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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10494-0.txt b/10494-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d89b909 --- /dev/null +++ b/10494-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5543 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10494 *** + +HENRY THE SECOND + +BY + +MRS. J. R. GREEN + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +HENRY PLANTAGENET + + +CHAPTER II + +THE ANGEVIN EMPIRE + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE FIRST REFORMS + + +CHAPTER V + +THE CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE ASSIZE OF CLARENDON + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE STRIFE WITH THE CHURCH + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND + + +CHAPTER IX + +REVOLT OF THE BARONAGE + + +CHAPTER X + +THE COURT OF HENRY + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE DEATH OF HENRY + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +HENRY PLANTAGENET + +The history of the English people would have been a great and a noble +history whatever king had ruled over the land seven hundred years ago. +But the history as we know it, and the mode of government which has +actually grown up among us is in fact due to the genius of the great king +by whose will England was guided from 1154 to 1189. He was a foreign king +who never spoke the English tongue, who lived and moved for the most part +in a foreign camp, surrounded with a motley host of Brabançons and +hirelings; and who in intervals snatched from foreign wars hurried for a +few months to his island-kingdom to carry out a policy which took little +heed of the great moral forces that were at work among the people. It was +under the rule of a foreigner such as this, however, that the races of +conquerors and conquered in England first learnt to feel that they were +one. It was by his power that England, Scotland, and Ireland were +brought to some vague acknowledgment of a common suzerain lord, and the +foundations laid of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It +was he who abolished feudalism as a system of government, and left it +little more than a system of land-tenure. It was he who defined the +relations established between Church and State, and decreed that in +England churchman as well as baron was to be held under the Common law. It +was he who preserved the traditions of self-government which had been +handed down in borough and shire-moot from the earliest times of English +history. His reforms established the judicial system whose main outlines +have been preserved to our own day. It was through his "Constitutions" +and his "Assizes" that it came to pass that over all the world the +English-speaking races are governed by English and not by Roman law. It +was by his genius for government that the servants of the royal household +became transformed into Ministers of State. It was he who gave England a +foreign policy which decided our continental relations for seven hundred +years. The impress which the personality of Henry II. left upon his time +meets us wherever we turn. The more clearly we understand his work, the +more enduring does his influence display itself even upon the political +conflicts and political action of our own days. + +For seventy years three Norman kings had held England in subjection +William the Conqueror, using his double position as conqueror and king, +had established a royal authority unknown in any other feudal country +William Rufus, poorer than his father when the hoard captured at +Winchester and the plunder of the Conquest were spent, and urged alike +by his necessities and his greed, laid the foundation of an organized +system of finance. Henry I., after his overthrow of the baronage, found +his absolute power only limited by the fact that there was no machinery +sufficient to put in exercise his boundless personal power; and for its +support he built up his wonderful administrative system. There no longer +existed any constitutional check on the royal authority. The Great +Council still survived as the relic and heir both of the English +Witenagemot and the Norman Feudal Court. But in matters of State its +"counsel" was scarcely asked or given; its "consent" was yielded as a +mere matter of form; no discussion or hesitation interrupted the formal +and pompous display of final submission to the royal will. The Church +under its Norman bishops, foreign officials trained in the King's +chapel, was no longer a united national force, as it had been in the +time of the Saxon kings. The mass of the people was of no account in +politics. The trading class scarcely as yet existed. The villeins tied +to the soil of the manor on which they had been born, and shut out from +all courts save those of their lord; inhabitants of the little hamlets +that lay along the river-courses in clearings among dense woods, +suspicious of strangers, isolated by an intense jealousy of all that lay +beyond their own boundaries or by traditional feuds, had no part in the +political life of the nation. + +But the central government had proved in the long run too weak to +check the growth of feudal tendencies. The land was studded with +fortresses--the homes of lords who exercised criminal jurisdiction +without appeal, and who had their private prisons and private gallows. +Their manor courts, whether they were feudal courts established by the +new nobility of the Conquest, or whether they represented ancient +franchises in which Norman lords succeeded to the jurisdiction of +earlier English rulers, were more and more turned into mere feudal +courts. In the Shire courts themselves the English sheriff who used to +preside over the court was replaced by a Norman "_vicecomes_," who +practically did as he chose, or as he was used to do in Normandy, in +questions of procedure, proof, and judgment. The old English hundred +courts, where the peasants' petty crimes had once been judged by the +freemen of the district, had now in most cases become part of the fief +of the lord, whose newly-built castle towered over the wretched hovels +of his tenants, and the peasants came for justice to the baron's court, +and paid their fees to the baron's treasury. The right of private +coinage added to his wealth, as the multitude of retainers bound to +follow them in war added to his power. The barons were naturally roused +to a passion of revolt when the new administrative system threatened to +cut them off from all share in the rights of government, which in other +feudal countries were held to go along with the possession of land. They +hated the "new men" who were taking their places at the council-board; +and they revolted against the new order which cut them off from useful +sources of revenue, from unchecked plunder, from fines at will in their +courts of hundred and manor, from the possibility of returning fancy +accounts, and of profitable "farming" of the shires; they were jealous +of the clergy, who played so great a part in the administration, and +who threatened to surpass them in the greatness of their wealth, their +towns and their castles; and they only waited for a favourable moment to +declare open war on the government of the court. + +In this uncertain balance of forces in the State order rested ultimately +on the personal character of the king; no sooner did a ruler appear who +was without the sense of government than the whole administration was at +once shattered to pieces. The only son of Henry I. had perished in the +wreck of the _White Ship_; and his daughter Matilda had been sent to +Germany as a child of eight years old, to become the wife of the Emperor +Henry V. On his death in 1125 her father summoned her back to receive +the homage of the English people as heiress of the kingdom. The homage +was given with as little warmth as it was received. Matilda was a mere +stranger and a foreigner in England, and the rule of a woman was +resented by the baronage. Two years later, in 1128, Henry sought by +means of a marriage between the Empress Matilda and Geoffrey, the son of +Count Fulk of Anjou, to secure the peace of Normandy, and provide an +heir for the English throne; and Matilda unwillingly bent once more to +her father's will. A year after the marriage Count Fulk left his +European dominions for the throne of Jerusalem; and Geoffrey entered on +the great inheritance which had been slowly built up in three hundred +years, since the days of the legendary Tortulf the Forester. Anjou, +Maine, and Touraine already formed a state whose power equaled that of +the French kingdom; to north and south successive counts had made +advances towards winning fragments of Britanny and Poitou; the Norman +marriage was the triumphant close of a long struggle with Normandy; but +to Fulk was reserved the greatest triumph of all, when he saw his son +heir, not only of the Norman duchy, but of the great realm which +Normandy had won. + +But, for all this glory, the match was an ill-assorted one, and from +first to last circumstances dealt hardly with the poor young Count. +Matilda was twenty-six, a proud ambitious woman "with the nature of a +man in the frame of a woman." Her husband was a boy of fifteen. Geoffrey +the Handsome, called Plantagenet from his love of hunting over heath and +broom, inherited few of the great qualities which had made his race +powerful. Like his son Henry II. he was always on horseback; he had his +son's wonderful memory, his son's love of disputations and law-suits; we +catch a glimpse of him studying beneath the walls of a beleaguered town +the art of siege in Vegetius. But the darker sides of Henry's character +might also be discerned in his father; genial and seductive as he was, +he won neither confidence nor love; wife and barons alike feared the +silence with which he listened unmoved to the bitterest taunts, but kept +them treasured and unforgotten for some sure hour of revenge; the fierce +Angevin temper turned in him to restlessness and petulance in the long +series of revolts which filled his reign with wearisome monotony from +the moment when he first rode out to claim his duchy of Normandy, and +along its southern frontier peasant and churl turned out at the sound of +the tocsin, and with fork and flail drove the hated "Guirribecs" back +over the border. Five years after his marriage, in 1133, his first child +was born at Le Mans. Englishmen saw in the grandson of "good Queen Maud" +the direct descendant of the old English line of kings of Alfred and of +Cerdic. The name Henry which the boy bore after his grandfather marked +him as lawful inheritor of the broad dominions of Henry I., "the +greatest of all kings in the memory of ourselves and our fathers." From +his father he received, with the surname of Plantagenet by which he was +known in later times, the inheritance of the Counts of Anjou. Through +his mother Matilda he claimed all rights and honours that pertained to +the Norman dukes. + +Heir of three ruling houses, Henry was brought up wherever the chances of +war or rebellion gave opportunity. He was to know neither home nor +country. His infancy was spent at Rouen "in the home," as Henry I. said, +"of his forefather Rollo." In 1135 his grandfather died, and left him, +before he was yet three years old, the succession to the English throne. +But Geoffrey and Matilda were at the moment hard pressed by one of their +ceaseless wars. The Church was openly opposed to the rule of the House of +Anjou; the Norman baronage on either side of the water inherited a long +tradition of hatred to the Angevin. Stephen of Blois, a son of the +Conqueror's daughter Adela, seized the English throne, and claimed the +dukedom of Normandy. Henry was driven from Rouen to take refuge in +Angers, in the great palace of the counts, overlooking the river +and the vine-covered hills beyond. There he lived in one of the most +ecclesiastical cities of the day, already famous for its shrines, its +colleges, the saints whose tombs lay within its walls, and the ring of +priories and churches and abbeys that circled it about. + +The policy of the Norman kings was rudely interrupted by the reign of +Stephen of Blois. Trembling for the safety of his throne, he at first +rested on the support of the Church and the ministers who represented +Henry's system. But sides were quickly changed. The great churchmen and +the ministers were soon cast off by the new ruler. "By my Lady St. +Mary," said Roger of Salisbury, when he was summoned to one of Stephen's +councils, "my heart is unwilling for this journey; for I shall be of as +much use in court as is a foal in battle." The revolution was completed +in 1139, when the king in a mad panic seized and imprisoned Roger, the +representative alike of Church and ministers. With the ruin of Roger who +for thirty years had been head of the government, of his son Roger the +chancellor, and his nephew Nigel the treasurer, the ministerial system +was utterly destroyed, and the whole Church was alienated. Stephen sank +into the mere puppet of the nobles. The work of the Exchequer and the +Curia Regis almost came to an end. A little money was still gathered +into the royal treasury; some judicial business seems to have been still +carried on, but it was only amid overwhelming difficulties, and over +limited districts. Sheriffs were no longer appointed over the shires, +and the local administration broke down as the central government had +done. Civil war was added to the confusion of anarchy, as Matilda again +and again sought to recover her right. In 1139 she crossed to England, +wherein siege, in battle, in council, in hair-breadth escapes from +pursuing hosts, from famine, from perils of the sea, she showed the +masterful authority, the impetuous daring, the pertinacity which she had +inherited from her Norman ancestors. Stephen fell back on his last +source--a body of mercenary troops from Flanders,--but the Brabançon +troops were hated in England as foreigners and as riotous robbers, and +there was no payment for them in the royal treasury. The barons were all +alike ready to change sides as often as the shifting of parties gave +opportunity to make a gain of dishonour; an oath to Stephen was as easy +to break as an oath to Matilda or to her son. Great districts, especially +in the south and middle of England, and on the Welsh marches, suffered +terribly from war and pillage; all trade was stopped; great tracts of +land went out of cultivation; there was universal famine. + +In 1142 Henry, then nine years old, was brought to England with a chosen +band of Norman and Angevin knights; and while Matilda held her rough +court at Gloucester as acknowledged sovereign of the West, he lived at +Bristol in the house of his uncle, Robert of Gloucester, the illegitimate +son of Henry I., who was still in these troubled days loyal to the +cultured traditions of his father's court, and a zealous patron of +learning. Amid all the confusion of a war of pillage and slaughter, +surrounded by half-wild Welsh mercenaries, by the lawless Norman-Welsh +knights, by savage Brabançons, he learned his lessons for four years with +his cousin, the son of Robert, from Master Matthew, afterwards his +chancellor and bishop of Angers. As Matilda's prospects grew darker in +England, Geoffrey recalled Henry in 1147 to Anjou; and the next year he +joined his mother in Normandy, where she had retired after the death of +Earl Robert. There was a pause of five years in the civil war; but +Stephen's efforts to assert his authority and restore the reign of law +were almost unavailing. All the country north of the Tyne had fallen into +the hands of the Scot king; the Earl of Chester ruled at his own will in +the northwest; the Earl of Aumale was king beyond the Humber. + +With the failure of Matilda's effort the whole burden of securing his +future prospects fell upon Henry himself, then a boy of fifteen. Nor was +he slow to accept the charge. A year later, in 1149, he placed himself in +open opposition to Stephen as claimant to the English throne, by visiting +the court of his great-uncle, David of Scotland, at Carlisle; he was +knighted by the Scot king, and made a compact to yield up to David the +land beyond the Tyne when he should himself have won the English throne. +But he found England cold, indifferent, without courage; his most +powerful friends were dead, and he returned to Normandy to wait for +better days. Geoffrey was still carrying on the defence of the duchy +against Stephen's son Eustace, and his ally, the King of France; and +Henry joined his father's army till peace was made in 1151. In that year +he was invested with his mother's heritage and became at eighteen Duke of +Normandy; at nineteen his father's death made him Count of Anjou, +Lorraine, and Maine. + +The young Count had visited the court of Paris to do homage for Normandy +and Anjou, and there he first saw the French queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. +Her marriage with Louis VII. had been the crowning success of the astute +and far-sighted policy of Louis VI.; for the dowry Eleanor had brought to +the French crown, the great province of the South, had doubled the +territories and the wealth of the struggling little kingdom of France. +In the Crusade of 1147 she had accompanied king and nobles to the Holy +Land as feudal head of the forces of Aquitaine; and had there baffled +the temper and sagacity of Louis by her political intrigues. Sprung of +a house which represented to the full the licentious temper of the South, +she scornfully rejected a husband indifferent to love, and ineffective in +war as in politics. She had "married a monk and not a king," she said, +wearied with a superstition that showed itself in long fasts of more +than monkish austerity, and in the humiliating reverence with which +the king would wait for the meanest clerk to pass before him. In the +square-shouldered ruddy youth who came to receive his fiefs, with +his "countenance of fire," his vivacious talk and overwhelming energy +and scant ceremoniousness at mass, she saw a man destined by fate and +character to be in truth a "king." Her decision was as swift and +practical as that of the keen Angevin, who was doubtless looking to the +southern lands so long coveted by his race. A divorce from her husband +was procured in March 1152; and two months after she was hastily, for +fear of any hindrance, married to the young Count of Anjou, "without the +pomp or ceremony which befitted their rank." At nineteen, therefore, +Henry found himself the husband of a wife about twenty-seven years of +age, and the lord, besides his own hereditary lands and his Norman +duchy, of Poitou, Saintonge, Perigord, Limousin, Angoumois, and Gascony, +with claims of suzerainty over Auvergne and Toulouse. In a moment the +whole balance of forces in France had changed; the French dominions were +shorn to half their size; the most brilliant prospects that had ever +opened before the monarchy were ruined; and the Count of Anjou at one +bound became ruler of lands which in extent and wealth were more than +double those of his suzerain lord. + +The rise of this great power to the west was necessarily the absorbing +political question of the day. It menaced every potentate in France; and +before a month was out a ring of foes had gathered round the upstart +Angevin ruler. The outraged King of France; Stephen, King of England, and +Henry's rival in the Norman duchy; Stephen's nephew, the Count of +Champagne, brother of the Count of Blois; the Count of Perche; and +Henry's own brother, Geoffrey, were at once united by a common alarm; and +their joint attack on Normandy a month after the marriage was but the +first step in a comprehensive design of depriving the common enemy of the +whole of his possessions. Henry met the danger with all the qualities +which mark a great general and a great statesman. Cool, untroubled, +impetuous, dashing from point to point of danger, so that horses sank and +died on the road in his desperate marches, he was ready wherever a foe +threatened, or a friend prayed help. Foreign armies were driven back, +rebel nobles crushed, robber castles broken down; Normandy was secured +and Anjou mastered before the year was out. The strife, however, had +forced him for the first time into open war with Stephen, and at twenty +Henry turned to add the English crown to his dominions. + +Already the glory of success hung about him; his footsteps were guided by +prophecies of Merlin; portents and wonders marked his way. When he landed +on the English shores in January 1153, he turned into a church "to pray +for a space, after the manner of soldiers," at the moment when the priest +opened the office of the mass for that day with the words, "Behold there +cometh the Lord, the Ruler, and the kingdom is in his hand." In his first +battle at Malmesbury the wintry storm and driving rain which beat in the +face of Stephen's troops showed on which side Heaven fought. As the king +rode out to the next great fight at Wallingford, men noted fearfully that +he fell three times from his horse. Terror spread among the barons, whose +interests lay altogether in anarchy, as they saw the rapid increase of +Henry's strength; and they sought by a mock compromise to paralyse the +power of both Stephen and his rival. "Then arose the barons, or rather +the betrayers of England, treating of concord, although they loved +nothing better than discord; but they would not join battle, for they +desired to exalt neither of the two, lest if the one were overcome the +other should be free to govern them; they knew that so long as one was in +awe of the other he could exercise no royal authority over them." Henry +subdued his wrath to his political sagacity. He agreed to meet Stephen +face to face at Wallingford; and there, with a branch of the Thames +between them, they fixed upon terms of peace. Stephen's son Eustace, +however, refused to lay down arms, and the war lingered on, Stephen being +driven back to the eastern counties, while Henry held mid-England. In +August, however, Eustace died suddenly, "by the favour of God," said +lovers of peace; and Stephen, utterly broken in spirit, soon after +yielded. + +The strife died out, in fact, through sheer exhaustion, for years of +anarchy and war had broken the strength of both sides; and at last "that +happened which would least be believed, that the division of the kingdom +was not settled by the sword." The only body of men who still possessed +any public feeling, any political sagacity, or unity of purpose, found +its opportunity in the general confusion. The English Church, "to whose +right it principally belongs to elect the king," as Theobald had once +said in words which Gregory VII. would have approved, beat down all +opposition of the angry nobles; and in November 1153 Theobald, Archbishop +of Canterbury, and Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester and brother of +Stephen, brought about a final compromise. The treaty which had been +drawn up at Wallingford was confirmed at Westminster. Henry was made +the adopted son of Stephen, a sharer of his kingdom while he lived, +its heir when he should die. "In the business of the kingdom," the king +promised, "I will work by the counsel of the duke; but in the whole +realm of England, as well in the duke's part as my own, I will exercise +royal justice." Henry did homage and swore fealty to Stephen, while, as +they embraced, "the bystanders burst into tears of joy," and the nobles, +who had stood sullenly aloof from counsel and consent, took oaths of +allegiance to both princes. For a few months Henry remained in England, +months marked by suspicions and treacheries on all sides. Stephen was +helpless, the nobles defiant, their strongholds were untouched, and the +treaty remained practically a dead letter. After the discovery of a +conspiracy against his life supported by Stephen's second son and the +Flemish troops, Henry gave up for the moment the hopeless task, and left +England. But before long Stephen's death gave the full lordship into his +hands. On the 19th of December 1154 he was crowned at Winchester King of +England, amid the acclamations of crowds who had already learned "to +bear him great love and fear." + +King of England, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, +Count of Poitou, Duke of Aquitaine, suzerain lord of Britanny, Henry +found himself at twenty-one ruler of dominions such as no king before him +had ever dreamed of uniting. He was master of both sides of the English +Channel, and by his alliance with his uncle, the Count of Flanders, he had +command of the French coast from the Scheldt to the Pyrenees, while his +claims on Toulouse would carry him to the shores of the Mediterranean. +His subjects told with pride how "his empire reached from the Arctic +Ocean to the Pyrenees;" there was no monarch save the Emperor himself who +ruled over such vast domains. But even the Emperor did not gather under +his sway a grouping of peoples so strangely divided in race, in tongue, +in aims, in history. No common tie of custom or of sympathy united the +unwieldy bundle of states bound together in a common subjection; the +men of Aquitaine hated Anjou with as intense a bitterness as they hated +France; Angevin and Norman had been parted for generations by traditional +feuds; the Breton was at war with both; to all England was "another +world"--strange in speech, in law, and in custom. And to all the +subjects of his heterogeneous empire Henry himself was a mere foreigner. +To Gascon or to Breton he was a man of hated race and alien speech, just +as much as he was to Scot or Welshman; he seemed a stranger alike to +Angevin and Norman, and to Englishmen he came as a ruler with foreign +tastes and foreign aims as well as a foreign tongue. + +We see in descriptions of the time the strange rough figure of the new +king, "Henry Curtmantel," as he was nicknamed from the short Angevin +cape which hung on his shoulders, and marked him out oddly as a foreigner +amid the English and Norman knights, with their long fur-lined cloaks +hanging to the ground. The square stout form, the bull-neck and broad +shoulders, the powerful arms and coarse rough hands, the legs bowed +from incessant riding, showed a frame fashioned to an extraordinary +strength. His head was large and round; his hair red, close-cut for +fear of baldness; his fiery face much freckled; his voice harsh and +cracked. Those about him saw something "lion-like" in his face; his gray +eyes, clear and soft in his peaceful moments, shone like fire when he was +moved, and few men were brave enough to confront him when his face was +lighted up by rising wrath, and when his eyes rolled and became bloodshot +in a paroxysm of passion. His overpowering energy found an outlet in +violent physical exertion. "With an immoderate love of hunting he led +unquiet days," following the chase over waste and wood and mountain; +and when he came home at night he was never seen to sit down save for +supper, but wore out his court with walking or standing till after +nightfall, even when his own feet and legs were covered with sores +from incessant exertion. Bitter were the complaints of his courtiers +that there was never any moment of rest for himself or his servants; +in war time indeed, they grumbled, excessive toil was natural, but time +of peace was ill-consumed in continual vigils and labours and in +incessant travel--one day following another in merciless and intolerable +journeyings. Henry had inherited the qualities of the Angevin race--its +tenacity, its courage, its endurance, the sagacity that was without +impatience, and the craft that was never at fault. With the ruddy face +and unwieldy frame of the Normans other gifts had come to him; he had +their sense of strong government and their wisdom; he was laborious, +patient, industrious, politic. He never forgot a face he had once seen, +nor anything that he heard which he deemed worthy of remembering; where +he once loved he never turned to hate, and where he once hated he was +never brought to love. Sparing in diet, wasting little care on his +dress--perhaps the plainest in his court,--frugal, "so much as was lawful +to a prince," he was lavish in matters of State or in public affairs. A +great soldier and general, he was yet an earnest striver after peace, +hating to refer to the doubtful decision of battle that which might be +settled by any other means, and stirred always by a great pity, strange +in such an age and in such a man, for lives poured out in war. "He was +more tender to dead soldiers than to the living," says a chronicler +querulously; "and found far more sorrow in the loss of those who were +slain than comfort in the love of those who remained." His pitiful temper +was early shown in his determination to put down the barbarous treatment +of shipwrecked sailors. He abolished the traditions of the civil war +by forbidding plunder, and by a resolute fidelity to his plighted word. In +political craft he was matchless; in great perils none was gentler than +he, but when the danger was past none was harsher; and common talk hinted +that he was a willing breaker of his word, deeming that in the pressure +of difficulty it was easier to repent of word than deed, and to render +vain a saying than a fact. "His mother's teaching, as we have heard, was +this: That he should delay all the business of all men; that whatever +fell into his hands he should retain along while and enjoy the fruit of +it, and keep suspended in hope those who aspired to it; confirming her +sentences with this cruel parable, 'Glut a hawk with his quarry and he +will hunt no more; show it him and then draw it back and you will ever +keep him tractable and obedient.' She taught him also that he should be +frequently in his chamber, rarely in public; that he should give nothing +to any one upon any testimony but what he had seen and known; and many +other evil things of the same kind. We, indeed," adds this good hater of +Matilda, "confidently attributed to her teaching everything in which he +displeased us." + +A king of those days, indeed, was not shielded from criticism. He lived +altogether in public, with scarcely a trace of etiquette or ceremony. +When a bishop of Lincoln kept Henry waiting for dinner while he performed +a service, the king's only remedy was to send messenger after messenger +to urge him to hurry in pity to the royal hunger. The first-comer seems +to have been able to go straight to his presence at any hour, whether in +hall or chapel or sleeping-chamber; and the king was soundly rated by +every one who had seen a vision, or desired a favour, or felt himself +aggrieved in any way, with a rude plainness of speech which made sorely +necessary his proverbial patience under such harangues. "Our king," says +Walter Map, "whose power all the world fears, ... does not presume to be +haughty, nor speak with a proud tongue, nor exalt himself over any man." +The feudal barons of medieval times had, indeed, few of the qualities +that made the courtiers of later days, and Henry, violent as he was, +could bear much rough counsel and plain reproof. No flatterer found favour +at his court. His special friends were men of learning or of saintly +life. Eager and eloquent in talk, his curiosity was boundless. He is said +to have known all languages from Gaul to the Jordan, though he only spoke +French and Latin. Very discreet in all business of the kingdom, and a +subtle finder out of legal puzzles, he had "knowledge of almost all +histories, and experience of all things ready to his hand." Henry was, +in fact, learned far beyond the learning of his day. "The king," wrote +Peter of Blois to the Archbishop of Palermo, "has always in his hands +bows and arrows, swords and hunting-spears, save when he is busy in +council or over his books. For as often as he can get breathing-time +amid his business cares, he occupies himself with private reading, or +takes pains in working out some knotty question among his clerks. Your +king is a good scholar, but ours is far better. I know the abilities and +accomplishments of both. You know that the King of Sicily was my pupil +for a year; you yourself taught him the element of verse-making and +literary composition; from me he had further and deeper lessons, but as +soon as I left the kingdom he threw away his books, and took to the +easy-going ways of the court. But with the King of England there is +school every day, constant conversation of the best scholars and +discussion of questions." + +Behind all this amazing activity, however, lay the dark and terrible +side of Henry's character. All the violent contrasts and contradictions +of the age, which make it so hard to grasp, were gathered up in his +varied heritage; the half-savage nature which at that time we meet with +again and again united with first-class intellectual gifts; the fierce +defiance born of a time when every man had to look solely to his own +right hand for security of life and limb and earthly regard--a defiance +caught now and again in the grip of an overwhelming awe before the +portents of the invisible world; the sudden mad outbreaks of irresponsible +passion which still mark certain classes in our own day, but which then +swept over a violent and undisciplined society. Even to his own time, used +as it was to such strange contrasts, Henry was a puzzle. Men saw him +diligently attend mass every day, and restlessly busy himself during the +most solemn moments in scribbling, in drawing pictures, in talking to his +courtiers, in settling the affairs of State; or heard how he refused +confession till forced to it by terror in the last extremity of +sickness, and then turned it into a surprising ceremony of apology and +self-justification. At one time they saw him, conscience-smitten at the +warning of some seer of visions, sitting up through the night amid a +tumultuous crowd to avert the wrath of Heaven by hastily restoring rights +and dues which he was said to have unjustly taken, and when the dawning +light of day brought cooler counsel, swift to send the rest of his +murmuring suitors empty away; at another bowing panic-stricken in his +chapel before some sudden word of ominous prophecy; or as a pilgrim, +barefoot, with staff in hand; or kneeling through the night before a +shrine, with scourgings and fastings and tears. His steady sense of order, +justice, and government, broken as it was by fits of violent passion, +resumed its sway as soon as the storm was over; but the awful wrath which +would suddenly break forth, when the king's face changed, and he rolled on +the ground in a paroxysm of madness, seemed to have something of diabolic +origin. A story was told of a demon ancestress of the Angevin princes: +"From the devil they came, and to the devil they will go," said the grim +fatalism of the day. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +THE ANGEVIN EMPIRE + +The new kingdom which Henry had added to his dominions in France might +well seem to a man of less inexhaustible energy to make the task of +government impossible. The imperial system of his dreams was as recklessly +defiant of physical difficulties as it was heedless of all the sentiments +of national tradition. In the two halves of his empire no common political +interest and no common peril could arise; the histories of north and south +were carried on apart, as completely as the histories of America and +England when they were apparently united under one king, and were in fact +utterly severed by the ocean which defined the limits of two worlds. +England had little part or lot in the history of Europe. Foreign policy +it had none; when its kings passed to Normandy, English chroniclers +knew nothing of their doings or their wars. Some little trade was +carried on with the nearest lands across the sea,--with Normandy, with +Flanders, or with Scandinavia,--but the country was almost wholly +agricultural. Feudal in its social structure, governed by tradition, with +little movement of inner life or contact with the world about it, its +people had remained jealous of strangers, and as yet distinguished from +the nations of Europe by a strange immobility and want of sympathy with +the intellectual and moral movements around them. Sometimes strangers +visited its kings; sometimes English pilgrims made their way to Rome by a +dangerous and troublesome journey. But even the connection with the +Papacy was slight. A foreign legate had scarcely ever landed on its +shores; hardly any appeals were carried to the Roman Curia; the Church +managed its own business after a customary fashion which was in harmony +with English traditions, which had grown up during centuries of undisturbed +and separate life. + +On the other side of the Channel Henry ruled over a straggling line of +loosely compacted states equal in extent to almost half of the present +France. His long line of ill-defended frontier brought him in contact +with the lands of the Count of Flanders, one of the chief military +powers of the day; with the kingdom of France, which, after two hundred +years of insignificance, was beginning to assert its sway over the great +feudal vassals, and preparing to build up a powerful monarchy; and with +the Spanish kingdoms which were emerging from the first successful +effort of the Christian states to throw back the power of the Moors. +Normandy and Auvergne were separated only by a narrow belt of country +from the Empire, which, under the greatest ruler and warrior of the age, +Frederick Barbarossa, was extending its power over Burgundy, Provence, +and Italy. His claims to the over-lordship of Toulouse gave Henry an +interest in the affairs of the great Mediterranean power--the kingdom of +Sicily; and his later attempts on the territories of the Count of +Maurienne brought him into close connection with Italian politics. No +ruler of his time was forced more directly than Henry into the range of +such international politics as were possible in the then dim and +inchoate state of European affairs. England, which in the mind of the +Norman kings had taken the first place, fell into the second rank of +interests with her Angevin rulers. Henry's thoughts and hopes and +ambitions centred in his continental domains. Lord of Rouen, of Angers, +of Bordeaux, master of the sea-coast from Flanders to the Pyrenees, he +seemed to hold in his hand the feeble King of Paris and of Orleans, who +was still without a son to inherit his dignities and lands. The balance +of power, as of ability and military skill, lay on his side; and, long +as the House of Anjou had been the bulwark of the French throne, it even +seemed as if the time might come peaceably to mount it themselves. +Looking from our own island at the work which Henry did, and seeing more +clearly by the light of later events, we may almost forget the European +ruler in the English king. But this was far from being the view of his +own day. In the thirty-five years of his reign little more than thirteen +years were spent in England and over twenty-one in France. Thrice only +did he remain in the kingdom as much as two years at a time; for the +most part his visits were but for a few months torn from the incessant +tumult and toil of government abroad; and it was only after long years +of battling against invincible forces that he at last recognized England +as the main factor of his policy, and in great crises chose rather to +act as an English king than as the creator of an empire. + +The first year after Henry's coronation as King of England was spent in +securing his newly-won possession. On Christmas Day, 1154, he called +together the solemn assembly of prelates, barons, and wise men which had +not met for fifteen years. The royal state of the court was restored; +the great officers of the household returned to their posts. The Primate +was again set in the place he held from early English times as the chief +adviser of the crown. The nephew of Roger of Salisbury, Nigel, Bishop of +Ely, was restored to the post of treasurer from which Stephen had driven +him fifteen years before. Richard de Lucy and the Earl of Leicester were +made justiciars. One new man was appointed among these older officers. +Thomas, the son of Gilbert Becket, was born in Cheapside in 1117. His +father, a Norman merchant who had settled by the Thames, had prospered +in the world; he had been portreeve of London, the predecessor of the +modern mayor, and visitors of all kinds gathered at his house,--London +merchants and Norman nobles and learned clerks of Italy and Gaul His son +was first taught by the Augustinian canons of Merton Priory, afterwards +he attended schools in London, and at twenty was sent to Paris for a +year's study. After his return he served in a London office, and as +clerk to the sheriffs he was directly concerned during the time of the +civil war with the government of the city. It was during these years +that the Archbishop of Canterbury began to form his household into the +most famous school of learning in England, and some of his chaplains in +their visits to Cheapside had been struck by the brilliant talents of +the young clerk. At Theobald's request Thomas, then twenty-four years +old, entered the Primate's household, somewhat reluctantly it would +seem, for he had as yet shown little zeal either for religion or for +study. He was at once brought into the most brilliant circle of that +day. The chancellor and secretary was John of Salisbury, the pupil of +Abelard, the friend of St. Bernard and of Pope Adrian IV., the first +among English men of letters, in whom all the learning of the day was +summed up. With him were Roger of Pont l'Evêque, afterwards archbishop +of York; John of Canterbury, later archbishop of Lyons; Ralph of Sarr, +later dean of Reims; and a distinguished group of lesser men; but from +the time when Thomas entered the household "there was none dearer to the +archbishop than he." "Slight and pale, with dark hair, long nose, and +straightly-featured face, blithe of countenance, keen of thought, +winning and lovable in conversation, frank of speech, but slightly +stuttering in his talk," he had a singular gift of winning affection; +and even from his youth he was "a prudent son of the world." It was +Theobald who had first brought the Canon law to England, and Thomas at +once received his due training in it, being sent to Bologna to study +under Gratian, and then to Auxerre. He was very quickly employed in +important negotiations. When in 1152 Stephen sought to have his son +Eustace anointed king, Thomas was sent to Rome, and by his skilful plea +that the papal claims had not been duly recognized in Stephen's scheme +he induced the Pope to forbid the coronation. In his first political act +therefore he definitely took his place not only as an adherent of the +Angevin claim, but as a resolute asserter of papal and ecclesiastical +rights. At his return favours were poured out upon him. While in the +lowest grade of orders, not yet a deacon, various livings and prebends +fell to his lot. A fortnight before Stephen's death Theobald ordained +him deacon, and gave him the archdeaconry of Canterbury, the first place +in the English Church after the bishops and abbots; and he must have +taken part under the Primate in the work of governing the kingdom until +Henry's arrival. The archbishop was above all anxious to secure in the +councils of the new king the due influence not only of the Church, but +of the new school of the canon lawyers who were so profoundly modifying +the Church. He saw in Thomas the fittest instrument to carryout his +plans; and by his influence the archdeacon of Canterbury found himself, +a week after the coronation of Henry, the king's chancellor. + +Thomas was now thirty-eight; Theobald, Nigel, and Leicester were all old +men, and the young king of twenty-two must have seemed a mere boy to his +new counsellors. The Empress had been left in Normandy to avoid the +revival of old quarrels. Hated in England for her proud contempt of the +burgher, her scorn of the churchman, her insolence to her adherents, she +won in Normandy a fairer fame, as "a woman of excellent disposition, +kind to all, bountiful in almsgiving, the friend of religion, of honest +life." The political activity of Queen Eleanor was brought to an abrupt +close by her marriage. In Henry she found a master very different from +Louis of France, and her enforced withdrawal from public affairs during +her husband's life contrasts strangely, not only with her former career, +but with the energy which, when the heavy yoke was taken off her neck, +she displayed as an old woman of nearly seventy during the reign of her +son. Henry, in fact, stood alone among his new people. No debt of +gratitude, no ties of friendship, bound the king to the lords whose aims +he had first learned to know at Wallingford. The great barons who +thronged round him in his court had all been rebels; the younger among +them had never known what order, government, or loyalty meant. The Church +was hesitating and timorous. To the people he was an utter stranger, +unable even to speak their tongue. But from the first Henry took his +place as absolute master and leader. "A strict regard to justice was +apparent in him, and at the very outset he bore the appearance of a +great prince." + +The king at once put in force the scheme of reform which had been drawn +up the year before at Wallingford, and of which the provisions have +comedown to us in phrases drawn from the two sources which were most +familiar to the learned and the vulgar of that day,--the Bible, and the +prophecies of Merlin, the seer of King Arthur. The nobles were to give +up all illegal rights and estates which they had usurped. The castles +built by the warring barons were to be destroyed. The king was to bring +back husbandmen to the desolate fields, and to stock pastures and +forests and hillsides with cattle and deer and sheep. The clergy were +henceforth to live in quiet, not vexed by unaccustomed burdens. Sheriffs +were to be restored to the counties, who should do justice without +corruption, nor persecute any for malice; thieves and robbers were to be +hanged; the armed forces were to be disbanded; the knights were to beat +their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; the +hired Flemish soldiers were to turn from the camp to the plough, from +tents to workshops, there to render as servants the obedience they had +once demanded as masters. The work which Stephen had failed to do was +now swiftly accomplished. The Flemish mercenaries vanished "like +phantoms," or "like wax before the fire," and their leader, William of +Ypres, the lord of Kent, turned with weeping to a monastery in his own +land. The feudal lords were forced to give up such castles and lands as +they had wrongfully usurped; and the newly-created earls were deprived +of titles which they had wrung from King or Empress in the civil wars. + +The great nobles of both parties made a last effort at resistance. In +the north the Count of Aumale ruled almost as king. He was of the House +of Champagne, son of that Count Stephen who had once been set up as +claimant to the English throne, and near kinsman both of Henry and of +Stephen. He now refused to give up Scarborough Castle; behind him lay +the armies of the Scot king, and if Aumale's rebellion were successful +the whole north must be lost. A rising on the Welsh border marked the +revival of the old danger of which Henry himself had had experience in +the castle of his uncle, Robert of Gloucester, when the Empress and +Robert, with his Welsh connections and alliances, had dominated the +whole of the south-west. Hugh Mortimer, lord of Wigmore, Cleobury, and +Bridgenorth, the most powerful lord on the Welsh border, and Roger, Earl +of Hereford and lord of Gloucester, and connected by his mother with the +royal house of Wales, prepared for war. Immediately after his crowning +Henry hurried to the north, accompanied by Theobald, and forced Aumale +to submission. The fear of him fell on the barons. Roger of Hereford +submitted, and the earldom of Hereford and city of Gloucester were placed +in Henry's hands. The whole force of the kingdom was called out against +Hugh Mortimer, and Bridgenorth, fortified fifty years before by Robert +of Belesme, was reduced in July. The next year William of Warenne, the +son of Stephen, gave up all his castles in England and Normandy, and the +power of the House of Blois in the realm was finally extinguished. Hugh +Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, was deprived of his fortresses, and the eastern +counties were thus secured as those of the north and west had been. + +The borders of the kingdom were now safe; its worst elements of disorder +were suppressed; and the bishops and barons had taken an oath of +allegiance to his son William, and in case of William's death to the +infant Henry, born in February 1155. When Henry was called abroad in +January 1156, he could safely leave the kingdom for a year in the charge +of Queen Eleanor and of the justiciars. His return was marked by a new +triumph. The death of David and the succession of his grandson Malcolm, a +boy of twelve years old, gave opportunity for asserting his suzerainty +over Scotland, and freeing himself from his oath made in 1149 at Carlisle +to grant the land beyond the Tyne to David and his heirs for ever. +Malcolm was brought to do homage to him at Chester in June 1157, and +Northumberland and Cumberland passed into Henry's hands. Malcolm and his +successor William followed him in his wars and attended at his courts, +and whatever Henry's actual authority might be, in the eyes of his +English subjects at least he ruled to the farthest borders of Scotland. +He next turned to the settlement of Wales. The civil war had violently +interrupted the peaceful processes by which Henry I. sought to bring the +Welsh under English law. The princes of Wales had practically regained +their independence, while the Norman lords who had carved out estates for +themselves along its borders, indignant at Stephen's desertion of them, +and driven to provide for their own safety, had formed alliances by +marriage with the native rulers. Henry had, in fact, to reconquer the +country, and to provide safeguards against any military union between the +feudal lords of the border and its hostile princes, Owen Gwynneth of the +North, and Rhys ap-Gryffyth of the South. In 1157 he undertook the first +of his three expeditions against Wales. His troops, however, unused to +mountain warfare, had but ill success; and it was only when Henry had +secured the castles of Flintshire, and gathered a fleet along the coast +to stop the importation of corn that Owen was driven in August to do +homage for his land. The next year he penetrated into the mountains of +South Wales and took hostages from its ruler, Rhys-ap-Gryffyth; "the +honour and glory and beauty and invincible strength of the knights; Rhys, +the pillar and saviour of his country, the harbour and defender of the +weak, the admiration and terror of his enemies, the sole pillar and hope +of South Wales." + +The triumph of the Angevin conqueror was now complete. The baronage lay +crushed at his feet. The Church was silent. The royal authority had been +pushed, at least in name, to the utmost limits of the island. The close +of this first work of settlement was marked by a royal progress between +September 1157 and January 1158 through the whole length of England from +Malmesbury to Carlisle. It was the king's first visit to the northern +shires which he had restored to the English crown; he visited and +fortified the most important border castles, and then through the bitter +winter months he journeyed to Yorkshire, the fastnesses of the Peak, +Nottingham, and the midland and southern counties. The progress ended at +Worcester on Easter Day, 1158. There the king and queen for the last +time wore their crowns in solemn state before the people. A strange +ceremony followed. In Worcester Cathedral stood the shrine of St. +Wulfstan, the last of the English bishops, the saint who had preserved +the glory of the old English Church in the days of the Confessor, and +carried it on through the troubled time of the Conquest, to whose +supernatural resources the Conqueror himself had been forced to yield, +and who had since by ever-ready miracle defended his city of Worcester +from danger. On this shrine the king and Queen now laid their crowns, +with a solemn vow never again to wear them. To the people of the West +such an act may perhaps have seemed a token that Henry came among them +as heir of the English line of kings, and as defender of the English +Church and people. + +From England Henry was called away in August 1158, by the troubles of +his dominions across the sea. The power of Anjou had been built up by +centuries of tyranny, treason, and greed. Nantes had been robbed from +Britanny, Tours had been wrested from Blois, the southern borderland +from Poitou. A hundred years of feud with Maine could not lightly be +forgotten. Normandy still cherished the ancient hatred of pirate and +Frenchman. To the Breton, as to the Norman and the Gascon, the rule of +Anjou was a foreign rule; and if they must have a foreign ruler, better +the King of France than these upstart Counts. Henry held his various +states too by wholly different titles, and to every one of them his +right was more or less disputed. To add to the confusion, his barons in +every province held under him according to different customs and laws of +feudal tenure; and many of them, moreover, owed a double allegiance, and +did homage for part of their estates to Henry and for part to the King +of France. In the general uncertainty as to every question of succession, +or title, or law, or constitution, or feudal relations, the authority +which had been won by the sword could be kept only by sheer military +force. The rebellious array of the feudal nobles, eager to spring to arms +against the new imperial system, could count on the help of the great +French vassals along the border, jealous of their own independence, and +ever watching the Angevin policy with vigilant hostility. And behind +these princes of France stood the French king, Henry's suzerain lord and +his most determined and restless foe, from whom the Angevin count had +already taken away his wife and half his dominions, a foe to whom, +however, through all the perplexed and intermittent wars of thirty years, +he was bound by the indissoluble tie of the feudal relation, which +remained the dominant and authoritative fact of the political morality of +that day. For twenty years to come the two kings, both of them hampered +by overwhelming difficulties, strove to avoid war each after his own +fashion: Henry by money lavishly spent, and by wary diplomacy; Louis +more economically by a restless cunning, by incessant watching of his +adversary's weak points, by dexterously using the arms of Henry's +rebellious subjects rather than those of Frenchmen. + +Henry's first care was to secure his ill-defined and ill-defended +frontier, and to recover those border fortresses which had been wrested +from Geoffrey by his enemies. In Normandy the Vexin, which was the true +military frontier between him and France, and commanded the road to +Paris, had been lost. In Anjou he had to win back the castles which had +fallen to the House of Blois. His brother Geoffrey, Earl of Nantes, was +dead, and he must secure his own succession to the earldom. Two rival +claimants were disputing the lordship of Britanny, but Britanny must at +all costs be brought into obedience to Henry. There were hostile forces +in Angoumois, La Marche, Saintonge, and the Limousin, which had to be +finally destroyed. And besides all this, it was necessary to enforce +Eleanor's rights over Berri, and her disputed claims to supremacy over +Toulouse and Auvergne. Every one of these projects was at once taken in +hand. Henry's chancellor, Thomas Becket, was sent from England in 1158 +at the head of a splendid embassy to the French court, and when Henry +landed in France the success of this mission was declared. A marriage +was arranged between his little son Henry, now three years old, and +Louis' daughter Margaret, aged six months; and the Vexin was to be +restored to Normandy as Margaret's dowry. The English king obtained from +Louis the right to judge as lord of Anjou and seneschal of France +between the claimants to Britanny; his first entry into that province +was with full authority as the officer of France, and the whole army of +Normandy was summoned to Avranches to enforce his judgment. Conan was +made Duke of Britanny under Henry's lordship, and Nantes was given up +into his hands. He secured by treaty with the House of Blois the +fortresses which had fallen into their hands, and before the year was +out he thus saw his inheritance in Anjou and Normandy, as he had before +seen his inheritance in England, completely restored. In November he +conducted the King of France on a magnificent progress through Normandy +and Britanny, not now as a vassal requiring his help, but with all the +pomp of an equal king. + +Meanwhile Henry had been preparing an army to assert his sovereignty +over Toulouse--a sovereignty which would have carried his dominions to +the Mediterranean and the Rhone. The Count of St. Gilles, to whom it had +been pledged by a former Duke of Aquitaine, and who had eighteen years +before refused to surrender it on Eleanor's first marriage, now resisted +the claims of her second husband also, and he was joined by Louis, who +under the altered circumstances took a different view of the legal +rights of Eleanor's husband to suzerainty. To France, indeed, the +question was a matter of life and death. The success of Henry would have +left her hemmed in on three sides by the Angevin dominions, cut off from +the Mediterranean as from the Channel, with the lower Rhone in the hands +of the powerful rival that already held the Seine, the Loire, and the +Garonne. When, therefore, Henry's forces occupied the passes of the +province, and in September 1159 closed round Toulouse itself, Louis +threw himself into the city. Henry, profoundly influenced by the feudal +code of honour of his day, inheriting the traditional loyalty of his +house to the French monarchy, too sagacious lightly to incur war with +France, too politic to weaken in the eyes of his own vassals the +authority of feudal law, and possibly mindful of the succession to the +French throne which might yet pass through Margaret to his son Henry, +refused to carry on war against the person of his suzerain. He broke up +the siege in spite of the urgent advice of his chancellor Thomas; and +for nearly forty years the quarrel lingered on with the French monarchy, +till the question was settled in 1196 by the marriage of Henry's +daughter Joanna to Count Raymond VI. Thomas, who had proved himself a +mighty warrior, was left in charge of the newly-conquered Cahors, while +Henry returned to Normandy, and concluded in May a temporary peace with +Louis. His enemies, however, were drawn together by a common fear, and +France became the battle-ground of the rival ambitions of the Houses of +Blois and Anjou. Louis allied himself with the three brothers of the +House of Blois--the Counts of Champagne, of Sancerre, and of Blois--by a +marriage with their sister only a month after the death of his own queen +in September; and a joint attack was planned upon Henry. His answer was +rapid and decisive. Margaret was in his keeping, and he at once married +her to his son, took the Vexin into his own hands and fortified it with +castles. His position in fact was so strong that the forced his enemies +to a truce in June 1161. + +The political complications with which Henry was surrounded were still +further confused by a new question which now arose, and which was to +threaten the peace of Europe for eighteen years. On the death of the +English Pope, Hadrian IV., on the 1st of September 1159, two rivals, +Alexander III. and Victor IV., disputed the see of Rome, and the strife +between the Empire and the Papacy, now nearly one hundred years old, +broke out afresh on a far greater scale than in the time of Gregory. +Frederick Barbarossa asserted the imperial right of judging between the +rivals, and declared Victor pope, supported by the princes of the Empire +and by the kings of Hungary, Bohemia, and Denmark. Alexander claimed the +aid of the French king--the traditional defender of the Church and +protector of the Popes; and after the strife had raged for nearly three +years, he fled in 1162 to France. In the great schism Henry joined the +side of Louis in support of Alexander and of the orthodox cause; the two +kings met at Chouzy, near Blois, to do honour to the Pope; they walked +on either side of his horse and held his reins. The meeting marked a +great triumph for Alexander; the union of the Teutonic nations against +the policy of Rome was to be delayed for three centuries and a half. It +marked, too, the highest point of Henry's success. He had checked the +Emperor's schemes; he had won the gratitude of both Louis and the Pope; +he had defeated the plots of the House of Blois, and shown how easily +any alliance between France and Champagne might be broken to pieces by +his military power and his astute diplomacy. He had rounded off his +dominions; he had conquered the county of Cahors; he had recovered the +Vexin and the border castles of Fréteval and Amboise; the fiefs of +William of Boulogne had passed into his hands on William's death; he was +master of Nantes and Dol, and lord of Britanny; he had been appointed +Protector of Flanders. + +At this moment, indeed, Henry stood only second to the Emperor among the +princes of Christendom, and his aim seems to have been to rival in +some sort the Empire of the West, and to reign as an over-king, with +sub-kings of his various provinces, and England as one of them, around +him. He was connected with all the great ruling houses. His eldest son +was married to the daughter of the King of France; the baby Richard, +eighteen months old, was betrothed during the war of Toulouse to a +daughter of the King of Aragon. He was himself a distant kinsman of the +Emperor. He was head of the house of the Norman kings in Sicily. He was +nearest heir of the kings of Jerusalem. Through his wife he was head of +the house of Antioch, and claimed to be head of the house of Tripoli. +Already in these first years of his reign the glory of the English king +had been acknowledged by ambassadors from the Emperor, from the King of +Jerusalem, from Norway, from Sweden, from the Moorish kings of Valencia +and Murcia, bearing the gifts of an Eastern world--gold, silk, horses, +and camels. England was forced out of her old isolation; her interest in +the world without was suddenly awakened. English scholars thronged the +foreign universities; English chroniclers questioned travellers, +scholars, ambassadors, as to what was passing abroad. The influence of +English learning and English statecraft made itself felt all over +Europe. Never, perhaps, in all the history of England was there a time +when Englishmen played so great apart abroad. English statesmen and +bishops were set over the conduct of affairs in Provence, in Sicily, in +Gascony, in Britanny, in Normandy. English archbishops and bishops and +abbots held some of the highest posts in France, in Anjou, in Flanders, +in Portugal, in Italy, in Sicily. Henry himself welcomed trained men +from Normandy or Sicily or wherever he could find them, to help in his +work of administration; but in England foreigners were not greatly +welcomed in any place of power, and his court was, with but one or two +exceptions, made up of men who, of whatever descent they might be, +looked on themselves as Englishmen, and bore the impress of English +training. The mass of Englishmen meanwhile looked after their own +affairs and cared nothing about foreign wars fought by Brabançon +mercenaries, and paid for by foreign gold. But if they had nothing to +win from all these wars, they were none the less at last drawn into the +political alliances and sympathies of their master. Shut out as she was +by her narrow strip of sea from any real concern in the military +movements of the continental peoples, England was still dragged by the +policy of her Angevin rulers into all the complications of European +politics. The friendships and the hatreds of her king settled who were +to be the allies and who the foes of England, and practically fixed the +course of her foreign policy for seven hundred years. A traditional +sympathy lingered on from Henry's days with Germany, Italy, Sicily, and +Spain; but the connection with Anjou forced England into a hostility +with France which had no real ground in English feeling or English +interests; the national hatred took a deeper character when the feudal +nobles clung to the support of the French king against the English +sovereign and the English people, and "generation handed on to generation +an enmity whose origin had long been forgotten." From the disastrous +Crusade of 1191, "from the siege of Acre," to use the words of Dr. +Stubbs, "and the battle of Arsouf to the siege of Sebastopol and the +battles of the Crimea, English and French armies never met again except +as enemies." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND + +The building up of his mighty empire was not the only task which filled +the first years of Henry's reign. Side by side with this went on another +work of peaceful internal administration which we can but dimly trace in +the dearth of all written records, but which was ultimately to prove of +far greater significance than the imperial schemes that in the eyes of his +contemporaries took so much larger proportions and shone with so much +brighter lustre. + +The restoration of outward order had not been difficult, for the anarchy +of Stephen's reign, terrible as it was, had only passed over the surface +of the national life and had been vanquished by a single effort. But the +new ruler of England had to begin his work of administration not only +amid the temporary difficulties of a general disorganization, but amid +the more permanent difficulties of a time of transition, when society was +seeking to order itself anew in its passage from the medieval to the +modern world; and his victory over the most obvious and aggressive forms +of disorder was the least part of his task. Through all the time of +anarchy powerful forces had been steadily at work with which the king had +now to reckon. A new temper and new aspirations had been kindled by the +troubles of the last years. The deposition of Stephen, the elections of +Matilda and of Henry, had been so many formal declarations that the king +ruled by virtue of a bargain made between him and his people, and that if +he broke his contract he justly forfeited his authority. The routine of +silent and submissive councils had been broken through, and the earliest +signs of discussion and deliberation had discovered themselves, while the +Church, exerting in its assemblies an authority which the late king had +helplessly laid down, formed a new and effective centre of organized +resistance to tyranny in the future Even the rising towns had seized the +moment when the central administration was paralysed to extend their own +privileges, and to acquire large powers of self-government which were to +prove the fruitful sources of liberty for the whole people. + +We see everywhere, in fact, signs of the great contest which in one form +or another runs through the whole of the twelfth century, and gives its +main interest in our eyes to the English history of the time,--the +struggle between the iron organization of medieval feudalism and those +nascent forces of modern civilization which were fated in the end to +shatter and supersede it. In spite of the cry of lamentation which the +chroniclers carry down to us over the misery of a land stricken by plague +and famine and rapine, it is still plain that even through the terrible +years of Stephen's reign England had its share in the universal movement +by which the squalor and misery of the Middle Ages were giving place to a +larger activity and a better order of things A class unknown before was +fast growing into power,--the middle class of burghers and traders, who +desired above all things order, and hated above all things the medieval +enemy of order, the feudal lord. Merchant and cultivator and wool-grower +found better work ready to their hand than fighting, and the appearance +of mercenary soldiers marked everywhere the development of peaceful +industries. Amid all the confusion of civil war the industrial activities +of the country had developed with bewildering rapidity; while knights and +barons led their foreign hirelings to mutual slaughter, monks and canons +were raising their religious houses in all the waste places of the land, +and silently laying the foundations of English enterprise and English +commerce. To the great body of the Benedictines and the Cluniacs were +added in the middle of the twelfth century the Cistercians, who founded +their houses among the desolate moorlands of Yorkshire in solitary places +which had known no inhabitants since the Conqueror's ravages, or among +the swamps of Lincolnshire. A hundred and fifteen monasteries were built +during the nineteen years of Stephen's reign, more than had been founded +in the whole previous century; a hundred and thirteen were added to these +during the reign of Henry. In half a century sixty-four religious houses +were built in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire alone. Monastery and priory, in +which the decorated Romanesque was giving way to the first-pointed +architecture, towered above the wretched mud-hovels in which the whole of +the population below the class of barons crowded; their churches were +distinguished by the rare and novel luxury of glass windows, which, as +they caught the red light of the setting sun, startled the peasant with +omens of coming ill. Multitudes of men were busied in raising the vast +pile of buildings which made up a religious house,--cloisters, dormitories, +chapels, hospitals, granaries, barns, storehouses, whose foundations when +all else is gone still show in the rugged surface of some modern field. +Regular and secular clergy were alike spurred on in their work by jealous +rivalry. Archbishop Roger of York was at the opening of Henry's reign +building his beautiful church at Ripon, of whose rich decoration traces +still remain, while he gave scant sympathy and encouragement to the +Cistercian monks still busy with the austere mass of buildings which +they had raised at Fountains almost within sight of the Ripon towers. + +We may gain some faint idea of the amazing stir and industry which the +founding of these monasteries implied by following in our modern farms +and pasture lands the traces which may even now be seen of the toil of +these great preachers of labour. The whole water supply of a countryside +for miles round was gathered up by vast drainage works; stagnant pools +were transformed into running waters closed in by embankments, which +still serve as ditches for the modern farmer; swamps were reclaimed that +are only now preserved for cultivation by maintaining the dykes and +channels first cut by medieval monks; mills rose on the banks of the +newly-created streams; roads were made by which the corn of surrounding +villages might be carried to the central mill and the produce of the land +brought to the central storehouse. The new settlers showed a measureless +cunning and industry in reclaiming worthless soil; and so eager were they +for land at last, that the Cistercians were even said to desecrate +churchyards, and to encroach on the borders of royal forests. They grew +famous for the breeding of horses according to the exacting taste of the +day, learned in the various species of palfreys and sumpter horses and +knight's chargers and horses for ambling or for trotting. They thanked +Heaven for the "blessings of fatness and fleeces," as foreign weavers +sought their wool and the gold of Flanders was poured into their +treasure-houses. The same enterprise and energy which in modern days made +England the first manufacturing country of the world was then, in fact, +fast pressing her forward to the place which Australia now holds towards +modern Europe,--the great wool-growing country, the centre from whence +the raw material for commerce was supplied. In vain the Church by its +canons steadily resisted the economic changes of a time when wealth began +to gather again and capital found new uses, and bitterly as it declaimed +against usury and mortgages, angry complaints still increased "that many +people laying aside business practised usury almost openly." + +Nor were the towns behindhand in activity. As yet, indeed, the little +boroughs were for the most part busy in fighting for the most elementary +of liberties--for freedom of trade within the town, for permission to hold +a market, for leave to come and go freely to some great fair, for the right +to buy and sell in some neighbouring borough, for liberty to carry out +their own justice and regulate the affairs of their town. They were buying +from the lord, in whose "demesne" they lay, permission to gather wood in +the forest, right of common in its pasture, the commutation of their +services in harvest-time for "reap-silver," and of their bondage to the +lord's mill for "multure-penny." Or they were fighting a sturdy battle with +the king's justices to preserve some ancient privilege, the right of the +borough perhaps to "swear by itself,"--that is, to a jury of its own or its +freedom from the general custom of "frank-pledge." As trade advanced +commercial bodies grew up in the boroughs and formed themselves into gilds; +and these gilds gradually drew into their own hands the government of the +town, which in old days had been decided by the general voice of the whole +body of its burghers--that is, of those who held land within its walls. +The English borough began, in fact, to resemble the foreign "Commune." +Gilds of bakers, of weavers, of mercers, of fullers, of butchers, +goldsmiths, pepperers, clothiers, and pilgrims appeared in London, York, +Gloucester, Nottingham, even in little boroughs such as that of St. +Edmunds; while in distant Cornwall, Totnes, Lidford, and Bodmin set up +their gilds. How Henry regarded the movement it is hard to say. The gilds +had to pay, as everything had to pay, to the needy Treasury; but otherwise +they were not interfered with, and went on steadily increasing in power and +numbers. + +Prosperity brought with it the struggle for supremacy, and the history of +nations was rehearsed on a petty stage, with equal passions if with less +glory. A thriving village or township would begin to encroach on the +common land of its weaker neighbours, would try to seize some of its +rights of pannage in the forest, or fishing in the stream. But its most +strenuous efforts were given to secure the exclusive right of trading. +Free trade between village and village in England was then, in fact, as +much unknown as free trade at this day between the countries of modern +Europe. Producer, merchant, manufacturer saw in "protection" his only +hope of wealth or security. Jealously enclosed within its own borders, +each borough watched the progress of its neighbours "with anxious +suspicion." If one of them dared defiantly to set up a right to make and +sell its own bread and ale, or if it bought a charter granting the right +to a market, it found itself surrounded by foes. The new market was +clearly an injury to the rights of a neighbouring abbot or baron or town +gild, or it lessened the profits of the "king's market" in some borough +on the royal demesne. Then began a war, half legal, half of lawless +violence. Perhaps the village came off victorious, and kept its new +market on condition that it should never change the day without a royal +order (unless in deference to the governing religious feeling of the +time, it should change it from Sunday to a week day). Perhaps, on the +other hand, it saw its charter vanish, and all the money it had cost with +it, its butchers' and bakers' stalls shattered, its scales carried off, +its ovens destroyed, the "tumbril" for the correction of fraudulent baker +or brewer destroyed. Of such a strife we have an instance in the fight +which the burghers of Wallingford carried on with their neighbours. They +first sought to crush the rising prosperity of Abingdon by declaring that +its fair was an illegal innovation, and that in old days nothing might be +sold in the town save bread and ale. Oxford, which had had a long quarrel +with Abingdon over boat cargoes and river tolls, readily joined in the +attack, but ultimately by the king's judgment Abingdon was declared to +have had right to a "full market", and Wallingford was discomfited. A +little later its wrath was kindled afresh by the men of Crowmarsh, who, +instead of coming to the Wallingford market, actually began to make their +own bread and ale--by what warrant no one knew, said the Wallingford +bakers and brewers. Crowmarsh held out through the later years of Henry's +reign and Richard's, had a sore struggle under John, and at last under +Henry III. saw the officers of justice come down upon them a second time, +and make a general wreck of ovens and "tumbril," while the weights were +carried off to triumphant Wallingford. + +But if an era of industrial activity had opened, the new intellectual +impulse of the time was yet more striking. Great forces had everywhere +worked together under the one name of the Church: the ecclesiastical +organization which was represented in Rome, in the Episcopate, and in the +Canon law; the democratic monachism; the intellectual temper with its +pursuit of pure knowledge; the religious mystical spirit which was +included in all the rest and yet separate from them. But other elements +than these were at work in the twelfth century,--the literary and historic +movement, the legal revival, the new scepticism, the spirit of wide +imperialism, the romantic impulse. Education had up to this time been +wholly undertaken by the Church. The work of teaching had been one of the +main objects of the cathedral; the school and its chancellor were as +essential parts of the foundation as dean or precentor. No rivals to the +cathedral schools existed save those of the monasteries, and education +naturally bore the impress given to it in these great institutions; +profane learning was only valued so far as it could be used to illustrate +the Bible, and the ordinary teaching was almost wholly founded on four or +five authors, who wrote when the struggle of the Empire against the +barbarians was almost over, and who represented the last efforts of a +learning which was ready to vanish. The monastic libraries show how +narrow was the range of reading. The great monastery of Bec had about +fifty books. At Canterbury the library of Christ Church, which a century +later possessed seven hundred volumes, had at this time but a hundred and +fifty. Its single Greek work was a grammar; and if it could boast of a +copy of the Institutes of Justinian, it did not yet possess a single book +of civil law, not even Gratian's _Decretum_. The age of Universities, +however, had now begun, and English scholars went abroad in numbers to +study law at Bologna and the Italian universities, or to learn philosophy +and the arts at Paris, or at some of the less costly schools in Gaul. On +all sides they met with the stir of political and religious speculation. +The crusades and the intercourse with the East had broken down the +boundaries between Christian and Mohammedan thought; the Jews were +teaching science and medicine, and had just brought from the East the +philosophy of Aristotle. France struck the first note of a new literature +in her chronicles, her national poems, and the songs of her troubadours. +All Paris was ringing with the struggle of Abelard and St. Bernard. At +its university Peter Lombard was preparing to publish his _Sentences_, +which were to form the framework for the dogmatic theology of centuries +to come. New theories of liberty were quickened by classical studies +which made men familiar with the heroes of Greece and Rome. Abelard's +disciple, Arnold of Brescia, was preaching his theory of political and +religious freedom; civil government was to return to the old republican +forms of ancient Rome, and the clergy were to be separated from all +secular jurisdiction. In Lombardy the growth of wealth, population, and +trade, demanded a more developed jurisprudence, and a new study had +sprung up of Roman law. Bolognese lawyers lectured on the Pandects of +Justinian, and by their work the whole legal education of the day was +transformed; old prejudices and old traditions lost the authority which +had long hedged them about, and the new code threatened to destroy +everywhere the imperfect systems of the past with which it came in +contact. The revival of the study of civil law was followed by a new +scientific study of Canon law; and a recognized code was for the +first time developed, as well as a minute system of legal procedure, +when Gratian published in 1151 the _Decretum_, a great text-book of +ecclesiastical law. + +Amid all the intellectual activity which surrounded the English students +abroad it is, curious to note what they carried home with them across the +Channel, and what they left simply untouched. The zeal for learning +quickly showed itself in the growth of the Universities. As early as 1133 +Robert Pulleyn was teaching Latin at Oxford. In 1149 Archbishop Theobald +brought to it Master Vacarius, a famous Lombard lawyer, who lectured on +the Civil law until he was expelled by Stephen, half fearful of the new +teaching and half influenced by the pressure of the older and more +conservative of the English bishops. There was much of the foreign +movement, however, which found no place in England. Difference of tongue +shut out Norman and Englishman from the influence of the new Provençal +poetry, and for a century to come England owed nothing to the finished +art of the South. The strip of sea which kept aloof all European tumults +shut out also the speculations in politics and government which were +making their way abroad. Even the religious movement which overran one +half of France under the Albigenses, or that which counted its followers +and martyrs by multitudes in Flanders never crossed the Channel, in spite +of the constant intercourse between the peoples; and missionaries from +Germany during the reign of Henry only succeeded in converting one poor +woman in England who immediately recanted. It was in other directions +that the energies of the people found their exercise. If Englishmen were +heedless of foreign philosophers, they were quick to notice that the +fruit of the vine had failed, and forthwith the unheard-of novelty of +taverns where beer and mead were sold sprang up in France, probably by +the help of those English traders whose beer was the marvel of Frenchmen. + +It was these new conditions of the national life which constituted the +real problem of government--a problem far more slow and difficult to work +out than the mere suppression of a turbulent baronage. In the rapid +movement towards material prosperity, the energies of the people were in +all directions breaking away from the channels and limits in which they +had been so long confined. Rules which had been sufficient for the +guidance of a simple society began to break down under the new fullness +and complexity of the national life, and the simple decisions by which +questions of property and public order had been solved in earlier times +were no longer possible. Moreover, a new confusion and uncertainty had +been brought into the law in the last hundred years by the effort to fuse +together Norman and English custom. Norman landlord or Norman sheriff +naturally knew little of English law or custom, and his tendency was +always to enforce the feudal rules which he practised on his Norman +estates. In course of time it came about that all questions of land-tenure +and of the relations of classes were regulated by a kind of double system. +The Englishman as well as the Norman became the "man" of his lord as in +Norman law, and was bound by the duties which this involved. On the other +hand, the Norman as well as the Englishman held his land subject to the +customary burdens and rights recognized by English law. Both races were +thus made equal before the law, and no legal distinction was recognized +between conqueror and conquered. There was, however, every element of +confusion and perplexity in the theory and administration of the law +itself, in the variety of systems which were contending for the mastery, +and in the inefficiency of the courts in which they were applied. English +law had grown up out of Teutonic custom, into which Roman tradition had +been slowly filtering through the Dark Ages Feudal law still bore traces +of its double origin in the system of the Teutonic "comitatus" and of the +Roman "beneficium." Forest law, which governed the vast extent of the +king's domains, was bound neither by Norman forms nor by English +traditions, but was framed absolutely at the king's will. Canon law had +been developed out of customs and precedents which had served to regulate +the first Christian communities, and which had been largely formed out of +the civil law of Rome. There was a multitude of local customs which +varied in every hundred and in every manor, and which were preserved by +the jealousy that prevailed between one village and another, the strong +sense of local life and jurisdiction, and the strict adherence to +immemorial traditions. + +These different codes of law were administered in various courts of +divers origins. The tenant-in-chief of the king who was rich enough had +his cause carried to the King's Court of barons, where he was tried by his +peers. The poorer vassals, with the mass of the people, sought such +justice as was to be had in the old English courts, the Shire Court held +by the sheriff, and, where this survived, the Hundred Court summoned by +the bailiff. The lowest orders of the peasant class, shut out from the +royal courts, could only plead in questions of property in the manor +courts of their lords. The governing bodies of the richer towns were +winning the right to exercise absolute jurisdiction over the burghers +within their own walls. The Forest courts were held by royal officers, who +were themselves exempt from all jurisdiction save that of the king. And +under one plea or another all men in the State were liable for certain +causes to be brought under the jurisdiction of the newly established +Church courts. This system of conflicting laws was an endless source of +perplexity. The country was moreover divided into two nationalities, who +imperfectly understood one another's customary rights; and it was further +broken into various classes which stood in different relations to the law. +Those who had sufficient property were not only deemed entirely +trustworthy themselves, but were also considered answerable for the men +under them; a second class of freeholders held property sufficient to +serve as security for their own good behaviour, but not sufficient to make +them pledges for others; there was a third and lower class without +property, for whose good conduct the law required the pledge of some +superior. In a state of things so complicated, so uncertain and so +shifting, it is hard to understand how justice can ever have been +secured; nor, indeed, could any general order have been preserved, +save for the fact that these early courts of law, having all sprung +out of the same conditions of primitive life, and being all more or +less influenced and so brought to some common likeness by the Roman +law, did not differ very materially in their view of the relations +between the subjects of the State, and fundamentally administered the +same justice. Until this time too there had been but little legal +business to bring before the courts. There was practically no commerce; +there was little sale of land; questions of property were defined within +very narrow limits; a mass of contracts, bills of exchange, and all the +complicated transactions which trade brings with it, were only beginning +to be known. As soon, however, as industry developed, and the needs of a +growing society made themselves felt, the imperfections of the old order +became intolerable. The rude methods and savage punishments of the law +grew more and more burdensome as the number of trials increased; and the +popular courts were found to be fast breaking down under the weight of +their own ignorance and inefficiency. + +The most important of these was the Shire Court. It still retained its +old constitution; it preserved some tradition of a tribunal where the +king was not the sole fountain of justice, and the memory of a law which +was not the "king's law." It administered the old customary English +codes, and carried on its business by the old procedure. There came to it +the lords of the manors with their stewards, the abbots and priors of the +county with their officers, the legal men of the hundreds who were +qualified by holding property or by social freedom, and from every +township the parish priest, with the reeve and four men, the smiths, +farmers, millers, carpenters, who had been chosen in the little community +to represent their neighbours; and along with them stood the pledges, the +witnesses, the finders of dead bodies, men suspected of crime. The court +was, in fact, a great public meeting of the whole county; there was no +rank or order which did not send some of its number to swell the confused +crowd that stood round the sheriff. The criminal was generally put on his +trial by accusation of an injured neighbour, who, accompanied by his +friends, swore that he did not bring his charge for hatred, or for envy, +or for unlawful lust of gain. The defendant claimed the testimony of his +lord, and further proved his innocence by a simple or threefold +compurgation--that is, by the oath of a certain number of freemen among +his neighbours, whose property gave them the required value in the eye of +the law, and who swore together as "compurgators" that they believed his +oath of denial to be "clean and unperjured." The faith of the compurgator +was measured by his landed property, and the value of the joint-oath which +was required depended on a most intricate and baffling set of arithmetical +calculations, and differed according to the kind of crime, the rank of the +criminal, and the amount of property which was in dispute, besides other +differences dependent on local customs. Witnesses might also be called +from among neighbours who held property and were acquainted with the facts +to which they would "dare" to swear. The final judgment was given by +acclamation of the "suitors" of the court--that is, by the owners of +property and the elected men of the hundreds or townships; in other words, +by the public opinion of the neighbourhood. If the accused man were of bad +character by common report, or if he could find no friends to swear in his +behalf, "the oath burst," and there remained for him only the ordeal or +trial by battle, which he might accept or refuse at his own peril. In the +simple ordeal he dipped his hand in boiling water to the wrist, or carried +a bar of redhot iron three paces. If in consequence of his lord's +testimony being against him the triple ordeal was used, he had to plunge +his arm in water up to the elbow, or to carry the iron for nine paces. If +he were condemned to the ordeal by water, his death seems to have been +certain, since sinking was the sign of innocence, and if the prisoner +floated he was put to death as guilty. The other alternative, trial by +battle, which had been introduced by the Normans, was extremely unpopular +in England; it told hardly against men who were weak or untrained to arms, +or against the man of humble birth, who was allowed against his armed +opponent neither horse nor the arms of a knight, but simply a leathern +jacket, a shield of leather or wood, and a stick without knots or points. + +At the beginning of the reign of Henry II, the Shire courts seem to have +been nearly as bad as they could be. Scarcely any attempt had been made, +perhaps none had till now been greatly needed, to improve a system which +had grown up in a dim and ruder past. The Norman kings, indeed, had +introduced into England a new method of deciding doubtful questions of +property by the "recognition" of sworn witness instead of by the English +process of compurgation or ordeal. Twelve men, who must be freemen and +hold property, were chosen from the neighbourhood, and as "jurors" were +sworn to state truly what they knew about the question in dispute, and +the matter was decided according to their witness or "recognition." If +those who were summoned were unacquainted with the facts, they were +dismissed and others called; if they knew the facts but differed in their +statement, others were added to their number, till twelve at least were +found whose testimony agreed together. These inquests on oath had +been used by the Conqueror for fiscal purposes in the drawing up of +Doomsday Book. From that time special "writs" from king or justice were +occasionally granted, by which cases were withdrawn from the usual modes +of trial in the local courts, and were decided by the method of +recognition, which undoubtedly provided a far better chance of justice +to the suitor, replacing as it did the rude appeal to the ordeal or to +battle by the sworn testimony of the chosen representatives, the good men +and true, of the neighbourhood. But the custom was not yet governed by any +positive and inviolable rules, and the action of the King's Court in this +respect was imperfectly developed, uncertain, and irregular. + +It is scarcely possible, indeed, to estimate the difficulties in the way +of justice when Henry came to the throne. The wretched freeholders +summoned to the Shire Court from farm and cattle, from mill or anvil +or carpenter's bench, knew well the terrors of the journey through marsh +and fen and forest, the dangers of flood and torrent, and perhaps of +outlawed thief or murderer, the privations and hardships of the way; and +the heavy fines which occur in the king's rolls for non-attendance show +how anxiously great numbers of the suitors avoided joining in the +troublesome and thankless business of the court. When they reached the +place of trial a strange medley of business awaited them as questions +arose of criminal jurisdiction, of feudal tenure, of English "sac and +soc," of Norman franchises and Saxon liberties, with procedure sometimes +of the one people, sometimes of the other. The days dragged painfully on +as, without any help from trained lawyers, the "suitors" sought to settle +perplexed questions between opposing claims of national, provincial, +ecclesiastical, and civic laws, or made arduous journeys to visit the +scene of some murder or outrage, or sought for evidence on some difficult +problem of fact. Evidence, indeed, was not easy to find when the question +in dispute dated perhaps from some time before the civil war and the +suppression of the sheriff's courts, for no written record was ever kept +of the proceedings in court, and everything depended on the memory of +witnesses. The difficulties of taking evidence by compurgation increased +daily. A method which centuries before had been successfully applied to +the local crimes of small and stationary communities bound together by the +closest ties of kinship and of fellowship in possession of the soil, when +every transaction was inevitably known to the whole village or township, +became useless when new social and industrial conditions had destroyed the +older and simpler modes of life. The procedure of the courts was +antiquated and no longer guided by consistent principles. Their modes of +trial were so cumbrous, formal, and inflexible that it was scarcely +possible to avoid some minute technical mistake which might invalidate +the final decision. + +The business of the larger courts, too, was for the most part carried on +in French under sheriff, or bailiff, or lord of the manor. The Norman +nobles did not know Latin, they were but gradually learning English; the +bulk of the lesser clergy perhaps spoke Latin, but did not know Norman; +the poorer people spoke only English; the clerks who from this time began +to note down the proceedings of the king's judges in Latin must often +have been puzzled by dialects of English strange to him. When each side +in a trial claimed its own customary law, and neither side understood the +speech of the other, the president of the court had every temptation to +be despotic and corrupt, and the interpreter between him and his suitors +became an important person who had much influence in deciding what mode +of procedure was to be followed. The sheriff, often holding a hereditary +post and fearing therefore no check to his despotism, added to the burden +of the unhappy freeholders by a custom of summoning at his own fancy +special courts, and laying heavy fines on those who did not attend them. +Even when the law was fairly administered there was a growing number of +cases in which the rigid forms of the court actually inflicted injustice, +as questions constantly arose which lay far outside the limits of the old +customary law of the Germanic tribes, or of the scanty knowledge of Roman +law which had penetrated into other codes. The men of that day looked too +often with utter hopelessness to the administration of justice; there was +no peril so great in all the dangers that surrounded their lives as the +peril of the law; there was no oppression so cruel as the oppression +wrought by the harsh and rigid forms of the courts. From such calamities +the miserable and despairing victims could look for no help save from the +miraculous aid of the saints; and society at that time, as indeed it has +been known to do in later days, was for ever appealing from the iniquity +of law to God,--to a God who protected murderers if they murdered Jews, +and defended robbers if they plundered usurers, who was, indeed, above +all law, and was supposed to distribute a violent and arbitrary justice, +answering to the vulgar notion of an equity unknown on earth. + +We catch a glimpse of a trial of the time in the story of a certain +Ailward, whose neighbour had refused to pay a debt which he owed him. +Ailward took the law into his own hands, and broke into the house of his +debtor, who had gone to the tavern and had left his door fastened with +the lock hanging down outside, and his children playing within. Ailward +carried off as security for his debt the lock, a gimlet, and some tools, +and a whetstone which hung from the roof. As he sauntered home, however, +his furious neighbour overtook him, having heard from the children what +had been done. He snatched the whetstone from Ailward's hand and dealt +him a blow on the head with it, stabbed him in the arm with a knife, and +then triumphantly carried him to the house which, he had robbed, and +there bound him as "an open thief" with the stolen goods upon him. A +crowd gathered round, and an evil fellow, one Fulk, the apparitor, an +underling of the sheriff employed to summon criminals to the court, +remarked that as a thief could not legally be mutilated unless he had +taken to the value of a shilling, it would be well to add a few articles +to the list of stolen goods. Perhaps Ailward had won ill-fame as a +creditor, or even, it may be, a money-lender in the village, for his +neighbours clearly bore him little goodwill. The crowd readily consented. +A few odds and ends were gathered--a bundle of skins, gowns, linen, and +an iron tool,--and were laid by Ailward's side; and the next day, with +the bundle hung about his neck, he was taken before the sheriff and the +knights, who were then holding a Shire Court. The matter was thought +doubtful; judgment was delayed, and Ailward was made fast in Bedford +jail for a month, till the next county court. There the luckless man sent +for a priest of the neighbourhood, and confessing his sins from his youth +up, he was bidden to hope in the prayers of the blessed Virgin and of all +the saints against the awful terrors of the law, and received a rod to +scourge himself five times daily; while through the gloom shone the +glimmer of hope that having been baptized on the vigil of Pentecost, +water could not drown him nor fire burn him if he were sent to the +ordeal. At last the month went by and he was again carried to the Shire +Court, now at Leighton Buzzard. In vain he demanded single combat with +Fulk, or the ordeal by fire; Fulk, who had been bribed with an ox, +insisted on the ordeal of water, so that he should by no means escape. +Another month passed in the jail of Bedford before he was given up to be +examined by the ordeal. Whether he underwent it or whether he pleaded +guilty when the judges met is uncertain, but however this might be, "he +received the melancholy sentence of condemnation; and being taken to the +place of punishment, his eyes were pulled out and he was mutilated, and +his members were buried in the earth in the presence of a multitude of +persons." + +Nor was there for the mass of the people any real help or security to be +found in an appeal to the supreme tribunal of the realm where the king +sat in council with his ministers. This still remained a tribunal of +exceptional resort to which appeals were rare. There was one Richard +Anesty, who, in these first years of Henry's reign, desired to prove in +the King's Court his right to hold a certain property. For five years +Richard, his brother, and a multitude of helpers, were incessantly busied +in this arduous task. The court followed the king, and the king might be +anywhere from York to the Garonne. The unhappy suitor might well have +joined in a complaint once made by a secretary of Henry in search of his +master: "Solomon saith there be three things difficult to be found out, +and a fourth which may hardly be discovered: the way of an eagle in the +air; the way of a ship in the sea; the way of a serpent on the ground; +and the way of a man in his youth. I can add a fifth: the way of a king +in England." The whole business now done by post had then to be carried +on by laborious journeyings, in which we hear again and again that horses +died on the road; if a writ were needed from king or queen, if the royal +seal were required, or a certificate from a bishop, or a letter from an +archbishop, special messengers posted across country; then the writ must +be carried in the same way to York, Lincoln, or elsewhere to be examined +by some famous lawyer, sometimes an Italian learned in the last legal +fashions of the day; perhaps it was pronounced faulty, or it might be +that the seal of justiciar or archbishop was refused on its return from +the lawyer, and the same business had to begin all over again; twice +messengers had to be sent to Rome, the journey each way taking at least +forty days of incessant and dangerous travelling. When at last the +appointed day for judgment by the justiciar came, friends, helpers, and +witnesses had to be called together in the same laborious way, and +transported at great cost to the place of trial, and there kept waiting +till news was brought that the plea could not then be heard; and thus +again and again the luckless suitor was summoned, each time to a +different town in England. In every town he was forced by his necessities +to borrow money from some Jew, who demanded about eighty-seven per cent +for the loan; and when at last, as Richard was worn out with the delays +of justiciars, Henry appeared on the scene, and, "thanks to our lord the +king," the land was adjudged to the suitor, he had to raise fresh money +to fee the lawyers, the bishop's staff, the officers of the King's Court, +the king's physicians, the king and queen, besides the sums which must be +given to his helpers and pleaders. The end of the story leaves him +mournfully counting up a long list of Jewish creditors, who bid fair to +exhaust the profits of his new possessions. + +Such were in brief outline some of the difficulties which made order and +justice hard to win. Society was helpless to protect itself: news spread +slowly, the communication of thought was difficult, common action was +impossible. Amid all the shifting and half understood problems of +medieval times there was only one power to which men could look to protect +them against lawlessness, and that was the power of the king. No external +restraints were set upon his action; his will was without contradiction. +The medieval world with fervent faith believed that he was the very spring +and source of justice. In an age when all about him was changing, and when +there was no organized machinery for the administration of law, the king +had himself to be judge, lawgiver, soldier, financier, and administrator; +the great highways and rivers of the kingdom were in "his peace;" the +greater towns were in his demesne; he was guardian of the poor and +defender of the trader; he was finance minister in a society where +economic conditions were rapidly changing; here presented a developed +system of law as opposed to the primitive customs of feud and private war; +he was the only arbiter of questions that grew out of the new conflict of +classes and interests; he alone could decree laws at his absolute will and +pleasure, and could command the power to carry out his decrees; there was +not even a professional lawyer who was not in his court and bound to his +service. + +Henry saw and used his opportunity. Even as a youth of twenty-one he +assumed absolute control in his courts with a knowledge and capacity which +made him fully able to meet trained lawyers, such as his chancellor, +Thomas, or his justiciar, De Lucy. Cool, businesslike, and prompt, he set +himself to meet the vast mass of arrears, the questions of jurisdiction +and of disputed property, which had arisen even as far back as the time of +Henry I., and had gone unsettled through the whole reign of Stephen, to +the ruin and havoc of the lands in question. He examined every charter +that came before him; if any was imperfect he was ready to draw one up +with his own hand; he watched every difficult point of law, noted every +technical detail, laid down his own position with brief decision. In the +uncertain and transitional state of the law the king's personal +interference knew scarcely any limits, and Henry used his power freely. +But his unswerving justice never faltered. Gilbert de Bailleul, in some +claim to property, ventured to make light of the charter of Henry I., by +which it was held. The king's wrath blazed up. "By the eyes of God," he +cried, "if you can prove this charter false, it would be worth a thousand +pounds to me! If," he went on, "the monks here could present such a +charter to prove their possession of Clarendon, which I love above all +places, there is no pretence by which I could refuse to give it up to +them!" + +It is hard to realise the amazing physical endurance and activity which +was needed to do the work of a medieval king. Henry was never at rest. It +was only by the most arduous labour, by travel, by readiness of access to +all men, by inexhaustible patience in weighing complaint and criticism, +that he learned how the law actually worked in the remotest corners of +his land. He was scarcely ever a week in the same place; his life in +England was spent in continual progresses from south to north, from east +to west. The journeyings by rough trackways through "desert" and swamp +and forest, through the bleak moorlands of the Pennine Hills, or the +thickets and fens that choked the lower grounds, proved indeed a sore +trial for the temper of his courtiers; and bitter were the complaints of +the hardships that fell to the lot of the disorderly train that swept +after the king, the army of secretaries and lawyers, the mail-clad +knights and barons followed by their retainers, the archbishop and his +household, bishops and abbots and judges and suitors, with the "actors, +singers, dicers, confectioners, huxters, gamblers, buffoons, barbers, who +diligently followed the court." Knights and barons and clerks, accustomed +to the plenty and comfort of palace and castle, found themselves at the +mercy of every freak of the king's marshals, who on the least excuse +would roughly thrust them out into the night from the miserable hut in +which they sought shelter and cut loose their horses' halters, and whose +hearts were hardly softened by heavy bribes. They were often half-starved; +if food was to be had at all, it was at the best stale fish, sour beer and +wine, coarse black bread, and meat scarcely eatable, even with the rough +appetite of travellers of that age. Matters were made ten times worse by +Henry's mode of travelling. "If the king has proclaimed that he intends to +stop late in any place, you may be sure that he will start very early in +the morning, and with his sudden haste destroy every one's plans. It often +happens that those who have let blood or taken medicine are obliged at the +hazard of their lives to follow. You will see men running about like mad; +urging forward their pack-horses, driving their waggons into one another, +everything in confusion, as if hell had broken loose. Whereas, if the king +has given out that he will start early in the morning, he will certainly +change his mind, and you may be sure he will snore till noon. You will see +the pack-horses drooping under their loads, waggons waiting, drivers +nodding, tradesmen fretting, all grumbling at one another. Men hurry to +ask the loose women and the liquor retailers who follow the court when the +king will start; for these are the people who know most of the secrets of +the court." Sometimes, on the other hand, when the din of the camp was +silenced for a while in sleep, a sudden message from the royal lodging +would again set all in commotion. A wild clatter of horsemen and footmen +would fill the darkness. The stout pack-horses, probably borrowed from a +neighbouring monastery to carry the heavy Rolls in which state business +was chronicled, were hastily laden. Baggage of every kind was slung across +the backs of horses, or stowed into cumbrous two-wheeled waggons made of +rough planks, or of laths covered with twisted osiers, which had been +seized from farmer or peasant for the king's journey. The forerunners +pushed on in front to give notice of the king's arrival, and in the dim +morning light the motley train of riders at last crowded along the narrow +trackway, followed heavily by the waggons dragged by single file of +horses, which too often foundered in the muddy hollows, or half-plunged +into the torrents through rents and chasms in the low, narrow bridges that +threatened at every instant to crumble away under the strain. But before +the weary day's journey was over the king would suddenly change his mind, +stop short of the town towards which all were toiling in hope of food and +shelter, and turn aside to some spot in the woods where there was perhaps +a solitary hut and food only for himself: "And I believe, if I dare to say +so, that he took delight in our distresses," groans the poor secretary as +he pictures the knights wandering by twos and threes in the thickets, +separated in the darkness from their followers, and drawing their swords +one against another in furious strife for the possession of some shelter +for which pigs would scarcely have quarrelled. "Oh, Lord God Almighty," +he ends, "turn and convert the heart of the king from this pestilent +habit, that he may know himself to be but man, and that he may show a +royal mercy and human compassion to those who are driven after him not +by ambition but by necessity." + +But at whatever inconvenience to his courtiers Henry carried out his +own purposes, and kept pace with the enormous mass of business that came +to him. In all his hurried journeys we see busy royal clerks scribbling +away at each halt charters, grants, letters patent and letters close, the +king too fighting, riding, dictating, signing, sometimes dating his +letters from three places on the same day. A travelling king such as this +was well known to all his people. He was no constitutional fiction, but a +living man; his character, his look and presence, his oaths and jests, +his wrath, all were noted and talked over; the chroniclers who followed +his court with their gossip and their graver news spread the knowledge of +his doings. A new sense of law and justice grew up under a sovereign who +himself journeyed through the length and breadth of the land, subduing +the unruly, hearing pleas, revising unjust sentences, drawing up charters +with his own hand, setting the machinery of government to work from end +to end of England. More than this, the king himself had learned to know +his people. He had seen for himself the castles of the barons, the huts +of the peasants, the little villages in the clearings; he had seen the +sheriff sitting in the shire court, the lord of the manor doing justice +in his "hall-moot," the bishop and archdeacon dispensing the law in the +church courts. By his sudden journeys, his unexpected movements and rapid +change of plans, he arrived at the very moment and the very place where +no one looked for him; nothing was safe from his eye and ear; no false +sheriff or rebellious lord could be sure when his terrible master might +be at his doors. Foreigner as the king was, there was soon no Englishman +who knew the affairs of his kingdom so well. His penetrating curiosity, +his wide experience, his practised judgment, rapidly made him one of the +most sagacious administrators and wisest legislators that ever guided +England in a very critical moment of her history; and when he finally +drew up his system of reform there was not a single point of principle in +it from which he or his successors found it necessary afterwards to draw +back. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +THE FIRST REFORMS + +Henry began his work of reorganization by taking up the work which his +grandfather had begun--that of replacing the mere arbitrary power of the +sovereign by a uniform system of administration, and bringing into order +the various conflicting authorities which had been handed down from +ancient times, royal courts and manor courts, church courts, shire +courts, hundred courts, forest courts, and local courts in special +franchises, with all their inextricable confusion of law and custom and +procedure. Under Henry I. two courts, the _Exchequer_ and the _Curia +Regis_, had control of all the financial and judicial business of the +kingdom. The Exchequer filled a far more important place in the national +life than the Curia Regis, for the power of the king was simply measured +by the state of the treasury, when wars began to be fought by mercenaries, +and justice to be administered by paid officials. The court had to keep a +careful watch over the provincial accounts, over the moneys received from +the king's domains, and the fines from the local courts. It had to +regulate changes in the mode of payment as the use of money gradually +replaced the custom of payments in kind. It had to watch alterations in +the ownership and cultivation of land, to modify the settlement of +Doomsday Book so as to meet new conditions, and to make new distribution +of taxes. There was no class of questions concerning property in the most +remote way which might not be brought before its judges for decision. +Twice a year the officers of the royal household, the Chancellor, +Treasurer, two Chamberlains, Constable, and Marshal, with a few barons +chosen from their knowledge of the law, sat with the Justiciar at their +head, as "Barons of the Exchequer" in the palace at Westminster, round +the table covered with its "chequered" cloth from which they took their +name. In one chamber, the Exchequer of Account, the "Barons" received the +reports of the sheriffs from every county, and fixed the sums to be +levied. In a second chamber, the Exchequer of Receipt, the sheriff or +tax-farmer paid in his dues and took his receipts. The accounts were +carefully entered on the treasurer's roll, which was called from its +shape the Great Roll of the Pipe, and which may still be seen in our +Record Office; the chancellor kept a duplicate of this, known as the Roll +of the Chancery; and an officer of the king registered in a third Roll +matters of any special importance. Before the death of Henry I. the vast +amount and the complexity of business in the Exchequer Court made it +impossible that it should any longer be carried on wholly in London. The +"Barons" began to travel as itinerant judges through the country; as the +king's special officers they held courts in the provinces, where difficult +local questions were tried and decided on the spot. So important did the +work of finance become that the study of the Exchequer is in effect the +key to English history at this time. It was not from any philosophic love +of good government, but because the license of outrage would have +interrupted there turns of the revenue that Henry I. claimed the title of +the "Lion of justice." It was in great measure from a wish to sweep the +fees of the Church courts into the royal Hoard that the second Henry began +the strife with Becket in the Constitutions of Clarendon, and the increase +of revenue was the efficient cause of the great reforms of justice which +form the glory of his reign. It was the fount of English law and English +freedom. + +The Curia Regis was composed of the same great officers of the household +as those who sat in the Exchequer, and of a few men chosen by the king +for their legal learning; but in this court they were not known as +"Barons" but as "Justices," and their head was the Chief Justice. The +Curia Regis dealt with legal business, with all causes in which the +king's interest was concerned, with appeals from the local courts, and +from vassals who were too strong to submit to their arbitration, with +pleas from wealthy barons who had bought the privilege of laying their +suit before the king, besides all the perplexed questions which lay far +beyond the powers of the customary courts, and in which the equitable +judgment of the king himself was required. In theory its powers were +great, but in practice little business was actually brought to it in the +time of Henry I; the distance of the court from country places, and the +expense of carrying a suit to it, would alone have proved an effectual +hindrance to its usefulness, even if the rules by which it was guided had +been much more complete and satisfactory than they actually were. + +The routine of this system of administration, as well as the mass of +business to be done, effectually interfered with arbitrary action on the +king's part, and the regular and methodical work of the organized courts +gave to the people a fair measure of protection against the tyranny or +caprice of the sovereign. But the royal power which was given over to +justices and barons did not pass out of the hands of the king. He was +still in theory the fount of all authority and law, and could, whenever +he chose, resume the powers that he had granted. His control was never +relaxed; and in later days we find that while judges on circuit who gave +unjust judgment were summoned before the Curia Regis at Westminster, the +judges of the Curia Regis itself were called for trial before the king +himself in his council. + +The reorganization of these courts was fast completed under Henry's great +justiciar, De Lucy, and the chancellor Thomas. The next few years show an +amount of work done in every department of government which is simply +astonishing. The clerks of the Exchequer took up the accounts and began +once more regular entries in the Pipe Roll; plans of taxation were +devised to fill the empty hoard, and to check the misery and tyranny +under which the tax payers groaned. The king ordered a new coinage which +should establish a uniform system of money over the whole land. As late +as the reign of Henry I. the dues were paid in kind, and the sheriffs +took their receipts for honey, fowls, eggs, corn, wax, wool, beer, oxen, +dogs, or hawks. When, by Henry's orders, all payments were first made in +coin to the Exchequer, the immediate convenience was great, but the state +of the coinage made the change tell heavily against the crown. It was +impossible to adulterate dues in kind; it was easy to debase the coin +when they were paid in money, and that money received by weight, whether +it were coin from the royal mints, or the local coinages that had +continued from the time of the early English kingdoms, or debased money +from the private mints of the barons. Roger of Salisbury, in fact, when +placed at the head of the Exchequer, found a great difference between the +weight and the actual value of the coin received. He fell back on a +simple expedient; in many places there had been a provision as old at +least as Doomsday, which enacted that the money weighed out for town-geld +should if needful be tested by re-melting. The treasurer extended this to +the whole system of the Exchequer. He ordered that all money brought to +the Exchequer should itself be tested, and the difference between its +weight and real value paid by the sheriff who brought it. The burden thus +fell on the country, for the sheriff would of course protect himself as +far as he could by exacting the same tests on all sums paid to him. If +the pound was worth but ten shillings in the market, no doubt the sheriff +only took it for ten shillings in his court. Practically each tax, each +due, must have been at least doubled, and the sheriff himself was at the +mercy of the Exchequer moneyers. There was but one way to remedy the +evil, by securing the purity of the coin, and twice during his reign +Henry made this his special care. + +In the absence of records we can only dimly trace the work of legal reform +which was carried out by Henry's legal officers; but it is plain that +before 1164 certain great changes had already been fully established. A +new and elaborate system of rules seems gradually to have been drawn up +for the guidance of the justices who sat in the Curia Regis; and a new set +of legal remedies in course of time made the chances of justice in this +court greater than in any other court of the realm. The _Great Assize_, an +edict whose date is uncertain, but which was probably issued during the +first years of his reign, developed and set in full working order the +imperfect system of "recognition" established by the Norman kings. +Henceforth the man, whose right to his freehold was disputed, need but +apply to the Curia Regis to issue an order that all proceedings in the +local courts should be stopped until the "recognition" of twelve chosen +men had decided who was the rightful owner according to the common +knowledge of the district, and the barbarous foreign custom of settling +the matter by combat was done away with. Under the new system the Curia +Regis eventually became the recognized court of appeal for the whole +kingdom. So great a mass of business was drawn under its control that the +king and his regular ministers could no longer suffice for the work, and +new judges had to be added to the former staff; and at last the positions +of the two chief courts of the kingdom were reversed, and the King's Court +took the foremost place in the amount and importance of its business. + +The same system of trial by sworn witnesses was also gradually extended +to the local courts. By the new-fashioned royal system the legal men of +hundreds and townships, the knights and freeholders, were ordered to +search out the criminals of their district, and "present" them for trial +at the Shire Court,--something after the fashion of the "grand jury" of +to-day, save that in early times the jurors had themselves to bear +witness, to declare what they knew of the prisoner's character, to say if +stolen goods had been divided in a certain barn, to testify to a coat by +a patch on the shoulder. By a slow series of changes which wholly +reversed their duties, the "legal men" of the juries of "presentment" and +of "recognition" were gradually transformed into the "jury" of to-day; +and even now curious traces survive in our courts of the work done by the +ancestors of the modern jury. In criminal cases in Scotland the oath +still administered by the clerk to jurymen carries us back to an ancient +time: "You fifteen swear by Almighty God, and as you shall answer to God +at the great day of judgment, you will truth say and no truth conceal, in +so far as you are to pass on this assize." + +The provincial administration was set in working order. New sheriffs took +up again the administration of the shires, and judges from the King's +Court travelled, as they had done in the time of Henry I., through the +land. The worst fears of the baronage were justified. They were disabled +by one blow after another. Their political humiliation was complete. The +heirs of the great lords who had followed the Conqueror, and who with +their vast estates in Normandy and in England had inherited the arrogant +pretensions of their fathers, found themselves of little account in the +national councils. The mercenary forces were no longer at their disposal. +The sources of wealth which they had found in plunder and in private +coinage were cut off. Their rights of jurisdiction were curtailed. A +final blow was struck at their military power by the adoption of scutage. +In the Welsh campaign of 1157 Henry opened his military reforms by +introducing a system new to England in the formation of his army. Every +two knights bound to service were ordered to furnish in their place one +knight who should remain with the king's army as long as he required. It +was the first step towards getting rid of the cumbrous machinery of the +feudal array, and securing an efficient and manageable force which should +be absolutely at the king's control. In the war of Toulouse in 1159 the +problem was for the first time raised as to the obligation of feudal +vassals to foreign service, and Henry gladly seized the opportunity to +carry out his plan yet more fully. The chief vassals who were unwilling +to join the army were allowed to pay a fixed tax or "scutage" instead of +giving their personal service. Henry, the chroniclers tell us, careful of +his people's prosperity, was anxious not to annoy the knights throughout +the country, nor the men of the rising towns, nor the body of yeomen, by +dragging them to foreign war against their will; at the same time he +himself profited greatly by the change. The new system broke up the old +feudal array, and set the king at the head of something like a standing +army paid by the taxes of the barons. + +Henry had, indeed, won a signal victory over feudalism. But feudalism had +no roots on English soil; it was forced to borrow Brabançons, and to work +by means alien to the whole feudal tradition and system, and Henry had +easily overthrown the baronage by the help of the Church. But in the +process the ecclesiastical party had learned to know its strength, and the +king had to meet a more formidable resistance to his will when, instead of +a lawless baronage, he was confronted by the Church with its mighty +organization, always vigilant and menacing. The clergy had from the first +looked with a very jealous eye on his projects. A sharp quarrel as to the +jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts had early arisen between Henry +and Archbishop Theobald, but the matter had been compromised for a time. +Thomas had taken office pledged to defend ecclesiastical interests, and he +was so far true to his pledge, that while he was chancellor he put an end +to the abuse of keeping bishoprics and abbeys vacant. He had, however, as +was said at the time, "put off the deacon" to put on the chancellor; and +in an ecclesiastical trial which took place soon after Henry's crowning, +he appears as an energetic exponent of the king's legal views. A dispute +had raged for years as to the jurisdiction of the bishops of Chichester +over the abbots of Battle. On Henry's accession Bishop Hilary of +Chichester vigorously renewed the struggle, and a great trial was held +in May 1157 to decide the matter. Hilary failing after much discussion to +effect a compromise, emphatically and solemnly declared in words such as +Henry was to hear a few years later from another mouth, that there were +two powers, secular and spiritual, and that the secular authority could +not interfere with the spiritual jurisdiction, or depose any bishop or +ecclesiastic without leave from Rome. "True enough, he cannot be +'deposed,'" cried the young king, "but by a shove like this he may be +clean thrust out!" and he suited the action to the words. A laugh ran +round the assembly at the king's jest; but Hilary, taking no notice of +the hint, went on to urge that no layman, not even the king, could by the +law of Rome confer ecclesiastical dignity or exemptions without the Pope's +leave and confirmation. "What next!" broke in Henry angrily, "you think +with your practised cunning to set yourself up against the authority of +my kingly prerogative granted me by God Himself! I command you by the +allegiance you have sworn to keep within proper bounds language against my +crown and dignity!" A general clamour rose against the prelate, and the +chancellor, louder than the rest, talked of the bishop's oath of fealty to +the king, and warned him to take heed to himself. Hilary, seeing himself +thus beset, obsequiously declared that he had no wish to take aught from +the kingly honour and dignity, which he had always bent every effort to +magnify and increase; but Henry bluntly retorted that it was plain to all +that his honour and dignity would be speedily removed far from him by the +fair and deceitful talk of those who would annul his just prerogatives. +The bishop could not find a single friend. Chancellor and justiciar and +constable rivalled one another in taunts and sharp phrases. When he went +on to urge the revision of the Conqueror's charter to Battle by the +archbishop, and to appeal to ecclesiastical custom, Henry's wrath rose +again. "A wonderful and marvellous thing truly is this we hear, that the +charters, forsooth, of my kingly predecessors, confirmed by the +prerogative of the Crown of England, and witnessed by the magnates, should +be deemed beyond our powers by you, my lord bishop. God forbid, God +forbid, that in my kingdom what is decreed by me at the instance of +reason, and with the advice of my archbishops, bishops, and barons, +should be liable to the censure of you and such as you!" He broke short +discussion by declaring that the question belonged to him alone to settle. +The chancellor, in a long argument, crushed the already humbled bishop, +and raised the king's anger to its utmost pitch by drawing attention to +the fact that Hilary had appealed to Rome to the contempt of the royal +dignity. The king, his countenance changed with fury, turned passionately +to the bishop, who tremblingly swore, while Archbishop Theobald crossed +himself in amazement at the audacious perjury, that it was the abbot who +had got the bull of which Thomas complained. Theobald entreated that the +matter might be settled according to Canon law, but this the king promptly +refused. Finally Hilary was forced to complete submission, and the +archbishop prayed that he might be pardoned for any imprudent words he had +used against the king's majesty. Henry was ever ready to yield everything +in form when once he had got his own way. "Not only," he answered, "do I +now give him the kiss of peace, but if his sins were a hundredfold, I +would forgive them all for your prayers and for the love I bear him;" and +bishop and abbot and justiciar, all by the king's orders, joined in the +kiss of peace. + +But no kiss of peace given at Henry's orders could turn away the rising +wrath of the Church. A general feeling of danger was in the air, and both +sides, in preparing for the inevitable future, chose the same man to +fight their battle,--Thomas, the disciple and secretary of Theobald, +Thomas, the minister of the king's reforms. The young king had turned +with passionate affection to his brilliant chancellor. In hall, in +church, in council-chamber, on horseback, he was never separated from his +friend. Thomas, like his master, was always ready for hunting, or for +hawking, or for a game of chess. He was willing, too, to save the king +the cost and burden of entertainment and display. He was careful to +magnify his office. He held a splendid court, where Henry's son and a +train of young nobles were brought up to knightly accomplishments. He was +dressed in scarlet and furs, and his clothes were woven with gold. His +table was covered with gold and silver plate, and his servants had orders +to buy the most costly provisions in the shops for cooked meat, which +were then the glory of the city. His household was the talk of London. +The king himself, curious to see how things went on, would sometimes come +on horseback to watch the chancellor sitting at meat, or, bow in hand, +would turn in on his way from hunting, and, vaulting over the table, +would sit down and eat with him. Henry lavished gifts on him, so that +according to one of his chroniclers, "when he might have had all +the churches and castles of the kingdom if he chose since there was none +to deny him, yet the greatness of his soul conquered his ambition; he +magnanimously disdained to take the poorer benefices, and required only +the great things--the provostship of Beverley, the deanery at Hastings, +the Tower of London with the service of the soldiers belonging to it, the +castle of Eye with 140 soldiers, and that of Berkhampstead." or was the +king's favour misplaced, for Thomas was an excellent servant. Business +was rapidly despatched by him; and Henry found himself relieved of the +most irksome part of his work. The chancellor surrounded himself by +able men, looking even as far as Gaul for poor Englishmen who were +distinguished for their talent; fifty-two clerks were employed under him +in the Chancery. As he grew more and more important to his master, +unlimited powers were put in his hand. There are even entries in the Pipe +Roll of pardons issued by him, the first instance of such a right ever +used by any save king or queen. It was said that those who had the king's +favour might count it as a vain thing, unless they had also the friendship +of the chancellor. "The king's dominions, which reach from the Arctic +Ocean to the Pyrenees, he put into your power, and in this alone was any +man thought happy, that he should find favour in your eyes," runs a letter +written afterwards to Thomas. + +To complete the king's schemes, however, one dignity yet remained +to be conferred on Thomas. He was eager, in view of his proposed +reconstruction of Church and State, to adopt the Imperial system of a +chancellor-archbishop. The difficulties in the way were great, for ancient +custom limited the technical supremacy of the king's will in the choice +of the Primate. No archbishop since the Conquest had been chosen for other +reasons than those of piety and learning; no secular primate had been +appointed since Stigand, and before Stigand there had never been one at +all; no deacon had ever been chosen for this high office; and never had a +king's officer been made archbishop, however common it may have been to +put chancellor or treasurer in less important sees. Amid the anxiety and +questioning which followed the death of Theobald in 1161, Thomas himself +clearly saw the parting of the ways: "Whoever is made archbishop," he +said, "must quickly give offence to God or to the king." Henry alone knew +no hesitation. Fresh from his triumphs abroad, master of his great empire, +clear and decided in his projects for the ordering of his dominions, eager +with the force and determination of twenty-eight years, recognizing no +check to his imperious will and the dictates of his friendship, he chose +Thomas as archbishop, "Matilda dissuading, the kingdom protesting, the +whole Church sighing and groaning." The king, who was then in France, sent +his envoy, Richard de Lucy, to Canterbury to press the essential problem +home in plain words: "If," he said, "the king and the archbishop are +joined together in affection, the state of the Church will still be quiet +and happy; but if the thing should fall out otherwise, what strife may +come from it, what difficulties and tumults, what loss and peril to souls, +I cannot hide from you." The argument prevailed, and in London, in the +presence of the king's little son Henry, then seven years old, Thomas +was chosen archbishop, "the multitude acclaiming with the voice of God +and not of man." The deacon-chancellor was ordained priest on the 2d of +June 1162, and the next day consecrated archbishop by Henry of Winchester. +Two months later John of Salisbury brought him the pall from Pope +Alexander at Montpellier, and for the first time since the Norman +Conquest, a man born on English soil was set at the head of the +English Church. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +THE CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON + +In the January of 1163 Henry once more landed in England. His absence off +our and a half years had given time for dangers and alarms to spring up +in the half-settled realm. Mysterious prophecies passed from mouth to +mouth that the king would never be seen in the island again, and even +Theobald, before his death in 1161, had sent urgent entreaties for his +return. The king had, in fact, during the first eight years of his rule +been mainly occupied in building up his empire, and providing for its +defence against external dangers. He had only twice visited the kingdom, +each time for little more than a year. He was now, however, prepared to +take the work of administration seriously in hand. In the next eighteen +years, from 1163 to 1180, he landed on its shores seven times, and spent +altogether eight years in the country. Once he was busied with the +conquest of Ireland; one visit of a month was spent in crushing a +dangerous rebellion; but with these two exceptions every coming of the +king was marked by the carrying out of some great administrative reform. +In his half-compacted empire order was still only maintained by his +actual presence and the sheer force of his personal authority, as he +hurried from country to country to quell a rising in Gascony or a revolt +in Galloway, to wage war in Wales, to finish the conquest of Britanny or +of Ireland, to order the administration of Poitou or Normandy. But in the +swift and terrible progresses of a king who visited the shires to north +and south and west in the intervals of foreign war, a long series of +experiments as to the best forms of internal government was ceaselessly +carried out, and the new administration securely established. + +Henry, however, was at once met by a difficulty unknown to earlier days. +The system which the Conqueror had established of separate courts for +secular and ecclesiastical business had utterly broken down for purposes +of justice. Until the reign of Stephen much of the business of the +bishops was done in the courts of the hundred and the shire. The Church +courts also had at first been guided by the customary law and traditions +of the early English Church, which had grown up along with the secular +laws and had a distinctly national character. So long, indeed, as the +canon law remained somewhat vague, and the Church courts incomplete, they +could work peaceably side by side with the lay courts; but with the +development of ecclesiastical law in the middle of the twelfth century, +it was inevitable that difficulties should spring up. The boundaries of +civil and ecclesiastical law were wholly uncertain, the scientific study +of law had hardly begun, and there was much debatable ground which might +be won by the most arrogant or the most skilful of the combatants. Every +brawl of a few noisy lads in the Oxford streets or at the gates of some +cathedral or monastic school was enough to kindle the strife as to the +jurisdiction of Church or State which shook medieval society to its +foundation. + +The Church courts not only had jurisdiction over the whole clerical order, +but exercised wide powers even over the laity. To them alone belonged the +right to enforce spiritual penalties, to deal with cases of oaths, +promises, anything in which a man's faith was pledged; to decide as to the +property of intestates, to pronounce in every case of inheritance whether +the heir was legitimate, to declare the law as to wills and marriage. +Administering as they did an enlightened system of law, they profited by +the new prosperity of the country, and the judicial and pecuniary disputes +which came to them had never been so abundant as now. Henry was keenly +alive to the fact that the archdeacons' courts now levied every year by +their fines more money than the whole revenue of the crown. Young +archdeacons were sent abroad to be taught the Roman law, and returned to +preside over the newly-established archdeacons' courts; clergy who sought +high office were bound to study before all things, even before theology, +the civil and canon law. The new rules, however, were as yet incomplete +and imperfectly understood in England; the Church courts were without the +power to put them in force; the procedure was hurried and irregular; the +judges were often ill-trained, and unfit to deal with the mass of legal +business which was suddenly thrown on them; the ecclesiastical authorities +themselves shrank from defiling the priesthood by contact with all this +legal and secular business, and kept the archdeacons in deacons' orders; +the more religious clergy questioned whether for an archdeacon salvation +were possible. In the eight years of Henry's rule one hundred murders had +been committed by clerks who had escaped all punishment save the light +sentences of fine and imprisonment inflicted by their own courts, and +Henry bitterly complained that a reader or an acolyte might slay a man, +however illustrious, and suffer nothing save the loss of his orders. + +Since the beginning of Henry's reign, too, there had been an enormous +increase of appeals to Rome. Questions quite apart from faith or morals, +and that mostly concerned property, were referred for decision to a +foreign court. The great monasteries were exempted from episcopal control +and placed directly under the Pope; they adopted the customs and laws +which found favour at Rome; they upheld the system of appeals, in which +their wealth and influence gave them formidable advantages. The English +Church was no longer as in earlier times distinct from the rest of +Christendom, but was brought directly under Roman influence. The clergy +were more and more separated from their lay fellow citizens; their rights +and duties were determined on different principles; they were governed by +their own officers and judged by their own laws, and tried in their own +courts; they looked for their supreme tribunal of appeal not to the King's +Court, but to Rome; they became, in fact, practically freed from the +common law. + +No king, and Henry least of all, could watch unmoved the first great +body which threatened to stand wholly outside the law of the land; and +the ecclesiastical pretensions of the time were perhaps well matched by +the pretensions of the State. The king had prepared for the coming +conflict by a characteristic act of high-handed imperiousness in the +election of the chancellor-archbishop to carry out his policy. But all +such schemes of imperative despotism were vain. No sooner was Thomas +consecrated than it became plain that his ecclesiastical training would +carry the day against the influence of Henry. As rapidly as he had "thrown +off the deacon" to become the chancellor, so he now went through the +sharper change of throwing off the chancellor to become the archbishop. +With keen political sagacity he at once sought the moral support of the +religious party who had so vehemently condemned his appointment. The +gorgeous ostentation of his old life gave way to an equally elaborate +scheme of saintliness. He threw away with tears his splendid dress to put +on sackcloth and the black cloak of the monk. His table was still covered +with gold and silver dishes and with costly meats, but the hall was now +crowded with the poor and needy, and at his own side sat only the most +learned and holy among the monks and clergy. Forty clerks "most learned +in the law" formed his household. He visited the sick in the infirmary, +and washed the feet of thirteen poor men daily. He sat in the cloister +like one of the monks, studying the canon law and the Holy Scriptures. He +joined their prayers in the Church and took part in their secret councils. +The monks who had suffered under the heavy hand of Theobald, when their +dainty foods were curtailed and their cherished privileges sharply denied +them, hailed joyfully the unexpected attitude of their new master. "This +is the finger of God," men said, "this, indeed, is the work of the right +hand of the Most High." "As he had been accustomed to the pre-eminence +over others in worldly glory," commented another observer, "so now he +determined to be the foremost in holy living." + +Rumours spread that there were to be other changes besides that of "holy +living." The see of Canterbury under the new primate was to win back all +lands and privileges lost during the civil wars, at whatever cost to the +interests of the whole court party, of barons who found their rights to +Church appointments and Church lands questioned, and of clerks of the +royal household who trembled for their posts and benefices. There was +soon no lack of enemies at court, old and new, ready to carry to Henry +whispers that would appeal most subtly to his fears,--whispers that the +royal dignity itself was in danger; that he must look to himself and his +heirs, or the story of Stephen's time would be told over again, and that +man alone would in future be king, whom the clergy should elect and the +archbishop approve. Henry's bitter anger was aroused when Thomas +resigned the chancellorship, "not now wishing to be in the royal court, +but desiring to have leisure for prayers, and to superintend the +business of the Church." The king retorted by forcing Thomas to resign +his archdeaconry with its rich fees; and at his landing in January 1163 +he received the archbishop, who came to meet him, "with averted face." +Thomas, on his part, added another grievance by refusing on ecclesiastical +grounds to allow Henry to marry his brother to Stephen's daughter-in-law, +the Countess of Warenne; and on the general question of the relations of +Church and State, he hastened to define his views with sharp precision in +an eloquent sermon preached before the king. "Henry observing it word by +word, and understanding from it how greatly Thomas put the ecclesiastical +before the civil right, did not receive this doctrine with an equal mind, +for he perceived that the archbishop was far from his own view, that the +Church had neither rights nor possessions save by his favour." The +attitude of Thomas was yet further strengthened and defined when, in May +1163, he went to attend a great Council held at Tours, where he was +brought more immediately under the influence of the ecclesiastical +movement of the day. There he sought, with a meaning that Henry must +clearly have understood, to procure the canonization of Anselm from Pope +Alexander, who, however, was far too politic amid his own difficulties, +and in his need for Henry's help, to commit himself either by consent or +by refusal. + +The inevitable controversy declared itself soon after the return of +Thomas from Tours. Throughout July and August one question after another +was hurried forward for settlement between king and primate. On July 1 +the king proposed a change in the collection of the land tax, which +would have increased the royal revenues at the expense of the revenues +of the shire. Since the Conquest there had never been a single instance +of an attempt to resist the royal will in matters of finance, but Thomas +showed no hesitation. He flatly refused consent to an arbitrary act of +this kind. He made no objection to the payment of the tax, but he was +determined to prevent the local revenues being seized in this way by the +king. His action seems to have been wise and patriotic, and his triumph +was complete. Henry was forced to abandon the scheme. Having awakened +the anger of the king, Thomas next alienated the whole party of the +barons by pressing his demands for the recovery of lands belonging to +his see. Tunbridge, Rochester, now in the custody of the crown itself, +Hythe, Saltwood, and a number of other manors became the subjects of +sharp contention. The archbishop urged a doubtful claim, which he had +inherited from Theobald, to appoint the priest to a church on the land +of William of Eynesford, a tenant of the king. William resisted, and +Thomas made his first false move by excommunicating him. Henry at once +appealed to the "customs" of the kingdom, which forbade such sentence on +the king's barons without the royal consent, and Thomas had to withdraw +his excommunication. "I owe him no thanks for it!" cried the angry king. + +A more serious strife was raised when Thomas came into direct collision +with Henry on the inevitable question of the punishment of clerks for +crime against the common law. If the king was determined to bring about +a fundamental reform in the administration of justice, the Primate was +equally resolute that as archbishop he would have nothing to do with +reforms which he might have countenanced as chancellor. He prudently +sought at first to divert attention from the real issue by increasing +the severity of judgments in the ecclesiastical courts. A clerk had +stolen a chalice; he insisted on his trial in the Church Court, but to +appease the king ordered him to be branded,--a punishment condemned by +ecclesiastical law which considered all injury to the person as defiling +the image of God. Such devices, however, were thrown away on Henry. When +another clerk, Philip de Broc, who had been accused of manslaughter, was +set free by the Church courts, the king's justiciar ordered him to be +brought to a second trial before a lay judge. Philip refused to submit. +The justiciar then charged him with contempt of court for his vehement +and abusive language to the officer who summoned him, but the archbishop +demanded that for this charge, too, he should be tried by ecclesiastical +law. Henry was forced to content himself with sending a detachment of +bishops and clergy to watch the trial. They returned with the news that +the court had refused to reconsider the charge of manslaughter, and had +merely condemned Philip for insolence; he was ordered to make personal +satisfaction to the sheriff, standing (clerk as he was) naked before +him, and submitting to a heavy fine; his prebend was to be forfeited to +the king for two years; for those two years he was to be exiled and his +movable goods were confiscated. + +The punishment might seem severe enough, but Henry would accept no +compromise. With a burst of fury he declared that just judgment for +murder was refused because the offender was in orders. Resolute that the +question should once for all be settled, he summoned a council at +Westminster on October 1. There he demanded, "for love of him and for +safety of the kingdom," that accused clerks should be tried by the +common law, and that if proved guilty, they should be degraded by the +bishops, and given up to the executioner for punishment. He complained +of the exactions of the ecclesiastical courts, and urged that in all +matters concerning these courts or the rights of the clergy, the bishops +should return to the customs of Henry the First. Such a course would +have left them at the king's mercy, and the prelates wavered in their +sore distress. The king's friends contended that a guilty clerk deserved +punishment double that of a layman, and urged the need of submission at +this moment when the Church was torn asunder by schism; and the bishops +frankly admitted a yet more pressing consideration: "For if we do not +what the king wishes," they said, "flight will be cut off from us, and +no man will seek after our souls; but if we consent to the king, we +shall own the sanctuary of God in heredity, and shall sleep safely in +the possession of our churches." On the other hand, the archbishop had +no mind to resign without a contest all the results of the great tide of +feeling which had swept the Church onward far past its old landmarks. +For him there was no going back to a traditional past from which the +Church had shaken itself free, and in which, though king and barons +might see the freedom of the State, he saw the enslaving and degradation +of the clergy. He vehemently asserted that the "customs" of the Church +were of greater authority than any "customs" of the kingdom, that its +canon law claimed obedience as against all traditional national law +whatever; and with keen political insight he insisted on the dangers that +would follow if once they allowed the charm of prescription to be broken, +or the ecclesiastical liberties to be touched. He boldly led the way in +his answer to the king: "We will obey in all things saving our order;" and +as the bishops were asked one by one, they took courage to follow, and +"one voice was in the mouth of all of them." Such a phrase had never been +heard in England before, and Henry, with ready indignation, at once +demanded the withdrawal of the words. When Thomas refused, he broke up the +council in a burst of anger, and suddenly rode away from London, instantly +followed by the whole body of trembling bishops, who hurried after him in +abject terror, "lest before they should be able to catch him up, they +should already have lost their sees." Thomas was left alone--"there was +not one who would know him,"--while the prelates, coming up in time with +their terrible lord, agreed henceforth to guide their words by his good +pleasure. + +From this moment all the elements of strife were prepared, and there was +but outer show of harmony when king and archbishop, a few days later, +joined at Westminster to celebrate with solemn pomp the translation of +the remains of the sainted Confessor. In declaring war upon local +jurisdictions, whether of clergy, or nobles, or burghers, or independent +shire courts, Henry was defying all the traditions and convictions of +his age,--an age when local feeling was a force which we are now quite +unable to measure. The nobles, the guilds, and the rising towns had +already won long before, or were now seeking to win as their most +cherished privilege, the right to their own justice without interference +from any higher power. They naturally looked with sympathy on the rights +exercised by the clergy within their own body; they felt that whatever +had been won by one class might later be won by another, and that +liberties which were enjoyed by so enormous a body as the clerical order +were a benefit in which the whole people had a share. If the king was +determined to wage war on "privilege," clergy and people were equally +resolute to defend "liberty." Moreover, in attacking the special +jurisdiction of the Church, Henry had to encounter a force to which there +is no parallel in our own time. An English king had doubtless less to fear +from the Church than had any continental ruler. Abroad the bishop-stool, +the abbey, the Church, were oases in the midst of perpetual war,--the only +spots where peace and law and justice spoke in protest against the chaos +of the world. But England was, in comparison with the rest of the western +world, a country of peace and law. There the Church was less powerful +against the State because the State had never handed over its duty of +maintaining justice and law and right to the exclusive guardianship of the +Church. None the less it was a formidable matter to rouse the hostility of +a body which included not only all the religious world, but all the +educated classes, and penetrated even to the despised villeinage and the +poor freemen whose sons pressed into its lower ranks. The Church with +which Henry had to deal was no longer the same that the Conqueror had +easily bent to his will. It had received its training and felt its +strength in political action; it had developed a close corporate spirit; +it had an admirable organization; it possessed the most advanced as well +as the most merciful legal system of the age. Its courts had strong claims +to popular regard. Their punishments were more merciful than the savage +sentences of the lay courts; and they held out great advantages to the +rich, since the penances they inflicted could be commuted for money. +Their system of law, moreover, was far in advance of the barbarous rules +of customary law; and they were backed by all the authority of the Roman +Curia and of the religious feeling of the day. + +Henry had, however, peculiar advantages in the contest. He was master of +a disciplined body of ministers and servants, in whom he could confidently +trust. He was sure, in this matter at least, of the support of the lay +baronage, who had long arrears of jealousy to make up against their +hereditary opponents the clergy, and who were not likely now to forget +that no party in the Church had ever made common cause with the feudal +lords. He could count on the obedience of the secular clergy. In France +or Germany the bishops were members of the great houses, and as powerful +local rulers wielded a vast feudal authority. In England their position +was very different. They were drawn from the staff of the king's chapel, +and had their whole training in the administration of the court; and they +formed an official nobility who were charged, in common with the secular +nobility, with the conduct of the general business of the realm. They were +appointed to their places by the king for services done to him, and as +instruments of his policy. Neither Pope nor people had any share in their +election. Their estates were granted them by the same titles, and with the +same obligations as those of feudal barons; the king could withhold their +temporalities, sequestrate their lands, confiscate their personal goods, +and burden them with heavy fines; they lay absolutely at his mercy without +appeal. Every tie of feudal duty, of official training, of prudent +self-interest, forced them into subjection to the Crown. Their Roman +sympathies were quenched as they watched the growing independence of the +monasteries, and saw Church endowments taken to enrich the new religious +houses of every kind which were springing up all over England. They feared +the new authority claimed by legates, which threatened to withdraw the +clergy, if they chose to assert their claims, from regular episcopal +jurisdiction. They were thrown on the side of the king in ecclesiastical +questions, drawn together by a common cause, both alike found their +interest in the defence of national tradition as opposed to foreign +custom. + +Their leaders too looked coldly on the cause of the Primate. The +Archbishop of York, Roger of Pont l'Evêque, once the companion of Thomas +in Theobald's household, was now his personal enemy and rival. The two +prelates inherited the secular strife as to which see should have the +precedence. Moreover, while Canterbury represented the papal policy and +always looked to Rome, York preserved some faint traditional leanings +towards the liberties of the Irish and Scotch churches from whence the +Christianity of the north had sprung. The Bishop of London, Gilbert +Foliot, who, with the approval of Thomas, had been translated from +Hereford only five months before, was, by his mere position, marked out +as the chief antagonist of the archbishop, for St Pauls was at the head +of the whole body of secular clergy throughout southern England, and to +its bishop inevitably fell the leadership of this party against +Canterbury, which was in the hands of a monastic chapter. The Bishop of +Winchester, Henry of Blois, could well remember the struggle between +Church and Crown under a far weaker king twenty six years before, when +the bishops had wisely withdrawn from a contest where they had "seen +swords unsheathed and knew it was no longer a joking matter, but a +struggle of life and death," and with the prudence born of long political +experience he was for moderate counsels. The Bishop of Chichester, Hilary, +doubtless remembered the inconvenient part which Thomas as chancellor had +played in his own trial a few years before, and might gladly recognize a +poetic justice in seeing Thomas's old doctrines of the supremacy of the +State now applied to himself. "Every plant," he once said with taunting +reference to the king's part in Thomas's election, "which my heavenly +Father has not planted shall be rooted up." Thomas bitterly added another +verse as he heard of the saying, "This man had among the brethren the +place of Judas the traitor." There seems to have been a general impression +that the position of the Primate was extremely critical, and he was +besieged by advisers who urged submission, by messengers from pope and +cardinals, by panic-stricken churchmen. Beset on all sides the Primate +wavered, and at last promised to swear obedience to the "customs of the +kingdom." Immediately the king summoned prelates and barons to witness +his submission, and the famous Council of Clarendon met for this purpose +in 1164. + +At Clarendon, however, after three days' conference, the archbishop +hesitated and hung back, he had grievously sinned in yielding, and he +now refused the promised oath. The bishops, finding courage in his +firmness, declared themselves ready to follow him in his refusal. At the +news the fury of the king burst forth, and "he was as a madman in the +eyes of those who stood by." The court broke into wild disorder, the +servants of the king, "with faces more truculent than usual," burst into +the assembly of the prelates, and flinging aside their long cloaks, +flourished their axes aloft, and threatened to strike them into the +heads of the bishops. Two nobles were sent to warn Thomas that orders +for his death were already given unless he would submit. The weeping +bishops with lamentable voices besought him to save them; knights of the +Hospital and the Temple from the king's household knelt before him, +sighing and pouring forth tears. "In fear of death," says one chronicler, +he yielded. "I am ready," he said, "to keep the customs of the kingdom." +Hardly were the words out of his mouth, when Henry commanded him to order +the bishops to give the same promise, and again the Primate obeyed. But +the king was still unsatisfied. His temper had risen in the discussions +of the last few months; his determination was fixed that the matter should +be settled once for all. With the sharp decision of a keen and practical +administrator, he ordered that the "customs of the kingdom" should be +written down, so that no question might ever arise as to the laws which +Thomas had sworn to observe; and "wise men" passed into the next room to +write according to the king's will. They returned with a draft of sixteen +articles, the famous "Constitutions of Clarendon." To these the king +commanded that the Primate should set his seal; but Thomas, agitated by +fear and anxiety, was no longer of the same mind. "By the omnipotent God," +he cried, "while I live, I will never set my seal to it!" Whether he +finally submitted it is impossible now to say. But he left the court with +a last protest. A copy of the writing was torn down the middle, and one +half, after the fashion of the "tallies" of the day, was given to Thomas +in token of his promise, while the other was laid up in the royal +treasury. "I take this," said the archbishop, "not consenting nor +approving," and turning to the clergy: "By this we may know the malice +of the king, and those things which we must beware of." He left the +council and retired to Winchester, where in sackcloth and penance, shut +out from the services of the Church, he condemned himself to wait in +deepest humiliation till he should receive the Pope's absolution for his +momentary betrayal of duty. For years to come a furious battle was to rage +round the sixteen articles drawn up at Clarendon. According to Thomas, the +Constitutions were a mere act of arbitrary violence, a cunning device of +tyranny. He asserted that they were the sole deed of the justiciar +De Lucy, and of Jocelyn de Bailleul, a French lawyer. In any case he +frankly denied the authority of "custom," that tyrannous law of medieval +times. "God never said," writes one of his defenders, "I am Custom, but I +am Truth." Thomas rested his case not on the customary law of the land, +but on the code of Rome; to English tradition he opposed the Italian +lawyers. Henry, on his part, declared that the Constitutions were drawn +up by the common witness of bishops, earls, barons, and wise men; that +they were, in fact, part of a system actually in operation, and which had +been administered by Thomas himself when he was chancellor. It was +certainly a startling novelty to have the customs of the realm drawn up in +a written code to which men were required to swear obedience; but still +the "Constitutions" professed to be no new legislation, but to be simply a +statement of recognized national tradition. The changes that had followed +on the Conquest had modified older customs profoundly. The conditions, not +only of England but of Europe, had changed with confusing rapidity, and it +was no longer easy to say exactly what was "custom" and what was not. To +Henry the Constitutions did fairly represent the system which had grown up +with general consent under the Norman kings. Thomas, on the other hand, +might argue with equal conviction that he was asked to sign as "customs" +what was practically a new code; and he had neither the wisdom nor the +temper to reconcile the dispute by a reasonable compromise. + +No question seems to have been raised as to some of the statutes which +were certainly of recent growth, though they touched Church interests. +One of these repeated unreservedly the assertion that bishops held a +feudal position in all points the same as that of barons or direct +vassals of the king, being bound by all their obligations, and entitled +to sit with them in judgment in the Curia Regis till it came to a +question of blood. Others dealt with disorders which had grown up from +the mutual jealousy of Church and lay courts, and the difficulties thus +thrown in the way of administering laws which were not disputed; rules +were made for the securities to be taken from excommunicated persons; +for the giving up to the king of forfeited goods of felons deposited in +churches or churchyards; and forbidding the ordination of villeins +without their lord's consent,--a provision which possibly was intended +to prevent the withdrawal of an unlimited number of people from secular +jurisdiction. Two other clauses touched upon the new legal remedies, the +use of the jury in the accusation of criminals, and in the decision of +questions of property; it was decreed that laymen should not be accused +in Church courts save by lawful witness, or by the twelve legal +men of the hundred--in other words, by the newly-developed jury of +"presentation"; while the jury of "recognition" was ordered to be used +in disputed titles to ecclesiastical estates. + +The real strife was about the seven remaining statutes, which declared +that an accused clerk must first appear before the king's court, and that +the justiciar should then send a royal officer with him to watch the trial +at the ecclesiastical court, and if he were found guilty the Church should +no longer protect him; that the chief clergy might not leave the realm +without the king's permission; that appeals might not be carried to the +Papal Court without the king's consent; that no tenant-in-chief of the +king might be excommunicated without the leave of the king; that the +revenues of vacant sees should fall to the king, until a new appointment +had been made in his court; that questions of advowsons or presentations +to livings questions which at that time represented comparatively a vast +amount of property--should be tried in the king's court; and that the +king's judges should decide in matters of debt, even where the case +included a question of perjury or broken faith, which was claimed as a +matter for ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Such laws as these were no doubt +in Henry's mind simply part of his scheme for establishing a general order +and one undivided authority in the realm. But they opened very much wider +grounds of dispute between Church and State than the mere question of how +criminal clerks were to be dealt with. They boldly attacked the whole of +the pretensions of the Church; they threatened to rob it of a mass of +financial business, to wrest from its control an enormous amount of +property, to deprive it of jurisdiction in the great majority of criminal +suits, to limit its power of irresponsible self-government, and to prevent +its absorption into the vast organization of the Church of Western +Christendom. They defined the relations of the English Church to the see +of Rome. They established its position as a national Church, and declared +that its clergy should be brought under the rule of national law. + +The eight months which followed the Council of Clarendon were spent in a +vain attempt to solve an insoluble problem. Messengers from king and +archbishop hastened again and again to the Pope, with no result. Henry +set his face like a flint. "_Verba sunt_," he said to a mediating +bishop; "you may talk to me all the days that we both shall live, but +there shall be no peace till the archbishop wins the Pope's consent to +the customs." Fresh cases arose of clerks accused of theft and murder, +but as the personal quarrel between Henry and Thomas increased in +bitterness, questions of reform fell into the background. "I will humble +thee," the king declared, "and will restore thee to the place from +whence I took thee." Thomas, on his part, knew how to awaken all Henry's +secret fears. All Europe was concerned in the dispute of king and +archbishop. The Pope at Sens, the French king, the "eldest son of the +Church," the princes of the House of Blois, as steadfast in their +orthodoxy as in their hatred of the Angevin, the Emperor, ready to use +any quarrel for his own purposes, were all eagerly watching every turn +of the strife. In August Henry was startled by the news that Thomas +himself had fled to seek the protection of the Pope at Sens. He was, +however, recognized by sailors, and carried back to English shores. +Henry immediately dealt his counter-blow. The archbishop was summoned in +September to London to answer in a case which John, the marshal, an +officer of the Exchequer, had withdrawn from the Archbishop's to the +King's Court. Thomas pleaded illness, and protested that the marshal had +been guilty of perjury. The king retorted by calling a council for the +trial of the archbishop on a charge of contempt of the royal summons. +With the insolence of power and the bitter anger of outraged confidence, +Henry heaped humiliations on his enemy. The Primate had a right, by +ancient custom, to be summoned first among the great lords called to the +king's council; he was now merely served with an ordinary notice from +the sheriff of Kent to attend his trial. When he arrived at Northampton +there was no lodging left free for himself and his attendants. The king +had gone out hunting amid the marshes and streams, and only the next +morning met the Primate roughly after mass, and refused him the kiss of +peace. + +In the council which opened in Northampton Castle on Wednesday, 7th +October, we see the Curia Regis in the developed form which it had taken +under Henry and his justiciar, De Lucy, carrying out an exact legal +system, and observing the forms of a very elaborate procedure. The king +and his inner council of the great lords, the prelates, and the officers +of the household, withdrew to an upper chamber of the castle; the whole +company of sheriffs and lesser barons waited in the great hall below +till they were specially summoned to the king's presence, crowding round +the fire that burned in the centre of the hall under the opening in the +roof through which the smoke escaped, or lounging in the straw and +rushes that covered the floor. For seven days the trial dragged on, as +lawyers and bishops and barons anxiously groped their way through +baffling legal problems which had grown out of legislation new and old. +Even the king himself, fiery, imperious, dictatorial, clung with a kind +of superstition to the forms of legal process. The archbishop asked +leave to appeal to the Pope. "You shall first answer in my court for the +injury done to John the marshal," said Henry. The next day, Thursday, +this matter was decided. Bishops and barons alike, lacking somewhat of +the king's daring, shrank at first from the responsibility of pronouncing +judgment. "We are laymen," said the barons; "you are his fellow-priests +and fellow-bishops, and it is for you to declare sentence." "Nay," +answered the bishops, "this is not an ecclesiastical but a secular +judgment, and we sit here not as bishops but as barons; if you heed our +orders you should also take heed of his." The dispute was a critical one, +leading as it did directly to questions about the jurisdiction of the +Curia Regis over ecclesiastical persons, and the obligation asserted in +the Constitutions of Clarendon, that bishops should sit with barons in the +King's Court till it came to a question of blood. The king was seized with +one of his fierce fits of anger, and the discussion "immediately ended." +The unwilling Bishop of Winchester was sent to pronounce sentence of fine +for neglect of the king's summons. Matters then moved quickly. A demand +was made for £300 which Thomas had received from Eye and Berkhampstead +when he was chancellor; and in spite of his defence that it had been spent +in building the palace in London and repairing the castles, judgment went +against him. The next day a further demand was made for money spent in the +war of Toulouse, and this, too, Thomas agreed to pay, though it was now +hard to find sureties. Then the king dealt his last blow. Thomas was +required to account for the sums he had received as chancellor from vacant +sees and abbeys. "By God's eyes," the king swore, when the Primate and the +bishops threw themselves in despair at his feet, he would have the +accounts in full. He would only grant a day's delay for Thomas to take +counsel with his friends. + +By this time there was no doubt of the king's purpose to force upon +Thomas the resignation of his archbishopric. The courtiers and lay +barons no longer thought it expedient to visit him, and the prelates +gave counsel with divided hearts. "Remembering whence the king took +you," said Foliot, "and what he has bestowed on you, and the ruin which +you prepare for the Church and for us all, not only the archbishopric +but ten times as much, if it were possible, you should yield to him. It +may be that seeing in you this humility he may yet restore all." To this +argument Thomas had curt answer. "Enough--it is well enough known how +you, being consulted, would answer!" "You know the king better than we," +urged Hilary of Chichester; "in the chancery, in peace and war, you +served him faithfully, but not without envy. Those who then envied now +excite the king against you. Who dare answer for you? The king has said +that you can no longer both be at one time in England--he as king, you +as archbishop." Henry of Winchester took his stand on the side of +Thomas. "If the authority of the king was to prevail," he argued, "what +remains but that nothing shall henceforth be done according to law, but +all things shall be disturbed for his pleasure--and the priesthood shall +be as the people," he concluded, with a stirring of the churchman's +temper. The Bishop of Exeter added another plea to induce Thomas to +stand firm: "Surely it is better to put one head in peril than to set +the whole Church in danger." Not so, thought the Bishop of Lincoln, "a +simple man and of little discretion;" "for it is plain," he said, "that +this man must yield up either the archbishopric or his life; but what +should be the fruit of his archbishopric to him if his life should +cease, I see not." The Bishop of Worcester, son of the famous Robert of +Gloucester, and Henry's own cousin and playmate in old days took an +eminently prudent course. "I will give no counsel," he said, "for if I +say our charge of souls is to be given up at the king's threats, I +should speak against my conscience, and to my own condemnation; and if I +should advise to resist the king, there are those here who will bring +him word of it, and I shall be cast out of the synagogue, and my lot +shall be with outlaws and public enemies." At last, by the advice of the +politic Henry of Winchester, Thomas offered to pay the king 2000 marks, +but this compromise was refused. He urged that he had been freed at +his consecration from all secular obligations, but the plea was +rejected on the ground that it was done without the king's orders. An +adjournment over Sunday was again granted; but on Monday Thomas was ill, +and unable to attend the Council. Three days had now passed in fruitless +negotiations, and the rising wrath of the king made itself felt. Rumours +of danger grew on all sides, and the archbishop prostrated himself +before the altar in an agony of prayer, "trembling in his whole body," +as he afterwards confessed, less from fear of death than from the more +terrible fear of the savage blinding and cruel punishments of those days. + +But he showed no signs of yielding when on Tuesday morning, the last day +of the Council, the bishops again gathered round him beseeching him +to yield to the king's will. With a fierce outbreak of passionate +reproaches he solemnly forbade them to take part in any further +proceedings against him, and gave formal notice of an appeal to Rome. +Then kneeling before the altar of St. Stephen he celebrated mass, using +the service for St. Stephen's Day with its psalm, "Princes sat and spake +against me,"--"a magical rite," said Foliot, "and an act done in contempt +of the king"-and commended himself to the care of the first Christian +martyr, and of the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, Aelfheah. Still +arrayed in his pontifical robes, he set out for his last ride to the +castle. Of the forty clerks "most learned in the law," who formed his +household, only two ventured to follow him; but "an innumerable +multitude" of people thronged round him as he passed bearing his cross +in his right hand, and followed him to the castle doors with cries of +lamentation, weeping and kneeling for his benediction, for it was spread +abroad that he should that day be slain. The gates were quickly closed in +the face of the tumultuous crowd, and Thomas passed up the great hall, +while the king, hearing of his coming in such dress and fashion, hastily +withdrew to the upper chamber to take counsel with his officers. "A fool +he was, and a fool he always will be," commented Foliot as Thomas entered +with his uplifted cross. "Lord archbishop, thou art ill-advised to enter +thus to the king with sword unsheathed--if now the king should take his +sword, we shall have a well-armed king and a well-armed archbishop!" +--"That we will commit to God," said Thomas. Thus he passed to his seat, +the troubled and perplexed bishops "sitting opposite to him both in place +and in heart." + +Meanwhile the king and his inner council, to which the bishops were +now summoned, were busy discussing what must be done. Henry's position +was one of extreme difficulty, suddenly called on as he was to deal +with a legacy of difficulties which had been left from the unsettled +controversies of a hundred years. By coming to the court in his pontifical +dress Thomas had raised a claim that a bishop could only be tried dressed +in full pontificals by his fellow-bishops also in full dress. He had +thrown aside the king's jurisdiction by his appeal to Rome; and by his +orders to the bishops to judge no further with the barons in this suit +he had further violated the "customs" of the realm to which he had himself +commanded the bishops to swear obedience at Clarendon. None of the +questions raised by Thomas indeed were raised for the first time. William +of St. Carileph, when charged by Rufus with treason, had asserted the +privilege of a bishop to be tried in pontifical dress, and to be judged +only by the canon law in an ecclesiastical court, and had claimed the +right of appeal to Rome. But such doctrines were in those days new and +somewhat doubtful, not supported in any degree by the Church and quite +outside the sympathy of nobles and people, and Lanfranc had easily +eluded the Bishop of Durham's claims. Anselm himself had accepted +a number of points disputed now by Thomas. He frankly admitted the king's +authority in appointing him to the see of Canterbury; he submitted to the +jurisdiction of the King's Court; he made no claims to clerical privileges +or special forms of trial. He had indeed given the first example of a +saving clause in his oath to keep the customs of the kingdom; but the +clause he used, "according to God," was radically different from that of +Thomas, and asserted no different law of obedience for clerk and +for layman. In the reign of Stephen the question of ecclesiastical +jurisdiction ad been raised at the trial of Bishop Roger of Salisbury; but +in this case too the difficulty had been evaded by a temporary expedient, +and the real principle at issue was left untouched. Thomas had in fact +taken up a position which had never been claimed by any great churchman +of the past. The rising tide of ecclesiastical feeling had swept him on +far beyond any of his predecessors. Not even in Anselm's time had the +people in an ecstasy of religious fervour pressed to the gate of the +judgment hall and knelt for the blessing of the saint with a passion of +sympathy and devotion. No problem of such proportions in the relations of +Church and State had ever before presented itself to a king of England. + +Henry's first step was to send orders to the archbishop to withdraw his +appeal to Rome and his prohibition to the bishops to proceed in the +trial, and to submit to the King's Court in the matter of the chancery +accounts. Secret friends in the Council sent the archbishop strange +warnings. Henry, some said, was planning his death; according to others +the royal officers were laying plots for it secretly, "the king knowing +nothing." A new access of panic seized the bishops. "If he should be +captured or slain what remains to us but to be cast out of our offices +and honours to everlasting shame!" With faces of abject terror they +surrounded Thomas, and the Bishop of Winchester implored him to resign +his see. "The same day and the same hour," he answered, "shall end my +bishopric and my life." "Would to God," cried Hilary, "that thou wert +and shouldst remain only Thomas without any other dignity whatever!" +But Thomas refused all compromise; he had not been summoned to answer +in this cause; he had already suffered against law for men of Kent and +of the sea-border charged with the defence of the coast might be fined +only one-third as much as the inland men; at his consecration, too, he +had been freed from any responsibility incurred as chancellor; he asserted +his right of appeal; and he had meanwhile forbidden the bishops to judge +him in any charge that referred to the time before he was Primate. +Silently the king's messenger returned with his answer. "Behold, we have +heard the blasphemy of prohibition out of his mouth!" cried the barons +and officers, and courtiers turning their heads and throwing sidelong +glances at him, whispered loudly that William who had conquered England, +and even Geoffrey of Anjou, had known how to subdue clerks. + +On hearing the message the king at once ordered bishops and barons to +proceed to the trial of the Primate for this new act of contempt of the +King's Court. "In a strait place you have put us," Hilary broke out +bitterly to Thomas, "by your prohibition you have set us between the +hammer and the anvil!" In vain they again entreated Thomas to yield; in +vain they begged the king's leave to sit apart from the barons. Even the +Archbishop of York and Foliot sought anxiously for some escape from +obeying Henry's orders, and at the head of the bishops prayed that they +might themselves appeal to Rome, and thus deal with their own special +grievances against Thomas, who had ordered them to swear and then to +forswear themselves. To this Henry agreed, and from this time the +prelates sat apart, no longer forced to join in the proceedings of the +lay lords; while Henry added to the Council certain sheriffs and lesser +barons "ancient in days." The assembly thus remodelled formally condemned +the archbishop as a traitor, and the earls of Leicester and of Cornwall +were sent to pronounce judgment. But the sentence was never spoken. Thomas +sprang up, cross in hand, and passionately forbade Leicester to speak. +"How can you refuse to obey," said Leicester, "seeing you are the king's +man, and hold your possessions as a fief from him?" "God forbid!" said +Thomas; "I hold nothing whatever of him in fief, for whatever the Church +holds it holds in perpetual liberty, not in subjection to any earthly +sovereignty whatever.... I am your father, you princes of the palace, +lay powers, secular persons; as gold is better than lead, so is the +spiritual better than the lay power.... By my authority I forbid you to +pronounce the sentence." As the nobles retired the archbishop raised his +cross: "I also withdraw," he said, "for the hour is past." Cries of +"Traitor!" followed him down the hall. Knights and barons rushed after him +with bundles of straw and sticks snatched up from the floor, and a clamour +rose "as if the four parts of the city had been given to flames and the +assault of enemies." He made his way slowly through the weeping crowd +outside to the monastery of St. Andrews. That night he fled from +Northampton. The darkness was "as a covering" to him, and a terrible storm +and pelting rain hid the sound of his horse's feet as he passed at +midnight through the town, and out by an unguarded gate to the north. At +dawn of day the anxious Henry of Winchester came to ask for news. "He is +doing well," Thomas's servant whispered in his ear, "for last night he +went away from us, and we do not know whither he has gone." "By the +blessing of God!" cried the bishop, weeping and sighing. When the news was +brought to the king he stood speechless for some moments, choked by his +fury, till at last catching his breath, "We have not done with him yet!" +he exclaimed. + +It seemed, indeed, as though the Council of Northampton had brought +nothing but failure and disaster. The king's whole scheme of reform +depended on the ruin or the submission of the Primate, who was its open +and formidable opponent. But Thomas was free and was now more dangerous +than ever. The Church was alarmed, suspicious, perplexed. It was not ten +years since Henry had made his first journey round the kingdom with +Archbishop Theobald at his side, as the king chosen and appointed by the +spiritual power to put down violence and repress a lawless baronage. But +now he could no longer look for the aid of the Church; all dream of +orderly legislation seemed over. Amid all his violence, however, the +king's sincere attempt to maintain the outward authority of law made of +the Council of Northampton a great event in our constitutional history. +It showed that the rule of pure despotism was over. A new step was taken +too in the political education of the nation. Thrown back on the support +of his own officials and of the baronage, Henry used the nobles as he +had once used the Church. Greater and lesser barons sat together in the +King's Council for the first time when Henry summoned sheriffs and +knights from the hall of Northampton Castle to the inner council +chamber. He taught the nobles their strength when he called the whole +assembly of his barons to discuss questions of spiritual jurisdiction. +It was at Northampton that he gave them their first training in political +action--a training whose full results were seen half a century later in +the winning of Magna Charta. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE ASSIZE OF CLARENDON + +The flight of the archbishop marked the opening of a new phase in the +struggle. Thomas sought refuge at the Papal Court at Sens. There +kneeling at Alexander's feet, and surrounded by weeping cardinals, he +delivered into the Pope's hands the written "customs" which had been +forced upon him at Clarendon, and resigned the see of Canterbury to +receive it back again with all honour. Alexander had indeed but limited +sympathy with the fiery zealot, but he had practically no choice of +action in face of the resistance with which the clergy would have met +any sacrifice of ecclesiastical to secular authority. For two years at a +monastery in Pontigny then for four at Sens, the archbishop lived the +life of an austere Cistercian monk, edifying the community with his +fastings, scourgings, and prayers. The canon law again became his +constant study, and throughout the churches of Gaul he sought for books +which might be copied for the library at Canterbury. He was soon +fortified with visions of martyrdom, and prepared himself fitly to +fulfil this glorious destiny. Nor did he forget the uses of political +intrigue; it was easy to enlist on his side the orthodoxy of the French +king and of the house of Blois; and the intimate knowledge which he had +of his master's continental policy was henceforth at the disposal of the +hereditary enemies of Henry. A tumult of political alarms filled the +air. Ambassadors from both sides hurried to every court, to the Emperor, +the Pope, the King of France, the Count of Flanders, the Empress Matilda +at Rouen. It was the beginning of six years of incessant diplomatic +intrigue, and of almost ceaseless war. The conflict, transferred from +England to France, rapidly widened into a strife, not now for the +maintenance of the king's authority in England, but for his actual +supremacy over the whole empire. Instead of the great questions of +principle which had given dignity to the earlier stages of the dispute, +the quarrel sank into a bitter personal wrangle, an ignoble strife which +left to later generations no great example, no fruitful precedent, no +victory won for liberty or order, for Church or State. + +The Constitutions of Clarendon two years before had lain down the +principles which were to regulate the relations in England of Church and +State. The Assize of Clarendon laid down the principles on which the +administration of justice was to be carried out. Just as Henry had +undertaken to bring Church courts and Church law under the king's +control, so now he aimed at bringing all local and rival jurisdictions +whatever into the same obedience. In form the new law was simple enough. +It consisted of twenty-two articles which were drawn up for the use of +the judges who were about to make their circuits of the provinces. The +first articles described the manner in which criminals were to be +"presented" before the justices or sheriff. The accusation was to be +made by "juries," composed of twelve men of the hundred and four men of +the township; the "presentment" of a criminal by a jury such as this +practically implied that the man was held guilty by the public report of +his own neighbourhood, and he was therefore forbidden such chance of +escape as compurgation or the less dangerous forms of ordeal might have +afforded, and was sent to the almost certain condemnation of the ordeal +by water; if by some rare fortune he should escape from this alive he +was banished from the kingdom as a man of evil reputation. All freemen +were ordered to attend the courts held by the justices. The judges were +given power to enter on all estates of the nobles, to see that the men +of the manor were duly enrolled under the system of "frank-pledge," in +groups of ten men bound to answer for one another as "pledges" for all +purposes of police. Strict rules were made to prevent the possible +escape of criminals. The sheriffs were ordered to aid one another in +carrying the hue and cry after them from one country to another; no +"liberty" or "honour" might harbour a malefactor against the king's +officers; sheriffs were to give to the justices in writing the names of +all fugitives, so that they might be sought through all England; +everywhere jails, in which doubtful strangers or suspected rogues might +be shut up for safe keeping in case the "hue and cry" should be raised +after them, were to be made or repaired with wood from the king's or the +nearest landowner's domains; no man might entertain a stranger for whom +he would not be answerable before the justices; the old English law was +again repeated in the very words of ancient times, that none might take +into his house a waif or wanderer for more than one night unless he or +his horse were sick; and if he tarried longer he must be kept until he +were redeemed by his lord or could give safe pledges; no religious house +might receive any of the mean people into their body without good +testimony as to character unless he were sick unto death; and heretics +were to be treated as outlaws. These last indeed were not very plentiful +in England, and the over-anxious legislators seem only to have had in +view a little band of German preachers, who had converted one woman, and +who had themselves at a late council at Oxford been branded, flogged, +and driven out half-naked, so that there was by this time probably not +one who had not perished in the cold. + +Such was the series of regulations that opened the long course of +reforms by which English law has been built up. Two judges were sent +during the next spring and summer through the whole of England. The +following year there was a survey of the forests, and in 1168 another +circuit of the shires was made by the barons of the Exchequer. Year by +year with unbroken regularity the terrible visitation of the country by +the justices went on. The wealth of the luckless people poured into the +king's treasury; the busy secretaries recorded in the Rolls a mass of +profits unknown to the accounts of earlier days. The great barons who +presided over the Shire courts found themselves practically robbed of +power and influence. The ordinary courts fell into insignificance beside +those summoned by the king's judges, thronged as they were with the +crowd of rich and poor, trembling at the penalty of a ruinous fine for +non-attendance or full of a newly-kindled hope of justice. Important +cases were more and more withdrawn from the sheriffs and given to the +justices. They entered the estates of the nobles, even the franchises, +liberties, and manors which had been freed from the old courts of the +shire or hundred; they reviewed their decisions and interfered with their +judgments. It is true that the system established in principle was but +gradually carried into effect, and the people long suffered the tyranny +of lords who maintained their own prisons. Half a century later we find +sturdy barons setting up their tumbrils and gallows. In the reign of +Edward I. there were still thirty-five private gallows in Berkshire +alone, and when one of them was by chance or age broken down, and the +people refused to set it up again, the baron could still make shift with +the nearest oak. But as a system of government, feudalism was doomed from +the day of Henry's Assize, and only dragged out a lingering existence +till the legislation of Edward I. dealt it a final blow. + +The duties of police were at that time performed by the whole population, +and the judges' circuits brought home sharply to every man the part he +was expected to play in the suppression of crime. Juries were fined if +they had not "presented" a due amount of criminals; townships were fined +if they had not properly pursued malefactors; villages were fined if a hut +was burned down and the hue and cry was not raised, or if a criminal who +had fled for refuge to their church escaped from it. A robber or murderer +must be paid for by his "pledge," or if he had no pledge, a fine fell on +his village or township; if a dead body were found and the slayer not +produced, the hundred must pay for him, unless a legal form, called +"proving his Englishry," could be gone through--a condition which was +constantly impossible; the township was fined if the body had been buried +before the coming of the coroner; abbot or knight or householder was +heavily taxed for every crime of serf or hired servant under him, or even +for the offences of any starving and worn-out pilgrim or traveller to +whom he had given a three days' shelter.. In the remotest regions of the +country barons and knights and freeholders were called to aid in carrying +out the law. The "jurors" must be ready at the judges' summons wherever +and whenever they were wanted. They must be prepared to answer fully for +their district; they must expect to be called on all sorts of excuses to +Westminster itself, and no hardships of the journey from the farthest +corner of the land might keep them back. The "knights of the shire" were +summoned as "recognitors" to give their testimony in all questions of +property, public privilege, rights of trade, local liberties, exemption +from taxes; if the king demanded an "aid" for the marriage of his daughter +or the coming of age of his son, they assessed the amount to be paid; if +he wanted to count an estate among the royal Forests, it was they who +decided whether the land was his by ancient right. They were employed +too in all kinds of business for the Court; they might be sent to +examine a criminal who had fled to the refuge of a church, or to see +whether a sick man had appointed an attorney, or whether a litigant who +pleaded illness was really in bed without his breeches. If in any case +the verdict of the Shire Court was disputed, they were summoned to +Westminster to repeat the record of the county. No people probably ever +went through so severe a discipline or received so efficient a training +in the practical work of carrying out the law, as was given to the +English people in the hundred years that lay between the Assize of +Clarendon in 1166 and the Parliament summoned by De Montfort in 1265, +where knights from every shire elected in the county court were called +to sit with the bishops and great barons in the common Parliament of the +realm. + +In the pitiless routine of their work, however, the barons of the +Exchequer were at this early time scarcely regarded as judges administering +justice so much as tax-gatherers for a needy treasury. Baron and churchman +and burgher alike saw every question turn to a demand of money to swell +the royal Hoard; jurors were fined for any trifling flaw in legal +procedure; widows were fined for leave to marry, guardians for leave to +receive their wards; if a peasant were kicked by his horse, if in fishing +he fell from the side of his boat, or if in carrying home his eels or +herrings he stumbled and was crushed by the cart-wheel, his wretched +children saw horse or boat or cart with its load of fish which in older +days had been forfeited as "deodand" to the service of God, now carried +off to the king's Hoard; if a miller was caught in the wheel of his mill +the sheriff must see the price of it paid to the royal treasury. In the +country districts where coin was perhaps scarcely ever seen, where +wages were unknown, and such little traffic as went on was wholly a +matter of barter, the peasants must often have been put to the greatest +straits to find money for the fines. Year after year baron as well as +peasant and farmer saw his waggons and horses, or his store of honey, +eggs, loaves, beer, the fish from his pond or the fowls from his yard, +claimed by the purveyors who provided for the judges and their followers, +and paid for by such measures and such prices as seemed good to the greedy +contractors. The people at large groaned under the heavy burden of fines +and penalties and charges for the maintenance of an unaccustomed justice. +When in the visitations of 1168 the judges had to collect, besides the +ordinary dues, an "aid" for the marriage of the king's eldest daughter, +the unhappy tax-payers, recognizing in their misery no distinctions, +attributed all their sufferings to the new reform, and saw in their king +not a ruler who desired righteous judgment, but one who only thirsted +after gain. The one privilege which seemed worth fighting for or worth +buying was the privilege of assessing their own fines and managing their +own courts. Half a century later we see the prevailing terror at a visit +of the judges to Cornwall, when all the people fled for refuge to the +woods, and could hardly be compelled or persuaded to come back again. +Yet later the people won a concession that in time of war no circuits +should be held, so that the poor should not be utterly ruined. + +Oppression and extortion had doubtless been well known before, when the +sheriff carried on the administration of the law side by side with the +lucrative business of "farming the shires;" but it was at least an +irregular and uncertain oppression. The sheriff might himself at any +moment share the fate of one of his own victims and a more merciful man +stand in his place; in any case bribes were not unavailing, and there +was still an appeal to the king's justice. But against the new system +there was no appeal; it was orderly, methodical, unrelenting; it was +backed by the whole force of the kingdom; it overlooked nothing; it +forgot nothing; it was comparatively incorruptible. The lesser courts, +with their old clumsy procedure, were at a hopeless disadvantage before +the professional judges, who could use all the new legal methods. If a +man suffered under these there was none to plead his cause, for in all +the country there was not a single trained lawyer save those in the +king's service. However we who look back from the safe distance of seven +hundred years may see with clearer vision the great work which was done +by Henry's Assize, in its own day it was far from being a welcome +institution to our unhappy forefathers. There was scarcely a class in +the country which did not find itself aggrieved as the king waged war +with the claims of "privilege" to stand above right and justice and truth. +But all resistance of turbulent and discontented factions was vain. +The great justiciars at the head of the legal administration, De +Lucy and Glanville, steadily carried out the new code, and a body of +lawyers was trained under them which formed a class wholly unknown +elsewhere in Europe. Instead of arbitrary and inflicting decisions, +varying in every hundred and every franchise according to the fashion of +the district, the judges of the Exchequer or Curia Regis declared +judgments which were governed by certain general principles. The +traditions of the great administrators of Henry's Court were handed down +through the troubled reigns of his sons; and the whole of the later +Common law is practically based on the decisions of two judges whose +work was finished within fifty years of Henry's death, and whose labours +formed the materials from which in 1260 Bracton drew up the greatest +work ever written on English law. + +There was, in fact, in all Christendom no such system of government or +of justice as that which Henry's reforms built up. The king became the +fountain of law in a way till then unknown. The later jealousy of the +royal power which grew up with the advance of industrial activity, with +the growth of public opinion and of its means of expressing itself, with +the development of national experience and national self-dependence, had +no place in Henry's days, and had indeed no reason for existence. The +strife for the abolition of privileges which in the nineteenth century +was waged by the people was in the twelfth century waged by the Crown. +In that time, if in no other, the assertion of the supreme authority of +the king meant the assertion of the supreme authority of a common law; +and there was, in fact, no country in Europe where the whole body of the +baronage and of the clergy was so early and so completely brought into +bondage to the law of the land. Since all courts were royal courts, +since all law was royal law, since no justice was known but his, and its +conduct lay wholly in the hands of his trained servants, there was no +reason for the king to look with jealousy on the authority exercised by +the law over any of his officers or servants. It may possibly be due to +this fact that in England alone, of all countries in the world, the +police, the civil servants, the soldiers, are tried in the same courts +and by the same code as any private citizen; and that in England and +lands settled by English peoples alone the Common law still remains the +ultimate and only appeal for every subject of the realm. + +But the power which was taken from certain privileged classes and put in +the hands of the king was in effect by Henry's Assize given back to the +people at large. Foreigner as he was, Henry preserved to Englishmen an +inheritance which had been handed down from an immemorial past, and +which had elsewhere vanished away or was slipping fast into forgetfulness. +According to the Roman system, which in the next century spread over +Europe, all law and government proceeded directly from the king, and the +subject had no right save that of implicit obedience; the system of +representation and the idea of the jury had no place in it. Teutonic +tradition, on the other hand, looked upon the nation as a commonwealth, +and placed the ultimate authority in the will of the whole people; the +law was the people's law--it was to be declared and carried out in the +people's courts. At a very critical moment, when everything was shifting, +uncertain, transitional, Henry's legislation established this tradition +for England. By his Assize Englishmen were still to be tried in their +ancient courts. Justice was to be administered by the ancient machinery +of shire-moot and hundred-moot, by the legal men of hundred and township, +by the lord and his steward. The shire-moot became the king's court in +so far as its president was a king's judge and its procedure regulated +by the king's decree; but it still remained the court of the people, to +which the freemen gathered as their fathers had done to the folk-moot, +and where judgment could only be pronounced by the verdict of the +freeholders who sat in the court. The king's action indeed was determined +by a curious medley of chance circumstances and rooted prejudices. The +canon law was fast spreading over his foreign states, and wherever the +canon law came in the civil law followed in its train. But in England +local liberties were strong, the feudal system had never been completely +established, insular prejudice against the foreigner and foreign ways was +alert, the Church generally still held to national tradition, the king +was at deadly feud with the Primate, and was quite resolved to have no +customs favoured by him brought into the land; his own absolute power +made it no humiliation to accept the maxim of English lawyers that "the +king is under God and the law." So it happened that while all the other +civilized nations quietly passed under the rule of the Roman code England +alone stood outside it. From the twelfth century to the present day the +groundwork of our law has been English, in spite of the ceaseless +filtering in of the conceptions and rules of the civil law of Rome. +"Throughout the world at this moment there is no body of ten thousand +Englishmen governed by a system of law which was not fashioned by +themselves." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +THE STRIFE WITH THE CHURCH + +The Assize of Clarendon was drawn up in February 1166, and in March +Henry sailed for France. Trouble awaited him there on every hand, +and during the next two years he had to meet no less than thirteen +revolts or wars. Aquitaine declared against the imperial system; loud +complaints were raised of Henry's contempt of old franchises and +liberties, and of the "officers of a strange race" who violated the +customs of the country by orders drawn up in a foreign tongue--the +_langue d'oil_, the speech of Norman and Angevin. Maine, Touraine, +and Britanny were in chronic revolt. The Welsh rose and conquered +Flint. The King of Scotland was in treaty with France. Warring parties +in Ireland claimed Henry's interference. England was uneasy and +discontented. Louis of France was allied with all Henry's enemies +--Gascons, Bretons, Welsh and Scotch; he aided the Count of Flanders and +the Count of Boulogne in preparing a fleet of six hundred ships to attack +the southern coast of England. The Pope's attitude was cautious and +uncertain. When Barbarossa's armies were triumphant in Italy, when +Henry's Italian alliances were strong and his bribes were big, Alexander +leaned to the king; when success again returned to Rome he looked with +more effectual favour on the demands of the archbishop. The rising tide +of disaffection tried the king sorely. It was in vain that he sought to +win over the leaders of the ecclesiastical party, the canon lawyers, +such as John of Salisbury, or Master Herbert of Bosham, with whom he +argued the point at his Easter Court at Angers. John of Salisbury flatly +rejected the Constitutions, declaring that his first obedience was due +to the Pope and the archbishop. Herbert was yet more defiant. "Look how +this proud fellow comes!" said Henry, as the stately Herbert entered in +his splendid dress of green cloth of Auxerre, with a richly trimmed +cloak hanging after the German fashion to his heels. He was no true +servant to the king, declared Herbert when he had seated himself, who +would allow him to go astray. As for the customs, there were bad enough +customs in other countries against the Church of God, but at least they +were not written down either in the lands of the King of France or of +the King of the Germans. "Why do you diminish his dignity?" hastily +demanded the king, "by not calling him the Emperor of the Germans?" +"The King of the Germans he is," retorted Herbert, "though when he writes, +he signs Imperator Romanorum semper Augustus_.'" "Shame!" cried the king, +"here is an outrage! Why should this son of a priest disturb my kingdom +and disquiet my peace?" "Nay," said Herbert, "I am not the son of a +priest, for it was after my birth my father became a priest; neither +is he the son of a king save one whom his father begat being king." +"Whosesoever son he may be," cried a baron who sat by, "I would give the +half of my land that he were mine!" Henry heard the words bitterly, and +held his peace; and in a few moments ordered the intractable Herbert +to depart. + +The strife between Church and State was, in fact, taking every day a new +harshness. Gregory VII. a century earlier had suggested that kingly +power was of diabolic origin. "Who is ignorant that kings and princes +have their beginning in this, that knowing not God, they by rapine, +perfidy, and slaughter, the devil moving them, affect rule over their +equals-that is, over men, with blind greed and intolerable presumption." +But the papal theory of a vast Christian republic of all peoples, under +the leadership of Rome, found little favour with the kings of the rising +states which were beginning to shape themselves into the great powers of +modern Europe. Henry, steeped in the new temper, proposed a rival theory +of the origin of government. "Thou," he wrote to the Pope, "by the papal +authority granted thee by men, thinkest to prevail over the authority of +the royal dignity committed to me by God." The wisest of the churchmen of +England used more sober language than all this. "Ecclesiastical +dignity," wrote Ralph of Diceto, later the Dean of St. Paul's, "rather +advances than abolishes royal dignity, and the royal dignity is wont +rather to preserve than to destroy ecclesiastical liberty, for kings +have no salvation without the Church, nor can the Church obtain peace +without the protection of the king." To the fiery zeal of the archbishop, +on the other hand, the secular power was as "lead" compared to the fine +"gold" of the spiritual dignity. Henry, he cried loudly, was a "tyrant"-a +word which to medieval ears meant not an arbitrary or capricious ruler, +since that was the admitted right of every ruler, but a king who governed +without heeding the eternal maxims of the "law of nature," an idea which +theologians had borrowed from the theories of the ancient law of Rome, +and modified to mean the law of Scripture or of the Church. But in the +arguments of Thomas this law took the narrowest proportions, with no wider +interpretation than that given by the pedantic temper of a fanatical +ecclesiastical politician. He fought his battles too often by violent +and vulgar methods, and Henry reaped the profit of his errors. How far +our national solution of the problem raised between Church and State might +have been altered or delayed if the claims of the Church had at this +moment been represented by a leader of supreme moral and spiritual +authority, it is hard to say. But Thomas was far from being at the highest +level of his own day in religious thought. When some years later the holy +Hugh of Lincoln forbade his archdeacons and their officers to receive +fines instead of inflicting penance for crimes, he was met by the +objection that the blessed archbishop and martyr Thomas himself had taken +fines. "Believe me," said Hugh, "not for that was he a saint; he showed +other marks of holiness, by another title he won the martyr's palm." + +In the spring of 1166 Thomas was appointed Papal Legate for England, and +he at once used his new authority to excommunicate in June all the +king's chief agents--Richard of Ilchester, John of Oxford, Richard de +Lucy, Jocelyn of Bailleul--while the king himself was only spared for +the moment that he might have a little space for repentance. Rumour +asserted too that the Primate acted as counsellor to the foreign enemies +of England, declaring that he would either restore himself to his see or +take away Henry's crown. He saw with delight the growing irritation of +England under its sufferings after the Assize of Clarendon; ancient +prophecies of Merlin's which foretold disaster were on his lips, and he +grew yet more defiant in his sense of the king's impending ruin. The +pride and temper of Henry kept pace with those of Thomas. He became more +and more fierce and uncompromising. In answer to the excommunications he +forced the Cistercians in 1166, by threats of vengeance in England, to +expel Thomas from Pontigny. When papal legates arrived in 1167 with +proposals for mediation, he bluntly expressed his hope that he might +never see any more cardinals. His political activity was unceasing. He +completed the conquest of Britanny, and concluded a treaty of marriage +between his son Geoffrey and its heiress Constance. The Count of Blois +was won at a cost of £500 a year. Mortain was bought from the Count of +Boulogne. "Broad and deep ditches were made between France and Normandy." +A frontier castle was raised at Beauvoir. His second son Richard, then +twelve years old, was betrothed to Louis's daughter Adela; and his +daughter Eleanor to the King of Castile. He secured the friendship of +Flanders. He was busy building up a plan of Italian alliances and securing +the passes over the Alps. Milan, Parma, Bologna, Cremona, the Marquis of +Montferrat, the barons of Rome, all were won by his lavish pay. The +alliance of Sicily was established by the betrothal of his daughter with +its king. The states of the Pope were being gradually hemmed in between +Henry's allies to north and south. The threat of an imperial alliance was +added to hold his enemies in awe. In the spring of 1168 his eldest +daughter was married to the Emperor's cousin, Henry the Lion, the national +hero of Germany, second only to Barbarossa in power, Duke of Bavaria, Duke +of Saxony, Lord of Brunswick, and of vast estates in Northern Germany, +with claims to the inheritance of Tuscany and of the Lombard possessions +of the House of Este. For the purpose of a judicious threat, he even +entertained an imperial embassy which promised him armed help and urged +him to recognize the anti-Pope, whose first act, as both Henry and Thomas +well understood, would have been the deposition of the archbishop. + +At last the moment seemed come, not only to win a peace with France, but +to carry out a long-cherished scheme for the ordering of the Angevin +Empire. He met the King of France at Montmirail on the feast of the +Epiphany, January 6, 1169, and the mighty Angevin ruler bowed himself +before his feebler suzerain lord to renew his homage. "On this day, my +lord king, on which the three kings offered gifts to the King of kings, +myself, my sons, and my land, I commend to your keeping." His continental +estates were divided among his sons, to be held under his supreme +authority. The eldest, Henry, who had in 1160 done homage to Louis for +Normandy, now did homage for Anjou, Maine, and Britanny. Richard received +Aquitaine, and Geoffrey was set over Britanny under his elder brother as +overlord. This division of Henry's dominions by no means implied any +intention on the king's part of giving up the administration of the +provinces. It was but the first step towards the realization of his +imperial system, by which he was to reign as supreme lord, surrounded by +the sub-rulers of his various provinces. Harassed as he had been with +ceaseless wars, from the Welsh mountains to the Pyrenees, he might well +believe that such a system would best provide for the defence of his +unwieldy states; "When he alone had the rule of his kingdom," as he said +later, "he had let nothing go of his rights; and now, when many were +joined in the government of his lands, it would be a shame that any part +of them were lost." In the difficulties of internal administration the +system might prove no less useful. That any serious difference of interest +could arise between himself and the sons whom he loved "more than a +father," Henry could never, then or afterwards, believe. He rather +trusted that a wise division of authority between them might secure +the administrative power in the royal house, and prevent the growth of +excessive influence among his ministers. But for all his hopes, the +treaty of Montmirail was in fact a crowning triumph for France; it was +virtually the first breaking up of the Empire, and had in it the seeds +of Henry's later ruin. + +There was another side to the treaty. Henry and Thomas met at Montmirail +for the first time since the council of Northampton over four years +before, to renew a quarrel in which no terms of peace were possible. The +old hopeless dispute raged afresh, the king demanding a vow to obey the +"customs of the kingdom," Thomas insisting on his clause "saving my +order," "saving the honour of God." The former weary negotiations began +again; new envoys hurried backwards and forwards; interminable letters +argued the limits of the temporal and spiritual powers in phrases which +lost nothing of their arrogance from the fact that neither side +had the power to enforce their claims. The Primate would have no +counsels. "Believe me," Thomas wrote of Henry, "who know the manners +of the man, he is of such a disposition that nothing but punishment can +mend." He excommunicated the bishops of London and Salisbury and a number +of clerks and laymen, till in the chapel of the king there was scarcely +one who was able to give him the kiss of peace. Henry "shook with fear," +according to the boast of Thomas, at the excommunications. In vain the +Pope sought to moderate his zeal. In the summer of 1169 two legates were +sent to settle the dispute, of whom one was pledged to the king and the +other to the archbishop. Henry, like every one else, saw the futility of +their mission, and "led them for a week," as one of them complained, +"through many windings both of road and speech." With a scornful taunt +that "he did not care an egg for them and their excommunications," he +finally mounted his horse to ride off from the conference. "I see, +I see!" he said to the frightened bishops who hurried after him to call +him back; "they will interdict my land, but surely I who can take the +strongest of castles in any single day, shall I not avail to scotch a +single clerk if he should interdict my land!" When a compromise seemed +possible, he suddenly added to the form of peace he had proposed +the words, "saving the dignity of my kingdom." This broke off all +negotiations. "The dignity of the kingdom," said Thomas, "was only a +softer name for the Constitutions of Clarendon." "If the king," said John +of Salisbury, "had obtained the insertion of this clause, he had +carried the royal customs, only changing the name." A new attempt at +reconciliation was made in November at Montmartre, but Henry refused to +give the Primate the "kiss of peace," which in feudal custom was the +binding sign of perfect friendship; and when the Pope thought to compel +his submission, first by threats and promises, then by a formal threat of +interdict, he answered by despatching very decided orders to England. +Anyone who carried an interdict to England was to suffer as a traitor; all +clerks were summoned home from abroad; none might leave the kingdom +without an order from the king; if any man should observe an interdict he +was to be banished with all his kindred. All appeal to Pope or archbishop +was forbidden; no mandate might be carried to Pope or archbishop; if any +man favoured Pope or archbishop his goods and those of his kindred should +be confiscated. All subjects of the realm, from boys to old men, must +swear obedience to these articles. + +But if Henry had long been used to see his mere will turn into absolute +law, he had now reached a point where the submission of his subjects +broke down. The laity indeed obeyed, but the clergy, with the Archbishop +of York at their head, absolutely refused to abjure obedience to Pope +and Primate. Throughout the strife the leading clergy had sought to +avoid taking sides, but as the king's attitude became more and more +arbitrary, a steady undercurrent of resistance made itself felt. As +early as 1166 the king's officer, Richard of Ilchester, sought counsel +of Ralph of Diceto as to the duty of observing his excommunication by +Thomas. The answer shows the nobler influence of the Church in maintaining +the rigid rule of law as opposed to arbitrary government, and its large +sense that general order was to be preferred to private good. He laid down +that an archbishop's spiritual rights are indestructible; that in all +cases submission to law was the highest duty; and that it was better +humbly to accept even a harsh sentence than to set an evil example of +disobedience by which others might be led to their ruin. In 1167 the +clergy had been called to London to swear fealty to the anti-Pope; but +"as the bishops refused to take so detestable an oath against God and the +Pope, this unlawful and wicked business came to an end." The bishops had +obeyed the excommunication of Foliot by the Primate; they had refused to +join in his appeal to Rome or to hold communion with him. It now seemed as +though in this last decree of 1169 Henry had reached the limits of his +authority over the Church, and it may be that some sense of peril +induced him at the Pope's orders to summon Thomas to Normandy to renew +negotiations for the peace of Montmartre. But the meeting never took +place. Before Thomas could reach Caen he was stopped by news that Henry +had suddenly left for England. In the midst of a terrible storm the king +crossed the Channel on the 3rd of March 1170, and barely escaping with his +life, landed at Portsmouth after four years' absence. + +So sudden was his journey that a rumour spread that he had fled over sea +to avoid the interdict proclaimed by Thomas. But during his absence +trouble had been steadily growing in England. In his sore straits for +money during these last years, Henry could not always be particular as +to means. Jews were robbed and banished; the bishopric of Lincoln was +added to the half-dozen sees already vacant, and its treasure swept into +the royal Hoard; an "aid" was raised for the marriage of his daughter, +and a terrible list of fines levied under the Assize of Clarendon. The +sums raised told, in fact, of the general increase of wealth. The +national income, which at the beginning of Henry's reign had been but +£22,000, was raised in the last year to £48,000, and an enormous +treasure had been accumulated said to be equal to 100,000 marks, or, by +another account, to be worth £900,000. The increase of trade was shown +by the growing numbers of Jews, the bankers and usurers of the time. At +the beginning of Henry's reign they were still so few that it was +possible to maintain a law which forbade their burial anywhere save in +one cemetery near London. Before its close their settlements were so +numerous that Jewish burial-grounds had to be established near every +great town. Their banking profits were enormous, and Christians who saw +the wages of sin heaped up before their eyes, looked wistfully at a +business forbidden by the ecclesiastical standard of morals of that day. + +The towns were stirred with a new activity. London naturally led the +way. The very look of the city told of its growing wealth. Till now the +poor folk in towns found shelter in hovels of such a kind that Henry II. +could order that the houses of heretics should be carried outside the +town and burned. But the new wealth of merchant and Jew and trader was +seen in the "stone houses," some indeed like "royal palaces," which +sprang up on every hand, and offered a new temptation to house-breakers +and plunderers of the thickly-peopled alleys. The new cathedral of St. +Paul's had just been built. The tower and the palace at Westminster had +been repaired by the splendid extravagance of Chancellor Thomas, and the +citizens, impatient of the wooden bridge that spanned the river, were on +the point of beginning the "London Bridge" of stone. In the next quarter +of a century merchants of Kiln had their guild-hall in the city, while +merchants of the Empire were settled by the river-side in the hall later +known as the Steel Yard. Already charters confirmed to London its own +laws and privileges, and only three or four years after Henry's death +its limited freedom was exchanged for a really municipal life under a +mayor elected by the citizens themselves. Oxford too, at the close of +Henry's reign, was busy replacing its old wooden hovels with new "houses +of stone"; and could buy from Richard a charter which set its citizens +as free from toll or due as those of London, and gave them, instead of +the king's bailiff, a mayor of their own election, under whom they could +manage their own judicial and political affairs in their own Parliament. +Winchester, Northampton, Norwich, Ipswich, Doncaster, Carlisle, Lincoln, +Scarborough, York, won their charters at the same time--bought by the +wealth which had been stored up in the busy years while Henry reigned. A +chance notice of Gloucester shows us its two gaols--the city gaol +which the citizens were bound to watch, and the castle prison of the +king. The royal officers marked by their exactions the growth of the +town's prosperity, and no longer limited themselves to time-honoured +privileges of extortion. Bristol could claim its own coroners; it could +assert its right to be free of frank-pledge; its burghers were in 1164 +taken under the king's special patronage and protection; in 1172 he +granted them the right of colonizing Dublin and holding it with all the +liberties with which they held Bristol itself, to the wrath of the men of +Chester who had long been rivals of the Bristol men, and who hastened to +secure a royal writ ordering that they should be as free to trade with +Dublin as they had ever been, for all the privileges of Bristol. Its +merchants were fast lining the banks of the Severn with quays, and a +later attempt to hinder them by law was successfully resisted. The new +commercial spirit soon quickened alike the wits of royal officers and +burghers. The weavers did not keep to the legal measure for the width of +cloth. The woad-sellers no longer heaped up their measures, as of old, +above the brim. The constables on their side began to demand outrageous +dues on the sale of herrings, and what was more, whereas of old heavy +goods, such as wood, hides, iron, woad, were sold outside the fair and +escaped dues, now the constable of the castle insisted on tolls for every +sale even without the bounds--a pound of pepper, or even more, had to go +into his hand. The citizens of Lincoln had analized the Witham, and built +up an illustration of the rapid development of the trading towns. As early +as the beginning of the century its owner, the Bishop of Norwich, had seen +its advantages, lying as it did at the mouth of the Ouse, and forming the +only outlet for the trade of seven shires. It was not long before the +prudent bishops had made of it the Liverpool of medieval times. The Lynn +of older days, later known as "King's Lynn," with its little crowded +market shut in between Guildhall and Church, the booths then as now +leaning against the church walls, and a tangle of narrow lanes leading to +the river-side, was in no way fit for the great demands of an awakened +commerce; its life went on as of old, but the sea was driven back by a +vast embankment, and the "Bishop's Lynn" rose on the newly-won land along +the river-bank, with its great market-place, its church, its jewry, its +merchant-houses, and its guild-houses; and soon, in the thick of the +busiest quarter, by the wharves, rose the "stone house" of the bishop +himself, looking closely out on the "strangers' ships" that made their +way along the Ouse laden with provisions and with merchandise. + +But this growing wealth was still mainly confined to the towns. The +great bulk of the country was purely agricultural, and had no concern in +any questions of trade. There is a record of over five hundred pleas of +the Gloucestershire fifty years later, and among all these there is +outside the _town_ of Gloucester but one case which deals with the lawful +width for weaving cloth, and one or two as to the sale of bread, ale, or +wine. The agricultural peasants seem, from the glimpses which we catch +here and there, to have for the most part lived on the very verge +of starvation. Every few years with dreary regularity we note the +chronicler's brief record of cattle-plague, famine, pestilence. Half +a century later we read in legal records the tale of a hard winter and +its consequences--the dead bodies of the famine-stricken serfs lying in +the fields on every side, and the judges of the King's Court claiming from +the starving survivors the "murder-fine" ordained by law to be paid for +every dead body found when the murderer was not produced. The system of +cultivation was ignorant and primitive. Rendered timid by the repeated +failure of crops, the poor people would set aside a part of their land to +sow together oats, barley, and wheat, in the hope that whatever were the +season something would come up which might serve for the rough black bread +which was their main food. The low wet grounds were still undrained, and +the number of cases of eye-disease which we find in the legends of +miraculous cures point to the prevalence of ophthalmia brought on by damp +and low living, as the army of lepers points to the filth and misery of +the poor .The "common fields" and pastures of the villages must have lain +on the higher grounds which were not mere swamps during half the year. But +to these a dry season brought ruin. In time of drought the cattle had to +be driven five or six miles to find water in the well or pool which served +for the whole district. If by any chance disease broke out, the wearied +beasts that met at the watering or drank of the tainted pool carried it +far and wide, and plague soon raged from end to end of the country. Even +in the days of Henry VIII. shrewd observers noted that the new grazing +farms, where the cattle were better fed and kept separate, alone escaped +these ravages, and that it was these farms whence came the only meat to be +found in the country through the long winter months or in time of murrain. +This purpose was doubtless served earlier by the great monastic estates, +but means of transport scarcely existed; each district had to live on its +own resources, and vast tracts of country were with every unfavourable +season stricken by hunger and by the plague and famine fever that +followed it. + +One source of later misery was indeed unknown. The war of classes had not +yet begun. The lawyers had not been at work hardening and defining vague +traditions, and legally the position of the serf was far better than it +was a hundred years later. The feudal system still preserved relations +between the lord and his dependents, which were more easy and familiar +than anything we know. The lord of the manor had not begun to encroach on +the privileges or the "common" rights of the tenant, nor had the merchant +guilds of the towns attacked the liberties of the craftsmen and lesser +folk. For a century to come the battle for lands or rights was mainly +waged between the lord or the men of one township or manor with the men +of a neighbouring township or manor; and it was not till these had fairly +ended their quarrel that lords and burghers turned to fight against the +liberties and privileges of serfs and craftsmen. There are indications, +on the other hand, that one effect of the new administration of justice, +as it told on the poor, began early to show itself in the growth of an +"outlaw" class. Crimes of violence were surprisingly common. Dead bodies +were found in the wood, in the field, in the fold, in the barn. In an +extraordinary number of cases the judges' records of a little later time +tell of houses broken into by night and robbed, and every living thing +within them slain, and no clue was ever found to the plunderers. There +were stories in Henry's days of a new crime-of men wearing religious +dress who joined themselves to wayfarers, and in such a case the traveller +was never seen again alive. Tales of Robin Hood began to take shape. The +by-ways and thickets were peopled with men, innocent or guilty, but all +alike desperate. One Richard, we read, whose fellow at the plough fell +dead in an epileptic fit, fled in terror of the judges to the woods, and +so did many a worse man than Richard. We find constantly the same tale of +the sudden quarrel, the blow with a stick or a stone, the thrust with the +knife which every man carried, the stroke with a hatchet. Then the slayer +in his panic flies to a nun's garden, to a monastery, or to the shelter of +a church, where the men of the village keep guard over him till knights +of the shire are sent from the Court, to whom he confesses his crime, +and who allow him so many days to fly to the nearest port and forsake +the kingdom. Perhaps he never reaches the coast, but takes to the woods, +already haunted by "abjurors" like himself, or by outlaws flying from +justice. In the social conditions of the England of that day the +administration of justice was, in more ways than one, a very critical +matter, and the efforts of over-zealous judges and sheriffs might easily +end in driving the people to desperation before the severity of the law, +or in crushing out under a heedless taxation a prosperity which was +still new and still rare. + +Henry perhaps already saw the deep current of discontent which only a +year later was to break out in the most terrible rebellion of his reign. +In any case the severity of the measures which he took shows how serious +he thought the crisis. After his landing in March 1170 one month was +given to inquiry as to the state of the country. In the beginning of +April he held a council to consider the reform of justice. A commission +was appointed to examine, during the next two months, every freeholder +throughout the kingdom as to the conduct of judges and sheriffs and +every other officer charged with the duty of collecting or accounting +for the public money. Its members were chosen from among the most +zealous opponents of the Court officials-the great barons, the priors, +the important abbots of the shires--and they were all men who had no +connection with the Exchequer or the Curia Regis. Their work was done, +and their report presented within the time allowed; but the king, +practical, businesslike, impatient of abuses, like every vigorous +autocratic ruler, had no mind to wait two months to redress the grievances +of his people. The barons who had been appointed as sheriffs at the +opening of his reign had governed after the old corrupt traditions, or +perhaps themselves suffering under the ruthless pressure of the barons of +the Exchequer, had been driven to a like severity of extortion. By an +edict of the king every sheriff throughout the country was struck from +his post; of the twenty-seven only seven were restored to their places, +and new sheriffs were appointed, all of whom save four were officers of +the King's Court. The great local noble who had lorded it as he chose over +the suitors of the Court for fifteen years, and fined and taxed and +forfeited as seemed good to him, suddenly, without a moment's warning, +saw his place filled by a stranger, a mere clerk trained in the Court +among the royal servants, a simple nominee of the king; he could no +longer doubt that the royal supremacy was now without rival, without +limit, irresistible, complete. Such an act of absolute authority had +indeed, as Dr. Stubbs says, "no example in the history of Europe since +the time of the Roman Empire, except possibly in the power wielded by +Charles the Great." + +Nor was this Henry's only act of high-handed government. On the 10th of +April he called a council to London to consult about the coronation of +his son. It was a dangerous innovation, against all custom and tradition, +for no such coronation of the heir in his father's lifetime had ever taken +place in England. But Henry was no mere king of England, nor did he +greatly heed barbaric or insular prejudice when he had even before his +eyes the example not only of the French Court, but of the Holy Roman +Empire. The coronation was a necessary step in the completion of the plan +unfolded at Montmirail for the ordering of the second empire of the West. +Moreover, the settlement probably seemed to him more imperative than ever +from the restlessness and discontent of the land. No king of England since +the Conquest had succeeded peaceably to his father. The reign of Stephen +had abundantly proved how vain were oaths of homage to secure the +succession; and the sacred anointing, which in those days carried with it +an inalienable consecration, was perhaps the only certain way of securing +his son's right. It may well be, too, that, threatened as he was with +interdict, he saw the advantage of providing for the peace and security of +England by crowning as her king an innocent boy with whom the Church had +no quarrel. The actual ceremony of consecration raised, indeed, an +immediate and formidable difficulty. A king of England could be legally +consecrated only by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Three years before Henry +had forced the Pope, then in extreme peril, to grant special powers to the +Archbishop of York to perform the rite, but he had not yet ventured to +make use of the brief. Now, however, whether the case seemed to him more +urgent, or whether his temper had grown more imperious, he cast aside his +former prudence. On the 14th of June the lords and prelates were gathered +together "in fear, none knowing what the king was about to decree." The +younger Henry, a boy of fifteen, was brought before them; he was anointed +and crowned by Roger of York. From this moment a new era opened in Henry's +reign. The young king was now lord of England, in the view of the whole +medieval world, by a right as absolute and sacred as that of his father. +All who were discontented and restless had henceforth a leader ordained by +law, consecrated by the Church, round whom they might rally. Delicate +questions had to be solved as to the claims and powers of the new king, +which never in fact found their answer so long as he lived. Meanwhile +Henry had raised up for himself a host of new difficulties. The archbishop +had a fresh grievance in the king's reckless contempt of the rights of +Canterbury. The Church party both in England and in Europe was outraged +at the wrong done to him. Many who had before wavered, like Henry of +Blois, now threw themselves passionately on the side of Thomas. In the +fierce contention that soon raged round the right of the archbishop to +crown the king, and to deal as he chose with any prelate who might +infringe his privileges, all other questions were forgotten. Not only +the zealots for religious tradition, but all who clung loyally to +established law and custom, were thrown into opposition. The French +king was bitterly angry that his daughter had not been crowned with her +husband. All Henry's enemies banded themselves together in a frenzy of +rage. So immediate and formidable was the outburst of indignation that +ten days after the coronation the king no longer ventured to remain in +England; and on the 24th of June he hastily crossed the Channel. Near +Falaise he was met by the bishop of Worcester, who had supported him at +Northampton. The king turned upon him passionately, and broke out in angry +words, "Now it is plain that thou art a traitor! I ordered thee to attend +the coronation of my son, and since thou didst not choose to be +there, thou hast shown that thou hast no love for me nor for my son's +advancement. It is plain that thou favourest my enemy and hatest me. I +will tear the revenues of the see from thy hands, who hast proved unworthy +of the bishopric or any benefice. In truth thou wert never the son of my +uncle, the good Count Robert, who reared me and thee in his castle, and +had us there taught the first lessons of morals and of learning." Earl +Robert's son, however, was swift in retort. He vehemently declared he +would have no part in the guilt of such a consecration. "What grateful +act of yours," he cried, "has shown that Count Robert was your uncle, and +brought you up, and battled with Stephen for sixteen years for your +sake, and for you was at last made captive? Had you called to mind his +services you would not have driven my brothers to penury and ruin. My +eldest brother's tenure, given him by your grandfather, you have +curtailed. My youngest brother, a stout soldier, you have driven by stress +of want to quit a soldier's life and give himself to the perpetual service +of the hospital at Jerusalem, and don the monk's habit. Thus you know how +to bless those of your own household! Thus you are wont to reward those +who have deserved well of you! Why threaten me with the loss of my +benefice? Be it yours if it suffice you not to have already seized an +archbishopric, six vacant sees, and many abbeys, to the peril of your +soul, and turned to secular uses the alms of your fathers, of pious kings, +the patrimony of Jesus Christ!" All this abuse, and much more besides, the +angry bishop poured out in the hearing of the knights who were riding on +either side of the king. "He fares well with the king since he is a +priest," commented a Gascon; "had he been a knight he would leave behind +him two hides of land!" Some one else, thinking to please the king, abused +the bishop roundly. Henry, however, turned on him with an outburst of +rage. "Do you think, scoundrel, if I say what I choose to my kinsman and +my bishop, that you or anyone else are at liberty to dishonour him with +words and persecute him with threats? Scarce can I keep my hands from +thy eyes!" + +The king well understood, indeed, in what a critical position matters +stood. He swiftly agreed to every conceivable concession on every hand. +He met the papal messengers and bent to their terms of reconciliation. +On the 20th of July he had a conference with Louis near Fréteval in +Touraine, and next day the kings parted amicably. On the 22d an interview +between the king and the archbishop followed. The royal customs were not +mentioned; no oath was exacted from the Primate; he was promised safe +return and full possession of his see, and the "kiss of peace"; he was +to crown once more the young king and his wife. At the close of the +conference Thomas lighted from his horse to kiss the king's foot, but +Henry, rivalling him in courtesy, dismounted to hold the Primate's +stirrup, with the words, "It is fit the less should serve the greater!" +But if there was a show of peace "the whole substance of it consisted only +in hope," as Thomas wrote. Each side was full of distrust. Thomas demanded +immediate restitution of his see, and liberty to excommunicate the bishops +who had shared in the coronation. Henry wanted first to see "how Thomas +would behave in the affairs of the kingdom." The king and Primate met for +the last time in October 1170 at Chaumont with seeming friendliness, but +any real peace was as far off as ever. "My lord," said Thomas, as he bade +farewell, "my heart tells me that I part from you as one whom you shall +see no more in this life." "Do you hold me as a traitor?" asked the king. +"That be far from thee, my lord!" answered Thomas. But to the Primate the +king's fair promises were but the tempting words of the devil--"all these +things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me." He begged +from the Pope unlimited powers of excommunication. "The more potent and +fierce the prince is," he said, "the stronger stick and harder chain is +needed to bind him and keep him in order." He had warning visions. He +spoke of returning to his church "perhaps to perish for her." "I go to +England," he said; "whether to peace or to destruction I know not; but God +has decreed what fate awaits me." + +The king's conduct indeed gave ground for fear. He had summoned clergy +abroad against law and custom to elect bishops who, in contempt of the +Primate's rights, were to be sent to Rome for consecration. In the +general doubt as to the king's attitude, no one dared to speak to envoys +sent by Thomas to England. Ranulf de Broc was still wasting the lands of +Canterbury; the palace was half in ruins, the barns destroyed, the lands +uncultivated, the woods cut down. The Primate's friends urged him to +keep out of England for fear of treachery. Thomas, however, was determined +to return, and to return with uncompromising defiance. He sent before him +letters excommunicating the bishops of London and Salisbury, and +suspending the Bishop of Durham and the Archbishop of York, for having +joined in the coronation; and on the following day, under the protection +of John of Oxford as the king's officer, he landed at Sandwich. The +excommunications had set the whole quarrel aflame again, and John of +Oxford with difficulty prevented open fighting. The royal officers +demanded absolution for the bishops. Thomas flatly refused unless they +would swear to appear at his court for justice, an oath which the bishops +in their terror of the king dared not take. They fled to Henry's court in +Normandy; while on the 1st of December Thomas passed on to Canterbury. The +men of Kent were stout defenders of their customary rights; they clung +tenaciously to their special privileges; they had their own views of +inheritance, their fixed standard of fines, their belief that the Crown +had no right to the property of thief or murderer, who had been +hanged--"the father to the bough, the son to the plough," said they, in +Kent at least. They were a very mixed population, constantly recruited +from the neighbouring coasts. They held the outposts of the country as the +advanced guard formally charged with the defence of its shores from +foreign invasion, which was a very present terror in those days. Lying +near the Continent they caught every rumour of the liberties won by the +Flemish towns or French communes; commerce and manufacture were doing +their work in the ports and among the iron mines of the forests; and it +seems as though the shire very early took up the part it was to play +again and again in medieval history, and even later, as the asserter and +defender of popular privileges. From such a temper Thomas was certain to +find sympathy as he passed through the country in triumph. At Canterbury +the monks received him as an angel of God, crying, "Blessed be he that +cometh in the name of the Lord." "I am come to die among you," said +Thomas in his sermon. "In this church there are martyrs," he said again, +"and God will soon increase their number." A few days later he made a +triumphant progress through London on his way to visit the young king; +his fellow-citizens crowded round him with loud blessings, while a +procession of three hundred poor scholars and London clerks raised a +loud Te Deumas Thomas rode along with bowed head scattering alms on +every side. His old pupil Henry refused, however, to receive him, and +Thomas returned to Canterbury. + +News of all these things travelled fast to the king in Normandy. The +excommunicated bishops, falling at his feet, told him of the evil done +against his peace; rumour, growing as it crossed the sea, said that the +archbishop had travelled through the country with a mighty army of paid +soldiers, and had sought to enter into the king's fortresses, and that +he was ready to "tear the crown from the young king's head." Henry, +"more angry than was fitting to the royal majesty," was swept beyond +himself by one of his mad storms of passion. "What a pack of fools and +cowards," he shouted aloud in his wrath, "I have nourished in my house, +that not one of them will avenge me of this one upstart clerk!" A +council was at once summoned. Thomas, the king said, had entered as a +tyrant into his land, had excommunicated the bishops for obedience to +the king, had troubled the whole realm, had purposed to take away the +royal crown from his son, had begged for a legation against Henry, and +had obtained from the Pope grants of presentations to churches, which +deprived knights and barons as well as the king himself of their +property. The council fell in with the king's mood. Thomas was worthy of +death. The king would have neither quiet days nor a peaceful kingdom +while he lived. "On my way to Jerusalem," said one sage adviser, "I +passed through Rome, and asking questions of my host, I learned that a +pope had once been slain for his intolerable pride!" + +But while the king was still busied in devising schemes for the punishment +or ruin of Thomas, came news that he was rid of his enemy, and that the +archbishop had won the long looked-for crown of martyrdom. Four knights +who had heard the king's first outburst of rage had secretly left the +Court, and travelling day and night, had reached Canterbury on the 29th, +and had there in the cathedral slain the archbishop. Henry was at Argentan +when the news of the murder was brought to him. So overwhelming was his +despair that those about him feared for his reason. For three days he +neither ate nor spoke with any one, and for five weeks his door was closed +to all comers. The whole flood of difficulties against which he had so +long fought desperately was at once let loose upon him. In England the +feeling was indescribable. All the religious fervour of the people was +passionately thrown on the side of the martyr. The church of Canterbury +closed for a year. The ornaments were taken from the altar, the walls were +stripped, the sound of the bells ceased. Excitement was raised to its +utmost pitch as it became known that miracles were wrought at the tomb. +The clergy were forced into hostility; they dared no longer take Henry's +side. The barons saw the opportunity for which they had waited fifteen +years. Henry had himself provided them with a ready instrument to execute +their vengeance, and the boy-king, consecrated scarcely six months ago, +and already urged to revolt by his mother and the king of France, was +only too willing to hear the tale of their accumulated wrongs and +discontents. All Christendom had been watching the strife; all Christendom +was outraged at its close. The Pope shut himself up for eight days, and +refused to speak to his own servants. The king of France,--who had now a +cause more powerful than any he had ever dreamt of,--Theobald of Blois, +and William of Champagne, the Archbishop of Sens, wrote bitterly to Rome +that it was Henry himself who had given orders for the murder. The king's +messengers sent to plead with the Pope found matters almost desperate. +Alexander had determined to excommunicate him at Easter, and to lay an +interdiction on all his lands. In their despair, and not venturing to tell +their master what they had done, they swore on Henry's part an unreserved +submission to the Pope, and the excommunication was barely averted for a +few months, while a legation was sent to pronounce an interdiction on his +lands, and receive his submission. Henry, however, was quite determined +that he would neither hear the sentence nor repeat the oath taken by his +envoys at Rome. Orders were given to allow no traveller, who might intend +evil against the king, to cross into England; and before the legates could +arrive in Normandy Henry himself was safe beyond the sea. On the 6th of +August, as he passed through Winchester, he visited the dying Henry of +Blois, and heard the bishop's last words of bitter reproach as he +foretold the great adversities which the Divine vengeance held in store +for the true murderer of the archbishop. But England itself was no safe +refuge for the king in this great extremity. Hurrying on to Wales, he +rapidly settled the last details of a plan for the conquest of Ireland, +and hastened to set another sea between himself and the bearers of the +papal curse. As he landed on Irish shores on the 16th of October, a +white hare started from the bushes at his feet, and was brought to him +as a token of victory and peace. Here at last he was in safety, beyond +the reach of all dispute, in a secure banishment where he could more +easily avoid the interdict or more secretly bow to it. The wild storms +of winter, which his terrified followers counted as a sign of the wrath +of God, served as an effectual barrier between him and his enemies; and +for twenty weeks no ship touched Irish shores, nor did any news reach +him from any part of his dominions. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND + +Nearly a hundred years before William Rufus once stood on the cliffs of +Wales, and cried, as he looked across the waters towards Ireland, "For +the conquest of that land I will gather together all the ships of my +kingdom, and will make of them a bridge to cross over." The story was +carried to a king of Leinster, who listened thoughtfully. "After so +tremendous a threat as that," he asked, "did the king add, if the Lord +will?" Being told that Rufus used no such phrase, "Since he trusts to do +this by human power, not divine," said the shrewd Irishman, "I need not +greatly dread his coming." Prophecies which passed from mouth to mouth +in Ireland declared that the island should not be conquered till very +shortly before the great Day of Judgment. Even in England men commented +on the fact that while the Romans had reached as far as the Orkneys, +while Saxons and Normans and Danes had overrun England, Ireland had +never bowed to foreign rule. The Northmen alone had made any attempt at +invasion; but within the fringe of foreign settlements which they +planted along the coast from Dublin to Limerick, the various Irish +kingdoms maintained themselves according to their ancient customs, and, +as English tribes had done before in Britain, waged frequent war for the +honour of a shifting and dubious supremacy. The island enjoyed a fair +fame for its climate, its healthfulness, its pasturage, its fisheries; +English chroniclers dwelt on "the far-famed harbour of Dublin, the rival +of our London in commerce," and told of ships of merchandise that sailed +from Britanny to Irish ports, and of the busy wine trade with Poitou. +Ireland alone broke the symmetry of an empire that bordered the Atlantic +from the Hebrides to Spain, and the fame of empire had its attractions +for the heirs of the Norman conquerors. Patriotic and courtly historians +remembered that their king was representative of Gerguntius, the first +king of Britain who had gone to Ireland; the heir of Arthur, to whom +Irish kings had been tributary; the ruler over the Basque provinces, +from whence undoubtedly the Irish race had sprung. To fill up what was +lacking in these titles, he was proclaimed lord and ruler by a yet +clearer divine right, when in 1155 John of Salisbury brought to him from +Rome a bull, by which the English Pope, Hadrian IV., as supreme lord of +all islands, granted Ireland to the English king, that he might bring +the people under law, and enlarge the borders of the Church. + +From the beginning, indeed, there rested on the unhappy country a curse +which has remained to the present moment. The invasion of the Ostmen was +the first of a series of half-conquests which brought all the evils of +foreign invasion with none of its benefits. In England the great rivers +and the Roman roads had been so many highways by which the Scandinavians +had penetrated into the heart of the country. But in Ireland no road and +no great river had guided the invader onwards past morass and bog and +forest. While the great host of the Danish invaders swooped down over +England and Gaul, the pirates that sailed to Ireland had only force to +dash themselves on the coast, and there cling cautiously to guarded +settlements. They settled as a race apart, as unable to mix with the +Irish people as they were powerless to conquer them. No memory as in +England of a common origin united them, no ties of a common language, no +sense of common law or custom, or of a common political tradition. The +strangers built the first cities, coined the first money, and introduced +trade. But they were powerless to affect Irish civilization. The tribal +system survived in its full strength, and Ireland remained divided +between two races, two languages, two civilizations in different stages +of progress, two separate communities ruled by their own laws, and two +half-completed ecclesiastical systems, for the Danish Church long looked, +as the Irish had never done, to the Archbishop of Canterbury as their +head. Earnest attempts had already been made by Hadrian's predecessor to +bring the Irish into closer connection with the see of Rome. In 1152 a +papal legate had carried out a great reform by which four archbishops, +wholly independent of Canterbury and receiving their palls from Rome, were +set over four provinces. But still no Peter's Pence were paid to Rome; +Roman canon law, Roman ritual, the Roman rules of marriage, had no +authority; the Roman form of baptism was replaced by a tradition which +made the father dip his new-born child three times in water, or, if he +were a rich man, in milk; there was no payment of tithes; clerks were +taxed like laymen when a homicide occurred; Irish nobles still demanded +hospitality from religious houses, and claimed, according to ancient +custom, provisions from towns on Church domains. Hadrian himself had long +been interested in Irish affairs. The religious houses which the Irish +maintained in Germany kept up communication with Pope and Emperor; an +Irish abbot at Nuremberg was chaplain to the Emperor Frederick; one of +Hadrian's masters at Paris had been a monk from the Irish settlement in +Ratisbon, and as Pope he still remembered the Irish monk with warm +affection. When he was raised to the Papacy in the very year of Henry's +coronation, one of his first cares was to complete the organization of +Christendom in the West by bringing the Irish Church under Catholic +discipline. + +Henry, on his part, was only too eager to accept his new responsibility, +and less than a year after his coronation he called a council to discuss +the conquest of Ireland. The scheme was abandoned on account of its +difficulties, but the question was later raised again in another form. +Diarmait Mac Murchadha (in modern form Jeremiah Murphy), King of +Leinster, had carried off in 1152 the wife of the chief of Breifne +(Cavan and Leitrim). A confederation was formed against him under +Ruaidhri (or Rory), King of Connaught, and he was driven from the island +in 1166. "Following a flying fortune and hoping much from the turning of +the wheel," he fled to Henry in Aquitaine, did homage to the English +king for his lands, and received in return letters granting permission +to such of Henry's servants as were willing to aid him in their recovery. +Diarmait easily found allies in the nobles of the Welsh border, in whose +veins ran the blood of two warlike races. It was by just such an +enterprise as this that their Norman fathers and grandfathers had won +their Welsh domains. From childhood they had been brought up in the tumult +of perpetual forays, and trained in a warfare where agility and dash and +endurance of hunger and hardship were the first qualifications of a +soldier. Richard de Clare, Earl of Striguil, in later days nicknamed +Strongbow--a descendant of one of the Conqueror's greatest warriors, +but now a needy adventurer sorely harassed by his creditors--was easily +won by the promise of Diarmait's daughter and heiress, Aeifi, as his wife. +Rhys, the Prince of South Wales, looked favourably on the expedition. +His aunt, Nesta, had been the mistress of Henry I. of England; and +had afterwards married first Gerald of Windsor, and then a certain +Stephen; her sons and grandsons, whether Fitz-Henrys, Fitz-Geralds, or +Fitz-Stephens, were famous men of war; nor were the children of her +daughter, who had married William de Barri, behind them in valour. No less +than eighteen knights of this extraordinary family took part in the +conquest, where in feats of war they renewed the glories of their +ancestors both Norse and Welsh; a son of Nesta's, David, the Bishop of +St. David's, gave his sympathy and help; while her grandson, Gerald +de Barri, became the famous historian of the conquest. + +In 1167 Diarmait returned to Ireland with a little band of allies, the +pioneers of the English conquest. Others followed the next year, among +them Strongbow's uncle, Hervey of Mount Moriss, a famous soldier in the +French army, distinguished for his beautifully proportioned figure, his +delicate long hands, his winning face, and graceful speech. With him +went Nesta's son Robert Fitz-Stephen, a powerful man of the Norman +type, handsome, freehanded, sumptuous in his way of living, liberal and +jovial, given to wine and dissipation. His nephew, Meiler Fitz-Henry, +showed stronger traces of Welsh blood in his swarthy complexion, fierce +black eyes, and passionate face. The knights carried on the war with the +virtues and vices of a feudal chivalry, with a frank loyalty to their +allies, a good comradeship which recognized no head but left each knight +supreme over his own forces, a magnificent daring in the face of +overwhelming forces, and a joyful acceptance of the savage privileges of +slaughter and rapine which fell to their lot. "By their aid Diarmait began +first to take breath, then to gain strength, and at last to triumph over +his enemies." The Irish, however, rallied under the king of Connaught +against the traitor who had brought the English into their land; and +Diarmait was forced to conclude a peace and promise to receive no more +English soldiers. + +Meanwhile other knights were preparing for the Irish expedition. Maurice +Fitz-Gerald encamped on a rock near Wexford. Another Fitz-Gerald, +Raymond the Fat, fortified his camp near Waterford. In August 1170 came +Earl Richard himself, who had crossed to France in search of Henry, and +with persistent importunity implored for leave to join the Irish war. +Henry, at that moment busy in his last negotiations with Thomas, gave a +doubtful half-consent, and Richard sailed with an army of nearly fifteen +hundred men. We see in the pages of Gerald of Wales, the hero with whose +name the conquest of Ireland was to be for ever associated, red-haired, +gray-eyed, freckled, with delicate features like a woman's, and thin, +feeble voice; wearing a plain citizen's dress without arms, "that he +might seem more ready to obey than to command;" suave, gracious, politic, +patient, deferential, with his fine aristocratic air, and an undaunted +courage that blazed out in battle, when "he never moved from his post, but +remained a beacon of refuge to his followers." At his coming Waterford was +taken, as Wexford and Ossory had been before. Before the prudent Norman +went farther the marriage contract was carried out, and the beginning of a +strife which lasted for seven hundred years was celebrated in this first +alliance of a Norman baron and an Irish chief. Richard and Diarmait +marched against Dublin, and its Danishin habitants were driven over sea. +In a few months their king, Hasculf, returned with a great fleet gathered +from Norway, the Hebrides, the Orkneys, Man,--the last fleet of Northmen +which descended on the British Isles,--but again the Normans won the day. + +Henry meanwhile was watching nervously the progress of affairs. The war +was, no doubt, useful in withdrawing from Wales a restless and dangerous +baronage, and in the rebellion of 1174 the hostility of the border +barons would have been far more serious if the best warriors of Wales +had not been proving their courage on the plains of Ireland. But Henry +had no mind to break through his general policy by allowing a feudal +baronage to plant themselves by force of arms in Ireland, as they had in +earlier days settled themselves in northern England and on the Welsh +border. The death of Diarmait in 1171 brought matters to a crisis. By +Celtic law the land belonged to the tribe, and the people had the right +of electing their king. But the tribal system had long been forgotten by +the Normans, whose ancestors had ages before passed out of it into the +later stage of the feudal system; and by Norman law the kingdom of +Leinster would pass to Aeifi's husband and her children. Rights of +inheritance and rights of conquest were judiciously blended together, +and Richard assumed rule, not under the dangerous title of king, but as +"Earl of Leinster." The title was strange and unwelcome to Irish ears. +Among envious Norman rivals it did not hide the suspicion that Richard +was "nearly a king," and rumours reached Henry's ears that he was +conquering not only Leinster but other districts to which neither he nor +his wife had any right. Henry immediately confiscated all the earl's +lands in England, and ordered that all knights who had gone to Ireland +should return, on pain of forfeiture of their lands and exile. In vain +Strongbow's messengers hastened to him in France, and promised that the +earl would yield up all his conquests, "since from the munificence of +your kindness all proceeds." While they still anxiously followed the +Court from place to place came the sudden tidings of the archbishop's +murder, and before many months were over Henry was on his way to Ireland +to take its affairs into his own hands. Strongbow was summoned to meet +him, forced to full submission, and sent back to prepare the way before +the king. + +In Ireland Henry had little to do save to enter into the labours of its +first conquerors. The Danes had been driven from the ports. The Irish +were broken and divided, and looked to him as their only possible ally +and deliverer from the tyranny, the martial law, the arbitrary executions, +which had marked the rough rule of the invaders. The terrified barons were +ready to buy their existence at any price. The leaders of the Church +welcomed him as the supporter of Roman discipline. Henry used all his +advantages. He consistently carried through the farce of arbitration. +The Wexford men brought to him Fitz-Stephen, whom they had captured, as +the greatest enemy to the royal majesty and the Irish people. Henry threw +him into prison, but as soon as he had won the smaller kings of the south +separately to make submission to him, and given the chief castles into the +hands of his own officers, he conciliated the knights by releasing +Fitz-Stephen. He spent the winter in Dublin, in a palace built of wattles +after the fashion of the country. There he received the homage of all the +kings of Leinster and Meath. Order, law, justice, took the place of +confusion. Dublin, threatened with ruin now the Danish traders were driven +off, was given to the men of Bristol to found a new prosperity. Its trade +with Chester was confirmed, and from all parts of England new settlers +came in numbers during the next few years to share in the privileges and +wealth which its commerce promised. A stately cathedral of decorated +Norman work rose on the site of an earlier church founded by the Ostmen. +It seemed as though the mere military rule of the feudal lords was to be +superseded under the king's influence by a wiser and more statesmanlike +occupation of the country. A great council was held at Cashel, where a +settlement was made of Church and State, and where Henry for the first +time published the Papal Bull issued by Hadrian fifteen years before. He +had won a position of advantage from whence to open a new bargain with +the Pope. In the moment of his deepest disgrace and peril he defiantly +showed himself before the world in all the glory of the first foreign +Conqueror and Lord of Ireland. + +Henry's work, however, was scarcely begun when in March there came a +lull in the long winter storms, and a vessel made its way across the +waters of the Irish Sea. It brought grave tidings. Legates from the Pope +had reached Normandy, with powers only after full submission to absolve +the king; unless Henry quickly met them, all his lands would be laid +under interdict. Other heavy tidings came. Evil counsellors were +exciting the young king to rebellion. It was absurd, they said, to be +king, and to exercise no authority in the kingdom, and the boy was +willing enough to believe that since his coronation "the reign of his +father had expired." All Henry's plans in Ireland were at once thrown +aside. At the first break in the adverse winds he hastily set sail, and +for two hundred years no English king again set foot in Ireland. The +short winter's work was to end in utter confusion. The king's policy had +been to set up the royal justice and power, and to break the strength of +the barons by dividing and curtailing their interests. He had left them +without a leader. The growing power of Strongbow had been broken; Dublin +had been taken from him; the castles had all been committed to knights +appointed by the king. Quarrels and rivalries soon broke out. Raymond +the Fat became the recognized head of Nesta's descendants. In his +enormous frame, his yellow curly hair, his high-coloured cheery face, +his large gray eyes, we seethe type of the old Norse conquerors who had +once harried England; we recognize it too in his carelessness as to food +or clothing, his indifference to hardship, his prodigious energy, the +sleepless nights spent in wandering through his camp where his resounding +shouts awoke the sleeping sentinels, the enduring wrath which never forgot +an enemy. Richard's uncle, Hervey of Mount Moriss, led a rival faction in +the interests of Strongbow. The English garrison in Ireland was weakened +by the loss of troops which Henry was compelled to carry away with him. +The forces that remained, divided, thinned, discouraged, were left to +confront an Irish party united in a revived hope. No sooner did rebellion +break over England in the next year than the Irish with one accord rose in +revolt. The treasury was exhausted, and there was no payment for the +troops. A doubtful campaign went on in which the English, attacked now by +the Ostmen of the towns, now by the Irish, fought with very varying +success, but with prodigies of valour. They were reckless of danger, +heedless of the common safeguards of military precaution. When Henry heard +of Raymond's daring capture of Limerick in 1176, and then of his retreat, +he made one of his pithy "Great was the courage in attacking it, and yet +greater in the subduing of it, but the only wisdom that was shown was in +its desertion." + +The rivalry of Raymond and Strongbow was at its height when, in 1176, +Earl Richard died; and to this day his burial-place in the Norman +Cathedral in Dublin, and that of his wife Aeifi, are marked by the only +sculptured tombs that exist of these first Norman conquerors of Ireland. +Others besides the king heard with joy the news that the great warrior +was dead. Richard's sister, who had been married to Raymond, had cast in +her lot with her lord. She sent a cautious despatch to her husband, who +was unable himself to read, and had to depend on the good offices of a +clerk. "Know, my dearest lord," wrote the prudent wife, "that that great +tooth which pained me so long has now fallen out, wherefore see that you +delay not your return." The watchful Henry, however, at once recalled +Raymond to England, and sent a new governor, Fitz-Aldhelm, to hold the +restless barons in check, till his son John, to whom he now proposed to +give the realm of Ireland, should be of age to undertake its government. +When Fitz-Aldhelm saw the magnificent troop of Raymond's cousins and +nephews, who had thrown aside all armour save shields, and, mounted on +splendid horses, dashed across the plain to display their feats of +agility and horsemanship, he muttered to his followers, "This pride I +will shortly abate, and these shields I will scatter." He was true to +his word. The fortunes of the knights of both parties indeed rapidly +declined; "those who had been first had to learn to be last;" their +lands were taken from them on every excuse, and they were followed by +the enmity and persecution of the king. For the next ten years the +history of the English in Ireland is a miserable record of ineffective +and separate wars undertaken by leaders each acting on his own account, +and of watchful jealousy on the part of Henry. A new governor was sent +in 1177 to replace Fitz-Aldhelm. Hugh de Lacy was no Norman. His black +hair, his deep-set black eyes, his snub nose, the scar across his face, +his thin ill-shapen figure, marked him out from the big fair Fitz-Geralds, +as much as did his "Gallican sobriety" and his training in affairs, for +in war he had no great renown. Perhaps it was some quick French quality +in him that won the love of the Irish. But Henry was suspicious and +uneasy. He was recalled in 1181 on the news that without the king's leave +he had married the daughter of the King of Connaught, and rumour added +that he had even made ready a diadem for himself. But his services were +so valuable that that same winter he was sent back, only to be again +recalled in 1184 and again sent back. At last in 1186, "as though fortune +had been zealous for the king of England," he was treacherously slain by +an Irishman, to Henry's "exceeding joy." + +Meanwhile the king had in 1185 made a further attempt at a permanent +settlement of the distracted island. John was formally appointed king +over Ireland, and accompanied by Glanville, landed in Waterford on +the 25th of April. His coming with a new batch of Norman followers +completed the misfortunes of the first settlers. The Norman-Welsh +knights of the border had by painful experience learned among their +native woods and mountains how to wage such war as was needed in +Ireland-a kind of war where armour was worse than useless, where +strength was of less account than agility, where days and nights of cold +and starvation were followed by impetuous assaults of an enemy who never +stood long enough for a decisive battle, a war where no mercy was given +and no captives taken. On the other hand, their half Celtic blood had +made it easy for them to mingle with the Irish population, to marry and +settle down among them. But the followers of John were Norman and French +knights, accustomed to fight in full armour upon the plains of France; +and to add to a rich pay the richer profits of plunder and of ransom. +The seaport towns and the castles fell into the hands of new masters, +untrained to the work required of them. "Wordy chatterers, swearers of +enormous oaths, despisers of others," as they seemed to the race of +Nesta's descendants, the new rulers of the country proved mere plunderers, +who went about burning, slaying, and devastating, while the old soldiery +of the first conquest were despised and cast aside. Divisions of race +which in England had quite died out were revived in Ireland in their full +intensity; and added to the two races of the Irish and the Danes we now +hear of the three hostile groups into which the invaders were broken--the +Normans, the English, and the men of the Welsh border. To the new comers +the natives were simply barbarians. When the Irish princes came to do +homage, their insolent king pulled their long beards in ridicule; at the +outrage they turned their backs on the English camp, and the other kings +hearing their tale, refused to do fealty. Any allies who still remained +were alienated by being deprived of the lands which the first invaders had +left them. Even the newly-won Church was thrown into opposition by +interference with its freedom and plunder of its lands; the ancient custom +of carrying provisions to the churches for safe keeping in troubled times +was contemptuously ignored when a papal legate gave the English armies +leave to demand the opening of the church doors, and the sale of such +provisions as they chose to require. There were complaints too in the +country of the endless lawsuits that now sprang up, probably from the +infinite confusion that grew out of the attempt to override Irish by +English law. But if Glanville tried any legal experiments in Ireland, +his work was soon interrupted. Papal legates arrived in England at +Christmas 1186 to crown the King of Ireland with the crown of peacocks' +feathers woven with gold which the Pope himself had sent. But John never +wore his diadem of peacocks' feathers. Before it had arrived he had been +driven from the country. + +Thus ended the third and last attempt in Henry's reign to conquer +Ireland. The strength and the weakness of the king's policy had alike +brought misery to the land. The nation was left shattered and bleeding; +its native princes weakened in all things save in the habits of treachery +and jealousy; its Danish traders driven into exile; its foreign conquerors +with their ranks broken, and their hope turned to bitterness. The natural +development of the tribal system was violently interrupted by the +half-conquest of the barons and the bringing in of a feudal system, for +which the Irish were wholly unprepared. But the feudal conquerors +themselves were only the remnants of a broken and defeated party, the +last upholders of a tradition of conquest and of government of a hundred +years earlier. Themselves trembling before the coming in of a new order of +things, they could destroy the native civilization, but they could set +nothing in its place. There remained at last only the shattered remnants +of two civilizations which by sheer force were maintained side by side. +Their fusion was perhaps impossible, but it was certainly rendered less +possible by the perplexed and arbitrary interferences of later rulers in +England, almost as foreign to the Anglo-Irish of the Pale as to the native +tribes who, axe in hand and hidden in bog and swamp and forest, clung +desperately to the ancient traditions and inheritance of their +forefathers. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +REVOLT OF THE BARONAGE + +All hope of progress, of any wise and statesmanlike settlement of +Ireland, utterly died away when, on Easter night, 16th April 1172, Henry +sailed from Wexford. The next morning he landed near St. David's. He +entered its gates as a pilgrim, on foot and staff in hand, while the +monks came out in solemn procession to lead him to the ancient church on +the other side of the river. Suddenly a Welsh woman sprang out from +among the crowd, and striking her hands together wildly, threw +herself at his feet crying with a loud voice, "Avenge us to-day, +Lechlavar! Avenge the people of this land!" The woman's bitter cry told +the first thought of all the thronging multitudes of eager Welshmen that +day, how Merlin had prophesied that an English king, the conqueror of +Ireland, should die on Lechlavar, a great stone which formed a rude +natural bridge across the stream, and round which the pagan superstitions +of an immemorial past still clung. When the strange procession reached the +river, Henry stood for a moment looking steadily at the stone, then with a +courage which we can scarcely measure, he firmly set his foot on it and +slowly crossed over; and from the other side, in the face of all the +people he turned and flung his taunt at the prophet, "Who will ever again +believe the lies of Merlin?" As he passed through Cardiff another omen met +him; a white-robed monk stood before him as he came out of church. "God +hold thee, Cuning!" he cried in the English tongue, and broke out into +passionate warnings of evil to come unless the king would show more +reverence to the Sunday, a matter about which there was at this time a +great stirring of religious feeling. "Ask this rustic," said Henry in +French to a knight who held his rein, "whether he has dreamed this." The +monk turned from the interpreter to the king and spoke again: "Whether I +have dreamed this or no, mark this day, for unless thou amendest thy life, +before this year has passed thou shalt hear such news of those thou lovest +best, and shalt win such sorrow from them, that it shall not fail thee +till thy dying day!" + +From Wales Henry struck across England, "turning neither to right nor +left, and marching at a double pace." In a few days he was at Portsmouth. +To hinder further mischief the younger Henry was ordered to join him and +carried over sea; and the first news that reached Louis was the king's +arrival in Normandy. "The King of England," Louis cried in his amazement, +"is now in Ireland, now in England, now in Normandy; he may rather be said +to fly than go by horse or boat!" Henry hastened on his landing to meet +the legates. Negotiations were opened in May. Submission was inevitable, +for fear of the rebellion which was then actually brewing left him in fact +no choice of action. He agreed unreservedly to their demands. As an +earnest of repentance and reformation he consented to a new coronation of +his son; and on the 27th of August the young king was crowned again, along +with his wife, at Winchester. Henry completed his submission at Avranches +on the 27th of September. He swore that he had not desired the death of +Thomas, but to make satisfaction for the anger he had shown, he promised +to take the cross, to give funds to the Knights Templars for the defence +of Jerusalem, and to found three religious houses. He renounced the +Constitutions of Clarendon. He swore allegiance to Alexander against the +anti-Pope. He promised that the possessions of Canterbury should be +given back as they were a year before the flight of Thomas, and that his +exiled friends should be restored to their possessions. No king of +England had ever suffered so deep a humiliation. It seemed as thought he +martyr were at last victorious. A year after the murder, in December +1172, Canterbury cathedral was once more solemnly opened, amid the cries +of a vast multitude of people, "Avenge, O Lord, the blood which has been +poured out!" On the anniversary of the Christmas Day when Thomas had +launched his last excommunications, the excited people noted "a great +thunder sudden and horrible in Ireland, in England, and in all the +kingdoms of the French." Very soon mighty miracles were wrought by the +name of the martyr throughout the whole of Europe. The metal phials +which hung from the necks of pilgrims to the shrine of Canterbury became +as famous as the shell and palm branch which marked the pilgrims to +Compostella and Jerusalem. Before ten years were passed the King of +France, the Count of Nevers, the Count of Boulogne, the Viscount of +Aosta, the Archbishop of Reims, had knelt at his shrine among English +prelates, nobles, knights, and beggars. The feast of the Trinity which +Thomas had appointed to be observed on the anniversary of his consecration +spread through the whole of Christendom. Henry, in fact, had to bear the +full storm of scorn and hatred that falls on every statesman who stands in +advance of the public opinion of his day. But his seeming surrender at +Avranches won for the politic king immediate and decisive advantages. All +fear of excommunication and interdict had passed away. The clergy were no +longer alienated from him. The ecclesiastical difficulties raised by the +coronation, and the jealousies of Louis, were set at rest. The alliance +of the Pope was secured. The conquest of Ireland was formally approved. +Success seemed to crown Henry's scheme for the building up of his empire. +Britanny had been secured for Geoffrey in 1171; in June 1172 Richard was +enthroned as Duke of Aquitaine; in the following August Henry was crowned +for the second time King of England. Only the youngest child, scarcely +five years old, was still "John Lackland," and in this same year Henry +provided a dominion for John by a treaty of marriage between him and the +heiress of the Count of Maurienne. Her inheritance stretched from the Lake +of Geneva almost to the Gulf of Genoa; and the marriage would carry the +Angevin dominions almost from the Atlantic to the Alps, and give into +Henry's control every pass into Italy from the Great St. Bernard to the +Col di Tenda, and all the highways by which travellers from Geneva and +German lands beyond it, from Burgundy or from Gaul, made their way to Rome. +To celebrate such a treaty Henry forgot his thrift. The two kings of +England travelled with ostentatious splendour to meet the Count of +Maurienne in Auvergne in January 1173. The King of Aragon and the Count of +Toulouse met them at Montferrand, and a peace which Henry concluded +between Toulouse and Aragon declared the height of his influence. Raymond +bent at last to do homage for Toulouse, an act of submission which brought +the dominion of Anjou to the very border of the Mediterranean. + +There was a wild outbreak of alarm among all Henry's enemies as from his +late humiliation he suddenly rose to this new height of power. The young +king listened eagerly to those who plotted mischief, and one night in +mid-Lent he fled to the court of Louis. In an agony of apprehension +Henry sought to close the breach, and sent messages of conciliation to +the French king. "Who sends this message to me?" demanded Louis. "The +King of England," answered the messengers. "It is false," he said; +"behold the King of England is here, and he sends no message to me by +you; but if you so call his father who once was king, know ye that he +asking is dead." The Counts of Flanders, of Boulogne, and of Blois, +joined the young king in Paris, and did homage to him for fiefs which he +bestowed on them--Kent, Dover, Eochester, lands in Lincolnshire, and +domains and castles in Normandy--while he won the aid of the Scot king +by granting him all Northumberland to the Tyne. The rebellion was +organized in a month. Eleanor sent Richard, commander of the forces of +Aquitaine, and Geoffrey, lord of Britanny, to take their share in the +revolt; she herself was hastening after them when she was seized and +thrown into prison. In Aquitaine, where the people impartially hated +both French and Normans, the enthusiasm for independence was stirred by +songs such as those of the troubadour, Bertrand de Born, lord of a +fortress and a thousand men, who "was never content, save when the kings +of the North were at war." In Normandy old hatreds had deepened year by +year as Henry had gone on steadily seizing castles and lands which had +fallen out of the possession of the crown. In 1171 he had doubled the +revenue of the duchy by lands which the nobles had usurped. In 1172 he +had alarmed them by having a new return made of the feudal tenures for +purposes of taxation. The great lords of the duchy with one consent +declared against him. Britanny sprang to arms. If Maine and Anjou +remained fairly quiet, there was in both of them a powerful party of +nobles who joined the revolt. The rebel party was everywhere increased +by all who had joined the young king, "not because they thought his the +juster cause," but in fierce defiance of a rule intolerable for its +justice and its severity. England was no less ready for rebellion. The +popular imagination was still moved by the horror of the archbishop's +murder. The generation that remembered the miseries of the former +anarchy was now passing away, and to some of the feudal lords order +doubtless seemed the greater ill. The new king too had lavished promises +and threats to win the English nobles to his side. "There were few +barons in England who were not wavering in their allegiance to the king, +and ready to desert him at any time." The more reckless eagerly joined +the rebellion; the more prudent took refuge in France, that they might +watch how events would go; there was a timid and unstable party who held +outwardly to the king in vigilant uncertainty, haunted by fears that +they should be swept away by the possible victory of his son. Such +descendants of the Normans of the Conquest as had survived the rebellions +and confiscations of a hundred years were eager for revenge. The Earl of +Leicester and his wife were heirs of three great families, whose power had +been overthrown by the policy of the Conqueror and his sons. William of +Aumale was descended from the Count who had claimed the throne in the +Conqueror's days, and bitterly remembered the time before Henry's +accession, when he had reigned almost as king in Northern England. +Hugh of Puiset, Bishop of Durham, whose diocese stretched across +Northumberland, and who ruled as Earl Palatine of the marchland between +England and Scotland; the Earl of Huntingdon, brother of the Scot king; +Roger Mowbray, lord of the castles of Thirsk and Malessart north of York, +and of a strong castle in the Isle of Axholm; Earl Ferrers, master of +fortresses in Derby and Stafford; Hugh, Earl of Chester and Lord of Bayeux +and Avranches, joined the rebellion. So did the old Hugh Bigod, Earl of +Norfolk, who had already fought and schemed against Henry in vain twenty +years before. The Earls of Clare and Gloucester on the Welsh border were +of very doubtful loyalty. Half of England was in revolt, and north +of a line drawn from Huntingdon to Chester the king only held a few +castles--York, Richmond, Carlisle, Newcastle, and some fortresses of +Northumberland. The land beyond Sherwood and the Trent, shut off by an +almost continuous barrier of marsh and forest from the south, was still +far behind the rest of England in civilization. The new industrial +activity of Yorkshire was not yet forty years old; in a great part of +the North money-rents had scarcely crept in, and the serfs were still +toiling on under the burden of labour-dues which had been found +intolerable elsewhere. The fines, the taxes, the attempt to bring its +people under a more advanced system of government must have pressed very +hardly on this great district which was not yet ready for it; and to the +fierce anger of the barons, and the ready hostility of the monasteries, +was perhaps added the exasperation of freeholder and serf. + +Henry, however, was absolute master of the whole central administration +of the realm. Moreover, by his decree of the year before he had set over +every shire a sheriff who was wholly under his own control, trained in +his court, pledged to his obedience, and who had firm hold of the +courts, the local forces, and the finances. The king now hastened to +appoint bishops whom he could trust to the vacant sees. Geoffrey, an +illegitimate son who had been born to him very early, probably about the +time when he visited England to receive knighthood, was sent to Lincoln; +and friends of the king were consecrated to Winchester, Ely, Bath, +Hereford, and Chichester. Prior Richard of Dover, a man "laudably +inoffensive who prudently kept within his own sphere," was made Archbishop +of Canterbury. Richard de Lucy remained in charge of the whole kingdom as +justiciar. The towns and trading classes were steadfast in loyalty, and +the baronage was again driven, as it had been before, to depend on foreign +mercenaries. + +War first broke out in France in the early summer of 1173. Normandy and +Anjou were badly defended, and their nobles were already half in revolt, +while the forces of France, Flanders, Boulogne, Chartres, Champagne, +Poitou, and Britanny were allied against Henry. The counts of Flanders +and Boulogne invaded Normandy from the north-east, and the traitor Count +of Aumale, the guardian of the Norman border, gave into their hands his +castles and lands. Louis and Henry's sons besieged Verneuil in the +south-west. To westward the Earl of Chester and Ralph of Fougères +organized a rising in Britanny. In "extreme perplexity," utterly unable +to meet his enemies in the field, Henry could only fortify his frontier, +and hastily recall the garrison which he had left in Ireland, while he +poured out his treasure in gathering an army of hired soldiers. Meanwhile +he himself waited at Rouen, "that he might be seen by all the people, +bearing with an even mind whatever happened, hunting oftener than usual, +showing himself with a cheerful face to all who came, answering patiently +those who wished to gain anything from him; while those whom he had +nourished from days of childhood, those whom he had knighted, those who +had been his servants and his most familiar counsellors, night by night +stole away from him, expecting his speedy destruction and thinking the +dominion of his son at once about to be established." Never did the kings +show such resource and courage as in the campaign that followed. The Count +of Boulogne was killed in battle, and the invading army in the north-east +hesitated at the unlucky omen and fell back. Instantly Henry seized his +opportunity. He rode at full speed to Verneuil with his army, a hastily +collected mob of chance soldiers so dissatisfied and divided in allegiance +that he dared not risk a battle. An audacious boast saved the crafty king. +"With a fierce countenance and terrible voice" he cried to the French +messengers who had hurried out to see if the astounding news of his +arrival were true, "Go tell your king I am at hand as you see!" At the +news of the ferocity and resolution of the enemy, Louis, "knowing him to +be fierce and of a most bitter temper, as a bear robbed of its whelps +rages in the forest," hastily retreated, and Henry, as wise a general +as he was excellent an actor, fell back to Rouen. Meanwhile he sent to +Britanny a force of Brabantines, whom alone he could trust. They +surrounded the rebels at Dol; and before Henry, "forgetting food and +sleep" and riding "as though he had flown," could reach the place, most +of his foes were slain. The castle where the rest had taken refuge +surrendered, and he counted among his prisoners the Earl of Chester, +Ralph of Fougères, and a hundred other nobles. The battle of Dol +practically decided the war. It seemed vain to fight against Henry's +good luck. A few Flemings once crossed the Norman border, and were +defeated and drowned in retreat by the bridge breaking. "The very +elements fight for the Normans!" cried the baffled and disheartened +Louis. "When I entered Normandy my army perished for want of water, now +this one is destroyed by too much water." In despair he sought to save +himself by playing the part of mediator; and in September Henry met his +sons at Gisors to discuss terms of peace. His terms were refused and the +meeting broke up; but Henry remained practically master of the situation. + +Meanwhile in England the rebellion had broken out in July. The Scottish +army ravaged the north; the Earl of Leicester, with an army of Flemings +which he had collected by the help of Louis and the younger Henry, +landed on the coast of Suffolk, where Hugh Bigod was ready to welcome +him. De Lucy and Bohun hurried from the north to meet this formidable +danger, and with the help of the Earls of Cornwall, Arundel, and +Gloucester, they defeated Leicester in a great battle at Fornham on the +17th of October. The earl himself was taken prisoner, and 10,000 of his +foreign troops were slain. He and his wife were sent by Henry's orders +to Normandy, and there thrown into prison. A truce was made with +Scotland till the end of March. The king of France and the younger Henry +abandoned hope, "for they saw that God was with the king;" and there +was a general pause in the war. + +With the spring of 1174, however, the strife raged again on all sides. +Ireland rose in rebellion. William of Scotland marched into England +supported by a Flemish force. Roger Mowbray, and probably the Bishop of +Durham, were in league with him. Earl Ferrers fortified his castles in +Derby and Stafford; Leicester Castle was still held by the Earl of +Leicester's knights; Huntingdon by the Scot king's brother; and the Earl +of Norfolk was joined in June by a picked body of Flemings. The king's +castles at Norwich, Northampton, and Nottingham, were taken by the rebels, +and a formidable line of enemies stretched right across mid-England. +At the same time France and Flanders threatened invasion with a strong +fleet, and "so great an army as had not been seen for many years." Count +Philip, who had set his heart on the promised Kent, and on winning +entrance into the lands of the Cistercian wool-growers of Lincolnshire, +swore before Louis and his nobles that within fifteen days he would attack +England; the younger Henry joined him at Gravelines in June, and they only +waited for a fair wind to cross the Channel. + +The justiciars were in an extremity of despair. "Seeing the evil that +was done in the land," they anxiously sent messenger after messenger to +the king. But Henry had little time to heed English complaints. Richard +had declared war in Aquitaine; Maine and Anjou were half in revolt; +Louis was on the point of invading Normandy. As a last resource his +hard-pressed ministers sent Richard of Ilchester, the bishop-elect of +Winchester, whom they knew to be favoured by the king beyond all others, +to tell him again of "the hatred of the barons, the infidelity of the +citizens, the clamour of the crowd always growing worse, the greed of +the 'new men,' the difficulty of holding down the insurrection." "The +English have sent their messengers before, and here comes even this +man!" laughed the Normans; "what will be left in England to send after +the king save the Tower of London!" Richard reached Henry on the 24th of +June, and on the same day Henry abandoned Normandy to Louis' attack, and +made ready for return. "He saw that while he was absent, and as it were +not in existence, no one in England would offer any opposition to him +who was expected to be his successor;" and he "preferred that his lands +beyond the sea should be in peril rather than his own realm of England." +Sending forward a body of Brabantines, he followed with his train of +prisoners--Queen Eleanor, Queen Margaret and her sister Adela, the +Earls of Chester and of Leicester, and various governors of castles whom +he carried with him in chains. In an agony of anxiety the king watched +for a fair wind till the 7th of July. At last the sails were spread; but +of a sudden the waves began to rise, and the storm to grow ominously. +Those who watched the face of the king saw him to be in doubt; then he +lifted his eyes to heaven and prayed before them all, "If I have set +before my eyes the things which make for the peace of clergy and people, +if the King of heaven has ordained that peace shall be restored by my +arrival, then let Him in His mercy bring me to a safe port; but if He is +against me, and has decreed to visit my kingdom with a rod, then let me +never touch the shores of the land." + +A good omen was granted, and he safely reached Southampton. Refusing +even to enter the city, and eating but bread and water, he pressed +forward to Canterbury. At its gates he dismounted and put away from him +the royal majesty, and with bare feet, in the garb of a pilgrim and +penitent, his footsteps marked with blood, he passed on to the church. +There he sought the martyr's sepulchre, and lying prostrate with +outstretched hands, he remained long in prayer, with abundance of tears +and bitter groanings. After a sermon by Foliot the king filled up the +measure of humiliation. He made public oath that he was guiltless of the +death of the archbishop, but in penitence of his hasty words he prayed +absolution of the bishops, and gave his body to the discipline of rods, +receiving three or five strokes from each one of the seventy monks. That +night he prayed and fasted before the shrine, and the next day rode +still fasting to London, which he reached on the 14th. Three days later +a messenger rode at midnight to the gate of the palace where the king +lay ill, worn out by suffering and fatigue for which the doctors had +applied their usual remedy of bleeding. He forced his way to the door of +the king's bedchamber. "Who art thou?" cried the king, suddenly startled +from sleep. "I am the servant of Ranulf de Glanville, and I come to +bring good tidings."--"Ranulf our friend, is he well?"--"He is well, my +lord, and behold he holds your enemy, the King of Scots, captive in +chains at Richmond." The king was half stunned by the news, but as the +messenger produced Glanville's letter, he sprang from his bed, and in a +transport of emotion and tears, gave thanks to God, while the joyful +ringing of bells told the good news to the London citizens. + +Two great dangers, in fact, had passed away while the king knelt before +the shrine at Canterbury. On that very day the Scottish army had been +broken to pieces. In the south the fleet which lay off the coast of +Flanders had dispersed. On the 18th of July, the day after the good news +had come, Henry himself marched north with the army that had been +gathered while he lay ill. Before a week was over Hugh Bigod had yielded +up his castles and banished his Flemish soldiers. The Bishop of Durham +secretly sent away his nephew, the Count of Bar, who had landed with +foreign troops. Henry's Welsh allies attacked Tutbury, a castle of the +Earl of Ferrers. Geoffrey, the bishop-elect of Lincoln, had before +Henry's landing waged vigorous war on Mowbray. By the end of July the +whole resistance was at an end. On the last day of the month the king +held a council at Northampton, at which William of Scotland stood before +him a prisoner, while Hugh of Durham, Mowbray, Ferrers, and the officers +of the Earl of Leicester came to give up their fortresses. The castles +of Huntingdon and Norfolk were already secured. The suspected Earls of +Gloucester and of Clare swore fidelity at the King's Court. Scotland was +helpless. A treaty was made with the Irish kings. Wales was secured by a +marriage between the prince of North Wales and Henry's sister. + +But there was still danger over sea, where the armies of the French and +the Flemings had closed round Rouen. On the 8th of August, exactly a +month after his landing at Southampton, Henry again crossed the Channel +with his unwieldy train of prisoners. As he stood under the walls of +Rouen, the besieging armies fled by night. Louis' fancy already showed +him the English host in the heart of France, and in his terror he sought +for peace. The two kings concluded a treaty at Gisors, and on the 30th +of September the conspiracy against Henry was finally dissolved. His +sons did homage to him, and bound themselves in strange medieval fashion +by the feudal tie which was the supreme obligation of that day; he was +now "not only their father, but their liege lord." The Count of Flanders +gave up into Henry's hands the charter given him by the young king. The +King of Scotland made absolute submission in December 1174, and was sent +back to his own land. Eleanor alone remained a close prisoner for years +to come. + +The revolt of 1173-74 was the final ruin of the old party of the Norman +baronage. The Earl of Chester got back his lands, but lost his castles, +and was sent out of the way to the Irish war; he died before the king in +1181. Leicester humbly admitted "that he and all his holdings were at +the mercy of the king," and Henry "restored to him Leicester, and the +forest which by common oath of the country had been sworn to belong to +the king's own domain, for he knew that this had been done for envy, and +also because it was known that the king hated the earl;" but Henry had a +long memory, and the walls of Leicester were in course of time thrown +down and its fortifications levelled. The Bishop of Durham had to pay +200 marks of silver for the king's pardon, and give up Durham Castle. At +the death of Hugh Bigod in 1177 Henry seized the earl's treasure. The +Earls of Clare and Gloucester died within two years, and the king's son +John was made Gloucester's heir. The rebel Count of Aumale died in 1179, +and his heiress married the faithful Earl of Essex, who took the title +of Aumale with all the lands on both sides of the water. In 1186 Roger +Mowbray went on crusade. The king took into his own hands all castles, +even those of "his most familiar friend," the justiciar De Lucy. The +work of dismantling dangerous fortresses which he had begun twenty years +before was at last completed, and no armed revolt of the feudal baronage +was ever again possible in England. + +But the rebellion had wakened in the king's mind a deep alarm, which +showed itself in a new severity of temper. Famine and plague had fallen +on the country; the treasury was well nigh empty; law and order were +endangered. Henry hastened to return as soon as his foreign campaign was +over, and in May 1175 "the two kings of England, whom a year before the +breadth of the kingdom could not contain, now crossed in one ship, sat +at one table, and slept in one bed." In token of reconciliation with the +Church they attended a synod at Westminster, and went together on solemn +pilgrimage to the martyr's tomb. Then they made a complete visitation of +the whole kingdom. Starting from Reading on the 1st of June, they went +by Oxford to Gloucester, then along the Welsh border to Shrewsbury, +through the midland counties by Lichfield and Nottingham to York, and +then back to London, having spent on their journey two months and a few +days; and in autumn they made a progress through the south-western +provinces. At every halt some weighty business was taken in hand. The +Church was made to feel anew the royal power. Twelve of the great abbeys +were now without heads, and the king, justly fearing lest the monks +should elect abbots from their own body, "and thus the royal authority +should be shaken, and they should follow another guidance than his own," +sent orders that on a certain day chosen men should be sent to elect +acceptable prelates at his court and in his presence. The safety of the +Welsh marches was assured. The castle of Bristol was given up to the +king, and border barons and Welsh princes swore fidelity at Gloucester. +An edict given at Woodstock ordered that no man who during the war had +been in arms against the king should come to his court without a special +order; that no man should remain in his court after the setting of the +sun, or should come to it before the sun rising; in the England that lay +west of the Severn, none might carry bow and arrow or pointed knife. In +this wild border district the checks which prevailed elsewhere against +violent crime were unknown. The outlaw or stranger who fled to forest or +moorland for hiding, might lawfully be slain by any man who met him. No +"murder-fine" was known there. The king, not daring perhaps to interfere +with the "liberties" of the west, may have sought to check crime by this +order against arms; but such a law was practically a dead letter, for in +a land where every man was the guardian of his own life it was far more +perilous to obey the new edict than to disregard it. + +The king's harsh mood was marked too by the cruel prosecutions of +offences against forest law which had been committed in the time of the +war. The severe punishments were perhaps a means of chastizing is affected +landowners; they were certainly useful in filling the empty treasury. +Nobles and barons everywhere were sued for hunting or cutting wood or +owning dogs, and were fined sometimes more than their whole possessions +were worth. In vain the justiciar, De Lucy, pleaded for justice to men +who had done these things by express orders of the king given to De Lucy +himself; "his testimony could prevail nothing against the royal will." +Even the clergy were dragged before the civil courts, "neither archbishop +nor bishop daring to make any protest." The king's triumph over the +rebellion was visibly complete when at York the treaty which had been made +the previous year with the King of Scotland was finally concluded, and +William and his brother did homage to the English sovereigns. A few weeks +later Henry and his son received at Windsor the envoys of the King of +Connaught, the only one of the Irish princes who had till now refused +homage. + +In the Church as in the State the royal power was unquestioned. A papal +legate arrived in October, who proved a tractable servant of the king; +"with the right hand and the left he took gifts, which he planted +together in his coffers". His coming gave Henry opportunity to carry out +at last through common action of Church and State his old scheme of +reforms. In the Assize of Northampton, held in January 1176, the king +confirmed and perfected the judicial legislation which he had begun ten +years before in the Assize of Clarendon. The kingdom was divided into +six circuits. The judges appointed to the circuits were given a more +full independence than they had before, and were no longer joined with +the sheriffs of the counties in their sessions, their powers were +extended beyond criminal jurisdiction to questions of property, of +inheritance, of wardship, of forfeiture of crown lands, of advowsons to +churches, and of the tenure of land. For the first time the name of +Justitiarii Itinerantes was given in the Pipe Roll to these travelling +justices, and the anxiety of the king to make the procedure of his +courts perfectly regular, instead of depending on oral tradition, was +shown by the law books which his ministers began at this time to draw +up. As a security against rebellion, a new oath of fealty was required +from every man, whether earl or villein, fugitives and outlaws were to +be more sharply sought after, and felons punished with harsher cruelty. +"Thinking more of the king than of his sheep," the legate admitted +Henry's right to bring the clergy before secular courts for crimes +against forest law, and in various questions of lay fiefs; and agreed +that murderers of clerks, who till then had been dealt with by the +ecclesiastical courts, should bear the same punishment as murderers of +laymen, and should be disinherited. Religious churchmen looked on with +helpless irritation at Henry's first formal victory over the principles +of Thomas; in the view of his own day he had "renewed the Assize of +Clarendon, and ordered to be observed the execrable decrees for which +the blessed martyr Thomas had borne exile for seven years, and been +crowned with the crown of martyrdom." + +During the next two years Henry was in perpetual movement through the +land from Devon to Lincoln, and between March 1176 and August 1177 he +summoned eighteen great councils, besides many others of less consequence. +From 1178 to 1180 he paid his last long visit to England, and again with +the old laborious zeal he began his round of journeys through the +country. "The king inquired about the justices whom he had appointed, how +they treated the men of the kingdom; and when he learned that the land and +the subjects were too much burthened with the great number of justices, +because there were eighteen, he elected five--two clerks and three +laymen--all of his own household; and he ordered that they should hear +all appeals of the kingdom and should do justice, and that they should not +depart from the King's Court, but should remain there to hear appeals, so +that if any question should come to them they should present it to the +audience of the king, and that it should be decided by him and by the wise +men of the kingdom." The _Justices of the Bench_, as they were called, +took precedence of all other judges. The influence of their work was soon +felt. From this time written records began to be kept of the legal +compromises made before the King's Court to render possible the +transference of land. It seems that in 1181 the practice was for the +first time adopted of entering on rolls all the business which came to +the King's Court, the pleas of the Crown and common pleas between +subjects. Unlike in form to the great Roll of the Pipe, in which the +records of the Exchequer Court had long been kept, the Plea Rolls +consisted of strips of parchment filed together by their tops, on which, +in an uncertain and at first a blundering fashion, the clerks noted down +their records of judicial proceedings. But practice soon brought about an +orderly and mechanical method of work, and the system of procedure in the +Bench rapidly attained a scientific perfection. Before long the name of +the _Curia Regis_ was exclusively applied to the new court of appeal. + +The work of legal reform had now practically come to an end. Henry +indeed still kept a jealous watch over his judges. Once more, on the +retirement of De Lucy in 1179, he divided the kingdom into new circuits, +and chose three bishops--Winchester, Ely, and Norwich--"as chief +justiciars, hoping that if he had failed before, the seat least he might +find steadfast in righteousness, turning neither to the right nor to the +left, not oppressing the poor, and not deciding the cause of the rich +for bribes." In the next year he set Glanville finally at the head of +the legal administration. After that he himself was called to other +cares. But he had really finished his task in England. The mere system +of routine which the wisdom of Henry I. had set to control the arbitrary +power of the king had given place to a large and noble conception of +government; and by the genius of Henry II. the law of the land was +finally established as the supreme guardian of the old English liberties +and the new administrative order. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +THE COURT OF HENRY + +In the years that followed the Assize of Northampton Henry was at the +height of his power. He was only forty-three, and already his triumph +was complete. One of his sons was King of England, one Count of Poitou, +one Lord of Britanny, one was named King of Ireland. His eldest daughter, +wife of the Duke of Saxony, was mother of a future emperor, the second +was Queen of Castile, the third was in 1176 married to William of Sicily, +the wealthiest king of his time. All nations hastened to do honour to so +great a potentate. Henry's counselors were called together to receive, +now ambassadors from Sicily, now the envoys of the Emperors both of the +East and of the West, of the Kings of Castile and Navarre, and of the +Duke of Saxony, the Archbishop of Reims, and the Count of Flanders. + +In England the king's power knew no limits. Rebellion had been finally +crushed. His wife and sons were held in check. He had practically won a +victory over the Church. Even in renouncing the Constitutions of +Clarendon at Avranches Henry abandoned more in word than in deed. He +could still fall back on the law of the land and the authority which he +had inherited from the Norman kings. Since the Conqueror's days no Pope +might be recognized as Apostolic Pope save at the king's command; no +legate might land or use any power in England without the king's +consent; no ecclesiastical senate could decree laws which were not +authorized by the king, or could judge his servants against his will. +The king could effectually resist the introduction of foreign canon law; +he could control communications with Rome; he could stay the proceedings +of ecclesiastical courts if they went too far, or prejudiced the rights +of his subjects; and no sentence could be enforced save by his will. +Henry was strong enough only six years after the death of Thomas to win +control over a vast amount of important property by insisting that +questions of advowson should be tried in the secular courts, and that +the murderers of clerks should be punished by the common law. He was +able in effect to prevent the Church courts from interfering in secular +matters save in the case of marriages and of wills. He preserved an +unlimited control over the choice of bishops. In an election to the see +of St. David's the canons had neglected to give the king notice before +the nomination of the bishop. He at once ordered them to be deprived of +their lands and revenues. "As they have deprived me," he said, "of all +share in the election, they shall have neither part nor lot in this +promotion." The monks, stricken with well-founded terror, followed the +king from place to place to implore his mercy and to save their livings; +with abject repentance they declared they would accept whomsoever the +king liked, wherever and whenever he chose. Finally Henry sent them a +monk unknown to the chapter, who had been elected in his chamber, at his +bedside, in the presence of his paid servants, and according to his +orders, "after the fashion of an English tyrant," and who had then and +there raised his tremulous and fearful song of thanksgiving. Towards the +close of his reign there was again a dispute as to the election of an +Archbishop of Canterbury. The monks, under Prior Alban, were determined +that the election should lie with them. The king was resolved to secure +the due influence of the bishops, on whom he could depend. "The Prior +wanted to be a second Pope in England," he complained to the Count of +Flanders, to which his affable visitor replied that he would see all the +churches of his land burned before he would submit to such a thing. For +three months the strife raged between the convent and the bishops in +spite of the king's earnest efforts at reconciliation. "Peace is by all +means to be sought," he urged. "He was a wise man who said, 'Let peace +be in our days'. For the sake of God choose peace, as much as in you lies +follow after peace" "The voice of the people is the voice of God," he +argued in proposing at last that bishops and monks should sit together +for the election. "But this he said," observed the monks, "knowing the +mind of the bishops, and that they sought rather the favour of the king +than of God, as their fathers and predecessors had done, who denied +St. Anselm for Rufus, who forsook Theobald for King Stephen, who rejected +the holy martyr Thomas for King Henry." Henry, however, won the day, and +his friend and nominee, the good Bishop Baldwin of Worcester, singular for +piety and righteousness, was set in the Primate's chair. Of this +archbishop we read that "his power was so great and so formidable that no +one was equal to him in all England, and without his pleasure no one would +dare even to obey the commands of the Pope.... But," adds the irritated +chronicler, "I think that he would do nothing save at the orders of the +king, even if the Apostle Peter came to England about it." + +In the opinion of anxious critics of the day, indeed, the victory which +had been almost won by Thomas seemed altogether lost after his death. +Even the monasteries, where the ecclesiastical temper was most formidable, +were forced to choose abbots and priors whom the king could trust. In its +subjection the Church was in Henry's eyes an admirable engine to serve the +uses of the governing power. One of the most important steps in the +conquest of Wales had been the forcing of the Welsh Church into obedience +to the see of Canterbury; and Henry steadily used the Welsh clergy as +instruments of his policy. His efforts to draw the Scotch Church into a +like obedience were unceasing. In Ireland he worked hard for the same +object. On the death of an Archbishop of Dublin, the Irish clergy were +summoned to Evesham, and there bidden in the king's court, after the +English fashion, to choose an Englishman, Cumin, as their archbishop. +The claims of the papacy were watched with the most jealous care. No +legate dared to land in England save at the king's express will. A +legate in Ireland who seemed to "play the Roman over them" was curtly +told by the king's officers that he must do their bidding or leave the +country. In 1184 the Pope sent to ask aid for his necessities in Rome. +A council was called to consider the matter, and Glanville urged that +if papal messengers were allowed to come through England collecting money, +it might afterwards become a custom to the injury of the kingdom. The +Council decided that the only tolerable solution of the difficulty was for +the king to send whatever he liked to the Pope as a gift from himself, and +to accept afterwards from them compensation for what he might have given. + +The questions raised by the king between Church and State in England had +everywhere to be faced sooner or later. Even so devoted a servant of the +Church as St. Louis of France was forced into measures of reform as +far-reaching as those which Henry had planned a century earlier. But +Henry had begun his work a hundred years too soon; he stood far before +his age in his attempt to bring the clergy under a law which was not +their own. His violence had further hindered the cause of reform, and +the work which he had taken in hand was not to be fully carried out till +three centuries and a half had passed away. We must remember that in +raising the question of judicial reform he had no desire to quarrel with +the Church or priesthood. He refused indeed to join in any fanatical +outbreak of persecution of the Jews, such as Philip of France consented +to; and when persecution raged against the Albigenses of the south he +would have no part or lot in it, and kept his own dominions open as a +refuge for the wandering outcasts; but this may well have been by the +counsel of the wise churchmen about him. To the last he looked on the +clergy as his best advisers and supporters. He never demanded tribute +from churches or monasteries, a monkish historian tells us, as other +princes were wont to do on plea of necessity; with religious care he +preserved them from unjust burthens and public exactions. By frequent +acts of devotion he sought to win the favour of Heaven or to rouse the +religious sympathies of England on his behalf. In April 1177 he met at +Canterbury his old enemy, the Archbishop of Reims, and laid on the +shrine of St. Thomas a charter of privileges for the convent. On the 1st +of May he visited the shrine of St. Eadmund, and the next day that of +St. Aetheldreda at Ely. The bones of a saint stolen from Bodmin were +restored by the king's order, and on their journey were brought to +Winchester that he might do them reverence. Relics discovered by +miraculous vision were buried with pomp at St. Albans. Since his vow +four years before at Avranches to build three monasteries for the +remission of his sins, he had founded in Normandy and England four or +five religious houses for the Templars, the Carthusians, and the Austin +canons; he now brought nuns from Fontevraud, for whom he had a special +reverence, and set them in the convent at Amesbury, whose former +inhabitants were turned out to make way for them; while the canons of +Waltham were replaced by a stricter order of Austin canons. A templar +was chosen to be his almoner, that he might carry to the king the +complaints of the poor which could not come to his own ears, and +distribute among the needy a tenth of all the food and drink that came +into the house of the king. + +It is true that on Henry himself the strife with the Church left deep +traces. He became imperious, violent, suspicious. The darker sides of +his character showed themselves, its defiance, its superstition, its +cynical craft, its passionate pride, its ungoverned wrath. His passions +broke out with a reckless disregard of earlier restraints. Eleanor was a +prisoner and a traitor; she was nearly fifty when he himself was but +forty-one. From this time she practically disappeared out of Henry's +life. The king had bitter enemies at court, and they busied themselves +in spreading abroad dark tales; more friendly critics could only plead +that he was "not as bad as his grandfather." After the rebellion of 1174 +he openly avowed his connection with Rosamond Clifford, which seems to +have begun some time before. Eleanor was then in prison, and tales of +the maze, the silken clue, the dagger, and the bowl, were the growth of +later centuries. But "fair Rosamond" did not long hold her place at +court. She died early and was carried to Godstowe nunnery, to which rich +gifts were sent by her friends and by the king himself. A few years +later Hugh of Lincoln found her shrine before the high altar decked with +gold and silken hangings, and the saintly bishop had the last finery of +Rosamond swept from the holy place, till nothing remained but a stone +with the two words graven on it, "Tumba Rosamundae." + +But behind Henry's darkest and sternest moods lay a nature quick in +passionate emotion, singularly sensitive to affection, tender, full of +generous impulse, clinging to those he loved with yearning fidelity and +long patience. The story of St. Hugh shows the unlimited influence won +over him by a character of singular holiness. Henry had brought Hugh +from Burgundy, and set him over a newly-founded Cistercian priory at +Witham. The little settlement was in sore straits, and the impatient +monks railed passionately at the king, who had abandoned them in their +necessities. It was just after the rebellion, and Henry, hard pressed by +anxiety, was in his harshest and most bitter temper. "Have patience," +said Hugh, "for the king is wise beyond measure and wholly inscrutable; +it may be that he delays to grant our request that he may try us." But +brother Girard was not to be soothed, and in a fresh appeal to the king +his vehemence broke out in a torrent of reproaches and abuse. Henry +listened unmoved till the monk ceased from sheer lack of words. There +was dead silence for a time, while Prior Hugh bent down his head in +distress, and the king watched him under his eyelids. At last, taking no +more notice of the monk than if he never existed, Henry turned to Hugh, +"What are you thinking of, good man?" he said. "Are you preparing to go +away and leave our kingdom?" Hugh answered humbly and gently, "I do not +despair of you so far, my lord; rather I have great sorrow for the +troubles and labours which hinder the care for your soul. You are busy +now, but some day, when the Lord helps, we will finish the good work +begun." At this the king's self-control broke down; his tears burst +forth as he fell on Hugh's neck, and cried with an oath, "By the +salvation of my soul, while you have the breath of life you shall not +depart from my kingdom! With you I wilt hold wise counsel, and with you +I will take heed for my soul!" From that time there was none in the +kingdom whom Henry loved and trusted as he did the Prior of Witham, and +to the end of his life he constantly sought in all matters the advice of +one who gave him scant flattery and much sharp reproof. The coarse-fibred, +hard-worked man of affairs looked with superstitious reverence on one who +lived so near to God that even in sleep his lips still moved in prayer. +Such a man as Hugh could succeed where Thomas of Canterbury had failed. +He excommunicated without notice to the king a chief forester who had +interfered with the liberties of the Lincoln clergy, and bluntly refused +to make amends by appointing a royal officer to a prebend in his +cathedral, saying that "benefices were for clergy and not for courtiers." +A general storm of abuse and calumny broke out against him at the palace. +Henry angrily summoned him to his presence. The bishop was received by the +king in an open space under the trees, where he sat with all the courtiers +ranged in a close circle. Hugh drew near and saluted, but there was no +answer. Upon this the bishop put his hand lightly on the noble who sat +next to the king, and made place for himself by Henry's side. Still the +silence was unbroken, the king speechless as a furious man choked with his +anger. Looking up at last, he asked a servant for needle and thread, and +began to sew up a torn bandage which was tied round a wounded finger. The +lively Frenchman observed him patiently; at last he turned to the king, +"How like you are now," he said, "to your cousins of Falaise!" The king's +quick wit caught the extravagant impertinence, and in an ecstasy of +delight he rolled on the ground with laughter, while a perplexed merriment +ran round the circle of courtiers who scarce knew what the joke might be. +At last the king found his voice. "Do you hear the insolence of this +barbarian? I myself will explain." And he reminded them of his ancestress, +the peasant girl Arlotta of Falaise, where the citizens were famous for +their working in skins. "And now, good man," he said, turning to the +bishop in a broad good-humour, "how is it that without consulting us you +have laid our forester under anathema, and made of no account the poor +little request we made, and sent not even a message of explanation or +excuse?"--"Ah," said Hugh, "I knew in what a rage you and your +courtiers were!" and he then proceeded boldly to declare what were his +rights and duties as a bishop of the Church of God. Henry gave way on +every point. The forester had to make open satisfaction and was publicly +flogged, and from that time the bishop was no more tormented to set +courtiers over the Church. There were many other theologians besides +Hugh of Lincoln among the king's friends--Baldwin, afterwards archbishop; +Foliot, one of the chief scholars of his time; Richard of Ilchester, as +learned in theology as capable in administration; John of Oxford, lawyer +and theologian; Peter of Blois, ready for all kinds of services that might +be asked, and as skilled in theology as in rhetoric. Henry was never known +to choose an unworthy friend; laymen could only grumble that he was +accustomed to take advice of bishops and abbots rather than that of +knights even about military matters. But theology was not the main +preoccupation of the court. Henry, inquisitive in all things, learned +in most, formed the centre of a group of distinguished men which, for +varied intellectual activity, had no rival save at the university of +Paris. There was not a court in Christendom in the affairs of which the +king was not concerned, and a crowd of travellers was for ever coming and +going. English chroniclers grew inquisitive about revolutions in Norway, +the state of parties in Germany, the geography of Spain. They copied +despatches and treaties. They asked endless questions of every traveller +as to what was passing abroad, and noted down records which have since +become authorities for the histories of foreign states. Political and +historical questions were eagerly debated. Gerald of Wales and Glanville, +as they rode together, would discuss why the Normans had so fallen away in +valour that now even when helped by the English they were less able to +resist the French than formerly when they stood alone. The philosophic +Glanville might suggest that the French at that time had been weakened by +previous wars, but Gerald, true to the feudal instincts of a baron of the +Norman-Welsh border, spoke of the happy days before dukes had been made +into kings, who oppressed the Norman nobles by their overbearing violence, +and the English by their insular tyranny; "For there is nothing which so +stirs the heart of man as the joy of liberty, and there is nothing which +so weakens it as the oppression of slavery," said Gerald, who had himself +felt the king's hand heavy on him. + +One of the most striking features of the court was the group of great +lawyers which surrounded the king. The official nobility trained at the +Exchequer and Curia Regis, and bound together by the daily work of +administering justice, formed a class which was quite unknown anywhere +on the continent. It was not till a generation later that a few clerks +learned in civil law were called to the king's court of justice in +France, and the system was not developed till the time of Louis IX.; in +Germany such a reform did not take place for centuries. But in England +judges and lawyers were already busied in building up the scientific +study of English law. Richard Fitz-Neal, son of Bishop Nigel of Ely and +great-nephew of Roger of Salisbury, and himself Treasurer of the +Exchequer and Bishop of London, began in 1178 the _Dialogus de Scaccario_, +an elaborate account of the whole system of administration. Glanville, +the king's justiciar, drew up probably the oldest version which we have +of the Conqueror's laws and the English usages which still prevailed in +the inferior jurisdictions. A few years later he wrote his _Tractatus de +Legibus Angliae_, which was in fact a handbook for the Curia Regis, and +described the new process in civil trials and the rules established by the +Norman lawyers for the King's Court and its travelling judges. Thomas +Brown, the king's almoner, besides his daily record of the king's doings, +left behind him an account of the laws of the kingdom. + +The court became too a great school of history. From the reign of Alfred +to the end of the Wars of the Roses there is but one break in the +contemporary records of our history, a break which came in the years +that followed the outbreak of feudal lawlessness. In 1143 William of +Malmesbury and Orderic ceased writing; in 1151 the historians who had +carried on the task of Florence of Worcester also ceased; three years +later the Saxon Chronicle itself came to an end, and in 1155 Henry of +Huntingdon finished his work. From 1154 to 1170 we have, in fact, no +contemporary chronicle. In the historical schools of the north compilers +had laboured at Hexham, at Durham, and in the Yorkshire monasteries to +draw together valuable chronicles founded on the work of Baeda; but in +1153 the historians of Hexham closed their work, and those of Durham in +1161. Only the monks of Melrose still carried on their chronicle as far +as 1169. The great tradition, however, was once more worthily taken up +by the men of Henry's court, kindled by the king's intellectual activity. +A series of chronicles appeared in a few years, which are unparalleled in +Europe at the time. At the head of the court historians stood the +treasurer, Richard Fitz Neal, the author of the _Dialogus_, who in 1172 +began a learned work in three columns, treating of the ecclesiastical, +political, and miscellaneous history of England in his time--a work which +some scholars say is included in the _Gesta Henrici II_ that was once +connected with the name of Benedict of Peterborough. The king's clerk +and justiciar, Roger of Hoveden, must have been collecting materials for +the famous Chronicle which he began very soon after Henry's death, when +he gathered up and completed the work of the Durham historians. Gervase +of Tilbury, marshal of the kingdom of Arles, well known in every great +town of Italy and Sicily, afterwards the writer of _Otia Imperialia_ for +the Emperor Otto IV., wrote a book of anecdotes, now lost, for the younger +King Henry. Gerald of Wales, a busy courtier, and later a chaplain of the +king, was the brilliant historian of the Irish conquest and the mighty +deeds of his cousins, the Fitz Geralds and Fitz Stephens. "In process of +time when the work was completed, not willing to hide his candle under a +bushel, but to place it on a candlestick that it might give light to all, +he resolved to read it publicly at Oxford, where the most learned and +famous English clergy were at that time to be found. And as there were +three distinctions or divisions in the work, and as each division occupied +a day, the reading lasted three successive days. On the first day he +received and entertained at his lodgings all the poor of the town, on the +next day all the doctors of the different faculties and such of their +pupils as were of fame and note, on the third day the rest of the scholars +with the _milites_, townsmen, and many burgesses. It was a costly and noble +act; the authentic and ancient times of poesy were thus in some measure +renewed, and neither present nor past time can furnish any record of +such a solemnity having ever taken place in England." + +Literature was shaking itself free from the limits imposed upon it while +it lay wholly in the hands of churchmen, and Gerald's writings, the +first books of vivacious and popular prose-writing in England, were +avowedly composed for "laymen and uneducated princes," and professed to +tell "the doings of the people." He declared his intention to use common +and easily understood words as he told his tales of Ireland and Wales, +of their physical features, their ways and customs, and with a literary +instinct that knew no scruple, added scandal, gossip, satire, bits of +folk-lore or of classical learning or of Bible phrases, which might +serve the purposes of literary artifice or of frank conceit. The +independent temper which had been stirred by the fight with the Church +was illustrated in his _Speculum Ecclesiae_, a bitter satire on the +monks and on the Roman Curia. A yet more terrible scorn of the crime and +vice which disgraced the Church inspired the _Apocalypse_ and the +_Confession of Bishop Goliath_, the work of Walter Map, Archdeacon of +Oxford, king's chaplain ever since the days when Becket was chancellor, +justiciar, ambassador, poet, scholar, theologian, satirist. The greater +part of the legends of the Saint Graal that sprang out of the work of +Robert de Boron were probably woven together by his genius; and were +used in the great strife to prove that the English Church originated +independently of Rome. His _Courtier's Triflings_, suggested by John of +Salisbury's _Polycraticus_, is the only book which actually bears his +name, and with its gossip, its odd accumulations of learning, its +fragments of ancient history, its outbursts of moral earnestness, its +philosophy, brings back to us the very temper of the court and the stir +and quickening of men's minds--a stir which found expression in other +works of bitter satire, in the lampoon of _Ralph Niger_, and in the +violent attacks on the monks by _Nigellus_. + +Nor was the new intellectual activity confined to the court. The whole +country shared in the movement. Good classical learning might be had in +England, if for the new-fashioned studies of canon law and theology men +had to go abroad; but conservative scholars grumbled that now law and +physics had become such money-making sciences that they were beginning +to cut short the time which used to be given to classical studies. +Gerald of Wales mourned over the bringing in from Spain of "certain +treatises, lately found and translated, pretended to have been written +by Aristotle," which tended to foster heresy. The cathedral schools, +such as York, Lincoln, or London, played the part of the universities in +our own day. The household of the Archbishop of Canterbury had been the +earliest and the most distinguished centre of learning. Of all the +remarkable men of the day there was none to compare with John of +Salisbury, the friend of Theobald and of Becket, and his book, the +__Polycraticus_ (1156-59), was perhaps the most important work of the +time. It begins by recounting the follies of the court, passes on to the +discussion of politics and philosophy, deals with the ethical systems of +the ancients, and hints at a new system of his own, and is everywhere +enriched by wide reading and learning acquired at the schools of +Chartres and Paris London could boast of the historian Ralph of Diceto, +always ready with a quotation from the classics amid the court news and +politics of his day. Monasteries rivaled one another in their collection +of books and in drawing up of chronicles. If their brethren were more +famed for piety than for literary arts, they would borrow some noted man +of learning, or even a practised scribe, who would for the occasion +write under a famous name. The friends and followers of Becket told +on every side and in every way, in prose or poetry, in Latin or +Norman-French, the story of their master's martyrdom and miracles. The +greatest historian of his day, William of Newburgh, was monk in a quiet +little Yorkshire monastery. Gervase, a monk of Canterbury, began the +Chronicle that bears his name in 1185. The historical workers of Durham, +of Hexham, and of Melrose started into a new activity. A canon of the +priory of St. Bartholomew's in London wrote before Henry's death a life of +its founder Rahere, and noted the first cases received into the hospital. +Joseph of Exeter, brother of Archbishop Baldwin, was the brilliant author +of a Latin poem on the _Troy Story_, and of a poetic history of the first +crusade. There was scarcely a religious house in the whole land which +could not boast of some distinction in learning or literature. + +Even the feudal nobles caught the prevailing temper. A baron was not +content to have only his household dwarf or jester, he must have his +household poet too. Intellectual interest and curiosity began to spread +beyond the class of clerks to whom Latin, the language of learning and +worship, was familiar, and a demand began to spring up for a popular +literature which could be understood of the unlearned baron or burgher. +Virgil and Statius and Ovid were translated into French. Wace in 1155 +dedicated to Eleanor his translation into Norman-French of the _History +of Geoffrey of Monmouth_, a book which came afterwards to be called the +_Brut d'Engleterre_, and was one of the sources of the first important +English poem, Layamon's _Brut_. Later on, in honour of Henry, Wace told +in the _Roman de Rou_ the story of his Norman ancestors, and the poem, +especially in the account of Senlac, has given some brilliant details to +history. Other Norman-French poems were written in England on the +rebellion, on the conquest of Ireland, on the life of the martyred +Thomas--poems which threw off the formal rules of the stilted Latin +fashion, and embodied the tales of eye-witnesses with their graphic +brief descriptions. An Anglo-Norman literature of song and sermon fast +grew up, absolutely identical in tongue with the Norman literature +beyond the Channel, but marked by special characteristics of thought and +feeling. Meanwhile English, as the speech of the common folk, still +lived on as a tongue apart, a tongue so foreign to judges and barons and +Courtiers that authors or transcribers could not copy half a dozen +English lines without a mistake. The serfs and traders who spoke it were +too far removed from the upper court circle to take into their speech +foreign words or foreign grammatical forms; the songs which their +minstrels sang from fair to fair only lived on the lips of the poor, and +left no echo behind them. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +THE DEATH OF HENRY + +In the last nine years of Henry's reign his work lay elsewhere than in +his English kingdom. They were years spent in a passionate effort to +hold together the unwieldy empire he had so laboriously built up. On the +death of Louis in 1180 the peaceful and timid traditions of his reign +were cast aside by the warlike Philip, who had from childhood cherished +a violent hatred against Henry, and who was bent on the destruction of +rival powers, and the triumph of the monarchy in France. Henry's +absorbing care, on the other hand, was to prevent war; and during the +next four years he constantly forced reconciliation on the warring +princes of France. "All who loved peace rejoiced at his coming," the +chroniclers constantly repeat. "He had faith in the Lord, that if he +crossed over he could make peace." "As though always at his coming peace +should certainly be made." + +But in Britanny and in Aquitaine there was no peace. The sons whom he +had set over his provinces had already revolted in 1173. In 1177 fresh +troubles broke out, and from that time their history was one of unbroken +revolt against their father and strife amongst themselves. "Dost thou +not know," Geoffrey once answered a messenger of his father's, sent to +urge him to peace, "that it is our proper nature, planted in us by +inheritance from our ancestors, that none of us should love the other, +but that ever brother should strive against brother, and son against +father. I would not that thou shouldst deprive us of our hereditary +right, nor vainly seek to rob us of our nature!" In 1182 Henry sought +once more to define the authority of his sons, and to assert the unity +of the Empire under his own supremacy by ordering Richard and Geoffrey +to do homage to their brother for Aquitaine and Britanny. Richard's +passionate refusal struck the first open blow at his father's imperial +schemes, and war at once broke out. The nobles of Aquitaine, weary of +the severe rule of Richard, had long plotted to set in his place his +gentler brother Henry, and the young king, along with Geoffrey, lent +himself openly to the conspiracy. In 1183 they called for help from +Flanders, France, and Normandy, and a general revolt seemed on the point +of breaking out, like that of ten years before. Henry II. was forced to +march himself into Aquitaine. But in a war with his sons he was no +longer the same man as when he fought with French king or rebel barons. +His political sagacity and his passionate love of his children fought an +unequal battle. Duped by every show of affection, he was at their mercy +in intrigue. Twice peaceful embassies, which he sent to Henry and +Geoffrey, were slain before their eyes without protest. As he himself +talked with them they coolly saw one of their archers shoot at him and +wound his horse. The younger Henry pretended to make peace with his +father, sitting at meat with him, and eating out of the same dish, that +Geoffrey might have time to ravage the land unhindered. Geoffrey +successfully adopted the same device in order to plunder the churches of +Limoges. The wretched strife was only closed at last by the death of the +younger Henry in 1183. + +His death, however, only opened new anxieties. Richard now claimed to +take his brother's place as heir to the imperial dignity, while at the +same time he exercised undivided lordship over an important state a +position which the king had again and again refused to Henry. Geoffrey, +whose over-lord the young king had been, sought to rule Britanny as a +dependent of Philip, and his plots in Paris with the French king were +only ended by his death in 1185. Philip, on his part, demanded, at the +death of the young king, the restoration of Margaret's dowry, the Vexin +and Gisors; when Geoffrey died he claimed to be formally recognized as +suzerain of Britanny, and guardian of his infant; he demanded that +Richard should do homage directly to him as sovereign lord of Aquitaine, +and determined to assert his rights over the lands so long debated of +Berri and Auvergne. For the last years of Henry's reign disputes raged +round these points, and more than once war was only averted by the +excitement which swept over Europe at the disastrous news from the Holy +Land. + +After the death of the young king a precarious peace was established in +Aquitaine, and Henry returned to England. In March 1185 he received at +Reading the patriarch of Jerusalem and the master of the Hospital, +bearing the standard of the kings of the Holy Land, with the keys of the +Holy Sepulchre, of the tower of David, and of the city of Jerusalem. +"Behold the keys of the kingdom," said the patriarch Heracles with a +burst of tears, "which the king and princes of the land have ordered me +to give to thee, because it is in thee alone, after God, that they have +hope and confidence of salvation." The king reverently received them +before the weeping assembly, but handed them back to the safekeeping of +the patriarch till he could consult with his barons. He had long been +pledged to join the holy war; he had renewed his vow in 1177 and 1181. +But it was a heavy burden to be now charged with the crown of Jerusalem. +Since the days of his grandfather, Fulk of Anjou, the last strong king +of Jerusalem, there had been swift decay. Three of his successors were +minors; Antone was a leper; the fifth was repudiated by every one of his +vassals. The last forty years had been marked by continual disaster. The +armies of the Moslem were closing in fast on every side. A passion of +sympathy was everywhere roused by the sorrows of the Holy City. All +England, it was said, desired the crusade, and Henry's prudent counting +of the cost struck coldly on the excited temper of the time. Gerald of +Wales officiously took on himself, in the middle of a hunting party, to +congratulate the king on the honour done to him and his kingdom, since +the patriarch had passed by the lands of emperors and kings to seek out +the English sovereign. Talk of this kind before all the court at such a +critical moment much displeased the prudent king, and he answered in his +biting way, "If the patriarch, or any other men come to me, they seek +rather their own than my gain." The unabashed Gerald still went on, +"Thou shouldst think it thy highest gain and honour, king, that thou +alone art chosen before all the sovereigns of the earth for so great a +service to Christ." "Thus bravely," retorted Henry, "the clergy provoke +us to arms and dangers, since they themselves receive no blow in the +battle, nor bear any burden which they may avoid!" + +Henry's council, however, held firm against the general tide of romantic +enthusiasm. In the weighty question of the eastern crown the king had +formally and openly pledged himself to act by the advice of his wise +men, as no king before him since the Conquest had ever done. An assembly +was summoned at Clerkenwell on the 18th of March. No councillors were +called from Anjou or Normandy or Aquitaine; the decision was made solely +by the advice of the prelates and barons of England. "It seemed to all," +declared the council, "to be more fitting, and more for the safety of +his soul, that he should govern his kingdom with moderation and preserve +it from the irruptions of barbarians and from foreign nations, than that +he should in his own person provide for the safety of the eastern +nations." The verdict showed the new ideal of kingship which had grown +up during Henry's reign, and which made itself deeply felt over the +whole land when in the days of his successor the duties of righteous +government were thrown aside for the vainglories of religious chivalry. +But the patriarch heard the answer with bitter disappointment, and was +not appeased by promises of money and forces for the war. "Not thus will +you save your soul nor the heritage of Christ," he declared. "We come to +seek a king, not money; for every corner of the world sends us money, +but not one a prince." And in open court he flung his fierce prophecy at +the king, that as till now he had been greatest among the kings of the +earth, so henceforth, forsaken by God and destitute of His grace, until +his latest breath his glory should be turned into disaster and his +honour into shame. Henry, as he rode with the patriarch back to Dover, +listened with his strange habitual forbearance while Heraclius poured +forth angry reproaches for the iniquities of his whole life, and +declared at last that he had almost with his own hands slain St. Thomas. +At this the king fiercely turned, with his eyes rolling in a mad storm +of passion, and the patriarch bent his head. "Do with me," he cried, +"what you did to Thomas. I would rather have my head cut off by you in +England than by the Saracens in Palestine, for in truth you are worse +than any Saracen!" The king answered with an oath, "If all the men of my +kingdom were gathered in one body and spoke with one mouth they would +not dare to say this to me." Heraclius pointed scornfully to the train +of followers. "Do you indeed think that these men love you--these who +care only for your wealth? It is the plunder, and not the man, that this +crowd follows after!" Henry spoke of the danger from his sons if he +should quit his dominions. "No wonder," was the parting taunt of +Heraclius; "from the devil they came, and to the devil they will go." + +But Henry was never to come back to England. One day in June a certain +Walter of the royal household was terrified by a vision of St. Thomas, +who appeared bearing a shining sword which he declared had been newly +forged to pierce through the king himself. Walter hurried to the chapel, +where Henry was at mass, to tell his tale. Three times the king bent +before the altar and signed himself devoutly as though he prayed to the +Lord, and then passed to his council chamber. The next day he called +Walter to his presence, and sadly shaking his head, spoke with deep +sighs, "Walter, Walter, I have felt how cruelly thy sword can strike, +for we have lost Châteauroux!" War had in fact broken out in Aquitaine. +Toulouse had risen against Richard. Philip, in violation of his treaty, +invaded Berri and marched into Auvergne. Hastily gathering an army, +Henry crossed to France in a terrible storm. He met Philip at Gisors on +the 30th of September, but after three days' bitter strife the kings +parted. In November they met again at Bonmoulins in the presence of the +Archbishop of Reims, and a great multitude of courtiers and knights. +Richard, outraged by the rumour that Henry proposed to give Aquitaine to +John, turned suddenly to Philip, while the people crowded round wondering, +ungirt his sword, and stretched out his hands to do homage to him for all +his father's lands from the Channel to the Pyrenees. His unhappy father +started back, stunned by this new calamity, "for he had not forgotten the +evil which Henry his son had done to him with the help of King Louis, and +this Philip was yet worse than his father Louis." As father and son fell +apart the people rushed together, while at the tumult the outer ring of +soldiers laid their hands upon their swords, and thus Philip and Richard +went out together, leaving Henry alone. + +A great solitude had indeed fallen on the old king. His wife was still +guarded as a prisoner. Two of his sons had died traitors to their +father. A third was in open rebellion. All his daughters were in far-off +lands, and one of them was soon to die. Only one son remained to him of +all his household, and to him Henry now clung with a great love--the +fierce tenacity of an affection that knew no other hope. The king +himself was only fifty-six; but he was already an old man, worn out by +the prodigious labours and anxieties of forty years. There were moments +when a passionate despair settled down on his soul. One day he called +his two friends, Baldwin and Hugh, out from the crowd of courtiers to +ride beside him, and the bitterness of his heart broke forth, "Why +should I revere Christ!" he cried, "why should I think Him worthy of +honour who takes from me all honour in my lands, and suffers me to be +thus shamefully confounded before that camp follower?" as he called the +king of France. Then, as if beside himself, he struck spurs into his +horse, and dashed back again into the throng of courtiers. + +In the eyes of the world, however, Henry was still the most renowned +among the kings of the earth in his unassailable triumph and success. +For forty years his reign had been one long triumph. From every difficulty +conquered he had gained new strength; every rebellion had left him more +unquestioned master. He had never yet known defeat. The Church was now +earnest in his support. Papal legates won for him a truce of two months +after the conference at Bonmoulins, and when at its close Britanny broke +out in revolt, and Richard led an army against his father's lands, the +legates again procured peace till after Easter. From February to June of +1189 Henry waited at Le Mans, still confident, it would seem, of peace. +Once more legates were appointed to bring about a settlement between the +two kings at La Ferte Bernardon the 4th of June. With a fierce outburst +of anger Henry passionately refused the demands of Philip. The legate +threatened to lay France under an interdict if Philip persisted in war, +but Philip only retorted that the Roman Church had no right to interfere +between the king of France and his rebel vassals, and added with a sneer +that the cardinals already smelt English gold. Then at last Henry +abandoned the hope of peace. His treasury was empty, and his lands on both +sides of the water had been taxed to the last penny. His troops had melted +away in search of more abundant pay. He was shut in between hostile +forces--Breton rebels to westward, and the allied armies of Philip and +Richard to eastward. The danger roused his old defiant energy. Glanville +hurried to England "to compel all English knights, however exhausted and +poor, to cross to France," while the king himself, with a few faithful +barons and a small body of mercenaries, fell back on Le Mans, swearing +that he would never forsake the citizens of the town where he had +been born. + +The French army, however, followed hard after him. On the 9th of June +Philip and Richard halted fifteen miles off Le Mans, on the 11th of June +they encamped under its walls. The next day they broke through the +handful of troops who desperately held the bridge. A wealthy suburb +which could no longer be defended was set on fire, so that it should not +give shelter to the enemy, the wind swept the flames into the city, and +Henry saw himself shut in between the burning town and the advancing +Frenchmen. Then for the first time in his life he turned his back upon +his enemies. At the head of 700 horsemen he rode out over a bridge to +the north, and fled towards Normandy. As he mounted the spur of a hill +two miles off, he turned to look at the flames that rose from the city, +and in the bitterness of his humiliation he cursed God--"The city which +I have loved best on earth, the city in which I was born and bred, where +my father lies buried, where is the body of Saint Julian--this Thou, O +God, to the heaping up of my confusion, and to the increase of my shame, +hast taken from me in this base manner! I therefore will requite as best +I can; I will assuredly rob Thee too of the thing in me which Thou +lovest best!" + +For twenty miles the king, with his son Geoffrey the chancellor, and a +few faithful followers, rode furiously under the burning sun through +narrow lanes and broken roads till knights sank and died on the way. +Once he was only saved from capture by the breaking of a bridge over a +stream which was too deep for the pursuers to ford. Once Count Richard +himself followed so hard upon them that he came up with the flying +troop. William the marshal turned and raised his lance. "God's feet, +marshal, do not kill me!" cried Richard; "I have no hauberk!" William +struck his spear into the count's horse, so that it fell dead. "No, I +will not kill you. Let the devil kill you!" he shouted with a fierce +memory of the old prophecy. By nightfall Henry reached La Frenaye, +within a day's ride of the Norman border. He threw himself on a bed, +refusing to be undressed, and would scarcely allow Geoffrey to cover him +with his own cloak. The next morning he sent his friends forward into +Normandy to gather its forces and renew the war. But he himself, in +spite of all prayers and warnings, declared that he would go back to +Anjou. His passionate emotion threw aside all cold calculations of +reason. Every fortress on the way was in the hands of enemies; hostile +armies were pressing in on every side; the roads were held by foreign +troops,--French and Poitevin, Flemish mercenaries and Breton rebels--as +the stricken king rode through the forests and along the trackways he +had learned to know as a hunter in earlier days. Never had his indomitable +will, his romantic daring, been so great as in this last desperate ride to +reach the home of his race. He started on the 13th of June. Before the end +of the month Geoffrey had hurried back from Normandy, and together they +went to Chinon. + +Henry was now shut in on every side. Poitou and Britanny were both in +revolt. The forts along the Sarthe, the Loir, and the Loire had fallen +into the hands of Philip. On the 30th of June his army was seen under +the walls of Tours. Henry himself was on the same day suddenly struck +down by fever; unable to meet the French king, he fell back down the +river to Saumur. The great French princes, aghast at the swift catastrophe +which had fallen, men scarcely knew how, on the Angevin king, trembling +lest in this strange victory of the French monarchy his ruin should be the +beginning of their own destruction, made a last effort for peace. But +Philip stood firm, "seeing that God had delivered his enemy into his +hand." On Monday, the 3d of July, the walls of Tours fell before his +assault, and he sent a final summons to Henry to meet him at Colombières, +a field near Tours. The king travelled as far as the house of the Templars +at Ballan. But there he was seized with intolerable agony in every nerve +of his body from head to foot. Leaning for support against a wall in his +extreme anguish, he called to him William the marshal, and the pitying +bystanders laid him on a bed. News of his illness was carried to the +French camp. But Richard felt no touch of pity. His father was but +feigning some excuse to put off the meeting, he told Philip; and a +message was sent back commanding him to appear on the next day. The sick +king again called the marshal, and prayed him at whatever labour to carry +him to the conference. "Cost what it may," he vowed, "I will grant +whatever they ask to get them to depart. But this I tell you of a surety, +if I can but live I will heal the country from war, and win my land back +again." With a final effort of his indomitable will he rode on the 4th of +July through the sultry summer heat to Colombières. The great assembly +gathered to witness the triumph of France was struck with horror at the +marks of suffering on his face, and Philip himself, moved by a sudden +pity, called for a cloak to be spread on the ground on which the king +might sit. But Henry's fierce temper flashed out once more; he would not +sit, he said; even as he was he would hear what they asked of him, and why +they cut short his lands. Then Philip stated his demands. Henry must do +homage, and place himself wholly at the French king's mercy to do whatever +he should decree. Richard must receive, as Henry's heir, the fealty of the +barons of the lands on both sides the sea. A heavy sum was to be paid to +Philip for his conquests in Berri. Richard and Philip were to hold Le Mans +and Tours, and the other castles of Maine and Touraine, or else the +castles of the Vexin, until the treaty was completely carried out. Henry's +barons were to swear that they would force him to observe these terms. + +As Henry hesitated for a moment at these crushing demands, a sudden +terrible thunder broke from the still air. Both kings fell back with +superstitious awe, for there had been no warning cloud or darkness. +After a little space they again went forward, and again out of the +serene sky came a yet louder and more awful peal. Henry, half fainting +with suffering, was only prevented from falling to the ground by the +friends who held him up on horseback while he made his submission to his +rival and accepted the terms of peace. Then for the last time he spoke +with his faithless son Richard. As the formal kiss of peace was given, +the count caught his father's fierce whisper, "May God not let me die +until I have worthily avenged myself on thee!" The terrible words were +to Richard only a merry tale, with which on his return he stirred the +French court to great laughter. + +Henry was carried back the same day in a litter to Chinon. So sudden and +amazing a downfall was to the superstitious terror of the time, evident +token that the curse of Thomas had come to rest on him. The vengeance of +the implacable martyr seemed to follow him through every act of the +great drama. In Philip's scornful refusal to allow Henry to swear +obedience, "saving his honour and the dignity of his kingdom," the +zealots of the day saw a just retribution. At Chinon a deputation of +monks from Canterbury met him. "Trusting that in his affliction he might +pity the affliction of the Church," and grant demands long urged by the +convent, they had sought him out, "going through swords." "The convent +of Canterbury salutes you as their lord," they began, as they forced +their way into the sick king's presence. Henry broke in with bitter +indignation, "Then lord I have been, and am still, and will be yet--small +thanks to you, ye evil traitors!" he added in a lower voice, which just +caught the ears of the furious monks. But he listened patiently to their +complaint. "Now go out," he said, "I will speak with my faithful +servants." As the monks passed out one of them stopped and laid his curse +on the king, who trembled and grew pale at the terrible words. "The +omnipotent God of His ineffable mercy, and for the merits of the blessed +martyr Thomas, if his life and passion has been well pleasing to Him, +will shortly do us justice on thy body." Tortured with suffering, Henry +still summoned strength for his last public act. He called his clerk and +dictated a letter to Canterbury, to urge patience till his return, when +he would consider their complaint and find a way out of the difficulty. +The same evening his chancellor, whom he had sent to Philip at Tours, +returned with the list of those who had conspired against him Henry bade +him read the names. "Sire," he said, "may Jesus Christ help me! the first +name which is written here is the name of Count John your son." The king +started up from his pillow. "Is it true," he cried, "that John, my very +heart, whom I have loved beyond all my sons, and for whose gain I have +brought upon me all this misery, has forsaken me?" Then he laid himself +down again and turned his face to the wall. "Now you have said enough," he +said. "Let all the rest go as it will, I care no more for myself nor for +the world." From this time he grew delirious. But still in the intervals +of his ravings the great passionate nature, the defiance, the unconquered +will broke out with inextinguishable force. He cursed the day on which he +was born, and called down Heaven's vengeance on his sons. The great king's +pride was bowed in the extremity of his ruin and defeat. "Shame," he +muttered constantly, "shame on a conquered king." Geoffrey watched by him +faithfully, and the dying king's last thoughts turned to him with grateful +love. On the 6th of July, the seventh day of his illness, he was seized +with violent hemorrhage, and the end came almost instantaneously. The next +day his body was borne to Fontevraud, where his sculptured tomb still +stands. To the astonished onlookers at the great tragedy, the grave in a +convent church, separated from the tombs of his Angevin forefathers and of +his Norman ancestors, far from his English kingdom, seemed part of the +strange disasters foretold by Merlin and inspired messengers. But no +ruler of his age had raised for himself so great a monument as Henry. +Amid the ruin that overwhelmed his imperial schemes, his realm of +England stood as the true and lasting memorial of his genius. Englishmen +then, as Englishmen now, taught by the "remembrance of his good times," +recognized him as one of the foremost on the roll of those who have been +the makers of England's greatness. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10494 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b876b12 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10494 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10494) diff --git a/old/10494-8.txt b/old/10494-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ccc5d36 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10494-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5971 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Henry the Second, by Mrs. J. R. Green + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + + + + +Title: Henry the Second + +Author: Mrs. J. R. Green + +Release Date: December 18, 2003 [eBook #10494] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRY THE SECOND*** + + +E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Bonny Fafard, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders + + + +HENRY THE SECOND + +BY + +MRS. J. R. GREEN + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +HENRY PLANTAGENET + + +CHAPTER II + +THE ANGEVIN EMPIRE + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE FIRST REFORMS + + +CHAPTER V + +THE CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE ASSIZE OF CLARENDON + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE STRIFE WITH THE CHURCH + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND + + +CHAPTER IX + +REVOLT OF THE BARONAGE + + +CHAPTER X + +THE COURT OF HENRY + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE DEATH OF HENRY + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +HENRY PLANTAGENET + +The history of the English people would have been a great and a noble +history whatever king had ruled over the land seven hundred years ago. +But the history as we know it, and the mode of government which has +actually grown up among us is in fact due to the genius of the great king +by whose will England was guided from 1154 to 1189. He was a foreign king +who never spoke the English tongue, who lived and moved for the most part +in a foreign camp, surrounded with a motley host of Brabançons and +hirelings; and who in intervals snatched from foreign wars hurried for a +few months to his island-kingdom to carry out a policy which took little +heed of the great moral forces that were at work among the people. It was +under the rule of a foreigner such as this, however, that the races of +conquerors and conquered in England first learnt to feel that they were +one. It was by his power that England, Scotland, and Ireland were +brought to some vague acknowledgment of a common suzerain lord, and the +foundations laid of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It +was he who abolished feudalism as a system of government, and left it +little more than a system of land-tenure. It was he who defined the +relations established between Church and State, and decreed that in +England churchman as well as baron was to be held under the Common law. It +was he who preserved the traditions of self-government which had been +handed down in borough and shire-moot from the earliest times of English +history. His reforms established the judicial system whose main outlines +have been preserved to our own day. It was through his "Constitutions" +and his "Assizes" that it came to pass that over all the world the +English-speaking races are governed by English and not by Roman law. It +was by his genius for government that the servants of the royal household +became transformed into Ministers of State. It was he who gave England a +foreign policy which decided our continental relations for seven hundred +years. The impress which the personality of Henry II. left upon his time +meets us wherever we turn. The more clearly we understand his work, the +more enduring does his influence display itself even upon the political +conflicts and political action of our own days. + +For seventy years three Norman kings had held England in subjection +William the Conqueror, using his double position as conqueror and king, +had established a royal authority unknown in any other feudal country +William Rufus, poorer than his father when the hoard captured at +Winchester and the plunder of the Conquest were spent, and urged alike +by his necessities and his greed, laid the foundation of an organized +system of finance. Henry I., after his overthrow of the baronage, found +his absolute power only limited by the fact that there was no machinery +sufficient to put in exercise his boundless personal power; and for its +support he built up his wonderful administrative system. There no longer +existed any constitutional check on the royal authority. The Great +Council still survived as the relic and heir both of the English +Witenagemot and the Norman Feudal Court. But in matters of State its +"counsel" was scarcely asked or given; its "consent" was yielded as a +mere matter of form; no discussion or hesitation interrupted the formal +and pompous display of final submission to the royal will. The Church +under its Norman bishops, foreign officials trained in the King's +chapel, was no longer a united national force, as it had been in the +time of the Saxon kings. The mass of the people was of no account in +politics. The trading class scarcely as yet existed. The villeins tied +to the soil of the manor on which they had been born, and shut out from +all courts save those of their lord; inhabitants of the little hamlets +that lay along the river-courses in clearings among dense woods, +suspicious of strangers, isolated by an intense jealousy of all that lay +beyond their own boundaries or by traditional feuds, had no part in the +political life of the nation. + +But the central government had proved in the long run too weak to +check the growth of feudal tendencies. The land was studded with +fortresses--the homes of lords who exercised criminal jurisdiction +without appeal, and who had their private prisons and private gallows. +Their manor courts, whether they were feudal courts established by the +new nobility of the Conquest, or whether they represented ancient +franchises in which Norman lords succeeded to the jurisdiction of +earlier English rulers, were more and more turned into mere feudal +courts. In the Shire courts themselves the English sheriff who used to +preside over the court was replaced by a Norman "_vicecomes_," who +practically did as he chose, or as he was used to do in Normandy, in +questions of procedure, proof, and judgment. The old English hundred +courts, where the peasants' petty crimes had once been judged by the +freemen of the district, had now in most cases become part of the fief +of the lord, whose newly-built castle towered over the wretched hovels +of his tenants, and the peasants came for justice to the baron's court, +and paid their fees to the baron's treasury. The right of private +coinage added to his wealth, as the multitude of retainers bound to +follow them in war added to his power. The barons were naturally roused +to a passion of revolt when the new administrative system threatened to +cut them off from all share in the rights of government, which in other +feudal countries were held to go along with the possession of land. They +hated the "new men" who were taking their places at the council-board; +and they revolted against the new order which cut them off from useful +sources of revenue, from unchecked plunder, from fines at will in their +courts of hundred and manor, from the possibility of returning fancy +accounts, and of profitable "farming" of the shires; they were jealous +of the clergy, who played so great a part in the administration, and +who threatened to surpass them in the greatness of their wealth, their +towns and their castles; and they only waited for a favourable moment to +declare open war on the government of the court. + +In this uncertain balance of forces in the State order rested ultimately +on the personal character of the king; no sooner did a ruler appear who +was without the sense of government than the whole administration was at +once shattered to pieces. The only son of Henry I. had perished in the +wreck of the _White Ship_; and his daughter Matilda had been sent to +Germany as a child of eight years old, to become the wife of the Emperor +Henry V. On his death in 1125 her father summoned her back to receive +the homage of the English people as heiress of the kingdom. The homage +was given with as little warmth as it was received. Matilda was a mere +stranger and a foreigner in England, and the rule of a woman was +resented by the baronage. Two years later, in 1128, Henry sought by +means of a marriage between the Empress Matilda and Geoffrey, the son of +Count Fulk of Anjou, to secure the peace of Normandy, and provide an +heir for the English throne; and Matilda unwillingly bent once more to +her father's will. A year after the marriage Count Fulk left his +European dominions for the throne of Jerusalem; and Geoffrey entered on +the great inheritance which had been slowly built up in three hundred +years, since the days of the legendary Tortulf the Forester. Anjou, +Maine, and Touraine already formed a state whose power equaled that of +the French kingdom; to north and south successive counts had made +advances towards winning fragments of Britanny and Poitou; the Norman +marriage was the triumphant close of a long struggle with Normandy; but +to Fulk was reserved the greatest triumph of all, when he saw his son +heir, not only of the Norman duchy, but of the great realm which +Normandy had won. + +But, for all this glory, the match was an ill-assorted one, and from +first to last circumstances dealt hardly with the poor young Count. +Matilda was twenty-six, a proud ambitious woman "with the nature of a +man in the frame of a woman." Her husband was a boy of fifteen. Geoffrey +the Handsome, called Plantagenet from his love of hunting over heath and +broom, inherited few of the great qualities which had made his race +powerful. Like his son Henry II. he was always on horseback; he had his +son's wonderful memory, his son's love of disputations and law-suits; we +catch a glimpse of him studying beneath the walls of a beleaguered town +the art of siege in Vegetius. But the darker sides of Henry's character +might also be discerned in his father; genial and seductive as he was, +he won neither confidence nor love; wife and barons alike feared the +silence with which he listened unmoved to the bitterest taunts, but kept +them treasured and unforgotten for some sure hour of revenge; the fierce +Angevin temper turned in him to restlessness and petulance in the long +series of revolts which filled his reign with wearisome monotony from +the moment when he first rode out to claim his duchy of Normandy, and +along its southern frontier peasant and churl turned out at the sound of +the tocsin, and with fork and flail drove the hated "Guirribecs" back +over the border. Five years after his marriage, in 1133, his first child +was born at Le Mans. Englishmen saw in the grandson of "good Queen Maud" +the direct descendant of the old English line of kings of Alfred and of +Cerdic. The name Henry which the boy bore after his grandfather marked +him as lawful inheritor of the broad dominions of Henry I., "the +greatest of all kings in the memory of ourselves and our fathers." From +his father he received, with the surname of Plantagenet by which he was +known in later times, the inheritance of the Counts of Anjou. Through +his mother Matilda he claimed all rights and honours that pertained to +the Norman dukes. + +Heir of three ruling houses, Henry was brought up wherever the chances of +war or rebellion gave opportunity. He was to know neither home nor +country. His infancy was spent at Rouen "in the home," as Henry I. said, +"of his forefather Rollo." In 1135 his grandfather died, and left him, +before he was yet three years old, the succession to the English throne. +But Geoffrey and Matilda were at the moment hard pressed by one of their +ceaseless wars. The Church was openly opposed to the rule of the House of +Anjou; the Norman baronage on either side of the water inherited a long +tradition of hatred to the Angevin. Stephen of Blois, a son of the +Conqueror's daughter Adela, seized the English throne, and claimed the +dukedom of Normandy. Henry was driven from Rouen to take refuge in +Angers, in the great palace of the counts, overlooking the river +and the vine-covered hills beyond. There he lived in one of the most +ecclesiastical cities of the day, already famous for its shrines, its +colleges, the saints whose tombs lay within its walls, and the ring of +priories and churches and abbeys that circled it about. + +The policy of the Norman kings was rudely interrupted by the reign of +Stephen of Blois. Trembling for the safety of his throne, he at first +rested on the support of the Church and the ministers who represented +Henry's system. But sides were quickly changed. The great churchmen and +the ministers were soon cast off by the new ruler. "By my Lady St. +Mary," said Roger of Salisbury, when he was summoned to one of Stephen's +councils, "my heart is unwilling for this journey; for I shall be of as +much use in court as is a foal in battle." The revolution was completed +in 1139, when the king in a mad panic seized and imprisoned Roger, the +representative alike of Church and ministers. With the ruin of Roger who +for thirty years had been head of the government, of his son Roger the +chancellor, and his nephew Nigel the treasurer, the ministerial system +was utterly destroyed, and the whole Church was alienated. Stephen sank +into the mere puppet of the nobles. The work of the Exchequer and the +Curia Regis almost came to an end. A little money was still gathered +into the royal treasury; some judicial business seems to have been still +carried on, but it was only amid overwhelming difficulties, and over +limited districts. Sheriffs were no longer appointed over the shires, +and the local administration broke down as the central government had +done. Civil war was added to the confusion of anarchy, as Matilda again +and again sought to recover her right. In 1139 she crossed to England, +wherein siege, in battle, in council, in hair-breadth escapes from +pursuing hosts, from famine, from perils of the sea, she showed the +masterful authority, the impetuous daring, the pertinacity which she had +inherited from her Norman ancestors. Stephen fell back on his last +source--a body of mercenary troops from Flanders,--but the Brabançon +troops were hated in England as foreigners and as riotous robbers, and +there was no payment for them in the royal treasury. The barons were all +alike ready to change sides as often as the shifting of parties gave +opportunity to make a gain of dishonour; an oath to Stephen was as easy +to break as an oath to Matilda or to her son. Great districts, especially +in the south and middle of England, and on the Welsh marches, suffered +terribly from war and pillage; all trade was stopped; great tracts of +land went out of cultivation; there was universal famine. + +In 1142 Henry, then nine years old, was brought to England with a chosen +band of Norman and Angevin knights; and while Matilda held her rough +court at Gloucester as acknowledged sovereign of the West, he lived at +Bristol in the house of his uncle, Robert of Gloucester, the illegitimate +son of Henry I., who was still in these troubled days loyal to the +cultured traditions of his father's court, and a zealous patron of +learning. Amid all the confusion of a war of pillage and slaughter, +surrounded by half-wild Welsh mercenaries, by the lawless Norman-Welsh +knights, by savage Brabançons, he learned his lessons for four years with +his cousin, the son of Robert, from Master Matthew, afterwards his +chancellor and bishop of Angers. As Matilda's prospects grew darker in +England, Geoffrey recalled Henry in 1147 to Anjou; and the next year he +joined his mother in Normandy, where she had retired after the death of +Earl Robert. There was a pause of five years in the civil war; but +Stephen's efforts to assert his authority and restore the reign of law +were almost unavailing. All the country north of the Tyne had fallen into +the hands of the Scot king; the Earl of Chester ruled at his own will in +the northwest; the Earl of Aumale was king beyond the Humber. + +With the failure of Matilda's effort the whole burden of securing his +future prospects fell upon Henry himself, then a boy of fifteen. Nor was +he slow to accept the charge. A year later, in 1149, he placed himself in +open opposition to Stephen as claimant to the English throne, by visiting +the court of his great-uncle, David of Scotland, at Carlisle; he was +knighted by the Scot king, and made a compact to yield up to David the +land beyond the Tyne when he should himself have won the English throne. +But he found England cold, indifferent, without courage; his most +powerful friends were dead, and he returned to Normandy to wait for +better days. Geoffrey was still carrying on the defence of the duchy +against Stephen's son Eustace, and his ally, the King of France; and +Henry joined his father's army till peace was made in 1151. In that year +he was invested with his mother's heritage and became at eighteen Duke of +Normandy; at nineteen his father's death made him Count of Anjou, +Lorraine, and Maine. + +The young Count had visited the court of Paris to do homage for Normandy +and Anjou, and there he first saw the French queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. +Her marriage with Louis VII. had been the crowning success of the astute +and far-sighted policy of Louis VI.; for the dowry Eleanor had brought to +the French crown, the great province of the South, had doubled the +territories and the wealth of the struggling little kingdom of France. +In the Crusade of 1147 she had accompanied king and nobles to the Holy +Land as feudal head of the forces of Aquitaine; and had there baffled +the temper and sagacity of Louis by her political intrigues. Sprung of +a house which represented to the full the licentious temper of the South, +she scornfully rejected a husband indifferent to love, and ineffective in +war as in politics. She had "married a monk and not a king," she said, +wearied with a superstition that showed itself in long fasts of more +than monkish austerity, and in the humiliating reverence with which +the king would wait for the meanest clerk to pass before him. In the +square-shouldered ruddy youth who came to receive his fiefs, with +his "countenance of fire," his vivacious talk and overwhelming energy +and scant ceremoniousness at mass, she saw a man destined by fate and +character to be in truth a "king." Her decision was as swift and +practical as that of the keen Angevin, who was doubtless looking to the +southern lands so long coveted by his race. A divorce from her husband +was procured in March 1152; and two months after she was hastily, for +fear of any hindrance, married to the young Count of Anjou, "without the +pomp or ceremony which befitted their rank." At nineteen, therefore, +Henry found himself the husband of a wife about twenty-seven years of +age, and the lord, besides his own hereditary lands and his Norman +duchy, of Poitou, Saintonge, Perigord, Limousin, Angoumois, and Gascony, +with claims of suzerainty over Auvergne and Toulouse. In a moment the +whole balance of forces in France had changed; the French dominions were +shorn to half their size; the most brilliant prospects that had ever +opened before the monarchy were ruined; and the Count of Anjou at one +bound became ruler of lands which in extent and wealth were more than +double those of his suzerain lord. + +The rise of this great power to the west was necessarily the absorbing +political question of the day. It menaced every potentate in France; and +before a month was out a ring of foes had gathered round the upstart +Angevin ruler. The outraged King of France; Stephen, King of England, and +Henry's rival in the Norman duchy; Stephen's nephew, the Count of +Champagne, brother of the Count of Blois; the Count of Perche; and +Henry's own brother, Geoffrey, were at once united by a common alarm; and +their joint attack on Normandy a month after the marriage was but the +first step in a comprehensive design of depriving the common enemy of the +whole of his possessions. Henry met the danger with all the qualities +which mark a great general and a great statesman. Cool, untroubled, +impetuous, dashing from point to point of danger, so that horses sank and +died on the road in his desperate marches, he was ready wherever a foe +threatened, or a friend prayed help. Foreign armies were driven back, +rebel nobles crushed, robber castles broken down; Normandy was secured +and Anjou mastered before the year was out. The strife, however, had +forced him for the first time into open war with Stephen, and at twenty +Henry turned to add the English crown to his dominions. + +Already the glory of success hung about him; his footsteps were guided by +prophecies of Merlin; portents and wonders marked his way. When he landed +on the English shores in January 1153, he turned into a church "to pray +for a space, after the manner of soldiers," at the moment when the priest +opened the office of the mass for that day with the words, "Behold there +cometh the Lord, the Ruler, and the kingdom is in his hand." In his first +battle at Malmesbury the wintry storm and driving rain which beat in the +face of Stephen's troops showed on which side Heaven fought. As the king +rode out to the next great fight at Wallingford, men noted fearfully that +he fell three times from his horse. Terror spread among the barons, whose +interests lay altogether in anarchy, as they saw the rapid increase of +Henry's strength; and they sought by a mock compromise to paralyse the +power of both Stephen and his rival. "Then arose the barons, or rather +the betrayers of England, treating of concord, although they loved +nothing better than discord; but they would not join battle, for they +desired to exalt neither of the two, lest if the one were overcome the +other should be free to govern them; they knew that so long as one was in +awe of the other he could exercise no royal authority over them." Henry +subdued his wrath to his political sagacity. He agreed to meet Stephen +face to face at Wallingford; and there, with a branch of the Thames +between them, they fixed upon terms of peace. Stephen's son Eustace, +however, refused to lay down arms, and the war lingered on, Stephen being +driven back to the eastern counties, while Henry held mid-England. In +August, however, Eustace died suddenly, "by the favour of God," said +lovers of peace; and Stephen, utterly broken in spirit, soon after +yielded. + +The strife died out, in fact, through sheer exhaustion, for years of +anarchy and war had broken the strength of both sides; and at last "that +happened which would least be believed, that the division of the kingdom +was not settled by the sword." The only body of men who still possessed +any public feeling, any political sagacity, or unity of purpose, found +its opportunity in the general confusion. The English Church, "to whose +right it principally belongs to elect the king," as Theobald had once +said in words which Gregory VII. would have approved, beat down all +opposition of the angry nobles; and in November 1153 Theobald, Archbishop +of Canterbury, and Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester and brother of +Stephen, brought about a final compromise. The treaty which had been +drawn up at Wallingford was confirmed at Westminster. Henry was made +the adopted son of Stephen, a sharer of his kingdom while he lived, +its heir when he should die. "In the business of the kingdom," the king +promised, "I will work by the counsel of the duke; but in the whole +realm of England, as well in the duke's part as my own, I will exercise +royal justice." Henry did homage and swore fealty to Stephen, while, as +they embraced, "the bystanders burst into tears of joy," and the nobles, +who had stood sullenly aloof from counsel and consent, took oaths of +allegiance to both princes. For a few months Henry remained in England, +months marked by suspicions and treacheries on all sides. Stephen was +helpless, the nobles defiant, their strongholds were untouched, and the +treaty remained practically a dead letter. After the discovery of a +conspiracy against his life supported by Stephen's second son and the +Flemish troops, Henry gave up for the moment the hopeless task, and left +England. But before long Stephen's death gave the full lordship into his +hands. On the 19th of December 1154 he was crowned at Winchester King of +England, amid the acclamations of crowds who had already learned "to +bear him great love and fear." + +King of England, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, +Count of Poitou, Duke of Aquitaine, suzerain lord of Britanny, Henry +found himself at twenty-one ruler of dominions such as no king before him +had ever dreamed of uniting. He was master of both sides of the English +Channel, and by his alliance with his uncle, the Count of Flanders, he had +command of the French coast from the Scheldt to the Pyrenees, while his +claims on Toulouse would carry him to the shores of the Mediterranean. +His subjects told with pride how "his empire reached from the Arctic +Ocean to the Pyrenees;" there was no monarch save the Emperor himself who +ruled over such vast domains. But even the Emperor did not gather under +his sway a grouping of peoples so strangely divided in race, in tongue, +in aims, in history. No common tie of custom or of sympathy united the +unwieldy bundle of states bound together in a common subjection; the +men of Aquitaine hated Anjou with as intense a bitterness as they hated +France; Angevin and Norman had been parted for generations by traditional +feuds; the Breton was at war with both; to all England was "another +world"--strange in speech, in law, and in custom. And to all the +subjects of his heterogeneous empire Henry himself was a mere foreigner. +To Gascon or to Breton he was a man of hated race and alien speech, just +as much as he was to Scot or Welshman; he seemed a stranger alike to +Angevin and Norman, and to Englishmen he came as a ruler with foreign +tastes and foreign aims as well as a foreign tongue. + +We see in descriptions of the time the strange rough figure of the new +king, "Henry Curtmantel," as he was nicknamed from the short Angevin +cape which hung on his shoulders, and marked him out oddly as a foreigner +amid the English and Norman knights, with their long fur-lined cloaks +hanging to the ground. The square stout form, the bull-neck and broad +shoulders, the powerful arms and coarse rough hands, the legs bowed +from incessant riding, showed a frame fashioned to an extraordinary +strength. His head was large and round; his hair red, close-cut for +fear of baldness; his fiery face much freckled; his voice harsh and +cracked. Those about him saw something "lion-like" in his face; his gray +eyes, clear and soft in his peaceful moments, shone like fire when he was +moved, and few men were brave enough to confront him when his face was +lighted up by rising wrath, and when his eyes rolled and became bloodshot +in a paroxysm of passion. His overpowering energy found an outlet in +violent physical exertion. "With an immoderate love of hunting he led +unquiet days," following the chase over waste and wood and mountain; +and when he came home at night he was never seen to sit down save for +supper, but wore out his court with walking or standing till after +nightfall, even when his own feet and legs were covered with sores +from incessant exertion. Bitter were the complaints of his courtiers +that there was never any moment of rest for himself or his servants; +in war time indeed, they grumbled, excessive toil was natural, but time +of peace was ill-consumed in continual vigils and labours and in +incessant travel--one day following another in merciless and intolerable +journeyings. Henry had inherited the qualities of the Angevin race--its +tenacity, its courage, its endurance, the sagacity that was without +impatience, and the craft that was never at fault. With the ruddy face +and unwieldy frame of the Normans other gifts had come to him; he had +their sense of strong government and their wisdom; he was laborious, +patient, industrious, politic. He never forgot a face he had once seen, +nor anything that he heard which he deemed worthy of remembering; where +he once loved he never turned to hate, and where he once hated he was +never brought to love. Sparing in diet, wasting little care on his +dress--perhaps the plainest in his court,--frugal, "so much as was lawful +to a prince," he was lavish in matters of State or in public affairs. A +great soldier and general, he was yet an earnest striver after peace, +hating to refer to the doubtful decision of battle that which might be +settled by any other means, and stirred always by a great pity, strange +in such an age and in such a man, for lives poured out in war. "He was +more tender to dead soldiers than to the living," says a chronicler +querulously; "and found far more sorrow in the loss of those who were +slain than comfort in the love of those who remained." His pitiful temper +was early shown in his determination to put down the barbarous treatment +of shipwrecked sailors. He abolished the traditions of the civil war +by forbidding plunder, and by a resolute fidelity to his plighted word. In +political craft he was matchless; in great perils none was gentler than +he, but when the danger was past none was harsher; and common talk hinted +that he was a willing breaker of his word, deeming that in the pressure +of difficulty it was easier to repent of word than deed, and to render +vain a saying than a fact. "His mother's teaching, as we have heard, was +this: That he should delay all the business of all men; that whatever +fell into his hands he should retain along while and enjoy the fruit of +it, and keep suspended in hope those who aspired to it; confirming her +sentences with this cruel parable, 'Glut a hawk with his quarry and he +will hunt no more; show it him and then draw it back and you will ever +keep him tractable and obedient.' She taught him also that he should be +frequently in his chamber, rarely in public; that he should give nothing +to any one upon any testimony but what he had seen and known; and many +other evil things of the same kind. We, indeed," adds this good hater of +Matilda, "confidently attributed to her teaching everything in which he +displeased us." + +A king of those days, indeed, was not shielded from criticism. He lived +altogether in public, with scarcely a trace of etiquette or ceremony. +When a bishop of Lincoln kept Henry waiting for dinner while he performed +a service, the king's only remedy was to send messenger after messenger +to urge him to hurry in pity to the royal hunger. The first-comer seems +to have been able to go straight to his presence at any hour, whether in +hall or chapel or sleeping-chamber; and the king was soundly rated by +every one who had seen a vision, or desired a favour, or felt himself +aggrieved in any way, with a rude plainness of speech which made sorely +necessary his proverbial patience under such harangues. "Our king," says +Walter Map, "whose power all the world fears, ... does not presume to be +haughty, nor speak with a proud tongue, nor exalt himself over any man." +The feudal barons of medieval times had, indeed, few of the qualities +that made the courtiers of later days, and Henry, violent as he was, +could bear much rough counsel and plain reproof. No flatterer found favour +at his court. His special friends were men of learning or of saintly +life. Eager and eloquent in talk, his curiosity was boundless. He is said +to have known all languages from Gaul to the Jordan, though he only spoke +French and Latin. Very discreet in all business of the kingdom, and a +subtle finder out of legal puzzles, he had "knowledge of almost all +histories, and experience of all things ready to his hand." Henry was, +in fact, learned far beyond the learning of his day. "The king," wrote +Peter of Blois to the Archbishop of Palermo, "has always in his hands +bows and arrows, swords and hunting-spears, save when he is busy in +council or over his books. For as often as he can get breathing-time +amid his business cares, he occupies himself with private reading, or +takes pains in working out some knotty question among his clerks. Your +king is a good scholar, but ours is far better. I know the abilities and +accomplishments of both. You know that the King of Sicily was my pupil +for a year; you yourself taught him the element of verse-making and +literary composition; from me he had further and deeper lessons, but as +soon as I left the kingdom he threw away his books, and took to the +easy-going ways of the court. But with the King of England there is +school every day, constant conversation of the best scholars and +discussion of questions." + +Behind all this amazing activity, however, lay the dark and terrible +side of Henry's character. All the violent contrasts and contradictions +of the age, which make it so hard to grasp, were gathered up in his +varied heritage; the half-savage nature which at that time we meet with +again and again united with first-class intellectual gifts; the fierce +defiance born of a time when every man had to look solely to his own +right hand for security of life and limb and earthly regard--a defiance +caught now and again in the grip of an overwhelming awe before the +portents of the invisible world; the sudden mad outbreaks of irresponsible +passion which still mark certain classes in our own day, but which then +swept over a violent and undisciplined society. Even to his own time, used +as it was to such strange contrasts, Henry was a puzzle. Men saw him +diligently attend mass every day, and restlessly busy himself during the +most solemn moments in scribbling, in drawing pictures, in talking to his +courtiers, in settling the affairs of State; or heard how he refused +confession till forced to it by terror in the last extremity of +sickness, and then turned it into a surprising ceremony of apology and +self-justification. At one time they saw him, conscience-smitten at the +warning of some seer of visions, sitting up through the night amid a +tumultuous crowd to avert the wrath of Heaven by hastily restoring rights +and dues which he was said to have unjustly taken, and when the dawning +light of day brought cooler counsel, swift to send the rest of his +murmuring suitors empty away; at another bowing panic-stricken in his +chapel before some sudden word of ominous prophecy; or as a pilgrim, +barefoot, with staff in hand; or kneeling through the night before a +shrine, with scourgings and fastings and tears. His steady sense of order, +justice, and government, broken as it was by fits of violent passion, +resumed its sway as soon as the storm was over; but the awful wrath which +would suddenly break forth, when the king's face changed, and he rolled on +the ground in a paroxysm of madness, seemed to have something of diabolic +origin. A story was told of a demon ancestress of the Angevin princes: +"From the devil they came, and to the devil they will go," said the grim +fatalism of the day. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +THE ANGEVIN EMPIRE + +The new kingdom which Henry had added to his dominions in France might +well seem to a man of less inexhaustible energy to make the task of +government impossible. The imperial system of his dreams was as recklessly +defiant of physical difficulties as it was heedless of all the sentiments +of national tradition. In the two halves of his empire no common political +interest and no common peril could arise; the histories of north and south +were carried on apart, as completely as the histories of America and +England when they were apparently united under one king, and were in fact +utterly severed by the ocean which defined the limits of two worlds. +England had little part or lot in the history of Europe. Foreign policy +it had none; when its kings passed to Normandy, English chroniclers +knew nothing of their doings or their wars. Some little trade was +carried on with the nearest lands across the sea,--with Normandy, with +Flanders, or with Scandinavia,--but the country was almost wholly +agricultural. Feudal in its social structure, governed by tradition, with +little movement of inner life or contact with the world about it, its +people had remained jealous of strangers, and as yet distinguished from +the nations of Europe by a strange immobility and want of sympathy with +the intellectual and moral movements around them. Sometimes strangers +visited its kings; sometimes English pilgrims made their way to Rome by a +dangerous and troublesome journey. But even the connection with the +Papacy was slight. A foreign legate had scarcely ever landed on its +shores; hardly any appeals were carried to the Roman Curia; the Church +managed its own business after a customary fashion which was in harmony +with English traditions, which had grown up during centuries of undisturbed +and separate life. + +On the other side of the Channel Henry ruled over a straggling line of +loosely compacted states equal in extent to almost half of the present +France. His long line of ill-defended frontier brought him in contact +with the lands of the Count of Flanders, one of the chief military +powers of the day; with the kingdom of France, which, after two hundred +years of insignificance, was beginning to assert its sway over the great +feudal vassals, and preparing to build up a powerful monarchy; and with +the Spanish kingdoms which were emerging from the first successful +effort of the Christian states to throw back the power of the Moors. +Normandy and Auvergne were separated only by a narrow belt of country +from the Empire, which, under the greatest ruler and warrior of the age, +Frederick Barbarossa, was extending its power over Burgundy, Provence, +and Italy. His claims to the over-lordship of Toulouse gave Henry an +interest in the affairs of the great Mediterranean power--the kingdom of +Sicily; and his later attempts on the territories of the Count of +Maurienne brought him into close connection with Italian politics. No +ruler of his time was forced more directly than Henry into the range of +such international politics as were possible in the then dim and +inchoate state of European affairs. England, which in the mind of the +Norman kings had taken the first place, fell into the second rank of +interests with her Angevin rulers. Henry's thoughts and hopes and +ambitions centred in his continental domains. Lord of Rouen, of Angers, +of Bordeaux, master of the sea-coast from Flanders to the Pyrenees, he +seemed to hold in his hand the feeble King of Paris and of Orleans, who +was still without a son to inherit his dignities and lands. The balance +of power, as of ability and military skill, lay on his side; and, long +as the House of Anjou had been the bulwark of the French throne, it even +seemed as if the time might come peaceably to mount it themselves. +Looking from our own island at the work which Henry did, and seeing more +clearly by the light of later events, we may almost forget the European +ruler in the English king. But this was far from being the view of his +own day. In the thirty-five years of his reign little more than thirteen +years were spent in England and over twenty-one in France. Thrice only +did he remain in the kingdom as much as two years at a time; for the +most part his visits were but for a few months torn from the incessant +tumult and toil of government abroad; and it was only after long years +of battling against invincible forces that he at last recognized England +as the main factor of his policy, and in great crises chose rather to +act as an English king than as the creator of an empire. + +The first year after Henry's coronation as King of England was spent in +securing his newly-won possession. On Christmas Day, 1154, he called +together the solemn assembly of prelates, barons, and wise men which had +not met for fifteen years. The royal state of the court was restored; +the great officers of the household returned to their posts. The Primate +was again set in the place he held from early English times as the chief +adviser of the crown. The nephew of Roger of Salisbury, Nigel, Bishop of +Ely, was restored to the post of treasurer from which Stephen had driven +him fifteen years before. Richard de Lucy and the Earl of Leicester were +made justiciars. One new man was appointed among these older officers. +Thomas, the son of Gilbert Becket, was born in Cheapside in 1117. His +father, a Norman merchant who had settled by the Thames, had prospered +in the world; he had been portreeve of London, the predecessor of the +modern mayor, and visitors of all kinds gathered at his house,--London +merchants and Norman nobles and learned clerks of Italy and Gaul His son +was first taught by the Augustinian canons of Merton Priory, afterwards +he attended schools in London, and at twenty was sent to Paris for a +year's study. After his return he served in a London office, and as +clerk to the sheriffs he was directly concerned during the time of the +civil war with the government of the city. It was during these years +that the Archbishop of Canterbury began to form his household into the +most famous school of learning in England, and some of his chaplains in +their visits to Cheapside had been struck by the brilliant talents of +the young clerk. At Theobald's request Thomas, then twenty-four years +old, entered the Primate's household, somewhat reluctantly it would +seem, for he had as yet shown little zeal either for religion or for +study. He was at once brought into the most brilliant circle of that +day. The chancellor and secretary was John of Salisbury, the pupil of +Abelard, the friend of St. Bernard and of Pope Adrian IV., the first +among English men of letters, in whom all the learning of the day was +summed up. With him were Roger of Pont l'Evêque, afterwards archbishop +of York; John of Canterbury, later archbishop of Lyons; Ralph of Sarr, +later dean of Reims; and a distinguished group of lesser men; but from +the time when Thomas entered the household "there was none dearer to the +archbishop than he." "Slight and pale, with dark hair, long nose, and +straightly-featured face, blithe of countenance, keen of thought, +winning and lovable in conversation, frank of speech, but slightly +stuttering in his talk," he had a singular gift of winning affection; +and even from his youth he was "a prudent son of the world." It was +Theobald who had first brought the Canon law to England, and Thomas at +once received his due training in it, being sent to Bologna to study +under Gratian, and then to Auxerre. He was very quickly employed in +important negotiations. When in 1152 Stephen sought to have his son +Eustace anointed king, Thomas was sent to Rome, and by his skilful plea +that the papal claims had not been duly recognized in Stephen's scheme +he induced the Pope to forbid the coronation. In his first political act +therefore he definitely took his place not only as an adherent of the +Angevin claim, but as a resolute asserter of papal and ecclesiastical +rights. At his return favours were poured out upon him. While in the +lowest grade of orders, not yet a deacon, various livings and prebends +fell to his lot. A fortnight before Stephen's death Theobald ordained +him deacon, and gave him the archdeaconry of Canterbury, the first place +in the English Church after the bishops and abbots; and he must have +taken part under the Primate in the work of governing the kingdom until +Henry's arrival. The archbishop was above all anxious to secure in the +councils of the new king the due influence not only of the Church, but +of the new school of the canon lawyers who were so profoundly modifying +the Church. He saw in Thomas the fittest instrument to carryout his +plans; and by his influence the archdeacon of Canterbury found himself, +a week after the coronation of Henry, the king's chancellor. + +Thomas was now thirty-eight; Theobald, Nigel, and Leicester were all old +men, and the young king of twenty-two must have seemed a mere boy to his +new counsellors. The Empress had been left in Normandy to avoid the +revival of old quarrels. Hated in England for her proud contempt of the +burgher, her scorn of the churchman, her insolence to her adherents, she +won in Normandy a fairer fame, as "a woman of excellent disposition, +kind to all, bountiful in almsgiving, the friend of religion, of honest +life." The political activity of Queen Eleanor was brought to an abrupt +close by her marriage. In Henry she found a master very different from +Louis of France, and her enforced withdrawal from public affairs during +her husband's life contrasts strangely, not only with her former career, +but with the energy which, when the heavy yoke was taken off her neck, +she displayed as an old woman of nearly seventy during the reign of her +son. Henry, in fact, stood alone among his new people. No debt of +gratitude, no ties of friendship, bound the king to the lords whose aims +he had first learned to know at Wallingford. The great barons who +thronged round him in his court had all been rebels; the younger among +them had never known what order, government, or loyalty meant. The Church +was hesitating and timorous. To the people he was an utter stranger, +unable even to speak their tongue. But from the first Henry took his +place as absolute master and leader. "A strict regard to justice was +apparent in him, and at the very outset he bore the appearance of a +great prince." + +The king at once put in force the scheme of reform which had been drawn +up the year before at Wallingford, and of which the provisions have +comedown to us in phrases drawn from the two sources which were most +familiar to the learned and the vulgar of that day,--the Bible, and the +prophecies of Merlin, the seer of King Arthur. The nobles were to give +up all illegal rights and estates which they had usurped. The castles +built by the warring barons were to be destroyed. The king was to bring +back husbandmen to the desolate fields, and to stock pastures and +forests and hillsides with cattle and deer and sheep. The clergy were +henceforth to live in quiet, not vexed by unaccustomed burdens. Sheriffs +were to be restored to the counties, who should do justice without +corruption, nor persecute any for malice; thieves and robbers were to be +hanged; the armed forces were to be disbanded; the knights were to beat +their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; the +hired Flemish soldiers were to turn from the camp to the plough, from +tents to workshops, there to render as servants the obedience they had +once demanded as masters. The work which Stephen had failed to do was +now swiftly accomplished. The Flemish mercenaries vanished "like +phantoms," or "like wax before the fire," and their leader, William of +Ypres, the lord of Kent, turned with weeping to a monastery in his own +land. The feudal lords were forced to give up such castles and lands as +they had wrongfully usurped; and the newly-created earls were deprived +of titles which they had wrung from King or Empress in the civil wars. + +The great nobles of both parties made a last effort at resistance. In +the north the Count of Aumale ruled almost as king. He was of the House +of Champagne, son of that Count Stephen who had once been set up as +claimant to the English throne, and near kinsman both of Henry and of +Stephen. He now refused to give up Scarborough Castle; behind him lay +the armies of the Scot king, and if Aumale's rebellion were successful +the whole north must be lost. A rising on the Welsh border marked the +revival of the old danger of which Henry himself had had experience in +the castle of his uncle, Robert of Gloucester, when the Empress and +Robert, with his Welsh connections and alliances, had dominated the +whole of the south-west. Hugh Mortimer, lord of Wigmore, Cleobury, and +Bridgenorth, the most powerful lord on the Welsh border, and Roger, Earl +of Hereford and lord of Gloucester, and connected by his mother with the +royal house of Wales, prepared for war. Immediately after his crowning +Henry hurried to the north, accompanied by Theobald, and forced Aumale +to submission. The fear of him fell on the barons. Roger of Hereford +submitted, and the earldom of Hereford and city of Gloucester were placed +in Henry's hands. The whole force of the kingdom was called out against +Hugh Mortimer, and Bridgenorth, fortified fifty years before by Robert +of Belesme, was reduced in July. The next year William of Warenne, the +son of Stephen, gave up all his castles in England and Normandy, and the +power of the House of Blois in the realm was finally extinguished. Hugh +Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, was deprived of his fortresses, and the eastern +counties were thus secured as those of the north and west had been. + +The borders of the kingdom were now safe; its worst elements of disorder +were suppressed; and the bishops and barons had taken an oath of +allegiance to his son William, and in case of William's death to the +infant Henry, born in February 1155. When Henry was called abroad in +January 1156, he could safely leave the kingdom for a year in the charge +of Queen Eleanor and of the justiciars. His return was marked by a new +triumph. The death of David and the succession of his grandson Malcolm, a +boy of twelve years old, gave opportunity for asserting his suzerainty +over Scotland, and freeing himself from his oath made in 1149 at Carlisle +to grant the land beyond the Tyne to David and his heirs for ever. +Malcolm was brought to do homage to him at Chester in June 1157, and +Northumberland and Cumberland passed into Henry's hands. Malcolm and his +successor William followed him in his wars and attended at his courts, +and whatever Henry's actual authority might be, in the eyes of his +English subjects at least he ruled to the farthest borders of Scotland. +He next turned to the settlement of Wales. The civil war had violently +interrupted the peaceful processes by which Henry I. sought to bring the +Welsh under English law. The princes of Wales had practically regained +their independence, while the Norman lords who had carved out estates for +themselves along its borders, indignant at Stephen's desertion of them, +and driven to provide for their own safety, had formed alliances by +marriage with the native rulers. Henry had, in fact, to reconquer the +country, and to provide safeguards against any military union between the +feudal lords of the border and its hostile princes, Owen Gwynneth of the +North, and Rhys ap-Gryffyth of the South. In 1157 he undertook the first +of his three expeditions against Wales. His troops, however, unused to +mountain warfare, had but ill success; and it was only when Henry had +secured the castles of Flintshire, and gathered a fleet along the coast +to stop the importation of corn that Owen was driven in August to do +homage for his land. The next year he penetrated into the mountains of +South Wales and took hostages from its ruler, Rhys-ap-Gryffyth; "the +honour and glory and beauty and invincible strength of the knights; Rhys, +the pillar and saviour of his country, the harbour and defender of the +weak, the admiration and terror of his enemies, the sole pillar and hope +of South Wales." + +The triumph of the Angevin conqueror was now complete. The baronage lay +crushed at his feet. The Church was silent. The royal authority had been +pushed, at least in name, to the utmost limits of the island. The close +of this first work of settlement was marked by a royal progress between +September 1157 and January 1158 through the whole length of England from +Malmesbury to Carlisle. It was the king's first visit to the northern +shires which he had restored to the English crown; he visited and +fortified the most important border castles, and then through the bitter +winter months he journeyed to Yorkshire, the fastnesses of the Peak, +Nottingham, and the midland and southern counties. The progress ended at +Worcester on Easter Day, 1158. There the king and queen for the last +time wore their crowns in solemn state before the people. A strange +ceremony followed. In Worcester Cathedral stood the shrine of St. +Wulfstan, the last of the English bishops, the saint who had preserved +the glory of the old English Church in the days of the Confessor, and +carried it on through the troubled time of the Conquest, to whose +supernatural resources the Conqueror himself had been forced to yield, +and who had since by ever-ready miracle defended his city of Worcester +from danger. On this shrine the king and Queen now laid their crowns, +with a solemn vow never again to wear them. To the people of the West +such an act may perhaps have seemed a token that Henry came among them +as heir of the English line of kings, and as defender of the English +Church and people. + +From England Henry was called away in August 1158, by the troubles of +his dominions across the sea. The power of Anjou had been built up by +centuries of tyranny, treason, and greed. Nantes had been robbed from +Britanny, Tours had been wrested from Blois, the southern borderland +from Poitou. A hundred years of feud with Maine could not lightly be +forgotten. Normandy still cherished the ancient hatred of pirate and +Frenchman. To the Breton, as to the Norman and the Gascon, the rule of +Anjou was a foreign rule; and if they must have a foreign ruler, better +the King of France than these upstart Counts. Henry held his various +states too by wholly different titles, and to every one of them his +right was more or less disputed. To add to the confusion, his barons in +every province held under him according to different customs and laws of +feudal tenure; and many of them, moreover, owed a double allegiance, and +did homage for part of their estates to Henry and for part to the King +of France. In the general uncertainty as to every question of succession, +or title, or law, or constitution, or feudal relations, the authority +which had been won by the sword could be kept only by sheer military +force. The rebellious array of the feudal nobles, eager to spring to arms +against the new imperial system, could count on the help of the great +French vassals along the border, jealous of their own independence, and +ever watching the Angevin policy with vigilant hostility. And behind +these princes of France stood the French king, Henry's suzerain lord and +his most determined and restless foe, from whom the Angevin count had +already taken away his wife and half his dominions, a foe to whom, +however, through all the perplexed and intermittent wars of thirty years, +he was bound by the indissoluble tie of the feudal relation, which +remained the dominant and authoritative fact of the political morality of +that day. For twenty years to come the two kings, both of them hampered +by overwhelming difficulties, strove to avoid war each after his own +fashion: Henry by money lavishly spent, and by wary diplomacy; Louis +more economically by a restless cunning, by incessant watching of his +adversary's weak points, by dexterously using the arms of Henry's +rebellious subjects rather than those of Frenchmen. + +Henry's first care was to secure his ill-defined and ill-defended +frontier, and to recover those border fortresses which had been wrested +from Geoffrey by his enemies. In Normandy the Vexin, which was the true +military frontier between him and France, and commanded the road to +Paris, had been lost. In Anjou he had to win back the castles which had +fallen to the House of Blois. His brother Geoffrey, Earl of Nantes, was +dead, and he must secure his own succession to the earldom. Two rival +claimants were disputing the lordship of Britanny, but Britanny must at +all costs be brought into obedience to Henry. There were hostile forces +in Angoumois, La Marche, Saintonge, and the Limousin, which had to be +finally destroyed. And besides all this, it was necessary to enforce +Eleanor's rights over Berri, and her disputed claims to supremacy over +Toulouse and Auvergne. Every one of these projects was at once taken in +hand. Henry's chancellor, Thomas Becket, was sent from England in 1158 +at the head of a splendid embassy to the French court, and when Henry +landed in France the success of this mission was declared. A marriage +was arranged between his little son Henry, now three years old, and +Louis' daughter Margaret, aged six months; and the Vexin was to be +restored to Normandy as Margaret's dowry. The English king obtained from +Louis the right to judge as lord of Anjou and seneschal of France +between the claimants to Britanny; his first entry into that province +was with full authority as the officer of France, and the whole army of +Normandy was summoned to Avranches to enforce his judgment. Conan was +made Duke of Britanny under Henry's lordship, and Nantes was given up +into his hands. He secured by treaty with the House of Blois the +fortresses which had fallen into their hands, and before the year was +out he thus saw his inheritance in Anjou and Normandy, as he had before +seen his inheritance in England, completely restored. In November he +conducted the King of France on a magnificent progress through Normandy +and Britanny, not now as a vassal requiring his help, but with all the +pomp of an equal king. + +Meanwhile Henry had been preparing an army to assert his sovereignty +over Toulouse--a sovereignty which would have carried his dominions to +the Mediterranean and the Rhone. The Count of St. Gilles, to whom it had +been pledged by a former Duke of Aquitaine, and who had eighteen years +before refused to surrender it on Eleanor's first marriage, now resisted +the claims of her second husband also, and he was joined by Louis, who +under the altered circumstances took a different view of the legal +rights of Eleanor's husband to suzerainty. To France, indeed, the +question was a matter of life and death. The success of Henry would have +left her hemmed in on three sides by the Angevin dominions, cut off from +the Mediterranean as from the Channel, with the lower Rhone in the hands +of the powerful rival that already held the Seine, the Loire, and the +Garonne. When, therefore, Henry's forces occupied the passes of the +province, and in September 1159 closed round Toulouse itself, Louis +threw himself into the city. Henry, profoundly influenced by the feudal +code of honour of his day, inheriting the traditional loyalty of his +house to the French monarchy, too sagacious lightly to incur war with +France, too politic to weaken in the eyes of his own vassals the +authority of feudal law, and possibly mindful of the succession to the +French throne which might yet pass through Margaret to his son Henry, +refused to carry on war against the person of his suzerain. He broke up +the siege in spite of the urgent advice of his chancellor Thomas; and +for nearly forty years the quarrel lingered on with the French monarchy, +till the question was settled in 1196 by the marriage of Henry's +daughter Joanna to Count Raymond VI. Thomas, who had proved himself a +mighty warrior, was left in charge of the newly-conquered Cahors, while +Henry returned to Normandy, and concluded in May a temporary peace with +Louis. His enemies, however, were drawn together by a common fear, and +France became the battle-ground of the rival ambitions of the Houses of +Blois and Anjou. Louis allied himself with the three brothers of the +House of Blois--the Counts of Champagne, of Sancerre, and of Blois--by a +marriage with their sister only a month after the death of his own queen +in September; and a joint attack was planned upon Henry. His answer was +rapid and decisive. Margaret was in his keeping, and he at once married +her to his son, took the Vexin into his own hands and fortified it with +castles. His position in fact was so strong that the forced his enemies +to a truce in June 1161. + +The political complications with which Henry was surrounded were still +further confused by a new question which now arose, and which was to +threaten the peace of Europe for eighteen years. On the death of the +English Pope, Hadrian IV., on the 1st of September 1159, two rivals, +Alexander III. and Victor IV., disputed the see of Rome, and the strife +between the Empire and the Papacy, now nearly one hundred years old, +broke out afresh on a far greater scale than in the time of Gregory. +Frederick Barbarossa asserted the imperial right of judging between the +rivals, and declared Victor pope, supported by the princes of the Empire +and by the kings of Hungary, Bohemia, and Denmark. Alexander claimed the +aid of the French king--the traditional defender of the Church and +protector of the Popes; and after the strife had raged for nearly three +years, he fled in 1162 to France. In the great schism Henry joined the +side of Louis in support of Alexander and of the orthodox cause; the two +kings met at Chouzy, near Blois, to do honour to the Pope; they walked +on either side of his horse and held his reins. The meeting marked a +great triumph for Alexander; the union of the Teutonic nations against +the policy of Rome was to be delayed for three centuries and a half. It +marked, too, the highest point of Henry's success. He had checked the +Emperor's schemes; he had won the gratitude of both Louis and the Pope; +he had defeated the plots of the House of Blois, and shown how easily +any alliance between France and Champagne might be broken to pieces by +his military power and his astute diplomacy. He had rounded off his +dominions; he had conquered the county of Cahors; he had recovered the +Vexin and the border castles of Fréteval and Amboise; the fiefs of +William of Boulogne had passed into his hands on William's death; he was +master of Nantes and Dol, and lord of Britanny; he had been appointed +Protector of Flanders. + +At this moment, indeed, Henry stood only second to the Emperor among the +princes of Christendom, and his aim seems to have been to rival in +some sort the Empire of the West, and to reign as an over-king, with +sub-kings of his various provinces, and England as one of them, around +him. He was connected with all the great ruling houses. His eldest son +was married to the daughter of the King of France; the baby Richard, +eighteen months old, was betrothed during the war of Toulouse to a +daughter of the King of Aragon. He was himself a distant kinsman of the +Emperor. He was head of the house of the Norman kings in Sicily. He was +nearest heir of the kings of Jerusalem. Through his wife he was head of +the house of Antioch, and claimed to be head of the house of Tripoli. +Already in these first years of his reign the glory of the English king +had been acknowledged by ambassadors from the Emperor, from the King of +Jerusalem, from Norway, from Sweden, from the Moorish kings of Valencia +and Murcia, bearing the gifts of an Eastern world--gold, silk, horses, +and camels. England was forced out of her old isolation; her interest in +the world without was suddenly awakened. English scholars thronged the +foreign universities; English chroniclers questioned travellers, +scholars, ambassadors, as to what was passing abroad. The influence of +English learning and English statecraft made itself felt all over +Europe. Never, perhaps, in all the history of England was there a time +when Englishmen played so great apart abroad. English statesmen and +bishops were set over the conduct of affairs in Provence, in Sicily, in +Gascony, in Britanny, in Normandy. English archbishops and bishops and +abbots held some of the highest posts in France, in Anjou, in Flanders, +in Portugal, in Italy, in Sicily. Henry himself welcomed trained men +from Normandy or Sicily or wherever he could find them, to help in his +work of administration; but in England foreigners were not greatly +welcomed in any place of power, and his court was, with but one or two +exceptions, made up of men who, of whatever descent they might be, +looked on themselves as Englishmen, and bore the impress of English +training. The mass of Englishmen meanwhile looked after their own +affairs and cared nothing about foreign wars fought by Brabançon +mercenaries, and paid for by foreign gold. But if they had nothing to +win from all these wars, they were none the less at last drawn into the +political alliances and sympathies of their master. Shut out as she was +by her narrow strip of sea from any real concern in the military +movements of the continental peoples, England was still dragged by the +policy of her Angevin rulers into all the complications of European +politics. The friendships and the hatreds of her king settled who were +to be the allies and who the foes of England, and practically fixed the +course of her foreign policy for seven hundred years. A traditional +sympathy lingered on from Henry's days with Germany, Italy, Sicily, and +Spain; but the connection with Anjou forced England into a hostility +with France which had no real ground in English feeling or English +interests; the national hatred took a deeper character when the feudal +nobles clung to the support of the French king against the English +sovereign and the English people, and "generation handed on to generation +an enmity whose origin had long been forgotten." From the disastrous +Crusade of 1191, "from the siege of Acre," to use the words of Dr. +Stubbs, "and the battle of Arsouf to the siege of Sebastopol and the +battles of the Crimea, English and French armies never met again except +as enemies." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND + +The building up of his mighty empire was not the only task which filled +the first years of Henry's reign. Side by side with this went on another +work of peaceful internal administration which we can but dimly trace in +the dearth of all written records, but which was ultimately to prove of +far greater significance than the imperial schemes that in the eyes of his +contemporaries took so much larger proportions and shone with so much +brighter lustre. + +The restoration of outward order had not been difficult, for the anarchy +of Stephen's reign, terrible as it was, had only passed over the surface +of the national life and had been vanquished by a single effort. But the +new ruler of England had to begin his work of administration not only +amid the temporary difficulties of a general disorganization, but amid +the more permanent difficulties of a time of transition, when society was +seeking to order itself anew in its passage from the medieval to the +modern world; and his victory over the most obvious and aggressive forms +of disorder was the least part of his task. Through all the time of +anarchy powerful forces had been steadily at work with which the king had +now to reckon. A new temper and new aspirations had been kindled by the +troubles of the last years. The deposition of Stephen, the elections of +Matilda and of Henry, had been so many formal declarations that the king +ruled by virtue of a bargain made between him and his people, and that if +he broke his contract he justly forfeited his authority. The routine of +silent and submissive councils had been broken through, and the earliest +signs of discussion and deliberation had discovered themselves, while the +Church, exerting in its assemblies an authority which the late king had +helplessly laid down, formed a new and effective centre of organized +resistance to tyranny in the future Even the rising towns had seized the +moment when the central administration was paralysed to extend their own +privileges, and to acquire large powers of self-government which were to +prove the fruitful sources of liberty for the whole people. + +We see everywhere, in fact, signs of the great contest which in one form +or another runs through the whole of the twelfth century, and gives its +main interest in our eyes to the English history of the time,--the +struggle between the iron organization of medieval feudalism and those +nascent forces of modern civilization which were fated in the end to +shatter and supersede it. In spite of the cry of lamentation which the +chroniclers carry down to us over the misery of a land stricken by plague +and famine and rapine, it is still plain that even through the terrible +years of Stephen's reign England had its share in the universal movement +by which the squalor and misery of the Middle Ages were giving place to a +larger activity and a better order of things A class unknown before was +fast growing into power,--the middle class of burghers and traders, who +desired above all things order, and hated above all things the medieval +enemy of order, the feudal lord. Merchant and cultivator and wool-grower +found better work ready to their hand than fighting, and the appearance +of mercenary soldiers marked everywhere the development of peaceful +industries. Amid all the confusion of civil war the industrial activities +of the country had developed with bewildering rapidity; while knights and +barons led their foreign hirelings to mutual slaughter, monks and canons +were raising their religious houses in all the waste places of the land, +and silently laying the foundations of English enterprise and English +commerce. To the great body of the Benedictines and the Cluniacs were +added in the middle of the twelfth century the Cistercians, who founded +their houses among the desolate moorlands of Yorkshire in solitary places +which had known no inhabitants since the Conqueror's ravages, or among +the swamps of Lincolnshire. A hundred and fifteen monasteries were built +during the nineteen years of Stephen's reign, more than had been founded +in the whole previous century; a hundred and thirteen were added to these +during the reign of Henry. In half a century sixty-four religious houses +were built in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire alone. Monastery and priory, in +which the decorated Romanesque was giving way to the first-pointed +architecture, towered above the wretched mud-hovels in which the whole of +the population below the class of barons crowded; their churches were +distinguished by the rare and novel luxury of glass windows, which, as +they caught the red light of the setting sun, startled the peasant with +omens of coming ill. Multitudes of men were busied in raising the vast +pile of buildings which made up a religious house,--cloisters, dormitories, +chapels, hospitals, granaries, barns, storehouses, whose foundations when +all else is gone still show in the rugged surface of some modern field. +Regular and secular clergy were alike spurred on in their work by jealous +rivalry. Archbishop Roger of York was at the opening of Henry's reign +building his beautiful church at Ripon, of whose rich decoration traces +still remain, while he gave scant sympathy and encouragement to the +Cistercian monks still busy with the austere mass of buildings which +they had raised at Fountains almost within sight of the Ripon towers. + +We may gain some faint idea of the amazing stir and industry which the +founding of these monasteries implied by following in our modern farms +and pasture lands the traces which may even now be seen of the toil of +these great preachers of labour. The whole water supply of a countryside +for miles round was gathered up by vast drainage works; stagnant pools +were transformed into running waters closed in by embankments, which +still serve as ditches for the modern farmer; swamps were reclaimed that +are only now preserved for cultivation by maintaining the dykes and +channels first cut by medieval monks; mills rose on the banks of the +newly-created streams; roads were made by which the corn of surrounding +villages might be carried to the central mill and the produce of the land +brought to the central storehouse. The new settlers showed a measureless +cunning and industry in reclaiming worthless soil; and so eager were they +for land at last, that the Cistercians were even said to desecrate +churchyards, and to encroach on the borders of royal forests. They grew +famous for the breeding of horses according to the exacting taste of the +day, learned in the various species of palfreys and sumpter horses and +knight's chargers and horses for ambling or for trotting. They thanked +Heaven for the "blessings of fatness and fleeces," as foreign weavers +sought their wool and the gold of Flanders was poured into their +treasure-houses. The same enterprise and energy which in modern days made +England the first manufacturing country of the world was then, in fact, +fast pressing her forward to the place which Australia now holds towards +modern Europe,--the great wool-growing country, the centre from whence +the raw material for commerce was supplied. In vain the Church by its +canons steadily resisted the economic changes of a time when wealth began +to gather again and capital found new uses, and bitterly as it declaimed +against usury and mortgages, angry complaints still increased "that many +people laying aside business practised usury almost openly." + +Nor were the towns behindhand in activity. As yet, indeed, the little +boroughs were for the most part busy in fighting for the most elementary +of liberties--for freedom of trade within the town, for permission to hold +a market, for leave to come and go freely to some great fair, for the right +to buy and sell in some neighbouring borough, for liberty to carry out +their own justice and regulate the affairs of their town. They were buying +from the lord, in whose "demesne" they lay, permission to gather wood in +the forest, right of common in its pasture, the commutation of their +services in harvest-time for "reap-silver," and of their bondage to the +lord's mill for "multure-penny." Or they were fighting a sturdy battle with +the king's justices to preserve some ancient privilege, the right of the +borough perhaps to "swear by itself,"--that is, to a jury of its own or its +freedom from the general custom of "frank-pledge." As trade advanced +commercial bodies grew up in the boroughs and formed themselves into gilds; +and these gilds gradually drew into their own hands the government of the +town, which in old days had been decided by the general voice of the whole +body of its burghers--that is, of those who held land within its walls. +The English borough began, in fact, to resemble the foreign "Commune." +Gilds of bakers, of weavers, of mercers, of fullers, of butchers, +goldsmiths, pepperers, clothiers, and pilgrims appeared in London, York, +Gloucester, Nottingham, even in little boroughs such as that of St. +Edmunds; while in distant Cornwall, Totnes, Lidford, and Bodmin set up +their gilds. How Henry regarded the movement it is hard to say. The gilds +had to pay, as everything had to pay, to the needy Treasury; but otherwise +they were not interfered with, and went on steadily increasing in power and +numbers. + +Prosperity brought with it the struggle for supremacy, and the history of +nations was rehearsed on a petty stage, with equal passions if with less +glory. A thriving village or township would begin to encroach on the +common land of its weaker neighbours, would try to seize some of its +rights of pannage in the forest, or fishing in the stream. But its most +strenuous efforts were given to secure the exclusive right of trading. +Free trade between village and village in England was then, in fact, as +much unknown as free trade at this day between the countries of modern +Europe. Producer, merchant, manufacturer saw in "protection" his only +hope of wealth or security. Jealously enclosed within its own borders, +each borough watched the progress of its neighbours "with anxious +suspicion." If one of them dared defiantly to set up a right to make and +sell its own bread and ale, or if it bought a charter granting the right +to a market, it found itself surrounded by foes. The new market was +clearly an injury to the rights of a neighbouring abbot or baron or town +gild, or it lessened the profits of the "king's market" in some borough +on the royal demesne. Then began a war, half legal, half of lawless +violence. Perhaps the village came off victorious, and kept its new +market on condition that it should never change the day without a royal +order (unless in deference to the governing religious feeling of the +time, it should change it from Sunday to a week day). Perhaps, on the +other hand, it saw its charter vanish, and all the money it had cost with +it, its butchers' and bakers' stalls shattered, its scales carried off, +its ovens destroyed, the "tumbril" for the correction of fraudulent baker +or brewer destroyed. Of such a strife we have an instance in the fight +which the burghers of Wallingford carried on with their neighbours. They +first sought to crush the rising prosperity of Abingdon by declaring that +its fair was an illegal innovation, and that in old days nothing might be +sold in the town save bread and ale. Oxford, which had had a long quarrel +with Abingdon over boat cargoes and river tolls, readily joined in the +attack, but ultimately by the king's judgment Abingdon was declared to +have had right to a "full market", and Wallingford was discomfited. A +little later its wrath was kindled afresh by the men of Crowmarsh, who, +instead of coming to the Wallingford market, actually began to make their +own bread and ale--by what warrant no one knew, said the Wallingford +bakers and brewers. Crowmarsh held out through the later years of Henry's +reign and Richard's, had a sore struggle under John, and at last under +Henry III. saw the officers of justice come down upon them a second time, +and make a general wreck of ovens and "tumbril," while the weights were +carried off to triumphant Wallingford. + +But if an era of industrial activity had opened, the new intellectual +impulse of the time was yet more striking. Great forces had everywhere +worked together under the one name of the Church: the ecclesiastical +organization which was represented in Rome, in the Episcopate, and in the +Canon law; the democratic monachism; the intellectual temper with its +pursuit of pure knowledge; the religious mystical spirit which was +included in all the rest and yet separate from them. But other elements +than these were at work in the twelfth century,--the literary and historic +movement, the legal revival, the new scepticism, the spirit of wide +imperialism, the romantic impulse. Education had up to this time been +wholly undertaken by the Church. The work of teaching had been one of the +main objects of the cathedral; the school and its chancellor were as +essential parts of the foundation as dean or precentor. No rivals to the +cathedral schools existed save those of the monasteries, and education +naturally bore the impress given to it in these great institutions; +profane learning was only valued so far as it could be used to illustrate +the Bible, and the ordinary teaching was almost wholly founded on four or +five authors, who wrote when the struggle of the Empire against the +barbarians was almost over, and who represented the last efforts of a +learning which was ready to vanish. The monastic libraries show how +narrow was the range of reading. The great monastery of Bec had about +fifty books. At Canterbury the library of Christ Church, which a century +later possessed seven hundred volumes, had at this time but a hundred and +fifty. Its single Greek work was a grammar; and if it could boast of a +copy of the Institutes of Justinian, it did not yet possess a single book +of civil law, not even Gratian's _Decretum_. The age of Universities, +however, had now begun, and English scholars went abroad in numbers to +study law at Bologna and the Italian universities, or to learn philosophy +and the arts at Paris, or at some of the less costly schools in Gaul. On +all sides they met with the stir of political and religious speculation. +The crusades and the intercourse with the East had broken down the +boundaries between Christian and Mohammedan thought; the Jews were +teaching science and medicine, and had just brought from the East the +philosophy of Aristotle. France struck the first note of a new literature +in her chronicles, her national poems, and the songs of her troubadours. +All Paris was ringing with the struggle of Abelard and St. Bernard. At +its university Peter Lombard was preparing to publish his _Sentences_, +which were to form the framework for the dogmatic theology of centuries +to come. New theories of liberty were quickened by classical studies +which made men familiar with the heroes of Greece and Rome. Abelard's +disciple, Arnold of Brescia, was preaching his theory of political and +religious freedom; civil government was to return to the old republican +forms of ancient Rome, and the clergy were to be separated from all +secular jurisdiction. In Lombardy the growth of wealth, population, and +trade, demanded a more developed jurisprudence, and a new study had +sprung up of Roman law. Bolognese lawyers lectured on the Pandects of +Justinian, and by their work the whole legal education of the day was +transformed; old prejudices and old traditions lost the authority which +had long hedged them about, and the new code threatened to destroy +everywhere the imperfect systems of the past with which it came in +contact. The revival of the study of civil law was followed by a new +scientific study of Canon law; and a recognized code was for the +first time developed, as well as a minute system of legal procedure, +when Gratian published in 1151 the _Decretum_, a great text-book of +ecclesiastical law. + +Amid all the intellectual activity which surrounded the English students +abroad it is, curious to note what they carried home with them across the +Channel, and what they left simply untouched. The zeal for learning +quickly showed itself in the growth of the Universities. As early as 1133 +Robert Pulleyn was teaching Latin at Oxford. In 1149 Archbishop Theobald +brought to it Master Vacarius, a famous Lombard lawyer, who lectured on +the Civil law until he was expelled by Stephen, half fearful of the new +teaching and half influenced by the pressure of the older and more +conservative of the English bishops. There was much of the foreign +movement, however, which found no place in England. Difference of tongue +shut out Norman and Englishman from the influence of the new Provençal +poetry, and for a century to come England owed nothing to the finished +art of the South. The strip of sea which kept aloof all European tumults +shut out also the speculations in politics and government which were +making their way abroad. Even the religious movement which overran one +half of France under the Albigenses, or that which counted its followers +and martyrs by multitudes in Flanders never crossed the Channel, in spite +of the constant intercourse between the peoples; and missionaries from +Germany during the reign of Henry only succeeded in converting one poor +woman in England who immediately recanted. It was in other directions +that the energies of the people found their exercise. If Englishmen were +heedless of foreign philosophers, they were quick to notice that the +fruit of the vine had failed, and forthwith the unheard-of novelty of +taverns where beer and mead were sold sprang up in France, probably by +the help of those English traders whose beer was the marvel of Frenchmen. + +It was these new conditions of the national life which constituted the +real problem of government--a problem far more slow and difficult to work +out than the mere suppression of a turbulent baronage. In the rapid +movement towards material prosperity, the energies of the people were in +all directions breaking away from the channels and limits in which they +had been so long confined. Rules which had been sufficient for the +guidance of a simple society began to break down under the new fullness +and complexity of the national life, and the simple decisions by which +questions of property and public order had been solved in earlier times +were no longer possible. Moreover, a new confusion and uncertainty had +been brought into the law in the last hundred years by the effort to fuse +together Norman and English custom. Norman landlord or Norman sheriff +naturally knew little of English law or custom, and his tendency was +always to enforce the feudal rules which he practised on his Norman +estates. In course of time it came about that all questions of land-tenure +and of the relations of classes were regulated by a kind of double system. +The Englishman as well as the Norman became the "man" of his lord as in +Norman law, and was bound by the duties which this involved. On the other +hand, the Norman as well as the Englishman held his land subject to the +customary burdens and rights recognized by English law. Both races were +thus made equal before the law, and no legal distinction was recognized +between conqueror and conquered. There was, however, every element of +confusion and perplexity in the theory and administration of the law +itself, in the variety of systems which were contending for the mastery, +and in the inefficiency of the courts in which they were applied. English +law had grown up out of Teutonic custom, into which Roman tradition had +been slowly filtering through the Dark Ages Feudal law still bore traces +of its double origin in the system of the Teutonic "comitatus" and of the +Roman "beneficium." Forest law, which governed the vast extent of the +king's domains, was bound neither by Norman forms nor by English +traditions, but was framed absolutely at the king's will. Canon law had +been developed out of customs and precedents which had served to regulate +the first Christian communities, and which had been largely formed out of +the civil law of Rome. There was a multitude of local customs which +varied in every hundred and in every manor, and which were preserved by +the jealousy that prevailed between one village and another, the strong +sense of local life and jurisdiction, and the strict adherence to +immemorial traditions. + +These different codes of law were administered in various courts of +divers origins. The tenant-in-chief of the king who was rich enough had +his cause carried to the King's Court of barons, where he was tried by his +peers. The poorer vassals, with the mass of the people, sought such +justice as was to be had in the old English courts, the Shire Court held +by the sheriff, and, where this survived, the Hundred Court summoned by +the bailiff. The lowest orders of the peasant class, shut out from the +royal courts, could only plead in questions of property in the manor +courts of their lords. The governing bodies of the richer towns were +winning the right to exercise absolute jurisdiction over the burghers +within their own walls. The Forest courts were held by royal officers, who +were themselves exempt from all jurisdiction save that of the king. And +under one plea or another all men in the State were liable for certain +causes to be brought under the jurisdiction of the newly established +Church courts. This system of conflicting laws was an endless source of +perplexity. The country was moreover divided into two nationalities, who +imperfectly understood one another's customary rights; and it was further +broken into various classes which stood in different relations to the law. +Those who had sufficient property were not only deemed entirely +trustworthy themselves, but were also considered answerable for the men +under them; a second class of freeholders held property sufficient to +serve as security for their own good behaviour, but not sufficient to make +them pledges for others; there was a third and lower class without +property, for whose good conduct the law required the pledge of some +superior. In a state of things so complicated, so uncertain and so +shifting, it is hard to understand how justice can ever have been +secured; nor, indeed, could any general order have been preserved, +save for the fact that these early courts of law, having all sprung +out of the same conditions of primitive life, and being all more or +less influenced and so brought to some common likeness by the Roman +law, did not differ very materially in their view of the relations +between the subjects of the State, and fundamentally administered the +same justice. Until this time too there had been but little legal +business to bring before the courts. There was practically no commerce; +there was little sale of land; questions of property were defined within +very narrow limits; a mass of contracts, bills of exchange, and all the +complicated transactions which trade brings with it, were only beginning +to be known. As soon, however, as industry developed, and the needs of a +growing society made themselves felt, the imperfections of the old order +became intolerable. The rude methods and savage punishments of the law +grew more and more burdensome as the number of trials increased; and the +popular courts were found to be fast breaking down under the weight of +their own ignorance and inefficiency. + +The most important of these was the Shire Court. It still retained its +old constitution; it preserved some tradition of a tribunal where the +king was not the sole fountain of justice, and the memory of a law which +was not the "king's law." It administered the old customary English +codes, and carried on its business by the old procedure. There came to it +the lords of the manors with their stewards, the abbots and priors of the +county with their officers, the legal men of the hundreds who were +qualified by holding property or by social freedom, and from every +township the parish priest, with the reeve and four men, the smiths, +farmers, millers, carpenters, who had been chosen in the little community +to represent their neighbours; and along with them stood the pledges, the +witnesses, the finders of dead bodies, men suspected of crime. The court +was, in fact, a great public meeting of the whole county; there was no +rank or order which did not send some of its number to swell the confused +crowd that stood round the sheriff. The criminal was generally put on his +trial by accusation of an injured neighbour, who, accompanied by his +friends, swore that he did not bring his charge for hatred, or for envy, +or for unlawful lust of gain. The defendant claimed the testimony of his +lord, and further proved his innocence by a simple or threefold +compurgation--that is, by the oath of a certain number of freemen among +his neighbours, whose property gave them the required value in the eye of +the law, and who swore together as "compurgators" that they believed his +oath of denial to be "clean and unperjured." The faith of the compurgator +was measured by his landed property, and the value of the joint-oath which +was required depended on a most intricate and baffling set of arithmetical +calculations, and differed according to the kind of crime, the rank of the +criminal, and the amount of property which was in dispute, besides other +differences dependent on local customs. Witnesses might also be called +from among neighbours who held property and were acquainted with the facts +to which they would "dare" to swear. The final judgment was given by +acclamation of the "suitors" of the court--that is, by the owners of +property and the elected men of the hundreds or townships; in other words, +by the public opinion of the neighbourhood. If the accused man were of bad +character by common report, or if he could find no friends to swear in his +behalf, "the oath burst," and there remained for him only the ordeal or +trial by battle, which he might accept or refuse at his own peril. In the +simple ordeal he dipped his hand in boiling water to the wrist, or carried +a bar of redhot iron three paces. If in consequence of his lord's +testimony being against him the triple ordeal was used, he had to plunge +his arm in water up to the elbow, or to carry the iron for nine paces. If +he were condemned to the ordeal by water, his death seems to have been +certain, since sinking was the sign of innocence, and if the prisoner +floated he was put to death as guilty. The other alternative, trial by +battle, which had been introduced by the Normans, was extremely unpopular +in England; it told hardly against men who were weak or untrained to arms, +or against the man of humble birth, who was allowed against his armed +opponent neither horse nor the arms of a knight, but simply a leathern +jacket, a shield of leather or wood, and a stick without knots or points. + +At the beginning of the reign of Henry II, the Shire courts seem to have +been nearly as bad as they could be. Scarcely any attempt had been made, +perhaps none had till now been greatly needed, to improve a system which +had grown up in a dim and ruder past. The Norman kings, indeed, had +introduced into England a new method of deciding doubtful questions of +property by the "recognition" of sworn witness instead of by the English +process of compurgation or ordeal. Twelve men, who must be freemen and +hold property, were chosen from the neighbourhood, and as "jurors" were +sworn to state truly what they knew about the question in dispute, and +the matter was decided according to their witness or "recognition." If +those who were summoned were unacquainted with the facts, they were +dismissed and others called; if they knew the facts but differed in their +statement, others were added to their number, till twelve at least were +found whose testimony agreed together. These inquests on oath had +been used by the Conqueror for fiscal purposes in the drawing up of +Doomsday Book. From that time special "writs" from king or justice were +occasionally granted, by which cases were withdrawn from the usual modes +of trial in the local courts, and were decided by the method of +recognition, which undoubtedly provided a far better chance of justice +to the suitor, replacing as it did the rude appeal to the ordeal or to +battle by the sworn testimony of the chosen representatives, the good men +and true, of the neighbourhood. But the custom was not yet governed by any +positive and inviolable rules, and the action of the King's Court in this +respect was imperfectly developed, uncertain, and irregular. + +It is scarcely possible, indeed, to estimate the difficulties in the way +of justice when Henry came to the throne. The wretched freeholders +summoned to the Shire Court from farm and cattle, from mill or anvil +or carpenter's bench, knew well the terrors of the journey through marsh +and fen and forest, the dangers of flood and torrent, and perhaps of +outlawed thief or murderer, the privations and hardships of the way; and +the heavy fines which occur in the king's rolls for non-attendance show +how anxiously great numbers of the suitors avoided joining in the +troublesome and thankless business of the court. When they reached the +place of trial a strange medley of business awaited them as questions +arose of criminal jurisdiction, of feudal tenure, of English "sac and +soc," of Norman franchises and Saxon liberties, with procedure sometimes +of the one people, sometimes of the other. The days dragged painfully on +as, without any help from trained lawyers, the "suitors" sought to settle +perplexed questions between opposing claims of national, provincial, +ecclesiastical, and civic laws, or made arduous journeys to visit the +scene of some murder or outrage, or sought for evidence on some difficult +problem of fact. Evidence, indeed, was not easy to find when the question +in dispute dated perhaps from some time before the civil war and the +suppression of the sheriff's courts, for no written record was ever kept +of the proceedings in court, and everything depended on the memory of +witnesses. The difficulties of taking evidence by compurgation increased +daily. A method which centuries before had been successfully applied to +the local crimes of small and stationary communities bound together by the +closest ties of kinship and of fellowship in possession of the soil, when +every transaction was inevitably known to the whole village or township, +became useless when new social and industrial conditions had destroyed the +older and simpler modes of life. The procedure of the courts was +antiquated and no longer guided by consistent principles. Their modes of +trial were so cumbrous, formal, and inflexible that it was scarcely +possible to avoid some minute technical mistake which might invalidate +the final decision. + +The business of the larger courts, too, was for the most part carried on +in French under sheriff, or bailiff, or lord of the manor. The Norman +nobles did not know Latin, they were but gradually learning English; the +bulk of the lesser clergy perhaps spoke Latin, but did not know Norman; +the poorer people spoke only English; the clerks who from this time began +to note down the proceedings of the king's judges in Latin must often +have been puzzled by dialects of English strange to him. When each side +in a trial claimed its own customary law, and neither side understood the +speech of the other, the president of the court had every temptation to +be despotic and corrupt, and the interpreter between him and his suitors +became an important person who had much influence in deciding what mode +of procedure was to be followed. The sheriff, often holding a hereditary +post and fearing therefore no check to his despotism, added to the burden +of the unhappy freeholders by a custom of summoning at his own fancy +special courts, and laying heavy fines on those who did not attend them. +Even when the law was fairly administered there was a growing number of +cases in which the rigid forms of the court actually inflicted injustice, +as questions constantly arose which lay far outside the limits of the old +customary law of the Germanic tribes, or of the scanty knowledge of Roman +law which had penetrated into other codes. The men of that day looked too +often with utter hopelessness to the administration of justice; there was +no peril so great in all the dangers that surrounded their lives as the +peril of the law; there was no oppression so cruel as the oppression +wrought by the harsh and rigid forms of the courts. From such calamities +the miserable and despairing victims could look for no help save from the +miraculous aid of the saints; and society at that time, as indeed it has +been known to do in later days, was for ever appealing from the iniquity +of law to God,--to a God who protected murderers if they murdered Jews, +and defended robbers if they plundered usurers, who was, indeed, above +all law, and was supposed to distribute a violent and arbitrary justice, +answering to the vulgar notion of an equity unknown on earth. + +We catch a glimpse of a trial of the time in the story of a certain +Ailward, whose neighbour had refused to pay a debt which he owed him. +Ailward took the law into his own hands, and broke into the house of his +debtor, who had gone to the tavern and had left his door fastened with +the lock hanging down outside, and his children playing within. Ailward +carried off as security for his debt the lock, a gimlet, and some tools, +and a whetstone which hung from the roof. As he sauntered home, however, +his furious neighbour overtook him, having heard from the children what +had been done. He snatched the whetstone from Ailward's hand and dealt +him a blow on the head with it, stabbed him in the arm with a knife, and +then triumphantly carried him to the house which, he had robbed, and +there bound him as "an open thief" with the stolen goods upon him. A +crowd gathered round, and an evil fellow, one Fulk, the apparitor, an +underling of the sheriff employed to summon criminals to the court, +remarked that as a thief could not legally be mutilated unless he had +taken to the value of a shilling, it would be well to add a few articles +to the list of stolen goods. Perhaps Ailward had won ill-fame as a +creditor, or even, it may be, a money-lender in the village, for his +neighbours clearly bore him little goodwill. The crowd readily consented. +A few odds and ends were gathered--a bundle of skins, gowns, linen, and +an iron tool,--and were laid by Ailward's side; and the next day, with +the bundle hung about his neck, he was taken before the sheriff and the +knights, who were then holding a Shire Court. The matter was thought +doubtful; judgment was delayed, and Ailward was made fast in Bedford +jail for a month, till the next county court. There the luckless man sent +for a priest of the neighbourhood, and confessing his sins from his youth +up, he was bidden to hope in the prayers of the blessed Virgin and of all +the saints against the awful terrors of the law, and received a rod to +scourge himself five times daily; while through the gloom shone the +glimmer of hope that having been baptized on the vigil of Pentecost, +water could not drown him nor fire burn him if he were sent to the +ordeal. At last the month went by and he was again carried to the Shire +Court, now at Leighton Buzzard. In vain he demanded single combat with +Fulk, or the ordeal by fire; Fulk, who had been bribed with an ox, +insisted on the ordeal of water, so that he should by no means escape. +Another month passed in the jail of Bedford before he was given up to be +examined by the ordeal. Whether he underwent it or whether he pleaded +guilty when the judges met is uncertain, but however this might be, "he +received the melancholy sentence of condemnation; and being taken to the +place of punishment, his eyes were pulled out and he was mutilated, and +his members were buried in the earth in the presence of a multitude of +persons." + +Nor was there for the mass of the people any real help or security to be +found in an appeal to the supreme tribunal of the realm where the king +sat in council with his ministers. This still remained a tribunal of +exceptional resort to which appeals were rare. There was one Richard +Anesty, who, in these first years of Henry's reign, desired to prove in +the King's Court his right to hold a certain property. For five years +Richard, his brother, and a multitude of helpers, were incessantly busied +in this arduous task. The court followed the king, and the king might be +anywhere from York to the Garonne. The unhappy suitor might well have +joined in a complaint once made by a secretary of Henry in search of his +master: "Solomon saith there be three things difficult to be found out, +and a fourth which may hardly be discovered: the way of an eagle in the +air; the way of a ship in the sea; the way of a serpent on the ground; +and the way of a man in his youth. I can add a fifth: the way of a king +in England." The whole business now done by post had then to be carried +on by laborious journeyings, in which we hear again and again that horses +died on the road; if a writ were needed from king or queen, if the royal +seal were required, or a certificate from a bishop, or a letter from an +archbishop, special messengers posted across country; then the writ must +be carried in the same way to York, Lincoln, or elsewhere to be examined +by some famous lawyer, sometimes an Italian learned in the last legal +fashions of the day; perhaps it was pronounced faulty, or it might be +that the seal of justiciar or archbishop was refused on its return from +the lawyer, and the same business had to begin all over again; twice +messengers had to be sent to Rome, the journey each way taking at least +forty days of incessant and dangerous travelling. When at last the +appointed day for judgment by the justiciar came, friends, helpers, and +witnesses had to be called together in the same laborious way, and +transported at great cost to the place of trial, and there kept waiting +till news was brought that the plea could not then be heard; and thus +again and again the luckless suitor was summoned, each time to a +different town in England. In every town he was forced by his necessities +to borrow money from some Jew, who demanded about eighty-seven per cent +for the loan; and when at last, as Richard was worn out with the delays +of justiciars, Henry appeared on the scene, and, "thanks to our lord the +king," the land was adjudged to the suitor, he had to raise fresh money +to fee the lawyers, the bishop's staff, the officers of the King's Court, +the king's physicians, the king and queen, besides the sums which must be +given to his helpers and pleaders. The end of the story leaves him +mournfully counting up a long list of Jewish creditors, who bid fair to +exhaust the profits of his new possessions. + +Such were in brief outline some of the difficulties which made order and +justice hard to win. Society was helpless to protect itself: news spread +slowly, the communication of thought was difficult, common action was +impossible. Amid all the shifting and half understood problems of +medieval times there was only one power to which men could look to protect +them against lawlessness, and that was the power of the king. No external +restraints were set upon his action; his will was without contradiction. +The medieval world with fervent faith believed that he was the very spring +and source of justice. In an age when all about him was changing, and when +there was no organized machinery for the administration of law, the king +had himself to be judge, lawgiver, soldier, financier, and administrator; +the great highways and rivers of the kingdom were in "his peace;" the +greater towns were in his demesne; he was guardian of the poor and +defender of the trader; he was finance minister in a society where +economic conditions were rapidly changing; here presented a developed +system of law as opposed to the primitive customs of feud and private war; +he was the only arbiter of questions that grew out of the new conflict of +classes and interests; he alone could decree laws at his absolute will and +pleasure, and could command the power to carry out his decrees; there was +not even a professional lawyer who was not in his court and bound to his +service. + +Henry saw and used his opportunity. Even as a youth of twenty-one he +assumed absolute control in his courts with a knowledge and capacity which +made him fully able to meet trained lawyers, such as his chancellor, +Thomas, or his justiciar, De Lucy. Cool, businesslike, and prompt, he set +himself to meet the vast mass of arrears, the questions of jurisdiction +and of disputed property, which had arisen even as far back as the time of +Henry I., and had gone unsettled through the whole reign of Stephen, to +the ruin and havoc of the lands in question. He examined every charter +that came before him; if any was imperfect he was ready to draw one up +with his own hand; he watched every difficult point of law, noted every +technical detail, laid down his own position with brief decision. In the +uncertain and transitional state of the law the king's personal +interference knew scarcely any limits, and Henry used his power freely. +But his unswerving justice never faltered. Gilbert de Bailleul, in some +claim to property, ventured to make light of the charter of Henry I., by +which it was held. The king's wrath blazed up. "By the eyes of God," he +cried, "if you can prove this charter false, it would be worth a thousand +pounds to me! If," he went on, "the monks here could present such a +charter to prove their possession of Clarendon, which I love above all +places, there is no pretence by which I could refuse to give it up to +them!" + +It is hard to realise the amazing physical endurance and activity which +was needed to do the work of a medieval king. Henry was never at rest. It +was only by the most arduous labour, by travel, by readiness of access to +all men, by inexhaustible patience in weighing complaint and criticism, +that he learned how the law actually worked in the remotest corners of +his land. He was scarcely ever a week in the same place; his life in +England was spent in continual progresses from south to north, from east +to west. The journeyings by rough trackways through "desert" and swamp +and forest, through the bleak moorlands of the Pennine Hills, or the +thickets and fens that choked the lower grounds, proved indeed a sore +trial for the temper of his courtiers; and bitter were the complaints of +the hardships that fell to the lot of the disorderly train that swept +after the king, the army of secretaries and lawyers, the mail-clad +knights and barons followed by their retainers, the archbishop and his +household, bishops and abbots and judges and suitors, with the "actors, +singers, dicers, confectioners, huxters, gamblers, buffoons, barbers, who +diligently followed the court." Knights and barons and clerks, accustomed +to the plenty and comfort of palace and castle, found themselves at the +mercy of every freak of the king's marshals, who on the least excuse +would roughly thrust them out into the night from the miserable hut in +which they sought shelter and cut loose their horses' halters, and whose +hearts were hardly softened by heavy bribes. They were often half-starved; +if food was to be had at all, it was at the best stale fish, sour beer and +wine, coarse black bread, and meat scarcely eatable, even with the rough +appetite of travellers of that age. Matters were made ten times worse by +Henry's mode of travelling. "If the king has proclaimed that he intends to +stop late in any place, you may be sure that he will start very early in +the morning, and with his sudden haste destroy every one's plans. It often +happens that those who have let blood or taken medicine are obliged at the +hazard of their lives to follow. You will see men running about like mad; +urging forward their pack-horses, driving their waggons into one another, +everything in confusion, as if hell had broken loose. Whereas, if the king +has given out that he will start early in the morning, he will certainly +change his mind, and you may be sure he will snore till noon. You will see +the pack-horses drooping under their loads, waggons waiting, drivers +nodding, tradesmen fretting, all grumbling at one another. Men hurry to +ask the loose women and the liquor retailers who follow the court when the +king will start; for these are the people who know most of the secrets of +the court." Sometimes, on the other hand, when the din of the camp was +silenced for a while in sleep, a sudden message from the royal lodging +would again set all in commotion. A wild clatter of horsemen and footmen +would fill the darkness. The stout pack-horses, probably borrowed from a +neighbouring monastery to carry the heavy Rolls in which state business +was chronicled, were hastily laden. Baggage of every kind was slung across +the backs of horses, or stowed into cumbrous two-wheeled waggons made of +rough planks, or of laths covered with twisted osiers, which had been +seized from farmer or peasant for the king's journey. The forerunners +pushed on in front to give notice of the king's arrival, and in the dim +morning light the motley train of riders at last crowded along the narrow +trackway, followed heavily by the waggons dragged by single file of +horses, which too often foundered in the muddy hollows, or half-plunged +into the torrents through rents and chasms in the low, narrow bridges that +threatened at every instant to crumble away under the strain. But before +the weary day's journey was over the king would suddenly change his mind, +stop short of the town towards which all were toiling in hope of food and +shelter, and turn aside to some spot in the woods where there was perhaps +a solitary hut and food only for himself: "And I believe, if I dare to say +so, that he took delight in our distresses," groans the poor secretary as +he pictures the knights wandering by twos and threes in the thickets, +separated in the darkness from their followers, and drawing their swords +one against another in furious strife for the possession of some shelter +for which pigs would scarcely have quarrelled. "Oh, Lord God Almighty," +he ends, "turn and convert the heart of the king from this pestilent +habit, that he may know himself to be but man, and that he may show a +royal mercy and human compassion to those who are driven after him not +by ambition but by necessity." + +But at whatever inconvenience to his courtiers Henry carried out his +own purposes, and kept pace with the enormous mass of business that came +to him. In all his hurried journeys we see busy royal clerks scribbling +away at each halt charters, grants, letters patent and letters close, the +king too fighting, riding, dictating, signing, sometimes dating his +letters from three places on the same day. A travelling king such as this +was well known to all his people. He was no constitutional fiction, but a +living man; his character, his look and presence, his oaths and jests, +his wrath, all were noted and talked over; the chroniclers who followed +his court with their gossip and their graver news spread the knowledge of +his doings. A new sense of law and justice grew up under a sovereign who +himself journeyed through the length and breadth of the land, subduing +the unruly, hearing pleas, revising unjust sentences, drawing up charters +with his own hand, setting the machinery of government to work from end +to end of England. More than this, the king himself had learned to know +his people. He had seen for himself the castles of the barons, the huts +of the peasants, the little villages in the clearings; he had seen the +sheriff sitting in the shire court, the lord of the manor doing justice +in his "hall-moot," the bishop and archdeacon dispensing the law in the +church courts. By his sudden journeys, his unexpected movements and rapid +change of plans, he arrived at the very moment and the very place where +no one looked for him; nothing was safe from his eye and ear; no false +sheriff or rebellious lord could be sure when his terrible master might +be at his doors. Foreigner as the king was, there was soon no Englishman +who knew the affairs of his kingdom so well. His penetrating curiosity, +his wide experience, his practised judgment, rapidly made him one of the +most sagacious administrators and wisest legislators that ever guided +England in a very critical moment of her history; and when he finally +drew up his system of reform there was not a single point of principle in +it from which he or his successors found it necessary afterwards to draw +back. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +THE FIRST REFORMS + +Henry began his work of reorganization by taking up the work which his +grandfather had begun--that of replacing the mere arbitrary power of the +sovereign by a uniform system of administration, and bringing into order +the various conflicting authorities which had been handed down from +ancient times, royal courts and manor courts, church courts, shire +courts, hundred courts, forest courts, and local courts in special +franchises, with all their inextricable confusion of law and custom and +procedure. Under Henry I. two courts, the _Exchequer_ and the _Curia +Regis_, had control of all the financial and judicial business of the +kingdom. The Exchequer filled a far more important place in the national +life than the Curia Regis, for the power of the king was simply measured +by the state of the treasury, when wars began to be fought by mercenaries, +and justice to be administered by paid officials. The court had to keep a +careful watch over the provincial accounts, over the moneys received from +the king's domains, and the fines from the local courts. It had to +regulate changes in the mode of payment as the use of money gradually +replaced the custom of payments in kind. It had to watch alterations in +the ownership and cultivation of land, to modify the settlement of +Doomsday Book so as to meet new conditions, and to make new distribution +of taxes. There was no class of questions concerning property in the most +remote way which might not be brought before its judges for decision. +Twice a year the officers of the royal household, the Chancellor, +Treasurer, two Chamberlains, Constable, and Marshal, with a few barons +chosen from their knowledge of the law, sat with the Justiciar at their +head, as "Barons of the Exchequer" in the palace at Westminster, round +the table covered with its "chequered" cloth from which they took their +name. In one chamber, the Exchequer of Account, the "Barons" received the +reports of the sheriffs from every county, and fixed the sums to be +levied. In a second chamber, the Exchequer of Receipt, the sheriff or +tax-farmer paid in his dues and took his receipts. The accounts were +carefully entered on the treasurer's roll, which was called from its +shape the Great Roll of the Pipe, and which may still be seen in our +Record Office; the chancellor kept a duplicate of this, known as the Roll +of the Chancery; and an officer of the king registered in a third Roll +matters of any special importance. Before the death of Henry I. the vast +amount and the complexity of business in the Exchequer Court made it +impossible that it should any longer be carried on wholly in London. The +"Barons" began to travel as itinerant judges through the country; as the +king's special officers they held courts in the provinces, where difficult +local questions were tried and decided on the spot. So important did the +work of finance become that the study of the Exchequer is in effect the +key to English history at this time. It was not from any philosophic love +of good government, but because the license of outrage would have +interrupted there turns of the revenue that Henry I. claimed the title of +the "Lion of justice." It was in great measure from a wish to sweep the +fees of the Church courts into the royal Hoard that the second Henry began +the strife with Becket in the Constitutions of Clarendon, and the increase +of revenue was the efficient cause of the great reforms of justice which +form the glory of his reign. It was the fount of English law and English +freedom. + +The Curia Regis was composed of the same great officers of the household +as those who sat in the Exchequer, and of a few men chosen by the king +for their legal learning; but in this court they were not known as +"Barons" but as "Justices," and their head was the Chief Justice. The +Curia Regis dealt with legal business, with all causes in which the +king's interest was concerned, with appeals from the local courts, and +from vassals who were too strong to submit to their arbitration, with +pleas from wealthy barons who had bought the privilege of laying their +suit before the king, besides all the perplexed questions which lay far +beyond the powers of the customary courts, and in which the equitable +judgment of the king himself was required. In theory its powers were +great, but in practice little business was actually brought to it in the +time of Henry I; the distance of the court from country places, and the +expense of carrying a suit to it, would alone have proved an effectual +hindrance to its usefulness, even if the rules by which it was guided had +been much more complete and satisfactory than they actually were. + +The routine of this system of administration, as well as the mass of +business to be done, effectually interfered with arbitrary action on the +king's part, and the regular and methodical work of the organized courts +gave to the people a fair measure of protection against the tyranny or +caprice of the sovereign. But the royal power which was given over to +justices and barons did not pass out of the hands of the king. He was +still in theory the fount of all authority and law, and could, whenever +he chose, resume the powers that he had granted. His control was never +relaxed; and in later days we find that while judges on circuit who gave +unjust judgment were summoned before the Curia Regis at Westminster, the +judges of the Curia Regis itself were called for trial before the king +himself in his council. + +The reorganization of these courts was fast completed under Henry's great +justiciar, De Lucy, and the chancellor Thomas. The next few years show an +amount of work done in every department of government which is simply +astonishing. The clerks of the Exchequer took up the accounts and began +once more regular entries in the Pipe Roll; plans of taxation were +devised to fill the empty hoard, and to check the misery and tyranny +under which the tax payers groaned. The king ordered a new coinage which +should establish a uniform system of money over the whole land. As late +as the reign of Henry I. the dues were paid in kind, and the sheriffs +took their receipts for honey, fowls, eggs, corn, wax, wool, beer, oxen, +dogs, or hawks. When, by Henry's orders, all payments were first made in +coin to the Exchequer, the immediate convenience was great, but the state +of the coinage made the change tell heavily against the crown. It was +impossible to adulterate dues in kind; it was easy to debase the coin +when they were paid in money, and that money received by weight, whether +it were coin from the royal mints, or the local coinages that had +continued from the time of the early English kingdoms, or debased money +from the private mints of the barons. Roger of Salisbury, in fact, when +placed at the head of the Exchequer, found a great difference between the +weight and the actual value of the coin received. He fell back on a +simple expedient; in many places there had been a provision as old at +least as Doomsday, which enacted that the money weighed out for town-geld +should if needful be tested by re-melting. The treasurer extended this to +the whole system of the Exchequer. He ordered that all money brought to +the Exchequer should itself be tested, and the difference between its +weight and real value paid by the sheriff who brought it. The burden thus +fell on the country, for the sheriff would of course protect himself as +far as he could by exacting the same tests on all sums paid to him. If +the pound was worth but ten shillings in the market, no doubt the sheriff +only took it for ten shillings in his court. Practically each tax, each +due, must have been at least doubled, and the sheriff himself was at the +mercy of the Exchequer moneyers. There was but one way to remedy the +evil, by securing the purity of the coin, and twice during his reign +Henry made this his special care. + +In the absence of records we can only dimly trace the work of legal reform +which was carried out by Henry's legal officers; but it is plain that +before 1164 certain great changes had already been fully established. A +new and elaborate system of rules seems gradually to have been drawn up +for the guidance of the justices who sat in the Curia Regis; and a new set +of legal remedies in course of time made the chances of justice in this +court greater than in any other court of the realm. The _Great Assize_, an +edict whose date is uncertain, but which was probably issued during the +first years of his reign, developed and set in full working order the +imperfect system of "recognition" established by the Norman kings. +Henceforth the man, whose right to his freehold was disputed, need but +apply to the Curia Regis to issue an order that all proceedings in the +local courts should be stopped until the "recognition" of twelve chosen +men had decided who was the rightful owner according to the common +knowledge of the district, and the barbarous foreign custom of settling +the matter by combat was done away with. Under the new system the Curia +Regis eventually became the recognized court of appeal for the whole +kingdom. So great a mass of business was drawn under its control that the +king and his regular ministers could no longer suffice for the work, and +new judges had to be added to the former staff; and at last the positions +of the two chief courts of the kingdom were reversed, and the King's Court +took the foremost place in the amount and importance of its business. + +The same system of trial by sworn witnesses was also gradually extended +to the local courts. By the new-fashioned royal system the legal men of +hundreds and townships, the knights and freeholders, were ordered to +search out the criminals of their district, and "present" them for trial +at the Shire Court,--something after the fashion of the "grand jury" of +to-day, save that in early times the jurors had themselves to bear +witness, to declare what they knew of the prisoner's character, to say if +stolen goods had been divided in a certain barn, to testify to a coat by +a patch on the shoulder. By a slow series of changes which wholly +reversed their duties, the "legal men" of the juries of "presentment" and +of "recognition" were gradually transformed into the "jury" of to-day; +and even now curious traces survive in our courts of the work done by the +ancestors of the modern jury. In criminal cases in Scotland the oath +still administered by the clerk to jurymen carries us back to an ancient +time: "You fifteen swear by Almighty God, and as you shall answer to God +at the great day of judgment, you will truth say and no truth conceal, in +so far as you are to pass on this assize." + +The provincial administration was set in working order. New sheriffs took +up again the administration of the shires, and judges from the King's +Court travelled, as they had done in the time of Henry I., through the +land. The worst fears of the baronage were justified. They were disabled +by one blow after another. Their political humiliation was complete. The +heirs of the great lords who had followed the Conqueror, and who with +their vast estates in Normandy and in England had inherited the arrogant +pretensions of their fathers, found themselves of little account in the +national councils. The mercenary forces were no longer at their disposal. +The sources of wealth which they had found in plunder and in private +coinage were cut off. Their rights of jurisdiction were curtailed. A +final blow was struck at their military power by the adoption of scutage. +In the Welsh campaign of 1157 Henry opened his military reforms by +introducing a system new to England in the formation of his army. Every +two knights bound to service were ordered to furnish in their place one +knight who should remain with the king's army as long as he required. It +was the first step towards getting rid of the cumbrous machinery of the +feudal array, and securing an efficient and manageable force which should +be absolutely at the king's control. In the war of Toulouse in 1159 the +problem was for the first time raised as to the obligation of feudal +vassals to foreign service, and Henry gladly seized the opportunity to +carry out his plan yet more fully. The chief vassals who were unwilling +to join the army were allowed to pay a fixed tax or "scutage" instead of +giving their personal service. Henry, the chroniclers tell us, careful of +his people's prosperity, was anxious not to annoy the knights throughout +the country, nor the men of the rising towns, nor the body of yeomen, by +dragging them to foreign war against their will; at the same time he +himself profited greatly by the change. The new system broke up the old +feudal array, and set the king at the head of something like a standing +army paid by the taxes of the barons. + +Henry had, indeed, won a signal victory over feudalism. But feudalism had +no roots on English soil; it was forced to borrow Brabançons, and to work +by means alien to the whole feudal tradition and system, and Henry had +easily overthrown the baronage by the help of the Church. But in the +process the ecclesiastical party had learned to know its strength, and the +king had to meet a more formidable resistance to his will when, instead of +a lawless baronage, he was confronted by the Church with its mighty +organization, always vigilant and menacing. The clergy had from the first +looked with a very jealous eye on his projects. A sharp quarrel as to the +jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts had early arisen between Henry +and Archbishop Theobald, but the matter had been compromised for a time. +Thomas had taken office pledged to defend ecclesiastical interests, and he +was so far true to his pledge, that while he was chancellor he put an end +to the abuse of keeping bishoprics and abbeys vacant. He had, however, as +was said at the time, "put off the deacon" to put on the chancellor; and +in an ecclesiastical trial which took place soon after Henry's crowning, +he appears as an energetic exponent of the king's legal views. A dispute +had raged for years as to the jurisdiction of the bishops of Chichester +over the abbots of Battle. On Henry's accession Bishop Hilary of +Chichester vigorously renewed the struggle, and a great trial was held +in May 1157 to decide the matter. Hilary failing after much discussion to +effect a compromise, emphatically and solemnly declared in words such as +Henry was to hear a few years later from another mouth, that there were +two powers, secular and spiritual, and that the secular authority could +not interfere with the spiritual jurisdiction, or depose any bishop or +ecclesiastic without leave from Rome. "True enough, he cannot be +'deposed,'" cried the young king, "but by a shove like this he may be +clean thrust out!" and he suited the action to the words. A laugh ran +round the assembly at the king's jest; but Hilary, taking no notice of +the hint, went on to urge that no layman, not even the king, could by the +law of Rome confer ecclesiastical dignity or exemptions without the Pope's +leave and confirmation. "What next!" broke in Henry angrily, "you think +with your practised cunning to set yourself up against the authority of +my kingly prerogative granted me by God Himself! I command you by the +allegiance you have sworn to keep within proper bounds language against my +crown and dignity!" A general clamour rose against the prelate, and the +chancellor, louder than the rest, talked of the bishop's oath of fealty to +the king, and warned him to take heed to himself. Hilary, seeing himself +thus beset, obsequiously declared that he had no wish to take aught from +the kingly honour and dignity, which he had always bent every effort to +magnify and increase; but Henry bluntly retorted that it was plain to all +that his honour and dignity would be speedily removed far from him by the +fair and deceitful talk of those who would annul his just prerogatives. +The bishop could not find a single friend. Chancellor and justiciar and +constable rivalled one another in taunts and sharp phrases. When he went +on to urge the revision of the Conqueror's charter to Battle by the +archbishop, and to appeal to ecclesiastical custom, Henry's wrath rose +again. "A wonderful and marvellous thing truly is this we hear, that the +charters, forsooth, of my kingly predecessors, confirmed by the +prerogative of the Crown of England, and witnessed by the magnates, should +be deemed beyond our powers by you, my lord bishop. God forbid, God +forbid, that in my kingdom what is decreed by me at the instance of +reason, and with the advice of my archbishops, bishops, and barons, +should be liable to the censure of you and such as you!" He broke short +discussion by declaring that the question belonged to him alone to settle. +The chancellor, in a long argument, crushed the already humbled bishop, +and raised the king's anger to its utmost pitch by drawing attention to +the fact that Hilary had appealed to Rome to the contempt of the royal +dignity. The king, his countenance changed with fury, turned passionately +to the bishop, who tremblingly swore, while Archbishop Theobald crossed +himself in amazement at the audacious perjury, that it was the abbot who +had got the bull of which Thomas complained. Theobald entreated that the +matter might be settled according to Canon law, but this the king promptly +refused. Finally Hilary was forced to complete submission, and the +archbishop prayed that he might be pardoned for any imprudent words he had +used against the king's majesty. Henry was ever ready to yield everything +in form when once he had got his own way. "Not only," he answered, "do I +now give him the kiss of peace, but if his sins were a hundredfold, I +would forgive them all for your prayers and for the love I bear him;" and +bishop and abbot and justiciar, all by the king's orders, joined in the +kiss of peace. + +But no kiss of peace given at Henry's orders could turn away the rising +wrath of the Church. A general feeling of danger was in the air, and both +sides, in preparing for the inevitable future, chose the same man to +fight their battle,--Thomas, the disciple and secretary of Theobald, +Thomas, the minister of the king's reforms. The young king had turned +with passionate affection to his brilliant chancellor. In hall, in +church, in council-chamber, on horseback, he was never separated from his +friend. Thomas, like his master, was always ready for hunting, or for +hawking, or for a game of chess. He was willing, too, to save the king +the cost and burden of entertainment and display. He was careful to +magnify his office. He held a splendid court, where Henry's son and a +train of young nobles were brought up to knightly accomplishments. He was +dressed in scarlet and furs, and his clothes were woven with gold. His +table was covered with gold and silver plate, and his servants had orders +to buy the most costly provisions in the shops for cooked meat, which +were then the glory of the city. His household was the talk of London. +The king himself, curious to see how things went on, would sometimes come +on horseback to watch the chancellor sitting at meat, or, bow in hand, +would turn in on his way from hunting, and, vaulting over the table, +would sit down and eat with him. Henry lavished gifts on him, so that +according to one of his chroniclers, "when he might have had all +the churches and castles of the kingdom if he chose since there was none +to deny him, yet the greatness of his soul conquered his ambition; he +magnanimously disdained to take the poorer benefices, and required only +the great things--the provostship of Beverley, the deanery at Hastings, +the Tower of London with the service of the soldiers belonging to it, the +castle of Eye with 140 soldiers, and that of Berkhampstead." or was the +king's favour misplaced, for Thomas was an excellent servant. Business +was rapidly despatched by him; and Henry found himself relieved of the +most irksome part of his work. The chancellor surrounded himself by +able men, looking even as far as Gaul for poor Englishmen who were +distinguished for their talent; fifty-two clerks were employed under him +in the Chancery. As he grew more and more important to his master, +unlimited powers were put in his hand. There are even entries in the Pipe +Roll of pardons issued by him, the first instance of such a right ever +used by any save king or queen. It was said that those who had the king's +favour might count it as a vain thing, unless they had also the friendship +of the chancellor. "The king's dominions, which reach from the Arctic +Ocean to the Pyrenees, he put into your power, and in this alone was any +man thought happy, that he should find favour in your eyes," runs a letter +written afterwards to Thomas. + +To complete the king's schemes, however, one dignity yet remained +to be conferred on Thomas. He was eager, in view of his proposed +reconstruction of Church and State, to adopt the Imperial system of a +chancellor-archbishop. The difficulties in the way were great, for ancient +custom limited the technical supremacy of the king's will in the choice +of the Primate. No archbishop since the Conquest had been chosen for other +reasons than those of piety and learning; no secular primate had been +appointed since Stigand, and before Stigand there had never been one at +all; no deacon had ever been chosen for this high office; and never had a +king's officer been made archbishop, however common it may have been to +put chancellor or treasurer in less important sees. Amid the anxiety and +questioning which followed the death of Theobald in 1161, Thomas himself +clearly saw the parting of the ways: "Whoever is made archbishop," he +said, "must quickly give offence to God or to the king." Henry alone knew +no hesitation. Fresh from his triumphs abroad, master of his great empire, +clear and decided in his projects for the ordering of his dominions, eager +with the force and determination of twenty-eight years, recognizing no +check to his imperious will and the dictates of his friendship, he chose +Thomas as archbishop, "Matilda dissuading, the kingdom protesting, the +whole Church sighing and groaning." The king, who was then in France, sent +his envoy, Richard de Lucy, to Canterbury to press the essential problem +home in plain words: "If," he said, "the king and the archbishop are +joined together in affection, the state of the Church will still be quiet +and happy; but if the thing should fall out otherwise, what strife may +come from it, what difficulties and tumults, what loss and peril to souls, +I cannot hide from you." The argument prevailed, and in London, in the +presence of the king's little son Henry, then seven years old, Thomas +was chosen archbishop, "the multitude acclaiming with the voice of God +and not of man." The deacon-chancellor was ordained priest on the 2d of +June 1162, and the next day consecrated archbishop by Henry of Winchester. +Two months later John of Salisbury brought him the pall from Pope +Alexander at Montpellier, and for the first time since the Norman +Conquest, a man born on English soil was set at the head of the +English Church. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +THE CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON + +In the January of 1163 Henry once more landed in England. His absence off +our and a half years had given time for dangers and alarms to spring up +in the half-settled realm. Mysterious prophecies passed from mouth to +mouth that the king would never be seen in the island again, and even +Theobald, before his death in 1161, had sent urgent entreaties for his +return. The king had, in fact, during the first eight years of his rule +been mainly occupied in building up his empire, and providing for its +defence against external dangers. He had only twice visited the kingdom, +each time for little more than a year. He was now, however, prepared to +take the work of administration seriously in hand. In the next eighteen +years, from 1163 to 1180, he landed on its shores seven times, and spent +altogether eight years in the country. Once he was busied with the +conquest of Ireland; one visit of a month was spent in crushing a +dangerous rebellion; but with these two exceptions every coming of the +king was marked by the carrying out of some great administrative reform. +In his half-compacted empire order was still only maintained by his +actual presence and the sheer force of his personal authority, as he +hurried from country to country to quell a rising in Gascony or a revolt +in Galloway, to wage war in Wales, to finish the conquest of Britanny or +of Ireland, to order the administration of Poitou or Normandy. But in the +swift and terrible progresses of a king who visited the shires to north +and south and west in the intervals of foreign war, a long series of +experiments as to the best forms of internal government was ceaselessly +carried out, and the new administration securely established. + +Henry, however, was at once met by a difficulty unknown to earlier days. +The system which the Conqueror had established of separate courts for +secular and ecclesiastical business had utterly broken down for purposes +of justice. Until the reign of Stephen much of the business of the +bishops was done in the courts of the hundred and the shire. The Church +courts also had at first been guided by the customary law and traditions +of the early English Church, which had grown up along with the secular +laws and had a distinctly national character. So long, indeed, as the +canon law remained somewhat vague, and the Church courts incomplete, they +could work peaceably side by side with the lay courts; but with the +development of ecclesiastical law in the middle of the twelfth century, +it was inevitable that difficulties should spring up. The boundaries of +civil and ecclesiastical law were wholly uncertain, the scientific study +of law had hardly begun, and there was much debatable ground which might +be won by the most arrogant or the most skilful of the combatants. Every +brawl of a few noisy lads in the Oxford streets or at the gates of some +cathedral or monastic school was enough to kindle the strife as to the +jurisdiction of Church or State which shook medieval society to its +foundation. + +The Church courts not only had jurisdiction over the whole clerical order, +but exercised wide powers even over the laity. To them alone belonged the +right to enforce spiritual penalties, to deal with cases of oaths, +promises, anything in which a man's faith was pledged; to decide as to the +property of intestates, to pronounce in every case of inheritance whether +the heir was legitimate, to declare the law as to wills and marriage. +Administering as they did an enlightened system of law, they profited by +the new prosperity of the country, and the judicial and pecuniary disputes +which came to them had never been so abundant as now. Henry was keenly +alive to the fact that the archdeacons' courts now levied every year by +their fines more money than the whole revenue of the crown. Young +archdeacons were sent abroad to be taught the Roman law, and returned to +preside over the newly-established archdeacons' courts; clergy who sought +high office were bound to study before all things, even before theology, +the civil and canon law. The new rules, however, were as yet incomplete +and imperfectly understood in England; the Church courts were without the +power to put them in force; the procedure was hurried and irregular; the +judges were often ill-trained, and unfit to deal with the mass of legal +business which was suddenly thrown on them; the ecclesiastical authorities +themselves shrank from defiling the priesthood by contact with all this +legal and secular business, and kept the archdeacons in deacons' orders; +the more religious clergy questioned whether for an archdeacon salvation +were possible. In the eight years of Henry's rule one hundred murders had +been committed by clerks who had escaped all punishment save the light +sentences of fine and imprisonment inflicted by their own courts, and +Henry bitterly complained that a reader or an acolyte might slay a man, +however illustrious, and suffer nothing save the loss of his orders. + +Since the beginning of Henry's reign, too, there had been an enormous +increase of appeals to Rome. Questions quite apart from faith or morals, +and that mostly concerned property, were referred for decision to a +foreign court. The great monasteries were exempted from episcopal control +and placed directly under the Pope; they adopted the customs and laws +which found favour at Rome; they upheld the system of appeals, in which +their wealth and influence gave them formidable advantages. The English +Church was no longer as in earlier times distinct from the rest of +Christendom, but was brought directly under Roman influence. The clergy +were more and more separated from their lay fellow citizens; their rights +and duties were determined on different principles; they were governed by +their own officers and judged by their own laws, and tried in their own +courts; they looked for their supreme tribunal of appeal not to the King's +Court, but to Rome; they became, in fact, practically freed from the +common law. + +No king, and Henry least of all, could watch unmoved the first great +body which threatened to stand wholly outside the law of the land; and +the ecclesiastical pretensions of the time were perhaps well matched by +the pretensions of the State. The king had prepared for the coming +conflict by a characteristic act of high-handed imperiousness in the +election of the chancellor-archbishop to carry out his policy. But all +such schemes of imperative despotism were vain. No sooner was Thomas +consecrated than it became plain that his ecclesiastical training would +carry the day against the influence of Henry. As rapidly as he had "thrown +off the deacon" to become the chancellor, so he now went through the +sharper change of throwing off the chancellor to become the archbishop. +With keen political sagacity he at once sought the moral support of the +religious party who had so vehemently condemned his appointment. The +gorgeous ostentation of his old life gave way to an equally elaborate +scheme of saintliness. He threw away with tears his splendid dress to put +on sackcloth and the black cloak of the monk. His table was still covered +with gold and silver dishes and with costly meats, but the hall was now +crowded with the poor and needy, and at his own side sat only the most +learned and holy among the monks and clergy. Forty clerks "most learned +in the law" formed his household. He visited the sick in the infirmary, +and washed the feet of thirteen poor men daily. He sat in the cloister +like one of the monks, studying the canon law and the Holy Scriptures. He +joined their prayers in the Church and took part in their secret councils. +The monks who had suffered under the heavy hand of Theobald, when their +dainty foods were curtailed and their cherished privileges sharply denied +them, hailed joyfully the unexpected attitude of their new master. "This +is the finger of God," men said, "this, indeed, is the work of the right +hand of the Most High." "As he had been accustomed to the pre-eminence +over others in worldly glory," commented another observer, "so now he +determined to be the foremost in holy living." + +Rumours spread that there were to be other changes besides that of "holy +living." The see of Canterbury under the new primate was to win back all +lands and privileges lost during the civil wars, at whatever cost to the +interests of the whole court party, of barons who found their rights to +Church appointments and Church lands questioned, and of clerks of the +royal household who trembled for their posts and benefices. There was +soon no lack of enemies at court, old and new, ready to carry to Henry +whispers that would appeal most subtly to his fears,--whispers that the +royal dignity itself was in danger; that he must look to himself and his +heirs, or the story of Stephen's time would be told over again, and that +man alone would in future be king, whom the clergy should elect and the +archbishop approve. Henry's bitter anger was aroused when Thomas +resigned the chancellorship, "not now wishing to be in the royal court, +but desiring to have leisure for prayers, and to superintend the +business of the Church." The king retorted by forcing Thomas to resign +his archdeaconry with its rich fees; and at his landing in January 1163 +he received the archbishop, who came to meet him, "with averted face." +Thomas, on his part, added another grievance by refusing on ecclesiastical +grounds to allow Henry to marry his brother to Stephen's daughter-in-law, +the Countess of Warenne; and on the general question of the relations of +Church and State, he hastened to define his views with sharp precision in +an eloquent sermon preached before the king. "Henry observing it word by +word, and understanding from it how greatly Thomas put the ecclesiastical +before the civil right, did not receive this doctrine with an equal mind, +for he perceived that the archbishop was far from his own view, that the +Church had neither rights nor possessions save by his favour." The +attitude of Thomas was yet further strengthened and defined when, in May +1163, he went to attend a great Council held at Tours, where he was +brought more immediately under the influence of the ecclesiastical +movement of the day. There he sought, with a meaning that Henry must +clearly have understood, to procure the canonization of Anselm from Pope +Alexander, who, however, was far too politic amid his own difficulties, +and in his need for Henry's help, to commit himself either by consent or +by refusal. + +The inevitable controversy declared itself soon after the return of +Thomas from Tours. Throughout July and August one question after another +was hurried forward for settlement between king and primate. On July 1 +the king proposed a change in the collection of the land tax, which +would have increased the royal revenues at the expense of the revenues +of the shire. Since the Conquest there had never been a single instance +of an attempt to resist the royal will in matters of finance, but Thomas +showed no hesitation. He flatly refused consent to an arbitrary act of +this kind. He made no objection to the payment of the tax, but he was +determined to prevent the local revenues being seized in this way by the +king. His action seems to have been wise and patriotic, and his triumph +was complete. Henry was forced to abandon the scheme. Having awakened +the anger of the king, Thomas next alienated the whole party of the +barons by pressing his demands for the recovery of lands belonging to +his see. Tunbridge, Rochester, now in the custody of the crown itself, +Hythe, Saltwood, and a number of other manors became the subjects of +sharp contention. The archbishop urged a doubtful claim, which he had +inherited from Theobald, to appoint the priest to a church on the land +of William of Eynesford, a tenant of the king. William resisted, and +Thomas made his first false move by excommunicating him. Henry at once +appealed to the "customs" of the kingdom, which forbade such sentence on +the king's barons without the royal consent, and Thomas had to withdraw +his excommunication. "I owe him no thanks for it!" cried the angry king. + +A more serious strife was raised when Thomas came into direct collision +with Henry on the inevitable question of the punishment of clerks for +crime against the common law. If the king was determined to bring about +a fundamental reform in the administration of justice, the Primate was +equally resolute that as archbishop he would have nothing to do with +reforms which he might have countenanced as chancellor. He prudently +sought at first to divert attention from the real issue by increasing +the severity of judgments in the ecclesiastical courts. A clerk had +stolen a chalice; he insisted on his trial in the Church Court, but to +appease the king ordered him to be branded,--a punishment condemned by +ecclesiastical law which considered all injury to the person as defiling +the image of God. Such devices, however, were thrown away on Henry. When +another clerk, Philip de Broc, who had been accused of manslaughter, was +set free by the Church courts, the king's justiciar ordered him to be +brought to a second trial before a lay judge. Philip refused to submit. +The justiciar then charged him with contempt of court for his vehement +and abusive language to the officer who summoned him, but the archbishop +demanded that for this charge, too, he should be tried by ecclesiastical +law. Henry was forced to content himself with sending a detachment of +bishops and clergy to watch the trial. They returned with the news that +the court had refused to reconsider the charge of manslaughter, and had +merely condemned Philip for insolence; he was ordered to make personal +satisfaction to the sheriff, standing (clerk as he was) naked before +him, and submitting to a heavy fine; his prebend was to be forfeited to +the king for two years; for those two years he was to be exiled and his +movable goods were confiscated. + +The punishment might seem severe enough, but Henry would accept no +compromise. With a burst of fury he declared that just judgment for +murder was refused because the offender was in orders. Resolute that the +question should once for all be settled, he summoned a council at +Westminster on October 1. There he demanded, "for love of him and for +safety of the kingdom," that accused clerks should be tried by the +common law, and that if proved guilty, they should be degraded by the +bishops, and given up to the executioner for punishment. He complained +of the exactions of the ecclesiastical courts, and urged that in all +matters concerning these courts or the rights of the clergy, the bishops +should return to the customs of Henry the First. Such a course would +have left them at the king's mercy, and the prelates wavered in their +sore distress. The king's friends contended that a guilty clerk deserved +punishment double that of a layman, and urged the need of submission at +this moment when the Church was torn asunder by schism; and the bishops +frankly admitted a yet more pressing consideration: "For if we do not +what the king wishes," they said, "flight will be cut off from us, and +no man will seek after our souls; but if we consent to the king, we +shall own the sanctuary of God in heredity, and shall sleep safely in +the possession of our churches." On the other hand, the archbishop had +no mind to resign without a contest all the results of the great tide of +feeling which had swept the Church onward far past its old landmarks. +For him there was no going back to a traditional past from which the +Church had shaken itself free, and in which, though king and barons +might see the freedom of the State, he saw the enslaving and degradation +of the clergy. He vehemently asserted that the "customs" of the Church +were of greater authority than any "customs" of the kingdom, that its +canon law claimed obedience as against all traditional national law +whatever; and with keen political insight he insisted on the dangers that +would follow if once they allowed the charm of prescription to be broken, +or the ecclesiastical liberties to be touched. He boldly led the way in +his answer to the king: "We will obey in all things saving our order;" and +as the bishops were asked one by one, they took courage to follow, and +"one voice was in the mouth of all of them." Such a phrase had never been +heard in England before, and Henry, with ready indignation, at once +demanded the withdrawal of the words. When Thomas refused, he broke up the +council in a burst of anger, and suddenly rode away from London, instantly +followed by the whole body of trembling bishops, who hurried after him in +abject terror, "lest before they should be able to catch him up, they +should already have lost their sees." Thomas was left alone--"there was +not one who would know him,"--while the prelates, coming up in time with +their terrible lord, agreed henceforth to guide their words by his good +pleasure. + +From this moment all the elements of strife were prepared, and there was +but outer show of harmony when king and archbishop, a few days later, +joined at Westminster to celebrate with solemn pomp the translation of +the remains of the sainted Confessor. In declaring war upon local +jurisdictions, whether of clergy, or nobles, or burghers, or independent +shire courts, Henry was defying all the traditions and convictions of +his age,--an age when local feeling was a force which we are now quite +unable to measure. The nobles, the guilds, and the rising towns had +already won long before, or were now seeking to win as their most +cherished privilege, the right to their own justice without interference +from any higher power. They naturally looked with sympathy on the rights +exercised by the clergy within their own body; they felt that whatever +had been won by one class might later be won by another, and that +liberties which were enjoyed by so enormous a body as the clerical order +were a benefit in which the whole people had a share. If the king was +determined to wage war on "privilege," clergy and people were equally +resolute to defend "liberty." Moreover, in attacking the special +jurisdiction of the Church, Henry had to encounter a force to which there +is no parallel in our own time. An English king had doubtless less to fear +from the Church than had any continental ruler. Abroad the bishop-stool, +the abbey, the Church, were oases in the midst of perpetual war,--the only +spots where peace and law and justice spoke in protest against the chaos +of the world. But England was, in comparison with the rest of the western +world, a country of peace and law. There the Church was less powerful +against the State because the State had never handed over its duty of +maintaining justice and law and right to the exclusive guardianship of the +Church. None the less it was a formidable matter to rouse the hostility of +a body which included not only all the religious world, but all the +educated classes, and penetrated even to the despised villeinage and the +poor freemen whose sons pressed into its lower ranks. The Church with +which Henry had to deal was no longer the same that the Conqueror had +easily bent to his will. It had received its training and felt its +strength in political action; it had developed a close corporate spirit; +it had an admirable organization; it possessed the most advanced as well +as the most merciful legal system of the age. Its courts had strong claims +to popular regard. Their punishments were more merciful than the savage +sentences of the lay courts; and they held out great advantages to the +rich, since the penances they inflicted could be commuted for money. +Their system of law, moreover, was far in advance of the barbarous rules +of customary law; and they were backed by all the authority of the Roman +Curia and of the religious feeling of the day. + +Henry had, however, peculiar advantages in the contest. He was master of +a disciplined body of ministers and servants, in whom he could confidently +trust. He was sure, in this matter at least, of the support of the lay +baronage, who had long arrears of jealousy to make up against their +hereditary opponents the clergy, and who were not likely now to forget +that no party in the Church had ever made common cause with the feudal +lords. He could count on the obedience of the secular clergy. In France +or Germany the bishops were members of the great houses, and as powerful +local rulers wielded a vast feudal authority. In England their position +was very different. They were drawn from the staff of the king's chapel, +and had their whole training in the administration of the court; and they +formed an official nobility who were charged, in common with the secular +nobility, with the conduct of the general business of the realm. They were +appointed to their places by the king for services done to him, and as +instruments of his policy. Neither Pope nor people had any share in their +election. Their estates were granted them by the same titles, and with the +same obligations as those of feudal barons; the king could withhold their +temporalities, sequestrate their lands, confiscate their personal goods, +and burden them with heavy fines; they lay absolutely at his mercy without +appeal. Every tie of feudal duty, of official training, of prudent +self-interest, forced them into subjection to the Crown. Their Roman +sympathies were quenched as they watched the growing independence of the +monasteries, and saw Church endowments taken to enrich the new religious +houses of every kind which were springing up all over England. They feared +the new authority claimed by legates, which threatened to withdraw the +clergy, if they chose to assert their claims, from regular episcopal +jurisdiction. They were thrown on the side of the king in ecclesiastical +questions, drawn together by a common cause, both alike found their +interest in the defence of national tradition as opposed to foreign +custom. + +Their leaders too looked coldly on the cause of the Primate. The +Archbishop of York, Roger of Pont l'Evêque, once the companion of Thomas +in Theobald's household, was now his personal enemy and rival. The two +prelates inherited the secular strife as to which see should have the +precedence. Moreover, while Canterbury represented the papal policy and +always looked to Rome, York preserved some faint traditional leanings +towards the liberties of the Irish and Scotch churches from whence the +Christianity of the north had sprung. The Bishop of London, Gilbert +Foliot, who, with the approval of Thomas, had been translated from +Hereford only five months before, was, by his mere position, marked out +as the chief antagonist of the archbishop, for St Pauls was at the head +of the whole body of secular clergy throughout southern England, and to +its bishop inevitably fell the leadership of this party against +Canterbury, which was in the hands of a monastic chapter. The Bishop of +Winchester, Henry of Blois, could well remember the struggle between +Church and Crown under a far weaker king twenty six years before, when +the bishops had wisely withdrawn from a contest where they had "seen +swords unsheathed and knew it was no longer a joking matter, but a +struggle of life and death," and with the prudence born of long political +experience he was for moderate counsels. The Bishop of Chichester, Hilary, +doubtless remembered the inconvenient part which Thomas as chancellor had +played in his own trial a few years before, and might gladly recognize a +poetic justice in seeing Thomas's old doctrines of the supremacy of the +State now applied to himself. "Every plant," he once said with taunting +reference to the king's part in Thomas's election, "which my heavenly +Father has not planted shall be rooted up." Thomas bitterly added another +verse as he heard of the saying, "This man had among the brethren the +place of Judas the traitor." There seems to have been a general impression +that the position of the Primate was extremely critical, and he was +besieged by advisers who urged submission, by messengers from pope and +cardinals, by panic-stricken churchmen. Beset on all sides the Primate +wavered, and at last promised to swear obedience to the "customs of the +kingdom." Immediately the king summoned prelates and barons to witness +his submission, and the famous Council of Clarendon met for this purpose +in 1164. + +At Clarendon, however, after three days' conference, the archbishop +hesitated and hung back, he had grievously sinned in yielding, and he +now refused the promised oath. The bishops, finding courage in his +firmness, declared themselves ready to follow him in his refusal. At the +news the fury of the king burst forth, and "he was as a madman in the +eyes of those who stood by." The court broke into wild disorder, the +servants of the king, "with faces more truculent than usual," burst into +the assembly of the prelates, and flinging aside their long cloaks, +flourished their axes aloft, and threatened to strike them into the +heads of the bishops. Two nobles were sent to warn Thomas that orders +for his death were already given unless he would submit. The weeping +bishops with lamentable voices besought him to save them; knights of the +Hospital and the Temple from the king's household knelt before him, +sighing and pouring forth tears. "In fear of death," says one chronicler, +he yielded. "I am ready," he said, "to keep the customs of the kingdom." +Hardly were the words out of his mouth, when Henry commanded him to order +the bishops to give the same promise, and again the Primate obeyed. But +the king was still unsatisfied. His temper had risen in the discussions +of the last few months; his determination was fixed that the matter should +be settled once for all. With the sharp decision of a keen and practical +administrator, he ordered that the "customs of the kingdom" should be +written down, so that no question might ever arise as to the laws which +Thomas had sworn to observe; and "wise men" passed into the next room to +write according to the king's will. They returned with a draft of sixteen +articles, the famous "Constitutions of Clarendon." To these the king +commanded that the Primate should set his seal; but Thomas, agitated by +fear and anxiety, was no longer of the same mind. "By the omnipotent God," +he cried, "while I live, I will never set my seal to it!" Whether he +finally submitted it is impossible now to say. But he left the court with +a last protest. A copy of the writing was torn down the middle, and one +half, after the fashion of the "tallies" of the day, was given to Thomas +in token of his promise, while the other was laid up in the royal +treasury. "I take this," said the archbishop, "not consenting nor +approving," and turning to the clergy: "By this we may know the malice +of the king, and those things which we must beware of." He left the +council and retired to Winchester, where in sackcloth and penance, shut +out from the services of the Church, he condemned himself to wait in +deepest humiliation till he should receive the Pope's absolution for his +momentary betrayal of duty. For years to come a furious battle was to rage +round the sixteen articles drawn up at Clarendon. According to Thomas, the +Constitutions were a mere act of arbitrary violence, a cunning device of +tyranny. He asserted that they were the sole deed of the justiciar +De Lucy, and of Jocelyn de Bailleul, a French lawyer. In any case he +frankly denied the authority of "custom," that tyrannous law of medieval +times. "God never said," writes one of his defenders, "I am Custom, but I +am Truth." Thomas rested his case not on the customary law of the land, +but on the code of Rome; to English tradition he opposed the Italian +lawyers. Henry, on his part, declared that the Constitutions were drawn +up by the common witness of bishops, earls, barons, and wise men; that +they were, in fact, part of a system actually in operation, and which had +been administered by Thomas himself when he was chancellor. It was +certainly a startling novelty to have the customs of the realm drawn up in +a written code to which men were required to swear obedience; but still +the "Constitutions" professed to be no new legislation, but to be simply a +statement of recognized national tradition. The changes that had followed +on the Conquest had modified older customs profoundly. The conditions, not +only of England but of Europe, had changed with confusing rapidity, and it +was no longer easy to say exactly what was "custom" and what was not. To +Henry the Constitutions did fairly represent the system which had grown up +with general consent under the Norman kings. Thomas, on the other hand, +might argue with equal conviction that he was asked to sign as "customs" +what was practically a new code; and he had neither the wisdom nor the +temper to reconcile the dispute by a reasonable compromise. + +No question seems to have been raised as to some of the statutes which +were certainly of recent growth, though they touched Church interests. +One of these repeated unreservedly the assertion that bishops held a +feudal position in all points the same as that of barons or direct +vassals of the king, being bound by all their obligations, and entitled +to sit with them in judgment in the Curia Regis till it came to a +question of blood. Others dealt with disorders which had grown up from +the mutual jealousy of Church and lay courts, and the difficulties thus +thrown in the way of administering laws which were not disputed; rules +were made for the securities to be taken from excommunicated persons; +for the giving up to the king of forfeited goods of felons deposited in +churches or churchyards; and forbidding the ordination of villeins +without their lord's consent,--a provision which possibly was intended +to prevent the withdrawal of an unlimited number of people from secular +jurisdiction. Two other clauses touched upon the new legal remedies, the +use of the jury in the accusation of criminals, and in the decision of +questions of property; it was decreed that laymen should not be accused +in Church courts save by lawful witness, or by the twelve legal +men of the hundred--in other words, by the newly-developed jury of +"presentation"; while the jury of "recognition" was ordered to be used +in disputed titles to ecclesiastical estates. + +The real strife was about the seven remaining statutes, which declared +that an accused clerk must first appear before the king's court, and that +the justiciar should then send a royal officer with him to watch the trial +at the ecclesiastical court, and if he were found guilty the Church should +no longer protect him; that the chief clergy might not leave the realm +without the king's permission; that appeals might not be carried to the +Papal Court without the king's consent; that no tenant-in-chief of the +king might be excommunicated without the leave of the king; that the +revenues of vacant sees should fall to the king, until a new appointment +had been made in his court; that questions of advowsons or presentations +to livings questions which at that time represented comparatively a vast +amount of property--should be tried in the king's court; and that the +king's judges should decide in matters of debt, even where the case +included a question of perjury or broken faith, which was claimed as a +matter for ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Such laws as these were no doubt +in Henry's mind simply part of his scheme for establishing a general order +and one undivided authority in the realm. But they opened very much wider +grounds of dispute between Church and State than the mere question of how +criminal clerks were to be dealt with. They boldly attacked the whole of +the pretensions of the Church; they threatened to rob it of a mass of +financial business, to wrest from its control an enormous amount of +property, to deprive it of jurisdiction in the great majority of criminal +suits, to limit its power of irresponsible self-government, and to prevent +its absorption into the vast organization of the Church of Western +Christendom. They defined the relations of the English Church to the see +of Rome. They established its position as a national Church, and declared +that its clergy should be brought under the rule of national law. + +The eight months which followed the Council of Clarendon were spent in a +vain attempt to solve an insoluble problem. Messengers from king and +archbishop hastened again and again to the Pope, with no result. Henry +set his face like a flint. "_Verba sunt_," he said to a mediating +bishop; "you may talk to me all the days that we both shall live, but +there shall be no peace till the archbishop wins the Pope's consent to +the customs." Fresh cases arose of clerks accused of theft and murder, +but as the personal quarrel between Henry and Thomas increased in +bitterness, questions of reform fell into the background. "I will humble +thee," the king declared, "and will restore thee to the place from +whence I took thee." Thomas, on his part, knew how to awaken all Henry's +secret fears. All Europe was concerned in the dispute of king and +archbishop. The Pope at Sens, the French king, the "eldest son of the +Church," the princes of the House of Blois, as steadfast in their +orthodoxy as in their hatred of the Angevin, the Emperor, ready to use +any quarrel for his own purposes, were all eagerly watching every turn +of the strife. In August Henry was startled by the news that Thomas +himself had fled to seek the protection of the Pope at Sens. He was, +however, recognized by sailors, and carried back to English shores. +Henry immediately dealt his counter-blow. The archbishop was summoned in +September to London to answer in a case which John, the marshal, an +officer of the Exchequer, had withdrawn from the Archbishop's to the +King's Court. Thomas pleaded illness, and protested that the marshal had +been guilty of perjury. The king retorted by calling a council for the +trial of the archbishop on a charge of contempt of the royal summons. +With the insolence of power and the bitter anger of outraged confidence, +Henry heaped humiliations on his enemy. The Primate had a right, by +ancient custom, to be summoned first among the great lords called to the +king's council; he was now merely served with an ordinary notice from +the sheriff of Kent to attend his trial. When he arrived at Northampton +there was no lodging left free for himself and his attendants. The king +had gone out hunting amid the marshes and streams, and only the next +morning met the Primate roughly after mass, and refused him the kiss of +peace. + +In the council which opened in Northampton Castle on Wednesday, 7th +October, we see the Curia Regis in the developed form which it had taken +under Henry and his justiciar, De Lucy, carrying out an exact legal +system, and observing the forms of a very elaborate procedure. The king +and his inner council of the great lords, the prelates, and the officers +of the household, withdrew to an upper chamber of the castle; the whole +company of sheriffs and lesser barons waited in the great hall below +till they were specially summoned to the king's presence, crowding round +the fire that burned in the centre of the hall under the opening in the +roof through which the smoke escaped, or lounging in the straw and +rushes that covered the floor. For seven days the trial dragged on, as +lawyers and bishops and barons anxiously groped their way through +baffling legal problems which had grown out of legislation new and old. +Even the king himself, fiery, imperious, dictatorial, clung with a kind +of superstition to the forms of legal process. The archbishop asked +leave to appeal to the Pope. "You shall first answer in my court for the +injury done to John the marshal," said Henry. The next day, Thursday, +this matter was decided. Bishops and barons alike, lacking somewhat of +the king's daring, shrank at first from the responsibility of pronouncing +judgment. "We are laymen," said the barons; "you are his fellow-priests +and fellow-bishops, and it is for you to declare sentence." "Nay," +answered the bishops, "this is not an ecclesiastical but a secular +judgment, and we sit here not as bishops but as barons; if you heed our +orders you should also take heed of his." The dispute was a critical one, +leading as it did directly to questions about the jurisdiction of the +Curia Regis over ecclesiastical persons, and the obligation asserted in +the Constitutions of Clarendon, that bishops should sit with barons in the +King's Court till it came to a question of blood. The king was seized with +one of his fierce fits of anger, and the discussion "immediately ended." +The unwilling Bishop of Winchester was sent to pronounce sentence of fine +for neglect of the king's summons. Matters then moved quickly. A demand +was made for £300 which Thomas had received from Eye and Berkhampstead +when he was chancellor; and in spite of his defence that it had been spent +in building the palace in London and repairing the castles, judgment went +against him. The next day a further demand was made for money spent in the +war of Toulouse, and this, too, Thomas agreed to pay, though it was now +hard to find sureties. Then the king dealt his last blow. Thomas was +required to account for the sums he had received as chancellor from vacant +sees and abbeys. "By God's eyes," the king swore, when the Primate and the +bishops threw themselves in despair at his feet, he would have the +accounts in full. He would only grant a day's delay for Thomas to take +counsel with his friends. + +By this time there was no doubt of the king's purpose to force upon +Thomas the resignation of his archbishopric. The courtiers and lay +barons no longer thought it expedient to visit him, and the prelates +gave counsel with divided hearts. "Remembering whence the king took +you," said Foliot, "and what he has bestowed on you, and the ruin which +you prepare for the Church and for us all, not only the archbishopric +but ten times as much, if it were possible, you should yield to him. It +may be that seeing in you this humility he may yet restore all." To this +argument Thomas had curt answer. "Enough--it is well enough known how +you, being consulted, would answer!" "You know the king better than we," +urged Hilary of Chichester; "in the chancery, in peace and war, you +served him faithfully, but not without envy. Those who then envied now +excite the king against you. Who dare answer for you? The king has said +that you can no longer both be at one time in England--he as king, you +as archbishop." Henry of Winchester took his stand on the side of +Thomas. "If the authority of the king was to prevail," he argued, "what +remains but that nothing shall henceforth be done according to law, but +all things shall be disturbed for his pleasure--and the priesthood shall +be as the people," he concluded, with a stirring of the churchman's +temper. The Bishop of Exeter added another plea to induce Thomas to +stand firm: "Surely it is better to put one head in peril than to set +the whole Church in danger." Not so, thought the Bishop of Lincoln, "a +simple man and of little discretion;" "for it is plain," he said, "that +this man must yield up either the archbishopric or his life; but what +should be the fruit of his archbishopric to him if his life should +cease, I see not." The Bishop of Worcester, son of the famous Robert of +Gloucester, and Henry's own cousin and playmate in old days took an +eminently prudent course. "I will give no counsel," he said, "for if I +say our charge of souls is to be given up at the king's threats, I +should speak against my conscience, and to my own condemnation; and if I +should advise to resist the king, there are those here who will bring +him word of it, and I shall be cast out of the synagogue, and my lot +shall be with outlaws and public enemies." At last, by the advice of the +politic Henry of Winchester, Thomas offered to pay the king 2000 marks, +but this compromise was refused. He urged that he had been freed at +his consecration from all secular obligations, but the plea was +rejected on the ground that it was done without the king's orders. An +adjournment over Sunday was again granted; but on Monday Thomas was ill, +and unable to attend the Council. Three days had now passed in fruitless +negotiations, and the rising wrath of the king made itself felt. Rumours +of danger grew on all sides, and the archbishop prostrated himself +before the altar in an agony of prayer, "trembling in his whole body," +as he afterwards confessed, less from fear of death than from the more +terrible fear of the savage blinding and cruel punishments of those days. + +But he showed no signs of yielding when on Tuesday morning, the last day +of the Council, the bishops again gathered round him beseeching him +to yield to the king's will. With a fierce outbreak of passionate +reproaches he solemnly forbade them to take part in any further +proceedings against him, and gave formal notice of an appeal to Rome. +Then kneeling before the altar of St. Stephen he celebrated mass, using +the service for St. Stephen's Day with its psalm, "Princes sat and spake +against me,"--"a magical rite," said Foliot, "and an act done in contempt +of the king"-and commended himself to the care of the first Christian +martyr, and of the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, Aelfheah. Still +arrayed in his pontifical robes, he set out for his last ride to the +castle. Of the forty clerks "most learned in the law," who formed his +household, only two ventured to follow him; but "an innumerable +multitude" of people thronged round him as he passed bearing his cross +in his right hand, and followed him to the castle doors with cries of +lamentation, weeping and kneeling for his benediction, for it was spread +abroad that he should that day be slain. The gates were quickly closed in +the face of the tumultuous crowd, and Thomas passed up the great hall, +while the king, hearing of his coming in such dress and fashion, hastily +withdrew to the upper chamber to take counsel with his officers. "A fool +he was, and a fool he always will be," commented Foliot as Thomas entered +with his uplifted cross. "Lord archbishop, thou art ill-advised to enter +thus to the king with sword unsheathed--if now the king should take his +sword, we shall have a well-armed king and a well-armed archbishop!" +--"That we will commit to God," said Thomas. Thus he passed to his seat, +the troubled and perplexed bishops "sitting opposite to him both in place +and in heart." + +Meanwhile the king and his inner council, to which the bishops were +now summoned, were busy discussing what must be done. Henry's position +was one of extreme difficulty, suddenly called on as he was to deal +with a legacy of difficulties which had been left from the unsettled +controversies of a hundred years. By coming to the court in his pontifical +dress Thomas had raised a claim that a bishop could only be tried dressed +in full pontificals by his fellow-bishops also in full dress. He had +thrown aside the king's jurisdiction by his appeal to Rome; and by his +orders to the bishops to judge no further with the barons in this suit +he had further violated the "customs" of the realm to which he had himself +commanded the bishops to swear obedience at Clarendon. None of the +questions raised by Thomas indeed were raised for the first time. William +of St. Carileph, when charged by Rufus with treason, had asserted the +privilege of a bishop to be tried in pontifical dress, and to be judged +only by the canon law in an ecclesiastical court, and had claimed the +right of appeal to Rome. But such doctrines were in those days new and +somewhat doubtful, not supported in any degree by the Church and quite +outside the sympathy of nobles and people, and Lanfranc had easily +eluded the Bishop of Durham's claims. Anselm himself had accepted +a number of points disputed now by Thomas. He frankly admitted the king's +authority in appointing him to the see of Canterbury; he submitted to the +jurisdiction of the King's Court; he made no claims to clerical privileges +or special forms of trial. He had indeed given the first example of a +saving clause in his oath to keep the customs of the kingdom; but the +clause he used, "according to God," was radically different from that of +Thomas, and asserted no different law of obedience for clerk and +for layman. In the reign of Stephen the question of ecclesiastical +jurisdiction ad been raised at the trial of Bishop Roger of Salisbury; but +in this case too the difficulty had been evaded by a temporary expedient, +and the real principle at issue was left untouched. Thomas had in fact +taken up a position which had never been claimed by any great churchman +of the past. The rising tide of ecclesiastical feeling had swept him on +far beyond any of his predecessors. Not even in Anselm's time had the +people in an ecstasy of religious fervour pressed to the gate of the +judgment hall and knelt for the blessing of the saint with a passion of +sympathy and devotion. No problem of such proportions in the relations of +Church and State had ever before presented itself to a king of England. + +Henry's first step was to send orders to the archbishop to withdraw his +appeal to Rome and his prohibition to the bishops to proceed in the +trial, and to submit to the King's Court in the matter of the chancery +accounts. Secret friends in the Council sent the archbishop strange +warnings. Henry, some said, was planning his death; according to others +the royal officers were laying plots for it secretly, "the king knowing +nothing." A new access of panic seized the bishops. "If he should be +captured or slain what remains to us but to be cast out of our offices +and honours to everlasting shame!" With faces of abject terror they +surrounded Thomas, and the Bishop of Winchester implored him to resign +his see. "The same day and the same hour," he answered, "shall end my +bishopric and my life." "Would to God," cried Hilary, "that thou wert +and shouldst remain only Thomas without any other dignity whatever!" +But Thomas refused all compromise; he had not been summoned to answer +in this cause; he had already suffered against law for men of Kent and +of the sea-border charged with the defence of the coast might be fined +only one-third as much as the inland men; at his consecration, too, he +had been freed from any responsibility incurred as chancellor; he asserted +his right of appeal; and he had meanwhile forbidden the bishops to judge +him in any charge that referred to the time before he was Primate. +Silently the king's messenger returned with his answer. "Behold, we have +heard the blasphemy of prohibition out of his mouth!" cried the barons +and officers, and courtiers turning their heads and throwing sidelong +glances at him, whispered loudly that William who had conquered England, +and even Geoffrey of Anjou, had known how to subdue clerks. + +On hearing the message the king at once ordered bishops and barons to +proceed to the trial of the Primate for this new act of contempt of the +King's Court. "In a strait place you have put us," Hilary broke out +bitterly to Thomas, "by your prohibition you have set us between the +hammer and the anvil!" In vain they again entreated Thomas to yield; in +vain they begged the king's leave to sit apart from the barons. Even the +Archbishop of York and Foliot sought anxiously for some escape from +obeying Henry's orders, and at the head of the bishops prayed that they +might themselves appeal to Rome, and thus deal with their own special +grievances against Thomas, who had ordered them to swear and then to +forswear themselves. To this Henry agreed, and from this time the +prelates sat apart, no longer forced to join in the proceedings of the +lay lords; while Henry added to the Council certain sheriffs and lesser +barons "ancient in days." The assembly thus remodelled formally condemned +the archbishop as a traitor, and the earls of Leicester and of Cornwall +were sent to pronounce judgment. But the sentence was never spoken. Thomas +sprang up, cross in hand, and passionately forbade Leicester to speak. +"How can you refuse to obey," said Leicester, "seeing you are the king's +man, and hold your possessions as a fief from him?" "God forbid!" said +Thomas; "I hold nothing whatever of him in fief, for whatever the Church +holds it holds in perpetual liberty, not in subjection to any earthly +sovereignty whatever.... I am your father, you princes of the palace, +lay powers, secular persons; as gold is better than lead, so is the +spiritual better than the lay power.... By my authority I forbid you to +pronounce the sentence." As the nobles retired the archbishop raised his +cross: "I also withdraw," he said, "for the hour is past." Cries of +"Traitor!" followed him down the hall. Knights and barons rushed after him +with bundles of straw and sticks snatched up from the floor, and a clamour +rose "as if the four parts of the city had been given to flames and the +assault of enemies." He made his way slowly through the weeping crowd +outside to the monastery of St. Andrews. That night he fled from +Northampton. The darkness was "as a covering" to him, and a terrible storm +and pelting rain hid the sound of his horse's feet as he passed at +midnight through the town, and out by an unguarded gate to the north. At +dawn of day the anxious Henry of Winchester came to ask for news. "He is +doing well," Thomas's servant whispered in his ear, "for last night he +went away from us, and we do not know whither he has gone." "By the +blessing of God!" cried the bishop, weeping and sighing. When the news was +brought to the king he stood speechless for some moments, choked by his +fury, till at last catching his breath, "We have not done with him yet!" +he exclaimed. + +It seemed, indeed, as though the Council of Northampton had brought +nothing but failure and disaster. The king's whole scheme of reform +depended on the ruin or the submission of the Primate, who was its open +and formidable opponent. But Thomas was free and was now more dangerous +than ever. The Church was alarmed, suspicious, perplexed. It was not ten +years since Henry had made his first journey round the kingdom with +Archbishop Theobald at his side, as the king chosen and appointed by the +spiritual power to put down violence and repress a lawless baronage. But +now he could no longer look for the aid of the Church; all dream of +orderly legislation seemed over. Amid all his violence, however, the +king's sincere attempt to maintain the outward authority of law made of +the Council of Northampton a great event in our constitutional history. +It showed that the rule of pure despotism was over. A new step was taken +too in the political education of the nation. Thrown back on the support +of his own officials and of the baronage, Henry used the nobles as he +had once used the Church. Greater and lesser barons sat together in the +King's Council for the first time when Henry summoned sheriffs and +knights from the hall of Northampton Castle to the inner council +chamber. He taught the nobles their strength when he called the whole +assembly of his barons to discuss questions of spiritual jurisdiction. +It was at Northampton that he gave them their first training in political +action--a training whose full results were seen half a century later in +the winning of Magna Charta. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE ASSIZE OF CLARENDON + +The flight of the archbishop marked the opening of a new phase in the +struggle. Thomas sought refuge at the Papal Court at Sens. There +kneeling at Alexander's feet, and surrounded by weeping cardinals, he +delivered into the Pope's hands the written "customs" which had been +forced upon him at Clarendon, and resigned the see of Canterbury to +receive it back again with all honour. Alexander had indeed but limited +sympathy with the fiery zealot, but he had practically no choice of +action in face of the resistance with which the clergy would have met +any sacrifice of ecclesiastical to secular authority. For two years at a +monastery in Pontigny then for four at Sens, the archbishop lived the +life of an austere Cistercian monk, edifying the community with his +fastings, scourgings, and prayers. The canon law again became his +constant study, and throughout the churches of Gaul he sought for books +which might be copied for the library at Canterbury. He was soon +fortified with visions of martyrdom, and prepared himself fitly to +fulfil this glorious destiny. Nor did he forget the uses of political +intrigue; it was easy to enlist on his side the orthodoxy of the French +king and of the house of Blois; and the intimate knowledge which he had +of his master's continental policy was henceforth at the disposal of the +hereditary enemies of Henry. A tumult of political alarms filled the +air. Ambassadors from both sides hurried to every court, to the Emperor, +the Pope, the King of France, the Count of Flanders, the Empress Matilda +at Rouen. It was the beginning of six years of incessant diplomatic +intrigue, and of almost ceaseless war. The conflict, transferred from +England to France, rapidly widened into a strife, not now for the +maintenance of the king's authority in England, but for his actual +supremacy over the whole empire. Instead of the great questions of +principle which had given dignity to the earlier stages of the dispute, +the quarrel sank into a bitter personal wrangle, an ignoble strife which +left to later generations no great example, no fruitful precedent, no +victory won for liberty or order, for Church or State. + +The Constitutions of Clarendon two years before had lain down the +principles which were to regulate the relations in England of Church and +State. The Assize of Clarendon laid down the principles on which the +administration of justice was to be carried out. Just as Henry had +undertaken to bring Church courts and Church law under the king's +control, so now he aimed at bringing all local and rival jurisdictions +whatever into the same obedience. In form the new law was simple enough. +It consisted of twenty-two articles which were drawn up for the use of +the judges who were about to make their circuits of the provinces. The +first articles described the manner in which criminals were to be +"presented" before the justices or sheriff. The accusation was to be +made by "juries," composed of twelve men of the hundred and four men of +the township; the "presentment" of a criminal by a jury such as this +practically implied that the man was held guilty by the public report of +his own neighbourhood, and he was therefore forbidden such chance of +escape as compurgation or the less dangerous forms of ordeal might have +afforded, and was sent to the almost certain condemnation of the ordeal +by water; if by some rare fortune he should escape from this alive he +was banished from the kingdom as a man of evil reputation. All freemen +were ordered to attend the courts held by the justices. The judges were +given power to enter on all estates of the nobles, to see that the men +of the manor were duly enrolled under the system of "frank-pledge," in +groups of ten men bound to answer for one another as "pledges" for all +purposes of police. Strict rules were made to prevent the possible +escape of criminals. The sheriffs were ordered to aid one another in +carrying the hue and cry after them from one country to another; no +"liberty" or "honour" might harbour a malefactor against the king's +officers; sheriffs were to give to the justices in writing the names of +all fugitives, so that they might be sought through all England; +everywhere jails, in which doubtful strangers or suspected rogues might +be shut up for safe keeping in case the "hue and cry" should be raised +after them, were to be made or repaired with wood from the king's or the +nearest landowner's domains; no man might entertain a stranger for whom +he would not be answerable before the justices; the old English law was +again repeated in the very words of ancient times, that none might take +into his house a waif or wanderer for more than one night unless he or +his horse were sick; and if he tarried longer he must be kept until he +were redeemed by his lord or could give safe pledges; no religious house +might receive any of the mean people into their body without good +testimony as to character unless he were sick unto death; and heretics +were to be treated as outlaws. These last indeed were not very plentiful +in England, and the over-anxious legislators seem only to have had in +view a little band of German preachers, who had converted one woman, and +who had themselves at a late council at Oxford been branded, flogged, +and driven out half-naked, so that there was by this time probably not +one who had not perished in the cold. + +Such was the series of regulations that opened the long course of +reforms by which English law has been built up. Two judges were sent +during the next spring and summer through the whole of England. The +following year there was a survey of the forests, and in 1168 another +circuit of the shires was made by the barons of the Exchequer. Year by +year with unbroken regularity the terrible visitation of the country by +the justices went on. The wealth of the luckless people poured into the +king's treasury; the busy secretaries recorded in the Rolls a mass of +profits unknown to the accounts of earlier days. The great barons who +presided over the Shire courts found themselves practically robbed of +power and influence. The ordinary courts fell into insignificance beside +those summoned by the king's judges, thronged as they were with the +crowd of rich and poor, trembling at the penalty of a ruinous fine for +non-attendance or full of a newly-kindled hope of justice. Important +cases were more and more withdrawn from the sheriffs and given to the +justices. They entered the estates of the nobles, even the franchises, +liberties, and manors which had been freed from the old courts of the +shire or hundred; they reviewed their decisions and interfered with their +judgments. It is true that the system established in principle was but +gradually carried into effect, and the people long suffered the tyranny +of lords who maintained their own prisons. Half a century later we find +sturdy barons setting up their tumbrils and gallows. In the reign of +Edward I. there were still thirty-five private gallows in Berkshire +alone, and when one of them was by chance or age broken down, and the +people refused to set it up again, the baron could still make shift with +the nearest oak. But as a system of government, feudalism was doomed from +the day of Henry's Assize, and only dragged out a lingering existence +till the legislation of Edward I. dealt it a final blow. + +The duties of police were at that time performed by the whole population, +and the judges' circuits brought home sharply to every man the part he +was expected to play in the suppression of crime. Juries were fined if +they had not "presented" a due amount of criminals; townships were fined +if they had not properly pursued malefactors; villages were fined if a hut +was burned down and the hue and cry was not raised, or if a criminal who +had fled for refuge to their church escaped from it. A robber or murderer +must be paid for by his "pledge," or if he had no pledge, a fine fell on +his village or township; if a dead body were found and the slayer not +produced, the hundred must pay for him, unless a legal form, called +"proving his Englishry," could be gone through--a condition which was +constantly impossible; the township was fined if the body had been buried +before the coming of the coroner; abbot or knight or householder was +heavily taxed for every crime of serf or hired servant under him, or even +for the offences of any starving and worn-out pilgrim or traveller to +whom he had given a three days' shelter.. In the remotest regions of the +country barons and knights and freeholders were called to aid in carrying +out the law. The "jurors" must be ready at the judges' summons wherever +and whenever they were wanted. They must be prepared to answer fully for +their district; they must expect to be called on all sorts of excuses to +Westminster itself, and no hardships of the journey from the farthest +corner of the land might keep them back. The "knights of the shire" were +summoned as "recognitors" to give their testimony in all questions of +property, public privilege, rights of trade, local liberties, exemption +from taxes; if the king demanded an "aid" for the marriage of his daughter +or the coming of age of his son, they assessed the amount to be paid; if +he wanted to count an estate among the royal Forests, it was they who +decided whether the land was his by ancient right. They were employed +too in all kinds of business for the Court; they might be sent to +examine a criminal who had fled to the refuge of a church, or to see +whether a sick man had appointed an attorney, or whether a litigant who +pleaded illness was really in bed without his breeches. If in any case +the verdict of the Shire Court was disputed, they were summoned to +Westminster to repeat the record of the county. No people probably ever +went through so severe a discipline or received so efficient a training +in the practical work of carrying out the law, as was given to the +English people in the hundred years that lay between the Assize of +Clarendon in 1166 and the Parliament summoned by De Montfort in 1265, +where knights from every shire elected in the county court were called +to sit with the bishops and great barons in the common Parliament of the +realm. + +In the pitiless routine of their work, however, the barons of the +Exchequer were at this early time scarcely regarded as judges administering +justice so much as tax-gatherers for a needy treasury. Baron and churchman +and burgher alike saw every question turn to a demand of money to swell +the royal Hoard; jurors were fined for any trifling flaw in legal +procedure; widows were fined for leave to marry, guardians for leave to +receive their wards; if a peasant were kicked by his horse, if in fishing +he fell from the side of his boat, or if in carrying home his eels or +herrings he stumbled and was crushed by the cart-wheel, his wretched +children saw horse or boat or cart with its load of fish which in older +days had been forfeited as "deodand" to the service of God, now carried +off to the king's Hoard; if a miller was caught in the wheel of his mill +the sheriff must see the price of it paid to the royal treasury. In the +country districts where coin was perhaps scarcely ever seen, where +wages were unknown, and such little traffic as went on was wholly a +matter of barter, the peasants must often have been put to the greatest +straits to find money for the fines. Year after year baron as well as +peasant and farmer saw his waggons and horses, or his store of honey, +eggs, loaves, beer, the fish from his pond or the fowls from his yard, +claimed by the purveyors who provided for the judges and their followers, +and paid for by such measures and such prices as seemed good to the greedy +contractors. The people at large groaned under the heavy burden of fines +and penalties and charges for the maintenance of an unaccustomed justice. +When in the visitations of 1168 the judges had to collect, besides the +ordinary dues, an "aid" for the marriage of the king's eldest daughter, +the unhappy tax-payers, recognizing in their misery no distinctions, +attributed all their sufferings to the new reform, and saw in their king +not a ruler who desired righteous judgment, but one who only thirsted +after gain. The one privilege which seemed worth fighting for or worth +buying was the privilege of assessing their own fines and managing their +own courts. Half a century later we see the prevailing terror at a visit +of the judges to Cornwall, when all the people fled for refuge to the +woods, and could hardly be compelled or persuaded to come back again. +Yet later the people won a concession that in time of war no circuits +should be held, so that the poor should not be utterly ruined. + +Oppression and extortion had doubtless been well known before, when the +sheriff carried on the administration of the law side by side with the +lucrative business of "farming the shires;" but it was at least an +irregular and uncertain oppression. The sheriff might himself at any +moment share the fate of one of his own victims and a more merciful man +stand in his place; in any case bribes were not unavailing, and there +was still an appeal to the king's justice. But against the new system +there was no appeal; it was orderly, methodical, unrelenting; it was +backed by the whole force of the kingdom; it overlooked nothing; it +forgot nothing; it was comparatively incorruptible. The lesser courts, +with their old clumsy procedure, were at a hopeless disadvantage before +the professional judges, who could use all the new legal methods. If a +man suffered under these there was none to plead his cause, for in all +the country there was not a single trained lawyer save those in the +king's service. However we who look back from the safe distance of seven +hundred years may see with clearer vision the great work which was done +by Henry's Assize, in its own day it was far from being a welcome +institution to our unhappy forefathers. There was scarcely a class in +the country which did not find itself aggrieved as the king waged war +with the claims of "privilege" to stand above right and justice and truth. +But all resistance of turbulent and discontented factions was vain. +The great justiciars at the head of the legal administration, De +Lucy and Glanville, steadily carried out the new code, and a body of +lawyers was trained under them which formed a class wholly unknown +elsewhere in Europe. Instead of arbitrary and inflicting decisions, +varying in every hundred and every franchise according to the fashion of +the district, the judges of the Exchequer or Curia Regis declared +judgments which were governed by certain general principles. The +traditions of the great administrators of Henry's Court were handed down +through the troubled reigns of his sons; and the whole of the later +Common law is practically based on the decisions of two judges whose +work was finished within fifty years of Henry's death, and whose labours +formed the materials from which in 1260 Bracton drew up the greatest +work ever written on English law. + +There was, in fact, in all Christendom no such system of government or +of justice as that which Henry's reforms built up. The king became the +fountain of law in a way till then unknown. The later jealousy of the +royal power which grew up with the advance of industrial activity, with +the growth of public opinion and of its means of expressing itself, with +the development of national experience and national self-dependence, had +no place in Henry's days, and had indeed no reason for existence. The +strife for the abolition of privileges which in the nineteenth century +was waged by the people was in the twelfth century waged by the Crown. +In that time, if in no other, the assertion of the supreme authority of +the king meant the assertion of the supreme authority of a common law; +and there was, in fact, no country in Europe where the whole body of the +baronage and of the clergy was so early and so completely brought into +bondage to the law of the land. Since all courts were royal courts, +since all law was royal law, since no justice was known but his, and its +conduct lay wholly in the hands of his trained servants, there was no +reason for the king to look with jealousy on the authority exercised by +the law over any of his officers or servants. It may possibly be due to +this fact that in England alone, of all countries in the world, the +police, the civil servants, the soldiers, are tried in the same courts +and by the same code as any private citizen; and that in England and +lands settled by English peoples alone the Common law still remains the +ultimate and only appeal for every subject of the realm. + +But the power which was taken from certain privileged classes and put in +the hands of the king was in effect by Henry's Assize given back to the +people at large. Foreigner as he was, Henry preserved to Englishmen an +inheritance which had been handed down from an immemorial past, and +which had elsewhere vanished away or was slipping fast into forgetfulness. +According to the Roman system, which in the next century spread over +Europe, all law and government proceeded directly from the king, and the +subject had no right save that of implicit obedience; the system of +representation and the idea of the jury had no place in it. Teutonic +tradition, on the other hand, looked upon the nation as a commonwealth, +and placed the ultimate authority in the will of the whole people; the +law was the people's law--it was to be declared and carried out in the +people's courts. At a very critical moment, when everything was shifting, +uncertain, transitional, Henry's legislation established this tradition +for England. By his Assize Englishmen were still to be tried in their +ancient courts. Justice was to be administered by the ancient machinery +of shire-moot and hundred-moot, by the legal men of hundred and township, +by the lord and his steward. The shire-moot became the king's court in +so far as its president was a king's judge and its procedure regulated +by the king's decree; but it still remained the court of the people, to +which the freemen gathered as their fathers had done to the folk-moot, +and where judgment could only be pronounced by the verdict of the +freeholders who sat in the court. The king's action indeed was determined +by a curious medley of chance circumstances and rooted prejudices. The +canon law was fast spreading over his foreign states, and wherever the +canon law came in the civil law followed in its train. But in England +local liberties were strong, the feudal system had never been completely +established, insular prejudice against the foreigner and foreign ways was +alert, the Church generally still held to national tradition, the king +was at deadly feud with the Primate, and was quite resolved to have no +customs favoured by him brought into the land; his own absolute power +made it no humiliation to accept the maxim of English lawyers that "the +king is under God and the law." So it happened that while all the other +civilized nations quietly passed under the rule of the Roman code England +alone stood outside it. From the twelfth century to the present day the +groundwork of our law has been English, in spite of the ceaseless +filtering in of the conceptions and rules of the civil law of Rome. +"Throughout the world at this moment there is no body of ten thousand +Englishmen governed by a system of law which was not fashioned by +themselves." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +THE STRIFE WITH THE CHURCH + +The Assize of Clarendon was drawn up in February 1166, and in March +Henry sailed for France. Trouble awaited him there on every hand, +and during the next two years he had to meet no less than thirteen +revolts or wars. Aquitaine declared against the imperial system; loud +complaints were raised of Henry's contempt of old franchises and +liberties, and of the "officers of a strange race" who violated the +customs of the country by orders drawn up in a foreign tongue--the +_langue d'oil_, the speech of Norman and Angevin. Maine, Touraine, +and Britanny were in chronic revolt. The Welsh rose and conquered +Flint. The King of Scotland was in treaty with France. Warring parties +in Ireland claimed Henry's interference. England was uneasy and +discontented. Louis of France was allied with all Henry's enemies +--Gascons, Bretons, Welsh and Scotch; he aided the Count of Flanders and +the Count of Boulogne in preparing a fleet of six hundred ships to attack +the southern coast of England. The Pope's attitude was cautious and +uncertain. When Barbarossa's armies were triumphant in Italy, when +Henry's Italian alliances were strong and his bribes were big, Alexander +leaned to the king; when success again returned to Rome he looked with +more effectual favour on the demands of the archbishop. The rising tide +of disaffection tried the king sorely. It was in vain that he sought to +win over the leaders of the ecclesiastical party, the canon lawyers, +such as John of Salisbury, or Master Herbert of Bosham, with whom he +argued the point at his Easter Court at Angers. John of Salisbury flatly +rejected the Constitutions, declaring that his first obedience was due +to the Pope and the archbishop. Herbert was yet more defiant. "Look how +this proud fellow comes!" said Henry, as the stately Herbert entered in +his splendid dress of green cloth of Auxerre, with a richly trimmed +cloak hanging after the German fashion to his heels. He was no true +servant to the king, declared Herbert when he had seated himself, who +would allow him to go astray. As for the customs, there were bad enough +customs in other countries against the Church of God, but at least they +were not written down either in the lands of the King of France or of +the King of the Germans. "Why do you diminish his dignity?" hastily +demanded the king, "by not calling him the Emperor of the Germans?" +"The King of the Germans he is," retorted Herbert, "though when he writes, +he signs Imperator Romanorum semper Augustus_.'" "Shame!" cried the king, +"here is an outrage! Why should this son of a priest disturb my kingdom +and disquiet my peace?" "Nay," said Herbert, "I am not the son of a +priest, for it was after my birth my father became a priest; neither +is he the son of a king save one whom his father begat being king." +"Whosesoever son he may be," cried a baron who sat by, "I would give the +half of my land that he were mine!" Henry heard the words bitterly, and +held his peace; and in a few moments ordered the intractable Herbert +to depart. + +The strife between Church and State was, in fact, taking every day a new +harshness. Gregory VII. a century earlier had suggested that kingly +power was of diabolic origin. "Who is ignorant that kings and princes +have their beginning in this, that knowing not God, they by rapine, +perfidy, and slaughter, the devil moving them, affect rule over their +equals-that is, over men, with blind greed and intolerable presumption." +But the papal theory of a vast Christian republic of all peoples, under +the leadership of Rome, found little favour with the kings of the rising +states which were beginning to shape themselves into the great powers of +modern Europe. Henry, steeped in the new temper, proposed a rival theory +of the origin of government. "Thou," he wrote to the Pope, "by the papal +authority granted thee by men, thinkest to prevail over the authority of +the royal dignity committed to me by God." The wisest of the churchmen of +England used more sober language than all this. "Ecclesiastical +dignity," wrote Ralph of Diceto, later the Dean of St. Paul's, "rather +advances than abolishes royal dignity, and the royal dignity is wont +rather to preserve than to destroy ecclesiastical liberty, for kings +have no salvation without the Church, nor can the Church obtain peace +without the protection of the king." To the fiery zeal of the archbishop, +on the other hand, the secular power was as "lead" compared to the fine +"gold" of the spiritual dignity. Henry, he cried loudly, was a "tyrant"-a +word which to medieval ears meant not an arbitrary or capricious ruler, +since that was the admitted right of every ruler, but a king who governed +without heeding the eternal maxims of the "law of nature," an idea which +theologians had borrowed from the theories of the ancient law of Rome, +and modified to mean the law of Scripture or of the Church. But in the +arguments of Thomas this law took the narrowest proportions, with no wider +interpretation than that given by the pedantic temper of a fanatical +ecclesiastical politician. He fought his battles too often by violent +and vulgar methods, and Henry reaped the profit of his errors. How far +our national solution of the problem raised between Church and State might +have been altered or delayed if the claims of the Church had at this +moment been represented by a leader of supreme moral and spiritual +authority, it is hard to say. But Thomas was far from being at the highest +level of his own day in religious thought. When some years later the holy +Hugh of Lincoln forbade his archdeacons and their officers to receive +fines instead of inflicting penance for crimes, he was met by the +objection that the blessed archbishop and martyr Thomas himself had taken +fines. "Believe me," said Hugh, "not for that was he a saint; he showed +other marks of holiness, by another title he won the martyr's palm." + +In the spring of 1166 Thomas was appointed Papal Legate for England, and +he at once used his new authority to excommunicate in June all the +king's chief agents--Richard of Ilchester, John of Oxford, Richard de +Lucy, Jocelyn of Bailleul--while the king himself was only spared for +the moment that he might have a little space for repentance. Rumour +asserted too that the Primate acted as counsellor to the foreign enemies +of England, declaring that he would either restore himself to his see or +take away Henry's crown. He saw with delight the growing irritation of +England under its sufferings after the Assize of Clarendon; ancient +prophecies of Merlin's which foretold disaster were on his lips, and he +grew yet more defiant in his sense of the king's impending ruin. The +pride and temper of Henry kept pace with those of Thomas. He became more +and more fierce and uncompromising. In answer to the excommunications he +forced the Cistercians in 1166, by threats of vengeance in England, to +expel Thomas from Pontigny. When papal legates arrived in 1167 with +proposals for mediation, he bluntly expressed his hope that he might +never see any more cardinals. His political activity was unceasing. He +completed the conquest of Britanny, and concluded a treaty of marriage +between his son Geoffrey and its heiress Constance. The Count of Blois +was won at a cost of £500 a year. Mortain was bought from the Count of +Boulogne. "Broad and deep ditches were made between France and Normandy." +A frontier castle was raised at Beauvoir. His second son Richard, then +twelve years old, was betrothed to Louis's daughter Adela; and his +daughter Eleanor to the King of Castile. He secured the friendship of +Flanders. He was busy building up a plan of Italian alliances and securing +the passes over the Alps. Milan, Parma, Bologna, Cremona, the Marquis of +Montferrat, the barons of Rome, all were won by his lavish pay. The +alliance of Sicily was established by the betrothal of his daughter with +its king. The states of the Pope were being gradually hemmed in between +Henry's allies to north and south. The threat of an imperial alliance was +added to hold his enemies in awe. In the spring of 1168 his eldest +daughter was married to the Emperor's cousin, Henry the Lion, the national +hero of Germany, second only to Barbarossa in power, Duke of Bavaria, Duke +of Saxony, Lord of Brunswick, and of vast estates in Northern Germany, +with claims to the inheritance of Tuscany and of the Lombard possessions +of the House of Este. For the purpose of a judicious threat, he even +entertained an imperial embassy which promised him armed help and urged +him to recognize the anti-Pope, whose first act, as both Henry and Thomas +well understood, would have been the deposition of the archbishop. + +At last the moment seemed come, not only to win a peace with France, but +to carry out a long-cherished scheme for the ordering of the Angevin +Empire. He met the King of France at Montmirail on the feast of the +Epiphany, January 6, 1169, and the mighty Angevin ruler bowed himself +before his feebler suzerain lord to renew his homage. "On this day, my +lord king, on which the three kings offered gifts to the King of kings, +myself, my sons, and my land, I commend to your keeping." His continental +estates were divided among his sons, to be held under his supreme +authority. The eldest, Henry, who had in 1160 done homage to Louis for +Normandy, now did homage for Anjou, Maine, and Britanny. Richard received +Aquitaine, and Geoffrey was set over Britanny under his elder brother as +overlord. This division of Henry's dominions by no means implied any +intention on the king's part of giving up the administration of the +provinces. It was but the first step towards the realization of his +imperial system, by which he was to reign as supreme lord, surrounded by +the sub-rulers of his various provinces. Harassed as he had been with +ceaseless wars, from the Welsh mountains to the Pyrenees, he might well +believe that such a system would best provide for the defence of his +unwieldy states; "When he alone had the rule of his kingdom," as he said +later, "he had let nothing go of his rights; and now, when many were +joined in the government of his lands, it would be a shame that any part +of them were lost." In the difficulties of internal administration the +system might prove no less useful. That any serious difference of interest +could arise between himself and the sons whom he loved "more than a +father," Henry could never, then or afterwards, believe. He rather +trusted that a wise division of authority between them might secure +the administrative power in the royal house, and prevent the growth of +excessive influence among his ministers. But for all his hopes, the +treaty of Montmirail was in fact a crowning triumph for France; it was +virtually the first breaking up of the Empire, and had in it the seeds +of Henry's later ruin. + +There was another side to the treaty. Henry and Thomas met at Montmirail +for the first time since the council of Northampton over four years +before, to renew a quarrel in which no terms of peace were possible. The +old hopeless dispute raged afresh, the king demanding a vow to obey the +"customs of the kingdom," Thomas insisting on his clause "saving my +order," "saving the honour of God." The former weary negotiations began +again; new envoys hurried backwards and forwards; interminable letters +argued the limits of the temporal and spiritual powers in phrases which +lost nothing of their arrogance from the fact that neither side +had the power to enforce their claims. The Primate would have no +counsels. "Believe me," Thomas wrote of Henry, "who know the manners +of the man, he is of such a disposition that nothing but punishment can +mend." He excommunicated the bishops of London and Salisbury and a number +of clerks and laymen, till in the chapel of the king there was scarcely +one who was able to give him the kiss of peace. Henry "shook with fear," +according to the boast of Thomas, at the excommunications. In vain the +Pope sought to moderate his zeal. In the summer of 1169 two legates were +sent to settle the dispute, of whom one was pledged to the king and the +other to the archbishop. Henry, like every one else, saw the futility of +their mission, and "led them for a week," as one of them complained, +"through many windings both of road and speech." With a scornful taunt +that "he did not care an egg for them and their excommunications," he +finally mounted his horse to ride off from the conference. "I see, +I see!" he said to the frightened bishops who hurried after him to call +him back; "they will interdict my land, but surely I who can take the +strongest of castles in any single day, shall I not avail to scotch a +single clerk if he should interdict my land!" When a compromise seemed +possible, he suddenly added to the form of peace he had proposed +the words, "saving the dignity of my kingdom." This broke off all +negotiations. "The dignity of the kingdom," said Thomas, "was only a +softer name for the Constitutions of Clarendon." "If the king," said John +of Salisbury, "had obtained the insertion of this clause, he had +carried the royal customs, only changing the name." A new attempt at +reconciliation was made in November at Montmartre, but Henry refused to +give the Primate the "kiss of peace," which in feudal custom was the +binding sign of perfect friendship; and when the Pope thought to compel +his submission, first by threats and promises, then by a formal threat of +interdict, he answered by despatching very decided orders to England. +Anyone who carried an interdict to England was to suffer as a traitor; all +clerks were summoned home from abroad; none might leave the kingdom +without an order from the king; if any man should observe an interdict he +was to be banished with all his kindred. All appeal to Pope or archbishop +was forbidden; no mandate might be carried to Pope or archbishop; if any +man favoured Pope or archbishop his goods and those of his kindred should +be confiscated. All subjects of the realm, from boys to old men, must +swear obedience to these articles. + +But if Henry had long been used to see his mere will turn into absolute +law, he had now reached a point where the submission of his subjects +broke down. The laity indeed obeyed, but the clergy, with the Archbishop +of York at their head, absolutely refused to abjure obedience to Pope +and Primate. Throughout the strife the leading clergy had sought to +avoid taking sides, but as the king's attitude became more and more +arbitrary, a steady undercurrent of resistance made itself felt. As +early as 1166 the king's officer, Richard of Ilchester, sought counsel +of Ralph of Diceto as to the duty of observing his excommunication by +Thomas. The answer shows the nobler influence of the Church in maintaining +the rigid rule of law as opposed to arbitrary government, and its large +sense that general order was to be preferred to private good. He laid down +that an archbishop's spiritual rights are indestructible; that in all +cases submission to law was the highest duty; and that it was better +humbly to accept even a harsh sentence than to set an evil example of +disobedience by which others might be led to their ruin. In 1167 the +clergy had been called to London to swear fealty to the anti-Pope; but +"as the bishops refused to take so detestable an oath against God and the +Pope, this unlawful and wicked business came to an end." The bishops had +obeyed the excommunication of Foliot by the Primate; they had refused to +join in his appeal to Rome or to hold communion with him. It now seemed as +though in this last decree of 1169 Henry had reached the limits of his +authority over the Church, and it may be that some sense of peril +induced him at the Pope's orders to summon Thomas to Normandy to renew +negotiations for the peace of Montmartre. But the meeting never took +place. Before Thomas could reach Caen he was stopped by news that Henry +had suddenly left for England. In the midst of a terrible storm the king +crossed the Channel on the 3rd of March 1170, and barely escaping with his +life, landed at Portsmouth after four years' absence. + +So sudden was his journey that a rumour spread that he had fled over sea +to avoid the interdict proclaimed by Thomas. But during his absence +trouble had been steadily growing in England. In his sore straits for +money during these last years, Henry could not always be particular as +to means. Jews were robbed and banished; the bishopric of Lincoln was +added to the half-dozen sees already vacant, and its treasure swept into +the royal Hoard; an "aid" was raised for the marriage of his daughter, +and a terrible list of fines levied under the Assize of Clarendon. The +sums raised told, in fact, of the general increase of wealth. The +national income, which at the beginning of Henry's reign had been but +£22,000, was raised in the last year to £48,000, and an enormous +treasure had been accumulated said to be equal to 100,000 marks, or, by +another account, to be worth £900,000. The increase of trade was shown +by the growing numbers of Jews, the bankers and usurers of the time. At +the beginning of Henry's reign they were still so few that it was +possible to maintain a law which forbade their burial anywhere save in +one cemetery near London. Before its close their settlements were so +numerous that Jewish burial-grounds had to be established near every +great town. Their banking profits were enormous, and Christians who saw +the wages of sin heaped up before their eyes, looked wistfully at a +business forbidden by the ecclesiastical standard of morals of that day. + +The towns were stirred with a new activity. London naturally led the +way. The very look of the city told of its growing wealth. Till now the +poor folk in towns found shelter in hovels of such a kind that Henry II. +could order that the houses of heretics should be carried outside the +town and burned. But the new wealth of merchant and Jew and trader was +seen in the "stone houses," some indeed like "royal palaces," which +sprang up on every hand, and offered a new temptation to house-breakers +and plunderers of the thickly-peopled alleys. The new cathedral of St. +Paul's had just been built. The tower and the palace at Westminster had +been repaired by the splendid extravagance of Chancellor Thomas, and the +citizens, impatient of the wooden bridge that spanned the river, were on +the point of beginning the "London Bridge" of stone. In the next quarter +of a century merchants of Kiln had their guild-hall in the city, while +merchants of the Empire were settled by the river-side in the hall later +known as the Steel Yard. Already charters confirmed to London its own +laws and privileges, and only three or four years after Henry's death +its limited freedom was exchanged for a really municipal life under a +mayor elected by the citizens themselves. Oxford too, at the close of +Henry's reign, was busy replacing its old wooden hovels with new "houses +of stone"; and could buy from Richard a charter which set its citizens +as free from toll or due as those of London, and gave them, instead of +the king's bailiff, a mayor of their own election, under whom they could +manage their own judicial and political affairs in their own Parliament. +Winchester, Northampton, Norwich, Ipswich, Doncaster, Carlisle, Lincoln, +Scarborough, York, won their charters at the same time--bought by the +wealth which had been stored up in the busy years while Henry reigned. A +chance notice of Gloucester shows us its two gaols--the city gaol +which the citizens were bound to watch, and the castle prison of the +king. The royal officers marked by their exactions the growth of the +town's prosperity, and no longer limited themselves to time-honoured +privileges of extortion. Bristol could claim its own coroners; it could +assert its right to be free of frank-pledge; its burghers were in 1164 +taken under the king's special patronage and protection; in 1172 he +granted them the right of colonizing Dublin and holding it with all the +liberties with which they held Bristol itself, to the wrath of the men of +Chester who had long been rivals of the Bristol men, and who hastened to +secure a royal writ ordering that they should be as free to trade with +Dublin as they had ever been, for all the privileges of Bristol. Its +merchants were fast lining the banks of the Severn with quays, and a +later attempt to hinder them by law was successfully resisted. The new +commercial spirit soon quickened alike the wits of royal officers and +burghers. The weavers did not keep to the legal measure for the width of +cloth. The woad-sellers no longer heaped up their measures, as of old, +above the brim. The constables on their side began to demand outrageous +dues on the sale of herrings, and what was more, whereas of old heavy +goods, such as wood, hides, iron, woad, were sold outside the fair and +escaped dues, now the constable of the castle insisted on tolls for every +sale even without the bounds--a pound of pepper, or even more, had to go +into his hand. The citizens of Lincoln had analized the Witham, and built +up an illustration of the rapid development of the trading towns. As early +as the beginning of the century its owner, the Bishop of Norwich, had seen +its advantages, lying as it did at the mouth of the Ouse, and forming the +only outlet for the trade of seven shires. It was not long before the +prudent bishops had made of it the Liverpool of medieval times. The Lynn +of older days, later known as "King's Lynn," with its little crowded +market shut in between Guildhall and Church, the booths then as now +leaning against the church walls, and a tangle of narrow lanes leading to +the river-side, was in no way fit for the great demands of an awakened +commerce; its life went on as of old, but the sea was driven back by a +vast embankment, and the "Bishop's Lynn" rose on the newly-won land along +the river-bank, with its great market-place, its church, its jewry, its +merchant-houses, and its guild-houses; and soon, in the thick of the +busiest quarter, by the wharves, rose the "stone house" of the bishop +himself, looking closely out on the "strangers' ships" that made their +way along the Ouse laden with provisions and with merchandise. + +But this growing wealth was still mainly confined to the towns. The +great bulk of the country was purely agricultural, and had no concern in +any questions of trade. There is a record of over five hundred pleas of +the Gloucestershire fifty years later, and among all these there is +outside the _town_ of Gloucester but one case which deals with the lawful +width for weaving cloth, and one or two as to the sale of bread, ale, or +wine. The agricultural peasants seem, from the glimpses which we catch +here and there, to have for the most part lived on the very verge +of starvation. Every few years with dreary regularity we note the +chronicler's brief record of cattle-plague, famine, pestilence. Half +a century later we read in legal records the tale of a hard winter and +its consequences--the dead bodies of the famine-stricken serfs lying in +the fields on every side, and the judges of the King's Court claiming from +the starving survivors the "murder-fine" ordained by law to be paid for +every dead body found when the murderer was not produced. The system of +cultivation was ignorant and primitive. Rendered timid by the repeated +failure of crops, the poor people would set aside a part of their land to +sow together oats, barley, and wheat, in the hope that whatever were the +season something would come up which might serve for the rough black bread +which was their main food. The low wet grounds were still undrained, and +the number of cases of eye-disease which we find in the legends of +miraculous cures point to the prevalence of ophthalmia brought on by damp +and low living, as the army of lepers points to the filth and misery of +the poor .The "common fields" and pastures of the villages must have lain +on the higher grounds which were not mere swamps during half the year. But +to these a dry season brought ruin. In time of drought the cattle had to +be driven five or six miles to find water in the well or pool which served +for the whole district. If by any chance disease broke out, the wearied +beasts that met at the watering or drank of the tainted pool carried it +far and wide, and plague soon raged from end to end of the country. Even +in the days of Henry VIII. shrewd observers noted that the new grazing +farms, where the cattle were better fed and kept separate, alone escaped +these ravages, and that it was these farms whence came the only meat to be +found in the country through the long winter months or in time of murrain. +This purpose was doubtless served earlier by the great monastic estates, +but means of transport scarcely existed; each district had to live on its +own resources, and vast tracts of country were with every unfavourable +season stricken by hunger and by the plague and famine fever that +followed it. + +One source of later misery was indeed unknown. The war of classes had not +yet begun. The lawyers had not been at work hardening and defining vague +traditions, and legally the position of the serf was far better than it +was a hundred years later. The feudal system still preserved relations +between the lord and his dependents, which were more easy and familiar +than anything we know. The lord of the manor had not begun to encroach on +the privileges or the "common" rights of the tenant, nor had the merchant +guilds of the towns attacked the liberties of the craftsmen and lesser +folk. For a century to come the battle for lands or rights was mainly +waged between the lord or the men of one township or manor with the men +of a neighbouring township or manor; and it was not till these had fairly +ended their quarrel that lords and burghers turned to fight against the +liberties and privileges of serfs and craftsmen. There are indications, +on the other hand, that one effect of the new administration of justice, +as it told on the poor, began early to show itself in the growth of an +"outlaw" class. Crimes of violence were surprisingly common. Dead bodies +were found in the wood, in the field, in the fold, in the barn. In an +extraordinary number of cases the judges' records of a little later time +tell of houses broken into by night and robbed, and every living thing +within them slain, and no clue was ever found to the plunderers. There +were stories in Henry's days of a new crime-of men wearing religious +dress who joined themselves to wayfarers, and in such a case the traveller +was never seen again alive. Tales of Robin Hood began to take shape. The +by-ways and thickets were peopled with men, innocent or guilty, but all +alike desperate. One Richard, we read, whose fellow at the plough fell +dead in an epileptic fit, fled in terror of the judges to the woods, and +so did many a worse man than Richard. We find constantly the same tale of +the sudden quarrel, the blow with a stick or a stone, the thrust with the +knife which every man carried, the stroke with a hatchet. Then the slayer +in his panic flies to a nun's garden, to a monastery, or to the shelter of +a church, where the men of the village keep guard over him till knights +of the shire are sent from the Court, to whom he confesses his crime, +and who allow him so many days to fly to the nearest port and forsake +the kingdom. Perhaps he never reaches the coast, but takes to the woods, +already haunted by "abjurors" like himself, or by outlaws flying from +justice. In the social conditions of the England of that day the +administration of justice was, in more ways than one, a very critical +matter, and the efforts of over-zealous judges and sheriffs might easily +end in driving the people to desperation before the severity of the law, +or in crushing out under a heedless taxation a prosperity which was +still new and still rare. + +Henry perhaps already saw the deep current of discontent which only a +year later was to break out in the most terrible rebellion of his reign. +In any case the severity of the measures which he took shows how serious +he thought the crisis. After his landing in March 1170 one month was +given to inquiry as to the state of the country. In the beginning of +April he held a council to consider the reform of justice. A commission +was appointed to examine, during the next two months, every freeholder +throughout the kingdom as to the conduct of judges and sheriffs and +every other officer charged with the duty of collecting or accounting +for the public money. Its members were chosen from among the most +zealous opponents of the Court officials-the great barons, the priors, +the important abbots of the shires--and they were all men who had no +connection with the Exchequer or the Curia Regis. Their work was done, +and their report presented within the time allowed; but the king, +practical, businesslike, impatient of abuses, like every vigorous +autocratic ruler, had no mind to wait two months to redress the grievances +of his people. The barons who had been appointed as sheriffs at the +opening of his reign had governed after the old corrupt traditions, or +perhaps themselves suffering under the ruthless pressure of the barons of +the Exchequer, had been driven to a like severity of extortion. By an +edict of the king every sheriff throughout the country was struck from +his post; of the twenty-seven only seven were restored to their places, +and new sheriffs were appointed, all of whom save four were officers of +the King's Court. The great local noble who had lorded it as he chose over +the suitors of the Court for fifteen years, and fined and taxed and +forfeited as seemed good to him, suddenly, without a moment's warning, +saw his place filled by a stranger, a mere clerk trained in the Court +among the royal servants, a simple nominee of the king; he could no +longer doubt that the royal supremacy was now without rival, without +limit, irresistible, complete. Such an act of absolute authority had +indeed, as Dr. Stubbs says, "no example in the history of Europe since +the time of the Roman Empire, except possibly in the power wielded by +Charles the Great." + +Nor was this Henry's only act of high-handed government. On the 10th of +April he called a council to London to consult about the coronation of +his son. It was a dangerous innovation, against all custom and tradition, +for no such coronation of the heir in his father's lifetime had ever taken +place in England. But Henry was no mere king of England, nor did he +greatly heed barbaric or insular prejudice when he had even before his +eyes the example not only of the French Court, but of the Holy Roman +Empire. The coronation was a necessary step in the completion of the plan +unfolded at Montmirail for the ordering of the second empire of the West. +Moreover, the settlement probably seemed to him more imperative than ever +from the restlessness and discontent of the land. No king of England since +the Conquest had succeeded peaceably to his father. The reign of Stephen +had abundantly proved how vain were oaths of homage to secure the +succession; and the sacred anointing, which in those days carried with it +an inalienable consecration, was perhaps the only certain way of securing +his son's right. It may well be, too, that, threatened as he was with +interdict, he saw the advantage of providing for the peace and security of +England by crowning as her king an innocent boy with whom the Church had +no quarrel. The actual ceremony of consecration raised, indeed, an +immediate and formidable difficulty. A king of England could be legally +consecrated only by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Three years before Henry +had forced the Pope, then in extreme peril, to grant special powers to the +Archbishop of York to perform the rite, but he had not yet ventured to +make use of the brief. Now, however, whether the case seemed to him more +urgent, or whether his temper had grown more imperious, he cast aside his +former prudence. On the 14th of June the lords and prelates were gathered +together "in fear, none knowing what the king was about to decree." The +younger Henry, a boy of fifteen, was brought before them; he was anointed +and crowned by Roger of York. From this moment a new era opened in Henry's +reign. The young king was now lord of England, in the view of the whole +medieval world, by a right as absolute and sacred as that of his father. +All who were discontented and restless had henceforth a leader ordained by +law, consecrated by the Church, round whom they might rally. Delicate +questions had to be solved as to the claims and powers of the new king, +which never in fact found their answer so long as he lived. Meanwhile +Henry had raised up for himself a host of new difficulties. The archbishop +had a fresh grievance in the king's reckless contempt of the rights of +Canterbury. The Church party both in England and in Europe was outraged +at the wrong done to him. Many who had before wavered, like Henry of +Blois, now threw themselves passionately on the side of Thomas. In the +fierce contention that soon raged round the right of the archbishop to +crown the king, and to deal as he chose with any prelate who might +infringe his privileges, all other questions were forgotten. Not only +the zealots for religious tradition, but all who clung loyally to +established law and custom, were thrown into opposition. The French +king was bitterly angry that his daughter had not been crowned with her +husband. All Henry's enemies banded themselves together in a frenzy of +rage. So immediate and formidable was the outburst of indignation that +ten days after the coronation the king no longer ventured to remain in +England; and on the 24th of June he hastily crossed the Channel. Near +Falaise he was met by the bishop of Worcester, who had supported him at +Northampton. The king turned upon him passionately, and broke out in angry +words, "Now it is plain that thou art a traitor! I ordered thee to attend +the coronation of my son, and since thou didst not choose to be +there, thou hast shown that thou hast no love for me nor for my son's +advancement. It is plain that thou favourest my enemy and hatest me. I +will tear the revenues of the see from thy hands, who hast proved unworthy +of the bishopric or any benefice. In truth thou wert never the son of my +uncle, the good Count Robert, who reared me and thee in his castle, and +had us there taught the first lessons of morals and of learning." Earl +Robert's son, however, was swift in retort. He vehemently declared he +would have no part in the guilt of such a consecration. "What grateful +act of yours," he cried, "has shown that Count Robert was your uncle, and +brought you up, and battled with Stephen for sixteen years for your +sake, and for you was at last made captive? Had you called to mind his +services you would not have driven my brothers to penury and ruin. My +eldest brother's tenure, given him by your grandfather, you have +curtailed. My youngest brother, a stout soldier, you have driven by stress +of want to quit a soldier's life and give himself to the perpetual service +of the hospital at Jerusalem, and don the monk's habit. Thus you know how +to bless those of your own household! Thus you are wont to reward those +who have deserved well of you! Why threaten me with the loss of my +benefice? Be it yours if it suffice you not to have already seized an +archbishopric, six vacant sees, and many abbeys, to the peril of your +soul, and turned to secular uses the alms of your fathers, of pious kings, +the patrimony of Jesus Christ!" All this abuse, and much more besides, the +angry bishop poured out in the hearing of the knights who were riding on +either side of the king. "He fares well with the king since he is a +priest," commented a Gascon; "had he been a knight he would leave behind +him two hides of land!" Some one else, thinking to please the king, abused +the bishop roundly. Henry, however, turned on him with an outburst of +rage. "Do you think, scoundrel, if I say what I choose to my kinsman and +my bishop, that you or anyone else are at liberty to dishonour him with +words and persecute him with threats? Scarce can I keep my hands from +thy eyes!" + +The king well understood, indeed, in what a critical position matters +stood. He swiftly agreed to every conceivable concession on every hand. +He met the papal messengers and bent to their terms of reconciliation. +On the 20th of July he had a conference with Louis near Fréteval in +Touraine, and next day the kings parted amicably. On the 22d an interview +between the king and the archbishop followed. The royal customs were not +mentioned; no oath was exacted from the Primate; he was promised safe +return and full possession of his see, and the "kiss of peace"; he was +to crown once more the young king and his wife. At the close of the +conference Thomas lighted from his horse to kiss the king's foot, but +Henry, rivalling him in courtesy, dismounted to hold the Primate's +stirrup, with the words, "It is fit the less should serve the greater!" +But if there was a show of peace "the whole substance of it consisted only +in hope," as Thomas wrote. Each side was full of distrust. Thomas demanded +immediate restitution of his see, and liberty to excommunicate the bishops +who had shared in the coronation. Henry wanted first to see "how Thomas +would behave in the affairs of the kingdom." The king and Primate met for +the last time in October 1170 at Chaumont with seeming friendliness, but +any real peace was as far off as ever. "My lord," said Thomas, as he bade +farewell, "my heart tells me that I part from you as one whom you shall +see no more in this life." "Do you hold me as a traitor?" asked the king. +"That be far from thee, my lord!" answered Thomas. But to the Primate the +king's fair promises were but the tempting words of the devil--"all these +things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me." He begged +from the Pope unlimited powers of excommunication. "The more potent and +fierce the prince is," he said, "the stronger stick and harder chain is +needed to bind him and keep him in order." He had warning visions. He +spoke of returning to his church "perhaps to perish for her." "I go to +England," he said; "whether to peace or to destruction I know not; but God +has decreed what fate awaits me." + +The king's conduct indeed gave ground for fear. He had summoned clergy +abroad against law and custom to elect bishops who, in contempt of the +Primate's rights, were to be sent to Rome for consecration. In the +general doubt as to the king's attitude, no one dared to speak to envoys +sent by Thomas to England. Ranulf de Broc was still wasting the lands of +Canterbury; the palace was half in ruins, the barns destroyed, the lands +uncultivated, the woods cut down. The Primate's friends urged him to +keep out of England for fear of treachery. Thomas, however, was determined +to return, and to return with uncompromising defiance. He sent before him +letters excommunicating the bishops of London and Salisbury, and +suspending the Bishop of Durham and the Archbishop of York, for having +joined in the coronation; and on the following day, under the protection +of John of Oxford as the king's officer, he landed at Sandwich. The +excommunications had set the whole quarrel aflame again, and John of +Oxford with difficulty prevented open fighting. The royal officers +demanded absolution for the bishops. Thomas flatly refused unless they +would swear to appear at his court for justice, an oath which the bishops +in their terror of the king dared not take. They fled to Henry's court in +Normandy; while on the 1st of December Thomas passed on to Canterbury. The +men of Kent were stout defenders of their customary rights; they clung +tenaciously to their special privileges; they had their own views of +inheritance, their fixed standard of fines, their belief that the Crown +had no right to the property of thief or murderer, who had been +hanged--"the father to the bough, the son to the plough," said they, in +Kent at least. They were a very mixed population, constantly recruited +from the neighbouring coasts. They held the outposts of the country as the +advanced guard formally charged with the defence of its shores from +foreign invasion, which was a very present terror in those days. Lying +near the Continent they caught every rumour of the liberties won by the +Flemish towns or French communes; commerce and manufacture were doing +their work in the ports and among the iron mines of the forests; and it +seems as though the shire very early took up the part it was to play +again and again in medieval history, and even later, as the asserter and +defender of popular privileges. From such a temper Thomas was certain to +find sympathy as he passed through the country in triumph. At Canterbury +the monks received him as an angel of God, crying, "Blessed be he that +cometh in the name of the Lord." "I am come to die among you," said +Thomas in his sermon. "In this church there are martyrs," he said again, +"and God will soon increase their number." A few days later he made a +triumphant progress through London on his way to visit the young king; +his fellow-citizens crowded round him with loud blessings, while a +procession of three hundred poor scholars and London clerks raised a +loud Te Deumas Thomas rode along with bowed head scattering alms on +every side. His old pupil Henry refused, however, to receive him, and +Thomas returned to Canterbury. + +News of all these things travelled fast to the king in Normandy. The +excommunicated bishops, falling at his feet, told him of the evil done +against his peace; rumour, growing as it crossed the sea, said that the +archbishop had travelled through the country with a mighty army of paid +soldiers, and had sought to enter into the king's fortresses, and that +he was ready to "tear the crown from the young king's head." Henry, +"more angry than was fitting to the royal majesty," was swept beyond +himself by one of his mad storms of passion. "What a pack of fools and +cowards," he shouted aloud in his wrath, "I have nourished in my house, +that not one of them will avenge me of this one upstart clerk!" A +council was at once summoned. Thomas, the king said, had entered as a +tyrant into his land, had excommunicated the bishops for obedience to +the king, had troubled the whole realm, had purposed to take away the +royal crown from his son, had begged for a legation against Henry, and +had obtained from the Pope grants of presentations to churches, which +deprived knights and barons as well as the king himself of their +property. The council fell in with the king's mood. Thomas was worthy of +death. The king would have neither quiet days nor a peaceful kingdom +while he lived. "On my way to Jerusalem," said one sage adviser, "I +passed through Rome, and asking questions of my host, I learned that a +pope had once been slain for his intolerable pride!" + +But while the king was still busied in devising schemes for the punishment +or ruin of Thomas, came news that he was rid of his enemy, and that the +archbishop had won the long looked-for crown of martyrdom. Four knights +who had heard the king's first outburst of rage had secretly left the +Court, and travelling day and night, had reached Canterbury on the 29th, +and had there in the cathedral slain the archbishop. Henry was at Argentan +when the news of the murder was brought to him. So overwhelming was his +despair that those about him feared for his reason. For three days he +neither ate nor spoke with any one, and for five weeks his door was closed +to all comers. The whole flood of difficulties against which he had so +long fought desperately was at once let loose upon him. In England the +feeling was indescribable. All the religious fervour of the people was +passionately thrown on the side of the martyr. The church of Canterbury +closed for a year. The ornaments were taken from the altar, the walls were +stripped, the sound of the bells ceased. Excitement was raised to its +utmost pitch as it became known that miracles were wrought at the tomb. +The clergy were forced into hostility; they dared no longer take Henry's +side. The barons saw the opportunity for which they had waited fifteen +years. Henry had himself provided them with a ready instrument to execute +their vengeance, and the boy-king, consecrated scarcely six months ago, +and already urged to revolt by his mother and the king of France, was +only too willing to hear the tale of their accumulated wrongs and +discontents. All Christendom had been watching the strife; all Christendom +was outraged at its close. The Pope shut himself up for eight days, and +refused to speak to his own servants. The king of France,--who had now a +cause more powerful than any he had ever dreamt of,--Theobald of Blois, +and William of Champagne, the Archbishop of Sens, wrote bitterly to Rome +that it was Henry himself who had given orders for the murder. The king's +messengers sent to plead with the Pope found matters almost desperate. +Alexander had determined to excommunicate him at Easter, and to lay an +interdiction on all his lands. In their despair, and not venturing to tell +their master what they had done, they swore on Henry's part an unreserved +submission to the Pope, and the excommunication was barely averted for a +few months, while a legation was sent to pronounce an interdiction on his +lands, and receive his submission. Henry, however, was quite determined +that he would neither hear the sentence nor repeat the oath taken by his +envoys at Rome. Orders were given to allow no traveller, who might intend +evil against the king, to cross into England; and before the legates could +arrive in Normandy Henry himself was safe beyond the sea. On the 6th of +August, as he passed through Winchester, he visited the dying Henry of +Blois, and heard the bishop's last words of bitter reproach as he +foretold the great adversities which the Divine vengeance held in store +for the true murderer of the archbishop. But England itself was no safe +refuge for the king in this great extremity. Hurrying on to Wales, he +rapidly settled the last details of a plan for the conquest of Ireland, +and hastened to set another sea between himself and the bearers of the +papal curse. As he landed on Irish shores on the 16th of October, a +white hare started from the bushes at his feet, and was brought to him +as a token of victory and peace. Here at last he was in safety, beyond +the reach of all dispute, in a secure banishment where he could more +easily avoid the interdict or more secretly bow to it. The wild storms +of winter, which his terrified followers counted as a sign of the wrath +of God, served as an effectual barrier between him and his enemies; and +for twenty weeks no ship touched Irish shores, nor did any news reach +him from any part of his dominions. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND + +Nearly a hundred years before William Rufus once stood on the cliffs of +Wales, and cried, as he looked across the waters towards Ireland, "For +the conquest of that land I will gather together all the ships of my +kingdom, and will make of them a bridge to cross over." The story was +carried to a king of Leinster, who listened thoughtfully. "After so +tremendous a threat as that," he asked, "did the king add, if the Lord +will?" Being told that Rufus used no such phrase, "Since he trusts to do +this by human power, not divine," said the shrewd Irishman, "I need not +greatly dread his coming." Prophecies which passed from mouth to mouth +in Ireland declared that the island should not be conquered till very +shortly before the great Day of Judgment. Even in England men commented +on the fact that while the Romans had reached as far as the Orkneys, +while Saxons and Normans and Danes had overrun England, Ireland had +never bowed to foreign rule. The Northmen alone had made any attempt at +invasion; but within the fringe of foreign settlements which they +planted along the coast from Dublin to Limerick, the various Irish +kingdoms maintained themselves according to their ancient customs, and, +as English tribes had done before in Britain, waged frequent war for the +honour of a shifting and dubious supremacy. The island enjoyed a fair +fame for its climate, its healthfulness, its pasturage, its fisheries; +English chroniclers dwelt on "the far-famed harbour of Dublin, the rival +of our London in commerce," and told of ships of merchandise that sailed +from Britanny to Irish ports, and of the busy wine trade with Poitou. +Ireland alone broke the symmetry of an empire that bordered the Atlantic +from the Hebrides to Spain, and the fame of empire had its attractions +for the heirs of the Norman conquerors. Patriotic and courtly historians +remembered that their king was representative of Gerguntius, the first +king of Britain who had gone to Ireland; the heir of Arthur, to whom +Irish kings had been tributary; the ruler over the Basque provinces, +from whence undoubtedly the Irish race had sprung. To fill up what was +lacking in these titles, he was proclaimed lord and ruler by a yet +clearer divine right, when in 1155 John of Salisbury brought to him from +Rome a bull, by which the English Pope, Hadrian IV., as supreme lord of +all islands, granted Ireland to the English king, that he might bring +the people under law, and enlarge the borders of the Church. + +From the beginning, indeed, there rested on the unhappy country a curse +which has remained to the present moment. The invasion of the Ostmen was +the first of a series of half-conquests which brought all the evils of +foreign invasion with none of its benefits. In England the great rivers +and the Roman roads had been so many highways by which the Scandinavians +had penetrated into the heart of the country. But in Ireland no road and +no great river had guided the invader onwards past morass and bog and +forest. While the great host of the Danish invaders swooped down over +England and Gaul, the pirates that sailed to Ireland had only force to +dash themselves on the coast, and there cling cautiously to guarded +settlements. They settled as a race apart, as unable to mix with the +Irish people as they were powerless to conquer them. No memory as in +England of a common origin united them, no ties of a common language, no +sense of common law or custom, or of a common political tradition. The +strangers built the first cities, coined the first money, and introduced +trade. But they were powerless to affect Irish civilization. The tribal +system survived in its full strength, and Ireland remained divided +between two races, two languages, two civilizations in different stages +of progress, two separate communities ruled by their own laws, and two +half-completed ecclesiastical systems, for the Danish Church long looked, +as the Irish had never done, to the Archbishop of Canterbury as their +head. Earnest attempts had already been made by Hadrian's predecessor to +bring the Irish into closer connection with the see of Rome. In 1152 a +papal legate had carried out a great reform by which four archbishops, +wholly independent of Canterbury and receiving their palls from Rome, were +set over four provinces. But still no Peter's Pence were paid to Rome; +Roman canon law, Roman ritual, the Roman rules of marriage, had no +authority; the Roman form of baptism was replaced by a tradition which +made the father dip his new-born child three times in water, or, if he +were a rich man, in milk; there was no payment of tithes; clerks were +taxed like laymen when a homicide occurred; Irish nobles still demanded +hospitality from religious houses, and claimed, according to ancient +custom, provisions from towns on Church domains. Hadrian himself had long +been interested in Irish affairs. The religious houses which the Irish +maintained in Germany kept up communication with Pope and Emperor; an +Irish abbot at Nuremberg was chaplain to the Emperor Frederick; one of +Hadrian's masters at Paris had been a monk from the Irish settlement in +Ratisbon, and as Pope he still remembered the Irish monk with warm +affection. When he was raised to the Papacy in the very year of Henry's +coronation, one of his first cares was to complete the organization of +Christendom in the West by bringing the Irish Church under Catholic +discipline. + +Henry, on his part, was only too eager to accept his new responsibility, +and less than a year after his coronation he called a council to discuss +the conquest of Ireland. The scheme was abandoned on account of its +difficulties, but the question was later raised again in another form. +Diarmait Mac Murchadha (in modern form Jeremiah Murphy), King of +Leinster, had carried off in 1152 the wife of the chief of Breifne +(Cavan and Leitrim). A confederation was formed against him under +Ruaidhri (or Rory), King of Connaught, and he was driven from the island +in 1166. "Following a flying fortune and hoping much from the turning of +the wheel," he fled to Henry in Aquitaine, did homage to the English +king for his lands, and received in return letters granting permission +to such of Henry's servants as were willing to aid him in their recovery. +Diarmait easily found allies in the nobles of the Welsh border, in whose +veins ran the blood of two warlike races. It was by just such an +enterprise as this that their Norman fathers and grandfathers had won +their Welsh domains. From childhood they had been brought up in the tumult +of perpetual forays, and trained in a warfare where agility and dash and +endurance of hunger and hardship were the first qualifications of a +soldier. Richard de Clare, Earl of Striguil, in later days nicknamed +Strongbow--a descendant of one of the Conqueror's greatest warriors, +but now a needy adventurer sorely harassed by his creditors--was easily +won by the promise of Diarmait's daughter and heiress, Aeifi, as his wife. +Rhys, the Prince of South Wales, looked favourably on the expedition. +His aunt, Nesta, had been the mistress of Henry I. of England; and +had afterwards married first Gerald of Windsor, and then a certain +Stephen; her sons and grandsons, whether Fitz-Henrys, Fitz-Geralds, or +Fitz-Stephens, were famous men of war; nor were the children of her +daughter, who had married William de Barri, behind them in valour. No less +than eighteen knights of this extraordinary family took part in the +conquest, where in feats of war they renewed the glories of their +ancestors both Norse and Welsh; a son of Nesta's, David, the Bishop of +St. David's, gave his sympathy and help; while her grandson, Gerald +de Barri, became the famous historian of the conquest. + +In 1167 Diarmait returned to Ireland with a little band of allies, the +pioneers of the English conquest. Others followed the next year, among +them Strongbow's uncle, Hervey of Mount Moriss, a famous soldier in the +French army, distinguished for his beautifully proportioned figure, his +delicate long hands, his winning face, and graceful speech. With him +went Nesta's son Robert Fitz-Stephen, a powerful man of the Norman +type, handsome, freehanded, sumptuous in his way of living, liberal and +jovial, given to wine and dissipation. His nephew, Meiler Fitz-Henry, +showed stronger traces of Welsh blood in his swarthy complexion, fierce +black eyes, and passionate face. The knights carried on the war with the +virtues and vices of a feudal chivalry, with a frank loyalty to their +allies, a good comradeship which recognized no head but left each knight +supreme over his own forces, a magnificent daring in the face of +overwhelming forces, and a joyful acceptance of the savage privileges of +slaughter and rapine which fell to their lot. "By their aid Diarmait began +first to take breath, then to gain strength, and at last to triumph over +his enemies." The Irish, however, rallied under the king of Connaught +against the traitor who had brought the English into their land; and +Diarmait was forced to conclude a peace and promise to receive no more +English soldiers. + +Meanwhile other knights were preparing for the Irish expedition. Maurice +Fitz-Gerald encamped on a rock near Wexford. Another Fitz-Gerald, +Raymond the Fat, fortified his camp near Waterford. In August 1170 came +Earl Richard himself, who had crossed to France in search of Henry, and +with persistent importunity implored for leave to join the Irish war. +Henry, at that moment busy in his last negotiations with Thomas, gave a +doubtful half-consent, and Richard sailed with an army of nearly fifteen +hundred men. We see in the pages of Gerald of Wales, the hero with whose +name the conquest of Ireland was to be for ever associated, red-haired, +gray-eyed, freckled, with delicate features like a woman's, and thin, +feeble voice; wearing a plain citizen's dress without arms, "that he +might seem more ready to obey than to command;" suave, gracious, politic, +patient, deferential, with his fine aristocratic air, and an undaunted +courage that blazed out in battle, when "he never moved from his post, but +remained a beacon of refuge to his followers." At his coming Waterford was +taken, as Wexford and Ossory had been before. Before the prudent Norman +went farther the marriage contract was carried out, and the beginning of a +strife which lasted for seven hundred years was celebrated in this first +alliance of a Norman baron and an Irish chief. Richard and Diarmait +marched against Dublin, and its Danishin habitants were driven over sea. +In a few months their king, Hasculf, returned with a great fleet gathered +from Norway, the Hebrides, the Orkneys, Man,--the last fleet of Northmen +which descended on the British Isles,--but again the Normans won the day. + +Henry meanwhile was watching nervously the progress of affairs. The war +was, no doubt, useful in withdrawing from Wales a restless and dangerous +baronage, and in the rebellion of 1174 the hostility of the border +barons would have been far more serious if the best warriors of Wales +had not been proving their courage on the plains of Ireland. But Henry +had no mind to break through his general policy by allowing a feudal +baronage to plant themselves by force of arms in Ireland, as they had in +earlier days settled themselves in northern England and on the Welsh +border. The death of Diarmait in 1171 brought matters to a crisis. By +Celtic law the land belonged to the tribe, and the people had the right +of electing their king. But the tribal system had long been forgotten by +the Normans, whose ancestors had ages before passed out of it into the +later stage of the feudal system; and by Norman law the kingdom of +Leinster would pass to Aeifi's husband and her children. Rights of +inheritance and rights of conquest were judiciously blended together, +and Richard assumed rule, not under the dangerous title of king, but as +"Earl of Leinster." The title was strange and unwelcome to Irish ears. +Among envious Norman rivals it did not hide the suspicion that Richard +was "nearly a king," and rumours reached Henry's ears that he was +conquering not only Leinster but other districts to which neither he nor +his wife had any right. Henry immediately confiscated all the earl's +lands in England, and ordered that all knights who had gone to Ireland +should return, on pain of forfeiture of their lands and exile. In vain +Strongbow's messengers hastened to him in France, and promised that the +earl would yield up all his conquests, "since from the munificence of +your kindness all proceeds." While they still anxiously followed the +Court from place to place came the sudden tidings of the archbishop's +murder, and before many months were over Henry was on his way to Ireland +to take its affairs into his own hands. Strongbow was summoned to meet +him, forced to full submission, and sent back to prepare the way before +the king. + +In Ireland Henry had little to do save to enter into the labours of its +first conquerors. The Danes had been driven from the ports. The Irish +were broken and divided, and looked to him as their only possible ally +and deliverer from the tyranny, the martial law, the arbitrary executions, +which had marked the rough rule of the invaders. The terrified barons were +ready to buy their existence at any price. The leaders of the Church +welcomed him as the supporter of Roman discipline. Henry used all his +advantages. He consistently carried through the farce of arbitration. +The Wexford men brought to him Fitz-Stephen, whom they had captured, as +the greatest enemy to the royal majesty and the Irish people. Henry threw +him into prison, but as soon as he had won the smaller kings of the south +separately to make submission to him, and given the chief castles into the +hands of his own officers, he conciliated the knights by releasing +Fitz-Stephen. He spent the winter in Dublin, in a palace built of wattles +after the fashion of the country. There he received the homage of all the +kings of Leinster and Meath. Order, law, justice, took the place of +confusion. Dublin, threatened with ruin now the Danish traders were driven +off, was given to the men of Bristol to found a new prosperity. Its trade +with Chester was confirmed, and from all parts of England new settlers +came in numbers during the next few years to share in the privileges and +wealth which its commerce promised. A stately cathedral of decorated +Norman work rose on the site of an earlier church founded by the Ostmen. +It seemed as though the mere military rule of the feudal lords was to be +superseded under the king's influence by a wiser and more statesmanlike +occupation of the country. A great council was held at Cashel, where a +settlement was made of Church and State, and where Henry for the first +time published the Papal Bull issued by Hadrian fifteen years before. He +had won a position of advantage from whence to open a new bargain with +the Pope. In the moment of his deepest disgrace and peril he defiantly +showed himself before the world in all the glory of the first foreign +Conqueror and Lord of Ireland. + +Henry's work, however, was scarcely begun when in March there came a +lull in the long winter storms, and a vessel made its way across the +waters of the Irish Sea. It brought grave tidings. Legates from the Pope +had reached Normandy, with powers only after full submission to absolve +the king; unless Henry quickly met them, all his lands would be laid +under interdict. Other heavy tidings came. Evil counsellors were +exciting the young king to rebellion. It was absurd, they said, to be +king, and to exercise no authority in the kingdom, and the boy was +willing enough to believe that since his coronation "the reign of his +father had expired." All Henry's plans in Ireland were at once thrown +aside. At the first break in the adverse winds he hastily set sail, and +for two hundred years no English king again set foot in Ireland. The +short winter's work was to end in utter confusion. The king's policy had +been to set up the royal justice and power, and to break the strength of +the barons by dividing and curtailing their interests. He had left them +without a leader. The growing power of Strongbow had been broken; Dublin +had been taken from him; the castles had all been committed to knights +appointed by the king. Quarrels and rivalries soon broke out. Raymond +the Fat became the recognized head of Nesta's descendants. In his +enormous frame, his yellow curly hair, his high-coloured cheery face, +his large gray eyes, we seethe type of the old Norse conquerors who had +once harried England; we recognize it too in his carelessness as to food +or clothing, his indifference to hardship, his prodigious energy, the +sleepless nights spent in wandering through his camp where his resounding +shouts awoke the sleeping sentinels, the enduring wrath which never forgot +an enemy. Richard's uncle, Hervey of Mount Moriss, led a rival faction in +the interests of Strongbow. The English garrison in Ireland was weakened +by the loss of troops which Henry was compelled to carry away with him. +The forces that remained, divided, thinned, discouraged, were left to +confront an Irish party united in a revived hope. No sooner did rebellion +break over England in the next year than the Irish with one accord rose in +revolt. The treasury was exhausted, and there was no payment for the +troops. A doubtful campaign went on in which the English, attacked now by +the Ostmen of the towns, now by the Irish, fought with very varying +success, but with prodigies of valour. They were reckless of danger, +heedless of the common safeguards of military precaution. When Henry heard +of Raymond's daring capture of Limerick in 1176, and then of his retreat, +he made one of his pithy "Great was the courage in attacking it, and yet +greater in the subduing of it, but the only wisdom that was shown was in +its desertion." + +The rivalry of Raymond and Strongbow was at its height when, in 1176, +Earl Richard died; and to this day his burial-place in the Norman +Cathedral in Dublin, and that of his wife Aeifi, are marked by the only +sculptured tombs that exist of these first Norman conquerors of Ireland. +Others besides the king heard with joy the news that the great warrior +was dead. Richard's sister, who had been married to Raymond, had cast in +her lot with her lord. She sent a cautious despatch to her husband, who +was unable himself to read, and had to depend on the good offices of a +clerk. "Know, my dearest lord," wrote the prudent wife, "that that great +tooth which pained me so long has now fallen out, wherefore see that you +delay not your return." The watchful Henry, however, at once recalled +Raymond to England, and sent a new governor, Fitz-Aldhelm, to hold the +restless barons in check, till his son John, to whom he now proposed to +give the realm of Ireland, should be of age to undertake its government. +When Fitz-Aldhelm saw the magnificent troop of Raymond's cousins and +nephews, who had thrown aside all armour save shields, and, mounted on +splendid horses, dashed across the plain to display their feats of +agility and horsemanship, he muttered to his followers, "This pride I +will shortly abate, and these shields I will scatter." He was true to +his word. The fortunes of the knights of both parties indeed rapidly +declined; "those who had been first had to learn to be last;" their +lands were taken from them on every excuse, and they were followed by +the enmity and persecution of the king. For the next ten years the +history of the English in Ireland is a miserable record of ineffective +and separate wars undertaken by leaders each acting on his own account, +and of watchful jealousy on the part of Henry. A new governor was sent +in 1177 to replace Fitz-Aldhelm. Hugh de Lacy was no Norman. His black +hair, his deep-set black eyes, his snub nose, the scar across his face, +his thin ill-shapen figure, marked him out from the big fair Fitz-Geralds, +as much as did his "Gallican sobriety" and his training in affairs, for +in war he had no great renown. Perhaps it was some quick French quality +in him that won the love of the Irish. But Henry was suspicious and +uneasy. He was recalled in 1181 on the news that without the king's leave +he had married the daughter of the King of Connaught, and rumour added +that he had even made ready a diadem for himself. But his services were +so valuable that that same winter he was sent back, only to be again +recalled in 1184 and again sent back. At last in 1186, "as though fortune +had been zealous for the king of England," he was treacherously slain by +an Irishman, to Henry's "exceeding joy." + +Meanwhile the king had in 1185 made a further attempt at a permanent +settlement of the distracted island. John was formally appointed king +over Ireland, and accompanied by Glanville, landed in Waterford on +the 25th of April. His coming with a new batch of Norman followers +completed the misfortunes of the first settlers. The Norman-Welsh +knights of the border had by painful experience learned among their +native woods and mountains how to wage such war as was needed in +Ireland-a kind of war where armour was worse than useless, where +strength was of less account than agility, where days and nights of cold +and starvation were followed by impetuous assaults of an enemy who never +stood long enough for a decisive battle, a war where no mercy was given +and no captives taken. On the other hand, their half Celtic blood had +made it easy for them to mingle with the Irish population, to marry and +settle down among them. But the followers of John were Norman and French +knights, accustomed to fight in full armour upon the plains of France; +and to add to a rich pay the richer profits of plunder and of ransom. +The seaport towns and the castles fell into the hands of new masters, +untrained to the work required of them. "Wordy chatterers, swearers of +enormous oaths, despisers of others," as they seemed to the race of +Nesta's descendants, the new rulers of the country proved mere plunderers, +who went about burning, slaying, and devastating, while the old soldiery +of the first conquest were despised and cast aside. Divisions of race +which in England had quite died out were revived in Ireland in their full +intensity; and added to the two races of the Irish and the Danes we now +hear of the three hostile groups into which the invaders were broken--the +Normans, the English, and the men of the Welsh border. To the new comers +the natives were simply barbarians. When the Irish princes came to do +homage, their insolent king pulled their long beards in ridicule; at the +outrage they turned their backs on the English camp, and the other kings +hearing their tale, refused to do fealty. Any allies who still remained +were alienated by being deprived of the lands which the first invaders had +left them. Even the newly-won Church was thrown into opposition by +interference with its freedom and plunder of its lands; the ancient custom +of carrying provisions to the churches for safe keeping in troubled times +was contemptuously ignored when a papal legate gave the English armies +leave to demand the opening of the church doors, and the sale of such +provisions as they chose to require. There were complaints too in the +country of the endless lawsuits that now sprang up, probably from the +infinite confusion that grew out of the attempt to override Irish by +English law. But if Glanville tried any legal experiments in Ireland, +his work was soon interrupted. Papal legates arrived in England at +Christmas 1186 to crown the King of Ireland with the crown of peacocks' +feathers woven with gold which the Pope himself had sent. But John never +wore his diadem of peacocks' feathers. Before it had arrived he had been +driven from the country. + +Thus ended the third and last attempt in Henry's reign to conquer +Ireland. The strength and the weakness of the king's policy had alike +brought misery to the land. The nation was left shattered and bleeding; +its native princes weakened in all things save in the habits of treachery +and jealousy; its Danish traders driven into exile; its foreign conquerors +with their ranks broken, and their hope turned to bitterness. The natural +development of the tribal system was violently interrupted by the +half-conquest of the barons and the bringing in of a feudal system, for +which the Irish were wholly unprepared. But the feudal conquerors +themselves were only the remnants of a broken and defeated party, the +last upholders of a tradition of conquest and of government of a hundred +years earlier. Themselves trembling before the coming in of a new order of +things, they could destroy the native civilization, but they could set +nothing in its place. There remained at last only the shattered remnants +of two civilizations which by sheer force were maintained side by side. +Their fusion was perhaps impossible, but it was certainly rendered less +possible by the perplexed and arbitrary interferences of later rulers in +England, almost as foreign to the Anglo-Irish of the Pale as to the native +tribes who, axe in hand and hidden in bog and swamp and forest, clung +desperately to the ancient traditions and inheritance of their +forefathers. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +REVOLT OF THE BARONAGE + +All hope of progress, of any wise and statesmanlike settlement of +Ireland, utterly died away when, on Easter night, 16th April 1172, Henry +sailed from Wexford. The next morning he landed near St. David's. He +entered its gates as a pilgrim, on foot and staff in hand, while the +monks came out in solemn procession to lead him to the ancient church on +the other side of the river. Suddenly a Welsh woman sprang out from +among the crowd, and striking her hands together wildly, threw +herself at his feet crying with a loud voice, "Avenge us to-day, +Lechlavar! Avenge the people of this land!" The woman's bitter cry told +the first thought of all the thronging multitudes of eager Welshmen that +day, how Merlin had prophesied that an English king, the conqueror of +Ireland, should die on Lechlavar, a great stone which formed a rude +natural bridge across the stream, and round which the pagan superstitions +of an immemorial past still clung. When the strange procession reached the +river, Henry stood for a moment looking steadily at the stone, then with a +courage which we can scarcely measure, he firmly set his foot on it and +slowly crossed over; and from the other side, in the face of all the +people he turned and flung his taunt at the prophet, "Who will ever again +believe the lies of Merlin?" As he passed through Cardiff another omen met +him; a white-robed monk stood before him as he came out of church. "God +hold thee, Cuning!" he cried in the English tongue, and broke out into +passionate warnings of evil to come unless the king would show more +reverence to the Sunday, a matter about which there was at this time a +great stirring of religious feeling. "Ask this rustic," said Henry in +French to a knight who held his rein, "whether he has dreamed this." The +monk turned from the interpreter to the king and spoke again: "Whether I +have dreamed this or no, mark this day, for unless thou amendest thy life, +before this year has passed thou shalt hear such news of those thou lovest +best, and shalt win such sorrow from them, that it shall not fail thee +till thy dying day!" + +From Wales Henry struck across England, "turning neither to right nor +left, and marching at a double pace." In a few days he was at Portsmouth. +To hinder further mischief the younger Henry was ordered to join him and +carried over sea; and the first news that reached Louis was the king's +arrival in Normandy. "The King of England," Louis cried in his amazement, +"is now in Ireland, now in England, now in Normandy; he may rather be said +to fly than go by horse or boat!" Henry hastened on his landing to meet +the legates. Negotiations were opened in May. Submission was inevitable, +for fear of the rebellion which was then actually brewing left him in fact +no choice of action. He agreed unreservedly to their demands. As an +earnest of repentance and reformation he consented to a new coronation of +his son; and on the 27th of August the young king was crowned again, along +with his wife, at Winchester. Henry completed his submission at Avranches +on the 27th of September. He swore that he had not desired the death of +Thomas, but to make satisfaction for the anger he had shown, he promised +to take the cross, to give funds to the Knights Templars for the defence +of Jerusalem, and to found three religious houses. He renounced the +Constitutions of Clarendon. He swore allegiance to Alexander against the +anti-Pope. He promised that the possessions of Canterbury should be +given back as they were a year before the flight of Thomas, and that his +exiled friends should be restored to their possessions. No king of +England had ever suffered so deep a humiliation. It seemed as thought he +martyr were at last victorious. A year after the murder, in December +1172, Canterbury cathedral was once more solemnly opened, amid the cries +of a vast multitude of people, "Avenge, O Lord, the blood which has been +poured out!" On the anniversary of the Christmas Day when Thomas had +launched his last excommunications, the excited people noted "a great +thunder sudden and horrible in Ireland, in England, and in all the +kingdoms of the French." Very soon mighty miracles were wrought by the +name of the martyr throughout the whole of Europe. The metal phials +which hung from the necks of pilgrims to the shrine of Canterbury became +as famous as the shell and palm branch which marked the pilgrims to +Compostella and Jerusalem. Before ten years were passed the King of +France, the Count of Nevers, the Count of Boulogne, the Viscount of +Aosta, the Archbishop of Reims, had knelt at his shrine among English +prelates, nobles, knights, and beggars. The feast of the Trinity which +Thomas had appointed to be observed on the anniversary of his consecration +spread through the whole of Christendom. Henry, in fact, had to bear the +full storm of scorn and hatred that falls on every statesman who stands in +advance of the public opinion of his day. But his seeming surrender at +Avranches won for the politic king immediate and decisive advantages. All +fear of excommunication and interdict had passed away. The clergy were no +longer alienated from him. The ecclesiastical difficulties raised by the +coronation, and the jealousies of Louis, were set at rest. The alliance +of the Pope was secured. The conquest of Ireland was formally approved. +Success seemed to crown Henry's scheme for the building up of his empire. +Britanny had been secured for Geoffrey in 1171; in June 1172 Richard was +enthroned as Duke of Aquitaine; in the following August Henry was crowned +for the second time King of England. Only the youngest child, scarcely +five years old, was still "John Lackland," and in this same year Henry +provided a dominion for John by a treaty of marriage between him and the +heiress of the Count of Maurienne. Her inheritance stretched from the Lake +of Geneva almost to the Gulf of Genoa; and the marriage would carry the +Angevin dominions almost from the Atlantic to the Alps, and give into +Henry's control every pass into Italy from the Great St. Bernard to the +Col di Tenda, and all the highways by which travellers from Geneva and +German lands beyond it, from Burgundy or from Gaul, made their way to Rome. +To celebrate such a treaty Henry forgot his thrift. The two kings of +England travelled with ostentatious splendour to meet the Count of +Maurienne in Auvergne in January 1173. The King of Aragon and the Count of +Toulouse met them at Montferrand, and a peace which Henry concluded +between Toulouse and Aragon declared the height of his influence. Raymond +bent at last to do homage for Toulouse, an act of submission which brought +the dominion of Anjou to the very border of the Mediterranean. + +There was a wild outbreak of alarm among all Henry's enemies as from his +late humiliation he suddenly rose to this new height of power. The young +king listened eagerly to those who plotted mischief, and one night in +mid-Lent he fled to the court of Louis. In an agony of apprehension +Henry sought to close the breach, and sent messages of conciliation to +the French king. "Who sends this message to me?" demanded Louis. "The +King of England," answered the messengers. "It is false," he said; +"behold the King of England is here, and he sends no message to me by +you; but if you so call his father who once was king, know ye that he +asking is dead." The Counts of Flanders, of Boulogne, and of Blois, +joined the young king in Paris, and did homage to him for fiefs which he +bestowed on them--Kent, Dover, Eochester, lands in Lincolnshire, and +domains and castles in Normandy--while he won the aid of the Scot king +by granting him all Northumberland to the Tyne. The rebellion was +organized in a month. Eleanor sent Richard, commander of the forces of +Aquitaine, and Geoffrey, lord of Britanny, to take their share in the +revolt; she herself was hastening after them when she was seized and +thrown into prison. In Aquitaine, where the people impartially hated +both French and Normans, the enthusiasm for independence was stirred by +songs such as those of the troubadour, Bertrand de Born, lord of a +fortress and a thousand men, who "was never content, save when the kings +of the North were at war." In Normandy old hatreds had deepened year by +year as Henry had gone on steadily seizing castles and lands which had +fallen out of the possession of the crown. In 1171 he had doubled the +revenue of the duchy by lands which the nobles had usurped. In 1172 he +had alarmed them by having a new return made of the feudal tenures for +purposes of taxation. The great lords of the duchy with one consent +declared against him. Britanny sprang to arms. If Maine and Anjou +remained fairly quiet, there was in both of them a powerful party of +nobles who joined the revolt. The rebel party was everywhere increased +by all who had joined the young king, "not because they thought his the +juster cause," but in fierce defiance of a rule intolerable for its +justice and its severity. England was no less ready for rebellion. The +popular imagination was still moved by the horror of the archbishop's +murder. The generation that remembered the miseries of the former +anarchy was now passing away, and to some of the feudal lords order +doubtless seemed the greater ill. The new king too had lavished promises +and threats to win the English nobles to his side. "There were few +barons in England who were not wavering in their allegiance to the king, +and ready to desert him at any time." The more reckless eagerly joined +the rebellion; the more prudent took refuge in France, that they might +watch how events would go; there was a timid and unstable party who held +outwardly to the king in vigilant uncertainty, haunted by fears that +they should be swept away by the possible victory of his son. Such +descendants of the Normans of the Conquest as had survived the rebellions +and confiscations of a hundred years were eager for revenge. The Earl of +Leicester and his wife were heirs of three great families, whose power had +been overthrown by the policy of the Conqueror and his sons. William of +Aumale was descended from the Count who had claimed the throne in the +Conqueror's days, and bitterly remembered the time before Henry's +accession, when he had reigned almost as king in Northern England. +Hugh of Puiset, Bishop of Durham, whose diocese stretched across +Northumberland, and who ruled as Earl Palatine of the marchland between +England and Scotland; the Earl of Huntingdon, brother of the Scot king; +Roger Mowbray, lord of the castles of Thirsk and Malessart north of York, +and of a strong castle in the Isle of Axholm; Earl Ferrers, master of +fortresses in Derby and Stafford; Hugh, Earl of Chester and Lord of Bayeux +and Avranches, joined the rebellion. So did the old Hugh Bigod, Earl of +Norfolk, who had already fought and schemed against Henry in vain twenty +years before. The Earls of Clare and Gloucester on the Welsh border were +of very doubtful loyalty. Half of England was in revolt, and north +of a line drawn from Huntingdon to Chester the king only held a few +castles--York, Richmond, Carlisle, Newcastle, and some fortresses of +Northumberland. The land beyond Sherwood and the Trent, shut off by an +almost continuous barrier of marsh and forest from the south, was still +far behind the rest of England in civilization. The new industrial +activity of Yorkshire was not yet forty years old; in a great part of +the North money-rents had scarcely crept in, and the serfs were still +toiling on under the burden of labour-dues which had been found +intolerable elsewhere. The fines, the taxes, the attempt to bring its +people under a more advanced system of government must have pressed very +hardly on this great district which was not yet ready for it; and to the +fierce anger of the barons, and the ready hostility of the monasteries, +was perhaps added the exasperation of freeholder and serf. + +Henry, however, was absolute master of the whole central administration +of the realm. Moreover, by his decree of the year before he had set over +every shire a sheriff who was wholly under his own control, trained in +his court, pledged to his obedience, and who had firm hold of the +courts, the local forces, and the finances. The king now hastened to +appoint bishops whom he could trust to the vacant sees. Geoffrey, an +illegitimate son who had been born to him very early, probably about the +time when he visited England to receive knighthood, was sent to Lincoln; +and friends of the king were consecrated to Winchester, Ely, Bath, +Hereford, and Chichester. Prior Richard of Dover, a man "laudably +inoffensive who prudently kept within his own sphere," was made Archbishop +of Canterbury. Richard de Lucy remained in charge of the whole kingdom as +justiciar. The towns and trading classes were steadfast in loyalty, and +the baronage was again driven, as it had been before, to depend on foreign +mercenaries. + +War first broke out in France in the early summer of 1173. Normandy and +Anjou were badly defended, and their nobles were already half in revolt, +while the forces of France, Flanders, Boulogne, Chartres, Champagne, +Poitou, and Britanny were allied against Henry. The counts of Flanders +and Boulogne invaded Normandy from the north-east, and the traitor Count +of Aumale, the guardian of the Norman border, gave into their hands his +castles and lands. Louis and Henry's sons besieged Verneuil in the +south-west. To westward the Earl of Chester and Ralph of Fougères +organized a rising in Britanny. In "extreme perplexity," utterly unable +to meet his enemies in the field, Henry could only fortify his frontier, +and hastily recall the garrison which he had left in Ireland, while he +poured out his treasure in gathering an army of hired soldiers. Meanwhile +he himself waited at Rouen, "that he might be seen by all the people, +bearing with an even mind whatever happened, hunting oftener than usual, +showing himself with a cheerful face to all who came, answering patiently +those who wished to gain anything from him; while those whom he had +nourished from days of childhood, those whom he had knighted, those who +had been his servants and his most familiar counsellors, night by night +stole away from him, expecting his speedy destruction and thinking the +dominion of his son at once about to be established." Never did the kings +show such resource and courage as in the campaign that followed. The Count +of Boulogne was killed in battle, and the invading army in the north-east +hesitated at the unlucky omen and fell back. Instantly Henry seized his +opportunity. He rode at full speed to Verneuil with his army, a hastily +collected mob of chance soldiers so dissatisfied and divided in allegiance +that he dared not risk a battle. An audacious boast saved the crafty king. +"With a fierce countenance and terrible voice" he cried to the French +messengers who had hurried out to see if the astounding news of his +arrival were true, "Go tell your king I am at hand as you see!" At the +news of the ferocity and resolution of the enemy, Louis, "knowing him to +be fierce and of a most bitter temper, as a bear robbed of its whelps +rages in the forest," hastily retreated, and Henry, as wise a general +as he was excellent an actor, fell back to Rouen. Meanwhile he sent to +Britanny a force of Brabantines, whom alone he could trust. They +surrounded the rebels at Dol; and before Henry, "forgetting food and +sleep" and riding "as though he had flown," could reach the place, most +of his foes were slain. The castle where the rest had taken refuge +surrendered, and he counted among his prisoners the Earl of Chester, +Ralph of Fougères, and a hundred other nobles. The battle of Dol +practically decided the war. It seemed vain to fight against Henry's +good luck. A few Flemings once crossed the Norman border, and were +defeated and drowned in retreat by the bridge breaking. "The very +elements fight for the Normans!" cried the baffled and disheartened +Louis. "When I entered Normandy my army perished for want of water, now +this one is destroyed by too much water." In despair he sought to save +himself by playing the part of mediator; and in September Henry met his +sons at Gisors to discuss terms of peace. His terms were refused and the +meeting broke up; but Henry remained practically master of the situation. + +Meanwhile in England the rebellion had broken out in July. The Scottish +army ravaged the north; the Earl of Leicester, with an army of Flemings +which he had collected by the help of Louis and the younger Henry, +landed on the coast of Suffolk, where Hugh Bigod was ready to welcome +him. De Lucy and Bohun hurried from the north to meet this formidable +danger, and with the help of the Earls of Cornwall, Arundel, and +Gloucester, they defeated Leicester in a great battle at Fornham on the +17th of October. The earl himself was taken prisoner, and 10,000 of his +foreign troops were slain. He and his wife were sent by Henry's orders +to Normandy, and there thrown into prison. A truce was made with +Scotland till the end of March. The king of France and the younger Henry +abandoned hope, "for they saw that God was with the king;" and there +was a general pause in the war. + +With the spring of 1174, however, the strife raged again on all sides. +Ireland rose in rebellion. William of Scotland marched into England +supported by a Flemish force. Roger Mowbray, and probably the Bishop of +Durham, were in league with him. Earl Ferrers fortified his castles in +Derby and Stafford; Leicester Castle was still held by the Earl of +Leicester's knights; Huntingdon by the Scot king's brother; and the Earl +of Norfolk was joined in June by a picked body of Flemings. The king's +castles at Norwich, Northampton, and Nottingham, were taken by the rebels, +and a formidable line of enemies stretched right across mid-England. +At the same time France and Flanders threatened invasion with a strong +fleet, and "so great an army as had not been seen for many years." Count +Philip, who had set his heart on the promised Kent, and on winning +entrance into the lands of the Cistercian wool-growers of Lincolnshire, +swore before Louis and his nobles that within fifteen days he would attack +England; the younger Henry joined him at Gravelines in June, and they only +waited for a fair wind to cross the Channel. + +The justiciars were in an extremity of despair. "Seeing the evil that +was done in the land," they anxiously sent messenger after messenger to +the king. But Henry had little time to heed English complaints. Richard +had declared war in Aquitaine; Maine and Anjou were half in revolt; +Louis was on the point of invading Normandy. As a last resource his +hard-pressed ministers sent Richard of Ilchester, the bishop-elect of +Winchester, whom they knew to be favoured by the king beyond all others, +to tell him again of "the hatred of the barons, the infidelity of the +citizens, the clamour of the crowd always growing worse, the greed of +the 'new men,' the difficulty of holding down the insurrection." "The +English have sent their messengers before, and here comes even this +man!" laughed the Normans; "what will be left in England to send after +the king save the Tower of London!" Richard reached Henry on the 24th of +June, and on the same day Henry abandoned Normandy to Louis' attack, and +made ready for return. "He saw that while he was absent, and as it were +not in existence, no one in England would offer any opposition to him +who was expected to be his successor;" and he "preferred that his lands +beyond the sea should be in peril rather than his own realm of England." +Sending forward a body of Brabantines, he followed with his train of +prisoners--Queen Eleanor, Queen Margaret and her sister Adela, the +Earls of Chester and of Leicester, and various governors of castles whom +he carried with him in chains. In an agony of anxiety the king watched +for a fair wind till the 7th of July. At last the sails were spread; but +of a sudden the waves began to rise, and the storm to grow ominously. +Those who watched the face of the king saw him to be in doubt; then he +lifted his eyes to heaven and prayed before them all, "If I have set +before my eyes the things which make for the peace of clergy and people, +if the King of heaven has ordained that peace shall be restored by my +arrival, then let Him in His mercy bring me to a safe port; but if He is +against me, and has decreed to visit my kingdom with a rod, then let me +never touch the shores of the land." + +A good omen was granted, and he safely reached Southampton. Refusing +even to enter the city, and eating but bread and water, he pressed +forward to Canterbury. At its gates he dismounted and put away from him +the royal majesty, and with bare feet, in the garb of a pilgrim and +penitent, his footsteps marked with blood, he passed on to the church. +There he sought the martyr's sepulchre, and lying prostrate with +outstretched hands, he remained long in prayer, with abundance of tears +and bitter groanings. After a sermon by Foliot the king filled up the +measure of humiliation. He made public oath that he was guiltless of the +death of the archbishop, but in penitence of his hasty words he prayed +absolution of the bishops, and gave his body to the discipline of rods, +receiving three or five strokes from each one of the seventy monks. That +night he prayed and fasted before the shrine, and the next day rode +still fasting to London, which he reached on the 14th. Three days later +a messenger rode at midnight to the gate of the palace where the king +lay ill, worn out by suffering and fatigue for which the doctors had +applied their usual remedy of bleeding. He forced his way to the door of +the king's bedchamber. "Who art thou?" cried the king, suddenly startled +from sleep. "I am the servant of Ranulf de Glanville, and I come to +bring good tidings."--"Ranulf our friend, is he well?"--"He is well, my +lord, and behold he holds your enemy, the King of Scots, captive in +chains at Richmond." The king was half stunned by the news, but as the +messenger produced Glanville's letter, he sprang from his bed, and in a +transport of emotion and tears, gave thanks to God, while the joyful +ringing of bells told the good news to the London citizens. + +Two great dangers, in fact, had passed away while the king knelt before +the shrine at Canterbury. On that very day the Scottish army had been +broken to pieces. In the south the fleet which lay off the coast of +Flanders had dispersed. On the 18th of July, the day after the good news +had come, Henry himself marched north with the army that had been +gathered while he lay ill. Before a week was over Hugh Bigod had yielded +up his castles and banished his Flemish soldiers. The Bishop of Durham +secretly sent away his nephew, the Count of Bar, who had landed with +foreign troops. Henry's Welsh allies attacked Tutbury, a castle of the +Earl of Ferrers. Geoffrey, the bishop-elect of Lincoln, had before +Henry's landing waged vigorous war on Mowbray. By the end of July the +whole resistance was at an end. On the last day of the month the king +held a council at Northampton, at which William of Scotland stood before +him a prisoner, while Hugh of Durham, Mowbray, Ferrers, and the officers +of the Earl of Leicester came to give up their fortresses. The castles +of Huntingdon and Norfolk were already secured. The suspected Earls of +Gloucester and of Clare swore fidelity at the King's Court. Scotland was +helpless. A treaty was made with the Irish kings. Wales was secured by a +marriage between the prince of North Wales and Henry's sister. + +But there was still danger over sea, where the armies of the French and +the Flemings had closed round Rouen. On the 8th of August, exactly a +month after his landing at Southampton, Henry again crossed the Channel +with his unwieldy train of prisoners. As he stood under the walls of +Rouen, the besieging armies fled by night. Louis' fancy already showed +him the English host in the heart of France, and in his terror he sought +for peace. The two kings concluded a treaty at Gisors, and on the 30th +of September the conspiracy against Henry was finally dissolved. His +sons did homage to him, and bound themselves in strange medieval fashion +by the feudal tie which was the supreme obligation of that day; he was +now "not only their father, but their liege lord." The Count of Flanders +gave up into Henry's hands the charter given him by the young king. The +King of Scotland made absolute submission in December 1174, and was sent +back to his own land. Eleanor alone remained a close prisoner for years +to come. + +The revolt of 1173-74 was the final ruin of the old party of the Norman +baronage. The Earl of Chester got back his lands, but lost his castles, +and was sent out of the way to the Irish war; he died before the king in +1181. Leicester humbly admitted "that he and all his holdings were at +the mercy of the king," and Henry "restored to him Leicester, and the +forest which by common oath of the country had been sworn to belong to +the king's own domain, for he knew that this had been done for envy, and +also because it was known that the king hated the earl;" but Henry had a +long memory, and the walls of Leicester were in course of time thrown +down and its fortifications levelled. The Bishop of Durham had to pay +200 marks of silver for the king's pardon, and give up Durham Castle. At +the death of Hugh Bigod in 1177 Henry seized the earl's treasure. The +Earls of Clare and Gloucester died within two years, and the king's son +John was made Gloucester's heir. The rebel Count of Aumale died in 1179, +and his heiress married the faithful Earl of Essex, who took the title +of Aumale with all the lands on both sides of the water. In 1186 Roger +Mowbray went on crusade. The king took into his own hands all castles, +even those of "his most familiar friend," the justiciar De Lucy. The +work of dismantling dangerous fortresses which he had begun twenty years +before was at last completed, and no armed revolt of the feudal baronage +was ever again possible in England. + +But the rebellion had wakened in the king's mind a deep alarm, which +showed itself in a new severity of temper. Famine and plague had fallen +on the country; the treasury was well nigh empty; law and order were +endangered. Henry hastened to return as soon as his foreign campaign was +over, and in May 1175 "the two kings of England, whom a year before the +breadth of the kingdom could not contain, now crossed in one ship, sat +at one table, and slept in one bed." In token of reconciliation with the +Church they attended a synod at Westminster, and went together on solemn +pilgrimage to the martyr's tomb. Then they made a complete visitation of +the whole kingdom. Starting from Reading on the 1st of June, they went +by Oxford to Gloucester, then along the Welsh border to Shrewsbury, +through the midland counties by Lichfield and Nottingham to York, and +then back to London, having spent on their journey two months and a few +days; and in autumn they made a progress through the south-western +provinces. At every halt some weighty business was taken in hand. The +Church was made to feel anew the royal power. Twelve of the great abbeys +were now without heads, and the king, justly fearing lest the monks +should elect abbots from their own body, "and thus the royal authority +should be shaken, and they should follow another guidance than his own," +sent orders that on a certain day chosen men should be sent to elect +acceptable prelates at his court and in his presence. The safety of the +Welsh marches was assured. The castle of Bristol was given up to the +king, and border barons and Welsh princes swore fidelity at Gloucester. +An edict given at Woodstock ordered that no man who during the war had +been in arms against the king should come to his court without a special +order; that no man should remain in his court after the setting of the +sun, or should come to it before the sun rising; in the England that lay +west of the Severn, none might carry bow and arrow or pointed knife. In +this wild border district the checks which prevailed elsewhere against +violent crime were unknown. The outlaw or stranger who fled to forest or +moorland for hiding, might lawfully be slain by any man who met him. No +"murder-fine" was known there. The king, not daring perhaps to interfere +with the "liberties" of the west, may have sought to check crime by this +order against arms; but such a law was practically a dead letter, for in +a land where every man was the guardian of his own life it was far more +perilous to obey the new edict than to disregard it. + +The king's harsh mood was marked too by the cruel prosecutions of +offences against forest law which had been committed in the time of the +war. The severe punishments were perhaps a means of chastizing is affected +landowners; they were certainly useful in filling the empty treasury. +Nobles and barons everywhere were sued for hunting or cutting wood or +owning dogs, and were fined sometimes more than their whole possessions +were worth. In vain the justiciar, De Lucy, pleaded for justice to men +who had done these things by express orders of the king given to De Lucy +himself; "his testimony could prevail nothing against the royal will." +Even the clergy were dragged before the civil courts, "neither archbishop +nor bishop daring to make any protest." The king's triumph over the +rebellion was visibly complete when at York the treaty which had been made +the previous year with the King of Scotland was finally concluded, and +William and his brother did homage to the English sovereigns. A few weeks +later Henry and his son received at Windsor the envoys of the King of +Connaught, the only one of the Irish princes who had till now refused +homage. + +In the Church as in the State the royal power was unquestioned. A papal +legate arrived in October, who proved a tractable servant of the king; +"with the right hand and the left he took gifts, which he planted +together in his coffers". His coming gave Henry opportunity to carry out +at last through common action of Church and State his old scheme of +reforms. In the Assize of Northampton, held in January 1176, the king +confirmed and perfected the judicial legislation which he had begun ten +years before in the Assize of Clarendon. The kingdom was divided into +six circuits. The judges appointed to the circuits were given a more +full independence than they had before, and were no longer joined with +the sheriffs of the counties in their sessions, their powers were +extended beyond criminal jurisdiction to questions of property, of +inheritance, of wardship, of forfeiture of crown lands, of advowsons to +churches, and of the tenure of land. For the first time the name of +Justitiarii Itinerantes was given in the Pipe Roll to these travelling +justices, and the anxiety of the king to make the procedure of his +courts perfectly regular, instead of depending on oral tradition, was +shown by the law books which his ministers began at this time to draw +up. As a security against rebellion, a new oath of fealty was required +from every man, whether earl or villein, fugitives and outlaws were to +be more sharply sought after, and felons punished with harsher cruelty. +"Thinking more of the king than of his sheep," the legate admitted +Henry's right to bring the clergy before secular courts for crimes +against forest law, and in various questions of lay fiefs; and agreed +that murderers of clerks, who till then had been dealt with by the +ecclesiastical courts, should bear the same punishment as murderers of +laymen, and should be disinherited. Religious churchmen looked on with +helpless irritation at Henry's first formal victory over the principles +of Thomas; in the view of his own day he had "renewed the Assize of +Clarendon, and ordered to be observed the execrable decrees for which +the blessed martyr Thomas had borne exile for seven years, and been +crowned with the crown of martyrdom." + +During the next two years Henry was in perpetual movement through the +land from Devon to Lincoln, and between March 1176 and August 1177 he +summoned eighteen great councils, besides many others of less consequence. +From 1178 to 1180 he paid his last long visit to England, and again with +the old laborious zeal he began his round of journeys through the +country. "The king inquired about the justices whom he had appointed, how +they treated the men of the kingdom; and when he learned that the land and +the subjects were too much burthened with the great number of justices, +because there were eighteen, he elected five--two clerks and three +laymen--all of his own household; and he ordered that they should hear +all appeals of the kingdom and should do justice, and that they should not +depart from the King's Court, but should remain there to hear appeals, so +that if any question should come to them they should present it to the +audience of the king, and that it should be decided by him and by the wise +men of the kingdom." The _Justices of the Bench_, as they were called, +took precedence of all other judges. The influence of their work was soon +felt. From this time written records began to be kept of the legal +compromises made before the King's Court to render possible the +transference of land. It seems that in 1181 the practice was for the +first time adopted of entering on rolls all the business which came to +the King's Court, the pleas of the Crown and common pleas between +subjects. Unlike in form to the great Roll of the Pipe, in which the +records of the Exchequer Court had long been kept, the Plea Rolls +consisted of strips of parchment filed together by their tops, on which, +in an uncertain and at first a blundering fashion, the clerks noted down +their records of judicial proceedings. But practice soon brought about an +orderly and mechanical method of work, and the system of procedure in the +Bench rapidly attained a scientific perfection. Before long the name of +the _Curia Regis_ was exclusively applied to the new court of appeal. + +The work of legal reform had now practically come to an end. Henry +indeed still kept a jealous watch over his judges. Once more, on the +retirement of De Lucy in 1179, he divided the kingdom into new circuits, +and chose three bishops--Winchester, Ely, and Norwich--"as chief +justiciars, hoping that if he had failed before, the seat least he might +find steadfast in righteousness, turning neither to the right nor to the +left, not oppressing the poor, and not deciding the cause of the rich +for bribes." In the next year he set Glanville finally at the head of +the legal administration. After that he himself was called to other +cares. But he had really finished his task in England. The mere system +of routine which the wisdom of Henry I. had set to control the arbitrary +power of the king had given place to a large and noble conception of +government; and by the genius of Henry II. the law of the land was +finally established as the supreme guardian of the old English liberties +and the new administrative order. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +THE COURT OF HENRY + +In the years that followed the Assize of Northampton Henry was at the +height of his power. He was only forty-three, and already his triumph +was complete. One of his sons was King of England, one Count of Poitou, +one Lord of Britanny, one was named King of Ireland. His eldest daughter, +wife of the Duke of Saxony, was mother of a future emperor, the second +was Queen of Castile, the third was in 1176 married to William of Sicily, +the wealthiest king of his time. All nations hastened to do honour to so +great a potentate. Henry's counselors were called together to receive, +now ambassadors from Sicily, now the envoys of the Emperors both of the +East and of the West, of the Kings of Castile and Navarre, and of the +Duke of Saxony, the Archbishop of Reims, and the Count of Flanders. + +In England the king's power knew no limits. Rebellion had been finally +crushed. His wife and sons were held in check. He had practically won a +victory over the Church. Even in renouncing the Constitutions of +Clarendon at Avranches Henry abandoned more in word than in deed. He +could still fall back on the law of the land and the authority which he +had inherited from the Norman kings. Since the Conqueror's days no Pope +might be recognized as Apostolic Pope save at the king's command; no +legate might land or use any power in England without the king's +consent; no ecclesiastical senate could decree laws which were not +authorized by the king, or could judge his servants against his will. +The king could effectually resist the introduction of foreign canon law; +he could control communications with Rome; he could stay the proceedings +of ecclesiastical courts if they went too far, or prejudiced the rights +of his subjects; and no sentence could be enforced save by his will. +Henry was strong enough only six years after the death of Thomas to win +control over a vast amount of important property by insisting that +questions of advowson should be tried in the secular courts, and that +the murderers of clerks should be punished by the common law. He was +able in effect to prevent the Church courts from interfering in secular +matters save in the case of marriages and of wills. He preserved an +unlimited control over the choice of bishops. In an election to the see +of St. David's the canons had neglected to give the king notice before +the nomination of the bishop. He at once ordered them to be deprived of +their lands and revenues. "As they have deprived me," he said, "of all +share in the election, they shall have neither part nor lot in this +promotion." The monks, stricken with well-founded terror, followed the +king from place to place to implore his mercy and to save their livings; +with abject repentance they declared they would accept whomsoever the +king liked, wherever and whenever he chose. Finally Henry sent them a +monk unknown to the chapter, who had been elected in his chamber, at his +bedside, in the presence of his paid servants, and according to his +orders, "after the fashion of an English tyrant," and who had then and +there raised his tremulous and fearful song of thanksgiving. Towards the +close of his reign there was again a dispute as to the election of an +Archbishop of Canterbury. The monks, under Prior Alban, were determined +that the election should lie with them. The king was resolved to secure +the due influence of the bishops, on whom he could depend. "The Prior +wanted to be a second Pope in England," he complained to the Count of +Flanders, to which his affable visitor replied that he would see all the +churches of his land burned before he would submit to such a thing. For +three months the strife raged between the convent and the bishops in +spite of the king's earnest efforts at reconciliation. "Peace is by all +means to be sought," he urged. "He was a wise man who said, 'Let peace +be in our days'. For the sake of God choose peace, as much as in you lies +follow after peace" "The voice of the people is the voice of God," he +argued in proposing at last that bishops and monks should sit together +for the election. "But this he said," observed the monks, "knowing the +mind of the bishops, and that they sought rather the favour of the king +than of God, as their fathers and predecessors had done, who denied +St. Anselm for Rufus, who forsook Theobald for King Stephen, who rejected +the holy martyr Thomas for King Henry." Henry, however, won the day, and +his friend and nominee, the good Bishop Baldwin of Worcester, singular for +piety and righteousness, was set in the Primate's chair. Of this +archbishop we read that "his power was so great and so formidable that no +one was equal to him in all England, and without his pleasure no one would +dare even to obey the commands of the Pope.... But," adds the irritated +chronicler, "I think that he would do nothing save at the orders of the +king, even if the Apostle Peter came to England about it." + +In the opinion of anxious critics of the day, indeed, the victory which +had been almost won by Thomas seemed altogether lost after his death. +Even the monasteries, where the ecclesiastical temper was most formidable, +were forced to choose abbots and priors whom the king could trust. In its +subjection the Church was in Henry's eyes an admirable engine to serve the +uses of the governing power. One of the most important steps in the +conquest of Wales had been the forcing of the Welsh Church into obedience +to the see of Canterbury; and Henry steadily used the Welsh clergy as +instruments of his policy. His efforts to draw the Scotch Church into a +like obedience were unceasing. In Ireland he worked hard for the same +object. On the death of an Archbishop of Dublin, the Irish clergy were +summoned to Evesham, and there bidden in the king's court, after the +English fashion, to choose an Englishman, Cumin, as their archbishop. +The claims of the papacy were watched with the most jealous care. No +legate dared to land in England save at the king's express will. A +legate in Ireland who seemed to "play the Roman over them" was curtly +told by the king's officers that he must do their bidding or leave the +country. In 1184 the Pope sent to ask aid for his necessities in Rome. +A council was called to consider the matter, and Glanville urged that +if papal messengers were allowed to come through England collecting money, +it might afterwards become a custom to the injury of the kingdom. The +Council decided that the only tolerable solution of the difficulty was for +the king to send whatever he liked to the Pope as a gift from himself, and +to accept afterwards from them compensation for what he might have given. + +The questions raised by the king between Church and State in England had +everywhere to be faced sooner or later. Even so devoted a servant of the +Church as St. Louis of France was forced into measures of reform as +far-reaching as those which Henry had planned a century earlier. But +Henry had begun his work a hundred years too soon; he stood far before +his age in his attempt to bring the clergy under a law which was not +their own. His violence had further hindered the cause of reform, and +the work which he had taken in hand was not to be fully carried out till +three centuries and a half had passed away. We must remember that in +raising the question of judicial reform he had no desire to quarrel with +the Church or priesthood. He refused indeed to join in any fanatical +outbreak of persecution of the Jews, such as Philip of France consented +to; and when persecution raged against the Albigenses of the south he +would have no part or lot in it, and kept his own dominions open as a +refuge for the wandering outcasts; but this may well have been by the +counsel of the wise churchmen about him. To the last he looked on the +clergy as his best advisers and supporters. He never demanded tribute +from churches or monasteries, a monkish historian tells us, as other +princes were wont to do on plea of necessity; with religious care he +preserved them from unjust burthens and public exactions. By frequent +acts of devotion he sought to win the favour of Heaven or to rouse the +religious sympathies of England on his behalf. In April 1177 he met at +Canterbury his old enemy, the Archbishop of Reims, and laid on the +shrine of St. Thomas a charter of privileges for the convent. On the 1st +of May he visited the shrine of St. Eadmund, and the next day that of +St. Aetheldreda at Ely. The bones of a saint stolen from Bodmin were +restored by the king's order, and on their journey were brought to +Winchester that he might do them reverence. Relics discovered by +miraculous vision were buried with pomp at St. Albans. Since his vow +four years before at Avranches to build three monasteries for the +remission of his sins, he had founded in Normandy and England four or +five religious houses for the Templars, the Carthusians, and the Austin +canons; he now brought nuns from Fontevraud, for whom he had a special +reverence, and set them in the convent at Amesbury, whose former +inhabitants were turned out to make way for them; while the canons of +Waltham were replaced by a stricter order of Austin canons. A templar +was chosen to be his almoner, that he might carry to the king the +complaints of the poor which could not come to his own ears, and +distribute among the needy a tenth of all the food and drink that came +into the house of the king. + +It is true that on Henry himself the strife with the Church left deep +traces. He became imperious, violent, suspicious. The darker sides of +his character showed themselves, its defiance, its superstition, its +cynical craft, its passionate pride, its ungoverned wrath. His passions +broke out with a reckless disregard of earlier restraints. Eleanor was a +prisoner and a traitor; she was nearly fifty when he himself was but +forty-one. From this time she practically disappeared out of Henry's +life. The king had bitter enemies at court, and they busied themselves +in spreading abroad dark tales; more friendly critics could only plead +that he was "not as bad as his grandfather." After the rebellion of 1174 +he openly avowed his connection with Rosamond Clifford, which seems to +have begun some time before. Eleanor was then in prison, and tales of +the maze, the silken clue, the dagger, and the bowl, were the growth of +later centuries. But "fair Rosamond" did not long hold her place at +court. She died early and was carried to Godstowe nunnery, to which rich +gifts were sent by her friends and by the king himself. A few years +later Hugh of Lincoln found her shrine before the high altar decked with +gold and silken hangings, and the saintly bishop had the last finery of +Rosamond swept from the holy place, till nothing remained but a stone +with the two words graven on it, "Tumba Rosamundae." + +But behind Henry's darkest and sternest moods lay a nature quick in +passionate emotion, singularly sensitive to affection, tender, full of +generous impulse, clinging to those he loved with yearning fidelity and +long patience. The story of St. Hugh shows the unlimited influence won +over him by a character of singular holiness. Henry had brought Hugh +from Burgundy, and set him over a newly-founded Cistercian priory at +Witham. The little settlement was in sore straits, and the impatient +monks railed passionately at the king, who had abandoned them in their +necessities. It was just after the rebellion, and Henry, hard pressed by +anxiety, was in his harshest and most bitter temper. "Have patience," +said Hugh, "for the king is wise beyond measure and wholly inscrutable; +it may be that he delays to grant our request that he may try us." But +brother Girard was not to be soothed, and in a fresh appeal to the king +his vehemence broke out in a torrent of reproaches and abuse. Henry +listened unmoved till the monk ceased from sheer lack of words. There +was dead silence for a time, while Prior Hugh bent down his head in +distress, and the king watched him under his eyelids. At last, taking no +more notice of the monk than if he never existed, Henry turned to Hugh, +"What are you thinking of, good man?" he said. "Are you preparing to go +away and leave our kingdom?" Hugh answered humbly and gently, "I do not +despair of you so far, my lord; rather I have great sorrow for the +troubles and labours which hinder the care for your soul. You are busy +now, but some day, when the Lord helps, we will finish the good work +begun." At this the king's self-control broke down; his tears burst +forth as he fell on Hugh's neck, and cried with an oath, "By the +salvation of my soul, while you have the breath of life you shall not +depart from my kingdom! With you I wilt hold wise counsel, and with you +I will take heed for my soul!" From that time there was none in the +kingdom whom Henry loved and trusted as he did the Prior of Witham, and +to the end of his life he constantly sought in all matters the advice of +one who gave him scant flattery and much sharp reproof. The coarse-fibred, +hard-worked man of affairs looked with superstitious reverence on one who +lived so near to God that even in sleep his lips still moved in prayer. +Such a man as Hugh could succeed where Thomas of Canterbury had failed. +He excommunicated without notice to the king a chief forester who had +interfered with the liberties of the Lincoln clergy, and bluntly refused +to make amends by appointing a royal officer to a prebend in his +cathedral, saying that "benefices were for clergy and not for courtiers." +A general storm of abuse and calumny broke out against him at the palace. +Henry angrily summoned him to his presence. The bishop was received by the +king in an open space under the trees, where he sat with all the courtiers +ranged in a close circle. Hugh drew near and saluted, but there was no +answer. Upon this the bishop put his hand lightly on the noble who sat +next to the king, and made place for himself by Henry's side. Still the +silence was unbroken, the king speechless as a furious man choked with his +anger. Looking up at last, he asked a servant for needle and thread, and +began to sew up a torn bandage which was tied round a wounded finger. The +lively Frenchman observed him patiently; at last he turned to the king, +"How like you are now," he said, "to your cousins of Falaise!" The king's +quick wit caught the extravagant impertinence, and in an ecstasy of +delight he rolled on the ground with laughter, while a perplexed merriment +ran round the circle of courtiers who scarce knew what the joke might be. +At last the king found his voice. "Do you hear the insolence of this +barbarian? I myself will explain." And he reminded them of his ancestress, +the peasant girl Arlotta of Falaise, where the citizens were famous for +their working in skins. "And now, good man," he said, turning to the +bishop in a broad good-humour, "how is it that without consulting us you +have laid our forester under anathema, and made of no account the poor +little request we made, and sent not even a message of explanation or +excuse?"--"Ah," said Hugh, "I knew in what a rage you and your +courtiers were!" and he then proceeded boldly to declare what were his +rights and duties as a bishop of the Church of God. Henry gave way on +every point. The forester had to make open satisfaction and was publicly +flogged, and from that time the bishop was no more tormented to set +courtiers over the Church. There were many other theologians besides +Hugh of Lincoln among the king's friends--Baldwin, afterwards archbishop; +Foliot, one of the chief scholars of his time; Richard of Ilchester, as +learned in theology as capable in administration; John of Oxford, lawyer +and theologian; Peter of Blois, ready for all kinds of services that might +be asked, and as skilled in theology as in rhetoric. Henry was never known +to choose an unworthy friend; laymen could only grumble that he was +accustomed to take advice of bishops and abbots rather than that of +knights even about military matters. But theology was not the main +preoccupation of the court. Henry, inquisitive in all things, learned +in most, formed the centre of a group of distinguished men which, for +varied intellectual activity, had no rival save at the university of +Paris. There was not a court in Christendom in the affairs of which the +king was not concerned, and a crowd of travellers was for ever coming and +going. English chroniclers grew inquisitive about revolutions in Norway, +the state of parties in Germany, the geography of Spain. They copied +despatches and treaties. They asked endless questions of every traveller +as to what was passing abroad, and noted down records which have since +become authorities for the histories of foreign states. Political and +historical questions were eagerly debated. Gerald of Wales and Glanville, +as they rode together, would discuss why the Normans had so fallen away in +valour that now even when helped by the English they were less able to +resist the French than formerly when they stood alone. The philosophic +Glanville might suggest that the French at that time had been weakened by +previous wars, but Gerald, true to the feudal instincts of a baron of the +Norman-Welsh border, spoke of the happy days before dukes had been made +into kings, who oppressed the Norman nobles by their overbearing violence, +and the English by their insular tyranny; "For there is nothing which so +stirs the heart of man as the joy of liberty, and there is nothing which +so weakens it as the oppression of slavery," said Gerald, who had himself +felt the king's hand heavy on him. + +One of the most striking features of the court was the group of great +lawyers which surrounded the king. The official nobility trained at the +Exchequer and Curia Regis, and bound together by the daily work of +administering justice, formed a class which was quite unknown anywhere +on the continent. It was not till a generation later that a few clerks +learned in civil law were called to the king's court of justice in +France, and the system was not developed till the time of Louis IX.; in +Germany such a reform did not take place for centuries. But in England +judges and lawyers were already busied in building up the scientific +study of English law. Richard Fitz-Neal, son of Bishop Nigel of Ely and +great-nephew of Roger of Salisbury, and himself Treasurer of the +Exchequer and Bishop of London, began in 1178 the _Dialogus de Scaccario_, +an elaborate account of the whole system of administration. Glanville, +the king's justiciar, drew up probably the oldest version which we have +of the Conqueror's laws and the English usages which still prevailed in +the inferior jurisdictions. A few years later he wrote his _Tractatus de +Legibus Angliae_, which was in fact a handbook for the Curia Regis, and +described the new process in civil trials and the rules established by the +Norman lawyers for the King's Court and its travelling judges. Thomas +Brown, the king's almoner, besides his daily record of the king's doings, +left behind him an account of the laws of the kingdom. + +The court became too a great school of history. From the reign of Alfred +to the end of the Wars of the Roses there is but one break in the +contemporary records of our history, a break which came in the years +that followed the outbreak of feudal lawlessness. In 1143 William of +Malmesbury and Orderic ceased writing; in 1151 the historians who had +carried on the task of Florence of Worcester also ceased; three years +later the Saxon Chronicle itself came to an end, and in 1155 Henry of +Huntingdon finished his work. From 1154 to 1170 we have, in fact, no +contemporary chronicle. In the historical schools of the north compilers +had laboured at Hexham, at Durham, and in the Yorkshire monasteries to +draw together valuable chronicles founded on the work of Baeda; but in +1153 the historians of Hexham closed their work, and those of Durham in +1161. Only the monks of Melrose still carried on their chronicle as far +as 1169. The great tradition, however, was once more worthily taken up +by the men of Henry's court, kindled by the king's intellectual activity. +A series of chronicles appeared in a few years, which are unparalleled in +Europe at the time. At the head of the court historians stood the +treasurer, Richard Fitz Neal, the author of the _Dialogus_, who in 1172 +began a learned work in three columns, treating of the ecclesiastical, +political, and miscellaneous history of England in his time--a work which +some scholars say is included in the _Gesta Henrici II_ that was once +connected with the name of Benedict of Peterborough. The king's clerk +and justiciar, Roger of Hoveden, must have been collecting materials for +the famous Chronicle which he began very soon after Henry's death, when +he gathered up and completed the work of the Durham historians. Gervase +of Tilbury, marshal of the kingdom of Arles, well known in every great +town of Italy and Sicily, afterwards the writer of _Otia Imperialia_ for +the Emperor Otto IV., wrote a book of anecdotes, now lost, for the younger +King Henry. Gerald of Wales, a busy courtier, and later a chaplain of the +king, was the brilliant historian of the Irish conquest and the mighty +deeds of his cousins, the Fitz Geralds and Fitz Stephens. "In process of +time when the work was completed, not willing to hide his candle under a +bushel, but to place it on a candlestick that it might give light to all, +he resolved to read it publicly at Oxford, where the most learned and +famous English clergy were at that time to be found. And as there were +three distinctions or divisions in the work, and as each division occupied +a day, the reading lasted three successive days. On the first day he +received and entertained at his lodgings all the poor of the town, on the +next day all the doctors of the different faculties and such of their +pupils as were of fame and note, on the third day the rest of the scholars +with the _milites_, townsmen, and many burgesses. It was a costly and noble +act; the authentic and ancient times of poesy were thus in some measure +renewed, and neither present nor past time can furnish any record of +such a solemnity having ever taken place in England." + +Literature was shaking itself free from the limits imposed upon it while +it lay wholly in the hands of churchmen, and Gerald's writings, the +first books of vivacious and popular prose-writing in England, were +avowedly composed for "laymen and uneducated princes," and professed to +tell "the doings of the people." He declared his intention to use common +and easily understood words as he told his tales of Ireland and Wales, +of their physical features, their ways and customs, and with a literary +instinct that knew no scruple, added scandal, gossip, satire, bits of +folk-lore or of classical learning or of Bible phrases, which might +serve the purposes of literary artifice or of frank conceit. The +independent temper which had been stirred by the fight with the Church +was illustrated in his _Speculum Ecclesiae_, a bitter satire on the +monks and on the Roman Curia. A yet more terrible scorn of the crime and +vice which disgraced the Church inspired the _Apocalypse_ and the +_Confession of Bishop Goliath_, the work of Walter Map, Archdeacon of +Oxford, king's chaplain ever since the days when Becket was chancellor, +justiciar, ambassador, poet, scholar, theologian, satirist. The greater +part of the legends of the Saint Graal that sprang out of the work of +Robert de Boron were probably woven together by his genius; and were +used in the great strife to prove that the English Church originated +independently of Rome. His _Courtier's Triflings_, suggested by John of +Salisbury's _Polycraticus_, is the only book which actually bears his +name, and with its gossip, its odd accumulations of learning, its +fragments of ancient history, its outbursts of moral earnestness, its +philosophy, brings back to us the very temper of the court and the stir +and quickening of men's minds--a stir which found expression in other +works of bitter satire, in the lampoon of _Ralph Niger_, and in the +violent attacks on the monks by _Nigellus_. + +Nor was the new intellectual activity confined to the court. The whole +country shared in the movement. Good classical learning might be had in +England, if for the new-fashioned studies of canon law and theology men +had to go abroad; but conservative scholars grumbled that now law and +physics had become such money-making sciences that they were beginning +to cut short the time which used to be given to classical studies. +Gerald of Wales mourned over the bringing in from Spain of "certain +treatises, lately found and translated, pretended to have been written +by Aristotle," which tended to foster heresy. The cathedral schools, +such as York, Lincoln, or London, played the part of the universities in +our own day. The household of the Archbishop of Canterbury had been the +earliest and the most distinguished centre of learning. Of all the +remarkable men of the day there was none to compare with John of +Salisbury, the friend of Theobald and of Becket, and his book, the +__Polycraticus_ (1156-59), was perhaps the most important work of the +time. It begins by recounting the follies of the court, passes on to the +discussion of politics and philosophy, deals with the ethical systems of +the ancients, and hints at a new system of his own, and is everywhere +enriched by wide reading and learning acquired at the schools of +Chartres and Paris London could boast of the historian Ralph of Diceto, +always ready with a quotation from the classics amid the court news and +politics of his day. Monasteries rivaled one another in their collection +of books and in drawing up of chronicles. If their brethren were more +famed for piety than for literary arts, they would borrow some noted man +of learning, or even a practised scribe, who would for the occasion +write under a famous name. The friends and followers of Becket told +on every side and in every way, in prose or poetry, in Latin or +Norman-French, the story of their master's martyrdom and miracles. The +greatest historian of his day, William of Newburgh, was monk in a quiet +little Yorkshire monastery. Gervase, a monk of Canterbury, began the +Chronicle that bears his name in 1185. The historical workers of Durham, +of Hexham, and of Melrose started into a new activity. A canon of the +priory of St. Bartholomew's in London wrote before Henry's death a life of +its founder Rahere, and noted the first cases received into the hospital. +Joseph of Exeter, brother of Archbishop Baldwin, was the brilliant author +of a Latin poem on the _Troy Story_, and of a poetic history of the first +crusade. There was scarcely a religious house in the whole land which +could not boast of some distinction in learning or literature. + +Even the feudal nobles caught the prevailing temper. A baron was not +content to have only his household dwarf or jester, he must have his +household poet too. Intellectual interest and curiosity began to spread +beyond the class of clerks to whom Latin, the language of learning and +worship, was familiar, and a demand began to spring up for a popular +literature which could be understood of the unlearned baron or burgher. +Virgil and Statius and Ovid were translated into French. Wace in 1155 +dedicated to Eleanor his translation into Norman-French of the _History +of Geoffrey of Monmouth_, a book which came afterwards to be called the +_Brut d'Engleterre_, and was one of the sources of the first important +English poem, Layamon's _Brut_. Later on, in honour of Henry, Wace told +in the _Roman de Rou_ the story of his Norman ancestors, and the poem, +especially in the account of Senlac, has given some brilliant details to +history. Other Norman-French poems were written in England on the +rebellion, on the conquest of Ireland, on the life of the martyred +Thomas--poems which threw off the formal rules of the stilted Latin +fashion, and embodied the tales of eye-witnesses with their graphic +brief descriptions. An Anglo-Norman literature of song and sermon fast +grew up, absolutely identical in tongue with the Norman literature +beyond the Channel, but marked by special characteristics of thought and +feeling. Meanwhile English, as the speech of the common folk, still +lived on as a tongue apart, a tongue so foreign to judges and barons and +Courtiers that authors or transcribers could not copy half a dozen +English lines without a mistake. The serfs and traders who spoke it were +too far removed from the upper court circle to take into their speech +foreign words or foreign grammatical forms; the songs which their +minstrels sang from fair to fair only lived on the lips of the poor, and +left no echo behind them. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +THE DEATH OF HENRY + +In the last nine years of Henry's reign his work lay elsewhere than in +his English kingdom. They were years spent in a passionate effort to +hold together the unwieldy empire he had so laboriously built up. On the +death of Louis in 1180 the peaceful and timid traditions of his reign +were cast aside by the warlike Philip, who had from childhood cherished +a violent hatred against Henry, and who was bent on the destruction of +rival powers, and the triumph of the monarchy in France. Henry's +absorbing care, on the other hand, was to prevent war; and during the +next four years he constantly forced reconciliation on the warring +princes of France. "All who loved peace rejoiced at his coming," the +chroniclers constantly repeat. "He had faith in the Lord, that if he +crossed over he could make peace." "As though always at his coming peace +should certainly be made." + +But in Britanny and in Aquitaine there was no peace. The sons whom he +had set over his provinces had already revolted in 1173. In 1177 fresh +troubles broke out, and from that time their history was one of unbroken +revolt against their father and strife amongst themselves. "Dost thou +not know," Geoffrey once answered a messenger of his father's, sent to +urge him to peace, "that it is our proper nature, planted in us by +inheritance from our ancestors, that none of us should love the other, +but that ever brother should strive against brother, and son against +father. I would not that thou shouldst deprive us of our hereditary +right, nor vainly seek to rob us of our nature!" In 1182 Henry sought +once more to define the authority of his sons, and to assert the unity +of the Empire under his own supremacy by ordering Richard and Geoffrey +to do homage to their brother for Aquitaine and Britanny. Richard's +passionate refusal struck the first open blow at his father's imperial +schemes, and war at once broke out. The nobles of Aquitaine, weary of +the severe rule of Richard, had long plotted to set in his place his +gentler brother Henry, and the young king, along with Geoffrey, lent +himself openly to the conspiracy. In 1183 they called for help from +Flanders, France, and Normandy, and a general revolt seemed on the point +of breaking out, like that of ten years before. Henry II. was forced to +march himself into Aquitaine. But in a war with his sons he was no +longer the same man as when he fought with French king or rebel barons. +His political sagacity and his passionate love of his children fought an +unequal battle. Duped by every show of affection, he was at their mercy +in intrigue. Twice peaceful embassies, which he sent to Henry and +Geoffrey, were slain before their eyes without protest. As he himself +talked with them they coolly saw one of their archers shoot at him and +wound his horse. The younger Henry pretended to make peace with his +father, sitting at meat with him, and eating out of the same dish, that +Geoffrey might have time to ravage the land unhindered. Geoffrey +successfully adopted the same device in order to plunder the churches of +Limoges. The wretched strife was only closed at last by the death of the +younger Henry in 1183. + +His death, however, only opened new anxieties. Richard now claimed to +take his brother's place as heir to the imperial dignity, while at the +same time he exercised undivided lordship over an important state a +position which the king had again and again refused to Henry. Geoffrey, +whose over-lord the young king had been, sought to rule Britanny as a +dependent of Philip, and his plots in Paris with the French king were +only ended by his death in 1185. Philip, on his part, demanded, at the +death of the young king, the restoration of Margaret's dowry, the Vexin +and Gisors; when Geoffrey died he claimed to be formally recognized as +suzerain of Britanny, and guardian of his infant; he demanded that +Richard should do homage directly to him as sovereign lord of Aquitaine, +and determined to assert his rights over the lands so long debated of +Berri and Auvergne. For the last years of Henry's reign disputes raged +round these points, and more than once war was only averted by the +excitement which swept over Europe at the disastrous news from the Holy +Land. + +After the death of the young king a precarious peace was established in +Aquitaine, and Henry returned to England. In March 1185 he received at +Reading the patriarch of Jerusalem and the master of the Hospital, +bearing the standard of the kings of the Holy Land, with the keys of the +Holy Sepulchre, of the tower of David, and of the city of Jerusalem. +"Behold the keys of the kingdom," said the patriarch Heracles with a +burst of tears, "which the king and princes of the land have ordered me +to give to thee, because it is in thee alone, after God, that they have +hope and confidence of salvation." The king reverently received them +before the weeping assembly, but handed them back to the safekeeping of +the patriarch till he could consult with his barons. He had long been +pledged to join the holy war; he had renewed his vow in 1177 and 1181. +But it was a heavy burden to be now charged with the crown of Jerusalem. +Since the days of his grandfather, Fulk of Anjou, the last strong king +of Jerusalem, there had been swift decay. Three of his successors were +minors; Antone was a leper; the fifth was repudiated by every one of his +vassals. The last forty years had been marked by continual disaster. The +armies of the Moslem were closing in fast on every side. A passion of +sympathy was everywhere roused by the sorrows of the Holy City. All +England, it was said, desired the crusade, and Henry's prudent counting +of the cost struck coldly on the excited temper of the time. Gerald of +Wales officiously took on himself, in the middle of a hunting party, to +congratulate the king on the honour done to him and his kingdom, since +the patriarch had passed by the lands of emperors and kings to seek out +the English sovereign. Talk of this kind before all the court at such a +critical moment much displeased the prudent king, and he answered in his +biting way, "If the patriarch, or any other men come to me, they seek +rather their own than my gain." The unabashed Gerald still went on, +"Thou shouldst think it thy highest gain and honour, king, that thou +alone art chosen before all the sovereigns of the earth for so great a +service to Christ." "Thus bravely," retorted Henry, "the clergy provoke +us to arms and dangers, since they themselves receive no blow in the +battle, nor bear any burden which they may avoid!" + +Henry's council, however, held firm against the general tide of romantic +enthusiasm. In the weighty question of the eastern crown the king had +formally and openly pledged himself to act by the advice of his wise +men, as no king before him since the Conquest had ever done. An assembly +was summoned at Clerkenwell on the 18th of March. No councillors were +called from Anjou or Normandy or Aquitaine; the decision was made solely +by the advice of the prelates and barons of England. "It seemed to all," +declared the council, "to be more fitting, and more for the safety of +his soul, that he should govern his kingdom with moderation and preserve +it from the irruptions of barbarians and from foreign nations, than that +he should in his own person provide for the safety of the eastern +nations." The verdict showed the new ideal of kingship which had grown +up during Henry's reign, and which made itself deeply felt over the +whole land when in the days of his successor the duties of righteous +government were thrown aside for the vainglories of religious chivalry. +But the patriarch heard the answer with bitter disappointment, and was +not appeased by promises of money and forces for the war. "Not thus will +you save your soul nor the heritage of Christ," he declared. "We come to +seek a king, not money; for every corner of the world sends us money, +but not one a prince." And in open court he flung his fierce prophecy at +the king, that as till now he had been greatest among the kings of the +earth, so henceforth, forsaken by God and destitute of His grace, until +his latest breath his glory should be turned into disaster and his +honour into shame. Henry, as he rode with the patriarch back to Dover, +listened with his strange habitual forbearance while Heraclius poured +forth angry reproaches for the iniquities of his whole life, and +declared at last that he had almost with his own hands slain St. Thomas. +At this the king fiercely turned, with his eyes rolling in a mad storm +of passion, and the patriarch bent his head. "Do with me," he cried, +"what you did to Thomas. I would rather have my head cut off by you in +England than by the Saracens in Palestine, for in truth you are worse +than any Saracen!" The king answered with an oath, "If all the men of my +kingdom were gathered in one body and spoke with one mouth they would +not dare to say this to me." Heraclius pointed scornfully to the train +of followers. "Do you indeed think that these men love you--these who +care only for your wealth? It is the plunder, and not the man, that this +crowd follows after!" Henry spoke of the danger from his sons if he +should quit his dominions. "No wonder," was the parting taunt of +Heraclius; "from the devil they came, and to the devil they will go." + +But Henry was never to come back to England. One day in June a certain +Walter of the royal household was terrified by a vision of St. Thomas, +who appeared bearing a shining sword which he declared had been newly +forged to pierce through the king himself. Walter hurried to the chapel, +where Henry was at mass, to tell his tale. Three times the king bent +before the altar and signed himself devoutly as though he prayed to the +Lord, and then passed to his council chamber. The next day he called +Walter to his presence, and sadly shaking his head, spoke with deep +sighs, "Walter, Walter, I have felt how cruelly thy sword can strike, +for we have lost Châteauroux!" War had in fact broken out in Aquitaine. +Toulouse had risen against Richard. Philip, in violation of his treaty, +invaded Berri and marched into Auvergne. Hastily gathering an army, +Henry crossed to France in a terrible storm. He met Philip at Gisors on +the 30th of September, but after three days' bitter strife the kings +parted. In November they met again at Bonmoulins in the presence of the +Archbishop of Reims, and a great multitude of courtiers and knights. +Richard, outraged by the rumour that Henry proposed to give Aquitaine to +John, turned suddenly to Philip, while the people crowded round wondering, +ungirt his sword, and stretched out his hands to do homage to him for all +his father's lands from the Channel to the Pyrenees. His unhappy father +started back, stunned by this new calamity, "for he had not forgotten the +evil which Henry his son had done to him with the help of King Louis, and +this Philip was yet worse than his father Louis." As father and son fell +apart the people rushed together, while at the tumult the outer ring of +soldiers laid their hands upon their swords, and thus Philip and Richard +went out together, leaving Henry alone. + +A great solitude had indeed fallen on the old king. His wife was still +guarded as a prisoner. Two of his sons had died traitors to their +father. A third was in open rebellion. All his daughters were in far-off +lands, and one of them was soon to die. Only one son remained to him of +all his household, and to him Henry now clung with a great love--the +fierce tenacity of an affection that knew no other hope. The king +himself was only fifty-six; but he was already an old man, worn out by +the prodigious labours and anxieties of forty years. There were moments +when a passionate despair settled down on his soul. One day he called +his two friends, Baldwin and Hugh, out from the crowd of courtiers to +ride beside him, and the bitterness of his heart broke forth, "Why +should I revere Christ!" he cried, "why should I think Him worthy of +honour who takes from me all honour in my lands, and suffers me to be +thus shamefully confounded before that camp follower?" as he called the +king of France. Then, as if beside himself, he struck spurs into his +horse, and dashed back again into the throng of courtiers. + +In the eyes of the world, however, Henry was still the most renowned +among the kings of the earth in his unassailable triumph and success. +For forty years his reign had been one long triumph. From every difficulty +conquered he had gained new strength; every rebellion had left him more +unquestioned master. He had never yet known defeat. The Church was now +earnest in his support. Papal legates won for him a truce of two months +after the conference at Bonmoulins, and when at its close Britanny broke +out in revolt, and Richard led an army against his father's lands, the +legates again procured peace till after Easter. From February to June of +1189 Henry waited at Le Mans, still confident, it would seem, of peace. +Once more legates were appointed to bring about a settlement between the +two kings at La Ferte Bernardon the 4th of June. With a fierce outburst +of anger Henry passionately refused the demands of Philip. The legate +threatened to lay France under an interdict if Philip persisted in war, +but Philip only retorted that the Roman Church had no right to interfere +between the king of France and his rebel vassals, and added with a sneer +that the cardinals already smelt English gold. Then at last Henry +abandoned the hope of peace. His treasury was empty, and his lands on both +sides of the water had been taxed to the last penny. His troops had melted +away in search of more abundant pay. He was shut in between hostile +forces--Breton rebels to westward, and the allied armies of Philip and +Richard to eastward. The danger roused his old defiant energy. Glanville +hurried to England "to compel all English knights, however exhausted and +poor, to cross to France," while the king himself, with a few faithful +barons and a small body of mercenaries, fell back on Le Mans, swearing +that he would never forsake the citizens of the town where he had +been born. + +The French army, however, followed hard after him. On the 9th of June +Philip and Richard halted fifteen miles off Le Mans, on the 11th of June +they encamped under its walls. The next day they broke through the +handful of troops who desperately held the bridge. A wealthy suburb +which could no longer be defended was set on fire, so that it should not +give shelter to the enemy, the wind swept the flames into the city, and +Henry saw himself shut in between the burning town and the advancing +Frenchmen. Then for the first time in his life he turned his back upon +his enemies. At the head of 700 horsemen he rode out over a bridge to +the north, and fled towards Normandy. As he mounted the spur of a hill +two miles off, he turned to look at the flames that rose from the city, +and in the bitterness of his humiliation he cursed God--"The city which +I have loved best on earth, the city in which I was born and bred, where +my father lies buried, where is the body of Saint Julian--this Thou, O +God, to the heaping up of my confusion, and to the increase of my shame, +hast taken from me in this base manner! I therefore will requite as best +I can; I will assuredly rob Thee too of the thing in me which Thou +lovest best!" + +For twenty miles the king, with his son Geoffrey the chancellor, and a +few faithful followers, rode furiously under the burning sun through +narrow lanes and broken roads till knights sank and died on the way. +Once he was only saved from capture by the breaking of a bridge over a +stream which was too deep for the pursuers to ford. Once Count Richard +himself followed so hard upon them that he came up with the flying +troop. William the marshal turned and raised his lance. "God's feet, +marshal, do not kill me!" cried Richard; "I have no hauberk!" William +struck his spear into the count's horse, so that it fell dead. "No, I +will not kill you. Let the devil kill you!" he shouted with a fierce +memory of the old prophecy. By nightfall Henry reached La Frenaye, +within a day's ride of the Norman border. He threw himself on a bed, +refusing to be undressed, and would scarcely allow Geoffrey to cover him +with his own cloak. The next morning he sent his friends forward into +Normandy to gather its forces and renew the war. But he himself, in +spite of all prayers and warnings, declared that he would go back to +Anjou. His passionate emotion threw aside all cold calculations of +reason. Every fortress on the way was in the hands of enemies; hostile +armies were pressing in on every side; the roads were held by foreign +troops,--French and Poitevin, Flemish mercenaries and Breton rebels--as +the stricken king rode through the forests and along the trackways he +had learned to know as a hunter in earlier days. Never had his indomitable +will, his romantic daring, been so great as in this last desperate ride to +reach the home of his race. He started on the 13th of June. Before the end +of the month Geoffrey had hurried back from Normandy, and together they +went to Chinon. + +Henry was now shut in on every side. Poitou and Britanny were both in +revolt. The forts along the Sarthe, the Loir, and the Loire had fallen +into the hands of Philip. On the 30th of June his army was seen under +the walls of Tours. Henry himself was on the same day suddenly struck +down by fever; unable to meet the French king, he fell back down the +river to Saumur. The great French princes, aghast at the swift catastrophe +which had fallen, men scarcely knew how, on the Angevin king, trembling +lest in this strange victory of the French monarchy his ruin should be the +beginning of their own destruction, made a last effort for peace. But +Philip stood firm, "seeing that God had delivered his enemy into his +hand." On Monday, the 3d of July, the walls of Tours fell before his +assault, and he sent a final summons to Henry to meet him at Colombières, +a field near Tours. The king travelled as far as the house of the Templars +at Ballan. But there he was seized with intolerable agony in every nerve +of his body from head to foot. Leaning for support against a wall in his +extreme anguish, he called to him William the marshal, and the pitying +bystanders laid him on a bed. News of his illness was carried to the +French camp. But Richard felt no touch of pity. His father was but +feigning some excuse to put off the meeting, he told Philip; and a +message was sent back commanding him to appear on the next day. The sick +king again called the marshal, and prayed him at whatever labour to carry +him to the conference. "Cost what it may," he vowed, "I will grant +whatever they ask to get them to depart. But this I tell you of a surety, +if I can but live I will heal the country from war, and win my land back +again." With a final effort of his indomitable will he rode on the 4th of +July through the sultry summer heat to Colombières. The great assembly +gathered to witness the triumph of France was struck with horror at the +marks of suffering on his face, and Philip himself, moved by a sudden +pity, called for a cloak to be spread on the ground on which the king +might sit. But Henry's fierce temper flashed out once more; he would not +sit, he said; even as he was he would hear what they asked of him, and why +they cut short his lands. Then Philip stated his demands. Henry must do +homage, and place himself wholly at the French king's mercy to do whatever +he should decree. Richard must receive, as Henry's heir, the fealty of the +barons of the lands on both sides the sea. A heavy sum was to be paid to +Philip for his conquests in Berri. Richard and Philip were to hold Le Mans +and Tours, and the other castles of Maine and Touraine, or else the +castles of the Vexin, until the treaty was completely carried out. Henry's +barons were to swear that they would force him to observe these terms. + +As Henry hesitated for a moment at these crushing demands, a sudden +terrible thunder broke from the still air. Both kings fell back with +superstitious awe, for there had been no warning cloud or darkness. +After a little space they again went forward, and again out of the +serene sky came a yet louder and more awful peal. Henry, half fainting +with suffering, was only prevented from falling to the ground by the +friends who held him up on horseback while he made his submission to his +rival and accepted the terms of peace. Then for the last time he spoke +with his faithless son Richard. As the formal kiss of peace was given, +the count caught his father's fierce whisper, "May God not let me die +until I have worthily avenged myself on thee!" The terrible words were +to Richard only a merry tale, with which on his return he stirred the +French court to great laughter. + +Henry was carried back the same day in a litter to Chinon. So sudden and +amazing a downfall was to the superstitious terror of the time, evident +token that the curse of Thomas had come to rest on him. The vengeance of +the implacable martyr seemed to follow him through every act of the +great drama. In Philip's scornful refusal to allow Henry to swear +obedience, "saving his honour and the dignity of his kingdom," the +zealots of the day saw a just retribution. At Chinon a deputation of +monks from Canterbury met him. "Trusting that in his affliction he might +pity the affliction of the Church," and grant demands long urged by the +convent, they had sought him out, "going through swords." "The convent +of Canterbury salutes you as their lord," they began, as they forced +their way into the sick king's presence. Henry broke in with bitter +indignation, "Then lord I have been, and am still, and will be yet--small +thanks to you, ye evil traitors!" he added in a lower voice, which just +caught the ears of the furious monks. But he listened patiently to their +complaint. "Now go out," he said, "I will speak with my faithful +servants." As the monks passed out one of them stopped and laid his curse +on the king, who trembled and grew pale at the terrible words. "The +omnipotent God of His ineffable mercy, and for the merits of the blessed +martyr Thomas, if his life and passion has been well pleasing to Him, +will shortly do us justice on thy body." Tortured with suffering, Henry +still summoned strength for his last public act. He called his clerk and +dictated a letter to Canterbury, to urge patience till his return, when +he would consider their complaint and find a way out of the difficulty. +The same evening his chancellor, whom he had sent to Philip at Tours, +returned with the list of those who had conspired against him Henry bade +him read the names. "Sire," he said, "may Jesus Christ help me! the first +name which is written here is the name of Count John your son." The king +started up from his pillow. "Is it true," he cried, "that John, my very +heart, whom I have loved beyond all my sons, and for whose gain I have +brought upon me all this misery, has forsaken me?" Then he laid himself +down again and turned his face to the wall. "Now you have said enough," he +said. "Let all the rest go as it will, I care no more for myself nor for +the world." From this time he grew delirious. But still in the intervals +of his ravings the great passionate nature, the defiance, the unconquered +will broke out with inextinguishable force. He cursed the day on which he +was born, and called down Heaven's vengeance on his sons. The great king's +pride was bowed in the extremity of his ruin and defeat. "Shame," he +muttered constantly, "shame on a conquered king." Geoffrey watched by him +faithfully, and the dying king's last thoughts turned to him with grateful +love. On the 6th of July, the seventh day of his illness, he was seized +with violent hemorrhage, and the end came almost instantaneously. The next +day his body was borne to Fontevraud, where his sculptured tomb still +stands. To the astonished onlookers at the great tragedy, the grave in a +convent church, separated from the tombs of his Angevin forefathers and of +his Norman ancestors, far from his English kingdom, seemed part of the +strange disasters foretold by Merlin and inspired messengers. But no +ruler of his age had raised for himself so great a monument as Henry. +Amid the ruin that overwhelmed his imperial schemes, his realm of +England stood as the true and lasting memorial of his genius. Englishmen +then, as Englishmen now, taught by the "remembrance of his good times," +recognized him as one of the foremost on the roll of those who have been +the makers of England's greatness. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRY THE SECOND*** + + +******* This file should be named 10494-8.txt or 10494-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/9/10494 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** diff --git a/old/10494-8.zip b/old/10494-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..53331df --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10494-8.zip diff --git a/old/10494.txt b/old/10494.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4642f2a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10494.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5971 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Henry the Second, by Mrs. J. R. Green + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + + + + +Title: Henry the Second + +Author: Mrs. J. R. Green + +Release Date: December 18, 2003 [eBook #10494] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRY THE SECOND*** + + +E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Bonny Fafard, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders + + + +HENRY THE SECOND + +BY + +MRS. J. R. GREEN + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +HENRY PLANTAGENET + + +CHAPTER II + +THE ANGEVIN EMPIRE + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE FIRST REFORMS + + +CHAPTER V + +THE CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE ASSIZE OF CLARENDON + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE STRIFE WITH THE CHURCH + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND + + +CHAPTER IX + +REVOLT OF THE BARONAGE + + +CHAPTER X + +THE COURT OF HENRY + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE DEATH OF HENRY + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +HENRY PLANTAGENET + +The history of the English people would have been a great and a noble +history whatever king had ruled over the land seven hundred years ago. +But the history as we know it, and the mode of government which has +actually grown up among us is in fact due to the genius of the great king +by whose will England was guided from 1154 to 1189. He was a foreign king +who never spoke the English tongue, who lived and moved for the most part +in a foreign camp, surrounded with a motley host of Brabancons and +hirelings; and who in intervals snatched from foreign wars hurried for a +few months to his island-kingdom to carry out a policy which took little +heed of the great moral forces that were at work among the people. It was +under the rule of a foreigner such as this, however, that the races of +conquerors and conquered in England first learnt to feel that they were +one. It was by his power that England, Scotland, and Ireland were +brought to some vague acknowledgment of a common suzerain lord, and the +foundations laid of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It +was he who abolished feudalism as a system of government, and left it +little more than a system of land-tenure. It was he who defined the +relations established between Church and State, and decreed that in +England churchman as well as baron was to be held under the Common law. It +was he who preserved the traditions of self-government which had been +handed down in borough and shire-moot from the earliest times of English +history. His reforms established the judicial system whose main outlines +have been preserved to our own day. It was through his "Constitutions" +and his "Assizes" that it came to pass that over all the world the +English-speaking races are governed by English and not by Roman law. It +was by his genius for government that the servants of the royal household +became transformed into Ministers of State. It was he who gave England a +foreign policy which decided our continental relations for seven hundred +years. The impress which the personality of Henry II. left upon his time +meets us wherever we turn. The more clearly we understand his work, the +more enduring does his influence display itself even upon the political +conflicts and political action of our own days. + +For seventy years three Norman kings had held England in subjection +William the Conqueror, using his double position as conqueror and king, +had established a royal authority unknown in any other feudal country +William Rufus, poorer than his father when the hoard captured at +Winchester and the plunder of the Conquest were spent, and urged alike +by his necessities and his greed, laid the foundation of an organized +system of finance. Henry I., after his overthrow of the baronage, found +his absolute power only limited by the fact that there was no machinery +sufficient to put in exercise his boundless personal power; and for its +support he built up his wonderful administrative system. There no longer +existed any constitutional check on the royal authority. The Great +Council still survived as the relic and heir both of the English +Witenagemot and the Norman Feudal Court. But in matters of State its +"counsel" was scarcely asked or given; its "consent" was yielded as a +mere matter of form; no discussion or hesitation interrupted the formal +and pompous display of final submission to the royal will. The Church +under its Norman bishops, foreign officials trained in the King's +chapel, was no longer a united national force, as it had been in the +time of the Saxon kings. The mass of the people was of no account in +politics. The trading class scarcely as yet existed. The villeins tied +to the soil of the manor on which they had been born, and shut out from +all courts save those of their lord; inhabitants of the little hamlets +that lay along the river-courses in clearings among dense woods, +suspicious of strangers, isolated by an intense jealousy of all that lay +beyond their own boundaries or by traditional feuds, had no part in the +political life of the nation. + +But the central government had proved in the long run too weak to +check the growth of feudal tendencies. The land was studded with +fortresses--the homes of lords who exercised criminal jurisdiction +without appeal, and who had their private prisons and private gallows. +Their manor courts, whether they were feudal courts established by the +new nobility of the Conquest, or whether they represented ancient +franchises in which Norman lords succeeded to the jurisdiction of +earlier English rulers, were more and more turned into mere feudal +courts. In the Shire courts themselves the English sheriff who used to +preside over the court was replaced by a Norman "_vicecomes_," who +practically did as he chose, or as he was used to do in Normandy, in +questions of procedure, proof, and judgment. The old English hundred +courts, where the peasants' petty crimes had once been judged by the +freemen of the district, had now in most cases become part of the fief +of the lord, whose newly-built castle towered over the wretched hovels +of his tenants, and the peasants came for justice to the baron's court, +and paid their fees to the baron's treasury. The right of private +coinage added to his wealth, as the multitude of retainers bound to +follow them in war added to his power. The barons were naturally roused +to a passion of revolt when the new administrative system threatened to +cut them off from all share in the rights of government, which in other +feudal countries were held to go along with the possession of land. They +hated the "new men" who were taking their places at the council-board; +and they revolted against the new order which cut them off from useful +sources of revenue, from unchecked plunder, from fines at will in their +courts of hundred and manor, from the possibility of returning fancy +accounts, and of profitable "farming" of the shires; they were jealous +of the clergy, who played so great a part in the administration, and +who threatened to surpass them in the greatness of their wealth, their +towns and their castles; and they only waited for a favourable moment to +declare open war on the government of the court. + +In this uncertain balance of forces in the State order rested ultimately +on the personal character of the king; no sooner did a ruler appear who +was without the sense of government than the whole administration was at +once shattered to pieces. The only son of Henry I. had perished in the +wreck of the _White Ship_; and his daughter Matilda had been sent to +Germany as a child of eight years old, to become the wife of the Emperor +Henry V. On his death in 1125 her father summoned her back to receive +the homage of the English people as heiress of the kingdom. The homage +was given with as little warmth as it was received. Matilda was a mere +stranger and a foreigner in England, and the rule of a woman was +resented by the baronage. Two years later, in 1128, Henry sought by +means of a marriage between the Empress Matilda and Geoffrey, the son of +Count Fulk of Anjou, to secure the peace of Normandy, and provide an +heir for the English throne; and Matilda unwillingly bent once more to +her father's will. A year after the marriage Count Fulk left his +European dominions for the throne of Jerusalem; and Geoffrey entered on +the great inheritance which had been slowly built up in three hundred +years, since the days of the legendary Tortulf the Forester. Anjou, +Maine, and Touraine already formed a state whose power equaled that of +the French kingdom; to north and south successive counts had made +advances towards winning fragments of Britanny and Poitou; the Norman +marriage was the triumphant close of a long struggle with Normandy; but +to Fulk was reserved the greatest triumph of all, when he saw his son +heir, not only of the Norman duchy, but of the great realm which +Normandy had won. + +But, for all this glory, the match was an ill-assorted one, and from +first to last circumstances dealt hardly with the poor young Count. +Matilda was twenty-six, a proud ambitious woman "with the nature of a +man in the frame of a woman." Her husband was a boy of fifteen. Geoffrey +the Handsome, called Plantagenet from his love of hunting over heath and +broom, inherited few of the great qualities which had made his race +powerful. Like his son Henry II. he was always on horseback; he had his +son's wonderful memory, his son's love of disputations and law-suits; we +catch a glimpse of him studying beneath the walls of a beleaguered town +the art of siege in Vegetius. But the darker sides of Henry's character +might also be discerned in his father; genial and seductive as he was, +he won neither confidence nor love; wife and barons alike feared the +silence with which he listened unmoved to the bitterest taunts, but kept +them treasured and unforgotten for some sure hour of revenge; the fierce +Angevin temper turned in him to restlessness and petulance in the long +series of revolts which filled his reign with wearisome monotony from +the moment when he first rode out to claim his duchy of Normandy, and +along its southern frontier peasant and churl turned out at the sound of +the tocsin, and with fork and flail drove the hated "Guirribecs" back +over the border. Five years after his marriage, in 1133, his first child +was born at Le Mans. Englishmen saw in the grandson of "good Queen Maud" +the direct descendant of the old English line of kings of Alfred and of +Cerdic. The name Henry which the boy bore after his grandfather marked +him as lawful inheritor of the broad dominions of Henry I., "the +greatest of all kings in the memory of ourselves and our fathers." From +his father he received, with the surname of Plantagenet by which he was +known in later times, the inheritance of the Counts of Anjou. Through +his mother Matilda he claimed all rights and honours that pertained to +the Norman dukes. + +Heir of three ruling houses, Henry was brought up wherever the chances of +war or rebellion gave opportunity. He was to know neither home nor +country. His infancy was spent at Rouen "in the home," as Henry I. said, +"of his forefather Rollo." In 1135 his grandfather died, and left him, +before he was yet three years old, the succession to the English throne. +But Geoffrey and Matilda were at the moment hard pressed by one of their +ceaseless wars. The Church was openly opposed to the rule of the House of +Anjou; the Norman baronage on either side of the water inherited a long +tradition of hatred to the Angevin. Stephen of Blois, a son of the +Conqueror's daughter Adela, seized the English throne, and claimed the +dukedom of Normandy. Henry was driven from Rouen to take refuge in +Angers, in the great palace of the counts, overlooking the river +and the vine-covered hills beyond. There he lived in one of the most +ecclesiastical cities of the day, already famous for its shrines, its +colleges, the saints whose tombs lay within its walls, and the ring of +priories and churches and abbeys that circled it about. + +The policy of the Norman kings was rudely interrupted by the reign of +Stephen of Blois. Trembling for the safety of his throne, he at first +rested on the support of the Church and the ministers who represented +Henry's system. But sides were quickly changed. The great churchmen and +the ministers were soon cast off by the new ruler. "By my Lady St. +Mary," said Roger of Salisbury, when he was summoned to one of Stephen's +councils, "my heart is unwilling for this journey; for I shall be of as +much use in court as is a foal in battle." The revolution was completed +in 1139, when the king in a mad panic seized and imprisoned Roger, the +representative alike of Church and ministers. With the ruin of Roger who +for thirty years had been head of the government, of his son Roger the +chancellor, and his nephew Nigel the treasurer, the ministerial system +was utterly destroyed, and the whole Church was alienated. Stephen sank +into the mere puppet of the nobles. The work of the Exchequer and the +Curia Regis almost came to an end. A little money was still gathered +into the royal treasury; some judicial business seems to have been still +carried on, but it was only amid overwhelming difficulties, and over +limited districts. Sheriffs were no longer appointed over the shires, +and the local administration broke down as the central government had +done. Civil war was added to the confusion of anarchy, as Matilda again +and again sought to recover her right. In 1139 she crossed to England, +wherein siege, in battle, in council, in hair-breadth escapes from +pursuing hosts, from famine, from perils of the sea, she showed the +masterful authority, the impetuous daring, the pertinacity which she had +inherited from her Norman ancestors. Stephen fell back on his last +source--a body of mercenary troops from Flanders,--but the Brabancon +troops were hated in England as foreigners and as riotous robbers, and +there was no payment for them in the royal treasury. The barons were all +alike ready to change sides as often as the shifting of parties gave +opportunity to make a gain of dishonour; an oath to Stephen was as easy +to break as an oath to Matilda or to her son. Great districts, especially +in the south and middle of England, and on the Welsh marches, suffered +terribly from war and pillage; all trade was stopped; great tracts of +land went out of cultivation; there was universal famine. + +In 1142 Henry, then nine years old, was brought to England with a chosen +band of Norman and Angevin knights; and while Matilda held her rough +court at Gloucester as acknowledged sovereign of the West, he lived at +Bristol in the house of his uncle, Robert of Gloucester, the illegitimate +son of Henry I., who was still in these troubled days loyal to the +cultured traditions of his father's court, and a zealous patron of +learning. Amid all the confusion of a war of pillage and slaughter, +surrounded by half-wild Welsh mercenaries, by the lawless Norman-Welsh +knights, by savage Brabancons, he learned his lessons for four years with +his cousin, the son of Robert, from Master Matthew, afterwards his +chancellor and bishop of Angers. As Matilda's prospects grew darker in +England, Geoffrey recalled Henry in 1147 to Anjou; and the next year he +joined his mother in Normandy, where she had retired after the death of +Earl Robert. There was a pause of five years in the civil war; but +Stephen's efforts to assert his authority and restore the reign of law +were almost unavailing. All the country north of the Tyne had fallen into +the hands of the Scot king; the Earl of Chester ruled at his own will in +the northwest; the Earl of Aumale was king beyond the Humber. + +With the failure of Matilda's effort the whole burden of securing his +future prospects fell upon Henry himself, then a boy of fifteen. Nor was +he slow to accept the charge. A year later, in 1149, he placed himself in +open opposition to Stephen as claimant to the English throne, by visiting +the court of his great-uncle, David of Scotland, at Carlisle; he was +knighted by the Scot king, and made a compact to yield up to David the +land beyond the Tyne when he should himself have won the English throne. +But he found England cold, indifferent, without courage; his most +powerful friends were dead, and he returned to Normandy to wait for +better days. Geoffrey was still carrying on the defence of the duchy +against Stephen's son Eustace, and his ally, the King of France; and +Henry joined his father's army till peace was made in 1151. In that year +he was invested with his mother's heritage and became at eighteen Duke of +Normandy; at nineteen his father's death made him Count of Anjou, +Lorraine, and Maine. + +The young Count had visited the court of Paris to do homage for Normandy +and Anjou, and there he first saw the French queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. +Her marriage with Louis VII. had been the crowning success of the astute +and far-sighted policy of Louis VI.; for the dowry Eleanor had brought to +the French crown, the great province of the South, had doubled the +territories and the wealth of the struggling little kingdom of France. +In the Crusade of 1147 she had accompanied king and nobles to the Holy +Land as feudal head of the forces of Aquitaine; and had there baffled +the temper and sagacity of Louis by her political intrigues. Sprung of +a house which represented to the full the licentious temper of the South, +she scornfully rejected a husband indifferent to love, and ineffective in +war as in politics. She had "married a monk and not a king," she said, +wearied with a superstition that showed itself in long fasts of more +than monkish austerity, and in the humiliating reverence with which +the king would wait for the meanest clerk to pass before him. In the +square-shouldered ruddy youth who came to receive his fiefs, with +his "countenance of fire," his vivacious talk and overwhelming energy +and scant ceremoniousness at mass, she saw a man destined by fate and +character to be in truth a "king." Her decision was as swift and +practical as that of the keen Angevin, who was doubtless looking to the +southern lands so long coveted by his race. A divorce from her husband +was procured in March 1152; and two months after she was hastily, for +fear of any hindrance, married to the young Count of Anjou, "without the +pomp or ceremony which befitted their rank." At nineteen, therefore, +Henry found himself the husband of a wife about twenty-seven years of +age, and the lord, besides his own hereditary lands and his Norman +duchy, of Poitou, Saintonge, Perigord, Limousin, Angoumois, and Gascony, +with claims of suzerainty over Auvergne and Toulouse. In a moment the +whole balance of forces in France had changed; the French dominions were +shorn to half their size; the most brilliant prospects that had ever +opened before the monarchy were ruined; and the Count of Anjou at one +bound became ruler of lands which in extent and wealth were more than +double those of his suzerain lord. + +The rise of this great power to the west was necessarily the absorbing +political question of the day. It menaced every potentate in France; and +before a month was out a ring of foes had gathered round the upstart +Angevin ruler. The outraged King of France; Stephen, King of England, and +Henry's rival in the Norman duchy; Stephen's nephew, the Count of +Champagne, brother of the Count of Blois; the Count of Perche; and +Henry's own brother, Geoffrey, were at once united by a common alarm; and +their joint attack on Normandy a month after the marriage was but the +first step in a comprehensive design of depriving the common enemy of the +whole of his possessions. Henry met the danger with all the qualities +which mark a great general and a great statesman. Cool, untroubled, +impetuous, dashing from point to point of danger, so that horses sank and +died on the road in his desperate marches, he was ready wherever a foe +threatened, or a friend prayed help. Foreign armies were driven back, +rebel nobles crushed, robber castles broken down; Normandy was secured +and Anjou mastered before the year was out. The strife, however, had +forced him for the first time into open war with Stephen, and at twenty +Henry turned to add the English crown to his dominions. + +Already the glory of success hung about him; his footsteps were guided by +prophecies of Merlin; portents and wonders marked his way. When he landed +on the English shores in January 1153, he turned into a church "to pray +for a space, after the manner of soldiers," at the moment when the priest +opened the office of the mass for that day with the words, "Behold there +cometh the Lord, the Ruler, and the kingdom is in his hand." In his first +battle at Malmesbury the wintry storm and driving rain which beat in the +face of Stephen's troops showed on which side Heaven fought. As the king +rode out to the next great fight at Wallingford, men noted fearfully that +he fell three times from his horse. Terror spread among the barons, whose +interests lay altogether in anarchy, as they saw the rapid increase of +Henry's strength; and they sought by a mock compromise to paralyse the +power of both Stephen and his rival. "Then arose the barons, or rather +the betrayers of England, treating of concord, although they loved +nothing better than discord; but they would not join battle, for they +desired to exalt neither of the two, lest if the one were overcome the +other should be free to govern them; they knew that so long as one was in +awe of the other he could exercise no royal authority over them." Henry +subdued his wrath to his political sagacity. He agreed to meet Stephen +face to face at Wallingford; and there, with a branch of the Thames +between them, they fixed upon terms of peace. Stephen's son Eustace, +however, refused to lay down arms, and the war lingered on, Stephen being +driven back to the eastern counties, while Henry held mid-England. In +August, however, Eustace died suddenly, "by the favour of God," said +lovers of peace; and Stephen, utterly broken in spirit, soon after +yielded. + +The strife died out, in fact, through sheer exhaustion, for years of +anarchy and war had broken the strength of both sides; and at last "that +happened which would least be believed, that the division of the kingdom +was not settled by the sword." The only body of men who still possessed +any public feeling, any political sagacity, or unity of purpose, found +its opportunity in the general confusion. The English Church, "to whose +right it principally belongs to elect the king," as Theobald had once +said in words which Gregory VII. would have approved, beat down all +opposition of the angry nobles; and in November 1153 Theobald, Archbishop +of Canterbury, and Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester and brother of +Stephen, brought about a final compromise. The treaty which had been +drawn up at Wallingford was confirmed at Westminster. Henry was made +the adopted son of Stephen, a sharer of his kingdom while he lived, +its heir when he should die. "In the business of the kingdom," the king +promised, "I will work by the counsel of the duke; but in the whole +realm of England, as well in the duke's part as my own, I will exercise +royal justice." Henry did homage and swore fealty to Stephen, while, as +they embraced, "the bystanders burst into tears of joy," and the nobles, +who had stood sullenly aloof from counsel and consent, took oaths of +allegiance to both princes. For a few months Henry remained in England, +months marked by suspicions and treacheries on all sides. Stephen was +helpless, the nobles defiant, their strongholds were untouched, and the +treaty remained practically a dead letter. After the discovery of a +conspiracy against his life supported by Stephen's second son and the +Flemish troops, Henry gave up for the moment the hopeless task, and left +England. But before long Stephen's death gave the full lordship into his +hands. On the 19th of December 1154 he was crowned at Winchester King of +England, amid the acclamations of crowds who had already learned "to +bear him great love and fear." + +King of England, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, +Count of Poitou, Duke of Aquitaine, suzerain lord of Britanny, Henry +found himself at twenty-one ruler of dominions such as no king before him +had ever dreamed of uniting. He was master of both sides of the English +Channel, and by his alliance with his uncle, the Count of Flanders, he had +command of the French coast from the Scheldt to the Pyrenees, while his +claims on Toulouse would carry him to the shores of the Mediterranean. +His subjects told with pride how "his empire reached from the Arctic +Ocean to the Pyrenees;" there was no monarch save the Emperor himself who +ruled over such vast domains. But even the Emperor did not gather under +his sway a grouping of peoples so strangely divided in race, in tongue, +in aims, in history. No common tie of custom or of sympathy united the +unwieldy bundle of states bound together in a common subjection; the +men of Aquitaine hated Anjou with as intense a bitterness as they hated +France; Angevin and Norman had been parted for generations by traditional +feuds; the Breton was at war with both; to all England was "another +world"--strange in speech, in law, and in custom. And to all the +subjects of his heterogeneous empire Henry himself was a mere foreigner. +To Gascon or to Breton he was a man of hated race and alien speech, just +as much as he was to Scot or Welshman; he seemed a stranger alike to +Angevin and Norman, and to Englishmen he came as a ruler with foreign +tastes and foreign aims as well as a foreign tongue. + +We see in descriptions of the time the strange rough figure of the new +king, "Henry Curtmantel," as he was nicknamed from the short Angevin +cape which hung on his shoulders, and marked him out oddly as a foreigner +amid the English and Norman knights, with their long fur-lined cloaks +hanging to the ground. The square stout form, the bull-neck and broad +shoulders, the powerful arms and coarse rough hands, the legs bowed +from incessant riding, showed a frame fashioned to an extraordinary +strength. His head was large and round; his hair red, close-cut for +fear of baldness; his fiery face much freckled; his voice harsh and +cracked. Those about him saw something "lion-like" in his face; his gray +eyes, clear and soft in his peaceful moments, shone like fire when he was +moved, and few men were brave enough to confront him when his face was +lighted up by rising wrath, and when his eyes rolled and became bloodshot +in a paroxysm of passion. His overpowering energy found an outlet in +violent physical exertion. "With an immoderate love of hunting he led +unquiet days," following the chase over waste and wood and mountain; +and when he came home at night he was never seen to sit down save for +supper, but wore out his court with walking or standing till after +nightfall, even when his own feet and legs were covered with sores +from incessant exertion. Bitter were the complaints of his courtiers +that there was never any moment of rest for himself or his servants; +in war time indeed, they grumbled, excessive toil was natural, but time +of peace was ill-consumed in continual vigils and labours and in +incessant travel--one day following another in merciless and intolerable +journeyings. Henry had inherited the qualities of the Angevin race--its +tenacity, its courage, its endurance, the sagacity that was without +impatience, and the craft that was never at fault. With the ruddy face +and unwieldy frame of the Normans other gifts had come to him; he had +their sense of strong government and their wisdom; he was laborious, +patient, industrious, politic. He never forgot a face he had once seen, +nor anything that he heard which he deemed worthy of remembering; where +he once loved he never turned to hate, and where he once hated he was +never brought to love. Sparing in diet, wasting little care on his +dress--perhaps the plainest in his court,--frugal, "so much as was lawful +to a prince," he was lavish in matters of State or in public affairs. A +great soldier and general, he was yet an earnest striver after peace, +hating to refer to the doubtful decision of battle that which might be +settled by any other means, and stirred always by a great pity, strange +in such an age and in such a man, for lives poured out in war. "He was +more tender to dead soldiers than to the living," says a chronicler +querulously; "and found far more sorrow in the loss of those who were +slain than comfort in the love of those who remained." His pitiful temper +was early shown in his determination to put down the barbarous treatment +of shipwrecked sailors. He abolished the traditions of the civil war +by forbidding plunder, and by a resolute fidelity to his plighted word. In +political craft he was matchless; in great perils none was gentler than +he, but when the danger was past none was harsher; and common talk hinted +that he was a willing breaker of his word, deeming that in the pressure +of difficulty it was easier to repent of word than deed, and to render +vain a saying than a fact. "His mother's teaching, as we have heard, was +this: That he should delay all the business of all men; that whatever +fell into his hands he should retain along while and enjoy the fruit of +it, and keep suspended in hope those who aspired to it; confirming her +sentences with this cruel parable, 'Glut a hawk with his quarry and he +will hunt no more; show it him and then draw it back and you will ever +keep him tractable and obedient.' She taught him also that he should be +frequently in his chamber, rarely in public; that he should give nothing +to any one upon any testimony but what he had seen and known; and many +other evil things of the same kind. We, indeed," adds this good hater of +Matilda, "confidently attributed to her teaching everything in which he +displeased us." + +A king of those days, indeed, was not shielded from criticism. He lived +altogether in public, with scarcely a trace of etiquette or ceremony. +When a bishop of Lincoln kept Henry waiting for dinner while he performed +a service, the king's only remedy was to send messenger after messenger +to urge him to hurry in pity to the royal hunger. The first-comer seems +to have been able to go straight to his presence at any hour, whether in +hall or chapel or sleeping-chamber; and the king was soundly rated by +every one who had seen a vision, or desired a favour, or felt himself +aggrieved in any way, with a rude plainness of speech which made sorely +necessary his proverbial patience under such harangues. "Our king," says +Walter Map, "whose power all the world fears, ... does not presume to be +haughty, nor speak with a proud tongue, nor exalt himself over any man." +The feudal barons of medieval times had, indeed, few of the qualities +that made the courtiers of later days, and Henry, violent as he was, +could bear much rough counsel and plain reproof. No flatterer found favour +at his court. His special friends were men of learning or of saintly +life. Eager and eloquent in talk, his curiosity was boundless. He is said +to have known all languages from Gaul to the Jordan, though he only spoke +French and Latin. Very discreet in all business of the kingdom, and a +subtle finder out of legal puzzles, he had "knowledge of almost all +histories, and experience of all things ready to his hand." Henry was, +in fact, learned far beyond the learning of his day. "The king," wrote +Peter of Blois to the Archbishop of Palermo, "has always in his hands +bows and arrows, swords and hunting-spears, save when he is busy in +council or over his books. For as often as he can get breathing-time +amid his business cares, he occupies himself with private reading, or +takes pains in working out some knotty question among his clerks. Your +king is a good scholar, but ours is far better. I know the abilities and +accomplishments of both. You know that the King of Sicily was my pupil +for a year; you yourself taught him the element of verse-making and +literary composition; from me he had further and deeper lessons, but as +soon as I left the kingdom he threw away his books, and took to the +easy-going ways of the court. But with the King of England there is +school every day, constant conversation of the best scholars and +discussion of questions." + +Behind all this amazing activity, however, lay the dark and terrible +side of Henry's character. All the violent contrasts and contradictions +of the age, which make it so hard to grasp, were gathered up in his +varied heritage; the half-savage nature which at that time we meet with +again and again united with first-class intellectual gifts; the fierce +defiance born of a time when every man had to look solely to his own +right hand for security of life and limb and earthly regard--a defiance +caught now and again in the grip of an overwhelming awe before the +portents of the invisible world; the sudden mad outbreaks of irresponsible +passion which still mark certain classes in our own day, but which then +swept over a violent and undisciplined society. Even to his own time, used +as it was to such strange contrasts, Henry was a puzzle. Men saw him +diligently attend mass every day, and restlessly busy himself during the +most solemn moments in scribbling, in drawing pictures, in talking to his +courtiers, in settling the affairs of State; or heard how he refused +confession till forced to it by terror in the last extremity of +sickness, and then turned it into a surprising ceremony of apology and +self-justification. At one time they saw him, conscience-smitten at the +warning of some seer of visions, sitting up through the night amid a +tumultuous crowd to avert the wrath of Heaven by hastily restoring rights +and dues which he was said to have unjustly taken, and when the dawning +light of day brought cooler counsel, swift to send the rest of his +murmuring suitors empty away; at another bowing panic-stricken in his +chapel before some sudden word of ominous prophecy; or as a pilgrim, +barefoot, with staff in hand; or kneeling through the night before a +shrine, with scourgings and fastings and tears. His steady sense of order, +justice, and government, broken as it was by fits of violent passion, +resumed its sway as soon as the storm was over; but the awful wrath which +would suddenly break forth, when the king's face changed, and he rolled on +the ground in a paroxysm of madness, seemed to have something of diabolic +origin. A story was told of a demon ancestress of the Angevin princes: +"From the devil they came, and to the devil they will go," said the grim +fatalism of the day. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +THE ANGEVIN EMPIRE + +The new kingdom which Henry had added to his dominions in France might +well seem to a man of less inexhaustible energy to make the task of +government impossible. The imperial system of his dreams was as recklessly +defiant of physical difficulties as it was heedless of all the sentiments +of national tradition. In the two halves of his empire no common political +interest and no common peril could arise; the histories of north and south +were carried on apart, as completely as the histories of America and +England when they were apparently united under one king, and were in fact +utterly severed by the ocean which defined the limits of two worlds. +England had little part or lot in the history of Europe. Foreign policy +it had none; when its kings passed to Normandy, English chroniclers +knew nothing of their doings or their wars. Some little trade was +carried on with the nearest lands across the sea,--with Normandy, with +Flanders, or with Scandinavia,--but the country was almost wholly +agricultural. Feudal in its social structure, governed by tradition, with +little movement of inner life or contact with the world about it, its +people had remained jealous of strangers, and as yet distinguished from +the nations of Europe by a strange immobility and want of sympathy with +the intellectual and moral movements around them. Sometimes strangers +visited its kings; sometimes English pilgrims made their way to Rome by a +dangerous and troublesome journey. But even the connection with the +Papacy was slight. A foreign legate had scarcely ever landed on its +shores; hardly any appeals were carried to the Roman Curia; the Church +managed its own business after a customary fashion which was in harmony +with English traditions, which had grown up during centuries of undisturbed +and separate life. + +On the other side of the Channel Henry ruled over a straggling line of +loosely compacted states equal in extent to almost half of the present +France. His long line of ill-defended frontier brought him in contact +with the lands of the Count of Flanders, one of the chief military +powers of the day; with the kingdom of France, which, after two hundred +years of insignificance, was beginning to assert its sway over the great +feudal vassals, and preparing to build up a powerful monarchy; and with +the Spanish kingdoms which were emerging from the first successful +effort of the Christian states to throw back the power of the Moors. +Normandy and Auvergne were separated only by a narrow belt of country +from the Empire, which, under the greatest ruler and warrior of the age, +Frederick Barbarossa, was extending its power over Burgundy, Provence, +and Italy. His claims to the over-lordship of Toulouse gave Henry an +interest in the affairs of the great Mediterranean power--the kingdom of +Sicily; and his later attempts on the territories of the Count of +Maurienne brought him into close connection with Italian politics. No +ruler of his time was forced more directly than Henry into the range of +such international politics as were possible in the then dim and +inchoate state of European affairs. England, which in the mind of the +Norman kings had taken the first place, fell into the second rank of +interests with her Angevin rulers. Henry's thoughts and hopes and +ambitions centred in his continental domains. Lord of Rouen, of Angers, +of Bordeaux, master of the sea-coast from Flanders to the Pyrenees, he +seemed to hold in his hand the feeble King of Paris and of Orleans, who +was still without a son to inherit his dignities and lands. The balance +of power, as of ability and military skill, lay on his side; and, long +as the House of Anjou had been the bulwark of the French throne, it even +seemed as if the time might come peaceably to mount it themselves. +Looking from our own island at the work which Henry did, and seeing more +clearly by the light of later events, we may almost forget the European +ruler in the English king. But this was far from being the view of his +own day. In the thirty-five years of his reign little more than thirteen +years were spent in England and over twenty-one in France. Thrice only +did he remain in the kingdom as much as two years at a time; for the +most part his visits were but for a few months torn from the incessant +tumult and toil of government abroad; and it was only after long years +of battling against invincible forces that he at last recognized England +as the main factor of his policy, and in great crises chose rather to +act as an English king than as the creator of an empire. + +The first year after Henry's coronation as King of England was spent in +securing his newly-won possession. On Christmas Day, 1154, he called +together the solemn assembly of prelates, barons, and wise men which had +not met for fifteen years. The royal state of the court was restored; +the great officers of the household returned to their posts. The Primate +was again set in the place he held from early English times as the chief +adviser of the crown. The nephew of Roger of Salisbury, Nigel, Bishop of +Ely, was restored to the post of treasurer from which Stephen had driven +him fifteen years before. Richard de Lucy and the Earl of Leicester were +made justiciars. One new man was appointed among these older officers. +Thomas, the son of Gilbert Becket, was born in Cheapside in 1117. His +father, a Norman merchant who had settled by the Thames, had prospered +in the world; he had been portreeve of London, the predecessor of the +modern mayor, and visitors of all kinds gathered at his house,--London +merchants and Norman nobles and learned clerks of Italy and Gaul His son +was first taught by the Augustinian canons of Merton Priory, afterwards +he attended schools in London, and at twenty was sent to Paris for a +year's study. After his return he served in a London office, and as +clerk to the sheriffs he was directly concerned during the time of the +civil war with the government of the city. It was during these years +that the Archbishop of Canterbury began to form his household into the +most famous school of learning in England, and some of his chaplains in +their visits to Cheapside had been struck by the brilliant talents of +the young clerk. At Theobald's request Thomas, then twenty-four years +old, entered the Primate's household, somewhat reluctantly it would +seem, for he had as yet shown little zeal either for religion or for +study. He was at once brought into the most brilliant circle of that +day. The chancellor and secretary was John of Salisbury, the pupil of +Abelard, the friend of St. Bernard and of Pope Adrian IV., the first +among English men of letters, in whom all the learning of the day was +summed up. With him were Roger of Pont l'Eveque, afterwards archbishop +of York; John of Canterbury, later archbishop of Lyons; Ralph of Sarr, +later dean of Reims; and a distinguished group of lesser men; but from +the time when Thomas entered the household "there was none dearer to the +archbishop than he." "Slight and pale, with dark hair, long nose, and +straightly-featured face, blithe of countenance, keen of thought, +winning and lovable in conversation, frank of speech, but slightly +stuttering in his talk," he had a singular gift of winning affection; +and even from his youth he was "a prudent son of the world." It was +Theobald who had first brought the Canon law to England, and Thomas at +once received his due training in it, being sent to Bologna to study +under Gratian, and then to Auxerre. He was very quickly employed in +important negotiations. When in 1152 Stephen sought to have his son +Eustace anointed king, Thomas was sent to Rome, and by his skilful plea +that the papal claims had not been duly recognized in Stephen's scheme +he induced the Pope to forbid the coronation. In his first political act +therefore he definitely took his place not only as an adherent of the +Angevin claim, but as a resolute asserter of papal and ecclesiastical +rights. At his return favours were poured out upon him. While in the +lowest grade of orders, not yet a deacon, various livings and prebends +fell to his lot. A fortnight before Stephen's death Theobald ordained +him deacon, and gave him the archdeaconry of Canterbury, the first place +in the English Church after the bishops and abbots; and he must have +taken part under the Primate in the work of governing the kingdom until +Henry's arrival. The archbishop was above all anxious to secure in the +councils of the new king the due influence not only of the Church, but +of the new school of the canon lawyers who were so profoundly modifying +the Church. He saw in Thomas the fittest instrument to carryout his +plans; and by his influence the archdeacon of Canterbury found himself, +a week after the coronation of Henry, the king's chancellor. + +Thomas was now thirty-eight; Theobald, Nigel, and Leicester were all old +men, and the young king of twenty-two must have seemed a mere boy to his +new counsellors. The Empress had been left in Normandy to avoid the +revival of old quarrels. Hated in England for her proud contempt of the +burgher, her scorn of the churchman, her insolence to her adherents, she +won in Normandy a fairer fame, as "a woman of excellent disposition, +kind to all, bountiful in almsgiving, the friend of religion, of honest +life." The political activity of Queen Eleanor was brought to an abrupt +close by her marriage. In Henry she found a master very different from +Louis of France, and her enforced withdrawal from public affairs during +her husband's life contrasts strangely, not only with her former career, +but with the energy which, when the heavy yoke was taken off her neck, +she displayed as an old woman of nearly seventy during the reign of her +son. Henry, in fact, stood alone among his new people. No debt of +gratitude, no ties of friendship, bound the king to the lords whose aims +he had first learned to know at Wallingford. The great barons who +thronged round him in his court had all been rebels; the younger among +them had never known what order, government, or loyalty meant. The Church +was hesitating and timorous. To the people he was an utter stranger, +unable even to speak their tongue. But from the first Henry took his +place as absolute master and leader. "A strict regard to justice was +apparent in him, and at the very outset he bore the appearance of a +great prince." + +The king at once put in force the scheme of reform which had been drawn +up the year before at Wallingford, and of which the provisions have +comedown to us in phrases drawn from the two sources which were most +familiar to the learned and the vulgar of that day,--the Bible, and the +prophecies of Merlin, the seer of King Arthur. The nobles were to give +up all illegal rights and estates which they had usurped. The castles +built by the warring barons were to be destroyed. The king was to bring +back husbandmen to the desolate fields, and to stock pastures and +forests and hillsides with cattle and deer and sheep. The clergy were +henceforth to live in quiet, not vexed by unaccustomed burdens. Sheriffs +were to be restored to the counties, who should do justice without +corruption, nor persecute any for malice; thieves and robbers were to be +hanged; the armed forces were to be disbanded; the knights were to beat +their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; the +hired Flemish soldiers were to turn from the camp to the plough, from +tents to workshops, there to render as servants the obedience they had +once demanded as masters. The work which Stephen had failed to do was +now swiftly accomplished. The Flemish mercenaries vanished "like +phantoms," or "like wax before the fire," and their leader, William of +Ypres, the lord of Kent, turned with weeping to a monastery in his own +land. The feudal lords were forced to give up such castles and lands as +they had wrongfully usurped; and the newly-created earls were deprived +of titles which they had wrung from King or Empress in the civil wars. + +The great nobles of both parties made a last effort at resistance. In +the north the Count of Aumale ruled almost as king. He was of the House +of Champagne, son of that Count Stephen who had once been set up as +claimant to the English throne, and near kinsman both of Henry and of +Stephen. He now refused to give up Scarborough Castle; behind him lay +the armies of the Scot king, and if Aumale's rebellion were successful +the whole north must be lost. A rising on the Welsh border marked the +revival of the old danger of which Henry himself had had experience in +the castle of his uncle, Robert of Gloucester, when the Empress and +Robert, with his Welsh connections and alliances, had dominated the +whole of the south-west. Hugh Mortimer, lord of Wigmore, Cleobury, and +Bridgenorth, the most powerful lord on the Welsh border, and Roger, Earl +of Hereford and lord of Gloucester, and connected by his mother with the +royal house of Wales, prepared for war. Immediately after his crowning +Henry hurried to the north, accompanied by Theobald, and forced Aumale +to submission. The fear of him fell on the barons. Roger of Hereford +submitted, and the earldom of Hereford and city of Gloucester were placed +in Henry's hands. The whole force of the kingdom was called out against +Hugh Mortimer, and Bridgenorth, fortified fifty years before by Robert +of Belesme, was reduced in July. The next year William of Warenne, the +son of Stephen, gave up all his castles in England and Normandy, and the +power of the House of Blois in the realm was finally extinguished. Hugh +Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, was deprived of his fortresses, and the eastern +counties were thus secured as those of the north and west had been. + +The borders of the kingdom were now safe; its worst elements of disorder +were suppressed; and the bishops and barons had taken an oath of +allegiance to his son William, and in case of William's death to the +infant Henry, born in February 1155. When Henry was called abroad in +January 1156, he could safely leave the kingdom for a year in the charge +of Queen Eleanor and of the justiciars. His return was marked by a new +triumph. The death of David and the succession of his grandson Malcolm, a +boy of twelve years old, gave opportunity for asserting his suzerainty +over Scotland, and freeing himself from his oath made in 1149 at Carlisle +to grant the land beyond the Tyne to David and his heirs for ever. +Malcolm was brought to do homage to him at Chester in June 1157, and +Northumberland and Cumberland passed into Henry's hands. Malcolm and his +successor William followed him in his wars and attended at his courts, +and whatever Henry's actual authority might be, in the eyes of his +English subjects at least he ruled to the farthest borders of Scotland. +He next turned to the settlement of Wales. The civil war had violently +interrupted the peaceful processes by which Henry I. sought to bring the +Welsh under English law. The princes of Wales had practically regained +their independence, while the Norman lords who had carved out estates for +themselves along its borders, indignant at Stephen's desertion of them, +and driven to provide for their own safety, had formed alliances by +marriage with the native rulers. Henry had, in fact, to reconquer the +country, and to provide safeguards against any military union between the +feudal lords of the border and its hostile princes, Owen Gwynneth of the +North, and Rhys ap-Gryffyth of the South. In 1157 he undertook the first +of his three expeditions against Wales. His troops, however, unused to +mountain warfare, had but ill success; and it was only when Henry had +secured the castles of Flintshire, and gathered a fleet along the coast +to stop the importation of corn that Owen was driven in August to do +homage for his land. The next year he penetrated into the mountains of +South Wales and took hostages from its ruler, Rhys-ap-Gryffyth; "the +honour and glory and beauty and invincible strength of the knights; Rhys, +the pillar and saviour of his country, the harbour and defender of the +weak, the admiration and terror of his enemies, the sole pillar and hope +of South Wales." + +The triumph of the Angevin conqueror was now complete. The baronage lay +crushed at his feet. The Church was silent. The royal authority had been +pushed, at least in name, to the utmost limits of the island. The close +of this first work of settlement was marked by a royal progress between +September 1157 and January 1158 through the whole length of England from +Malmesbury to Carlisle. It was the king's first visit to the northern +shires which he had restored to the English crown; he visited and +fortified the most important border castles, and then through the bitter +winter months he journeyed to Yorkshire, the fastnesses of the Peak, +Nottingham, and the midland and southern counties. The progress ended at +Worcester on Easter Day, 1158. There the king and queen for the last +time wore their crowns in solemn state before the people. A strange +ceremony followed. In Worcester Cathedral stood the shrine of St. +Wulfstan, the last of the English bishops, the saint who had preserved +the glory of the old English Church in the days of the Confessor, and +carried it on through the troubled time of the Conquest, to whose +supernatural resources the Conqueror himself had been forced to yield, +and who had since by ever-ready miracle defended his city of Worcester +from danger. On this shrine the king and Queen now laid their crowns, +with a solemn vow never again to wear them. To the people of the West +such an act may perhaps have seemed a token that Henry came among them +as heir of the English line of kings, and as defender of the English +Church and people. + +From England Henry was called away in August 1158, by the troubles of +his dominions across the sea. The power of Anjou had been built up by +centuries of tyranny, treason, and greed. Nantes had been robbed from +Britanny, Tours had been wrested from Blois, the southern borderland +from Poitou. A hundred years of feud with Maine could not lightly be +forgotten. Normandy still cherished the ancient hatred of pirate and +Frenchman. To the Breton, as to the Norman and the Gascon, the rule of +Anjou was a foreign rule; and if they must have a foreign ruler, better +the King of France than these upstart Counts. Henry held his various +states too by wholly different titles, and to every one of them his +right was more or less disputed. To add to the confusion, his barons in +every province held under him according to different customs and laws of +feudal tenure; and many of them, moreover, owed a double allegiance, and +did homage for part of their estates to Henry and for part to the King +of France. In the general uncertainty as to every question of succession, +or title, or law, or constitution, or feudal relations, the authority +which had been won by the sword could be kept only by sheer military +force. The rebellious array of the feudal nobles, eager to spring to arms +against the new imperial system, could count on the help of the great +French vassals along the border, jealous of their own independence, and +ever watching the Angevin policy with vigilant hostility. And behind +these princes of France stood the French king, Henry's suzerain lord and +his most determined and restless foe, from whom the Angevin count had +already taken away his wife and half his dominions, a foe to whom, +however, through all the perplexed and intermittent wars of thirty years, +he was bound by the indissoluble tie of the feudal relation, which +remained the dominant and authoritative fact of the political morality of +that day. For twenty years to come the two kings, both of them hampered +by overwhelming difficulties, strove to avoid war each after his own +fashion: Henry by money lavishly spent, and by wary diplomacy; Louis +more economically by a restless cunning, by incessant watching of his +adversary's weak points, by dexterously using the arms of Henry's +rebellious subjects rather than those of Frenchmen. + +Henry's first care was to secure his ill-defined and ill-defended +frontier, and to recover those border fortresses which had been wrested +from Geoffrey by his enemies. In Normandy the Vexin, which was the true +military frontier between him and France, and commanded the road to +Paris, had been lost. In Anjou he had to win back the castles which had +fallen to the House of Blois. His brother Geoffrey, Earl of Nantes, was +dead, and he must secure his own succession to the earldom. Two rival +claimants were disputing the lordship of Britanny, but Britanny must at +all costs be brought into obedience to Henry. There were hostile forces +in Angoumois, La Marche, Saintonge, and the Limousin, which had to be +finally destroyed. And besides all this, it was necessary to enforce +Eleanor's rights over Berri, and her disputed claims to supremacy over +Toulouse and Auvergne. Every one of these projects was at once taken in +hand. Henry's chancellor, Thomas Becket, was sent from England in 1158 +at the head of a splendid embassy to the French court, and when Henry +landed in France the success of this mission was declared. A marriage +was arranged between his little son Henry, now three years old, and +Louis' daughter Margaret, aged six months; and the Vexin was to be +restored to Normandy as Margaret's dowry. The English king obtained from +Louis the right to judge as lord of Anjou and seneschal of France +between the claimants to Britanny; his first entry into that province +was with full authority as the officer of France, and the whole army of +Normandy was summoned to Avranches to enforce his judgment. Conan was +made Duke of Britanny under Henry's lordship, and Nantes was given up +into his hands. He secured by treaty with the House of Blois the +fortresses which had fallen into their hands, and before the year was +out he thus saw his inheritance in Anjou and Normandy, as he had before +seen his inheritance in England, completely restored. In November he +conducted the King of France on a magnificent progress through Normandy +and Britanny, not now as a vassal requiring his help, but with all the +pomp of an equal king. + +Meanwhile Henry had been preparing an army to assert his sovereignty +over Toulouse--a sovereignty which would have carried his dominions to +the Mediterranean and the Rhone. The Count of St. Gilles, to whom it had +been pledged by a former Duke of Aquitaine, and who had eighteen years +before refused to surrender it on Eleanor's first marriage, now resisted +the claims of her second husband also, and he was joined by Louis, who +under the altered circumstances took a different view of the legal +rights of Eleanor's husband to suzerainty. To France, indeed, the +question was a matter of life and death. The success of Henry would have +left her hemmed in on three sides by the Angevin dominions, cut off from +the Mediterranean as from the Channel, with the lower Rhone in the hands +of the powerful rival that already held the Seine, the Loire, and the +Garonne. When, therefore, Henry's forces occupied the passes of the +province, and in September 1159 closed round Toulouse itself, Louis +threw himself into the city. Henry, profoundly influenced by the feudal +code of honour of his day, inheriting the traditional loyalty of his +house to the French monarchy, too sagacious lightly to incur war with +France, too politic to weaken in the eyes of his own vassals the +authority of feudal law, and possibly mindful of the succession to the +French throne which might yet pass through Margaret to his son Henry, +refused to carry on war against the person of his suzerain. He broke up +the siege in spite of the urgent advice of his chancellor Thomas; and +for nearly forty years the quarrel lingered on with the French monarchy, +till the question was settled in 1196 by the marriage of Henry's +daughter Joanna to Count Raymond VI. Thomas, who had proved himself a +mighty warrior, was left in charge of the newly-conquered Cahors, while +Henry returned to Normandy, and concluded in May a temporary peace with +Louis. His enemies, however, were drawn together by a common fear, and +France became the battle-ground of the rival ambitions of the Houses of +Blois and Anjou. Louis allied himself with the three brothers of the +House of Blois--the Counts of Champagne, of Sancerre, and of Blois--by a +marriage with their sister only a month after the death of his own queen +in September; and a joint attack was planned upon Henry. His answer was +rapid and decisive. Margaret was in his keeping, and he at once married +her to his son, took the Vexin into his own hands and fortified it with +castles. His position in fact was so strong that the forced his enemies +to a truce in June 1161. + +The political complications with which Henry was surrounded were still +further confused by a new question which now arose, and which was to +threaten the peace of Europe for eighteen years. On the death of the +English Pope, Hadrian IV., on the 1st of September 1159, two rivals, +Alexander III. and Victor IV., disputed the see of Rome, and the strife +between the Empire and the Papacy, now nearly one hundred years old, +broke out afresh on a far greater scale than in the time of Gregory. +Frederick Barbarossa asserted the imperial right of judging between the +rivals, and declared Victor pope, supported by the princes of the Empire +and by the kings of Hungary, Bohemia, and Denmark. Alexander claimed the +aid of the French king--the traditional defender of the Church and +protector of the Popes; and after the strife had raged for nearly three +years, he fled in 1162 to France. In the great schism Henry joined the +side of Louis in support of Alexander and of the orthodox cause; the two +kings met at Chouzy, near Blois, to do honour to the Pope; they walked +on either side of his horse and held his reins. The meeting marked a +great triumph for Alexander; the union of the Teutonic nations against +the policy of Rome was to be delayed for three centuries and a half. It +marked, too, the highest point of Henry's success. He had checked the +Emperor's schemes; he had won the gratitude of both Louis and the Pope; +he had defeated the plots of the House of Blois, and shown how easily +any alliance between France and Champagne might be broken to pieces by +his military power and his astute diplomacy. He had rounded off his +dominions; he had conquered the county of Cahors; he had recovered the +Vexin and the border castles of Freteval and Amboise; the fiefs of +William of Boulogne had passed into his hands on William's death; he was +master of Nantes and Dol, and lord of Britanny; he had been appointed +Protector of Flanders. + +At this moment, indeed, Henry stood only second to the Emperor among the +princes of Christendom, and his aim seems to have been to rival in +some sort the Empire of the West, and to reign as an over-king, with +sub-kings of his various provinces, and England as one of them, around +him. He was connected with all the great ruling houses. His eldest son +was married to the daughter of the King of France; the baby Richard, +eighteen months old, was betrothed during the war of Toulouse to a +daughter of the King of Aragon. He was himself a distant kinsman of the +Emperor. He was head of the house of the Norman kings in Sicily. He was +nearest heir of the kings of Jerusalem. Through his wife he was head of +the house of Antioch, and claimed to be head of the house of Tripoli. +Already in these first years of his reign the glory of the English king +had been acknowledged by ambassadors from the Emperor, from the King of +Jerusalem, from Norway, from Sweden, from the Moorish kings of Valencia +and Murcia, bearing the gifts of an Eastern world--gold, silk, horses, +and camels. England was forced out of her old isolation; her interest in +the world without was suddenly awakened. English scholars thronged the +foreign universities; English chroniclers questioned travellers, +scholars, ambassadors, as to what was passing abroad. The influence of +English learning and English statecraft made itself felt all over +Europe. Never, perhaps, in all the history of England was there a time +when Englishmen played so great apart abroad. English statesmen and +bishops were set over the conduct of affairs in Provence, in Sicily, in +Gascony, in Britanny, in Normandy. English archbishops and bishops and +abbots held some of the highest posts in France, in Anjou, in Flanders, +in Portugal, in Italy, in Sicily. Henry himself welcomed trained men +from Normandy or Sicily or wherever he could find them, to help in his +work of administration; but in England foreigners were not greatly +welcomed in any place of power, and his court was, with but one or two +exceptions, made up of men who, of whatever descent they might be, +looked on themselves as Englishmen, and bore the impress of English +training. The mass of Englishmen meanwhile looked after their own +affairs and cared nothing about foreign wars fought by Brabancon +mercenaries, and paid for by foreign gold. But if they had nothing to +win from all these wars, they were none the less at last drawn into the +political alliances and sympathies of their master. Shut out as she was +by her narrow strip of sea from any real concern in the military +movements of the continental peoples, England was still dragged by the +policy of her Angevin rulers into all the complications of European +politics. The friendships and the hatreds of her king settled who were +to be the allies and who the foes of England, and practically fixed the +course of her foreign policy for seven hundred years. A traditional +sympathy lingered on from Henry's days with Germany, Italy, Sicily, and +Spain; but the connection with Anjou forced England into a hostility +with France which had no real ground in English feeling or English +interests; the national hatred took a deeper character when the feudal +nobles clung to the support of the French king against the English +sovereign and the English people, and "generation handed on to generation +an enmity whose origin had long been forgotten." From the disastrous +Crusade of 1191, "from the siege of Acre," to use the words of Dr. +Stubbs, "and the battle of Arsouf to the siege of Sebastopol and the +battles of the Crimea, English and French armies never met again except +as enemies." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND + +The building up of his mighty empire was not the only task which filled +the first years of Henry's reign. Side by side with this went on another +work of peaceful internal administration which we can but dimly trace in +the dearth of all written records, but which was ultimately to prove of +far greater significance than the imperial schemes that in the eyes of his +contemporaries took so much larger proportions and shone with so much +brighter lustre. + +The restoration of outward order had not been difficult, for the anarchy +of Stephen's reign, terrible as it was, had only passed over the surface +of the national life and had been vanquished by a single effort. But the +new ruler of England had to begin his work of administration not only +amid the temporary difficulties of a general disorganization, but amid +the more permanent difficulties of a time of transition, when society was +seeking to order itself anew in its passage from the medieval to the +modern world; and his victory over the most obvious and aggressive forms +of disorder was the least part of his task. Through all the time of +anarchy powerful forces had been steadily at work with which the king had +now to reckon. A new temper and new aspirations had been kindled by the +troubles of the last years. The deposition of Stephen, the elections of +Matilda and of Henry, had been so many formal declarations that the king +ruled by virtue of a bargain made between him and his people, and that if +he broke his contract he justly forfeited his authority. The routine of +silent and submissive councils had been broken through, and the earliest +signs of discussion and deliberation had discovered themselves, while the +Church, exerting in its assemblies an authority which the late king had +helplessly laid down, formed a new and effective centre of organized +resistance to tyranny in the future Even the rising towns had seized the +moment when the central administration was paralysed to extend their own +privileges, and to acquire large powers of self-government which were to +prove the fruitful sources of liberty for the whole people. + +We see everywhere, in fact, signs of the great contest which in one form +or another runs through the whole of the twelfth century, and gives its +main interest in our eyes to the English history of the time,--the +struggle between the iron organization of medieval feudalism and those +nascent forces of modern civilization which were fated in the end to +shatter and supersede it. In spite of the cry of lamentation which the +chroniclers carry down to us over the misery of a land stricken by plague +and famine and rapine, it is still plain that even through the terrible +years of Stephen's reign England had its share in the universal movement +by which the squalor and misery of the Middle Ages were giving place to a +larger activity and a better order of things A class unknown before was +fast growing into power,--the middle class of burghers and traders, who +desired above all things order, and hated above all things the medieval +enemy of order, the feudal lord. Merchant and cultivator and wool-grower +found better work ready to their hand than fighting, and the appearance +of mercenary soldiers marked everywhere the development of peaceful +industries. Amid all the confusion of civil war the industrial activities +of the country had developed with bewildering rapidity; while knights and +barons led their foreign hirelings to mutual slaughter, monks and canons +were raising their religious houses in all the waste places of the land, +and silently laying the foundations of English enterprise and English +commerce. To the great body of the Benedictines and the Cluniacs were +added in the middle of the twelfth century the Cistercians, who founded +their houses among the desolate moorlands of Yorkshire in solitary places +which had known no inhabitants since the Conqueror's ravages, or among +the swamps of Lincolnshire. A hundred and fifteen monasteries were built +during the nineteen years of Stephen's reign, more than had been founded +in the whole previous century; a hundred and thirteen were added to these +during the reign of Henry. In half a century sixty-four religious houses +were built in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire alone. Monastery and priory, in +which the decorated Romanesque was giving way to the first-pointed +architecture, towered above the wretched mud-hovels in which the whole of +the population below the class of barons crowded; their churches were +distinguished by the rare and novel luxury of glass windows, which, as +they caught the red light of the setting sun, startled the peasant with +omens of coming ill. Multitudes of men were busied in raising the vast +pile of buildings which made up a religious house,--cloisters, dormitories, +chapels, hospitals, granaries, barns, storehouses, whose foundations when +all else is gone still show in the rugged surface of some modern field. +Regular and secular clergy were alike spurred on in their work by jealous +rivalry. Archbishop Roger of York was at the opening of Henry's reign +building his beautiful church at Ripon, of whose rich decoration traces +still remain, while he gave scant sympathy and encouragement to the +Cistercian monks still busy with the austere mass of buildings which +they had raised at Fountains almost within sight of the Ripon towers. + +We may gain some faint idea of the amazing stir and industry which the +founding of these monasteries implied by following in our modern farms +and pasture lands the traces which may even now be seen of the toil of +these great preachers of labour. The whole water supply of a countryside +for miles round was gathered up by vast drainage works; stagnant pools +were transformed into running waters closed in by embankments, which +still serve as ditches for the modern farmer; swamps were reclaimed that +are only now preserved for cultivation by maintaining the dykes and +channels first cut by medieval monks; mills rose on the banks of the +newly-created streams; roads were made by which the corn of surrounding +villages might be carried to the central mill and the produce of the land +brought to the central storehouse. The new settlers showed a measureless +cunning and industry in reclaiming worthless soil; and so eager were they +for land at last, that the Cistercians were even said to desecrate +churchyards, and to encroach on the borders of royal forests. They grew +famous for the breeding of horses according to the exacting taste of the +day, learned in the various species of palfreys and sumpter horses and +knight's chargers and horses for ambling or for trotting. They thanked +Heaven for the "blessings of fatness and fleeces," as foreign weavers +sought their wool and the gold of Flanders was poured into their +treasure-houses. The same enterprise and energy which in modern days made +England the first manufacturing country of the world was then, in fact, +fast pressing her forward to the place which Australia now holds towards +modern Europe,--the great wool-growing country, the centre from whence +the raw material for commerce was supplied. In vain the Church by its +canons steadily resisted the economic changes of a time when wealth began +to gather again and capital found new uses, and bitterly as it declaimed +against usury and mortgages, angry complaints still increased "that many +people laying aside business practised usury almost openly." + +Nor were the towns behindhand in activity. As yet, indeed, the little +boroughs were for the most part busy in fighting for the most elementary +of liberties--for freedom of trade within the town, for permission to hold +a market, for leave to come and go freely to some great fair, for the right +to buy and sell in some neighbouring borough, for liberty to carry out +their own justice and regulate the affairs of their town. They were buying +from the lord, in whose "demesne" they lay, permission to gather wood in +the forest, right of common in its pasture, the commutation of their +services in harvest-time for "reap-silver," and of their bondage to the +lord's mill for "multure-penny." Or they were fighting a sturdy battle with +the king's justices to preserve some ancient privilege, the right of the +borough perhaps to "swear by itself,"--that is, to a jury of its own or its +freedom from the general custom of "frank-pledge." As trade advanced +commercial bodies grew up in the boroughs and formed themselves into gilds; +and these gilds gradually drew into their own hands the government of the +town, which in old days had been decided by the general voice of the whole +body of its burghers--that is, of those who held land within its walls. +The English borough began, in fact, to resemble the foreign "Commune." +Gilds of bakers, of weavers, of mercers, of fullers, of butchers, +goldsmiths, pepperers, clothiers, and pilgrims appeared in London, York, +Gloucester, Nottingham, even in little boroughs such as that of St. +Edmunds; while in distant Cornwall, Totnes, Lidford, and Bodmin set up +their gilds. How Henry regarded the movement it is hard to say. The gilds +had to pay, as everything had to pay, to the needy Treasury; but otherwise +they were not interfered with, and went on steadily increasing in power and +numbers. + +Prosperity brought with it the struggle for supremacy, and the history of +nations was rehearsed on a petty stage, with equal passions if with less +glory. A thriving village or township would begin to encroach on the +common land of its weaker neighbours, would try to seize some of its +rights of pannage in the forest, or fishing in the stream. But its most +strenuous efforts were given to secure the exclusive right of trading. +Free trade between village and village in England was then, in fact, as +much unknown as free trade at this day between the countries of modern +Europe. Producer, merchant, manufacturer saw in "protection" his only +hope of wealth or security. Jealously enclosed within its own borders, +each borough watched the progress of its neighbours "with anxious +suspicion." If one of them dared defiantly to set up a right to make and +sell its own bread and ale, or if it bought a charter granting the right +to a market, it found itself surrounded by foes. The new market was +clearly an injury to the rights of a neighbouring abbot or baron or town +gild, or it lessened the profits of the "king's market" in some borough +on the royal demesne. Then began a war, half legal, half of lawless +violence. Perhaps the village came off victorious, and kept its new +market on condition that it should never change the day without a royal +order (unless in deference to the governing religious feeling of the +time, it should change it from Sunday to a week day). Perhaps, on the +other hand, it saw its charter vanish, and all the money it had cost with +it, its butchers' and bakers' stalls shattered, its scales carried off, +its ovens destroyed, the "tumbril" for the correction of fraudulent baker +or brewer destroyed. Of such a strife we have an instance in the fight +which the burghers of Wallingford carried on with their neighbours. They +first sought to crush the rising prosperity of Abingdon by declaring that +its fair was an illegal innovation, and that in old days nothing might be +sold in the town save bread and ale. Oxford, which had had a long quarrel +with Abingdon over boat cargoes and river tolls, readily joined in the +attack, but ultimately by the king's judgment Abingdon was declared to +have had right to a "full market", and Wallingford was discomfited. A +little later its wrath was kindled afresh by the men of Crowmarsh, who, +instead of coming to the Wallingford market, actually began to make their +own bread and ale--by what warrant no one knew, said the Wallingford +bakers and brewers. Crowmarsh held out through the later years of Henry's +reign and Richard's, had a sore struggle under John, and at last under +Henry III. saw the officers of justice come down upon them a second time, +and make a general wreck of ovens and "tumbril," while the weights were +carried off to triumphant Wallingford. + +But if an era of industrial activity had opened, the new intellectual +impulse of the time was yet more striking. Great forces had everywhere +worked together under the one name of the Church: the ecclesiastical +organization which was represented in Rome, in the Episcopate, and in the +Canon law; the democratic monachism; the intellectual temper with its +pursuit of pure knowledge; the religious mystical spirit which was +included in all the rest and yet separate from them. But other elements +than these were at work in the twelfth century,--the literary and historic +movement, the legal revival, the new scepticism, the spirit of wide +imperialism, the romantic impulse. Education had up to this time been +wholly undertaken by the Church. The work of teaching had been one of the +main objects of the cathedral; the school and its chancellor were as +essential parts of the foundation as dean or precentor. No rivals to the +cathedral schools existed save those of the monasteries, and education +naturally bore the impress given to it in these great institutions; +profane learning was only valued so far as it could be used to illustrate +the Bible, and the ordinary teaching was almost wholly founded on four or +five authors, who wrote when the struggle of the Empire against the +barbarians was almost over, and who represented the last efforts of a +learning which was ready to vanish. The monastic libraries show how +narrow was the range of reading. The great monastery of Bec had about +fifty books. At Canterbury the library of Christ Church, which a century +later possessed seven hundred volumes, had at this time but a hundred and +fifty. Its single Greek work was a grammar; and if it could boast of a +copy of the Institutes of Justinian, it did not yet possess a single book +of civil law, not even Gratian's _Decretum_. The age of Universities, +however, had now begun, and English scholars went abroad in numbers to +study law at Bologna and the Italian universities, or to learn philosophy +and the arts at Paris, or at some of the less costly schools in Gaul. On +all sides they met with the stir of political and religious speculation. +The crusades and the intercourse with the East had broken down the +boundaries between Christian and Mohammedan thought; the Jews were +teaching science and medicine, and had just brought from the East the +philosophy of Aristotle. France struck the first note of a new literature +in her chronicles, her national poems, and the songs of her troubadours. +All Paris was ringing with the struggle of Abelard and St. Bernard. At +its university Peter Lombard was preparing to publish his _Sentences_, +which were to form the framework for the dogmatic theology of centuries +to come. New theories of liberty were quickened by classical studies +which made men familiar with the heroes of Greece and Rome. Abelard's +disciple, Arnold of Brescia, was preaching his theory of political and +religious freedom; civil government was to return to the old republican +forms of ancient Rome, and the clergy were to be separated from all +secular jurisdiction. In Lombardy the growth of wealth, population, and +trade, demanded a more developed jurisprudence, and a new study had +sprung up of Roman law. Bolognese lawyers lectured on the Pandects of +Justinian, and by their work the whole legal education of the day was +transformed; old prejudices and old traditions lost the authority which +had long hedged them about, and the new code threatened to destroy +everywhere the imperfect systems of the past with which it came in +contact. The revival of the study of civil law was followed by a new +scientific study of Canon law; and a recognized code was for the +first time developed, as well as a minute system of legal procedure, +when Gratian published in 1151 the _Decretum_, a great text-book of +ecclesiastical law. + +Amid all the intellectual activity which surrounded the English students +abroad it is, curious to note what they carried home with them across the +Channel, and what they left simply untouched. The zeal for learning +quickly showed itself in the growth of the Universities. As early as 1133 +Robert Pulleyn was teaching Latin at Oxford. In 1149 Archbishop Theobald +brought to it Master Vacarius, a famous Lombard lawyer, who lectured on +the Civil law until he was expelled by Stephen, half fearful of the new +teaching and half influenced by the pressure of the older and more +conservative of the English bishops. There was much of the foreign +movement, however, which found no place in England. Difference of tongue +shut out Norman and Englishman from the influence of the new Provencal +poetry, and for a century to come England owed nothing to the finished +art of the South. The strip of sea which kept aloof all European tumults +shut out also the speculations in politics and government which were +making their way abroad. Even the religious movement which overran one +half of France under the Albigenses, or that which counted its followers +and martyrs by multitudes in Flanders never crossed the Channel, in spite +of the constant intercourse between the peoples; and missionaries from +Germany during the reign of Henry only succeeded in converting one poor +woman in England who immediately recanted. It was in other directions +that the energies of the people found their exercise. If Englishmen were +heedless of foreign philosophers, they were quick to notice that the +fruit of the vine had failed, and forthwith the unheard-of novelty of +taverns where beer and mead were sold sprang up in France, probably by +the help of those English traders whose beer was the marvel of Frenchmen. + +It was these new conditions of the national life which constituted the +real problem of government--a problem far more slow and difficult to work +out than the mere suppression of a turbulent baronage. In the rapid +movement towards material prosperity, the energies of the people were in +all directions breaking away from the channels and limits in which they +had been so long confined. Rules which had been sufficient for the +guidance of a simple society began to break down under the new fullness +and complexity of the national life, and the simple decisions by which +questions of property and public order had been solved in earlier times +were no longer possible. Moreover, a new confusion and uncertainty had +been brought into the law in the last hundred years by the effort to fuse +together Norman and English custom. Norman landlord or Norman sheriff +naturally knew little of English law or custom, and his tendency was +always to enforce the feudal rules which he practised on his Norman +estates. In course of time it came about that all questions of land-tenure +and of the relations of classes were regulated by a kind of double system. +The Englishman as well as the Norman became the "man" of his lord as in +Norman law, and was bound by the duties which this involved. On the other +hand, the Norman as well as the Englishman held his land subject to the +customary burdens and rights recognized by English law. Both races were +thus made equal before the law, and no legal distinction was recognized +between conqueror and conquered. There was, however, every element of +confusion and perplexity in the theory and administration of the law +itself, in the variety of systems which were contending for the mastery, +and in the inefficiency of the courts in which they were applied. English +law had grown up out of Teutonic custom, into which Roman tradition had +been slowly filtering through the Dark Ages Feudal law still bore traces +of its double origin in the system of the Teutonic "comitatus" and of the +Roman "beneficium." Forest law, which governed the vast extent of the +king's domains, was bound neither by Norman forms nor by English +traditions, but was framed absolutely at the king's will. Canon law had +been developed out of customs and precedents which had served to regulate +the first Christian communities, and which had been largely formed out of +the civil law of Rome. There was a multitude of local customs which +varied in every hundred and in every manor, and which were preserved by +the jealousy that prevailed between one village and another, the strong +sense of local life and jurisdiction, and the strict adherence to +immemorial traditions. + +These different codes of law were administered in various courts of +divers origins. The tenant-in-chief of the king who was rich enough had +his cause carried to the King's Court of barons, where he was tried by his +peers. The poorer vassals, with the mass of the people, sought such +justice as was to be had in the old English courts, the Shire Court held +by the sheriff, and, where this survived, the Hundred Court summoned by +the bailiff. The lowest orders of the peasant class, shut out from the +royal courts, could only plead in questions of property in the manor +courts of their lords. The governing bodies of the richer towns were +winning the right to exercise absolute jurisdiction over the burghers +within their own walls. The Forest courts were held by royal officers, who +were themselves exempt from all jurisdiction save that of the king. And +under one plea or another all men in the State were liable for certain +causes to be brought under the jurisdiction of the newly established +Church courts. This system of conflicting laws was an endless source of +perplexity. The country was moreover divided into two nationalities, who +imperfectly understood one another's customary rights; and it was further +broken into various classes which stood in different relations to the law. +Those who had sufficient property were not only deemed entirely +trustworthy themselves, but were also considered answerable for the men +under them; a second class of freeholders held property sufficient to +serve as security for their own good behaviour, but not sufficient to make +them pledges for others; there was a third and lower class without +property, for whose good conduct the law required the pledge of some +superior. In a state of things so complicated, so uncertain and so +shifting, it is hard to understand how justice can ever have been +secured; nor, indeed, could any general order have been preserved, +save for the fact that these early courts of law, having all sprung +out of the same conditions of primitive life, and being all more or +less influenced and so brought to some common likeness by the Roman +law, did not differ very materially in their view of the relations +between the subjects of the State, and fundamentally administered the +same justice. Until this time too there had been but little legal +business to bring before the courts. There was practically no commerce; +there was little sale of land; questions of property were defined within +very narrow limits; a mass of contracts, bills of exchange, and all the +complicated transactions which trade brings with it, were only beginning +to be known. As soon, however, as industry developed, and the needs of a +growing society made themselves felt, the imperfections of the old order +became intolerable. The rude methods and savage punishments of the law +grew more and more burdensome as the number of trials increased; and the +popular courts were found to be fast breaking down under the weight of +their own ignorance and inefficiency. + +The most important of these was the Shire Court. It still retained its +old constitution; it preserved some tradition of a tribunal where the +king was not the sole fountain of justice, and the memory of a law which +was not the "king's law." It administered the old customary English +codes, and carried on its business by the old procedure. There came to it +the lords of the manors with their stewards, the abbots and priors of the +county with their officers, the legal men of the hundreds who were +qualified by holding property or by social freedom, and from every +township the parish priest, with the reeve and four men, the smiths, +farmers, millers, carpenters, who had been chosen in the little community +to represent their neighbours; and along with them stood the pledges, the +witnesses, the finders of dead bodies, men suspected of crime. The court +was, in fact, a great public meeting of the whole county; there was no +rank or order which did not send some of its number to swell the confused +crowd that stood round the sheriff. The criminal was generally put on his +trial by accusation of an injured neighbour, who, accompanied by his +friends, swore that he did not bring his charge for hatred, or for envy, +or for unlawful lust of gain. The defendant claimed the testimony of his +lord, and further proved his innocence by a simple or threefold +compurgation--that is, by the oath of a certain number of freemen among +his neighbours, whose property gave them the required value in the eye of +the law, and who swore together as "compurgators" that they believed his +oath of denial to be "clean and unperjured." The faith of the compurgator +was measured by his landed property, and the value of the joint-oath which +was required depended on a most intricate and baffling set of arithmetical +calculations, and differed according to the kind of crime, the rank of the +criminal, and the amount of property which was in dispute, besides other +differences dependent on local customs. Witnesses might also be called +from among neighbours who held property and were acquainted with the facts +to which they would "dare" to swear. The final judgment was given by +acclamation of the "suitors" of the court--that is, by the owners of +property and the elected men of the hundreds or townships; in other words, +by the public opinion of the neighbourhood. If the accused man were of bad +character by common report, or if he could find no friends to swear in his +behalf, "the oath burst," and there remained for him only the ordeal or +trial by battle, which he might accept or refuse at his own peril. In the +simple ordeal he dipped his hand in boiling water to the wrist, or carried +a bar of redhot iron three paces. If in consequence of his lord's +testimony being against him the triple ordeal was used, he had to plunge +his arm in water up to the elbow, or to carry the iron for nine paces. If +he were condemned to the ordeal by water, his death seems to have been +certain, since sinking was the sign of innocence, and if the prisoner +floated he was put to death as guilty. The other alternative, trial by +battle, which had been introduced by the Normans, was extremely unpopular +in England; it told hardly against men who were weak or untrained to arms, +or against the man of humble birth, who was allowed against his armed +opponent neither horse nor the arms of a knight, but simply a leathern +jacket, a shield of leather or wood, and a stick without knots or points. + +At the beginning of the reign of Henry II, the Shire courts seem to have +been nearly as bad as they could be. Scarcely any attempt had been made, +perhaps none had till now been greatly needed, to improve a system which +had grown up in a dim and ruder past. The Norman kings, indeed, had +introduced into England a new method of deciding doubtful questions of +property by the "recognition" of sworn witness instead of by the English +process of compurgation or ordeal. Twelve men, who must be freemen and +hold property, were chosen from the neighbourhood, and as "jurors" were +sworn to state truly what they knew about the question in dispute, and +the matter was decided according to their witness or "recognition." If +those who were summoned were unacquainted with the facts, they were +dismissed and others called; if they knew the facts but differed in their +statement, others were added to their number, till twelve at least were +found whose testimony agreed together. These inquests on oath had +been used by the Conqueror for fiscal purposes in the drawing up of +Doomsday Book. From that time special "writs" from king or justice were +occasionally granted, by which cases were withdrawn from the usual modes +of trial in the local courts, and were decided by the method of +recognition, which undoubtedly provided a far better chance of justice +to the suitor, replacing as it did the rude appeal to the ordeal or to +battle by the sworn testimony of the chosen representatives, the good men +and true, of the neighbourhood. But the custom was not yet governed by any +positive and inviolable rules, and the action of the King's Court in this +respect was imperfectly developed, uncertain, and irregular. + +It is scarcely possible, indeed, to estimate the difficulties in the way +of justice when Henry came to the throne. The wretched freeholders +summoned to the Shire Court from farm and cattle, from mill or anvil +or carpenter's bench, knew well the terrors of the journey through marsh +and fen and forest, the dangers of flood and torrent, and perhaps of +outlawed thief or murderer, the privations and hardships of the way; and +the heavy fines which occur in the king's rolls for non-attendance show +how anxiously great numbers of the suitors avoided joining in the +troublesome and thankless business of the court. When they reached the +place of trial a strange medley of business awaited them as questions +arose of criminal jurisdiction, of feudal tenure, of English "sac and +soc," of Norman franchises and Saxon liberties, with procedure sometimes +of the one people, sometimes of the other. The days dragged painfully on +as, without any help from trained lawyers, the "suitors" sought to settle +perplexed questions between opposing claims of national, provincial, +ecclesiastical, and civic laws, or made arduous journeys to visit the +scene of some murder or outrage, or sought for evidence on some difficult +problem of fact. Evidence, indeed, was not easy to find when the question +in dispute dated perhaps from some time before the civil war and the +suppression of the sheriff's courts, for no written record was ever kept +of the proceedings in court, and everything depended on the memory of +witnesses. The difficulties of taking evidence by compurgation increased +daily. A method which centuries before had been successfully applied to +the local crimes of small and stationary communities bound together by the +closest ties of kinship and of fellowship in possession of the soil, when +every transaction was inevitably known to the whole village or township, +became useless when new social and industrial conditions had destroyed the +older and simpler modes of life. The procedure of the courts was +antiquated and no longer guided by consistent principles. Their modes of +trial were so cumbrous, formal, and inflexible that it was scarcely +possible to avoid some minute technical mistake which might invalidate +the final decision. + +The business of the larger courts, too, was for the most part carried on +in French under sheriff, or bailiff, or lord of the manor. The Norman +nobles did not know Latin, they were but gradually learning English; the +bulk of the lesser clergy perhaps spoke Latin, but did not know Norman; +the poorer people spoke only English; the clerks who from this time began +to note down the proceedings of the king's judges in Latin must often +have been puzzled by dialects of English strange to him. When each side +in a trial claimed its own customary law, and neither side understood the +speech of the other, the president of the court had every temptation to +be despotic and corrupt, and the interpreter between him and his suitors +became an important person who had much influence in deciding what mode +of procedure was to be followed. The sheriff, often holding a hereditary +post and fearing therefore no check to his despotism, added to the burden +of the unhappy freeholders by a custom of summoning at his own fancy +special courts, and laying heavy fines on those who did not attend them. +Even when the law was fairly administered there was a growing number of +cases in which the rigid forms of the court actually inflicted injustice, +as questions constantly arose which lay far outside the limits of the old +customary law of the Germanic tribes, or of the scanty knowledge of Roman +law which had penetrated into other codes. The men of that day looked too +often with utter hopelessness to the administration of justice; there was +no peril so great in all the dangers that surrounded their lives as the +peril of the law; there was no oppression so cruel as the oppression +wrought by the harsh and rigid forms of the courts. From such calamities +the miserable and despairing victims could look for no help save from the +miraculous aid of the saints; and society at that time, as indeed it has +been known to do in later days, was for ever appealing from the iniquity +of law to God,--to a God who protected murderers if they murdered Jews, +and defended robbers if they plundered usurers, who was, indeed, above +all law, and was supposed to distribute a violent and arbitrary justice, +answering to the vulgar notion of an equity unknown on earth. + +We catch a glimpse of a trial of the time in the story of a certain +Ailward, whose neighbour had refused to pay a debt which he owed him. +Ailward took the law into his own hands, and broke into the house of his +debtor, who had gone to the tavern and had left his door fastened with +the lock hanging down outside, and his children playing within. Ailward +carried off as security for his debt the lock, a gimlet, and some tools, +and a whetstone which hung from the roof. As he sauntered home, however, +his furious neighbour overtook him, having heard from the children what +had been done. He snatched the whetstone from Ailward's hand and dealt +him a blow on the head with it, stabbed him in the arm with a knife, and +then triumphantly carried him to the house which, he had robbed, and +there bound him as "an open thief" with the stolen goods upon him. A +crowd gathered round, and an evil fellow, one Fulk, the apparitor, an +underling of the sheriff employed to summon criminals to the court, +remarked that as a thief could not legally be mutilated unless he had +taken to the value of a shilling, it would be well to add a few articles +to the list of stolen goods. Perhaps Ailward had won ill-fame as a +creditor, or even, it may be, a money-lender in the village, for his +neighbours clearly bore him little goodwill. The crowd readily consented. +A few odds and ends were gathered--a bundle of skins, gowns, linen, and +an iron tool,--and were laid by Ailward's side; and the next day, with +the bundle hung about his neck, he was taken before the sheriff and the +knights, who were then holding a Shire Court. The matter was thought +doubtful; judgment was delayed, and Ailward was made fast in Bedford +jail for a month, till the next county court. There the luckless man sent +for a priest of the neighbourhood, and confessing his sins from his youth +up, he was bidden to hope in the prayers of the blessed Virgin and of all +the saints against the awful terrors of the law, and received a rod to +scourge himself five times daily; while through the gloom shone the +glimmer of hope that having been baptized on the vigil of Pentecost, +water could not drown him nor fire burn him if he were sent to the +ordeal. At last the month went by and he was again carried to the Shire +Court, now at Leighton Buzzard. In vain he demanded single combat with +Fulk, or the ordeal by fire; Fulk, who had been bribed with an ox, +insisted on the ordeal of water, so that he should by no means escape. +Another month passed in the jail of Bedford before he was given up to be +examined by the ordeal. Whether he underwent it or whether he pleaded +guilty when the judges met is uncertain, but however this might be, "he +received the melancholy sentence of condemnation; and being taken to the +place of punishment, his eyes were pulled out and he was mutilated, and +his members were buried in the earth in the presence of a multitude of +persons." + +Nor was there for the mass of the people any real help or security to be +found in an appeal to the supreme tribunal of the realm where the king +sat in council with his ministers. This still remained a tribunal of +exceptional resort to which appeals were rare. There was one Richard +Anesty, who, in these first years of Henry's reign, desired to prove in +the King's Court his right to hold a certain property. For five years +Richard, his brother, and a multitude of helpers, were incessantly busied +in this arduous task. The court followed the king, and the king might be +anywhere from York to the Garonne. The unhappy suitor might well have +joined in a complaint once made by a secretary of Henry in search of his +master: "Solomon saith there be three things difficult to be found out, +and a fourth which may hardly be discovered: the way of an eagle in the +air; the way of a ship in the sea; the way of a serpent on the ground; +and the way of a man in his youth. I can add a fifth: the way of a king +in England." The whole business now done by post had then to be carried +on by laborious journeyings, in which we hear again and again that horses +died on the road; if a writ were needed from king or queen, if the royal +seal were required, or a certificate from a bishop, or a letter from an +archbishop, special messengers posted across country; then the writ must +be carried in the same way to York, Lincoln, or elsewhere to be examined +by some famous lawyer, sometimes an Italian learned in the last legal +fashions of the day; perhaps it was pronounced faulty, or it might be +that the seal of justiciar or archbishop was refused on its return from +the lawyer, and the same business had to begin all over again; twice +messengers had to be sent to Rome, the journey each way taking at least +forty days of incessant and dangerous travelling. When at last the +appointed day for judgment by the justiciar came, friends, helpers, and +witnesses had to be called together in the same laborious way, and +transported at great cost to the place of trial, and there kept waiting +till news was brought that the plea could not then be heard; and thus +again and again the luckless suitor was summoned, each time to a +different town in England. In every town he was forced by his necessities +to borrow money from some Jew, who demanded about eighty-seven per cent +for the loan; and when at last, as Richard was worn out with the delays +of justiciars, Henry appeared on the scene, and, "thanks to our lord the +king," the land was adjudged to the suitor, he had to raise fresh money +to fee the lawyers, the bishop's staff, the officers of the King's Court, +the king's physicians, the king and queen, besides the sums which must be +given to his helpers and pleaders. The end of the story leaves him +mournfully counting up a long list of Jewish creditors, who bid fair to +exhaust the profits of his new possessions. + +Such were in brief outline some of the difficulties which made order and +justice hard to win. Society was helpless to protect itself: news spread +slowly, the communication of thought was difficult, common action was +impossible. Amid all the shifting and half understood problems of +medieval times there was only one power to which men could look to protect +them against lawlessness, and that was the power of the king. No external +restraints were set upon his action; his will was without contradiction. +The medieval world with fervent faith believed that he was the very spring +and source of justice. In an age when all about him was changing, and when +there was no organized machinery for the administration of law, the king +had himself to be judge, lawgiver, soldier, financier, and administrator; +the great highways and rivers of the kingdom were in "his peace;" the +greater towns were in his demesne; he was guardian of the poor and +defender of the trader; he was finance minister in a society where +economic conditions were rapidly changing; here presented a developed +system of law as opposed to the primitive customs of feud and private war; +he was the only arbiter of questions that grew out of the new conflict of +classes and interests; he alone could decree laws at his absolute will and +pleasure, and could command the power to carry out his decrees; there was +not even a professional lawyer who was not in his court and bound to his +service. + +Henry saw and used his opportunity. Even as a youth of twenty-one he +assumed absolute control in his courts with a knowledge and capacity which +made him fully able to meet trained lawyers, such as his chancellor, +Thomas, or his justiciar, De Lucy. Cool, businesslike, and prompt, he set +himself to meet the vast mass of arrears, the questions of jurisdiction +and of disputed property, which had arisen even as far back as the time of +Henry I., and had gone unsettled through the whole reign of Stephen, to +the ruin and havoc of the lands in question. He examined every charter +that came before him; if any was imperfect he was ready to draw one up +with his own hand; he watched every difficult point of law, noted every +technical detail, laid down his own position with brief decision. In the +uncertain and transitional state of the law the king's personal +interference knew scarcely any limits, and Henry used his power freely. +But his unswerving justice never faltered. Gilbert de Bailleul, in some +claim to property, ventured to make light of the charter of Henry I., by +which it was held. The king's wrath blazed up. "By the eyes of God," he +cried, "if you can prove this charter false, it would be worth a thousand +pounds to me! If," he went on, "the monks here could present such a +charter to prove their possession of Clarendon, which I love above all +places, there is no pretence by which I could refuse to give it up to +them!" + +It is hard to realise the amazing physical endurance and activity which +was needed to do the work of a medieval king. Henry was never at rest. It +was only by the most arduous labour, by travel, by readiness of access to +all men, by inexhaustible patience in weighing complaint and criticism, +that he learned how the law actually worked in the remotest corners of +his land. He was scarcely ever a week in the same place; his life in +England was spent in continual progresses from south to north, from east +to west. The journeyings by rough trackways through "desert" and swamp +and forest, through the bleak moorlands of the Pennine Hills, or the +thickets and fens that choked the lower grounds, proved indeed a sore +trial for the temper of his courtiers; and bitter were the complaints of +the hardships that fell to the lot of the disorderly train that swept +after the king, the army of secretaries and lawyers, the mail-clad +knights and barons followed by their retainers, the archbishop and his +household, bishops and abbots and judges and suitors, with the "actors, +singers, dicers, confectioners, huxters, gamblers, buffoons, barbers, who +diligently followed the court." Knights and barons and clerks, accustomed +to the plenty and comfort of palace and castle, found themselves at the +mercy of every freak of the king's marshals, who on the least excuse +would roughly thrust them out into the night from the miserable hut in +which they sought shelter and cut loose their horses' halters, and whose +hearts were hardly softened by heavy bribes. They were often half-starved; +if food was to be had at all, it was at the best stale fish, sour beer and +wine, coarse black bread, and meat scarcely eatable, even with the rough +appetite of travellers of that age. Matters were made ten times worse by +Henry's mode of travelling. "If the king has proclaimed that he intends to +stop late in any place, you may be sure that he will start very early in +the morning, and with his sudden haste destroy every one's plans. It often +happens that those who have let blood or taken medicine are obliged at the +hazard of their lives to follow. You will see men running about like mad; +urging forward their pack-horses, driving their waggons into one another, +everything in confusion, as if hell had broken loose. Whereas, if the king +has given out that he will start early in the morning, he will certainly +change his mind, and you may be sure he will snore till noon. You will see +the pack-horses drooping under their loads, waggons waiting, drivers +nodding, tradesmen fretting, all grumbling at one another. Men hurry to +ask the loose women and the liquor retailers who follow the court when the +king will start; for these are the people who know most of the secrets of +the court." Sometimes, on the other hand, when the din of the camp was +silenced for a while in sleep, a sudden message from the royal lodging +would again set all in commotion. A wild clatter of horsemen and footmen +would fill the darkness. The stout pack-horses, probably borrowed from a +neighbouring monastery to carry the heavy Rolls in which state business +was chronicled, were hastily laden. Baggage of every kind was slung across +the backs of horses, or stowed into cumbrous two-wheeled waggons made of +rough planks, or of laths covered with twisted osiers, which had been +seized from farmer or peasant for the king's journey. The forerunners +pushed on in front to give notice of the king's arrival, and in the dim +morning light the motley train of riders at last crowded along the narrow +trackway, followed heavily by the waggons dragged by single file of +horses, which too often foundered in the muddy hollows, or half-plunged +into the torrents through rents and chasms in the low, narrow bridges that +threatened at every instant to crumble away under the strain. But before +the weary day's journey was over the king would suddenly change his mind, +stop short of the town towards which all were toiling in hope of food and +shelter, and turn aside to some spot in the woods where there was perhaps +a solitary hut and food only for himself: "And I believe, if I dare to say +so, that he took delight in our distresses," groans the poor secretary as +he pictures the knights wandering by twos and threes in the thickets, +separated in the darkness from their followers, and drawing their swords +one against another in furious strife for the possession of some shelter +for which pigs would scarcely have quarrelled. "Oh, Lord God Almighty," +he ends, "turn and convert the heart of the king from this pestilent +habit, that he may know himself to be but man, and that he may show a +royal mercy and human compassion to those who are driven after him not +by ambition but by necessity." + +But at whatever inconvenience to his courtiers Henry carried out his +own purposes, and kept pace with the enormous mass of business that came +to him. In all his hurried journeys we see busy royal clerks scribbling +away at each halt charters, grants, letters patent and letters close, the +king too fighting, riding, dictating, signing, sometimes dating his +letters from three places on the same day. A travelling king such as this +was well known to all his people. He was no constitutional fiction, but a +living man; his character, his look and presence, his oaths and jests, +his wrath, all were noted and talked over; the chroniclers who followed +his court with their gossip and their graver news spread the knowledge of +his doings. A new sense of law and justice grew up under a sovereign who +himself journeyed through the length and breadth of the land, subduing +the unruly, hearing pleas, revising unjust sentences, drawing up charters +with his own hand, setting the machinery of government to work from end +to end of England. More than this, the king himself had learned to know +his people. He had seen for himself the castles of the barons, the huts +of the peasants, the little villages in the clearings; he had seen the +sheriff sitting in the shire court, the lord of the manor doing justice +in his "hall-moot," the bishop and archdeacon dispensing the law in the +church courts. By his sudden journeys, his unexpected movements and rapid +change of plans, he arrived at the very moment and the very place where +no one looked for him; nothing was safe from his eye and ear; no false +sheriff or rebellious lord could be sure when his terrible master might +be at his doors. Foreigner as the king was, there was soon no Englishman +who knew the affairs of his kingdom so well. His penetrating curiosity, +his wide experience, his practised judgment, rapidly made him one of the +most sagacious administrators and wisest legislators that ever guided +England in a very critical moment of her history; and when he finally +drew up his system of reform there was not a single point of principle in +it from which he or his successors found it necessary afterwards to draw +back. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +THE FIRST REFORMS + +Henry began his work of reorganization by taking up the work which his +grandfather had begun--that of replacing the mere arbitrary power of the +sovereign by a uniform system of administration, and bringing into order +the various conflicting authorities which had been handed down from +ancient times, royal courts and manor courts, church courts, shire +courts, hundred courts, forest courts, and local courts in special +franchises, with all their inextricable confusion of law and custom and +procedure. Under Henry I. two courts, the _Exchequer_ and the _Curia +Regis_, had control of all the financial and judicial business of the +kingdom. The Exchequer filled a far more important place in the national +life than the Curia Regis, for the power of the king was simply measured +by the state of the treasury, when wars began to be fought by mercenaries, +and justice to be administered by paid officials. The court had to keep a +careful watch over the provincial accounts, over the moneys received from +the king's domains, and the fines from the local courts. It had to +regulate changes in the mode of payment as the use of money gradually +replaced the custom of payments in kind. It had to watch alterations in +the ownership and cultivation of land, to modify the settlement of +Doomsday Book so as to meet new conditions, and to make new distribution +of taxes. There was no class of questions concerning property in the most +remote way which might not be brought before its judges for decision. +Twice a year the officers of the royal household, the Chancellor, +Treasurer, two Chamberlains, Constable, and Marshal, with a few barons +chosen from their knowledge of the law, sat with the Justiciar at their +head, as "Barons of the Exchequer" in the palace at Westminster, round +the table covered with its "chequered" cloth from which they took their +name. In one chamber, the Exchequer of Account, the "Barons" received the +reports of the sheriffs from every county, and fixed the sums to be +levied. In a second chamber, the Exchequer of Receipt, the sheriff or +tax-farmer paid in his dues and took his receipts. The accounts were +carefully entered on the treasurer's roll, which was called from its +shape the Great Roll of the Pipe, and which may still be seen in our +Record Office; the chancellor kept a duplicate of this, known as the Roll +of the Chancery; and an officer of the king registered in a third Roll +matters of any special importance. Before the death of Henry I. the vast +amount and the complexity of business in the Exchequer Court made it +impossible that it should any longer be carried on wholly in London. The +"Barons" began to travel as itinerant judges through the country; as the +king's special officers they held courts in the provinces, where difficult +local questions were tried and decided on the spot. So important did the +work of finance become that the study of the Exchequer is in effect the +key to English history at this time. It was not from any philosophic love +of good government, but because the license of outrage would have +interrupted there turns of the revenue that Henry I. claimed the title of +the "Lion of justice." It was in great measure from a wish to sweep the +fees of the Church courts into the royal Hoard that the second Henry began +the strife with Becket in the Constitutions of Clarendon, and the increase +of revenue was the efficient cause of the great reforms of justice which +form the glory of his reign. It was the fount of English law and English +freedom. + +The Curia Regis was composed of the same great officers of the household +as those who sat in the Exchequer, and of a few men chosen by the king +for their legal learning; but in this court they were not known as +"Barons" but as "Justices," and their head was the Chief Justice. The +Curia Regis dealt with legal business, with all causes in which the +king's interest was concerned, with appeals from the local courts, and +from vassals who were too strong to submit to their arbitration, with +pleas from wealthy barons who had bought the privilege of laying their +suit before the king, besides all the perplexed questions which lay far +beyond the powers of the customary courts, and in which the equitable +judgment of the king himself was required. In theory its powers were +great, but in practice little business was actually brought to it in the +time of Henry I; the distance of the court from country places, and the +expense of carrying a suit to it, would alone have proved an effectual +hindrance to its usefulness, even if the rules by which it was guided had +been much more complete and satisfactory than they actually were. + +The routine of this system of administration, as well as the mass of +business to be done, effectually interfered with arbitrary action on the +king's part, and the regular and methodical work of the organized courts +gave to the people a fair measure of protection against the tyranny or +caprice of the sovereign. But the royal power which was given over to +justices and barons did not pass out of the hands of the king. He was +still in theory the fount of all authority and law, and could, whenever +he chose, resume the powers that he had granted. His control was never +relaxed; and in later days we find that while judges on circuit who gave +unjust judgment were summoned before the Curia Regis at Westminster, the +judges of the Curia Regis itself were called for trial before the king +himself in his council. + +The reorganization of these courts was fast completed under Henry's great +justiciar, De Lucy, and the chancellor Thomas. The next few years show an +amount of work done in every department of government which is simply +astonishing. The clerks of the Exchequer took up the accounts and began +once more regular entries in the Pipe Roll; plans of taxation were +devised to fill the empty hoard, and to check the misery and tyranny +under which the tax payers groaned. The king ordered a new coinage which +should establish a uniform system of money over the whole land. As late +as the reign of Henry I. the dues were paid in kind, and the sheriffs +took their receipts for honey, fowls, eggs, corn, wax, wool, beer, oxen, +dogs, or hawks. When, by Henry's orders, all payments were first made in +coin to the Exchequer, the immediate convenience was great, but the state +of the coinage made the change tell heavily against the crown. It was +impossible to adulterate dues in kind; it was easy to debase the coin +when they were paid in money, and that money received by weight, whether +it were coin from the royal mints, or the local coinages that had +continued from the time of the early English kingdoms, or debased money +from the private mints of the barons. Roger of Salisbury, in fact, when +placed at the head of the Exchequer, found a great difference between the +weight and the actual value of the coin received. He fell back on a +simple expedient; in many places there had been a provision as old at +least as Doomsday, which enacted that the money weighed out for town-geld +should if needful be tested by re-melting. The treasurer extended this to +the whole system of the Exchequer. He ordered that all money brought to +the Exchequer should itself be tested, and the difference between its +weight and real value paid by the sheriff who brought it. The burden thus +fell on the country, for the sheriff would of course protect himself as +far as he could by exacting the same tests on all sums paid to him. If +the pound was worth but ten shillings in the market, no doubt the sheriff +only took it for ten shillings in his court. Practically each tax, each +due, must have been at least doubled, and the sheriff himself was at the +mercy of the Exchequer moneyers. There was but one way to remedy the +evil, by securing the purity of the coin, and twice during his reign +Henry made this his special care. + +In the absence of records we can only dimly trace the work of legal reform +which was carried out by Henry's legal officers; but it is plain that +before 1164 certain great changes had already been fully established. A +new and elaborate system of rules seems gradually to have been drawn up +for the guidance of the justices who sat in the Curia Regis; and a new set +of legal remedies in course of time made the chances of justice in this +court greater than in any other court of the realm. The _Great Assize_, an +edict whose date is uncertain, but which was probably issued during the +first years of his reign, developed and set in full working order the +imperfect system of "recognition" established by the Norman kings. +Henceforth the man, whose right to his freehold was disputed, need but +apply to the Curia Regis to issue an order that all proceedings in the +local courts should be stopped until the "recognition" of twelve chosen +men had decided who was the rightful owner according to the common +knowledge of the district, and the barbarous foreign custom of settling +the matter by combat was done away with. Under the new system the Curia +Regis eventually became the recognized court of appeal for the whole +kingdom. So great a mass of business was drawn under its control that the +king and his regular ministers could no longer suffice for the work, and +new judges had to be added to the former staff; and at last the positions +of the two chief courts of the kingdom were reversed, and the King's Court +took the foremost place in the amount and importance of its business. + +The same system of trial by sworn witnesses was also gradually extended +to the local courts. By the new-fashioned royal system the legal men of +hundreds and townships, the knights and freeholders, were ordered to +search out the criminals of their district, and "present" them for trial +at the Shire Court,--something after the fashion of the "grand jury" of +to-day, save that in early times the jurors had themselves to bear +witness, to declare what they knew of the prisoner's character, to say if +stolen goods had been divided in a certain barn, to testify to a coat by +a patch on the shoulder. By a slow series of changes which wholly +reversed their duties, the "legal men" of the juries of "presentment" and +of "recognition" were gradually transformed into the "jury" of to-day; +and even now curious traces survive in our courts of the work done by the +ancestors of the modern jury. In criminal cases in Scotland the oath +still administered by the clerk to jurymen carries us back to an ancient +time: "You fifteen swear by Almighty God, and as you shall answer to God +at the great day of judgment, you will truth say and no truth conceal, in +so far as you are to pass on this assize." + +The provincial administration was set in working order. New sheriffs took +up again the administration of the shires, and judges from the King's +Court travelled, as they had done in the time of Henry I., through the +land. The worst fears of the baronage were justified. They were disabled +by one blow after another. Their political humiliation was complete. The +heirs of the great lords who had followed the Conqueror, and who with +their vast estates in Normandy and in England had inherited the arrogant +pretensions of their fathers, found themselves of little account in the +national councils. The mercenary forces were no longer at their disposal. +The sources of wealth which they had found in plunder and in private +coinage were cut off. Their rights of jurisdiction were curtailed. A +final blow was struck at their military power by the adoption of scutage. +In the Welsh campaign of 1157 Henry opened his military reforms by +introducing a system new to England in the formation of his army. Every +two knights bound to service were ordered to furnish in their place one +knight who should remain with the king's army as long as he required. It +was the first step towards getting rid of the cumbrous machinery of the +feudal array, and securing an efficient and manageable force which should +be absolutely at the king's control. In the war of Toulouse in 1159 the +problem was for the first time raised as to the obligation of feudal +vassals to foreign service, and Henry gladly seized the opportunity to +carry out his plan yet more fully. The chief vassals who were unwilling +to join the army were allowed to pay a fixed tax or "scutage" instead of +giving their personal service. Henry, the chroniclers tell us, careful of +his people's prosperity, was anxious not to annoy the knights throughout +the country, nor the men of the rising towns, nor the body of yeomen, by +dragging them to foreign war against their will; at the same time he +himself profited greatly by the change. The new system broke up the old +feudal array, and set the king at the head of something like a standing +army paid by the taxes of the barons. + +Henry had, indeed, won a signal victory over feudalism. But feudalism had +no roots on English soil; it was forced to borrow Brabancons, and to work +by means alien to the whole feudal tradition and system, and Henry had +easily overthrown the baronage by the help of the Church. But in the +process the ecclesiastical party had learned to know its strength, and the +king had to meet a more formidable resistance to his will when, instead of +a lawless baronage, he was confronted by the Church with its mighty +organization, always vigilant and menacing. The clergy had from the first +looked with a very jealous eye on his projects. A sharp quarrel as to the +jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts had early arisen between Henry +and Archbishop Theobald, but the matter had been compromised for a time. +Thomas had taken office pledged to defend ecclesiastical interests, and he +was so far true to his pledge, that while he was chancellor he put an end +to the abuse of keeping bishoprics and abbeys vacant. He had, however, as +was said at the time, "put off the deacon" to put on the chancellor; and +in an ecclesiastical trial which took place soon after Henry's crowning, +he appears as an energetic exponent of the king's legal views. A dispute +had raged for years as to the jurisdiction of the bishops of Chichester +over the abbots of Battle. On Henry's accession Bishop Hilary of +Chichester vigorously renewed the struggle, and a great trial was held +in May 1157 to decide the matter. Hilary failing after much discussion to +effect a compromise, emphatically and solemnly declared in words such as +Henry was to hear a few years later from another mouth, that there were +two powers, secular and spiritual, and that the secular authority could +not interfere with the spiritual jurisdiction, or depose any bishop or +ecclesiastic without leave from Rome. "True enough, he cannot be +'deposed,'" cried the young king, "but by a shove like this he may be +clean thrust out!" and he suited the action to the words. A laugh ran +round the assembly at the king's jest; but Hilary, taking no notice of +the hint, went on to urge that no layman, not even the king, could by the +law of Rome confer ecclesiastical dignity or exemptions without the Pope's +leave and confirmation. "What next!" broke in Henry angrily, "you think +with your practised cunning to set yourself up against the authority of +my kingly prerogative granted me by God Himself! I command you by the +allegiance you have sworn to keep within proper bounds language against my +crown and dignity!" A general clamour rose against the prelate, and the +chancellor, louder than the rest, talked of the bishop's oath of fealty to +the king, and warned him to take heed to himself. Hilary, seeing himself +thus beset, obsequiously declared that he had no wish to take aught from +the kingly honour and dignity, which he had always bent every effort to +magnify and increase; but Henry bluntly retorted that it was plain to all +that his honour and dignity would be speedily removed far from him by the +fair and deceitful talk of those who would annul his just prerogatives. +The bishop could not find a single friend. Chancellor and justiciar and +constable rivalled one another in taunts and sharp phrases. When he went +on to urge the revision of the Conqueror's charter to Battle by the +archbishop, and to appeal to ecclesiastical custom, Henry's wrath rose +again. "A wonderful and marvellous thing truly is this we hear, that the +charters, forsooth, of my kingly predecessors, confirmed by the +prerogative of the Crown of England, and witnessed by the magnates, should +be deemed beyond our powers by you, my lord bishop. God forbid, God +forbid, that in my kingdom what is decreed by me at the instance of +reason, and with the advice of my archbishops, bishops, and barons, +should be liable to the censure of you and such as you!" He broke short +discussion by declaring that the question belonged to him alone to settle. +The chancellor, in a long argument, crushed the already humbled bishop, +and raised the king's anger to its utmost pitch by drawing attention to +the fact that Hilary had appealed to Rome to the contempt of the royal +dignity. The king, his countenance changed with fury, turned passionately +to the bishop, who tremblingly swore, while Archbishop Theobald crossed +himself in amazement at the audacious perjury, that it was the abbot who +had got the bull of which Thomas complained. Theobald entreated that the +matter might be settled according to Canon law, but this the king promptly +refused. Finally Hilary was forced to complete submission, and the +archbishop prayed that he might be pardoned for any imprudent words he had +used against the king's majesty. Henry was ever ready to yield everything +in form when once he had got his own way. "Not only," he answered, "do I +now give him the kiss of peace, but if his sins were a hundredfold, I +would forgive them all for your prayers and for the love I bear him;" and +bishop and abbot and justiciar, all by the king's orders, joined in the +kiss of peace. + +But no kiss of peace given at Henry's orders could turn away the rising +wrath of the Church. A general feeling of danger was in the air, and both +sides, in preparing for the inevitable future, chose the same man to +fight their battle,--Thomas, the disciple and secretary of Theobald, +Thomas, the minister of the king's reforms. The young king had turned +with passionate affection to his brilliant chancellor. In hall, in +church, in council-chamber, on horseback, he was never separated from his +friend. Thomas, like his master, was always ready for hunting, or for +hawking, or for a game of chess. He was willing, too, to save the king +the cost and burden of entertainment and display. He was careful to +magnify his office. He held a splendid court, where Henry's son and a +train of young nobles were brought up to knightly accomplishments. He was +dressed in scarlet and furs, and his clothes were woven with gold. His +table was covered with gold and silver plate, and his servants had orders +to buy the most costly provisions in the shops for cooked meat, which +were then the glory of the city. His household was the talk of London. +The king himself, curious to see how things went on, would sometimes come +on horseback to watch the chancellor sitting at meat, or, bow in hand, +would turn in on his way from hunting, and, vaulting over the table, +would sit down and eat with him. Henry lavished gifts on him, so that +according to one of his chroniclers, "when he might have had all +the churches and castles of the kingdom if he chose since there was none +to deny him, yet the greatness of his soul conquered his ambition; he +magnanimously disdained to take the poorer benefices, and required only +the great things--the provostship of Beverley, the deanery at Hastings, +the Tower of London with the service of the soldiers belonging to it, the +castle of Eye with 140 soldiers, and that of Berkhampstead." or was the +king's favour misplaced, for Thomas was an excellent servant. Business +was rapidly despatched by him; and Henry found himself relieved of the +most irksome part of his work. The chancellor surrounded himself by +able men, looking even as far as Gaul for poor Englishmen who were +distinguished for their talent; fifty-two clerks were employed under him +in the Chancery. As he grew more and more important to his master, +unlimited powers were put in his hand. There are even entries in the Pipe +Roll of pardons issued by him, the first instance of such a right ever +used by any save king or queen. It was said that those who had the king's +favour might count it as a vain thing, unless they had also the friendship +of the chancellor. "The king's dominions, which reach from the Arctic +Ocean to the Pyrenees, he put into your power, and in this alone was any +man thought happy, that he should find favour in your eyes," runs a letter +written afterwards to Thomas. + +To complete the king's schemes, however, one dignity yet remained +to be conferred on Thomas. He was eager, in view of his proposed +reconstruction of Church and State, to adopt the Imperial system of a +chancellor-archbishop. The difficulties in the way were great, for ancient +custom limited the technical supremacy of the king's will in the choice +of the Primate. No archbishop since the Conquest had been chosen for other +reasons than those of piety and learning; no secular primate had been +appointed since Stigand, and before Stigand there had never been one at +all; no deacon had ever been chosen for this high office; and never had a +king's officer been made archbishop, however common it may have been to +put chancellor or treasurer in less important sees. Amid the anxiety and +questioning which followed the death of Theobald in 1161, Thomas himself +clearly saw the parting of the ways: "Whoever is made archbishop," he +said, "must quickly give offence to God or to the king." Henry alone knew +no hesitation. Fresh from his triumphs abroad, master of his great empire, +clear and decided in his projects for the ordering of his dominions, eager +with the force and determination of twenty-eight years, recognizing no +check to his imperious will and the dictates of his friendship, he chose +Thomas as archbishop, "Matilda dissuading, the kingdom protesting, the +whole Church sighing and groaning." The king, who was then in France, sent +his envoy, Richard de Lucy, to Canterbury to press the essential problem +home in plain words: "If," he said, "the king and the archbishop are +joined together in affection, the state of the Church will still be quiet +and happy; but if the thing should fall out otherwise, what strife may +come from it, what difficulties and tumults, what loss and peril to souls, +I cannot hide from you." The argument prevailed, and in London, in the +presence of the king's little son Henry, then seven years old, Thomas +was chosen archbishop, "the multitude acclaiming with the voice of God +and not of man." The deacon-chancellor was ordained priest on the 2d of +June 1162, and the next day consecrated archbishop by Henry of Winchester. +Two months later John of Salisbury brought him the pall from Pope +Alexander at Montpellier, and for the first time since the Norman +Conquest, a man born on English soil was set at the head of the +English Church. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +THE CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON + +In the January of 1163 Henry once more landed in England. His absence off +our and a half years had given time for dangers and alarms to spring up +in the half-settled realm. Mysterious prophecies passed from mouth to +mouth that the king would never be seen in the island again, and even +Theobald, before his death in 1161, had sent urgent entreaties for his +return. The king had, in fact, during the first eight years of his rule +been mainly occupied in building up his empire, and providing for its +defence against external dangers. He had only twice visited the kingdom, +each time for little more than a year. He was now, however, prepared to +take the work of administration seriously in hand. In the next eighteen +years, from 1163 to 1180, he landed on its shores seven times, and spent +altogether eight years in the country. Once he was busied with the +conquest of Ireland; one visit of a month was spent in crushing a +dangerous rebellion; but with these two exceptions every coming of the +king was marked by the carrying out of some great administrative reform. +In his half-compacted empire order was still only maintained by his +actual presence and the sheer force of his personal authority, as he +hurried from country to country to quell a rising in Gascony or a revolt +in Galloway, to wage war in Wales, to finish the conquest of Britanny or +of Ireland, to order the administration of Poitou or Normandy. But in the +swift and terrible progresses of a king who visited the shires to north +and south and west in the intervals of foreign war, a long series of +experiments as to the best forms of internal government was ceaselessly +carried out, and the new administration securely established. + +Henry, however, was at once met by a difficulty unknown to earlier days. +The system which the Conqueror had established of separate courts for +secular and ecclesiastical business had utterly broken down for purposes +of justice. Until the reign of Stephen much of the business of the +bishops was done in the courts of the hundred and the shire. The Church +courts also had at first been guided by the customary law and traditions +of the early English Church, which had grown up along with the secular +laws and had a distinctly national character. So long, indeed, as the +canon law remained somewhat vague, and the Church courts incomplete, they +could work peaceably side by side with the lay courts; but with the +development of ecclesiastical law in the middle of the twelfth century, +it was inevitable that difficulties should spring up. The boundaries of +civil and ecclesiastical law were wholly uncertain, the scientific study +of law had hardly begun, and there was much debatable ground which might +be won by the most arrogant or the most skilful of the combatants. Every +brawl of a few noisy lads in the Oxford streets or at the gates of some +cathedral or monastic school was enough to kindle the strife as to the +jurisdiction of Church or State which shook medieval society to its +foundation. + +The Church courts not only had jurisdiction over the whole clerical order, +but exercised wide powers even over the laity. To them alone belonged the +right to enforce spiritual penalties, to deal with cases of oaths, +promises, anything in which a man's faith was pledged; to decide as to the +property of intestates, to pronounce in every case of inheritance whether +the heir was legitimate, to declare the law as to wills and marriage. +Administering as they did an enlightened system of law, they profited by +the new prosperity of the country, and the judicial and pecuniary disputes +which came to them had never been so abundant as now. Henry was keenly +alive to the fact that the archdeacons' courts now levied every year by +their fines more money than the whole revenue of the crown. Young +archdeacons were sent abroad to be taught the Roman law, and returned to +preside over the newly-established archdeacons' courts; clergy who sought +high office were bound to study before all things, even before theology, +the civil and canon law. The new rules, however, were as yet incomplete +and imperfectly understood in England; the Church courts were without the +power to put them in force; the procedure was hurried and irregular; the +judges were often ill-trained, and unfit to deal with the mass of legal +business which was suddenly thrown on them; the ecclesiastical authorities +themselves shrank from defiling the priesthood by contact with all this +legal and secular business, and kept the archdeacons in deacons' orders; +the more religious clergy questioned whether for an archdeacon salvation +were possible. In the eight years of Henry's rule one hundred murders had +been committed by clerks who had escaped all punishment save the light +sentences of fine and imprisonment inflicted by their own courts, and +Henry bitterly complained that a reader or an acolyte might slay a man, +however illustrious, and suffer nothing save the loss of his orders. + +Since the beginning of Henry's reign, too, there had been an enormous +increase of appeals to Rome. Questions quite apart from faith or morals, +and that mostly concerned property, were referred for decision to a +foreign court. The great monasteries were exempted from episcopal control +and placed directly under the Pope; they adopted the customs and laws +which found favour at Rome; they upheld the system of appeals, in which +their wealth and influence gave them formidable advantages. The English +Church was no longer as in earlier times distinct from the rest of +Christendom, but was brought directly under Roman influence. The clergy +were more and more separated from their lay fellow citizens; their rights +and duties were determined on different principles; they were governed by +their own officers and judged by their own laws, and tried in their own +courts; they looked for their supreme tribunal of appeal not to the King's +Court, but to Rome; they became, in fact, practically freed from the +common law. + +No king, and Henry least of all, could watch unmoved the first great +body which threatened to stand wholly outside the law of the land; and +the ecclesiastical pretensions of the time were perhaps well matched by +the pretensions of the State. The king had prepared for the coming +conflict by a characteristic act of high-handed imperiousness in the +election of the chancellor-archbishop to carry out his policy. But all +such schemes of imperative despotism were vain. No sooner was Thomas +consecrated than it became plain that his ecclesiastical training would +carry the day against the influence of Henry. As rapidly as he had "thrown +off the deacon" to become the chancellor, so he now went through the +sharper change of throwing off the chancellor to become the archbishop. +With keen political sagacity he at once sought the moral support of the +religious party who had so vehemently condemned his appointment. The +gorgeous ostentation of his old life gave way to an equally elaborate +scheme of saintliness. He threw away with tears his splendid dress to put +on sackcloth and the black cloak of the monk. His table was still covered +with gold and silver dishes and with costly meats, but the hall was now +crowded with the poor and needy, and at his own side sat only the most +learned and holy among the monks and clergy. Forty clerks "most learned +in the law" formed his household. He visited the sick in the infirmary, +and washed the feet of thirteen poor men daily. He sat in the cloister +like one of the monks, studying the canon law and the Holy Scriptures. He +joined their prayers in the Church and took part in their secret councils. +The monks who had suffered under the heavy hand of Theobald, when their +dainty foods were curtailed and their cherished privileges sharply denied +them, hailed joyfully the unexpected attitude of their new master. "This +is the finger of God," men said, "this, indeed, is the work of the right +hand of the Most High." "As he had been accustomed to the pre-eminence +over others in worldly glory," commented another observer, "so now he +determined to be the foremost in holy living." + +Rumours spread that there were to be other changes besides that of "holy +living." The see of Canterbury under the new primate was to win back all +lands and privileges lost during the civil wars, at whatever cost to the +interests of the whole court party, of barons who found their rights to +Church appointments and Church lands questioned, and of clerks of the +royal household who trembled for their posts and benefices. There was +soon no lack of enemies at court, old and new, ready to carry to Henry +whispers that would appeal most subtly to his fears,--whispers that the +royal dignity itself was in danger; that he must look to himself and his +heirs, or the story of Stephen's time would be told over again, and that +man alone would in future be king, whom the clergy should elect and the +archbishop approve. Henry's bitter anger was aroused when Thomas +resigned the chancellorship, "not now wishing to be in the royal court, +but desiring to have leisure for prayers, and to superintend the +business of the Church." The king retorted by forcing Thomas to resign +his archdeaconry with its rich fees; and at his landing in January 1163 +he received the archbishop, who came to meet him, "with averted face." +Thomas, on his part, added another grievance by refusing on ecclesiastical +grounds to allow Henry to marry his brother to Stephen's daughter-in-law, +the Countess of Warenne; and on the general question of the relations of +Church and State, he hastened to define his views with sharp precision in +an eloquent sermon preached before the king. "Henry observing it word by +word, and understanding from it how greatly Thomas put the ecclesiastical +before the civil right, did not receive this doctrine with an equal mind, +for he perceived that the archbishop was far from his own view, that the +Church had neither rights nor possessions save by his favour." The +attitude of Thomas was yet further strengthened and defined when, in May +1163, he went to attend a great Council held at Tours, where he was +brought more immediately under the influence of the ecclesiastical +movement of the day. There he sought, with a meaning that Henry must +clearly have understood, to procure the canonization of Anselm from Pope +Alexander, who, however, was far too politic amid his own difficulties, +and in his need for Henry's help, to commit himself either by consent or +by refusal. + +The inevitable controversy declared itself soon after the return of +Thomas from Tours. Throughout July and August one question after another +was hurried forward for settlement between king and primate. On July 1 +the king proposed a change in the collection of the land tax, which +would have increased the royal revenues at the expense of the revenues +of the shire. Since the Conquest there had never been a single instance +of an attempt to resist the royal will in matters of finance, but Thomas +showed no hesitation. He flatly refused consent to an arbitrary act of +this kind. He made no objection to the payment of the tax, but he was +determined to prevent the local revenues being seized in this way by the +king. His action seems to have been wise and patriotic, and his triumph +was complete. Henry was forced to abandon the scheme. Having awakened +the anger of the king, Thomas next alienated the whole party of the +barons by pressing his demands for the recovery of lands belonging to +his see. Tunbridge, Rochester, now in the custody of the crown itself, +Hythe, Saltwood, and a number of other manors became the subjects of +sharp contention. The archbishop urged a doubtful claim, which he had +inherited from Theobald, to appoint the priest to a church on the land +of William of Eynesford, a tenant of the king. William resisted, and +Thomas made his first false move by excommunicating him. Henry at once +appealed to the "customs" of the kingdom, which forbade such sentence on +the king's barons without the royal consent, and Thomas had to withdraw +his excommunication. "I owe him no thanks for it!" cried the angry king. + +A more serious strife was raised when Thomas came into direct collision +with Henry on the inevitable question of the punishment of clerks for +crime against the common law. If the king was determined to bring about +a fundamental reform in the administration of justice, the Primate was +equally resolute that as archbishop he would have nothing to do with +reforms which he might have countenanced as chancellor. He prudently +sought at first to divert attention from the real issue by increasing +the severity of judgments in the ecclesiastical courts. A clerk had +stolen a chalice; he insisted on his trial in the Church Court, but to +appease the king ordered him to be branded,--a punishment condemned by +ecclesiastical law which considered all injury to the person as defiling +the image of God. Such devices, however, were thrown away on Henry. When +another clerk, Philip de Broc, who had been accused of manslaughter, was +set free by the Church courts, the king's justiciar ordered him to be +brought to a second trial before a lay judge. Philip refused to submit. +The justiciar then charged him with contempt of court for his vehement +and abusive language to the officer who summoned him, but the archbishop +demanded that for this charge, too, he should be tried by ecclesiastical +law. Henry was forced to content himself with sending a detachment of +bishops and clergy to watch the trial. They returned with the news that +the court had refused to reconsider the charge of manslaughter, and had +merely condemned Philip for insolence; he was ordered to make personal +satisfaction to the sheriff, standing (clerk as he was) naked before +him, and submitting to a heavy fine; his prebend was to be forfeited to +the king for two years; for those two years he was to be exiled and his +movable goods were confiscated. + +The punishment might seem severe enough, but Henry would accept no +compromise. With a burst of fury he declared that just judgment for +murder was refused because the offender was in orders. Resolute that the +question should once for all be settled, he summoned a council at +Westminster on October 1. There he demanded, "for love of him and for +safety of the kingdom," that accused clerks should be tried by the +common law, and that if proved guilty, they should be degraded by the +bishops, and given up to the executioner for punishment. He complained +of the exactions of the ecclesiastical courts, and urged that in all +matters concerning these courts or the rights of the clergy, the bishops +should return to the customs of Henry the First. Such a course would +have left them at the king's mercy, and the prelates wavered in their +sore distress. The king's friends contended that a guilty clerk deserved +punishment double that of a layman, and urged the need of submission at +this moment when the Church was torn asunder by schism; and the bishops +frankly admitted a yet more pressing consideration: "For if we do not +what the king wishes," they said, "flight will be cut off from us, and +no man will seek after our souls; but if we consent to the king, we +shall own the sanctuary of God in heredity, and shall sleep safely in +the possession of our churches." On the other hand, the archbishop had +no mind to resign without a contest all the results of the great tide of +feeling which had swept the Church onward far past its old landmarks. +For him there was no going back to a traditional past from which the +Church had shaken itself free, and in which, though king and barons +might see the freedom of the State, he saw the enslaving and degradation +of the clergy. He vehemently asserted that the "customs" of the Church +were of greater authority than any "customs" of the kingdom, that its +canon law claimed obedience as against all traditional national law +whatever; and with keen political insight he insisted on the dangers that +would follow if once they allowed the charm of prescription to be broken, +or the ecclesiastical liberties to be touched. He boldly led the way in +his answer to the king: "We will obey in all things saving our order;" and +as the bishops were asked one by one, they took courage to follow, and +"one voice was in the mouth of all of them." Such a phrase had never been +heard in England before, and Henry, with ready indignation, at once +demanded the withdrawal of the words. When Thomas refused, he broke up the +council in a burst of anger, and suddenly rode away from London, instantly +followed by the whole body of trembling bishops, who hurried after him in +abject terror, "lest before they should be able to catch him up, they +should already have lost their sees." Thomas was left alone--"there was +not one who would know him,"--while the prelates, coming up in time with +their terrible lord, agreed henceforth to guide their words by his good +pleasure. + +From this moment all the elements of strife were prepared, and there was +but outer show of harmony when king and archbishop, a few days later, +joined at Westminster to celebrate with solemn pomp the translation of +the remains of the sainted Confessor. In declaring war upon local +jurisdictions, whether of clergy, or nobles, or burghers, or independent +shire courts, Henry was defying all the traditions and convictions of +his age,--an age when local feeling was a force which we are now quite +unable to measure. The nobles, the guilds, and the rising towns had +already won long before, or were now seeking to win as their most +cherished privilege, the right to their own justice without interference +from any higher power. They naturally looked with sympathy on the rights +exercised by the clergy within their own body; they felt that whatever +had been won by one class might later be won by another, and that +liberties which were enjoyed by so enormous a body as the clerical order +were a benefit in which the whole people had a share. If the king was +determined to wage war on "privilege," clergy and people were equally +resolute to defend "liberty." Moreover, in attacking the special +jurisdiction of the Church, Henry had to encounter a force to which there +is no parallel in our own time. An English king had doubtless less to fear +from the Church than had any continental ruler. Abroad the bishop-stool, +the abbey, the Church, were oases in the midst of perpetual war,--the only +spots where peace and law and justice spoke in protest against the chaos +of the world. But England was, in comparison with the rest of the western +world, a country of peace and law. There the Church was less powerful +against the State because the State had never handed over its duty of +maintaining justice and law and right to the exclusive guardianship of the +Church. None the less it was a formidable matter to rouse the hostility of +a body which included not only all the religious world, but all the +educated classes, and penetrated even to the despised villeinage and the +poor freemen whose sons pressed into its lower ranks. The Church with +which Henry had to deal was no longer the same that the Conqueror had +easily bent to his will. It had received its training and felt its +strength in political action; it had developed a close corporate spirit; +it had an admirable organization; it possessed the most advanced as well +as the most merciful legal system of the age. Its courts had strong claims +to popular regard. Their punishments were more merciful than the savage +sentences of the lay courts; and they held out great advantages to the +rich, since the penances they inflicted could be commuted for money. +Their system of law, moreover, was far in advance of the barbarous rules +of customary law; and they were backed by all the authority of the Roman +Curia and of the religious feeling of the day. + +Henry had, however, peculiar advantages in the contest. He was master of +a disciplined body of ministers and servants, in whom he could confidently +trust. He was sure, in this matter at least, of the support of the lay +baronage, who had long arrears of jealousy to make up against their +hereditary opponents the clergy, and who were not likely now to forget +that no party in the Church had ever made common cause with the feudal +lords. He could count on the obedience of the secular clergy. In France +or Germany the bishops were members of the great houses, and as powerful +local rulers wielded a vast feudal authority. In England their position +was very different. They were drawn from the staff of the king's chapel, +and had their whole training in the administration of the court; and they +formed an official nobility who were charged, in common with the secular +nobility, with the conduct of the general business of the realm. They were +appointed to their places by the king for services done to him, and as +instruments of his policy. Neither Pope nor people had any share in their +election. Their estates were granted them by the same titles, and with the +same obligations as those of feudal barons; the king could withhold their +temporalities, sequestrate their lands, confiscate their personal goods, +and burden them with heavy fines; they lay absolutely at his mercy without +appeal. Every tie of feudal duty, of official training, of prudent +self-interest, forced them into subjection to the Crown. Their Roman +sympathies were quenched as they watched the growing independence of the +monasteries, and saw Church endowments taken to enrich the new religious +houses of every kind which were springing up all over England. They feared +the new authority claimed by legates, which threatened to withdraw the +clergy, if they chose to assert their claims, from regular episcopal +jurisdiction. They were thrown on the side of the king in ecclesiastical +questions, drawn together by a common cause, both alike found their +interest in the defence of national tradition as opposed to foreign +custom. + +Their leaders too looked coldly on the cause of the Primate. The +Archbishop of York, Roger of Pont l'Eveque, once the companion of Thomas +in Theobald's household, was now his personal enemy and rival. The two +prelates inherited the secular strife as to which see should have the +precedence. Moreover, while Canterbury represented the papal policy and +always looked to Rome, York preserved some faint traditional leanings +towards the liberties of the Irish and Scotch churches from whence the +Christianity of the north had sprung. The Bishop of London, Gilbert +Foliot, who, with the approval of Thomas, had been translated from +Hereford only five months before, was, by his mere position, marked out +as the chief antagonist of the archbishop, for St Pauls was at the head +of the whole body of secular clergy throughout southern England, and to +its bishop inevitably fell the leadership of this party against +Canterbury, which was in the hands of a monastic chapter. The Bishop of +Winchester, Henry of Blois, could well remember the struggle between +Church and Crown under a far weaker king twenty six years before, when +the bishops had wisely withdrawn from a contest where they had "seen +swords unsheathed and knew it was no longer a joking matter, but a +struggle of life and death," and with the prudence born of long political +experience he was for moderate counsels. The Bishop of Chichester, Hilary, +doubtless remembered the inconvenient part which Thomas as chancellor had +played in his own trial a few years before, and might gladly recognize a +poetic justice in seeing Thomas's old doctrines of the supremacy of the +State now applied to himself. "Every plant," he once said with taunting +reference to the king's part in Thomas's election, "which my heavenly +Father has not planted shall be rooted up." Thomas bitterly added another +verse as he heard of the saying, "This man had among the brethren the +place of Judas the traitor." There seems to have been a general impression +that the position of the Primate was extremely critical, and he was +besieged by advisers who urged submission, by messengers from pope and +cardinals, by panic-stricken churchmen. Beset on all sides the Primate +wavered, and at last promised to swear obedience to the "customs of the +kingdom." Immediately the king summoned prelates and barons to witness +his submission, and the famous Council of Clarendon met for this purpose +in 1164. + +At Clarendon, however, after three days' conference, the archbishop +hesitated and hung back, he had grievously sinned in yielding, and he +now refused the promised oath. The bishops, finding courage in his +firmness, declared themselves ready to follow him in his refusal. At the +news the fury of the king burst forth, and "he was as a madman in the +eyes of those who stood by." The court broke into wild disorder, the +servants of the king, "with faces more truculent than usual," burst into +the assembly of the prelates, and flinging aside their long cloaks, +flourished their axes aloft, and threatened to strike them into the +heads of the bishops. Two nobles were sent to warn Thomas that orders +for his death were already given unless he would submit. The weeping +bishops with lamentable voices besought him to save them; knights of the +Hospital and the Temple from the king's household knelt before him, +sighing and pouring forth tears. "In fear of death," says one chronicler, +he yielded. "I am ready," he said, "to keep the customs of the kingdom." +Hardly were the words out of his mouth, when Henry commanded him to order +the bishops to give the same promise, and again the Primate obeyed. But +the king was still unsatisfied. His temper had risen in the discussions +of the last few months; his determination was fixed that the matter should +be settled once for all. With the sharp decision of a keen and practical +administrator, he ordered that the "customs of the kingdom" should be +written down, so that no question might ever arise as to the laws which +Thomas had sworn to observe; and "wise men" passed into the next room to +write according to the king's will. They returned with a draft of sixteen +articles, the famous "Constitutions of Clarendon." To these the king +commanded that the Primate should set his seal; but Thomas, agitated by +fear and anxiety, was no longer of the same mind. "By the omnipotent God," +he cried, "while I live, I will never set my seal to it!" Whether he +finally submitted it is impossible now to say. But he left the court with +a last protest. A copy of the writing was torn down the middle, and one +half, after the fashion of the "tallies" of the day, was given to Thomas +in token of his promise, while the other was laid up in the royal +treasury. "I take this," said the archbishop, "not consenting nor +approving," and turning to the clergy: "By this we may know the malice +of the king, and those things which we must beware of." He left the +council and retired to Winchester, where in sackcloth and penance, shut +out from the services of the Church, he condemned himself to wait in +deepest humiliation till he should receive the Pope's absolution for his +momentary betrayal of duty. For years to come a furious battle was to rage +round the sixteen articles drawn up at Clarendon. According to Thomas, the +Constitutions were a mere act of arbitrary violence, a cunning device of +tyranny. He asserted that they were the sole deed of the justiciar +De Lucy, and of Jocelyn de Bailleul, a French lawyer. In any case he +frankly denied the authority of "custom," that tyrannous law of medieval +times. "God never said," writes one of his defenders, "I am Custom, but I +am Truth." Thomas rested his case not on the customary law of the land, +but on the code of Rome; to English tradition he opposed the Italian +lawyers. Henry, on his part, declared that the Constitutions were drawn +up by the common witness of bishops, earls, barons, and wise men; that +they were, in fact, part of a system actually in operation, and which had +been administered by Thomas himself when he was chancellor. It was +certainly a startling novelty to have the customs of the realm drawn up in +a written code to which men were required to swear obedience; but still +the "Constitutions" professed to be no new legislation, but to be simply a +statement of recognized national tradition. The changes that had followed +on the Conquest had modified older customs profoundly. The conditions, not +only of England but of Europe, had changed with confusing rapidity, and it +was no longer easy to say exactly what was "custom" and what was not. To +Henry the Constitutions did fairly represent the system which had grown up +with general consent under the Norman kings. Thomas, on the other hand, +might argue with equal conviction that he was asked to sign as "customs" +what was practically a new code; and he had neither the wisdom nor the +temper to reconcile the dispute by a reasonable compromise. + +No question seems to have been raised as to some of the statutes which +were certainly of recent growth, though they touched Church interests. +One of these repeated unreservedly the assertion that bishops held a +feudal position in all points the same as that of barons or direct +vassals of the king, being bound by all their obligations, and entitled +to sit with them in judgment in the Curia Regis till it came to a +question of blood. Others dealt with disorders which had grown up from +the mutual jealousy of Church and lay courts, and the difficulties thus +thrown in the way of administering laws which were not disputed; rules +were made for the securities to be taken from excommunicated persons; +for the giving up to the king of forfeited goods of felons deposited in +churches or churchyards; and forbidding the ordination of villeins +without their lord's consent,--a provision which possibly was intended +to prevent the withdrawal of an unlimited number of people from secular +jurisdiction. Two other clauses touched upon the new legal remedies, the +use of the jury in the accusation of criminals, and in the decision of +questions of property; it was decreed that laymen should not be accused +in Church courts save by lawful witness, or by the twelve legal +men of the hundred--in other words, by the newly-developed jury of +"presentation"; while the jury of "recognition" was ordered to be used +in disputed titles to ecclesiastical estates. + +The real strife was about the seven remaining statutes, which declared +that an accused clerk must first appear before the king's court, and that +the justiciar should then send a royal officer with him to watch the trial +at the ecclesiastical court, and if he were found guilty the Church should +no longer protect him; that the chief clergy might not leave the realm +without the king's permission; that appeals might not be carried to the +Papal Court without the king's consent; that no tenant-in-chief of the +king might be excommunicated without the leave of the king; that the +revenues of vacant sees should fall to the king, until a new appointment +had been made in his court; that questions of advowsons or presentations +to livings questions which at that time represented comparatively a vast +amount of property--should be tried in the king's court; and that the +king's judges should decide in matters of debt, even where the case +included a question of perjury or broken faith, which was claimed as a +matter for ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Such laws as these were no doubt +in Henry's mind simply part of his scheme for establishing a general order +and one undivided authority in the realm. But they opened very much wider +grounds of dispute between Church and State than the mere question of how +criminal clerks were to be dealt with. They boldly attacked the whole of +the pretensions of the Church; they threatened to rob it of a mass of +financial business, to wrest from its control an enormous amount of +property, to deprive it of jurisdiction in the great majority of criminal +suits, to limit its power of irresponsible self-government, and to prevent +its absorption into the vast organization of the Church of Western +Christendom. They defined the relations of the English Church to the see +of Rome. They established its position as a national Church, and declared +that its clergy should be brought under the rule of national law. + +The eight months which followed the Council of Clarendon were spent in a +vain attempt to solve an insoluble problem. Messengers from king and +archbishop hastened again and again to the Pope, with no result. Henry +set his face like a flint. "_Verba sunt_," he said to a mediating +bishop; "you may talk to me all the days that we both shall live, but +there shall be no peace till the archbishop wins the Pope's consent to +the customs." Fresh cases arose of clerks accused of theft and murder, +but as the personal quarrel between Henry and Thomas increased in +bitterness, questions of reform fell into the background. "I will humble +thee," the king declared, "and will restore thee to the place from +whence I took thee." Thomas, on his part, knew how to awaken all Henry's +secret fears. All Europe was concerned in the dispute of king and +archbishop. The Pope at Sens, the French king, the "eldest son of the +Church," the princes of the House of Blois, as steadfast in their +orthodoxy as in their hatred of the Angevin, the Emperor, ready to use +any quarrel for his own purposes, were all eagerly watching every turn +of the strife. In August Henry was startled by the news that Thomas +himself had fled to seek the protection of the Pope at Sens. He was, +however, recognized by sailors, and carried back to English shores. +Henry immediately dealt his counter-blow. The archbishop was summoned in +September to London to answer in a case which John, the marshal, an +officer of the Exchequer, had withdrawn from the Archbishop's to the +King's Court. Thomas pleaded illness, and protested that the marshal had +been guilty of perjury. The king retorted by calling a council for the +trial of the archbishop on a charge of contempt of the royal summons. +With the insolence of power and the bitter anger of outraged confidence, +Henry heaped humiliations on his enemy. The Primate had a right, by +ancient custom, to be summoned first among the great lords called to the +king's council; he was now merely served with an ordinary notice from +the sheriff of Kent to attend his trial. When he arrived at Northampton +there was no lodging left free for himself and his attendants. The king +had gone out hunting amid the marshes and streams, and only the next +morning met the Primate roughly after mass, and refused him the kiss of +peace. + +In the council which opened in Northampton Castle on Wednesday, 7th +October, we see the Curia Regis in the developed form which it had taken +under Henry and his justiciar, De Lucy, carrying out an exact legal +system, and observing the forms of a very elaborate procedure. The king +and his inner council of the great lords, the prelates, and the officers +of the household, withdrew to an upper chamber of the castle; the whole +company of sheriffs and lesser barons waited in the great hall below +till they were specially summoned to the king's presence, crowding round +the fire that burned in the centre of the hall under the opening in the +roof through which the smoke escaped, or lounging in the straw and +rushes that covered the floor. For seven days the trial dragged on, as +lawyers and bishops and barons anxiously groped their way through +baffling legal problems which had grown out of legislation new and old. +Even the king himself, fiery, imperious, dictatorial, clung with a kind +of superstition to the forms of legal process. The archbishop asked +leave to appeal to the Pope. "You shall first answer in my court for the +injury done to John the marshal," said Henry. The next day, Thursday, +this matter was decided. Bishops and barons alike, lacking somewhat of +the king's daring, shrank at first from the responsibility of pronouncing +judgment. "We are laymen," said the barons; "you are his fellow-priests +and fellow-bishops, and it is for you to declare sentence." "Nay," +answered the bishops, "this is not an ecclesiastical but a secular +judgment, and we sit here not as bishops but as barons; if you heed our +orders you should also take heed of his." The dispute was a critical one, +leading as it did directly to questions about the jurisdiction of the +Curia Regis over ecclesiastical persons, and the obligation asserted in +the Constitutions of Clarendon, that bishops should sit with barons in the +King's Court till it came to a question of blood. The king was seized with +one of his fierce fits of anger, and the discussion "immediately ended." +The unwilling Bishop of Winchester was sent to pronounce sentence of fine +for neglect of the king's summons. Matters then moved quickly. A demand +was made for L300 which Thomas had received from Eye and Berkhampstead +when he was chancellor; and in spite of his defence that it had been spent +in building the palace in London and repairing the castles, judgment went +against him. The next day a further demand was made for money spent in the +war of Toulouse, and this, too, Thomas agreed to pay, though it was now +hard to find sureties. Then the king dealt his last blow. Thomas was +required to account for the sums he had received as chancellor from vacant +sees and abbeys. "By God's eyes," the king swore, when the Primate and the +bishops threw themselves in despair at his feet, he would have the +accounts in full. He would only grant a day's delay for Thomas to take +counsel with his friends. + +By this time there was no doubt of the king's purpose to force upon +Thomas the resignation of his archbishopric. The courtiers and lay +barons no longer thought it expedient to visit him, and the prelates +gave counsel with divided hearts. "Remembering whence the king took +you," said Foliot, "and what he has bestowed on you, and the ruin which +you prepare for the Church and for us all, not only the archbishopric +but ten times as much, if it were possible, you should yield to him. It +may be that seeing in you this humility he may yet restore all." To this +argument Thomas had curt answer. "Enough--it is well enough known how +you, being consulted, would answer!" "You know the king better than we," +urged Hilary of Chichester; "in the chancery, in peace and war, you +served him faithfully, but not without envy. Those who then envied now +excite the king against you. Who dare answer for you? The king has said +that you can no longer both be at one time in England--he as king, you +as archbishop." Henry of Winchester took his stand on the side of +Thomas. "If the authority of the king was to prevail," he argued, "what +remains but that nothing shall henceforth be done according to law, but +all things shall be disturbed for his pleasure--and the priesthood shall +be as the people," he concluded, with a stirring of the churchman's +temper. The Bishop of Exeter added another plea to induce Thomas to +stand firm: "Surely it is better to put one head in peril than to set +the whole Church in danger." Not so, thought the Bishop of Lincoln, "a +simple man and of little discretion;" "for it is plain," he said, "that +this man must yield up either the archbishopric or his life; but what +should be the fruit of his archbishopric to him if his life should +cease, I see not." The Bishop of Worcester, son of the famous Robert of +Gloucester, and Henry's own cousin and playmate in old days took an +eminently prudent course. "I will give no counsel," he said, "for if I +say our charge of souls is to be given up at the king's threats, I +should speak against my conscience, and to my own condemnation; and if I +should advise to resist the king, there are those here who will bring +him word of it, and I shall be cast out of the synagogue, and my lot +shall be with outlaws and public enemies." At last, by the advice of the +politic Henry of Winchester, Thomas offered to pay the king 2000 marks, +but this compromise was refused. He urged that he had been freed at +his consecration from all secular obligations, but the plea was +rejected on the ground that it was done without the king's orders. An +adjournment over Sunday was again granted; but on Monday Thomas was ill, +and unable to attend the Council. Three days had now passed in fruitless +negotiations, and the rising wrath of the king made itself felt. Rumours +of danger grew on all sides, and the archbishop prostrated himself +before the altar in an agony of prayer, "trembling in his whole body," +as he afterwards confessed, less from fear of death than from the more +terrible fear of the savage blinding and cruel punishments of those days. + +But he showed no signs of yielding when on Tuesday morning, the last day +of the Council, the bishops again gathered round him beseeching him +to yield to the king's will. With a fierce outbreak of passionate +reproaches he solemnly forbade them to take part in any further +proceedings against him, and gave formal notice of an appeal to Rome. +Then kneeling before the altar of St. Stephen he celebrated mass, using +the service for St. Stephen's Day with its psalm, "Princes sat and spake +against me,"--"a magical rite," said Foliot, "and an act done in contempt +of the king"-and commended himself to the care of the first Christian +martyr, and of the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, Aelfheah. Still +arrayed in his pontifical robes, he set out for his last ride to the +castle. Of the forty clerks "most learned in the law," who formed his +household, only two ventured to follow him; but "an innumerable +multitude" of people thronged round him as he passed bearing his cross +in his right hand, and followed him to the castle doors with cries of +lamentation, weeping and kneeling for his benediction, for it was spread +abroad that he should that day be slain. The gates were quickly closed in +the face of the tumultuous crowd, and Thomas passed up the great hall, +while the king, hearing of his coming in such dress and fashion, hastily +withdrew to the upper chamber to take counsel with his officers. "A fool +he was, and a fool he always will be," commented Foliot as Thomas entered +with his uplifted cross. "Lord archbishop, thou art ill-advised to enter +thus to the king with sword unsheathed--if now the king should take his +sword, we shall have a well-armed king and a well-armed archbishop!" +--"That we will commit to God," said Thomas. Thus he passed to his seat, +the troubled and perplexed bishops "sitting opposite to him both in place +and in heart." + +Meanwhile the king and his inner council, to which the bishops were +now summoned, were busy discussing what must be done. Henry's position +was one of extreme difficulty, suddenly called on as he was to deal +with a legacy of difficulties which had been left from the unsettled +controversies of a hundred years. By coming to the court in his pontifical +dress Thomas had raised a claim that a bishop could only be tried dressed +in full pontificals by his fellow-bishops also in full dress. He had +thrown aside the king's jurisdiction by his appeal to Rome; and by his +orders to the bishops to judge no further with the barons in this suit +he had further violated the "customs" of the realm to which he had himself +commanded the bishops to swear obedience at Clarendon. None of the +questions raised by Thomas indeed were raised for the first time. William +of St. Carileph, when charged by Rufus with treason, had asserted the +privilege of a bishop to be tried in pontifical dress, and to be judged +only by the canon law in an ecclesiastical court, and had claimed the +right of appeal to Rome. But such doctrines were in those days new and +somewhat doubtful, not supported in any degree by the Church and quite +outside the sympathy of nobles and people, and Lanfranc had easily +eluded the Bishop of Durham's claims. Anselm himself had accepted +a number of points disputed now by Thomas. He frankly admitted the king's +authority in appointing him to the see of Canterbury; he submitted to the +jurisdiction of the King's Court; he made no claims to clerical privileges +or special forms of trial. He had indeed given the first example of a +saving clause in his oath to keep the customs of the kingdom; but the +clause he used, "according to God," was radically different from that of +Thomas, and asserted no different law of obedience for clerk and +for layman. In the reign of Stephen the question of ecclesiastical +jurisdiction ad been raised at the trial of Bishop Roger of Salisbury; but +in this case too the difficulty had been evaded by a temporary expedient, +and the real principle at issue was left untouched. Thomas had in fact +taken up a position which had never been claimed by any great churchman +of the past. The rising tide of ecclesiastical feeling had swept him on +far beyond any of his predecessors. Not even in Anselm's time had the +people in an ecstasy of religious fervour pressed to the gate of the +judgment hall and knelt for the blessing of the saint with a passion of +sympathy and devotion. No problem of such proportions in the relations of +Church and State had ever before presented itself to a king of England. + +Henry's first step was to send orders to the archbishop to withdraw his +appeal to Rome and his prohibition to the bishops to proceed in the +trial, and to submit to the King's Court in the matter of the chancery +accounts. Secret friends in the Council sent the archbishop strange +warnings. Henry, some said, was planning his death; according to others +the royal officers were laying plots for it secretly, "the king knowing +nothing." A new access of panic seized the bishops. "If he should be +captured or slain what remains to us but to be cast out of our offices +and honours to everlasting shame!" With faces of abject terror they +surrounded Thomas, and the Bishop of Winchester implored him to resign +his see. "The same day and the same hour," he answered, "shall end my +bishopric and my life." "Would to God," cried Hilary, "that thou wert +and shouldst remain only Thomas without any other dignity whatever!" +But Thomas refused all compromise; he had not been summoned to answer +in this cause; he had already suffered against law for men of Kent and +of the sea-border charged with the defence of the coast might be fined +only one-third as much as the inland men; at his consecration, too, he +had been freed from any responsibility incurred as chancellor; he asserted +his right of appeal; and he had meanwhile forbidden the bishops to judge +him in any charge that referred to the time before he was Primate. +Silently the king's messenger returned with his answer. "Behold, we have +heard the blasphemy of prohibition out of his mouth!" cried the barons +and officers, and courtiers turning their heads and throwing sidelong +glances at him, whispered loudly that William who had conquered England, +and even Geoffrey of Anjou, had known how to subdue clerks. + +On hearing the message the king at once ordered bishops and barons to +proceed to the trial of the Primate for this new act of contempt of the +King's Court. "In a strait place you have put us," Hilary broke out +bitterly to Thomas, "by your prohibition you have set us between the +hammer and the anvil!" In vain they again entreated Thomas to yield; in +vain they begged the king's leave to sit apart from the barons. Even the +Archbishop of York and Foliot sought anxiously for some escape from +obeying Henry's orders, and at the head of the bishops prayed that they +might themselves appeal to Rome, and thus deal with their own special +grievances against Thomas, who had ordered them to swear and then to +forswear themselves. To this Henry agreed, and from this time the +prelates sat apart, no longer forced to join in the proceedings of the +lay lords; while Henry added to the Council certain sheriffs and lesser +barons "ancient in days." The assembly thus remodelled formally condemned +the archbishop as a traitor, and the earls of Leicester and of Cornwall +were sent to pronounce judgment. But the sentence was never spoken. Thomas +sprang up, cross in hand, and passionately forbade Leicester to speak. +"How can you refuse to obey," said Leicester, "seeing you are the king's +man, and hold your possessions as a fief from him?" "God forbid!" said +Thomas; "I hold nothing whatever of him in fief, for whatever the Church +holds it holds in perpetual liberty, not in subjection to any earthly +sovereignty whatever.... I am your father, you princes of the palace, +lay powers, secular persons; as gold is better than lead, so is the +spiritual better than the lay power.... By my authority I forbid you to +pronounce the sentence." As the nobles retired the archbishop raised his +cross: "I also withdraw," he said, "for the hour is past." Cries of +"Traitor!" followed him down the hall. Knights and barons rushed after him +with bundles of straw and sticks snatched up from the floor, and a clamour +rose "as if the four parts of the city had been given to flames and the +assault of enemies." He made his way slowly through the weeping crowd +outside to the monastery of St. Andrews. That night he fled from +Northampton. The darkness was "as a covering" to him, and a terrible storm +and pelting rain hid the sound of his horse's feet as he passed at +midnight through the town, and out by an unguarded gate to the north. At +dawn of day the anxious Henry of Winchester came to ask for news. "He is +doing well," Thomas's servant whispered in his ear, "for last night he +went away from us, and we do not know whither he has gone." "By the +blessing of God!" cried the bishop, weeping and sighing. When the news was +brought to the king he stood speechless for some moments, choked by his +fury, till at last catching his breath, "We have not done with him yet!" +he exclaimed. + +It seemed, indeed, as though the Council of Northampton had brought +nothing but failure and disaster. The king's whole scheme of reform +depended on the ruin or the submission of the Primate, who was its open +and formidable opponent. But Thomas was free and was now more dangerous +than ever. The Church was alarmed, suspicious, perplexed. It was not ten +years since Henry had made his first journey round the kingdom with +Archbishop Theobald at his side, as the king chosen and appointed by the +spiritual power to put down violence and repress a lawless baronage. But +now he could no longer look for the aid of the Church; all dream of +orderly legislation seemed over. Amid all his violence, however, the +king's sincere attempt to maintain the outward authority of law made of +the Council of Northampton a great event in our constitutional history. +It showed that the rule of pure despotism was over. A new step was taken +too in the political education of the nation. Thrown back on the support +of his own officials and of the baronage, Henry used the nobles as he +had once used the Church. Greater and lesser barons sat together in the +King's Council for the first time when Henry summoned sheriffs and +knights from the hall of Northampton Castle to the inner council +chamber. He taught the nobles their strength when he called the whole +assembly of his barons to discuss questions of spiritual jurisdiction. +It was at Northampton that he gave them their first training in political +action--a training whose full results were seen half a century later in +the winning of Magna Charta. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE ASSIZE OF CLARENDON + +The flight of the archbishop marked the opening of a new phase in the +struggle. Thomas sought refuge at the Papal Court at Sens. There +kneeling at Alexander's feet, and surrounded by weeping cardinals, he +delivered into the Pope's hands the written "customs" which had been +forced upon him at Clarendon, and resigned the see of Canterbury to +receive it back again with all honour. Alexander had indeed but limited +sympathy with the fiery zealot, but he had practically no choice of +action in face of the resistance with which the clergy would have met +any sacrifice of ecclesiastical to secular authority. For two years at a +monastery in Pontigny then for four at Sens, the archbishop lived the +life of an austere Cistercian monk, edifying the community with his +fastings, scourgings, and prayers. The canon law again became his +constant study, and throughout the churches of Gaul he sought for books +which might be copied for the library at Canterbury. He was soon +fortified with visions of martyrdom, and prepared himself fitly to +fulfil this glorious destiny. Nor did he forget the uses of political +intrigue; it was easy to enlist on his side the orthodoxy of the French +king and of the house of Blois; and the intimate knowledge which he had +of his master's continental policy was henceforth at the disposal of the +hereditary enemies of Henry. A tumult of political alarms filled the +air. Ambassadors from both sides hurried to every court, to the Emperor, +the Pope, the King of France, the Count of Flanders, the Empress Matilda +at Rouen. It was the beginning of six years of incessant diplomatic +intrigue, and of almost ceaseless war. The conflict, transferred from +England to France, rapidly widened into a strife, not now for the +maintenance of the king's authority in England, but for his actual +supremacy over the whole empire. Instead of the great questions of +principle which had given dignity to the earlier stages of the dispute, +the quarrel sank into a bitter personal wrangle, an ignoble strife which +left to later generations no great example, no fruitful precedent, no +victory won for liberty or order, for Church or State. + +The Constitutions of Clarendon two years before had lain down the +principles which were to regulate the relations in England of Church and +State. The Assize of Clarendon laid down the principles on which the +administration of justice was to be carried out. Just as Henry had +undertaken to bring Church courts and Church law under the king's +control, so now he aimed at bringing all local and rival jurisdictions +whatever into the same obedience. In form the new law was simple enough. +It consisted of twenty-two articles which were drawn up for the use of +the judges who were about to make their circuits of the provinces. The +first articles described the manner in which criminals were to be +"presented" before the justices or sheriff. The accusation was to be +made by "juries," composed of twelve men of the hundred and four men of +the township; the "presentment" of a criminal by a jury such as this +practically implied that the man was held guilty by the public report of +his own neighbourhood, and he was therefore forbidden such chance of +escape as compurgation or the less dangerous forms of ordeal might have +afforded, and was sent to the almost certain condemnation of the ordeal +by water; if by some rare fortune he should escape from this alive he +was banished from the kingdom as a man of evil reputation. All freemen +were ordered to attend the courts held by the justices. The judges were +given power to enter on all estates of the nobles, to see that the men +of the manor were duly enrolled under the system of "frank-pledge," in +groups of ten men bound to answer for one another as "pledges" for all +purposes of police. Strict rules were made to prevent the possible +escape of criminals. The sheriffs were ordered to aid one another in +carrying the hue and cry after them from one country to another; no +"liberty" or "honour" might harbour a malefactor against the king's +officers; sheriffs were to give to the justices in writing the names of +all fugitives, so that they might be sought through all England; +everywhere jails, in which doubtful strangers or suspected rogues might +be shut up for safe keeping in case the "hue and cry" should be raised +after them, were to be made or repaired with wood from the king's or the +nearest landowner's domains; no man might entertain a stranger for whom +he would not be answerable before the justices; the old English law was +again repeated in the very words of ancient times, that none might take +into his house a waif or wanderer for more than one night unless he or +his horse were sick; and if he tarried longer he must be kept until he +were redeemed by his lord or could give safe pledges; no religious house +might receive any of the mean people into their body without good +testimony as to character unless he were sick unto death; and heretics +were to be treated as outlaws. These last indeed were not very plentiful +in England, and the over-anxious legislators seem only to have had in +view a little band of German preachers, who had converted one woman, and +who had themselves at a late council at Oxford been branded, flogged, +and driven out half-naked, so that there was by this time probably not +one who had not perished in the cold. + +Such was the series of regulations that opened the long course of +reforms by which English law has been built up. Two judges were sent +during the next spring and summer through the whole of England. The +following year there was a survey of the forests, and in 1168 another +circuit of the shires was made by the barons of the Exchequer. Year by +year with unbroken regularity the terrible visitation of the country by +the justices went on. The wealth of the luckless people poured into the +king's treasury; the busy secretaries recorded in the Rolls a mass of +profits unknown to the accounts of earlier days. The great barons who +presided over the Shire courts found themselves practically robbed of +power and influence. The ordinary courts fell into insignificance beside +those summoned by the king's judges, thronged as they were with the +crowd of rich and poor, trembling at the penalty of a ruinous fine for +non-attendance or full of a newly-kindled hope of justice. Important +cases were more and more withdrawn from the sheriffs and given to the +justices. They entered the estates of the nobles, even the franchises, +liberties, and manors which had been freed from the old courts of the +shire or hundred; they reviewed their decisions and interfered with their +judgments. It is true that the system established in principle was but +gradually carried into effect, and the people long suffered the tyranny +of lords who maintained their own prisons. Half a century later we find +sturdy barons setting up their tumbrils and gallows. In the reign of +Edward I. there were still thirty-five private gallows in Berkshire +alone, and when one of them was by chance or age broken down, and the +people refused to set it up again, the baron could still make shift with +the nearest oak. But as a system of government, feudalism was doomed from +the day of Henry's Assize, and only dragged out a lingering existence +till the legislation of Edward I. dealt it a final blow. + +The duties of police were at that time performed by the whole population, +and the judges' circuits brought home sharply to every man the part he +was expected to play in the suppression of crime. Juries were fined if +they had not "presented" a due amount of criminals; townships were fined +if they had not properly pursued malefactors; villages were fined if a hut +was burned down and the hue and cry was not raised, or if a criminal who +had fled for refuge to their church escaped from it. A robber or murderer +must be paid for by his "pledge," or if he had no pledge, a fine fell on +his village or township; if a dead body were found and the slayer not +produced, the hundred must pay for him, unless a legal form, called +"proving his Englishry," could be gone through--a condition which was +constantly impossible; the township was fined if the body had been buried +before the coming of the coroner; abbot or knight or householder was +heavily taxed for every crime of serf or hired servant under him, or even +for the offences of any starving and worn-out pilgrim or traveller to +whom he had given a three days' shelter.. In the remotest regions of the +country barons and knights and freeholders were called to aid in carrying +out the law. The "jurors" must be ready at the judges' summons wherever +and whenever they were wanted. They must be prepared to answer fully for +their district; they must expect to be called on all sorts of excuses to +Westminster itself, and no hardships of the journey from the farthest +corner of the land might keep them back. The "knights of the shire" were +summoned as "recognitors" to give their testimony in all questions of +property, public privilege, rights of trade, local liberties, exemption +from taxes; if the king demanded an "aid" for the marriage of his daughter +or the coming of age of his son, they assessed the amount to be paid; if +he wanted to count an estate among the royal Forests, it was they who +decided whether the land was his by ancient right. They were employed +too in all kinds of business for the Court; they might be sent to +examine a criminal who had fled to the refuge of a church, or to see +whether a sick man had appointed an attorney, or whether a litigant who +pleaded illness was really in bed without his breeches. If in any case +the verdict of the Shire Court was disputed, they were summoned to +Westminster to repeat the record of the county. No people probably ever +went through so severe a discipline or received so efficient a training +in the practical work of carrying out the law, as was given to the +English people in the hundred years that lay between the Assize of +Clarendon in 1166 and the Parliament summoned by De Montfort in 1265, +where knights from every shire elected in the county court were called +to sit with the bishops and great barons in the common Parliament of the +realm. + +In the pitiless routine of their work, however, the barons of the +Exchequer were at this early time scarcely regarded as judges administering +justice so much as tax-gatherers for a needy treasury. Baron and churchman +and burgher alike saw every question turn to a demand of money to swell +the royal Hoard; jurors were fined for any trifling flaw in legal +procedure; widows were fined for leave to marry, guardians for leave to +receive their wards; if a peasant were kicked by his horse, if in fishing +he fell from the side of his boat, or if in carrying home his eels or +herrings he stumbled and was crushed by the cart-wheel, his wretched +children saw horse or boat or cart with its load of fish which in older +days had been forfeited as "deodand" to the service of God, now carried +off to the king's Hoard; if a miller was caught in the wheel of his mill +the sheriff must see the price of it paid to the royal treasury. In the +country districts where coin was perhaps scarcely ever seen, where +wages were unknown, and such little traffic as went on was wholly a +matter of barter, the peasants must often have been put to the greatest +straits to find money for the fines. Year after year baron as well as +peasant and farmer saw his waggons and horses, or his store of honey, +eggs, loaves, beer, the fish from his pond or the fowls from his yard, +claimed by the purveyors who provided for the judges and their followers, +and paid for by such measures and such prices as seemed good to the greedy +contractors. The people at large groaned under the heavy burden of fines +and penalties and charges for the maintenance of an unaccustomed justice. +When in the visitations of 1168 the judges had to collect, besides the +ordinary dues, an "aid" for the marriage of the king's eldest daughter, +the unhappy tax-payers, recognizing in their misery no distinctions, +attributed all their sufferings to the new reform, and saw in their king +not a ruler who desired righteous judgment, but one who only thirsted +after gain. The one privilege which seemed worth fighting for or worth +buying was the privilege of assessing their own fines and managing their +own courts. Half a century later we see the prevailing terror at a visit +of the judges to Cornwall, when all the people fled for refuge to the +woods, and could hardly be compelled or persuaded to come back again. +Yet later the people won a concession that in time of war no circuits +should be held, so that the poor should not be utterly ruined. + +Oppression and extortion had doubtless been well known before, when the +sheriff carried on the administration of the law side by side with the +lucrative business of "farming the shires;" but it was at least an +irregular and uncertain oppression. The sheriff might himself at any +moment share the fate of one of his own victims and a more merciful man +stand in his place; in any case bribes were not unavailing, and there +was still an appeal to the king's justice. But against the new system +there was no appeal; it was orderly, methodical, unrelenting; it was +backed by the whole force of the kingdom; it overlooked nothing; it +forgot nothing; it was comparatively incorruptible. The lesser courts, +with their old clumsy procedure, were at a hopeless disadvantage before +the professional judges, who could use all the new legal methods. If a +man suffered under these there was none to plead his cause, for in all +the country there was not a single trained lawyer save those in the +king's service. However we who look back from the safe distance of seven +hundred years may see with clearer vision the great work which was done +by Henry's Assize, in its own day it was far from being a welcome +institution to our unhappy forefathers. There was scarcely a class in +the country which did not find itself aggrieved as the king waged war +with the claims of "privilege" to stand above right and justice and truth. +But all resistance of turbulent and discontented factions was vain. +The great justiciars at the head of the legal administration, De +Lucy and Glanville, steadily carried out the new code, and a body of +lawyers was trained under them which formed a class wholly unknown +elsewhere in Europe. Instead of arbitrary and inflicting decisions, +varying in every hundred and every franchise according to the fashion of +the district, the judges of the Exchequer or Curia Regis declared +judgments which were governed by certain general principles. The +traditions of the great administrators of Henry's Court were handed down +through the troubled reigns of his sons; and the whole of the later +Common law is practically based on the decisions of two judges whose +work was finished within fifty years of Henry's death, and whose labours +formed the materials from which in 1260 Bracton drew up the greatest +work ever written on English law. + +There was, in fact, in all Christendom no such system of government or +of justice as that which Henry's reforms built up. The king became the +fountain of law in a way till then unknown. The later jealousy of the +royal power which grew up with the advance of industrial activity, with +the growth of public opinion and of its means of expressing itself, with +the development of national experience and national self-dependence, had +no place in Henry's days, and had indeed no reason for existence. The +strife for the abolition of privileges which in the nineteenth century +was waged by the people was in the twelfth century waged by the Crown. +In that time, if in no other, the assertion of the supreme authority of +the king meant the assertion of the supreme authority of a common law; +and there was, in fact, no country in Europe where the whole body of the +baronage and of the clergy was so early and so completely brought into +bondage to the law of the land. Since all courts were royal courts, +since all law was royal law, since no justice was known but his, and its +conduct lay wholly in the hands of his trained servants, there was no +reason for the king to look with jealousy on the authority exercised by +the law over any of his officers or servants. It may possibly be due to +this fact that in England alone, of all countries in the world, the +police, the civil servants, the soldiers, are tried in the same courts +and by the same code as any private citizen; and that in England and +lands settled by English peoples alone the Common law still remains the +ultimate and only appeal for every subject of the realm. + +But the power which was taken from certain privileged classes and put in +the hands of the king was in effect by Henry's Assize given back to the +people at large. Foreigner as he was, Henry preserved to Englishmen an +inheritance which had been handed down from an immemorial past, and +which had elsewhere vanished away or was slipping fast into forgetfulness. +According to the Roman system, which in the next century spread over +Europe, all law and government proceeded directly from the king, and the +subject had no right save that of implicit obedience; the system of +representation and the idea of the jury had no place in it. Teutonic +tradition, on the other hand, looked upon the nation as a commonwealth, +and placed the ultimate authority in the will of the whole people; the +law was the people's law--it was to be declared and carried out in the +people's courts. At a very critical moment, when everything was shifting, +uncertain, transitional, Henry's legislation established this tradition +for England. By his Assize Englishmen were still to be tried in their +ancient courts. Justice was to be administered by the ancient machinery +of shire-moot and hundred-moot, by the legal men of hundred and township, +by the lord and his steward. The shire-moot became the king's court in +so far as its president was a king's judge and its procedure regulated +by the king's decree; but it still remained the court of the people, to +which the freemen gathered as their fathers had done to the folk-moot, +and where judgment could only be pronounced by the verdict of the +freeholders who sat in the court. The king's action indeed was determined +by a curious medley of chance circumstances and rooted prejudices. The +canon law was fast spreading over his foreign states, and wherever the +canon law came in the civil law followed in its train. But in England +local liberties were strong, the feudal system had never been completely +established, insular prejudice against the foreigner and foreign ways was +alert, the Church generally still held to national tradition, the king +was at deadly feud with the Primate, and was quite resolved to have no +customs favoured by him brought into the land; his own absolute power +made it no humiliation to accept the maxim of English lawyers that "the +king is under God and the law." So it happened that while all the other +civilized nations quietly passed under the rule of the Roman code England +alone stood outside it. From the twelfth century to the present day the +groundwork of our law has been English, in spite of the ceaseless +filtering in of the conceptions and rules of the civil law of Rome. +"Throughout the world at this moment there is no body of ten thousand +Englishmen governed by a system of law which was not fashioned by +themselves." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +THE STRIFE WITH THE CHURCH + +The Assize of Clarendon was drawn up in February 1166, and in March +Henry sailed for France. Trouble awaited him there on every hand, +and during the next two years he had to meet no less than thirteen +revolts or wars. Aquitaine declared against the imperial system; loud +complaints were raised of Henry's contempt of old franchises and +liberties, and of the "officers of a strange race" who violated the +customs of the country by orders drawn up in a foreign tongue--the +_langue d'oil_, the speech of Norman and Angevin. Maine, Touraine, +and Britanny were in chronic revolt. The Welsh rose and conquered +Flint. The King of Scotland was in treaty with France. Warring parties +in Ireland claimed Henry's interference. England was uneasy and +discontented. Louis of France was allied with all Henry's enemies +--Gascons, Bretons, Welsh and Scotch; he aided the Count of Flanders and +the Count of Boulogne in preparing a fleet of six hundred ships to attack +the southern coast of England. The Pope's attitude was cautious and +uncertain. When Barbarossa's armies were triumphant in Italy, when +Henry's Italian alliances were strong and his bribes were big, Alexander +leaned to the king; when success again returned to Rome he looked with +more effectual favour on the demands of the archbishop. The rising tide +of disaffection tried the king sorely. It was in vain that he sought to +win over the leaders of the ecclesiastical party, the canon lawyers, +such as John of Salisbury, or Master Herbert of Bosham, with whom he +argued the point at his Easter Court at Angers. John of Salisbury flatly +rejected the Constitutions, declaring that his first obedience was due +to the Pope and the archbishop. Herbert was yet more defiant. "Look how +this proud fellow comes!" said Henry, as the stately Herbert entered in +his splendid dress of green cloth of Auxerre, with a richly trimmed +cloak hanging after the German fashion to his heels. He was no true +servant to the king, declared Herbert when he had seated himself, who +would allow him to go astray. As for the customs, there were bad enough +customs in other countries against the Church of God, but at least they +were not written down either in the lands of the King of France or of +the King of the Germans. "Why do you diminish his dignity?" hastily +demanded the king, "by not calling him the Emperor of the Germans?" +"The King of the Germans he is," retorted Herbert, "though when he writes, +he signs Imperator Romanorum semper Augustus_.'" "Shame!" cried the king, +"here is an outrage! Why should this son of a priest disturb my kingdom +and disquiet my peace?" "Nay," said Herbert, "I am not the son of a +priest, for it was after my birth my father became a priest; neither +is he the son of a king save one whom his father begat being king." +"Whosesoever son he may be," cried a baron who sat by, "I would give the +half of my land that he were mine!" Henry heard the words bitterly, and +held his peace; and in a few moments ordered the intractable Herbert +to depart. + +The strife between Church and State was, in fact, taking every day a new +harshness. Gregory VII. a century earlier had suggested that kingly +power was of diabolic origin. "Who is ignorant that kings and princes +have their beginning in this, that knowing not God, they by rapine, +perfidy, and slaughter, the devil moving them, affect rule over their +equals-that is, over men, with blind greed and intolerable presumption." +But the papal theory of a vast Christian republic of all peoples, under +the leadership of Rome, found little favour with the kings of the rising +states which were beginning to shape themselves into the great powers of +modern Europe. Henry, steeped in the new temper, proposed a rival theory +of the origin of government. "Thou," he wrote to the Pope, "by the papal +authority granted thee by men, thinkest to prevail over the authority of +the royal dignity committed to me by God." The wisest of the churchmen of +England used more sober language than all this. "Ecclesiastical +dignity," wrote Ralph of Diceto, later the Dean of St. Paul's, "rather +advances than abolishes royal dignity, and the royal dignity is wont +rather to preserve than to destroy ecclesiastical liberty, for kings +have no salvation without the Church, nor can the Church obtain peace +without the protection of the king." To the fiery zeal of the archbishop, +on the other hand, the secular power was as "lead" compared to the fine +"gold" of the spiritual dignity. Henry, he cried loudly, was a "tyrant"-a +word which to medieval ears meant not an arbitrary or capricious ruler, +since that was the admitted right of every ruler, but a king who governed +without heeding the eternal maxims of the "law of nature," an idea which +theologians had borrowed from the theories of the ancient law of Rome, +and modified to mean the law of Scripture or of the Church. But in the +arguments of Thomas this law took the narrowest proportions, with no wider +interpretation than that given by the pedantic temper of a fanatical +ecclesiastical politician. He fought his battles too often by violent +and vulgar methods, and Henry reaped the profit of his errors. How far +our national solution of the problem raised between Church and State might +have been altered or delayed if the claims of the Church had at this +moment been represented by a leader of supreme moral and spiritual +authority, it is hard to say. But Thomas was far from being at the highest +level of his own day in religious thought. When some years later the holy +Hugh of Lincoln forbade his archdeacons and their officers to receive +fines instead of inflicting penance for crimes, he was met by the +objection that the blessed archbishop and martyr Thomas himself had taken +fines. "Believe me," said Hugh, "not for that was he a saint; he showed +other marks of holiness, by another title he won the martyr's palm." + +In the spring of 1166 Thomas was appointed Papal Legate for England, and +he at once used his new authority to excommunicate in June all the +king's chief agents--Richard of Ilchester, John of Oxford, Richard de +Lucy, Jocelyn of Bailleul--while the king himself was only spared for +the moment that he might have a little space for repentance. Rumour +asserted too that the Primate acted as counsellor to the foreign enemies +of England, declaring that he would either restore himself to his see or +take away Henry's crown. He saw with delight the growing irritation of +England under its sufferings after the Assize of Clarendon; ancient +prophecies of Merlin's which foretold disaster were on his lips, and he +grew yet more defiant in his sense of the king's impending ruin. The +pride and temper of Henry kept pace with those of Thomas. He became more +and more fierce and uncompromising. In answer to the excommunications he +forced the Cistercians in 1166, by threats of vengeance in England, to +expel Thomas from Pontigny. When papal legates arrived in 1167 with +proposals for mediation, he bluntly expressed his hope that he might +never see any more cardinals. His political activity was unceasing. He +completed the conquest of Britanny, and concluded a treaty of marriage +between his son Geoffrey and its heiress Constance. The Count of Blois +was won at a cost of L500 a year. Mortain was bought from the Count of +Boulogne. "Broad and deep ditches were made between France and Normandy." +A frontier castle was raised at Beauvoir. His second son Richard, then +twelve years old, was betrothed to Louis's daughter Adela; and his +daughter Eleanor to the King of Castile. He secured the friendship of +Flanders. He was busy building up a plan of Italian alliances and securing +the passes over the Alps. Milan, Parma, Bologna, Cremona, the Marquis of +Montferrat, the barons of Rome, all were won by his lavish pay. The +alliance of Sicily was established by the betrothal of his daughter with +its king. The states of the Pope were being gradually hemmed in between +Henry's allies to north and south. The threat of an imperial alliance was +added to hold his enemies in awe. In the spring of 1168 his eldest +daughter was married to the Emperor's cousin, Henry the Lion, the national +hero of Germany, second only to Barbarossa in power, Duke of Bavaria, Duke +of Saxony, Lord of Brunswick, and of vast estates in Northern Germany, +with claims to the inheritance of Tuscany and of the Lombard possessions +of the House of Este. For the purpose of a judicious threat, he even +entertained an imperial embassy which promised him armed help and urged +him to recognize the anti-Pope, whose first act, as both Henry and Thomas +well understood, would have been the deposition of the archbishop. + +At last the moment seemed come, not only to win a peace with France, but +to carry out a long-cherished scheme for the ordering of the Angevin +Empire. He met the King of France at Montmirail on the feast of the +Epiphany, January 6, 1169, and the mighty Angevin ruler bowed himself +before his feebler suzerain lord to renew his homage. "On this day, my +lord king, on which the three kings offered gifts to the King of kings, +myself, my sons, and my land, I commend to your keeping." His continental +estates were divided among his sons, to be held under his supreme +authority. The eldest, Henry, who had in 1160 done homage to Louis for +Normandy, now did homage for Anjou, Maine, and Britanny. Richard received +Aquitaine, and Geoffrey was set over Britanny under his elder brother as +overlord. This division of Henry's dominions by no means implied any +intention on the king's part of giving up the administration of the +provinces. It was but the first step towards the realization of his +imperial system, by which he was to reign as supreme lord, surrounded by +the sub-rulers of his various provinces. Harassed as he had been with +ceaseless wars, from the Welsh mountains to the Pyrenees, he might well +believe that such a system would best provide for the defence of his +unwieldy states; "When he alone had the rule of his kingdom," as he said +later, "he had let nothing go of his rights; and now, when many were +joined in the government of his lands, it would be a shame that any part +of them were lost." In the difficulties of internal administration the +system might prove no less useful. That any serious difference of interest +could arise between himself and the sons whom he loved "more than a +father," Henry could never, then or afterwards, believe. He rather +trusted that a wise division of authority between them might secure +the administrative power in the royal house, and prevent the growth of +excessive influence among his ministers. But for all his hopes, the +treaty of Montmirail was in fact a crowning triumph for France; it was +virtually the first breaking up of the Empire, and had in it the seeds +of Henry's later ruin. + +There was another side to the treaty. Henry and Thomas met at Montmirail +for the first time since the council of Northampton over four years +before, to renew a quarrel in which no terms of peace were possible. The +old hopeless dispute raged afresh, the king demanding a vow to obey the +"customs of the kingdom," Thomas insisting on his clause "saving my +order," "saving the honour of God." The former weary negotiations began +again; new envoys hurried backwards and forwards; interminable letters +argued the limits of the temporal and spiritual powers in phrases which +lost nothing of their arrogance from the fact that neither side +had the power to enforce their claims. The Primate would have no +counsels. "Believe me," Thomas wrote of Henry, "who know the manners +of the man, he is of such a disposition that nothing but punishment can +mend." He excommunicated the bishops of London and Salisbury and a number +of clerks and laymen, till in the chapel of the king there was scarcely +one who was able to give him the kiss of peace. Henry "shook with fear," +according to the boast of Thomas, at the excommunications. In vain the +Pope sought to moderate his zeal. In the summer of 1169 two legates were +sent to settle the dispute, of whom one was pledged to the king and the +other to the archbishop. Henry, like every one else, saw the futility of +their mission, and "led them for a week," as one of them complained, +"through many windings both of road and speech." With a scornful taunt +that "he did not care an egg for them and their excommunications," he +finally mounted his horse to ride off from the conference. "I see, +I see!" he said to the frightened bishops who hurried after him to call +him back; "they will interdict my land, but surely I who can take the +strongest of castles in any single day, shall I not avail to scotch a +single clerk if he should interdict my land!" When a compromise seemed +possible, he suddenly added to the form of peace he had proposed +the words, "saving the dignity of my kingdom." This broke off all +negotiations. "The dignity of the kingdom," said Thomas, "was only a +softer name for the Constitutions of Clarendon." "If the king," said John +of Salisbury, "had obtained the insertion of this clause, he had +carried the royal customs, only changing the name." A new attempt at +reconciliation was made in November at Montmartre, but Henry refused to +give the Primate the "kiss of peace," which in feudal custom was the +binding sign of perfect friendship; and when the Pope thought to compel +his submission, first by threats and promises, then by a formal threat of +interdict, he answered by despatching very decided orders to England. +Anyone who carried an interdict to England was to suffer as a traitor; all +clerks were summoned home from abroad; none might leave the kingdom +without an order from the king; if any man should observe an interdict he +was to be banished with all his kindred. All appeal to Pope or archbishop +was forbidden; no mandate might be carried to Pope or archbishop; if any +man favoured Pope or archbishop his goods and those of his kindred should +be confiscated. All subjects of the realm, from boys to old men, must +swear obedience to these articles. + +But if Henry had long been used to see his mere will turn into absolute +law, he had now reached a point where the submission of his subjects +broke down. The laity indeed obeyed, but the clergy, with the Archbishop +of York at their head, absolutely refused to abjure obedience to Pope +and Primate. Throughout the strife the leading clergy had sought to +avoid taking sides, but as the king's attitude became more and more +arbitrary, a steady undercurrent of resistance made itself felt. As +early as 1166 the king's officer, Richard of Ilchester, sought counsel +of Ralph of Diceto as to the duty of observing his excommunication by +Thomas. The answer shows the nobler influence of the Church in maintaining +the rigid rule of law as opposed to arbitrary government, and its large +sense that general order was to be preferred to private good. He laid down +that an archbishop's spiritual rights are indestructible; that in all +cases submission to law was the highest duty; and that it was better +humbly to accept even a harsh sentence than to set an evil example of +disobedience by which others might be led to their ruin. In 1167 the +clergy had been called to London to swear fealty to the anti-Pope; but +"as the bishops refused to take so detestable an oath against God and the +Pope, this unlawful and wicked business came to an end." The bishops had +obeyed the excommunication of Foliot by the Primate; they had refused to +join in his appeal to Rome or to hold communion with him. It now seemed as +though in this last decree of 1169 Henry had reached the limits of his +authority over the Church, and it may be that some sense of peril +induced him at the Pope's orders to summon Thomas to Normandy to renew +negotiations for the peace of Montmartre. But the meeting never took +place. Before Thomas could reach Caen he was stopped by news that Henry +had suddenly left for England. In the midst of a terrible storm the king +crossed the Channel on the 3rd of March 1170, and barely escaping with his +life, landed at Portsmouth after four years' absence. + +So sudden was his journey that a rumour spread that he had fled over sea +to avoid the interdict proclaimed by Thomas. But during his absence +trouble had been steadily growing in England. In his sore straits for +money during these last years, Henry could not always be particular as +to means. Jews were robbed and banished; the bishopric of Lincoln was +added to the half-dozen sees already vacant, and its treasure swept into +the royal Hoard; an "aid" was raised for the marriage of his daughter, +and a terrible list of fines levied under the Assize of Clarendon. The +sums raised told, in fact, of the general increase of wealth. The +national income, which at the beginning of Henry's reign had been but +L22,000, was raised in the last year to L48,000, and an enormous +treasure had been accumulated said to be equal to 100,000 marks, or, by +another account, to be worth L900,000. The increase of trade was shown +by the growing numbers of Jews, the bankers and usurers of the time. At +the beginning of Henry's reign they were still so few that it was +possible to maintain a law which forbade their burial anywhere save in +one cemetery near London. Before its close their settlements were so +numerous that Jewish burial-grounds had to be established near every +great town. Their banking profits were enormous, and Christians who saw +the wages of sin heaped up before their eyes, looked wistfully at a +business forbidden by the ecclesiastical standard of morals of that day. + +The towns were stirred with a new activity. London naturally led the +way. The very look of the city told of its growing wealth. Till now the +poor folk in towns found shelter in hovels of such a kind that Henry II. +could order that the houses of heretics should be carried outside the +town and burned. But the new wealth of merchant and Jew and trader was +seen in the "stone houses," some indeed like "royal palaces," which +sprang up on every hand, and offered a new temptation to house-breakers +and plunderers of the thickly-peopled alleys. The new cathedral of St. +Paul's had just been built. The tower and the palace at Westminster had +been repaired by the splendid extravagance of Chancellor Thomas, and the +citizens, impatient of the wooden bridge that spanned the river, were on +the point of beginning the "London Bridge" of stone. In the next quarter +of a century merchants of Kiln had their guild-hall in the city, while +merchants of the Empire were settled by the river-side in the hall later +known as the Steel Yard. Already charters confirmed to London its own +laws and privileges, and only three or four years after Henry's death +its limited freedom was exchanged for a really municipal life under a +mayor elected by the citizens themselves. Oxford too, at the close of +Henry's reign, was busy replacing its old wooden hovels with new "houses +of stone"; and could buy from Richard a charter which set its citizens +as free from toll or due as those of London, and gave them, instead of +the king's bailiff, a mayor of their own election, under whom they could +manage their own judicial and political affairs in their own Parliament. +Winchester, Northampton, Norwich, Ipswich, Doncaster, Carlisle, Lincoln, +Scarborough, York, won their charters at the same time--bought by the +wealth which had been stored up in the busy years while Henry reigned. A +chance notice of Gloucester shows us its two gaols--the city gaol +which the citizens were bound to watch, and the castle prison of the +king. The royal officers marked by their exactions the growth of the +town's prosperity, and no longer limited themselves to time-honoured +privileges of extortion. Bristol could claim its own coroners; it could +assert its right to be free of frank-pledge; its burghers were in 1164 +taken under the king's special patronage and protection; in 1172 he +granted them the right of colonizing Dublin and holding it with all the +liberties with which they held Bristol itself, to the wrath of the men of +Chester who had long been rivals of the Bristol men, and who hastened to +secure a royal writ ordering that they should be as free to trade with +Dublin as they had ever been, for all the privileges of Bristol. Its +merchants were fast lining the banks of the Severn with quays, and a +later attempt to hinder them by law was successfully resisted. The new +commercial spirit soon quickened alike the wits of royal officers and +burghers. The weavers did not keep to the legal measure for the width of +cloth. The woad-sellers no longer heaped up their measures, as of old, +above the brim. The constables on their side began to demand outrageous +dues on the sale of herrings, and what was more, whereas of old heavy +goods, such as wood, hides, iron, woad, were sold outside the fair and +escaped dues, now the constable of the castle insisted on tolls for every +sale even without the bounds--a pound of pepper, or even more, had to go +into his hand. The citizens of Lincoln had analized the Witham, and built +up an illustration of the rapid development of the trading towns. As early +as the beginning of the century its owner, the Bishop of Norwich, had seen +its advantages, lying as it did at the mouth of the Ouse, and forming the +only outlet for the trade of seven shires. It was not long before the +prudent bishops had made of it the Liverpool of medieval times. The Lynn +of older days, later known as "King's Lynn," with its little crowded +market shut in between Guildhall and Church, the booths then as now +leaning against the church walls, and a tangle of narrow lanes leading to +the river-side, was in no way fit for the great demands of an awakened +commerce; its life went on as of old, but the sea was driven back by a +vast embankment, and the "Bishop's Lynn" rose on the newly-won land along +the river-bank, with its great market-place, its church, its jewry, its +merchant-houses, and its guild-houses; and soon, in the thick of the +busiest quarter, by the wharves, rose the "stone house" of the bishop +himself, looking closely out on the "strangers' ships" that made their +way along the Ouse laden with provisions and with merchandise. + +But this growing wealth was still mainly confined to the towns. The +great bulk of the country was purely agricultural, and had no concern in +any questions of trade. There is a record of over five hundred pleas of +the Gloucestershire fifty years later, and among all these there is +outside the _town_ of Gloucester but one case which deals with the lawful +width for weaving cloth, and one or two as to the sale of bread, ale, or +wine. The agricultural peasants seem, from the glimpses which we catch +here and there, to have for the most part lived on the very verge +of starvation. Every few years with dreary regularity we note the +chronicler's brief record of cattle-plague, famine, pestilence. Half +a century later we read in legal records the tale of a hard winter and +its consequences--the dead bodies of the famine-stricken serfs lying in +the fields on every side, and the judges of the King's Court claiming from +the starving survivors the "murder-fine" ordained by law to be paid for +every dead body found when the murderer was not produced. The system of +cultivation was ignorant and primitive. Rendered timid by the repeated +failure of crops, the poor people would set aside a part of their land to +sow together oats, barley, and wheat, in the hope that whatever were the +season something would come up which might serve for the rough black bread +which was their main food. The low wet grounds were still undrained, and +the number of cases of eye-disease which we find in the legends of +miraculous cures point to the prevalence of ophthalmia brought on by damp +and low living, as the army of lepers points to the filth and misery of +the poor .The "common fields" and pastures of the villages must have lain +on the higher grounds which were not mere swamps during half the year. But +to these a dry season brought ruin. In time of drought the cattle had to +be driven five or six miles to find water in the well or pool which served +for the whole district. If by any chance disease broke out, the wearied +beasts that met at the watering or drank of the tainted pool carried it +far and wide, and plague soon raged from end to end of the country. Even +in the days of Henry VIII. shrewd observers noted that the new grazing +farms, where the cattle were better fed and kept separate, alone escaped +these ravages, and that it was these farms whence came the only meat to be +found in the country through the long winter months or in time of murrain. +This purpose was doubtless served earlier by the great monastic estates, +but means of transport scarcely existed; each district had to live on its +own resources, and vast tracts of country were with every unfavourable +season stricken by hunger and by the plague and famine fever that +followed it. + +One source of later misery was indeed unknown. The war of classes had not +yet begun. The lawyers had not been at work hardening and defining vague +traditions, and legally the position of the serf was far better than it +was a hundred years later. The feudal system still preserved relations +between the lord and his dependents, which were more easy and familiar +than anything we know. The lord of the manor had not begun to encroach on +the privileges or the "common" rights of the tenant, nor had the merchant +guilds of the towns attacked the liberties of the craftsmen and lesser +folk. For a century to come the battle for lands or rights was mainly +waged between the lord or the men of one township or manor with the men +of a neighbouring township or manor; and it was not till these had fairly +ended their quarrel that lords and burghers turned to fight against the +liberties and privileges of serfs and craftsmen. There are indications, +on the other hand, that one effect of the new administration of justice, +as it told on the poor, began early to show itself in the growth of an +"outlaw" class. Crimes of violence were surprisingly common. Dead bodies +were found in the wood, in the field, in the fold, in the barn. In an +extraordinary number of cases the judges' records of a little later time +tell of houses broken into by night and robbed, and every living thing +within them slain, and no clue was ever found to the plunderers. There +were stories in Henry's days of a new crime-of men wearing religious +dress who joined themselves to wayfarers, and in such a case the traveller +was never seen again alive. Tales of Robin Hood began to take shape. The +by-ways and thickets were peopled with men, innocent or guilty, but all +alike desperate. One Richard, we read, whose fellow at the plough fell +dead in an epileptic fit, fled in terror of the judges to the woods, and +so did many a worse man than Richard. We find constantly the same tale of +the sudden quarrel, the blow with a stick or a stone, the thrust with the +knife which every man carried, the stroke with a hatchet. Then the slayer +in his panic flies to a nun's garden, to a monastery, or to the shelter of +a church, where the men of the village keep guard over him till knights +of the shire are sent from the Court, to whom he confesses his crime, +and who allow him so many days to fly to the nearest port and forsake +the kingdom. Perhaps he never reaches the coast, but takes to the woods, +already haunted by "abjurors" like himself, or by outlaws flying from +justice. In the social conditions of the England of that day the +administration of justice was, in more ways than one, a very critical +matter, and the efforts of over-zealous judges and sheriffs might easily +end in driving the people to desperation before the severity of the law, +or in crushing out under a heedless taxation a prosperity which was +still new and still rare. + +Henry perhaps already saw the deep current of discontent which only a +year later was to break out in the most terrible rebellion of his reign. +In any case the severity of the measures which he took shows how serious +he thought the crisis. After his landing in March 1170 one month was +given to inquiry as to the state of the country. In the beginning of +April he held a council to consider the reform of justice. A commission +was appointed to examine, during the next two months, every freeholder +throughout the kingdom as to the conduct of judges and sheriffs and +every other officer charged with the duty of collecting or accounting +for the public money. Its members were chosen from among the most +zealous opponents of the Court officials-the great barons, the priors, +the important abbots of the shires--and they were all men who had no +connection with the Exchequer or the Curia Regis. Their work was done, +and their report presented within the time allowed; but the king, +practical, businesslike, impatient of abuses, like every vigorous +autocratic ruler, had no mind to wait two months to redress the grievances +of his people. The barons who had been appointed as sheriffs at the +opening of his reign had governed after the old corrupt traditions, or +perhaps themselves suffering under the ruthless pressure of the barons of +the Exchequer, had been driven to a like severity of extortion. By an +edict of the king every sheriff throughout the country was struck from +his post; of the twenty-seven only seven were restored to their places, +and new sheriffs were appointed, all of whom save four were officers of +the King's Court. The great local noble who had lorded it as he chose over +the suitors of the Court for fifteen years, and fined and taxed and +forfeited as seemed good to him, suddenly, without a moment's warning, +saw his place filled by a stranger, a mere clerk trained in the Court +among the royal servants, a simple nominee of the king; he could no +longer doubt that the royal supremacy was now without rival, without +limit, irresistible, complete. Such an act of absolute authority had +indeed, as Dr. Stubbs says, "no example in the history of Europe since +the time of the Roman Empire, except possibly in the power wielded by +Charles the Great." + +Nor was this Henry's only act of high-handed government. On the 10th of +April he called a council to London to consult about the coronation of +his son. It was a dangerous innovation, against all custom and tradition, +for no such coronation of the heir in his father's lifetime had ever taken +place in England. But Henry was no mere king of England, nor did he +greatly heed barbaric or insular prejudice when he had even before his +eyes the example not only of the French Court, but of the Holy Roman +Empire. The coronation was a necessary step in the completion of the plan +unfolded at Montmirail for the ordering of the second empire of the West. +Moreover, the settlement probably seemed to him more imperative than ever +from the restlessness and discontent of the land. No king of England since +the Conquest had succeeded peaceably to his father. The reign of Stephen +had abundantly proved how vain were oaths of homage to secure the +succession; and the sacred anointing, which in those days carried with it +an inalienable consecration, was perhaps the only certain way of securing +his son's right. It may well be, too, that, threatened as he was with +interdict, he saw the advantage of providing for the peace and security of +England by crowning as her king an innocent boy with whom the Church had +no quarrel. The actual ceremony of consecration raised, indeed, an +immediate and formidable difficulty. A king of England could be legally +consecrated only by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Three years before Henry +had forced the Pope, then in extreme peril, to grant special powers to the +Archbishop of York to perform the rite, but he had not yet ventured to +make use of the brief. Now, however, whether the case seemed to him more +urgent, or whether his temper had grown more imperious, he cast aside his +former prudence. On the 14th of June the lords and prelates were gathered +together "in fear, none knowing what the king was about to decree." The +younger Henry, a boy of fifteen, was brought before them; he was anointed +and crowned by Roger of York. From this moment a new era opened in Henry's +reign. The young king was now lord of England, in the view of the whole +medieval world, by a right as absolute and sacred as that of his father. +All who were discontented and restless had henceforth a leader ordained by +law, consecrated by the Church, round whom they might rally. Delicate +questions had to be solved as to the claims and powers of the new king, +which never in fact found their answer so long as he lived. Meanwhile +Henry had raised up for himself a host of new difficulties. The archbishop +had a fresh grievance in the king's reckless contempt of the rights of +Canterbury. The Church party both in England and in Europe was outraged +at the wrong done to him. Many who had before wavered, like Henry of +Blois, now threw themselves passionately on the side of Thomas. In the +fierce contention that soon raged round the right of the archbishop to +crown the king, and to deal as he chose with any prelate who might +infringe his privileges, all other questions were forgotten. Not only +the zealots for religious tradition, but all who clung loyally to +established law and custom, were thrown into opposition. The French +king was bitterly angry that his daughter had not been crowned with her +husband. All Henry's enemies banded themselves together in a frenzy of +rage. So immediate and formidable was the outburst of indignation that +ten days after the coronation the king no longer ventured to remain in +England; and on the 24th of June he hastily crossed the Channel. Near +Falaise he was met by the bishop of Worcester, who had supported him at +Northampton. The king turned upon him passionately, and broke out in angry +words, "Now it is plain that thou art a traitor! I ordered thee to attend +the coronation of my son, and since thou didst not choose to be +there, thou hast shown that thou hast no love for me nor for my son's +advancement. It is plain that thou favourest my enemy and hatest me. I +will tear the revenues of the see from thy hands, who hast proved unworthy +of the bishopric or any benefice. In truth thou wert never the son of my +uncle, the good Count Robert, who reared me and thee in his castle, and +had us there taught the first lessons of morals and of learning." Earl +Robert's son, however, was swift in retort. He vehemently declared he +would have no part in the guilt of such a consecration. "What grateful +act of yours," he cried, "has shown that Count Robert was your uncle, and +brought you up, and battled with Stephen for sixteen years for your +sake, and for you was at last made captive? Had you called to mind his +services you would not have driven my brothers to penury and ruin. My +eldest brother's tenure, given him by your grandfather, you have +curtailed. My youngest brother, a stout soldier, you have driven by stress +of want to quit a soldier's life and give himself to the perpetual service +of the hospital at Jerusalem, and don the monk's habit. Thus you know how +to bless those of your own household! Thus you are wont to reward those +who have deserved well of you! Why threaten me with the loss of my +benefice? Be it yours if it suffice you not to have already seized an +archbishopric, six vacant sees, and many abbeys, to the peril of your +soul, and turned to secular uses the alms of your fathers, of pious kings, +the patrimony of Jesus Christ!" All this abuse, and much more besides, the +angry bishop poured out in the hearing of the knights who were riding on +either side of the king. "He fares well with the king since he is a +priest," commented a Gascon; "had he been a knight he would leave behind +him two hides of land!" Some one else, thinking to please the king, abused +the bishop roundly. Henry, however, turned on him with an outburst of +rage. "Do you think, scoundrel, if I say what I choose to my kinsman and +my bishop, that you or anyone else are at liberty to dishonour him with +words and persecute him with threats? Scarce can I keep my hands from +thy eyes!" + +The king well understood, indeed, in what a critical position matters +stood. He swiftly agreed to every conceivable concession on every hand. +He met the papal messengers and bent to their terms of reconciliation. +On the 20th of July he had a conference with Louis near Freteval in +Touraine, and next day the kings parted amicably. On the 22d an interview +between the king and the archbishop followed. The royal customs were not +mentioned; no oath was exacted from the Primate; he was promised safe +return and full possession of his see, and the "kiss of peace"; he was +to crown once more the young king and his wife. At the close of the +conference Thomas lighted from his horse to kiss the king's foot, but +Henry, rivalling him in courtesy, dismounted to hold the Primate's +stirrup, with the words, "It is fit the less should serve the greater!" +But if there was a show of peace "the whole substance of it consisted only +in hope," as Thomas wrote. Each side was full of distrust. Thomas demanded +immediate restitution of his see, and liberty to excommunicate the bishops +who had shared in the coronation. Henry wanted first to see "how Thomas +would behave in the affairs of the kingdom." The king and Primate met for +the last time in October 1170 at Chaumont with seeming friendliness, but +any real peace was as far off as ever. "My lord," said Thomas, as he bade +farewell, "my heart tells me that I part from you as one whom you shall +see no more in this life." "Do you hold me as a traitor?" asked the king. +"That be far from thee, my lord!" answered Thomas. But to the Primate the +king's fair promises were but the tempting words of the devil--"all these +things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me." He begged +from the Pope unlimited powers of excommunication. "The more potent and +fierce the prince is," he said, "the stronger stick and harder chain is +needed to bind him and keep him in order." He had warning visions. He +spoke of returning to his church "perhaps to perish for her." "I go to +England," he said; "whether to peace or to destruction I know not; but God +has decreed what fate awaits me." + +The king's conduct indeed gave ground for fear. He had summoned clergy +abroad against law and custom to elect bishops who, in contempt of the +Primate's rights, were to be sent to Rome for consecration. In the +general doubt as to the king's attitude, no one dared to speak to envoys +sent by Thomas to England. Ranulf de Broc was still wasting the lands of +Canterbury; the palace was half in ruins, the barns destroyed, the lands +uncultivated, the woods cut down. The Primate's friends urged him to +keep out of England for fear of treachery. Thomas, however, was determined +to return, and to return with uncompromising defiance. He sent before him +letters excommunicating the bishops of London and Salisbury, and +suspending the Bishop of Durham and the Archbishop of York, for having +joined in the coronation; and on the following day, under the protection +of John of Oxford as the king's officer, he landed at Sandwich. The +excommunications had set the whole quarrel aflame again, and John of +Oxford with difficulty prevented open fighting. The royal officers +demanded absolution for the bishops. Thomas flatly refused unless they +would swear to appear at his court for justice, an oath which the bishops +in their terror of the king dared not take. They fled to Henry's court in +Normandy; while on the 1st of December Thomas passed on to Canterbury. The +men of Kent were stout defenders of their customary rights; they clung +tenaciously to their special privileges; they had their own views of +inheritance, their fixed standard of fines, their belief that the Crown +had no right to the property of thief or murderer, who had been +hanged--"the father to the bough, the son to the plough," said they, in +Kent at least. They were a very mixed population, constantly recruited +from the neighbouring coasts. They held the outposts of the country as the +advanced guard formally charged with the defence of its shores from +foreign invasion, which was a very present terror in those days. Lying +near the Continent they caught every rumour of the liberties won by the +Flemish towns or French communes; commerce and manufacture were doing +their work in the ports and among the iron mines of the forests; and it +seems as though the shire very early took up the part it was to play +again and again in medieval history, and even later, as the asserter and +defender of popular privileges. From such a temper Thomas was certain to +find sympathy as he passed through the country in triumph. At Canterbury +the monks received him as an angel of God, crying, "Blessed be he that +cometh in the name of the Lord." "I am come to die among you," said +Thomas in his sermon. "In this church there are martyrs," he said again, +"and God will soon increase their number." A few days later he made a +triumphant progress through London on his way to visit the young king; +his fellow-citizens crowded round him with loud blessings, while a +procession of three hundred poor scholars and London clerks raised a +loud Te Deumas Thomas rode along with bowed head scattering alms on +every side. His old pupil Henry refused, however, to receive him, and +Thomas returned to Canterbury. + +News of all these things travelled fast to the king in Normandy. The +excommunicated bishops, falling at his feet, told him of the evil done +against his peace; rumour, growing as it crossed the sea, said that the +archbishop had travelled through the country with a mighty army of paid +soldiers, and had sought to enter into the king's fortresses, and that +he was ready to "tear the crown from the young king's head." Henry, +"more angry than was fitting to the royal majesty," was swept beyond +himself by one of his mad storms of passion. "What a pack of fools and +cowards," he shouted aloud in his wrath, "I have nourished in my house, +that not one of them will avenge me of this one upstart clerk!" A +council was at once summoned. Thomas, the king said, had entered as a +tyrant into his land, had excommunicated the bishops for obedience to +the king, had troubled the whole realm, had purposed to take away the +royal crown from his son, had begged for a legation against Henry, and +had obtained from the Pope grants of presentations to churches, which +deprived knights and barons as well as the king himself of their +property. The council fell in with the king's mood. Thomas was worthy of +death. The king would have neither quiet days nor a peaceful kingdom +while he lived. "On my way to Jerusalem," said one sage adviser, "I +passed through Rome, and asking questions of my host, I learned that a +pope had once been slain for his intolerable pride!" + +But while the king was still busied in devising schemes for the punishment +or ruin of Thomas, came news that he was rid of his enemy, and that the +archbishop had won the long looked-for crown of martyrdom. Four knights +who had heard the king's first outburst of rage had secretly left the +Court, and travelling day and night, had reached Canterbury on the 29th, +and had there in the cathedral slain the archbishop. Henry was at Argentan +when the news of the murder was brought to him. So overwhelming was his +despair that those about him feared for his reason. For three days he +neither ate nor spoke with any one, and for five weeks his door was closed +to all comers. The whole flood of difficulties against which he had so +long fought desperately was at once let loose upon him. In England the +feeling was indescribable. All the religious fervour of the people was +passionately thrown on the side of the martyr. The church of Canterbury +closed for a year. The ornaments were taken from the altar, the walls were +stripped, the sound of the bells ceased. Excitement was raised to its +utmost pitch as it became known that miracles were wrought at the tomb. +The clergy were forced into hostility; they dared no longer take Henry's +side. The barons saw the opportunity for which they had waited fifteen +years. Henry had himself provided them with a ready instrument to execute +their vengeance, and the boy-king, consecrated scarcely six months ago, +and already urged to revolt by his mother and the king of France, was +only too willing to hear the tale of their accumulated wrongs and +discontents. All Christendom had been watching the strife; all Christendom +was outraged at its close. The Pope shut himself up for eight days, and +refused to speak to his own servants. The king of France,--who had now a +cause more powerful than any he had ever dreamt of,--Theobald of Blois, +and William of Champagne, the Archbishop of Sens, wrote bitterly to Rome +that it was Henry himself who had given orders for the murder. The king's +messengers sent to plead with the Pope found matters almost desperate. +Alexander had determined to excommunicate him at Easter, and to lay an +interdiction on all his lands. In their despair, and not venturing to tell +their master what they had done, they swore on Henry's part an unreserved +submission to the Pope, and the excommunication was barely averted for a +few months, while a legation was sent to pronounce an interdiction on his +lands, and receive his submission. Henry, however, was quite determined +that he would neither hear the sentence nor repeat the oath taken by his +envoys at Rome. Orders were given to allow no traveller, who might intend +evil against the king, to cross into England; and before the legates could +arrive in Normandy Henry himself was safe beyond the sea. On the 6th of +August, as he passed through Winchester, he visited the dying Henry of +Blois, and heard the bishop's last words of bitter reproach as he +foretold the great adversities which the Divine vengeance held in store +for the true murderer of the archbishop. But England itself was no safe +refuge for the king in this great extremity. Hurrying on to Wales, he +rapidly settled the last details of a plan for the conquest of Ireland, +and hastened to set another sea between himself and the bearers of the +papal curse. As he landed on Irish shores on the 16th of October, a +white hare started from the bushes at his feet, and was brought to him +as a token of victory and peace. Here at last he was in safety, beyond +the reach of all dispute, in a secure banishment where he could more +easily avoid the interdict or more secretly bow to it. The wild storms +of winter, which his terrified followers counted as a sign of the wrath +of God, served as an effectual barrier between him and his enemies; and +for twenty weeks no ship touched Irish shores, nor did any news reach +him from any part of his dominions. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND + +Nearly a hundred years before William Rufus once stood on the cliffs of +Wales, and cried, as he looked across the waters towards Ireland, "For +the conquest of that land I will gather together all the ships of my +kingdom, and will make of them a bridge to cross over." The story was +carried to a king of Leinster, who listened thoughtfully. "After so +tremendous a threat as that," he asked, "did the king add, if the Lord +will?" Being told that Rufus used no such phrase, "Since he trusts to do +this by human power, not divine," said the shrewd Irishman, "I need not +greatly dread his coming." Prophecies which passed from mouth to mouth +in Ireland declared that the island should not be conquered till very +shortly before the great Day of Judgment. Even in England men commented +on the fact that while the Romans had reached as far as the Orkneys, +while Saxons and Normans and Danes had overrun England, Ireland had +never bowed to foreign rule. The Northmen alone had made any attempt at +invasion; but within the fringe of foreign settlements which they +planted along the coast from Dublin to Limerick, the various Irish +kingdoms maintained themselves according to their ancient customs, and, +as English tribes had done before in Britain, waged frequent war for the +honour of a shifting and dubious supremacy. The island enjoyed a fair +fame for its climate, its healthfulness, its pasturage, its fisheries; +English chroniclers dwelt on "the far-famed harbour of Dublin, the rival +of our London in commerce," and told of ships of merchandise that sailed +from Britanny to Irish ports, and of the busy wine trade with Poitou. +Ireland alone broke the symmetry of an empire that bordered the Atlantic +from the Hebrides to Spain, and the fame of empire had its attractions +for the heirs of the Norman conquerors. Patriotic and courtly historians +remembered that their king was representative of Gerguntius, the first +king of Britain who had gone to Ireland; the heir of Arthur, to whom +Irish kings had been tributary; the ruler over the Basque provinces, +from whence undoubtedly the Irish race had sprung. To fill up what was +lacking in these titles, he was proclaimed lord and ruler by a yet +clearer divine right, when in 1155 John of Salisbury brought to him from +Rome a bull, by which the English Pope, Hadrian IV., as supreme lord of +all islands, granted Ireland to the English king, that he might bring +the people under law, and enlarge the borders of the Church. + +From the beginning, indeed, there rested on the unhappy country a curse +which has remained to the present moment. The invasion of the Ostmen was +the first of a series of half-conquests which brought all the evils of +foreign invasion with none of its benefits. In England the great rivers +and the Roman roads had been so many highways by which the Scandinavians +had penetrated into the heart of the country. But in Ireland no road and +no great river had guided the invader onwards past morass and bog and +forest. While the great host of the Danish invaders swooped down over +England and Gaul, the pirates that sailed to Ireland had only force to +dash themselves on the coast, and there cling cautiously to guarded +settlements. They settled as a race apart, as unable to mix with the +Irish people as they were powerless to conquer them. No memory as in +England of a common origin united them, no ties of a common language, no +sense of common law or custom, or of a common political tradition. The +strangers built the first cities, coined the first money, and introduced +trade. But they were powerless to affect Irish civilization. The tribal +system survived in its full strength, and Ireland remained divided +between two races, two languages, two civilizations in different stages +of progress, two separate communities ruled by their own laws, and two +half-completed ecclesiastical systems, for the Danish Church long looked, +as the Irish had never done, to the Archbishop of Canterbury as their +head. Earnest attempts had already been made by Hadrian's predecessor to +bring the Irish into closer connection with the see of Rome. In 1152 a +papal legate had carried out a great reform by which four archbishops, +wholly independent of Canterbury and receiving their palls from Rome, were +set over four provinces. But still no Peter's Pence were paid to Rome; +Roman canon law, Roman ritual, the Roman rules of marriage, had no +authority; the Roman form of baptism was replaced by a tradition which +made the father dip his new-born child three times in water, or, if he +were a rich man, in milk; there was no payment of tithes; clerks were +taxed like laymen when a homicide occurred; Irish nobles still demanded +hospitality from religious houses, and claimed, according to ancient +custom, provisions from towns on Church domains. Hadrian himself had long +been interested in Irish affairs. The religious houses which the Irish +maintained in Germany kept up communication with Pope and Emperor; an +Irish abbot at Nuremberg was chaplain to the Emperor Frederick; one of +Hadrian's masters at Paris had been a monk from the Irish settlement in +Ratisbon, and as Pope he still remembered the Irish monk with warm +affection. When he was raised to the Papacy in the very year of Henry's +coronation, one of his first cares was to complete the organization of +Christendom in the West by bringing the Irish Church under Catholic +discipline. + +Henry, on his part, was only too eager to accept his new responsibility, +and less than a year after his coronation he called a council to discuss +the conquest of Ireland. The scheme was abandoned on account of its +difficulties, but the question was later raised again in another form. +Diarmait Mac Murchadha (in modern form Jeremiah Murphy), King of +Leinster, had carried off in 1152 the wife of the chief of Breifne +(Cavan and Leitrim). A confederation was formed against him under +Ruaidhri (or Rory), King of Connaught, and he was driven from the island +in 1166. "Following a flying fortune and hoping much from the turning of +the wheel," he fled to Henry in Aquitaine, did homage to the English +king for his lands, and received in return letters granting permission +to such of Henry's servants as were willing to aid him in their recovery. +Diarmait easily found allies in the nobles of the Welsh border, in whose +veins ran the blood of two warlike races. It was by just such an +enterprise as this that their Norman fathers and grandfathers had won +their Welsh domains. From childhood they had been brought up in the tumult +of perpetual forays, and trained in a warfare where agility and dash and +endurance of hunger and hardship were the first qualifications of a +soldier. Richard de Clare, Earl of Striguil, in later days nicknamed +Strongbow--a descendant of one of the Conqueror's greatest warriors, +but now a needy adventurer sorely harassed by his creditors--was easily +won by the promise of Diarmait's daughter and heiress, Aeifi, as his wife. +Rhys, the Prince of South Wales, looked favourably on the expedition. +His aunt, Nesta, had been the mistress of Henry I. of England; and +had afterwards married first Gerald of Windsor, and then a certain +Stephen; her sons and grandsons, whether Fitz-Henrys, Fitz-Geralds, or +Fitz-Stephens, were famous men of war; nor were the children of her +daughter, who had married William de Barri, behind them in valour. No less +than eighteen knights of this extraordinary family took part in the +conquest, where in feats of war they renewed the glories of their +ancestors both Norse and Welsh; a son of Nesta's, David, the Bishop of +St. David's, gave his sympathy and help; while her grandson, Gerald +de Barri, became the famous historian of the conquest. + +In 1167 Diarmait returned to Ireland with a little band of allies, the +pioneers of the English conquest. Others followed the next year, among +them Strongbow's uncle, Hervey of Mount Moriss, a famous soldier in the +French army, distinguished for his beautifully proportioned figure, his +delicate long hands, his winning face, and graceful speech. With him +went Nesta's son Robert Fitz-Stephen, a powerful man of the Norman +type, handsome, freehanded, sumptuous in his way of living, liberal and +jovial, given to wine and dissipation. His nephew, Meiler Fitz-Henry, +showed stronger traces of Welsh blood in his swarthy complexion, fierce +black eyes, and passionate face. The knights carried on the war with the +virtues and vices of a feudal chivalry, with a frank loyalty to their +allies, a good comradeship which recognized no head but left each knight +supreme over his own forces, a magnificent daring in the face of +overwhelming forces, and a joyful acceptance of the savage privileges of +slaughter and rapine which fell to their lot. "By their aid Diarmait began +first to take breath, then to gain strength, and at last to triumph over +his enemies." The Irish, however, rallied under the king of Connaught +against the traitor who had brought the English into their land; and +Diarmait was forced to conclude a peace and promise to receive no more +English soldiers. + +Meanwhile other knights were preparing for the Irish expedition. Maurice +Fitz-Gerald encamped on a rock near Wexford. Another Fitz-Gerald, +Raymond the Fat, fortified his camp near Waterford. In August 1170 came +Earl Richard himself, who had crossed to France in search of Henry, and +with persistent importunity implored for leave to join the Irish war. +Henry, at that moment busy in his last negotiations with Thomas, gave a +doubtful half-consent, and Richard sailed with an army of nearly fifteen +hundred men. We see in the pages of Gerald of Wales, the hero with whose +name the conquest of Ireland was to be for ever associated, red-haired, +gray-eyed, freckled, with delicate features like a woman's, and thin, +feeble voice; wearing a plain citizen's dress without arms, "that he +might seem more ready to obey than to command;" suave, gracious, politic, +patient, deferential, with his fine aristocratic air, and an undaunted +courage that blazed out in battle, when "he never moved from his post, but +remained a beacon of refuge to his followers." At his coming Waterford was +taken, as Wexford and Ossory had been before. Before the prudent Norman +went farther the marriage contract was carried out, and the beginning of a +strife which lasted for seven hundred years was celebrated in this first +alliance of a Norman baron and an Irish chief. Richard and Diarmait +marched against Dublin, and its Danishin habitants were driven over sea. +In a few months their king, Hasculf, returned with a great fleet gathered +from Norway, the Hebrides, the Orkneys, Man,--the last fleet of Northmen +which descended on the British Isles,--but again the Normans won the day. + +Henry meanwhile was watching nervously the progress of affairs. The war +was, no doubt, useful in withdrawing from Wales a restless and dangerous +baronage, and in the rebellion of 1174 the hostility of the border +barons would have been far more serious if the best warriors of Wales +had not been proving their courage on the plains of Ireland. But Henry +had no mind to break through his general policy by allowing a feudal +baronage to plant themselves by force of arms in Ireland, as they had in +earlier days settled themselves in northern England and on the Welsh +border. The death of Diarmait in 1171 brought matters to a crisis. By +Celtic law the land belonged to the tribe, and the people had the right +of electing their king. But the tribal system had long been forgotten by +the Normans, whose ancestors had ages before passed out of it into the +later stage of the feudal system; and by Norman law the kingdom of +Leinster would pass to Aeifi's husband and her children. Rights of +inheritance and rights of conquest were judiciously blended together, +and Richard assumed rule, not under the dangerous title of king, but as +"Earl of Leinster." The title was strange and unwelcome to Irish ears. +Among envious Norman rivals it did not hide the suspicion that Richard +was "nearly a king," and rumours reached Henry's ears that he was +conquering not only Leinster but other districts to which neither he nor +his wife had any right. Henry immediately confiscated all the earl's +lands in England, and ordered that all knights who had gone to Ireland +should return, on pain of forfeiture of their lands and exile. In vain +Strongbow's messengers hastened to him in France, and promised that the +earl would yield up all his conquests, "since from the munificence of +your kindness all proceeds." While they still anxiously followed the +Court from place to place came the sudden tidings of the archbishop's +murder, and before many months were over Henry was on his way to Ireland +to take its affairs into his own hands. Strongbow was summoned to meet +him, forced to full submission, and sent back to prepare the way before +the king. + +In Ireland Henry had little to do save to enter into the labours of its +first conquerors. The Danes had been driven from the ports. The Irish +were broken and divided, and looked to him as their only possible ally +and deliverer from the tyranny, the martial law, the arbitrary executions, +which had marked the rough rule of the invaders. The terrified barons were +ready to buy their existence at any price. The leaders of the Church +welcomed him as the supporter of Roman discipline. Henry used all his +advantages. He consistently carried through the farce of arbitration. +The Wexford men brought to him Fitz-Stephen, whom they had captured, as +the greatest enemy to the royal majesty and the Irish people. Henry threw +him into prison, but as soon as he had won the smaller kings of the south +separately to make submission to him, and given the chief castles into the +hands of his own officers, he conciliated the knights by releasing +Fitz-Stephen. He spent the winter in Dublin, in a palace built of wattles +after the fashion of the country. There he received the homage of all the +kings of Leinster and Meath. Order, law, justice, took the place of +confusion. Dublin, threatened with ruin now the Danish traders were driven +off, was given to the men of Bristol to found a new prosperity. Its trade +with Chester was confirmed, and from all parts of England new settlers +came in numbers during the next few years to share in the privileges and +wealth which its commerce promised. A stately cathedral of decorated +Norman work rose on the site of an earlier church founded by the Ostmen. +It seemed as though the mere military rule of the feudal lords was to be +superseded under the king's influence by a wiser and more statesmanlike +occupation of the country. A great council was held at Cashel, where a +settlement was made of Church and State, and where Henry for the first +time published the Papal Bull issued by Hadrian fifteen years before. He +had won a position of advantage from whence to open a new bargain with +the Pope. In the moment of his deepest disgrace and peril he defiantly +showed himself before the world in all the glory of the first foreign +Conqueror and Lord of Ireland. + +Henry's work, however, was scarcely begun when in March there came a +lull in the long winter storms, and a vessel made its way across the +waters of the Irish Sea. It brought grave tidings. Legates from the Pope +had reached Normandy, with powers only after full submission to absolve +the king; unless Henry quickly met them, all his lands would be laid +under interdict. Other heavy tidings came. Evil counsellors were +exciting the young king to rebellion. It was absurd, they said, to be +king, and to exercise no authority in the kingdom, and the boy was +willing enough to believe that since his coronation "the reign of his +father had expired." All Henry's plans in Ireland were at once thrown +aside. At the first break in the adverse winds he hastily set sail, and +for two hundred years no English king again set foot in Ireland. The +short winter's work was to end in utter confusion. The king's policy had +been to set up the royal justice and power, and to break the strength of +the barons by dividing and curtailing their interests. He had left them +without a leader. The growing power of Strongbow had been broken; Dublin +had been taken from him; the castles had all been committed to knights +appointed by the king. Quarrels and rivalries soon broke out. Raymond +the Fat became the recognized head of Nesta's descendants. In his +enormous frame, his yellow curly hair, his high-coloured cheery face, +his large gray eyes, we seethe type of the old Norse conquerors who had +once harried England; we recognize it too in his carelessness as to food +or clothing, his indifference to hardship, his prodigious energy, the +sleepless nights spent in wandering through his camp where his resounding +shouts awoke the sleeping sentinels, the enduring wrath which never forgot +an enemy. Richard's uncle, Hervey of Mount Moriss, led a rival faction in +the interests of Strongbow. The English garrison in Ireland was weakened +by the loss of troops which Henry was compelled to carry away with him. +The forces that remained, divided, thinned, discouraged, were left to +confront an Irish party united in a revived hope. No sooner did rebellion +break over England in the next year than the Irish with one accord rose in +revolt. The treasury was exhausted, and there was no payment for the +troops. A doubtful campaign went on in which the English, attacked now by +the Ostmen of the towns, now by the Irish, fought with very varying +success, but with prodigies of valour. They were reckless of danger, +heedless of the common safeguards of military precaution. When Henry heard +of Raymond's daring capture of Limerick in 1176, and then of his retreat, +he made one of his pithy "Great was the courage in attacking it, and yet +greater in the subduing of it, but the only wisdom that was shown was in +its desertion." + +The rivalry of Raymond and Strongbow was at its height when, in 1176, +Earl Richard died; and to this day his burial-place in the Norman +Cathedral in Dublin, and that of his wife Aeifi, are marked by the only +sculptured tombs that exist of these first Norman conquerors of Ireland. +Others besides the king heard with joy the news that the great warrior +was dead. Richard's sister, who had been married to Raymond, had cast in +her lot with her lord. She sent a cautious despatch to her husband, who +was unable himself to read, and had to depend on the good offices of a +clerk. "Know, my dearest lord," wrote the prudent wife, "that that great +tooth which pained me so long has now fallen out, wherefore see that you +delay not your return." The watchful Henry, however, at once recalled +Raymond to England, and sent a new governor, Fitz-Aldhelm, to hold the +restless barons in check, till his son John, to whom he now proposed to +give the realm of Ireland, should be of age to undertake its government. +When Fitz-Aldhelm saw the magnificent troop of Raymond's cousins and +nephews, who had thrown aside all armour save shields, and, mounted on +splendid horses, dashed across the plain to display their feats of +agility and horsemanship, he muttered to his followers, "This pride I +will shortly abate, and these shields I will scatter." He was true to +his word. The fortunes of the knights of both parties indeed rapidly +declined; "those who had been first had to learn to be last;" their +lands were taken from them on every excuse, and they were followed by +the enmity and persecution of the king. For the next ten years the +history of the English in Ireland is a miserable record of ineffective +and separate wars undertaken by leaders each acting on his own account, +and of watchful jealousy on the part of Henry. A new governor was sent +in 1177 to replace Fitz-Aldhelm. Hugh de Lacy was no Norman. His black +hair, his deep-set black eyes, his snub nose, the scar across his face, +his thin ill-shapen figure, marked him out from the big fair Fitz-Geralds, +as much as did his "Gallican sobriety" and his training in affairs, for +in war he had no great renown. Perhaps it was some quick French quality +in him that won the love of the Irish. But Henry was suspicious and +uneasy. He was recalled in 1181 on the news that without the king's leave +he had married the daughter of the King of Connaught, and rumour added +that he had even made ready a diadem for himself. But his services were +so valuable that that same winter he was sent back, only to be again +recalled in 1184 and again sent back. At last in 1186, "as though fortune +had been zealous for the king of England," he was treacherously slain by +an Irishman, to Henry's "exceeding joy." + +Meanwhile the king had in 1185 made a further attempt at a permanent +settlement of the distracted island. John was formally appointed king +over Ireland, and accompanied by Glanville, landed in Waterford on +the 25th of April. His coming with a new batch of Norman followers +completed the misfortunes of the first settlers. The Norman-Welsh +knights of the border had by painful experience learned among their +native woods and mountains how to wage such war as was needed in +Ireland-a kind of war where armour was worse than useless, where +strength was of less account than agility, where days and nights of cold +and starvation were followed by impetuous assaults of an enemy who never +stood long enough for a decisive battle, a war where no mercy was given +and no captives taken. On the other hand, their half Celtic blood had +made it easy for them to mingle with the Irish population, to marry and +settle down among them. But the followers of John were Norman and French +knights, accustomed to fight in full armour upon the plains of France; +and to add to a rich pay the richer profits of plunder and of ransom. +The seaport towns and the castles fell into the hands of new masters, +untrained to the work required of them. "Wordy chatterers, swearers of +enormous oaths, despisers of others," as they seemed to the race of +Nesta's descendants, the new rulers of the country proved mere plunderers, +who went about burning, slaying, and devastating, while the old soldiery +of the first conquest were despised and cast aside. Divisions of race +which in England had quite died out were revived in Ireland in their full +intensity; and added to the two races of the Irish and the Danes we now +hear of the three hostile groups into which the invaders were broken--the +Normans, the English, and the men of the Welsh border. To the new comers +the natives were simply barbarians. When the Irish princes came to do +homage, their insolent king pulled their long beards in ridicule; at the +outrage they turned their backs on the English camp, and the other kings +hearing their tale, refused to do fealty. Any allies who still remained +were alienated by being deprived of the lands which the first invaders had +left them. Even the newly-won Church was thrown into opposition by +interference with its freedom and plunder of its lands; the ancient custom +of carrying provisions to the churches for safe keeping in troubled times +was contemptuously ignored when a papal legate gave the English armies +leave to demand the opening of the church doors, and the sale of such +provisions as they chose to require. There were complaints too in the +country of the endless lawsuits that now sprang up, probably from the +infinite confusion that grew out of the attempt to override Irish by +English law. But if Glanville tried any legal experiments in Ireland, +his work was soon interrupted. Papal legates arrived in England at +Christmas 1186 to crown the King of Ireland with the crown of peacocks' +feathers woven with gold which the Pope himself had sent. But John never +wore his diadem of peacocks' feathers. Before it had arrived he had been +driven from the country. + +Thus ended the third and last attempt in Henry's reign to conquer +Ireland. The strength and the weakness of the king's policy had alike +brought misery to the land. The nation was left shattered and bleeding; +its native princes weakened in all things save in the habits of treachery +and jealousy; its Danish traders driven into exile; its foreign conquerors +with their ranks broken, and their hope turned to bitterness. The natural +development of the tribal system was violently interrupted by the +half-conquest of the barons and the bringing in of a feudal system, for +which the Irish were wholly unprepared. But the feudal conquerors +themselves were only the remnants of a broken and defeated party, the +last upholders of a tradition of conquest and of government of a hundred +years earlier. Themselves trembling before the coming in of a new order of +things, they could destroy the native civilization, but they could set +nothing in its place. There remained at last only the shattered remnants +of two civilizations which by sheer force were maintained side by side. +Their fusion was perhaps impossible, but it was certainly rendered less +possible by the perplexed and arbitrary interferences of later rulers in +England, almost as foreign to the Anglo-Irish of the Pale as to the native +tribes who, axe in hand and hidden in bog and swamp and forest, clung +desperately to the ancient traditions and inheritance of their +forefathers. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +REVOLT OF THE BARONAGE + +All hope of progress, of any wise and statesmanlike settlement of +Ireland, utterly died away when, on Easter night, 16th April 1172, Henry +sailed from Wexford. The next morning he landed near St. David's. He +entered its gates as a pilgrim, on foot and staff in hand, while the +monks came out in solemn procession to lead him to the ancient church on +the other side of the river. Suddenly a Welsh woman sprang out from +among the crowd, and striking her hands together wildly, threw +herself at his feet crying with a loud voice, "Avenge us to-day, +Lechlavar! Avenge the people of this land!" The woman's bitter cry told +the first thought of all the thronging multitudes of eager Welshmen that +day, how Merlin had prophesied that an English king, the conqueror of +Ireland, should die on Lechlavar, a great stone which formed a rude +natural bridge across the stream, and round which the pagan superstitions +of an immemorial past still clung. When the strange procession reached the +river, Henry stood for a moment looking steadily at the stone, then with a +courage which we can scarcely measure, he firmly set his foot on it and +slowly crossed over; and from the other side, in the face of all the +people he turned and flung his taunt at the prophet, "Who will ever again +believe the lies of Merlin?" As he passed through Cardiff another omen met +him; a white-robed monk stood before him as he came out of church. "God +hold thee, Cuning!" he cried in the English tongue, and broke out into +passionate warnings of evil to come unless the king would show more +reverence to the Sunday, a matter about which there was at this time a +great stirring of religious feeling. "Ask this rustic," said Henry in +French to a knight who held his rein, "whether he has dreamed this." The +monk turned from the interpreter to the king and spoke again: "Whether I +have dreamed this or no, mark this day, for unless thou amendest thy life, +before this year has passed thou shalt hear such news of those thou lovest +best, and shalt win such sorrow from them, that it shall not fail thee +till thy dying day!" + +From Wales Henry struck across England, "turning neither to right nor +left, and marching at a double pace." In a few days he was at Portsmouth. +To hinder further mischief the younger Henry was ordered to join him and +carried over sea; and the first news that reached Louis was the king's +arrival in Normandy. "The King of England," Louis cried in his amazement, +"is now in Ireland, now in England, now in Normandy; he may rather be said +to fly than go by horse or boat!" Henry hastened on his landing to meet +the legates. Negotiations were opened in May. Submission was inevitable, +for fear of the rebellion which was then actually brewing left him in fact +no choice of action. He agreed unreservedly to their demands. As an +earnest of repentance and reformation he consented to a new coronation of +his son; and on the 27th of August the young king was crowned again, along +with his wife, at Winchester. Henry completed his submission at Avranches +on the 27th of September. He swore that he had not desired the death of +Thomas, but to make satisfaction for the anger he had shown, he promised +to take the cross, to give funds to the Knights Templars for the defence +of Jerusalem, and to found three religious houses. He renounced the +Constitutions of Clarendon. He swore allegiance to Alexander against the +anti-Pope. He promised that the possessions of Canterbury should be +given back as they were a year before the flight of Thomas, and that his +exiled friends should be restored to their possessions. No king of +England had ever suffered so deep a humiliation. It seemed as thought he +martyr were at last victorious. A year after the murder, in December +1172, Canterbury cathedral was once more solemnly opened, amid the cries +of a vast multitude of people, "Avenge, O Lord, the blood which has been +poured out!" On the anniversary of the Christmas Day when Thomas had +launched his last excommunications, the excited people noted "a great +thunder sudden and horrible in Ireland, in England, and in all the +kingdoms of the French." Very soon mighty miracles were wrought by the +name of the martyr throughout the whole of Europe. The metal phials +which hung from the necks of pilgrims to the shrine of Canterbury became +as famous as the shell and palm branch which marked the pilgrims to +Compostella and Jerusalem. Before ten years were passed the King of +France, the Count of Nevers, the Count of Boulogne, the Viscount of +Aosta, the Archbishop of Reims, had knelt at his shrine among English +prelates, nobles, knights, and beggars. The feast of the Trinity which +Thomas had appointed to be observed on the anniversary of his consecration +spread through the whole of Christendom. Henry, in fact, had to bear the +full storm of scorn and hatred that falls on every statesman who stands in +advance of the public opinion of his day. But his seeming surrender at +Avranches won for the politic king immediate and decisive advantages. All +fear of excommunication and interdict had passed away. The clergy were no +longer alienated from him. The ecclesiastical difficulties raised by the +coronation, and the jealousies of Louis, were set at rest. The alliance +of the Pope was secured. The conquest of Ireland was formally approved. +Success seemed to crown Henry's scheme for the building up of his empire. +Britanny had been secured for Geoffrey in 1171; in June 1172 Richard was +enthroned as Duke of Aquitaine; in the following August Henry was crowned +for the second time King of England. Only the youngest child, scarcely +five years old, was still "John Lackland," and in this same year Henry +provided a dominion for John by a treaty of marriage between him and the +heiress of the Count of Maurienne. Her inheritance stretched from the Lake +of Geneva almost to the Gulf of Genoa; and the marriage would carry the +Angevin dominions almost from the Atlantic to the Alps, and give into +Henry's control every pass into Italy from the Great St. Bernard to the +Col di Tenda, and all the highways by which travellers from Geneva and +German lands beyond it, from Burgundy or from Gaul, made their way to Rome. +To celebrate such a treaty Henry forgot his thrift. The two kings of +England travelled with ostentatious splendour to meet the Count of +Maurienne in Auvergne in January 1173. The King of Aragon and the Count of +Toulouse met them at Montferrand, and a peace which Henry concluded +between Toulouse and Aragon declared the height of his influence. Raymond +bent at last to do homage for Toulouse, an act of submission which brought +the dominion of Anjou to the very border of the Mediterranean. + +There was a wild outbreak of alarm among all Henry's enemies as from his +late humiliation he suddenly rose to this new height of power. The young +king listened eagerly to those who plotted mischief, and one night in +mid-Lent he fled to the court of Louis. In an agony of apprehension +Henry sought to close the breach, and sent messages of conciliation to +the French king. "Who sends this message to me?" demanded Louis. "The +King of England," answered the messengers. "It is false," he said; +"behold the King of England is here, and he sends no message to me by +you; but if you so call his father who once was king, know ye that he +asking is dead." The Counts of Flanders, of Boulogne, and of Blois, +joined the young king in Paris, and did homage to him for fiefs which he +bestowed on them--Kent, Dover, Eochester, lands in Lincolnshire, and +domains and castles in Normandy--while he won the aid of the Scot king +by granting him all Northumberland to the Tyne. The rebellion was +organized in a month. Eleanor sent Richard, commander of the forces of +Aquitaine, and Geoffrey, lord of Britanny, to take their share in the +revolt; she herself was hastening after them when she was seized and +thrown into prison. In Aquitaine, where the people impartially hated +both French and Normans, the enthusiasm for independence was stirred by +songs such as those of the troubadour, Bertrand de Born, lord of a +fortress and a thousand men, who "was never content, save when the kings +of the North were at war." In Normandy old hatreds had deepened year by +year as Henry had gone on steadily seizing castles and lands which had +fallen out of the possession of the crown. In 1171 he had doubled the +revenue of the duchy by lands which the nobles had usurped. In 1172 he +had alarmed them by having a new return made of the feudal tenures for +purposes of taxation. The great lords of the duchy with one consent +declared against him. Britanny sprang to arms. If Maine and Anjou +remained fairly quiet, there was in both of them a powerful party of +nobles who joined the revolt. The rebel party was everywhere increased +by all who had joined the young king, "not because they thought his the +juster cause," but in fierce defiance of a rule intolerable for its +justice and its severity. England was no less ready for rebellion. The +popular imagination was still moved by the horror of the archbishop's +murder. The generation that remembered the miseries of the former +anarchy was now passing away, and to some of the feudal lords order +doubtless seemed the greater ill. The new king too had lavished promises +and threats to win the English nobles to his side. "There were few +barons in England who were not wavering in their allegiance to the king, +and ready to desert him at any time." The more reckless eagerly joined +the rebellion; the more prudent took refuge in France, that they might +watch how events would go; there was a timid and unstable party who held +outwardly to the king in vigilant uncertainty, haunted by fears that +they should be swept away by the possible victory of his son. Such +descendants of the Normans of the Conquest as had survived the rebellions +and confiscations of a hundred years were eager for revenge. The Earl of +Leicester and his wife were heirs of three great families, whose power had +been overthrown by the policy of the Conqueror and his sons. William of +Aumale was descended from the Count who had claimed the throne in the +Conqueror's days, and bitterly remembered the time before Henry's +accession, when he had reigned almost as king in Northern England. +Hugh of Puiset, Bishop of Durham, whose diocese stretched across +Northumberland, and who ruled as Earl Palatine of the marchland between +England and Scotland; the Earl of Huntingdon, brother of the Scot king; +Roger Mowbray, lord of the castles of Thirsk and Malessart north of York, +and of a strong castle in the Isle of Axholm; Earl Ferrers, master of +fortresses in Derby and Stafford; Hugh, Earl of Chester and Lord of Bayeux +and Avranches, joined the rebellion. So did the old Hugh Bigod, Earl of +Norfolk, who had already fought and schemed against Henry in vain twenty +years before. The Earls of Clare and Gloucester on the Welsh border were +of very doubtful loyalty. Half of England was in revolt, and north +of a line drawn from Huntingdon to Chester the king only held a few +castles--York, Richmond, Carlisle, Newcastle, and some fortresses of +Northumberland. The land beyond Sherwood and the Trent, shut off by an +almost continuous barrier of marsh and forest from the south, was still +far behind the rest of England in civilization. The new industrial +activity of Yorkshire was not yet forty years old; in a great part of +the North money-rents had scarcely crept in, and the serfs were still +toiling on under the burden of labour-dues which had been found +intolerable elsewhere. The fines, the taxes, the attempt to bring its +people under a more advanced system of government must have pressed very +hardly on this great district which was not yet ready for it; and to the +fierce anger of the barons, and the ready hostility of the monasteries, +was perhaps added the exasperation of freeholder and serf. + +Henry, however, was absolute master of the whole central administration +of the realm. Moreover, by his decree of the year before he had set over +every shire a sheriff who was wholly under his own control, trained in +his court, pledged to his obedience, and who had firm hold of the +courts, the local forces, and the finances. The king now hastened to +appoint bishops whom he could trust to the vacant sees. Geoffrey, an +illegitimate son who had been born to him very early, probably about the +time when he visited England to receive knighthood, was sent to Lincoln; +and friends of the king were consecrated to Winchester, Ely, Bath, +Hereford, and Chichester. Prior Richard of Dover, a man "laudably +inoffensive who prudently kept within his own sphere," was made Archbishop +of Canterbury. Richard de Lucy remained in charge of the whole kingdom as +justiciar. The towns and trading classes were steadfast in loyalty, and +the baronage was again driven, as it had been before, to depend on foreign +mercenaries. + +War first broke out in France in the early summer of 1173. Normandy and +Anjou were badly defended, and their nobles were already half in revolt, +while the forces of France, Flanders, Boulogne, Chartres, Champagne, +Poitou, and Britanny were allied against Henry. The counts of Flanders +and Boulogne invaded Normandy from the north-east, and the traitor Count +of Aumale, the guardian of the Norman border, gave into their hands his +castles and lands. Louis and Henry's sons besieged Verneuil in the +south-west. To westward the Earl of Chester and Ralph of Fougeres +organized a rising in Britanny. In "extreme perplexity," utterly unable +to meet his enemies in the field, Henry could only fortify his frontier, +and hastily recall the garrison which he had left in Ireland, while he +poured out his treasure in gathering an army of hired soldiers. Meanwhile +he himself waited at Rouen, "that he might be seen by all the people, +bearing with an even mind whatever happened, hunting oftener than usual, +showing himself with a cheerful face to all who came, answering patiently +those who wished to gain anything from him; while those whom he had +nourished from days of childhood, those whom he had knighted, those who +had been his servants and his most familiar counsellors, night by night +stole away from him, expecting his speedy destruction and thinking the +dominion of his son at once about to be established." Never did the kings +show such resource and courage as in the campaign that followed. The Count +of Boulogne was killed in battle, and the invading army in the north-east +hesitated at the unlucky omen and fell back. Instantly Henry seized his +opportunity. He rode at full speed to Verneuil with his army, a hastily +collected mob of chance soldiers so dissatisfied and divided in allegiance +that he dared not risk a battle. An audacious boast saved the crafty king. +"With a fierce countenance and terrible voice" he cried to the French +messengers who had hurried out to see if the astounding news of his +arrival were true, "Go tell your king I am at hand as you see!" At the +news of the ferocity and resolution of the enemy, Louis, "knowing him to +be fierce and of a most bitter temper, as a bear robbed of its whelps +rages in the forest," hastily retreated, and Henry, as wise a general +as he was excellent an actor, fell back to Rouen. Meanwhile he sent to +Britanny a force of Brabantines, whom alone he could trust. They +surrounded the rebels at Dol; and before Henry, "forgetting food and +sleep" and riding "as though he had flown," could reach the place, most +of his foes were slain. The castle where the rest had taken refuge +surrendered, and he counted among his prisoners the Earl of Chester, +Ralph of Fougeres, and a hundred other nobles. The battle of Dol +practically decided the war. It seemed vain to fight against Henry's +good luck. A few Flemings once crossed the Norman border, and were +defeated and drowned in retreat by the bridge breaking. "The very +elements fight for the Normans!" cried the baffled and disheartened +Louis. "When I entered Normandy my army perished for want of water, now +this one is destroyed by too much water." In despair he sought to save +himself by playing the part of mediator; and in September Henry met his +sons at Gisors to discuss terms of peace. His terms were refused and the +meeting broke up; but Henry remained practically master of the situation. + +Meanwhile in England the rebellion had broken out in July. The Scottish +army ravaged the north; the Earl of Leicester, with an army of Flemings +which he had collected by the help of Louis and the younger Henry, +landed on the coast of Suffolk, where Hugh Bigod was ready to welcome +him. De Lucy and Bohun hurried from the north to meet this formidable +danger, and with the help of the Earls of Cornwall, Arundel, and +Gloucester, they defeated Leicester in a great battle at Fornham on the +17th of October. The earl himself was taken prisoner, and 10,000 of his +foreign troops were slain. He and his wife were sent by Henry's orders +to Normandy, and there thrown into prison. A truce was made with +Scotland till the end of March. The king of France and the younger Henry +abandoned hope, "for they saw that God was with the king;" and there +was a general pause in the war. + +With the spring of 1174, however, the strife raged again on all sides. +Ireland rose in rebellion. William of Scotland marched into England +supported by a Flemish force. Roger Mowbray, and probably the Bishop of +Durham, were in league with him. Earl Ferrers fortified his castles in +Derby and Stafford; Leicester Castle was still held by the Earl of +Leicester's knights; Huntingdon by the Scot king's brother; and the Earl +of Norfolk was joined in June by a picked body of Flemings. The king's +castles at Norwich, Northampton, and Nottingham, were taken by the rebels, +and a formidable line of enemies stretched right across mid-England. +At the same time France and Flanders threatened invasion with a strong +fleet, and "so great an army as had not been seen for many years." Count +Philip, who had set his heart on the promised Kent, and on winning +entrance into the lands of the Cistercian wool-growers of Lincolnshire, +swore before Louis and his nobles that within fifteen days he would attack +England; the younger Henry joined him at Gravelines in June, and they only +waited for a fair wind to cross the Channel. + +The justiciars were in an extremity of despair. "Seeing the evil that +was done in the land," they anxiously sent messenger after messenger to +the king. But Henry had little time to heed English complaints. Richard +had declared war in Aquitaine; Maine and Anjou were half in revolt; +Louis was on the point of invading Normandy. As a last resource his +hard-pressed ministers sent Richard of Ilchester, the bishop-elect of +Winchester, whom they knew to be favoured by the king beyond all others, +to tell him again of "the hatred of the barons, the infidelity of the +citizens, the clamour of the crowd always growing worse, the greed of +the 'new men,' the difficulty of holding down the insurrection." "The +English have sent their messengers before, and here comes even this +man!" laughed the Normans; "what will be left in England to send after +the king save the Tower of London!" Richard reached Henry on the 24th of +June, and on the same day Henry abandoned Normandy to Louis' attack, and +made ready for return. "He saw that while he was absent, and as it were +not in existence, no one in England would offer any opposition to him +who was expected to be his successor;" and he "preferred that his lands +beyond the sea should be in peril rather than his own realm of England." +Sending forward a body of Brabantines, he followed with his train of +prisoners--Queen Eleanor, Queen Margaret and her sister Adela, the +Earls of Chester and of Leicester, and various governors of castles whom +he carried with him in chains. In an agony of anxiety the king watched +for a fair wind till the 7th of July. At last the sails were spread; but +of a sudden the waves began to rise, and the storm to grow ominously. +Those who watched the face of the king saw him to be in doubt; then he +lifted his eyes to heaven and prayed before them all, "If I have set +before my eyes the things which make for the peace of clergy and people, +if the King of heaven has ordained that peace shall be restored by my +arrival, then let Him in His mercy bring me to a safe port; but if He is +against me, and has decreed to visit my kingdom with a rod, then let me +never touch the shores of the land." + +A good omen was granted, and he safely reached Southampton. Refusing +even to enter the city, and eating but bread and water, he pressed +forward to Canterbury. At its gates he dismounted and put away from him +the royal majesty, and with bare feet, in the garb of a pilgrim and +penitent, his footsteps marked with blood, he passed on to the church. +There he sought the martyr's sepulchre, and lying prostrate with +outstretched hands, he remained long in prayer, with abundance of tears +and bitter groanings. After a sermon by Foliot the king filled up the +measure of humiliation. He made public oath that he was guiltless of the +death of the archbishop, but in penitence of his hasty words he prayed +absolution of the bishops, and gave his body to the discipline of rods, +receiving three or five strokes from each one of the seventy monks. That +night he prayed and fasted before the shrine, and the next day rode +still fasting to London, which he reached on the 14th. Three days later +a messenger rode at midnight to the gate of the palace where the king +lay ill, worn out by suffering and fatigue for which the doctors had +applied their usual remedy of bleeding. He forced his way to the door of +the king's bedchamber. "Who art thou?" cried the king, suddenly startled +from sleep. "I am the servant of Ranulf de Glanville, and I come to +bring good tidings."--"Ranulf our friend, is he well?"--"He is well, my +lord, and behold he holds your enemy, the King of Scots, captive in +chains at Richmond." The king was half stunned by the news, but as the +messenger produced Glanville's letter, he sprang from his bed, and in a +transport of emotion and tears, gave thanks to God, while the joyful +ringing of bells told the good news to the London citizens. + +Two great dangers, in fact, had passed away while the king knelt before +the shrine at Canterbury. On that very day the Scottish army had been +broken to pieces. In the south the fleet which lay off the coast of +Flanders had dispersed. On the 18th of July, the day after the good news +had come, Henry himself marched north with the army that had been +gathered while he lay ill. Before a week was over Hugh Bigod had yielded +up his castles and banished his Flemish soldiers. The Bishop of Durham +secretly sent away his nephew, the Count of Bar, who had landed with +foreign troops. Henry's Welsh allies attacked Tutbury, a castle of the +Earl of Ferrers. Geoffrey, the bishop-elect of Lincoln, had before +Henry's landing waged vigorous war on Mowbray. By the end of July the +whole resistance was at an end. On the last day of the month the king +held a council at Northampton, at which William of Scotland stood before +him a prisoner, while Hugh of Durham, Mowbray, Ferrers, and the officers +of the Earl of Leicester came to give up their fortresses. The castles +of Huntingdon and Norfolk were already secured. The suspected Earls of +Gloucester and of Clare swore fidelity at the King's Court. Scotland was +helpless. A treaty was made with the Irish kings. Wales was secured by a +marriage between the prince of North Wales and Henry's sister. + +But there was still danger over sea, where the armies of the French and +the Flemings had closed round Rouen. On the 8th of August, exactly a +month after his landing at Southampton, Henry again crossed the Channel +with his unwieldy train of prisoners. As he stood under the walls of +Rouen, the besieging armies fled by night. Louis' fancy already showed +him the English host in the heart of France, and in his terror he sought +for peace. The two kings concluded a treaty at Gisors, and on the 30th +of September the conspiracy against Henry was finally dissolved. His +sons did homage to him, and bound themselves in strange medieval fashion +by the feudal tie which was the supreme obligation of that day; he was +now "not only their father, but their liege lord." The Count of Flanders +gave up into Henry's hands the charter given him by the young king. The +King of Scotland made absolute submission in December 1174, and was sent +back to his own land. Eleanor alone remained a close prisoner for years +to come. + +The revolt of 1173-74 was the final ruin of the old party of the Norman +baronage. The Earl of Chester got back his lands, but lost his castles, +and was sent out of the way to the Irish war; he died before the king in +1181. Leicester humbly admitted "that he and all his holdings were at +the mercy of the king," and Henry "restored to him Leicester, and the +forest which by common oath of the country had been sworn to belong to +the king's own domain, for he knew that this had been done for envy, and +also because it was known that the king hated the earl;" but Henry had a +long memory, and the walls of Leicester were in course of time thrown +down and its fortifications levelled. The Bishop of Durham had to pay +200 marks of silver for the king's pardon, and give up Durham Castle. At +the death of Hugh Bigod in 1177 Henry seized the earl's treasure. The +Earls of Clare and Gloucester died within two years, and the king's son +John was made Gloucester's heir. The rebel Count of Aumale died in 1179, +and his heiress married the faithful Earl of Essex, who took the title +of Aumale with all the lands on both sides of the water. In 1186 Roger +Mowbray went on crusade. The king took into his own hands all castles, +even those of "his most familiar friend," the justiciar De Lucy. The +work of dismantling dangerous fortresses which he had begun twenty years +before was at last completed, and no armed revolt of the feudal baronage +was ever again possible in England. + +But the rebellion had wakened in the king's mind a deep alarm, which +showed itself in a new severity of temper. Famine and plague had fallen +on the country; the treasury was well nigh empty; law and order were +endangered. Henry hastened to return as soon as his foreign campaign was +over, and in May 1175 "the two kings of England, whom a year before the +breadth of the kingdom could not contain, now crossed in one ship, sat +at one table, and slept in one bed." In token of reconciliation with the +Church they attended a synod at Westminster, and went together on solemn +pilgrimage to the martyr's tomb. Then they made a complete visitation of +the whole kingdom. Starting from Reading on the 1st of June, they went +by Oxford to Gloucester, then along the Welsh border to Shrewsbury, +through the midland counties by Lichfield and Nottingham to York, and +then back to London, having spent on their journey two months and a few +days; and in autumn they made a progress through the south-western +provinces. At every halt some weighty business was taken in hand. The +Church was made to feel anew the royal power. Twelve of the great abbeys +were now without heads, and the king, justly fearing lest the monks +should elect abbots from their own body, "and thus the royal authority +should be shaken, and they should follow another guidance than his own," +sent orders that on a certain day chosen men should be sent to elect +acceptable prelates at his court and in his presence. The safety of the +Welsh marches was assured. The castle of Bristol was given up to the +king, and border barons and Welsh princes swore fidelity at Gloucester. +An edict given at Woodstock ordered that no man who during the war had +been in arms against the king should come to his court without a special +order; that no man should remain in his court after the setting of the +sun, or should come to it before the sun rising; in the England that lay +west of the Severn, none might carry bow and arrow or pointed knife. In +this wild border district the checks which prevailed elsewhere against +violent crime were unknown. The outlaw or stranger who fled to forest or +moorland for hiding, might lawfully be slain by any man who met him. No +"murder-fine" was known there. The king, not daring perhaps to interfere +with the "liberties" of the west, may have sought to check crime by this +order against arms; but such a law was practically a dead letter, for in +a land where every man was the guardian of his own life it was far more +perilous to obey the new edict than to disregard it. + +The king's harsh mood was marked too by the cruel prosecutions of +offences against forest law which had been committed in the time of the +war. The severe punishments were perhaps a means of chastizing is affected +landowners; they were certainly useful in filling the empty treasury. +Nobles and barons everywhere were sued for hunting or cutting wood or +owning dogs, and were fined sometimes more than their whole possessions +were worth. In vain the justiciar, De Lucy, pleaded for justice to men +who had done these things by express orders of the king given to De Lucy +himself; "his testimony could prevail nothing against the royal will." +Even the clergy were dragged before the civil courts, "neither archbishop +nor bishop daring to make any protest." The king's triumph over the +rebellion was visibly complete when at York the treaty which had been made +the previous year with the King of Scotland was finally concluded, and +William and his brother did homage to the English sovereigns. A few weeks +later Henry and his son received at Windsor the envoys of the King of +Connaught, the only one of the Irish princes who had till now refused +homage. + +In the Church as in the State the royal power was unquestioned. A papal +legate arrived in October, who proved a tractable servant of the king; +"with the right hand and the left he took gifts, which he planted +together in his coffers". His coming gave Henry opportunity to carry out +at last through common action of Church and State his old scheme of +reforms. In the Assize of Northampton, held in January 1176, the king +confirmed and perfected the judicial legislation which he had begun ten +years before in the Assize of Clarendon. The kingdom was divided into +six circuits. The judges appointed to the circuits were given a more +full independence than they had before, and were no longer joined with +the sheriffs of the counties in their sessions, their powers were +extended beyond criminal jurisdiction to questions of property, of +inheritance, of wardship, of forfeiture of crown lands, of advowsons to +churches, and of the tenure of land. For the first time the name of +Justitiarii Itinerantes was given in the Pipe Roll to these travelling +justices, and the anxiety of the king to make the procedure of his +courts perfectly regular, instead of depending on oral tradition, was +shown by the law books which his ministers began at this time to draw +up. As a security against rebellion, a new oath of fealty was required +from every man, whether earl or villein, fugitives and outlaws were to +be more sharply sought after, and felons punished with harsher cruelty. +"Thinking more of the king than of his sheep," the legate admitted +Henry's right to bring the clergy before secular courts for crimes +against forest law, and in various questions of lay fiefs; and agreed +that murderers of clerks, who till then had been dealt with by the +ecclesiastical courts, should bear the same punishment as murderers of +laymen, and should be disinherited. Religious churchmen looked on with +helpless irritation at Henry's first formal victory over the principles +of Thomas; in the view of his own day he had "renewed the Assize of +Clarendon, and ordered to be observed the execrable decrees for which +the blessed martyr Thomas had borne exile for seven years, and been +crowned with the crown of martyrdom." + +During the next two years Henry was in perpetual movement through the +land from Devon to Lincoln, and between March 1176 and August 1177 he +summoned eighteen great councils, besides many others of less consequence. +From 1178 to 1180 he paid his last long visit to England, and again with +the old laborious zeal he began his round of journeys through the +country. "The king inquired about the justices whom he had appointed, how +they treated the men of the kingdom; and when he learned that the land and +the subjects were too much burthened with the great number of justices, +because there were eighteen, he elected five--two clerks and three +laymen--all of his own household; and he ordered that they should hear +all appeals of the kingdom and should do justice, and that they should not +depart from the King's Court, but should remain there to hear appeals, so +that if any question should come to them they should present it to the +audience of the king, and that it should be decided by him and by the wise +men of the kingdom." The _Justices of the Bench_, as they were called, +took precedence of all other judges. The influence of their work was soon +felt. From this time written records began to be kept of the legal +compromises made before the King's Court to render possible the +transference of land. It seems that in 1181 the practice was for the +first time adopted of entering on rolls all the business which came to +the King's Court, the pleas of the Crown and common pleas between +subjects. Unlike in form to the great Roll of the Pipe, in which the +records of the Exchequer Court had long been kept, the Plea Rolls +consisted of strips of parchment filed together by their tops, on which, +in an uncertain and at first a blundering fashion, the clerks noted down +their records of judicial proceedings. But practice soon brought about an +orderly and mechanical method of work, and the system of procedure in the +Bench rapidly attained a scientific perfection. Before long the name of +the _Curia Regis_ was exclusively applied to the new court of appeal. + +The work of legal reform had now practically come to an end. Henry +indeed still kept a jealous watch over his judges. Once more, on the +retirement of De Lucy in 1179, he divided the kingdom into new circuits, +and chose three bishops--Winchester, Ely, and Norwich--"as chief +justiciars, hoping that if he had failed before, the seat least he might +find steadfast in righteousness, turning neither to the right nor to the +left, not oppressing the poor, and not deciding the cause of the rich +for bribes." In the next year he set Glanville finally at the head of +the legal administration. After that he himself was called to other +cares. But he had really finished his task in England. The mere system +of routine which the wisdom of Henry I. had set to control the arbitrary +power of the king had given place to a large and noble conception of +government; and by the genius of Henry II. the law of the land was +finally established as the supreme guardian of the old English liberties +and the new administrative order. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +THE COURT OF HENRY + +In the years that followed the Assize of Northampton Henry was at the +height of his power. He was only forty-three, and already his triumph +was complete. One of his sons was King of England, one Count of Poitou, +one Lord of Britanny, one was named King of Ireland. His eldest daughter, +wife of the Duke of Saxony, was mother of a future emperor, the second +was Queen of Castile, the third was in 1176 married to William of Sicily, +the wealthiest king of his time. All nations hastened to do honour to so +great a potentate. Henry's counselors were called together to receive, +now ambassadors from Sicily, now the envoys of the Emperors both of the +East and of the West, of the Kings of Castile and Navarre, and of the +Duke of Saxony, the Archbishop of Reims, and the Count of Flanders. + +In England the king's power knew no limits. Rebellion had been finally +crushed. His wife and sons were held in check. He had practically won a +victory over the Church. Even in renouncing the Constitutions of +Clarendon at Avranches Henry abandoned more in word than in deed. He +could still fall back on the law of the land and the authority which he +had inherited from the Norman kings. Since the Conqueror's days no Pope +might be recognized as Apostolic Pope save at the king's command; no +legate might land or use any power in England without the king's +consent; no ecclesiastical senate could decree laws which were not +authorized by the king, or could judge his servants against his will. +The king could effectually resist the introduction of foreign canon law; +he could control communications with Rome; he could stay the proceedings +of ecclesiastical courts if they went too far, or prejudiced the rights +of his subjects; and no sentence could be enforced save by his will. +Henry was strong enough only six years after the death of Thomas to win +control over a vast amount of important property by insisting that +questions of advowson should be tried in the secular courts, and that +the murderers of clerks should be punished by the common law. He was +able in effect to prevent the Church courts from interfering in secular +matters save in the case of marriages and of wills. He preserved an +unlimited control over the choice of bishops. In an election to the see +of St. David's the canons had neglected to give the king notice before +the nomination of the bishop. He at once ordered them to be deprived of +their lands and revenues. "As they have deprived me," he said, "of all +share in the election, they shall have neither part nor lot in this +promotion." The monks, stricken with well-founded terror, followed the +king from place to place to implore his mercy and to save their livings; +with abject repentance they declared they would accept whomsoever the +king liked, wherever and whenever he chose. Finally Henry sent them a +monk unknown to the chapter, who had been elected in his chamber, at his +bedside, in the presence of his paid servants, and according to his +orders, "after the fashion of an English tyrant," and who had then and +there raised his tremulous and fearful song of thanksgiving. Towards the +close of his reign there was again a dispute as to the election of an +Archbishop of Canterbury. The monks, under Prior Alban, were determined +that the election should lie with them. The king was resolved to secure +the due influence of the bishops, on whom he could depend. "The Prior +wanted to be a second Pope in England," he complained to the Count of +Flanders, to which his affable visitor replied that he would see all the +churches of his land burned before he would submit to such a thing. For +three months the strife raged between the convent and the bishops in +spite of the king's earnest efforts at reconciliation. "Peace is by all +means to be sought," he urged. "He was a wise man who said, 'Let peace +be in our days'. For the sake of God choose peace, as much as in you lies +follow after peace" "The voice of the people is the voice of God," he +argued in proposing at last that bishops and monks should sit together +for the election. "But this he said," observed the monks, "knowing the +mind of the bishops, and that they sought rather the favour of the king +than of God, as their fathers and predecessors had done, who denied +St. Anselm for Rufus, who forsook Theobald for King Stephen, who rejected +the holy martyr Thomas for King Henry." Henry, however, won the day, and +his friend and nominee, the good Bishop Baldwin of Worcester, singular for +piety and righteousness, was set in the Primate's chair. Of this +archbishop we read that "his power was so great and so formidable that no +one was equal to him in all England, and without his pleasure no one would +dare even to obey the commands of the Pope.... But," adds the irritated +chronicler, "I think that he would do nothing save at the orders of the +king, even if the Apostle Peter came to England about it." + +In the opinion of anxious critics of the day, indeed, the victory which +had been almost won by Thomas seemed altogether lost after his death. +Even the monasteries, where the ecclesiastical temper was most formidable, +were forced to choose abbots and priors whom the king could trust. In its +subjection the Church was in Henry's eyes an admirable engine to serve the +uses of the governing power. One of the most important steps in the +conquest of Wales had been the forcing of the Welsh Church into obedience +to the see of Canterbury; and Henry steadily used the Welsh clergy as +instruments of his policy. His efforts to draw the Scotch Church into a +like obedience were unceasing. In Ireland he worked hard for the same +object. On the death of an Archbishop of Dublin, the Irish clergy were +summoned to Evesham, and there bidden in the king's court, after the +English fashion, to choose an Englishman, Cumin, as their archbishop. +The claims of the papacy were watched with the most jealous care. No +legate dared to land in England save at the king's express will. A +legate in Ireland who seemed to "play the Roman over them" was curtly +told by the king's officers that he must do their bidding or leave the +country. In 1184 the Pope sent to ask aid for his necessities in Rome. +A council was called to consider the matter, and Glanville urged that +if papal messengers were allowed to come through England collecting money, +it might afterwards become a custom to the injury of the kingdom. The +Council decided that the only tolerable solution of the difficulty was for +the king to send whatever he liked to the Pope as a gift from himself, and +to accept afterwards from them compensation for what he might have given. + +The questions raised by the king between Church and State in England had +everywhere to be faced sooner or later. Even so devoted a servant of the +Church as St. Louis of France was forced into measures of reform as +far-reaching as those which Henry had planned a century earlier. But +Henry had begun his work a hundred years too soon; he stood far before +his age in his attempt to bring the clergy under a law which was not +their own. His violence had further hindered the cause of reform, and +the work which he had taken in hand was not to be fully carried out till +three centuries and a half had passed away. We must remember that in +raising the question of judicial reform he had no desire to quarrel with +the Church or priesthood. He refused indeed to join in any fanatical +outbreak of persecution of the Jews, such as Philip of France consented +to; and when persecution raged against the Albigenses of the south he +would have no part or lot in it, and kept his own dominions open as a +refuge for the wandering outcasts; but this may well have been by the +counsel of the wise churchmen about him. To the last he looked on the +clergy as his best advisers and supporters. He never demanded tribute +from churches or monasteries, a monkish historian tells us, as other +princes were wont to do on plea of necessity; with religious care he +preserved them from unjust burthens and public exactions. By frequent +acts of devotion he sought to win the favour of Heaven or to rouse the +religious sympathies of England on his behalf. In April 1177 he met at +Canterbury his old enemy, the Archbishop of Reims, and laid on the +shrine of St. Thomas a charter of privileges for the convent. On the 1st +of May he visited the shrine of St. Eadmund, and the next day that of +St. Aetheldreda at Ely. The bones of a saint stolen from Bodmin were +restored by the king's order, and on their journey were brought to +Winchester that he might do them reverence. Relics discovered by +miraculous vision were buried with pomp at St. Albans. Since his vow +four years before at Avranches to build three monasteries for the +remission of his sins, he had founded in Normandy and England four or +five religious houses for the Templars, the Carthusians, and the Austin +canons; he now brought nuns from Fontevraud, for whom he had a special +reverence, and set them in the convent at Amesbury, whose former +inhabitants were turned out to make way for them; while the canons of +Waltham were replaced by a stricter order of Austin canons. A templar +was chosen to be his almoner, that he might carry to the king the +complaints of the poor which could not come to his own ears, and +distribute among the needy a tenth of all the food and drink that came +into the house of the king. + +It is true that on Henry himself the strife with the Church left deep +traces. He became imperious, violent, suspicious. The darker sides of +his character showed themselves, its defiance, its superstition, its +cynical craft, its passionate pride, its ungoverned wrath. His passions +broke out with a reckless disregard of earlier restraints. Eleanor was a +prisoner and a traitor; she was nearly fifty when he himself was but +forty-one. From this time she practically disappeared out of Henry's +life. The king had bitter enemies at court, and they busied themselves +in spreading abroad dark tales; more friendly critics could only plead +that he was "not as bad as his grandfather." After the rebellion of 1174 +he openly avowed his connection with Rosamond Clifford, which seems to +have begun some time before. Eleanor was then in prison, and tales of +the maze, the silken clue, the dagger, and the bowl, were the growth of +later centuries. But "fair Rosamond" did not long hold her place at +court. She died early and was carried to Godstowe nunnery, to which rich +gifts were sent by her friends and by the king himself. A few years +later Hugh of Lincoln found her shrine before the high altar decked with +gold and silken hangings, and the saintly bishop had the last finery of +Rosamond swept from the holy place, till nothing remained but a stone +with the two words graven on it, "Tumba Rosamundae." + +But behind Henry's darkest and sternest moods lay a nature quick in +passionate emotion, singularly sensitive to affection, tender, full of +generous impulse, clinging to those he loved with yearning fidelity and +long patience. The story of St. Hugh shows the unlimited influence won +over him by a character of singular holiness. Henry had brought Hugh +from Burgundy, and set him over a newly-founded Cistercian priory at +Witham. The little settlement was in sore straits, and the impatient +monks railed passionately at the king, who had abandoned them in their +necessities. It was just after the rebellion, and Henry, hard pressed by +anxiety, was in his harshest and most bitter temper. "Have patience," +said Hugh, "for the king is wise beyond measure and wholly inscrutable; +it may be that he delays to grant our request that he may try us." But +brother Girard was not to be soothed, and in a fresh appeal to the king +his vehemence broke out in a torrent of reproaches and abuse. Henry +listened unmoved till the monk ceased from sheer lack of words. There +was dead silence for a time, while Prior Hugh bent down his head in +distress, and the king watched him under his eyelids. At last, taking no +more notice of the monk than if he never existed, Henry turned to Hugh, +"What are you thinking of, good man?" he said. "Are you preparing to go +away and leave our kingdom?" Hugh answered humbly and gently, "I do not +despair of you so far, my lord; rather I have great sorrow for the +troubles and labours which hinder the care for your soul. You are busy +now, but some day, when the Lord helps, we will finish the good work +begun." At this the king's self-control broke down; his tears burst +forth as he fell on Hugh's neck, and cried with an oath, "By the +salvation of my soul, while you have the breath of life you shall not +depart from my kingdom! With you I wilt hold wise counsel, and with you +I will take heed for my soul!" From that time there was none in the +kingdom whom Henry loved and trusted as he did the Prior of Witham, and +to the end of his life he constantly sought in all matters the advice of +one who gave him scant flattery and much sharp reproof. The coarse-fibred, +hard-worked man of affairs looked with superstitious reverence on one who +lived so near to God that even in sleep his lips still moved in prayer. +Such a man as Hugh could succeed where Thomas of Canterbury had failed. +He excommunicated without notice to the king a chief forester who had +interfered with the liberties of the Lincoln clergy, and bluntly refused +to make amends by appointing a royal officer to a prebend in his +cathedral, saying that "benefices were for clergy and not for courtiers." +A general storm of abuse and calumny broke out against him at the palace. +Henry angrily summoned him to his presence. The bishop was received by the +king in an open space under the trees, where he sat with all the courtiers +ranged in a close circle. Hugh drew near and saluted, but there was no +answer. Upon this the bishop put his hand lightly on the noble who sat +next to the king, and made place for himself by Henry's side. Still the +silence was unbroken, the king speechless as a furious man choked with his +anger. Looking up at last, he asked a servant for needle and thread, and +began to sew up a torn bandage which was tied round a wounded finger. The +lively Frenchman observed him patiently; at last he turned to the king, +"How like you are now," he said, "to your cousins of Falaise!" The king's +quick wit caught the extravagant impertinence, and in an ecstasy of +delight he rolled on the ground with laughter, while a perplexed merriment +ran round the circle of courtiers who scarce knew what the joke might be. +At last the king found his voice. "Do you hear the insolence of this +barbarian? I myself will explain." And he reminded them of his ancestress, +the peasant girl Arlotta of Falaise, where the citizens were famous for +their working in skins. "And now, good man," he said, turning to the +bishop in a broad good-humour, "how is it that without consulting us you +have laid our forester under anathema, and made of no account the poor +little request we made, and sent not even a message of explanation or +excuse?"--"Ah," said Hugh, "I knew in what a rage you and your +courtiers were!" and he then proceeded boldly to declare what were his +rights and duties as a bishop of the Church of God. Henry gave way on +every point. The forester had to make open satisfaction and was publicly +flogged, and from that time the bishop was no more tormented to set +courtiers over the Church. There were many other theologians besides +Hugh of Lincoln among the king's friends--Baldwin, afterwards archbishop; +Foliot, one of the chief scholars of his time; Richard of Ilchester, as +learned in theology as capable in administration; John of Oxford, lawyer +and theologian; Peter of Blois, ready for all kinds of services that might +be asked, and as skilled in theology as in rhetoric. Henry was never known +to choose an unworthy friend; laymen could only grumble that he was +accustomed to take advice of bishops and abbots rather than that of +knights even about military matters. But theology was not the main +preoccupation of the court. Henry, inquisitive in all things, learned +in most, formed the centre of a group of distinguished men which, for +varied intellectual activity, had no rival save at the university of +Paris. There was not a court in Christendom in the affairs of which the +king was not concerned, and a crowd of travellers was for ever coming and +going. English chroniclers grew inquisitive about revolutions in Norway, +the state of parties in Germany, the geography of Spain. They copied +despatches and treaties. They asked endless questions of every traveller +as to what was passing abroad, and noted down records which have since +become authorities for the histories of foreign states. Political and +historical questions were eagerly debated. Gerald of Wales and Glanville, +as they rode together, would discuss why the Normans had so fallen away in +valour that now even when helped by the English they were less able to +resist the French than formerly when they stood alone. The philosophic +Glanville might suggest that the French at that time had been weakened by +previous wars, but Gerald, true to the feudal instincts of a baron of the +Norman-Welsh border, spoke of the happy days before dukes had been made +into kings, who oppressed the Norman nobles by their overbearing violence, +and the English by their insular tyranny; "For there is nothing which so +stirs the heart of man as the joy of liberty, and there is nothing which +so weakens it as the oppression of slavery," said Gerald, who had himself +felt the king's hand heavy on him. + +One of the most striking features of the court was the group of great +lawyers which surrounded the king. The official nobility trained at the +Exchequer and Curia Regis, and bound together by the daily work of +administering justice, formed a class which was quite unknown anywhere +on the continent. It was not till a generation later that a few clerks +learned in civil law were called to the king's court of justice in +France, and the system was not developed till the time of Louis IX.; in +Germany such a reform did not take place for centuries. But in England +judges and lawyers were already busied in building up the scientific +study of English law. Richard Fitz-Neal, son of Bishop Nigel of Ely and +great-nephew of Roger of Salisbury, and himself Treasurer of the +Exchequer and Bishop of London, began in 1178 the _Dialogus de Scaccario_, +an elaborate account of the whole system of administration. Glanville, +the king's justiciar, drew up probably the oldest version which we have +of the Conqueror's laws and the English usages which still prevailed in +the inferior jurisdictions. A few years later he wrote his _Tractatus de +Legibus Angliae_, which was in fact a handbook for the Curia Regis, and +described the new process in civil trials and the rules established by the +Norman lawyers for the King's Court and its travelling judges. Thomas +Brown, the king's almoner, besides his daily record of the king's doings, +left behind him an account of the laws of the kingdom. + +The court became too a great school of history. From the reign of Alfred +to the end of the Wars of the Roses there is but one break in the +contemporary records of our history, a break which came in the years +that followed the outbreak of feudal lawlessness. In 1143 William of +Malmesbury and Orderic ceased writing; in 1151 the historians who had +carried on the task of Florence of Worcester also ceased; three years +later the Saxon Chronicle itself came to an end, and in 1155 Henry of +Huntingdon finished his work. From 1154 to 1170 we have, in fact, no +contemporary chronicle. In the historical schools of the north compilers +had laboured at Hexham, at Durham, and in the Yorkshire monasteries to +draw together valuable chronicles founded on the work of Baeda; but in +1153 the historians of Hexham closed their work, and those of Durham in +1161. Only the monks of Melrose still carried on their chronicle as far +as 1169. The great tradition, however, was once more worthily taken up +by the men of Henry's court, kindled by the king's intellectual activity. +A series of chronicles appeared in a few years, which are unparalleled in +Europe at the time. At the head of the court historians stood the +treasurer, Richard Fitz Neal, the author of the _Dialogus_, who in 1172 +began a learned work in three columns, treating of the ecclesiastical, +political, and miscellaneous history of England in his time--a work which +some scholars say is included in the _Gesta Henrici II_ that was once +connected with the name of Benedict of Peterborough. The king's clerk +and justiciar, Roger of Hoveden, must have been collecting materials for +the famous Chronicle which he began very soon after Henry's death, when +he gathered up and completed the work of the Durham historians. Gervase +of Tilbury, marshal of the kingdom of Arles, well known in every great +town of Italy and Sicily, afterwards the writer of _Otia Imperialia_ for +the Emperor Otto IV., wrote a book of anecdotes, now lost, for the younger +King Henry. Gerald of Wales, a busy courtier, and later a chaplain of the +king, was the brilliant historian of the Irish conquest and the mighty +deeds of his cousins, the Fitz Geralds and Fitz Stephens. "In process of +time when the work was completed, not willing to hide his candle under a +bushel, but to place it on a candlestick that it might give light to all, +he resolved to read it publicly at Oxford, where the most learned and +famous English clergy were at that time to be found. And as there were +three distinctions or divisions in the work, and as each division occupied +a day, the reading lasted three successive days. On the first day he +received and entertained at his lodgings all the poor of the town, on the +next day all the doctors of the different faculties and such of their +pupils as were of fame and note, on the third day the rest of the scholars +with the _milites_, townsmen, and many burgesses. It was a costly and noble +act; the authentic and ancient times of poesy were thus in some measure +renewed, and neither present nor past time can furnish any record of +such a solemnity having ever taken place in England." + +Literature was shaking itself free from the limits imposed upon it while +it lay wholly in the hands of churchmen, and Gerald's writings, the +first books of vivacious and popular prose-writing in England, were +avowedly composed for "laymen and uneducated princes," and professed to +tell "the doings of the people." He declared his intention to use common +and easily understood words as he told his tales of Ireland and Wales, +of their physical features, their ways and customs, and with a literary +instinct that knew no scruple, added scandal, gossip, satire, bits of +folk-lore or of classical learning or of Bible phrases, which might +serve the purposes of literary artifice or of frank conceit. The +independent temper which had been stirred by the fight with the Church +was illustrated in his _Speculum Ecclesiae_, a bitter satire on the +monks and on the Roman Curia. A yet more terrible scorn of the crime and +vice which disgraced the Church inspired the _Apocalypse_ and the +_Confession of Bishop Goliath_, the work of Walter Map, Archdeacon of +Oxford, king's chaplain ever since the days when Becket was chancellor, +justiciar, ambassador, poet, scholar, theologian, satirist. The greater +part of the legends of the Saint Graal that sprang out of the work of +Robert de Boron were probably woven together by his genius; and were +used in the great strife to prove that the English Church originated +independently of Rome. His _Courtier's Triflings_, suggested by John of +Salisbury's _Polycraticus_, is the only book which actually bears his +name, and with its gossip, its odd accumulations of learning, its +fragments of ancient history, its outbursts of moral earnestness, its +philosophy, brings back to us the very temper of the court and the stir +and quickening of men's minds--a stir which found expression in other +works of bitter satire, in the lampoon of _Ralph Niger_, and in the +violent attacks on the monks by _Nigellus_. + +Nor was the new intellectual activity confined to the court. The whole +country shared in the movement. Good classical learning might be had in +England, if for the new-fashioned studies of canon law and theology men +had to go abroad; but conservative scholars grumbled that now law and +physics had become such money-making sciences that they were beginning +to cut short the time which used to be given to classical studies. +Gerald of Wales mourned over the bringing in from Spain of "certain +treatises, lately found and translated, pretended to have been written +by Aristotle," which tended to foster heresy. The cathedral schools, +such as York, Lincoln, or London, played the part of the universities in +our own day. The household of the Archbishop of Canterbury had been the +earliest and the most distinguished centre of learning. Of all the +remarkable men of the day there was none to compare with John of +Salisbury, the friend of Theobald and of Becket, and his book, the +__Polycraticus_ (1156-59), was perhaps the most important work of the +time. It begins by recounting the follies of the court, passes on to the +discussion of politics and philosophy, deals with the ethical systems of +the ancients, and hints at a new system of his own, and is everywhere +enriched by wide reading and learning acquired at the schools of +Chartres and Paris London could boast of the historian Ralph of Diceto, +always ready with a quotation from the classics amid the court news and +politics of his day. Monasteries rivaled one another in their collection +of books and in drawing up of chronicles. If their brethren were more +famed for piety than for literary arts, they would borrow some noted man +of learning, or even a practised scribe, who would for the occasion +write under a famous name. The friends and followers of Becket told +on every side and in every way, in prose or poetry, in Latin or +Norman-French, the story of their master's martyrdom and miracles. The +greatest historian of his day, William of Newburgh, was monk in a quiet +little Yorkshire monastery. Gervase, a monk of Canterbury, began the +Chronicle that bears his name in 1185. The historical workers of Durham, +of Hexham, and of Melrose started into a new activity. A canon of the +priory of St. Bartholomew's in London wrote before Henry's death a life of +its founder Rahere, and noted the first cases received into the hospital. +Joseph of Exeter, brother of Archbishop Baldwin, was the brilliant author +of a Latin poem on the _Troy Story_, and of a poetic history of the first +crusade. There was scarcely a religious house in the whole land which +could not boast of some distinction in learning or literature. + +Even the feudal nobles caught the prevailing temper. A baron was not +content to have only his household dwarf or jester, he must have his +household poet too. Intellectual interest and curiosity began to spread +beyond the class of clerks to whom Latin, the language of learning and +worship, was familiar, and a demand began to spring up for a popular +literature which could be understood of the unlearned baron or burgher. +Virgil and Statius and Ovid were translated into French. Wace in 1155 +dedicated to Eleanor his translation into Norman-French of the _History +of Geoffrey of Monmouth_, a book which came afterwards to be called the +_Brut d'Engleterre_, and was one of the sources of the first important +English poem, Layamon's _Brut_. Later on, in honour of Henry, Wace told +in the _Roman de Rou_ the story of his Norman ancestors, and the poem, +especially in the account of Senlac, has given some brilliant details to +history. Other Norman-French poems were written in England on the +rebellion, on the conquest of Ireland, on the life of the martyred +Thomas--poems which threw off the formal rules of the stilted Latin +fashion, and embodied the tales of eye-witnesses with their graphic +brief descriptions. An Anglo-Norman literature of song and sermon fast +grew up, absolutely identical in tongue with the Norman literature +beyond the Channel, but marked by special characteristics of thought and +feeling. Meanwhile English, as the speech of the common folk, still +lived on as a tongue apart, a tongue so foreign to judges and barons and +Courtiers that authors or transcribers could not copy half a dozen +English lines without a mistake. The serfs and traders who spoke it were +too far removed from the upper court circle to take into their speech +foreign words or foreign grammatical forms; the songs which their +minstrels sang from fair to fair only lived on the lips of the poor, and +left no echo behind them. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +THE DEATH OF HENRY + +In the last nine years of Henry's reign his work lay elsewhere than in +his English kingdom. They were years spent in a passionate effort to +hold together the unwieldy empire he had so laboriously built up. On the +death of Louis in 1180 the peaceful and timid traditions of his reign +were cast aside by the warlike Philip, who had from childhood cherished +a violent hatred against Henry, and who was bent on the destruction of +rival powers, and the triumph of the monarchy in France. Henry's +absorbing care, on the other hand, was to prevent war; and during the +next four years he constantly forced reconciliation on the warring +princes of France. "All who loved peace rejoiced at his coming," the +chroniclers constantly repeat. "He had faith in the Lord, that if he +crossed over he could make peace." "As though always at his coming peace +should certainly be made." + +But in Britanny and in Aquitaine there was no peace. The sons whom he +had set over his provinces had already revolted in 1173. In 1177 fresh +troubles broke out, and from that time their history was one of unbroken +revolt against their father and strife amongst themselves. "Dost thou +not know," Geoffrey once answered a messenger of his father's, sent to +urge him to peace, "that it is our proper nature, planted in us by +inheritance from our ancestors, that none of us should love the other, +but that ever brother should strive against brother, and son against +father. I would not that thou shouldst deprive us of our hereditary +right, nor vainly seek to rob us of our nature!" In 1182 Henry sought +once more to define the authority of his sons, and to assert the unity +of the Empire under his own supremacy by ordering Richard and Geoffrey +to do homage to their brother for Aquitaine and Britanny. Richard's +passionate refusal struck the first open blow at his father's imperial +schemes, and war at once broke out. The nobles of Aquitaine, weary of +the severe rule of Richard, had long plotted to set in his place his +gentler brother Henry, and the young king, along with Geoffrey, lent +himself openly to the conspiracy. In 1183 they called for help from +Flanders, France, and Normandy, and a general revolt seemed on the point +of breaking out, like that of ten years before. Henry II. was forced to +march himself into Aquitaine. But in a war with his sons he was no +longer the same man as when he fought with French king or rebel barons. +His political sagacity and his passionate love of his children fought an +unequal battle. Duped by every show of affection, he was at their mercy +in intrigue. Twice peaceful embassies, which he sent to Henry and +Geoffrey, were slain before their eyes without protest. As he himself +talked with them they coolly saw one of their archers shoot at him and +wound his horse. The younger Henry pretended to make peace with his +father, sitting at meat with him, and eating out of the same dish, that +Geoffrey might have time to ravage the land unhindered. Geoffrey +successfully adopted the same device in order to plunder the churches of +Limoges. The wretched strife was only closed at last by the death of the +younger Henry in 1183. + +His death, however, only opened new anxieties. Richard now claimed to +take his brother's place as heir to the imperial dignity, while at the +same time he exercised undivided lordship over an important state a +position which the king had again and again refused to Henry. Geoffrey, +whose over-lord the young king had been, sought to rule Britanny as a +dependent of Philip, and his plots in Paris with the French king were +only ended by his death in 1185. Philip, on his part, demanded, at the +death of the young king, the restoration of Margaret's dowry, the Vexin +and Gisors; when Geoffrey died he claimed to be formally recognized as +suzerain of Britanny, and guardian of his infant; he demanded that +Richard should do homage directly to him as sovereign lord of Aquitaine, +and determined to assert his rights over the lands so long debated of +Berri and Auvergne. For the last years of Henry's reign disputes raged +round these points, and more than once war was only averted by the +excitement which swept over Europe at the disastrous news from the Holy +Land. + +After the death of the young king a precarious peace was established in +Aquitaine, and Henry returned to England. In March 1185 he received at +Reading the patriarch of Jerusalem and the master of the Hospital, +bearing the standard of the kings of the Holy Land, with the keys of the +Holy Sepulchre, of the tower of David, and of the city of Jerusalem. +"Behold the keys of the kingdom," said the patriarch Heracles with a +burst of tears, "which the king and princes of the land have ordered me +to give to thee, because it is in thee alone, after God, that they have +hope and confidence of salvation." The king reverently received them +before the weeping assembly, but handed them back to the safekeeping of +the patriarch till he could consult with his barons. He had long been +pledged to join the holy war; he had renewed his vow in 1177 and 1181. +But it was a heavy burden to be now charged with the crown of Jerusalem. +Since the days of his grandfather, Fulk of Anjou, the last strong king +of Jerusalem, there had been swift decay. Three of his successors were +minors; Antone was a leper; the fifth was repudiated by every one of his +vassals. The last forty years had been marked by continual disaster. The +armies of the Moslem were closing in fast on every side. A passion of +sympathy was everywhere roused by the sorrows of the Holy City. All +England, it was said, desired the crusade, and Henry's prudent counting +of the cost struck coldly on the excited temper of the time. Gerald of +Wales officiously took on himself, in the middle of a hunting party, to +congratulate the king on the honour done to him and his kingdom, since +the patriarch had passed by the lands of emperors and kings to seek out +the English sovereign. Talk of this kind before all the court at such a +critical moment much displeased the prudent king, and he answered in his +biting way, "If the patriarch, or any other men come to me, they seek +rather their own than my gain." The unabashed Gerald still went on, +"Thou shouldst think it thy highest gain and honour, king, that thou +alone art chosen before all the sovereigns of the earth for so great a +service to Christ." "Thus bravely," retorted Henry, "the clergy provoke +us to arms and dangers, since they themselves receive no blow in the +battle, nor bear any burden which they may avoid!" + +Henry's council, however, held firm against the general tide of romantic +enthusiasm. In the weighty question of the eastern crown the king had +formally and openly pledged himself to act by the advice of his wise +men, as no king before him since the Conquest had ever done. An assembly +was summoned at Clerkenwell on the 18th of March. No councillors were +called from Anjou or Normandy or Aquitaine; the decision was made solely +by the advice of the prelates and barons of England. "It seemed to all," +declared the council, "to be more fitting, and more for the safety of +his soul, that he should govern his kingdom with moderation and preserve +it from the irruptions of barbarians and from foreign nations, than that +he should in his own person provide for the safety of the eastern +nations." The verdict showed the new ideal of kingship which had grown +up during Henry's reign, and which made itself deeply felt over the +whole land when in the days of his successor the duties of righteous +government were thrown aside for the vainglories of religious chivalry. +But the patriarch heard the answer with bitter disappointment, and was +not appeased by promises of money and forces for the war. "Not thus will +you save your soul nor the heritage of Christ," he declared. "We come to +seek a king, not money; for every corner of the world sends us money, +but not one a prince." And in open court he flung his fierce prophecy at +the king, that as till now he had been greatest among the kings of the +earth, so henceforth, forsaken by God and destitute of His grace, until +his latest breath his glory should be turned into disaster and his +honour into shame. Henry, as he rode with the patriarch back to Dover, +listened with his strange habitual forbearance while Heraclius poured +forth angry reproaches for the iniquities of his whole life, and +declared at last that he had almost with his own hands slain St. Thomas. +At this the king fiercely turned, with his eyes rolling in a mad storm +of passion, and the patriarch bent his head. "Do with me," he cried, +"what you did to Thomas. I would rather have my head cut off by you in +England than by the Saracens in Palestine, for in truth you are worse +than any Saracen!" The king answered with an oath, "If all the men of my +kingdom were gathered in one body and spoke with one mouth they would +not dare to say this to me." Heraclius pointed scornfully to the train +of followers. "Do you indeed think that these men love you--these who +care only for your wealth? It is the plunder, and not the man, that this +crowd follows after!" Henry spoke of the danger from his sons if he +should quit his dominions. "No wonder," was the parting taunt of +Heraclius; "from the devil they came, and to the devil they will go." + +But Henry was never to come back to England. One day in June a certain +Walter of the royal household was terrified by a vision of St. Thomas, +who appeared bearing a shining sword which he declared had been newly +forged to pierce through the king himself. Walter hurried to the chapel, +where Henry was at mass, to tell his tale. Three times the king bent +before the altar and signed himself devoutly as though he prayed to the +Lord, and then passed to his council chamber. The next day he called +Walter to his presence, and sadly shaking his head, spoke with deep +sighs, "Walter, Walter, I have felt how cruelly thy sword can strike, +for we have lost Chateauroux!" War had in fact broken out in Aquitaine. +Toulouse had risen against Richard. Philip, in violation of his treaty, +invaded Berri and marched into Auvergne. Hastily gathering an army, +Henry crossed to France in a terrible storm. He met Philip at Gisors on +the 30th of September, but after three days' bitter strife the kings +parted. In November they met again at Bonmoulins in the presence of the +Archbishop of Reims, and a great multitude of courtiers and knights. +Richard, outraged by the rumour that Henry proposed to give Aquitaine to +John, turned suddenly to Philip, while the people crowded round wondering, +ungirt his sword, and stretched out his hands to do homage to him for all +his father's lands from the Channel to the Pyrenees. His unhappy father +started back, stunned by this new calamity, "for he had not forgotten the +evil which Henry his son had done to him with the help of King Louis, and +this Philip was yet worse than his father Louis." As father and son fell +apart the people rushed together, while at the tumult the outer ring of +soldiers laid their hands upon their swords, and thus Philip and Richard +went out together, leaving Henry alone. + +A great solitude had indeed fallen on the old king. His wife was still +guarded as a prisoner. Two of his sons had died traitors to their +father. A third was in open rebellion. All his daughters were in far-off +lands, and one of them was soon to die. Only one son remained to him of +all his household, and to him Henry now clung with a great love--the +fierce tenacity of an affection that knew no other hope. The king +himself was only fifty-six; but he was already an old man, worn out by +the prodigious labours and anxieties of forty years. There were moments +when a passionate despair settled down on his soul. One day he called +his two friends, Baldwin and Hugh, out from the crowd of courtiers to +ride beside him, and the bitterness of his heart broke forth, "Why +should I revere Christ!" he cried, "why should I think Him worthy of +honour who takes from me all honour in my lands, and suffers me to be +thus shamefully confounded before that camp follower?" as he called the +king of France. Then, as if beside himself, he struck spurs into his +horse, and dashed back again into the throng of courtiers. + +In the eyes of the world, however, Henry was still the most renowned +among the kings of the earth in his unassailable triumph and success. +For forty years his reign had been one long triumph. From every difficulty +conquered he had gained new strength; every rebellion had left him more +unquestioned master. He had never yet known defeat. The Church was now +earnest in his support. Papal legates won for him a truce of two months +after the conference at Bonmoulins, and when at its close Britanny broke +out in revolt, and Richard led an army against his father's lands, the +legates again procured peace till after Easter. From February to June of +1189 Henry waited at Le Mans, still confident, it would seem, of peace. +Once more legates were appointed to bring about a settlement between the +two kings at La Ferte Bernardon the 4th of June. With a fierce outburst +of anger Henry passionately refused the demands of Philip. The legate +threatened to lay France under an interdict if Philip persisted in war, +but Philip only retorted that the Roman Church had no right to interfere +between the king of France and his rebel vassals, and added with a sneer +that the cardinals already smelt English gold. Then at last Henry +abandoned the hope of peace. His treasury was empty, and his lands on both +sides of the water had been taxed to the last penny. His troops had melted +away in search of more abundant pay. He was shut in between hostile +forces--Breton rebels to westward, and the allied armies of Philip and +Richard to eastward. The danger roused his old defiant energy. Glanville +hurried to England "to compel all English knights, however exhausted and +poor, to cross to France," while the king himself, with a few faithful +barons and a small body of mercenaries, fell back on Le Mans, swearing +that he would never forsake the citizens of the town where he had +been born. + +The French army, however, followed hard after him. On the 9th of June +Philip and Richard halted fifteen miles off Le Mans, on the 11th of June +they encamped under its walls. The next day they broke through the +handful of troops who desperately held the bridge. A wealthy suburb +which could no longer be defended was set on fire, so that it should not +give shelter to the enemy, the wind swept the flames into the city, and +Henry saw himself shut in between the burning town and the advancing +Frenchmen. Then for the first time in his life he turned his back upon +his enemies. At the head of 700 horsemen he rode out over a bridge to +the north, and fled towards Normandy. As he mounted the spur of a hill +two miles off, he turned to look at the flames that rose from the city, +and in the bitterness of his humiliation he cursed God--"The city which +I have loved best on earth, the city in which I was born and bred, where +my father lies buried, where is the body of Saint Julian--this Thou, O +God, to the heaping up of my confusion, and to the increase of my shame, +hast taken from me in this base manner! I therefore will requite as best +I can; I will assuredly rob Thee too of the thing in me which Thou +lovest best!" + +For twenty miles the king, with his son Geoffrey the chancellor, and a +few faithful followers, rode furiously under the burning sun through +narrow lanes and broken roads till knights sank and died on the way. +Once he was only saved from capture by the breaking of a bridge over a +stream which was too deep for the pursuers to ford. Once Count Richard +himself followed so hard upon them that he came up with the flying +troop. William the marshal turned and raised his lance. "God's feet, +marshal, do not kill me!" cried Richard; "I have no hauberk!" William +struck his spear into the count's horse, so that it fell dead. "No, I +will not kill you. Let the devil kill you!" he shouted with a fierce +memory of the old prophecy. By nightfall Henry reached La Frenaye, +within a day's ride of the Norman border. He threw himself on a bed, +refusing to be undressed, and would scarcely allow Geoffrey to cover him +with his own cloak. The next morning he sent his friends forward into +Normandy to gather its forces and renew the war. But he himself, in +spite of all prayers and warnings, declared that he would go back to +Anjou. His passionate emotion threw aside all cold calculations of +reason. Every fortress on the way was in the hands of enemies; hostile +armies were pressing in on every side; the roads were held by foreign +troops,--French and Poitevin, Flemish mercenaries and Breton rebels--as +the stricken king rode through the forests and along the trackways he +had learned to know as a hunter in earlier days. Never had his indomitable +will, his romantic daring, been so great as in this last desperate ride to +reach the home of his race. He started on the 13th of June. Before the end +of the month Geoffrey had hurried back from Normandy, and together they +went to Chinon. + +Henry was now shut in on every side. Poitou and Britanny were both in +revolt. The forts along the Sarthe, the Loir, and the Loire had fallen +into the hands of Philip. On the 30th of June his army was seen under +the walls of Tours. Henry himself was on the same day suddenly struck +down by fever; unable to meet the French king, he fell back down the +river to Saumur. The great French princes, aghast at the swift catastrophe +which had fallen, men scarcely knew how, on the Angevin king, trembling +lest in this strange victory of the French monarchy his ruin should be the +beginning of their own destruction, made a last effort for peace. But +Philip stood firm, "seeing that God had delivered his enemy into his +hand." On Monday, the 3d of July, the walls of Tours fell before his +assault, and he sent a final summons to Henry to meet him at Colombieres, +a field near Tours. The king travelled as far as the house of the Templars +at Ballan. But there he was seized with intolerable agony in every nerve +of his body from head to foot. Leaning for support against a wall in his +extreme anguish, he called to him William the marshal, and the pitying +bystanders laid him on a bed. News of his illness was carried to the +French camp. But Richard felt no touch of pity. His father was but +feigning some excuse to put off the meeting, he told Philip; and a +message was sent back commanding him to appear on the next day. The sick +king again called the marshal, and prayed him at whatever labour to carry +him to the conference. "Cost what it may," he vowed, "I will grant +whatever they ask to get them to depart. But this I tell you of a surety, +if I can but live I will heal the country from war, and win my land back +again." With a final effort of his indomitable will he rode on the 4th of +July through the sultry summer heat to Colombieres. The great assembly +gathered to witness the triumph of France was struck with horror at the +marks of suffering on his face, and Philip himself, moved by a sudden +pity, called for a cloak to be spread on the ground on which the king +might sit. But Henry's fierce temper flashed out once more; he would not +sit, he said; even as he was he would hear what they asked of him, and why +they cut short his lands. Then Philip stated his demands. Henry must do +homage, and place himself wholly at the French king's mercy to do whatever +he should decree. Richard must receive, as Henry's heir, the fealty of the +barons of the lands on both sides the sea. A heavy sum was to be paid to +Philip for his conquests in Berri. Richard and Philip were to hold Le Mans +and Tours, and the other castles of Maine and Touraine, or else the +castles of the Vexin, until the treaty was completely carried out. Henry's +barons were to swear that they would force him to observe these terms. + +As Henry hesitated for a moment at these crushing demands, a sudden +terrible thunder broke from the still air. Both kings fell back with +superstitious awe, for there had been no warning cloud or darkness. +After a little space they again went forward, and again out of the +serene sky came a yet louder and more awful peal. Henry, half fainting +with suffering, was only prevented from falling to the ground by the +friends who held him up on horseback while he made his submission to his +rival and accepted the terms of peace. Then for the last time he spoke +with his faithless son Richard. As the formal kiss of peace was given, +the count caught his father's fierce whisper, "May God not let me die +until I have worthily avenged myself on thee!" The terrible words were +to Richard only a merry tale, with which on his return he stirred the +French court to great laughter. + +Henry was carried back the same day in a litter to Chinon. So sudden and +amazing a downfall was to the superstitious terror of the time, evident +token that the curse of Thomas had come to rest on him. The vengeance of +the implacable martyr seemed to follow him through every act of the +great drama. In Philip's scornful refusal to allow Henry to swear +obedience, "saving his honour and the dignity of his kingdom," the +zealots of the day saw a just retribution. At Chinon a deputation of +monks from Canterbury met him. "Trusting that in his affliction he might +pity the affliction of the Church," and grant demands long urged by the +convent, they had sought him out, "going through swords." "The convent +of Canterbury salutes you as their lord," they began, as they forced +their way into the sick king's presence. Henry broke in with bitter +indignation, "Then lord I have been, and am still, and will be yet--small +thanks to you, ye evil traitors!" he added in a lower voice, which just +caught the ears of the furious monks. But he listened patiently to their +complaint. "Now go out," he said, "I will speak with my faithful +servants." As the monks passed out one of them stopped and laid his curse +on the king, who trembled and grew pale at the terrible words. "The +omnipotent God of His ineffable mercy, and for the merits of the blessed +martyr Thomas, if his life and passion has been well pleasing to Him, +will shortly do us justice on thy body." Tortured with suffering, Henry +still summoned strength for his last public act. He called his clerk and +dictated a letter to Canterbury, to urge patience till his return, when +he would consider their complaint and find a way out of the difficulty. +The same evening his chancellor, whom he had sent to Philip at Tours, +returned with the list of those who had conspired against him Henry bade +him read the names. "Sire," he said, "may Jesus Christ help me! the first +name which is written here is the name of Count John your son." The king +started up from his pillow. "Is it true," he cried, "that John, my very +heart, whom I have loved beyond all my sons, and for whose gain I have +brought upon me all this misery, has forsaken me?" Then he laid himself +down again and turned his face to the wall. "Now you have said enough," he +said. "Let all the rest go as it will, I care no more for myself nor for +the world." From this time he grew delirious. But still in the intervals +of his ravings the great passionate nature, the defiance, the unconquered +will broke out with inextinguishable force. He cursed the day on which he +was born, and called down Heaven's vengeance on his sons. The great king's +pride was bowed in the extremity of his ruin and defeat. "Shame," he +muttered constantly, "shame on a conquered king." Geoffrey watched by him +faithfully, and the dying king's last thoughts turned to him with grateful +love. On the 6th of July, the seventh day of his illness, he was seized +with violent hemorrhage, and the end came almost instantaneously. The next +day his body was borne to Fontevraud, where his sculptured tomb still +stands. To the astonished onlookers at the great tragedy, the grave in a +convent church, separated from the tombs of his Angevin forefathers and of +his Norman ancestors, far from his English kingdom, seemed part of the +strange disasters foretold by Merlin and inspired messengers. But no +ruler of his age had raised for himself so great a monument as Henry. +Amid the ruin that overwhelmed his imperial schemes, his realm of +England stood as the true and lasting memorial of his genius. Englishmen +then, as Englishmen now, taught by the "remembrance of his good times," +recognized him as one of the foremost on the roll of those who have been +the makers of England's greatness. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRY THE SECOND*** + + +******* This file should be named 10494.txt or 10494.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/9/10494 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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