beholden to
Athelwold for a passion which had deprived her of a crown; and knowing the
force of her own charms, she did not despair, even yet, of reaching that
dignity, of which her husband’s artifice had bereaved her. She appeared
before the king with all the advantages which the richest attire, and the
most engaging airs, could bestow upon her, and she excited at once in his
bosom the highest love towards herself, and the most furious desire of
revenge against her husband. He knew, however, how to dissemble these
passions; and seducing Athelwold into a wood, on pretence of hunting, he
stabbed him with his own hand, and soon after publicly espoused
Elfrida.[*]
Before we conclude our account of this reign, we must mention two
circumstances, which are remarked by historians. The reputation of Edgar
allured a great number of foreigners to visit his court; and he gave them
encouragement to settle in England.[*]
We are told that they imported all the vices of their respective
countries, and contributed to corrupt the simple manners of the
natives;[*] but as this simplicity of manners so highly and often so
injudiciously extolled, did not preserve them from barbarity and
treachery, the greatest of all vices, and the most incident to a rude,
uncultivated people, we ought perhaps to deem their acquaintance with
foreigners rather an advantage; as it tended to enlarge their views, and
to cure them of those illiberal prejudices and rustic manners to which
islanders are often subject.
Another remarkable incident of this reign was the extirpation of wolves
from England. This advantage was attained by the industrious policy of
Edgar. He took great pains in hunting and pursuing those ravenous animals;
and when he found that all that escaped him had taken shelter in the
mountains and forests of Wales, he changed the tribute of money imposed on
the Welsh princes of Athelstan, his predecessor,[**] into an annual
tribute of three hundred heads of wolves; which produced such diligence in
hunting them, that the animal has been no more seen in this island.
Edgar died after a reign of sixteen years, and in the thirty-third of his
age. He was succeeded by Edward, whom he had by his first marriage with
the daughter of Earl Ordmer.
EDWARD THE MARTYR
957.
The succession of this prince, who was only fifteen years of age at his
father’s death, did not take place without much difficulty and opposition.
Elfrida, his step-mother, had a son, Ethelred, seven years old, whom she
attempted to raise to the throne: she affirmed that Edgar’s marriage with
the mother of Edward was exposed to insuperable objections; and as she had
possessed great credit with her husband, she had found means to acquire
partisans, who seconded all her pretensions. But the title of Edward was
supported by many advantages. He was appointed successor by the will of
his father;[*] he was approaching to man’s estate, and might soon be able
to take into his own hands the reins of government; the principal
nobility, dreading the imperious temper of Clirida, were averse to her
son’s government, which must enlarge her authority, and probably put her
in possession of the regency; above all, Dunstan, whose character of
sanctity had given him the highest credit with the people, hud espoused
the cause of Edward, over whom he had already acquired a great
ascendant;[**] and he was determined to execute the will of Edgar in his
favor. To cut off all opposite pretensions, Dunstan resolutely anointed
and crowned the young prince at Kingston; and the whole kingdom, without
further dispute, submitted to him.[***]
It was of great importance to Dunstan and the monks to place on the throne
a king favorable to their cause; the secular clergy had still partisans in
England, who wished to support them in the possession of the convents, and
of the ecclesiastical authority. On the first intelligence of Edgar’s
death, Alfere, duke of Mercia, expelled the new orders of monks from all
the monasteries which lay within his jurisdiction;[***] but Elfwin, duke
of East Anglia, and Brithnot, duke of the East Saxons, protected them
within their territories, and insisted upon the execution of the late laws
enacted in their favor. In order to settle this controversy, there were
summoned several synods, which, according to the practice of those times,
consisted partly of ecclesiastical members, partly of the lay nobility.
The monks were able to prevail in these assemblies; though, as it appears,
contrary to the secret wishes, if not the declared inclination, of the
leading men in he nation.[****] They had more invention in forging
miracles to support their cause; or having been so fortunate as to obtain,
by their pretended austerities, the character of piety, their miracles
were more credited by the populace.
In one synod, Dunstan, finding the majority of votes against him, rose up,
and informed the audience, that he had that instant received an immediate
revelation in behalf of the monks: the assembly was so astonished at this
intelligence, or probably so overawed by the populace, that they proceeded
no farther in their deliberations. In another synod, a voice issued from
the crucifix, and informed the members that the establishment of the monks
was founded on the will of Heaven and could not be opposed without
impiety.[*] But the miracle performed in the third synod was still more
alarming: the floor of the hall in which the assembly met, sunk of a
sudden, and a great number of the members were either bruised or killed by
the fall. It was remarked, that Dunstan had that day prevented the king
from attending the synod, and that the beam on which his own chair stood
was the only one that did not sink under the weight of the assembly;[**]
but these circumstances, instead of begetting any suspicion of
contrivance, were regarded as the surest proof of the immediate
interposition of Providence in behalf of those favorites of Heaven.
Edward lived four years after his accession, and there passed nothing
memorable during his reign. His death alone was memorable and tragical.[*]
This young prince was endowed with the most amiable innocence of manners;
and as his own intentions were always pure, he was incapable of
entertaining any suspicion against others. Though his step-mother had
opposed his succession, and had raised a party in favor of her own son, he
always showed her marks of regard, and even expressed, on all occasions,
the most tender affection towards his brother. He was hunting one day in
Dorsetshire, and being led by the chase near Corfe Castle, where Elfrida
resided, he took the opportunity of paying her visit, unattended by any of
his retinue, and he thereby presented her with the opportunity which she
had long wished for. After he had mounted his horse, he desired some
liquor to be brought him: while he was holding the cup to his head, a
servant of Elfrida approached him, and gave him a stab behind. The prince,
finding himself wounded, put spurs to his horse; but becoming faint by
loss of blood, he fell from the saddle, his foot stuck in the stirrup, and
he was dragged along by his unruly horse till he expired. Being tracked by
the blood, his body was found, and was privately interred at Wereham by
his servants.
The youth and innocence of this prince, with his tragical death, begat
such compassion among the people, that they believed miracles to be
wrought at his tomb; and they gave him the appellation of martyr,
though his murder had no connection with any religious principle or
opinion. Elfrida built monasteries, and performed many penances, in order
to atone for her guilt; but could never, by all her hypocrisy or remorses,
recover the good opinion of the public, though so easily deluded in those
ignorant ages.
CHAPTER III.
ETHELRED
978
THE freedom which England had so long enjoyed from the depredations of the
Danes, seems to have proceeded, partly from the establishments which that
piratical nation had obtained in the north of France, and which employed
all then superfluous hands to people and maintain them; partly from the
vigor and warlike spirit of a long race of English princes, who preserved
the kingdom in a posture of defence, by sea and land, and either prevented
or repelled every attempt of the invaders. But a new generation of men
being now sprung up in the northern regions, who could no longer disburden
themselves on Normandy, the English had reason to dread that the Danes
would again visit an island to which they were invited, both by the memory
of their past successes, and by the expectation of assistance from their
countrymen, who, though long established in the kingdom, were not yet
thoroughly incorporated with the natives, nor had entirely forgotten their
inveterate habits of war and depredation. And as the reigning prince was a
minor, and even when he attained to man’s estate, never discovered either
courage or capacity sufficient to govern his own subjects, much less to
repel a formidable enemy, the people might justly apprehend the worst
calamities from so dangerous a crisis.
981.
The Danes, before they durst attempt any important enterprise against
England, made an inconsiderable descent by way of trial; and having landed
from seven vessels near Southamptom, they ravaged the country, enriched
themselves by spoil, and departed with impunity. Six years after, they
made a like attempt in the west, and met with like success. The invaders,
having now found affairs in a very different situation from that in which
they formerly appeared, encouraged their countrymen to assemble a greater
force, and to hope for more considerable advantages.
991
They landed in Essex, under the command of two leaders; and having
defeated and slain, at Maldon, Brithnot, duke of that county, who ventured
with a small body to attack them, they spread their devastations over all
the neighboring provinces. In this extremity, Ethelred, to whom historians
give the epithet of the Unready, instead of rousing his people to
defend with courage their honor and their property, hearkened to the
advice of Siricius, archbishop of Canterbury, which was seconded by many
of the degenerate nobility; and paying the enemy the sum of ten thousand
pounds, he bribed them to depart the kingdom. This shameful expedient was
attended with the success which might be expected. The Danes next year
appeared off the eastern coast, in hopes of subduing a people who defended
themselves by their money, which invited assailants, instead of their
arms, which repelled them. But the English, sensible of their folly, had
in the interval assembled in a great council, and had determined to
collect at London a fleet able to give battle to the enemy;[*] though that
judicious measure failed of success, from the treachery of Alfric, duke of
Mercia, whose name is infamous in the annals of that age, by the
calamities which his repeated perfidy brought upon his country. This
nobleman had, in 983, succeeded to his father, Alfere, in that extensive
command; but, being deprived of it two years after, and banished the
kingdom, he was obliged to employ all his intrigue, and all his power,
which was too great for a subject, to be restored to his country, and
reinstated in his authority. Having had experience of the credit and
malevolence of his enemies, he thenceforth trusted for security, not to
his services, or to the affections of his fellow-citizens, but to the
influence which he had obtained over his vassals, and to the public
calamities, which he thought must, in every revolution, render his
assistance necessary. Having fixed this resolution, he determined to
prevent all such successes as might establish the royal authority, or
render his own situation dependent or precarious. As the English had
formed the plan of surrounding and destroying the Danish fleet in harbor,
he privately informed the enemy of their danger; and when they put to sea,
in consequence of this intelligence, he deserted to them, with the
squadron under his command, the night before the engagement, and thereby
disappointed all the efforts of his countrymen.[**] Ethelred, enraged at
his perfidy, seized his son Alfgar, and ordered his eyes to be put
out.[***]
But such was the power of Alfric, that he again forced himself into
authority; and though he had given this specimen of his character, and
received this grievous provocation, it was found necessary to intrust him
anew with the government of Mercia. This conduct of the court, which, in
all its circumstances, is so barbarous, weak, and imprudent both merited
and prognosticated the most grievous calamities.
993.
The northern invaders, now well acquainted with the defenceless condition
of England, made a powerful descent under the command of Sweyn, king of
Denmark, and Olave king of Norway; and sailing up the Humber, spread on
all sides their destructive ravages. Lindesey was laid waste; Banbury was
destroyed; and all the Northumbrians, though mostly of Danish descent,
were constrained either to join the invaders, or to suffer under their
depredations. A powerful army was assembled to oppose the Danes, and a
general action ensued; but the English were deserted in the battle, from
the cowardice or treachery of their three leaders, all of them men of
Danish race, Frena, Frithegist, and Godwin, who gave the example of a
shameful flight to the troops under their command.
Encouraged by this success, and still more by the contempt which it
inspired for their enemy, the pirates ventured to attack the centre of the
kingdom; and entering the Thames in ninety-four vessels, laid siege to
London, and threatened it with total destruction. But the citizens,
alarmed at the danger, and firmly united among themselves, made a bolder
defence than the cowardice of the nobility and gentry gave the invaders
reason to apprehend; and the besiegers, after suffering the greatest
hardships, were finally frustrated in their attempt. In order to revenge
themselves, they laid waste Essex, Sussex, and Hampshire; and having there
procured horses, they were thereby enabled to spread through the more
inland counties the fury of their depredations. In this extremity,
Ethelred and his nobles had recourse to the former expedient; and sending
ambassadors to the two northern kings, they promised them subsistence and
tribute, on condition they would, for the present, put an end to their
ravages, and soon after depart the kingdom. Sweyn and Olave agreed to the
terms, and peaceably took up their quarters at Southampton, where the sum
of sixteen thousand pounds was paid to them. Olave even made a journey to
Andover, where Ethelred resided; and he received the rite of confirmation
from the English bishops, as well as many rich presents from the king. He
here promised that he would never more infest the English territories; and
he faithfully fulfilled the engagement. This prince receives the
appellation of St. Olave from the church of Rome; and, notwithstanding the
general presumption, which lies either against the understanding or morals
of every one who in those ignorant ages was dignified with that title, he
seems to have been a man of merit and of virtue, Sweyn, though less
scrupulous than Olave, was constrained, upon the departure of the
Norwegian prince, to evacuate also the kingdom, with all his followers.
997.
This composition brought only a short interval to the miseries of the
English. The Danish pirates appeared soon after in the Severn; and having
committed spoil in Wales, as well as in Cornwall and Devonshire, they
sailed round to the south coast, and entering the Tamar, completed the
devastation of these two counties. They then returned to the Bristol
Channel; and penetrating into the country by the Avon, spread themselves
over all that neighborhood, and carried fire and sword even into
Dorsetshire. They next changed the seat of war; and after ravaging the
Isle of Wight, they entered the Thames and Medway, and laid siege to
Rochester, where they defeated the Kentish men in a pitched battle. After
this victory, the whole province of Kent was made a scene of slaughter,
fire, and devastation. The extremity of these miseries forced the English
into counsels for common defence, both by sea and land; but the weakness
of the king, the divisions among the nobility, the treachery of some, the
cowardice of others, the want of concert in all, frustrated every
endeavor; their fleets and armies either came too late to attack the
enemy, or were repulsed with dishonor; and the people were thus equally
ruined by resistance or by submission. The English, therefore, destitute
both of prudence and unanimity in council, of courage and conduct in the
field, had recourse to the same weak expedient which, by experience, they
had already found so ineffectual: they offered the Danes to buy peace, by
paying them a large sum of money, These ravagers rose continually in their
demands; and now required the payment of twenty-four thousand pounds, to
which the English were so mean and imprudent as to submit.[*]
The departure of the Danes procured them another short interval of repose,
which they enjoyed as if it were to be perpetual without making any
effectual preparations for a more vigorous resistance upon the next return
of the enemy.
Besides receiving this sum, the Danes were engaged by another motive to
depart a kingdom which appeared so little in a situation to resist their
efforts. They were invited over by their countrymen in Normandy, who at
this time were hard pressed by the arms of Robert, king of France, and who
found it difficult to defend the settlement, which, with so much advantage
to themselves, and glory to their nation, they had made in that country.
It is probable, also, that Ethelred, observing the close connections thus
maintained among all the Danes, however divided in government or
situation, was desirous of forming an alliance with that formidable
people. For this purpose, being now a widower, he made his addresses to
Emma, sister to Richard II., duke of Normandy, and he soon succeeded in
his negotiation. The princess came over this year
1001.
to England, and was married to Ethelred.[*]
In the end of the ninth and beginning of the tenth century—when the
north, not yet exhausted by that multitude of people, or rather nations,
which she had successively emitted, sent forth a new race, not of
conquerors, as before, but of pirates and ravagers, who infested the
countries possessed by her once warlike sons—lived Rollo, a petty
prince or chieftain in Denmark, whose valor and abilities soon en gaged,
the attention of his countrymen. He was exposed in his youth to the
jealousy of the king of Denmark, who attacked his small but independent
principality, and who, being foiled in every assault, had recourse at last
to perfidy for effecting his purpose, which he had often attempted in vain
by force of arms.[**]
He lulled Rollo into security by an insidious peace and falling suddenly
upon him, murdered his brother and his bravest officers, and forced him to
fly for safety into Scandinavia. Here many of his ancient subjects,
induced partly by affection to their prince, partly by the oppressions of
the Danish monarch, ranged themselves under his standard, and offered to
follow him in every enterprise. Rollo, instead of attempting to recover
his paternal dominions, where he must expect a vigorous resistance from
the Danes, determined to pursue an easier but more important undertaking,
and to make rus fortune, in imitation of his countrymen, by pillaging the
richer and more southern coasts of Europe. He collected a body of troops,
which, like that of all those ravagers, was composed of Norwegians,
Swedes, Frisians, Danes, and adventurers of all nations, who being
accustomed to a roving, unsettled life, took delight in nothing but war
and plunder. His reputation brought him associates from all quarters; and
a vision, which he pretended to have appeared to him in his sleep, and
which, according to his interpretation of it, prognosticated the greatest
successes, proved also a powerful incentive with those ignorant and
superstitious people.[*]
The first attempt made by Rollo was on England, near the end of Alfred’s
reign, when that great monarch, having settled Guthrum and his followers
in East Anglia, and others of those freebooters in Northumberland, and
having restored peace to his harassed country, had established the most
excellent military, as well as civil, institutions among the English. The
prudent Dane, finding that no advantages could be gained over such a
people, governed by such a prince, soon turned his enterprises against
France, which he found more exposed to his inroads;[**] and during the
reigns of Eudes, a usurper, and of Charles the Simple, a weak prince, he
committed the most destructive ravages, both on the inland and maritime
provinces of that kingdom. The French, having no means of defence against
a leader who united all the valor of his countrymen with the policy of
more civilized nations, were obliged to submit to the expedient practised
by Alfred, and to offer the invaders a settlement in some of those
provinces which they had depopulated by their arms.[***]
The reason why the Danes, for many years, pursued measures so different
from those which had been embraced by the Goths, Vandals, Franks,
Burgundians, Lombards, and other northern conquerors, was the great
difference in the method of attack which was practised by these several
nations, and to which the nature of their respective situations
necessarily confined them. The latter tribes, living in an inland country,
made incursions by land upon the Roman empire; and when they entered far
into the frontiers, they were obliged to carry along with them their wives
and families, whom they had no hopes of soon revisiting, and who could not
otherwise participate of their plunder. This circumstance quickly made
them think of forcing a settlement in the provinces which they had
overrun: and these barbarians, spreading themselves over the country,
found an interest in protecting the property and industry of the people
whom they had subdued. But the Danes and Norwegians, invited by their
maritime situation, and obliged to maintain themselves in their
uncultivated country by fishing, had acquired some experience of
navigation; and, in their military excursions, pursued the method
practised against the Roman empire by the more early Saxons. They made
descents in small bodies from their ships, or rather boats, and ravaging
the coasts, returned with the booty to their families, whom they could not
conveniently carry along with them in those hazardous enterprises. But
when they increased their armaments, made incursions into the inland
countries, and found it safe to remain longer in the midst of the
enfeebled enemy, they had been accustomed to crowd their vessels with
their wives and children, and having no longer any temptation to return to
their own country, they willingly embraced an opportunity of settling in
the warm climates and cultivated fields of the south.
Affairs were in this situation with Rollo and his followers, when Charles
proposed to relinquish to them part of the province formerly called
Neustria, and to purchase peace on these hard conditions. After all the
terms were fully settled, there appeared only one circumstance shocking to
the haughty Dane: he was required to do homage to Charles for this
province, and to put himself in that humiliating posture imposed on
vassals by the rites of the feudal law. He long refused to submit to this
indignity; but, being unwilling to lose such important advantages for a
mere ceremony, he made a sacrifice of his pride to his interest, and
acknowledged himself, in form, the vassal of the French monarch.[*]
Charles gave him his daughter Gisla in marriage; and, that he might bind
him faster to his interests, made him a donation of a considerable
territory, besides that which he was obliged to surrender to him by his
stipulation.
When some of the French nobles informed him that, in return for so
generous a present, it was expected that he should throw himself at the
king’s feet, and make suitable acknowledgments for his bounty, Rollo
replied, that he would rather decline the present; and it was with some
difficulty they could persuade him to make that compliment by one of his
captains. The Dane, commissioned for this purpose, full of indignation at
the order, and despising so unwarlike a prince, caught Charles by the
foot, and pretending to carry it to his mouth, that he might kiss it,
overthrew him before all his courtiers. The French, sensible of their
present weakness, found it prudent to overlook this insult.[*]
Rollo, who was now in the decline of life, and was tired of wars and
depredations, applied himself, with mature counsels to the settlement of
his new-acquired territory, which was thenceforth called Normandy; and he
parcelled it out among his captains and followers. He followed, in this
partition, the customs of the feudal law, which was then universally
established in the southern countries of Europe, and which suited the
peculiar circumstances of that age. He treated the French subjects, who
submitted to him, with mildness and justice; he reclaimed his ancient
followers from their ferocious violence; he established law and order
throughout his state; and after a life spent in tumults and ravages, he
died peaceably in a good old age, and left his dominions to his
posterity.[**]
William I., who succeeded him, governed the duchy twenty-five years; and,
during that time, the Normans, who were thoroughly intermingled with the
French, had acquired their language, had imitated their manners, and had
made such progress towards cultivation, that, on the death of William, his
son Richard, though a minor,[***] inherited his dominions; a sure proof
that the Normans were already somewhat advanced in civility, and that
their government could now rest secure on its laws and civil institutions,
and was not wholly sustained by the abilities of the sovereign. Richard,
after a long reign of fifty-four years, was succeeded by his son, of the
same name, in the year 996,[****] which was eighty-five years after the
first establishment of the Normans in France. This was the duke who gave
his sister Emma in marriage to Ethelred, king of England, and who thereby
formed connections with a country which his posterity was so soon after
destined to subdue.
The Danes had been established during a longer period in England than in
France; and though the similarity of their original language to that of
the Saxons invited them to a more early coalition with the natives, they
had hitherto found so little example of civilized manners among the
English, that they retained all their ancient ferocity, and valued
themselves only on their national character of military bravery. The
recent, as well as more ancient achievements of their countrymen tended to
support this idea; and the English princes particularly Athelstan and
Edgar, sensible of that superiority had been accustomed to keep in pay
bodies of Danish troops, who were quartered about the country, and
committed many violences upon the inhabitants. These mercenaries had
attained to such a height of luxury, according to the old English
writers,[*] that they combed their hair once a day, bathed themselves once
a week, changed their clothes frequently; and by all these arts of
effeminacy, as well as by their military character, had rendered
themselves so agreeable to the fair sex, that they debauched the wives and
daughters of the English, and dishonored many families. But what most
provoked the inhabitants was, that instead of defending them against
invaders, they were ever ready to betray them to the foreign Danes, and to
associate themselves with all straggling parties of that nation.
The animosity between the inhabitants of English and Danish race, had,
from these repeated injuries, risen to a great height, when Ethelred, from
a policy incident to weak princes embraced the cruel resolution of
massacring the latter throughout all his dominions.[**] 4
1002.
Secret orders were despatched to commence the execution every where on the
same day, and the festival of St. Brice, which fell on a Sunday, [November
13,] the day on which the Danes usually bathed themselves, was chosen for
that purpose. It is needless to repeat the accounts transmitted concerning
the barbarity of this massacre: the rage of the populace, excited by so
many injuries, sanctioned by authority, and stimulated by example,
distinguished not between innocence and guilt, spared neither sex nor age,
and was not satiated without the tortures as well as death of the unhappy
victims. Even Gunilda, sister to the king of Denmark, who had married Earl
Paling, and had embraced Christianity, was, by the advice of Edric, earl
of Wilts, seized and condemned to death by Ethelred, after seeing her
husband and children butchered before her face. This unhappy princess
foretold, in the agonies of despair, that her murder would soon be avenged
by the total ruin of the English nation.
1003.
Never was prophecy better fulfilled; and never did barbarous policy prove
more fatal to the authors. Sweyn and his Danes, who wanted but a pretence
for invading the English, appeared off the western coast, and threatened
to take full revenge for the slaughter of their countrymen. Exeter fell
first into their hands, from the negligence or treachery of Earl Hugh, a
Norman, who had been made governor by the interest of Queen Emma. They
began to spread their devastations over the country, when the English,
sensible what outrages they must now expect from their barbarous and
offended enemy, assembled more early, and in greater numbers than usual,
and made an appearance of vigorous resistance. But all these preparations
were frustrated by the treachery of Duke Alfric, who was intrusted with
the command, and who, feigning sickness, refused to lead the army against
the Danes, till it was dispirited, and at last dissipated, by his fatal
misconduct. Alfric soon after died, and Edric, a greater traitor than he,
who had married the king’s daughter, and had acquired a total ascendant
over him, succeeded Alfric in the government of Mercia, and in the command
of the English armies. A great famine, proceeding partly from the bad
seasons, partly from the decay of agriculture, added to all the other
miseries of the inhabitants.
1007
The country, wasted by the Danes, harassed by the fruitless expeditions of
its own forces, was reduced to the utmost desolation, and at last
submitted to the infamy of purchasing a precarious peace from the enemy,
by the payment of thirty thousand pounds.
The English endeavored to employ this interval in making preparations
against the return of the Danes, which they had reason soon to expect. A
law was made, ordering the proprietors of eight hides of land to provide
each a horseman and a complete suit of armor, and those of three hundred
and ten hides to equip a ship for the defence of the coast. When this navy
was assembled, which must have consisted of near eight hundred vessels,[*]
all hopes of its success were disappointed by the factions, animosities,
and dissensions of the nobility. Edric had impelled his brother Brightric
to prefer an accusation of treason against Wolfnoth, governor of Sussex,
the father of the famous Earl Godwin; and that nobleman, well acquainted
with the malevolence as well as power of his enemy, found no means of
safety Dut in deserting with twenty ships to the Danes.
Brightric pursued him with a fleet of eighty sail; but his ships being
shattered in a tempest, and stranded on the coast, he was suddenly
attacked by Wolfnoth, and all his vessels burnt and destroyed. The
imbecility of the king was little capable of repairing this misfortune.
The treachery of Edric frustrated every plan for future defence; and the
English navy, disconcerted, discouraged, and divided, was at last
scattered into its several harbors.
It is almost impossible, or would be tedious, to relate particularly all
the miseries to which the English were henceforth exposed. We hear of
nothing but the sacking and burning of towns; the devastation of the open
country; the appearance of the enemy in every quarter of the kingdom;
their cruel diligence in discovering any corner which had not been
ransacked by their former violence. The broken and disjointed narration of
the ancient historians is here well adapted to the nature of the war,
which was conducted by such sudden inroads, as would have been dangerous
even to a united and well-governed kingdom, but proved fatal where nothing
but a general consternation and mutual diffidence and dissension
prevailed. The governors of one province refused to march to the
assistance of another, and were at last terrified from assembling their
forces for the defence of their own province. General councils were
summoned; but either no resolution was taken, or none was carried into
execution. And the only expedient in which the English agreed, was the
base and imprudent one of buying a new peace from the Danes, by the
payment of forty-eight thousand pounds.
1011.
This measure did not bring them even that short interval of repose which
they had expected from it. The Danes, disregarding all engagements,
continued their devastations and hostilities; levied a new contribution of
eight thousand pounds upon the county of Kent alone; murdered the
archbishop of Canterbury, who had refused to countenance this exaction;
and the English nobility found no other resource than that of submitting
everywhere to the Danish monarch, swearing allegiance to him, and
delivering him hostages for their fidelity. Ethelred equally afraid of the
violence of the enemy, and the treachery of his own subjects, fled into
Normandy,
1013
whither he had sent before him Queen Emma, and her two sons, Alfred and
Edward. Richard received his unhappy guests with a generosity that does
honor to his memory.
1014
The king had not been above six weeks in Normandy, when he heard of the
death of Sweyn, who expired at Gainsborough, before he had time to
establish himself in his new-acquired dominions. The English prelates and
nobility, taking advantage of this event, sent over a deputation to
Normandy, inviting Ethelred to return to them, expressing a desire of
being again governed by their native prince, and intimating their hopes
that, being now tutored by experience, he would avoid all those errors
which had been attended with such misfortunes to himself and to his
people. But the misconduct of Ethelred was incurable; and on his resuming
the government, he discovered the same incapacity, indolence, cowardice,
and credulity, which had so often exposed him to the insults of his
enemies. His son-in-law Edric, notwithstanding his repeated treasons,
retained such influence at court, as to instil into the king jealousies of
Sigefert and Morcar, two of the chief nobles of Mercia. Edric allured them
into his house, where he murdered them; while Ethelred participated in the
infamy of the action, by confiscating their estates, and thrusting into a
convent the widow of Sigefert. She was a woman of singular beauty and
merit; and in a visit which was paid her, during her confinement, by
Prince Edmond, the king’s eldest son, she inspired him with so violent an
affection, that he released her from the convent, and soon after married
her, without the consent of his father.
Meanwhile the English found in Canute, the son and successor of Sweyn, an
enemy no less terrible than the prince from whom death had so lately
delivered them. He ravaged the eastern coast with merciless fury, and put
ashore all the English hostages at Sandwich, after having cut off their
hands and noses. He was obliged, by the necessity of his affairs, to make
a voyage to Denmark; but, returning soon after, he continued his
depredations along the southern coast He even broke into the counties of
Dorset, Wilts, and Somerset where an army was assembled against him, under
the command of Prince Edmond and Duke Edric. The latter still continued
his perfidious machinations, and after endeavoring in vain to got the
prince into his power, he found means to disperse the army, and he then
openly deserted to Canute with forty vessels.
1015.
Notwithstanding this misfortune, Edmond was not disconcerted; but
assembling all the force of England, was in a condition to give battle to
the enemy. The king had had such frequent experience of perfidy among his
subjects, that he had lost all confidence in them: he remained at London,
pretending sickness, but really from apprehensions that they intended to
buy their peace, by delivering him into the hands of his enemies. The army
called aloud for their sovereign to march at their head against the Danes;
and, on his refusal to take the field, they were so discouraged, that
those vast preparations became ineffectual for the defence of the kingdom.
Edmond, deprived of all regular supplies to maintain his soldiers, was
obliged to commit equal ravages with those which were practised by the
Danes; and, after making some fruitless expeditions into the north, which
had submitted entirely to Canute’s power, he retired to London, determined
there to maintain to the last extremity the small remains of English
liberty. He here found every thing in confusion by the death of the king,
who expired after an unhappy and inglorious reign of thirty-five years.
1016.
He left two sons by his first marriage, Edmond, who succeeded him, and
Edwy, whom Canute afterwards murdered. His two sons by the second
marriage, Anred and Edward, were, immediately upon Ethelred’s death,
conveyed into Normandy by Queen Emma.
EDMOND IRONSIDE
This prince, who received the name of Ironside from his hardy
valor, possessed courage and abilities sufficient to have prevented his
country from sinking into those calamities, but not to raise it from that
abyss of misery into which it had already fallen. Among the other
misfortunes of the English, treachery and disaffection had crept in among
the nobility and prelates; and Edmond found no better expedient for
stopping the further progress of these fatal evils, than to lead his army
instantly into the field, and to employ them against the common enemy.
After meeting with some success at Gillingnam, he prepared himself to
decide, in one general engagement, the fate of his crown: and at
Scoerston, in the county of Glocester, he offered battle to the enemy, who
were commanded by Canute and Edric. Fortune, in the beginning of the day,
declared for him; but Edric, having cut off the head of one Osmer, whose
countenance resembled that of Edmond fixed it on a spear, carried it
through the ranks in triumph, and called aloud to the English, that it was
time to fly; for, behold! the head of their sovereign. And though Edmond,
observing the consternation of the troops, took off his helmet, and showed
himself to them, the utmost he could gain by his activity and valor was to
leave the victory undecided. Edric now took a surer method to ruin him, by
pretending to desert to him; and as Edmond was well acquainted with his
power, and probably knew no other of the chief nobility in whom he could
repose more confidence, he was obliged, notwithstanding the repeated
perfidy of the man, to give him a considerable command in the army. A
battle soon after ensued at Assington, in Essex; where Edric, flying in
the beginning of the day, occasioned the total defeat of the English,
followed by a great slaughter of the nobility. The indefatigable Edmond,
however, had still resources. Assembling a new army at Glocester, he was
again in condition to dispute the field; when the Danish and English
nobility, equally harassed with those convulsions obliged their kings to
come to a compromise, and to divide the kingdom between them by treaty.
Canute reserved to himself the northern division, consisting of Mercia,
East Anglia, and Northumberland, which he had entirely subdued. The
southern parts were left to Edmond. The prince survived the treaty about a
month. He was murdered at Oxford by two of his chamberlains, accomplices
of Edric, who thereby made way for the succession of Canute the Dane to
the crown of England.
CANUTE
1017.
The English, who had been unable to defend their country, and maintain
their independency, under so active and brave a prince as Edmond, could
after his death expect nothing but total subjection from Canute, who,
active and brave himself, and at the head of a great force, was ready to
take advantage of the minority of Edwin and Edward, the two sons of
Edmond. Yet this conqueror, who was commonly so little scrupulous, showed
himself anxious to cover his injustice under plausible pretences. Before
he seized the dominions of the English princes, he summoned a general
assembly of the states, in order to fix the succession of the kingdom. He
here suborned some nobles to depose that, in the treaty of Glocester it
had been verbally agreed, either to name Canute, in case of Edmond’s
death, successor to his dominions, or tutor to hit children, (for
historians vary in this particular;) and that evidence, supported by the
great power of Canute, determined the states immediately to put the Danish
monarch in possession of the government. Canute, jealous of the two
princes, but sensible that he should render himself extremely odious if he
ordered them to be despatched in England, sent them abroad to his ally,
the king of Sweden, whom he desired, as soon as they arrived at his court,
to free him, by their death, from a& farther anxiety. The Swedish
monarch was too generous to comply with the request; but being afraid of
drawing on himself a quarrel with Canute, by protecting the young princes,
he sent them to Solomon, king of Hungary, to be educated in his court. The
elder, Edwin, was afterwards married to the sister of the king of Hungary;
but the English prince dying without issue, Solomon gave his
sister-in-law, Agatha, daughter of the emperor Henry the Second, in
marriage to Edward, the younger brother; and she bore him Edgar, Atheling,
Margaret, afterwards queen of Scotland, and Christina, who retired into a
convent.
Canute, though he had reached the great point of his ambition in obtaining
possession of the English crown, was obliged at first to make great
sacrifices to it; and to gratify the chief of the nobility, by bestowing
on them the most extensive governments and jurisdictions. He created
Thurkill earl or duke of East Anglia, (for these titles were then nearly
of the same import,) Yric of Northumberland, and Edric of Mercia;
reserving only to himself the administration of Wessex. But seizing
afterwards a favorable opportunity, he expelled Thurkill and Yric from
their governments, and banished them the kingdom; he put to death many of
the English nobility, on whose fidelity he could not rely, and whom he
hated on account of their disloyalty to their native prince. And even the
traitor Edric, having had the assurance to reproach him with his services,
was condemned to be executed, and his body to be thrown into the Thames; a
suitable reward for his multiplied acts of perfidy and rebellion.
Canute also found himself obliged, in the beginning of his reign, to load
the people with heavy taxes, in order to reward his Danish followers: he
exacted from them at one time the sum of seventy-two thousand pounds;
besides eleven thousand pounds which he levied on London alone. He was
probably willing, from political motives, to mulct severely that city, on
account of the affection which it had borne to Edmond, and the resistance
which it had made to the Danish power in two obstinate sieges.[*] But
these rigors were imputed to necessity, and Canute, like a wise prince,
was determined that the English, now deprived of all their dangerous
leaders, should be reconciled to the Danish yoke, by the justice and
impartiality of his administration. He sent back to Denmark as many of his
followers as he could safely spare; he restored the Saxon customs in a
general assembly of the states; he made no distinction between Danes and
English in the distribution of justice; and he took care, by a strict
execution of law, to protect the lives and properties of all his people.
The Danes were gradually incorporated with his new objects; and both were
glad to obtain a little respite from those multiplied calamities, from
which the one, no less than the other, had, in their fierce contest for
power, experienced such fatal consequences.
The removal of Edmond’s children into so distant a country as Hungary,
was, next to their death, regarded by Canute as the greatest security to
his government: he had no further anxiety, except with regard to Alfred
and Edward, who were protected and supported by their uncle Richard, duke
of Normandy. Richard even fitted out a great armament, in order to restore
the English princes to the throne of their ancestors; and though the navy
was dispersed by a storm, Canute saw the danger to which he was exposed,
from the enmity of so warlike a people as the Normans. In order to acquire
the friendship of the duke, he paid his addresses to Queen Emma, sister of
that prince; and promised that he would leave the children, whom he should
have by that marriage, in possession of the crown of England. Richard
complied with his demand, and sent over Emma to England, where she was
soon after married to Canute.[**] The English, though they disapproved of
her espousing the mortal enemy of her former husband and his family, were
pleased to find at court a sovereign to whom they were accustomed, and who
had already formed connections with them; and thus Canute besides
securing, by this marriage, the alliance of Normandy gradually acquired,
by the same means, the confidence of his own subjects.[***] The Norman
prince did not long survive the marriage of Emma; and he left the
inheritance of the duchy to his eldest son of the same name; who, dying a
year after him without children, was succeeded by his brother Robert, a
man of valor and abilities.
Canute, having settled his power in England beyond all danger of a
revolution, made a voyage to Denmark, in order to resist the attacks of
the king of Sweden; and he carried along with him a great body of the
English, under the command of Earl Godwin. This nobleman had here an
opportunity of performing a service, by which he both reconciled the
king’s mind to the English nation, and gaining to himself the friendship
of his sovereign, laid the foundation of that immense fortune which he
acquired to his family. He was stationed next the Swedish camp, and
observing a favorable opportunity, which he was obliged suddenly to seize,
he Attacked the enemy in the night, drove them from their trenches, threw
them into disorder, pursued his advantage, and obtained a decisive victory
over them. Next morning, Canute, seeing the English camp entirely
abandoned, imagined that those disaffected troops had deserted to the
enemy: he was agreeably surprised to find that they were at that time
engaged in pursuit of the discomfited Swedes. He was so pleased with this
success, and with the manner of obtaining it that he bestowed his daughter
in marriage upon Godwin, and treated him ever after with entire confidence
and regard.
1028.
In another voyage, which he made afterwards to Denmark, Canute attacked
Norway, and expelling the just but unwarlike Olaus, kept possession of his
kingdom till the death of that prince. He had now by his conquests and
valor attained the utmost height of grandeur: having leisure from wars and
intrigues, he felt the unsatisfactory nature of all human enjoyments; and
equally weary of the glories and turmoils of this life, he began to cast
his view towards that future existence, which it is so natural for the
human mind, whether satiated by prosperity or disgusted with adversity, to
make the object of its attention. Unfortunately, the spirit which
prevailed in that age gave a wrong direction to his devotion: instead of
making compensation to those whom he had injured by his former acts of
violence, he employed himself entirely in those exercises of piety which
the monks represented as the most meritorious. He built churches, he
endowed monasteries, he enriched the ecclesiastics, and he bestowed
revenues for the support of chantries at Assington and other places; where
he appointed prayers to be said for the souls of those who had there
fallen in battle against him. He even undertook a pilgrimage to Rome,
where he resided a considerable time: besides obtaining from the pope some
privileges for the English school erected there, he engaged all the
princes, through whose dominions he was obliged to pass, to desist from
those heavy impositions and tolls which they were accustomed to exact from
the English pilgrims. By this spirit of devotion no less than by his
equitable and politic administration, he gained, in a good measure, the
affections of his subjects.
Canute, the greatest and most powerful monarch of his time, sovereign of
Denmark and Norway, as well as of England, could not fail of meeting with
adulation from his courtiers; a tribute which is liberally paid even to
the meanest and weakest princes. Some of his flatterers breaking out one
day in admiration of his grandeur, exclaimed that every thing was possible
for him; upon which the monarch, it is said, ordered his chair to be set
on the sea-shore, while the tide was rising; and as the waters approached,
he commanded them to retire, and to obey the voice of him who was lord of
the ocean. He feigned to sit some time in expectation of their submission;
but when the sea still advanced towards him, and began to wash him with
its billows, he turned to his courtiers, and remarked to them, that every
creature in the universe was feeble and impotent, and that power resided
with one being alone, in whose hands were all the elements of nature; who
could say to the ocean, “Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther;” and who
could level with his nod the most towering piles of human pride and
ambition.
1031.
The only memorable action which Canute performed after his return from
Rome, was an expedition against Malcolm, king of Scotland. During the
reign of Ethelred, a tax of a shilling a hide had been imposed on all the
lands of England. It was commonly called ‘danegelt;’ because the revenue
bar been employed either in buying peace with the Danes, or in making
preparations against the inroads of that hostile nation. That monarch had
required that the same tax should be paid by Cumberland, which was held by
the Scots; but Malcolm a warlike prince, told him, that as he was always
able to repulse the Danes by his own power, he would neither submit to buy
peace of his enemies, nor pay others for resisting them. Ethelred,
offended at this reply, which contained a secret reproach on his own
conduct, undertook an expedition against Cumberland; but though he
committed ravages upon the country, he could never bring Malcolm to a
temper more humble or submissive. Canute, after his accession, summoned
the Scottish king to acknowledge himself a vassal for Cumberland to the
crown of England; but Malcolm refused compliance, on pretence that he owed
homage to those princes only who inherited that kingdom by right of blood.
Canute was not of a temper to bear this insult; and the king of Scotland
soon found, that the sceptre was in very different hands from those of the
feeble and irresolute Ethelred. Upon Canute’s appearing on the frontiers
with a formidable army Malcolm agreed that his grandson and heir, Duncan,
whom he put in possession of Cumberland, should make the submissions
required, and that the heirs of Scotland should always acknowledge
themselves vassals to England for that province.[*] Canute passed four
years in peace after this enterprise, and he died at Shaftesbury;[**]
leaving three sons, Sweyn, Harold, and Hardicanute. Sweyn, whom he had by
his first marriage with Alfwen, daughter of the earl of Hampshire, was
crowned in Norway: Hardicanute, whom Emma had borne him, was in possession
of Denmark: Harold, who was of the same marriage with Sweyn, was at that
time in England.
HAROLD HAREFOOT
1035.
Though Canute, in his treaty with Richard, duke of Normandy, had
stipulated that his children by Emma should succeed to the crown of
England, he had either considered himself as released from that engagement
by the death of Richard, or esteemed it dangerous to leave an unsettled
and newly-conquered kingdom in the hands of so young a prince as
Hardicanute: he therefore appointed, by his will, Harold successor to the
crown. This prince was besides present, to maintain his claim; he was
favored by all the Danes; and he got immediately possession of his
father’s treasures, which might be equally useful, whether he found it
necessary to proceed by force or intrigue, in insuring his succession. On
the other hand, Hardicanute had the suffrages of the English, who, on
account of his being from among them of Queen Emma, regarded him as their
countryman; he was favored by the articles of treaty with the duke of
Normandy; and above all, his party was espoused by Earl Godwin, the most
powerful nobleman in the kingdom, especially in the province of Wessex,
the chief seat of the ancient English. Affairs were likely to terminate in
a civil war; when, by the interposition of the nobility of both parties, a
compromise was made; and it was agreed that Harold should enjoy, together
with London, all the provinces north of the Thames, while the possession
of the south should remain to Hardicanute: and till that prince should
appear and take possession of his dominions, Emma fixed her residence at
Winchester, and established her authority over her son’s share of the
partition.
Meanwhile Robert, duke of Normandy, died in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land,
and being succeeded by a son, yet a minor, the two English princes, Alfred
and Edward, who found no longer any countenance or protection in that
country, gladly embraced the opportunity of paying a visit, with a
numerous retinue, to their mother, Emma, who seemed to be placed in a
state of so much power and splendor at Winchester. But the face of affairs
soon wore a melancholy aspect. Earl Godwin had been gained by the arts of
Harold, who promised to espouse the daughter of that nobleman; and while
the treaty was yet a secret, these two tyrants laid a plan for the
destruction of the English princes. Alfred was invited to London by Harold
with many professions of friendship; but when he had reached Guilford, he
was set upon by Godwin’s vassals, about six hundred of his train were
murdered in the most cruel manner, he himself was taken prisoner, his eyes
were put out, and he was conducted to the monastery of Ely, where he died
soon after.[*] Edward and Emma, apprised of the fate which was awaiting
them, fled beyond sea, the former into Normandy, the latter into Flanders;
while Harold, triumphing in his bloody policy, took possession, without
resistance, of all the dominions assigned to his brother.
This is the only memorable action performed, during a reign of four years,
by this prince, who gave so bad a specimen of his character, and whose
bodily accomplishments alone are known to us by his appellation of Harefoot,
which he acquired from his agility in running and walking. He died on the
14th of April, 1039, little regretted or esteemed by his subjects, and
left the succession open to his brother Hardicanute.
HARDICANUTE
1039.
Hardicanute, or Canute the hardy, that is, the robust, (for he top is
chiefly known by his bodily accomplishments,) though, by remaining so long
in Denmark, he had been deprived of his share in the partition of the
kingdom, had not abandoned his pretensions; and he had determined, before
Harold’s death, to recover by arms what he had lost, either by his own
negligence or by the necessity of his affairs. On pretence of paying a
visit to the queen dowager in Flanders, ne had assembled a fleet of sixty
sail, and was preparing to make a descent on England, when intelligence of
his brother’s death induced him to sail immediately to London, where he
was received in triumph, and acknowledged king without opposition.
The first act of Hardicanute’s government afforded his subjects a bad
prognostic of his future conduct. He was so enraged at Harold for
depriving him of his share of the kingdom, and for the cruel treatment of
his brother Alfred, that in an impotent desire of revenge against the
dead, he ordered his body to be dug up, and to be thrown into the Thames;
and when it was found by some fishermen, and buried in London, he ordered
it again to be dug up, and to be thrown again into the river; but it was
fished up a second time, and then interred with great secrecy. Godwin,
equally servile and insolent, submitted to be his instrument in this
unnatural and brutal action.
That nobleman knew that he was universally believed to have been an
accomplice in the barbarity exercised on Alfred, and that he was on that
account obnoxious to Hardicanute; and perhaps he hoped, by displaying this
rage against Harold’s memory, to justify himself from having had any
participation in his counsels. But Prince Edward, being invited over by
the king, immediately on his appearance preferred an accusation against
Godwin for the murder of Alfred, and demanded justice for that crime.
Godwin, in order to appease the king; made him a magnificent present of a
galley with a gilt stern, rowed by fourscore men, who wore each of them a
gold bracelet on his arm, weighing sixteen ounces, and were armed and
clothed in the most sumptuous manner. Hardicanute, pleased with the
splendor of this spectacle, quickly forgot his brother’s murder; and on
Godwin’s swearing that he was innocent of the crime, he allowed him to be
acquitted.
Though Hardicanute before his accession had been called over by the vows
of the English, he soon lost the affections of the nation by his
misconduct; but nothing appeared more grievous to them than his renewing
the imposition of danegelt, and obliging the nation to pay a great sum of
money to the fleet which brought him from Denmark. The discontents ran
high in many places: in Worcester the populace rose, and put to death two
of the collectors. The king, enraged at this opposition, swore vengeance
against the city, and ordered three noblemen, Godwin, duke of Wessex,
Siward, duke of Northumberland, and Leofric, duke of Mercia, to execute
his menaces with the utmost rigor. They were obliged to set fire to the
city, and deliver it up to be plundered by their soldiers; but they saved
the lives of the inhabitants, whom they confined in a small island of the
Severn, called Beverey, till, by their intercession, they were able to
appease the king, and obtain the pardon of the supplicants.
This violent government was of short duration. Hardicanute died in two
years after his accession, at the nuptials of a Danish lord, which he had
honored with his presence. His usual habits of intemperance were so well
known, that, notwithstanding his robust constitution, his sudden death
gave as little surprise as it did sorrow to his subjects.
EDWARD THE CONFESSOR
1041.
The English, on the death of Hardicanute, saw a favorable opportunity for
recovering their liberty, and for shaking off the Danish yoke, under which
they had so long labored. Sweyn, king of Norway, the eldest son of Canute,
was absent; and as the two last kings had died without issue, none of that
race presented himself, nor any whom the Danes could support as successor
to the throne. Prince Edward was fortunately at court on his brother’s
demise; and though the descendants of Edmond Ironside were the true heirs
of the Saxon family, yet their absence in so remote a country as Hungary,
appeared a sufficient reason for their exclusion to a people, like the
English, so little accustomed to observe a regular order in the succession
of their monarchs. All delays might be dangerous, and the present occasion
must hastily be embraced, while the Danes, without concert, without a
leader, astonished at the present incident, and anxious only for their
personal safety, durst not oppose the united voice of the nation.
But this concurrence of circumstances in favor of Edward might have failed
of its effect, had his succession been opposed by Godwin, whose power,
alliances, and abilities gave him a great influence at all times,
especially amidst those sudden opportunities which always attend a
revolution of government, and which, either seized or neglected, commonly
prove decisive. There were opposite reasons, which divided men’s hopes and
fears with regard to Godwin’s conduct. On the one hand, the credit of that
nobleman lay chiefly in Wessex, which was almost entirely inhabited by
English; it was therefore presumed that he would second the wishes of that
people in restoring the Saxon line, and in humbling the Danes, from whom
he, as well as they, had reason to dread, as they had already felt, the
most grievous oppressions. On the other hand, there subsisted a declared
animosity between Edward and Godwin, on account of Alfred’s murder; of
which the latter had publicly been accused by the prince, and which he
might believe so deep an offence, as could never, on account of any
subsequent merits, be sincerely pardoned. But their common friends here
interposed; and representing the necessity of their good correspondence,
obliged them to lay aside all jealousy and rancor, and concur in restoring
liberty to their native country. Godwin only stipulated that Edward, as a
pledge of his sincere reconciliation, should promise to marry his daughter
Editha; and having fortified himself by this alliance, he summoned a
general council at Gillingham, and prepared every measure for securing the
succession to Edward. The English were unanimous and zealous in their
resolutions; the Danes were divided and dispirited: any small opposition,
which appeared in this assembly, was browbeaten and suppressed; and Edward
was crowned king, with every Demonstration of duty and affection.
The triumph of the English upon this signal and decisive advantage, was at
first attended with some insult and violence against the Danes, but the
king, by the mildness of his character, soon reconciled the latter to his
administration, and the distinction between the two nations gradually
disappeared. The Danes were interspersed with the English in most of the
provinces; they spoke nearly the same language; they differed little in
their manners and laws; domestic dissensions in Denmark prevented, for
some years, any powerful invasion from thence which might awaken past
animosities; and as the Norman conquest, which ensued soon after, reduced
both nations to equal subjection, there is no further mention in history
of any difference between them. The joy, however, of their present
deliverance made such impression on the minds of the English, that they
instituted an annual festival for celebrating that great event; and it was
observed in some counties, even to the time of Spelman.[*]
The popularity which Edward enjoyed on his accession was not destroyed by
the first act of his administration, his resuming all the grants of his
immediate predecessors; an attempt which is commonly attended with the
most dangerous consequences. The poverty of the crown convinced the nation
that this act of violence was become absolutely necessary; and as the loss
fell chiefly on the Danes, who had obtained large grants from the late
kings, their countrymen, on account of their services in subduing the
kingdom, the English were rather pleased to see them reduced to their
primitive poverty. The king’s severity also towards his mother, the queen
dowager, though exposed to some more censure, met not with very, general
disapprobation. He had hitherto lived on indifferent terms with that
princess; he accused her of neglecting him and his brother during their
adverse fortune;[**] he remarked that, as the superior qualities of
Canute, and his better treatment of her, had made her entirely indifferent
to the memory of Etheldred, she also gave the preference to her children
of the second bed, and always regarded Hardicanute as her favorite.
The same reasons had probably made her unpopular in England; and though
her benefactions to the monks obtained her the favor of that order, the
nation was not, in general, displeased to see her stripped by Edward of
immense treasures which she had amassed. He confined her, during the
remainder of her life, in a monastery at Winchester; but carried his rigor
against her no farther. The stories of his accusing her of a participation
in her son Alfred’s murder, and of a criminal correspondence with the
bishop of Winchester, and also of her justifying herself by treading
barefoot, without receiving any hurt, over nine burning ploughshares, were
the inventions of the monkish historians, and were propagated and believed
from the silly wonder of posterity.[*]
The English flattered themselves that, by the accession of Edward, they
were delivered forever from the dominion of foreigners; but they soon
found that this evil was not yet entirely removed. The king had been
educated in Normandy, and had contracted many intimacies with the natives
of that country, as well as an affection for their manners.[**] The court
of England was soon filled with Normans, who, being distinguished both by
the favor of Edward, and by a degree of cultivation superior to that which
was attained by the English in those ages, soon rendered their language,
customs, and laws fashionable in the kingdom. The study of the French
tongue became general among the people. The courtiers affected to imitate
that nation in their dress, equipage, and entertainments; even the lawyers
employed a foreign language in their deeds and papers;[***] but above all,
the church felt the influence and dominion of those strangers: Ulf and
William, two Normans, who had formerly been the king’s chaplains, were
created bishops of Dorchester and London. Robert, a Norman also, was
promoted to the see of Canterbury,[****] and always enjoyed the highest
favor of his master, of which his abilities rendered him not unworthy. And
though the king’s prudence, or his want of authority, made him confer
almost all the civil and military employments on the natives, the
ecclesiastical preferments fell often to the share of the Normans; and as
the latter possessed Edward’s confidence, they had secretly a great
influence on public affairs, and excited the jealousy of the English,
particularly of Earl Godwin.[*****]
This powerful nobleman, besides being duke or earl of Wessex, had the
counties of Kent and Sussex annexed to his government. His eldest son,
Sweyn, possessed the same authority in the counties of Oxford, Berks,
Glocester, and Hereford; and Harold, his second son, was duke of East
Anglia, and at the same time governor of Essex. The great authority of
this family was supported by immense possessions and powerful alliances;
and the abilities, as well as ambition of Godwin himself, contributed to
render it still more dangerous. A prince of greater capacity and vigor
than Edward would have found it difficult to support the dignity of the
crown under such circumstances; and as the haughty temper of Godwin made
him often forget the respect due to his prince Edward’s animosity against
him was grounded on personal as well as political considerations, on
recent as well as more ancient injuries. The king, in pursuance of his
engagements, had indeed married Editha, the daughter of Godwin;[*] but
this alliance became a fresh source of enmity between them. Edward’s
hatred of the father was transferred to that princess-; and Editha, though
possessed of many amiable accomplishments, could never acquire the
confidence and affection of her husband. It is even pretended, that,
during the whole course of her life, he abstained from all commerce of
love with her; and such was the absurd admiration paid to an inviolable
chastity during those ages, that his conduct in this particular is highly
celebrated by the monkish historians, and greatly contributed to his
acquiring the title of saint and confessor[**]
1048.
The most popular pretence on which Godwin could ground his disaffection to
the king and his administration, was to complain of the influence of the
Normans in the government; and a declared opposition had thence arisen
between him and these favorites. It was not long before this animosity
broke out into action. Eustace, count of Boulogne, having paid a visit to
the king, passed by Dover in his return: one of his train, being refused
entrance to a lodging, which had been assigned him, attempted to make his
way by force, and in the contest he wounded the master of the house. The
inhabitants revenged this insult by the death of the stranger; the count
and his train took arms, and murdered the wounded townsman; a tumult
ensued; near twenty persons were killed on each side; and Eustace, being
overpowered by numbers, was obliged to save his life by flight from the
fury of the populace.
He hurried immediately to court, and complained of tne usage he had met
with: the king entered zealously into the quarrel, and was highly
displeased that a stranger of such distinction, whom he had invited over
to his court, should, without any just cause, as he believed, have felt so
sensibly the insolence and animosity of his people. He gave orders to
Godwin, in whose government Dover lay, to repair immediately to the place,
and to punish the inhabitants for tne crime; but Godwin, who desired
rather to encourage than express the popular discontents against
foreigners, refused obedience, and endeavored to throw the whole blame of
the riot on the count of Boulogne and his retinue.[*] Edward, touched in
so sensible a point, saw the necessity of exerting the royal authority;
and he threatened Godwin, if he persisted in his disobedience, to make him
feel the utmost effects of his resentment.
The earl, perceiving a rupture to be unavoidable, and pleased to embark in
a cause where it was likely he should be supported by his countrymen, made
preparations for his own defence, or rather for an attack on Edward. Under
pretence of repressing some disorders on the Welsh frontier, he secretly
assembled a great army, and was approaching the king, who resided, without
any military force, and without suspicion, at Glocester.[**]
Edward applied for protection to Siward, duke of Northumberland, and
Leofric, duke of Mercia, two powerful noblemen, whose jealousy of Godwin’s
greatness, as well as their duty to the crown, engaged them to defend the
king in this extremity. They hastened to him with such of their followers
as they could assemble on a sudden; and finding the danger much greater
than they had at first apprehended, they issued orders for mustering all
the forces within their respective governments, and for marching them
without delay to the defence of the king’s person and authority. Edward,
meanwhile, endeavored to gain time by negotiation; while Godwin, who
thought the king entirely in his power, and who was willing to save
appearances, fell into the snare; and not sensible that he ought to have
no further reserve after he had proceeded so far, he lost the favorable
opportunity of rendering himself master of the government.
The English, though they had no high idea of Edward’s vigor and capacity,
bore him great affection on account of his humanity, justice, and piety,
as well as the long race of their native kings, from whom he was
descended; and they hastened from all quarters to defend him from the
present danger. Hia army was now so considerable, that he ventured to take
the field; and marching to London, he summoned a great council to judge of
the rebellion of Godwin and his sons. These noblemen pretended at first
that they were willing to stand their trial; but having in vain endeavored
to make their adherents persist in rebellion, they offered to come to
London, provided they might receive hostages for their safety: this
proposal being rejected, they were obliged to disband the remains of their
forces, and have recourse to flight. Baldwin, earl of Flanders, gave
protection to Godwin and his three sons, Gurth, Sweyn, and Tosti, the
latter of whom had married the daughter of that prince; Harold and
Leofwin, two others of his sons, took shelter in Ireland. The estates of
the father and sons were confiscated; their governments were given to
others; Queen Editha was confined in a monastery at Warewel; and the
greatness of this family, once so formidable, seemed now to be totally
supplanted and overthrown But Godwin had fixed his authority on too firm a
basis, and he was too strongly supported by alliances both foreign and
domestic, not to occasion further disturbances, and make new efforts for
his reëstablishment.
1052.
The earl of Flanders permitted him to purchase and hire ships within his
harbors; and Godwin, having manned them with his followers, and with
freebooters of all nations, put to sea, and attempted to make a descent at
Sandwich. The king, informed of his preparations, had equipped a
considerable fleet, much superior to that of the enemy; and the earl
hastily, before their appearance, made his retreat into the Flemish
harbors.[*] The English court, allured by the present security, and
destitute of all vigorous counsels, allowed the seamen to disband, and the
fleet to go to decay;[**] while Godwin, expecting this event, kept his men
in readiness for action. He put to sea immediately, and sailed to the Isle
of Wight, where he was joined by Harold with a squadron, which that
nobleman had collected in Ireland. He was now master of the sea; and
entering every harbor in the southern coast, he seized all the ships,[***]
and summoned his followers in those counties, which had so long been
subject to his government, to assist him in procuring justice to himself
his family, and his country, against the tyranny of foreigners.
Reënforced by great numbers from all quarters, he entered the Thames; and
appearing before London, threw every thing into confusion. The king alone
seemed resolute to defend himself to the last extremity; but the
interposition of the English nobility, many of whom favored Godwin’s
pretensions, made Edward hearken to terms of accommodation; and the
feigned humility of the earl, who disclaimed all intentions of offering
violence to his sovereign, and desired only to justify himself by a fair
and open trial, paved the way for his more easy admission. It was
stipulated that he should give hostages for his good behavior, and that
the primate and all the foreigners should be banished: by this treaty the
present danger of a civil war was obviated, but the authority of the crown
was considerably impaired, or rather entirely annihilated. Edward,
sensible that he had not power sufficient to secure Godwin’s hostages in
England, sent them over to his kinsman, the young duke of Normandy.
Godwin’s death, which happened soon after, while he was sitting at table
with the king, prevented him from further establishing the authority which
he had acquired, and from reducing Edward to still greater subjection.[*]
5 He was
succeeded in the government of Wessex, Sussex, Kent, and Essex, and in the
office of steward of the household, a place of great power, by his son
Harold, who was actuated by an ambition equal to that of his father, and
was superior to him in address, in insinuation, and in virtue. By a modest
and gentle demeanor, he acquired the good will of Edward; at least,
softened that hatred which the prince had so long borne his family;[**]
and gaining every day new partisans by his bounty and affability, he
proceeded, in a more silent, and therefore a more dangerous manner, to the
increase of his authority. The king, who had not sufficient vigor directly
to oppose his progress, knew of no other expedient than that hazardous one
of raising him a rival in the family of Leofric, duke of Mercia, whose son
Algar was invested with the government of East Anglia, which, before the
banishment of Harold, had belonged to the latter nobleman. But this
policy, of balancing opposite parties, required a more steady hand to
manage it than that of Edward, and naturally produced faction and even
civil broils, among nobles of such mighty and independent authority.
Algar was soon after expelled his government by the intrigues and power of
Harold; but being protected by Griffith, prince of Wales, who had married
his daughter, as well as by the power of his father Leofric, he obliged
Harold to submit to an accommodation, and was reinstated in the government
of East Anglia. This peace was not of long duration: Harold, taking
advantage of Leofric’s death, which happened soon after, expelled Algar
anew, and banished him the kingdom: and though that nobleman made a fresh
irruption into East Anglia with an army of Norwegians, and overran the
country, his death soon freed Harold from the pretensions of so dangerous
a rival. Edward, the eldest son of Algar, was indeed advanced to the
government of Mercia; but the balance which the king desired to establish
between those potent families, was wholly lost, and the influence of
Harold greatly preponderated.
1055.
The death of Siward, duke of Northumberland, made the way still more open
to the ambition of that nobleman. Siward, besides his other merits, had
acquired honor to England by his successful conduct in the only foreign
enterprise undertaken during the reign of Edward. Duncan, king of
Scotland, was a prince of a gentle disposition, but possessed not the
genius requisite for governing a country so turbulent, and so much
infested by the intrigues and animosities of the great. Macbeth, a
powerful nobleman, and nearly allied to the crown, not content with
curbing the king’s authority, carried still farther his pestilent
ambition: he put his sovereign to death; chased Malcolm Kenmore, his son
and heir, into England, and usurped the crown. Siward, whose daughter was
married to Duncan, embraced, by Edward’s orders, the protection of this
distressed family: he marched an army into Scotland; and having defeated
and killed Macbeth in battle, he restored Malcolm to the throne of his
ancestors.[*]
This service, added to his former connections with the royal family of
Scotland, brought a great accession to the authority of Siward in the
north; but as he had lost his eldest son, Osberne, in the action with
Macbeth, it proved in the issue fatal to his family. His second son,
Walthoef, appeared, on his father’s death, too young to be intrusted with
the government of Northumberland; and Harold’s influence obtained that
dukedom for his own brother Tosti.
There are two circumstances related of Siward, which discover his high
sense of honor, and his martial disposition. When intelligence was brought
him of his son Osberne’s death, he was inconsolable; till he heard that
the wound was received in the breast, and that he had behaved with great
gallantry in the action. When he found his own death approaching, he
ordered his servants to clothe him in a complete suit of armor; and
sitting erect on the couch, with a spear in his hand, declared, that in
that posture, the only one worthy of a warrior, he would patiently await
the fatal moment.
The king, now worn out with cares and infirmities, felt himself far
advanced in the decline of life; and having no issue himself, began to
think of appointing a successor to the kingdom. He sent a deputation to
Hungary, to invite over his nephew Edward, son of his elder brother, and
the only remaining heir of the Saxon line. That prince, whose succession
to the crown would have been easy and undisputed, came to England with his
children, Edgar, surnamed Atheling, Margaret, and Christina; but his
death, which happened a few days after his arrival, threw the king into
new difficulties. He saw that the great power and ambition of Harold had
tempted him to think of obtaining possession of the throne on the first
vacancy, and that Edgar, on account of his youth and inexperience, was
very unfit to oppose the pretensions of so popular and enterprising a
rival. The animosity which he had long borne to Earl Godwin, made him
averse to the succession of his son; and he could not, without extreme
reluctance, think of an increase of grandeur to a family which had risen
on the ruins of royal authority, and which, by the murder of Alfred, his
brother, had contributed so much to the weakening of the Saxon line. In
this uncertainty, he secretly cast his eye towards his kinsman, William
duke of Normandy, as the only person whose power, and reputation, and
capacity, could support any destination which he might make in his favor,
to the exclusion of Harold and his family.[*]
This famous prince was natural son of Robert, duke of Normandy, by
Harlotta, daughter of a tanner in Falaise,[**] and was very early
established in that grandeur, from which his birth seemed to have set him
at so great a distance.
While he was but nine years of age, his father had resolved to undertake a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem; a fashionable act of devotion, which had taken
place of the pilgrimages to Rome, and which, as it was attended with more
difficulty and danger, and carried those religious adventurers to the
first sources of Christianity, appeared to them more meritorious. Before
his departure, he assembled the states of the duchy; and in forming them
of his design, he engaged them to swear allegiance to his natural son,
William, whom, as he had no legitimate issue, he intended, in case he
should die in the pilgrimage, to leave successor to his dominions.[*] As
he was a prudent prince, he could not but foresee the great
inconveniencies which must attend this journey, and this settlement of his
succession; arising from the perpetual turbulency of the great, the claims
of other branches of the ducal family and the power of the French monarch;
but all these considerations were surmounted by the prevailing zeal for
pilgrimages;[**] and probably the more important they were, the more would
Robert exult in sacrificing them to what he imagined to be his religious
duty.
This prince, as he had apprehended, died in his pilgrimage; and the
minority of his son was attended with all those disorders which were
almost unavoidable in that situation. The licentious nobles, freed from
the awe of sovereign authority, broke out into personal animosities
against each other, and made the whole country a scene of war and
devastation.[***] Roger, count of Toni, and Alain, count of Brittany,
advanced claims to the dominion of the state; and Henry the First king of
France, thought the opportunity favorable for reducing the power of a
vassal, who had originally acquired his settlement in so violent and
invidious a manner, and who had long appeared formidable to his
sovereign.[****] The regency established by Robert encountered great
difficulties in supporting the government under his complication of
dangers; and the young prince, when he came to maturity, found himself
reduced to a very low condition. But the great qualities which he soon
displayed in the field and in the cabinet, gave encouragement to his
friends, and struck a terror into his enemies. He opposed himself on all
sides against his rebellious subjects, and against foreign invaders; and
by his valor and conduct prevailed in every action.
He obliged the French king to grant him peace on reasonable terms; he
expelled all pretenders to the sovereignty; and he reduced his turbulent
barons to pay submission to his authority, and to suspend their mutual
animosities. The natural severity of his temper appeared in a rigorous
administration of justice; and having found the happy effects of this plan
of government, without which the laws in those ages became totally
impotent, he regarded it as a fixed maxim, that an inflexible conduct was
the first duty of a sovereign.
The tranquillity which he had established in his dominions, had given
William leisure to pay a visit to the king of England, during the time of
Godwin’s banishment; and he was received in a manner suitable to the great
reputation which he had acquired, to the relation by which he was
connected with Edward, and to the obligations which that prince owed to
his family.[*] On the return of Godwin, and the expulsion of the Norman
favorites, Robert, archbishop of Canterbury, had, before his departure,
persuaded Edward to think of adopting William as his successor; a counsel
which was favored by the king’s aversion to Godwin, his prepossessions for
the Normans, and his esteem of the duke. That prelate, therefore, received
a commission to inform William of the king’s intentions in his favor; and
he was the first person that opened the mind of the prince to entertain
those ambitious hopes.[**] But Edward, irresolute and feeble in his
purpose, finding that the English would more easily acquiesce in the
restoration of the Saxon line, and in the mean time invited his brother’s
descendants from Hungary, with a view of having them recognized heirs to
the crown.
The death of his nephew, and the inexperience and unpromising qualities of
young Edgar, made him resume his former intentions in favor of the duke of
Normandy; though his aversion to hazardous enterprises engaged him to
postpone the execution, and even to keep his purpose secret from all his
ministers.
Harold, meanwhile, proceeded after a more open manner, in increasing his
popularity, in establishing his power, and in preparing the way for his
advancement on the first vacancy; an event which, from the age and
infirmities of the king, appeared not very distant. But there was still an
obstacle, which it was requisite for him previously to overcome. Earl
Godwin, when restored to his power and fortune, had given hostages for his
good behavior; and among the rest one son and one grandson, whom Edward,
for greater security, as has been related, had consigned to the custody of
the duke of Normandy. Harold, though not aware of the duke’s being his
competitor, was uneasy that such near relations should be detained
prisoners in a foreign country; and he was afraid lest William should, in
favor of Edgar, retain these pledges as a check on the ambition of any
other pretender. He represented, therefore, to the king his unfeigned
submission to royal authority, his steady duty to his prince, and the
little necessity there was, after such a uniform trial of his obedience,
to detain any longer those hostages, who had been required on the first
composing of civil discords. By these topics, enforced by his great power,
he extorted the king’s consent to release them; and in order to effect his
purpose, he immediately proceeded, with a numerous retinue, on his journey
to Normandy. A tempest drove him on the territory of Guy, count of
Ponthieu, who, being informed of his quality, immediately detained him
prisoner, and demanded an exorbitant sum for his ransom. Harold found
means to convey intelligence of his situation to the duke of Normandy; and
represented that, while he was proceeding to his court, in execution of a
commission from the king of England, he had met with this harsh treatment
from the mercenary disposition of the count of Ponthieu.
William was immediately sensible of the importance of the incident. He
foresaw that, if he could once gain Harold, either by favors or menaces,
his way to the throne of England would be open, and Edward would meet with
no further obstacle in executing the favorable intentions which he had
entertained in his behalf. He sent, therefore, a messenger to Guy, in
order to demand the liberty of his prisoner; and that nobleman, not daring
to refuse so great a prince, put Harold into the hands of the Norman, who
conducted him to Rouen. William received him with every demonstration of
respect and friendship; and after showing himself disposed to comply with
his desire in delivering up the hostages, he look an opportunity of
disclosing to him the great secret of his pretensions to the crown of
England, and of the will which Edward intended to make in his favor. He
desired the assistance of Harold in perfecting that design; he made
professions of the utmost gratitude in return for so great an obligation;
he promised that the present grandeur of Harold’s family, which supported
itself with difficulty under the jealousy and hatred of Edward, should
receive new increase from a successor, who would be so greatly beholden to
him for his advancement Harold was surprised at this declaration of the
duke; but being sensible that he should never recover his own liberty,
much less that of his brother and nephew, if he refused the demand, he
feigned a compliance with William, renounced all hopes of the crown for
himself, and professed his sincere intention of supporting the will of
Edward, and seconding the ptetensions of the duke of Normandy. William, to
bind him faster to his interests, besides offering him one of his
daughters in marriage, required him to take an oath that, he would fulfil
his promises; and in order to render the oath more obligatory, he employed
an artifice well suited to the ignorance and superstition of the age. He
secretly conveyed under the altar, on which Harold agreed to swear, the
relics of some of the most revered martyrs; and when Harold had taken the
oath, he showed him the relics, and admonished him to observe religiously
an engagement which had been ratified by so tremendous a sanction.[*] The
English nobleman was astonished; but dissembling his concern, he renewed
the same professions, and was dismissed with all the marks of mutual
confidence by the duke of Normandy.
When Harold found himself at liberty, his ambition suggested casuistry
sufficient to justify to him the violation of an oath, which had been
extorted from him by fear, and which, if fulfilled, might be attended with
the subjection of his native country to a foreign power. He continued
still to practise every art of popularity; to increase the number of his
partisans; to reconcile the minds of the English to the idea of his
succession; to revive their hatred of the Normans; and, by an ostentation
of his power and influence, to deter the timorous Edward from executing
his intended destination in favor of William. Fortune, about this time,
threw two incidents in his way, by which he was enabled to acquire general
favor, and to increase the character, which he had already attained, of
virtue and abilities.
The Welsh, though a less formidable enemy than the Danes, had long been
accustomed to infest the western borders; and after committing spoil on
the low countries, they usually made a hasty retreat into their mountains,
where they were sheltered from the pursuit of their enemies, and were
ready to seize the first favorable opportunity of renewing their
depredations. Griffith, the reigning prince, had greatly distinguished
himself in those incursions; and his name had become so terrible to the
English, that Harold found he could do nothing more acceptable to the
public, and more honorable for himself, than the suppressing of so
dangerous an enemy. He formed the plan of an expedition against Wales; and
having prepared some light-armed foot to pursue the natives in their
fastnesses, some cavalry to scour the open country, and a squadron of
ships to attack the sea-coast, he employed at once all these forces
against the Welsh, prosecuted his advantages with vigor, made no
intermission in his assaults, and at last reduced the enemy to such
distress, that, in order to prevent their total destruction, they made a
sacrifice of their prince, whose head they cut off, and sent to Harold;
and they were content to receive as their sovereigns two Welsh noblemen
appointed by Edward to rule over them. The other incident was no less
honorable to Harold.
Tosti, brother of this nobleman, who had been created duke of
Northumberland, being of a violent, tyrannical temper, had acted with such
cruelty and injustice, that the inhabitants rose in rebellion, and chased
him from his government. Morcar and Edwin, two brothers, who possessed
great power in those parts, and who were grandsons of the great duke,
Leofric, concurred in the insurrection; and the former, being elected
duke, advanced with an army to oppose Harold, who was commissioned by the
king to reduce and chastise the Northumbrians. Before the armies came to
action, Morcar, well acquainted with the generous disposition of the
English commander, endeavored to justify his own conduct. He represented
to Harold, that Tosti had behaved in a manner unworthy of the station to
which he was advanced, and no one, not even a brother, could support such
tyranny, without participating, in some degree, of the infamy attending
it; that the Northumbrians, accustomed to a legal administration, and
regarding it as their birthright, were willing to submit to the king, but
required a governor who would pay regard to their rights and privileges;
that they had been taught by their ancestors, that death was preferable to
servitude, and had taken the field determined to perish, rather than
suffer a renewal of those indignities to which they had so long been
exposed; and they trusted that Harold, on reflection, would not defend in
another that violent conduct, from which he himself in his own government,
had always kept at so great a distance. Thus vigorous remonstrance was
accompanied with such a detail of facts, so well supported, that Harold
found it prudent to abandon his brother’s cause; and returning to Edward,
he persuaded him to pardon the Northumbrians, and to confirm Morcar in the
government. He even married the sister of that nobleman;[*] and by his
interest procured Edwin, the younger brother, to be elected into the
government of Mercia. Tosti in a rage departed the kingdom, and took
shelter in Flanders with Earl Baldwin, his father-in-law.
By this marriage, Harold broke all measures with the duke of Normandy, and
William clearly perceived that he could no longer rely on the oaths and
promises which he had extorted from him. But the English nobleman was now
in such a situation, that he deemed it no longer necessary to dissemble.
He had, in his conduct towards the Northumbrians, given such a specimen of
his moderation as had gained him the affections of his countrymen. He saw
that almost all England was engaged in his interests; while he himself
possessed the government of Wessex, Morcar that of Northumberland, and
Edwin that of Mercia. He now openly aspired to the succession; and
insisted, that since it was necessary, by the confession of all, to set
aside the royal family, on account of the imbecility of Edgar, the sole
surviving heir, there was no one so capable of filling the throne, as a
nobleman of great power of mature age, of long experience, of approved
courage and abilities, who, being a native of the kingdom, would
effectually secure it against the dominion and tyranny of foreigners.
Edward, broken with age and infirmities, saw the difficulties too great
for him to encounter; and though his inveterate prepossessions kept him
from seconding the pretensions of Harold, he took but feeble and
irresolute steps for securing the succession to the duke of Normandy.[**]
6 While
he continued in this uncertainty, he was surprised by sickness, which
brought him to his grave on the fifth of January, 1066, in the sixty-fifth
year of his age, and twenty-fifth of his reign.
This prince, to whom the monks gave the title of Saint and Confessor, was
the last of the Saxon line that ruled in England. Though his reign was
peaceable and fortunate, he owed his prosperity less to his own abilities
than to the conjunctures of the times. The Danes, employed in other
enterprises, at tempted not those incursions which had been so troublesome
to all his predecessors, and fatal to some of them. The facility of his
disposition made him acquiesce under the government of Godwin and his son
Harold; and the abilities, as well as the power of these noblemen, enabled
them, while they were intrusted with authority, to preserve domestic peace
and tranquillity. The most commendable circumstance of Edward’s government
was his attention to the administration of justice, and his compiling, for
that purpose, a body of laws which he collected from the laws of
Ethelbert, Ina, and Alfred. This compilation, though now lost, (for the
laws that pass under Edward’s name were composed afterwards,[*]) was long
the object of affection to the English nation.
Edward the Confessor was the first that touched for the king’s evil: the
opinion of his sanctity procured belief to this cure among the people: his
successors regarded it as a part of their state and grandeur to uphold the
same opinion. It has been continued down to our time; and the practice was
first dropped by the present royal family, who observed that it could no
longer give amazement even to the populace, and was attended with ridicule
in the eyes of all men of understanding.
HAROLD
1066.
Harold had so well prepared matters before the death of Edward, that he
immediately stepped into the vacant throne; and his accession was attended
with as little opposition and disturbance, as if he had succeeded by the
most undoubted hereditary title. The citizens of London were his zealous
partisans; the bishops and clergy had adopted his cause; and all the
powerful nobility, connected with him by alliance or friendship, willingly
seconded his pretensions. The title of Edgar Atheling was scarcely
mentioned, much less the claim of the duke of Normandy; and Harold,
assembling his partisans, received the crown from their hands, without
waiting for the free deliberation of the states, or regularly submitting
the question to their determination.[*] If any were averse to this
measure, they were obliged to conceal their sentiments; and the new
prince, taking a general silence for consent, and founding his title on
the supposed suffrages of the people, which appeared unanimous, was, on
the day immediately succeeding Edward’s death, crowned and anointed king,
by Aldred, archbishop of York. The whole nation seemed joyfully to
acquiesce in his elevation.
The first symptoms of danger which the king discovered, came from abroad,
and from his own brother, Tosti, who had submitted to a voluntary
banishment in Flanders. Enraged at the successful ambition of Harold, to
which he himself had fallen a victim, he filled the court of Baldwin with
complaints of the injustice which he had suffered; he engaged the interest
of that family against his brother; he endeavored to form intrigues with
some of the discontented nobles in England he sent his emissaries to
Norway, in order to rouse to arms the freebooters of that kingdom, and to
excite their hopes of reaping advantage from the unsettled state of
affairs on the usurpation of the new king; and, that he might render the
combination more formidable, he made a journey to Normandy, in expectation
that the duke, who had married Matilda, another daughter of Baldwin,
would, in revenge of his own wrongs, as well as those of Tosti, second, by
his counsels and forces, the projected invasion of England.[**]
The duke of Normandy, when he first received intelligence of Harold’s
intrigues and accessions, had been moved to the highest pitch of
indignation; but that he might give the better color to his pretensions,
he sent an embassy to England, upbraiding that prince with his breach of
faith, and summoning him to resign, immediately, possession of the
kingdom. Harold replied to the Norman ambassadors, that the oath, with
which he was reproached, had been extorted by the well-grounded fear of
violence, and could never, for that reason, be regarded as obligatory;
that he had had no commission, either from the late king or the states of
England, who alone could dispose of the crown, to make any tender of the
succession to the duke of Normandy; and if he, a private person, had
assumed so much authority, and had even voluntarily sworn to support the
duke’s pretensions, the oath was unlawful, and It was his duty to seize
the first opportunity of breaking it: that he had obtained the crown by
the unanimous suffrages of the people, and should prove himself totally
unworthy of their favor, did he not strenuously maintain those national
liberties, with whose protection they had intrusted him; and that the
duke, if he made any attempt by force of arms, should experience the power
of a united nation, conducted by a prince who, sensible of the obligations
imposed on him by his royal dignity, was determined that the same moment
should put a period to his life and to his government.[*]
This answer was no other than William expected; and he had previously
fixed his resolution of making an attempt upon England. Consulting only
his courage, his resentment, and his ambition, he overlooked all the
difficulties inseparable from an attack on a great kingdom by such
inferior force, and he saw only the circumstances which would facilitate
his enterprise. He considered that England, ever since the accession of
Canute, had enjoyed profound tranquillity, during a period of near fifty
years; and it would require time for its soldiers, enervated by long
peace, to learn discipline, and its generals experience. He knew that it
was entirely unprovided with fortified towns, by which it could prolong
the war; but must venture its whole fortune in one decisive action,
against a veteran enemy, who, being once master of the field, would be in
a condition to overrun the kingdom. He saw that Harold, though he had
given proofs of vigor and bravery, had newly mounted a throne which he had
acquired by faction, from which he had excluded a very ancient royal
family, and which was likely to totter under him by its own instability,
much more if shaken by any violent external impulse. And he hoped that the
very circumstance of his crossing the sea, quitting his own country, and
leaving himself no hopes of retreat, as it would astonish the enemy by the
boldness of the enterprise, would inspirit his soldiers by despair, and
rouse them to sustain the reputation of the Norman arms.
The Normans, as they had long been distinguished by valor among all the
European nations, had, at this time, attained to the highest pitch of
military glory. Besides acquiring by arms such a noble territory in
France, besides defending it against continual attempts of the French
monarch and all its neighbors, besides exerting many acts of vigor under
their present sovereign, they had, about this very time, revived their
ancient fame, by the most hazardous exploits, and the moat wonderful
successes, in the other extremity of Europe. A few Norman adventurers in
Italy had acquired such an ascendant, not only over the Italians and
Greeks, but the Germans and Saracens, that they expelled those foreigners,
procured to themselves ample establishments, and laid the foundation of
the opulent kingdom of Naples and Sicily.[*] These enterprises of men, who
were all of them vassals in Normandy many of them banished for faction and
rebellion, excited the ambition of the haughty William, who disdained,
after such examples of fortune and valor, to be deterred from making an
Attack on a neighboring country, where he could be supported by the whole
force of his principality.
The situation also of Europe inspired William with hopes that, besides his
brave Normans, he might employ against England the flower of the military
force which was dispersed in all the neighboring states. France, Germany,
and the Low Countries, by the progress of the feudal institutions, were
divided and subdivided into many principalities and baronies; and the
possessors, enjoying the civil jurisdiction within them selves, as well as
the right of arms, acted, in many respects, as independent sovereigns, and
maintained their propertied and privileges, less by the authority of laws,
than by their own force and valor. A military spirit had universally
diffused itself throughout Europe; and the several leaders, whose minds
were elevated by their princely situation, greedily embraced the most
hazardous enterprises; and being accustomed to nothing, from their
infancy, but recitals of the success attending wars and battles, they were
prompted by a natural ambition to imitate those adventures which they
heard so much celebrated, and which were so much exaggerated by the
credulity of the age. United, however loosely, by their duty to one
superior lord, and by their connections with the great body of the
community to which they belonged, they desired to spread their fame each
beyond his own district and in all assemblies, whether instituted for
civil deliberations for military expeditions, or merely for show and
entertainment, to outshine each other by the reputation of strength and
prowess. Hence their genius for chivalry; hence their impatience of peace
and tranquillity; and hence their readiness to embark in any dangerous
enterprise, how little soever interested in its failure or success.
William, by his power, his courage, and his abilities, had long maintained
a preeminence among those haughty chieftains; and every one who desired to
signalize himself by his address in military exercises, or his valor in
action, had been ambitious of acquiring a reputation in the court and in
the armies of Normandy. Entertained with that hospitality and courtesy
which distinguished the age, they had formed attachments with the prince,
and greedily attended to the prospects of the signal glory and elevation
which he promised them in return for their concurrence in an expedition
against England. The more grandeur there appeared in the attempt, the more
it suited their romantic spirit; the fame of the intended invasion was
already diffused everywhere; multitudes crowded to tender to the duke
their service, with that of their vassals and retainers;[*] and William
found less difficulty in completing his levies, than in choosing the most
veteran forces, and in rejecting the offers of those who were impatient to
acquire fame under so renowned a leader.
Besides these advantages, which William owed to his personal valor and
good conduct, he was indebted to fortune for procuring him some
assistance, and also for removing many obstacles which it was natural for
him to expect, in an undertaking in which all his neighbors were so deeply
interested. Conan, count of Brittany, was his mortal enemy: in order to
throw a damp upon the duke’s enterprise, he chose this conjuncture for
reviving his claim to Normandy itself; and he required that, in case of
William’s success against England, the possession of that duchy should
devolve to him.[**] But Conan died suddenly after making this demand; and
Hoel, his successor, instead of adopting the malignity, or, more properly
speaking, the prudence of his predecessor, zealously seconded the duke’s
views, and sent his eldest son, Alain Fergant, to serve under him with a
body of five thousand Bretons. The counts of Anjou and of Flanders
encouraged their subjects to engage in the expedition; and even the court
of France, though it might justly fear the aggrandizement of so dangerous
a vassal, pursued not its interests on this occasion with sufficient vigor
and resolution.
Philip I., the reign ing monarch, was a minor; and William, having
communicated his project to the council, having desired assistance, and
offered to do homage, in case of his success, for the crown of England,
was indeed openly ordered to lay aside all thoughts of the enterprise; but
the earl of Flanders, his father-in-law, being at the head of the regency,
favored underhand his levies, and secretly encouraged the adventurous
nobility to enlist under the standard of the duke of Normandy.
The emperor, Henry IV., besides openly giving all his vassals permission
to embark in this expedition, which so much engaged the attention of
Europe, promised his protection to the duchy of Normandy during the
absence of the prince, and thereby enabled him to employ his whole force
in the invasion of England.[*]
But the most important ally that William gained by his negotiations, was
the pope, who had a mighty influence over the ancient barons, no less
devout in their religious principles than valorous in their military
enterprises. The Roman pontiff, after an insensible progress during
several ages of darkness and ignorance, began now to lift his head openly
above all the princes of Europe; to assume the office of a mediator, or
even an arbiter, in the quarrels of the greatest monarchs; to interpose in
all secular affairs; and lo obtrude his dictates as sovereign laws on his
obsequious disciples, It was a sufficient motive to Alexander II., the
reigning pope, for embracing William’s quarrel, that he alone had made an
appeal to his tribunal, and rendered him umpire of the dispute between him
and Harold; but there were other advantages which that pontiff foresaw
must result from the conquest of England by the Norman arms. That kingdom,
though at first converted by Romish missionaries, though it had afterwards
advanced some farther steps towards subjection to Rome, maintained still a
considerable independence in its ecclesiastical administration; and
forming a world within itself, entirely separated from the rest of Europe,
it had hitherto proved inaccessible to those exorbitant claims which
supported the grandeur of the papacy. Alexander therefore hoped, that the
French and Norman barons, if successful in their enterprise, might import
into that country a more devoted reverence to the holy see, and bring the
English churches to a nearer conformity with those of the continent. He
declared immediately in favor of William’s claim; pronounced Harold a
perjured usurper; denounced excommunication against him and his adherents;
and the more to encourage the duke of Normandy in his enterprise, he sent
him a consecrated banner, and a ring with one of St. Peter’s hairs in
it.[*] Thus were all the ambition and violence of that invasion covered
over safely with the broad mantle of religion.
The greatest difficulty which William had to encounter in his
preparations, arose from his own subjects in Normandy. The states of the
duchy were assembled at Lislebonne; and supplies being demanded for the
intended enterprise, which promised so much glory and advantage to their
country, there appeared a reluctance in many members both to grant sums so
much beyond the common measure of taxes in that age, and to set a
precedent of performing their military service at a distance from their
own country. The duke, finding it dangerous to solicit them in a body,
conferred separately with the richest individuals in the province; and
beginning with those on whose affections he most relied, he gradually
engaged all of them to advance the sums demanded. The count of Longueville
seconded him in this negotiation; as did the count of Mortaigne, Odo,
bishop of Baieux, and especially William Fitz-Osborne, count of Breteuil,
and constable of the duchy. Every person, when he himself was once
engaged, endeavored to bring over others; and at last the states
themselves, after stipulating that this concession should be no precedent,
voted that they would assist their prince to the utmost in his intended
enterprise.[**]
William had now assembled a fleet of three thousand vessels, great and
small,[***] and had selected an army of sixty thousand men from among
those numerous supplies, which from every quarter solicited to be received
into his service.
The camp bore a splendid, yet a martial appearance, from the discipline of
the men, the beauty and vigor of the horses, the lustre of the arms, and
the accoutrements of both; but above all, from the high names of nobility
who engaged under the banners of the duke of Normandy. The most celebrated
were Eustace, count of Boulogne, Aimeri de Thouars, Hugh d’Estaples,
William d’Evreux, Geoffrey de Rotrou, Roger de Beaumont, William de
Warenne, Roger de Montgomery, Hugh de Grantmesnil, Charles Martel, and
Geoffrey Giffard.[*] To these bold chieftains William held up the spoils
of England as the prize of their valor; and pointing to the opposite
shore, called to them that there was the field, on which they must
erect trophies to their name, and fix their establishments.
While he was making these mighty preparations, the duke, that he might
increase the number of Harold’s enemies, excited the inveterate rancor of
Tosti, and encouraged him, in concert with Harold Halfager, king of
Norway, to infest the coasts of England. Tosti, having collected about
sixty vessels in the ports of Flanders, put to sea; and after committing
some depredations on the south and east coasts, he sailed to
Northumberland, and was there joined by Halfager, who came over with a
great armament of three hundred sail. The combined fleets entered the
Humber, and disembarked the troops, who began to extend their depredations
on all sides; when Morcar, earl of Northumberland, and Edwin, earl of
Mercia, the king’s brother-in-law, having hastily collected some forces,
ventured to give them battle. The action ended in the defeat and flight of
these two noblemen.
Harold, informed of this defeat, hastened with an army to the protection
of his people; and expressed the utmost ardor to show himself worthy of
the crown, which had been conferred upon him. This prince, though he was
not sensible of the full extent of his danger, from the great combination
against him, had employed every art of popularity to acquire the
affections of the public; and he gave so many proofs of an equitable and
prudent administration, that the English found no reason to repent the
choice which they had made of a sovereign. They flocked from all quarters
to join his standard; and as soon as he reached the enemy at Standford, he
found himself in condition to give them battle. The action was bloody; but
the victory was decisive on the side of Harold, and ended in the total
rout of the Norwegians, together with the death of Tosti and Halfager.
Even the Norwegian fleet fell into the hands of Harold, who had the
generosity to give prince Olave, the son of Halfager, his liberty, and
allow him to depart with twenty vessels. But he had scarcely time to
rejoice for this victory, when he received itelligence that the duke of
Normandy was landed with a great army in the south of England.
The Norman fleet and army had been assembled, early in the summer, at the
mouth of the small river Dive, and all the troops had been instantly
embarked; but the winds proved long contrary, and detained them in that
harbor. The authority, however, of the duke, the good discipline
maintained among the seamen and soldiers, and the great care in supplying
them with provisions, had prevented any disorder, when at last the wind
became favorable, and enabled them to sail along the coast, till they
reached St. Valori. There were, however, several vessels lost in this
short passage; and as the wind again proved contrary, the army began to
imagine that Heaven had declared against them, and that, notwithstanding
the pope’s benediction, they were destined to certain destruction. These
bold warriors, who despised real dangers, were very subject to the dread
of imaginary ones; and many of them began to mutiny, some of them even to
desert their colors, when the duke, in order to support their drooping
hopes, ordered a procession to be made with the relics of St. Valori,[*]
and prayers to be said for more favorable weather.
The wind instantly changed; and as this incident happened on the eve of
the feast of St. Michael, the tutelar saint of Normandy, the soldiers,
fancying they saw the hand of Heaven in all these concurring
circumstances, set out with the greatest alacrity: they met with no
opposition on their passage. A great fleet which Harold had assembled, and
which had cruised all summer off the Isle of Wight, had been dismissed on
his receiving false intelligence that William, discouraged by contrary
winds and other accidents, had laid aside his preparations. The Norman
armament, proceeding in great order, arrived, without any material loss,
at Pevensey, in Sussex; and the army quietly disembarked. The duke
himself, as he leaped on shore, happened to stumble and fall; but had the
presence of mind, it is said, to turn the omen to his advantage, by
calling aloud that he had taken possession of the country. And a soldier,
running to a neighboring cottage, plucked some thatch, which, as if giving
him seizin of the kingdom, he presented to his general. The joy and
alacrity of William and his whole army was so great, that they were nowise
discouraged, evan when they heard of Harold’s great victory over the
Norwegians. They seemed rather to wait with impatience the arrival of the
enemy.
The victory of Harold, though great and honorable, had proved in the main
prejudicial to his interests, and may be regarded as the immediate cause
of his ruin. He lost many of his bravest officers and soldiers in the
action, and he disgusted the rest by refusing to distribute the Norwegian
spoils among them; a conduct which was little agreeable to his usual
generosity of temper, but which his desire of sparing the people, in the
war that impended over him from the duke of Normandy, had probably
occasioned. He hastened by quick marches to reach this new invader; but
though he was reènforced at London and other places with fresh troops, he
found himself also weakened by the desertion of his old soldiers, who from
fatigue and discontent secretly withdrew from their colors. His brother
Gurth, a man of bravery and conduct, began to entertain apprehensions of
the event; and remonstrated with the king, that it would be better policy
to prolong the war; at least, to spare his own person in the action. He
urged to him that the desperate situation of the duke of Normandy made it
requisite for that prince to bring matters to a speedy decision, and put
his whole fortune on the issue of a battle; but that the king of England,
in his own country, beloved by his subjects, provided with every supply,
had more certain and less dangerous means of insuring to himself the
victory; that the Norman troops, elated on the one hand with the highest
hopes, and seeing on the other no resource in case of a discomfiture,
would fight to the last extremity; and being the flower of all the
warriors of the continent, must be regarded as formidable to the English;
that if their first fire, which is always the most dangerous, were allowed
to languish for want of action, if they were harassed with small
skirmishes, straitened in provisions, and fatigued with the bad weather
and deep roads during the winter season which was approaching, they must
fall an easy and a bloodless prey to their enemy; that if a general action
were delayed, the English, sensible of the imminent danger to which their
properties, as well as liberties, were exposed from those rapacious
invaders, would hasten from all quarters to his assistance, and would
render his army invincible; that, at least, if he thought it necessary to
hazard a battle, he ought not to expose his own person out reserve, in
case of disastrous accidents, some resource to the liberty and
independence of the kingdom; and that having once been so unfortunate as
to be constrained to swear, and that upon the holy relics, to support the
pretensions of the duke of Normandy, it were better that the command of
the army should be intrusted to another, who, not being bound by those
sacred ties, might give the soldiers more assured hopes of a prosperous
issue to the combat.
Harold was deaf to all these remonstrances. Elated with his past
prosperity, as well as stimulated by his native courage, he resolved to
give battle in person; and for that purpose he drew near to the Normans,
who had removed their camp and fleet to Hastings, where they fixed their
quarters. He was so confident of success, that he sent a message to the
duke, promising him a sum of money if he would depart the kingdom without
effusion of blood; but his offer was rejected with disdain; and William,
not to be behind with his enemy in vaunting, sent him a message by some
monks, requiring him either to resign the kingdom, or to hold it of him in
fealty, or to submit their cause to the arbitration of the pope, or to
fight him in single combat. Harold replied, that the God of battles would
soon be the arbiter of all their differences.[*]
The English and Normans now prepared themselves for this important
decision; but the aspect of things, on the night before the battle, was
very different in the two camps. The English spent the time in riot, and
jollity, and disorder; the Normans, in silence, and in prayer, and in the
other functions of their religion.[**]
On the morning, the duke called together the most considerable of his
commanders, and made them a speech suitable to the occasion. He
represented to them, that the event which they and he had long wished for,
was approaching; the whole fortune of the war now depended on their
swords, and would be decided in a single action; that never army had
greater motives for exerting a vigorous courage, whether they considered
the prize which would attend their victory, or the inevitable destruction
which must ensue upon their discomfiture; that if their martial and
veteran bands could once break those raw soldiers, who had rashly dared to
approach them, they conquered a kingdom at one blow, and were justly
entitled to all its possessions as the reward of their prosperous valor;
that, on the contrary, if they remitted in the least their wonted prowess,
an enraged enemy hung upon their rear, the sea met them in their retreat,
and an ignominious death was the certain punishment of their imprudent
cowardice; that by collecting so numerous and brave a host, he had insured
every human means of conquest; and the commander of the enemy, by his
criminal conduct, had given him just cause to hope for the favor of the
Almighty, in whose hands alone lay the event of wars and battles; and that
a perjured usurper, anathematized by the sovereign pontiff, and conscious
of his own breach of faith would be struck with terror on their
appearance, and would prognosticate to himself that fate which—his
multiplied crimes had so justly merited.[*] The duke next divided his army
into three lines: the first, led by Montgomery, consisted of archers and
light-armed infantry; the second, commanded by Martel, was composed of his
bravest battalions, heavy-armed, and ranged in close order; his cavalry,
at whose head he placed himself, formed the third line, and were so
disposed, that they stretched beyond the infantry, and flanked each wing
of the army.[**] He ordered the signal of battle to be given; and the
whole army, moving at once, and singing the hymn or song of Roland, the
famous peer of Charlemagne,[***] advanced, in order and with alacrity,
towards the enemy.
Harold had seized the advantage of a rising ground, and having likewise
drawn some trenches to secure his flanks, he resolved to stand upon the
defensive, and to avoid all action with the cavalry, in which he was
inferior. The Kentish men were placed in the van; a post which they had
always claimed as their due: the Londoners guarded the standard; and the
king himself, accompanied by his two valiant brothers, Gurth and Leofwin,
dismounting, placed himself at the head of his infantry, and expressed his
resolution to conquer or to perish in the action. The first attack of the
Normans was desperate, but was received with equal valor by the English;
and after a furious combat, which remained long undecided, the former,
overcome by the difficulty of the ground, and hard pressed by the enemy,
began first to relax their vigor, then to retreat; and confusion was
spreading among the ranks; when William, who found himself on the brink of
destruction, hastened, with a select band, to the relief of his dismayed
forces. His presence restored the action; the English were obliged to
retire with loss; and the duke, ordering his second line to advance,
renewed the attack with fresh forces and with redoubled courage. Finding
that the enemy aided by the advantage of ground, and animated by the
example of their prince, still made a vigorous resistance, he tried a
stratagem which was very delicate in its management, but which seemed
advisable in his desperate situation, where, if he gained not a decisive
victory, he was totally undone: he commanded his troops to make a hasty
retreat, and to allure the enemy from their ground by the appearance of
flight. The artifice succeeded against those unexperienced soldiers, who,
heated by the action, and sanguine in their hopes, precipitately followed
the Normans into the plain. William gave orders, that at once the infantry
should face about upon their pursuers, and the cavalry make an assault
upon their wings, and both of them pursue the advantage, which the
surprise and terror of the enemy must give them in that critical and
decisive moment. The English were repulsed with great slaughter, and
driven back to the hill; where, being rallied by the bravery of Harold,
they were able, notwithstanding their loss, to maintain the post and
continue the combat. The duke tried the same stratagem a second time with
the same success; but even after this double advantage, he still found a
great body of the English, who, maintaining themselves in firm array,
seemed determined to dispute the victory to the last extremity. He ordered
his heavy-armed infantry to make an assault upon them; while his archers,
placed behind, should gall the enemy, who were exposed by the situation of
the ground, and who were intent in defending themselves against the swords
and spears of the assailants. By this disposition he at last prevailed:
Harold was slain by an arrow, while he was combating with great bravery at
the head of his men; his two brothers shared the same fate; and the
English, discouraged by the fall of those princes, gave ground on all
sides, and were pursued with great slaughter by the victorious Normans. A
few troops, however, of the vanquished had still the courage to turn upon
their pursuers; and attacking them in deep and miry ground, obtained some
revenge for the slaughter and dishonor of the day. But the appearance of
the duke obliged them to seek their safety by flight; and darkness saved
them from any further pursuit by the enemy.
Thus was gained by William, duke of Normandy, the great and decisive
victory of Hastings, after a battle which was fought from morning till
sunset, and which seemed worthy, by the heroic valor displayed by both
armies and by both commanders, to decide the fate of a mighty kingdom.
William had three horses killed under him; and there fell near fifteen
thousand men on the side of the Normans: the loss was still more
considerable on that of the vanquished, besides the death of the king and
his two brothers. The dead body of Harold was brought to William, and was
generously restored without ransom to his mother. The Norman army left not
the field of battle without giving thanks to Heaven, in the most solemn
manner, for their victory: and the prince, having refreshed his troops,
prepared to push to the utmost his advantage against the divided,
dismayed, and discomfited English.
APPENDIX I.
THE ANGLO-SAXON GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
The government of the Germans, and that of all the northern nations who
established themselves on the ruins of Rome, was always extremely free;
and those fierce people, accustomed to independence and inured to arms,
were more guided by persuasion than authority in the submission which they
paid to their princes. The military despotism which had taken place in the
Roman empire, and which, previously to the irruption of those conquerors,
had sunk the genius of men, and destroyed every noble principle of science
and virtue, was unable to resist the vigorous efforts of a free people;
and Europe, as from a new epoch, rekindled her ancient spirit, and shook
off the base servitude to arbitrary will and authority under which she had
so long labored. The free constitutions then established, however impaired
by the encroachments of succeeding princes, still preserve an air of
independence and legal administration, which distinguished the European
nations; and if that part of the globe maintain sentiments of liberty,
honor, equity, and valor superior to the rest of mankind, it owes these
advantages chiefly to the seeds implanted by those generous barbarians.
The Saxons who subdued Britain, as they enjoyed great liberty in their own
country, obstinately retained that invaluable possession in their new
settlement; and they imported into this island the same principles of
independence which they had inherited from their ancestors. The
chieftains, (for such they were, more properly than kings or princes,) who
commanded them in those military expeditions, still possessed a very
limited authority; and as the Saxons exterminated, rather than subdued,
the ancient inhabitants, they were indeed transplanted into a new
territory, but preserved unaltered all their civil and military
institutions. The language was pure Saxon; even the names of places, which
often remain while the tongue entirely changes, were almost all affixed by
the conquerors; the manners and customs were wholly German; and the same
picture of a fierce and bold liberty, which is drawn by the masterly
pencil of Tacitus, will suit those founders of the English government. The
king, so far from being invested with arbitrary power, was only considered
as the first among the citizens; his authority depended more on his
personal qualities than on his station; he was even so far on a level with
the people, that a stated price was fixed for his head, and a legal fine
was levied upon his murderer, which, though proportionate to his station,
and superior to that paid for the life of a subject, was a sensible mark
of his subordination to the community.
It is easy to imagine that an independent people, so little restrained by
law and cultivated by science, would not be very strict in maintaining a
regular succession of their princes. Though they paid great regard to the
royal family, and ascribed to it an undisputed superiority, they either
had no rule, or none that was steadily observed, in filling the vacant
throne; and present convenience, in that emergency, was more attended to
than general principles. We are not, however, to suppose that the crown
was considered as altogether elective; and that a regular plan was traced
by the constitution for supplying, by the suffrages of the people, every
vacancy made by the demise of the first magistrate. If any king left a son
of an age and capacity fit for government, the young prince naturally
stepped into the throne: if he was a minor, his uncle, or the next prince
of the blood, was promoted to the government, and left the sceptre to his
posterity: any sovereign, by taking previous measures with the leading
men, had it greatly in his power to appoint his successor: all these
changes, and indeed the ordinary administration of government, required
the express concurrence, or at least the tacit acquiescence of the people;
but possession, however obtained, was extremely apt to secure their
obedience, and the idea of any right, which was once excluded was but
feeble and imperfect. This is so much the case in all barbarous
monarchies, and occurs so often in the history of the Anglo-Saxons, that
we cannot consistently entertain any other notion of their government. The
idea of an hereditary succession in authority is so natural to men, and is
so much fortified by the usual rule in transmitting private possessions,
that it must retain a great influence on every society, which does not
exclude it by the refinements of a republican constitution. But as there
is a material difference between gov-* *ernment and private possessions,
and every man is not as much qualified for exercising the one as for
enjoying the other, a people who are not sensible of the general
advantages attending a fixed rule are apt to make great leaps in the
succession, and frequently to pass over the person, who, had he possessed
the requisite years and abilities, would have been thought entitled to the
sovereignty. Thus these monarchies are not, strictly speaking, either
elective or hereditary; and though the destination of a prince may often
be followed in appointing his successor, they can as little be regarded as
wholly testamentary. The states by their suffrage may sometimes establish
a sovereign; but they more frequently recognize the person whom they find
established: a few great men take the lead; the people, overawed and
influenced, acquiesce in the government; and the reigning prince, provided
he be of the royal family, passes undisputedly for the legal sovereign.
It is confessed that our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon history and
antiquities is too imperfect to afford us means of determining with
certainty all the prerogatives of the crown and privileges of the people,
or of giving an exact delineation of that government. It is probable,
also, that the constitution might be somewhat different hi the different
kingdoms of the Heptarchy, and that it changed considerably during the
course of six centuries, which elapsed from the first invasion of the
Saxons till the Norman conquest.[*] But most of these differences and
changes, with their causes and effects, are unknown to us; it only appears
that, at all times and in all the kingdoms, there was a national council,
called a wittenagemot, or assembly of the wise men, (for that is the
import of the term,) whose consent was requisite for enacting laws, and
for ratifying the chief acts of public administration.
The preambles to all the laws of Ethelbert, Ina, Alfred, Edward the Elder,
Athelstan, Edmond, Edgar, Ethelred, and Edward the Confessor; even those
to the laws of Canute though a kind of conqueror, put this matter beyond
controversy, and carry proofs every where of a limited and legal
government. But who were the constituent members of this wittenagemot has
not been determined with certainty by antiquaries. It is agreed that the
bishops and abbots[*] were an essential part; and it is also evident, from
the tenor of those ancient laws, that the wittenagemot enacted statutes
which regulated the ecclesiastical as well as civil government, and that
those dangerous principles, by which the church is totally severed from
the state, were hitherto unknown to the Anglo-Saxons.[**] It also appears
that the aldermen or governors of counties, who, after the Danish times,
were often called earls,[***] 7 were admitted into this council, and gave their
consent to the public statutes. But besides the prelates and aldermen,
there is also mention of the wites, or wisemen, as a component part of the
wittenagemot; but who these were is not so clearly ascertained by the laws
or the history of that period. The matter would probably be of difficult
discussion, even were it examined impartially; but as our modern parties
have chosen to divide on this point, the question has been disputed with
the greater obstinacy, and the arguments on both sides have become, on
that account, the more captious and deceitful. Our monarchical faction
maintain that these “wites,” or “sapientes,” were the judges, or men
learned in the law: the popular faction assert them to be representatives
of the boroughs, or what we now call the commons.
The expressions employed by all ancient historians in mentioning the
wittenagemot, seem to contradict the latter supposition. The members are
almost always called the “principes, satrapæ, optimates, magnates,
proceres;” terms which seem to suppose an aristocracy, and to exclude the
commons. The boroughs also, from the low state of commerce, were so small
and so poor, and the inhabitants lived in such dependence on the great
men,[****] that it seems nowise probable they would be admitted as a part
of the national councils. The commons are well known to have had no share
in the governments established by the Franks, Burgundians, and other
northern nations; and we may conclude that the Saxons, who remained longer
barbarous and uncivilized than those tribes, would never think of
conferring such an extraordinary privilege on trade and industry.
The military profession alone was honorable among all those conquerors:
the warriors subsisted by their possessions in land: they became
considerable by their influence over their vassals, retainers, tenants,
and slaves: and it requires strong proof to convince us that they would
admit any of a rank so much inferior as the burgesses, to share with them
in the legislative authority. Tacitus indeed affirms that, among the
ancient Germans, the consent of all the members of the community was
required in every important deliberation; but he speaks not of
representatives; and this ancient practice, mentioned by the Roman
historian, could only have place in small tribes, where every citizen
might without inconvenience be assembled upon any extraordinary emergency.
After principalities became extensive, after the difference of property
had formed distinctions more important than those which arose from
personal strength and valor, we may conclude that the national assemblies
must have been more limited in their number, and composed only of the more
considerable citizens.
But, though we must exclude the burgesses or commons from the Saxon
wittenagemot, there is some necessity for supposing that this assembly
consisted of other members than the prelates, abbots, alderman, and the
judges or privy council. For as all these, excepting some of the
ecclesiastics,[*] were anciently appointed by the king, had there been no
other legislative authority, the royal power had been, in a great measure,
absolute, contrary to the tenor of all the historians, and to the practice
of all the northern nations.
We may, therefore, conclude that the more considerable proprietors of land
were, without any election, constituent members of the national assembly:
there is reason to think that forty hides, or between four and five
thousand acres, was the estate requisite for entitling the possessors to
this honorable privilege. We find a passage in an ancient author,[*] by
which it appears that a person of very noble birth, even one allied to the
crown, was not esteemed a “princeps” (the term usually employed by ancient
historians, when the wittenagemot is mentioned) till he had acquired a
fortune of that amount. Nor need we imagine that the public council would
become disorderly or confused by admitting so great a multitude. The
landed property of England was probably in few hands during the Saxon
times, at least, during the latter part of that period; and, as men had
hardly any ambition to attend those public councils, there was no danger
of the assembly’s becoming too numerous for the despatch of the little
business which was brought before them.
It is certain that, whatever we may determine concerning the constituent
members of the wittenagemot, in whom, with the king, the legislature
resided, the Anglo-Saxon government, in the period preceding the Norman
conquest, was becoming extremely aristocratical: the royal authority was
very limited; the people, even if admitted to that assembly, were of
little or no weight and consideration. We have hints given us in
historians of the great power and riches of particular noblemen; and it
could not but happen, after the abolition of the Heptarchy, when the king
lived at a distance from the provinces, that those great proprietors, who
resided on their estates, would much augment their authority over their
vassals and retainers, and over all the inhabitants of the neighborhood.
Hence the immeasurable power assumed by Harold, Godwin, Leofric, Siward,
Morcar, Edwin, Edric, and Alfric who controlled the authority of the
kings, and rendered themselves quite necessary in the government. The two
latter, though detested by the people on account of their joining a
foreign enemy, still preserved their power and influence; and we may
therefore conclude that their authority was founded, not on popularity,
but on family rights and possessions. There is one Athelstan, mentioned in
the reign of the king of that name, who is called alderman of all England,
and is said to be half king; though the monarch himself was a prince of
valor and abilities.[**] And we find that in the later Saxon times, and in
these alone, the great offices went from father to sun, and became in a
manner hereditary in the families.[A]
The circumstances attending the invasions of the Danes would also serve
much to increase the power of the principal nobility. Those freebooters
made unexpected inroads on all quarters, and there was a necessity that
each county should resist them by its own force, and under the conduct of
its own nobility and its own magistrates. For the same reason that a
general war, managed by the united efforts of the whole state commonly
augments the power of the crown, those private wars and inroads turned to
the advantage of the aldermen and nobles.
Among that military and turbulent people, so averse to commerce and the
arts, and so little inured to industry, justice was commonly very ill
administered, and great oppression and violence seem to have prevailed.
These disorders would be increased by the exorbitant power of the
aristocracy; and would, in their turn, contribute to increase it. Men, not
daring to rely on the guardianship of the laws, were obliged to devote
themselves to the service of some chieftain, whose orders they followed
even to the disturbance of the government, or the injury of their
fellow-citizens, and who afforded them, in return, protection from any
insult or injustice by strangers. Hence we find, by the extracts which Dr.
Brady has given us from Domesday, that almost all the inhabitants, even of
towns, had placed themselves under the clientship of some particular
nobleman, whose patronage they purchased by annual payments, and whom they
were obliged to consider as their sovereign, more than the king himself,
or even the legislature.[B]
A client, though a freeman, was supposed so much to belong to his patron,
that his murderer was obliged by law to pay a fine to the latter, as a
compensation for his loss; in like manner as he paid a fine to the master
for the murder of his slave.[A] Men who were of a more considerable rank,
but not powerful enough each to support himself by his own independent
authority, entered into formal confederacies with each other, and composed
a kind of separate community, which rendered itself formidable to all
aggressors. Dr. Hickes has preserved a curious Saxon bond of this kind,
which he calls a “sodalitium,” and which contains many particulars
characteristical of the manners and customs of the times.[B] All the
associates are there said to be gentlemen of Cambridgeshire; and they
swear before the holy relics to observe their confederacy, and to be
faithful to each other: they promise to bury any of the associates who
dies, in whatever place he had appointed; to contribute to his funeral
charges, and to attend to his interment; and whoever is wanting in this
last duty, binds himself to pay a measure of honey. When any of the
associates is in danger, and calls for the assistance of his fellows, they
promise, besides flying to his succor, to give information to the sheriff;
and if he be negligent in protecting the person exposed to danger, they
engage to levy a fine of one pound upon him; if the president of the
society himself be wanting in this particular, he binds himself to pay one
pound; unless he has the reasonable excuse of sickness, or of duty to his
superior. When any of the associates is murdered, they are to exact eight
pounds from the murderer; and if he refuse to pay it, they are to
prosecute him for the sum at their joint expense. If any of the
associates, who happens to be poor, kill a man, the society are to
contribute, by a certain proportion, to pay his fine,—a mark apiece,
if the fine be seven hundred shillings; less if the person killed be a
clown or ceorle; the half of that sum, again, if he be a Welshman But
where any of the associates kill a man wilfully and without provocation,
he must himself pay the fine. If any of the associates kill any of his
fellows in a like criminal manner, besides paying the usual fine to the
relations of the deceased, he must pay eight pounds to the society, or
renounce the benefit of it; in which case they bind themselves, under the
penalty of one pound, never to eat or drink with him, except in the
presence of the king, bishop, or alderman. There are other regulations to
protect themselves and their servants from all injuries, to revenge such
as are committed, and to prevent their giving abusive language to each
other; and the fine which they engage to pay for this last offence is a
measure of honey.
It is not to be doubted but a confederacy of this kind must have been a
great source of friendship and attachment, when men lived in perpetual
danger from enemies, robbers, and oppressors, and received protection
chiefly from their personal valor, and from the assistance of their
friends and patrons. As animosities were then more violent, connections
were also more intimate, whether voluntary or derived from blood: the most
remote degree of propinquity was regarded; an indelible memory of benefits
was preserved; severe vengeance was taken for injuries, both from a point
of honor and as the best means of future security; and the civil union
being weak, many private engagements were contracted, in order to supply
its place, and to procure men that safety, which the laws and their own
innocence were not alone able to insure to them.
On the whole, notwithstanding the seeming liberty, or rather
licentiousness, of the Anglo-Saxons, the great body, even of the free
citizens, in those ages, really enjoyed much less true liberty than where
the execution of the laws is the most severe, and where subjects are
reduced to the strictest subordination and dependence on the civil
magistrate. The reason is derived from the excess itself of that liberty.
Men must guard themselves at any price against insults and injuries; and
where they receive not protection from the laws and magistrates, they will
seek it by submission to superiors, and by herding in some private
confederacy, which acts under the direction of a powerful leader. And thus
all anarchy is the immediate cause of tyranny, if not over the state, at
least over many of the individuals.
Security was provided by the Saxon laws to all members of the
wittenagemot, both in going and returning, “except they were notorious
thieves and robbers.”
The German Saxons, as the other nations of that continent, were divided
into three ranks of men—the noble, the free, and the slaves.[A] This
distinction they brought over with them into Britain.
The nobles were called thanes; and were of two kinds, the king’s thanes
and lesser thanes. The latter seem to have been dependent on the former,
and to have received lands, for which they paid rent, services, or
attendance in peace and war.[*] We know of no title which raised any one
to the rank of thane, except noble birth and the possession of land. The
former was always much regarded by all the German nations, even in their
most barbarous state; and as the Saxon nobility, having little credit,
could scarcely burden their estates with much debt, and as the commons had
little trade or industry by which they could accumulate riches’ these two
ranks of men, even though they were not separated by positive laws, might
remain long distinct, and the noble families continue many ages in
opulence and splendor. There were no middle ranks of men, that could
gradually mix with their superiors, and insensibly procure to themselves
honor and distinction. If, by any extraordinary accident, a mean person
acquired riches, a circumstance so singular made him be known and
remarked; he became the object of envy, as well as of indignation, to all
the nobles; he would have great difficulty to defend what he had acquired;
and he would find it impossible to protect himself from oppression, except
by courting the patronage of some great chieftain, and paying a large
price for his safety.
There are two statutes among the Saxon laws, which seem calculated to
confound those different ranks of men; that of Athelstan, by which a
merchant, who had made three long sea voyages on his own account, was
entitled to the quality of thane;[**] and that of the same prince, by
which a ceorle, or husbandman, who had been able to purchase five hides of
land, and had a chapel, a kitchen, a hall, and a bell, was raised to the
same distinction.[***] But the opportunities were so few, by which a
merchant or ceorle could thus exalt himself above his rank, that the law
could never overcome the reigning prejudices; the distinction between
noble and base blood would still be indelible; and the well-born thanes
would entertain the highest contempt for those legal and factitious ones.
Though we are not informed of any of these circumstances by ancient
historians, they are so much founded on the nature of things, that we may
admit them as a necessary and infallible consequence of the situation of
the kingdom during those ages.
The cities appear by domesday-book to have been, at the conquest little
better than villages.[*] York itself, though it was always the second, at
least the third[**] city in England, and was the capital of a great
province, which never was thoroughly united with the rest, contained then
but one thousand four hundred and eighteen families.[***] Malmsbury tells
us,[****] that the great distinction between the Anglo-Saxon nobility and
the French and Norman, was, that the latter built magnificent and stately
castles; whereas the former consumed their immense fortunes in riot and
hospitality, and in mean houses. We may thence infer, that the arts in
general were much less advanced in England than in France: a greater
number of idle servants and retainers lived about the great families; and
as these, even in France, were powerful enough to disturb the execution of
the laws, we may judge of the authority acquired by the aristocracy in
England. When Earl Godwin besieged the Confessor in London, he summoned
from all parts his huscarles, or houseceorles and retainers, and thereby
constrained his sovereign to accept of the conditions which he was pleased
to impose upon him.
The lower rank of freemen were denominated ceorles among the Anglo-Saxons;
and where they were industrious they were chiefly employed in husbandry;
whence a ceorle and a husbandman became in a manner synonymous terms. They
cultivated the farms of the nobility, or thanes, for which they paid rent;
and they seem to have been removable at pleasure; for there is little
mention of leases among the Anglo-Saxons: the pride of the nobility,
together with the general ignorance of writing, must have rendered those
contracts very rare, and must have kept the husbandmen in a dependent
condition. The rents of farms were then chiefly paid in kind.[*****]
But the most numerous rank by far in the community to have been the slaves
or villains, who were the property of their lords, and were consequently
incapable themselves of possessing any property. Dr. Brady assures us,
from a survey of domesday-book,[*] that, in all the counties of England,
the far greater part of the land was occupied by them, and that the
husbandmen, and still more the socmen, who were tenants that, could not be
removed at pleasure, were very few in comparison. This was not the case
with the German nations, as far as we can collect from the account given
us by Tacitus. The perpetual wars in the Heptarchy, and the depredations
of the Danes, seem to have been the cause of this great alteration with
the Anglo-Saxons. Prisoners taken in battle, or carried off in the
frequent inroads, were then reduced to slavery, and became, by right of
war,[**] entirely at the disposal of their lords. Great property in the
nobles, especially if joined to an irregular administration of justice,
naturally favors the power of the aristocracy; but still more so, if the
practice of slavery be admitted, and has become very common. The nobility
not only possess the influence which always attends riches, but also the
power which the laws give them over their slaves and villains. It then
becomes difficult, and almost impossible, for a private man to remain
altogether free and independent.
There were two kinds of slaves among the Anglo-Saxons; household slaves,
after the manner of the ancients, and praedial, or rustic, after the
manner of the Germans.[***] These latter resembled the serfs, which are at
present to be met with in Poland, Denmark, and some parts of Germany. The
power of a master over his slaves was not unlimited among the
Anglo-Saxons, as it was among their ancestors. If a man beat out his
slave’s eye or teeth, the slave recovered his liberty:[****] if he killed
him, he paid a fine to the king, provided the slave died within a day
after the wound or blow; otherwise it passed unpunished.[*****] The
selling of themselves or children to slavery, was always the practice
among the German nations,[******] and was continued by the
Anglo-Saxons.[*******]
The great lords and abbots among the Anglo-Saxons possessed a criminal
jurisdiction within their territories, and could punish without appeal any
thieves or robbers whom they caught there.[*] This institution must have
had a very contrary effect to that which was intended, and must have
procured robbers a sure protection on the lands of such noblemen as did
not sincerely mean to discourage crimes and violence.
But though the general strain of the Anglo-Saxon government seems to have
become aristocratical, there were still considerable remains of the
ancient democracy, which were not indeed sufficient to protect the lowest
of the people, without the patronage of some great lord, but might give
security, and even some degree of dignity, to the gentry or inferior
nobility. The administration of justice, in particular, by the courts of
the decennary, the hundred, and the county, was well calculated to defend
general liberty, and to restrain the power of the nobles. In the county
courts, or shiremotes, all the freeholders were assembled twice a year,
and received appeals from the inferior courts. They there decided all
causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil; and the bishop, together with the
alderman or earl, presided over them.[**] The affair was determined in a
summary manner, without much pleading formality, or delay, by a majority
of voices; and the bishop and alderman had no further authority than to
keep order among the freeholders, and interpose with their opinion.[***]
Where justice was denied during three sessions by the hundred, and then by
the county court, there lay an appeal to the king’s court;[****] but this
was not practised on slight occasions. The aldermen received a third of
the fines levied in those courts;[*****] and as most of the punishments
were then pecuniary, this perquisite formed a considerable part of the
profits belonging to his office. The two thirds also, which went to the
king, made no contemptible part of the public revenue. Any free-holder was
fined who absented himself thrice from these courts.[******]
As the extreme ignorance of the age made deeds and writings very rare, the
county or hundred court was the place where the most remarkable civil
transactions were finished, in order to preserve the memory of them, and
prevent all future disputes. Here testaments were promulgated, slaves
manumitted, bargains of sale concluded, and sometimes, for greater
security, the most considerable of these deeds were inserted in the blank
leaves of the parish Bible, which thus became a kind of register, too
sacred to be falsified. It was not unusual to add to the deed an
imprecation on all such as should be guilty of that crime.[*]
Among a people who lived in so simple a manner as the Anglo-Saxons, the
judicial power is always of greater importance than the legislative. There
were few or no taxes imposed by the states; there were few statutes
enacted; and the nation was less governed by laws, than by customs, which
admitted a great latitude of interpretation. Though it should, therefore,
be allowed, that the wittenagemot was altogether composed of the principal
nobility, the county courts, where all the freeholders were admitted, and
which regulated all the daily occurrences of life, formed a wide basis for
the government, and were no contemptible checks on the aristocracy. But
there is another power still more important than either the judicial or
legislative; to wit, the power of injuring or serving by immediate force
and violence, for which it is difficult to obtain redress in courts of
justice. In all extensive governments, where the execution of the laws is
feeble, this power naturally falls into the hands of the principal
nobility; and the degree of it which prevails, cannot be determined so
much by the public statutes, as by small incidents in history, by
particular customs, and sometimes by the reason and nature of things. The
highlands of Scotland have long been entitled by law to every privilege of
British subjects; but it was not till very lately that the common people
could in fact enjoy these privileges.
The powers of all the members of the Anglo-Saxon government are disputed
among historians and antiquaries: the extreme obscurity of the subject,
even though faction had never entered into the question, would naturally
have begotten those controversies. But the great influence of the lords
over their slaves and tenants, the clientship of the burghers, the total
want of a middling rank of men, the extent of the mon archy, the loose
execution of the laws, the continued disorders and convulsions of the
state,—all these circumstances evince that the Anglo-Saxon
government became at last extremely aristocratical; and the events, during
the period immediately preceding the conquest, confirm this inference or
conjecture.
Both the punishments inflicted by the Anglo-Saxon courts of judicature,
and the methods of proof employed in all causes, appear somewhat singular,
and are very different from those which prevail at present among all
civilized nations.
We must conceive that the ancient Germans were little removed from the
original state of nature: the social confederacy among them was more
martial than civil: they had chiefly in view the means of attack or
defence against public enemies, not those of protection against their
fellow-citizens: their possessions were so slender and so equal, that they
were not exposed to great danger; and the natural bravery of the people
made every man trust to himself and to his particular friends for his
defence or vengeance. This defect in the political union drew much closer
the knot of particular confederacies: an insult upon any man was regarded
by all his relations and associates as a common injury: they were bound by
honor, as well as by a sense of common interest, to revenge his death, or
any violence which he had suffered: they retaliated on the aggressor by
like acts of violence; and if he were protected, as was natural and usual,
by his own clan, the quarrel was spread still wider, and bred endless
disorders in the nation.
The Frisians, a tribe of the Germans, had never advanced beyond this wild
and imperfect state of society; and the right of private revenge still
remained among them unlimited and uncontrolled.[*] But the other German
nations, in the age of Tacitus, had made one step farther towards
completing the political or civil union. Though it still continued to be
an indispensable point of honor for every clan to revenge the death or
injury of a member, the magistrate had acquired a right of interposing in
the quarrel, and of accommodating the difference. He obliged the person
maimed or injured, and the relations of one killed, to accept of a present
from the aggressor and his relations,[**] as a compensation for the
injury.[***] and to drop all farther prosecution of revenge. That the
accommodation of one quarrel might not be the source of more, this present
was fixed and certain according to the rank of the person killed or
injured, and was commonly paid in cattle, the chief property of those rude
and uncultivated nations.
A present of this kind gratified the revenge of the injured family by the
loss which the aggressor suffered: it satisfied then pride by the
submission which it expressed: it diminished their regret for the loss or
injury of a kinsman by their acquisition of new property; and thus general
peace was for a moment restored to the society.[*]
But when the German nations had been settled some time in the provinces of
the Roman empire, they made still another step towards a more cultivated
life, and their criminal justice gradually improved and refined itself.
The magistrate, whose office it was to guard public peace, and to suppress
private animosities, conceived himself to be injured by every injury done
to any of his people; and besides the compensation to the person who
suffered, or to his family, he thought himself entitled to exact a fine,
called the “fridwit,” as an atonement for the breach of peace, and as a
reward for the pains which he had taken in accommodating the quarrel. When
this idea, which is so natural, was once suggested, it was willingly
received both by sovereign and people. The numerous fines which were
levied, augmented the revenue of the king; and the people were sensible
that he would be more vigilant in interposing with his good offices, when
he reaped such immediate advantage from them; and that injuries would be
less frequent, when, besides compensation to the person injured, that they
were exposed to this additional penalty.[**]
This short abstract contains the history of the criminal jurisprudence of
the northern nations for several centuries. The state of England in this
particular, during the period of the Anglo-Saxons, may be judged of by the
collection of ancient laws, published by Lambard and Wilkins. The chief
purport of these laws is not to prevent or entirely suppress private
quarrels, which the legislators knew to be impossible, but only to
regulate and moderate them. The laws of Alfred enjoin, that if any one
know that his enemy or aggressor, after doing him an injury, resolves to
keep within his own house and his own lands[*] he shall not fight
him, till he require compensation for the injury. If he be strong enough
to besiege him in his house, he may do it for seven days without attacking
him; and if the aggressor be a willing, during that time, to surrender
himself and his arms, his, adversary may detain him thirty days, but is
afterwards obliged to restore him safe to his kindred, “and be content
with the compensation.” If the criminal fly to the temple, that sanctuary
must not be violated. Where the assailant has not force sufficient to
besiege the criminal in his house, he must apply to the alderman for
assistance; and if the alderman refuse aid the assailant must have
recourse to the king; and he is not allowed to assault the house till
after this supreme magistrate has refused assistance. If any one meet with
his enemy, and be ignorant that he was resolved to keep within his own
lands he must, before he attack him, require him to surrender him self
prisoner, and deliver up his arms; in which case he may detain him thirty
days; but if he refuse to deliver up his arms it is then lawful to fight
him. A slave may fight in his master’s quarrel: a father may fight in his
son’s with any one except with his master.[**]
It was enacted by King Ina, that no man should take revenge for an injury
till he had first demanded compensation, and had been refused it.[***]
King Edmond, in the preamble to his laws, mentions the general misery
occasioned by the multiplicity of private feuds and battles; and he
establishes several expedients for remedying this grievance. He ordains
that if any one commit murder, he may, with the assistance of his kindred,
pay within a twelvemonth the fine of his crime; and if they abandon him,
he shall alone sustain the deadly feud or quarrel with the kindred of the
murdered person: his own kindred are free from the feud, but on condition
that they neither converse with the criminal, nor supply him with meat or
other necessaries: if any of them, after renouncing him, receive him into
their house, or give him assistance, they are finable to the king, and are
involved in the feud. If the kindred of the murdered person take revenge
on any but the criminal himself, after he is abandoned by his kindred, all
their property is forfeited, and they are declared to be enemies to the
king and all his friends.[*] It is also ordained that the fine for murder
shall never be remitted by the king,[**] and that no criminal shall be
killed who flies to the church, or any of the king’s towns;[***] and the
king himself declares, that his house shall give no protection to
murderers, till they have satisfied the church by their penance, and the
kindred of the deceased by making compensation.[****] The method appointed
for transacting this composition is found in the same law.[*****]
These attempts of Edmond, to contract and diminish the feuds, were
contrary to the ancient spirit of the northern barbarians, and were a step
towards a more regular administration of justice. By the salic law, any
man-night, by a public declaration, exempt himself from his family
quarrels: but then he was considered by the law as no longer belonging to
the family; and he was deprived of all right of succession, as the
punishment of his cowardice.[******]
The price of the king’s head, or his weregild, as it was then called, was
by law thirty thousand thrimsas, near thirteen hundred pounds of present
money. The price of the prince’s head was fifteen thousand thrimsas; that
of a bishop’s or alderman’s, eight thousand; a sheriff’s, four thousand; a
thane’s or clergyman’s, two thousand; a ceorle’s, two hundred and
sixty-six. These prices were fixed by the laws of the Angles. By the
Mercian law, the price of a ceorle’s head was two hundred shillings; that
of a thane’s, six times as much; that of a king’s, six times
more.[*******] By the laws of Kent, the price of the archbishop’s head was
higher than that of the king’s.[********] Such respect was then paid to
the ecclesiastics! It must be understood, that where a person was unable
or unwilling to pay the fine, he was put out of the protection of law, and
the kindred of the deceased had liberty to punish him as they thought
proper.
Some antiquaries [*********] have thought that these compensations were
only given for manslaughter, not for wilful murder.
But no such distinction appears in the laws; and it is contradicted by the
practice of all the other barbarous nations,[*] by that of the ancient
Germans,[**] and by that curious monument above mentioned of Saxon
antiquity, preserved by Hickes. There is indeed a law of Alfred’s which
makes wilful murder capital;[***] but this seems only to have been an
attempt of that great legislator towards establishing a better police in
the kingdom, and it probably remained without execution. By the laws of
the same prince, a conspiracy against the life of the king might be
redeemed by a fine.[****]
The price of all kinds of wounds was likewise fixed by the Saxon laws: a
wound of an inch long under the hair was paid with one shilling: one of a
like size in the face, two shillings; thirty shillings for the loss of an
ear; and so forth.[*****] There seems not to have been any difference
made, according to the dignity of the person. By the laws of Ethelbert,
any one who committed adultery with his neighbor’s wife was obliged to pay
him a fine, and buy him another wife.[******]
These institutions are not peculiar to the ancient Germans. They seem to
be the necessary progress of criminal jurisprudence among every free
people, where the will of the sovereign is not implicitly obeyed. We find
them among the ancient Greeks during the time of the Trojan war.
Compositions for murder are mentioned in Nestor’s speech to Achilles, in
the ninth Iliad, and are called [Greek: apoinai]. The Irish, who never had
any connections with the German nations, adopted the same practice till
very lately; and the price of a man’s head was called among them his
“eric;” as we learn from Sir John Davis. The same custom seems also to
have prevailed among the Jews.[*******]
Theft and robbery were frequent among the Anglo-Saxons In order to impose
some check upon these crimes, it was ordained, that no man should sell or
buy any thing above twenty pence value, except in open market;[********]
and every bargain of sale must be executed before witnesses.[*********]
Gangs of robbers much disturbed the peace of the country, and the law
determined that a tribe of banditti, consisting of between seven and
thirty-five persons, was to be called a “turma,” or troop; any greater
company was denominated an army.[*] The punishments for this crime were
various, but none of them capital.[**] If any man could track his stolen
cattle into another’s ground, the latter was obliged to show the tracks
out of it, or pay their value.[***]
Rebellion, to whatever excess it was carried, was not capital but might be
redeemed by a sum of money.[****] The legislators, knowing it impossible
to prevent all disorders, only imposed a higher fine on breaches of the
peace committed in the king’s court, or before an alderman or bishop. An
ale-house, too, seems to have been considered as a privileged place; and
any quarrels that arose there were more severely punished than else
where.[*****]
If the manner of punishing crimes among the Anglo-Saxons appear singular,
the proofs were not less so; and were also the natural result of the
situation of those people. Whatever we may imagine concerning the usual
truth and sincerity of men who live in a rude and barbarous state, there
is much more falsehood, and even perjury, among them, than among civilized
nations: virtue, which is nothing but a more enlarged and more cultivated
reason, never flourishes to any degree, nor is founded on steady
principles of honor, except where a good education becomes general; and
where men are taught the pernicious consequences of vice, treachery, and
immorality. Even superstition, though more prevalent among ignorant
nations, is but a poor supply for the defects in knowledge and education;
our European ancestors, who employed every moment the expedient of
swearing on extraordinary crosses and relics, were less honorable in all
engagements than their posterity, who from experience have omitted those
ineffectual securities. This general proneness to assumed perjury was much
increased by the usual want of discernment in judges, who could not
discuss an intricate evidence, and were obliged to number, not weigh, the
testimony of the witnesses,[*] Hence the ridiculous practice of obliging
men to bring compurgators, who, as they did not pretend to know any thing
of the fact, expressed upon oath, that they believed the person spoke
true; and these compurgators were in some cases multiplied to the number
of three hundred.[**] The practice also of single combat was employed by
most nations on the continent as a remedy against false evidence;[***] and
though it was frequently dropped, from the opposition of the clergy, it
was continually revived, from experience of the falsehood attending the
testimony of witnesses.[****] It became at last a species of
jurisprudence: the cases were determined by law, in which the party might
challenge his adversary or the witnesses, or the judge himself;[*****] and
though these customs were absurd, they were rather an improvement on the
methods of trial which had formerly been practised among those barbarous
nations, and which still prevailed among the Anglo-Saxons.
When any controversy about a fact became too intricate for those ignorant
judges to unravel, they had recourse to what they called the judgment of
God, that is, to fortune. Their methods of consulting this oracle were
various. One of them was the decision by the cross: it was practised in
this manner: When a person was accused of any crime, he first cleared
himself by oath, and he was attended by eleven compurgators. He next took
two pieces of wood, one of which was marked with the sign of the cross,
and wrapping both up in wool, he placed them on the altar, or on some
celebrated relic. After solemn prayers for the success of the experiment,
a priest, or in his stead some unexperienced youth, took up one of the
pieces of wood, and if he happened upon that which was marked with the
figure of the cross, the person was pronounced innocent; if otherwise,
guilty. [*] This practice, as it arose from superstition, was abolished by
it in France.
The ordeal was another established method of trial among Saxons. It was
practised either by boiling water or red-hot iron. The former was
appropriated to the common people; the latter to the nobility. The water
or iron was consecrated by many prayers, masses, fastings, and
exorcisms,[*] after which, the person accused either took up a stone sunk
in the water[**] to a certain depth, or carried the iron to a certain
distance; and his hand being wrapped up, and the covering sealed for three
days, if there appeared, on examining it, no marks of burning, he was
pronounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty.[***] The trial by cold water
was different: the person was thrown into consecrated water; if he swam,
he was guilty, if he sunk, innocent.[****] It is difficult for us to
conceive how any innocent person could ever escape by the one trial, or
any criminal be convicted by the other. But there was another usage
admirably calculated for allowing every criminal to escape, who had
confidence enough to try it. A consecrated cake, called a corsned, was
produced, which if the person could swallow and digest, he was pronounced
innocent.[******]
The feudal law, if it had place at all among the Anglo-Saxons, which is
doubtful, was not certainly extended over all the landed property, and was
not attended with those consequences of homage, reliefs,[*******]
wardship, marriage, and other burdens, which were inseparable from it in
the kingdoms of the continent. As the Saxons expelled, or almost entirely
destroyed, the ancient Britons, they planted themselves in this island on
the same footing with their ancestors in Germany, and found no occasion
for the feudal institutions,[********] which were calculated to maintain a
kind of standing army, always in readiness to suppress any insurrection
among the conquered people.
The trouble and expense of defending the state in England lay equally upon
all the land; and it was usual for every five hides to equip a man for the
service. The “trinoda necessitas,” as it was called, or the burden of
military expeditions, of repairing highways, and of building and
supporting bridges, was inseparable from landed property, even though it
belonged to the church or monasteries, unless exempted by a particular
charter.[*] The ceorles, or husbandmen, were provided with arms, and were
obliged to take their turn in military duty.[**] There were computed to be
two hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred hides in England;[***]
consequently the ordinary military force of the kingdom consisted of
forty-eight thousand seven hundred and twenty men; though, no doubt, on
extraordinary occasions, a greater number might be assembled. The king and
nobility had some military tenants, who were called “sithcun-men.”[****]
And there were some lands annexed to the office of aldermen, and to other
offices; but these probably were not of great extent, and were possessed
only during pleasure, as in the commencement of the feudal law in other
countries of Europe.
The revenue of the king seems to have consisted chiefly in his demesnes,
which were large; and in the tolls and imposts which he probably levied at
discretion on the boroughs and seaports that lay within his demesnes. He
could not alienate any part of the crown lands, even to religious uses,
without the consent of the states.[*****] Danegelt was a land-tax of a
shilling a hide, imposed by the states,[******] either for payment of the
sums exacted by the Danes, or for putting the kingdom in a posture of
defence against those invaders.[*******]
The Saxon pound, as likewise that which was coined for some centuries
after the conquest, was near three times the weight of our present money.
There were forty-eight shillings in the pound, and five pence in a
shilling;[********] consequently a Saxon shilling was near a fifth heavier
than ours, and a Saxon penny near three times as heavy.[*********]
As to the value of money in those times, compared to commodities, there
are some though not very certain, means of computation. A sheep, of the
laws of Athelstan, was estimated at a shilling; that is, fifteen pence of
our money. The fleece was two fifths of the value of the whole sheep,[*]
much above its present estimation; and the reason probably was, that the
Saxons, like the ancients, were little acquainted with any clothing but
what was made of wool. Silk and cotton were quite unknown: linen was not
much used. An ox was computed at six times the value of a sheep; a cow at
four.[**] If we suppose that the cattle in that age, from the defects in
husbandry, were not so large as they are at present in England, we may
compute that money was then near ten times of greater value. A horse was
valued at about thirty-six shillings of our money, or thirty Saxon
shillings;[***] a mare a third less. A man at three pounds.[****] The
board-wages of a child the first year was eight shillings, together with a
cow’s pasture in summer, and an ox’s in winter.[*****] William of
Malmsbury mentions it as a remarkably high price that William Rufus gave
fifteen marks for a horse, or about thirty pounds of our present
money.[******] Between the years 900 and 1000, Ednoth bought a hide of
land for about one hundred and eighteen shillings of present
money.[*******] This was little more than a shilling an acre, which indeed
appears to have been the usual price, as we may learn from other
accounts.[********] A palfrey was sold for twelve shillings about the year
966.[*********] The value of an ox in King Ethel ed’s[** word?] time was
between seven and eight shillings; a cow about six shillings.[*********]
Gervas of Tilbury says, that in Henry I’s time, bread which would suffice
a hundred men for a day was rated at three shillings, or a shilling of
that age: for it is thought that soon after the conquest a pound sterling
was divided into twenty shillings. A sheep was rated at a shilling, and so
of other things in proportion. In Athelstan’s time, a ram was valued at a
shilling, or fourpence Saxon.[**********] The tenants of Shireburn were
obliged, at their choice, to pay either sixpence or four
hens.[***********]
About 1232, the abbot of St. Alban’s, going on a journey, hired seven
handsome, stout horses; and agreed, if any of them died on the road, to
pay the owner thirty shillings apiece of our present money.[*] It is to be
remarked, that in all ancient times the raising of corn, especially wheat,
being a species of manufactory, that commodity always bore a higher price,
compared to cattle, than it does in our times.[**] The Saxon Chronicle
tells us,[***] that in the reign of Edward the Confessor there was the
most terrible famine ever known; insomuch that a quarter of wheat rose to
sixty pennies, or fifteen shillings of our present money. Consequently, it
was as dear as if it now cost seven pounds ten shillings. This much
exceeds the great famine in the end of Queen Elizabeth, when a quarter of
wheat was sold for four pounds. Money in this last period was nearly of
the same value as in our time. These severe famines are a certain proof of
bad husbandry.
On the whole, there are three things to be considered, wherever a sum of
money is mentioned in ancient times. First, the change of denomination, by
which a pound has been reduced to the third part of its ancient weight in
silver. Secondly, the change in value by the greater plenty of money,
which has reduced the same weight of silver to ten times less value,
compared to commodities; and consequently a pound sterling to the
thirtieth part of the ancient value. Thirdly, the fewer people and less
industry which were then to be found in every European kingdom. This
circumstance made even the thirtieth part of the sum more difficult to
levy, and caused any sum to have more than thirty times greater weight and
influence, both abroad and at home, than in our times; in the same manner
that a sum, a hundred thousand pounds, for instance, is at present more
difficult to levy in a small state, such as Bavaria, and can produce
greater effects on such a small community than on England. This last
difference is not easy to be calculated; but, allowing that England has
now six times more industry, and three times more people than it had at
the conquest, and for some reigns after that period, we are upon that
supposition to conceive, taking all circumstances together, every sum of
money mentioned by historians, as if it were multiplied more than a
hundred fold above a sum of the same denomination at present.
In the Saxon times, land was divided equally among all the male children
of the deceased, according to the custom of gavelkind. The practice of
entails is to be found in those times.[*] Land was chiefly of two kinds,
bockland, or land held by book or charter, which was regarded as full
property, and descended to the heirs of the possessor; and folkland, or
the land held by the ceorles and common people, who were removable at
pleasure, and were, indeed, only tenants during the will of their lords.
The first attempt which we find in England to separate the ecclesiastical
from the civil jurisdiction, was that law of Edgar by which all disputes
among the clergy were ordered to be carried before the bishop.[**] The
penances were then very severe; but as a man could buy them off with
money, or might substitute others to perform them, they lay easy upon the
rich.[***]
With regard to the manners of the Anglo-Saxons, we can say little, but
that they were in general a rude, uncultivated people, ignorant of
letters, unskilled in the mechanical arts, untamed to submission under law
and government, addicted to intemperance, riot, and disorder. Their best
quality was their military courage, which yet was not supported by
discipline or conduct. Their want of fidelity to the prince, or to any
trust reposed in them, appears strongly in the history of their later
period; and their want of humanity in all their history. Even the Norman
historians, notwithstanding the low state of the arts in their own
country, speak of them as barbarians, when they mention the invasion made
upon them by the duke of Normandy.[****] The conquest put the people in a
situation of receiving slowly, from abroad, the rudiments of science and
cultivation, and of correcting their rough and licentious manners.
CHAPTER IV.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
Contemporary Monarchs:
1066.
Nothing could exceed the consternation which seized the English
when they received intelligence of the unfortunate battle of Hastings, the
death of their king, the slaughter of their principal nobility and of
their bravest warriors, and the rout and dispersion of the remainder. But
though the loss which they had sustained in that fatal action was
considerable, it might have been repaired by a great nation; where the
people were generally armed, and where there resided so many powerful
noblemen in every province, who could have assembled their retainers, and
have obliged the duke of Normandy to divide his army, and probably to
waste it in a variety of actions and rencounters. It was thus that the
kingdom had formerly resisted for many years its invaders, and had been
gradually subdued by the continued efforts of the Romans, Saxons, and
Danes; and equal difficulties might have been apprehended by William in
this bold and hazardous enterprise. But there were several vices in the
Anglo-Saxon constitution, which rendered it difficult for the English to
defend their liberties in so critical an emergency. The people had in a
great measure lost all national pride and spirit by their recent and long
subjection to the Danes; and as Canute had, in the course of his
administration, much abated the rigors of conquest, and had governed them
equitably by their own laws, they regarded with the less terror the
ignominy of a foreign yoke, and deemed the inconveniences of submission
less formidable than those of bloodshed, war, and resistance. Their
attachment also to the ancient royal family had been much weakened by
their habits of submission to the Danish princes, and by their late
election of Harold or their acquiescence in his usurpation. And as they
had long been accustomed to regard Edgar Atheling, the only heir of the
Saxon line, as unfit to govern them even in times of order and
tranquillity, they could entertain small hopes of his being able to repair
such great losses as they had sustained, or to withstand the victorious
arms of the duke of Normandy.
That they might not, however, be altogether wanting to themselves in this
extreme necessity, the English took some steps towards adjusting their
disjointed government, and uniting themselves against the common enemy.
The two potent earls, Edwin and Morcar, who had fled to London with the
remains of the broken army, took the lead on this occasion: in concert
with Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury, a man possessed of great authority
and of ample revenues, they proclaimed Edgar, and endeavored to put the
people in a posture of defence, and encourage them to resist the
Normans.[*] But the terror of the late defeat, and the near neighborhood
of the invaders, increased the confusion inseparable from great
revolutions; and every resolution proposed was hasty, fluctuating,
tumultuary; disconcerted by fear or faction; ill planned, and worse
executed.
William, that his enemies might have no leisure to recover from their
consternation or unite their counsels, immediately put himself in motion
after his victory, and resolved to prosecute an enterprise which nothing
but celerity and vigor could render finally successful. His first attempt
was against Rornney, whose inhabitants he severely punished, on account of
their cruel treatment of some Norman seamen and soldiers, who had been
carried thither by stress of weather, or by a mistake in their course;[**]
and foreseeing that his conquest of England might still be attended with
many difficulties and with much opposition, he deemed it necessary, before
he should advance farther into the country, to make himself master of
Dover, which would both secure him a retreat in cast of adverse fortune,
and afford him a safe landing-place for such supplies as might be
requisite for pushing his advantages.
The terror diffused by his victory at Hastings was so great that the
garrison of Dover, though numerous and well provided, immediately
capitulated; and as the Normans, rushing in to take possession of the
town, hastily set fire to some of the houses, William, desirous to
conciliate the minds of the English by an appearance of lenity and
justice, made compensation to the inhabitants for their losses.[*]
The Norman army, being much distressed with a dysentery, was obliged to
remain here eight days; but the duke, on their recovery, advanced with
quick marches towards London, and by his approach increased the confusions
which were already so prevalent in the English counsels. The ecclesiastics
in particular, whose influence was great over the people began to declare
in his favor; and as most of the bishops and dignified clergymen were even
then Frenchmen or Normans, the pope’s bull, by which his enterprise was
avowed and hallowed, was now openly insisted on as a reason for general
submission. The superior learning of those prelates, which, during the
Confessor’s reign, had raised them above the ignorant Saxons, made their
opinions be received with implicit faith; and a young prince; like Edgar,
whose capacity was deemed so mean, was but ill qualified to resist the
impression which they made on the minds of the people. A repulse which a
body of Londoners received from five hundred Norman horse, renewed in the
city the terror of the great defeat at Hastings; the easy submission of
all the inhabitants of Kent was an additional discouragement to them; the
burning of Southwark before their eyes made them dread a like fate to
their own city; and no man any longer entertained thoughts but of
immediate safety ana of self-preservation. Even the Earls Edwin and
Morcar, in despair of making effectual resistance, retired with their
troops to their own provinces; and the people thenceforth disposed
themselves unanimously to yield to the victor. As soon as he passed the
Thames at Wallingford, and reached Berkhamstead, Stigand, the primate,
made submissions to him: before he came within sight of the city, all the
chief nobility, and Edgar Atheling himself, the new elected king, came
into his camp, and declared their intention of yielding to his
authority.[**] They requested him to mount their throne, which they now
considered as vacant; and declare to him, that as they had always been
ruled by regal power, they desired to follow, in this particular, the
example of their ancestors, and knew of no one more worthy than himself to
hold the reins of government.[***]
Though this was the great object to which the duke’s enterprise tended, he
feigned to deliberate on the offer; and being desirous, at first, of
preserving the appearance of a legal administration, he wished to obtain a
more explicit and formal consent of the English nation;[*] but Aimar of
Aquitain, a man equally respected for valor in the field and for prudence
in council, remonstrating with him on the danger of delay in so critical a
conjuncture, he laid aside all further scruples, and accepted of the crown
which was tendered him. Orders were immediately issued to prepare every
thing for the ceremony of his coronation; but as he was yet afraid to
place entire confidence in the Londoners, who were numerous and warlike,
he meanwhile commanded fortresses to be erected, in order to curb the
inhabitants, and to secure his person and government.[**]
Stigand was not much in the duke’s favor, both because he had intruded
into the see on the expulsion of Robert the Norman, and because he
possessed such influence and authority over the English[***] as might be
dangerous to a new-established monarch. William, therefore, pretending
that the primate had obtained his pall in an irregular manner from Pope
Benedict IX., who was himself a usurper, refused to be consecrated by him,
and conferred this honor on Aldred, arch bishop of York. Westminster Abbey
was the place appointed for that magnificent ceremony; the most
considerable of the nobility, both English and Norman, attended the duke
on this occasion; Aldred, in a short speech, asked the former whether they
agreed to accept of William as their king; the bishop of Coutance put the
same question to the latter; and both being answered with
acclamations,[****] Aldred administered to the duke the usual coronation
oath, by which he bound himself to protect the church, to administer
justice, and to repress violence; he then anointed him, and put the crown
upon his head.[*****] There appeared nothing but joy in the countenance of
the spectators; but in that very moment there burst forth the strongest
symptoms of the jealousy and animosity which prevailed between the
nations, and which continually increased during the reign of this prince.
The Norman soldiers, who were placed without in order to guard the church,
hearing the shouts within, fancied that the English were offering violence
to their duke; and they immediately assaulted the populace, and set fire
to the neighboring houses. The alarm was conveyed to the nobility who
surrounded the prince; both English and Normans, full of apprehensions,
rushed out to secure themselves from the present danger; and it was with
difficulty that William himself was able to appease the tumult.[*]
The king, thus possessed of the throne by a pretended descination of King
Edward, and by an irregular election of the people, but still more by
force of arms, retired from London to Berking, in Essex,
1067.
and there received the submissions of all the nobility who had not
attended his coronation. Edric, surnamed the Forester, grand-nephew to
that Edric so noted for his repeated acts of perfidy during the reigns of
Ethelred and Edmond; Earl Coxo, a man famous for bravery; even Edwin and
Morcar, earls of Mercia and Northumberland; with the other principal
noblemen of England, came and swore fealty to him; were received into
favor; and were confirmed in the possession of their estates and
dignities.[**] Every thing bore the appearance of peace and tranquillity;
and William had no other occupation than to give contentment to the
foreigners who had assisted him to mount the throne, and to his new
subjects, who had so readily submitted to him.
He had got possession of the treasure of Harold, which was considerable;
and being also supplied with rich presents from the opulent men in all
parts of England, who were solicitous to gain the favor of their new
sovereign, he distributed great sums among his troops, and by this
liberality gave them hopes of obtaining at length those more durable
establishments which they had expected from his enterprise.[***] The
ecclesiastics, both at home and abroad, had much forwarded his success;
and he failed not, in return, to express his gratitude and devotion in the
manner which was most acceptable to them; he sent Harold’s standard to the
pope, accompanied with many valuable presents; all the considerable
monasteries and churches in France, where prayers had been put up for his
success, now tasted of his bounty;[****] the English monks found him well
disposed to favor their order; and he built a new convent near Hastings,
which he called Battle Abbey, and which on pretence of supporting monks to
pray lor his own soul, and for that of Harold, served as a lasting
memorial of his victory.[*****]
He introduced into England that strict execution of justice, for which his
administration had been much celebrated in Normandy; and even during this
violent revolution, every disorder or oppression met with rigorous
punishment.[*]
His army in particular was governed with severe discipline; and
notwithstanding the insolence of victory, care was taken to give as little
offence as possible to the jealousy of the vanquished. The king appeared
solicitous to unite in an amicable manner the Normans and the English, by
intermarriages and alliances; and all his new subjects who approached his
person were received with affability and regard. No signs of suspicion
appeared, not even towards Edgar Atheling, the heir of the ancient royal
family, whom William confirmed in the honors of earl of Oxford, conferred
on him by Harold, and whom he affected to treat with the highest kindness,
as nephew to the Confessor, his great friend and benefactor. Though he
confiscated the estates of Harold, and of those who had fought in the
battle of Hastings on the side of that prince, whom he represented as a
usurper, he seemed willing to admit of every plausible excuse for past
opposition to his pretensions, and he received many into favor who had
carried arms against him, He confirmed the liberties and immunities of
London and the other cities of England; and appeared desirous of replacing
every thing on ancient establishments. In his whole administration, he
bore the semblance of the lawful prince, not of the conqueror; and the
English began to flatter themselves, that they had changed, not the form
of their government, but the succession only of their sovereigns; a matter
which gave them small concern. The better to reconcile his new subjects to
his authority, William made a progress through some parts of England; and
besides a splendid court and majestic presence, which overawed the people,
already struck with his military fame, the appearance of his clemency and
justice gained the approbation of the wise, attentive to the first steps
of their new sovereign.
But amidst this confidence and friendship which he expressed for the
English, the king took care to place all real power in the hands of his
Normans, and still to keep possession of the sword, to which, he was
sensible, he had owed his advancement to sovereign authority. He disarmed
the city of London and other places, which appeared most warlike and
populous; and building citadels in that capital, as well as in Winchester,
Hereford, and the cities best situated for commanding the kingdom, he
quartered Norman soldiers in all of them, and left nowhere any power able
to resist or oppose him. He bestowed the forfeited estates on the most
eminent of hia captains, and established funds for the payment of his
soldiers. And thus, while his civil administration carried the face of a
legal magistrate, his military institutions were those of a master and
tyrant; at least of one who reserved to himself, whenever he pleased, the
power of assuming that character.
By this mixture, however, of vigor and lenity, he had so soothed the minds
of the English, that he thought he might safely revisit his native
country, and enjoy the triumph and congratulation of his ancient subjects.
He left the administration in the hands of his uterine brother, Odo,
bishop of Baieux, and of William Fitz-Osberne. That their authority might
be exposed to less danger, he carried over with him all the most
considerable nobility of England, who, while they served to grace his
court by their presence and magnificent retinues, were in reality hostages
for the fidelity of the nation. Among these were Edgar Atheling, Stigand
the primate, the earls Edwin and Morcar, Waltheof, the son of the brave
Earl Siward, with others, eminent for the greatness of their fortunes and
families, or for their ecclesiastical and civil dignities. He was visited
at the abbey of Fescamp, where he resided during some time, by Rodulph,
uncle to the king of France, and by many powerful princes and nobles, who,
having contributed to his enterprise, were desirous of participating in
the joy and advantages of its success. His English courtiers, willing to
ingratiate themselves with their new sovereign, outvied each other in
equipages and entertainments; and made a display of riches which struck
the foreigners with astonishment. William of Poictiers, a Norman
historian,[*] who was present, speaks with admiration of the beauty of
their persons, the size and workmanship of their silver plate, the
costliness of their embroideries, an art in which the English then
excelled; and he expresses himself in such terms, as tend much to exalt
our idea of the opulence and cultivation of the people.[**]
But though every thing bure the face of joy and festivity, and William
himself treated nia new courtiers with great appearance of kindness, it
was impossible altogether to prevent the insolence of the Normans; and the
English nobles derived little satisfaction from those entertainments,
where they considered themselves as led in triumph by their ostentatious
conqueror.
In England affairs took still a worse turn during the absence of the
sovereign. Discontents and complaints multiplied every where; secret
conspiracies were entered into against the government; hostilities were
already begun in many places; and every thing seemed to menace a
revolution as rapid as that which had placed William on the throne. The
historian above mentioned, who is a panegyrist of his master, throws the
blame entirely on the fickle and mutinous disposition of the English, and
highly celebrates the justice and lenity of Odo’s and Fitz-Osborne’s
administration.[**] But other historians, with more probability, impute
the cause chiefly to the Normans; who, despising a people that had so
easily submitted to the yoke, envying their riches, and grudging the
restraints imposed upon their own rapine, were desirous of provoking them
to a rebellion, by which they expected to acquire new confiscations and
forfeitures, and to gratify those unbounded hopes which they had formed in
entering on this enterprise.[***]
It is evident that the chief reason of this alteration in the sentiments
of the English must be ascribed to the departure of William, who was alone
able to curb the violence of his captains, and to overawe the mutinies of
the people. Nothing indeed appears more strange than that this prince, in
less than three months after the conquest of a great, warlike, and
turbulent nation, should absent himself in order to revisit his own
country, which remained in profound tranquillity, and was not menaced by
any of its neighbors; and should so long leave his jealous subjects at the
mercy of an insolent and licentious army. Were we not assured of the
solidity of his genius, and the good sense displayed in all other
circumstances of his conduct, we might ascribe this measure to a vain
ostentation, which rendered him impatient to display his pomp and
magnificence among his ancient subjects. It is therefore more natural to
believe that, in so extraordinary a step, he was guided by a concealed
policy; and that though he had thought proper at first to allure the
people to submission by the semblance of a legal administration, he found
that he could neither satisfy his rapacious captains, nor secure his
unstable government, without farther exerting the rights of conquest, and
seizing the possessions of the English. In order to have a pretext for
this violence, he endeavored without discovering his intentions, to
provoke and allure them into insurrections, which he thought could never
prove dangerous, while he detained all the principal nobility in Normandy,
while a great and victorious army was quartered in England, and while he
himself was so near to suppress any tumult or rebellion. But as no ancient
writer has ascribed this tyrannical purpose to William, it scarcely seems
allowable, from conjecture alone, to throw such an imputation upon him.
But whether we are to account for that measure from the king’s vanity or
from his policy, it was the immediate cause of all the calamities which
the English endured during this and the subsequent reigns, and gave rise
to those mutual jealousies and animosities between them and the Normans,
which were never appeased till a long tract of time had gradually united
the two nations, and made them one people. The inhabitants of Kent, who
had first submitted to the conqueror, were the first that attempted to
throw off the yoke; and in confederacy with Eustace, count of Boulogne,
who had also been disgusted by the Normans, they made an attempt, though
without success, on the garrison of Dover.[*] Edric the Forester, whose
possessions lay on the banks of the Severn, being provoked at the
depredations of some Norman captains in his neighborhood, formed an
alliance with Blethyn and Rowallan, two Welsh princes; and endeavored,
with their assistance, to repel force by force.[**]
But though these open hostilities were not very considerable, the
disaffection was general among the English, who had become sensible,
though too late, of their defenceless condition, and began already to
experience those insults and injuries, which a nation must always expect
that allows itself to be reduced to that abject situation. A secret
conspiracy was entered into, to perpetrate in one day, a general massacre
of the Normans, like that which had formerly been executed upon the Danes;
and the quarrel was become so general and national, that the vassals of
Earl Coxo, having desired him to head them in an insurrection, and finding
him resolute in maintaining his fidelity to William, put him to death as a
traitor to his country.
The king, informed of these dangerous discontents, hastened over to
England; and by his presence, and the vigorous measures which he pursued,
disconcerted all the schemes of the conspirators. Such of them as had been
more violent in their mutiny, betrayed their guilt by flying or concealing
themselves; and the confiscation of their estates, while it increased the
number of malecontents, both enabled William to gratify farther the
rapacity of his Norman captains, and gave them the prospect of new
forfeitures and attainders. The king began to regard all his English
subjects as inveterate and irreclaimable enemies; and thenceforth either
embraced, or was more fully confirmed in the resolution of seizing their
possessions, and of reducing them to the most abject slavery. Though the
natural violence and severity of his temper made him incapable of feeling
any remorse in the execution of this tyrannical purpose, he had art enough
to conceal his intention, and to preserve still some appearance of justice
in his oppressions. He ordered all the English who had been arbitrarily
expelled by the Normans during his absence, to be restored to their
estates;[*] but at the same time he imposed a general tax on the people,
that of danegelt, which had been abolished by the Confessor, and which had
always been extremely odious to the nation.[**]
1068.
As the vigilance of William overawed the malecontents, their insurrections
were more the result of an impatient humor in the people, than of any
regular conspiracy which could give them a rational hope of success
against the established power of the Normans. The inhabitants of Exeter,
instigated by Githa, mother to King Harold, refused to admit a Norman
garrison, and, betaking themselves to arms, were strengthened by the
accession of the neighboring inhabitants of Devonshire and Cornwall.[*]
The king hastened with his forces to chastise the revolt; and on his
approach, the wiser and more considerable citizens, sensible of the
unequal contest, persuaded the people to submit, and to deliver hostages
for their obedience. A sudden mutiny of the populace broke this agreement;
and William, appearing before the walls, ordered the eyes of one of the
hostages to be put out, as an earnest of that severity which the rebels
must expect, if they persevered in their revolt.[**] The inhabitants were
anew seized with terror, and surrendering at discretion, threw themselves
at the king’s feet, and supplicated his clemency and forgiveness. William
was not destitute of generosity, when his temper was not hardened either
by policy or passion: he was prevailed on to pardon the rebels, and he set
guards on all the gates, in order to prevent the rapacity and insolence of
his soldiery.[***]
Githa escaped with her treasures to Flanders. The malecontents of Cornwall
imitated the example of Exeter, and met with like treatment; and the king
having built a citadel in that city, which he put under the command of
Baldwin, son of Earl Gilbert, returned to Winchester, and dispersed his
army into their quarters. He was here joined by his wife, Matilda, who had
not before visited England, and whom he now ordered to be crowned by
Archbishop Aldred. Soon after she brought him an accession to his family,
by the birth of a fourth son, whom he named Henry. His three elder sons,
Robert, Richard, and William, still resided in Normandy.
But though the king appeared thus fortunate both in public and domestic
life, the discontents of his English subjects augmented daily; and the
injuries committed and suffered on both sides rendered the quarrel between
them and the Normans absolutely incurable. The insolence of victorious
masters, dispersed throughout the kingdom, seemed intolerable to the
natives; and wherever they found the Normans separate or assembled in
small bodies, they secretly set upon them, and gratified their vengeance
by the slaughter of their enemies. But an insurrection in the north drew
thither the general attention, and seemed to threaten more important
consequences. Edwin and Morcar appeared at the head of this rebellion; and
these potent noblemen, before they took arms, stipulated for foreign
succors from their nephew Blethyn, prince of North Wales, from Malcolm,
king of Scotland and from Sweyn, king of Denmark. Besides the general
discontent which had seized the English, the two earls were incited to
this revolt by private injuries. William, in order to insure them to his
interests, had on his accession promised his daughter in marriage to
Edwin; but either he had never seriously intended to perform this
engagement, or, having changed his plan of administration in England from
clemency to rigor, he thought it was to little purpose if he gained one
family, while he enraged the whole nation. When Edwin, therefore, renewed
his applications, he gave him an absolute denial;[*] and this
disappointment, added to so many other reasons of disgust, induced that
nobleman and his brother to concur with their incensed countrymen, and to
make one general effort for the recovery of their ancient liberties.
William knew the importance of celerity in quelling an insurrection
supported by such powerful leaders, and so agreeable to the wishes of the
people; and having his troops always in readiness, he advanced by great
journeys to the north. On his march he gave orders to fortify the castle
of Warwick, of which he left Henry de Beaumont governor, and that of
Nottingham, which he committed to the custody of William Peverell, another
Norman captain.[**] He reached York before the rebels were in any
condition for resistance, or were joined by any of the foreign succors
which they expected, except a small reënforcement from Wales;[***] and the
two earls found no means of safety but having recourse to the clemency of
the victor. Archil, a potent nobleman in those parts, imitated their
example, and delivered his son as a hostage for his fidelity;[****] nor
were the people, thus deserted by their leaders, able to make any farther
resistance. But the treatment which William gave the chiefs was very
different from that which fell to the share of their followers. He
observed religiously the terms which he had granted to the former, and
allowed them for the present to keep possession of their estates; but he
extended the rigors of his confiscations over the latter, and gave away
their lands to his foreign adventurers.
These, planted throughout the whole country, and in possession of the
military power, left Edwin and Morcar, whom he pretended to spare,
destitute of all support, and ready to fall whenever he should think
proper to command their ruin. A peace which he made with Malcolm, who did
him homage for Cumberland, seemed at the same time to deprive them of all
prospect of foreign assistance.[*]
The English were now sensible that their final destruction was intended;
and that instead of a sovereign, whom they had hoped to gain by their
submission, they had tamely surrendered themselves, without resistance, to
a tyrant and a conqueror. Though the early confiscation of Harold’s
followers might seem iniquitous, being inflicted on men who had never
sworn fealty to the duke of Normandy, who were ignorant of his
pretensions, and who only fought in defence of the government which they
themselves had established in their own country, yet were these rigors,
however contrary to the ancient Saxon laws, excused on account of the
urgent necessities of the prince; and those who were not involved in the
present ruin, hoped that they should thenceforth enjoy, without
molestation, their possessions and their dignities. But the successive
destruction of so many other families convinced them that the king
intended to rely entirely on the support and affections of foreigners; and
they foresaw new forfeitures, attainders, and acts of violence, as the
necessary result of this destructive plan of administration. They observed
that no Englishman possessed his confidence, or was intrusted with any
command or authority; and that the strangers, whom a rigorous discipline
could have but ill restrained, were encouraged in their insolence and
tyranny against them. The easy submission of the kingdom on its first
invasion had exposed the natives to contempt; the subsequent proofs of
their animosity and resentment had made them the object of hatred; and
they were now deprived of every expedient by which they could hope to make
themselves either regarded or beloved by their sovereign. Impressed with
the sense of this dismal situation, many Englishmen fled into foreign
countries, with an intention of passing their lives abroad free from
oppression, or of returning, on a favorable opportunity, to assist their
friends in the recovery of their native liberties.[**] Edgar
Atheling himself, dreading the insidious caresses of William, was,
persuaded by Cospatric, a powerful Northumbrian, to escape with him into
Scotland; and he carried thither his two sisters, Margaret and Christina.
They were well received by Malcolm, who soon after espoused Margaret, the
elder sister; and partly with a view of strengthening his kingdom by the
accession of so many strangers, partly in hopes of employing them against
the growing power of William, he gave great countenance to all the English
exiles. Many of them settled there, and laid the foundation of families
which afterwards made a figure in that country.
While the English suffered under these oppressions, even the foreigners
were not much at their ease; but finding themselves surrounded on all
hands by engaged enemies, who took every advantage against them, and
menaced them with still more bloody effects of the public resentment, they
began to wish again for the tranquillity and security of their native
country. Hugh de Grentmesnil and Humphry de Teliol, though intrusted with
great commands, desired to be dismissed the service; and some others
imitated their example; a desertion which was highly resented by the king,
and which he punished by the confiscation of all their possessions ii
England.[*] But William’s bounty to his followers could not fail of
alluring many new adventurers into his service; and the rage of the
vanquished English served only to excite the attention of the king and
those warlike chiefs, and keep them in readiness to suppress every
commencement of domestic rebellion or foreign invasion.
It was not long before they found occupation for their prowess and
military conduct. Godwin, Edmond, and Magnus, three sons of Harold, had,
immediately after the defeat at Hastings, sought a retreat in Ireland,
where, having met with a kind reception from Dermot and other princes of
that country, they projected an invasion on England, and they hoped that
all the exiles from Denmark, Scotland, and Wales, assisted by forces from
these several countries, would at once commence hostilities, and rouse the
indignation of the English against their haughty conquerors. They landed
in Devonshire; but found Brian, son of the count of Brittany, at the head
of some foreign troops, ready to oppose them; and being defeated in
several actions, they were obliged to retreat to their ships, and to
return with great loss to Ireland.[*] The efforts of the Normans were now
directed to the north, where affairs had fallen into the utmost confusion.
The more impatient of the Northumbrians had attacked Robert de Comyn, who
was appointed governor of Durham; and gaining the advantage over him from
his negligence, they put him to death in that city, with seven hundred of
his followers.[**] This success animated the inhabitants of York, who,
rising in arms, slew Robert Fitz-Richard, their governor,[***] and
besieged in the castle William Mallet, on whom the command now devolved. A
little after, the Danish troops landed from three hundred vessels:
Osberne, brother to King Sweyn, was intrusted with the command of these
forces, and he was accompanied by Harold and Canute, two sons of that
monarch. Edgar Atheling appeared from Scotland, and brought along with him
Cospatric, Waltheof, Siward, Bearne, Merleswain, Adelin, and other
leaders, who, partly from the hopes which they gave of Scottish succors,
partly from their authority in those parts, easily persuaded the warlike
and discontented Northumbrians to join the insurrection. Mallet, that he
might better provide for the defence of the citadel of York, set fire to
some houses which lay contiguous; but this expedient proved the immediate
cause of his destruction. The flames, spreading into the neighboring
streets, reduced the whole city to ashes. The enraged inhabitants, aided
by the Danes, took advantage of the confusion to attack the castle, which
they carried by assault; and the garrison, to the number of three thousand
men, was put to the sword without mercy.[****]
This success proved a signal to many other parts of England, and gave the
people an opportunity of showing their malevolence to the Normans.
Hereward, a nobleman in East Anglia, celebrated for valor, assembled his
followers, and taking shelter in the Isle of Ely, made inroads on all the
neighboring country.[*****] The English in the counties of Somerset and
Dorset rose in arms, and assaulted Montacute, the Norman governor; while
the inhabitants of Cornwall and Devon invested Exeter, which from the
memory of William’s clemency still remained faithful to him.
Edric the Forester, calling in the assistance of the Welsh, laid siege to
Shrewsbury, and made head against Earl Brient and Fitz-Osberne, who
commanded in those quarters.[*] The English, everywhere repenting their
former easy submission, seemed determined to make by concert one great
effort for the recovery of their liberties, and for the expulsion of their
oppressors.
William, undismayed amidst this scene of confusion, assembled. his forces,
and animating them with the prospect of new confiscations and forfeitures,
he marched against the rebels in the north, whom he regarded as the most
formidable, and whose defeat, he knew, would strike a terror into all the
other malecontents. Joining policy to force, he tried, before his
approach, to weaken the enemy, by detaching the Danes from them; and he
engaged Osberne, by large presents, and by offering him the liberty of
plundering the sea-coast, to retire without committing farther hostilities
into Denmark.[**] Cospatric also, in despair of success, made his peace
with the king, and paying a sum of money as an atonement for his
insurrection, was received into favor, and even invested with the earldom
of Northumberland. Waltheof, who long defended York with great courage,
was allured with this appearance of clemency; and as William knew how to
esteem valor, even in an enemy, that nobleman had no reason to repent of
this confidence.[***] Even Edric, compelled by necessity, submitted to the
conqueror, and received forgiveness, which was soon after followed by some
degree of trust and favor. Malcolm, coming too late to support his
confederates, was constrained to retire; and all the English rebels in
other parts, except Hereward, who still kept in his fastnesses, dispersed
themselves, and left the Normans undisputed masters of the kingdom. Edgar
Atheling, with his followers, sought again a retreat in Scotland from the
pursuit of his enemies.
1070.
But the seeming clemency of William toward the English leaders, proceeded
only from artifice, or from his esteem of individuals: his heart, was
hardened against all compassion towards the people, and he scrupled no
measure, however violent or severe, which seemed requisite to support his
plan of tyrannical administration. Sensible of the restless disposition of
the Northumbrians, he determined to incapacitate them even after from
giving him disturbance; and he issued orders for laying entirely waste
that fertile country, which, for the extent of sixty miles, lies between
the Humber and the Tees.[*] The houses were reduced to ashes by the
merciless Normans; the cattle seized and driven away; the instruments of
husbandry destroyed; and the inhabitants compelled either to seek for a
subsistence in the southern parts of Scotland, or if they lingered in
England, from a reluctance to abandon their ancient habitations, they
perished miserably in the woods from cold and hunger. The lives of a
hundred thousand persons are computed to have been sacrificed to this
stroke of barbarous policy,[**] which, by seeking a remedy for a temporary
evil, thus inflicted a lasting wound on the power and populousness of the
nation.
But William, finding himself entirely master of a people who had given him
such sensible proofs of their impotent rage and animosity, now resolved to
proceed to extremities against all the natives of England; and to reduce
them to a condition in which they should no longer be formidable to his
government. The insurrections and conspiracies in so many parts of the
kingdom had involved the bulk of the landed proprietors, more or less, in
the guilt of treason; and the king took advantage of executing against
them, with the utmost rigor, the laws of forfeiture and attainder. Their
lives were, indeed, commonly spared; but their estates were confiscated,
and either annexed to the royal demesnes, or conferred with the most
profuse bounty, on the Normans and other foreigners.[***] While the king’s
declared intention was to depress, or rather entirely extirpate, the
English gentry,[****] 8 it is easy to believe that scarcely the form of
justice would be observed in those violent proceedings;[*****] and that
any suspicions served as the most undoubted proofs of guilt against a
people thus devoted to destruction.
It was crime sufficient in an Englishman to be opulent, or noble, or
powerful; and the policy of the king, concurring with the rapacity of
foreign adventurers, produced almost a total revolution in the landed
property of the kingdom. Ancient and honorable families were reduced to
beggary; the nobles themselves were every where treated with ignominy and
contempt; they had the mortification of seeing their castles and manors
possessed by Normans of the meanest birth and lowest stations;[*] and they
found themselves carefully excluded from every road which led either to
riches or preferment.[**] 9
As power naturally follows property, this revolution alone gave great
security to the foreigners; but William, by the new institutions which he
established, took also care to retain forever the military authority in
those hands which had enabled him to subdue the kingdom. He introduced
into England the feudal law, which he found established in France and
Normandy, and which, during that age, was the foundation both of the
stability and of the disorders in most of the monarchical governments of
Europe. He divided all the lands of England, with very few exceptions,
beside the royal demesnes, into baronies; and he conferred these, with the
reservation of stated services and payments, on the most considerable of
his adventurers. These great barons, who held immediately of the crown,
shared out a great part of their lands to other foreigners, who were
denominated knights or vassals, and who paid their lord the same duty and
submission, in peace and war, which he himself owed, to his sovereign. The
whole kingdom contained about seven hundred chief tenants, and sixty
thousand two hundred and fifteen knights’ fees;[***] and as none of the
native English were admitted into the first rank, the few who retained
their landed property were glad to be received into the second, and, under
the protection of some powerful Norman, to load themselves and their
posterity with this grievous burden, for estates which they had received
free from their ancestors.[****] The small mixture of English which
entered into this civil or military fabric, (for it partook of both
species,) was so restrained by subordination under the foreigners, that
the Norman dominion seemed now to be fixed on the most durable basis, and
to defy all the efforts of its enemies.
The better to unite the parts of the government, and to bind them into one
system, which might serve both for defence against foreigners and for the
support of domestic tranquillity, William reduced the ecclesiastical
revenues under the same feudal law; and though he had courted the church
on his invasion and accession, he now subjected it to services which the
clergy regarded as a grievous slavery, and as totally unbefitting their
profession. The bishops and abbots were obliged, when required, to furnish
to the king, during war, a number of knights or military tenants,
proportioned to the extent of property possessed by each see or abbey; and
they were liable, in case of failure, to the same penalties which were
exacted from the laity.[*] The pope and the ecclesiastics exclaimed
against this tyranny, as they called it; but the king’s authority was so
well established over the army, who held every thing from his bounty, that
superstition itself, even in that age, when it was most prevalent, was
constrained to bend under his superior influence.
But as the great body of the clergy were still natives, the king had much
reason to dread the effects of their resentment; he therefore used the
precaution of expelling the English from all the considerable dignities,
and of advancing foreigners in their place. The partiality of the
Confessor towards the Normans had been so great, that, aided by their
superior learning, it had promoted them to many of the sees in England;
and even before the period of the conquest, scarcely more than six or
seven of the prelates were natives of the country. But among these was
Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury, a man who, by his address and vigor, by
the greatness of his family and alliances, by the extent of his
possessions, as well as by the dignity of his office, and his authority
among the English, gave jealousy to the king.[**] Though William had, on
his accession, affronted this prelate by employing the archbishop of York
to officiate at his consecration, he was careful, on other occasions, to
load him with honors and caresses, and to avoid giving him farther offence
till the opportunity should offer of effecting his final destruction.[***]
The suppression of the late rebellions, and the total subjection of the
English, made him hope that an attempt against Stigand, however violent,
would be covered by his great successes and be overlooked amidst the other
important revolutions, which affected so deeply the property and liberty
of the kingdom. Yet, notwithstanding these great advantages, he did not
think it safe to violate the reverence usually paid to the primate, but
under cover of a new superstition, which he was the great instrument of
introducing into England.
The doctrine which exalted the papacy above all human power, had gradually
diffused itself from the city and court of Rome; and was, during that age,
much more prevalent in the southern than in the northern kingdoms of
Europe. Pope Alexander, who had assisted William in his conquests,
naturally expected, that the French and Normans would import into England
the same reverence for his sacred character with which they were impressed
in their own country; and would break the spiritual as well as civil
independency of the Saxons who had hitherto conducted their ecclesiastical
government, with an acknowledgment indeed of primacy in the see of Rome,
but without much idea of its title to dominion or authority. As soon,
therefore, as the Norman prince seemed fully established on the throne,
the pope despatched Ermenfloy, bishop of Sion, as his legate into England;
and this prelate was the first that had ever appeared with that character
in any part of the British islands. The king, though he was probably led
by principle to pay this submission to Rome, determined, as is usual, to
employ the incident as a means of serving his political purposes, and of
degrading those English prelates, who were become obnoxious to him. The
legate submitted to become the instrument of his tyranny; and thought,
that the more violent the exertion of power, the more certainly did it
confirm the authority of that court from which he derived his commission.
He summoned, therefore, a council of the prelates and abbots at
Winchester; and being assisted by two cardinals, Peter and John, he cited
before him Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury, to answer for his conduct.
The primate was accused of three crimes; the holding of the see of
Winchester together with that of Canterbury; the officiating in the pall
of Robert, his predecessor; and the having received his own pall from
Benedict IX., who was afterwards deposed for simony, and for intrusion
into the papacy.[*]
These crimes of Stigand were mere pretences; since the first had been a
practice not unusual in England, and was never any where subjected to a
higher penalty than a resignation of one of the sees; the second was a
pure ceremonial; and as Benedict was the only pope who then officiated,
and his acts were never repealed, all the prelates of the church,
especially thope who lay at a distance, were excusable for making their
applications to him. Stigand’s ruin, however, was resolved on, and was
prosecuted with great severity. The legate degraded him from his dignity;
the king confiscated his estate, and cast him into prison, where he
continued in poverty and want during the remainder of his life. Like rigor
was exercised against the other English prelates: Agelric, bishop of
Selesey, and Agelmare, of Elmham, were deposed by the legate, and
imprisoned by the king. Many considerable abbots shared the same fate:
Egelwin, bishop of Durham, fled the kingdom Wulstan, of Worcester, a man
of an inoffensive character was the only English prelate that escaped this
general proscription,[*] and remained in possession of his dignity.
Aldred, archbishop of York, who had set the crown on William’s head, had
died a little before of grief and vexation, and had left his malediction
to that prince, on account of the breach of his coronation oath, and of
the extreme tyranny with which he saw he was determined to treat his
English subjects.[**]
It was a fixed maxim in this reign, as well as in some of the subsequent,
that no native of the island should ever be advanced to any dignity,
ecclesiastical, civil, or military[***]
The king, therefore, upon Stigand’s deposition, promoted Lanfranc, a
Milanese monk, celebrated for his learning and piety, to the vacant see.
This prelate was rigid in defending the prerogatives of his station; and
after a long process before the pope, he obliged Thomas, a Norman monk,
who had been appointed to the see of York, to acknowledge the primacy of
the archbishop of Canterbury. Where ambition can be so happy as to cover
its enterprises, even to the person himself, under the appearance of
principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of all human passions.
Hence Lanfranc’s zeal in promoting the interests of the papacy, by which
he himself augmented his own authority, was indefatigable, and met with
proportionable success. The devoted attachment to Rome continually
increased in England and being favored by the sentiments of the
conquerors, as well as by the monastic establishments formerly introduced
by Edred and by Edgar, it soon reached the same height at which it had,
during some time, stood in France and Italy.[*] It afterwards went much
farther; being favored by that very remote situation which had at first
obstructed its progress; and being less checked by knowledge and a liberal
education, which were still somewhat more common in the southern
countries.
The prevalence of this superstitious spirit became dangerous to some of
William’s successors, and incommodious to most of them; but the arbitrary
sway of this king over the English, and his extensive authority over the
foreigners, kept him from feeling any immediate inconveniences from it. He
retained the church in great subjection, as well as his lay subjects; and
would allow none, of whatever character, to dispute his sovereign will and
pleasure. He prohibited his subjects from acknowledging any one for pope
whom he himself had not previously received; he required that all the
ecclesiastical canons, voted in any synod, should first be laid before
him, and be ratified by his authority; even bulls or letters from Rome
could not legally be produced, till they received the same sanction; and
none of his ministers or barons, whatever offences they were guilty of,
could be subjected to spiritual censures, till he himself had given his
consent to their excommunication.[**] These regulations were worthy of a
sovereign, and kept united the civil and ecclesiastical powers, which the
principles, introduced by this prince himself, had an immediate tendency
to separate.
But the English had the cruel mortification to find that their king’s
authority, however acquired or however extended, was all employed in their
oppression; and that the scheme of their subjection, attended with every
circumstance of insult and indignity,[***] was deliberately formed by the
prince, and wantonly prosecuted by his followers.[****]
William had even entertained the difficult project of totally abolishing
the English language; and for that purpose he ordered, that in all schools
throughout the kingdom, the youth should be instructed in the French
tongue; a practice which was continued from custom till after the reign of
Edward III., and was never indeed totally discontinued in England. The
pleadings in the supreme courts of judicature were in French:[*] the deeds
were often drawn in the same language: the laws were composed in that
idiom:[**] no other tongue was used at court: it became the language of
all fashionable company; and the English themselves, ashamed of their own
country, affected to excel in that foreign dialect. From this attention of
William, and from the extensive foreign dominions, long annexed to the
crown of England, proceeded that mixture of French which is at present to
be found in the English tongue, and which composes the greatest and best
part of our language. But amidst those endeavors to depress the English
nation, the king, moved by the remonstrances of some of his prelates, and
by the earnest desires of the people, restored a few of the laws of King
Edward;[***] 11 which, though seemingly of no great importance
towards the protection of general liberty, gave them extreme satisfaction,
as a memorial of their ancient government, and an unusual mark of
complaisance in their imperious conquerors.[****]
1071.
The situation of the two great earls, Morcar and Edwin, became now very
disagreeable. Though they had retained their allegiance during this
general insurrection of their countrymen, they had not gained the king’s
confidence, and they found themselves exposed to the malignity of the
courtiers, who envied them on account of their opulence and greatness, and
at the same time involved them in that general contempt which they
entertained for the English. Sensible that they had entirely lost their
dignity, and could not even hope to remain long in safety, they
determined, though too kite, to share the same fate with their countrymen.
While Edwin retired to his estate in the north, with a view of commencing
an insurrection, Morcar took shelter in the Isle of Ely, with the brave
Hereward, who, secured by the inaccessible situation of the place, still
defended himself against the Normans. But this attempt served only to
accelerate the ruin of the few English who had hitherto been able to
preserve their rank or fortune during the past convulsions. William
employed all his endeavors to subdue the Isle of Ely; and having
surrounded it with flat-bottomed boats, and made a causeway through the
morasses to the extent of two miles, he obliged the rebels to surrender at
discretion. Hereward alone forced his way, sword in hand, through the
enemy; and still continued his hostilities by sea against the Normans,
till at last William, charmed with his bravery, received him into favor,
and restored him to his estate. Earl Morcar, and Egelwin, bishop of
Durham, who had joined the malecontents, were thrown into prison, and the
latter soon after died in confinement. Edwin, attempting to make his
escape into Scotland, was betrayed by some of his followers, and was
killed by a party of Normans, to the great affliction of the English, and
even to that of William, who paid a tribute of generous tears to the
memory of this gallant and beautiful youth. The king of Scotland, in hopes
of profiting by these convulsions, had fallen upon the northern counties;
but on the approach of William, he retired; and when the king entered his
country, he was glad to make peace, and to pay the usual homage to the
English crown. To complete the king’s prosperity, Edgar Atheling himself,
despairing of success, and weary of a fugitive life, submitted to his
enemy; and receiving a decent pension for his subsistence, was permitted
to live in England unmolested. But these acts of generosity towards the
leaders were disgraced, as usual, by William’s rigor against the inferior
malecontents. He ordered ihe hands to be lopped off, and the eyes to be
put out, of many of the prisoners whom he had taken in the Isle of Ely;
and he dispersed them in that miserable condition throughout the country,
as monuments of his severity.
1073.
The province of Maine, in France, had, by the will of Herbert, the last
count, fallen under the dominion of William some years before his conquest
of England; but the inhabitants, dissatisfied with the Norman government,
and instigated by Fulk, count of Anjou, who had some pretensions to the
succession, now rose in rebellion, and expelled the magistrates whom the
king had placed over them. The full settlement of England afforded him
leisure to punish this insult on his authority; but being unwilling to
remove his Norman forces from this island, he carried over a considerable
army, composed almost entirely of English, and joining them to some troops
levied in Normandy, he entered the revolted province. The English appeared
ambitious of distinguishing themselves on this occasion, and of retrieving
that character of valor which had long been national among them, but which
their late easy subjection under the Normans had some what degraded and
obscured. Perhaps, too, they hoped that, by their zeal and activity, they
might recover the confidence of their sovereign, as their ancestors had
formerly, by like means, gained the affections of Canute; and might
conquer his inveterate prejudices in favor of his own countrymen. The
king’s military conduct, seconded by these brave troops, soon overcame all
opposition in Maine: the inhabitants were obliged to submit, and the count
of Anjou relinquished his pretensions.
1074.
But during these transactions, the government of England was greatly
disturbed; and that, too, by those very foreigners who owed every thing to
the king’s bounty, and who were the sole object of his friendship and
regard. The Norman barons, who had engaged with their duke in the conquest
of England, were men of the most independent spirit; and though they
obeyed their leader in the field, they would have regarded with disdain
the richest acquisitions, had they been required, in return, to submit, in
their civil government, to the arbitrary will of one man. But the
imperious character of William, encouraged by his absolute dominion over
the English, and often impelled by the necessity of his affairs, had
prompted him to stretch his authority over the Normans themselves beyond
what the free genius of that victorious people could easily bear. The
discontents were become general among those haughty nobles; and even
Roger, earl of Hereford, son and heir of Fitz-Osberne, the king’s chief
favorite, was strongly infected with them. This nobleman, intending to
marry his sister to Ralph de Guader, earl of Norfolk, had thought, it his
duty to inform the king of his purpose, and to desire the royal consent;
but meeting with a refusal, he proceeded nevertheless to complete the
nuptials, and assembled all his friends, and those of Guader, to attend
the solemnity. The two earls, disgusted by the denial of their request,
and dreading William’s resentment for their disobedience, here prepared
measures for a revolt; and during the gayety of the festival, while the
company was heated with wine, they opened the design to their guests. They
inveighed against the arbitrary conduct of the king; his tyranny over the
English, whom they affected on this occasion to commiserate; his imperious
behavior to his barons of the noblest birth; and his apparent intention of
reducing the victors and the vanquished to a like ignominious servitude.
Amidst their complaints, the indignity of submitting to a bastard[*] was
not forgotten; the certain prospect of success in a revolt, by the
assistance of the Danes and the discontented English, was insisted on; and
the whole company, inflamed with the same sentiments, and warmed by the
jollity of the entertainment, entered, by a solemn engagement, into the
design of shaking off the royal authority. Even Earl Waltheof, who was
present, inconsiderately expressed his approbation of the conspiracy, and
promised his concurrence towards its success.
This nobleman, the last of the English who for some generations possessed
any power or authority, had, after his capitulation at York, been received
into favor by the conqueror; had even married Judith, niece to that
prince; and had been promoted to the earldoms of Huntingdon and
Northampton.[**] Cospatric, earl of Northumberland, having, on some new
disgust from William, retired into Scotland, where he received the earldom
of Dunbar from the bounty of Malcolm, Waltheof was appointed his successor
in that important command, and seemed still to possess the confidence and
friendship of his sovereign.[***]
But as he was a man of generous principles, and loved his country, it is
probable that the tyranny exercised over the English lay heavy upon his
mind, and destroyed all the satisfaction which he could reap from his own
grandeur and advancement. When a prospect, therefore, was opened of
retrieving their liberty, he hastily embraced it; while the fumes of the
liquor and the ardor of the company prevented him from reflecting on the
consequences of that rash attempt. But after his cool judgment returned,
he foresaw that the conspiracy of those discontented barons was not likely
to prove successful against the established power of William; or, if it
did, that the slavery of the English, instead of being alleviated by that
event, would become more grievous under a multitude of foreign leaders,
factious and ambitious, whose union and whose discord would be equally
oppressive to the people. Tormented with these reflections, he opened his
mind to his wife Judith, of whose fidelity he entertained no suspicion,
but who, having secretly fixed her affections on another, took this
opportunity of ruining her easy and credulous husband. She conveyed
intelligence of the conspiracy to the king, and aggravated every
circumstance which she believed would tend to incense him against
Waltheof, and render him absolutely implacable.[*] Meanwhile the earl,
still dubious with regard to the part which he should act, discovered the
secret in confession to Lanfranc, on whose probity and judgment he had a
great reliance: he was persuaded by the prelate, that he owed no fidelity
to those rebellious barons, who had by surprise gained his consent to a
crime; that his first duty was to his sovereign and benefactor, his next
to himself and his family; and that if he seized not the opportunity of
making atonement for his guilt by revealing it, the temerity of the
conspirators was so great, that they would give some other person the
means of acquiring the merit of the discovery. Waltheof, convinced by
these arguments, went over to Normandy; but though he was well received by
the king, and thanked for his fidelity, the account previously transmitted
by Judith had sunk deep into William’s mind, and had destroyed all the
merit of her husband’s repentance.
The conspirators, hearing of Waltheof’s departure, immediately concluded
their design to be betrayed; and they flew to arms before their schemes
were ripe for execution, and before the arrival of the Danes, in whose aid
they placed their chief confidence. The Earl of Hereford was checked by
Walter de Lacy, a great baron in those parts, who, supported by the bishop
of Worcester and the abbot of Evesham, raised some forces, and prevented
the earl from passing the Severn, or advancing into the heart of the
kingdom. The earl of Norfolk was defeated at Fagadun, near Cambridge, by
Odo the regent, assisted by Richard de Bienfaite and William de Warrenne,
the two justiciaries. The prisoners taken in this action had their right
foot cut off, as a punishment of their treason the earl himself escaped to
Norwich, thence to Denmark where the Danish fleet, which had made an
unsuccessful attempt upon the coast of England,[*] soon after arrived, and
brought him intelligence, that all his confederates were suppressed, and
were either killed, banished, or taken prisoners.[**] Ralph retired in
despair to Brittany, where he possessed a large estate and extensive
jurisdictions.
The king, who hastened over to England in order to suppress the
insurrection, found that nothing remained but the punishment of the
criminals, which he executed with great severity. Many of the rebels were
hanged; some had their eyes put out; others their hands cut off. But
William, agreeably to his usual maxims, showed more lenity to their
leader, the earl of Hereford, who was only condemned to a forfeiture of
his estate, and to imprisonment during pleasure. The king seemed even
disposed to remit this last part of the punishment; had not Roger, by a
fresh insolence, provoked him to render his confinement perpetual.
1075.
But Waltheof, being an Englishman, was not treated with so much humanity;
though his guilt, always much inferior to that of the other conspirators,
was atoned for by an early repentance and return to his duty. William,
instigated by his niece, as well as by his rapacious courtiers, who longed
for so rich a forfeiture, ordered him to be tried, condemned, and
executed. The English, who considered this nobleman as the last resource
of their nation, grievously lamented his fate, and fancied that miracles
were wrought by his relics, as a testimony of his innocence and sanctity.
The infamous Judith, falling soon after under the king’s displeasure, was
abandoned by all the world, and passed the rest of her life in contempt,
remorse, and misery.
Nothing remained to complete William’s satisfaction but the punishment of
Ralph de Guader; and he hastened over to Normandy, in order to gratify his
vengeance on that criminal. But though the contest seemed very unequal
between a private nobleman and the king of England, Ralph was so well
supported both by the earl of Brittany and the king of France that
William, after besieging him for some time in Dol, was obliged to abandon
the enterprise, and make with those powerful princes a peace, in which
Ralph himself was included England, during his absence, remained in
tranquillity; and nothing remarkable occurred, except two ecclesiastical
synods, which were summoned, one at London, another at Winchester. In the
former, the precedency among the episcopasees was settled, and the seat of
some of them was removed from small villages to the most considerable town
within the diocese. In the second was transacted a business of more
importance.
1076.
The industry and perseverance are surprising, with which the popes had
been treasuring up powers and pretensions during so many ages of
ignorance; while each pontiff employed every fraud for advancing purposes
of imaginary piety, and cherished all claims which might turn to the
advantage of his successors, though he himself could not expect ever to
reap any benefit from them. All this immense storm of spiritual and civil
authority was now devolved on Gregory VII., of the name of Hildebrand, the
most enterprising pontiff that had ever filled that chair, and the least
restrained by fear, decency, or moderation. Not content with shaking off
the yoke of the emperors, who had hitherto exercised the power of
appointing the pope on every vacancy, at least of ratifying his election,
he undertook the arduous task of entirely disjoining the ecclesiastical
from the civil power, and of excluding profane laymen from the right which
they had assumed, of filling the vacancies of bishoprics, abbeys, and
other spiritual dignities.[*] The sovereigns, who had long exercised this
power, and who had acquired it, not by encroachments on the church, but on
the people, to whom it originally belonged,[**] made great opposition to
this claim of the court of Rome; and Henry IV., the reigning emperor,
defended this prerogative of his crown with a vigor and resolution
suitable to its importance.
The few offices, either civil or military, which the feudal institutions
left the sovereign the power of bestowing, made the prerogative of
conferring the pastoral ring and staff the most valuable jewel of the
royal diadem: especially as the general ignorance of the age bestowed a
consequence on the ecclesiastical offices, even beyond the great extent of
power and property which belonged to them. Superstition, the child of
ignorance, invested the clergy with an authority almost sacred; and as
they engrossed the little learning of the age, their interposition became
requisite in all civil business, and a real usefulness in common life was
thus superadded to the spiritual sanctity of their character.
When the usurpations, therefore, of the church had come to such maturity
as to embolden her to attempt extorting the right of investitures from the
temporal power, Europe, especially Italy and Germany, was thrown into the
most violent convulsions, and the pope and the emperor waged implacable
war on each other. Gregory dared to fulminate the sentence of
excommunication against Henry and his adherents, to pronounce him
rightfully deposed, to free his subjects from their oath of allegiance;
and, instead of shocking mankind by this gross encroachment on the civil
authority, he found the stupid people ready to second his most exorbitant
pretensions. Every minister, servant, or vassal of the emperor, who
received any disgust, covered his rebellion under the pretence of
principle; and even the mother of this monarch, forgetting all the ties of
nature, was seduced to countenance the insolence of his enemies. Princes
themselves, not attentive to the pernicious consequences of those papal
claims, employed them for their present purposes; and the controversy,
spreading into every city of Italy, engendered the parties of Guelf and
Ghibbelin; the most durable and most inveterate factions that ever arose
from the mixture of ambition and religious zeal. Besides numberless
assassinations, tumults, and convulsions, to which they gave rise, it is
computed that the quarrel occasioned no less then sixty battles in the
reign of Henry IV., and eighteen in that of his successor, Henry V., when
the claims of the sovereign pontiff finally prevailed.[*]
But the bold spirit of Gregory, not dismayed with the vigorous opposition
which he met with from the emperor, extended his usurpations all over
Europe; and well knowing the nature of mankind, whose blind astonishment
ever inclines them to yield to the most impudent pretensions, he seemed
determined to set no bounds to the spiritual, or rather temporal monarchy
which he had undertaken to erect. He pronounced the sentence of
excommunication against Nicephorus, emperor of the east; Robert Guiscard,
the adventurous Norman who had acquired the dominion of Naples, was
attacked by the same dangerous weapon: he degraded Boleslas, king of
Poland from the rank of king; and even deprived Poland of the title of a
kingdom: he attempted to treat Philip, king of France, with the same rigor
which he had employed against the emperor;[*] he pretended to the entire
property and dominion of Spain; and he parcelled it out amongst
adventurers, who undertook to conquer it from the Saracens, and to hold it
in vassalage under the see of Rome:[**] even the Christian bishops, on
whose aid he relied for subduing the temporal princes, saw that he was
determined to reduce them to servitude, and, by assuming the whole
legislative and judicial power of the church to centre all authority in
the sovereign pontiff.[***]
William the Conqueror, the most potent, the most haughty, and the most
vigorous prince in Europe, was not, amidst all his splendid successes,
secure from the attacks of this enterprising pontiff. Gregory wrote him a
letter, requiring him to fulfil his promise in doing homage for the
kingdom of England to the see of Rome, and to sent him over that tribute
which all his predecessors had been accustomed to pay to the vicar of
Christ. By the tribute, he meant Peter’s pence; which, though at first a
charitable donation of the Saxon princes, was interpreted, according to
the usual practice of the Romish court, to be a badge of subjection
acknowledged by the kingdom. William replied, that the money should be
remitted as usual; but that neither had he promised to do homage to Rome,
nor was it in the least his purpose to impose that servitude on his
state.[****] And the better to show Gregory his independence, he ventured,
notwithstanding the frequent complaints of the pope, to refuse to the
English bishops the liberty of attending a general council, which that
pontiff had summoned against his enemies.
But though the king displayed this vigor in supporting the royal dignity,
he was infected with the general superstition of the age; and he did not
perceive the ambitious scope of those institutions, which under color of
strictness in religion, were introduced or promoted by the court of Rome.
Gregory, while he was throwing all Europe into combustion by his violence
and impostures, affected an anxious care for the purity of manners; and
even the chaste pleasures of the marriage bed were inconsistent, in his
opinion, with the sanctity of the sacerdotal character. He had issued a
decree prohibiting the marriage of priests, excommunicating all clergymen
who retained their wives, declaring such unlawful commerce to be
fornication, and rendering it criminal in the laity to attend divine
worship, when such profane priests officiated at the altar.[*]
This point was a great object in the politics of the Roman pontiffs; and
it cost them infinitely more pains to establish it than the propagation of
any speculative absurdity which they had ever attempted to introduce. Many
synods were summoned in different parts of Europe before it was finally
settled; and it was there constantly remarked, that the younger clergymen
complied cheerfully with the pope’s decrees in this particular, and that
the chief reluctance appeared in those who were more advanced in years; an
event so little consonant to men’s natural expectations, that it could not
fail to be glossed on even in that blind and superstitious age. William
allowed the pope’s legate to assemble, in his absence a synod at
Winchester, in order to establish the celibacy of the clergy; but the
church of England could not yet be carried the whole length expected. The
synod was content with decreeing, that the bishops should not thenceforth
ordain any priests or deacons without exacting from them a promise of
celibacy; but they enacted that none, except those who belonged to
collegiate or cathedral churches, should be obliged to separate from their
wives.
The king passed some years in Normandy; but his long residence there was
not entirely owing to his declared preference of that duchy: his presence
was also necessary for composing those disturbances which had arisen in
that favorite territory, and which had even originally proceeded from his
own family. Robert, his eldest son, surnamed Gambaron or Courthose, from
his short legs, was a prince who inherited all the bravery of his family
and nation; but without that policy and dissimulation by which his father
was so much distinguished, and which, no less than his military valor, had
contributed to his great successes. Greedy of fame, impatient of
contradiction, without reserve in his friendships, declared in his
enmities, this prince could endure no control even from his imperious
father, and openly aspired to that independence, to which his temper, as
well as some circumstances in his situation, strongly invited him.[*] When
William first received the submissions of the province of Maine, he had
promised the inhabitants that Robert should be their prince; and before he
undertook the expedition against England, he had, on the application of
the French court, declared him his successor in Normandy, and had obliged
the barons of that duchy to do him homage as their future sovereign. By
this artifice, he had endeavored to appease the jealousy of his neighbors,
as affording them a prospect of separating England from his dominions on
the continent; but when Robert demanded of him the execution of those
engagements, he gave him an absolute refusal, and told him, according to
the homely saying, that he never intended to throw off his clothes till he
went to bed.[**] Robert openly declared his discontent, and was suspected
of secretly instigating the king of France and the earl of Brittany to the
opposition which they made to William, and which had formerly frustrated
his attempts upon the town of Dol. And as the quarrel still augmented,
Robert proceeded to entertain a strong jealousy of his two surviving
brothers, William and Henry, (for Richard was killed, in hunting, by a
stag,) who, by greater submission and complaisance, had acquired the
affections of their father. In this disposition, on both sides, the
greatest trifle sufficed to produce a rupture between them.
The three princes, residing with their father in the castle of L’Aigle, in
Normandy, were one day engaged in sport together, and after some mirth and
jollity, the two younger took a fancy of throwing over some water on
Robert as he passed through the court on leaving their apartment;[***] a
frolic which he would naturally have regarded as innocent, had it not been
for the suggestions of Alberic de Grentmesnil, son of that Hugh de
Grentmesnil whom William had formerly deprived of his fortunes, when that
baron deserted him during his greatest difficulties in England. The young
man, mindful of the injury, persuaded the prince that this action was
meant as a public affront, which it behoved him in honor to resent; and
the choleric Robert, drawing his sword, ran up stairs, with an intention
of taking revenge on his brothers.[****]
The whole castle was filled with tumult, which the king himself, who
hastened from his apartment, found some difficulty to appease. But he
could by no means appease the resentment of his eldest son who,
complaining of his partiality, and fancying that no proper atonement had
been made him for the insult, left the court that very evening, and
hastened to Rouen, with an intention of seizing the citadel of that
place.[*] But being disappointed in this view by the precaution and
vigilance of Roger de Ivery, the governor, he fled to Hugh de Neufchatel,
a powerful Norman baron, who gave him protection in his castles; and he
openly levied war against his father.[**] The popular character of the
prince, and a similarity of manners, engaged all the young nobility of
Normandy and Maine, as well as of Anjou and Brittany, to take part with
him: and it was suspected that Matilda, his mother, whose favorite he was,
supported him in his rebellion by secret remittances of money; and by the
encouragement which she gave his partisans.
All the hereditary provinces of William, as well as his family, were
during several years thrown into convulsions by this war; and he was at
last obliged to have recourse to England, where that species of military
government, which he had established, gave him greater authority than the
ancient feudal institutions permitted him to exercise in Normandy. He
called over an army of English under his ancient captains, who soon
expelled Robert and his adherents from their retreats, and restored the
authority of the sovereign in all his dominions. The young prince was
obliged to take shelter in the castle of Gerberoy, in the Beauvoisis,
which the king of France, who secretly fermented all these dissensions,
had provided for him. In this fortress he was closely besieged by his
father, against whom having a strong garrison, he made an obstinate
defence. There passed under the walls of this place many rencounters which
resembled more the single combats of chivalry than the military actions of
armies; but one of them was remarkable for its circumstances and its
event. Robert happened to engage the king, who was concealed by his
helmet, and, both of them being valiant, a fierce combat ensued, till at
last the young prince wounded his father in the arm and unhorsed him. On
his calling out for assistance, his voice discovered him to his son, who,
struck with remorse for his past guilt, and astonished with the
apprehensions of one much greater, which he had so nearly incurred,
instantly threw himself at his father’s feet, craved pardon for his
offences, and offered to purchase forgiveness by any atonement.[*] The
resentment harbored by William was so implacable, that he did not
immediately correspond to this dutiful submission of his son with like
tenderness; but, giving him his malediction, departed for his own camp, on
Robert’s horse, which that prince had assisted him to mount, He soon after
raised the siege, and marched with his army to Normandy; where the
interposition of the queen and other common friends brought about a
reconcilement, which was probably not a little forwarded by the generosity
of the son’s behavior in this action, and by the returning sense of his
past misconduct. The king seemed so fully appeased that he even took
Robert with him into England, where he intrusted him with the command of
an army, in order to repel an inroad of Malcolm, king of Scotland, and to
retaliate by a like inroad into that country. The Welsh, unable to resist
William’s power, were, about the same time, necessitated to pay a
compensation for their incursions; and every thing was reduced to full
tranquillity in this island.
1081.
This state of affairs gave William leisure to begin and finish an
undertaking, which proves his extensive genius and does honor to his
memory; it was a general survey of all the lands in the kingdom, their
extent in each district, their proprietors, tenures, value; the quantity
of meadow, pasture, wood, and arable land, which they contained; and in
some counties, the number of tenants, cottagers, and slaves of all
denominations, who lived upon them. He appointed commissioners for this
purpose, who entered every particular in their register by the verdict of
juries; and after a labor of six years, (for the work was so long in
finishing,) brought him an exact account of all the landed property of his
kingdom.[*]
This monument, called domesday-book, the most valuable piece of antiquity
possessed by any nation, is still preserved in the exchequer; and though
only some extracts of it have hitherto been published, it serves to
illustrate to us, in many particulars, the ancient state of England. The
great Alfred had finished a like survey of the kingdom in his time, which
was long kept at Winchester, and which probably served as a model to
William in this undertaking.[*]
The king was naturally a great economist; and though no prince had ever
been more bountiful to his officers and servants, it was merely because he
had rendered himself universal proprietor of England, and had a whole
kingdom to bestow. He reserved an ample revenue for the crown; and in the
general distribution of land among his followers, he kept possession of no
less than one thousand four hundred and twenty—two manors in
different parts of England,[**] which paid him rent either in money, or in
corn, cattle, and the usual produce of the soil. An ancient historian
computes that his annual fixed income, besides escheats, fines, reliefs,
and other casual profits to a great value, amounted to near four hundred
thousand pounds a year;[***] a sum which, if all circumstances be attended
to, will appear wholly incredible. A pound in that age, as we have already
observed, contained three times the weight of silver that it does at
present; and the same weight of silver, by the most probable computation,
would purchase near ten times more of the necessaries of life, though not
in the same proportion of the finer manufactures. This revenue, therefore,
of William, would be equal to at least nine or ten millions at present;
and as that prince had neither fleet nor army to support, the former being
only an occasional expense, and the latter being maintained, without any
charge to him, by his military vassals, we must thence conclude that no
emperor or prince, in any age or nation, can be compared to the Conqueror
for opulence and riches. This leads us to suspect a great mistake in the
computation of the historian; though, if we consider that avarice is
always imputed to William as one of his vices, and that, having by the
sword rendered himself master of all the lands in the kingdom, he would
certainly, in the partition, retain a great proportion for his own share,
we can scarcely be guilty of any error in asserting, that perhaps no king
of England was ever more opulent, was more able to support by his revenue
the splendor and magnificence of a court, or could bestow more on his
pleasures, or in liberalities to his servants and favorites.[****]
There was one pleasure to which William, as well as all the Normans and
ancient Saxons, was extremely addicted, and that was hunting; but this
pleasure he indulged more at the expense of his unhappy subjects, whose
interests he always disregarded, than to the loss or diminution of his own
revenue. Not content with those large forests which former kings possessed
in all parts of England, he resolved to make a new forest near Winchester,
the usual place of his residence; and for that purpose, he laid waste the
country in Hampshire for an extent of thirty miles, expelled the
inhabitants from their houses, seized their property, even demolished
churches and convents, and made the sufferers no compensation for the
injury.[*] At the same time, he enacted new laws, by which he prohibited
all his subjects from hunting in any of his forests, and rendered the
penalties more severe than ever had been inflicted for such offences. The
killing of a deer or boar, or even a hare, was punished with the loss of
the delinquent’s eyes; and that at a time when the killing of a man could
be atoned for by paying a moderate fine or composition.
The transactions recorded during the remainder of this reign may be
considered more as domestic occurrences, which concern the prince, than as
national events, which regard England. Odo, bishop of Baieux, the king’s
uterine brother, whom he had created earl of Kent, and intrusted with a
great share of power during his whole reign, had amassed immense riches;
and agreeably to the usual progress of human wishes, he began to regard
his present acquisitions but as a step to further grandeur. He had formed
the chimerical project of buying the papacy; and though Gregory, the
reigning pope, was not of advanced years, the prelate had confided so much
in the predictions of an astrologer, that he reckoned upon the pontiff’s
death, and upon attaining, by his own intrigues and money, that envied
state of greatness. Resolving, therefore, to remit all his riches to
Italy, he had persuaded many considerable barons, and among the rest Hugh,
earl of Chester, to take the same course; in hopes that, when he should
mount the papal throne, he would bestow on them more considerable
establishments in that country. The king, from whom all these projects had
been carefully concealed, at last got intelligence of the design, and
ordered Odo to be arrested. His officers, from respect to the immunities
which the ecclesiastics now assumed, scrupled to execute the command, till
the king himself was obliged in person to seize him; and when Odo insisted
that he was a prelate, and exempt from all temporal jurisdiction, William
replied, that he arrested him, not as bishop of Baieux, but as earl of
Kent. He was sent prisoner to Normandy; and notwithstanding the
remonstrances and menaces of Gregory, was detained in custody during the
remainder of this reign.
1083.
Another domestic event gave the king much more concern: it was the death
of Matilda, his consort, whom he tenderly loved, and for whom he had ever
preserved the most sincere friendship. Three years afterwards he passed
into Normandy, and carried with him Edgar Atheling, to whom he willingly
granted permission to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He was detained
on the continent by a misunderstanding which broke out between him and the
king of France, and which was occasioned by inroads made into Normandy by
some French barons on the frontiers.
1087.
It was little in the power of princes at that time to restrain their
licentious nobility; but William suspected, that these barons durst not
have provoked his indignation, had they not been assured of the
countenance and protection of Philip. His displeasure was increased by the
account he received of some railleries which that monarch had thrown out
against him. William, who was become corpulent, had been detained in bed
some time by sickness; upon which Philip expressed his surprise that his
brother of England should be so long in being delivered of his big belly.
The king sent him word, that, as soon as he was up, he would present so
many lights at Notre-dame, as would perhaps give little pleasure to the
king of France; alluding to the usual practice at that time of women after
childbirth. Immediately on his recovery, he led an army into L’Isle de
France, and laid every thing waste with fire and sword. He took the town
of Mante, which he reduced to ashes. But the progress of these hostilities
was stopped by an accident which soon after put an end to William’s life.
His horse starting aside of a sudden, he bruised his belly on the pommel
of the saddle; and being in a bad habit of body, as well as somewhat
advanced in years, he began to apprehend the consequences, and ordered
himself to be carried in a litter to the monastery of St Gervas. Finding
his illness increase, and being sensible of the approach of death, he
discovered at last the vanity of all human grandeur, and was struck with
remorse for those horrible cruelties and acts of violence, which, in the
attainment and defence of it, he had committed during the course of his
reign over England. He endeavored to make atonement by presents to
churches and monasteries; and he issued orders that Earl Morcar, Siward,
Bearne, and other English prisoners, should be set at liberty. He was even
prevailed on, though not without reluctance, to consent, with his dying
breath, to release his brother Odo, against whom he was extremely
incensed. He left Normandy and Maine to his eldest son, Robert: he wrote
to Lanfranc, desiring him to crown William king of England; he bequeathed
to Henry nothing but the possessions of his mother, Matilda; but foretold
that he would one day surpass both his brothers in power and opulence. He
expired in the sixty-third year of his age, in the twenty-first year of
his reign over England, and in the fifty-fourth of that over Normandy.
Few princes have been more fortunate than this great monarch, or were
better entitled to grandeur and prosperity, from the abilities and the
vigor of mind which he displayed in all his conduct. His spirit was bold
and enterprising, yet guided by prudence; his ambition, which was
exorbitant, and lay little under the restraints of justice, still less
under those of humanity, ever submitted to the dictates of sound policy.
Born in an age when the minds of men were intractable, and unacquainted
with submission, he was yet able to direct them to his purposes, and,
partly from the ascendant of his vehement character, partly from art and
dissimulation, to establish an unlimited authority. Though not insensible
to generosity, he was hardened against compassion; and he seemed equally
ostentatious and equally ambitious of show and parade in his clemency and
in his severity. The maxims of his administration were austere, but might
have been useful, had they been solely employed to preserve order in an
established government:[*] they were ill calculated for softening the
rigors which, under the most gentle management, are inseparable from
conquest.
His attempt against England was the last great enterprise of the kind,
which, during the course of seven hundred years, has fully succeeded in
Europe, and the force of his genius broke through those limits which first
the feudal institutions, chen the refined policy of princes, have fixed to
the several states of Christendom. Though he rendered himself infinitely
odious to his English subjects, he transmitted his power to his posterity,
and the throne is still filled by his descendants; a proof that the
foundations which he laid were firm and solid, and that, amidst all his
violence, while he seemed only to gratify the present passion, he had
still an eye towards futurity.
Some writers have been desirous of refusing to this prince the title of
conqueror, in the sense which that term commonly bears; and on pretence
that the word is sometimes in old books applied to such as make an
acquisition of territory by any means, they are willing to reject
William’s title, by right of war, to the crown of England. It is needless
to enter, into a controversy, which, by the terms of it, must necessarily
degenerate into a dispute of words. It suffices to say, that the duke of
Normandy’s first invasion of the island was hostile; that his subsequent
administration was entirely supported by arms; that in the very frame of
his laws he made a distinction between the Normans and English, to the
advantage of the former;[*] that he acted in every thing as absolute
master over the natives, whose interests and affections he totally
disregarded; and that if there was an interval when he assumed the
appearance of a legal sovereign, the period was very short, and was
nothing but a temporary Sacrifice, which he, as has been the case with
most conquerors, was obliged to make, of his inclination to his present
policy.
Scarce any of those revolutions, which, both in history and in common
language, have always been denominated conquests, appear equally violent,
or were attended with so sudden an alteration both of power and property.
The Roman state, which spread its dominion over Europe, left the rights of
individuals in a great measure untouched; and those civilized conquerors,
while they made their own country the seat of empire, found that they
could draw most advantage from the subjected provinces, by securing to the
natives the free enjoyment cf their own laws and of their private
possessions. The barbarians who subdued the Roman empire, though they
settled in the conquered countries, yet being accustomed to a rude,
uncultivated life, found a part only of the land sufficient to supply all
their wants; and they were not tempted to seize extensive possessions,
which they knew neither how to cultivate nor enjoy. But the Normans and
other foreigners who followed the standard of William while they made the
vanquished kingdom the seat of government, were yet so far advanced in
arts as to be acquainted with the advantages of a large property; and
having totally subdued the natives, they pushed the rights of conquest
(very extensive in the eyes of avarice and ambition, however narrow in
those of reason) to the utmost extremity against them. Except the former
conquest of England by the Saxons themselves, who were induced, by
peculiar circumstances, to proceed even to the extermination of the
natives, it would be difficult to find in all history a revolution more
destructive, or attended with a more complete subjection of the ancient
inhabitants. Contumely seems even co have been wantonly added to
oppression;[*] and the natives were universally reduced to such a state of
meanness and poverty, that the English, name became a term of reproach;
and several generations elapsed before one family of Saxon pedigree was
raised to any considerable honors, or could so much as attain the rank of
baron of the realm.[**] These facts are so apparent from the whole tenor
of the English history, that none would have been tempted to deny or elude
them, were they no heated by the controversies of faction; while one party
was absurdly afraid of those absurd consequences which they saw the other
party inclined to draw from this event. But it is evident that the present
rights and privileges of the people, who are a mixture of English and
Normans, can never be affected by a transaction which passed seven hundred
years ago; and as all ancient authors,[***] 12 who lived nearest the
time, and best knew the state of the country, unanimously speak of the
Norman dominion as a conquest by war and arms, no reasonable man, from the
fear of imaginary consequences, will ever be tempted to reject their
concurring and undoubted testimony.
King William had issue, besides his three sons who survived him, five
daughters, to wit, first, Cicily, a nun in the monastery of Feschamp,
afterwards abbess in the Holy Trinity at Caen, where she died in 1127.
Second, Constantia, married to Alan Fergant, earl of Brittany: she died
without issue. Third Alice, contracted to Harold. Fourth, Adela, married
to Stephen, earl of Blois, by whom she had four sons, William, Theobold,
Henry, and Stephen; of whom the elder was neglected, on account of the
imbecility of his understanding. Fifth, Agatha, who died a virgin; but was
betrothed to the king of Gallicia. She died on her journey thither before
she joined her bridegroom.
CHAPTER V.
WILLIAM RUFUS.
Contemporary Monarchs
1087.
WILLIAM, surnamed Rufus, or the Red, from the color of his hair, had no
sooner procured his father’s recommendatory letter to Lanfranc, the
primate, than he hastened to take measures for securing to himself the
government of England. Sensible that a deed so unformal, and so little
prepared, which violated Robert’s right of promigeniture, might meet with
great opposition, he trusted entirely for success to his own celerity; and
having left St. Gervas while William was breathing his last, he arrived in
England before intelligence of his father’s death had reached that
kingdom.[*] Pretending orders from the king, he secured the fortresses of
Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings, whose situation rendered them of the
greatest importance; and he got possession of the royal treasure at
Winchester, amounting to the sum of sixty thousand pounds, by which he
hoped to encourage and increase his partisans,[**] The primate, whose rank
and reputation in the kingdom gave him great authority, had been intrusted
with the care of his education, and had conferred on him the honor of
knighthood;[***] and being connected with him by these ties, and probably
deeming his pretensions just, declared that he would pay a willing
obedience to the last will of the Conqueror, his friend and benefactor.
Having assembled some bishops and some of the principal nobility, he
instantly proceeded to the ceremony of crowning the new king;[****] and by
this despatch endeavored to prevent all faction and resistance. At the
same time, Robert, who had been already acknowledged successor to
Normandy, took peaceable possession of that duchy.
But though this partition appeared to have been made without any violence
or opposition, there remained in England many causes of discontent, which
seemed to menace that kingdom with a sudden revolution. The barons, who
generally possessed large estates both in England and in Normandy, were
uneasy at the separation of those territories; and foresaw that, as it
would be impossible for them to preserve long their allegiance to two
masters, they must necessarily resign either their ancient patrimony or
their new acquisitions.[*]
Robert’s title to the duchy they esteemed incontestable; his claim to the
kingdom plausible; and they all desired that this prince, who alone had
any pretensions to unite these states, should be put in possession of
both. A comparison also of the personal qualities of the two brothers led
them to give the preference to the elder. The duke was brave, open,
sincere, generous: even his predominant faults, his extreme indolence and
facility, were not disagreeable to those haughty barons, who affected
independence, and submitted with reluctance to a vigorous administration
in their sovereign. The king, though equally brave, was violent, haughty,
tyrannical; and seemed disposed to govern more by the fear than by the
love of his subjects. Odo, bishop of Baieux, and Robert, earl of
Mortaigne, maternal brothers of the Conqueror, envying the great credit of
Lanfranc, which was increased by his late services enforced all these
motives with their partisans, and engaged them in a formal conspiracy to
dethrone the king. They communicated their design to Eustace, count of
Boulogne Roger, earl of Shrewsbury and Arundel, Robert de Belesme, his
eldest son, William, bishop of Durham, Robert de Moubray, Roger Bigod,
Hugh de Grentmesnil; and they easily procured the assent of these potent
noblemen. The conspirators, retiring to their castles, hastened to put
themselves in a military posture; and expecting to be soon supported by a
powerful army from Normandy, they had already begun hostilities in many
places.
The king, sensible of his perilous situation, endeavored to engage the
affections of the native English, As that people were now so thoroughly
subdued that they no longer aspired to the recovery of their ancient
liberties, and were content with the prospect of some mitigation in ihe
tyranny of the Norman princes, they zealously embraced William’s cause,
upon receiving general promises of good treatment, and of enjoying the
license of hunting in the royal forests. The king was soon in a situation
to take the field; and as he knew the danger of delay, he suddenly marched
into Kent, where his uncles had already seized the fortresses of Pevensey
and Rochester. These places he successively reduced by famine; and though
he was prevailed on by the earl of Chester, William de Warrenne, and
Robert Fitz-Hammon, who had embraced his cause, to spare the lives of the
rebels, he confiscated all their estates, and banished them the
kingdom.[*] This success gave authority to his negotiations with Roger,
earl of Shewsbury, whom he detached from the confederates; and as his
powerful fleet, joined to the indolent conduct of Robert, prevented the
arrival of the Norman succors, all the other rebels found no resource but
in flight or submission. Some of them received a pardon; but the greater
part were attainted; and the king bestowed their estates on the Norman
barons who had remained faithful to him.
1089.
William, freed from the danger of these insurrections, took little care of
fulfilling his promises to the English, who still found themselves exposed
to the same oppressions which they had undergone during the reign of the
Conqueror, and which were rather augmented by the violent, impetuous
temper of the present monarch. The death of Lanfranc, who retained great
influence over him, gave soon after a full career to his tyranny; and all
orders of men found reason to complain of an arbitrary and illegal
administration. Even the privileges of the church, held sacred in those
days, were a feeble rampart against his usurpations. He seized the
temporalities of all the vacant bishoprics and abbeys; he delayed the
appointing of successors to those dignities, that he might the longer
enjoy the profits of their revenue; he bestowed some of the church lands
in property on his captains and favorites; and he openly set to sale such
sees and abbeys as he thought proper to dispose of. Though the murmurs of
the ecclesiastics, which were quickly propagated to the nation, rose high
against this grievance, the terror of William’s authority, confirmed by
the suppression of the late insurrections, retained everyone in
subjection, and preserved general tranquillity in England.
1090.
The king, even thought himself enabled to disturb his brother in the
possession of Normandy. The loose and negligent administration of that
prince had imboldened the Norman barons to affect a great independency;
and their mutual quarrels and devastations had rendered that whole
territory a scene of violence and outrage. Two of them, Walter and Odo,
were bribed by William to deliver the fortresses of St. Valori and
Albemarle into his hands: others soon after imitated the example of
revolt, while Philip, king of France, who ought to have protected his
vassal in the possession of his fief, was, after making some efforts in
his favor, engaged by large presents to remain neuter. The duke had also
reason to apprehend danger from the intrigues of his brother Henry.
This young prince, who had inherited nothing of his father’s great
possessions but some of his money, has furnished Robert, while he was
making his preparations against England, with ihe sum of three thousand
marks; and in return for so slender a supply, had been put in possession
of the Cotentin, which comprehended near a third of the duchy of Normandy.
Robert afterwards, upon some suspicion, threw him into prison; but finding
himself exposed to invasion from the king of England, ind dreading the
conjunction of the two brothers against him, he now gave Henry his
liberty, and even made use of his assistance in suppressing the
insurrections of his rebellious subjects. Conan, a rich burgess of Rouen,
had entered into a conspiracy to deliver that city to William; but Henry,
on the detection of his guilt, carried the traitor up to a high tower and
with his own hands flung him from the battlements.
The king appeared in Normandy at the head of an army and affairs seemed to
have come to extremity between the brothers, when the nobility on both
sides, strongly connected by interest and alliances, interposed, and
meditated an accommodation. The chief advantage of this treaty accrued to
William, who obtained possession of the territory of Eu, the towns of
Aumule, Fescamp, and other places; but in return he promised, that he
would assist his brother in subduing Maine, which had rebelled; and that
the Norman barons, attainted in Robert’s cause, should be restored to
their estates in England. The two brothers also stipulated, that, on the
demise of either without issue, the survivor should inherit all his
dominions; and twelve of the most powerful barons on each side swore that
they would employ their power to insure the effectual execution of the
whole treaty,[*] a strong proof of the great independence and authority of
the nobles in those ages.
Prince Henry, disgusted that so little care had been taken of his
interests in this accommodation, retired to St. Michael’s Mount, a strong
fortress on the coast of Normandy, and infested the neighborhood with his
incursions. Robert and William, with their joint forces, besieged him in
this place, and had nearly reduced him by the scarcity of water, when the
elder, hearing of his distress, granted him permission to supply himself,
and also sent him some pipes of wine for his own table. Being reproved by
William for this ill-timed generosity, he replied, “What, shall I suffer
my brother to die of thirst? Where shall we find another when he is gone?”
The king also, during this siege, performed an act of generosity which was
less suitable to his character. Riding out one day alone, to take a survey
of the fortress, he was attacked by two soldiers, and dismounted. One of
them drew his sword in order to despatch him, when the king exclaimed,
“Hold, knave! I am the king of England.” The soldier suspended his blow
and, raising the king from the ground with expressions of respect,
received a handsome reward, and was taken into his service. Prince Henry
was soon after obliged to capitulate; and being despoiled of all his
patrimony, wandered about for some time with very few attendants, and
often in great poverty.
1091.
The continued intestine discord among the barons was alone in that age
destructive; the public wars were commonly short and feeble, produced
little bloodshed, and were attended with no memorable event. To this
Norman war, which was so soon concluded, there succeeded hostilities with
Scotland, which were not of longer duration. Robert here Commanded his
brother’s army, and obliged Malcolm to accept of peace, and do homage to
the crown of England. This peace was not more durable.
1093.
Malcolm, two years after, levying an army, invaded England; and after
ravaging, Northumberland, he laid siege to Alnwick, where, a party of Earl
Moubray’s troops falling upon him by surprise, a sharp action ensued in
which Malcolm was slain. This incident interrupted for some years the
regular succession to the Scottish crown, Though Malcolm left legitimate
sons, his brother Donald, on account of the youth of these princes, was
advanced to the throne; but kept not long possession of it. Duncan,
natural son of Malcolm, formed a conspiracy against him; and being
assisted by William with a small force, made himself master of the
kingdom. New broils ensued with Normandy. The frank, open, remiss temper
of Robert was ill fitted to withstand the interested, rapacious character
of William, who, supported by greater power, was still encroaching on his
brother’s possessions, and instigating his turbulent barons to rebellion
against him. The king, having gone over to Normandy to support his
partisans, ordered an army of twenty thousand men to be levied in England,
and to be conducted to the sea-coast, as if they were instantly to be
embarked.
1094.
Here Ralph Flambard, the king’s minister, and the chief instrument of his
extortions, exacted ten shillings apiece from them, in lieu of their
service, and then dismissed them into their several counties. This money
was so skilfully employed by William that it rendered him better service
than he could have expected from the army. He engaged the French king by
new presents to depart from the protection of Robert; and he daily bribed
the Norman barons to desert his service; but was prevented from pushing
his advantages by an incursion of the Welsh, which obliged him to return
to England, tie found no difficulty in repelling the enemy; but was not
able to make any considerable impression on a country guarded by its
mountainous situation. A conspiracy of his own barons which was detected
at this time, appeared a more serious concern, and engrossed all his
attention.
1095.
Robert Moubray, earl of Northumberland, was at the head of this
combination; and he engaged in it the count d’Eu, Richard de Tunbridge,
Roger de Lacy, and many others. The purpose of the conspirators was to
dethrone the king, and to advance in his stead Stephen, count of Aumale,
nephew to the Conqueror. William’s despatch prevented the design from
taking effect, and disconcerted the conspirators. Moubray made some
resistance; but being taken prisoner, was attainted and thrown into
confinement, where he died about thirty years after.
1096.
The count d’Eu denied his concurrence in the plot, and to justify himself,
fought, in the presence of the court at Windsor, a duel with Geoffrey
Bainard, who accused him. But being worsted in the combat, he was
condemned to be castrated, and to have his eyes put out. William de
Alderi, another conspirator, was supposed to be treated with more rigor
when he was sentenced to be hanged.
But the noise of these petty wars and commotions was quite sunk in the
tumult of the crusades, which now engrossed the attention of Europe, and
have ever since engaged the curiosity of mankind, as the most signal and
most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared in any age or
nation. After Mahomet had, by means of his pretended revelations, united
the dispersed Arabians under one head, they issued forth from their
deserts in great multitudes; and being animated with zeal for their new
religion, and supported by the vigor of their new government, they made
deep impression on the eastern empire, which was far in the decline with
regard both to military discipline and to civil policy. Jerusalem, by its
situation, became one of their most early conquests; and the Christians
had the mortification to see the holy sepulchre, and the other places
consecrated by the presence of their religious founder, fallen into the
possession of infidels. But the Arabians or Saracens were so employed in
military enterprises, by which they spread their empire, in a few years,
from the banks of the Ganges to the Straits of Gibraltar, that they had no
leisure for theological controversy; and though the Alcoran, the original
monument of their faith, seems to contain some violent precepts, they were
much less infected with the spirit of bigotry and persecution than the
indolent and speculative Greeks, who were continually refining on the
several articles of their religious system. They gave little disturbance
to those zealous pilgrims who daily flocked to Jerusalem; and they allowed
every man, after paying a moderate tribute, to visit the holy sepulchre,
to perform his religious duties, and so return in peace. But the Turcomans
or Turks, a tribe of Tartars, who had embraced Mahometanism, having
wrested Syria from the Saracens, and having in the year 1065 made
themselves masters of Jerusalem, rendered the pilgrimage much more
difficult and dangerous to the Christians. The barbarity of their manners,
and the confusions attending their unsettled government, exposed the
pilgrims to many insults, robberies, and extortions; and these zealots,
returning from their meritorious fatigues and sufferings, filled all
Christendom with indignation against the infidels, who profaned the holy
city by their presence, and derided the sacred mysteries in the very place
of their completion. Gregory VII., among the other vast ideas which he
entertained, had formed the design of uniting all the western Christians
against the Mahometans; but the egregious and violent invasions of that
pontiff on the civil power of princes had created him so many enemies, and
had rendered his schemes so suspicious, that he was not able to make great
progress in this undertaking. The work was reserved for a meaner
instrument, whose low condition ir life exposed aim to no jealousy, and
whose folly was well calculated to coincide with the prevailing principles
of the times.
Peter, commonly called the Hermit, a native of Amiens, in Picardy, had
made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Being deeply affected with the dangers
to which that act of piety now exposed the pilgrims, as well as with the
instances of oppression under which the eastern Christians labored, he
entertained the bold, and, in all appearance, impracticable project of
leading into Asia, from the farthest extremities of the west, armies
sufficient to subdue those potent and warlike nations which now held the
holy city in subjection.[*] He proposed his views to Martin II., who
filled the papal chair, and who, though sensible of the advantages which
the head of the Christian religion must reap from a religious war, and
though he esteemed the blind zeal of Peter a proper means for effecting
the purpose,[**] resolved not to interpose his authority till he saw a
greater probability of success. He summoned a council at Placentia, which
consisted of four thousand ecclesiastics and thirty thousand seculars; and
which was so numerous that no hall could contain the multitude, and it was
necessary to hold the assembly in a plain.
The harangues of the pope, and of Peter himself, representing the dismal
situation of their brethren in the East, and the indignity suffered by the
Christian name, in allowing the holy city to remain in the hands of
infidels, here found the minds of men so well prepared, that the whole
multitude suddenly and violently declared for the war, and solemnly
devoted themselves to perform this service, so meritorious, as they
believed it, to God and religion.
But though Italy seemed thus to have zealously embraced the enterprise,
Martin knew that, in order to insure success, it was necessary to enlist
the greater and more warlike nations in the same engagement; and having
previously exhorted Peter to visit the chief cities and sovereigns of
Christendom, he summoned another council at Clermont, in Auvergne.[*] The
fame of this great and pious design being now universally diffused,
procured the attendance of the greatest prelates, nobles, and princes; and
when the pope and the hermit renewed their pathetic exhortations, the
whole assembly, as if impelled by an immediate inspiration, not moved by
their preceeding impressions, exclaimed with one voice, “It is the will of
God, It is the will of God”—words deemed so memorable and so much
the result of a divine influence, that they were employed as the signal of
rendezvous and battle in all the future exploits of those adventurers.[**]
Men of all ranks flew to arms with the utmost ardor; and an exterior
symbol too—a circumstance of chief moment,—was here chosen by
the devoted combatants. The sign of the cross, which had been hitherto so
much revered among Christians, and which, the more it was an object of
reproach among the pagan world, was the more passionately cherished by
them, became the badge of union, and was affixed to their right shoulder
by all who enlisted themselves in this sacred warfare.[***]
Europe was at this time sunk into profound ignorance and superstition. The
ecclesiastics had acquired the greatest ascendant over the human mind; the
people, who, being little restrained by honor, and less by law, abandoned
themselves to the worst crimes and disorders, knew of no other expiation
than the observances imposed on them by their spiritual pastors; and it
was easy to represent the holy war as an equivalent for all
penances,[****] and an atonement for every violation of justice and
humanity.
But amidst the abject superstition which now prevailed, the military
spirit also had universally diffused itself; and though not supported by
art or discipline, was become the general passion of the nations governed
by the feudal law. All the great lords possessed the right of peace and
war: they were engaged in perpetual hostilities with each other: the open
country was become a scene of outrage and disorder: the cities, still mean
and poor, were neither guarded by walls nor protected by privileges, and
were exposed to every insult: individuals were obliged to depend for
safety on their own force, or their private alliances; and valor was the
only excellence which was held in esteem, or gave one man the preeminence
above another. When all the particular superstitions, therefore, were here
united in one great object, the ardor for military enterprises took the
same direction; and Europe, impelled by its two ruling passions, was
loosened, as it were, from its foundations, and seemed to precipitate
itself in one united body upon the East.
All orders of men, deeming the crusades the only road to heaven, enlisted
themselves under these sacred banners, and were impatient to open the way
with their sword to the holy city. Nobles, artisans, peasants, even
priests,[*] enrolled their names; and to decline this meritorious service
was branded with the reproach of impiety, or, what perhaps was esteemed
still more disgraceful, of cowardice and pusillanimity.[**] The infirm and
aged contributed to the expedition by presents and money; and many of
them, not satisfied with the merit of this atonement, attended it in
person, and were determined, if possible, to breathe their last in sight
of that city where their Savior had died for them. Women themselves,
concealing their sex under the disguise of armor, attended the camp; and
commonly forgot still more the duty of their sex, by prostituting
themselves without reserve to the army.[***] The greatest criminals were
forward in a service which they regarded as a propitiation for all crimes;
and the most enormous disorders were, during the course of those
expeditions, committed by men inured to wickedness, encouraged by example,
and impelled by necessity. The multitude of the adventurers soon became so
great, that their more sagacious leaders, Hugh, count of Vermandois,
brother to the French king, Raymond, count of Toulouse, Godfrey of
Bouillon, prince of Brabant, and Stephen, count of Blois,[****] became
apprehensive lest the greatness itself of the armament should disappoint
its purpose; and they permitted an undisciplined multitude, computed at
three hundred thousand men, to go before them, under the command of Peter
the Hermit, and Walter the Moneyless.[*****]
These men took the road towards Constantinople, through Hungary and
Bulgaria; and trusting that Heaven, by supernatural assistance, would
supply all their necessities, they made no provision for subsistence on
their march. They soon found themselves obliged to obtain by plunder what
they had vainly expected from miracles; and the enraged inhabitants of the
countries through which they passed, gathering together in arms, attacked
the disorderly multitude, and put them to slaughter without resistance.
The more disciplined armies followed after; and passing the straits at
Constantinople, they were mustered in the plains of Asia, and amounted in
the whole to the number of seven hundred thousand combatants.[*]
Amidst this universal frenzy, which spread itself by contagion throughout
Europe, especially in France and Germany, men were not entirely forgetful
of their present interests; and both those who went on this expedition,
and those who stain behind, entertained schemes of gratifying by its means
their avarice or their ambition. The nobles who enlisted themselves were
moved, from the romantic spirit of the age, to hope for opulent
establishments in the East, the chief seat of arts and commerce during
those ages; and in pursuit of these chimerical projects, they sold at the
lowest price their ancient castles and inheritances, which had now lost
all value in their eyes. The greater princes, who remained at home,
besides establishing peace in their dominions by giving occupation abroad
to the inquietude and martial disposition of their subjects, took the
opportunity of annexing to their crown many considerable fiefs, either by
purchase or by the extinction of heirs. The pope frequently turned the
zeal of the crusaders from the infidels against his own enemies, whom he
represented as equally criminal with the enemies of Christ. The convents
and other religious societies bought the possessions of the adventurers;
and as the contributions of the faithful were commonly intrusted to their
management, they often diverted to this purpose what was intended to be
employed against the infidels.[**] But no one was a more immediate gainer
by this epidemic fury than the king of England, who kept aloof from all
connections with those fanatical and romantic warriors.
Robert, duke of Normandy, impelled by the bravery and mistaken generosity
of his spirit, had early enlisted himself in the crusade; but being always
unprovided with money, he found that it would be impracticable for him to
appear in a manner suitable to his rank and station, at the head of his
numerous vassals and subjects, who, transported with the general rage,
were determined to follow him into Asia. He resolved, therefore, to
mortgage, or rather to sell, his dominions, which he had not talents to
govern; and he offered them to his brother William for the very unequal
sum of ten thousand marks.[*] The bargain was soon concluded: the king
raised the money by violent extortions on his subjects of all ranks, even
on the convents, who were obliged to melt their plate in order to furnish
the quota demanded of them[**] he was put in possession of Normandy and
Maine; and Robert, providing himself with a magnificent train, set out for
the Holy Land, in pursuit of glory, and in full confidence of securing his
eternal salvation.
The smallness of this sum, with the difficulties which William found in
raising it, suffices alone to refute the account which is heedlessly
adopted by historians, of the enormous revenue of the Conqueror. Is it
credible that Robert would consign to the rapacious hands of his brother
such considerable dominions, for a sum which, according to that account,
made not a week’s income of his father’s English revenue alone? or that
the king of England could not on demand, without oppressing his subjects,
have been able to pay him the money? The Conqueror, it is agreed, was
frugal as well as rapacious, yet his treasure at his death exceeded not
sixty thousand pounds, which hardly amounted to his income for two months;
another certain refutation of that exaggerated account.
The fury of the crusades during this age less infected England than the
neighboring kingdoms; probably because the Norman conquerors, finding
their settlement in that kingdom still somewhat precarious, durst not
abandon their homes in quest of distant adventures. The selfish,
interested spirit also of the king, which kept him from kindling in the
general flame, checked its progress among his subjects; and as he is
accused of open profaneness,[***] and was endued with a sharp wit,[****]
it is likely that he made the romantic chivalry of the crusaders the
object of his perpetual raillery.
As an instance of his religion, we are told that he once accepted of sixty
marks from a Jew, whose son had been converted to Christianity, and who
engaged him by that present to assist him in bringing back the youth to
Judaism. William employed both menaces and persuasion for that purpose;
but finding the convert obstinate in his new faith, he sent for the
father, and told him that as he had not succeeded, it was not just that he
should keep the present; but as he had done his utmost, it was but
equitable that he should be paid for his pains; and he would therefore
retain only thirty marks of the money.[*] At another time, it is said, he
sent for some learned Christian theologians and some rabbies, and bade
them fairly dispute the question of their religion in his presence. He was
perfectly indifferent between them; had his ears open to reason and
conviction; and would embrace that doctrine which, upon comparison, should
be found supported by the most solid arguments.[**] If this story be true,
it is probable that he meant only to amuse himself by turning both into
ridicule; but we must be cautious of admitting every thing related by the
monkish historians to the disadvantage of this prince. He had the
misfortune to be engaged in quarrels with the ecclesiastics, particularly
with Anselm, commonly called St. Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury; and it
is no wonder his memory should be blackened by the historians of that
order.
After the death of Lanfranc, the king for several years retained in his
own hands the revenues of Canterbury, as he did those of many other vacant
bishoprics: but falling into a dangerous sickness, he was seized with
remorse; and the clergy represented to him, that he was in danger of
eternal perdition, if before his death he did not make atonement for those
multiplied impieties and sacrileges of which he had been guilty.[***] He
resolved, therefore, to supply instantly the vacancy of Canterbury; and
for that purpose he sent for Anselm, a Piedmontese by birth, abbot of Bee,
in Normandy, who was much celebrated for his learning and piety. The abbot
earnestly refused the dignity, fell on his knees, wept, and entreated the
king to change his purpose,[****] and when he found the prince obstinate
in forcing the pastoral staff upon him, he kept his fist so fast clinched,
that it required the utmost violence of the bystanders to open it, and
force him to receive that ensign of spiritual dignity.[*****]
William soon after recovered; and his passions regaining their wonted
vigor, he returned to his former violence and rapine. He detained in
prison several persons whom he had ordered to be freed during the time of
his penitence; he still preyed upon the ecclesiastical benefices; the sale
of spiritual dignities continued as open as ever; and he kept possession
of a considerable part of the revenues belonging to the see of
Canterbury.[**] But he found in Anselm that persevering opposition which
he had reason to expect from the ostentatious humility which that prelate
had displayed in refusing his promotion.
The opposition made by Anselm was the more dangerous on account of the
character of piety which he soon acquired in England by his great zeal
against all abuses, particularly those in dress and ornament. There was a
mode which, in that age, prevailed throughout Europe, both among men and
women, to give an enormous length to their shoes, to draw the toe to a
sharp point, and to affix to it the figure of a bird’s bill, or some such
ornament, which was turned upwards, and which was often sustained by gold
or silver chains tied to the knee.[***] The ecclesiastics took exception
at this ornament, which, they said, was an attempt to bely the Scripture,
where it is affirmed, that no man can add a cubit to his stature; and they
declaimed against it with great vehemence, nay, assembled some synods, who
absolutely condemned it. But—such are the strange contradictions in
human nature—though the clergy, at that time, could overturn
thrones, and had authority sufficient to send above a million of men on
their errand to the deserts of Asia, they could never prevail against
these long-pointed shoes: on the contrary, that caprice, contrary to all
other modes, maintained its ground during several centuries; and if the
clergy had not at last desisted from their persecution of it, it might
still have been the prevailing fashion in Europe.
But Anselm was more fortunate in decrying the particular mode which was
the object of his aversion, and which probably had not taken such fast
hold of the affections of the people. He preached zealously against the
long hair and curled locks which were then fashionable among the
courtiers; he refused the ashes on Ash-Wednesday to those who were so
accoutred; and his authority and eloquence had such influence, that the
young men universally abandoned that ornament, and appeared in the cropped
hair which was recommended to them by the sermons of the primate. The
noted historian of Anselm, who was also his companion and secretary,
celebrates highly this effort of his zeal and piety.[*]
When William’s profaneness therefore returned to him with his health, he
was soon engaged in controversies with this austere prelate. There was at
that time a schism in the church between Urban and Clement, who both
pretended to the papacy;[**] and Anselm, who, as abbot of Bee, had already
acknowledged the former, was determined, without the king’s consent, to
introduce his authority into England.[***] William, who, imitating his
father’s example, had prohibited his subjects from recognizing any pope
whom he had not previously received, was enraged at this attempt, and
summoned a synod at Buckingham, with an intention of deposing Anselm; but
the prelate’s suffragans declared, that, without the papal authority, they
knew of no expedient for inflicting that punishment on their
primate.[****] The king was at last engaged by other motives to give the
preference to Urban’s title; Anselm received the pall from that pontiff;
and matters seemed to be accommodated between the king and the
primate,[*****] when the quarrel broke out afresh from a new cause.
William had undertaken an expedition against Wales, and required the
archbishop to furnish his quota of soldiers for that service, but Anselm,
who regarded the demand as an oppression on the church, and yet durst not
refuse compliance, sent them so miserably accoutred, that the king was
extremely displeased, and threatened him with a prosecution.[******]
Anselm, on the other hand, demanded positively that all the revenues of
his see should be restored to him; appealed to Borne against the king’s
injustice;[*******] and affairs came to such extremities, that the
primate, finding it dangerous to remain in the kingdom, desired and
obtained the king’s permission to retire beyond sea. All his temporalities
were seized;[********] but he was received with great respect by Urban,
who considered him as a martyr in the cause of religion, and even menaced
the king, on account of his proceedings against the primate and the church
with the sentence of excommunication.
Anselm assisted at the council of Bari, where, besides fixing the
controversy between the Greek and Latin churches concerning the procession
of the Holy Ghost,[*] the right of election to church preferments was
declared to belong to the clergy alone, and spiritual censures were
denounced against all ecclesiastics who did homage to laymen for their
sees or benefices, and against all laymen who exacted it.[**] The rite of
homage, by the feudal customs, was, that the vassal should throw himself
on his knees, should put his joined hands between those of his superior,
and should in that posture swear fealty to him.[***] But the council
declared & execrable that pure hands, which could create God, and
could offer him up as a sacrifice for the salvation of mankind, should be
put, after this humiliating manner, between profane hands, which, besides
being inured to rapine and bloodshed, were employed day and night in
impure purposes and obscene contacts.[****] Such were the reasonings
prevalent in that age; reasonings which, though they cannot be passed over
in silence, without omitting the most curious and perhaps not the least
instructive part of history, can scarcely be delivered with the requisite
decency and gravity.
1097.
The cession of Normandy and Maine by Duke Robert increased the king’s
territories; but brought him no great increase of power, because of the
unsettled state of those countries the mutinous disposition of the barons,
and the vicinity of the French king, who supported them in all their
insurrections. Even Helie, lord of La Fleche, a small town in Anjou, was
able to give him inquietude; and this great monarch was obliged to make
several expeditions abroad, without being able to prevail over so petty a
baron, who had acquired the confidence and affections of the inhabitants
of Maine. He was, however, so fortunate as at last to take him prisoner in
a rencounter, but having released him, at the intercession of the French
king and the count of Anjou, he found the province of Maine still exposed
to his intrigues and incursions. Helie, being introduced by the citizens
into the town of Mans, besieged the garrison in the citadel,
1099.
William, who was hunting in the new forest when he received intelligence
of this hostile attempt, was so provoked, that he immediately turned his
horse, and galloped to the sea-shore at Dartmouth, declaring that he would
not stop a moment till he had taken, vengeance for the offence. He found
the weather so cloudy and tempestuous, that the mariners thought it
dangerous to put to sea: but the king hurried on board, and ordered them
to set sail instantly; telling them that they never yet heard of a king
that was drowned.[*] By this vigor and celerity he delivered the citadel
of Mans from its present danger, and pursuing Helie into his own
territories, he laid siege to Majol, a small castle in those parts:
1100.
but a wound which he received before this place, obliged him to raise the
siege; and he returned to England.
The weakness of the greatest monarchs during this age, in their military
expeditions against their nearest neighbors, appears the more surprising,
when we consider the prodigious numbers, which even petty princes,
seconding the enthusiastic rage of the people, were able to assemble, and
to conduct in dangerous enterprises to the remote provinces of Asia.
William earl of Poitiers and duke of Guienne, inflamed with the glory and
not discouraged by the misfortunes, which had attended the former
adventurers in the crusades, had put himself at the head of an immense
multitude, computed by some historians to amount to sixty thousand horse,
and a much greater number of foot,[**] and he purposed to lead them into
the Holy Land against the infidels. He wanted money to forward the
preparations requisite for this expedition, and he offered to mortgage all
his dominions to William, without entertaining any scruple on account of
that rapacious and iniquitous hand to which he resolved to consign
them.[***]
The king accepted the offer; and had prepared a fleet and an army, in
order to escort the money and take possession of the rich provinces of
Guienne and Poictou; when an accident put an end to his life, and to all
his ambitious projects. He was engaged in hunting, the sole amusement, and
indeed the chief occupation of princes in those rude times, when society
was little cultivated and the arts afforded few objects worthy of
attention. Walter Tyrrel, a French gentleman, remarkable for his address
in archery, attended him in this recreation, of which the new forest was
the scene: and as William had dismounted after a chase, Tyrrel, impatient
to show his dexterity, let fly an arrow at a stag which suddenly started
before him. The arrow, glancing from a tree, struck the king in the
breast, and instantly slew him;[*] while Tyrrel, without informing any one
of the accident, put spurs to his horse, hastened to the sea-shore,
embarked for France, and joined the crusade in an expedition to Jerusalem;
a penance which he imposed on himself for this involuntary crime. The body
of William was found in the forest by the country people, and was buried
without any pomp or ceremony at Winchester. His courtiers were negligent
in performing the last duties to a master who was so little beloved; and
every one was too much occupied in the interesting object of fixing his
successor, to attend the funeral of a dead sovereign.
The memory of this monarch is transmitted to us with little advantage by
the churchmen, whom he had offended; and though we may suspect in general
that their account of his vices is somewhat exaggerated, his conduct
affords little reason for contradicting the character which they have
assigned him, or for attributing to him any very estimable qualities. He
seems to have been a violent and tyrannical prince; a perfidious,
encroaching, and dangerous neighbor; an unkind and ungenerous relation. He
was equally prodigal and rapacious in the management of his treasury; and
if he possessed abilities, he lay so much under the government of
impetuous passions, that he made little use of them in his administration;
and he indulged without reserve that domineering policy which suited his
temper, and which, if supported, as it was it him, with courage and vigor,
proves often more successful in disorderly times, than the deepest
foresight and most refined artifice.
The monuments which remain of this prince in England are the Tower,
Westminster Hall, and London Bridge, which he built. The most laudable
foreign enterprise which he undertook was the sending of Edgar Atheling,
three years before his death, into Scotland, with a small army, to restore
Prince Edgar, the true heir of that kingdom, son of Malcolm, and of
Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling; and the enterprise proved successful.
It was remarked in that age, that Richard, an elder brother of William’s,
perished by an accident in the new forest; Richard, his nephew, natural
son of Duke Robert, lost his life in the same place after the same manner;
and all men, upon the king’s fate, exclaimed that, as the Conqueror had
been guilty of extreme violence in expelling all the inhabitants of that
large district to make room for his game, the just vengeance of Heaven was
signalized in the same place by the slaughter of his posterity. William
was killed in the thirteenth year of his reign, and about the fortieth of
his age. As he was never married, he left no legitimate issue.
In the eleventh year of this reign, Magnus, king of Norway, made a descent
on the Isle of Anglesea; but was repulsed by Hugh, earl of Shrewsbury.
This is the last attempt made by the northern nations upon England. That
restless people seem about this time to have learned the practice of
tillage, which thenceforth kept them at home, and freed the other nations
of Europe from the devastations spread over them by those piratical
invaders. This proved one great cause of the subsequent settlement and
improvement of the southern nations.
CHAPTER VI.
HENRY I.
1100.
After the adventurers in the holy war were assembled on the banks of the
Bosphorus, opposite to Constantinople, they proceeded on their enterprise;
but immediately experienced those difficulties which their zeal had
hitherto concealed from them, and for which, even if they had foreseen
them, it would have been almost impossible to provide a remedy. The Greek
emperor, Alexis Comnenus, who had applied to the western Christians for
succor against the Turks, entertained hopes, and those but feeble ones, of
obtaining such a moderate supply as, acting under his command, might
enable him to repulse the enemy; but he was extremely astonished to see
his dominions overwhelmed on a sudden by such an inundation of licentious
barbarians, who, though they pretended friendship, despised his subjects
as unwarlike, and detested them as heretical. By all the arts of policy,
in which he excelled, he endeavored to divert the torrent; but while he
employed professions, caresses, civilities, and seeming services towards
the leaders of the crusade, he secretly regarded those imperious allies as
more dangerous than the open enemies by whom his empire had been formerly
invaded. Having effected that difficult point of disembarking them safely
in Asia, he entered into a private correspondence with Soliman, emperor of
the Turks; and practised every insidious art which his genius, his power,
or his situation enabled him to employ, for disappointing the enterprise,
and, discouraging the Latins from making thenceforward any such prodigious
migrations. His dangerous policy was seconded by the disorders inseparable
from so vast a multitude, who were not united under one head, and were
conducted by leaders of the most independent, intractable spirit,
unacquainted with military discipline, and determined enemies to civil
authority and submission. The scarcity of provisions, the excess of
fatigue, the influence of unknown climates, joined to the want of concert
in their operations, and to the sword of a warlike enemy, destroyed the
adventurers by thousands, and would have abated the ardor of men impelled
to war by less powerful motives. Their zeal, however, their bravery, and
their irresistible force still carried them forward, and continually
advanced them to the great end of their enterprise. After an obstinate
siege, they took Nice, the seat of the Turkish empire; they defeated
Soliman in two great battles; they made themselves masters of Antioch; and
entirely broke the force of the Turks, who had so long retained those
countries in subjection. The soldan of Egypt, whose alliance they had
hitherto courted, recovered, on the fall of the Turkish power, his former
authority in Jerusalem; and he informed them by his ambassadors, that if
they came disarmed to that city, they might now perform their religious
vows, and that all Christian pilgrims, who should thenceforth visit the
holy sepulchre, might expect the same good treatment which they had ever
received from his predecessors. The offer was rejected; the soldan was
required to yield up the city to the Christians; and on his refusal, the
champions of the cross advanced to the siege of Jerusalem, which they
regarded as the consummation of their labors. By the detachments which
they had made, and the disasters which they had undergone, they were
diminished to the number of twenty thousand foot and fifteen hundred
horse; but these were still formidable from their valor, their experience,
and the obedience which, from past calamities, they had learned to pay to
their leaders. After a siege of five weeks, they took Jerusalem by
assault; and, impelled by a mixture of military and religious rage, they
put the numerous garrison and inhabitants to the sword, without
distinction. Neither arms defended the valiant, nor submission the
timorous; no age or sex was spared; infants on the breast were pierced by
the same blow with their mothers, who implored for mercy; even a
multitude, to the number of ten thousand persons, who had surrendered
themselves prisoners and were promised quarter, were butchered in cold
blood by those ferocious conquerors.[*] The streets of Jerusalem were
covered with dead bodies;[**] and the triumphant warriors, after every
enemy was subdued and slaughtered, immediately turned themselves, with the
sentiments of humiliation and contrition, towards the holy sepulchre.
They threw aside their arms, still streaming with blood; they advanced
with reclined bodies, and naked feet and heads, to that sacred monument;
they sung anthems to their Savior, who had there purchased their salvation
by his death and agony; and their devotion enlivened by the presence of
the place where he had suffered, so overcame their fury, that they
dissolved in tears, and bore the appearance of every soft and tender
sentiment. So inconsistent is human nature with itself! and so easily does
the most effeminate superstition ally, both with the most heroic courage
and with the fiercest barbarity!
This great event happened on the fifth of July in the last year of the
eleventh century. The Christian princes and nobles, after choosing Godfrey
of Bouillon king of Jerusalem, began to settle themselves in their new
conquests; while some of them returned to Europe, in order to enjoy at
home that glory which their valor had acquired them in this popular and
meritorious enterprise. Among these was Robert, duke of Normandy, who, as
he had relinquished the greatest dominions of any prince that attended the
crusade, had all along distinguished himself by the most intrepid courage,
as well as by that affable disposition and unbounded generosity which gain
the hearts of soldiers, and qualify a prince to shine in a military life.
In passing through Italy, he became acquainted with Sibylla, daughter of
the count of Conversana, a young lady of great beauty and merit, whom he
espoused: indulging himself in this new passion, as well as fond of
enjoying ease and pleasure after the fatigues of so many rough campaigns,
he lingered a twelvemonth in that delicious climate; and though his
friends in the north looked every moment for his arrival, none of them
knew when they could with certainty expect it. By this delay he lost the
kingdom of England, which the great fame he had acquired during the
crusades, as well as his undoubted title, both by birth and by the
preceding agreement with his deceased brother, would, had he been present,
have infallibly secured to him.
Prince Henry was hunting with Rufus in the new forest, when intelligence
of that monarch’s death was brought him, and being sensible of the
advantage attending the conjuncture he hurried to Winchester, in order to
secure the royal treasure, which he knew to be a necessary implement for
facilitating his designs on the crown. He had scarcely reached the place
when William de Breteuil, keeper of the treasure, arrived, and opposed
himself to Henry’s pretensions. This nobleman, who had been engaged in the
same party of hunting, had no sooner heard of his master’s death, than he
hastened to take care of his charge; and he told the prince, that this
treasure, as well as the crown, belonged to his elder brother, who was now
his sovereign; and that he himself, for his part, was determined, in spite
of all other pretensions, to maintain his allegiance to him. But Henry,
drawing his sword, threatened him with instant death if he dared to
disobey him; and as others of the late king’s retinue, who came every
moment to Winchester, joined the prince’s party, Breteuil was obliged to
withdraw his opposition, and to acquiesce in this violence.[*]
Henry, without losing a moment, hastened with the money to London; and
having assembled some noblemen and prelates, whom his address, or
abilities, or presents, gained to his side, he was suddenly elected, or
rather saluted king; and immediately proceeded to the exercise of royal
authority. In less than three days after his brother’s death, the ceremony
of his coronation was performed by Maurice, bishop of London, who was
persuaded to officiate on that occasion;[**] and thus, by his courage and
celerity, he intruded himself into the vacant throne.
No one had sufficient spirit or sense of duty to appear in defence of the
absent prince; all men were seduced or intimidated; present possession
supplied the apparent defects in Henry’s title, which was indeed founded
on plain usurpation; and the barons, as well as the people, acquiesced in
a claim, which, though it could neither be justified nor comprehended,
could now, they found, be opposed through the perils alone of civil war
and rebellion.
But as Henry foresaw that a crown usurped against all rules of justice
would sit unsteady on his head, he resolved, by fair professions at least,
to gain the affections of all his subjects. Besides taking the usual
coronation oath to maintain the laws and execute justice, he passed a
charter, which was calculated to remedy many of the grievous oppressions
which had been complained of during the reigns of his father and
brother.[*] He there promised, that, at the death of any bishop or abbot,
he never would seize the revenues of the see or abbey during the vacancy,
but would leave the whole to be reaped by the successor; and that he would
never let to farm any ecclesiastical benefice, nor dispose of it for
money. After this concession to the church, whose favor was of so great
importance, he proceeded to enumerate the civil grievances which he
purposed to redress. He promised that, upon the death of any earl, baron,
or military tenant, his heir should be admitted to the possession of his
estate, on paying a just and lawful relief, without being exposed to such
violent exactions as had been usual during the late reigns: he remitted
the wardship of minors, and allowed guardians to be appointed, who should
be answerable for the trust: he promised not to dispose of any heiress in
marriage but by the advice of all the barons; and if any baron intended to
give his daughter sister, niece, or kinswoman in marriage, it should only
be necessary for him to consult the king, who promised to take no money
for his consent, nor ever to refuse permission, unless the person to whom
it was purposed to marry her should happen to be his enemy: he granted his
barons and military tenants the power of bequeathing by will their money
or personal estates; and if they neglected to make a will, he promised
that their heirs should succeed to them: he renounced the right of
imposing moneyage, and of levying taxes at pleasure on the farms which the
barons retained in their own hands:[**] he made some general professions
of moderating fines: he offered a pardon for all offences; and he remitted
all debts due to the crown: he required that the vassals of the barons
should enjoy the same privileges which he granted to his own barons; and
he promised a general confirmation and observance of the laws of King
Edward. This is the substance of the chief articles contained in that
famous charter.[***]
To give greater authenticity to these concessions, Henry lodged a copy of
his charter in some abbey of each county, as if desirous that it should be
exposed to the view of all his subjects, and remain a perpetual rule for
the limitation and direction of his government: yet it is certain that,
after the present purpose was served, he never once thought, during his
reign, of observing one single article of it; and the whole fell so much
into neglect and oblivion, that, in the following century, when the
barons, who had heard an obscure tradition of it, desired to make it the
model of the Great Charter which they exacted from King John, they could
with difficulty find a copy of it in the kingdom. But as to the grievances
here meant to be redressed, they were still continued in their full
extent; and the royal authority, in all those particulars, lay under no
manner of restriction. Reliefs of heirs, so capital an article, were never
effectually fixed till the time of Magna Charta;[*] and it is evident that
the general promise here given, of accepting a just and lawful relief,
ought to have been reduced to more precision, in order to give security to
the subject. The oppression of wardship and marriage was perpetuated even
till the reign of Charles II.; and it appears from Glanville,[**] the
famous justiciary of Henry II., that in his time, where any man died
intestate—an accident which must have been very frequent when the
art of writing was so little known—the king, or the lord of the
fief, pretended to seize all the movables, and to exclude every heir, even
the children of the deceased; a sure mark of a tyrannical and arbitrary
government.
The Normans, indeed, who domineered in England, were, during this age, so
licentious a people, that they may be pronounced incapable of any true or
regular liberty; which requires such improvement in knowledge and morals,
as can only be the result of reflection and experience, and must grow to
perfection during several ages of settled and established government. A
people so insensible to the rights of their sovereign, as to disjoint,
without necessity, the hereditary succession, and permit a younger brother
to intrude himself into the place of the elder, whom they esteemed, and
who was guilty of no crime but being absent, could not expect that. What
is called a relief in the Conqueror’s laws, preserved by Ingulf, seems to
have been the heriot; since reliefs, as well as the other burdens of the
feudal law, were unknown in the age of the Confessor, whose laws these
originally were. This practice was contrary to the laws of King Edward,
ratified by the Conqueror, as we learn from Ingulf, p. 91. But laws had at
that time very little influence: power and violence governed every thing.
Prince would pay any greater regard to their privileges, or allow his
engagements to fetter his power, and debar him from any considerable
interest or convenience. They had indeed arms in their hands, which
prevented the establishment of a total despotism, and left their posterity
sufficient power, whenever they should attain a sufficient degree of
reason, to assume true liberty; but their turbulent disposition frequently
prompted them to make such use of their arms, that they were more fitted
to obstruct the execution of justice, than to stop the career of violence
and oppression. The prince, finding that greater opposition was often made
to him when he enforced the laws than when he violated them, was apt to
render his own will and pleasure the sole rule of government; and on every
emergency to consider more the power of the persons whom he might offend,
than the rights of those whom he might injure. The very form of this
charter of Henry proves, that the Norman barons (for they, rather than the
people of England, are chiefly concerned in it,) were totally ignorant of
the nature of limited monarchy, and were ill qualified to conduct, in
conjunction with their sovereign, the machine of government. It is an act
of his sole power, is the result of his free grace, contains some articles
which bind others as well as himself, and is therefore unfit to be the
deed of any one who possesses not the whole legislative power, and who may
not at pleasure revoke all his concessions.
Henry, further to increase his popularity, degraded and committed to
prison Ralph Flambard, bishop of Durham, who had been the chief instrument
of oppression under his brother.[*] But this act was followed by another,
which was a direct violation of his own charter, and was a bad prognostic
of his sincere intentions to observe it: he kept the see of Durham vacant
for five years, and during that time retained possession of all its
revenues. Sensible of the great authority which Anselm had acquired by his
character of piety, and by the persecutions which he had undergone from
William, he sent repeated messages to him at Lyons, where he resided, and
invited him to return and take possession of his dignities.[**] On the
arrival of the prelate, he proposed to him the renewal of that homage
which he had done his brother, and which had never been refused by any
English bishop; but Anslem had acquired other sentiments by his journey to
Rome, and gave the king an absolute refusal.
He objected the decrees of the council of Bari, at which he himself had
assisted; and he declared, that, so far from doing homage for his
spiritual dignity, he would not so much as communicate with any
ecclesiastic who paid that submission, or who accepted of investitures
from laymen. Henry, who expected, in his present delicate situation, to
reap great advantages from the authority and popularity of Anselm, durst
not insist on his demand;[*] he only desired that the controversy might be
suspended, and that messengers might be sent to Rome, in order to
accommodate matters with the pope, and obtain his confirmation of the laws
and customs of England.
There immediately occurred an important affair, in which the king was
obliged to have recourse to the authority of Anselm. Matilda, daughter of
Malcolm III., king of Scotland, and niece to Edgar Atheling, had, on her
father’s death, and the subsequent revolutions in the Scottish government,
been brought to England, and educated under her aunt Christina, in the
nunnery of Rumsey. This princess Henry purposed to marry; but as she had
worn the veil, though never taken the vows, doubts might arise concerning
the lawfulness of the act; and it behoved him to be very careful not to
shock, in any particular, the religious prejudges of his subjects. The
affair was examined by Anselm, in a council of the prelates and nobles,
which was summoned at Lambeth; Matilda there proved, that she had put on
the veil, not with a view of entering into a religious life, but merely in
consequence of a custom familiar to the English ladies who protected their
chastity from the brutal violence of the Normans by taking shelter under
that habit,[**] which, amidst the horrible licentiousness of the times,
was yet generally revered. The council, sensible that even a princess had
otherwise no security for her honor, admitted this reason as valid: they
pronounced that Matilda was still free to marry;[***] and her espousals
with Henry were celebrated by Anselm with great pomp and solemnity.[****]
No act of the king’s reign rendered him equally popular with his English
subjects, and tended more to establish him on the throne. Though Matilda,
during the life of her uncle and brothers, was not heir of the Saxon line,
she was become very dear to the English on account of her connections with
it; and that people, who, before the conquest, had fallen into a kind of
indifference towards their ancient royal family, had felt so severely the
tyranny of the Normans, that they reflected with extreme regret on their
former liberty, and hoped for a more equal and mild administration, when
the blood of their native princes should be mingled with that of their new
sovereigns.[*****]
But the policy and prudence of Henry, which, if time had been allowed for
these virtues to produce their full effect, would have secured him
possession of the crown, ran great hazard of being frustrated by the
sudden appearance of Robert, who returned to Normandy about a month after
the death of his brother William.
1101.
He took possession, without opposition, of that duchy; and immediately
made preparations for recovering England, of which, during his absence, he
had, by Henry’s intrigues, been so unjustly defrauded. The great fame
which he had acquired in the East forwarded his pretensions, and the
Norman barons, sensible of the consequences, expressed the same discontent
at the separation of the duchy and kingdom, which had appeared on the
accession of William. Robert de Belesme, earl of Shrewsbury and Arundel,
William de Warrenne, earl of Surrey, Arnulf de Montgomery, Walter Giffard,
Robert de Pontefract, Robert de Mallet, Yvo de Grentmesnil, and many
others of the principal nobility,[*] invited Robert to make an attempt
upon England, and promised on his landing to join him with all their
forces.
Even the seamen were affected with the general popularity of his name, and
they carried over to him the greater part of a fleet which had been
equipped to oppose his passage. Henry, in this extremity, began to be
apprehensive for his life, as well as for his crown and had recourse to
the superstition of the people, in order to oppose their sentiment of
justice. He paid diligent court to Anselm, whose sanctity and wisdom he
pretended to revere. He consulted him in all difficult emergencies; seemed
to be governed by him in every measure; promised a strict regard to
ecclesiastical privileges; professed a great attachment to Rome, and a
resolution of persevering in an implicit obedience to the decrees of
councils, and to the will of the sovereign pontiff. By these caresses and
declarations he entirely gained the confidence of the primate, whose
influence over the people, and authority with the barons, were of the
utmost service to him in his present situation. Anselm scrupled not to
assure the nobles of the king’s sincerity in those professions which he
made, of avoiding the tyrannical and oppressive government of his father
and brother: he even rode through the ranks of the army, recommended to
the soldiers the defence of their prince, represented the duty of keeping
their oaths of allegiance, and prognosticated to them the greatest
happiness from the government of so wise and just a sovereign. By this
expedient, joined to the influence of the earls of Warwick and Mellent, of
Roger Bigod, Richard de Redvers, and Robert Fitz-Hamon, powerful barons,
who still adhered to the present government, the army was retained in the
king’s interests, and marched, with seeming union and firmness, to oppose
Robert, who had landed with his forces at Portsmouth.
The two armies lay in sight of each other for some days without coming to
action; and both princes, being apprehensive of the event, which would
probably be decisive, hearkened the more willingly to the counsels of
Anselm and the other great men, who mediated an accommodation between
them. After employing some negotiation, it was agreed, that Robert should
resign his pretensions to England, and receive, in lieu of them, an annual
pension of three thousand marks; that, if either of the princes died
without issue, the other should succeed to his dominions; that the
adherents of each should be pardoned, and restored to all their
possessions either in Normandy or England; and that neither Robert nor
Henry should thenceforth encourage, receive, or protect the enemies of the
other.[*]
1102.
This treaty, though calculated so much for Henry’s advantage, he was the
first to violate. He restored indeed the estates of all Robert’s
adherents; but was secretly determined, that noblemen so powerful and so
ill affected, who had both inclination and ability to disturb his
government, should not long remain unmolested in their present opulence
and grandeur. He began with the earl of Shrewsbury, why was watched for
some time by spies, and then indicted on a charge, consisting of
forty-five articles. This turbulent nobleman, knowing his own guilt, as
well as the prejudices of his judges and the power of his prosecutor, had
recourse to aims for defence; but being soon suppressed by the activity
and address of Henry, he was banished the kingdom, and his great estate
was confiscated. His ruin involved that of his two brothers, Arnulf de
Montgomery, and Roger, earl of Lancaster. Soon after followed the
prosecution and condemnation of Robert de Pontefract and Robert de Mallet,
who had distinguished themselves among Robert’s adherents. William de
Warrenne was the next victim;
1103.
even William, earl of Cornwall, son of the earl of Mortaigne, the king’s
uncle, having given matter of suspicion against him, lost all the vast
acquisitions of his family in England. Though the usual violence and
tyranny of the Norman barons afforded a plausible pretence for those
prosecutions, and it is probable that none of the sentences pronounced
against these noblemen was wholly iniquitous, men easily saw, or
conjectured, that the chief part of their guilt was not the injustice or
illegality of their conduct Robert, enraged at the fate of his friends,
imprudently ventured to come into England; and he remonstrated with his
brother, in severe terms, against this breach of treaty; but met with so
bad a reception, thai he began to apprehend danger to his own liberty, and
was glad to purchase an escape by resigning his pension.
The indiscretion of Robert soon exposed him to more fatal injuries. This
prince, whose bravery and candor procured him respect while at a distance,
had no sooner attained the possession of power and enjoyment of peace,
than all the vigor of his mind relaxed; and he fell into contempt among
those who approached his person, or were subjected to his authority.
Alternately abandoned to dissolute pleasures and to womanish superstition,
he was so remiss, both in the care of his treasure and the exercise of his
government, that his servants pillaged his money with impunity, stole from
him his very clothes, and proceeded thence to practise every species of
extortion on his defenceless subjects. The barons, whom a severe
administration alone could have restrained, gave way to their unbounded
rapine upon their vassals, and inveterate animosities against each other;
and all Normandy, during the reign of this benign prince, was become a
scene of violence and depredation. The Normans at last, observing the
regular government which Henry, notwithstanding his usurped title, had
been able to establish in England, applied to him, that he might use his
authority for the suppression of these disorders and they thereby afforded
him a pretence for interposing in the affairs of Normandy. Instead of
employing his mediation to render his brother’s government respectable, or
to redress the grievances of the Normans, he was only attentive to support
his own partisans, and to increase their number by every art of bribery,
intrigue, and insinuation. Having found, in a visit which he made to that
duchy, that the nobility were more disposed to pay submission to him than
to their legal sovereign, he collected, by arbitrary extortions on England
a great army and treasure, and returned next year to Normandy, in a
situation to obtain, either by violence or corruption, the dominion of
that province.
1105.
He took Baieux by storm, after an obstinate siege; he made himself master
of Caen, by the voluntary submission of the inhabitants; but being
repulsed at Falaise, and obliged, by the winter season, to raise the
siege, he returned into England; after giving assurances to his adherents,
that he would persevere in supporting and protecting them.
1106.
Next year he opened the campaign with the siege of Tenchebray; and it
became evident, from his preparations and progress, that he intended to
usurp the entire possession of Normandy. Robert was at last roused from
his lethargy; and being supported by the earl of Mortaigne and Robert de
Belesme, the king’s inveterate enemies, he raised a considerable army, and
approached his brother’s camp, with a view of finishing, in one decisive
battle, the quarrel between them. He was now entered on that scene of
action in which alone he was qualified to excel; and he so animated his
troops by his example, that they threw the English into disorder, and had
nearly obtained the victory,[*] when the flight of Belesme spread a panic
among the Normans, and occasioned their total defeat. Henry, besides doing
great execution on the enemy, made near ten thousand prisoners; among whom
was Duke Robert himself, and all the most considerable barons, who adhered
to his interests.[**]
This victory was followed by the final reduction of Normandy: Rouen
immediately submitted to the conqueror: Falaise, after some negotiation,
opened its gates; and by this acquisition, besides rendering himself
master of an important fortress, he got into his hands Prince William, the
only son of Robert: he assembled the states of Normandy; and having
received the homage of all the vassals of the duchy, having settled the
government, revoked his brother’s donations, and dismantled the castles
lately built, he returned into England and carried along with him the duke
as prisoner. That unfortunate prince was detained in custody during the
remainder of his life, which was no less than twenty-eight years, and he
died in the castle of Cardiff in Glamorganshire; happy, if, without losing
his liberty, he could have relinquished that power which he was not
qualified either to hold or exercise. Prince William was committed to the
care of Helie de St. Saen, who had married Robert’s natural daughter, and
who, being a man of probity and honor, beyond what was usual in those
ages, executed the trust with great affection and fidelity, Edgar
Atheling, who had followed Robert in the expedition to Jerusalem, and who
had lived with him ever since in Normandy, was another illustrious
prisoner taken in the battle of Tenchebray.[*] Henry gave him his liberty,
and settled a small pension on him, with which he retired; and he lived to
a good old age in England, totally neglected and forgotten. This prince
was distinguished by personal bravery; but nothing can be a stronger proof
of his mean talents in every other respect, than that, notwithstanding he
possessed the affections of the English, and enjoyed the only legal title
to the throne, he was allowed, during the reigns of so many violent and
jealous usurpers, to live unmolested, and go to his grave in peace.
1107.
A little after Henry had completed the conquest of Normandy, and settled
the government of that province, he finished a controversy which had been
long depending between him and the pope, with regard to the investitures
in ecclesiastical benefices; and though he was here obliged to relinquish
some of the ancient rights of the crown, he extricated himself from the
difficulty on easier terms than most princes, who in that age were so
unhappy as to be engaged in disputes with the apostolic see. The king’s
situation in the beginning of his reign, obliged him to pay great court to
Anselm: the advantages which he had reaped from the zealous friendship of
that prelate, had made him sensible how prone the minds of his people were
to superstition, and what an ascendant the ecclesiastics had been able to
assume over them. He had seen, on the accession of his brother Rufus, that
though the rights of primogeniture were then violated, and the
inclinations of almost all the barons thwarted, yet the authority of
Lanfranc, the primate, had prevailed over all other considerations: his
own case, which was still more unfavorable, afforded an instance in which
the clergy had more evidently shown their influence and authority. These
recent examples, while they made him cautious not to offend that powerful
body, convinced him, at the same time, that it was extremely his interest
to retain the former prerogative of the crown in filling offices of such
vast importance, and to check the ecclesiastics in that independence to
which they visibly aspired. The choice which his brother, in a fit of
penitence, had made of Anselm, was so far unfortunate to the king’s
pretensions, that this prelate was celebrated for his piety and zeal, and
austerity of manners; and though his monkish devotion and narrow
principles prognosticated no great knowledge of the world or depth of
policy, he was, on that very account, a more dangerous instrument in the
hands of politicians, and retained a greater ascendant over the bigoted
populace. The prudence and temper of the king appear in nothing more
conspicuous than in the management of this delicate affair; where he was
always sensible that it had become necessary for him to risk his whole
crown, in order to preserve the most invaluable jewel of it.[*]
Anselm had no sooner returned from banishment, than his refusal to do
homage to the king raised a dispute, which Henry evaded at that critical
juncture, by promising to send a messenger, in order to compound the
matter with Pascal II, who then filled the papal throne. The messenger, as
was probably foreseen, returned with an absolute refusal of the king’s
demands;[**] and that fortified by many reasons which were well qualified
to operate on the understandings of men in those ages. Pascal quoted the
Scriptures to prove that Christ was the door; and he thence inferred that
all ecclesiastics must enter into the church through Christ alone, not
through the civil magistrate, or any profane laymen.[***]
“It is monstrous,” added the pontiff, “that a son should pretend to beget
his father, or a man to create his God: priests are called gods in
Scripture, as being the vicars of God; and will you, by your abominable
pretensions to grant them their investiture, assume the right of creating
them?”[*]
But how convincing soever these arguments, they could not persuade Henry
to resign so important a prerogative; and perhaps, as he was possessed of
great reflection and learning, he thought that the absurdity of a man’s
creating his God, even allowing priests to be gods, was not urged with the
best grace by the Roman pontiff. But as he desired still to avoid, at
least to delay, the coming to any dangerous extremity with the church, he
persuaded Anselm that he should be able, by further negotiation, to attain
some composition with Pascal; and for that purpose he despatched three
bishops to Rome, while Anselm sent two messengers of his own, to be more
fully assured of the pope’s intentions.[**] Pascal wrote back letters
equally positive and arrogant, both to the king and primate, urging to the
former that, by assuming the right of investitures, he committed a kind of
spiritual adultery with the church, who was the spouse of Christ, and who
must not admit of such a commerce with any other person;[***] and
insisting with the latter, that the pretension of kings to confer
benefices was the source of all simony; a topic which had but too much
foundation in those ages.[****]
Henry had now no other expedient than to suppress the letter addressed to
himself, and to persuade the three bishops to prevaricate, and assert,
upon their episcopal faith, that Pascal had assured them in private of his
good intentions towards Henry, and of his resolution not to resent any
future exertion of his prerogative in granting investitures, though he
himself scrupled to give this assurance under his hand, lest other princes
should copy the example and assume a like privilege.[*****]
Anselm’s two messengers, who were monks, affirmed to him that it was
impossible this story could have any foundation; but their word was not
deemed equal to that of three bishops; and the king, as if he had finally
gained his cause, proceeded to fill the sees of Hereford and Salisbury,
and to invest the new bishops in the usual manner.[*] But Anselm, who, as
he had good reason, gave no credit to the asseveration of the king’s
messengers, refused not only to consecrate them, but even to communicate
with them; and the bishops’ themselves, finding how odious they were
become, returned to Henry the ensigns of their dignity. The quarrel every
day increased between the king and the primate. The former,
notwithstanding the prudence and moderation of his temper, threw out
menaces against such as should pretend to oppose him in exerting the
ancient prerogatives of his crown; and Anselm, sensible of his own
dangerous situation, desired leave to make a journey to Rome, in order to
lay the case before the sovereign pontiff. Henry, well pleased to rid
himself without violence of so inflexible an antagonist, readily granted
him permission. The prelate was attended to the shore by infinite
multitudes, not only of monks and clergymen, but people of all ranks, who
scrupled not in this manner to declare for their primate against their
sovereign, and who regarded his departure as the final abolition of
religion and true piety in the kingdom.[**] The king, however, seized all
the revenues of his see; and sent William de Warelwast to negotiate with
Pascal, and to find some means of accommodation in this delicate affair.
The English minister told Pascal, that his master would rather lose his
crown than part with the right of granting investitures. “And I,” replied
Pascal, “would rather lose my head than allow him to retain it.”[***]
Henry secretly prohibited Anselm from returning, unless he resolved to
conform himself to the laws and usages of the kingdom; and the primate
took up his residence at Lyons, in expectation that the king would at last
be obliged to yield the point which was the present object of controversy
between them. Soon after, he was permitted to return to his monastery at
Bec, in Normandy; and Henry, besides restoring to him the revenues of his
see, treated him with the greatest respect, and held several conferences
with him, in order to soften his opposition, and bend him to
submission.[****]
The people of England, who thought all differences now accommodated, were
inclined to blame their primate for absenting, himself so long from his
charge; and he daily received letters from his partisans representing the
necessity of his speedy return. The total extinction, they told him, of
religion and Christianity was likely to ensue from the want of his
fatherly care: the most shocking customs prevail in England; and the dread
of his severity being now removed, sodomy and the practice of wearing long
hair gain ground among all ranks of men, and these enormities openly
appear every where, without sense of shame or fear of punishment.[*]
The policy of the court of Rome has commonly been much admired; and men,
judging by success, have bestowed the highest eulogies on that prudence by
which a power, from such slender beginnings, could advance, without force
of arms, to establish a universal and almost absolute monarchy in Europe.
But the wisdom of so long a succession of men who filled the papal throne,
and who were of such different ages, tempers, and interests, is not
intelligible, and could never have place in nature. The instrument,
indeed, with which they wrought, the ignorance and superstition of the
people, is so gross an engine, of such universal prevalence, and so little
liable to accident or disorder, that it may be successful even in the most
unskilful hands; and scarce any indiscretion can frustrate its operations.
While the court of Rome was openly abandoned to the most flagrant
disorders, even while it was torn with schisms and factions, the power of
the church daily made a sensible progress in Europe; and the temerity of
Gregory and caution of Pascal were equally fortunate in promoting it. The
clergy, feeling the necessity which they lay under of being protected
against the violence of princes, or rigor of the laws, were well pleased
to adhere to a foreign head, who, being removed from the fear of the civil
authority, could freely employ the power of the whole church in defending
her ancient or usurped properties and privileges, when invaded in any
particular country. The monks, desirous of an independence on their
diocesans, professed a still more devoted attachment to the triple crown;
and the stupid people possessed no science or reason which they could
oppose to the most exorbitant pretensions. Nonsense passed for
demonstration: the most criminal means were sanctified by the piety of the
end: treaties were not supposed to be binding, where the interests of God
were concerned: the ancient laws and customs of states had no authority
against a divine right: impudent forgeries were received as authentic
monuments of antiquity: and the champions of holy church, if successful,
were celebrated as heroes; if unfortunate, were worshipped as martyrs; and
all events thus turned out equally to the advantage of clerical
usurpations. Pascal himself, the reigning pope, was, in the course of this
very controversy concerning investitures, involved in circumstances, and
necessitated to follow a conduct which would have drawn disgrace and ruin
on any temporal prince that had been so unfortunate as to fail into a like
situation. His person was seized by the emperor Henry V., and he was
obliged, by a formal treaty, to resign to that monarch the right of
granting investitures, for which they had so long contended.[*] In order
to add greater solemnity to this agreement, the emperor and pope
communicated together on the same host; one half of which was given to the
prince, the other taken by the pontiff. The most tremendous imprecations
were publicly denounced on either of them who should violate the treaty;
yet no sooner did Pascal recover his liberty, than he revoked all his
concessions, and pronounced the sentence of excommunication against the
emperor, who, in the end, was obliged to submit to the terms required of
him, and to yield up all his pretensions, which he never could resume.[**]
The king of England had very nearly fallen into the same dangerous
situation: Pascal had already excommunicated the earl of Mallent, and the
other ministers of Henry who were instrumental in supporting his
pretensions:[***] he daily menaced the king himself with a like sentence,
and he suspended the blow only to give him leisure to prevent it by a
timely submission. The malecontents waited impatiently for the opportunity
of disturbing his government by conspiracies and insurrections:[****] the
king’s best friends were anxious at the prospect of an incident which
would set their religious and civil duties at variance; and the countess
of Blois, his sister, a princess of piety, who had great influence over
him, was affrightened with the danger of her brother’s eternal
damnation.[*****]
Henry, on the other hand, seemed determined to run all hazards, rather
than resign a prerogative of such importance, which had been enjoyed by
all his predecessors; and it seemed probable from his great prudence and
abilities, that he might be able co sustain his rights, and finally
prevail in the contest. While Pascal and Henry thus stood mutually in awe;
of each other, it was the more easy to bring about an accommodation
between them, and to find a medium in which they might agree.
Before bishops took possession of their dignities, they had formerly been
accustomed to pass through two ceremonies: they received from the hands of
the sovereign a ring and crosier, as symbols of their office; and this was
called their investiture: they also made those submissions to the prince
which were required of vassals by the rites of the feudal law, and which
received the name of homage. And as the king might refuse both to grant
the investiture and to receive the homage, though the chapter had, by some
canons of the middle age, been endowed with the right of election, the
sovereign had in reality the sole power of appointing prelates. Urban II.
had equally deprived laymen of the rights of granting investiture and of
receiving homage:[*] the emperors never were able, by all their wars and
negotiations, to make any distinction be admitted between them: the
interposition of profane laymen, in any particular, was still represented
as impious and abominable; and the church openly aspired to a total
independence on the state. But Henry had put England, as well as Normandy,
in such a situation as gave greater weight to his negotiations, and Pascal
was for the present satisfied with his resigning the right of granting
investitures, by which the spiritual dignity was supposed to be conferred;
and he allowed the bishops to do homage for their temporal properties and
privileges.[**] The pontiff was well pleased to have made this
acquisition, which, he hoped, would in time involve the whole; and the
king, anxious to procure an escape from a very dangerous situation, was
content to retain some, though a more precarious authority, in the
election of prelates.
After the principal controversy was accommodated, it was not difficult to
adjust the other differences. If the pope allowed Anselm to communicate
with the prelates who had already received investitures from the crown;
and he only required of them some submissions for their past
misconduct.[*] He also granted Anselm a plenary power of remedying every
other disorder, which, he said, might arise from the barbarousness of he
country.[**] Such was the idea which the popes then entertained of the
English; and nothing can be a stronger proof of the miserable ignorance in
which that people were then plunged, than that, a man who sat on the papal
throne, and who subsisted by absurdities and nonsense, should think
himself entitled to treat them as barbarians.
During the course of these controversies, a synod was held at Westminster,
where the king, intent only on the mam dispute, allowed some canons of
less importance to be enacted, which tended to promote the usurpations of
the clergy. The celibacy of priests was enjoined; a point which it was
still found very difficult to carry into execution; and even laymen were
not allowed to marry within the seventh degree of affinity.[***] By this
contrivance, the pope augmented the profits which he reaped from granting
dispensations, and likewise those from divorces. For as the art of writing
was then rare, and parish registers were not regularly kept, it was not
easy to ascertain the degrees of affinity even among people of rank; and
any man, who had money sufficient to pay for it, might obtain a divorce,
on pretence that his wife was more nearly related to him than was
permitted by the canons. The synod also passed a vote, prohibiting the
laity from wearing long hair.[****] The aversion of the clergy to this
mode was not confined to England. When the king went to Normandy, before
he had conquered that province, the bishop of Seeze, in a formal harangue,
earnestly exhorted him to redress the manifold disorders under which the
government labored, and to oblige the people to poll their hair in a
decent form. Henry, though he would not resign his prerogatives to the
church willingly parted with his hair: he cut it in the form which they
required of him, and obliged all the courtiers to imitate his
example.[*****]
The acquisition of Normandy was a great point of Henry’s ambition; being
the ancient patrimony of his family, and the only territory winch, while
in his possession, gave him any weight or consideration on the continent:
but the injustice of his usurpation was the source of great inquietude,
involved him in frequent wars, and obliged him to impose on his English
subjects those many heavy and arbitrary taxes, of which all the historians
of that age unanimously complain.[*] His nephew William was but six years
of age when he committed him to the care of Helie de St. Saen; and it is
probable that his reason for intrusting that important charge to a man of
so unblemished a character, was to prevent all malignant suspicions, in
case any accident should befall the life of the young prince,
1110.
He soon repented of his choice; but when he desired to recover possession
of William’s person, Helie withdrew his pupil, and carried him to the
court of Fulk, count of Anjou, who gave him protection.[**]
In proportion as the prince grew up to man’s estate, he discovered virtues
becoming his birth; and wandering through different courts of Europe, he
excited the friendly compassion of many princes, and raised a general
indignation against his uncle, who had so unjustly bereaved him of his
inheritance. Lewis the Gross son of Philip, was at this time king of
France, a brave and generous prince, who, having been obliged, during the
lifetime of his father, to fly into England, in order to escape the
persecutions of his step-mother Gertrude, had been protected by Henry, and
had thence conceived a personal friendship for him. But these ties were
soon dissolved after the accession of Lewis, who found his interests to
be, in so many particulars opposite to those of the English monarch, and
who became sensible of the danger attending the annexation of Normandy to
England. He joined, therefore, the counts of Anjou and Flanders in giving
disquiet to Henry’s government; and this monarch, in order to defend his
foreign dominions, found himself obliged to go over to Normandy, where he
resided two years. The war which ensued among those princes was attended
with no memorable event, and produced only slight skirmishes on the
frontiers, agreeably to the weak condition of the sovereigns in that age,
whenever their subjects were not roused by some great and urgent occasion.
Henry, by contracting his eldest son, William, to the daughter of Fulk,
detached that prince from the alliance, and obliged the others to come to
an accommodation with him. This peace was not of long duration. His nephew
William retired to the court of Baldwin, earl of Flanders, who espoused
his cause; and the king of France, having soon after, for other reasons,
joined the party, a new war was kindled in Normandy, which produced no
event more memorable than had attended the former.
1118.
At last the death of Baldwin, who was slain in an action near Eu, gave
some respite to Henry, and enabled him to carry on war with more advantage
against his enemies.
Lewis, finding himself unable to wrest Normandy from the king by force of
arms, had recourse to the dangerous expedient of applying to the spiritual
power, and of affording the ecclesiastics a pretence to interpose in the
temporal concerns of princes.
1019.
He carried young William to a general council, which was assembled at
Rheims, by Pope Calixtus II., presented the Norman prince to them,
complained of the manifest usurpation and injustice of Henry, craved the
assistance of the church for reinstating the true heir in his dominions,
and represented the enormity of detaining in captivity so brave a prince
as Robert, one of the most eminent champions of the cross, and who, by
that very quality, was placed under the immediate protection of the holy
see. Henry knew how to defend the rights of his crown with vigor, and yet
with dexterity. He had sent over the English bishops to this synod; but at
the same time had warned them, that, if any further claims were started by
the pope or the ecclesiastics, he was determined to adhere to the laws and
customs of England and maintain the prerogatives transmitted to him by his
predecessors. “Go,” said he to them, “salute the pope in my name; hear his
apostolical precepts; but take care to bring none of his new inventions
into my kingdom.” Finding, however, that it would be easier for him to
elude than oppose the efforts of Calixtus, he gave his ambassadors orders
to gain the pope and his favorites by liberal presents and promises. The
complaints of the Norman prince were thenceforth heard with great coldness
by the council; and Calixtus confessed, after a conference which he had
the same sunaaier with Henry, and when that prince probably renewed his
presents, that, of all men whom he had ever yet been acquainted with, he
was, beyond comparison, the most eloquent and persuasive.
The warlike measures of Lewis proved as ineffectual as his intrigues. He
had laid a scheme for surprising Noyon; but Henry, having received
intelligence of the design, marched to the relief of the place, and
suddenly attacked the French at Brenneville, as they were advancing
towards it. A sharp conflict ensued, where Prince William behaved with
great bravery, and the king himself was in the most imminent danger. He
was wounded in the head by Crispin, a gallant Norman officer, who had
followed the fortunes of William;[*] but being rather animated than
terrified by the blow, he immediately beat his antagonist to the ground,
and so encouraged his troops by the example, that they put the French to
total rout, and had very nearly taken their king prisoner. The dignity of
the persons engaged in this skirmish rendered it the most memorable action
of the war; for in other respects it was not of great importance. There
were nine hundred horsemen who fought on both sides, yet were there only
two persons slain. The rest were defended by that heavy armor worn by the
cavalry in those times.[**] An accommodation soon after ensued between the
kings of France and England, and the interests of young William were
entirely neglected in it.
1120.
But this public prosperity of Henry was much overbalanced by a domestic
calamity, which befell him. His only son, William, had now reached his
eighteenth year; and the king, from the facility with which he himself had
usurped the crown, dreading that a like revolution might subvert his
family, had taken care to have him recognized successor by the states of
the kingdom, and had carried him over to Normandy, that he might receive
the homage of the barons of that duchy. The king, on his return, set sail
from Barfleur, and was soon carried by a fair wind out of sight of land.
The prince was detained by some accident; and his sailors, as well as
their captain, Thomas Fitz-Stephens, having spent me interval in drinking,
were so flustered, that, being in a hurry to follow the king, they
heedlessly carried the ship on a rock, where she immediately foundered.
William was put into the long boat, and had got clear of the ship, when,
hearing the cries of his natural sister, the countess of Perche, he
ordered the seamen to row back, in hopes of saving her: but the numbers
who then crowded in, soon sunk the boat; and the prince with all his
retinue perished. Above a hundred and forty young noblemen, of the
principal families of England and Normandy, were lost on this occasion. A
butcher of Rouen was the only person on board who escaped:[*] he clung to
the mast, and was taken up next morning by fishermen. Fitz-Stephens also
took hold of the mast; but being informed by the butcher that Prince
William had perished, he said that he would not survive the disaster; and
he threw himself headlong into the sea.[**] Henry entertained hopes for
three days that his son had put into some distant port of England; but
when certain intelligence of the calamity was brought him, he fainted
away; and it was remarked, that he never after was seen to smile, nor ever
recovered his wonted cheerfulness.[***]
The death of William may be regarded, in one respect, as a misfortune to
the English; because it was the immediate source of those civil wars
which, after the demise of the king, caused such confusion in the kingdom;
but it is remarkable, that the young prince had entertained a violent
aversion to the natives; and had been heard to threaten, that when he
should be king he would make them draw the plough, and would turn them
into beasts of burden. These prepossessions he inherited from his father;
who, though he was wont, when it might serve his purpose, to value himself
on his birth, as a native of England,[****] showed, in the course of his
government, an extreme prejudice against that people. All hopes of
preferment to ecclesiastical as well as civil dignities were denied them
during this whole reign; and any foreigner, however ignorant or worthless,
was sure to have the preference in every competition.[*****] As the
English had given no disturbance to the government during the course of
fifty years, this inveterate antipathy in a prince of so much temper as
well as penetration, forms a presumption that the English of that age were
still a rude and barbarous people even compared to the Normans, and
impresses us with no very favorable idea of the Anglo-Saxon manners.
Prince William left no children; and the king had not now any legitimate
issue, except one daughter, Matilda, whom, in 1110, he had betrothed,
though only eight years of age,[******] to the emperor Henry V., and whom
he had then sent over to be educated in Germany.[*******] 13
But as her absence from the kingdom, and her marriage into a foreign
family, might endanger the succession, Henry, who was now a widower, was
induced to marry, in hopes of having male heirs; and he made his addresses
to Adelais, daughter of Godfrey, duke of Lovainc, and niece of Pope
Calixtus, a young princess of an amiable person.[*]
1121.
But Adelais brought him no children; and the prince who was most likely to
dispute the succession, and even the immediate possession of the crown,
recovered hopes of subverting his rival, who had successively seized all
his patrimonial dominions. William, the son of Duke Robert, was still
protected in the French court; and as Henry’s connections with the count
of Anjou were broken off by the death of his son, Fulk joined the party of
the unfortunate prince, gave him his daughter in marriage, and aided him
in raising disturbances in Normandy. But Henry found the means of drawing
off the count of Anjou, by forming anew with him a nearer connection than
the former, and one more material to the interests of that count’s family.
1127.
The emperor, his son-in-law, dying without issue, he bestowed his daughter
on Geoffrey, the eldest son of Fulk, and endeavored to insure her
succession, by having her recognized heir to all his dominions, and
obliging the barons both of Normandy and England to swear fealty to her.
He hoped that the choice of this husband would be more agreeable to all
his subjects than that of the emperor; as securing them from the danger of
falling under the dominion of a great and distant potentate,
1128.
who might bring them into subjection, and reduce their country to the rank
of a province; but the barons were displeased that a step so material to
national interests had been taken without consulting them;[**] and Henry
had too sensibly experienced the turbulence of their disposition not to
dread the effects of their resentment.
It seemed probable that his nephew’s party might gain force from the
increase of the malecontents; an accession of power, which that prince
acquired a little after, tended to render his pretensions still more
dangerous. Charles, earl of Flanders, being assassinated during the
celebration of divine service, King Lewis immediately put the young prince
in possession of that county, to which he had pretensions in the right of
his grandmother Matilda, wife to the Conqueror. But William survived a
very little time this piece of good fortune, which seemed to open the way
to still further prosperity. He was killed in a skirmish with the
landgrave of Alsace, his competitor for Flanders; and his death put an
end, for the present, to the jealousy and inquietude of Henry.
The chief merit of this monarch’s government consists in the profound
tranquillity which he established and maintained throughout all his
dominions during the greater part of his reign. The mutinous barons were
retained in subjection; and his neighbors, in every attempt which they
made upon him, found him so well prepared that they were discouraged from
continuing or renewing their enterprises. In order to repress the
incursions of the Welsh, he brought over some Flemings in the year 1111,
and settled them in Pembrokeshire, where they long maintained a different
language, and customs, and manners, from their neighbors. Though his
government seems to have been arbitrary in England, it was judicious and
prudent; and was as little oppressive as the necessity of his affairs
would permit. He wanted not attention to the redress of grievances; and
historians mention in particular the levying of purveyance, which he
endeavored to moderate and restrain. The tenants in the king’s demesne
lands were at that time obliged to supply, gratis, the court with
provisions, and to furnish carriages on the same hard terms, when the king
made a progress, as he did frequently, into any of the counties. These
exactions were so grievous, and levied in so licentious a manner, that the
farmers, when they heard of the approach of the court, often deserted
their houses, as if an enemy had invaded the country;[*] and sheltered
their persons and families in the woods, from the insults of the king’s
retinue. Henry prohibited those enormities, and punished the persons
guilty of them by cutting off their hands, legs, or other members.[**] But
the prerogative was perpetual; the remedy applied by Henry was temporary;
and the violence itself of this remedy, so far from giving security to the
people, was only a proof of the ferocity of the government, and threatened
a quick return of like abuses.
One great and difficult object of the king’s prudence was the guarding
against the encroachments of the court of Rome, and protecting the
liberties of the church of England. The pope, in the year 1101, had sent
Guy, archbishop of Vienne, as legate into Britain; and though he was the
first that for many years had appeared there in that character, and his
commission gave general surprise,[*] the king, who was then in the
commencement of his reign, and was involved in many difficulties, was
obliged to submit to this encroachment on his authority. But in the year
1116, Anselm, abbot of St. Sabas, who was coming over with a like
legantine commission, was prohibited from entering the kingdom;[**] and
Pope Calixtus, who in his turn was then laboring under many difficulties,
by reason of the pretensions of Gregory, an antipope, was obliged to
promise that he never would for the future, except when solicited by the
king himself, send any legate into England.[***] Notwithstanding this
engagement, the pope, as soon as he had suppressed his antagonist, granted
the cardinal De Crema a legantine commission over that kingdom; and the
king, who, by reason of his nephew’s intrigues and invasions, found
himself at that time in a dangerous situation, was obliged to submit to
the exercise of this commission.[****] A synod was called by the legate at
London; where, among other canons, a vote passed enacting severe penalties
on the marriages of the clergy.[*****] The cardinal, in a public harangue,
declared it to be an unpardonable enormity, that a priest should dare to
consecrate and touch the body of Christ immediately after he had risen
from the side of a strumpet; for that was the decent appellation which he
gave to the wives of the clergy. But it happened, that the very next night
the officers of justice, breaking into a disorderly house, found the
cardinal in bed with a courtesan;[******] an incident which threw such
ridicule upon him, that he immediately stole out of the kingdom; the synod
broke up; and the canons against the marriage of clergymen were worse
executed than ever.[*******]
It is remarkable that this last writer, who was a clergyman as well as the
others, makes an apology for using such freedom with the fathers of the
church; but says, that the fact was notorious, and ought not to be
concealed.
Henry, in order to prevent this alternate revolution of concessions and
encroachments, sent William, then archbishop of Canterbury, to remonstrate
with the court of Rome against those abuses, and to assert the liberties
of the English church. It was a usual maxim with every pope, when he found
that he could not prevail in any pretension, to grant princes or states a
power which they had always exercised, to resume at a proper juncture the
claim which seemed to be resigned, and to pretend that the civil
magistrate had possessed the authority only from a special indulgence of
the Roman pontiff. After this manner, the pope, finding that the French
nation would not admit his claim of granting investitures, had passed a
bull, giving the king that authority; and he now practised a like
invention to elude the complaints of the king of England. He made the
archbishop of Canterbury his legate, renewed his commission from time to
time, and still pretended that the rights which that prelate had ever
exercised as metropolitan, were entirely derived from the indulgence of
the apostolic see. The English princes, and Henry in particular, who were
glad to avoid any immediate contest of so dangerous a nature, commonly
acquiesced by their silence in these pretensions of the court of Rome.[*]
14
1131.
As every thing in England remained in tranquillity, Henry took the
opportunity of paying a visit to Normandy, to which he was invited, as
well by his affection for that country as by his tenderness for his
daughter the empress Matilda, who was always his favorite. Some time
after, that princess was delivered of a son,
1132.
who received the name of Henry; and the king, further to insure her
succession, made all the nobility of England and Normandy renew the oath
of fealty,
1135.
which they had already sworn to her.[*] The joy of this event, and the
satisfaction which he reaped from his daughter’s company, who bore
successively two other sons, made his residence in Normandy very agreeable
to him;[**] and he seemed determined to pass the remainder of his days in
that country, when an incursion of the Welsh obliged him to think of
returning into England. He was preparing for the journey, but was seized
with a sudden illness at St. Dennis le Forment, from eating too
plentifully of lampreys, a food which always agreed better with his palate
than his constitution.[***]
He died in the sixty-seventh year of his age and the thirty-fifth year of
his reign, leaving by will his daughter Matilda heir of all his dominions,
without making any mention of her husband, Geoffrey, who had given him
several causes of displeasure.[*]
This prince was one of the most accomplished that has filled the English
throne, and possessed all the great qualities both of body and mind,
natural and acquired, which could fit him for the high station to which he
attained. His person was manly, his countenance engaging, his eyes clear
serene, and penetrating. The affability of his address encouraged those
who might be overawed by the sense of his dignity or of his wisdom; and
though he often indulged his facetious humor, he knew how to temper it
with discretion, and ever kept at a distance from all indecent
familiarities with his courtiers. His superior eloquence and judgment
would have given him an ascendant, even had he been born in a private
station; and his personal bravery would have procured him respect, though
it had been less supported by art and policy. By his great progress in
literature, he acquired the name of ‘Beauclerk,’ or the scholar; but his
application to those sedentary pursuits abated nothing of the activity and
vigilance of his government; and though the learning of that age was
better fitted to corrupt than improve the understanding, his natural good
sense preserved itself untainted both from the pedantry and superstition
which were then so prevalent among men of letters. His temper was
susceptible of the sentiments as well of friendship as of resentment; and
his ambition, though high, might be deemed moderate and reasonable, had
not his conduct towards his brother and nephew showed that he was too much
disposed to sacrifice to it all the maxims of justice and equity. But the
total incapacity of Robert for government afforded his younger brother a
reason or pretence for seizing the sceptre both of England and Normandy;
and when violence and usurpation are once begun, necessity obliges a
prince to continue in the same criminal course, and engages him in
measures which his better judgment and sounder principles would otherwise
have induced him to reject with warmth and indignation.
King Henry was much addicted to women; and historians mention no less than
seven illegitimate sons and six daughters born to him.[*] Hunting was also
one of his favorite amusements; and he exercised great rigor against those
who encroached on the royal forests, which were augmented during his
reign,[**] though their number and extent were already too great. To kill
a stag was as criminal as to murder a man: he made all the dogs be
mutilated which were kept on the borders of his forests; and he sometimes
deprived his subjects of the liberty of hunting on their own lands, or
even cutting their own woods. In other respects he executed justice, and
that with rigor; the best maxim which a prince in that age could follow.
Stealing was first made capital in this reign;[***] false coining, which
was then a very common crime, and by which the money had been extremely
debased, was severely punished by Henry.* Near fifty criminals of this
kind were at one time hanged or mutilated; and though these punishments
seem to have been exercised in a manner somewhat arbitrary, they were
grateful to the people, more attentive to present advantages than jealous
of general laws. There is a code which passes under the name of Henry I.;
but the best antiquaries have agreed to think it spurious. It is, however,
a very ancient compilation, and may be useful to instruct us in the
manners and customs of the times. We learn from it, that a great
distinction was then made between the English and Normans, much to the
advantage of the latter.* The deadly feuds and the liberty of private
revenge, which had been avowed by the Saxon laws, were still continued,
and were not yet wholly illegal.[****]
Among the laws granted on the king’s accession, it is remarkable that the
reunion of the civil and ecclesiastical courts, as in the Saxon times, was
enacted.[*****] But this law, like the articles of his charter, remained
without effect, probably from the opposition of Archbishop Anselm.
Henry, on his accession, granted a charter to London, which seems to have
been the first step towards rendering that city a corporation. By this
charter, the city was empowered to keep the farm of Middlesex at three
hundred pounds a year, to elect its own sheriff and justiciary, and to
bold pleas of the crown; and it was exempted from scot, danegelt, trials
by combat, and lodging the king’s retinue These, with a confirmation of
the privileges of their court of hustings, wardmotes, and common halls,
and their liberty of hunting in Middlesex and Surrey, are the chief
articles of this charter.[*]
It is said [**] that this prince, from indulgence to his tenants, changed
the rents of his demesnes, which were formerly paid in kind, into money,
which was more easily remitted to the exchequer. But the great scarcity of
coin would render that commutation difficult to be executed, while at the
same time provisions could not be sent to a distant quarter of the
kingdom. This affords a probable reason why the ancient kings of England
so frequently changed their place of abode: they carried their court from
one place to another, that they might consume upon the spot the revenue of
their several demesnes.
CHAPTER VII.
STEPHEN.
Contemporary Monarchs.
1135.
IN the progress and settlement of the feudal law, the male succession to
fiefs had taken place some time before the female was admitted; and
estates, being considered as military benefices, not as property, were
transmitted to such only as could serve in the armies, and perform in
person the conditions upon which they were originally granted. But when
the continuance of rights, during some generations, in the same family,
had, in a great measure, obliterated the primitive idea, the females were
gradually admitted to the possession of feudal property; and the same
revolution of principles which procured them the inheritance of private
estates, naturally introduced their succession to government and
authority. The failure, therefore, of male heirs to the kingdom of England
and duchy of Normandy, seemed to leave the succession open, without a
rival, to the empress Matilda; and as Henry had made all his vassals in
both states swear fealty to her, he presumed that they would not easily be
induced to depart at once from her hereditary right, and from their own
reiterated oaths and engagements. But the irregular manner in which he
himself had acquired the crown might have instructed him, that neither his
Norman nor English subjects were as yet capable of adhering to a strict
rule of government; and as every precedent of this kind seems to give
authority to new usurpations, he had reason to dread, even from his own
family, some invasion of his daughter’s title, which he had taken such
pains to establish.
Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, had been married to Stephen,
count of Blois, and had brought him several sons; among whom Stephen and
Henry, the two youngest, had been invited over to England by the late king
and had received great honors, riches, and preferment, from the zealous
friendship which that prince bore to every one that had been so fortunate
as to acquire his favor and good opinion. Henry, who had betaken himself
to the ecclesiastical profession, was created abbot of Glastonbury and
bishop of Winchester; and though these dignities were considerable,
Stephen had, from his uncle’s liberality, attained establishments still
more solid and durable.[*] The king had married him to Matilda, who was
daughter and heir of Eustace, count of Boulogne, and who brought him,
besides that feudal sovereignty in France, an immense property in England,
which, in the distribution of lands, had been conferred by the Conqueror
on the family of Boulogne. Stephen also by this marriage acquired a new
connection with the royal family of England, as Mary, his wife’s mother,
was sister to David, the reigning king of Scotland, and to Matilda, the
first wife of Henry, and mother of the empress. The king, still imagining
that he strengthened the interests of his family by the aggrandizement of
Stephen, took pleasure in enriching him by the grant of new possessions;
and he conferred on him the great estate forfeited by Robert Mallet in
England, and that forfeited by the earl of Mortaigne in Normandy. Stephen,
in return, professed great attachment to his uncle, and appeared so
zealous for the succession of Matilda, that, when the barons swore fealty
to that princess, he contended with Robert, earl of Glocester, the king’s
natural son, who should first be admitted to give her this testimony of
devoted zeal and fidelity.[**] Meanwhile he continued to cultivate, by
every art of popularity, the friendship of the English nation; and many
virtues with which he seemed to be endowed, favored the success of his
intentions. By his bravery, activity, and vigor, he acquired the esteem of
the barons; by his generosity, and by an affable and familiar address,
unusual in that age among men of his high quality, he obtained the
affections of the people, particularly of the Londoners.[***] And though
he dared not to take any steps towards his further grandeur, lest he
should expose himself to the jealousy of so penetrating a prince as Henry,
he still hoped that, by accumulating riches and power, and by acquiring
popularity, he might in time be able to open his way to the throne.
No sooner had Henry breathed his last, than Stephen, insensible to all the
ties of gratitude and fidelity, and blind to danger, gave full reins to
his criminal ambition; and trusted that, even without any previous
intrigue, the celerity of his enterprise, and the boldness of his attempt,
might overcome the weak attachment which the English and Normans in that
age bore to the laws and to the rights of their sovereign. He hastened
over to England, and though the citizens of Dover and those of Canterbury,
apprised of his purpose, shut their gates against him, he stopped not till
he arrived at London, where some of the lower rank, instigated by his
emissaries, as well as moved by his general popularity, immediately
saluted him king. His next point was to acquire the good will of the
clergy; and by performing the ceremony of his coronation, to put himself
in possession of the throne, from which he was confident it would not be
easy afterwards to expel him. His brother, the bishop of Winchester, was
useful to him in these capital articles; having gained Roger, bishop of
Salisbury, who, though he owed a great fortune and advancement to the
favor of the late king, preserved no sense of gratitude to that prince’s
family, he applied, in conjunction with that prelate, to William,
archbishop of Canterbury, and required him, in virtue of his office, to
give the royal unction to Stephen. The primate, who, as all the others,
had sworn fealty to Matilda, refused to perform this ceremony; but his
opposition was overcome by an expedient equally dishonorable with the
other steps by which this revolution was effected. Hugh Bigod, steward of
the household, made oath before the primate, that the late king, on his
death-bed, had shown a dissatisfaction with his daughter Matilda, and had
expressed his intention of leaving the count of Boulogne heir to all his
dominions.[*] William, either believing or feigning to believe Bigod’s
testimony, anointed Stephen, and put the crown upon his head; and from
this religious ceremony, that prince, without any shadow, either of
hereditary title or consent of the nobility or people, was allowed to
proceed to the exercise of sovereign authority. Very few barons attended
his coronation;[**] but none opposed his usurpation, however unjust or
flagrant.
The sentiment of religion which, if corrupted into superstition, has often
little efficacy in fortifying the duties of civil society, was not
affected by the multiplied oaths taken in favor of Matilda, and only
rendered the people obedient to a prince who was countenanced by the
clergy, and who had received from the primate the rite of royal unction
and consecration.[*]
Stephen, that he might further secure his tottering throne passed a
charter, in which he made liberal promises to all orders of men; to the
clergy, that he would speedily fill all vacant benefices, and would never
levy the rents of any of them during the vacancy; to the nobility, that he
would reduce the royal forests to their ancient boundaries, and correct
all encroachments; and to the people, that he would remit the tax of
danegelt, and restore the laws of King Edward.[**] The late king had a
great treasure at Winchester, amounting to a hundred thousand pounds; and
Stephen, by seizing this money, immediately turned against Henry’s family
the precaution which that prince had employed for their grandeur and
security; an event which naturally attends the policy of amassing
treasures. By means of this money, the usurper insured the compliance,
though not the attachment, of the principal clergy and nobility; but not
trusting to this frail security, he invited over from the continent,
particularly from Brittany and Flanders, great numbers of those bravoes,
or disorderly soldiers, with whom every country in Europe, by reason of
the general ill police and turbulent government, extremely abounded.[***]
These mercenary troops guarded his throne by the terrors of the sword; and
Stephen, that he might also overawe all malecontents by new and additional
terrors of religion, procured a bull from Rome, which ratified his title,
and which the pope, seeing this prince in possession of the throne, and
pleased with an appeal to his authority in secular controversies, very
readily granted him.[****]
1136.
Matilda and her husband Geoffrey were as unfortunate in Normandy as they
had been in England. The Norman nobility, moved by an hereditary animosity
against the Angevins, first applied to Theobold, count of Blois, Stephen’s
elder brother for protection and assistance; but hearing afterwards that
Stephen had got possession of the English crown, and having, many of them,
the same reasons as formerly for desiring a continuance of their union
with that kingdom, they transferred their allegiance to Stephen, and put
him in possession of their government. Lewis the younger, the reigning
king of France, accepted the homage of Eustace, Stephen’s eldest son, for
the duchy; and the more to corroborate his connections with that family,
he betrothed his sister Constantia to the young prince. The count of Blois
assigned all his pretensions, and received in lieu of them an annual
pension of two thousand marks; and Geoffrey himself was obliged to
conclude a truce for two years with Stephen, on condition of the king’s
paying him, during that time, a pension of five thousand.[*] Stephen, who
had taken a journey to Normandy, finished all these transactions in
person, and soon after returned to England.
Robert, earl of Glocester, natural son of the late king, was a man of
honor and abilities; and as he was much attached to the interests of his
sister Matilda, and zealous for the lineal succession, it was chiefly from
his intrigues and resistance that the king had reason to dread a new
revolution of government. This nobleman, who was in Normandy when he
received intelligence of Stephen’s accession, found himself much
embarrassed concerning the measures which he should pursue in that
difficult emergency. To swear allegiance to the usurper appeared to him
dishonorable, and a breach of his oath to Matilda: to refuse giving this
pledge of his fidelity was to banish himself from England, and be totally
incapacitated from serving the royal family, or contributing to their
restoration.[**] He offered Stephen to do him homage, and to take the oath
of fealty; but with an express condition, that the king should maintain
all his stipulations, and should never invade any of Robert’s rights or
dignities; and Stephen, though sensible that this reserve, so unusual in
itself, and so unbefitting the duty of a subject, was meant only to afford
Robert a pretence for a revolt on the first favorable opportunity, was
obliged by the numerous friends and retainers of that nobleman, to receive
him on those terms.[***]
The clergy, who could scarcely at this time be deemed subjects to the
crown, imitated that dangerous example: they annexed to their oaths of
allegiance this condition, that they were only bound so long as the king
defended the ecclesiastical liberties, and supported the discipline of the
church.[*] The barons, in return for their submission, exacted terms still
more destructive of public peace, as well as of royal authority. Many of
them required the right of fortifying their castles, and of putting
themselves in a posture of defence; and the king found himself totally
unable to refuse his consent to this exorbitant demand.[**] All England
was immediately filled with those fortresses, which the noblemen
garrisoned either with their vassals, or with licentious soldiers, who
flocked to them from all quarters. Unbounded rapine was exercised upon the
people for the maintenance of these troops; and private animosities, which
had with difficulty been restrained by law, now breaking out without
control, rendered England a scene of uninterrupted violence and
devastation. Wars between the nobles were carried on with the utmost fury
in every quarter; the barons even assumed the right of coining money, and
of exercising, without appeal, every act of jurisdiction; [***] and the
inferior gentry, as well as the people, finding no defence from the laws
during this total dissolution of sovereign authority, were obliged, for
their immediate safety, to pay court to some neighboring chieftain, and to
purchase his protection, both by submitting to his exactions, and by
assisting him in his rapine upon others. The erection of one castle proved
the immediate cause of building many others; and even those who obtained
not the king’s permission, thought that they were entitled, by the great
principle of self-preservation, to put themselves on an equal footing with
their neighbors, who commonly were also their enemies and rivals. The
aristocratical power, which is usually so oppressive in the Feudal
governments, had now risen to its utmost height, during the reign of a
prince who, though endowed with vigor and abilities, had usurped the
throne without the pretence of a title, and who was necessitated to
tolerate in others the same violence to which he himself had been holden
for his sovereignty.
But Stephen was not of a disposition to submit long to these usurpations,
without making some effort for the recovery of royal authority. Finding
that the legal prerogatives of the crown were resisted and abridged, he
was also tempted to make his power the sole measure of his conduct, and to
violate all those concessions which he himself had made on his
accession,[*] as well as the ancient privileges of his subjects. The
mercenary soldiers, who chiefly supported his authority, having exhausted
the royal treasure, subsisted by depredations; and every place was filled
with the best grounded complaints against the government. The earl of
Glocester, having now settled with his friends the plan of an
insurrection, retired beyond sea, sent the king a defiance, solemnly
renounced his allegiance, and upbraided him with the breach of those
conditions which had been annexed to the oath of fealty sworn by that
nobleman.[**]
1137.
David, king of Scotland, appeared at the head of an army in defence of his
niece’s title, and penetrating into Yorkshire, committed the most
barbarous devastations on that country.
1138.
The fury of his massacres and ravages enraged the northern nobility, who
might otherwise have been inclined to join him; and William, earl of
Albemarle, Robert de Ferrers, William Piercy, Robert de Brus, Roger
Moubray, Ilbert Lacy, Walter l’Espee, powerful barons in those parts,
assembled an army, with which they encamped at North Allerton, and awaited
the arrival of the enemy. A great battle was here fought, called the
battle of the Standard, from a high crucifix, erected by the English on a
wagon, and carried along with the army as a military ensign. The king of
Scots was defeated; and he himself, as well as his son Henry, narrowly
escaped falling into the hands of the English. This success overawed the
malecontents in England, and might have given some stability to Stephen’s
throne, had he not been so elated with prosperity as to engage in a
controversy with the clergy, who were at that time an overmatch for any
monarch.
Though the great power of the church, in ancient times, weakened the
authority of the crown, and interrupted the course of the laws, it may be
doubted whether, in ages of such violence and outrage, it was not rather
advantageous that some limits were set to the power of the sword, both in
the hands of the prince and nobles, and that men were taught to pay regard
to some principles and privileges.
1139.
The chief misfortune was, that the prelates, on some occasions, acted
entirely as barons, employed military power against their sovereign or
their neighbors, and thereby often increased those disorders which it was
their duty to repress. The bishop of Salisbury, in imitation of the
nobility, had built two strong castles, one at Sherborne, another at the
Devizes, and had laid the foundations of a third at Malmsbury: his nephew;
Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, had erected a fortress at Newark; and
Stephen, who was now sensible from experience of the mischiefs attending
these multiplied; citadels, resolved to begin with destroying those of the
clergy, who by their function seemed less entitled than the barons to such
military securities.[*] Making pretence of a fray, which had arisen in
court between the retinue of the bishop of Salisbury and that of the earl
of Brittany, he seized both that prelate and the bishop of Lincoln, threw
them into prison, and obliged them by menaces to deliver up those places
of strength which they had lately erected.[**]
Henry, bishop of Winchester, the king’s brother, being armed with a
legantine commission, now conceived himself to be an ecclesiastical
sovereign no less powerful than the civil; and forgetting the ties of
blood which connected him with the king, he resolved to vindicate the
clerical privileges which, he pretended, were here openly violated. He
assembled a synod at Westminster, and there complained of the impiety of
Stephen’s measures, who had employed violence against the dignitaries of
the church, and had not awaited the sentence of a spiritual court, by
which alone, he affirmed, they could lawfully be tried and condemned, if
their conduct had anywise merited censure or punishment.[***] The synod,
ventured to send a summons to the king, charging him to appear before
them, and to justify his measures;[****] and Stephen, instead of resenting
this indignity, sent Aubrey de Vere to plead his cause before that
assembly. De Vere accused; the two prelates of treason and sedition; but
the synod refused, to try the cause, or examine their conduct, till those
castles of which they had been dispossessed, were previously restored to
them.[*****] The bishop of Salisbury declared, that he would appeal to the
pope; and had not Stephen and his partisans employed menaces, and even
shown a disposition of executing violence by the hands of the soldiery,
affairs had instantly come to extremity between the crown and the
mitre.[******]
While this quarrel, joined to so many other grievances, increased the
discontents among the people, the empress, invited by the opportunity, and
secretly encouraged by the legate himself, landed in England, with Robert,
earl of Glocester, and a retinue of a hundred and forty knights. She fixed
her residence at Arundel Castle, whose gates were opened to her by
Adelais, the queen dowager, now married to William de Albini, earl of
Sussex; and she excited, by messengers, her partisans to take arms in
every county of England. Adelais, who had expected that her
daughter-in-law would have invaded the kingdom with a much greater force,
became apprehensive of danger; and Matilda, to ease her of her fears,
removed first to Bristol, which belonged to her brother Robert, thence to
Glocester, where she remained under the protection of Milo, a gallant
nobleman in those parts, who had embraced her cause. Soon after, Geoffrey
Talbot, William Mohun, Ralph Lovell, William Fitz-John, William Fitz-Alan,
Paganell, and many other barons, declared for her; and her party, which
was generally favored in the kingdom, seemed every day to gain ground upon
that of her antagonist.
Were we to relate all the military events transmitted to us by
contemporary and authentic historians, it would be easy to swell our
accounts of this reign into a large volume; but those incidents, so little
memorable in themselves, and so confused both in time and place, could
afford neither instruction nor entertainment to the reader. It suffices to
say, that the war was spread into every quarter; and that those turbulent
barons, who had already shaken off, in a great measure, the restraint of
government, having now obtained the pretence of a public cause, carried on
their devastations with redoubled fury, exercised implacable vengeance on
each other, and set no bounds to their oppressions over the people. The
castles of the nobility were become receptacles of licensed robbers, who,
sallying forth day and night, committed spoil on the open country, on the
villages, and even on the cities; put the captives to torture, in order to
make them reveal their treasures; sold their persons to slavery; and set
fire to their houses, after they had pillaged them of every thing
valuable. The fierceness of their disposition, leading them to commit
wanton destruction, frustrated their rapacity of its purpose; and the
property and persons even of the ecclesiastics, generally so much revered,
were at last, from necessity, exposed to the same outrage which had laid
waste the rest of the kingdom. The land was left untilled; the instruments
of husbandry were destroyed or abandoned; and a grievous famine, the
natural result of those disorders, affected equally both parties, and
reduced the spoilers, as well as the defenceless people, to the most
extreme want and indigence.[*]
1140.
After several fruitless negotiations and treaties of peace, which never
interrupted these destructive hostilities, there happened at last an event
which seemed to promise some end of the public calamities. Ralph, earl of
Chester, and his half-brother, William de Roumara, partisans of Matilda,
had surprised the Castle of Lincoln; but the citizens, who were better
affected to Stephen, having invited him to their aid, that prince laid
close siege to the castle, in hopes of soon rendering himself master of
the place, either by assault or by famine. The earl of Glocester hastened
with an army to the relief of his friends; and Stephen, informed of his
approach, took the field with a resolution of giving him battle.
1141.
After a violent shock, the two wings of the royalists were put to flight;
and Stephen himself, surrounded by the enemy, was at last, after exerting
great efforts of valor, borne down by numbers and taken prisoner. He was
conducted to Glocester; and though at first treated with humanity, was
soon after, on some suspicion, thrown into prison, and loaded with irons.
Stephen’s party was entirely broken by the captivity of their leader, and
the barons came in daily from all quarters, and did homage to Matilda. The
princess, however, amidst all her prosperity, knew that she was not secure
of success, unless she could gain the confidence of the clergy; and as the
conduct of the legate had been of late very ambiguous, and showed his
intentions to have rather aimed at humbling his brother, than totally
ruining him, she employed every endeavor to fix him in her interests. She
held a conference with him in an open plain near Winchester; where she
promised upon oath, that if he would acknowledge her for sovereign, would
recognize her title as the sole descendant of the late king, and would
again submit to the allegiance which he, as well as the rest of the
kingdom, had sworn to her, he should in return be entire master of the
administration, and in particular should, at his pleasure, dispose of all
vacant bishoprics and abbeys. Earl Robert, her brother, Brian Fitz-Count,
Milo of Glocester, and other great men, became guaranties for her
observing these engagements;[*] and the prelate was at last induced to
promise her allegiance, but that still burdened with the express
condition, that she should on her part fulfil her promises. He then
conducted her to Winchester, led her in procession to the cathedral, and
with great solemnity, in the presence of many bishops and abbots,
denounced curses against all those who cursed her, poured out blessings on
those who blessed her granted absolution to such as were obedient to her,
and excommunicated such as were rebellious.[**] Theobald, archbishop of
Canterbury, soon after came also to court, and swore allegiance to the
empress.[***]
Matilda, that she might further insure the attachment of the clergy, was
willing to receive the crown from their hands; and instead of assembling
the states of the kingdom, the measure which the constitution, had it been
either fixed or regarded, seemed necessarily to require, she was content
that the legate should summon an ecclesiastical synod, and that her title
to the throne should there be acknowledged. The legate, addressing himself
to the assembly, told them, that in the absence of the empress, Stephen,
his brother, had been permitted to reign, and, previously to his ascending
the throne, had seduced them by many fair promises, of honoring and
exalting the church, of maintaining the laws, and of reforming all abuses;
that it grieved him to observe how much that prince had in every
particular been wanting to his engagements; public peace was interrupted,
crimes were daily committed with impunity, bishops were thrown into prison
and forced to surrender their possessions, abbeys were put to sale,
churches were pillaged and the most enormous disorders prevailed in the
administration; that he himself, in order to procure a redress of these
grievances, had formerly summoned the king before a council of bishops;
but instead of inducing him to amend his conduct, had rather offended him
by that expedient; that, how much soever misguided, that prince was still
his brother, and the object of his affections; but his interests, however,
must be regarded as subordinate to those of their heavenly Father, who had
now rejected him, and thrown him into the hands of his enemies; that it
principally belonged to the clergy to elect and ordain kings; he had
summoned them together for that purpose; and having invoked the divine
assistance, he now pronounced Matilda, the only descendant of Henry, their
late sovereign, queen of England. The whole assembly, by their
acclamations or silence, gave or seemed to give, their assent to this
declaration.[*]
The only laymen summoned to this council, which decided the fate of the
crown, were the Londoners; and even these were required not to give their
opinion, but to submit to the decrees of the synod. The deputies of
London, however, were not so passive; they insisted that their king should
be delivered from prison; but were told by the legate, that it became not
the Londoners, who were regarded as noblemen in England, to take part with
those barons who had basely forsaken their lord in battle, and who had
treated holy church with contumely. It is with reason that the citizens of
London assumed so much authority, if it be true, what is related by
Fitz-Stephen, a contemporary author, that that city should at this time
bring into the field no less than eighty thousand combatants.[**]
London, notwithstanding its great power, and its attachment to Stephen,
was at length obliged to submit to Matilda; and her authority, by the
prudent conduct of Earl Robert, seemed to be established over the whole
kingdom; but affairs remained not long in this situation. That princess,
besides the disadvantages of her sex, which weakened her influence over a
turbulent and martial people, was of a passionate, imperious spirit, and
knew not how to temper with affability the harshness of a refusal.
Stephen’s queen, seconded by many of the nobility, petitioned for the
liberty of her husband; and offered, that, on this condition, he should
renounce the crown, and retire into a convent. The legate desired that
Prince Eustace, his nephew, might inherit Boulogne and the other
patrimonial estates of his father.[*] The Londoners applied for the
establishment of King Edward’s laws, instead of those of King Henry,
which, they said, were grievous and oppressive.[**] All these petitions
were rejected in the most haughty and peremptory manner.
The legate, who had probably never been sincere in his compliance with
Matilda’s government, availed himself of the ill humor excited by this
imperious conduct, and secretly instigated the Londoners to a revolt. A
conspiracy was entered into to seize the person of the empress, and she
saved herself from the danger by a precipitate retreat. She fled to
Oxford: soon after she went to Winchester, whither the legate, desirous to
save appearances, and watching the opportunity to ruin her cause, had
retired. But having assembled all his retainers, he openly joined his
force to that of the Londoners, and to Stephen’s mercenary troops, who had
not yet evacuated the kingdom; and he besieged Matilda in Winchester. The
princess, being hard pressed by famine, made her escape; but in the
flight, Earl Robert, her brother, fell into the hands of the enemy. This
nobleman, though a subject, was as much the life and soul of his own
party, as Stephen was of the other: and the empress, sensible of his merit
and importance, consented to exchange the prisoners on equal terms. The
civil war was again kindled with greater fury than ever.
1142.
Earl Robert, finding the successes on both sides nearly balanced, went
over to Normandy, which, during Stephen’s captivity, had submitted to the
earl of Anjou; and he persuaded Geoffrey to allow his eldest son, Henry, a
young prince of great hopes, to take a journey into England, and appear at
the head of his partisans.
1143.
This expedient, however, produced nothing decisive. Stephen took Oxford
after a long siege: he was defeated by Earl Robert at Wilton; and the
empress, though of a masculine spirit, yet being harassed with a variety
of good and bad fortune, and alarmed with continual dangers to her person
and family, at last retired into Normandy,
1146.
whither she had sent her son some time before. The death of her brother,
which happened nearly about the same time, would have proved fatal to her
interests, hail not some incidents occurred which checked the course of
Stephen’s prosperity. This prince, finding that the castles built by the
noblemen of his own party encouraged the spirit of independence, and were
little less dangerous than those which remained in the hands of the enemy,
endeavored to extort from them a surrender of those fortresses and he
alienated the affections of many of them by this equitable demand. The
artillery, also, of the church, which his brother had brought over to his
side, had, after some interval, joined the other party. Eugenius III. had
mounted the papal throne; the bishop of Winchester was deprived of the
legantine commission, which was conferred on Theobald, archbishop of
Canterbury, the enemy and rival of the former legate. That pontiff, also,
having summoned a general council at Rheims, in Champagne, instead of
allowing the church of England, as had been usual, to elect its own
deputies, nominated five English bishops to represent that church, and
required their attendance in the council. Stephen, who, notwithstanding
his present difficulties, was jealous of the rights of his crown, refused
them permission to attend;[*] and the pope, sensible of his advantage in
contending with a prince who reigned by a disputed title, took revenge by
laying all Stephen’s party under an interdict.[**]
1147.
The discontents of the royalists at being thrown into this situation, were
augmented by a comparison with Matilda’s party, who enjoyed all the
benefits of the sacred ordinances; and Stephen was at last obliged, by
making proper submissions to the see of Rome, to remove the reproach from
his party.[***]
1148.
The weakness of both sides, rather than any decrease of mutual animosity,
having produced a tacit cessation of arms in England, many of the
nobility, Roger de Moubray, William de Warrenne, and others, finding no
opportunity to exert their military ardor at home, enlisted themselves in
a new crusade, which, with surprising success after former disappointments
and misfortunes, was now preached by St. Barnard.[****] But an event soon
after happened which threatened a revival of hostilities in England.
Prince Henry, who had reached his sixteenth year, was desirous of
receiving the honor of knighthood; a ceremony which every gentleman in
that age passed through before he was admitted to the use of arms, and
which was even deemed requisite for the greatest princes.
He intended to receive his admission from his great-uncle, David, king of
Scotland; and for that purpose he passed through England with a great
retinue, and was attended by the most considerable of his partisans. He
remained some time with the king of Scotland, made incursions into
England, and by his dexterity and vigor in all manly exercises, by his
valor in war, and his prudent conduct in every occurrence, he roused the
hopes of his party, and gave symptoms of those great qualities which he
afterwards displayed when he mounted the throne of England.
1150.
Soon after his return to Normandy, he was, by Matilda’s consent, invested
in that duchy, and upon the death of his father Geoffrey, which happened
in the subsequent year, he took possession both of Anjou and Maine, and
concluded a marriage which brought him a great accession of power, and
rendered him extremely formidable to his rival. Eleanor, the daughter and
heir of William, duke of Guienne, and earl of Poictou, had been married
sixteen years to Lewis VII., king of France, and had attended him in a
crusade which that monarch conducted against the infidels; but having
there lost the affections of her husband, and even fallen under some
suspicion of gallantry with a handsome Saracen, Lewis, more delicate than
politic, procured a divorce from her, and restored her those rich
provinces, which, by her marriage, she had annexed to the crown of France.
Young Henry, neither discouraged by the inequality of years, nor by the
reports of Eleanor’s gallantries, made successful courtship to that
princess, and espousing her six weeks after her divorce, got possession of
all her dominions as her dowry.
1152.
The lustre which he received from this acquisition, and the prospect of
his rising fortune, had such an elect in England, that when Stephen,
desirous to insure the crown to his son Eustace, required the archbishop
of Canterbury to anoint that prince as his successor, the primate refused
compliance, and made his escape beyond sea, to avoid the violence and
resentment of Stephen.
1153.
Henry, informed of these dispositions in the people, made an invasion on
England: having gained some advantage over Stephen at Malmsbury, and
having taken that place, he proceeded thence to throw succors into
Wallingford, which the king had advanced with a superior army to besiege.
A decisive action was every day expected, when the great men of both
sides, terrified at the prospect of further bloodshed and confusion,
interposed with their good offices, and set on foot a negotiation between
the rival princes, The death of Eustace, during the course of the treaty,
facilitated its conclusion: an accommodation was settled, by which it was
agreed that Stephen should possess the crown during his lifetime, that
justice should be administered in his name, even in the provinces which
had submitted to Henry, and that this latter prince should, on Stephen’s
demise, succeed to the kingdom, and William, Stephen’s son, to Boulogne
and his patrimonial estate. After all the barons had sworn to the
observance of this treaty, and done homage to Henry, as to the heir of the
crown, that prince evacuated the kingdom; and the death of Stephen which
happened next year, [October 25, 1154,] after a short illness, prevented
all those quarrels and jealousies which were likely to have ensued in so
delicate a situation.
England suffered great miseries during the reign of this prince: but his
personal character, allowing for the temerity and injustice of his
usurpation, appears not liable to any great exception; and he seems to
have been well qualified, had he succeeded by a just title, to have
promoted the happiness and prosperity of his subjects.[*] He was possessed
of industry, activity, and courage, to a great degree; though not endowed
with a sound judgment, he was not deficient in abilities; he had the
talent of gaining men’s affections, and notwithstanding his precarious
situation, he never indulged himself in the exercise of any cruelty or
revenge. His advancement to the throne procured him neither tranquillity
nor happiness; and though the situation of England prevented the
neighboring states from taking any durable advantage of her confusions,
her intestine disorders were to the last degree ruinous and destructive.
The court of Rome was also permitted, during those civil wars, to make
further advances in her usurpations; and appeals to the pope, which had
always been strictly prohibited by the English laws, became now common in
every ecclesiastical controversy.
CHAPTER VIII.
HENRY II.
1154.
The extensive confederacies, by which the European potentates are now at
once united and set in opposition to each other, and which, though they
are apt to diffuse the least spark of dissension throughout the whole, are
at least attended with this advantage, that they prevent any violent
revolutions or conquests in particular states, were totally unknown in
ancient ages; and the theory of foreign politics in each kingdom formed a
speculation much less complicated and involved than at present. Commerce
had not yet bound together the most distant nations in so close a chain:
wars, finished in one campaign, and often in one battle, were little
affected by the movements of remote states: the imperfect communication
among the kingdoms, and their ignorance of each other’s situation, made it
impracticable for a great number of them to combine in one object or
effort: and above all, the turbulent spirit and independent situation of
the barons or great vassals in each state, gave so much occupation to the
sovereign, that he was obliged to confine his attention chiefly to his own
state and his own system of government, and was more indifferent about
what passed among his neighbors. Religion alone, not politics, carried
abroad the views of princes, while it either fixed their thoughts on the
Holy Land, whose conquest and defence was deemed a point of common honor
and interest, or engaged them in intrigues with the Roman pontiff, to whom
they had yielded the direction of ecclesiastical affairs, and who was
every day assuming more authority than they were willing to allow him.
Before the conquest of England by the duke of Normandy, this island was as
much separated from the rest of the world in politics as in situation; and
except from the inroads of the Danish pirates, the English, happily
confined at home, had neither enemies nor allies on the continent. The
foreign dominions of William connected them with the king and great
vassals of France; and while the opposite pretensions of the pope and
emperor in Italy produced a continual intercourse between Germany and that
country, the two great monarchs of France and England formed, in another
part of Europe, a separate system, and carried on their wars and
negotiations, without meeting either with opposition or support from the
others.
On the decline of the Carlovingian race, the nobles in every province of
France, taking advantage of the weakness of the sovereign, and obliged to
provide each for his own defence against the ravages of the Norman
freebooters, had assumed, both in civil and military affairs, an authority
almost independent, and had reduced within very narrow limits the
prerogative of their princes. The accession of Hugh Capet, by annexing a
great fief to the crown, had brought some addition to the royal dignity;
but this fief, though considerable for a subject, appeared a narrow basis
of power for a prince who was placed at the head of so great a community.
The royal demesnes consisted only of Paris, Orleans, Estampes, Compiegne,
and a few places scattered over the northern provinces: in the rest of the
kingdom, the prince’s authority was rather nominal than real: the vassals
were accustomed, nay, entitled, to make war, without his permission, on
each other: they were even entitled, if they conceived themselves injured,
to turn their arms against their sovereign: they exercised all civil
jurisdiction, without appeal, over their tenants and inferior vassals:
their common jealousy of the crown easily united them against any attempt
on their exorbitant privileges; and as some of them had attained the power
and authority of great princes, even the smallest baron was sure of
immediate and effectual protection. Besides six ecclesiastical peerages,
which, with the other immunities of the church, cramped extremely the
general execution of justice, there were six lay peerages, Burgundy,
Normandy Guienne, Flanders, Toulouse, and Champagne, which formed very
extensive and puissant sovereignties. And though the combination of all
those princes and barons could on urgent occasions, muster a mighty power,
yet was it very difficult to set that great machine in movement; it was
almost impossible to preserve harmony in its parts; a sense of common
interest alone could, for a time, unite them under their sovereign against
a common enemy; but if the king attempted to turn the force of the
community against any mutinous vassal, the same sense of common interest
made the others oppose themselves to the success of his pretensions. Lewis
the Gross, the last sovereign, marched, at one time, to his frontiers
against the Germans at the head of an army of two hundred thousand men;
but a petty lord of Corbeil, of Puiset, of Couci, was able, at another
period, to set that prince at defiance, and to maintain open war against
him.
The authority of the English monarch was much more extensive within his
kingdom, and the disproportion much greater between him and the most
powerful of his vassals. His demesnes and revenue were large, compared to
the greatness of his state: he was accustomed to levy arbitrary exactions
on his subjects: his courts of judicature extended their jurisdiction into
every part of the kingdom: he could crush by his power, or by a judicial
sentence, well or ill founded, any obnoxious baron: and though the feudal
institutions, which prevailed in his kingdom, had the same tendency, as in
other states, to exalt the aristocracy and depress the monarchy, it
required in England, according to its present constitution, a great
combination of the vassals to oppose their sovereign lord, and there had
not hitherto arisen any baron so powerful, as of himself to levy war
against the prince, and to afford protection to the inferior barons.
While such were the different situations of France and England, and the
latter enjoyed so many advantages above the former, the accession of Henry
II., a prince of great abilities, possessed of so many rich provinces on
the continent, might appear an event dangerous, if not fatal to the French
monarchy, and sufficient to break entirely the balance between the states.
He was master, in the right of his father, of Anjou and Touraine; in that
of his mother, of Normandy and Maine; in that of his wife, of Guienne,
Poictou, Xaintonge, Auvergne, Perigord, Angoumois, the Limousin. He soon
after annexed Brittany to his other states, and was already possessed of
the superiority over that province, which, on the first cession of
Normandy to Rollo the Dane, had been granted by Charles the Simple in
vassalage to that formidable ravager. These provinces composed above a
third of the whole French monarchy, and were much superior, in extent and
opulence, to those territories which were subjected to the immediate
jurisdiction and government of the king. The vassal was here more powerful
than his liege lord: the situation which had enabled Hugh Capet to depose
the Carlovingian princes, seemed to be renewed, and that with much greater
advantages on the side of the vassal: and when England was added to so
many provinces, the French king had reason to apprehend, from this
conjuncture, some great disaster to himself and to his family. But, in
reality, it was this circumstance, which appeared so formidable, that
saved the Capetian race, and, by its consequences, exalted them to that
pitch of grandeur which they at present enjoy.
The limited authority of the prince in the feudal constitutions, prevented
the king of England from employing with advantage the force of so many
states which were subjected to his government; and these different
members, disjoined in situation, and disagreeing in laws, language, and
manners, were never thoroughly cemented into one monarchy. He soon became,
both from his distant place of residence and from the incompatibility of
interests, a kind of foreigner to his French dominions; and his subjects
on the continent considered their allegiance as more naturally due to
their superior lord, who lived in their neighborhood, and who was
acknowledged to be the supreme head of their nation. He was always at hand
to invade them; their immediate lord was often at too great a distance to
protect them; and any disorder in any part of his dispersed dominions gave
advantages against him The other powerful vassals of the French crown were
rather pleased to see the expulsion of the English, and were not affected
with that jealousy which would have arisen from the oppression of a
co-vassal who was of the same rank with themselves. By this means, the
king of France found it more easy to conquer those numerous provinces from
England than to subdue a duke of Normandy or Guienne, a count of Anjou,
Maine, or Poietou. And after reducing such extensive territories, which
immediately incorporated with the body of the monarchy, he found greater
facility in uniting to the crown the other great fiefs which still
remained separate and independent.
But as these important consequences could not be foreseen by human wisdom,
the king of France remarked with terror the rising grandeur of the house
of Anjou or Plantagenet; and in order to retard its progress, he had ever
maintained a strict union with Stephen, and had endeavored to support the
tottering fortunes of that bold usurper. But after this prince’s death, it
was too late to think of opposing the succession of Henry, or preventing
the performance of those stipulations which, with the unanimous consent of
the nation, he had made with his predecessor. The English, harassed with
civil wars, and disgusted with the bloodshed and depredations which,
during the course of so many years, had attended them were little disposed
to violate their oaths, by excluding the lawful heir from the succession
of their monarchy.* Many of the most considerable fortresses were in the
hands of his partisans; the whole nation had had occasion to see the noble
qualities with which he was endowed, and to compare them with the mean
talents of William, the son of Stephen; and as they were acquainted with
his great power, and were rather pleased to see the accession of so many
foreign dominions to the crown of England, they never entertained the
least thoughts of resisting him. Henry himself, sensible of the advantages
attending his present situation, was in no hurry to arrive in England; and
being engaged in the siege of a castle on the frontiers of Normandy, when
he received intelligence of Stephen’s death, he made it a point of honor
not to depart from his enterprise till he had brought it to an issue. He
then set out on his journey, and was received in England with the
acclamations of all orders of men, who swore with pleasure the oath of
fealty and allegiance to him.
1155.
The first act of Henry’s government corresponded to the high idea
entertained of his abilities, and prognosticated the reestablishment of
justice and tranquillity, of which the kingdom had so long been bereaved.
He immediately dismissed all those mercenary soldiers who had committed
great disorders in the nation; and he sent them abroad, together with
William of Ypres, their leader, the friend and confidant of Stephen. He
revoked all the grants made by his predecessor, even those which necessity
had extorted from the empress Matilda; and that princess, who had resigned
her rights in favor of Henry, made no opposition to a measure so necessary
for supporting the dignity of the crown. He repaired the coin, which had
been extremely debased during the reign of his predecessor; and he took
proper measures against the return of a like abuse. He was rigorous in the
execution of justice, and in the suppression of robbery and violence; and
that he might restore authority to the laws, he caused all the new erected
castles to be demolished, which had proved so many sanctuaries to
freebooters and rebels. The earl of Albemarle, Hugh Mortimer, and Roger
the son of Milo of Glocester, were inclined to make some resistance to
this salutary measure; but the approach of the king with his forces soon
obliged them to submit.
1156.
Everything being restored to full tranquillity in England, Henry went
abroad in order to oppose the attempts of his brother Geoffrey, who,
during his absence, had made an incursion into Anjou and Maine,
1157.
had advanced some pretensions to those provinces, and had got possession
of a considerable part of them. On the king’s appearance, the people
returned to their allegiance; and Geoffrey, resigning his claim for an
annual pension of a thousand pounds, departed and took possession of the
county of Nantz, which the inhabitants, who had expelled Count Iloel,
their prince, had put into his hands. Henry returned to England the
following year: the incursions of the Welsh then provoked him to make an
invasion upon them; where the natural fastnesses of the country occasioned
him great difficulties, and even brought him into danger. His vanguard,
being engaged in a narrow pass, was put to rout: Henry de Essex, the
hereditary standard-bearer, seized with a panic, threw down the standard,
took to flight, and exclaimed that the king was slain; and had not the
prince immediately appeared in person, and led on his troops with great
gallantry, the consequences might have proved fatal to the whole army. For
this misbehavior, Essex was afterwards accused of felony by Robert de
Montfort; was vanquished in single combat; his estate was confiscated; and
he himself was thrust into a convent. The submissions of the Welsh
procured them an accommodation with England.
1158.
The martial disposition of the princes in that age engaged them to head
their own armies in every enterprise, even the most frivolous; and their
feeble authority made it commonly impracticable for them to delegate, on
occasion, the command to their generals. Geoffrey, the king’s brother,
died soon after he had acquired possession of Nantz; though he had no
other title to that county than the voluntary submission or election of
the inhabitants two years before, Henry laid claim to the territory as
devolved to him by hereditary right, and he went over to support his
pretensions by force of arms. Conan, duke or earl of Brittany (for these
titles are given indifferently by historians to those princes) pretended
that Nantz had been lately separated by rebellion from his principality,
to which of right it belonged; and immediately on Geoffrey’s death, he
took possession of the disputed territory. Lest Lewis, the French king,
should interpose in the controversy, Henry paid him a visit; and so
allured him by caresses and civilities, that an alliance was contracted
between them; and they agreed that young Henry, heir to the English
monarchy, should be affianced to Margaret of France, though the former was
only five years of age; the latter was still in her cradle. Henry, now
secure of meeting with no interruption on this side, advanced with his
army into Brittany; and Conan, in despair of being able to make
resistance, delivered up the county of Nantz to him. The able conduct of
the king procured him further and more important advantages from this
incident. Conan, harassed with the turbulent disposition of his subjects,
was desirous of procuring to himself the support of so great a monarch;
and he betrothed his daughter and only child, yet an infant, to Geoffrey,
the king’s third son, who was of the same tender years. The duke of
Brittany died about seven years after; and Henry, being mesne lord and
also natural guardian to his son and daughter-in-law, put himself in
possession of that principality, and annexed it for the present to his
other great dominions.
1159.
The king had a prospect of making still further acquisitions; and the
activity of his temper suffered no opportunity of that kind to escape him.
Philippa, duchess of Guienne, mother of Queen Eleanor, was the only issue
of William IV., count of Toulouse; and would have inherited his dominions,
had not that prince, desirous of preserving the succession in the male
line, conveyed the principality to his brother Raymond de St. Gilles, by a
contract of sale which was in that age regarded as fictitious and
illusory. By this means the title to the county of Toulouse came to be
disputed between the male and female heirs; and the one or the other, as
opportunities favored them, had obtained possession. Raymond, grandson of
Raymond de St. Gilles was the reigning sovereign; and on Henry’s reviving
his wife’s claim, this prince had recourse for protection to the king of
France, who was so much concerned in policy to prevent the further
aggrandizement of the English monarch. Lewis himself, when married to
Eleanor, had asserted the justice of her claim, and had demanded
possession of Toulouse; but his sentiments changing with his interest, he
now determined to defend, by his power and authority, the title of
Raymond. Henry found that it would be requisite to support his pretensions
against potent antagonists; and that nothing but a formidable army could
maintain a claim which he had in vain asserted by arguments and
manifestoes.
An army composed of feudal vassals was commonly very intractable and
undisciplined, both because of the independent spirit of the persons who
served in it, and because the commands were not given either by the choice
of the sovereign or from the military capacity and experience of the
officers. Each baron conducted his own vassals: his rank was greater or
less, proportioned to the extent of his property: even the supreme command
under the prince was often attached to birth; and as the military vassals
were obliged to serve only forty days at their own charge, though, if the
expedition were distant, they were put to great expense, the prince reaped
little benefit from their attendance. Henry, sensible of these
inconveniences, levied upon his vassals in Normandy and other provinces,
which were remote from Toulouse, a sum of money in lieu of their service;
and this commutation, by reason of the great distance, was still more
advantageous to his English vassals. He imposed, therefore, a scutage of
one hundred and eighty thousand pounds on the knights’ fees, a commutation
to which, though it was unusual, and the first perhaps to be met with in
history,[*] 16 the military tenants willingly submitted; and
with this money he levied an army which was more under his command, and
whose service was more durable and constant.
Assisted by Berenger, count of Barcelona, and Trincaval, count of Nismes,
whom he had gained to his party, he invaded the county of Toulouse; and
after taking Verdun, Castlenau, and other places, he besieged the capital
of the province, and was likely to prevail in the enterprise; when Lewis,
advancing before the arrival of his main body, threw himself into the
place with a small reenforcement. Henry was urged by some of his ministers
to prosecute the siege, to take Lewis prisoner, and to impose his own
terms in the pacification; but he either thought it so much his interest
to maintain the feudal principles, by which his foreign dominions were
secured, or bore so much respect to his superior lord, that he declared he
would not attack a place defended by him in person; and he immediately
raised the siege. He marched into Normandy to protect that province
against an incursion which the count of Dreux, instigated by King Lewis,
his brother, had made upon it. War was now openly carried on between the
two monarchs, but produced no memorable event: it soon ended in a
cessation of arms, and that followed by a peace, which was not, however,
attended with any confidence or good correspondence between those rival
princes.
1160.
The fortress of Gisors, being part of the dowry stipulated to Margaret of
France, had been consigned by agreement to the knights templars, on
condition that it should be delivered into Henry’s hands after the
celebration of the nuptials. The king, that he might have a pretence for
immediately demanding the place, ordered the marriage to be solemnized
between the prince and princess, though both infants; and he engaged the
grand master of the templars, by large presents, as was generally
suspected, to put him in possession of Gisors.[*]
1161.
Lewis, resenting this fraudulent conduct, banished the templars, and would
have made war upon the king of England, had it not been for the mediation
and authority of Pope Alexander III., who had been chased from Rome by the
antipope, Victor IV., and resided at that time in France.
1162.
Henry, soon after he had accommodated his differences with Lewis by the
pope’s mediation, returned to England; where he commenced an enterprise,
which, though required by sound policy, and even conducted in the main
with prudence, bred him great disquietude, involved him in danger, and was
not concluded without some loss and dishonor.
The usurpations of the clergy, which had at first been gradual, were now
become so rapid, and had mounted to such a height, that the contest
between the regale and pontificale was really arrived at a crisis in
England; and it became necessary to determine whether the king or the
priests, particularly the archbishop of Canterbury, should be sovereign of
the kingdom. The aspiring spirit of Henry, which gave inquietude to all
his neighbors, was not likely long to pay a tame submission to the
encroachments of subjects; and as nothing opens the eyes of men so readily
as their interest, he was in no danger of falling, in this respect, into
that abject superstition which retained his people in subjection. From the
commencement of his reign, in the government of his foreign dominions, as
well as of England, he had shown a fixed purpose to repress clerical
usurpations, and to maintain those prerogatives which had been transmitted
to him by his predecessors. During the schism of the papacy between
Alexander and Victor, he had determined, for some time, to remain neuter;
and when informed that the archbishop of Rouen and the bishop of Mans had,
from their own authority, acknowledged Alexander as legitimate pope, he
was so enraged, that, though he spared the archbishop on account of his
great age, he immediately issued orders for overthrowing the houses of the
bishop of Mans and archdeacon of Rouen;[*] 17 and it was not till he
had deliberately examined the matter, by those views which usually enter
into the councils of princes, that he allowed that pontiff to exercise
authority over any of his dominions.
In England, the mild character and advanced years of Theobald, archbishop
of Canterbury, together with his merits in refusing to put the crown on
the head of Eustace, son of Stephen, prevented Henry, during the lifetime
of that primate, from taking any measures against the multiplied
encroachments of the clergy; but after his death, the king resolved to
exert himself with more activity; and that he might be secure against any
opposition, he advanced to that dignity Becket, his chancellor, on whose
compliance he thought he could entirely depend.
Thomas à Becket, the first man of English descent who, since the Norman
conquest, had, during the course of a whole century, risen to any
considerable station, was born of reputable parents in the city of London;
and being endowed both with industry and capacity, he early insinuated
himself into the favor of Archbishop Theobald, and obtained from that
prelate some preferments and offices. By their means he was enabled to
travel for improvement to Italy, where he studied the civil and canon law
at Bologna; and on his return he appeared to have made such proficiency in
knowledge, that he was promoted by his patron to the archdeaconry of
Canterbury, an office of considerable trust and profit. He was afterwards
employed with success by Theobald in transacting business at Rome; and on
Henry’s accession, he was recommended to that monarch as worthy of further
preferment Henry, who knew that Becket had been instrumental in supporting
that resolution of the archbishop, which had tended so much to facilitate
his own advancement to the throne, was already prepossessed in his favor;
and finding on further acquaintance, that his spirit and abilities
entitled him to any trust he soon promoted him to the dignity of
chancellor, one of the first civil offices in the kingdom. The chancellor,
in that age, besides the custody of the great seal, had possession of all
vacant prelacies and abbeys; he was the guardian of all such minors and
pupils as were the king’s tenants; all baronies which escheated to the
crown were under his administration; he was entitled to a place in
council, even though he were not particularly summoned; and as he
exercised also the office of secretary of state, and it belonged to him to
countersign all commissions, writs, and letters patent, he was a kind of
prime minister and was concerned in the despatch of every business of
importance. Besides exercising this high office, Becket by the favor of
the king or archbishop, was made provost of Beverley, dean of Hastings,
and constable of the Tower: he was put in possession of the honors of Eye
and Berkham large baronies that had escheated to the crown; and to
complete his grandeur, he was intrusted with the education of Prince
Henry, the king’s eldest son, and heir of the monarchy. The pomp of his
retinue, the sumptuousness of his furniture, the luxury of his table, the
munificence of his presents, corresponded to these great preferments; or
rather exceeded any thing that England had ever before seen in any
subject. His historian and secretary, Fitz-Stephens, mentions, among other
particulars, that his apartments were every day in winter covered with
clean straw or hay, and in summer with green rushes or boughs, lest the
gentlemen who paid court to him and who could not, by reason of their
great number, find a place at table, should soil their fine clothes by
sitting on a dirty floor.[*] A great number of knights were retained in
his service; the greatest barons were proud of being received at his
table; his house was a place of education for the sons of the chief
nobility; and the king himself frequently vouchsafed to partake of his
entertainments. As his way of life was splendid and opulent, his
amusements and occupations were gay, and partook of the cavalier spirit,
which, as he had only taken deacon’s orders, he did not think unbefitting
his character. He employed himself at leisure hours in hunting, hawking,
gaming, and horsemanship; he exposed his person in several military
actions; he carried over, at his own charge, seven hundred knights to
attend the king in his wars at Toulouse; in the subsequent wars on the
frontiers of Normandy, he maintained, during forty days, twelve hundred
knights, and four thousand of their train; and in an embassy to France,
with which he was intrusted, he astonished that court by the number and
magnificence of his retinue.
Henry, besides committing all his more important business to Becket’s
management, honored him with his friendship and intimacy; and whenever he
was disposed to relax himself by sports of any kind, he admitted his
chancellor to the party. An instance of their familiarity is mentioned by
Fitz-Stephens which, as it shows the manners of the age, it may not be
improper to relate. One day, as the king and the chancellor were riding
together in the streets of London, they observed a beggar, who was
shivering with cold. “Would it not be very praiseworthy,” said the king,
“to give that poor man a warm coat in this severe season?” “It would,
surely,” replied the chancellor; “and you do well, sir, in thinking of
such good actions.” “Then he shall have one presently,” cried the king;
and seizing the skirt of the chancellor’s coat, which was scarlet, and
lined with ermine, began to pull it violently. The chancellor defended
himself for some time; and they had both of them like to have tumbled off
their horses in the street, when Becket, after a vehement struggle, let go
his coat; which the king bestowed on the beggar, who, being ignorant of
the quality of the persons, was not a little surprised at the present.
Becket, who, by his complaisance and good humor, had rendered himself
agreeable, and by his industry and abilities useful, to his master,
appeared to him the fittest person for supplying the vacancy made by the
death of Theobold. As he was well acquainted with the king’s intentions of
retrenching, or rather confining within the ancient bounds, all
ecclesiastical privileges, and always showed a ready disposition to comply
with them, Henry, who never expected any resistance from that quarter,
immediately issued orders for electing him archbishop of Canterbury. But
this resolution, which was taken contrary to the opinion of Matilda, and
many of the ministers, drew after it very unhappy consequences; and never
prince of so great penetration appeared, in the issue, to have so little
understood the genius and character of his minister.
No sooner was Becket installed in this high dignity, which rendered him
for life the second person in the kingdom, with some pretensions of
aspiring to be the first, than he totally altered his demeanor and
conduct, and endeavored to acquire the character of sanctity, of which his
former busy and ostentatious course of life might, in the eyes of the
people, have naturally bereaved him. Without consulting the king, he
immediately returned into his hands the commission of chancellor;
pretending that he must thenceforth detach himself from secular affairs,
and be solely employed in the exercise of his spiritual function; but in
reality, that he might break off all connections with Henry, and apprise
him that Becket, as primate of England, was now become entirely a new
personage. He maintained, in his retinue and attendants alone, his ancient
pomp and lustre, which was useful to strike the vulgar; in his own person
he affected the greatest austerity and most rigid mortification, which he
was sensible would have an equal or a greater tendency to the same end. He
wore sackcloth next his skin, which, by his affected care to conceal it,
was necessarily the more remarked by all the world: he changed it so
seldom, that it was filled with dirt and vermin: his usual diet was bread;
his drink water, which he even rendered further unpalatable by the mixture
of unsavory herbs: he tore his back with the frequent discipline which he
inflicted on it: he daily on his knees washed, in imitation of Christ, the
feet of thirteen beggars, whom he afterwards dismissed with presents: he
gained the affections of the monks by his frequent charities to the
convents and hospitals: every one who made profession of sanctity, was
admitted to his conversation, and returned full of panegyrics on the
humility, as well as on the piety and mortification, of the holy primate:
he seemed to be perpetually employed in reciting prayers and pious
lectures, or in perusing religious discourses: his aspect wore the
appearance of seriousness, and mental recollection, and secret devotion;
and all men of penetration plainly saw that he was meditating some great
design, and that the ambition and ostentation of his character had turned
itself towards a new and a more dangerous object.
1163.
Becket waited not till Henry should commence those projects against the
ecclesiastical power, which he knew had been formed by that prince: he was
himself the aggressor, and endeavored to overawe the king by the
intrepidity and boldness of his enterprises. He summoned the earl of Clare
to surrender the barony of Tunbridge, which, ever since the conquest, had
remained in the family of that nobleman, but which, as it had formerly
belonged to the see of Canterbury, Becket pretended his predecessors were
prohibited by the canons to alienate. The earl of Clare, besides the
lustre which he derived from the greatness of his own birth and the extent
of his possessions, was allied to all the principal families in the
kingdom; his sister, who was a celebrated beauty, had further extended his
credit among the nobility and was even supposed to have gained the king’s
affections; and Becket could not better discover, than by attacking so
powerful an interest, his resolution of maintaining with vigor the rights,
real or pretended, of his see.
William de Eynsford, a military tenant of the crown, was patron of a
living which belonged to a manor that held of the archbishop of
Canterbury; but Becket, without regard to William’s right, presented, on a
new and illegal pretext, one Laurence to that living, who was violently
expelled by Eynsford. The primate, making himself, as was usual in
spiritual courts, both judge and party, issued in a summary manner the
sentence of excommunication against Eynsford, who complained to the king,
that he, who held “in capite” of the crown, should, contrary to the
practice established by the Conqueror, and maintained ever since by his
successors, be subjected to that terrible sentence without the previous
consent of the sovereign. Henry, who had now broken off all personal
intercourse with Becket, sent him, by a messenger, his orders to absolve
Eynsford; but received for answer, that it belonged not for the king to
inform him whom he should absolve and whom excommunicate; and it was not
till after many remonstrances and menaces that Becket, though with the
worst grace imaginable, was induced to comply with the royal mandate.
Henry, though he found himself thus grievously mistaken in the character
of the person whom he had promoted to the primacy, determined not to
desist from his former intention of retrenching clerical usurpations. He
was entirely master of his extensive dominions: the prudence and vigor of
his administration, attended with perpetual success, had raised his
character above that of any of his predecessors: the papacy seemed to be
weakened by a schism which divided all Europe; and he rightly judged that,
if the present favorable opportunity were neglected, the crown must, from
the prevalent superstition of the people, be in danger of falling into
entire subordination under the mitre.
The union of the civil and ecclesiastical power serves extremely, in every
civilized government, to the maintenance of peace and order; and prevents
those mutual encroachments which, as there can be no ultimate judge
between them, are often attended with the most dangerous consequences
Whether the supreme magistrate who unites these powers receives the
appellation of prince or prelate, is not material. The superior weight
which temporal interests commonly bear in the apprehensions of men above
spiritual, renders the civil part of his character most prevalent; and in
time prevents those gross impostures and bigoted persecutions which, in
all false religions, are the chief foundation of clerical authority. But
during the progress of ecclesiastical usurpations, the state, by the
resistance of the civil magistrate, is naturally thrown into convulsions;
and it behoves the prince, both for his own interest and for that of the
public, to provide in time sufficient barriers against so dangerous and
insidious a rival. This precaution had hitherto been much neglected in
England, as well as in other Catholic countries; and affairs at last
seemed to have come to a dangerous crisis: a sovereign of the greatest
abilities was now on the throne: a prelate of the most inflexible and
intrepid character was possessed of the primacy: the contending powers
appeared to be armed with their full force and it was natural to expect
some extraordinary event to result from their conflict.
Among their other inventions to obtain money, the clergy had inculcated
the necessity of penance as an atonement for sin; and having again
introduced the practice of paying them large sums as a commutation, or
species of atonement for the remission of those penances, the sins of the
people, by these means, had become a revenue to the priests; and the king
computed, that by this invention alone they levied more money upon his
subjects than flowed, by all the funds and taxes, into the royal
exchequer. That he might ease the people of so heavy and arbitrary an
imposition, Henry required that a civil officer of his appointment should
be present in all ecclesiastical courts, and should, for the future, give
his consent to every composition which was made with sinners for their
spiritual offences.
The ecclesiastics in that age had renounced all immediate subordination to
the magistrate: they openly pretended to an exemptior, in criminal
accusations, from a trial before courts of justice; and were gradually
introducing a like exemption in civil causes: spiritual penalties alone
could be inflicted on their offences; and as the clergy had extremely
multiplied in England, and many of them were consequently of very low
characters, crimes of the deepest dye—murders, robberies,
adulteries, rapes—were daily committed with impunity by the
ecclesiastics. It had been found, for instance, on inquiry, that no less
than a hundred murders had, since the king’s accession, been perpetrated
by men of that profession, who had never been called to account for these
offences; and holy orders were become a full protection for all
enormities. A clerk in Worcestershire, having debauched a gentleman’s
daughter, had, at this time, proceeded to murder the father; and the
general indignation against this crime moved the king to attempt the
remedy of an abuse which was become so palpable, and to require that the
clerk should be delivered up, and receive condign punishment from the
magistrate. Becket insisted on the privileges of the church; confined the
criminal in the bishop’s prison, lest he should be seized by the king’s
officers; maintained that no greater punishment could be inflicted on him
than degradation; and when the king demanded that, immediately after he
was degraded, he should be tried by the civil power, the primate asserted
that it was iniquitous to try a man twice upon the same accusation, and
for the same offence.
Henry, laying hold of so plausible a pretence, resolved to push the clergy
with regard to all their privileges, which they had raised to an enormous
height, and to determine at once those controversies which daily
multiplied between the civil and the ecclesiastical jurisdictions. He
summoned an assembly of all the prelates in England; and he put to them
this concise and decisive question, whether or not they were willing to
submit to the ancient laws and customs of the kingdom? The bishops
unanimously replied, that they were willing, “saving their own order;” a
device by which they thought to elude the present urgency of the king’s
demand, yet reserve to themselves, on a favorable opportunity, the power
of resuming all their pretensions. The king was sensible of the artifice,
and was provoked to the highest indignation. He left the assembly with
visible marks of his displeasure: he required the primate instantly to
surrender the honors and castles of Eye and Berkham: the bishops were
terrified, and expected still further effects of his resentment. Becket
alone was inflexible; and nothing but the interposition of the pope’s
legate and almoner, Philip, who dreaded a breach with so powerful a prince
at so unseasonable a juncture, could have prevailed on him to retract the
saving clause, and give a general and absolute promise of observing the
ancient customs.
But Henry was not content with a declaration in these general terms; he
resolved, ere it was too late, to define expressly those customs with
which he required compliance, and to put a stop to clerical usurpations,
before they were fully consolidated, and could plead antiquity, as they
already did a sacred authority, in their favor. The claims of the church
were open and visible. After a gradual and insensible progress during many
centuries, the mask had at last been taken off, and several ecclesiastical
councils, by their canons, which were pretended to be irrevocable and
infallible, had positively defined those privileges and immunities which
gave such general offence, and appeared so dangerous to the civil
magistrate. Henry, therefore, deemed it necessary to define with the same
precision the limits of the civil power; to oppose his legal customs to
their divine ordinances; to determine the exact boundaries of the rival
jurisdictions; and for this purpose he summoned a general council of the
nobility and prelates at Clarendon, to whom he submitted this great and
important question. [15th Jan. 1164.]
The barons were all gained to the king’s party, either by the reasons
which he urged, or by his superior authority. The bishops were overawed by
the general combination against them; and the following laws, commonly
called the “Constitutions of Clarendon,” were voted without opposition by
this assembly. It was enacted, that all suits concerning the advowson and
presentation of churches should be determined in the civil courts: that
the churches, belonging to the king’s fee, should not be granted in
perpetuity without his consent; that clerks, accused of any crime, should
be tried in the civil courts: that no person, particularly no clergyman of
any rank, should depart the kingdom without the king’s license: that
excommunicated persons should not be bound to give security for continuing
in their present place of abode: that laics should not be accused in
spiritual courts, except by legal and reputable promoters and witnesses:
that no chief tenant of the crown should be excommunicated, nor his lands
be put under an interdict, except with the king’s consent: that all
appeals in spiritual causes should be carried from the archdeacon to the
bishop, from the bishop to the primate, from him to the king; and should
be carried no farther without the king’s consent: that if any lawsuit
arose between a layman and a clergyman concerning a tenant, and it be
disputed whether the land be a lay or an ecclesiastical fee, it should
first be determined by the verdict of twelve lawful men to what class it
belonged; and if it be found to be a lay fee, the cause should finally be
determined in the civil courts: that no inhabitant in demesne should be
excommunicated for non-appearance in a spiritual court, till the chief
officer of the place where he resides be consulted, that he may compel him
by the civil authority to give satisfaction to the church: that the
archbishops, bishops, and other spiritual dignitaries, should be regarded
as barons of the realm; should possess the privileges and be subjected to
the burdens belonging to that rank; and should be bound to attend the king
in his great councils, and assist at all trials, till the sentence, either
of death or loss of members, be given against the criminal: that the
revenue of vacant sees should belong to the king; the chapter, or such of
them as he pleases to summon, should sit in the king’s chapel till they
made the new election with his consent, and that the bishop elect should
do homage to the crown: that if any baron or tenant “in capite” should
refuse to submit to the spiritual courts, the king should employ his
authority in obliging him to make such submissions; if any of them throw
off his allegiance to the king, the prelates should assist the king with
their censures in reducing him: that goods forfeited to the king should
not be protected in churches or churchyards: that the clergy should no
longer pretend to the right of enforcing payment of debts contracted by
oath or promise; but should leave these lawsuits, equally with others, to
the determination of the civil courts; and that the sons of villains
should not be ordained clerks, without the consent of their lord.
These articles, to the number of sixteen, were calculated to prevent the
chief abuses which had prevailed in ecclesiastical affairs, and to put an
effectual stop to the usurpations of the church, which, gradually stealing
on, had threatened the total destruction of the civil power. Henry,
therefore, by reducing those ancient customs of the realm to writing, and
by collecting them in a body, endeavored to prevent all future dispute
with regard to them; and by passing so many ecclesiastical ordinances in a
national and civil assembly, he fully established the superiority of the
legislature above all papal decrees or spiritual canons, and gained a
signal victory over the ecclesiastics. But as he knew that the bishops,
though overawed by the present combination of the crown and the barons,
would take the first favorable opportunity of denying the authority which
had enacted these constitutions, he resolved that they should all set
their seal to them, and give a promise to observe them. None of the
prelates dared to oppose his will, except Becket, who, though urged by the
earls of Cornwall and Leicester, the barons of principal authority in the
kingdom, obstinately withheld his assent. At last, Richard de Hastings,
grand prior of the templars in England, threw himself on his knees before
him, and with many tears entreated him, if he paid any regard either to
his own safety or that of the church, not to provoke, by a fruitless
opposition, the indignation of a great monarch, who was resolutely bent on
his purpose, and who was determined to take full revenge on every one that
should dare to oppose him. Becket, finding himself deserted by all the
world, even by his own brethren, was at last obliged to comply; and he
promised, “legally, with good faith, and without fraud or reserve,” to
observe the constitutions; and he took an oath to that purpose. The king,
thinking that he had now finally prevailed in this great enterprise, sent
the constitutions to Pope Alexander, who then resided in France; and he
required that pontiff’s ratification of them; but Alexander, who, though
he had owed the most important obligations to the king, plainly saw that
these laws were calculated to establish the independency of England on the
papacy, and of the royal power on the clergy, condemned them in the
strongest terms; abrogated, annulled, and rejected them. There were only
six articles, the least important, which, for the sake of peace, he was
willing to ratify.
Becket, when he observed that he might hope for support in an opposition,
expressed the deepest sorrow for his compliance; and endeavored to engage
all the other bishops in a confederacy to adhere to their common rights,
and to the ecclesiastical privileges, in which he represented the interest
and honor of God to be so deeply concerned. He redoubled his austerities
in order to punish himself for his criminal assent to the constitutions of
Clarendon: he proportioned his discipline to the enormity of his supposed
offence: and he refused to exercise any part of his archiepiscopal
function, till he should receive absolution from the pope, which was
readily granted him. Henry, informed of his present dispositions, resolved
to take vengeance for this refractory behavior; and he attempted to crush
him by means of that very power which Becket made such merit in
supporting. He applied to the pope that he should grant the commission of
legate in his dominions to the archbishop of York; but Alexander, as
politic as he, though he granted the commission, annexed a clause, that it
should not empower the legate to execute any act in prejudice of the
archbishop of Canterbury: and the king, finding how fruitless such an
authority would prove, sent back the commission by the same messenger that
brought it.
The primate, however, who found himself still exposed to the king’s
indignation, endeavored twice to escape secretly from the kingdom; but was
as often detained by contrary winds: and Henry hastened to make him feel
the effects of an obstinacy which he deemed so criminal. He instigated
John, mareschal of the exchequer, to sue Becket in the archiepiscopal
court for some lands, part of the manor of Pageham; and to appeal thence
to the king’s court for justice. On the day appointed for trying the
cause, the primate sent four knights to represent certain irregularities
in John’s appeal; and at the same time to excuse himself, on account of
sickness, for not appearing personally that day in the court. This slight
offence (if it even deserve the name) was represented as a grievous
contempt; the four knights were menaced, and with difficulty escaped being
sent to prison, as offering falsehoods to the court;[*] 18 and
Henry, being determined to prosecute Becket to the utmost, summoned at
Northampton a great council, which he purposed to make the instrument of
his vengeance against the inflexible prelate.
[* See note R, at the end of the volume.]
The king had raised Becket from a low station to the highest offices, had
honored him with his countenance and friendship, had trusted to his
assistance in forwarding his favorite project against the clergy; and when
he found him become of a sudden his most rigid opponent, while every one
beside complied with his will, rage at the disappointment, and indignation
against such signal ingratitude, transported him beyond all bounds of
moderation; and there seems to have entered more of passion than of
justice, or even of policy, in this violent prosecution. The barons,
notwithstanding, in the great council voted whatever sentence he was
pleased to dictate to them; and the bishops themselves, who undoubtedly
bore a secret favor to Becket, and regarded him as the champion of their
privileges, concurred with the rest in the design of oppressing their
primate. In vain did Becket urge that his court was proceeding with the
utmost regularity and justice in trying the mareschal’s cause; which,
however, he said, would appear, from the sheriff’s testimony, to be
entirely unjust and iniquitous: that he himself had discovered no contempt
of the king’s court; but, on the contrary, by sending four knights to
excuse his absence, had virtually acknowledged its authority: that he
also, in consequence of the king’s summons, personally appeared at present
in the great council, ready to justify his cause against the mareschal,
and to submit his conduct to their inquiry and jurisdiction: that even
should it be found that he had been guilty of non-appearance, the laws had
affixed a very slight penalty to that offence; and that as he was an
inhabitant of Kent, where his archiepiscopal palace was seated, he was by
law entitled to some greater indulgence than usual in the rate of his
fine. Notwithstanding these pleas, he was condemned as guilty of a
contempt of the king’s court, and as wanting in the fealty which he had
sworn to his sovereign; all his goods and chattels were confiscated; and
that this triumph over the church might be carried to the utmost, Henry,
bishop of Winchester, the prelate who had been so powerful in the former
reign, was in spite of his remonstrances, obliged, by order of the court,
to pronounce the sentence against him. The primate submitted to the
decree; and all the prelates, except Folliot, bishop of London, who paid
court to the king by this singularity, became sureties for him. It is
remarkable, that several Norman barons voted in this council; and we may
conclude, with some probability, that a like practice had prevailed in
many of the great councils summoned since the conquest. For the
contemporary historian, who has given us a full account of these
transactions, does not mention this circumstance as anywise singular; and
Becket, in all his subsequent remonstrances with regard to the severe
treatment which he had met with, never founds any objection on an
irregularity, which to us appears very palpable and flagrant. So little
precision was there at that time in the government and constitution!
The king was not content with this sentence, however violent and
oppressive. Next day he demanded of Becket the sum of three hundred
pounds, which the primate had levied upon the honors of Eye and Berkham,
while in his possession. Becket, after premising that he was not obliged
to answer to this suit, because it was not contained in his summons; after
remarking that he had expended more than that sum in the repairs of those
castles, and of the royal palace at London, expressed, however, his
resolution, that money should not be any ground of quarrel between him and
his sovereign; he agreed to pay the sum, and immediately gave sureties for
it. In the subsequent meeting, the king demanded five hundred marks,
which, he affirmed, he had lent Becket during the war at Toulouse; and
another sum to the same amount, for which that prince had been surety for
him to a Jew. Immediately after these two claims, he preferred a third, of
still greater importance; he required him to give in the accounts of his
administration while chancellor, and to pay the balance due from the
revenues of all the prelacies, abbeys, and baronies, which had, during
that time, been subjected to his management.[*] Becket observed that, as
this demand was totally unexpected, he had not come prepared to answer it;
but he required a delay, and promised in that case to give satisfaction.
The king insisted upon sureties; and Becket desired leave to consult his
suffragans in a case of such importance.[**]
It is apparent, from the known character of Henry, and from the usual
vigilance of his government, that, when he promoted Becket to the see of
Canterbury, he was, on good grounds, well pleased with his administration
in the former high office with which he had intrusted him; and that, even
if that prelate had dissipated money beyond the income of his place, the
king was satisfied that his expenses were not blamable, and had in the
main been calculated for his service.[***] Two years had since elapsed; no
demand had during that time been made upon him; it was not till the
quarrel arose concerning ecclesiastical privileges, that the claim was
started, and the primate was, of a sudden, required to produce accounts of
such intricacy and extent before a tribunal which had shown a determined
resolution to ruin and oppress him. To find sureties that he should answer
so boundless and uncertain a claim, which in the king’s estimation
amounted to forty-four thousand marks,[****] was impracticable; and
Becket’s suffragans were extremely at a loss what counsel to give him in
such a critical emergency. By the advice of the bishop of Winchester he
offered two thousand marks as a general satisfaction for all demands; but
this offer was rejected by the king,[*****] Some prelates exhorted him to
resign his see, on condition of receiving an acquittal; others were of
opinion that he ought to submit himself entirely to the king’s
mercy;[******] but the primate, thus pushed to the utmost, had too much
courage to sink under oppression; he determined to brave all his enemies,
to trust to the sacredness of his character for protection, to involve his
cause with that of God and religion, and to stand the utmost efforts of
royal indignation.
After a few days spent in deliberation Becket went to church, and said
mass, where he had previously ordered that the entroit to the communion
service should begin with these words, “Princes sat and spake against me;”
the passage appointed for the martyrdom of St. Stephen, whom the primate
thereby tacitly pretended to resemble in his sufferings for the sake of
righteousness. He went thence to court arrayed in his sacred vestments: as
soon as he arrived within the palace gate, he took the cross into his own
hands, bore it aloft as his protection, and marched in that posture into
the royal apartments.[*] The king, who was in an inner room, was
astonished at this parade, by which the primate seemed to menace him and
his court with the sentence of excommunication; and he sent some of the
prelates to remonstrate with him on account of such audacious behavior.
These prelates complained to Becket, that, by subscribing himself to the
constitutions of Clarendon, he had seduced them to imitate his example;
and that now, when it was too late, he pretended to shake off all
subordination to the civil power, and appeared desirous of involving them
in the guilt which must attend any violation of those laws, established by
their consent and ratified by their subscriptions.[**]
Becket replied, that he had indeed subscribed the constitutions of
Clarendon, “legally, with good faith, and without fraud or reserve;” but
in these words was virtually implied a salvo for the rights of their
order, which, being connected with the cause of God and his church, could
never be relinquished by their oaths and engagements: that if he and they
had erred in resigning the ecclesiastical privileges, the best atonement
they could now make was to retract their consent, which in such a case
could never Be obligatory, and to follow the pope’s authority, who had
solemnly annulled the constitutions of Clarendon, and had absolved them
from all oaths which they had taken to observe them: that a determined
resolution was evidently embraced to oppress the church; the storm had
first broken upon him; for a slight offence, and which too was falsely
imputed to him, he had been tyrannically condemned to a grievous penalty;
a new and unheard-of claim was since started, in which he could expect no
justice; and he plainly saw that he was the destined victim, who, by his
ruin, must prepare the way for the abrogation of all spiritual immunities:
that he strictly prohibited them who were his suffragans from assisting at
any such trial, or giving their sanction to any sentence against him; he
put himself and his see under the protection of the supreme pontiff; and
appealed to him against any penalty which his iniquitous judges might
think proper to inflict upon him; and that, however terrible the
indignation of so great a monarch as Henry, his sword could only kill the
body; while that of the church, intrusted into the hands of the primate,
could kill the soul, and throw the disobedient into infinite and eternal
perdition.[*]
Appeals to the pope, even in ecclesiastical causes, had been abolished by
the constitutions of Clarendon, and were become criminal by law but an
appeal in a civil cause, such as the king’s demand upon Becket, was a
practice altogether new and unprecedented; it tended directly to the
subversion of the government, and could receive no color of excuse, except
from the determined resolution, which was but too apparent to Henry and
the great council, to effectuate, without justice, but under color of law,
the total ruin of the inflexible primate. The king, having now obtained a
pretext so much more plausible for his violence, would probably have
pushed the affair to the utmost extremity against him; but Becket gave him
no leisure to conduct the prosecution. He refused so much as to hear the
sentence which the barons, sitting apart from the bishops, and joined to
some sheriffs and barons of the second rank,[**] had given upon the king’s
claim; he departed from the palace; asked Henry’s immediate permission to
leave Northampton; and upon meeting with a refusal, he withdrew secretly,
wandered about in disguise for some time, and at last took shipping and
arrived safely at Gravelines.
The violent and unjust prosecution of Becket had a natural tendency to
turn the public favor on his side, and to make men overlook his former
ingratitude towards the king and his departure from all oaths and
engagements, as well as the enormity of those ecclesiastical privileges,
of which he affected to be the champion. There were many other reasons
which procured him countenance and protection in foreign countries.
Philip, earl of Flanders,[*] and Lewis, king of France,[**] jealous of the
rising greatness of Henry, were well pleased to give him disturbance in
his government; and forgetting that this was the common cause of princes,
they affected to pity extremely the condition of the exiled primate; and
the latter even honored him with a visit at Soissons, in which city he had
invited him to fix his residence.[***]
The pope, whose interests were more immediately concerned in supporting
him, gave a cold reception to a magnificent embassy which Henry sent to
accuse him; while Becket himself, who had come to Sens in order to justify
his cause before the sovereign pontiff was received with the greatest
marks of distinction. The king in revenge, sequestered the revenues of
Canterbury; and by conduct which might be esteemed arbitrary, had there
been at that time any regular check on royal authority, he banished all
the primate’s relations and domestics, to the number of four hundred, whom
he obliged to swear, before their departure, that they would instantly
join their patron. But this policy, by which Henry endeavored to reduce
Becket sooner to necessity, lost its effect; the pope, when they arrived
beyond sea, absolved them from their oath, and distributed them among the
convents in Franc? and Flanders; a residence was assigned to Becket
himself, in the convent of Pontigny, where he lived for some years in
great magnificence, partly from a pension granted him on the revenues of
that abbey, partly from remittances made him by the French monarch.
1165.
The more to ingratiate himself with the pope, Becket resigned into his
hands the see of Canterbury, to which, he affirmed, he had been
uncanonically elected, by the authority of the royal mandate; and
Alexander, in his turn, besides investing him anew with that dignity,
pretended to abrogate by a bull, the sentence which the great council of
England had passed against him. Henry, after attempting in vain to procure
a conference with the pope, who departed soon after for Rome, whither the
prosperous state of his affairs now invited him, made provisions against
the consequences of that breach which impended between his kingdom and the
apostolic see. He issued orders to his justiciaries, inhibiting, under
severe penalties, all appeals to the pope or archbishop, forbidding any
one to receive any mandates from them, or apply in any case to their
authority; declaring it treasonable to bring from either of them an
interdict upon the kingdom, and punishable in secular clergymen, by the
loss of their eyes and by castration, in regulars by amputation of their
feet, and in laies with death; and menacing with sequestration and
banishment the persons themselves, as well as their kindred, who should
pay obedience to any such interdict; and he further obliged all his
subjects to swear to the observance of those orders.[*] These were edicts
of the utmost importance, affected the lives and properties of all the
subjects, and even changed, for the time, the national religion, by
breaking off all communication with Rome; yet were they enacted by the
sole authority of the king, and were derived entirely from his will and
pleasure.
The spiritual powers, which, in the primitive church, were, in a great
measure, dependent on the civil, had, by a gradual progress, reached an
equality and independence; and though the limits of the two jurisdictions
were difficult to ascertain or define, it was not impossible but, by
moderation on both sides, government might still have been conducted in
that imperfect and irregular manner which attends all human institutions
But as the ignorance of the age encouraged the ecclesiastics daily to
extend their privileges, and even to advance maxims totally incompatible
with civil government,[**] Henry had thought it high time to put an end to
their pretensions, and formally, in a public council, to fix those powers
which belonged to the magistrate, and which he was for the future
determined to maintain. In this attempt he was led to reestablish customs
which, though ancient, were beginning to be abolished by a contrary
practice, and which were still more strongly opposed by the prevailing
opinions and sentiments of the age.
Principle, therefore, stood on the one side, power on the other; and if
the English had been actuated by conscience more than by present interest,
the controversy must soon, by the general defection of Henry’s subjects,
have been decided against him, Becket, in order to forward this event,
filled all places with exclamations against the violence which he had
suffered. He compared himself to Christ, who had been condemned by a lay
tribunal,[*] and who was crucified anew in the present oppressions under
which his church labored: he took it for granted, as a point
incontestable, that his cause was the cause of God:[**] he assumed the
character of champion for the patrimony of the divinity: he pretended to
be the spiritual father of the king and all the people of England:[***] he
even told Henry that kings reign solely by the authority of the
church,[****] and though he had thus torn off the veil more openly on the
one side than that prince had on the other, he seemed still, from the
general favor borne him by the ecclesiastics, to have all the advantage in
the argument. The king, that he might employ the weapons of temporal power
remaining in his hands, suspended the payment of Peter’s pence; he made
advances towards an alliance with the emperor Frederic Barbarossa, who was
at that time engaged in violent wars with Pope Alexander; he discovered
some intentions of acknowledging Pascal III., the present antipope, who
was protected by that emperor; and by these expedients he endeavored to
terrify the enterprising though prudent pontiff from proceeding to
extremities against him.
1166.
But the violence of Becket, still more than the nature of the controversy,
kept affairs from remaining long in suspense between the parties. That
prelate, instigated by revenge, and animated by the present glory
attending his situation, pushed matters to a decision, and issued a
censure excommunicating the king’s chief ministers by name, and
comprehending in general all those who favored or obeyed the constitutions
of Clarendon: these constitutions he abrogated and annulled; he absolved
all men from the oaths which they had taken to observe them; and he
suspended the spiritual thunder over Henry himself only that the prince
might avoid the blow by a timely repentance.[*****]
The situation of Henry was so unhappy, that he could employ no expedient
for saving his ministers from this terrible censure, but by appealing to
the pope himself, and having recourse to a tribunal whose authority he had
himself attempted to abridge in this very article of appeals, and which he
knew was so deeply engaged on the side of his adversary. But even this
expedient was not likely to be long effectual. Becket had obtained from
the pope a legantine commission over England; and in virtue of that
authority, which admitted of no appeal, he summoned the bishops of London,
Salisbury, and others to attend him, and ordered, under pain of
excommunication, the ecclesiastics, sequestered on his account, to be
restored in two months to all their benefices. But John of Oxford, the
king’s agent with the pope, had the address to procure orders for
suspending this sentence; and he gave the pontiff such hopes of a speedy
reconcilement between the king and Becket, that two legates, William of
Pavia and Otho, were sent to Normandy, where the king then resided, and
they endeavored to find expedients for that purpose. But the pretensions
of the parties were as yet too opposite to admit of an accommodation: the
king required that all the constitutions of Clarendon should be ratified;
Becket, that previously to any agreement, he and his adherents should be
restored to their possessions; and as the legates had no power to
pronounce a definite sentence on either side, the negotiation soon after
came to nothing. The cardinal of Pavia also, being much attached to Henry,
took care to protract the negotiation; to mitigate the pope by the
accounts which he sent of that prince’s conduct, and to procure him every
possible indulgence from the see of Rome. About this time, the king had
also the address to obtain a dispensation for the marriage of his third
son, Geoffrey, with the heiress of Brittany; a concession which,
considering Henry’s demerits towards the church, gave great scandal both
to Becket, and to his zealous patron, the king of France.
1167.
The intricacies of the feudal law had, in that age, rendered the
boundaries of power between the prince and his vassals, and between one
prince and another, as uncertain as those between the crown and the mitre;
and all wars took their origin from disputes, which, had there been any
tribunal possessed of power to enforce their decrees, ought to have been
decided only before a court of judicature. Henry, in prosecution of some
controversies in which he was involved with the count of Auvergne, a
vassal of the duchy of Guienne, bad invaded the territories of that
nobleman; who had recourse to the king of France, his superior lord, for
protection, and thereby kindled a war between the two monarchs. Bur the
war was, as usual, no less feeble in its operations than it wail frivolous
in its cause and object; and after occasioning some mutual
depredations,[*] and some insurrections among the barons of Poictou and
Guienne, was terminated by a peace. The terms of this peace were rather
disadvantageous to Henry, and prove that that prince had, by reason of his
contest with the church, lost the superiority which he had hitherto
maintained over the crown of France; an additional motive to him for
accommodating those differences.
The pope and the king began at last to perceive that, in the present
situation of affairs, neither of them could expect a final and decisive
victory over the other, and that they had more to fear than to hope from
the duration of the controversy. Though the vigor of Henry’s government
had confirmed his authority in all his dominions, his throne might be
shaken by a sentence of excommunication; and if England itself could, by
its situation, be more easily guarded against the contagion of
superstitious prejudices, his French provinces at least, whose
communication was open with the neighboring states, would be much exposed,
on that account, to some great revolution or convulsion, He could not,
therefore, reasonably imagine that the pope, while he retained such a
check upon him, would formally recognize the constitutions of Clarendon,
which both put an end to papal pretensions in England,[**] and would give
an example to other states of asserting a like independency.[***]
Pope Alexander, on the other hand, being still engaged in dangerous wars
with the emperor Frederic, might justly apprehend that Henry, rather than
relinquish claims of such importance, would join the party of his enemy;
and as the trials hitherto made of the spiritual weapons by Becket had not
succeeded to his expectation, and every thing had remained quiet in all
the king’s dominions, nothing seemed impossible to the capacity and
vigilance of so great a monarch. The disposition of minds on both sides,
resulting from these circumstances, produced frequent attempts towards an
accommodation; but as both parties knew that the essential articles of the
dispute could not then be terminated, they entertained a perpetual
jealousy of each other, and were anxious not to lose the least advantage
in the negotiation. The nuncios, Gratian and Vivian, having received a
commission to endeavor a reconciliation, met with the king in Normandy;
and after all differences seemed to be adjusted, Henry offered to sign the
treaty, with a salvo to his royal dignity; which gave such umbrage to
Becket, that the negotiation in the end became fruitless, and the
excommunications were renewed against the king’s ministers. Another
negotiation was conducted at Montmirail, in presence of the king of France
and the French prelates where Becket also offered to make his submissions,
with a salvo to the honor of God and the liberties of the church; which,
for a like reason, was extremely offensive to the king, and rendered the
treaty abortive,
1169.
A third conference, under the same mediation, was broken off, by Becket’s
insisting on a like reserve in his submissions; and even in a fourth
treaty, when all the terms were adjusted, and when the primate expected to
be introduced to the king, and to receive the kiss of peace, which it was
usual for princes to grant in those times, and which was regarded as a
sure pledge of forgiveness, Henry refused him that honor, under pretence
that, during his anger, he had made a rash vow to that purpose. This
formality served, among such jealous spirits, to prevent the conclusion of
the treaty; and though the difficulty was attempted to be overcome by a
dispensation which the pope granted to Henry from his vow, that prince
could not be pre vailed on to depart from the resolution which he had
taken.
In one of these conferences, at which the French king was present, Henry
said to that monarch, “There have been many kings of England, some of
greater, some of less authority than myself: there have also been many
archbishops of Canterbury, holy and good men, and entitled to every kind
of respect: let Becket but act towards me with the same submission which
the greatest of his predecessors have paid to the least of mine, and there
shall be no controversy between us.” Lewis was so struck with this state
of the case, and with an offer which Henry made to submit his cause to the
French clergy, that he could not forbear condemning the primate, and
withdrawing his friendship from him during some time; but the bigotry of
that prince, and their common animosity against Henry, soon produced a
renewal of their former good correspondence.
1170.
All difficulties were at last adjusted between the parties; and the king
allowed Becket to return, on conditions which may be esteemed both
honorable and advantageous to that prelate. He was not required to give up
any rights of the church, or resign any of those pretensions which had
been the original ground of the controversy. It was agreed that all these
questions should be buried in oblivion; but that Becket and his adherents
should, without making further submission, be restored to all their
livings, and that even the possessors of such benefices as depended on the
see of Canterbury and had been filled during the primate’s absence, should
be expelled, and Becket have liberty to supply the vacancies.[*] In return
for concessions which intrenched so deeply on the honor and dignity of the
crown, Henry reaped only the advantage of seeing his ministers absolved
from the sentence of excommunication pronounced against them, and of
preventing the interdict, which, if these hard conditions had not been
complied with, was ready to be laid on all his dominions.[**] It was easy
to see how much he dreaded that event, when a prince of so high a spirit
could submit to terms so dishonorable, in order to prevent it. So anxious
was Henry to accommodate all differences, and to reconcile himself fully
with Becket, that he took the most extraordinary steps to flatter his
vanity, and even on one occasion humiliated himself so far as to hold the
stirrup of that haughty prelate while he mounted.[***]
But the king attained not even that temporary tranquillity which he had
hoped to reap from these expedients. During the heat of his quarrel with
Becket, while he was every day expecting an interdict to be laid on his
kingdom, and a sentence of excommunication to be fulminated against his
person, he had thought it prudent to have his son. Prince Henry,
associated with him in the royalty, and to make him be crowned king, by
the hands of Roger, archbishop of York. By this precaution, he both
insured the succession of that prince, which, considering the many past
irregularities in that point, could not but be esteemed somewhat
precarious; and he preserved at least his family on the throne, if the
sentence of excommunication should have the effect which he dreaded, and
should make his subjects renounce their allegiance to him. Though his
design was conducted with expedition and secrecy, Becket, before it was
carried into execution, had got intelligence of it, and being desirous of
obstructing all Henry’s measures, as well as anxious to prevent this
affront to himself, who pretended to the sole right, as archbishop of
Canterbury, to officiate in the coronation, he had inhibited all the
prelates of England from assisting at this ceremony, had procured from the
pope a mandate to the same purpose, and had incited the king of France to
protest against the coronation of young Henry, unless the princess,
daughter of that monarch, should at the same time receive the royal
unction. There prevailed in that age an opinion which was akin to its
other superstitions, that the royal unction was essential to the exercise
of royal power: it was therefore natural, both for the king of France,
careful of his daughter’s establishment and for Becket, jealous of his own
dignity, to demand, in the treaty with Henry, some satisfaction in this
essential point. Henry, after apologizing to Lewis for the omission with
regard to Margaret, and excusing it on account of the secrecy and despatch
requisite for conducting that measure, promised that the ceremony should
be renewed in the persons both of the prince and princess; and he assured
Becket, that besides receiving the acknowledgments of Roger and the other
bishops for the seeming affront put on the see of Canterbury, the primate
should, as a further satisfaction, recover his rights by officiating in
this coronation. But the violent spirit of Becket, elated by the power of
the church, and by the victory which he had already obtained over his
sovereign, was not content with this voluntary compensation, but resolved
to make the injury, which he pretended to have suffered, a handle for
taking revenge on all his enemies. On his arrival in England, he met the
archbishop of York and the bishops of London and Salisbury, who were on
their journey to the king in Normandy. He notified to the archbishop the
sentence of suspension, and to the two bishops that of excommunication,
which, at his solicitation, the pope had pronounced against them. Reginald
de Warrenne and Gervase de Cornhill, two of the king’s ministers, who were
employed on their duty in Kent, asked him, on hearing of this bold attempt
whether he meant to bring fire and sword into the kingdom. But the
primate, heedless of the reproof, proceeded in the most ostentatious
manner to take possession of his diocese in Rochester and all the towns
through which he passed, he was received with the shouts and acclamations
of the populace. As he approached Southwark, the clergy, the laity, men of
all ranks and ages, came forth to meet him, and celebrated with hymns of
joy his triumphant entrance. And though he was obliged, by order of the
young prince, who resided at Woodstock, to return to his diocese, he found
that he was not mistaken, when he reckoned upon the highest veneration of
the public towards his person and his dignity. He proceeded, therefore,
with the more courage to dart his spiritual thunders. He issued the
sentence of excommunication against Robert de Broc and Nigel de Sackville,
with many others, who either had assisted at the coronation of the prince,
or been active in the late persecution of the exiled clergy. This violent
measure, by which he, in effect, denounced war against the king himself,
is commonly ascribed to the vindictive disposition and imperious character
of Becket; but as this prelate was also a man of acknowledged abilities,
we are not in his passions alone to look for the cause of his conduct,
when he proceeded to these extremities against his enemies. His sagacity
had led him to discover all Henry’s intentions; and he proposed, by this
bold and unexpected assault, to prevent the execution of them.
The king, from his experience of the dispositions of his people, was
become sensible that his enterprise had been too bold, in establishing the
constitutions of Clarendon, in defining all the branches of royal power,
and in endeavoring to extort from the church of England, as well as from
the pope, an express avowal of these disputed prerogatives. Conscious also
of his own violence in attempting to break or subdue the inflexible
primate, he was not displeased to undo that measure which had given his
enemies such advantage against him, and he was contented that the
controversy should terminate in that ambiguous manner, which was the
utmost that princes, in those ages, could hope to attain in their disputes
with the see of Rome. Though he dropped for the present the prosecution of
Becket, he still reserved to himself the right of maintaining, that the
constitutions of Clarendon, the original ground of the quarrel, were both
the ancient customs and the present law of the realm; and though he knew
that the papal clergy asserted them to be impious in themselves, as well
as abrogated by the sentence of the sovereign pontiff, he intended, in
spite of their clamors, steadily to put those laws in execution, and to
trust to his own abilities, and to the course of events, for success in
that perilous enterprise. He hoped that Becket’s experience of a six
years’ exile would, after his pride was fully gratified by his
restoration, be sufficient tc teach him more reserve in his opposition; or
if any controversy arose, he expected thenceforth to engage in a more
favorable cause, and to maintain with advantage, while the primate was now
in his power, the ancient and undoubted customs of the kingdom against the
usurpations of the clergy. But Becket, determined not to betray the
ecclesiastical privileges by his connivance, and apprehensive lest a
prince of such profound policy, if allowed to proceed in his own way,
might probably in the end prevail, resolved to take all the advantage
which his present victory gave him, and to disconcert the cautious
measures of the king, by the vehemence and rigor of his own conduct.
Assured of support from Rome, he was little intimidated by dangers which
his courage taught him to despise, and which, even if attended with the
most fatal consequences, would serve only to gratify his ambition and
thirst of glory.
When the suspended and excommunicated prelates arrived at Baieux, where
the king then resided, and complained to him of the violent proceedings of
Becket, he instantly perceived the consequences; was sensible that his
whole plan of operations was overthrown; foresaw that the dangerous
contest between the civil and spiritual powers, a contest which he himself
had first roused, but which he had endeavored, by all his late
negotiations and concessions, to appease, must come to an immediate and
decisive issue; and he was thence thrown into the most violent commotion.
The archbishop of York remarked to him, that so long as Becket lived, he
could never expect to enjoy peace or tranquillity. The king himself, being
vehemently agitated, burst forth into an exclamation against his servants,
whose want of zeal, he said, had so long left him exposed to the
enterprises of that ungrateful and imperious prelate. Four gentlemen of
his household, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de Traci, Hugh de Moreville,
and Richard Brito, taking these passionate expressions to be a hint for
Becket’s death, immediately communicated their thoughts to each other; and
swearing to avenge their prince’s quarrel secretly withdrew from court.
Some menacing expressions which they had dropped, gave a suspicion of
their design; and the king despatched a messenger after them, charging
them to attempt nothing against the person of the primate; but these
orders arrived too late to prevent their fatal purpose. The four
assassins, though they took different roads to England, arrived nearly
about the same time at Saltwoode, near Canterbury; and being there joined
by some assistants, they proceeded in a great haste to the archiepiscopal
palace. They found the primate, who trusted entirely to the sacredness of
his character, very slenderly attended; and though they threw out many
menaces and reproaches against him, he was so incapable of fear, that,
without using any precautions against their violence, he immediately went
to St. Benedict’s church, to hear vespers. They followed him thither,
attacked him before the altar, and having cloven his head with many blows,
retired without meeting any opposition. This was the tragical end of
Thomas à Becket, a prelate of the most lofty, intrepid, and inflexible
spirit, who was able to cover to the world, and probably to himself, the
enterprises of pride and ambition, under the disguise of sanctity, and of
zeal for the interests of religion; an extraordinary personage, surely,
had he been allowed to remain in his first station, and had directed the
vehemence of his character to the support of law and justice; instead of
being engaged, by the prejudices of the times, to sacrifice all private
duties and public connections to ties which he imagined, or represented,
as superior to every civil and political consideration. But no man, who
enters into the genius of that age, can reasonably doubt of this prelate’s
sincerity. The spirit of superstition was so prevalent, that it infallibly
caught every careless reasoner, much more every one whose interest, and
honor, and ambition were engaged to support it. All the wretched
literature of the times was enlisted on that side. Some faint glimmerings
of common sense might sometimes pierce through the thick cloud of
ignorance, or, what was worse, the illusions of perverted science, which
had blotted out the sun, and enveloped the face of nature; but those who
preserved themselves untainted by the general contagion, proceeded on no
principles which they could pretend to justify; they were more indebted to
their total want of instruction than to their knowledge, if they still
retained some share of understanding; folly was possessed of all the
schools as well as all the churches; and her votaries assumed the garb of
philosophers, together with the ensigns of spiritual dignities. Throughout
that large collection of letters which bears the name of St. Thomas, we
find, in all the retainers of that aspiring prelate, no less than in
himself, a most entire and absolute conviction of the reason and piety of
their own party, and a disdain of their antagonists; nor is there less
cant and grimace in their style, when they address each other, than when
they compose manifestoes for the perusal of the public. The spirit of
revenge, violence, and ambition which accompanied their conduct, instead
of forming a presumption of hypocrisy, are the surest pledges of their
sincere attachment to a cause which so much flattered these domineering
passions.
Henry, on the first report of Becket’s violent measures, had purposed to
have him arrested, and had already taken some steps towards the execution
of that design; but the intelligence of his murder threw the prince into
great consternation; and he was immediately sensible of the dangerous
consequences which he had reason to apprehend from so unexpected an event.
An archbishop of reputed sanctity assassinated before the altar, in the
exercise of his functions, and on account of his zeal in maintaining
ecclesiastical privileges, must attain the highest honors of martyrdom;
while his murderer would be ranked among the most bloody tyrants that ever
were exposed to the hatred and detestation of mankind. Interdicts and
excommunications, weapons in themselves so terrible, would, he foresaw, be
armed with double force, when employed in a cause so much calculated to
work on the human passions, and so peculiarly adapted to the eloquence of
popular preachers and declaimers. In vain would he plead his own
innocence, and even his total ignorance of the fact; he was sufficiently
guilty, if the church thought proper to esteem him such; and his
concurrence in Becket’s martyrdom, becoming a religious opinion, would be
received with all the implicit credit which belonged to the most
established articles of faith. These considerations gave the king the most
unaffected concern; and as it was extremely his interest to clear himself
from all suspicion, he took no care to conceal the depth of his
affliction. He shut himself up from the light of day, and from all
commerce with his servants; he even refused, during three days, all food
and sustenance; the courtiers, apprehending dangerous effects from his
despair were at last obliged to break in upon his solitude; and they
employed every topic of consolation, induced him to accept of nourishment,
and occupied his leisure in taking precautions against the consequences
which he so justly apprehended from the murder of the primate.
1171.
The point of chief importance to Henry was to convince the pope of his
innocence; or rather, to persuade him that he would reap greater
advantages from the submissions of England than from proceeding to
extremities against that kingdom. The archbishop of Rouen, the bishops of
Worcester and Evreux, with five persons of inferior quality, were
immediately despatched to Rome, and orders were given them to perform
their journey with the utmost expedition. Though the name and authority of
the court of Rome were so terrible in the remote countries of Europe,
which were sunk in profound ignorance, and were entirely unacquainted with
its character and conduct, the pope was so little revered at home, that
his inveterate enemies surrounded the gates of Rome itself, and even
controlled his government in that city; and the ambassadors, who, from a
distant extremity of Europe, carried to him the humble, or rather abject
submissions of the greatest potentate of the age, found the utmost
difficulty to make their way to him and to throw themselves at his feet.
It was at length agreed that Richard Barre, one of their number, should
leave the rest behind, and run all the hazards of the passage, in order to
prevent the fatal consequences which might ensue from any delay in giving
satisfaction to his holiness. He found, on his arrival, that Alexander was
already wrought up to the greatest rage against the king, that Becket’s
partisans were daily stimulating him to revenge, that the king of France
had exhorted him to fulminate the most dreadful sentence against England,
and that the very mention of Henry’s name before the sacred college, was
received with every expression of horror and execration.
The Thursday before Easter was now approaching, when it is customary for
the pope to denounce annual curses against all his enemies; and it was
expected that Henry should, with all the preparations peculiar to the
discharge of that sacred artillery, be solemnly comprehended in the
number. But Barre found means to appease the pontiff, and to deter him
from a measure which, if it failed of success, could not afterwards be
easily recalled: the anathemas were only levelled in general against all
the actors, accomplices and abettors of Becket’s murder. The abbot of
Valasse, and the archdeacons of Salisbury and Lisieux, with others of
Henry’s ministers, who soon after arrived, besides asserting their
prince’s innocence, made oath before the whole consistory, that he would
stand to the pope’s judgment in the affair, and make every submission that
should be required of him. The terrible blow was thus artfully eluded; the
cardinals Albert and Theodin were appointed legates to examine the cause,
and were ordered to proceed to Normandy for that purpose; and though
Henry’s foreign dominions were already laid under an interdict by the
archbishop of Sens, Becket’s great partisan, and the pope’s legate in
France, the general expectation that the monarch would easily exculpate
himself from any concurrence in the guilt, kept every one in suspense, and
prevented all the bad consequences which might be dreaded from that
sentence.
The clergy, meanwhile, though their rage was happily diverted from falling
on the king, were not idle in magnifying the sanctity of Becket, in
extolling the merits of his martyrdom, and in exalting him above all that
devoted tribe who, in several ages, had, by their blood, cemented the
fabric of the temple. Other saints had only borne testimony by their
sufferings to the general doctrines of Christianity; but Becket had
sacrificed his life to the power and privileges of the clergy; and this
peculiar merit challenged, and not in vain, a suitable acknowledgment to
his memory. Endless were the panegyrics on his virtues; and the miracles
wrought by his relics were more numerous, more nonsensical, and more
impudently attested than those which ever filled the legend of any
confessor or martyr. Two years after his death, he was canonized by Pope
Alexander; a solemn jubilee was established for celebrating his merits;
his body was removed to a magnificent shrine, enriched with presents from
all parts of Christendom; pilgrimages were performed to obtain his
intercession with Heaven, and it was computed, that in one year above a
hundred thousand pilgrims arrived in Canterbury, and paid their devotions
at his tomb. It is indeed a mortifying reflection to those who are
actuated by the love of fame, so justly denominated the last infirmity of
noble minds, that the wisest legislator and most exalted genius that ever
reformed or enlightened the world, can never expect such tributes of
praise an are lavished on the memory of pretended saints, whose whole
conduct was probably to the last degree odious or contemptible, and whose
industry was entirely directed to the pursuit of objects pernicious to
mankind. It is only a conqueror, a personage no less entitled to our
hatred, who can pretend to the attainment of equal renown and glory.
It may not be amiss to remark, before we conclude this subject of Thomas à
Becket, that the king, during his controversy with that prelate, was on
every occasion more anxious than usual to express his zeal for religion,
and to avoid all appearance of a profane negligence on that head. He gave
his consent to the imposing of a tax on all his dominions, for the
delivery of the Holy Land, now threatened by the famous Salad me: this tax
amounted to twopence a pound for one year, and a penny a pound for the
four subsequent.[*] Almost all the princes of Europe laid a like
imposition on their subjects, which received the name of Saladine’s tax.
During this period there came over from Germany about thirty heretics of
both sexes, under the direction of one Gerard, simple, ignorant people,
who could give no account of their faith, but declared themselves ready to
suffer for the tenets of their master. They made only one convert in
England, a woman as ignorant as themselves; yet they gave such umbrage to
the clergy, that they were delivered over to the secular arm, and were
punished by being burned on the forehead, and then whipped through the
streets. They seemed to exult in their sufferings, and as they went along
sung the beatitude, “Blessed are ye, when men hate you and persecute
you.”[**]
After they were whipped, they were thrust out almost naked in the midst of
winter, and perished through cold and hunger; no one daring, or being
willing, to give them the least relief. We are ignorant of the particular
tenets of these people; for it would be imprudent to rely on the
representations left of them by the clergy, who affirm, that they denied
the efficacy of the sacraments and the unity of the church. It is probable
that their departure from the standard of orthodoxy was still more subtile
and minute. They seem to have been the first that ever suffered for heresy
in England.
As soon as Henry found that he was in no immediate danger from the
thunders of the Vatican, he undertook an expedition against Ireland; a
design which he had long projected, and by which he hoped to recover his
credit, somewhat impaired by his late transactions with the hierarchy.
CHAPTER IX.
HENRY II.
1172.
As Britain was first peopled from Gaul, so was Ireland probably from
Britain; and the inhabitants of all these countries seem to have been so
many tribes of the Celtae, who derive their origin from an antiquity that
lies far beyond the records of any history or tradition. The Irish, from
the beginning of time, had been buried in the most profound barbarism and
ignorance; and as they were never conquered or even invaded by the Romans,
from whom all the western world derived its civility, they continued still
in the most rude state of society, and were distinguished by those vices
alone, to which human nature, not tamed by education or restrained by
laws, is forever subject. The small principalities into which they were
divided, exercised perpetual rapine and violence against each other: the
uncertain succession of their princes was a continual source of domestic
convulsions; the usual title of each petty sovereign was the murder of his
predecessor; courage and force, though exercised in the commission of
crimes, were more honored than any pacific virtues; and the most simple
arts of life, even tillage and agriculture, were almost wholly unknown
among them. They had felt the invasions of the Danes and the other
northern tribes; but these inroads, which had spread barbarism in other
parts of Europe, tended rather to improve the Irish; and the only towns
which were to be found in the island, had been planted along the coast by
the freebooters of Norway and Denmark. The other inhabitants exercised
pasturage in the open country, sought protection from any danger in their
forests and morasses, and being divided by the fiercest animosities
against each other, were still more intent on the means of mutual injury
than on the expedients for common or even for private interest.
Besides many small tribes, there were in the age of Henry II. five
principal sovereignties in the island, Minister, Leinster Meath, Ulster,
and Connaught; and as it had been usual for the one or the other of these
to take the lead in their wars, there was commonly some prince, who
seemed, for the time, to act as monarch of Ireland. Roderic O’Connor, king
of Connaught, was then advanced to this dignity;[*] but his government,
ill obeyed even within his own territory, could not unite the people in
any measures, either for the establishment of order, or for defence
against foreigners.
The ambition of Henry had, very early in his reign, been moved, by the
prospect of these advantages, to attempt the subjecting of Ireland; and a
pretence was only wanting to invade a people who, being always confined to
their own island, had never given any reason of complaint to any of their
neighbors. For this purpose he had recourse to Rome, which assumed a right
to dispose of kingdoms and empires; and not foreseeing the dangerous
disputes which he was one day to maintain with that see, he helped, for
present, or rather for an imaginary convenience, to give sanction to
claims which were now become dangerous to all sovereigns. Adrian III., who
then filled the papal chair, was by birth an Englishman; and being on that
account the more disposed to oblige Henry, he was easily persuaded to act
as master of the world, and to make, without any hazard or expense, the
acquisition of a great island to his spiritual jurisdiction. The Irish
had, by precedent missions from the Britons, been imperfectly converted to
Christianity; and, what the pope regarded as the surest mark of their
imperfect conversion, they followed the doctrines of their first teachers,
and had never acknowledged any subjection to the see of Rome. Adrian,
therefore, in the year 1156 issued a bull in favor of Henry; in which,
after premising that this prince had ever shown an anxious care to enlarge
the church of God on earth, and to increase the number of his saints and
elect in heaven, he represents his design of subduing Ireland as derived
from the same pious motives: he considers his care of previously applying
for the apostolic sanction as a sure earnest of success and victory; and
having established it as a point incontestable, that all Christian
kingdoms belong to the patrimony of St. Peter, he acknowledges it to be
his own duty to sow among them the seeds of the gospel, which might in the
last day fructify to their eternal salvation: he exhorts the king to
invade Ireland, in order to extirpate the vice and wickedness of the
natives, and oblige them to pay yearly, from every house a penny to the
see of Rome: he gives him entire right and authority over the island,
commands all the inhabitants to obey him as their sovereign, and invests
with full power all such godly instruments as he should think proper to
employ in an enterprise thus calculated for the glory of God and the
salvation of the souls of men.[*] Henry, though armed with this authority,
did not immediately put his design in execution; but being detained by
more interesting business on the continent, waited for a favorable
opportunity of invading Ireland. Dermot Macmorrogh, king of Leinster, had,
by his licentious tyranny, rendered himself odious to his subjects, who
seized with alacrity the first occasion that offered of throwing off the
yoke, which was become grievous and oppressive to them. This prince had
formed a design on Dovergilda, wife of Ororic, prince of Breffny; and
taking advantage of her husband’s absence, who, being obliged to visit a
distant part of his territory, had left his wife secure, as he thought, in
an island surrounded by a bog, he suddenly invaded the place, and carried
off the princess.[**] This exploit, though usual among the Irish, and
rather deemed a proof of gallantry and spirit,[***] provoked the
resentment of the husband; who, having collected forces, and being
strengthened by the alliance of Roderic, king of Connaught, invaded the
dominions of Dermot, and expelled him his kingdom. The exiled prince had
recourse to Henry, who was at this time in Guienne, craved his assistance
in restoring him to his sovereignty, and offered, on that event, to hold
his kingdom in vassalage under the crown of England. Henry, whose views
were already turned towards making acquisitions in Ireland, readily
accepted the offer; but being at that time embarrassed by the rebellions
of his French subjects, as well as by his disputes with the see of Rome,
he declined, for the present, embarking in the enterprise, and gave Dermot
no further assistance than letters patent, by which he empowered all his
subjects to aid the Irish prince in the recovery of his dominions.[****]
Dermot, supported by this authority, came to Bristol; and after
endeavoring, though for some time in vain, to engage adventurers in the
enterprise, he at last formed a treaty with Richard, surnamed Strongbow,
earl of Strigul. This nobleman, who was of the illustrious house of Clare,
had impaired his fortune by expensive pleasures; and being ready for any
desperate undertaking, he promised assistance to Dermot, on condition that
he should espouse Eva, daughter of that prince, and be declared heir to
all his dominions. While Richard was assembling his succors, Dermot went
into Wales; and meeting with Robert Fitz-Stephens, constable of Abertivi,
and Maurice Fitz-Gerald he also engaged them in his service, and obtained
their promise of invading Ireland. Being now assured of succor, he
returned privately to his own state; and lurking in the monastery of
Fernes, which he had founded, (for this ruffian was also a founder of
monasteries,) he prepared every thing for the reception of his English
allies.
The troops of Fitz-Stephens were first ready. That gentleman landed in
Ireland with thirty knights, sixty esquires, and three hundred archers;
but this small body, being brave men, not unacquainted with discipline,
and completely armed,—a thing almost unknown in Ireland,—struck
a great terror into the barbarous inhabitants, and seemed to menace them
with some signal revolution. The conjunction of Maurice de Prendergast,
who, about the same time, brought over ten knights and sixty archers,
enabled Fitz-Stephens to attempt the siege of Wexford, a town inhabited by
the Danes; and after gaining an advantage, he made himself master of the
place. Soon after, Fitz-Gerald arrived with ten knights, thirty esquires,
and a hundred archers; and being joined by the former adventurers,
composed a force which nothing in Ireland was able to withstand. Roderic,
the chief monarch of the island, was foiled in different actions: the
prince of Ossory was obliged to submit, and give hostages for his
peaceable behavior; and Dermot, not content with being restored to his
kingdom of Leinster, projected the dethroning of Roderic, and aspired to
the sole dominion over the Irish.
In prosecution of these views, he sent over a messenger to the earl of
Strigul, challenging the performance of his promise, and displaying the
mighty advantages which might now be reaped by a reënforcement of warlike
troops from England. Richard, not satisfied with the general allowance
given by Henry to all his subjects, went to that prince, then in Normandy,
and having obtained a cold or ambiguous permission, prepared himself for
the execution of his designs. He first sent over Raymond, one of his
retinue, with ten knights and seventy archers, who, landing near
Waterford, defeated a body of three thousand Irish that had ventured to
attack him, and as Richard himself, who brought over two hundred horse and
a body of archers, joined, a few days after, the victorious English, they
made themselves masters of Waterford, and proceeded to Dublin, which was
taken by assault. Roderic, in revenge, cut off the head of Dermot’s
natural son, who had been left as a hostage in his hands; and Richard,
marrying Eva, became soon after, by the death of Dermot, master of the
kingdom of Leinster, and prepared to extend his authority over all
Ireland. Roderic, and the other Irish princes, were alarmed at the danger;
and combining together, besieged Dublin with an army of thirty thousand
men; but Earl Richard, making a sudden sally at the head of ninety knights
with their followers, put this numerous army to rout, chased them off the
field, and pursued them with great slaughter. None in Ireland now dared to
oppose themselves to the English.
Henry, jealous of the progress made by his own subjects, sent orders to
recall all the English, and he made preparations to attack Ireland in
person; but Richard and the other adventurers found means to appease him,
by making him the most humble submissions, and offering to hold all their
acquisitions in vassalage to his crown. That monarch landed in Ireland at
the head of five hundred knights, besides other soldiers; he found the
Irish so dispirited by their late misfortunes, that, in a progress which
he made through the island, he had no other occupation than to receive the
homage of his new subjects. He left most of the Irish chieftains or
princes in possession of their ancient territories; bestowed some lands on
the English adventurers; gave Earl Richard the commission of seneschal of
Ireland; and after a stay of a few months, returned in triumph to England.
By these trivial exploits, scarcely worth relating, except for the
importance of the consequences, was Ireland subdued, and annexed to the
English crown.
The low state of commerce and industry during those ages made it
impracticable for princes to support regular armies, which might retain a
conquered country in subjection; and the extreme barbarism and poverty of
Ireland could still less afford means of bearing the expense. The only
expedient by which a durable conquest could then be made or maintained,
was by pouring in a multitude of new inhabitants, dividing among them the
lands of the vanquished, establishing them in all offices of trust and
authority, and thereby transforming the ancient inhabitants into a new
people. By this policy the northern invaders of old, and of late the duke
of Normandy, had been able to fix their dominions, and to erect kingdoms
which remained stable on their foundations, and were transmitted to the
posterity of the first conquerors. But the state of Ireland rendered that
island so little inviting to the English, that only a few of desperate
fortunes could be persuaded, from time to time, to transport themselves
thither; and instead of reclaiming the natives from their uncultivated
manners, they were gradually assimilated to the ancient inhabitants, and
degenerated from the customs of their own nation. It was also found
requisite to bestow great military and arbitrary powers on the leaders,
who commanded a handful of men amidst such hostile multitudes; and law and
equity, in a little time, became as much unknown in the English
settlements, as they had ever been among the Irish tribes. Palatinates
were erected in favor of the new adventurers; independent authority
conferred; the natives, never fully subdued, still retained their
animosity against the conquerors; their hatred was retaliated by like
injuries; and from these causes the Irish, during the course of four
centuries, remained still savage and untractable: it was not till the
latter end of Elizabeth’s reign, that the island was fully subdued; nor
till that of her successor, that it gave hopes of becoming a useful
conquest to the English nation.
Besides that the easy and peaceable submission of the Irish left Henry no
further occupation in that island, he was recalled from it by another
incident, which was of the last importance to his interest and safety. The
two legates, Albert and Theodin, to whom was committed the trial of his
conduct in the murder of Archbishop Becket, were arrived in Normandy; and
being impatient of delay, sent him frequent letters, full of menaces, if
he protracted any longer making his appearance before them. He hastened
therefore to Normandy, and had a conference with them at Savigny, where
their demands were so exorbitant, that he broke off the negotiation,
threatened to return to Ireland, and bade them do their worst against him.
They perceived that the season was now past for taking advantage of that
tragical incident; which, had it been hotly pursued by interdicts and
excommunications, was capable of throwing the whole kingdom into
combustion. But the time which Henry had happily gained, had contributed
to appease the minds of men; the event could not now have the same
influence as when it was recent; and as the clergy every day looked for an
accommodation with the king, they had not opposed the pretensions of his
partisans, who had been very industrious in representing to the people his
entire innocence in the murder of the primate, and his ignorance of the
designs formed by the assassins. The legates, therefore, found themselves
obliged to lower their terms; and Henry was so fortunate as to conclude an
accommodation with them. He declared upon oath, before the relics of the
saints, that so far from commanding or desiring the death of the arch
bishop, he was extremely grieved when he received intelligence of it; but
as the passion which he had expressed on account of that prelate’s
conduct, had probably been the occasion of his murder, he stipulated the
following conditions as an atonement for the offence. He promised, that he
should pardon all such as had been banished for adhering to Becket, and
should restore them to their livings; that the see of Canterbury should be
reinstated in all its ancient possessions; that he should pay the templars
a sum of money sufficient for the subsistence of two hundred knights
during a year in the Holy Land; that he should himself take the cross at
the Christmas following, and, if the pope required it, serve three years
against the infidels, either in Spain or Palestine; that he should not
insist on the observance of such customs derogatory to ecclesiastical
privileges, as had been introduced in his own time; and that he should not
obstruct appeals to the pope in ecclesiastical causes, but should content
himself with exacting sufficient security from such clergymen as left his
dominions to prosecute an appeal, that they should attempt nothing against
the rights of his crown. Upon signing these concessions, Henry received
absolution from the legates, and was confirmed in the grant of Ireland
made by Pope Adrian; and nothing proves more strongly the great abilities
of this monarch than his extricating himself on such easy terms from so
difficult a situation. He had always insisted, that the laws established
at Clarendon contained not any new claims, but the ancient customs of the
kingdom; and he was still at liberty, notwithstanding the articles of this
agreement, to maintain his pretensions. Appeals to the pope were indeed
permitted by that treaty; but as the king was also permitted to exact
reasonable securities from the parties, and might stretch his demands on
this head as far as he pleased, he had it virtually in his power to
prevent the pope from reaping any advantage by this seeming concession.
And on the whole, the constitutions of Clarendon remained still the law of
the realm; though the pope and his legates seem so little to have
conceived the king’s power to lie under any legal limitations, that they
were satisfied with his departing, by treaty, from one of the most
momentous articles of these constitutions, without requiring any repeal by
the states of the kingdom.
Henry, freed from this dangerous controversy with the ecclesiastics and
with the see of Rome, seemed now to have reached the pinnacle of human
grandeur and felicity, and to be equally happy in his domestic situation
and in his political government. A numerous progeny of sons and daughters
gave both lustre and authority to his crown, prevented the danger of a
disputed succession, and repressed all pretensions of the ambitious
barons. The king’s precaution also, in establishing the several branches
of his family, seemed well calculated to prevent all jealousy among the
brothers, and to perpetuate the greatness of his family. He had appointed
Henry, his eldest son, to be his successor in the kingdom of England, the
duchy of Normandy, and the counties of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine;
territories which lay contiguous, and which, by that means, might easily
lend to each other mutual assistance both against intestine commotions and
foreign invasions. Richard, his second son, was invested in the duchy of
Guienne and county of Poictou; Geoffrey, his third son, inherited, in
right of his wife, the duchy of Brittany, and the new conquest of Ireland
was destined for the appanage of John, his fourth son. He had also
negotiated, in favor of this last prince, a marriage with Adelais, the
only daughter of Humbert, count of Savoy and Maurienne; and was to receive
as her dowry considerable demesnes in Piedmont, Savoy, Bresse, and
Dauphiny. But this exaltation of his family excited the jealousy of all
his neighbors, who made those very sons, whose fortunes he had so
anxiously established, the means of imbittering his future life, and
disturbing his government.
Young Henry, who was rising to man’s estate, began to display his
character, and aspire to independence: brave, ambitious, liberal,
munificent, affable: he discovered qualities which give great lustre to
youth; prognosticate a shining fortune; but, unless tempered in mature age
with discretion, are the forerunners of the greatest calamities. It is
said that at the time when this prince received the holy unction, his
father, in order to give greater dignity to the ceremony, officiated at
table as one of the retinue; and observed to his son that never king was
more royally served. “It is nothing extraordinary,” said young Henry to
one of his courtiers, “if the son of a count should serve the son of a
king.” This saying, which might pass only for an innocent pleasantry, or
even for an oblique compliment to his father, was, however, regarded as a
symptom of his aspiring temper; and his conduct soon after justified the
conjecture.
1173.
Henry, agreeable to the promise which he had given both to the pope and
French king, permitted his son to be crowned anew by the hands of the
archbishop of Rouen, and associated the Princess Margaret, spouse to young
Henry, in the ceremony.[*] He afterwards allowed him to pay a visit to his
father-in-law at Paris, who took the opportunity of instilling into the
young prince those ambitious sentiments to which he was naturally but too
much inclined.
Though it had been the constant practice of France, ever since the
accession of the Capetian line, to crown the son during the lifetime of
the father without conferring on him any present participation of royalty;
Lewis persuaded his son-in-law, that, by this ceremony, which in those
ages was deemed so important, he had acquired a title to sovereignty, and
that the king could not, without injustice, exclude him from immediate
possession of the whole, or at least a part of his dominions. In
consequence of these extravagant ideas, young Henry, on his return,
desired the king to resign to him either the crown of England or the duchy
of Normandy; discovered great discontent on the refusal; spake in the most
undutiful terms of his father; and soon after, in concert with Lewis, made
his escape to Paris, where he was protected and supported by that monarch.
While Henry was alarmed at this incident, and had the prospect of
dangerous intrigues, or even of a war, which, whether successful or not,
must be extremely calamitous and disagreeable to him, he received
intelligence of new misfortunes, which must have affected him in the most
sensible manner. Queen Eleanor, who had disgusted her first husband by her
gallantries, was no less offensive to her second by her jealousy; and
after this manner carried to extremity, in the different periods of her
life, every circumstance of female weakness. She communicated her
discontents against Henry to her two younger sons, Geoffrey and Richard;
persuaded them that they were also entitled to present possession of the
territories assigned to them; engaged them to fly secretly to the court of
France; and was meditating herself an escape to the same court, and had
even put on man’s apparel for that purpose, when she was seized by orders
from her husband, and thrown into confinement. Thus Europe saw with
astonishment the best and most indulgent of parents at war with his whole
family; three boys, scarcely arrived at the age of puberty, require a
great monarch, in the full vigor of his age and height of his reputation,
to dethrone himself in their favor; and several princes not ashamed to
support them in these unnatural and absurd pretensions.
Henry, reduced to this perilous and disagreeable situation, had recourse
to the court of Rome. Though sensible of the danger attending the
interposition of ecclesiastical authority in temporal disputes, he applied
to the pope, as his superior lord, to excommunicate his enemies, and by
these censures to reduce to obedience his undutiful children, whom he
found such reluctance to punish by the sword of the magistrate.[*]
Alexander, well pleased to exert his power in so justifiable a cause,
issued the bulls required of him; but it was soon found, that these
spiritual weapons had not the same force as when employed in a spiritual
controversy; and that the clergy were very negligent in supporting a
sentence which was nowise calculated to promote the immediate interests of
their order. The king, after taking in vain this humiliating step, was
obliged to have recourse to arms, and to enlist such auxiliaries as are
the usual resource of tyrants, and have seldom been employed by so wise
and just a monarch.
The loose government which prevailed in all the states of Europe, the many
private wars carried on among the neighboring nobles, and the
impossibility of enforcing any general execution of the laws, had
encouraged a tribe of banditti to disturb every where the public peace, to
infest the highways, to pillage the open country, and to brave all the
efforts of the civil magistrate, and even the excommunications of the
church, which were fulminated against them. Troops of them were sometimes
enlisted in the service of one prince or baron, sometimes in that of
another: they often acted in an independent manner, under leaders of their
own; the peaceable and industrious inhabitants, reduced to poverty by
their ravages, were frequently obliged for subsistence to betake
themselves to a like disorderly course of life; and a continual intestine
war, pernicious to industry, as well as to the execution of justice, was
thus carried on in the bowels of every kingdom. Those desperate ruffians
received the name sometimes of Brabançons, sometimes of Routiers or
Cottereaux; but for what reason is not agreed by historians; and they
formed a kind of society or government among themselves, which set at
defiance the rest of mankind. The greatest monarchs were not ashamed, on
occasion, to have recourse to their assistance; and as their habits of war
and depredation had given them experience, hardiness, and courage, they
generally composed the most formidable part of those armies which decided
the political quarrels of princes. Several of them were enlisted among the
forces levied by Henry’s enemies; but the great treasures amassed by that
prince enabled him to engage more numerous troops of them in his service;
and the situation of his affairs rendered even such banditti the only
forces on whose fidelity he could repose any confidence.
His licentious barons, disgusted with a vigilant government, were more
desirous of being ruled by young princes, ignorant of public affairs,
remiss in their conduct, and profuse in their grants; and as the king had
insured to his sons the succession to every particular province of his
dominions, the nobles dreaded no danger in adhering to those who, they
knew, must some time become their sovereigns. Prompted by these motives,
many of the Norman nobility had deserted to his son Henry; the Breton and
Gascon barons seemed equally disposed to embrace the quarrel of Geoffrey
and Richard. Disaffection had crept in among the English; and the earls of
Leicester and Chester in particular had openly declared against the king.
Twenty thousand Brabançons, therefore, joined to some troops which he
brought over from Ireland, and a few barons of approved fidelity, formed
the sole force with which he intended to resist his enemies.
Lewis, in order to bind the confederates in a closer union, summoned at
Paris an assembly of the chief vassals of the crown, received their
approbation of his measures, and engaged them by oath to adhere to the
cause of young Henry. This prince, in return, bound himself by a like tie
never to desert his French allies; and having made a new great seal, he
lavishly distributed among them many considerable parts of those
territories which he purposed to conquer from his father. The counts of
Flanders, Boulogne, Blois, and Eu, partly moved by the general jealousy
arising from Henry’s power and ambition, partly allured by the prospect of
reaping advantage from the inconsiderate temper and the necessities of the
young prince, declared openly in favor of the latter. William, king of
Scotland, had also entered into this great confederacy; and a plan was
concerted for a general invasion on different parts of the king’s
extensive and factious dominions.
Hostilities were first commenced by the counts of Flanders and Boulogne on
the frontiers of Normandy. Those princes laid siege to Aumale, which was
delivered into their hands by the treachery of the count of that name:
this nobleman surrendered himself prisoner; and on pretence of thereby
paying his ransom, opened the gates of all his other fortresses. The two
counts next besieged and made themselves masters of Drincourt; but the
count of Boulogne was here mortally wounded in the assault; and this
incident put some stop to the progress of the Flemish arms.
In another quarter, the king of France, being strongly assisted by his
vassals, assembled a great army of seven thousand knights and their
followers on horseback, and a proportionable number of infantry; carrying
young Henry along with him he laid siege to Verneuil, which was vigorously
defended by Hugh de Lacy and Hugh de Beauchamp, the governors. After he
had lain a month before the place, the garrison, being straitened for
provisions, were obliged to capitulate; and they engaged, if not relieved
within three days, to surrender the town, and to retire into the citadel.
On the last of these days, Henry appeared with his army upon the heights
above Verneuil. Lewis, dreading an attack, sent the archbishop of Sens and
the count of Blois to the English camp, and desired that next day should
be appointed for a conference, in order to establish a general peace, and
terminate the difference between Henry and his sons. The king, who
passionately desired this accommodation, and suspected no fraud, gave his
consent; but Lewis, that morning, obliging the garrison to surrender,
according to the capitulation, set fire to the place, and began to retire
with his army. Henry, provoked at this artifice, attacked the rear with
vigor, put them to rout, did some execution, and took several prisoners.
The French army, as their time of service was now expired, immediately
dispersed themselves into their several provinces, and left Henry free to
prosecute his advantages against his other enemies.
The nobles of Brittany, instigated by the earl of Chester and Ralph de
Fougeres, were all in arms; but their progress was checked by a body of
Brabançons, which the king, after Lewis’s retreat, had sent against them.
The two armies came to an action near Dol, where the rebels were defeated,
fifteen hundred killed on the spot, and the leaders, the earls of Chester
and Fougeres, obliged to take shelter in the town of Dol. Henry hastened
to form the siege of that place, and carried on the attack with such
ardor, that he obliged the governor and garrison to surrender themselves
prisoners. By these rigorous measures and happy successes, the
insurrections were entirely quelled in Brittany; and the king, thus
fortunate in all quarters, willingly agreed to a conference with Lewis, in
hopes that his enemies, finding all their mighty efforts entirely
frustrated, would terminate hostilities on some moderate and reasonable
conditions.
The two monarchs met between Trie and Gisofs; and Henry had here the
mortification to see his three sons in the retinue of his mortal enemy. As
Lewis had no other pretence for war than supporting the claims of the
young princes, the king made them such offers as children might be ashamed
to insist on, and could be extorted from him by nothing but his parental
affection, or by the present necessity of his affairs.[*] He insisted only
on retaining the sovereign authority in all his dominions; but offered
young Henry half the revenues of England, with some places of surety in
that kingdom; or, if he rather chose to reside in Normandy, half the
revenues of that duchy, with all those of Anjou. He made a like offer to
Richard in Guienne; he promised to resign Brittany to Geoffrey; and if
these concessions were not deemed sufficient, he agreed to add to them
whatever the pope’s legates, who were present, should require of him.[**]
The earl of Leicester was also present at the negotiation; and either from
the impetuosity of his temper, or from a view of abruptly breaking off a
conference which must cover the allies with confusion, he gave vent to the
most violent reproaches against Henry, and he even put his hand to his
sword, as if he meant to attempt some violence against him. This furious
action threw the whole company into confusion, and put an end to the
treaty.[***]
The chief hopes of Henry’s enemies seemed now to depend oft the state of
affairs in England, where his authority was exposed to the most imminent
danger. One article of Prince Henry’s agreement with his foreign
confederates was, that he should resign Kent, with Dover, and all its
other fortresses, into the hands of ihe earl of Flanders:[****] yet so
little national or public spirit prevailed among the independent English
nobility, so wholly bent were they on the aggrandizement each of himself
and his own family, that, notwithstanding this pernicious concession,
which must have produced the ruin of the kingdom, the greater part of them
had conspired to make an insurrection, and to support the prince’s
pretensions.
The king’s principal resource lay in the church and the bishops with whom
he was now in perfect agreement; whether that the decency of their
character made them ashamed of supporting so unnatural a rebellion, or
that they were entirely satisfied with Henry’s atonement for the murder of
Becket and for his former invasion of ecclesiastical immunities. That
prince, however, had resigned none of the essential rights of his crown in
the accommodation: he maintained still the same prudent jealousy of the
court of Rome; admitted no legate into England, without his swearing to
attempt nothing against the royal prerogatives; and he had even obliged
the monks of Canterbury, who pretended to a free election on the vacancy
made by the death of Becket, to choose Roger, prior of Dover, in the place
of that turbulent prelate.[*]
The king of Scotland made an irruption into Northumberland, and committed
great devastations; but being opposed by Richard de Lucy, whom Henry had
left guardian of the realm, he retreated into his own country, and agreed
to a cessation of arms. This truce enabled the guardian to march
southwards with his army, in order to oppose an invasion which the earl of
Leicester, at the head of a great body of Flemings, had made upon Suffolk.
The Flemings had been joined by Hugh Bigod, who made them masters of his
castle of Framlingham; and marching into the heart of the kingdom, where
they hoped to be supported by Leicester’s vassals, they were met by Lucy,
who, assisted by Humphry Bohun, the constable, and the earls of Arundel,
Glocester, and Cornwall, had advanced to Farnham with a less numerous, but
braver army to oppose them. The Flemings, who were mostly weavers and
artificers, (for manufactures were now beginning to be established in
Flanders,) were broken in an instant, ten thousand of them were put to the
sword, the earl of Leicester was taken prisoner, and the remains of the
invaders were glad to compound for a safe retreat into their own country.
1174.
This great defeat did not dishearten the malecontents; who, being
supported by the alliance of so many foreign princes, and encouraged by
the king’s own sons, determined to persevere in their enterprise. The earl
of Ferrars, Roger de Moubray, Archetil de Mallory, Richard de Moreville,
Hamo de Mascie, together with many friends of the earls of Leicester and
Chester, rose in arms: the fidelity of the earls of Clare and Glocester
was suspected; and the guardian, though vigorously supported by Geoffrey,
bishop of Lincoln, the king’s natural son by the fair Rosamond, found it
difficult to defend himself, on all quarters, from so many open and
concealed enemies. The more to augment the confusion, the king of
Scotland, on the expiration of the truce, broke into the northern
provinces with a great army[*] of eighty thousand men; which, though
undisciplined and disorderly, and better fitted for committing
devastation, than for executing any military enterprise, was become
dangerous from the present factious and turbulent spirit of the kingdom.
Henry, who had baffled all his enemies in France, and had put his
frontiers in a posture of defence, now found England the seat of danger;
and he determined by his presence to overawe the malecontents, or by his
conduct and courage to subdue them. He lauded at Southampton; and knowing
the influence of superstition over the minds of the people, he hastened to
Canterbury, in order to make atonement to the ashes of Thomas à Becket,
and tender his submissions to a dead enemy. As soon as he came within
sight of the church of Canterbury, he dismounted walked barefoot towards
it, prostrated himself before the shrine of the saint, remained in fasting
and prayer during a whole day, and watched all night the holy relics. Not
content with this hypocritical devotion towards a man whose violence and
ingratitude had so long disquieted his government, and had been the object
of his most inveterate animosity, he submitted to a penance still more
singular and humiliating. He assembled a chapter of the monks, disrobed
himself before them, put a scourge of discipline into the hands of each,
and presented his bare shoulders to the lashes which these ecclesiastics
successively inflicted upon him. Next day he received absolution; and,
departing for London, got soon after the agreeable intelligence of a great
victory which his generals had obtained over the Scots, and which, being
gained, as was reported, on the very day of his absolution, was regarded
as the earnest of his final reconciliation with Heaven and with Thomas a
Becket William, king of Scots, though repulsed before the castle of
Prudhow, and other fortified places, had committed the most horrible
depredations upon the northern provinces; but on the approach of Ralph de
Glanville, the famous justiciary, seconded by Bernard de Baliol, Robert de
Stuteville, Odonel de Umfreville, William de Vesci, and other northern
barons together with the gallant bishop of Lincoln, he thought proper to
retreat nearer his own country, and he fixed his camp at Alnwick. He had
here weakened his army extremely, by sending out numerous detachments in
order to extend his ravages; and he lay absolutely safe, as he imagined,
from any attack of the enemy. But Glanville, informed of his situation,
made a hasty and fatiguing march to Newcastle; and allowing his soldiers
only a small interval for refreshment, he immediately set out towards
evening for Alnwick. He marched that night above thirty miles; arrived in
the morning, under cover of a mist, near the Scottish camp; and regardless
of the great numbers of the enemy, he began the attack with his small but
determined body of cavalry. William was living in such supine security
that he took the English at first for a body of his own ravagers who were
returning to the camp; but the sight of their banners convincing him of
his mistake, he entered on the action with no greater body than a hundred
horse, in confidence that the numerous army which surrounded him would
soon hasten to his relief. He was dismounted on the first shock, and taken
prisoner; while his troops, hearing of this disaster, fled on all sides
with the utmost precipitation. The dispersed ravagers made the best of
their way to their own country; and discord arising among them, they
proceeded even to mutual hostilities, and suffered more from each other’s
sword than from that of the enemy.
This great and important victory proved at last decisive in favor of
Henry, and entirely broke the spirit of the English rebels. The bishop of
Durham, who was preparing to revolt, made his submissions; Hugh Bigod,
though he had received a strong reénforcement of Flemings, was obliged to
surrender all his castles, and throw himself on the king’s mercy; no
better resource was left to the earl of Ferrars and Roger de Moubray; the
inferior rebels imitating the example, all England was restored to
tranquillity in a few weeks; and as the king appeared to be under the
immediate protection of Heaven, it was deemed impious any longer to resist
him. The clergy exalted anew the merits and powerful intercession of
Becket; and Henry, instead of opposing this superstition, plumed himself
on the new friendship of the-saint, and propagated an opinion which was so
favorable to his interests.[*]
Prince Henry, who was ready to embark at Gravelines with the earl of
Flanders and a great army, hearing that his partisans in England were
suppressed, abandoned all thoughts of the enterprise, and joined the camp
of Lewis, who, during the absence of the king, had made an irruption into
Normandy and had laid siege to Rouen.[*] The place was defended with great
vigor by the inhabitants;[**] and Lewis, despairing of success by open
force, tried to gain the town by a stratagem, which, in that superstitious
age, was deemed not very honor able. He proclaimed in his own camp a
cessation of arms on pretence of celebrating the festival of St. Laurence;
and when the citizens, supposing themselves in safety, were so imprudent
as to remit their guard, he purposed to take advantage of their security.
Happily, some priests had, from mere curiosity, mounted a steeple, where
the alarm bell hung; and observing the French camp in motion, they
immediately rang the bell, and gave warning to the inhabitants, who ran to
their several stations. The French, who, on hearing the alarm hurried to
the assault, had already mounted the walls in several places; but being
repulsed by the enraged citizens were obliged to retreat with considerable
loss.[***] Next day, Henry, who had hastened to the defence of his Norman
dominions, passed over the bridge in triumph; and entered Rouen in sight
of the French army. The city was now in absolute safety; and the king, in
order to brave the French, monarch, commanded the gates, which had been
walled up, to be opened; and he prepared to push his advantages against
the enemy. Lewis saved himself from this perilous situation by a new piece
of deceit, not so justifiable. He proposed a conference for adjusting the
terms of a general peace, which he knew would be greedily embraced by
Henry; and while the king of England trusted to the execution of his
promise, he made a retreat with his army into France.
There was, however, a necessity on both sides for an accommodation. Henry
could no longer bear to see his three sons in the hands of his enemy; and
Lewis dreaded lest this great monarch, victorious in all quarters, crowned
with glory, and absolute master of his dominions, might take revenge for
the many dangers and disquietudes which the arms, and still more the
intrigues, of France had, in his disputes both with Becket and his sons,
found means to raise him. After making a cessation of arms, a conference
was agreed on near Tours; where Henry granted his sons much less
advantageous terms than he had formerly offered; and he received their
submissions. The most material of his concessions were some pensions which
he stipulated to pay them, and some castles which he granted them for the
place of their residence; together with an indemnity for all their
adherents, who were restored to their estates and honors.[*]
Of all those who had embraced the cause of the young princes, William,
king of Scotland, was the only considerable loser by that invidious and
unjust enterprise. Henry delivered from confinement, without exacting any
ransom, about nine hundred knights, whom he had taken prisoners; but it
cost William the ancient independency of his crown as the price of his
liberty. He stipulated to do homage to Henry for Scotland and all his
other possessions; he engaged that all the barons and nobility of his
kingdom should also do homage; that the bishops should take an oath of
fealty; that both should swear to adhere to the king of England against
their native prince, if the latter should break his engagements; and that
the fortresses of Edinburgh, Stirling, Berwick, Roxborough, and Jedborough
should be delivered into Henry’s hands, till the performance of
articles.[**]
1175.
This severe and humiliating treaty was executed in its full rigor.
William, being released, brought up all his barons, prelates, and abbots;
and they did homage to Henry in the cathedral of York, and acknowledged
him and his successors for their superior lord.[***]
The English monarch stretched still further the rigor of the conditions
which he exacted. He engaged the king and states of Scotland to make a
perpetual cession of the fortresses of Berwick and Roxborough, and to
allow the castle of Edinburgh to remain in his hands for a limited time
This was the first great ascendant which England obtained over Scotland;
and indeed the first important transaction which had passed between the
kingdoms. Few princes have been so fortunate as to gain considerable
advantages over their weaker neighbors with less violence and injustice
than was practised by Henry against the king of Scots, whom he had taken
prisoner in battle, and who had wantonly engaged in a war, in which all
the neighbors of that prince, and even his own family, were, without
provocation, combined against him.[*]
Henry having thus, contrary to expectation, extricated himself with honor
from a situation in which his throne was exposed to great danger, was
employed for several years in the administration of justice, in the
execution of the laws, and in guarding against those inconveniencies,
which either the past convulsions of his state, or the political
institutions of that age, unavoidably occasioned. The provisions which he
made, show such largeness of thought as qualified him for being a
legislator; and they were commonly calculated as well for the future as
the present happiness of his kingdom.
1176.
He enacted severe penalties against robbery, murder, false coining, arson;
and ordained that these crimes should be punished by the amputation of the
right hand and right foot.[**] The pecuniary commutation for crimes, which
has a false appearance of lenity, had been gradually disused; and seems to
have been entirely abolished by the rigor of these statutes. The
superstitious trial by water ordeal, though condemned by the church,[***]
still subsisted; but Henry ordained, that any man accused of murder, or
any heinous felony, by the oath of the legal knights of the county,
should, even though acquitted by the ordeal, be obliged to abjure the
realm.[****]
All advances towards reason and good sense are slow and gradual. Henry,
though sensible of the great absurdity attending the trial by duel or
battle, did not venture to abolish it: he only admitted either of the
parties to challenge a trial by an assize or jury of twelve
freeholders.[*****]
This latter method of trial seems to have been very ancient in England,
and was fixed by the laws of King Alfred: but the barbarous and violent
genius of the age had of late given more credit to the trial by battle,
which had become the general method of deciding all important
controversies. It was never abolished by law in England; and there is an
instance of it so late as the reign of Elizabeth: but the institution
revived by this king, being found more reasonable and more suitable to a
civilized people, gradually prevailed over it.
The partition of England into four divisions, and the appointment of
itinerant justices to go the circuit in each division, and to decide the
causes in the counties, was another important ordinance of this prince,
which had a direct tendency to curb the oppressive barons, and to protect
the inferior gentry and common people in their property.[*] Those justices
were either prelates or considerable noblemen; who, besides carrying the
authority of the king’s commission, were able, by the dignity of their own
character, to give weight and credit to the laws.
That there might be fewer obstacles to the execution of justice, the king
was vigilant in demolishing all the new erected castles of the nobility,
in England as well as in his foreign dominions; and he permitted no
fortress to remain in the custody of those whom he found reason to
suspect.[**]
But lest the kingdom should be weakened by this demolition of the
fortresses, the king fixed an assize of arms, by which all his subjects
were obliged to put themselves in a situation for defending themselves and
the realm. Every man possessed of a knight’s fee was ordained to have for
each fee, a coat of mail, a helmet, a shield, and a lance; every free
layman, possessed of goods to the value of sixteen marks, was to be armed
in like manner; every one that possessed ten marks was obliged to have an
iron gorget, a cap of iron, and a lance; all burgesses were to have a cap
of iron, a lance, and a wambais; that is, a coat quilted with wool, tow,
or such like materials.[***] It appears that archery, for which the
English were afterwards so renowned, had not at this time become very
common among them. The spear was the chief weapon employed in battle.
The clergy and the laity were, during that age, in a strange situation
with regard to each other, and such as may seem totally incompatible with
a civilized, and indeed with any species of government. If a clergyman
were guilty of murder, he could be punished by degradation only: if he
were murdered, the murderer was exposed to nothing but excommunication and
ecclesiastical censures; and the crime was atoned for by penances and
submission.[*] Hence the assassins of Thomas à Becket himself, though
guilty of the most atrocious wickedness, and the most repugnant to the
sentiments of that age, lived securely in their own houses, without being
called to account by Henry himself, who was so much concerned, both in
honor and interest, to punish that crime, and who professed or affected,
on all occasions, the most extreme abhorrence of it. It was not till they
found their presence shunned by every one as excommunicated persons, that
they were induced to take a journey to Rome, to throw themselves at the
feet of the pontiff, and to submit to the penances imposed upon them;
after which, they continued to possess without molestation their honors
and fortunes, and seem even to have recovered the countenance and good
opinion of the public. But as the king, by the constitutions of Clarendon,
which he endeavored still to maintain,[**] had subjected the clergy to a
trial by the civil magistrate, it seemed but just to give them the
protection of that power, to which they owed obedience: it was enacted,
that the murderers of clergymen should be tried before the justiciary, in
the presence of the bishop or his official; and besides the usual
punishment for murder, should be subjected to a forfeiture of their
estates, and a confiscation of their goods and chattels.[***]
The king passed an equitable law, that the goods of a vassal should not be
seized for the debt of his lord, unless the vassal be surety for the debt;
and that the rents of vassals should be paid to the creditors of the lord,
not to the lord himself. It is remarkable, that this law was enacted by
the king in a council which he held at Verneuil, and which consisted of
some prelates and barons of England, as well as some of Normandy, Poictou,
Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and Brittany and the statute took place in all
these last-mentioned territories,[*] though totally unconnected with each
other;[**] a certain proof how irregular the ancient feudal government
was, and how near the sovereigns, in some instances, approached to
despotism, though in others they seemed scarcely to possess any authority.
If a prince, much dreaded and revered like Henry, obtained but the
appearance of general consent to an ordinance which was equitable and
just, it became immediately an established law, and all his subjects
acquiesced in it, If the prince was hated or despised; if the nobles, who
supported him, had small influence; if the humors of the times disposed
the people to question the justice of his ordinance; the fullest and most
authentic assembly had no authority. Thus all was confusion and disorder;
no regular idea of a constitution; force and violence decided every thing.
The success which had attended Henry in his wars, did not much encourage
his neighbors to form any attempt against him; and his transactions with
them, during several years, contain little memorable. Scotland remained in
that state of feudal subjection to which he had reduced it, and gave him
no further inquietude. He sent over his fourth son, John, into Ireland,
with a view of making a more complete conquest of the island; but the
petulance and incapacity of this prince, by which he enraged the Irish
chieftains, obliged the king soon after to recall him.[***]
The king of France had fallen into an abject superstition; and was
induced, by a devotion more sincere than that of Henry, to make a
pilgrimage to the tomb of Becket, in order to obtain his intercession for
the cure of Philip, his eldest son. He probably thought himself well
entitled to the favor of that saint, on account of their ancient intimacy;
and hoped that Becket, whom he had protected while on earth, would not
now, when he was so highly exalted in heaven, forget his old friend and
benefactor. The monks, sensible that their saint’s honor was concerned in
the case, failed not to publish that Lewis’s prayers were answered, and
that the young prince was restored to health by Becket’s intercession.
That king himself was soon after struck with an apoplexy, which deprived
him of his understanding: Philip though a youth of fifteen, took on him
the administration, till his father’s death, which happened soon after,
1180.
opened his way to the throne; and he proved the ablest and greatest
monarch that had governed that kingdom since the age of Charlemagne. The
superior years, however, and experience of Henry, while they moderated his
ambition, gave him such an ascendant over this prince, that no dangerous
rivalship for a long time arose between them. The English monarch, instead
of taking advantage of his own situation, rather employed his good offices
in composing the quarrels which arose in the royal family of France; and
he was successful in mediating a reconciliation between Philip and his
mother and uncles. These services were but ill requited by Philip, who,
when he came to man’s estate, fomented all the domestic discords in the
royal family of England, and encouraged Henry’s sons in their ungrateful
and undutiful behavior towards him. Prince Henry, equally impatient of
obtaining power, and incapable of using it, renewed to the king the demand
of his resigning Normandy; and on meeting with a refusal, he fled with his
consort to the court of France: but not finding Philip at that time
disposed to enter into war for his sake, he accepted of his father’s
offers of reconciliation, and made him submissions. It was a cruel
circumstance in the king’s fortune, that he could hope for no tranquillity
from the criminal enterprises of his sons but by their mutual discord and
animosities, which disturbed his family and threw his state into
convulsions. Richard, whom he had made master of Guienne, and who had
displayed his valor and military genius by suppressing the revolts of his
mutinous barons refused to obey Henry’s orders, in doing homage to his
elder brother for that duchy; and he defended himself against young Henry
and Geoffrey, who, uniting their arms, carried war into his
territories.[**]
The king with some difficulty composed this difference; but immediately
found his eldest son engaged in conspiracies, and ready to take arms
against himself. While the young prince was conducting these criminal
intrigues, he was seized with a fever at Martel,
1183.
a castle near Turenne to which he had retired in discontent; and seeing
the approaches of death, he was at last struck with remorse for his
undutiful behavior towards his father. He sent a message to the king, who
was not far distant; expressed his contrition for his faults; and
entreated the favor of a visit, that he might at least die with the
satisfaction of having obtained his forgiveness. Henry, who had so often
experienced the prince’s ingratitude and violence, apprehended that his
sickness was entirely feigned, and he durst not intrust himself into his
son’s hands: but when he soon after received intelligence of young Henry’s
death, and the proofs, of his sincere repentance, this good prince was
affected with the deepest sorrow; he thrice fainted away; he accused his
own hard hearted ness in refusing the dying request of his son; and he
lamented that he had deprived that prince of the last opportunity of
making atonement for his offences, and of pouring out his soul in the
bosom of his reconciled father.[*] This prince died in the twenty-eighth
year of his age.
The behavior of his surviving children did not tend to give the king any
consolation for the loss. As Prince Henry had left no posterity, Richard
was become heir to all his dominions; and the king intended that John, his
third surviving son and favorite, should inherit Guienne as his appanage;
but Richard refused his consent, fled into that duchy, and even made
preparations for carrying on war, as well against his father as against
his brother Geoffrey, who was now put in possession of Brittany. Henry
sent for Eleanor, his queen, the heiress of Guienne, and required Richard
to deliver up to her the dominion of these territories; which that prince,
either dreading an insurrection of the Gascons in her favor, or retaining
some sense of duty towards her, readily performed; and he peaceably
returned to his father’s court. No sooner was this quarrel accommodated,
than Geoffrey, the most vicious perhaps of all Henry’s unhappy family,
broke out into violence; demanded Anjou to be annexed to his dominions of
Brittany; and on meeting with a refusal, fled to the court of France, and
levied forces against his father.[**]
1185.
Henry was freed from this danger by his son’s death who was killed in a
tournament at Paris.[***]
The widow of Geoffrey, soon after his decease, was delivered of a son who
received the name of Arthur, and was invested in the duchy of Brittany,
under the guardianship of his grandfather, who, is duke of Normandy, was
also superior lord of that territory. Philip, as lord paramount, disputed
some time his title to this wardship; but was obliged to yield to the
inclinations of the Bretons, who preferred the government of Henry.
But the rivalship between these potent princes, and all their inferior
interests, seemed now to have given place to the general passion for the
relief of the Holy Land and the expulsion of the Saracens. Those infidels,
though obliged to yield to the immense inundation of Christians in the
first crusade, had recovered courage after the torrent was past; and
attacking on all quarters the settlements of the Europeans, had Deduced
these adventurers to great difficulties, and obliged them to apply again
for succors from the west. A second crusade, under the emperor Conrade,
and Lewis VII., king of France, in which there perished above two hundred
thousand men, brought them but a temporary relief; and those princes,
after losing such immense armies, and seeing the flower of their nobility
fall by their side, returned with little honor into Europe. But these
repeated misfortunes, which drained the western world of its people and
treasure, were not yet sufficient to cure men of their passion for those
spiritual adventures; and a new incident rekindled with fresh fury the
zeal of the ecclesiastics and military adventurers among the Latin
Christians. Saladin, a prince of great generosity, bravery, and conduct,
having fixed himself on the throne of Egypt, began to extend his conquests
over the East; and finding the settlement of the Christians in Palestine
an invincible obstacle to the progress of his arms, he bent the whole
force of his policy and valor to subdue that small and barren, but
important territory. Taking advantage of dissensions which prevailed among
the champions of the cross, and having secretly gained the count of
Tripoli, who commanded their armies, he invaded the frontiers with a
mighty power and, aided by the treachery of that count, gained over them
at Tiberiade a complete victory, which utterly annihilated the force of
the already languishing kingdom of Jerusalem
1187.
The holy city itself fell into his hands after a feeble resistance; the
kingdom of Antioch was almost entirely subdued and except some maritime
towns, nothing considerable remained of thope boasted conquests, which,
near a century before, it had cost the efforts of all Europe to acquire.
The western Christians were astonished on receiving this dismal
intelligence. Pope Urban III., it is pretended, died of grief; and his
successor, Gregory VIII., employed the whole time of his short pontificate
in rousing to arms all the Christians who acknowledged his authority. The
general cry was, that they were unworthy of enjoying any inheritance in
heaven, who did not vindicate from the dominion of the infidels the
inheritance of God on earth, and deliver from slavery that country which
had been consecrated by the foot-steps of their Redeemer.
1188.
William, archbishop of Tyre, having procured a conference between Henry
and Philip near Gisors, enforced all these topics; gave a pathetic
description of the miserable state of the eastern Christians; and employed
every argument to excite the ruling passions of the age, superstition, and
jealousy of military honor. The two monarchs immediately took the cross;
many of their most considerable vassals imitated the example; and as the
emperor Frederic I. entered into the same confederacy, some well-grounded
hopes of success were entertained; and men flattered themselves that an
enterprise, which had failed under the conduct of many independent
leaders, or of imprudent princes, might at last, by the efforts of such
potent and able monarchs, be brought to a happy issue.
The kings of France and England imposed a tax, amounting to the tenth of
all movable goods, on such as remained at home; but as they exempted from
this burden most of the regular clergy, the secular aspired to the same
immunity; pretended that their duty obliged them to assist the crusade
with their prayers alone; and it was with some difficulty they were
constrained to desist from an opposition, which in them who had been the
chief promoters of those pious enterprises, appeared with the worst grace
imaginable. This backwardness of the clergy is perhaps a symptom that the
enthusiastic ardor which had at first seized the people for crusades, was
now by time and ill success considerably abated; and that the frenzy was
chiefly supported by the military genius and love of glory in the
monarchs.
But before this great machine could be put in motion, there were still
many obstacles to surmount. Philip, jealous of Henry’s power, entered into
a private confederacy with young Richard; and working on his ambitious and
impatient temper, persuaded him, instead of supporting and aggrandizing
that monarchy which he was one day to inherit, to seek present power and
independence by disturbing and dismembering it.
1189.
In order to give a pretence for hostilities between the two kings, Richard
broke into the territories of Raymond, count of Toulouse, who immediately
carried complaints of this violence before the king of France, as his
superior lord. Philip remonstrated with Henry; but received for answer,
that Richard had confessed to the archbishop of Dublin, that his
enterprise against Raymond had been undertaken by the approbation of
Philip himself, and was conducted by his authority. The king of France,
who might have been covered with shame and confusion by this detection,
still prosecuted his design, and invaded the provinces of Berri and
Auvergne, under color of revenging the quarrel of the count of Toulouse.
Henry retaliated by making inroads upon the frontiers of France and
burning Dreux. As this war, which destroyed all hopes of success in the
projected crusade, gave great scandal, the two kings held a conference at
the accustomed place between Gisors and Trie, in order to find means of
accommodating their differences; they separated on worse terms than
before; and Philip, to show his disgust, ordered a great elm, under which
the conferences had been usually held, to be cut down; as if he had
renounced all desire of accommodation, and was determined to carry the war
to extremities against the king of England. But his own vassals refused to
serve under him in so invidious a cause; and he was obliged to come anew
to a conference with Henry, and to offer terms of peace. These terms were
such as entirely opened the eyes of the king of England, and fully
convinced him of the perfidy of his son, and his secret alliance with
Philip, of which he had before only entertained some suspicion. The king
of France required that Richard should be crowned king of England in the
lifetime of his father, should be invested in all his transmarine
dominions, and should immediately espouse Alice, Philip’s sister, to whom
he had been formerly affianced, and who had already been conducted into
England. Henry had experienced such fatal effects, both from the crowning
of his eldest son, and from that prince’s alliance with the royal family
of France, that he rejected these terms; and Richard, in con sequence of
his secret agreement with Philip, immediately revolted from him, did
homage to the king of France for all the dominions which Henry held of
that crown, and received the investitures, as if he had already been the
lawful possessor. Several historians assert, that Henry himself had become
enamored of young Alice, and mention this as an additional reason for his
refusing these conditions; but he had so many other just and equitable
motives for his conduct, that it is superfluous to assign a cause, which
the great prudence and advanced age of that monarch render somewhat
improbable.
Cardinal Albano, the pope’s legate, displeased with these increasing
obstacles to the crusade, excommunicated Richard, as the chief spring of
discord; but the sentence of excommunication, which, when it was properly
prepared and was zealously supported by the clergy, had often great
influence in that age, proved entirely ineffectual in the present case.
The chief barons of Poictou, Guienne, Normandy, and Anjou, being attached
to the young prince, and finding that he had now received the investiture
from their superior lord, declared for him, and made inroads into the
territories of such as still adhered to the king. Henry, disquieted by the
daily revolts of his mutinous subjects, and dreading still worse effects
from their turbulent disposition, had again recourse to papal authority;
and engaged the cardinal Anagni, who had succeeded Albano in the
legateship, to threaten Philip with laying an interdict on all his
dominions. But Philip, who was a prince of great vigor and capacity,
despised the menace, and told Anagni, that it belonged not to the pope to
interpose in the temporal disputes of princes, much less in those between
him and his rebellious vassal. He even proceeded so far as to reproach him
with partiality, and with receiving bribes from the king of England; while
Richard, still more outrageous, offered to draw his sword against the
legate, and was hindered by the interposition alone of the company, from
committing violence upon him.
The king of England was now obliged to defend his dominions by arms, and
to engage in a war with France and with his eldest son, a prince of great
valor, on such disadvantageous terms. Ferte-Bernard fell first into the
hands of the enemy; Mans was next taken by assault; and Henry, who had
thrown himself into that place, escaped with some difficulty; Amboise,
Chaumont, and Château de Loire, opened their gates on the appearance of
Philip and Richard: Tours was menaced; and the king, who had retired to
Saumur, and had daily instances of the cowardice or infidelity of his
governors, expected the most dismal issue to all his enterprises. While he
was in this state of despondency, the duke of Burgundy, the earl of
Flanders, and the archbishop of Rheims interposed with their good offices;
and the intelligence which he received of the taking of Tours, and which
made him fully sensible of the desperate situation of his affairs, so
subdued his spirit, that he submitted to all the rigorous terms which,
were imposed upon him. He agreed that Richard should marry the princess
Alice; that that prince should receive the homage and oath of fealty of
all his subjects both in England and his transmarine dominions; that he
himself should pay twenty thousand marks to the king of France, as a
compensation for the charges of the war; that his own barons should engage
to make him observe this treaty by force, and in case of his violating it
should promise to join Philip and Richard against him; and that all his
vassals, who had entered into confederacy with Richard, should receive an
indemnity for the offence.
But the mortification which Henry, who had been accustomed to give the law
in most treaties, received from these disadvantageous terms, was the least
that he met with on this occasion. When he demanded a list of those barons
to whom he was bound to grant a pardon for their connections with Richard,
he was astonished to find, at the head of them, the name of his second
son, John; who had always been his favorite, whose interests he had ever
anxiously at heart, and who had even, on account of his ascendant over
him, often excited the jealousy of Richard. The unhappy father, already
overloaded with cares and sorrows, finding this last disappointment in his
domestic tenderness, broke out into expressions of the utmost despair,
cursed the day in which he received his miserable being, and bestowed on
his ungrateful and undutiful children a malediction which he never could
be prevailed on to retract. The more his heart was disposed to friendship
and affection, the more he resented the barbarous return which his four
sons had successively made to his parental care; and this finishing blow,
by depriving him of every comfort in life, quite broke his spirit, and
threw him into a lingering fever, of which he expired, at the castle of
Chinon, near Saumur. His natural son, Geoffrey, who alone had behaved
dutifully towards him, attended his corpse to the nunnery of Fontervrault;
where it lay in state in the abbey church. Next day, Richard, who came to
visit the dead body of his father, and who, notwithstanding his criminal
conduct, was not wholly destitute of generosity, was struck with horror
and remorse at the sight; and as the attendants observed that, at that
very instant, blood gushed from the mouth and nostrils of the corpse, he
exclaimed, agreeably to a vulgar superstition, that he was his father’s
murderer; and he expressed a deep sense, though too late, of that
undutiful behavior which had brought his parent to an untimely grave.
Thus died, in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and thirty-fifth of his
reign, the greatest prince of his time for wisdom, virtue, and abilities,
and the most powerful in the extent of dominion of all those that had ever
filled the throne of England. His character in private, as well as in
public life, is almost without a blemish; and he seems to have possessed
every accomplishment, both of body and mind, which makes a man either
estimable or amiable. He was of a middle stature, strong and well
proportioned; his countenance was lively and engaging; his conversation
affable and entertaining; his elocution easy, persuasive, and ever at
command. He loved peace, but possessed both bravery and conduct in war;
was provident without timidity; severe in the execution of justice without
rigor; and temperate without austerity. He preserved health, and kept
himself from corpulency, to which he was somewhat inclined, by an
abstemious diet, and by frequent exercise, particularly hunting. When he
could enjoy leisure, he recreated himself either in learned conversation
or in reading; and he cultivated his natural talents by study above any
prince of his time. His affections, as well as his enmities, were warm and
durable; and his long experience of the ingratitude and infidelity of men
never destroyed the natural sensibility of his temper, which disposed him
to friendship and society. His character has been transmitted to us by
several writers, who were his contemporaries; and it extremely resembles,
in its most remarkable features, that of his maternal grandfather, Henry
I.; excepting only, that ambition, which was a ruling passion in both,
found not in the first Henry such unexceptionable means of exerting
itself, and pushed that prince into measures which were both criminal in
themselves, and were the cause of further crimes, from which his
grandson’s conduct was happily exempted.
This prince, like most of his predecessors of the Norman line, except
Stephen, passed more of his time on the continent than in this island: he
was surrounded with the English gentry and nobility when abroad: the
French gentry and nobility attended him when he resided in England: both
nations acted in the government as if they were the same people; and, on
many occasions, the legislatures seem not to have been distinguished. As
the king and all the English barons were of French extraction, the manners
of that people acquired the ascendant, and were regarded as the models of
imitation. All foreign improvements, therefore, such as they were, in
literature and politeness, in laws and arts, seem now to have been, in a
good measure, transplanted into England and that kingdom was become little
inferior, in all the fashionable accomplishments, to any of its neighbors
on the continent. The more homely but more sensible manners and principles
of the Saxons, were exchanged for the affectations of chivalry, and the
subtilties of school philosophy: the feudal ideas of civil government, the
Romish sentiments in religion, had taken entire possession of the people:
by the former, the sense of submission towards princes was somewhat
diminished in the barons; by the latter, the devoted attachment to papal
authority was much augmented among the clergy. The Norman and other
foreign families established in England, had now struck deep root; and
being entirely incorporated with the people, whom at first they oppressed
and despised, they no longer thought that they needed the protection of
the crown for the enjoyment of their possessions, or considered their
tenure as precarious. They aspired to the same liberty and independence
which they saw enjoyed by their brethren on the continent, and desired to
restrain those exorbitant prerogatives and arbitrary practices, which the
necessities of war and the violence of conquest had at first obliged them
to indulge in their monarch. That memory also of a more equal government
under the Saxon princes, which remained with the English, diffused still
further the spirit of liberty, and made the barons both desirous of more
independence to themselves and willing to indulge it to the people. And it
was not long ere this secret revolution in the sentiments of men produced,
first violent convulsions in the state, then an evident alteration in the
maxims of government.
The history of all the preceding kings of England since the conquest,
gives evident proofs of the disorders attending the feudal institutions;
the licentiousness of the barons, their spirit of rebellion against the
prince and laws, and of animosity against each other: the conduct of the
barons in the transmarine dominions of those monarchs, afforded perhaps
still more flagrant instances of these convulsions; and the history of
France, during several ages, consists almost entirely of narrations of
this nature. The cities, during the continuance of this violent
government, could neither be very numerous nor populous; and there occur
instances which seem to evince that, though these are always the first
seat of law and liberty, their police was in general loose and irregular,
and exposed to the same disorders with those by which the country was
generally infested. It was a custom in London for great numbers, to the
amount of a hundred or more, the sons and relations of considerable
citizens, to form themselves into a licentious confederacy, to break into
rich houses and plunder them, to rob and murder the passengers, and to
commit with impunity all sorts of disorder. By these crimes it had become
so dangerous to walk the streets by night, that the citizens durst no more
venture abroad after sunset, than if they had been exposed to the
incursions of a public enemy. The brother of the earl of Ferrars had been
murdered by some of those nocturnal rioters; and the death of so eminent a
person, which was much more regarded than that of many thousands of an
inferior station, so provoked the king, that he swore vengeance against
the criminals, and became thenceforth more rigorous in the execution of
the laws.
There is another instance given by historians, which proves to what a
height such riots had proceeded, and how open these criminals were in
committing their robberies. A band of them had attacked the house of a
rich citizen, with an intention of plundering it; had broken through a
stone wall with hammers and wedges; and had already entered the house
sword in hand, when the citizen, armed cap-á-pie, and supported by his
faithful servants, appeared in the passage to oppose them: he cut off the
right hand of the first robber that entered, and made such stout
resistance that his neighbors had leisure to assemble and come to his
relief. The man who lost his hand was taken; and was tempted by the
promise of pardon to reveal his confederates; among whom was one John
Senex, esteemed among the richest and best-born citizens in London. He was
convicted by the ordeal; and though he offered five hundred marks for his
life, the king refused the money, and ordered him to be hanged. It
appears, from a statute of Edward I., that these disorders were not
remedied even in that reign. It was then made penal to go out at night
after the hour of the curfew, to carry a weapon, or to walk without a
light or lantern. It is said in the preamble to this law, that both by
night and by day there were continual frays in the streets of London.
Henry’s care in administering justice had gained him so great a
reputation, that even foreign and distant princes made him arbiter, and
submitted their differences to his judgment. Sanchez, king of Navarre,
having some controversies with Alphonso, king of Castile, was contented,
though Alphonso had married the daughter of Henry, to choose this prince
for a referee; and they agreed each of them to consign three castles into
neutral hands, as a pledge of their not departing from his award. Henry
made the cause be examined before his great council, and gave a sentence,
which was submitted to by both parties. These two Spanish kings sent each
a stout champion to the court of England, in order to defend his cause by
arms, in case the way of duel had been chosen by Henry.
Henry so far abolished the barbarous and absurd practice of confiscating
ships which had been wrecked on the coast, that he ordained if one man or
animal were alive in the ship that the vessel and goods should be restored
to the owners.
The reign of Henry was remarkable also for an innovation which was
afterwards carried further by his successors, and was attended with the
most important consequences. This prince was disgusted with the species of
military force which was established by the feudal institutions, and
which, though it was extremely burdensome to the subject, yet rendered
very little service to the sovereign. The barons, or military tenants,
came late into the field; they were obliged to serve only forty days; they
were unskilful and disorderly in all their operations; and they were apt
to carry into the camp the same refractory and independent spirit to which
they were accustomed in their civil government. Henry, therefore,
introduced the practice of making a commutation of their military service
for money; and he levied scutages from his baronies and knights’ fees,
instead of requiring the personal attendance of his vassals. There is
mention made, in the history of the exchequer, of these scutages in his
second, fifth, and eighteenth year; and other writers give us an account
of three more of them.[*] When the prince had thus obtained money, he made
a contract with some of those adventurers in which Europe at that time
abounded; they found him soldiers of the same character with themselves,
who were bound to serve for a stipulated time: the armies were less
numerous, but more useful, than when composed of all the military vassals
of the crown: the feudal institutions began to relax: the kings became
rapacious for money, on which all their power depended: the barons, seeing
no end of exactions, sought to defend their property, and as the same
causes had nearly the same effects in the different countries of Europe,
the several crowns either lost or acquired authority, according to their
different success in the contest.
This prince was also the first that levied a tax on the movables or
personal estates of his subjects, nobles as well as commons. Their zeal
for the holy wars made them submit to this innovation; and a precedent
being once obtained, this taxation became, in following reigns, the usual
method of supplying the necessities of the crown. The tax of danegelt, so
generally odious to the nation, was remitted in this reign.
Since we are here collecting some detached incidents, which show the
genius of the age, and which could not so well enter into the body of our
history, it may not be improper to mention the quarrel between Roger,
archbishop of York, and Richard, archbishop of Canterbury. We may judge of
the violence of military men and laymen, when ecclesiastics could proceed
to such extremities. Cardinal Haguezun, being sent, in 1176, as legate
into Britain, summoned an assembly of the clergy at London; and, as both
the archbishops pretended to sit on his right hand, this question of
precedency begat a controversy between them. The monks and retainers of
Archbishop Richard fell upon Roger, in the presence of the cardinal and of
the synod, threw him to the ground, trampled him under foot, and so
bruised him with blows, that he was taken up half dead, and his life was
with difficulty saved from their violence. The archbishop of Canterbury
was obliged to pay a large sum of money to the legate, in order to
suppress all complaints with regard to this enormity.
We are told by Giraldus Cambrensis, that the monks and prior of St.
Swithun threw themselves one day prostrate on the ground and in the mire
before Henry, complaining, with many tears and much doleful lamentation,
that the bishop of Winchester, who was also their abbot, had cut off three
dishes from their table. “How many has he left you?” said the king. “Ten
only,” replied the disconsolate monks. “I myself,” exclaimed the king,
“never have more than three; and I enjoin your bishop to reduce you to the
same number.”
This king left only two legitimate sons, Richard, who succeeded him, and
John, who inherited no territory, though his father had often intended to
leave him a part of his extensive dominions. He was thence commonly
denominated Lackland. Henry left three legitimate daughters; Maud, born in
1156, and married to Henry, duke of Saxony; Eleanor, born in 1162, and
married to Alphonso, king of Castile: Joan, born in 1165, and married to
William, king of Sicily.
Henry is said by ancient historians to have been of a very amorous
disposition; they mention two of his natural sons by Rosamond, daughter of
Lord Clifford; namely, Richard Longespée, or Longsword, (so called from
the sword he usually wore,) who was afterwards married to Ela, the
daughter and heir of the earl of Salisbury; and Geoffrey, first bishop of
Lincoln, then archbishop of York. All the other circumstances of the story
commonly told of that lady seem to be fabulous.
CHAPTER X.
RICHARD I.
1189.
The compunction of Richard, for his undutiful behavior towards his father,
was durable, and influenced him in the choice of his ministers and
servants after his accession. Those who had seconded and favored his
rebellion, instead of meeting with that trust and honor which they
expected, were surprised to find that they lay under disgrace with the new
king, and were on all occasions hated and despised by him. The faithful
ministers of Henry, who had vigorously opposed all the enterprises of his
sons, were received with open arms, and were continued in those offices
which they had honorably discharged to their former master. This prudent
conduct might be the result of reflection; but in a prince like Richard,
so much guided by passion, and so little by policy, it was commonly
ascribed to a principle still more virtuous and more honorable.
Richard, that he might make atonement to one parent for his breach of duty
to the other, immediately sent orders for releasing the queen dowager from
the confinement in which she had long been detained; and he intrusted her
with the government of England, till his arrival in that kingdom. His
bounty to his brother John was rather profuse and imprudent. Besides
bestowing on him the county of Mortaigne, in Normandy, granting him a
pension of four thousand marks a year, and marrying him to Avisa, the
daughter of the earl of Glocester, by whom he inherited all the
possessions of that opulent family, he increased this appanage, which the
late king had destined him, by other extensive grants and concessions. He
conferred on him the whole estate of William Peverell, which had escheated
to the crown: he put him in possession of eight castles, with all the
forests and honors annexed to them: he delivered over to him no less than
six earldoms, Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Nottingham, Dorset, Lancaster and
Derby. And endeavoring, by favors, to fix that vicious prince in his duty,
he put it too much in his power, whenever he pleased, to depart from it.
The king, impelled more by the love of military glory than by
superstition, acted, from the beginning of his reign, as if the sole
purpose of his government had been the relief of the Holy Land, and the
recovery of Jerusalem from the Saracens. This zeal against infidels, being
communicated to his subjects, broke out in London on the day of his
coronation, and made them find a crusade less dangerous and attended with
more immediate profit. The prejudices of the age had made the lending of
money on interest pass by the invidious name of usury: yet the necessity
of the practice had still continued it, and the greater part of that kind
of dealing fell every where into the hands of the Jews, who, being already
infamous on account of their religion, had no honor to lose, and were apt
to exercise a profession, odious in itself, by every kind of rigor, and
even sometimes by rapine and extortion. The industry and frugality of this
people had put them in possession of all the ready money which the
idleness and profusion common to the English with other European nations,
enabled them to lend at exorbitant and unequal interest. The monkish
writers represent it as a great stain on the wise and equitable government
of Henry, that he had carefully protected this infidel race from all
injuries and insults; but the zeal of Richard afforded the populace a
pretence for venting their animosity against them. The king had issued an
edict, prohibiting their appearance at his coronation; but some of them,
bringing him large presents from their nation, presumed, in confidence of
that merit, to approach the hall in which he dined: being discovered, they
were exposed to the insults of the bystanders; they took to flight; the
people pursued them; the rumor was spread that the king had issued orders
to massacre all the Jews; a command so agreeable was executed in an
instant on such as fell into the hands of the populace; those who had kept
at home were exposed to equal danger; the people, moved by rapacity and
zeal, broke into their houses which they plundered, after having murdered
the owners; where the Jews barricadoed their doors, and defended
themselves with vigor, the rabble set fire to their houses and made way
through the flames to exercise the pillage and violence; the usual
licentiousness of London, which the sovereign power with difficulty
restrained, broke out with fury, and continued these outrages; the houses
of the richest citizens, though Christians, were next attacked and
plundered; and weariness and satiety at last put an end to the disorder:
yet when the king empowered Glanville, the justiciary, to inquire into the
authors of these crimes, the guilt was found to involve so many of the
most considerable citizens, that it was deemed more prudent to drop the
prosecution; and very few suffered the punishment due to this enormity.
But the disorder stopped not at London. The inhabitants of the other
cities of England, hearing of this slaughter of the Jews, imitated the
example: in York five hundred of that nation, who had retired into the
castle for safety, and found themselves unable to defend the place,
murdered their own wives and children, threw the dead bodies over the
walls upon the populace, and then setting fire to the houses, perished in
the flames. The gentry of the neighborhood, who were all indebted to the
Jews, ran to the cathedral, where their bonds were kept, and made a solemn
bonfire of the papers before the altar. The compiler of the Annals of
Waverley, in relating these events, blesses the Almighty for thus
delivering over this impious race to destruction.
The ancient situation of England, when the people possessed little riches
and the public no credit, made it impossible for sovereigns to bear the
expense of a steady or durable war, even on their frontiers; much less
could they find regular means for the support of distant expeditions like
those into Palestine, which were more the result of popular frenzy than of
sober reason or deliberate policy. Richard therefore knew that he must
carry with him all the treasure necessary for his enterprise, and that
both the remoteness of his own country and its poverty, made it unable to
furnish him with those continued supplies, which the exigencies of so
perilous a war must necessarily require. His father had left him a
treasure of above a hundred thousand marks; and the king, negligent of
every consideration but his present object, endeavored to augment his sum
by all expedients, how pernicious soever ta the public, or dangerous to
royal authority. He put to sale the revenues and manors of the crown; the
offices of greatest trust and power, even those of forester and sheriff,
which anciently were so important,[*] became venal; the dignity of chief
justiciary, in whose hands was lodged the whole execution of the laws, was
sold to Hugh de Puzas, bishop of Durham, for a thousand marks; the same
prelate bought the earldom of Northumberland for life;[**] many of the
champions of the cross, who had repented of their vow, purchased the
liberty of violating it; and Richard, who stood less in need of men than
of money, dispensed, on these conditions, with their attendance. Elated
with the hopes of fame, which in that age attended no wars but those
against the infidels, he was blind to every other consideration; and when
some of his wiser ministers objected to this dissipation of the revenue
and power of the crown, he replied, that he would sell London itself could
he find a purchaser.[***] Nothing indeed could be a stronger proof how
negligent he was of all future interests in comparison of the crusade,
than his selling, for so small a sum as ten thousand marks, the vassalage
of Scotland, together with the fortresses of Roxborough and Berwick, the
greatest acquisition that had been made by his father during the course of
his victorious reign; and his accepting the homage of William in the usual
terms, merely for the territories which that prince held in England.[****]
The English of all ranks and stations were oppressed by numerous
exactions: menaces were employed both against the innocent and the guilty,
in order to extort money from them; and where a pretence was wanting
against the rich, the king obliged them, by the fear of his displeasure,
to lend him sums which he knew it would never be in his power to repay.
But Richard, though he sacrificed every interest and consideration to the
success of this pious enterprise, carried so little the appearance of
sanctity in his conduct, that Fulk curate of Neuilly, a zealous preacher
of the crusade, who from that merit had acquired the privilege of speaking
the boldest truths, advised him to rid himself of his notorious vices,
particularly his pride, avarice, and voluptuousness, which he called the
king’s three favorite daughters. “You counsel well,” replied Richard; “and
I hereby dispose of the first to the Templars, of the second to the
Benedictines, and of the third to my prelates.”
Richard, jealous of attempts which might be made on England during his
absence, laid Prince John, as well as his natural brother Geoffrey,
archbishop of York, under engagements, confirmed by their oaths, that
neither of them should enter the kingdom till his return; though he
thought proper, before his departure, to withdraw this prohibition. The
administration was left in the hands of Hugh, bishop of Durham, and of
Longchamp, bishop of Ely, whom he appointed justiciaries and guardians of
the realm. The latter was a Frenchman of mean birth, and of a violent
character; who by art and address had insinuated himself into favor, whom
Richard had created chancellor, and whom he had engaged the pope also to
invest with the legantine authority, that, by centring every kind of power
in his person, he might the better insure the public tranquillity. All the
military and turbulent spirits flocked about the person of the king, and
were impatient to distinguish themselves against the infidels in Asia;
whither his inclinations, his engagements, led him, and whither he was
impelled by messages from the king of France, ready to embark in this
enterprise.
The emperor Frederic, a prince of great spirit and conduct, had already
taken the road to Palestine, at the head of one hundred and fifty thousand
men, collected from Germany and all the northern states. Having surmounted
every obstacle thrown in his way by the artifices of the Greeks and the
power of the infidels, he had penetrated to the borders of Syria; when,
bathing in the cold river Cydnus, during the greatest heat of the summer
season, he was seized with a mortal distemper, which put an end to his
life and his rash enterprise.[*]
His army, under the command of his son Conrade, reached Palestine; but was
so diminished by fatigue famine, maladies, and the sword, that it scarcely
amounted to eight thousand men, and was unable to make any progress
against the great power, valor, and conduct of Saladin. These reiterated
calamities attending the crusades, had taught the kings of France and
England the necessity of trying another road to the Holy Land and they
determined to conduct their armies thither by sea, to carry provisions
along with them, and by means of their naval power to maintain an open
communication with then own states, and with the western parts of Europe.
The place of rendezvous was appointed in the plains of Vezelay, on the
borders of Burgundy.[*]
1190.
Philip and Richard, on their arrival there, found their combined army
amount to one hundred thousand men;[**] a mighty force, animated with
glory and religion, conducted by two warlike monarchs, provided with every
thing which their several dominions couid supply, and not to be overcome
but by their own misconduct, or by the unsurmountable obstacles of nature.
The French prince and the English here reiterated their promises of
cordial friendship, pledged their faith not to invade each other’s
dominions during the crusade, mutually exchanged the oaths of all their
barons and prelates to the same effect, and subjected themselves to the
penalty of interdicts and excommunications, if they should ever violate
this public and solemn engagement. They then separated; Philip took the
road to Genoa, Richard that to Marseilles, with a view of meeting their
fleets, which were severally appointed to rendezvous in these harbors.
They put to sea; and nearly about the same time were obliged, by stress of
weather, to take shelter in Messina, where they were detained during the
whole winter. This incident laid the foundation of animosities which
proved fatal to their enterprise.
Richard and Philip were, by the situation and extent of their dominions,
rivals in power; by their age and inclinations, competitors for glory; and
these causes of emulation, which, had the princes been employed in the
field against the common enemy, might have stimulated them to martial
enterprises, soon excited, during the present leisure and repose, quarrels
between monarchs of such a fiery character. Equally haughty, ambitious,
intrepid, and inflexible, they were irritated with the least appearance of
injury, and were incapable, by mutual condescensions, to efface those
causes of complaint which unavoidably rose between them. Richard, candid,
sincere, undesigning, impolitic, violent, laid himself open on every
occasion to the designs of his antagonist; who, provident, interested,
intriguing, failed not to take all advantages against him: and thus, both
the circumstances of their disposition in which they were similar, and
those in which they differed, rendered it impossible for them to persevere
in that harmony which was so necessary to the success of their
undertaking.
The last king of Sicily and Naples was William II., who had married Joan,
sister to Richard, and who, dying without issue, had bequeathed his
dominions to his paternal aunt Constantia, the only legitimate descendant
surviving of Roger the first sovereign of those states who had been
honored with the royal title. This princess had, in expectation of that
rich inheritance, been married to Henry VI., the reigning emperor;[*] but
Tancred, her natural brother, had fixed such an interest among the barons,
that, taking advantage of Henry’s absence, he had acquired possession of
the throne, and maintained his claim, by force of arms, against all the
efforts of the Germans.[**] The approach of the crusaders naturally gave
him apprehensions for his unstable government; and he was uncertain
whether he had most reason to dread the presence of the French or of the
English monarch. Philip was engaged in a strict alliance with the emperor,
his competitor: Richard was disgusted by his rigors towards the queen
dowager, whom the Sicilian prince had confined in Palermo because she had
opposed with all her interest his succession to the crown. Tancred,
therefore, sensible of the present necessity, resolved to pay court to
both these formidable princes; and he was not unsuccessful in his
endeavors. He persuaded Philip that it was highly improper for him to
interrupt his enterprise against the infidels by any attempt against a
Christian state: he restored Queen Joan to her liberty; and even found
means to make an alliance with Richard, who stipulated by treaty to marry
his nephew Arthur; the young duke of Brittany, to one of the daughters of
Tancred.[***]
But before these terms of friendship were settled. Richard, jealous both
of Tancred and of the inhabitants of Messina, had taken up his quarters in
the suburbs, and had possessed himself of a small fort, which commanded
the harbor; and he kept himself extremely on his guard against their
enterprises. The citizens took umbrage. Mutual insults and attacks passed
between them and the English: Philip, who had quartered his troops in the
town, endeavored to accommodate the quarrel, and held a conference with
Richard for that purpose. While the two kings, meeting in the open fields,
were engaged in discourse on this subject, a body of those Sicilians
seemed to be drawing towards them; and Richard pushed forwards in order to
inquire into the reason of this extraordinary movement.[*] The English,
indolent from their power, and inflamed with former animosities, wanted
but a pretence for attacking the Messinese: they soon chased them off the
field, drove them into the town, and entered with them at the gates. The
king employed his authority to restrain them from pillaging and massacring
the defenceless inhabitants; but he gave orders, in token of his victory,
that the standard of England should be erected on the walls. Philip, who
considered that place as his quarters, exclaimed against the insult, and
ordered some of his troops to pull down the standard: but Richard informed
him by a messenger, that though he himself would willingly remove that
ground of offence, he would not permit it to be done by others; and if the
French king attempted such an insult upon him, he should not succeed but
by the utmost effusion of blood. Philip, content with this species of
haughty submission, recalled his orders:[**] the difference was seemingly
accommodated, but still left the remains of rancor and jealousy in the
breasts of the two monarchs.
Tancred, who for his own security desired to inflame their mutual hatred,
employed an artifice which might have been attended with consequences
still more fatal.
1191.
He showed Richard a letter, signed by the French king, and delivered to
him, as he pretended, by the duke of Burgundy; in which that monarch
desired Tancred to fall upon the quarters of the English, and promised to
assist him in putting them to the sword as common enemies. The unwary
Richard gave credit to the information; but was too candid not to betray
his discontent to Philip, who absolutely denied the letter, and charged
the Sicilian prince with forgery and falsehood. Richard either was, or
pretended to be, entirely satisfied.[***]
Last these jealousies and complaints should multiply between them, it was
proposed that they should, by a solemn treaty, obviate all future
differences, and adjust every point that couid possibly hereafter become a
controversy between them. But this expedient started a new dispute, which
might have proved more dangerous than any of the foregoing, and which
deeply concerned the honor of Philip’s family. When Richard, in every
treaty with the late king, insisted so strenuously on being allowed to
marry Alice of France, he had only sought a pretence for quarrelling, and
never meant to take to his bed a princess suspected of a criminal amour
with his own father. After he became master, he no longer spake of that
alliance: he even took measures for espousing Berengaria, daughter of
Sanchez, king of Navarre, with whom he had become enamored during his
abode in Guienne.[*] Queen Eleanor was daily expected with that princess
at Messina;[**] and when Philip renewed to him his applications for
espousing his sister Alice, Richard was obliged to give him an absolute
refusal. It is pretended by Hoveden and other historians,[***] that he was
able to produce such convincing proofs of Alice’s infidelity, and even of
her having borne a child to Henry, that her brother desisted from his
applications, and chose to wrap up the dishonor of his family in silence
and oblivion. It is certain, from the treaty itself which remains,[****]
that, whatever were his motives, he permitted Richard to give his hand to
Berengaria; and having settled all other controversies with that prince,
he immediately set sail for the Holy Land. Richard awaited some time the
arrival of his mother and bride, and when they joined him, he separated
his fleet into two squadrons, and set forward on his enterprise. Queen
Eleanor returned to England; but Berengaria, and the queen dowager of
Sicily, his sister, attended him on the expedition.[*****]
The English fleet, on leaving the port of Messina, met with a furious
tempest; and the squadron on which the two princesses were embarked was
driven on the coast of Cyprus, and some of the vessels were wrecked near
Limisso, in that island. Isaac, prince of Cyprus, who assumed the
magnificent title of emperor, pillaged the ships that were stranded, brew
the seamen and passengers into prison, and even refused to the princesses
liberty, in their dangerous situation, of entering the harbor of Limisso.
But Richard, who arrived soon after, took ample vengeance on him for the
injury. He disembarked his troops; defeated the tyrant, who opposed his
landing; entered Limisso by storm; gained next day a second victory;
obliged Isaac to surrender at discretion; and established governors over
the island. The Greek prince, being thrown into prison and loaded with
irons, complained of the little regard with which he was treated; upon
which Richard ordered silver fetters to be made for him; and this emperor,
pleased with the distinction, expressed a sense of the generosity of his
conqueror.[*] The king here espoused Berengaria, who, immediately
embarking, carried along with her to Palestine the daughter of the Cypriot
prince; a dangerous rival, who was believed to have seduced the affections
of her husband. Such were the libertine character and conduct of the
heroes engaged in this pious enterprise!
The English army arrived in time to partake in the glory of the siege of
Acre or Ptolemais, which had been attacked for above two years by the
united force of all the Christians in Palestine, and had been defended by
the utmost efforts of Saladin and the Saracens. The remains of the German
army, conducted by the emperor Frederic, and the separate bodies of
adventurers who continually poured in from the west, had enabled the king
of Jerusalem to form this important enterprise;[**] but Saladin having
thrown a strong garrison into the place under the command of Caracos, his
own master in the art of war, and molesting the besiegers with continual
attacks and sallies, had protracted the success of the enterprise, and
wasted the force of his enemies.
The arrival of Philip and Richard inspired new life into the Christians;
and these princes acting by concert, and sharing the honor and danger of
every action, gave hopes of a final victory over the infidels. They agreed
on this plan of operations: when the French monarch attacked the town, the
English guarded the trenches: next day, when the English prince conducted
the assault, the French succeeded him in providing for the safety of the
assailants. The emulation between those rival kings and rival nations
produced extraordinary acts of valor: Richard, in particular animated with
a more precipitate courage than Philip, and more agreeable to the romantic
spirit of that age, drew to himself the general attention, and acquired a
great and splendid reputation. But this harmony was of short duration, and
occasions of discord soon arose between these jealous and haughty princes.
The family of Bouillon, which had first been placed on the throne of
Jerusalem, ending in a female, Fulk, count of Anjou, grandfather to Henry
II. of England, married the heiress of that kingdom, and transmitted his
title to the younger branches of his family. The Anjevan race ending also
in a female, Guy de Lusignan, by espousing Sibylla, the heiress, had
succeeded to the title; and though he lost his kingdom by the invasion of
Saladin, he was still acknowledged by all the Christians for king of
Jerusalem.[*] But as Sibylla died without issue during the siege of Acre,
Isabella, her younger sister, put in her claim to that titular kingdom,
and required Lusignan to resign his pretensions to her husband, Conrade,
marquis of Montferrat. Lusignan, maintaining that the royal title was
unalienable and indefeasible, had recourse to the protection of Richard,
attended on him before he left Cyprus, and engaged him to embrace his
cause.[**] There needed no other reason for throwing Philip into the party
of Conrade; and the opposite views of these great monarchs brought faction
and dissension into the Christian army, and retarded all its operations.
The templars, the Genoese, and the Germans, declared for Philip and
Conrade; the Flemings, the Pisans, the knights of the hospital of St.
John, adhered to Richard and Lusignan, But notwithstanding these disputes,
as the length of the siege had reduced the Saracen garrison to the last
extremity, they surrendered themselves prisoners; stipulated, in return
for their lives, other advantages to the Christians, such as restoring of
the Christian prisoners, and the delivery of the wood of the true
cross;[***] and this great enterprise, which had long engaged the
attention of all Europe and Asia, was at last, after the loss of three
hundred thousand men, brought to a happy period.
But Philip, instead of pursuing the hopes of further conquest, and of
redeeming the holy city from slavery, being disgusted with the ascendant
assumed and acquired by Richard, and having views of many advantages which
he might reap by his presence in Europe, declared his resolution of
returning to France; and he pleaded his bad state of health as an excuse
for his desertion of the common cause. He left however, to Richard ten
thousand of his troops, under the command of the duke of Burgundy; and he
renewed his oath never to commence hostilities against that prince’s
dominions during his absence. But he had no sooner reached Italy than he
applied, it is pretended, to Pope Celestine III. for a dispensation from
this vow; and when denied that request, he still proceeded, though after a
covert manner, in a project which the present situation of England
rendered inviting, and which gratified, in an eminent degree, both his
resentment and his ambition.
Immediately after Richard had left England, and begun his march to the
Holy Land, the two prelates whom he had appointed guardians of the realm,
broke out into animosities against each other, and threw the kingdom into
combustion. Longchamp, presumptuous in his nature, elated by the favor
which he enjoyed with his master, and armed with the legantine commission,
could not submit to an equality with the bishop of Durham: he even went so
far as to arrest his colleague, and to extort from him a resignation of
the earldom of Northumberland, and of his other dignities, as the price of
his liberty.[*] The king, informed of these dissensions, ordered, by
letters from Marseilles, that the bishop should be reinstated in his
offices; but Longchamp had still the boldness to refuse compliance, on
pretence that he himself was better acquainted with the king’s secret
intentions.[**] He proceeded to govern the kingdom by his sole authority;
to treat all the nobility with arrogance; and to display his power and
riches with an invidious ostentation. He never travelled without a strong
guard of fifteen hundred foreign soldiers, collected from that licentious
tribe, with which the age was generally infested: nobles and knights were
proud of being admitted into his train his retinue wore the aspect of
royal magnificence; and when in his progress through the kingdom, he
lodged in any monastery, his attendants, it is said, were sufficient to
devour in one night the revenue of several years.[***]
The king, who was detained in Europe longer than the haughty prelate
expected, hearing of this ostentation, which exceeded even what the habits
of that age indulged in ecclesiastics; being also informed of the
insolent, tyrannical conduct of his minister, thought proper to restrain
his power: he sent new orders, appointing Walter, archbishop of Rouen,
William Mareshal, earl of Strigul, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, William Brie were,
and Hugh Bardolf, counsellors to Longchamp, and commanding him to take no
measure of importance without their concurrence and approbation. But such
general terror had this man impressed by his violent conduct, that even
the archbishop of Rouen and the earl of Strigul durst not produce this
mandate of the king’s: and Longchamp still maintained an uncontrolled
authority over the nation. But when he proceeded so far as to throw into
prison Geoffrey, archbishop of York, who had opposed his measures, this
breach of ecclesiastical privileges excited such a universal ferment, that
Prince John, disgusted with the small share he possessed in the
government, and personally disobliged by Longchamp, ventured to summon at
Reading a general council of the nobility and prelates, and cite him to
appear before them. Longchamp thought it dangerous to intrust his person
in their hands, and he shut himself, up in the tower of London; but being
soon obliged to surrender that fortress, he fled beyond sea, concealed
under a female habit, and was deprived of his offices of chancellor and
chief justiciary, the last of which was conferred on the archbishop of
Rouen, a prelate of prudence and moderation. The commission of legate,
however, which had been renewed to Longchamp by Pope Celestine, still gave
him, notwithstanding his absence, great authority in the kingdom, enabled
him to disturb the government, and forwarded the views of Philip, who
watched every opportunity of annoying Richard’s dominions.
1192.
That monarch first attempted to carry open war into Normandy: but as the
French nobility refused to follow him in an invasion of a state which they
had sworn to protect, and as the pope, who was the general guardian of all
princes that had taken the cross, threatened him with ecclesiastical
censures, he desisted from his enterprise, and employed against England
the expedient of secret policy and intrigue. He debauched Prince John from
his allegiance; promised him his sister Alice in marriage; offered to give
him possession of all Richard’s transmarine dominions; and had not the
authority of Queen Eleanor, and the menaces of the English council,
prevailed over the inclinations of that turbulent prince, he was ready to
have crossed the seas, and to have put in execution his criminal
enterprises.
The jealousy of Philip was every moment excited by the glory which the
great actions of Richard were gaining him in the east, and which, being
compared to his own desertion of that popular cause, threw a double lustre
on his rival. His envy, therefore, prompted him to obscure that fame which
he had not equalled; and he embraced every pretence of throwing the most
violent and most improbable calumnies on the king of England. There was a
petty prince in Asia, commonly called the Old Man of the Mountain, who had
acquired such an ascendant over his fanatical subjects, that they paid the
most implicit deference to his commands; esteemed assassination
meritorious when sanctified by his mandate; courted danger, and even
certain death, in the execution of his orders; and fancied, that when they
sacrificed their lives for his sake, the highest joys of paradise were the
infallible reward of their devoted obedience.[*] It was the custom of this
prince, when he imagined himself injured, to despatch secretly some of his
subjects against the aggressor, to charge them with the execution of his
revenge, to instruct them in every art of disguising their purpose; and no
precaution was sufficient to guard any man, however powerful, against the
attempts of these subtle and determined ruffians. The greatest monarchs
stood in awe of this prince of the assassins, (for that was the name of
his people. whence the word has passed into most European languages,) and
it was the highest indiscretion in Conrade, marquis of Montferrat, to
offend and affront him. The inhabitants of Tyre, who were governed by that
nobleman, had put to death some of this dangerous people: the prince
demanded satisfaction; for as he piqued himself on never beginning any
offence,[**] he had his regular and established formalities in requiring
atonement: Conrade treated his messengers with disdain: the prince issued
the fatal orders: two of his subjects, who had insinuated themselves in
disguise among Conrade’s guards, openly, in the streets of Sidon, wounded
him mortally; and when they were seized and put to the most cruel
tortures, they triumphed amidst their agonies, and rejoiced that they had
been destined by Heaven to suffer in so just and meritorious a cause.
Every one in Palestine knew from what hand the blow came. Richard was
entirely free from suspicion. Though that monarch had formerly maintained
the cause of Lusignan against Conrade, he had become sensible of the bad
effects attending those dissensions, and had voluntarily conferred on the
former the kingdom of Cyprus, on condition that he should resign to his
rival all pretensions on the crown of Jerusalem,[*] Conrade himself, with
his dying breath, had recommended his widow to the protection of
Richard;[**] the prince of the assassins avowed the action in a formal
narrative which he sent to Europe; yet, on this foundation, the king of
France thought fit to build the most egregious calumnies, and to impute to
Richard the murder of the marquis of Montferrat, whose elevation he had
once openly opposed. He filled all Europe with exclamations against the
crime; appointed a guard for his own person, in order to defend himself
against a like attempt; and endeavored, by these shallow artifices, to
cover the infamy of attacking the dominions of a prince whom he himself
had deserted, and who was engaged with so much glory in a war universally
acknowledged to be the common cause of Christendom.
But Richard’s heroic actions in Palestine were the best apology for his
conduct. The Christian adventurers under his command determined, on
opening the campaign, to attempt the siege of Ascalon, in order to prepare
the way for that of Jerusalem; and they marched along the sea-coast with
that intention. Saladin purposed to intercept their passage: and he placed
himself on the road with an army, amounting to three hundred thousand
combatants. On this occasion was fought one of the greatest battles of
that age; and the most celebrated, for the military genius of the
commanders, for the number and valor of the troops, and for the great
variety of events which attended it. Both the right wing of the
Christians, commanded by D’Avesnes, and the left conducted by the duke of
Burgundy, were, in the beginning of the day, broken and defeated; when
Richard, who led on the main body, restored the battle; attacked the enemy
with intrepidity and presence of mind; performed the part both of a
consummate general and gallant soldier; and not only gave his two wings
leisure to recover from their confusion, but obtained a complete victory
over the Saracens, of whom forty thousand are said to have perished in the
field.[*] Ascalon soon after fell into the hands of the Christians: other
sieges were carried on with equal success; Richard was even able to
advance within sight of Jerusalem, the object of his enterprise; when he
had the mortification to find that he must abandon all hopes of immediate
success, and must put a stop to his career of victory. The crusaders,
animated with an enthusiastic ardor for the holy wars, broke at first
through all regards to safety or interest in the prosecution of their
purpose; and trusting to the immediate assistance of Heaven, set nothing
before their eyes but fame and victory in this world, and a crown of glory
in the next. But long absence from home, fatigue, disease, want, and the
variety of incidents which naturally attend war, had gradually abated that
fury, which nothing was able directly to withstand; and every one except
the king of England, expressed a desire of speedily returning into Europe.
The Germans and the Italians declared their resolution of desisting from
the enterprise: the French were still more obstinate in this purpose: the
duke of Burgundy, in order to pay court to Philip, took all opportunities
of mortifying and opposing Richard:[**] and there appeared an absolute
necessity of abandoning for the present all hopes of further conquest, and
of securing the acquisitions of the Christians by an accommodation with
Saladin, Richard, therefore concluded a truce with that monarch; and
stipulated that Acre, Joppa, and other seaport towns of Palestine, should
remain in the hands of the Christians, and that every one of that religion
should have liberty to perform his pilgrimage to Jerusalem unmolested.
This truce was concluded for three years, three months, three weeks, three
days, and three hours; a magical number, which had probably been devised
by the Europeans, and which was suggested by a superstition well suited to
the object of the war.
The liberty in which Saladin indulged the Christians, to perform their
pilgrimages to Jerusalem, was an easy sacrifice on his part; and the
furious wars which he waged in defence of the barren territory of Judea,
were not with him, as with the European adventurers, the result of
superstition, but of policy, The advantage indeed of science, moderation,
humanity, was at that time entirely on the side of the Saracens; and this
gallant emperor, in particular, displayed, during the course of the war, a
spirit and generosity, which even his bigoted enemies were obliged to
acknowledge and admire. Richard, equally martial and brave, carried with
him more of the barbarian character, and was guilty of acts of ferocity
which threw a stain on his celebrated victories. When Saladin refused to
ratify the capitulation of Acre, the king of England ordered all his
prisoners, to the number of five thousand, to be butchered; and the
Saracens found themselves obliged to retaliate upon the Christians by a
like cruelty.[*]
Saladin died at Damascus soon after concluding this truce with the princes
of the crusade; it is memorable that, before he expired, he ordered his
winding-sheet to be carried as a standard through every street of the
city; while a crier went before, and proclaimed with a loud voice, “This
is all that remains to the mighty Saladin, the conqueror of the East.” By
his last will, he ordered charities to be distributed to the poor, without
distinction of Jew, Christian, or Mahometan.
There remained, after the truce, no business of importance to detain
Richard in Palestine; and the intelligence which he received, concerning
the intrigues of his brother John, and those of the king of France, made
him sensible that his presence was necessary in Europe. As he dared not to
pass through France, he sailed to the Adriatic; and being ship-wrecked
near Aquileia, he put on the disguise of a pilgrim, with a purpose of
taking his journey secretly through Germany. Pursued by the governor of
Istria, he was forced out of the direct road to England, and was obliged
to pass by Vienna, where his expenses and liberalities betrayed the
monarch in the habit of the pilgrim; and he was arrested by orders of
Leopold, duke of Austria. This prince had served under Richard at the
siege of Acre; but being disgusted by some insult of that haughty monarch,
he was so ungenerous as to seize the present opportunity of gratifying at
once his avarice and revenge; and he threw the king into prison.
1193.
The emperor, Henry VI., who also considered Richard as an enemy, on
account of the alliance contracted by him with Tancred, king of Sicily,
despatched messengers to the duke of Austria, required the royal captive
to be delivered to him, and stipulated a large sum of money as a reward
for this service. Thus the king of England, who had filled the whole world
with his renown, found himself, during the most critical state of his
affairs, confined in a dungeon, and loaded with irons, in the heart of
Germany,[*] and entirely at the mercy of his enemies, the basest and most
sordid of mankind.
The English council was astonished on receiving this fatal intelligence,
and foresaw all the dangerous consequences which might naturally arise
from that event. The queen dowager wrote reiterated letters to Pope
Celestine; exclaiming against the injury which her son had sustained,
representing the impiety of detaining in prison the most illustrious
prince that had yet carried the banners of Christ into the Holy Land;
claiming the protection of the apostolic see, which was due even to the
meanest of those adventurers; and upbraiding the pope, that, in a cause
where justice, religion, and the dignity of the church, were so much
concerned, a cause which it might well befit his holiness himself to
support by taking in person a journey to Germany, the spiritual thunders
should so long be suspended over those sacrilegious offenders.[**] The
zeal of Celestine corresponded not to the impatience of the queen mother;
and the regency of England were, for a long time, left to struggle alone
with all their domestic and foreign enemies.
The king of France, quickly informed of Richard’s confinement by a message
from the emperor,[***] prepared himself to take advantage of the incident;
and he employed every means of force and intrigue, of war and negotiation,
against the dominions and the person of his unfortunate rival. He revived
the calumny of Richard’s assassinating the marquis of Montferrat; and by
that absurd pretence he induced his barons to violate their oaths, by
which they had engaged that, during the crusade, they never would, on any
account, attack the dominions of the king of England. He made the emperor
the largest offers, if he would deliver into his hands the royal prisoner,
or at least detain him in perpetual captivity he even formed an alliance
by marriage with the king of Denmark, desired that the ancient Danish
claim to the crown of England should be transferred to him, and solicited
a supply of shipping to maintain it.
But the most successful of Philip’s negotiations was with Prince John,
who, forgetting every tie to his brother, his sovereign, and his
benefactor, thought of nothing but how to make his own advantage of the
public calamities. That traitor, on the first invitation from the court of
France, suddenly went abroad, had a conference with Philip, and made a
treaty, of which the object was the perpetual ruin of his unhappy brother.
He stipulated to deliver into Philip’s hands a great part of Normandy:[*]
he received, in return, the investiture of all Richard’s transmarine
dominions; and it is reported by several historians, that he even did
homage to the French king for the crown of England.
In consequence of this treaty, Philip invaded Normandy; and by the
treachery of John’s emissaries, made himself master, without opposition,
of many fortresses—Neufchatel, Neaufle, Gisors, Pacey, Ivrée: he
subdued the counties of Eu and Aumale; and advancing to form the siege of
Rouen, he threatened to put all the inhabitants to the sword if they dared
to make resistance. Happily, Robert, earl of Leicester appeared in that
critical moment, a gallant nobleman, who had acquired great honor during
the crusade, and who, being more fortunate than his master in finding his
passage homewards, took on him the command in Rouen, and exerted himself,
by his exhortations and example, to infuse courage into the dismayed
Normans. Philip was repulsed in every attack; the time of service from his
vassals expired; and he consented to a truce with the English regency,
received in return the promise of twenty thousand marks, and had four
castles put into his hands as security for the payment.[**]
Prince John, who, with a view of increasing the general confusion, went
over to England, was still less successful in his enterprises. He was only
able to make himself master of the castles of Windsor and Wallingford; but
when he arrived in London, and claimed the kingdom as heir to his brother,
of whose death he pretended to have received certain intelligence he was
rejected by all the barons, and measures were taken to oppose and subdue
him.[*] The justiciaries, supported by the general affection of the
people, provided so well for the defence of the kingdom, that John was
obliged, after some fruitless efforts, to conclude a truce with them; and
before its expiration, he thought it prudent to return into France, where
he openly avowed his alliance with Philip.[**]
Meanwhile the high spirit of Richard suffered in Germany every kind of
insult and indignity. The French ambassadors, in their master’s name,
renounced him as a vassal to the crown of France, and declared all his
fiefs to be forfeited to his liege lord. The emperor, that he might render
him more impatient for the recovery of his liberty, and make him submit to
the payment of a larger ransom, treated him with the greatest severity,
and reduced him to a condition worse than that of the meanest malefactor.
He was even produced before the diet of the empire at Worms, and accused
by Henry of many crimes and misdemeanors; of making an alliance with
Tancred, the usurper of Sicily; of turning the arms of the crusade against
a Christian prince, and subduing Cyprus; of affronting the duke of Austria
before Acre; of obstructing the progress of the Christian arms by his
quarrels with the king of France; of assassinating Conrade, marquis of
Montferrat; and of concluding a truce with Saladin, and leaving Jerusalem
in the hands of the Saracen emperor.[***]
Richard, whose spirit was not broken by his misfortunes, and whose genius
was rather roused by these frivolous or scandalous imputations, after
premising that his dignity exempted him from answering before any
jurisdiction, except that of Heaven, yet condescended, for the sake of his
reputation, to justify his conduct before that great assembly. He
observed, that he had no hand in Tancred’s elevation, and only concluded a
treaty with a prince whom he found in possession of the throne: that the
king, or rather tyrant, of Cyprus had provoked his indignation by the most
ungenerous and unjust proceedings; and though he chastised this aggressor,
he had not retarded a moment the progress of his chief enterprise: that if
he had at any time been wanting in civility to the duke of Austria, he had
already been sufficiently punished for that sally of passion; and it
better became men, embarked together in so holy a cause, to forgive each
other’s infirmities, than to pursue a slight offence with such unrelenting
vengeance: that it had sufficiently appeared by the event, whether the
king of France or he were most zealous for the conquest of the Holy Land,
and were most likely to sacrifice private passions and animosities to that
great object: that if the whole tenor of his life had not shown him
incapable of a base assassination, and justified him from that imputation
in the eyes of his very enemies, it was in vain for him, at present, to
make his apology, or plead the many irrefragable arguments which he could
produce in his own favor: and that, however he might regret the necessity,
he was so far from being ashamed of his truce with Saladin, that he rather
gloried in that event; and thought it extremely honorable that, though
abandoned by all the world, supported only by his own courage, and by the
small remains of his national troops, he could yet obtain such conditions
from the most powerful and most warlike emperor that the East had ever yet
produced. Richard, after thus deigning to apologize for his conduct, burst
out into indignation at the cruel treatment which he had met with; that
he, the champion of the cross, still wearing that honorable badge, should,
after expending the blood and treasure of his subjects in the common cause
of Christendom, be intercepted by Christian princes in his return to his
own country, be thrown into a dungeon, be loaded with irons, be obliged to
plead his cause as if he were a subject and a malefactor, and, what he
still more regretted, be thereby prevented from making preparations for a
new crusade, which he had projected, after the expiration of the truce,
and from redeeming the sepulchre of Christ, which had so long been
profaned by the dominion of infidels. The spirit and eloquence of Richard
made such impression on the German princes, that they exclaimed loudly
against the conduct of the emperor; the pope threatened him with
excommunication; and Henry, who had hearkened to the proposals of the king
of France and Prince John, found that it would be impracticable for him to
execute his and their base purposes, or to detain the king of England any
longer in captivity. He therefore concluded with him a treaty for his
ransom, and agreed to restore him to his freedom for the sum of one
hundred and fifty thousand marks about three hundred thousand pounds of
our present money of which one hundred thousand marks were to be paid
before he received his liberty, and sixty-seven hostages delivered for the
remainder.[*] The emperor, as if to gloss over the infamy of this
transaction, made at the same time a present to Richard of the kingdom of
Arles, comprehending Provence, Dauphiny, Narbonne, and other states, over
which the empire had some antiquated claims; a present which the king very
wisely neglected.
The captivity of the superior lord was one of the cases provided for by
the feudal tenures; and all the vassals were in that event obliged to give
an aid for his ransom. Twenty shillings were therefore levied on each
knight’s fee in England; but as this money came in slowly, and was not
sufficient for the intended purpose, the voluntary zeal of the people
readily supplied the deficiency. The churches and monasteries melted down
their plate, to the amount of thirty thousand marks; the bishop, abbots,
and nobles, paid a fourth of their yearly rent; the parochial clergy
contributed a tenth of their tithes; and the requisite sura being thus
collected queen Eleanor, and Walter, archbishop of Rouen, set out with it
for Germany;
1194.
paid the money to the emperor and the duke of Austria at Mentz; delivered
them hostages for the remainder, and freed. Richard from captivity. His
escape was very critical. Henry had been detected in the assassination of
the bishop of Liege, and in an attempt of a like nature on the duke of
Louvaine; and finding himself extremely obnoxious to the German princes on
account of these odious practices, he had determined to seek support from
an alliance with the king of France; to detain Richard, the enemy of that
prince, in perpetual captivity; to keep in his hands the money which he
had already received for his ransom; and to extort fresh sums from Philip
and prince John, who were very liberal in their offers to him. He
therefore gave orders that Richard should be pursued and arrested; but the
king, making all imaginable haste, had already embarked at the mouth of
the Schelde, and was out of sight of land when the messengers of the
emperor reached Antwerp.
The joy of the English was extreme on the appearance of their monarch, who
had suffered so many calamities, who had acquired so much glory, and who
had spread the reputation of their name into the farthest east, whither
their fame had never before been able to extend. He gave them, soon after
his arrival, an opportunity of publicly displaying their exultation, by
ordering himself to be crowned anew at Winchester; as if he intended, by
that ceremony, to reinstate himself in his throne, and to wipe off he
ignominity of his captivity. Their satisfaction was not damped, even when
he declared his purpose of resuming all those exorbitant grants which he
had been necessitated to make before his departure for the Holy Land. The
barons also, in a great council, confiscated, on account of his treason,
all Prince John’s possessions in England and they assisted the king in
reducing the fortresses which still remained in the hands of his brother’s
adherents.[*] Richard, having settled every thing in England, passed over
with an army into Normandy; being impatient to make war on Philip, and to
revenge himself for the many injuries which he had received from that
monarch.[**] As soon as Philip heard of the king’s deliverance from
captivity, he wrote to his confederate John in these terms: “Take care of
yourself: the devil is broken loose.”[***]
When we consider such powerful and martial monarchs, inflamed with
personal animosity against each other, enraged by mutual injuries, excited
by rivalship, impelled by opposite interests, and instigated by the pride
and violence of their own temper, our curiosity is naturally raised, and
we expect an obstinate and furious war, distinguished by the greatest
events, and concluded by some remarkable catastrophe. Yet are the
incidents which attended those hostilities so frivolous, that scarce any
historian can entertain such a passion for military descriptions as to
venture on a detail of them; a certain proof of the extreme weakness of
princes in those ages, and of the little authority they possessed over
their refractory vassals The whole amount of the exploits on both sides,
is the taking of a castle, the surprise of a straggling party, a
rencounter of horse, which resembles more a rout than a battle. Richard
obliged Philip to raise the siege of Verneuil; he took Loches, a small
town in Anjou; he made himself master of Beaumont, and some other places
of little consequence; and after these trivial exploits, the two kings
began already to hold conferences for an accommodation. Philip insisted
that, if a general peace were concluded, the barons on each side should
for the future be prohibited from carrying on private wars against each
other; but Richard replied, that this was a right claimed by his vassals,
and he could not debar them from it After this fruitless negotiation,
there ensued an action between the French and English cavalry at
Fretteval, in which the former were routed, and the king of France’s
cartulary and records, which commonly at that time attended his person,
were taken. But this victory leading to no important advantages, a truce
for a year was at last, from mutual weakness, concluded between the two
monarchs.
During this war, Prince John deserted from Philip, threw himself at his
brother’s feet, craved pardon for his offences, and by the intercession of
Queen Eleanor was received into favor. “I forgive him,” said the king,
“and hope I shall as easily forget his injuries as he will my pardon.”
John was incapable even of returning to his duty without committing a
baseness. Before he left Philip’s party, he invited to dinner all the
officers of the garrison which that prince had placed in the citadel of
Evreux; he massacred them during the entertainment; fell, with the
assistance of the townsmen, on the garrison, whom he put to the sword; and
then delivered up the place to his brother.
The king of France was the great object of Richard’s resentment and
animosity. The conduct of John, as well as that of the emperor and duke of
Austria, had been so base, and was exposed to such general odium and
reproach, that the king deemed himself sufficiently revenged for their
injuries; and he seems never to have entertained any project of vengeance
against any of them. The duke of Austria, about this time, having crushed
his leg by the fall of his horse at a tournament, was thrown into a fever;
and being struck, on the approaches of death, with remorse for his
injustice to Richard, he ordered by will all the English hostages in his
hands to be set at liberty and the remainder of the debt due to him to be
remitted: his son, who seemed inclined to disobey these orders, was
constrained by his ecclesiastics to execute them.[*]
1195.
The emperor also made advances for Richard’s friendship, and offered to
give him a discharge of all the debt not yet paid to him, provided he
would enter into an offensive alliance against the king of France; a
proposal which was very acceptable to Richard, and was greedily embraced
by him. The treaty with the emperor took no effect; but it served to
rekindle the war between France and England before the expiration of the
truce.
This war was not distinguished by any more remarkable incidents than the
foregoing. After mutually ravaging the open country, and taking a few
insignificant castles, the two kings concluded a peace at Louviers, and
made an exchange of some territories with each other.[*]
1196.
Their inability to wage war occasioned the peace; their mutual antipathy
engaged them again in war before two months expired. Richard imagined that
he had now found an opportunity of gaining great advantages over his
rival, by forming an alliance with the counts of Flanders, Toulouse,
Boulogne, Champagne, and other considerable vassals of the crown of
France.[**] But he soon experienced the insincerity of those princes; and;
was not able to make any impression on that kingdom, while governed by a
monarch of so much vigor and activity as Philip. The most remarkable
incident of this war was the taking prisoner, in battle, the bishop of
Beauvais, a martial prelate who was of the family of Dreux, and a near
relation of the French king. Richard, who hated that bishop, threw him
into prison, and loaded him with irons; and when the pope demanded his
liberty, and claimed him as his son, the king sent to his holiness the
coat of mail which the prelate had worn in battle, and which was all
besmeared with blood; and he replied to him in the terms employed by
Jacob’s sons to that patriarch: “This have we found: know now whether it
be thy son’s coat or no.”[***] This new war between England and France,
though carried on with such animosity that both kings frequently put out
the eyes of their prisoners, was soon finished by a truce of five years;
and immediately after signing this treaty, the kings were ready, on some
new offence, to break out again into hostilities, when the mediation of
the cardinal of St. Mary, the pope’s legate, accommodated the
difference.[****] This prelate even engaged the princes to commence a
treaty for a more durable peace; but the death of Richard put an end to
the negotiation.
1199.
Vidomar, viscount of Limoges, a vassal of the king, had found a treasure,
of which he sent part to that prince as a present. Richard, as superior
lord, claimed the whole; and, at the head of some Brabançons, besieged the
viscount in the castle of Chalus, near Limoges, in order to make him
comply with his demand.[*] The garrison offered to surrender; but the king
replied, that since he had taken the pains to come thither and besiege the
place in person, he would take it by force, and would hang every one of
them. The same day Richard, accompanied by Marcadée, leader of his
Brabançons, approached the castle in order to survey it, when one Bertrand
de Gourdon, an archer, took aim at him, and pierced his shoulder with an
arrow. The king, however, gave orders for the assault, took the place, and
hanged all the garrison, except Gourdon, who had wounded him, and whom he
reserved for a more deliberate and more cruel execution.[**]
The wound was not in itself dangerous; but the unskilfulness of the
surgeon made it mortal; he so rankled Richard’s shoulder in pulling out
the arrow, that a gangrene ensued; and that prince was now sensible that
his life was drawing towards a period. He sent for Gourdon, and asked him,
“Wretch, what have I ever done to you, to oblige you to seek my life?”
“What have you done to me?” replied coolly the prisoner: “you killed with
your own hands my father, and my two brothers; and you intended to have
hanged myself: I am now in your power, and you may take revenge by
inflicting on me the most severe torments; but I shall endure them all
with pleasure, provided I can think that I have been so happy as to rid
the world of such a nuisance,”[***] Richard, struck with the
reasonableness of this reply, and humbled by the near approach of death,
ordered Gourdon to be set at liberty, and a sum of money to be given him;
but Marcadée, unknown to him, seized the unhappy man, flayed him alive,
and then hanged him. Richard died in the tenth year of his reign, and the
forty-second of his age; and he left no issue behind him.
The most shining part of this prince’s character are his military talents.
No man, even in that romantic age, carried personal courage and
intrepidity to a greater height, and this quality gained him the
appellation of the Lion-hearted, “Coeur de Lion.” He passionately loved
glory, chiefly military glory; and as his conduct in the field was not
inferior to his valor, he seems to have possessed every talent necessary
for acquiring it. His resentments also were high; his pride unconquerable;
and his subjects, as well as his neighbors, had therefore reason to
apprehend, from the continuance of his reign, a perpetual scene of blood
and violence. Of an impetuous and vehement spirit, he was distinguished by
all the good, as well as the bad, qualities incident to that character; he
was open, frank, generous, sincere, and brave; he was revengeful,
domineering, ambitious, haughty, and cruel; and was thus better calculated
to dazzle men by the splendor of his enterprises, than either to promote
their happiness, or his own grandeur, by a sound and well-regulated
policy. As military talents make great impression on the people, he seems
to have been much beloved by his English subjects; and he is remarked to
have been the first prince of the Norman line that bore any sincere regard
to them. He passed, however, only four months of his reign in that
kingdom; the crusade employed him near three years; he was detained about
fourteen months in captivity; the rest of his reign was spent either in
war or preparations for war against France; and he was so pleased with the
fame which he had acquired in the East, that he determined,
notwithstanding his past misfortunes, to have further exhausted his
kingdom, and to have exposed himself to new hazards, by conducting another
expedition against the infidels.
Though the English pleased themselves with the glory which the king’s
martial genius procured them, his reign was very oppressive, and somewhat
arbitrary, by the high taxes which he levied on them, and often without
consent of the states or great council. In the ninth year of his reign, he
levied five shillings on each hide of land; and because the clergy refused
to contribute their share, he put them out of the protection of law, and
ordered the civil courts to give them no sentence for any debts which they
might claim.[*] Twice in his reign he ordered all his charters to be
sealed anew, and the parties to pay fees for the renewal.[**]
1133.
It is said that Hubert, his justiciary, sent him over to France, in the
space of two years, no less a sum than one million one hundred thousand
marks, besides bearing all the charges of the government in England. But
this account is quite incredible, unless we suppose that Richard made a
thorough dilapidation of the demesnes of the crown, which it is not likely
he could do with any advantage after his former resumption of all grants.
A king who possessed such a revenue, could never have endured fourteen
months’ captivity for not paying one hundred and fifty thousand marks to
the emperor, and be obliged at last to leave hostages for a third of the
sum. The prices of commodities in this reign are also a certain proof that
no such enormous sum could be levied on the people. A hide of land, or
about a hundred and twenty acres, was commonly let at twenty shillings a
year, money of that time. As there were two hundred and forty-three
thousand six hundred hides in England, it is easy to compute the amount of
all the landed rents of the kingdom. The general and stated price of an ox
was four shillings; of a laboring horse, the same; of a sow, one shilling;
of a sheep with fine wool, tenpence with coarse wool, sixpence.[*] These
commodities seem not to have advanced in their prices since the
conquest,[**] 19 and to have still been ten times cheaper than
at present.
Richard renewed the severe laws against transgressors in his forests, whom
he punished by castration and putting out their eyes, as in the reign of
his great-grandfather. He established by law one weight and measure
throughout his kingdom;[***] a useful institution, which the mercenary
disposition and necessities of his successor engaged him to dispense with
for money.
The disorders in London, derived from its bad police, had risen to a great
height during this reign; and in the year 1196, there seemed to be formed
so regular a conspiracy among the numerous malefactors, as threatened the
city with destruction. There was one William Fitz-Osbert, commonly called
Longbeard, a lawyer, who had rendered himself extremely popular among the
lower rank of citizens; and by defend ing-them on all occasions, had
acquired the appellation of the advocate or savior of the poor. He exerted
his authority by injuring and insulting the more substantial citizens,
with whom he lived in a state of hostility, and who were every moment
exposed to the most outrageous violences from him and his licentious
emissaries. Murders were daily committed in the streets; houses were
broken open and pillaged in daylight; and it is pretended, that no less
than fifty-two thousand persons had entered into an association, by which
they bound themselves to obey all the orders of this dangerous ruffian.
Archbishop Hubert, who was then chief justiciary, summoned him before the
council to answer for his conduct; but he came so well attended, that no
one durst accuse him, or give evidence against him; and the primate,
finding the impotence of law, contented himself with exacting from the
citizens hostages for their good behavior. He kept, however, a watchful
eye on Fitz-Osbert, and seizing a favorable opportunity, attempted to
commit him to custody; but the criminal, murdering one of the public
officers, escaped with his concubine to the church of St. Mary le Bow,
where he defended himself by force of arms. He was at last forced from his
retreat, condemned, and executed, amidst the regrets of the populace, who
were so devoted to his memory, that they stole his gibbet, paid the same
veneration to it as to the cross, and were equally zealous in propagating
and attesting reports of the miracles wrought by it.[*] But though the
sectaries of this superstition were punished by the justiciary,[**] it
received so little encouragement from the established clergy whose
property was endangered by such seditious practices, that it suddenly sunk
and vanished.
It was during the crusades that the custom of using coats of arms was
first introduced into Europe. The knights, cased up in armor, had no way
to make themselves be known and distinguished in battle, but by the
devices on their shields; and these were gradually adopted by their
posterity and families, who were proud of the pious and military
enterprises of their ancestors.
King Richard was a passionate lover of poetry: there even remain some
poetical works of his composition: and he bears a rank among the Provençal
poets or Trobadores, who were the first of the modern Europeans that
distinguished themselves by attempts of that nature.
CHAPTER XI.
JOHN.
1199.
THE noble and free genius of the ancients, which made the government of a
single person be always regarded as a species of tyranny and usurpation,
and kept them from forming any conception of a legal and regular monarchy,
had rendered them entirely ignorant both of the rights of primogeniture
and a representation in succession; inventions so necessary for preserving
order in the lines of princes, for obviating the evils of civil discord
and of usurpation, and for begetting moderation in that species of
government, by giving security to the ruling sovereign. These innovations
arose from the feudal law; which, first introducing the right of
primogeniture, made such a distinction between the families of he elder
and younger brothers, that the son of the former was thought entitled to
succeed to his grandfather, preferably to his uncles, though nearer allied
to the deceased monarch. But though this progress of ideas was natural, it
was gradual. In the age of which we treat, the practice of representation
was indeed introduced, but not thoroughly established; and the minds of
men fluctuated between opposite principles. Richard, when he entered on
the holy war, declared his nephew Arthur, duke of Brittany, his successor;
and by a formal deed he set aside, in his favor, the title of his brother
John, who was younger than Godfrey, the father of that prince.[*]
But John so little acquiesced in that destination that when he gained the
ascendant in the English ministry by expelling Longchamp, the chancellor
and great justiciary, he engaged all the English barons to swear that they
would maintain his right of succession; and Richard, on his return, took
no steps towards restoring or securing the order which he had at first
established. He was even careful, by his last will, to declare his brother
John heir to all his dominions; whether, that he now thought Arthur, who
was only twelve years of age, incapable of asserting his claim against
John’s faction, or was influenced by Eleanor, the queen mother, who hated
Constantia, mother of the young duke, and who dreaded the credit which
that princess would naturally acquire if her son should mount the throne.
The authority of a testament was great in that age, even where the
succession of a kingdom was concerned; and John had reason to hope, that
this title, joined to his plausible right in other respects, would insure
him the succession. But the idea of representation seems to have made, at
this time, greater progress in France than in England; the barons of the
transmarine provinces Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, immediately declared in
favor of Arthur’s title, and applied for assistance to the French monarch
as their superior lord. Philip, who desired only an occasion to embarrass
John, and dismember his dominions, embraced the cause of the young duke of
Brittany, took him under his protection, and sent him to Paris to be
educated along with his own son Lewis. In this emergency, John hastened to
establish his authority in the chief members of the monarchy; and after
sending Eleanor into Poictou and Guienne, where her right was
incontestable, and was readily acknowledged, he hurried to Rouen, and
having secured the duchy of Normandy, he passed over, without loss of
time, to England. Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury, William Mareschal,
earl of Strigul, who also passes by the name of earl of Pembroke, and
Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, the justiciary, the three most favored ministers of
the late king, were already engaged on his side; and the submission or
acquiescence of all the other barons put him, without opposition, in
possession of the throne.
The king soon returned to France, in order to conduct the war against
Philip, and to recover the revolted provinces from his nephew Arthur. The
alliances which Richard had formed with the earl of Flanders, and other
potent French princes, though they had not been very effectual, still
subsisted, and enabled John to defend himself against all the efforts of
his enemy. In an action between the French and Flemings, the elect bishop
of Cambray was taken prisoner by the former; and when the cardinal of
Capua claimed his liberty, Philip, instead of complying, reproached him
with the weak efforts which he had employed in favor of the bishop of
Beauvais, who was in a like condition. The legate, to show his
impartiality, laid at the same time the kingdom of France and the duchy of
Normandy under an interdict; and the two kings found themselves obliged to
make an exchange of these military prelates.
1200.
Nothing enabled the king to bring this war to a happy issue so much as the
selfish, intriguing character of Philip, who acted, in the provinces that
had declared for Arthur, without any regard to the interests of that
prince. Constantia, seized with a violent jealousy that he intended to
usurp the entire dominion of them, found means to carry off her son
secretly from Paris: she put him into the hands of his uncle; restored the
provinces which had adhered to the young prince; and made him do homage
for the duchy of Brittany, which was regarded as a rere-fief of Normandy.
From this incident, Philip saw that he could not hope to make any progress
against John; and being threatened with an interdict on account of his
irregular divorce from Ingelburga, the Danish princess whom he had
espoused, he became desirous of concluding a peace with England. After
some fruitless conferences, the terms were at last adjusted; and the two
monarchy seemed in this treaty to have an intention, besides ending the
present quarrel, of preventing all future causes of discord, and of
obviating every controversy which could hereafter arise between them. They
adjusted the limits of all their territories; mutually secured the
interests of their vassals, and, to render the union more durable, John
gave his niece, Blanche of Castile, in marriage to Prince Lewis, Philip’s
eldest son, and with her the baronies of Issoudun and Graçai, and other
fiefs in Berri. Nine barons of the king of England, and as many of the
king of France, were guaranties of this treaty; and all of them swore,
that, if their sovereign violated any article of it, they would declare
themselves against him, and embrace the cause of the injured monarch.
John, now secure, as he imagined, on the side of France indulged his
passion for Isabella, the daughter and heir of Aymar Tailleffer, count of
Angouleme, a lady with whom he had become much enamored. His queen, the
heiress of the family of Glocester, was still alive: Isabella was married
to the count de la Marche, and was already consigned to the care of that
nobleman; though, by reason of her tender years, the marriage had not been
consummated. The passion of John made him overlook all these obstacles: he
persuaded the count of Angouleme to carry off his daughter from her
husband; and having, on some pretence or other, procured a divorce from
his own wife, he espoused Isabella; regardless both of the menaces of the
pope, who exclaimed against these irregular proceedings, and of the
resentment of the injured count, who soon found means of punishing his
powerful and insolent rival.
1201.
John had not the art of attaching his barons either by affection or by
fear. The count de la Marche, and his brother, the count d’Eu, taking
advantage of the general discontent against him, excited commotions in
Poictou and Normandy, and obliged the king to have recourse to arms, in
order to suppress the insurrection of his vassals. He summoned together
the barons of England, and required them to pass the sea under his
standard, and to quell the rebels: he found that he possessed as little
authority in that kingdom as in his transmarine provinces. The English
barons unanimously replied, that they would not attend him on this
expedition, unless he would promise to restore and preserve their
privileges; the first symptom of a regular association and plan of liberty
among those noblemen. But affairs were not yet fully ripe for the
revolution projected. John, by menacing the barons, broke the concert; and
both engaged many of them to follow him into Normandy, and obliged the
rest, who staid behind, to pay him a scutage of two marks on each knight’s
fee, as the price of their exemption from the service.
The force which John carried abroad with him, and that which joined him in
Normandy, rendered him much superior to his malecontent barons; and so
much the more, as Philip did not publicly give them any countenance, and
seemed as yet determined to persevere steadily in the alliance which he
had contracted with England. But the king, elated with his superiority,
advanced claims which gave a universal alarm to his vassals, and diffused
still wider the general discontent. As the jurisprudence of those times
required that the causes in the lord’s court should chiefly be decided by
duel, he carried along with him certain bravos, whom he retained as
champions, and whom he destined to fight with his barons, in order to
determine any controversy which he might raise against them. The count de
la Marche and other noblemen regarded this proceeding as an affront, as
well as an injury; and declared, that they would never draw their swords
against men of such inferior quality. The king menaced them with
vengeance; but he had not vigor to employ against them the force in his
hands, or to prosecute the injustice, by crushing entirely the nobles who
opposed it.
This government, equally feeble and violent, gave the injured barons
courage, as well as inclination, to carry further their opposition: they
appealed to the king of France; complained of the denial of justice in
John’s court; demanded redress from him as their superior lord; and
entreated him to employ his authority, and prevent their final ruin and
oppression. Philip perceived his advantage, opened his mind to great
projects, interposed in behalf of the French barons, and began to talk in
a high and menacing style to the king of England.
1202.
John, who could not disavow Philip’s authority, replied, that it belonged
to himself first to grant them a trial by their peers in his own court; it
was not till he failed in this duty, that he was answerable to his peers
in the supreme court of the French king; and he promised, by a fair and
equitable judicature, to give satisfaction to his barons. When the nobles,
in consequence of this engagement, demanded a safe conduct, that they
might attend his court, he at first refused it: upon the renewal of
Philip’s menaces, he promised to grant their demand; he violated this
promise: fresh menaces extorted from him a promise to surrender to Philip
the fortresses of Tillíeres and Boutavant, as a security for performance;
he again violated this engagement: his enemies, sensible both of his
weakness and want of faith combined still closer in the resolution of
pushing him to extremities; and a new and powerful ally soon appeared to
encourage them in their invasion of this odious and despicable government.
1203.
The young duke of Brittany, who was now rising to man’s estate, sensible
of the dangerous character of his uncle, determined to seek both his
security and elevation by a union with Philip and the malecontent barons.
He joined the French army which had begun hostilities against the king of
England: he was received with great marks of distinction by Philip; was
knighted by him; espoused his daughter Mary; and was invested not only in
the duchy of Brittany, but in the counties of Anjou and Maine, which he
had formerly resigned to his uncle. Every attempt succeeded with the
allies. Tillieres and Boutavant were taken by Philip, after making a
feeble defence: Mortimar and Lyons fell into his hands almost without
resistance. That prince next invested Gournai; and opening the sluices of
a lake which lay in the neighborhood, poured such a torrent of water into
the place, that the garrison deserted it, and the French monarch, without
striking a blow, made himself master of that important fortress. The
progress of the French arms was rapid, and promised more considerable
success than usually in that age attended military enterprises. In answer
to every advance which the king made towards peace, Philip still insisted
that he should resign all his transmarine dominions to his nephew and rest
contented with the kingdom of England; when an event happened, which
seemed to turn the scales in favor of John, and to give him a decisive
superiority over his enemies.
Young Arthur, fond of military renown, had broken into Poictou at the head
of a small army; and passing near Mirebeau, he heard that his grandmother,
Queen Eleanor, who had always opposed his interests, was lodged in that
place and was protected by a weak garrison and ruinous fortifications. He
immediately determined to lay siege to the fortress, and make himself
master of her person; but John, roused from his indolence by so pressing
an occasion, collected an army of English and Brabançons, and advanced
from Normandy with hasty marches to the relief of the queen mother. He
fell on Arthur’s camp, before that prince was aware of the danger;
dispersed his army; took him prisoner together with the count de la
Marche, Geoffrey de Lusignan, and the most considerable of the revolted
barons, and returned in triumph to Normandy. Philip, who was lying before
Arques, in that duchy, raised the siege and retired upon his approach. The
greater part of the prisoners were sent over to England, but Arthur was
shut up in the castle of Falaise.
The king had here a conference with his nephew; represented to him the
folly of his pretensions; and required him to renounce the French
alliance, which had encouraged him to live in a state of enmity with all
his family; but the brave, though imprudent youth, rendered more haughty
from misfortunes, maintained the justice of his cause; asserted his claim,
not only to the French provinces, but to the crown of England; and, in his
turn, required the king to restore the son of his elder brother to the
possession of his inheritance; John, sensible, from these symptoms of
spirit, that the young prince, though now a prisoner, might hereafter
prove a dangerous enemy, determined to prevent all future peril by
despatching his nephew; and Arthur was never more heard of. The
circumstances which attended this deed of darkness were, no doubt,
carefully concealed by the actors, and are variously related by
historians; but the most probable account is as follows: The king, it is
said, first proposed to William de la Braye, one of his servants, to
despatch Arthur; but William replied that he was a gentleman, not a
hangman; and he positively refused compliance. Another instrument of
murder was found, and was despatched with proper orders to Falaise; but
Huber de Bourg, chamberlain to the king, and constable of the castle,
feigning that he himself would execute the king’s mandate, sent back the
assassin, spread the report that the young prince was dead, and publicly
performed all the ceremonies of his interment; but finding that the
Bretons vowed revenge for the murder, and that all the revolted barons
persevered more obstinately in their rebellion, he thought it prudent to
reveal the secret, and to inform the world that the duke of Brittany was
still alive, and in his custody. This discovery proved fatal to the young
prince: John first removed him to the castle of Rouen; and coming in a
boat, during the night time, to that place, commanded Arthur to be brought
forth to him. The young prince, aware of his danger, and now more subdued
by the continuance of his misfortunes, and by the approach of death, threw
himself on his knees before hia uncle, and begged for mercy: but the
barbarous tyrant, making no reply, stabbed him with his own hands; and
fastening a stone to the dead body, threw it into the Seine.
All men were struck with horror at this inhuman deed; and from that moment
the king, detested by his subjects, retained a very precarious authority
over both the people and the barons in his dominions. The Bretons, enraged
at this disappointment in their fond hopes, waged implacable war against
him; and fixing the succession of their government, put themselves in a
posture to revenge the murder of their sovereign. John had got into his
power his niece, Eleanor, sister to Arthur, commonly called ‘the damsel of
Brittany,’ and carrying her over to England, detained her ever after in
captivity:[*] but the Bretons, in despair of recovering this princess,
chose Alice for their sovereign; a younger daughter of Constantia, by her
second marriage with Gui de Thouars; and they intrusted the government of
the duchy to that nobleman. The states of Brittany meanwhile carried their
complaints before Philip as their liege lord, and demanded justice for the
violence committed by John on the person of Arthur, so near a relation,
who, notwithstanding the homage which he did to Normandy, was always
regarded as one of the chief vassals of the crown. Philip received their
application with pleasure; summoned John to stand a trial before him; and
on his non-appearance, passed sentence, with the concurrence of the peers,
upon that prince; declared him guilty of felony and parricide; and
adjudged him to forfeit to his superior lord all his seigniories and fiefs
in France.[**]
The king of France, whose ambitious and active spirit had been hitherto
confined, either by the sound policy of Henry, or the martial genius of
Richard, seeing now the opportunity favorable against this base and odious
prince, embraced the project of expelling the English, or rather the
English king, from France, and of annexing to the crown so many
considerable fiefs, which, during several ages, had been dismembered from
it. Many of the other great vassals, whose jealousy might have interposed,
and have obstructed the execution of this project, were not at present in
a situation to oppose it; and the rest either looked on with indifference
or gave their assistance to this dangerous aggrandizement of their
superior lord. The earls of Flanders and Blois were engaged in the holy
war: the count of Champagne was an infant, and under the guardianship of
Philip: the duchy of Brittany, enraged at the murder of their prince,
vigorously promoted all his measures: and the general defection of John’s
vassals made every enterprise easy and successful against him. Philip,
after taking several castles and fortresses beyond the Loire, which he
either garrisoned or dismantled, received the submissions of the count of
Alençon, who deserted John, and delivered up all the places under his
command to the French; upon which Philip broke up his camp, in order to
give the troops some repose after the fatigues of the campaign. John,
suddenly collecting some forces, laid siege to Alençon; and Philip, whose
dispersed army could not be brought together in time to succor it, saw
himself exposed to the disgrace of suffering the oppression of his friend
and confederate. But his active and fertile genius found an expedient
against this evil. There was held at that very time a tournament at Moret,
in the Gatinois; whither all the chief nobility of France and the
neighboring countries had resorted, in order to signalize their prowess
and address. Philip presented himself before them; craved their assistance
in his distress; and pointed out the plains of Alençon, as the most
honorable field in which they could display their generosity and martial
spirit. Those valorous knights vowed that they would take vengeance on the
base parricide, the stain of arms and of chivalry; and putting themselves,
with all their retinue, under the command of Philip, instantly marched to
raise the siege of Alençon. John, hearing of their approach, fled from
before the place; and in the hurry, abandoned all his tents, machines, and
baggage to the enemy.
This feeble effort was the last exploit of that slothful and cowardly
prince for the defence of his dominions. He thenceforth remained in total
inactivity at Rouen; passing ill his time with his young wife in pastimes
and amusements, as if his state had been in the most profound
tranquillity, or his affairs in the most prosperous condition. If he ever
mentioned war, it was only to give himself vaunting airs, which, in the
eyes of all men, rendered him still more despicable and ridiculous. “Let
the French go on,” said he; “I will retake in a day what it has cost them
years to acquire.”[*] His stupidity and indolence appeared so
extraordinary that the people endeavored to account for the infatuation by
sorcery, and believed that he was thrown into this lethargy by some magic
or witchcraft. The English barons, finding that their time was wasted to
no purpose, and that they must suffer the disgrace of seeing, without
resistance, the progress of the French arms, withdrew from their colors,
and secretly returned to their own country,[**] No one thought of
defending a man who seemed to have deserted himself; and his subjects
regarded his fate with the same indifference, to which in this pressing
exigency, they saw him totally abandoned.
John, while he neglected all domestic resources, had the meanness to
betake himself to a foreign power, whose protection he claimed: he applied
to the pope, Innocent III., and entreated him to interpose his authority
between him and the French monarch. Innocent, pleased with any occasion of
exerting his superiority, sent Philip orders to stop the progress of his
arms, and to make peace with the king of England. But the French barons
received the message with indignation; disclaimed the temporal authority
assumed by the pontiff; and vowed that they would, to the uttermost,
assist their prince against all his enemies; Philip, seconding their
ardor, proceeded, instead of obeying the pope’s envoys, to lay siege to
Chateau Gaillard, the most considerable fortress which remained to guard
the frontiers of Normandy.
1204.
Chateau Gaillard was situated partly on an island in the River Seine,
partly on a rock opposite to it; and was secured by every advantage which
either art or nature could bestow upon it. The late king, having cast his
eye on this favorable situation, had spared no labor or expense in
fortifying it; and it was defended by Roger de Laci, constable of Chester,
a determined officer, at the head of a numerous garrison. Philip, who
despaired of taking the place by force proposed to reduce it by famine;
and that he might cut off its communication with the neighboring country,
he threw a bridge across the Seine, while he himself, with his army
blockaded it by land. The earl of Pembroke, the man of greatest vigor and
capacity in the English court, formed a plan for breaking through the
French intrenchments, and throwing relief into the place. He carried with
him an army of four thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, and
suddenly attacked, with great success, Philip’s camp in the night time;
having left orders that a fleet of seventy flat-bottomed vessels should
sail up the Seine, and fall at the same instant on the bridge. But the
wind and the current of the river, by retarding the vessels, disconcerted
this plan of operations; and it was morning before the fleet appeared;
when Pembroke, though successful in the beginning of the action, was
already repulsed with considerable loss, and the king of France had
leisure to defend himself against these new assailants, who also met with
a repulse. After this misfortune, John made no further efforts for the
relief of Château Gaillard: and Philip had all the leisure requisite for
conducting and finishing the siege. Roger de Laci defended himself for a
twelvemonth with great obstinacy; and having bravely repelled every
attack, and patiently borne all the hardships of famine, he was at last
overpowered by a sudden assault in the night time, and made prisoner of
war, with his garrison.[*] Philip, who knew how to respect valor, even in
an enemy, treated him with civility, and gave him the whole city of Paris
for the place of his confinement.
When this bulwark of Normandy was once subdued, all the province lay open
to the inroads of Philip; and the king of England despaired of being any
longer able to defend it. He secretly prepared vessels for a scandalous
flight; and, that the Normans might no longer doubt of his resolution to
abandon them, he ordered the fortifications of Pont de l’Arche, Moulineux,
and Monfort l’Amauri to be demolished. Not daring to repose confidence in
any of his barons whom he believed to be universally engaged in a
conspiracy against him, he intrusted the government of the province to
Arenas Martin and Lupicaire, two mercenary Brabançons, whom he had
retained in his service. Philip, now secure of his prey, pushed his
conquests with vigor and success against the dismayed Normans. Falaise was
first besieged; and Lupicare, who commanded in this impregnable fortress,
after surrendering the place, enlisted himself with his troops in the
service of Philip, and carried on hostilities against his ancient master.
Caen, Coutance, Seez, Evreux, Baieux, soon fell into the hands of the
French monarch, and all the lower Normandy was reduced under his dominion!
To forward his enterprises on the other division of the province, Gui de
Thouars, at the head of the Bretons, broke into the territory, and took
Mount St. Michael, Avranches, and all the other fortresses in that
neighborhood. The Normans, who abhorred the French yoke and who would have
defended themselves to the last extremity, if their prince had appeared to
conduct them, found no resource but in submission; and every city opened
its gates as soon as Philip appeared before it. Rouen alone, Arques, and
Verneuil determined to maintain their liberties; and formed a confederacy
for mutual defence.
1205.
Philip began with the siege of Rouen: the inhabitants were so inflamed
with hatred to France, that on the appearance of his army, they fell on
all the natives of that country whom they found within their walls, and
put tham to death. But after the French king had begun his operations with
success, and had taken some of their outworks, the citizens, seeing no
resource, offered to capitulate; and demanded only thirty days to
advertise their prince of their danger, and to require succors against the
enemy. Upon the expiration of the term, as no supply had arrived, they
opened their gates to Philip;[*] and the whole province soon after
imitated the example, and submitted to the victor. Thus was this important
territory reunited to the crown of France, about three centuries after the
cession of it by Charles the Simple to Rollo, the first duke; and the
Normans, sensible that this conquest was probably final, demanded the
privilege of being governed by French laws; which Philip, making a few
alterations on the ancient Norman customs, readily granted them. But the
French monarch had too much ambition and genius to stop in his present
career of success. He carried his victorious army into the western
provinces; soon reduced Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and part of Poictou;[**]
and in this manner the French crown, during the reign of one able and
active prince, received such an accession of power and grandeur, as, in
the ordinary course of things, it would have required several ages to
attain.
John, on his arrival in England, that he might cover the disgrace of his
own conduct, exclaimed loudly against his barons, who, he pretended, had
deserted his standard in Normandy; and he arbitrarily extorted from them a
seventh of all their movables, as a punishment for the offence.[***]
Soon after he forced them to grant him a scutage of two marks and a half
on each knights’ fee for an expedition into Normandy; but he did not
attempt to execute the service for which he pretended to exact it. Next
year, he summoned all the barons of his realm to attend him on this
foreign expedition, and collected ships from all the seaports; but meeting
with opposition from some of his ministers, and abandoning his design, he
dismissed both fleet and army, and then renewed his exclamations against
the barons for deserting him. He next put to sea with a small army, and
his subjects believed that he was resolved to expose himself to the utmost
hazard for the defence and recovery of his dominions; but they were
surprised, after a few days, to see him return again into harbor, without
attempting anything.
1206.
In the subsequent season, he had the courage to carry his hostile measures
a step farther. Gui de Thouars, who governed Brittany, jealous of the
rapid progress made by his ally, the French king, promised to join the
king of England with all his forces; and John ventured abroad with a
considerable army, and landed at Rochelle. He marched to Angers, which he
took and reduced to ashes. But the approach of Philip with an army threw
him into a panic; and he immediately made proposals for peace, and fixed a
place of interview with his enemy; but instead of keeping this engagement,
he stole off with his army, embarked at Rochelle, and returned, loaded
with new shame and disgrace, into England. The mediation of the pope
procured him at last a truce for two years with the French monarch;[*]
almost all the transmarine provinces were ravished from him; and his
English barons, though harassed with arbitrary taxes and fruitless
expeditions, saw themselves and their country baffled and affronted in
every enterprise.
In an age when personal valor was regarded as the chief accomplishment,
such conduct as that of John, always disgraceful, must be exposed to
peculiar contempt; and he must thenceforth have expected to rule his
turbulent vassals with a very doubtful authority. But the government
exercised by the Norman princes had wound up the royal power to so high a
pitch, and so much beyond the usual tenor of the feudal constitutions,
that it still behoved him to be debased by new affronts and disgraces, ere
his barons could entertain the view of conspiring against him in order to
retrench his prerogatives.
The church, which at that time declined not a contest with the most
powerful and most vigorous monarchs, took first advantage of John’s
imbecility; and, with the most aggravating circumstances of insolence and
scorn, fixed her yoke upon him.
1207.
The papal chair was then filled by Innocent III., who, having attained
that dignity at the age of thirty-seven years, and being endowed with a
lofty and enterprising genius gave full scope to his ambition, and
attempted, perhaps more openly than any of his predecessors, to convert
that superiority which was yielded him by all the European princes, into a
real dominion over them. The hierarchy, protected by the Roman pontiff,
had already carried to an enormous height its usurpations upon the civil
power; but in order to extend them farther, and render them useful to the
court of Rome, it was necessary to reduce the ecclesiastics themselves
under an absolute monarchy, and to make them entirely dependent on their
spiritual leader. For this purpose, Innocent first attempted to impose
taxes at pleasure upon the clergy; and in the first year of this century,
taking advantage of the popular frenzy for crusades, he sent collectors
over all Europe, who levied by his authority the fortieth of all
ecclesiastical revenues for the relief of the Holy Land, and received the
voluntary contributions of the laity to a like amount.[*] The same year,
Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury, attempted another innovation, favorable
to ecclesiastical and papal power: in the king’s absence, he summoned, by
his legantine authority, a synod of all the English clergy, contrary to
the inhibition of Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, the chief justiciary; and no proper
censure was ever passed on this encroachment, the first of the kind, upon
the royal power. But a favorable incident soon after happened, which
enabled so aspiring a pontiff as Innocent to extend still farther his
usurpations on so contemptible a prince as John.
Hubert, the primate, died in 1205; and as the monks or canons of
Christ-church, Canterbury, possessed a right of voting in the election of
their archbishop, some of the juniors of the order, who lay in wait for
that event, met clandestinely the very night of Hubert’s death; and
without any congé d‘élire from the king, chose Reginald, their sub-prior,
for the successor; installed him in the archiepiscopal throne before
midnight; and having enjoined him the strictest secrecy, sent him
immediately to Rome, in order to solicit the confirmation of his
election.[*] The vanity of Reginald prevailed over his prudence; and he no
sooner arrived in Flanders than he revealed to every one the purpose of
his journey, which was immediately known in England.[**] The king was
enraged at the novelty and temerity of the attempt, in filling so
important an office without his knowledge or consent: the suffragan
bishops of Canterbury, who were accustomed to concur in the choice of
their primate, were no less displeased at the exclusion given them in this
election: the senior monks of Christ-church were injured by the irregular
proceedings of their juniors: the juniors themselves, ashamed of their
conduct, and disgusted with the levity of Reginald, who had broken his
engagements with them, were willing to set aside his election:[***] and
all men concurred in the design of remedying the false measures which had
been taken. But as John knew that this affair would be canvassed before a
superior tribunal, where the interposition of royal authority in bestowing
ecclesiastical benefices was very invidious; where even the cause of
suffragan bishops was not so favorable as that of monks; he determined to
make the new election entirely unexceptionable, he submitted the affair
wholly to the canons of Christ-church; and departing from the right
claimed by his predecessors, ventured no farther than to inform them,
privately, that they would do him an acceptable service if they chose John
de Gray, bishop of Norwich, for their primate.[****]
The election of that prelate was accordingly made without a contradictory
vote; and the king, to obviate all contests, endeavored to persuade the
suffragan bishops not to insist on their claim of concurring in the
election; but those prelates, persevering in their pretensions, sent an
agent to maintain their cause before Innocent; while the king, and the
convent of Christ-church, despatched twelve monks of that order to
support, before the same tribunal, the election of the bishop of Norwich.
Thus there lay three different claims before the pope, whom all parties
allowed to be the supreme arbiter in the contest The claim of the
suffragans, being so opposite to the usual maxims of the papal court, was
soon set aside: the election of Reginald was so obviously fraudulent and
irregular, that there was no possibility of defending it: but Innocent
maintained, that though this election was null and invalid, it ought
previously to have been declared such by the sovereign pontiff, before the
monks could proceed to a new election; and that the choice of the bishop
of Norwich was of course as uncanonical as that of his competitor.[*]
Advantage was, therefore taken of this subtlety for introducing a
precedent, by which the see of Canterbury, the most important dignity, in
the church after the papal throne, should ever after be at the disposal of
the court of Rome.
While the pope maintained so many fierce contests, in order to wrest from
princes the right of granting investitures, and to exclude laymen from all
authority in conferring ecclesiastical benefices, he was supported by the
united influence of the clergy; who, aspiring to independence, fought,
with all the ardor of ambition, and all the zeal of superstition, under
his sacred banners. But no sooner was this point, after a great effusion
of blood, and the convulsions of many states, established in some
tolerable degree, than the victorious leader as is usual, turned his arms
against his own community, and aspired to centre all power in his person.
By the invention of reserves, provisions, commendams, and other devices,
the pope gradually assumed the right of filling vacant benefices; and the
plenitude of his apostolic power, which was not subject to any
limitations, supplied all defects of title in the person on whom he
bestowed preferment. The canons which regulated elections were purposely
rendered intricate and involved: frequent disputes arose among candidates:
appeals were every day carried to Rome: the apostolic see, besides reaping
pecuniary advantages from these contests, often exercised the power of
setting aside both the litigants, and, on pretence of appeasing faction,
nominated a third person, who might be more acceptable to the contending
parties.
The present controversy about the election to the see of Canterbury
afforded Innocent an opportunity of claiming this right; and he failed not
to perceive and avail himself of the advantage. He sent for the twelve
monks deputed by the convent to maintain the cause of the bishop of
Norwich; and commanded them, under the penalty of excommunication, to
choose for their primate, Cardinal Langton, an Englishman by birth, but
educated in France, and connected, by his interests and attachments, with
the see of Rome.[**]
In vain did the monks represent, that they had received from their convent
no authority for this purpose; that an election without a previous writ
from the king, would be deemed highly irregular and that they were merely
agents for another person, whose right they had no power or pretence to
abandon. None of them had the courage to persevere in this opposition,
except one, Elias de Brantefield: all the rest, overcome by the menaces
and authority of the pope, complied with his orders, and made the election
required of them.
Innocent, sensible that this flagrant usurpation would be highly resented
by the court of England, wrote John a mollifying letter; sent him four
golden rings set with precious stones; and endeavored to enhance the value
of the present, by informing him of the many mysteries implied in it. He
begged him to consider seriously the form of the rings, their number,
their matter, and their color. Their form, he said, being round, shadowed
out eternity, which had neither beginning nor end; and he ought thence to
learn his duty of aspiring from earthly objects to heavenly, from things
temporal to tilings eternal. The number four, being a square, denoted
steadiness of mind, not to be subverted either by adversity or prosperity,
fixed forever on the firm basis of the four cardinal virtues. Gold, which
is the matter, being the most precious of metals, signified wisdom, which
is the most valuable of all accomplishments, and justly preferred by
Solomon to riches, power, and all exterior attainments. The blue color of
the sapphire represented faith; the verdure of the emerald, hope; the
redness of the ruby, charity; and the splendor of the topaz, good
works.[*] By these conceits, Innocent endeavored to repay John for one of
the most important prerogatives of his crown, which he had ravished from
him; conceits probably admired by Innocent himself. For it is easily
possible for a man, especially in a barbarous age, to unite strong talents
for business with an absurd taste for literature and the arts.
John was inflamed with the utmost rage when he heard of this attempt of
the court of Rome;[**] and he immediately vented his passion on the monks
of Christ-church, whom he found inclined to support the election made by
their fellows at Rome.
He sent Fulk de Cantelupe, and Henry de Cornhulle, two knights of his
retinue, men of violent tempers and rude manners, to expel them the
convent, and take possession of their revenues. These knights entered the
monastery with drawn swords, commanded the prior and the monks to depart
the kingdom, and menaced them, that in case of disobedience they would
instantly burn them with the convent.[*] Innocent, prognosticating, from
the violence and imprudence of these measures, that John would finally
sink in the contest, persevered the more vigorously in his pretensions,
and exhorted the king not to oppose God and the church any longer, nor to
persecute that cause for which the holy martyr St. Thomas had sacrificed
his life, and which had exalted him equal to the highest saints in
heaven;[**] a clear hint to John to profit by the example of his father,
and to remember the prejudices and established principles of his subjects,
who bore a profound veneration to that martyr, and regarded his merits as
the subject of their chief glory and exultation.
Innocent, finding that John was not sufficiently tamed to submission, sent
three prelates, the bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, to intimate,
that, if he persevered in his disobedience, the sovereign pontiff would be
obliged to lay the kingdom under an interdict.[***] All the other prelates
threw themselves on their knees before him, and entreated him, with tears
in their eyes, to prevent the scandal of this sentence, by making a speedy
submission to his spiritual father, by receiving from his hands the new
elected primate, and by restoring the monks of Christ-church to all their
rights and possessions. He burst out into the most indecent invectives
against the prelates; swore by God’s teeth, his usual oath, that, if the
pope presumed to lay his kingdom under an interdict, he would send to him
all the bishops and clergy of England, and would confiscate all their
estates; and threatened that, if thenceforth he caught any Romans in his
dominions, he would put out their eyes, and cut off their noses, in order
to set a mark upon them, which might distinguish them from all other
nations.[****]
Amidst all this idle violence, John stood on such bad terms with his
nobility, that he never dared to assemble the states of the kingdom, who,
in so, just a cause, would probably have adhered to any other monarch, and
have defended with vigor the liberties of the nation against these
palpable usurpations of the court of Rome. Innocent, therefore, perceiving
the king’s weakness, fulminated at last the sentence of interdict which he
had for some time held suspended over him.[*]
The sentence of interdict was at that time the great instrument of
vengeance and policy employed by the court of Rome; was denounced against
sovereigns for the lightest offences; and made the guilt of one person
involve the ruin of millions, even in their spiritual and eternal welfare.
The execution of it was calculated to strike the senses in the highest
degree, and to operate with irresistible force on the superstitious minds
of the people. The nation was of a sudden deprived of all exterior
exercise of its religion: the altars were despoiled of their ornaments:
the crosses, the relics, the images, the statues of the saints were laid
on the ground; and as if the air itself were profaned, and might pollute
them by its contact, the priests carefully covered them up, even from
their own approach and veneration. The use of bells entirely ceased in all
the churches: the bells themselves were removed from the steeples, and
laid on the ground with the other sacred utensils. Mass was celebrated
with shut doors; and none but the priests were admitted to that holy
institution. The laity partook of no religious rite, except baptism to
new-born infants, and the communion to the dying: the dead were not
interred in consecrated ground: they were thrown into ditches, or buried
in common fields; and their obsequies were not attended with prayers or
any hallowed ceremony Marriage was celebrated in the churchyards;[**] and
that every action in life might bear the marks of this dreadful situation,
the people were prohibited the use of meat, as in Lent, or times of the
highest penance; were debarred from all pleasures and entertainments; and
were forbidden even to salute each other, or so much as to shave their
beards, and give any decent attention to their person and apparel. Every
circumstance carried symptoms of the deepest distress, and of the most
immediate apprehension of divine vengeance and indignation.
The king, that he might oppose the temporal to their spiritual terrors,
immediately, from his own authority, confiscated the estates of all the
clergy who obeyed the interdict;[***] banished the prelates, confined the
monks in their convents, and gave them only such a small allowance from
their own estates, as would suffice to provide them with food and raiment.
He treated with the utmost rigor all Langton’s adherents, and every one
that showed any disposition to obey the commands of Rome: and in order to
distress the clergy in the tenderest point, and at the same time expose
them to reproach and ridicule, he threw into prison all their concubines,
and required high fines as the price of their liberty.[*]
After the canons which established the celibacy of the clergy were, by the
zealous endeavors of Archbishop Anselrn, more rigorously executed in
England, the ecclesiastics gave, almost universally and avowedly, into the
use of concubinage and the court of Rome, which had no interest in
prohibiting this practice, made very slight opposition to it. The custom
was become so prevalent, that, in some cantons of Switzerland, before the
reformation, the laws not only permitted, but, to avoid scandal, enjoined
the use of concubines to the younger clergy;[**] and it was usual every
where for priests to apply to the ordinary, and obtain from him a formal
liberty for this indulgence. The bishop commonly took care to prevent the
practice from degenerating into licentiousness: he confined the priest to
the use of one woman, required him to be constant to her bed, obliged him
to provide for her subsistence and that of her children; and, though the
offspring was, in the eye of the law, deemed illegitimate, this commerce
was really a kind of inferior marriage, such as is still practised in
Germany among the nobles; and may be regarded by the candid, as an appeal
from the tyranny of civil and ecclesiastical institutions, to the more
virtuous and more unerring laws of nature.
The quarrel between the king and the see of Rome continued for some years;
and though many of the clergy, from the fear of punishment, obeyed the
orders of John, and celebrated divine service, they complied with the
utmost reluctance, and were regarded, both by themselves and the people,
as men who betrayed their principles, and sacrificed their conscience to
temporal regards and interests. During this violent situation, the king,
in order to give a lustre to his government, attempted military
expeditions against Scotland, against Ireland, against the Welsh:[*] and
he commonly prevailed, more from the weakness of his enemies than from his
own vigor or abilities. Meanwhile, the danger to which hia government
stood continually exposed from the discontents of the ecclesiastics,
increased his natural propension to tyranny; and he seems to have even
wantonly disgusted all orders of men, especially his nobles, from whom
alone he could reasonably expect support and assistance. He dishonored
their families by his licentious amours; he published edicts, prohibiting
them from hunting feathered game, and thereby restrained them from their
favorite occupation and amusement;[**] he ordered all the hedges and
fences near his forests to be levelled, that his deer might have more
ready access into the fields for pasture; and he continually loaded the
nation with arbitrary impositions.
1208.
Conscious of the general hatred which he had incurred, he required his
nobility to give him hostages for security of their allegiance; and they
were obliged to put in his hands their sons, nephews, or near relations.
When his messengers came with like orders to the castle of William de
Braouse, a baron of great note, the lady of that nobleman replied, that
she would never intrust her son into the hands of one who had murdered his
own nephew, while in his custody. Her husband reproved her for the
severity of this speech; but, sensible of his danger, he immediately fled
with his wife and son into Ireland, where he endeavored to conceal
himself. Tha king discovered the unhappy family in their retreat; seized
the wife and son, whom he starved to death in prison; and the baron
himself narrowly escaped, by flying into France.
1209.
The court of Rome had artfully contrived a gradation of sentences; by
which it kept offenders in awe; still afforded them an opportunity of
preventing the next anathema by submission; and, in case of their
obstinacy, was able to refresh the horror of the people against them, by
new denunciations of the wrath and vengeance of Heaven. As the sentence of
interdict had not produced the desired effect on John, and as his people,
though extremely discontented had hitherto been restrained from rising in
open rebellion against him, he was soon to look for the sentence of
excommunication; and he had reason to apprehend, that, notwithstanding all
his precautions, the most dangerous consequences might ensue from it. He
was witness of the other scenes which at that very time were acting in
Europe, and which displayed the unbounded and uncontrolled power of the
papacy. Innocent, far from being dismayed at his contests with the king of
England, had excommunicated the emperor Otho, John’s nephew;[*] and soon
brought that powerful and haughty prince to submit to his authority. He
published a crusade against the Albigenses, a species of enthusiasts in
the south of France, whom he denominated heretics; because, like other
enthusiasts, they neglected the rites of the church, and opposed the power
and influence of the clergy: the people from all parts of Europe, moved by
their superstition and their passion for wars and adventures, flocked to
his standard: Simon de Montfort, the general of the crusade, acquired to
himself a sovereignty in these provinces: the count of Toulouse, who
protected, or perhaps only tolerated, the Albigenses, was stripped of his
dominions: and these sectaries themselves, though the most innocent and
inoffensive of mankind, were exterminated with all the circumstances of
extreme violence and barbarity. Here were therefore both an army and a
general, dangerous from their zeal and valor, who might be directed to act
against John; and Innocent, after keeping the thunder long suspended, gave
at last authority to the bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, to
fulminate the sentence of excommunication against him.[**] These prelates
obeyed; though their brethren were deterred from publishing, as the pope
required of them, the sentence in the several churches of their dioceses.
No sooner was the excommunication known, than the effects of it appeared.
Geoffrey, archdeacon of Norwich, who was intrusted with a considerable
office in the court of exchequer, being informed of it while sitting on
the bench observed to his colleagues the danger of serving under an
excommunicated king; and he immediately left his chair, and departed the
court. John gave orders to seize him, to throw him into prison, to cover
his head with a great leaden cope, and by this and other severe usage, he
soon put an end to his life:[***] nor was there any thing wanting to
Geoffrey, except the dignity and rank of Becket, to exalt him to an equal
station in heaven with that great and celebrated martyr.
Hugh de Wells, the chancellor, being elected by the king’s appointment
bishop of Lincoln, upon a vacancy in that see, desired leave to go abroad,
in order to receive consecration from the archbishop of Rouen; but he no
sooner reached France, than he hastened to Pontigny, where Langton then
resided, and paid submissions to him as his primate. The bishops, finding
themselves exposed either to the jealousy of the king or hatred of the
people, gradually stole out of the kingdom; and at last there remained
only three prelates to perform the functions of the episcopal office.[*]
Many of the nobility, terrified by John’s tyranny, and obnoxious to him on
different accounts, imitated the example of the bishops; and most of the
others, who remained, were with reason suspected of having secretly
entered into a confederacy against him.[**] John was alarmed at his
dangerous situation; a situation which prudence, vigor, and popularity
might formerly have prevented, but which no virtues or abilities were now
sufficient to retrieve. He desired a conference with Langton at Dover;
offered to acknowledge him as primate, to submit to the pope, to restore
the exiled clergy, even to pay them a limited sum as a compensation for
the rents of their confiscated estates. But Langton, perceiving his
advantage, was not satisfied with these concessions: he demanded that full
restitution and reparation should be made to all the clergy; a condition
so exorbitant, that the king, who probably had not the power of fulfilling
it, and who foresaw that this estimation of damages might amount to an
immense sum, finally broke off the conference.[***]
1212.
The next gradation of papal sentences was to absolve John’s subjects from
their oaths of fidelity and allegiance, and to declare every one
excommunicated who had any commerce with him, in public or in private; at
his table, in his council, or even in private conversation:[****] and this
sentence was accordingly, with all imaginable solemnity, pronounced
against him. But as John still persevered in his contumacy, there remained
nothing but the sentence of deposition; which, though intimately connected
with the former had been distinguished from it by the artifice of the
court of Rome; and Innocent determined to dart this last thunderbolt
against the refractory monarch.
But as a sentence of this kind required an armed force to execute it, the
pontiff, casting his eyes around, fixed at last on Philip, king of France,
as the person into whose powerful hand he could most properly intrust that
weapon, the ultimate resource of his ghostly authority. And he offered the
monarch, besides the remission of all his sins, and endless spiritual
benefits, the property and possession of the kingdom of England, as the
reward of his labor.[*]
1213.
It was the common concern of all princes to oppose these exorbitant
pretensions of the Roman pontiff, by which they themselves were rendered
vassals, and vassals totally dependent, of the papal crown: yet even
Philip, the most able monarch of the age, was seduced by present interest,
and by the prospect of so tempting a prize, to accept this liberal offer
of the pontiff, and thereby to ratify that authority which, if he ever
opposed its boundless usurpations, might next day tumble him from the
throne. He levied a great army; summoned all the vassals of the crown to
attend him at Rouen; collected a fleet of one thousand seven hundred
vessels, great and small, in the seaports of Normandy and Picardy; and
partly from the zealous spirit of the age, partly from the personal regard
universally paid him, prepared a force which seemed equal to the greatness
of his enterprise. The king, on the other hand, issued out writs,
requiring the attendance of all his military tenants at Dover, and even of
all able-bodied men, to defend the kingdom in this dangerous extremity. A
great number appeared; and he selected an army of sixty thousand men; a
power invincible, had they been united in affection to their prince, and
animated with a becoming zeal for the defence of their native country.[**]
But the people were swayed by superstition, and regarded their king with
horror, as anathematized by papal censures: the barons, besides lying
under the same prejudices, were all disgusted by his tyranny, and were,
many of them, suspected of holding a secret correspondence with the enemy:
and the incapacity and cowardice of the king himself, ill fitted to
contend with those mighty difficulties, made men prognosticate the most
fatal effects from the French invasion.
Pandolf, whom the pope had chosen for his legate, and appointed to head
this important expedition, had, before he left Rome, applied for a secret
conference with his master, and had asked him, whether, if the king of
England, in this desperate situation, were willing to submit to the
apostolic see, the church should, without the consent of Philip, grant him
any terms of accommodation.[*] Innocent, expecting from his agreement with
a prince so abject both in character and fortune, more advantages than
from his alliance with a great and victorious monarch, who, after such
mighty acquisitions, might become too haughty to be bound by spiritual
chains, explained to Pandolf the conditions on which he was willing to be
reconciled to the king of England. The legate, therefore, as soon as he
arrived in the north of France, sent over two knights templars to desire
an interview with John at Dover, which was readily granted: he there
represented to him in such strong, and probably in such true colors, his
lost condition, the disaffection of his subjects, the secret combination
of his vassals against him, the mighty armament of France, that John
yielded at discretion,[**] and subscribed to all the conditions which
Pandolf was pleased to impose upon him. He promised, among other articles,
that he would submit himself entirely to the judgment of the pope; that he
would acknowledge Langton for primate; that he would restore all the
exiled clergy and laity who had been banished on account of the contest;
that he would make them full restitution of their goods, and compensation
for all damages, and instantly consign eight thousand pounds, in part of
payment; and that every one outlawed or imprisoned for his adherence to
the pope, should immediately be received into grace and favor.[***] Four
barons swore, along with the king, to the observance of this ignominious
treaty.[****]
But the ignominy of the king was not yet carried to its full height.
Pandolf required him, as the first trial of obedience, to resign his
kingdom to the church; and he persuaded him, that he could nowise so
effectually disappoint the French invasion, as by thus putting himself
under the immediate protection of the apostolic see. John, lying under the
agonies of present terror, made no scruple of submitting to this condition
He passed a charter, in which he said, that, not constrained by fear, but
of his own free will, and by the common advice and consent of his barons,
he had, for remission of hia own sins and those of his family, resigned
England and Ireland to God, to St. Peter and St. Paul, and to Pope
Innocent and his successors in the apostolic chair: he agreed to hold
these dominions as feudatory of the church of Rome, by the annual payment
of a thousand marks; seven hundred for England, three hundred for Ireland:
and he stipulated, that, if he or his successors should ever presume to
revoke or infringe this charter, they should instantly, except upon
admonition they repented of their offence, forfeit all right to their
dominions.[*]
In consequence of this agreement, John did homage to Pandolf as the pope’s
legate, with all the submissive rites which the feudal law required of
vassals before their liege lord and superior. He came disarmed into the
legate’s presence, who was seated on a throne; he flung himself on his
knees before him; he lifted up his joined hands, and put them within those
of Pandolf; he swore fealty to the pope; and he paid part of the tribute
which he owed for his kingdom as the patrimony of St. Peter. The legate,
elated by this supreme triumph of sacerdotal power, could not forbear
discovering extravagant symptoms of joy and exultation: he trampled on the
money, which was laid at his feet as an earnest of the subjection of the
kingdom; an insolence of which, however offensive to all the English, no
one present, except the archbishop of Dublin, dared to take any notice.
But though Pandolf had brought the king to submit to these base
conditions, he still refused to free him from the excommunication and
interdict, till an estimation should be taken of the losses of the
ecclesiastics, and full compensation and restitution should be made them.
John, reduced to this abject situation under a foreign power, still showed
the same disposition to tyrannize over his subjects, which had been the
chief cause of all his misfortunes. One Peter of Pomfret, a hermit, had
foretold that the king, this very year, should lose his crown; and for
that rash prophecy, he had been thrown into prison in Corfe castle. Johfi
now determined to bring him to punishment as an impostor; and though the
man pleaded that his prophecy was fulfilled, and that the king had lost
the royal and independent crown which he formerly wore, the defence was
supposed to aggravate his guilt: he was dragged at horses’ tails to the
town of Warham, and there hanged on a gibbet with his son.[*]
When Pandolf, after receiving the homage of John, returned to France, he
congratulated Philip on the success of his pious enterprise; and informed
him that John, moved by the terror of the French arms, had now come to a
just sense of his guilt; had returned to obedience under the apostolic
see; had even consented to do homage to the pope for his dominions; and
having thus made his kingdom a part of St. Peter’s patrimony, had rendered
it impossible for any Christian prince, without the most manifest and most
flagrant impiety, to attack him.[**] Philip was enraged on receiving this
intelligence: he exclaimed, that having, at the pope’s instigation,
undertaken an expedition which had cost him above sixty thousand pounds
sterling, he was frustrated of his purpose, at the time when its success
was become infallible: he complained that all the expense had fallen upon
him; all the advantages had accrued to Innocent: he threatened to be no
longer the dupe of these hypocritical pretences: and assembling his
vassals, he laid before them the ill treatment which he had received,
exposed the interested and fraudulent conduct of the pope, and required
their assistance to execute his enterprise against England, in which he
told them, that notwithstanding the inhibitions and menaces of the legate,
he was determined to persevere. The French barons were in that age little
less ignorant and superstitious than the English: yet, so much does the
influence of those religious principles depend on the present dispositions
of men! they all vowed to follow their prince on his intended expedition,
and were resolute not to be disappointed of that glory and those riches
which they had long expected from this enterprise. The earl of Flanders
alone, who had previously formed a secret treaty with John, declaring
against the injustice and impiety of the undertaking, retired with his
forces;[***] and Philip, that he might not leave so dangerous an enemy
behind him, first turned his arms against the dominions of that prince.
Meanwhile the English fleet was assembled under the earl of Saltsbury, the
king’s natural brother; and, though inferior in number, received orders to
attack the French in their harbors. Salisbury performed this service with
so much success that he took three hundred ships; destroyed a hundred
more;[*] and Philip, finding it impossible to prevent the rest from
falling into the hands of the enemy, set fire to them himself, and thereby
rendered it impossible for him to proceed any farther in his enterprise.
John, exulting in his present security, insensible to his past disgrace,
was so elated with this success, that he thought of no less than invading
France in his turn, and recovering all those provinces which the
prosperous arms of Philip had formerly ravished from him. He proposed this
expedition to the barons, who were already assembled for the defence of
the kingdom. But the English nobles both hated and despised their prince:
they prognosticated no success to any enterprise conducted by a such a
leader: and, pretending that their time of service was elapsed, and all
their previsions exhausted, they refused to second his undertaking.[**]
The king, however, resolute in his purpose, embarked with a few followers,
and sailed to Jersey, in the foolish expectation that the barons would at
last be ashamed to stay behind.[***] But finding himself disappointed, he
returned to England; and raising some troops, threatened to take vengeance
on all his nobles for their desertion and disobedience. The archbishop of
Canterbury, who was in a confederacy with the barons here interposed;
strictly inhibited the king from thinking of such an attempt; and
threatened him with a renewal of the sentence of excommunication if he
pretended to levy war upon any of his subjects before the kingdom were
freed from the sentence of interdict.[****]
The church had recalled the several anathemas pronounced against John, by
the same gradual progress with which she had at first issued them. By
receiving his homage, and admitting him to the rank of a vassal, his
deposition had been virtually annulled, and his subjects were again bound
by their oaths of allegiance. The exiled prelates had then returned in
great triumph, with Langton at their head; and the king, hearing of their
approach, went forth to meet them, and throwing himself on the ground
before them, he entreated them with tears to have compassion on him and
the kingdom of England.[*] The primate, seeing these marks of sincere
penitence, led him to the chapter-house of Winchester, and there
administered an oath to him, by which he again swore fealty and obedience
to Pope Innocent and his successors; promised to love, maintain, and
defend holy church and the clergy; engaged that he would reestablish the
good laws of his predecessors, particularly those of St. Edward, and would
abolish the wicked ones; and expressed his resolution of maintaining
justice and right in all his dominions.[**] The primate next gave him
absolution in the requisite forms, and admitted him to dine with him, to
the great joy of all the people. The sentence of interdict, however, was
still upheld against the kingdom. A new legate, Nicholas, bishop of
Frescati, came into England in the room of Pandolf; and he declared it to
be the pope’s intentions never to loosen that sentence till full
restitution were made to the clergy of every thing taken from them, and
ample reparation for all damages which they had Sustained. He only
permitted mass to be said with a low voice in the churches, till those
losses and damages could be estimated to the satisfaction of the parties.
Certain barons were appointed to take an account of the claims; and John
was astonished at the greatness of the sums to which the clergy made their
losses to amount. No less than twenty thousand marks were demanded by the
monks of Canterbury alone; twenty-three thousand for the see of Lincoln;
and the king, finding these pretensions to be exorbitant and endless,
offered the clergy the sum of a hundred thousand marks for a final
acquittal, The clergy rejected the offer with disdain; but the pope,
willing to favor his new vassal, whom he found zealous in his declarations
of fealty, and regular in paying the stipulated tribute to Rome, directed
his legate to accept of forty thousand. The issue of the whole was, that
the bishops and considerable abbots got reparation beyond what they had
any title to demand; the inferior clergy were obliged to sit down
contented with their losses: and the king, after the interdict was taken
off, renewed, in the most solemn manner, and by a new charter sealed with
gold, his professions of homage and obedience to the see of Rome.
1214.
When this vexatious affair was at last brought to a conclusion, the king,
as if he had nothing further to attend but triumphs and victories, went
over to Poictou, which still acknowledged his authority;[*] and he carried
war into Philip’s dominions.
He besieged a castle near Angiers; but the approach of Prince Lewis,
Philip’s son, obliged him to raise the siege with such precipitation, that
he left his tents, machines, and baggage behind him; and he returned to
England with disgrace. About the same time, he heard of the great and
decisive victory gained by the king of France at Bovines over the emperor
Otho, who had entered France at the head of one hundred and fifty thousand
Germans; a victory which established forever the glory of Philip, and gave
full security to all his dominions. John could, therefore, think
henceforth of nothing further than of ruling peaceably his own kingdom;
and his close connections with the pope, which he was determined at any
price to maintain, insured him, as he imagined the certain attainment of
that object. But the last and most grievous scene of this prince’s
misfortunes still awaited him; and he was destined to pass through a
series of more humiliating circumstances than had ever yet fallen to the
lot of any other monarch.
The introduction of the feudal law into England by William the Conqueror
had much infringed the liberties, however imperfect, enjoyed by the
Anglo-Saxons in their ancient government, and had reduced the whole people
to a state of vassalage under the king or barons, and even the greater
part of them to a state of real slavery, the necessity, also, of
intrusting great power in the hands of a prince, who was to maintain
military dominion over a vanquished nation, had engaged the Norman barons
to submit to a more severe and absolute prerogative than that to which men
of their rank, in other feudal governments, were commonly subjected. The
power of the crown, once raised to a high pitch, was not easily reduced;
and the nation, during the course of a hundred and fifty years, was
governed by an authority unknown, in the same degree, to all the kingdoms
founded by the northern conquerors. Henry I., that he might allure the
people to give an exclusion to his elder brother Robert, had granted them
a charter, favorable in many particulars to their liberties; Stephen had
renewed the grant; Henry II. had confirmed it: but the concessions of all
these princes had still remained without effect; and the same unlimited,
at least in regular authority, continued to be exercised both by them and
their successors. The only happiness was, that arms were never yet
ravished from the hands of the barons and people: the nation, by a great
confederacy, might still vindicate its liberties: and nothing was more
likely than the character, conduct, and fortunes of the reigning prince,
to produce such a general combination against him. Equally odious and
contemptible, both in public and private life, he affronted the barons by
his insolence, dishonored their families by his gallantries, enraged them
by his tyranny, and gave discontent to all ranks of men by his endless
exactions and impositions.[*] The effect of these lawless practices had
already appeared in the general demand made by the barons of a restoration
of their privileges; and after he had reconciled himself to the pope, by
abandoning the independence of the kingdom, he appeared to all his
subjects in so mean a light, that they universally thought they might with
safety and honor insist upon their pretensions.
But nothing forwarded this confederacy so much as the concurrence of
Langton, archbishop of Canterbury; a man whose memory, though he was
obtruded on the nation by a palpable encroachment of the see of Rome,
ought always to be respected by the English. This prelate, whether he was
moved by the generosity of his nature and his affection to public good; or
had entertained an animosity against John, on account of the long
opposition made by that prince to his election; or thought that an
acquisition of liberty to the people would serve to increase and secure
the privileges of the church; had formed the plan of reforming the
government, and had prepared the way for that great innovation, by
inserting those singular clauses above mentioned, in the oath which he
administered to the king, before he would absolve him from the sentence of
excommunication. Soon after, in a private meeting of some principal barons
at London, he showed them a copy of Henry I.‘s charter, which, he said, he
had happily found in a monastery; and he exhorted them to insist on the
renewal and observance of it: the barons swore that they would sooner lose
their lives than depart from so reasonable a demand.[**]
The confederacy began now to spread wider, and to comprehend almost all
the barons in England; and a new and more numerous meeting was summoned by
Langton at St. Edmondsbury, under color of devotion. He again produced to
the assembly the old charter of Henry; renewed his exhortations of
unanimity and vigor in the prosecution of their purpose; and represented
in the strongest colors the tyranny to which they had so long been
subjected, and from which it now behoved them to free themselves and their
posterity.[*] The barons, inflamed by his eloquence, incited by the sense
of their own wrongs, and encouraged by the appearance of their power and
numbers, solemnly took an oath, before the high altar, to adhere to each
other, to insist on their demands, and to make endless war on the king
till he should submit to grant them.[**] They agreed that, after the
festival of Christmas, they would prefer in a body their common petition;
and in the mean time they separated, after mutually engaging that they
would put themselves in a posture of defence, would enlist men and
purchase arms, and would supply their castles with the necessary
provisions.
1215.
The barons appeared in London on the day appointed, and demanded of the
king, that, in consequence of his own oath before the primate, as well as
in deference to their just rights, he should grant them a renewal of
Henry’s charter, and a confirmation of the laws of St. Edward. The king,
alarmed with their zeal and unanimity, as well as with their power,
required a delay; promised that, at the festival of Easter, he would give
them a positive answer to their petition; and offered them the archbishop
of Canterbury, the bishop of Ely, and the earl of Pembroke, the mareschal,
as sureties for his fulfilling this engagement.[***] The barons accepted
of the terms, and peaceably returned to their castles.
During this interval, John, in order to break or subdue the league of his
barons, endeavored to avail himself of the ecclesiastical power, of whose
influence he had, from his own recent misfortunes, had such fatal
experience. He granted to the clergy a charter, relinquishing forever that
important prerogative for which his father and all his ancestors had
zealously contended; yielding to them the free election on all vacancies;
reserving only the power to issue a conge d’élire and to subjoin a
confirmation of the election; and declaring that, if either of these were
withheld, the choice should nevertheless be deemed just and valid.[*] He
made a vow to lead an army into Palestine against the infidels, and he
took on him the cross, in hopes that he should receive from the church
that protection which she tendered to every one that had entered into this
sacred and meritorious engagement.[**] And he sent to Rome his agent,
William de Mauclere, in order to appeal to the pope against the violence
of his barons, and procure him a favorable sentence from that powerful
tribunal.[***] The barons, also, were not negligent on their part in
endeavoring to engage the pope in their interests: they despatched Eustace
de Vescie to Rome; laid their case before Innocent as their feudal lord;
and petitioned him to interpose his authority with the king, and oblige
him to restore and confirm all their just and undoubted privileges.[****]
Innocent beheld with regret the disturbances which had arisen in England,
and was much inclined to favor John in his pretensions. He had no hopes of
retaining and extending his newly-acquired superiority over that kingdom,
but by supporting so base and degenerate a prince, who was willing to
sacrifice every consideration to his present safety: and he foresaw, that
if the administration should fall into the hands of those gallant and
high-spirited barons, they would vindicate the honor, liberty, and
independence of the nation, with the same ardor which they now exerted in
defence of their own. He wrote letters, therefore, to the prelates, to the
nobility, and to the king himself. He exhorted the first to employ their
good offices in conciliating peace between the contending parties, and
putting an end to civil discord: to the second he expressed his
disapprobation of their conduct in employing force to extort concessions
from their reluctant sovereign: the last lie advised to treat his nobles
with grace and indulgence, and to grant them such of their demands as
should appear just and reasonable.
The barons easily saw, from the tenor of these letters, that they must
reckon on having the pope, as well as the king, for their adversary; but
they had already advanced too far to recede from their pretensions, and
their passions were so deeply engaged, that it exceeded even the power of
superstition itself any longer to control them. They also foresaw, that
the thunders of Rome, when not seconded by the efforts of the English
ecclesiastics, would be of small avail against them and they perceived
that the most considerable of the prelates, as well as all the inferior
clergy, professed the highest approbation of their cause. Besides that
these men were seized with the national passion for laws and liberty,
blessings of which they themselves expected to partake, there concurred
very powerful causes to loosen their devoted attachment to the apostolic
see. It appeared, from the late usurpations of the Roman pontiff, that he
pretended to reap alone all the advantages accruing from that victory,
which under his banners, though at their own peril, they had every where
obtained over the civil magistrate. The pope assumed a despotic power over
all the churches; their particular customs, privileges, and immunities
were treated with disdain; even the canons of general councils were set
aside by his dispensing power; the whole administration of the church was
centred in the court of Rome; all preferments ran, of course, in the same
channel; and the provincial clergy saw, at least felt, that there was a
necessity for limiting these pretensions. The legate, Nicholas, in filling
those numerous vacancies which had fallen in England during an interdict
of six years, had proceeded in the most arbitrary manner; and had paid no
regard, in conferring dignities, to personal merit, to rank, to the
inclination of the electors, or to the customs of the country. The English
church was universally disgusted; and Langton himself, though he owed his
elevation to an encroachment of the Romish see, was no sooner established
in his high office, than he became jealous of the privileges annexed to
it, and formed attachments with the country subjected to his jurisdiction.
These causes, though they opened slowly the eyes of men, failed not to
produce their effect: they set bounds to the usurpations of the papacy;
the tide first stopped, and then turned against the sovereign pontiff; and
it is otherwise inconceivable, how that age, so prone to superstition, and
so sunk in ignorance, or rather so devoted to a spurious erudition, could
have escaped falling into an absolute and total slavery under the court of
Rome.
About the time that the pope’s letters arrived in England, The malevolent
barons, on the approach of the festival of Easter, when they were to
expect the king’s answer to their petition, met by agreement at Stamford;
and they assembled a force, consisting of above two thousand knights,
besides then retainers and inferior persons without number. Elated with
their power, they advanced in a body to Brackley, within fifteen miles of
Oxford, the place where the court then resided; and they there received a
message from the king, by the archbishop of Canterbury and the earl of
Pembroke, desiring to know what those liberties were which they so
zealously challenged from their sovereign. They delivered to these
messengers a schedule, containing the chief articles of their demands;
which was no sooner shown to the king, than he burst into a furious
passion, and asked why the barons did not also demand of him his kingdom;
swearing that he would never grant them such liberties as must reduce
himself to slavery.[*]
No sooner were the confederated nobles informed of John’s reply, than they
chose Robert Fitz-Walter their general, whom they called “the mareschal of
the army of God and of holy church;” and they proceeded without further
ceremony to levy war upon the king. They besieged the castle of
Northampton during fifteen days, though without success:[**] the gates of
Bedford castle were willingly opened to them by William Beauchamp, its
owner: they advanced to Ware in their way to London, where they held a
correspondence with the principal citizens: they were received without
opposition into that capital: and finding now the great superiority of
their force, they issued proclamations, requiring the other barons to join
them, and menacing them, in case of refusal or delay, with committing
devastation on their houses and estates.[***] In order to show what might
be expected from their prosperous arms, they made incursions from London,
and laid waste the king’s parks and palaces; and all the barons, who had
hitherto carried the semblance of supporting the royal party, were glad of
this pretence for openly joining a cause which they always had secretly
favored. The king was left at Odiham, in Hampshire, with a poor retinue of
only seven knights; and after trying several expedients to elude the blow,
after offering to refer all differences to the pope alone, or to eight
barons, four to be chosen by himself, and four by the confederates,[****]
he found himself at last obliged to submit at discretion.
A conference between the king and the barons was appointed at Runnemede,
between Windsor and Staines; a place which has ever since been extremely
celebrated on account of this great event. The two parties encamped apart,
like open enemies; and after a debate of a few days, the king, with a
facility somewhat suspicious, signed and sealed the charter which was
required of him. This famous deed, commonly called the Great Charter,
either granted or secured very important liberties and privileges to every
order of men in the kingdom; to the clergy, to the barons, and to the
people.
The freedom of elections was secured to the clergy: the former charter of
the king was confirmed, by which the necessity of a royal conge d’élire
and confirmation was superseded: all check upon appeals to Rome was
removed, by the allowance granted every man to depart the kingdom at
pleasure: and the fines to be imposed on the clergy, for any offence, were
ordained to be proportional to their lay estates, not to their
ecclesiastical benefices.
The privileges granted to the barons were either abatements in the rigor
of the feudal law, or determinations in points which had been left by that
law, or had become, by practice, arbitrary and ambiguous. The reliefs of
heirs succeeding to a military fee were ascertained; an earl’s and baron’s
at a hundred marks, a knight’s at a hundred shillings. It was ordained by
the charter that, if the heir be a minor, he shall, immediately upon his
majority, enter upon his estate, without paying any relief: the king shall
not sell his wardship; he shall levy only reasonable profits upon the
estate, without committing waste, or hurting the property: he shall uphold
the castles, houses, mills, parks, and ponds, and if he commit the
guardianship of the estate to the sheriff or any other, he shall
previously oblige them to find surety to the same purpose. During the
minority of a baron, while his lands are in wardship, and are not in his
own possession, no debt which he owes to the Jews shall bear any interest.
Heirs shall be married without disparagement; and before the marriage be
contracted, the nearest relations of the person shall be informed of it. A
widow, without paying any relief, shall enter upon her dower, the third
part of her husband’s rents: she shall not be compelled to marry, so long
as she chooses to continue single; she shall only give security never to
marry without her lord’s consent. The king shall not claim the wardship of
any minor who holds lands by military tenure, of a baron, on pretence that
he also holds lands of the crown, by soccage or any other tenure. Scutages
shall be estimated at the same rate as in the time of Henry I.; and no
scutage or aid, except in the three general feudal cases, the king’s
captivity, the knighting of his eldest son, and the marrying of his eldest
daughter, shall be imposed but by the great council of the kingdom; the
prelates, earls, and great barons, shall be called to this great council,
each by a particular writ; the lesser barons by a general summons of the
sheriff. The king shall not seize any baron’s land for a debt to the crown
if the baron possesses as many goods and chattels as are sufficient to
discharge the debt. No man shall be obliged to perform more service for
his fee than he is bound to by his tenure. No governor or constable of a
castle shall oblige any knight to give money for castle guard, if the
knight be willing to perform the service in person, or by another
able-bodied man; and if the knight be in the field himself, by the king’s
command, he shall be exempted from all other service of this nature. No
vassal shall be allowed to sell so much of his land as to incapacitate
himself from performing his service to his lord.
These were the principal articles, calculated for the interest of the
barons; and had the charter contained nothing further, national happiness
and liberty had been very little promoted by it, as it would only have
tended to increase the power and independence of an order of men who were
already too powerful, and whose yoke might have become more heavy on the
people than even that of an absolute monarch. But the barons, who alone
drew and imposed on the prince this memorable charter, were necessitated
to insert in it other claused of a more extensive and more beneficent
nature: they could not expect the concurrence of the people without
comprehending, together with their own, the interest of inferior ranks of
men; and all provisions, which the barons, for their own sake, were
obliged to make, in order to insure the free and equitable administration
of justice, tended directly to the benefit of the whole community. The
following were the principal clauses of this nature.
It was ordained that all the privileges and immunities above mentioned,
granted to the barons against the king, should be extended by the barons
to their inferior vassals. The king bound himself not to grant any writ,
empowering a baron to levy aids from his vassals, except in the three
feudal cases. One weight and one measure shall be established throughout
the kingdom. Merchants shall be allowed to transact all business without
being exposed to any arbitrary tolls and impositions; they and all free
men shall be allowed to go out of the kingdom and return to it at
pleasure: London, and all cities and burghs, shall preserve their ancient
liberties, immunities, and free customs: aids shall not be required of
them but by the consent of the great council: no towns or individuals
shall be obliged to make or support bridges but by ancient custom: the
goods of every freeman shall he disposed of according to his will: if he
die intestate, his heirs shall succeed to them. No officer of the crown
shall take any horses, carts, or wood, without the consent of the owner.
The king’s courts of justice shall be stationary, and shall no longer
follow his person: they shall be open to every one; and justice shall no
longer be sold, refused, or delayed by them. Circuits shall be regularly
held every year: the inferior tribunals of justice, the county court,
sheriff’s turn, and court-leet shall meet at their appointed time and
place: the sheriffs shall be incapacitated to hold pleas of the crown; and
shall not put any person upon his trial, from rumor or suspicion alone,
but upon the evidence of lawful witnesses. No freeman shall be taken or
imprisoned, or dispossessed of his free tenement and liberties, or
outlawed, or banished, or anywise hurt or injured, unless by the legal
judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land; and all who suffered
otherwise in this or the two former reigns, shall be restored to their
rights and possessions. Every freeman shall be fined in proportion to his
fault; and no fine shall be levied on him to his utter ruin; even a
villain or rustic shall not by any fine be bereaved of his carts, ploughs,
and implements of husbandry. This was the only article calculated for the
interests of this body of men, probably at that time the most numerous in
the kingdom.
It must be confessed that the former articles of the Great Charter contain
such mitigations and explanations of the feudal law as are reasonable and
equitable; and that the latter involve all the chief outlines of a legal
government, and provide for the equal distribution of justice, and free
enjoyment of property; the great objects for which political society was
at first founded by men, which the people have a perpetual and unalienable
right to recall, and which no time, nor precedent, nor statute, nor
positive institution, ought to deter them from keeping ever uppermost in
their thoughts and attention. Though the provisions made by this charter
might, conformably to the genius of the age, be esteemed too concise, and
too bare of circumstances to maintain the execution of its articles, in
opposition to the chicanery of lawyers, supported by the violence of
power, time gradually ascertained the sense of all the ambiguous
expressions; and those generous barons, who first extorted this
concession, still held their swords in their hands, and could turn them
against those who dared, on any pretence, to depart from the original
spirit and meaning of the grant. We may now, from the tenor of this
charter, conjecture what those laws were of King Edward which the English
nation, during so many generations, still desired, with such an obstinate
perseverance, to have recalled and established. They were chiefly these
latter articles of Magna Charta; and the barons who, at the beginning of
these commotions, demanded the revival of the Saxon laws, undoubtedly
thought that they had sufficiently satisfied the people by procuring them
this concession, which comprehended the principal objects to which they
had so long aspired. But what we are most to admire is, the prudence and
moderation of those haughty nobles themselves, who were enraged by
injuries, inflamed by opposition, and elated by a total victory over their
sovereign. They were content, even in this plenitude of power, to depart
from some articles of Henry I.‘s charter, which they made the foundation
of their demands, particularly from the abolition of wardships, a matter
of the greatest importance; and they seem to have been sufficiently
careful not to diminish too far the power and revenue of the crown. If
they appear, therefore, to have carried other demands to too great a
height, it can be ascribed only to the faithless and tyrannical character
of the king himself, of which they had long had experience, and which they
foresaw would, if they provided no further security, lead him soon to
infringe their new liberties, and revoke his own concessions. This alone
gave birth to those other articles, seemingly exorbitant, which were added
as a rampart for the safeguard of the Great Charter.
The barons obliged the king to agree that London should remain in their
hands, and the Tower be consigned to the custody of the primate, till the
15th of August ensuing, or till the execution of the several articles of
the Great Charter. The better to insure the same end, he allowed them to
choose five-and-twenty members from their own body, as conservators of the
public liberties; and no bounds were set to the authority of these men
either in extent or duration. If any complaint were made of a violation of
the charter, whether attempted by the king, justiciaries, sheriffs, or
foresters, any four of these barons might admonish the king to redress the
grievance: if satisfaction were not obtained, they could assemble the
whole council of twenty-five; who, in conjunction with the great council,
were empowered to compel him to observe the charter, and, in case of
resistance, might levy war against him, attack his castles, and employ
every kind of violence, except against his royal person, and that of his
queen and children. All men throughout the kingdom were bound, under the
penalty of confiscation, to swear obedience to the twenty-five barons; and
the freeholders of each county were to choose twelve knights, who were to
make report of such evil customs as required redress, conformably to the
tenor of the Great Charter.[*] The names of those conservators were, the
earls of Clare, Albemarle, Glocesteer, Winchester, Hereford, Roger Bigod,
earl of Norfolk, Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford, William Mareschal the
younger, Robert Fitz-Walter, Gilbert de Clare, Eustace de Vescey, Gilbert
Delaval, William de Moubray, Geoffrey de Say, Roger de Mombezon, William
de Huntingfield, Robert de Ros, the constable of Chester, William de
Aubenie, Richard de Perci, William Malet, John Fitz-Robert, William de
Lanvalay, Hugh de Bigod, and Roger de Montfichet. These men were, by this
convention, really invested with the sovereignty of the kingdom: they were
rendered coordinate with the king, or rather superior to him, in the
exercise of the executive power; and as there was no circumstance of
government which, either directly or indirectly, might not bear a relation
to the security or observance of the Great Charter, there could scarcely
occur any incident in which they might not lawfully interpose their
authority.
John seemed to submit passively to all these regulations, however
injurious to majesty: he sent writs to all the sheriffs, ordering them to
constrain every one to swear obedience to the twenty-five barons: he
dismissed all his foreign force; he pretended, that his government was
thenceforth to run in a new tenor, and be more indulgent to the liberty
and independence of his people. But he only dissembled till he should find
a favorable opportunity for annulling all his concessions. The injuries
and indignities which he had formerly suffered from the pope and the king
of France, as they came from equals or superiors, seemed to make but small
impression on him; but the sense of this perpetual and total subjection
under his own rebellious vassals, sunk deep in his mind; and he was
determined, at all hazards, to throw off so ignominious a slavery. He grew
sullen, silent, and reserved: he shunned the society of his courtiers and
nobles: he retired into the Isle of Wight, as if desirous of hiding his
shame and confusion; but in this retreat he meditated the most fatal
vengeance against all his enemies. He secretly sent abroad his emissaries
to enlist foreign soldiers, and to invite the rapacious Brabançons into
his service, by the prospect of sharing the spoils of England, and reaping
the forfeitures of so many opulent barons, who had incurred the guilt of
rebellion, by rising in arms against him. And he despatched a messenger to
Rome, in order to lay before the pope the Great Charter, which he had been
compelled to sign, and to complain, before that tribunal, of the violence
which had been imposed upon him.
Innocent, considering himself as feudal lord of the kingdom, was incensed
at the temerity of the barons, who, though they pretended to appeal to his
authority, had dared, without waiting for his consent, to impose such
terms on a prince, who, by resigning to the Roman pontiff his crown and
independence, had placed himself immediately under the papal protection.
He issued, therefore, a bull, in which, from the plenitude of his
apostolic power, and from the authority which God had committed to him, to
build and destroy kingdoms, to plant and overthrow, he annulled and
abrogated the whole charter, as unjust in itself, as obtained by
compulsion, and as derogatory to the dignity of the apostolic see. He
prohibited the barons from exacting the observance of it: he even
prohibited the king himself from paying any regard to it: he absolved him
and his subjects from all oaths which they had been constrained to take to
that purpose; and he pronounced a general sentence of excommunication
against every one who should persevere in maintaining such treasonable and
iniquitous pretensions.
The king, as his foreign forces arrived along with this bull now ventured
to take off the mask; and, under sanction of the pope’s decree, recalled
all the liberties which he had granted to his subjects, and which he had
solemnly sworn to observe. But the spiritual weapon was found upon trial
to carry less force with it than he had reason from his own experience to
apprehend. The primate refused to obey the pope in publishing the sentence
of excommunication against the barons; and though he was cited to Rome,
that he might attend a general council there assembled, and was suspended,
on account of his disobedience to the pope, and his secret correspondence
with the king’s enemies; though a new and particular sentence of
excommunication was pronounced by name against the principal barons; John
still found that his nobility and people, and even his clergy, adhered to
the defence of their liberties, and to their combination against him: the
sword of his foreign mercenaries was all he had to trust to for restoring
his authority.
The barons, after obtaining the Great Charter, seem to have been lulled
into a fatal security, and to have taken no rational measures, in case of
the introduction of a foreign force, for reassembling their armies. The
king was, from the first, master of the field; and immediately laid siege
to the castle of Rochester, which was obstinately defended by William de
Albiney, at the head of a hundred and forty knights with their retainers,
but was at last, reduced by famine. John, irritated with the resistance,
intended to have hanged the governor and all the garrison; but on the
representation of William de Mauleon, who suggested to him the danger of
reprisals, he was content to sacrifice, in this barbarous manner, the
inferior prisoners only. The captivity of William de Albiney, the best
officer among the confederated barons, was an irreparable loss to their
cause; and no regular opposition was thenceforth made to the progress of
the royal arms. The ravenous and barbarous mercenaries, incited by a cruel
and enraged prince were let loose against the estates, tenants, manors,
houses, parks of the barons, and spread devastation over the face of the
kingdom. Nothing was to be seen but the flames of villages, and castles
reduced to ashes, the consternation and misery of the inhabitants,
tortures exercised by the soldiery to make them reveal their concealed
treasures, and reprisals no less barbarous, committed by the barons and
their partisans on the royal demesnes, and on the estates of such as still
adhered to the crown. The king, marching through the whole extent of
England, from Dover to Berwick, laid the provinces waste on each side of
him; and considered every estate, which was not his immediate property, as
entirely hostile, and the object of military execution. The nobility of
the north in particular, who had shown greatest violence in the recovery
of their liberties, and who, acting in a separate body, had expressed
their discontent even at the concessions made by the Great Charter, as
they could expect no mercy, fled before him with their wives and families,
and purchased the friendship of Alexander, the young king of Scots, by
doing homage to him.
The barons, reduced to this desperate extremity, and menaced with the
total loss of their liberties, their properties, and their lives, employed
a remedy no less desperate; and making applications to the court of
France, they offered to acknowledge Lewis, the eldest son of Philip, for
their sovereign, on condition that he would afford them protection from
the violence of their enraged prince. Though the sense of the common
rights of mankind, the only rights that are entirely indefeasible, might
have justified them in the deposition of their king, they declined
insisting before Philip on a pretension which is commonly so disagreeable
to sovereigns, and which sounds harshly in their royal ears. They affirmed
that John was incapable of succeeding to the crown, by reason of the
attainder passed upon him during his brother’s reign; though that
attainder had been reversed, and Richard had even, by his last will,
declared him his successor. They pretended, that he was already legally
deposed by sentence of the peers of France, on account of the murder of
his nephew; though that sentence could not possibly regard any thing but
his transmarine dominions, which alone he held in vassalage to that crown.
On more plausible grounds, they affirmed, that he had already deposed
himself by doing homage to the pope, changing the nature of his
sovereignty, and resigning an independent crown for a fee under a foreign
power. And as Blanche of Castile, the wife of Lewis, was descended by her
mother from Henry II., they maintained, though many other princes stood
before her in the order of succession, that they had not shaken off the
royal family, in choosing her husband for their sovereign.
Philip was strongly tempted to lay hold on the rich prize which was
offered to him. The legate menaced him with interdicts and
excommunications, if he invaded the patrimony of St. Peter, or attacked a
prince who was under the immediate protection of the holy see; but as
Philip was assured of the obedience of his own vassals, his principles
were changed with the times, and he now undervalued as much all papal
censures, as he formerly pretended to pay respect to them. His chief
scruple was with regard to the fidelity which he might expect from the
English barons in their new engagements, and the danger of intrusting his
son and heir into the hands of men who might, on any caprice or necessity,
make peace with their native sovereign, by sacrificing a pledge of so much
value. He therefore exacted from the barons twenty-five hostages of the
most noble birth in the kingdom; and having obtained this security, he
sent over first a small army to the relief of the confederates; then more
numerous forces, which arrived with Lewis himself at their head.
The first effect of the young prince’s appearance in England was the
desertion of John’s foreign troops, who, being mostly levied in Flanders,
and other provinces of France, refused to serve against the heir of their
monarchy. The Gascons and Poictevins alone, who were still John’s
subjects, adhered to his cause; but they were too weak to maintain that
superiority in the field which they had hitherto supported against the
confederated barons. Many considerable noblemen deserted John’s party, the
earls of Salisbury, Arundel, Warrenne, Oxford, Albemarle, and William
Mareschal the younger: his castles fell daily into the hands of the enemy;
Dover was the only place which, from the valor and fidelity of Hubert de
Burgh, the governor, made resistance to the progress of Lewis; and the
barons had the melancholy prospect of finally succeeding in their purpose,
and of escaping the tyranny of their own king, by imposing on themselves
and the nation a foreign yoke. But this union was of short duration
between the French and English nobles; and the imprudence of Lewis, who on
every occasion showed too visible a preference to the former, increased
that jealousy which it was so natural for the latter to entertain in their
present situation. The viscount of Melun, too, it is said, one of his
courtiers, fell sick at London; and finding the approaches of death, he
sent for some of his friends among the English barons, and warning them of
their danger, revealed Lewis’s secret intentions of exterminating them and
their families as traitors to their prince, and of bestowing their estates
and dignities on his native subjects, in whose fidelity he could more
reasonably place confidence. This story, whether true or false, was
universally reported and believed; and, concurring with other
circumstances, which rendered it credible, did great prejudice to the
cause of Lewis. The earl of Salisbury and other noblemen deserted again to
John’s party; and as men easily change sides in a civil war, especially
where their power is founded on an hereditary and independent authority,
and is not derived from the opinion and favor of the people, the French
prince had reason to dread a sudden reverse of fortune. The king was
assembling a considerable army, with a view of fighting one great battle
for his crown; but passing from Lynne to Lincolnshire, his road lay along
the sea-shore, which was overflowed at high water; and not choosing the
proper time for his journey, he lost in the inundation all his carriages,
treasure, baggage, and regalia. The affliction for this disaster, and
vexation from the distracted state of his affairs, increased the sickness
under which he then labored; and though he reached the castle of Newark,
he was obliged to halt there, and his distemper soon after put an end to
his life, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and eighteenth of his reign;
and freed the nation from the dangers to which it was equally exposed by
his success or by his misfortunes.
The character of this prince is nothing but a complication of vices,
equally mean and odious; ruinous to himself and destructive to his people.
Cowardice, inactivity, folly, levity licentiousness, ingratitude,
treachery, tyranny, and cruelty all these qualities appear too evidently
in the several incidents of his life, to give us room to suspect that the
disagreeable picture has been anywise overcharged by the prejudices of the
ancient historians. It is hard to say whether his conduct to his father,
his brother, his nephew, or his subjects, was most culpable; or whether
his crimes, in these respects, were not even exceeded by the baseness
which appeared in his transactions with the king of France, the pope, and
the barons. His European dominions, when they devolved to him by the death
of his brother, were more extensive than have ever, since his time, been
ruled by any English monarch: but he first lost by his misconduct the
flourishing provinces in France, the ancient patrimony of his family: he
subjected his kingdom to a shameful vassalage under the see of Rome: he
saw the prerogatives of his crown diminished by law, and still more
reduced by faction; and he died at last, when in danger of being totally
expelled by a foreign power, and of either ending his life miserably in
prison, or seeking shelter as a fugitive from the pursuit of his enemies.
The prejudices against this prince were so violent, that he was believed
to have sent an embassy to the Miramoulin, or emperor of Morocco, and to
have offered to change his religion and become Mahometan, in order to
purchase the protection of that monarch. But though this story is told us,
on plausible authority, by Matthew Paris,* it is in itself utterly
improbable; except that there is nothing so incredible but may be believed
to proceed from the folly and wickedness of John.
The monks throw great reproaches on this prince for his impiety, and even
infidelity; and as an instance of it, they tell us that, having one day
caught a very fat stag, he exclaimed, “How plump and well fed is this
animal! and yet I dare swear he never heard mass.” This sally of wit upon
the usual corpulency of the priests, more than all his enormous crimes and
iniquities, made him pass with them for an atheist.
John left two legitimate sons behind him, Henry, born on the first of
October, 1207, and now nine years of age; and Richard, born on the sixth
of January, 1209; and three daughters, Jane, afterwards married to
Alexander, king of Scots; Eleanor, married first to William Mareschal the
younger, earl of Pembroke, and then to Simon Mountfort earl of Leicester;
and Isabella, married to the emperor Frederic II. All these children were
born to him by Isabella of Angouleme, his second wife. His illegitimate
children were numerous; but none of them were anywise distinguished.
It was this king who, in the ninth year of his reign, first gave by
charter to the city of London, the right of electing annually a mayor out
of its own body, an office which was till now held for life. He gave the
city also power to elect and remove its sheriffs at pleasure, and its
common-council men annually. London bridge was finished in this reign: the
former bridge was of wood. Maud, the empress, was the first that built a
stone bridge in England.
APPENDIX II.
THE FEUDAL AND ANGLO-NORMAN GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
The feudal law is the chief foundation both of the political government
and of the jurisprudence established by the Normans in England. Our
subject therefore requires that we should form a just idea of this law, in
order to explain the state, as well of that kingdom, as of all other
kingdoms of Europe, which during those ages were governed by similar
institutions. And though I am sensible that I must here repeat many
observations and reflections which have been communicated by others, yet
as every book, agreeably to the observation of a great historian, should
be as complete as possible within itself, and should never refer for any
thing material to other books, it will be necessary in this place to
deliver a short plan of that prodigious fabric, which for several
centuries preserved such a mixture of liberty and oppression, order and
anarchy, stability and revolution, as was never experienced in any other
age or any other part of the world.
After the northern nations had subdued the provinces of the Roman empire,
they were obliged to establish a system of government which might secure
their conquests, as well against the revolt of their numerous subjects who
remained in the provinces, as from the inroads of other tribes, who might
be tempted to ravish from them their new acquisitions. The great change of
circumstances made them here depart from those institutions which
prevailed among them while they remained in the forests of Germany; yet
was it still natural for them to retain, in their present settlement, as
much of their ancient customs as was compatible with their new situation.
The German governments, being more a confederacy of independent warriors
than a civil subjection, derived their principal force from many inferior
and voluntary associations which individuals formed under a particular
head or chieftain, and which it became the highest point of honor to
maintain with inviolable fidelity. The glory of the chief consisted in the
number, the bravery, and the zealous attachment of his retainers; the duty
of the retainers required that they should accompany their chief in all
wars and dangers, that they should fight and perish by his side, and that
they should esteem his renown or his favor a sufficient recompense for all
their services.[*] The prince himself was nothing but a great chieftain,
who was chosen from among the rest on account of his superior valor or
nobility; and who derived his power from the voluntary association or
attachment of the other chieftains.
When a tribe, governed by these ideas, and actuated by these principles,
subdued a large territory, they found that, though it was necessary to
keep themselves in a military posture, they could neither remain united in
a body, nor take up their quarters in several garrisons, and that their
manners and institutions debarred them from using these expedients the
obvious ones, which, in a like situation, would have been employed by a
more civilized nation. Their ignorance in the art of finances, and perhaps
the devastations inseparable from such violent conquests, rendered it
impracticable for them to levy taxes sufficient for the pay of numerous
armies; and their repugnance to subordination, with their attachment to
rural pleasures, made the life of the camp or garrison, if perpetuated
during peaceful times, extremely odious and disgustful to them. They
seized, therefore, such a portion of the conquered lands as appeared
necessary; they assigned a share for supporting the dignity of their
prince and government; they distributed other parts, under the title of
fiefs, to the chiefs; these made a new partition among their retainers;
the express condition of all these grants was, that they might be resumed
at pleasure, and that the possessor, so long as he enjoyed them, should
still remain in readiness to take the field for the defence of the nation.
And though the conquerors immediately separated, in order to enjoy their
new acquisitions, their martial disposition made them readily fulfil the
terms of their engagement: they assembled on the first alarm; their
habitual attachment to the chieftain made them willingly submit to his
command; and thus a regular military force though concealed was always
ready to defend, on any emergency, the interest and honor of the
community.
We are not to imagine, that all the conquered lands were seized by the
northern conquerors, or that the whole of the land thus seized was
subjected to those military services. This supposition is confuted by the
history of all the nations on the continent. Even the idea given us of the
German manners by the Roman historian, may convince us, that that bold
people would never have been content with so precarious a subsistence, or
have fought to procure establishments which were only to continue during
the good pleasure of their sovereign. Though the northern chieftains
accepted of lands which, being considered as a kind of military pay, might
be resumed at the will of the king or general, they also took possession
of estates which, being hereditary and independent, enabled them to
maintain their native liberty, and support, without court favor, the honor
of their rank and family.
But there is a great difference, in the consequences, between the
distribution of a pecuniary subsistence, and the assignment of lands
burdened with the condition of military service. The delivery of the
former, at the weekly, monthly, or annual terms of payment, still recalls
the idea of a voluntary gratuity from the prince, and reminds the soldier
of the precarious tenure by which he holds his commission. But the
attachment, naturally formed with a fixed portion of land, gradually
begets the idea of something like property, and makes the possessor forget
his dependent situation, and the condition which was at first annexed to
the grant. It seemed equitable, that one who had cultivated and sowed a
field, should reap the harvest: hence fiefs, which were at first entirely
precarious were soon made annual. A man who had employed his money in
building, planting, or other improvements, expected to reap the fruits of
his labor or expense: hence they were next granted during a term of years.
It would be thought hard to expel a man from his possessions who had
always done his duty, and performed the conditions on which he originally
received them: hence the chieftains, in a subsequent period, thought
themselves entitled to demand the enjoyment of their feudal lands during
life. It was found, that a man would more willingly expose himself in
battle, if assured that his family should inherit his possessions, and
should not be left by his death in want and poverty; hence fiefs were made
hereditary in families, and descended, during one age to the son, then to
the grandson, next to the brothers, and afterwards to more distant
relations.[*] The idea of property stole in gradually upon that of
military pay; and each century made some sensible addition to the
stability of fiefs and tenures.
In all these successive acquisitions, the chief was supported by his
vassals; who, having originally a strong connection with him, augmented by
the constant intercourse of good offices, and by the friendship arising
from vicinity and dependence, were inclined to follow their leader against
all his enemies, and voluntarily, in his private quarrels, paid him the
same obedience to which, by their tenure, they were bound in foreign wars.
While he daily advanced new pretensions to secure the possession of his
superior fief, they expected to find the same advantage in acquiring
stability to their subordinate ones; and they zealously opposed the
intrusion of a new lord, who would be inclined, as he was fully entitled,
to bestow the possession of their lands on his own favorites and
retainers. Thus the authority of the sovereign gradually decayed; and each
noble, fortified in his own territory by the attachment of his vassals,
became too powerful to be expelled by an order from the throne; and he
secured by law what he had at first acquired by usurpation.
During this precarious state of the supreme power, a difference would
immediately be experienced between those portions of territory which were
subjected to the feudal tenures, and those which were possessed by an
allodial or free title. Though the latter possessions had at first been
esteemed much preferable, they were soon found, by the progressive changes
introduced into public and private law, to be of an inferior condition to
the former. The possessors of a feudal territory, united by a regular
subordination under one chief, and by the mutual attachments of the
vassals, had the same advantages over the proprietors of the other, that a
disciplined army enjoys over a dispersed multitude; and were enabled to
commit with impunity all injuries on their defenceless neighbors Every
one, therefore, hastened to seek that protection which he found so
necessary; and each allodial proprietor, resigning his possessions into
the hands of the king, or of some nobleman respected for power or valor,
received them back with the condition of feudal services,[*] which, though
a burden somewhat grievous, brought, him ample compensation, by connecting
him with the neighboring proprietors, and placing him under the
guardianship of a potent chieftain. The decay of the political government
thus necessarily occasioned the extension of the feudal: the kingdoms of
Europe were universally divided into baronies, and these into inferior
fiefs; and the attachment of vassals to their chief, which was at first an
essential part of the German manners, was still supported by the same
causes from which it at first arose; the necessity of mutual protection,
and the continued intercourse, between the head and the members, of
benefits and services.
But there was another circumstance, which corroborated these feudal
dependencies, and tended to connect the vassals with their superior lord
by an indissoluble bond of union. The northern conquerors, as well as the
more early Greeks and Romans, embraced a policy, which is unavoidable to
all nations that have made slender advances in refinement: they every
where united the civil jurisdiction with the military power. Law, in its
commencement, was not an intricate science, and was more governed by
maxims of equity, which seem obvious to common sense, than by numerous and
subtile principles, applied to a variety of cases by profound reasonings
from analogy. An officer, though he had passed his life in the field, was
able to determine all legal controversies which could occur within the
district committed to his charge; and his decisions were the most likely
to meet with a prompt and ready obedience, from men who respected his
person, and were accustomed to act under his command. The profit arising
from punishments, Which were then chiefly pecuniary, was another reason
for his desiring to retain the judicial power; and when his fief became
hereditary, this authority, which was essential to it, was also
transmitted to his posterity. The counts and other magistrates, whose
power was merely official, were tempted, in imitation of the feudal lords,
whom they resembled in so many particulars, to render their dignity
perpetual and hereditary; and in the decline of the regal power, they
found no difficulty in making good their pretentions. After this manner
the vast fabric of feudal subordination became quite solid and
comprehensive; it formed every where an essential part of the political
constitution; and the Norman and other barons, who followed the fortunes
of William, were so accustomed to it, that they could scarcely form an
idea of any other species of civil government.[*]
The Saxons who conquered England, as they exterminated the ancient
inhabitants, and thought themselves secured by the sea against new
invaders, found it less requisite to maintain themselves in a military
posture: the quantity of land which they annexed to offices seems to have
been of small value; and for that reason continued the longer in its
original situation, and was always possessed during pleasure by those who
were intrusted with the command. These conditions were too precarious to
satisfy the Norman barons, who enjoyed more independent possessions and
jurisdictions in their own country; and William was obliged, in the new
distribution of land, to copy the tenures which were now become universal
on the continent. England of a sudden became a feudal kingdom,[**] and
received all the advantages, and was exposed to all the inconveniences,
incident to that species of civil polity.
According to the principles of the feudal law, the king wa the supreme
lord of the landed property: all possessors, who enjoyed the fruits or
revenue of any part of it, held those privileges, either mediately or
immediately, of him; and their property was conceived to be, in some
degree, conditional.[***] The land was still apprehended to be a species
of benefice, which was the original conception of a feudal property; and
the vassal owed, in return for it, stated services to his baron, as the
baron himself did for his land to the crown. The vassal was obliged to
defend his baron in war; and the baron, at the head of his vassal, was
bound to fight in defence of the king and kingdom. But besides these
military services, which were casual, there were others imposed of a civil
nature, which were more constant and durable.
The northern nations had no idea that any man trained up to honor and
inured to arms, was ever to be governed, without his own consent, by the
absolute will of another; or that the administration of justice was ever
to be exercised by the private opinion of any one magistrate, without the
concurrence of some other persons, whose interest might induce them to
check his arbitrary and iniquitous decisions. The king, therefore, when he
found it necessary to demand any service of his barons or chief tenants,
beyond what was due by their tenures, was obliged to assemble them, in
order to obtain their consent; and when it was necessary to determine any
controversy which might arise among the barons themselves, the question
must be discussed in their presence, and be decided according to their
opinion or advice. In these two circumstances of consent and advice,
consisted chiefly the civil services of the ancient barons; and these
implied all the considerable incidents of government. In one view, the
barons regarded this attendance as their principal privilege; in another,
as a grievous burden. That no momentous affairs could be transacted
without their consent and advice, was in general esteemed the great
security of their possessions and dignities; but as they reaped no
immediate profit from their attendance at court, and were exposed to great
inconvenience and charge by an absence from their own estates, every one
was glad to exempt himself liom each particular exertion of this power;
and was pleased both that the call for that duty should seldom return upon
him, and that others should undergo the burden in his stead. The king, on
the other hand, was usually anxious, for several reasons, that the
assembly of the barons should be full at every stated or casual meeting:
this attendance was the chief badge of their subordination to his crown,
and drew them from that independence which they were apt to affect in
their own castles and manors; and where the meeting was thin or ill
attended, its determinations had less authority, and commanded not so
ready an obedience from the whole community.
The case was the same with the barons in their courts, as with the king in
the supreme council of the nation. It was requisite to assemble the
vassals, in order to determine by their vote any question which regarded
the barony; and they sat along with the chief in all trials, whether civil
or criminal, which occurred within the limits of their jurisdiction. They
were; bound to pay suit and service at the court of their baron; and as
their tenure was military, and consequently honorable, they were admitted
into his society, and partook of his friendship. Thus, a kingdom was
considered only as a great barony, and a barony as a small kingdom. The
barons were peers to each other in the national council, and in some
degree companions to the king; the vassals were peers to each other in the
court of barony, and companions to their baron.[*]
But though this resemblance so far took place, the vassals by the natural
course of things, universally, in the feudal constitutions, fell into a
greater subordination under the baron, than the baron himself under his
sovereign; and these governments had a necessary and infallible tendency
to augment the power of the nobles. The great chief, residing in his
country seat, which he was commonly allowed to fortify, lost, in a great
measure, his connection or acquaintance with the prince, and added every
day new force to his authority over the vassals of the barony. They
received from him education in all military exercises; his hospitality
invited them to live and enjoy society in his hall; their leisure, which
was great, made them perpetual retainers on his person, and partakers of
his country sports and amusements; they had no means of gratifying their
ambition but by making a figure in his train; his favor and countenance
was their greatest honor; his displeasure exposed them to contempt and
ignominy; and they felt every moment the necessity of his protection, both
in the controversies which occurred with other vassals, and, what was more
material, in the daily inroads and injuries which were committed by the
neighboring barons. During the time of general war, the sovereign, who
marched at the head of his armies, and was the great protector of the
state, always acquired some accession to his authority, which he lost
during the intervals of peace and tranquillity; but the loose police
incident to the feudal constitutions, maintained a perpetual, though
secret hostility, between the several members of the state; and the
vassals found no means of securing themselves against the injuries to
which they were continually exposed, but by closely adhering to their
chief, and falling into a submissive dependence upon him.
If the feudal government was so little favorable to the true liberty even
of the military vassal, it was still more destructive of the independence
and security of the other members of the state, or what in a proper sense
we call the people. A great part of them were serfs, and lived in a state
of absolute slavery or villainage; the other inhabitants of the country
paid then rent in services, which were in a great measure arbitrary; and
they could expect no redress of injuries in a court of barony from men who
thought they had a right to oppress and tyrannize over them: the towns
were situated either within the demesnes of the king, or the lands of the
great barons, and were almost entirely subjected to the absolute will of
their master. The languishing state of commerce kept the inhabitants poor
and contemptible; and the political institutions were calculated to render
that poverty perpetual. The barons and gentry, living in rustic plenty and
hospitality, gave no encouragement to the arts, and had no demand for any
of the more elaborate manufactures: every profession was held in contempt
but that of arms; and if any merchant or manufacturer rose by industry and
frugality to a degree of opulence, he found himself but the more exposed
to injuries, from the envy and avidity of the military nobles.
These concurring causes gave the feudal governments so strong a bias
towards aristocracy, that the royal authority was extremely eclipsed in
all the European states; and, instead of dreading the growth of
monarchical power, we might rather expect, that the community would every
where crumble into so many independent baronies, and lose the political
union by which they were cemented. In elective monarchies, the event was
commonly answerable to this expectation; and the barons, gaining ground on
every vacancy of the throne, raised themselves almost to a state of
sovereignty, and sacrificed to their power both the rights of the crown
and the liberties of the people. But hereditary monarchies had a principle
of authority which was not so easily subverted; and there were several
causes which still maintained a degree of influence in the hands of the
sovereign.
The greatest baron could never lose view entirely of those principles of
the feudal constitution which bound him, as, a vassal, to submission and
fealty towards his prince; because he was every moment obliged to have
recourse to those principles, in exacting fealty and submission from his
own vassals The lesser barons, finding that the annihilation of royal
authority left them exposed without protection to the insults and injuries
of more potent neighbors, naturally adhered to the crown, and promoted the
execution of general and equal laws. The people had still a stronger
interest to desire the grandeur of the sovereign; and the king, being the
legal magistrate, who suffered by every internal convulsion or oppression,
and who regarded the great nobles as his immediate rivals, assumed the
salutary office of general guardian or protector of the commons. Besides
the prerogatives with which the law invested him, his large demesnes and
numerous retainers rendered him, in one sense, the greatest baron in his
kingdom; and where he was possessed of personal vigor and abilities, (for
his situation required these advantages,) he was commonly able to preserve
his authority, and maintain his station as head of the community, and the
chief fountain of law and justice.
The first kings of the Norman race were favored by another circumstance,
which preserved them from the encroachments of their barons. They were
generals of a conquering army, which was obliged to continue in a military
posture, and to maintain great subordination under their leader, in order
to secure themselves from the revolt of the numerous natives, whom they
had bereaved of all their properties and privileges. But though this
circumstance supported the authority of William and his immediate
successors, and rendered them extremely absolute, it was lost as soon as
the Norman barons began to incorporate with the nation, to acquire a
security in their possessions, and to fix their influence over their
vassals, tenants, and slaves. And the immense fortunes which the Conqueror
had bestowed on his chief captains, served to support their independence,
and make them formidable to the sovereign.
He gave, for instance, to Hugh de Abrincis, his sister’s son, the whole
county of Chester, which he erected into a palatinate, and rendered by his
grant almost independent of the crown.[*] Robert, earl of Mortaigne, had
nine hundred and seventy-three manors and lordships: Allan, earl of
Brittany and Richmond, four hundred and forty-two: Odo, bishop of Baieux,
four hundred and thirty-nine:[**] Geoffrey, bishop of Coutance, two
hundred and eighty:[***] Walter Giffard, earl of Buckingham, one hundred
and seven.
William, earl Warrenne, two hundred and ninety-eight, besides twenty-eight
towns or hamlets in Yorkshire: Todenei, eighty-one: Roger Bigod, one
hundred and twenty-three: Robert, earl of Eu, one hundred and nineteen:
Roger Mortimer, one hundred and thirty-two, besides several hamlets:
Robert de Stafford, one hundred and thirty: Walter de Eurus, earl of
Salisbury, forty-six Geoffrey de Mandeville, one hundred and eighteen
Richard de Clare, one hundred and seventy-one: Hugh de Beauchamp,
forty-seven: Baldwin de Rivers, one hundred and sixty-four: Henry de
Ferrers, two hundred and twenty? two: William de Percy, one hundred and
nineteen:[*] Norman d’Arcy, thirty-three.[**] Sir Henry Spelman computea
that, in the large county of Norfolk, there were not, in the Conqueror’s
time, above sixty-six proprietors of land.[***] Men possessed of such
princely revenues and jurisdictions could not long be retained in the rank
of subjects. The great Earl Warrenne, in a subsequent reign, when he was
questioned concerning his right to the lands which he possessed, drew his
sword, which he produced as his title; adding, that William the bastard
did not conquer the kingdom himself; but that the barons, and his ancestor
among me rest, were joint adventurers in the enterprise.[****]
The supreme legislative power of England was lodged in the king and great
council, or what was afterwards called the parliament. It is not doubted
but the archbishops, bishops, and most considerable abbots were
constituent members of this council. They sat by a double title: by
prescription, as having always possessed that privilege, through the whole
Saxon period, from the first establishment of Christianity; and by their
right of baronage, as holding of the king in capite by military service.
These two titles of the prelates were never accurately distinguished. When
the usurpations of the church had risen to such a height, as to make the
bishops affect a separate dominion, and regard their seat in parliament as
a degradation of their episcopal dignity, the king insisted that they were
barons, and, on that account, obliged, by the general principles of the
feudal law, to attend on him in his great councils. Yet there still
remained some practices, which supposed their title to be derived merely
from ancient possession.
The barons were another constituent part of the great council of the
nation These held immediately of the crown by a military tenure: they were
the most honorable members of the state, and had a right to be consulted
in all public deliberations: they were the immediate vassals of the crown,
and owed as a service their attendance in the court of their supreme lord.
A resolution taken without their consent was likely to be but ill
executed: and no determination of any cause or controversy among them had
any validity, where the vote and advice of the body did not concur. The
dignity of earl or count was official and territorial, as well as
hereditary; and as ali the earls were also barons, they were considered as
military vassals of the crown, were admitted in that capacity into the
general council, and formed the most honorable and powerful branch of it.
But there was another class of the immediate military tenants of the
crown, no less, or probably more numerous than the barons, the tenants in
capite by knights’ service and these, however inferior in power or
property, held by a tenure which was equally honorable with that of the
others. A barony was commonly composed of several knightsr fees: and
though the number seems not to have been exactly defined, seldom consisted
of less than fifty hides of land:[*] but where a man held of the king only
one or two knight’s fees, he was still an immediate vassal of the crown,
and as such had a title to have a seat in the general councils. But as
this attendance was usually esteemed a burden, and one too great for a man
of slender fortune to bear constantly, it is probable that, though he had
a title, if he pleased, to be admitted, he was not obliged by any penalty,
like the barons, to pay a regular attendance.
All the immediate military tenants of the crown amounted not fully to
seven hundred, when Domesday-book was framed; and as the membeirs were
well pleased, on any pretext, to excuse themselves from attendance, the
assembly was never likely to become too numerous for the despatch of
public business.
So far the nature of a general council or ancient parliament is determined
without any doubt or controversy, The only question seems to be with
regard to the commons, or the representatives of counties and boroughs;
whether they were also, in more early times, constituent parts of
parliament. This question was once disputed in England with great
acrimony; but such is the force of time and evidence, that they can
sometimes prevail even over faction; and the question seems, by general
consent, and even by their own, to be at last determined against the
ruling party. It is agreed, that the commons were no part of the great
council till some ages after the conquest; and that the military tenants
alone of the crown composed that supreme and legislative assembly.
The vassals of a baron were by their tenure immediately dependent on him,
owed attendance at his court, and paid all their duty to the king, through
that dependence which their lord was obliged by his tenure to acknowledge
to his sovereign and superior. Their land, comprehended in the barony, was
represented in parliament by the baron himself, who was supposed,
according to the fictions of the feudal law, to possess the direct
property of it; and it would have been deemed incongruous to give it any
other representation. They stood m the same capacity to him, that he and
the other barons did to the king: the former were peers of the barony; the
latter were peers of the realm: the vassals possessed a subordinate rank
within their district: the baron enjoyed a superior dignity in the great
assembly: they were in some degree his companions at home; he the king’s
companion at court: and nothing can be more evidently repugnant to all
feudal ideas, and to that gradual subordination which was essential to
those ancient institutions, than to imagine that the king would apply
either for the advice or consent of men who were of a rank so much
inferior, and whose duty was immediately paid to the mesne lord that was
interposed between them and the throne.[*]
If it be unreasonable to think that the vassals of a barony, though their
tenure was military, and noble, and honorable, were ever summoned to give
their opinion in national councils, much less can it be supposed that the
tradesmen or inhabitants of boroughs, whose condition was so much
inferior, would be admitted to that privilege. It appears from Domesday,
that the greatest boroughs were, at the time of the conquest, scarcely
more than country villages; and that the inhabitants lived in entire
dependence on the king or great lords, and were of a station little better
than servile.[*] They were not then so much as incorporated; they formed
no community; were not regarded as a body politic; and being really
nothing but a number of low, dependent tradesmen, living, without any
particular civil tie, in neighborhood together, they were incapable of
being represented in the states of the kingdom. Even in France, a country
which made more early advances in arts and civility than England, the
first corporation is sixty years posterior to the conquest under the duke
of Normandy; and the erecting of these communities was an invention of
Lewis the Gross, in order to free the people from slavery under the lords,
and to give them protection by means of certain privileges and a separate
jurisdiction.[**] An ancient French writer calls them a new and wicked
device, to procure liberty to slaves, and encourage them in shaking off
the dominion of their masters.[***] The famous charter, as it is called,
of the Conqueror to the city of London, though granted at a time when he
assumed the appearance of gentleness and lenity, is nothing but a letter
of protection, and a declaration that the citizens should not be treated
as slaves.[****] By the English feudal law, the superior lord was
prohibited from marrying his female ward to a burgess or a villain;[*****]
so near were these two ranks esteemed to each other, and so much inferior
to the nobility and gentry. Besides possessing the advantages of birth,
riches, civil powers and privileges, the nobles and gentlemen alone were
armed a circumstance which gave them a mighty superiority, in an age when
nothing but the military profession was honorable, and when the loose
execution of laws gave so much encouragement to open violence, and
rendered it so decisive in all disputes and controversies.[*****]
The great similarity among the feudal governments of Europe is well known
to every man that has any acquaintance with ancient history: and the
antiquaries of all foreign countries, where the question was never
embarrassed by party disputes, have allowed that the commons came very
late to be admitted to a share in the legislative power. In Normandy
particularly, whose constitution was most likely to be William’s model in
raising his new fabric of English government, the states were entirely
composed of the clergy and nobility; and the first incorporated boroughs
or communities of that duchy were Rouen and Falaise, which enjoyed their
privileges by a grant of Philip Augustus in the year 1207.[**] All the
ancient English historians, when they mention the great council of the
nation, call it an assembly of the baronage, nobility, or great men; and
none of their expressions, though several hundred passages might be
produced, can, without the utmost violence, be tortured to a meaning which
will admit the commons to be constituent members of that body.[***]
If in the long period of two hundred years, which elapsed between the
conquest and the latter end of Henry III., and which abounded in factions,
revolutions, and convulsions of all kinds, the house of commons never
performed one single legislative act so considerable as to be once
mentioned by any of the numerous historians of that age, they must have
been totally insignificant: and in that case, what reason can be assigned
for their ever being assembled? Can it be supposed that men of so little
weight or importance possessed a negative voice against the king and the
barons? Every page of the subsequent histories discovers their existence;
though these histories are not written with greater accuracy than the
preceding ones, and indeed scarcely equal them in that particular. The
Magna Charta of King John provides that no scutage or aid should be
imposed, either on the land or towns, but by consent of the great council;
and for more security it enumerates the persons entitled to a seat in that
assembly, the prelates and immediate tenants of the crown, without any
mention of the commons; an authority so full, certain, and explicit, that
nothing but the zeal of party could ever have procured credit to any
contrary hypothesis.
It was probably the example of the French barons, which first imboldened
the English to require greater independence from their sovereign: it is
also probable that the boroughs and corporations of England were
established in imitation of those of France. It may, therefore, be
proposed as no unlikely conjecture, that both the chief privileges of the
peers in England and the liberty of the commons were originally the growth
of that foreign country.
In ancient times, men were little solicitous to obtain a place in the
legislative assemblies; and rather regarded their attendance as a burden,
which was not compensated by any return of profit or honor, proportionate
to the trouble and expense. The only reason for instituting those public
councils was, on the part of the subject, that they desired some security
from the attempts of arbitrary power; and on the part of the sovereign,
that he despaired of governing men of such independent spirits without
their own consent and concurrence. But the commons, or the inhabitants of
boroughs, had not as yet reached such a degree of consideration, as to
desire security against their prince, or to imagine that, even if they
were assembled in a representative body, they had power or rank sufficient
to enforce it. The only protection which they aspired to, was against the
immediate violence and injustice of their fellow-citizens; and this
advantage each of them looked for from the courts of justice, or from the
authority of some great lord, to whom, by law or his own choice, he was
attached. On the other hand, the sovereign was sufficiently assured of
obedience in the whole community if he procured the concurrence of the
nobles; nor had he reason to apprehend that any order of the state could
resist his and their united authority. The military sub-vassals could
entertain no idea of opposing both their prince and their superiors: the
burgesses and tradesmen could much legs aspire to such a thought: and
thus, even if history were silent on the head, we have reason to conclude,
from the known situation of society during those ages, that the commons
were never admitted as members of the legislative body.
The executive power of the Anglo-Norman government was lodged in the king.
Besides the stated meetings of the national council at the three great
festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide,[*] he was accustomed, on
any sudden exigence to summon them together. He could at his pleasure
command the attendance of his barons and their vassals, in which consisted
the military force of the kingdom; and could employ titem, during forty
days, either in resisting a foreign enemy, or reducing his rebellious
subjects. And what was of great importance, the whole judicial power was
ultimately in his bands, and was exercised by officers and ministers of
his appointment.
The general plan of the Anglo-Norman government was, that the court of
barony was appointed to decide such controversies as arose between the
several vassals or subjects of the same barony: the hundred court and
county court, which were still continued as during the Saxon times,[**] to
judge between the subjects of different baronies;[***] and the curia
regis, or king’s court, to give sentence among the barons
themselves.[****]
Circumstances which, being derived from a very extensive authority assumed
by the conqueror, contributed to increase the royal prerogative; and, as
long as the state was not disturbed by arms, reduced every order of the
community to some degree of dependence and subordination.
The king himself often sat in his court, which always attended his
person:[**] he there heard causes and pronounced judgment;[***] and though
he was assisted by the advice of the other members, it is not to be
imagined that a decision could easily be obtained, contrary to his
inclination or opinion. In his absence the chief justiciary presided, who
was the first magistrate in the state, and a kind of viceroy, on whom
depended all the civil affairs of the kingdom.[****] The other chief
officers of the crown, the constable, mareschal, seneschal chamberlain,
treasurer, and chancellor,[*****] were members, together with such feudal
barons as thought proper to attend, and the barons of the exchequer, who
at first were also feudal barons appointed by the king.[******] This
court, which was sometimes called the king’s court, sometimes the court of
exchequer, judged in all causes, civil and criminal, and comprehended the
whole business which is now shared out among four courts the chancery, the
king’s bench, the common pleas, and the exchequer.[*******]
Such an accumulation of powers was itself a great source of authority, and
rendered the jurisdiction of the court formidable to all the subjects; but
the turn which judicial trials took soon after the conquest, served still
more to increase its authority, and to augment the royal prerogatives.
William, among the other violent changes which he attempted and effected,
had introduced the Norman law into England,[********] had ordered all the
pleadings to be in that tongue, and had interwoven with the English
jurisprudence all the maxims and principles which the Normans, more
advanced in cultivation and naturally litigious, were accustomed to
observe in the distribution of justice.
Law now became a science, which at first fell entirely into the hands of
the Normans; and which, even after it was communicated to the English,
required so much study and application, that the laity in those ignorant
ages were incapable of attaining it, and it was a mystery almost solely
confined to the clergy, and chiefly to the monks[*] The great officers of
the crown, and the feudal barons, who were military men, found themselves
unfit to penetrate into those obscurities; and though they were entitled
to a seat in the supreme judicature, the business of the court was wholly
managed by the chief justiciary and the law barons, who were men appointed
by the king, and entirely at his disposal.[**] This natural course of
things was forwarded by the multiplicity of business which flowed into
that court, and which daily augmented by the appeals from all the
subordinate judicatures of the kingdom.
In the Saxon times, no appeal was received in the king’s court, except
upon the denial or delay of justice by the inferior courts; and the same
practice was still observed in most of the feudal kingdoms of Europe. But
the great power of the Conqueror established at first in England an
authority which the monarchs in France were not able to attain till the
reign of St. Lewis, who lived near two centuries after: he empowered his
court to receive appeals both from the courts of barony and the county
courts, and by that means brought the administration of justice ultimately
into the hands of the sovereign.[***] And, lest the expense or trouble of
a journey to court should discourage suitors, and make them acquiesce in
the decision of the inferior judicatures, itinerant judges were afterwards
established, who made their circuits throughout the kingdom, and tried all
causes that were brought before them.[****]
By this expedient the courts of barony were kept in awe: and if they still
preserved some influence, it was only from the apprehensions which the
vassals might entertain of disobliging their superior, by appealing from
his jurisdiction. But tha county courts were much discredited; and as the
freeholders were found ignorant of the intricate principles and forms of
the new law, the lawyers gradually brought all business before the king’s
judges, and abandoned the ancient simple and popular judicature. After
this manner the formalities of justice, which, though they appear tedious
and cumbersome, are found requisite to the support of liberty in all
monarchical governments, proved at first, by a combination of causes, very
advantageous to royal authority in England.
The power of the Norman kings was also much supported by a great revenue;
and by a revenue that was fixed, perpetual, and independent of the
subject. The people, without betaking themselves to arms, had no check
upon the king, and no regular security for the due administration of
justice. In those days of violence, many instances of oppression passed
unheeded; and soon after were openly pleaded as precedents, which it was
unlawful to dispute or control. Princes and ministers were too ignorant to
be themselves sensible of the advantages attending an equitable
administration; and there was no established council or assembly which
could protect the people, and, by withdrawing supplies, regularly and
peaceably admonish the king of his duty, and insure the execution of the
laws.
The first branch of the king’s stated revenue was the royal demesnes, or
crown lands, which were very extensive, and comprehended, beside a great
number of manors, most of the chief cities of the kingdom. It was
established by law, that the king could alienate no part of his demesne,
and that he himself, or his successor, could at any time resume such
donations:[*] but this law was never regularly observed; which happily
rendered, in time, the crown somewhat more dependent.
The rent of the crown-lands, considered merely as so much riches, was a
source of power: the influence of the king over his tenants and the
inhabitants of his towns increased this power: but the other numerous
branches of his revenue, besides supplying his treasury, gave, by their
very nature, a great latitude to arbitrary authority, and were a support
of the prerogative; as will appear from an enumeration of them.
The king was never content with the stated rents, but levied heavy
talliages at pleasure on the inhabitants both of town and, country who
lived within his demesne. All bargains of sale, in order to prevent theft,
being prohibited, except in boroughs and public markets,[*] he pretended
to exact tolls on all goods whist were there sold.[**] He seized two
hogsheads, one before and one behind the mast, from every vessel that
imported wine. All goods paid to his customs a proportional part of their
value:[***] passage over bridges and on rivers was loaded with tolls at
pleasure:[****] and though the boroughs by degrees bought the liberty of
farming these impositions, yet the revenue profited by these bargains, new
sums were often exacted for the renewal and confirmation of their
Charters,[*****] and the people were thus held in perpetual dependence.
Such was the situation of the inhabitants within the royal demesnes. But
the possessors of land, or the military tenants, though they were better
protected, both by law and by the great privilege of carrying arms, were,
from the nature of their tenures, much exposed to the inroads of power,
and possessed not what we should esteem in our age a very durable
security. The Conqueror ordained that the barons should be obliged to pay
nothing beyond their stated services,[******] except a reasonable aid to
ransom his person if he were taken in war, to make his eldest son a
knight, and to marry his eldest daughter. What should on these occasions
be deemed a reasonable aid, was not determined; and the demands of the
crown were so far discretionary.
The king could require in war the personal attendance of his vassals, that
is, of almost all the landed proprietors; and if they declined the
service, they were obliged to pay him a composition in money, which was
called a scutage. The sum was, during some reigns, precarious and
uncertain; it was sometimes levied without allowing the vassal the liberty
of personal service;[*******] and it was a usual artifice of the king’s to
pretend an expedition, that he might be entitled to levy the scutage from
his military tenants.
Danegelt was another species of land-tax levied by the early Norman kings,
arbitrarily, and contrary to the laws of the Conqueror.[*] Moneyage was
also a general land-tax of the same nature, levied by the two first Norman
kings, and abolished by the charter of Henry I.[**] It was a shilling paid
every three years by each hearth, to induce the king not to use his
prerogative in debasing the coin. Indeed, it appears from that charter,
that though the Conqueror had granted his military tenants an immunity
from all taxes and talliages, he and his son William had never thought
themselves bound to observe that rule, but had levied impositions at
pleasure on all the landed estates of the kingdom. The utmost that Henry
grants is, that the land cultivated by the military tenant himself shall
not be so burdened; but he reserves the power of taxing the farmers: and
as it is known that Henry’s charter was never observed in any one article,
we may be assured that this prince and his successors retracted even this
small indulgence, and levied arbitrary impositions on all the lands of all
their subjects. These taxes were sometimes very heavy; since Malmsbury
tells us that, in the reign of William Rufus, the farmers, on account of
them, abandoned tillage, and a famine ensued.[***]
The escheats were a great branch both of power and of revenue, especially
during the first reigns after the conquest. In default of posterity from
the first baron, his land reverted to the crown, and continually augmented
the king’s possessions. The prince had indeed by law a power of alienating
these escheats; but by this means he had an opportunity of establishing
the fortunes of his friends and servants, and thereby enlarging his
authority. Sometimes he retained them in his own hands; and they were
gradually confounded with the royal demesnes, and became difficult to be
distinguished from them. This confusion is probably the reason why the
king acquired the right of alienating his demesnes.
But besides escheats from default of heirs, those which ensued from crimes
or breach of duty towards the superior lord were frequent in ancient
times. If the vassal, being thrice summoned to attend his superior’s
court, and do fealty, neglected or refused obedience, he forfeited all
title to his land.[*] If he denied his tenure, or refused his service, he
was exposed to the same penalty.[**] If he sold his estate without license
from his lord,[***] or if he sold it upon any other tenure or title than
that by which he himself held it,[****] he lost all right to it. The
adhering to his lord’s enemies,[*****] deserting him in war,[******]
betraying his secrets,[*******] debauching his wife or his near
relations,[********] or even using indecent freedoms with them,[*********]
might be punished by forfeiture. The higher crimes, rapes, robbery,
murder, arson, etc., were called felony; and being interpreted want of
fidelity to his lord, made him lose his fief.[**********] Even where the
felon was vassal to a baron, though his immediate lord enjoyed the
forfeiture, the king might retain possession of his estate during a
twelvemonth, and had the right of spoiling and destroying it, unless the
baron paid him a reasonable composition.[***********] We have not here
enumerated all the species of felonies, or of crimes by which forfeiture
was incurred: we have said enough to prove that the possession of feudal
property was anciently somewhat precarious, and that the primary idea was
never lost, of its being a kind of fee or benefice.
When a baron died, the king immediately took possession of the estate; and
the heir, before he recovered his right, was obliged to make application
to the crown, and desire that he might be admitted to do homage for his
land, and pay a composition to the king. This composition was not at first
fixed by law, at least by practice: the king was often exorbitant in his
demands, and kept possession of the land till they were complied with.
If the heir were a minor, the king retained the whole profit of the estate
till his majority; and might grant what sum he thought proper for the
education and maintenance of the young baron. This practice was also
founded on the notion that a fief was a benefice, and that, while the heir
could not perform his military services, the revenue devolved to the
superior, who employed another in his stead. It is obvious that a great
proportion of the landed property must, by means of this device, be
continually in the hands of the prince, and that all the noble familius
were thereby held in perpetual dependence. When the king granted the
wardship of a rich heir to any one, he had the opportunity of enriching a
favorite or minister: if he sold it, he thereby levied a considerable sum
of money. Simon de Mountfort paid Henry III. ten thousand marks, an
immense sum in those days, for the wardship of Gilbert de Umfreville.[*]
Geoffrey de Mandeville paid to the same prince the sum of twenty thousand
marks, that he might marry Isabel, countess of Glocester, and possess all
her lands and knights’ fees. This sum would be equivalent to three hundred
thousand, perhaps four hundred thousand pounds in our time.[**]
If the heir were a female, the king was entitled to offer her any husband
of her rank he thought proper; and if she refused him, she forfeited her
land. Even a male heir could not marry without the royal consent; and it
was usual for men to pay large sums for the liberty of making their own
choice in marriage.[**] No man could dispose of his land, either by sale
or will, without the consent of his superior. The possessor was never
considered as full proprietor; he was still a kind of beneficiary; and
could not oblige his superior to accept of any vassal that was not
agreeable to him.
Fines, amerciaments, and oblatas, as they were called, were another
considerable branch of the royal power and revenue. The ancient records of
the exchequer, which are still preserved, give surprising accounts of the
numerous fines anc amerciaments levied in those days,[****] and of the
strange inventions fallen upon to exact money from the subject.
It appears that the ancient kings of England put themselves entirely on
the footing of the barbarous Eastern princes, whom no man must approach
without a present, who sell all their good offices, and who intrude
themselves into every business, that they may have a pretence for
extorting money. Even justice was avowedly bought and sold; the king’s
court itself, though the supreme judicature of the kingdom, was open to
none that brought not presents to the king; the bribes given for the
expedition, delay,[*] suspension, and, doubtless, for the perversion of
justice, were entered in the public registers of the royal revenue, and
remain as monuments of the perpetual iniquity and tyranny of the times.
The barons of the exchequer, for instance, the first nobility of the
kingdom, were not ashamed to insert, as an article in their records, that
the county of Norfolk paid a sum that they might be fairly dealt with;[**]
the borough of Yarmouth, that the king’s charters, which they have for
their liberties, might not be violated;[***] Richard, son of Gilbert, for
the king’s helping him to recover his debt from the Jews;[****] Serlo, son
of Terlavaston, that he might be permitted to make his defence, in case he
were accused of a certain homicide;[*****] Waiter de Burton, for free law,
if accused of wounding another;[******] Robert de Essart, for having an
Liquest to find whether Roger the butcher, and Wace and Humphrey, accused
him of robbery and theft out of envy and ill will, or not;[*******]
William Buhurst, for having an inquest to find whether he were accused of
the death of one Goodwin out of ill will, or for just cause.[********] I
have selected these few instances from a great number of a like kind,
which Madox had selected from a still greater number, preserved in the
ancient rolls of the exchequer.[*********]
Sometimes the party litigant offered the king a certain portion, a half, a
third, a fourth, payable out of the debts which he, as the executor of
justice, should assist him in recovering.[**********] Theophania de
Westland agreed to pay the half of two hundred and twelve marks, that she
might recover that sum against James de Fughleston;[*] Solomon the Jew
engaged to pay one mark out of every seven that he should recover against
Hugh dè la Hose;[************] Nicholas Morrel promised to pay sixty
pounds, that the earl of Flanders might be distrained to pay him three
hundred and forty-three pounds, which the earl had taken from him; and
these sixty pounds were to be paid out of the first money that Nicholas
should recover from the earl.[*************]
As the king assumed the entire power over trade, he was to be paid for a
permission to exercise commerce or industry of any kind.[**] Hugh Oisel
paid four hundred marks for liberty to trade in England:[***] Nigel de
Havene gave fifty marks for the partnership in merchandise which he had
with Gervase de Hanton:[****] the men of Worcester paid one hundred
shillings, that they might have the liberty of selling and buying dyed
cloth, as formerly;[*****] several other towns paid for a like
liberty.[******] The commerce indeed of the kingdom was so much under the
control of the king, that he erected guilds, corporations, and monopolies
wherever he pleased; and levied sums for these exclusive
privileges.[*******]
There were no profits so small as to be below the king’s attention. Henry,
son of Arthur, gave ten dogs, to have a recognition against the countess
of Copland for one knight’s fee.[********] Roger, son of Nicholas, gave
twenty lampreys and twenty shads for an inquest to find whether Gilbert,
son of Alured, gave to Roger two hundred muttons to obtain his
confirmation for certain lands, or whether Roger took them from him by
violence;[*********] Geoffrey Fitz-Pierre, the chief justiciary, gave two
good Norway hawks, that Walter le Madine might have leave to export a
hundred weight of cheese out ot the king’s dominions.[**********]
It is really amusing to remark the strange business in which the king
sometimes interfered, and never without a present; the wife of Hugh de
Nevile gave the king two hundred hens, that she might lie with her husband
one night;[***********] and she brought with her two sureties, who
answered each for a hundred hens.
It is probable that her husband was a prisoner, which debarred her from
having access to him. The abbot of Rucford paid ten marks for leave to
erect houses and place men upon his land near Welhang, in order to secure
his wood there from being stolen; Hugh, archdeacon of Wells, gave one tun
of wine for leave to carry six hundred summs of corn whither he would;
Peter de Perariis gave twenty marks for leave to salt fishes as Peter
Chevalier used to do.
It was usual to pay high fines, in order to gain the king’s good will or
mitigate his anger. In the reign of Henry II., Gilbert, the son of Fergus,
fines in nine hundred and nineteen pounds nine shillings, to obtain that
prince’s favor; William de Chataignes, a thousand marks, that he would
remit his displeasure. In the reign of Henry III., the city of London
fines in no less a sum than twenty thousand pounds on the same account.
The king’s protection and good offices of every kind were bought and sold.
Robert Grislet paid twenty marks of silver, that the king would help him
against the earl of Mortaigne in a certain plea: Robert de Cundet gave
thirty marks of silver, that the king would bring him to an accord with
the bishop of Lincoln; Ralph de Bréckham gave a hawk, that the king would
protect him; and this is a very frequent reason for payments; John, son of
Ordgar, gave a Norway hawk, to have the king’s request to the king of
Norway to let him have his brother Godard’s chattels; Richard de Neville
gave twenty palfreys to obtain the king’s request to Isolda Bisset, that
she should take him for a husband; Roger Fitz-Walter gave three good
palfreys to have the king’s letter to Roger Bertram’s mother, that she
should marry him; Eling the dean paid one hundred marks, that his whore
and his children might be let out upon bail; the bishop of Winchester gave
one tun of good wine for his not putting the king in mind to give a girdle
to the countess of Albemarle; Robert de Veaux gave five of the best
palfreys, that the king would hold his tongue about Henry Pinel’s wife.
There are in the records of exchequer many other singular instances of a
like nature.[*] It will, however, be just to remark, that the same
ridiculous practices and dangerous abuses prevailed in Normandy, and
probably in all the other states of Europe.[**] England was not in this
respect more barbarous than its neighbors.
These iniquitous practices of the Norman kings were so well known, that,
on the death of Hugh Bigod, in the reign of Henry II., the best and most
just of these princes, the eldest son and the widow of this nobleman came
to court, and strove, by offering large presents to the king, each of them
to acquire possession of that rich inheritance. The king was so equitable
as to order the cause to be tried by the great council! But, in the mean
time, he seized all the money and treasure of the deceased,[***] Peter, of
Blois, a judicious, and even an elegant writer, for that age, gives a
pathetic description of the reign of Henry; and he scruples not to
complain to the king himself of these abuses.[****]
We may judge what the case would be under the government of worse princes.
The articles of inquiry concerning the conduct of sheriffs, which Henry
promulgated in 1170, show the great power as well as the licentiousness of
these officers.[**]
Amerciaments or fines for crimes and trespasses were an ether considerable
branch of the royal revenue.[***] Most crimes were atoned for by money;
the fines imposed were not limited by any rule or statute; and frequently
occasioned the total ruin of the person, even for the slightest
trespasses. The forest laws, particularly, were a great source of
oppression The king possessed sixty-eight forests, thirteen chases, and
seven hundred and eighty-one parks, in different parts of England;[****]
and, considering the extreme passion of the English and Normans for
hunting, these were so many snares laid for the people, by which they were
allured into trespasses and brought within the reach of arbitrary and
rigorous laws, which the king had thought proper to enact by his own
authority.
But the most barefaced acts of tyranny and oppression were practised
against the Jews, who were entirely out of the protection of law, were
extremely odious from the bigotry of the people, and were abandoned to the
immeasurable rapacity of the king and his ministers. Besides many other
indignities to which they were continually exposed, it appears that they
were once all thrown into prison, and the sum of sixty-six thousand marks
exacted for their liberty:[*****] at another time, Isaac the Jew paid,
alone, five thousand one hundred marks[******] Brim, three thousand
marks;[*******] Jurnet, two thousand; Bennet, five hundred: at another,
Licorica, widow of David the Jew, of Oxford, was required to pay six
thousand marks; and she was delivered over to six of the richest and
discreetest Jews in England, who were to answer for the sum.[********]
Henry III borrowed five thousand marks from the earl of Cornwall; and for
his repayment consigned over to him all the Jews in England. The revenue
arising from exactions upon this nation was so considerable, that there
was a particular court of exchequer set apart for managing it.
We may judge concerning the low state of commerce among the English, when
the Jews, notwithstanding these oppressions, could still find their
account in trading among them, and lending them money. And as the
improvements of agriculture were also much checked by the immense
possessions of the nobility, by the disorders of the times, and by the
precarious state of feudal property, it appears that industry of no kind
could then have place in the kingdom.
It is asserted by Sir Harry Spelman,[*] as an undoubted truth, that,
during the reigns of the first Norman princes, every edict of the king,
issued with the consent of his privy council, had the full force of law.
But the barons surely were not so passive as to intrust a power, entirely
arbitrary and despotic, into the hands of the sovereign. It only appears,
that the constitution had not fixed any precise boundaries to the royal
power; that the right of issuing proclamations on any emergence, and of
exacting obedience to them,—a right which was always supposed
inherent in the crown,—is very difficult to be distinguished from a
legislative authority; that the extreme imperfection of the ancient laws,
and the sudden exigencies which often occurred in such turbulent
governments, obliged the prince to exert frequently the latent powers of
his prerogative; that he naturally proceeded, from the acquiescence of the
people, to assume, in many particulars of moment, an authority from which
he had excluded himself by express statutes, charters, or concessions, and
which was, in the main, repugnant to the general genius of the
constitution; and that the lives; the personal liberty, and the properties
of all his subjects were less secured by law against the exertion of his
arbitrary authority than by the independent power and private connections
of each individual.
It appears from the Great Charter itself, that not only John, a tyrannical
prince, and Richard, a violent one, but their father, Henry, under whose
reign the prevalence of gross abuses is the least to be suspected, were
accustomed, from their sole authority, without process of law, to
imprison, banish, and attaint the freemen of their kingdom.
A great baron, in ancient times, considered himself as a kind of sovereign
within his territory; and was attended by courtiers and dependants more
zealously attached to him than the ministers of state and the great
officers were commonly o their sovereign. He often maintained in his court
the parade of royalty, by establishing a justiciary, constable, mareschal,
chamberlain, seneschal, and chancellor, and assigning to each of these
officers a separate province and command He was usually very assiduous in
exercising his jurisdiction, and took such delight in that image of
sovereignty, that it was found necessary to restrain his activity, and
prohibit him by law from holding courts too frequently.[*] It is not to be
doubted but the example set him by the prince, of a mercenary and sordid
extortion, would be faithfully copied; and that all his good and bad
offices, his justice and injustice, were equally put to sale. He had the
power, with the king’s consent, to exact talliages even from the free
citizens who lived within his barony; and as his necessities made him
rapacious, his authority was usually found to be more oppressive and
tyrannical than that of the sovereign.[**] He was ever engaged in
hereditary or personal animosities or confederacies with his neighbors,
and often gave protection to all desperate adventurers and criminals, who
could be useful in serving his violent purposes. He was able alone, in
times of tranquillity, to obstruct the execution of justice within his
territories; and by combining with a few malecontent barons of high rank
and power, he could throw the state into convulsions. And, on the whole,
though the royal authority was confined within bounds, and often within
very narrow ones, yet the check was Irregular, and frequently the source
of great disorders; nor was it derived from the liberty of the people, but
from the military power of many petty tyrants, who were equally dangerous
to the prince and oppressive to the subject.
The power of the church was another rampart against royal authority; but
this defence was also the cause of many mischiefs and inconveniencies. The
dignified clergy, perhaps, were not so prone to immediate violence as the
barons; but as they pretended to a total independence on the state, and
could always cover themselves with the appearances of religion, they
proved, in one respect, an obstruction to the settlement of the kingdom,
and to the regular execution of the laws. The policy of the Conqueror was
in this particular liable to some exception. He augmented the
superstitious veneration for Rome, to which that age was so much inclined,
and he broke those bands of connection which, in the Saxon times, had
preserved a union between the lay and the clerical orders. He prohibited
the bishops from sitting in the county courts; he allowed ecclesiastical
causes to be tried in spiritual courts only;[**] and he so much exalted
the power of the clergy, that of sixty thousand two hundred and fifteen
knights’ fees, into which he divided England, he placed no less than
twenty-eight thousand and fifteen under the church.[**]
The right of primogeniture was introduced with the feudal law; an
institution which is hurtful by producing and maintaining an unequal
division of private propeny; but is advantageous in another respect, by
accustoming the people to a preference in favor of the eldest son, and
thereby preventing a partition or disputed succession in the monarchy. The
Normans introduced the use of surnames, which tend to preserve the
knowledge of families and pedigrees. They abolished none of the old,
absurd methods of trial by the cross or ordeal; and they added a new
absurdity—the trial by single combat—[***] which became a
regular part of jurisprudence, and was conducted with all the order,
method, devotion, and solemnity imaginable.[****] The ideas of chivalry
also seem to have been imported by the Normans: no traces of those
fantastic notions are to be found among the plain and rustic Saxons.
The feudal institutions, by raising the military tenants to a kind of
sovereign dignity, by rendering personal strength and valor requisite, and
by making every knight and baron his own protector and avenger, begat that
martial pride and sense of honor which, being cultivated and embellished
by the poets and romance writers of the age, ended in chivalry. The
virtuous knight fought not only in his own quarrel, but in that of the
innocent, of the helpless, and, above all, of the fair, whom he supposed
to be forever under the guardianship of his valiant arm. The uncourteous
knight who, from his castle, exercised robbery on travellers, and
committed violence on virgins, was the object of his perpetual
indignation; and he put him to death, without scruple, or trial, or
appeal, wherever he met with him. The great independence of men made
personal honor and fidelity the chief tie among them, and rendered it the
capital virtue of every true knight, or genuine professor of chivalry. The
solemnities of single combat, as established by law, banished the notion
of every thing unfair or unequal in rencounters, and maintained an
appearance of courtesy between the combatants till the moment of their
engagement. The credulity of the age grafted on this stock the notion of
giants, enchanters, dragons, spells,[*] and a thousand wonders, which
still multiplied during the times of the crusades; when men, returning
from so great a distance, used the liberty of imposing every fiction on
their believing audience. These ideas of chivalry infected the writings,
conversation, and behavior of men, during some ages; and even after they
were, in a great measure, banished by the revival of learning, they left
modern gallantry and the point of honor, which still maintain their
influence, and are the genuine off-spring of those ancient affectations.
The concession of the Great Charter, or rather its full establishment,
(for there was a considerable interval of time between the one and the
other,) gave rise, by degrees, to a new species of government, and
introduced some order and justice into the administration. The ensuing
scenes of our history are therefore somewhat different from the preceding.
Yet the Great Charter contained no establishment of new courts
magistrates, or senates, nor abolition of the old. It introduced no new
distribution of the powers of the common-wealth, and no innovation in the
political or public law of the kingdom. It only guarded, and that merely
by verbal clauses, against such tyrannical practices as are incompatible
with civilized government, and, if they become very frequent, are
incompatible with all government. The barbarous license of the kings, and
perhaps of the nobles, was thenceforth somewhat more restrained: men
acquired some more security for their properties and their liberties; and
government approached a little nearer to that end for which it was
originally instituted—the distribution of justice, and the equal
protection of the citizens. Acts of violence and iniquity in the crown,
which before were only deemed injurious to individuals, and were hazardous
chiefly in proportion to the number, power, and dignity of the persons
affected by them, were now regarded, in some degree, as public injuries,
and as infringements of a charter calculated for general security. And
thus the establishment of the Great Charter, without seeming anywise to
innovate in the distribution of political power, became a kind of epoch in
the constitution.
NOTES.
1 (return)
[ NOTE A, p. 9. This question
has been disputed With as great zeal, and even acrimony, between the
Scotch and Irish antiquaries, as if the honor of their respective
countries were the most deeply concerned in the decision. We shall not
enter into any detail on so uninteresting a subject, but shall propose our
opinion in a few words. It appears more than probable, from the similitude
of language and manners, that Britain either was originally peopled, or
was subdued, by the migration of inhabitants from Gaul, and Ireland from
Britain: the position of the several countries is an additional reason
that favors this conclusion. It appears also probable, that the migrations
of that colony of Gauls or Celts, who peopled or subdued Ireland, was
originally made from the north-west parts of Britain; and this conjecture
(if it do not merit a higher name) is founded both on the Irish language
which is a very different dialect from the Welsh, and from the language
anciently spoken in South Britain, and on the vicinity of Lancashire,
Cumberland, Galloway, and Argyleshire, to that island. These events, as
they passed along before the age of history and records, must be known by
reasoning alone, which, in this case, seems to be pretty satisfactory.
Caesar and Tacitus, not to mention a multitude of other Greek and Roman
authors, were guided by like inferences. But, besides these primitive
facts, which lie in a very remote antiquity, it is a matter of positive
and undoubted testimony, that the Roman province of Britain, during the
time of the lower empire, was much infested by bands of robbers or
pirates, whom the provincial Britons called Scots or Scuits; a name which
was probably used as a term of reproach, and which these bandits
themselves did not acknowledge or assume. We may infer, from two passages
in Claudian, and from one in Orosius, and another in Isidore, that the
chief seat of these Scots was in Ireland. That some part ot the Irish
freebooters migrated back to the north-west parts of Britain, whence their
ancestors had probably been derived in a more remote age, is positively
asserted by Bede, and implied in Gildas. I grant, that neither Bede nor
Gildas are Caesars or Tacituses; but such as they are, they remain the
sole testimony on the subject, and therefore must be relied on for want of
better: happily, the frivolousness of the question corresponds to the
weakness of the authorities. Not to mention, that, if any part of the
traditional history of a barbarous people can be relied on, it is the
genealogy of nations, and even sometimes that of families. It is in vain
to argue against these facts, from the supposed warlike disposition of the
Highlanders, and unwarlike of the ancient Irish. Those arguments are still
much weaker than the authorities. Nations change very quickly in these
particulars. The Britons were unable to resist the Picts and Scots, and
invited over the Saxons for their defence, who repelled those invaders;
yet the same Britons valiantly resisted, for one hundred and fifty years,
not only this victorious band of Saxons, but infinite numbers more, who
poured in upon them from all quarters. Robert Bruce, in 1322, made a
peace, in which England, after many defeats, was constrained to
acknowledge the independence of his country; yet in no more distant period
than ten years after, Scotland was totally subdued by a small handful of
English, led by a few private noblemen. All history is full of such
events. The Irish Scots, in the course of two or three centuries, might
find time and opportunities sufficient to settle in North Britain, though
we can neither assign the period nor causes of that revolution. Their
barbarous manner of life rendered them much fitter than the Romans for
subduing these mountaineers. And, in a word, it is clear, from the
language of the two countries, that the Highlanders and the Irish are the
same people, and that the one are a colony from the other. We have
positive evidence, which, though from neutral persons, is not perhaps the
best that may be wished for, that the former, in the third or fourth
century, sprang from the latter; we have no evidence at all that the
latter sprang from the former. I shall add, that the name of Erse, or
Irish, given by the low country Scots to the language of the Scotch
Highlanders, is a certain proof of the traditional opinion delivered from
father to son, that the latter people came originally from Ireland.]
2 (return)
[ NOTE B, p. 90. There is a
seeming contradiction in ancient historians with regard to some
circumstances in the story of Edwy and Elgiva. It is agreed, that this
prince had a violent passion for his second or third cousin, Elgiva, whom
he married, though within the degrees prohibited by the canons. It is also
agreed, that he was dragged from a lady on the day of his coronation, and
that the lady was afterwards treated with the singular barbarity above
mentioned. The only difference is, that Osborne and some others call her
his strumpet, not his wife, as she is said to be by Malmsbury. But this
difference is easily reconciled for if Edwy married her contrary to the
canons, the monks would be sure to deny her to be his wife, and would
insist that she could be nothing but his strumpet: so that, on the whole,
we may esteem this representation of the matter as certain; at least, as
by far the most probable. If Edwy had only kept a mistress, it is well
known, that there are methods of accommodation with the church, which
would have prevented the clergy from proceeding to such extremities
against him: but his marriage, contrary to the canons, was an insult on
their authority, and called for their highest resentment.]
3 (return)
[ NOTE C, p. 91. Many of the
English historians make Edgar’s ships amount to an extravagant number, to
three thousand or three thousand six hundred. See Hoveden, p. 426. Flor.
Wigorn, p. 607. Abbas Rieval, p. 360. Brompton (p. 869) says that Edgar
had four thousand vessels. How can these accounts be reconciled to
probability, and to the state of the navy in the time of Alfred? W. Thorne
makes the whole number amount only to three hundred, which is more
probable. The fleet of Ethelred, Edgar’s son, must have been short of a
thousand ships; yet the Saxon Chronicle (p. 137) says it was the greatest
navy that ever had been seen in England.]
4 (return)
[ NOTE D, p. 109. Almost all
the ancient historians speak of this massacre of the Danes as if it had
been universal, and as if every individual of that nation throughout
England had been put to death. But the Danes were almost the sole
inhabitants in the kingdoms of Northumberland and East Anglia, and were
very numerous in Mercia. This representation, therefore, of the matter is
absolutely impossible. Great resistance must have been made, and violent
wars ensued; which was not the case. This account given by Wallingford,
though he stands single, must be admitted as the only true one. We are
told that the name Lurdane, Lord Dane, for an idle, lazy fellow, who lives
at other people’s expense, came from the conduct of the Danes who were put
to death. But the English princes had been entirely masters for several
generations, and only supported a military corps of that nation. It seems
probable, therefore, that it was these Danes only that were put to death.]
5 (return)
[ NOTE E, p. 129. The
ingenious author of the article Godwin, in the Biographia Britannica, has
endeavored to clear the memory of that nobleman, upon the supposition that
all the English annals had been falsified by the Norman historians after
the conquest. But that this supposition has not much foundation appears
hence, that almost all these historians have given a very good character
of his son Harold, whom it was much more the interest of the Norman cause
to blacken.]
6 (return)
[ Note F, p. 137. The whole
story of the transactions between Edward, Harold, and the duke of
Normandy, is told so differently by the ancient writers, that there are
few important passages of the English history liable to so great
uncertainty. I have followed the account which appeared to me the most
consistent and probable. It does not seem likely that Edward ever executed
a will in the duke’s favor; much less that he got it ratified by the
states of the kingdom, as is affirmed by some. The will would have been
known to all, and would have been pro-* *duced by the Conqueror, to whom
it gave so plausible, and really so just, a title; but the doubtful and
ambiguous manner in which he seems always to have mentioned it, proves
that he could only plead the known intentions of that monarch in his
favor, which he was desirous to call a will. There is indeed a charter of
the Conqueror preserved by Dr. Hickes, (vol. i.) where he calls himself
“rex hereditarius,” meaning heir by will; but a prince possessed of so
much power, and attended with so much success, may employ what pretence he
pleases; it is sufficient to refute his pretences to observe, that there
is a great difference and variation among historians with regard to a
point which, had it been real, must have been agreed upon by all of them.
Again, some historians, particularly Malmsbury and Matthew of
Westminster, affirm that Harold had no intention of going over to
Normandy, but that taking the air in a pleasure boat on the coast, he was
driven over by stress of weather to the territories of Guy, count of
Ponthieu: but besides that this story is not probable in itself, and is
contradicted by most of the ancient historians, it is contradicted by a
very curious and authentic monument lately discovered. It is a tapestry,
preserved in the ducal palace of Rouen, and supposed to have been wrought
by orders of Matilda, wife to the emperor; at least it is of very great
antiquity. Harold is there represented as taking his departure from King
Edward, in execution of some commission, and mounting his vessel with a
great train. The design of redeeming his brother and nephew, who were
hostages, is the most likely cause that can be assigned; and is
accordingly mentioned by Eadmer, Hoveden, Brompton, and Simeon of Durham.
For a further account of this piece of tapestry, see Histoire de
l’Académie de Littérature, tom. ix. p. 535.]
7 (return)
[ NOTE G, p. 155. It appears
from the ancient translations of the Saxon annals and laws, and from King
Alfred’s translation of Bede, as well as from all the ancient historians,
that comes in Latin, alderman in Saxon, and earl in Dano-Saxon, were quite
synonymous. There is only a clause in a law of King Athetetan’s, (see
Spel. Concil. p. 406,) which has stumbled some antiquaries, and has made
them imagine that an earl was superior to an alderman. The weregild, or
the price of an earl’s blood, is there fixed at fifteen thousand thrimsas,
equal to that of an archbishop; whereas that of a bishop and alderman is
only eight thousand thrimsas. To solve this difficulty, we must have
recourse to Selden’s conjecture, (see his Titles of Honor, chap. v. p.
603, 604,) that the term of earl was in the age of Athelstan just
beginning to be in use in England, and stood at that time for the atheling
or prince of the blood, heir to the crown. This he confirms by a law of
Canute, sect. 55, where an atheling and an archbishop are put upon the
same footing. In another law of the same Athelstan, the weregild of the
prince or atheling, is said to be fifteen thousand thrimsas. See Wilkins,
p. 71 He is therefore the same who is called earl in the former law.]
8 (return)
[ NOTE H, p. 194. There is a
paper or record of the family of Slarneborne, which pretends that that
family, which was Saxon, was restored upon proving their innocence, as
well as other Saxon families which were in the same situation. Though this
paper was able to impose on such great antiquaries as Spelman (see Gloss,
in verbo Drenges) and Dugdale, (see Baron, vol. i. p. 118,) it is proved
by Dr. Brady (see Answer to Petyt, p. 11, 12) to have been a forgery; and
is allowed as such by Tyrrel, though a pertinacious defender of his party
notions: (see his history, vol. ii. introd. p. 51, 73.) Ingulf (p. 70)
tells us, that very early Hereward, though absent during the time of the
conquest, was turned out of all his estate, and could not obtain redress,
William even plundered the monasteries. Flor. Wigorn. p. 636 Chron. Abb.
St. Petri de Burgo, p. 48. M. Paris, p. 5. Sim. Dun p. 200. Diceto, p.
482. Brompton, p. 967. Knyghton, p. 2344. Alured. Beverl. p. 130. We are
told by Ingulf, that Ivo de Taillebois plundered the monastery of Croylaud
of a great part of its land, and no redress could be obtained.]
9 (return)
[ NOTE I, p. 195. The
obliging of all the inhabitants to put out their fires and lights it
certain hours, upon the sounding of a bell, called the Courfeu, is
represented by Polydore Virgil, lib. ix., as a mark of the servitude of
the English. But this was a law of police, which William had previously
established in Normandy. See Du Moulin, Hist de Normandie, p. 160. The
same law had place in Scotland. LL. Burgor. cap. 86.]
11 (return)
[ NOTE K, p. 200. What
these laws were of Edward the Confessor, which the English, every reign
during a century and a half, desire so passionately to have restored, is
much disputed by antiquaries, and our ignorance of them seems one of the
greatest defects in the ancient English history. The collection of laws in
Wilkins, which pass under the name of Edward, are plainly a posterior and
an ignorant compilation. Those to be found in Ingulf are genuine; but so
imperfect, and contain so few clauses favorable to the subject, that we
see no great reason for their contending for them so vehemently. It is
probable that the English meant the common law, as it prevailed during the
reign of Edward; which we may conjecture to have been more indulgent to
liberty than the Norman institutions. The most material articles of it
were afterwards comprehended in Magna Charta.]
12 (return)
[ NOTE L, p. 218. Ingulf p.
70. H. Hunt. p. 370, 372. M. West. p. 225. Gul. Neub. p. 357. Alured.
Beverl. p. 124. De Gest, Angl. p. 333. M Paris, p. 4. Sim. Dun. p. 206.
Brompton, p. 962, 980, 1161. Gervase. lib. i. cap. 16. Textus Roffensis
apud Seld. Spieileg. ad Eadm. p. 197. Gul. Pict. p. 206. Ordericus
Vitalis, p. 521, 666, 853., Epist. St. Thom, p. 801. Gul. Malms, p. 52,
57. Knyghton, p. 2354. Eadmer, p. 110. Thorn. Rudborne in Ang. Sacra, vol.
i p. 248. Monach. Roff. in Ang. Sacra, vol. ii. p. 276. Girald. Camb. in
eadem, vol. ii. p. 413. Hist. Elyensis, p. 516.
The words of
this last historian, who is very ancient, are remarkable, and worth
transcribing. Rex itaque factus, Willielmus, quid in principes Anglorum,
qui tantæ cladi superesse poterant, fecerit, dicere, cum nihil prosit,
omitto. Quid enim prodesset, si nec unum in toto regno de illis dicerem
pristina potestate uti permissum, sed omnes aut in gravem paupertatis
ærumnam detrusos, aut exhæredatos, patria pulsos, aut effossia, oculis,
vel cæteris amputatis membris, opprobrium hominum factos, aut certe
miserrime afflictos, vita privatos. Simili modo utilitate carere existimo
dicere quid in minorem populum, non solum ab esed[**] a suis actum sit,
cum id dictu sciamus difficile et ob immanem crudelitatem fortassis
incredibile.]
13 (return)
[ NOTE M, p. 263 Henry, by
the feudal customs, was entitled to levy a tax for the marrying of his
eldest daughter, and he exacted three shillings a hide on all England. H.
Hunting, p. 379. Some historians (Brady, p. 270, and Tyrrel, vol. ii. p.
182) heedlessly make this sum amount to above eight hundred thousand
pounds of our present money; but it could not exceed one hundred and
thirty-five thousand. Five hides, sometimes less, made a knight’s fee, of
which there were about sixty thousand in England, consequently near three
hundred thousand hides; and at the rate of three shillings a hide, the sum
would amount to forty-five thousand pounds, or one hundred and thirty-five
thousand of our present money. See Rudborne, p. 257. In the Saxon times
there were only computed two hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred
hides in England.]
14 (return)
[ NOTE N, p. 266. The
legates a latere, as they were called, were a kind of delegates, who
possessed the full power of the pope in all the provinces committed to
their charge, and were very busy in extending, as well as exercising it.
They nominated to all vacant benefices, assembled synods, and were anxious
to maintain ecclesiastical privileges, which never could be fully
protected without encroachments on the civi[**] power. If there were the
least concurrence or opposition, it was always supposed that the civil
power was to give way; every deed, which had the least pretence of holding
of any thing spiritual, as marriages, testaments, promissory oaths, were
brought into the spiritual court, and could not be canvassed before a
civil magistrate. These were the established laws of the church; and where
a legate was sent immediately from Rome, he was sure to maintain the papal
claims with the utmost rigor; but it was an advantage to the king to have
the archbishop of Canterbury appointed legate, because the connections of
that prelate with the kingdom tended to moderate his measures. William of
Newbridge, p. 383, (who is copied by later historians), asserts that
Geoffrey had some title to the counties of Maine and Anjou. He pretends
that Count Geoffrey, his father, had left his these dominions by a secret
will, and had ordered that his body should not be buried till Henry should
swear to the observance of it, which he, ignorant of the contents, was
induced to do. But besides that this story is not very likely in itself,
and savers of monkish fiction, it is found in no other ancient writer, and
is contradicted by some of them, particularly the monk of Marmoutier, who
had better opportunities than Newbridge of knowing the truth. See Vita
Gauf Duc. Norman, p. 103.]
16 (return)
[ NOTE P, p. 293. The sum
scarcely appears credible; as it would amount to much above half the rent
of the whole land. Gervase is indeed a contemporary author; but churchmen
are often guilty of strange mistakes of that nature, and are commonly but
little acquainted with the public revenues. This sum would make five
hundred and forty thousand pounds of our present money. The Norman
Chronicle (p. 995) lays, that Henry raised only sixty Angevin shillings on
each knight’s fee in his foreign dominions: this is only a fourth of the
sum which Gervase says he levied on England, an inequality nowise
probable. A nation may by degrees be brought to bear a tax of fifteen
shillings in the pound; but a sudden and precarious tax can never be
imposed to that amount without a very visible necessity, especially in an
age so little accustomed to taxes. In the succeeding reign the rent of a
knight’s fee was computed at four pounds a year. There were sixty thousand
knights fees in England.]
17 (return)
[ NOTE Q, p. 295.
Fitz-Stephen, p. 18. This conduct appears violent and arbitrary; but was
suitable to the strain of administration in those days. His father
Geoffrey, though represented as a mild prince, set him an example of much
greater violence. When Geoffrey was master of Normandy, the chapter of
Sens presumed, without his consent, to proceed to the election of a
bishop; upon which he ordered all of them with the bishop elect, to be
castrated, and made all their testicles be brought him in a platter.
Fitz-Steph. p. 44. In the war of Toulouse, Henry laid a heavy and an
arbitrary tax on all the churches within his dominions. See Epist. St.
Thom. p. 232.]
18 (return)
[ NOTE R, p. 307. I follow
here the narrative of Fitz-Stephens, who was secretary to Becket; though,
no doubt, he may be suspected of partiality towards his patron. Lord
Lyttleton chooses to follow the authority of a manuscript letter, or
rather manifesto of Folliot, bishop of London, which is addressed to
Becket himself; at the time when the bishop appealed to the pope from the
excommunication pronounced against him by his primate. My reasons why I
give the preference to Fitz-Stephens are, 1. If the friendship of
Fitz-Stephens might render him partial to Becket even after the death of
that prelate, the declared enmity of the bishop must, during his lifetime,
have rendered him more partial on the other side. 2. The bishop was moved
by interest, as well as enmity, to calumniate Becket. He had himself to
defend against the sentence of excommunication, dreadful to all,
especially to a prelate; and no more effectual means than to throw all the
blame on his adversary. 3. He has actually been guilty of palpable
calumnies in that letter. Among these, I reckon the following. He affirms
that when Becket subscribed the Constitutions of Clarendon, he said
plainly to all the bishops of England, “It is my master’s pleasure, that I
should forswear myself, and at present I submit to it, and do resolve to
incur a perjury, and repent afterwards as I may.” However barbarous the
times, and however negligent zealous churchmen were then of morality,
these are not words which a primate of great sense and of much seeming
sanctity would employ in an assembly of his suffragans: he might act upon
these principles, but never surely would publicly avow them. Folliot also
says, that all the bishops were resolved obstinately to oppose the
Constitutions of Clarendon, but the primate himself betrayed them from
timidity, and led the way to their subscribing. This is contrary to the
testimony of all the historians, and directly contrary to Beeket’s
character, who surely was not destitute either of courage or of zeal for
ecclesiastical immunities. 4. The violence and injustice of Henry,
ascribed to him by Fitz-Stephens, is of a piece with the rest of the
prosecution. Nothing could be more iniquitous than, after two years’
silence, to make a sudden and unprepared demand upon Becket to the amount
of forty-four thousand marks, (equal to a sum of near a million in our
time,) and not allow him the least interval to bring in his accounts. If
the king was so palpably oppressive in one article, he may be presumed to
be equally so in the rest. 5. Though Folliot’s letter, or rather
manifesto, be addressed to Becket himself, it does not acquire more
authority on that account. We know not what answer was made by Becket; the
collection of letters cannot be supposed quite complete. But that the
collection was not made by one (whoever he were) very partial to that
primate, appears from the tenor of them, where there are many passages
very little favorable to him, insomuch that the editor of them at
Brussels, a Jesuit, thought proper to publish them with great omissions,
particularly of this letter of Folliot’s. Perhaps Becket made no answer at
all, as not deigning to write to ah excommunicated person, whose very
commerce would contaminate him; and the bishop, trusting to this arrogance
of his primate, might calumniate him the more freely. 6. Though the
sentence pronounced on Becket by the great council, implies that he had
refused to make any answer to the king’s court, this does not fortify the
narrative of Folliot. For if his excuse was rejected as false and
frivolous, it would be treated as no answer. Becket submitted so far to
the sentence of confiscation of goods and chattels, that he gave surety,
which is a proof that he meant not at that time to question the authority
of the king’s courts. 7. It may be worth observing, that both the author
of Historia Quadrapartita, Gervase, contemporary writers, agree with
Fitz-Stephens; and the latter is not usually very partial to Becket. All
the ancient historians give the same account.]
19 (return)
[ NOTE S, p. 392. Madox, in
his Baronia Anglica, (cap. 14,) tells us, that in the thirtieth year of
Henry II., thirty-three cows and two bulls cost but eight pounds seven
shillings, money of that age; five hundred sheep, twenty-two pounds ten
shillings, or about tenpence three farthings per sheep; sixty-six oxen,
eighteen pounds three shillings; fifteen breeding mares, two pounds twelve
shillings and sixpence; and twenty-two hogs, one pound two shillings.
Commodities seem then to have been about ten times cheaper than at
present; all except the sheep, probably on account of the value of the
fleece. The same author, in his Formulare Anglicanum, (p. 17,) says, that
in the tenth year of Richard I., mention is made of ten per cent, paid for
money; but the Jews frequently exacted much higher interest.]
END OF VOL. Ia.