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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10574 ***
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+     Like much 18th and 19th century publishing, the edition of
+     David Hume's "History of England" from which this text was
+     prepared makes extensive use of both footnotes and marginal
+     notes.  Since this e-text format does not allow use of the
+     original superscripts to denote the lettered footnotes, they
+     are indicated by the relevant letter within brackets, thus
+     "[a]", and the footnotes themselves are reproduced within
+     brackets and preceded by "FN" at the end of the PARAGRAPH to
+     which they relate; since some of Hume's paragraphs are
+     considerably longer than is normal in 21st century American or
+     British writing, you may have to scroll some distance to find
+     the text of the footnote.  All footnotes are reproduced
+     exactly as in the printed text.
+
+     More discretion has been exercised regarding marginal notes.
+     Those which simply repeat chapter numbers and dates already
+     given in the text are omitted as non-essential clutter.  The
+     remainder are reproduced within brackets and preceded by "MN".
+     Those marginal notes which appear to correspond to sub-chapter
+     headings are reproduced as the first line of the paragraph to
+     which they relate.  Other marginal notes are reproduced within
+     the text of the paragraph.  Some apparently incomplete
+     marginal notes ending or beginning with ellipses are due to
+     cases where what is logically a single marginal note has been
+     broken into two or more pieces separated by a considerable
+     vertical distance.
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, VOLUME I
+
+From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688
+
+by
+
+DAVID HUME, ESQ.
+
+With the Author's Last Corrections and Improvements, to which is
+prefixed a Short Account of His Life Written by Himself
+
+
+
+COMPLETE IN SIX VOLUMES
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MY OWN LIFE.
+
+It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity;
+therefore I shall be short.  It may be thought an instance of vanity
+that I pretend at all to write my life; but this narrative shall
+contain little more than the history of my writings; as, indeed,
+almost all my life has been spent in literary pursuits and
+occupations.  The first success of most of my writings was not such as
+to be an object of vanity.
+
+I was born the 26th of April, 1711, old style, at Edinburgh.  I was of
+a good family, both by father and mother: my father's family is a
+branch of the Earl of Home's, or Hume's; and my ancestors had been
+proprietors of the estate which my brother possesses, for several
+generations.  My mother was daughter of Sir David Falconer, President
+of the College of Justice: the title of Lord Halkerton came by
+succession to her brother.
+
+My family, however, was not rich; and being myself a younger brother,
+my patrimony, according to the mode of my country, was of course very
+slender.  My father, who passed for a man of parts, died when I was an
+infant, leaving me, with an elder brother and a sister, under the care
+of our mother, a woman of singular merit, who, though young and
+handsome, devoted herself entirely to the rearing and educating of her
+children.  I passed through the ordinary course of education with
+success, and was seized very early with a passion for literature,
+which has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of
+my enjoyments.  My studious disposition, my sobriety, and my industry,
+gave my family a notion that the law was a proper profession for me;
+but I found an unsurmountable aversion to every thing but the pursuits
+of philosophy and general learning; and while they fancied I was
+poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which
+I was secretly devouring.
+
+My very slender fortune, however, being unsuitable to this plan of
+life, and my health being a little broken by my ardent application, I
+was tempted, or rather forced, to make a very feeble trial for
+entering into a more active scene of life.  In 1734 I went to Bristol,
+with some recommendations to several merchants; but in a few months
+found that scene totally unsuitable to me.  I went over to France with
+a view of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat; and I there
+laid that plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued.
+I resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of
+fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every
+object as contemptible, except the improvement of my talents in
+literature.
+
+During my retreat in France, first at Rheims but chiefly at La Fleche,
+in Anjou, I composed my Treatise of Human Nature.  After passing three
+years very agreeably in that country, I came over to London in  1737.
+In the end of 1738 I published my Treatise, and immediately went down
+to my mother and my brother, who lived at his country-house, and
+employed himself very judiciously and successfully in the improvement
+of his fortune.
+
+Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human
+Nature.  It fell DEAD-BORN FROM THE PRESS, without reaching such
+distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots.  But being
+naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I very soon recovered the
+blow, and prosecuted with great ardour my studies in the country.  In
+1742 I printed at Edinburgh the first part of my Essays: the work was
+favourably received, and soon made me entirely forget my former
+disappointment.  I continued with my mother and brother in the
+country, and in that time recovered the knowledge of the Greek
+language, which I had too much neglected in my early youth.
+
+In 1745 I received a letter from the Marquis of Annandale, inviting me
+to come and live with him in England; I found, also, that the friends
+and family of that young nobleman were desirous of putting him under
+my care and direction, for the state of his mind and health required
+it.--I lived with him a twelve-month.  My appointments during that
+time made a considerable accession to my small fortune.  I then
+received an invitation from General St. Clair to attend him as a
+secretary to his expedition, which was at first meant against Canada,
+but ended in an incursion on the coast of France.  Next year, to wit,
+1747, I received an invitation from the general to attend him in the
+same station in his military embassy to the courts of Vienna and
+Turin.  I then wore the uniform of an  officer, and was introduced at
+these courts as aide-de-camp to the general, along with Sir Harry
+Erskine and Captain Grant, now General Grant.  These two years were
+almost the only interruptions which my studies have received during
+the course of my life: I passed them agreeably and in good company;
+and my appointments, with my frugality, had made me reach a fortune
+which I called independent, though most of my friends were inclined to
+smile when I said so: in short, I was now master of near a thousand
+pounds.
+
+I had always entertained a notion, that my want of success in
+publishing the Treatise of Human Nature, had proceeded more from the
+manner than the matter, and that I had been guilty of a very usual
+indiscretion, in going to the press too early.  I therefore cast the
+first part of that work anew in the Enquiry concerning Human
+Understanding, which was published while I was at Turin.  But this
+piece was at first little more successful than the Treatise of Human
+Nature.  On my return from Italy, I had the mortification to find all
+England in a ferment, on account of Dr. Middleton's Free Enquiry,
+while my performance was entirely over-looked and neglected.  A new
+edition which had been published in London, of my Essays, moral and
+political, met not with a much better reception.
+
+Such is the force of natural temper, that these disappointments made
+little or no impression on me.  I went down in 1749, and lived two
+years with my brother at his country-house, for my mother was now
+dead.  I there composed the second part of my Essay, which I called
+Political Discourses, and also my Enquiry concerning the Principles of
+Morals, which is another part of my treatise that I cast anew.
+Meanwhile my bookseller, A. Miller, informed me that my former
+publications (all but the unfortunate Treatise) were beginning to be
+the subject of conversation; that the sale of them was gradually
+increasing; and that new editions were demanded.  Answers by Reverends
+and Right Reverends came out two or three in a year; and I found, by
+Dr. Warburton's railing, that the books were beginning to be esteemed
+in good company.  However, I had a fixed resolution, which I
+inflexibly maintained, never to reply to any body; and not being very
+irascible in my temper, I have easily kept myself clear of all
+literary squabbles.  These symptoms of a rising reputation gave me
+encouragement, as I was ever more disposed to see the favourable than
+the unfavourable side of things; a turn of mind which it is more happy
+to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year.
+
+In 1751 I removed from the country to the town, the true scene for a
+man of letters.  In 1752 were published at Edinburgh, where I then
+lived, my Political Discourses, the only work of mine that was
+successful on the first publication.  It was well received at home and
+abroad.  In the same year was published, in London, my Enquiry
+concerning the Principles of Morals; which, in my own opinion, (who
+ought not to judge on that subject,) is of all my writings,
+historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best.  It
+came unnoticed and unobserved into the world.
+
+In 1752 the Faculty of Advocates chose me their librarian; an office
+from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the
+command of a large library.  I then formed the plan of writing the
+History of England; but being frightened with the notion of continuing
+a narrative through a period of one thousand seven hundred years, I
+commenced with the accession of the house of Stuart, an epoch when, I
+thought, the misrepresentations of faction began chiefly to take
+place.  I was, I own, sanguine in my expectations of the success of
+this work.  I thought that I was the only historian that had at once
+neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of
+popular prejudices; and as the subject was suited to every capacity,
+I expected proportional applause.  But miserable was my
+disappointment: I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation,
+and even detestation; English, Scotch, and Irish, whig and tory,
+churchman and sectary, freethinker and religionist, patriot and
+courtier, united in their rage against the man who had presumed to
+shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of
+Strafford; and after the first ebullitions of their fury were over,
+what was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink into oblivion.
+Mr. Miller told me, that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five
+copies of it.  I scarcely, indeed, heard of one man in the three
+kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the
+book.  I must only except the primate of England, Dr. Herring, and the
+primate of Ireland, Dr. Stone, which seem two odd exceptions.  These
+dignified prelates separately sent me a message not to be discouraged.
+
+I was, however, I confess, discouraged; and had not the war at that
+time been breaking out between France and England, I had certainly
+retired to some provincial town of the former kingdom, have changed my
+name, and never more have returned to my native country. But as this
+scheme was not now practicable, and the  subsequent volume was
+considerably advanced, I resolved to pick up courage and to persevere.
+
+In this interval I published at London my Natural History of Religion,
+along with some other small pieces: its public entry was rather
+obscure, except only that Dr. Hurd wrote a pamphlet against it, with
+all the illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility, which
+distinguish the Warburtonian school.  This pamphlet gave me some
+consolation for the otherwise indifferent reception of my performance.
+
+In 1756, two years after the fall of the first volume, was published
+the second volume of my History, containing the period from the death
+of Charles I. till the Revolution.  This performance happened to give
+less displeasure to the whigs, and was better received.  It not only
+rose itself, but helped to buoy up its unfortunate brother.
+
+But though I had been taught by experience, that the whig party were
+in possession of bestowing all places, both in the state and in
+literature, I was so little inclined to yield to their senseless
+clamour, that in above a hundred alterations, which farther study,
+reading, or reflection, engaged me to make in the reigns of the two
+first Stuarts, I have made all of them invariably to the tory side.
+It is ridiculous to consider the English constitution before that
+period as a regular plan of liberty.
+
+In 1759 I published my History of the House of Tudor.  The clamour
+against this performance was almost equal to that against the History
+of the two first Stuarts.  The reign of Elizabeth was particularly
+obnoxious.  But I was now callous against the impressions of public
+folly, and continued very peaceably and contentedly in my retreat in
+Edinburgh, to finish, in two volumes, the more early part of the
+English History, which I gave to the public in 1761, with tolerable,
+and but tolerable, success.
+
+But notwithstanding this variety of winds and seasons to which my
+writings have been exposed, they had still been making such advances,
+that the copy-money given me by the booksellers much exceeded any
+thing formerly known in England: I retired to my native country of
+Scotland, determined never more to set my foot out of it; and
+retaining the satisfaction of never having preferred a request to one
+great man, or even making advances of friendship to any of them.  As I
+was now turned of fifty, I thought of passing all the rest of my life
+in this philosophical manner, when I received, in 1763, an invitation
+from the Earl of Hertford, with whom I was not in the least
+acquainted, to attend him on his embassy to Paris, with a near
+prospect of being appointed secretary to the embassy; and, in the
+meanwhile, of performing the functions of that office.  This offer,
+however inviting, I at first declined, both because I was reluctant to
+begin connexions with the great, and because I was afraid that the
+civilities and gay company of Paris would prove disagreeable to a
+person of my age and humour: but on his lordship's repeating the
+invitation, I accepted of it.  I have every reason, both of pleasure
+and interest, to think myself happy in my connexions with that
+nobleman, as well as afterwards with his brother General Conway.
+
+Those who have not seen the strange effects of modes will never
+imagine the reception I met with at Paris, from men and women of all
+ranks and stations.  The more I resiled from their excessive
+civilities, the more I was loaded with them.  There is, however, a
+real satisfaction in living at Paris, from the great number of
+sensible, knowing, and polite company with which that city abounds
+above all places in the universe.  I thought once of settling there
+for life.
+
+I was appointed secretary to the embassy; and in summer, 1765, Lord
+Hertford left me, being appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.  I was
+chargé d'affaires till the arrival of the Duke of Richmond, towards
+the end of the year.  In the beginning of 1766 I left Paris, and next
+summer went to Edinburgh, with the same view as formerly of burying
+myself in a philosophical retreat. I returned to that place, not
+richer, but with much more money, and a much larger income, by means
+of Lord Hertford's friendship, than I left it; and I was desirous of
+trying what superfluity could produce, as I had formerly made an
+experiment of a competency.  But in 1767 I received from Mr. Conway an
+invitation to be under-secretary; and this invitation, both the
+character of the person, and my connexions with Lord Hertford,
+prevented me from declining.  I returned to Edinburgh in 1769, very
+opulent, (for I possessed a revenue of 1000L. a year,) healthy, and,
+though somewhat stricken in years, with the prospect of enjoying long
+my ease, and of seeing the increase of my reputation.
+
+In spring, 1775, I was struck with a disorder in my bowels, which at
+first gave me no alarm, but has since, as I apprehend it, become
+mortal and incurable.  I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution.  I have
+suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange
+have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a
+moment's abatement of my spirits, inasmuch that were I to name a
+period of my life which I should most choose to pass over again, I
+might be tempted to point to this later period.  I possess the same
+ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company.  I consider,
+besides, that a man of sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few years
+of infirmities; and though I see many symptoms of my literary
+reputation's breaking out at last with additional lustre, I know that
+I could have but few years to enjoy it.  It is difficult to be more
+detached from life than I am at present.
+
+To conclude historically with my own character.  I am, or rather was,
+(for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which
+emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments)--I was, I say, a man of
+mild disposition, of command of temper, of an open, social, and
+cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of
+enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions.  Even my love of
+literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper,
+notwithstanding my frequent disappointments.  My company was not
+unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and
+literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest
+women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with
+from them.  In a word, though most men, anywise eminent, have found
+reason to complain of calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked
+by her baleful tooth; and though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage
+of both civil and religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my
+behalf of their wonted fury.  My friends never had occasion to
+vindicate any one circumstance of my  character and conduct: not but
+that the zealots, we may well suppose, would have been glad to invent
+and propagate any story to my disadvantage, but they could never find
+any which they thought would wear the face of probability.  I cannot
+say there is no vanity in making this funeral oration of myself; but I
+hope it is not a misplaced one; and this is a matter of fact which is
+easily cleared and ascertained.
+
+
+April 18, 1776.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER
+
+FROM
+
+ADAM SMITH. LL. D.
+
+To
+
+WILLIAM STRAHAN, ESQ.
+
+
+Kirkaldy, Fifeshire, Nov. 9, 1776
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+It is with a real, though a very melancholy pleasure, that I sit down
+to give you some account of the behaviour of our late excellent
+friend, Mr. Hume, during his last illness.
+
+Though in his own judgment his disease was mortal and incurable, yet
+he allowed himself to be prevailed upon, by the entreaty of his
+friends, to try what might be the effects of a long journey.  A few
+days before he set out, he wrote that account of his own life, which,
+together with his other papers, he has left to your care. My account,
+therefore, shall begin where his ends.
+
+He set out for London towards the end of April, and at Morpeth met
+with Mr. John Home, and myself, who had both come down from London on
+purpose to see him, expecting to have found him at Edinburgh.  Mr.
+Home returned with him, and attended him, during the whole of his stay
+in England, with that care and attention which might be expected from
+a temper so perfectly friendly and affectionate.  As I had written to
+my mother that she might expect me in Scotland, I was under the
+necessity of continuing my journey.  His disease seemed to yield to
+exercise and change of air, and when he arrived in London, he was
+apparently in much better health  than when he left Edinburgh.  He was
+advised to go to Bath to drink the waters, which appeared for some
+time to have so good an effect upon him, that even he himself began to
+entertain, what he was not apt to do, a better opinion of his own
+health.  His symptoms, however, soon returned with their usual
+violence, and from that moment he gave up all thoughts of recovery,
+but submitted with the utmost cheerfulness, and the most perfect
+complacency and resignation.  Upon his return to Edinburgh, though he
+found himself much weaker, yet his cheerfulness never abated, and he
+continued to divert himself, as usual, with correcting his own works
+for a new edition, with reading books of amusement, with the
+conversation of his friends, and sometimes in the evening with a party
+at his favourite game of whist.  His cheerfulness was so great, and
+his conversation and amusements ran so much in their usual strain,
+that, notwithstanding all bad symptoms, many people could not believe
+he was dying.  "I shall tell your friend, Colonel Edmonstone," said
+Doctor Dundas to him one day, "that I left you much better, and in a
+fair way of recovery." "Doctor," said he, "as I believe you would not
+choose to tell any thing but the truth, you had better tell him, that
+I am dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as
+easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire."  Colonel
+Edmonstone soon afterwards came to see him, and take leave of him; and
+on his way home he could not forbear writing him a letter, bidding him
+once more an eternal adieu, and applying to him, as to a dying man,
+the beautiful French verses in which the Abbé Chaulieu, in expectation
+of his own death, laments his approaching separation from his friend
+the Marquis de la Fare.  Mr. Hume's magnanimity and firmness were
+such, that his most affectionate friends knew that they hazarded
+nothing in talking or writing to him as to a dying man, and that, so
+far from being hurt by this frankness, he was rather pleased and
+flattered by it.  I happened to come into his room while he was
+reading this letter, which he had just received, and which he
+immediately showed me.  I told him, that though I was sensible how
+very much he was weakened, and that appearances were in many respects
+very bad, yet his cheerfulness was still so great, the spirit of life
+seemed still to be so very strong in him,  that I could not help
+entertaining some faint hopes.  He answered, "Your hopes are
+groundless.  An habitual diarrhoea of more than a year's standing
+would be a very bad disease at any age: at my age it is a mortal one.
+When I lie down in the evening I feel myself weaker than when I rose
+in the morning, and when I rise in the morning weaker than when I lay
+down in the evening.  I am sensible, besides, that some of my vital
+parts are affected, so that I must soon die." "Well," said I, "if it
+must be so, you have at least the satisfaction of leaving all your
+friends, your brother's family in particular, in great prosperity."
+He said that he felt that satisfaction so sensibly, that when he was
+reading, a few days before, Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead, among all
+the excuses which are alleged to Charon for not entering readily into
+his boat, he could not find one that fitted him; he had no house to
+finish, he had no daughter to provide for, he had no enemies upon whom
+he wished to revenge himself.  "I could not well imagine," said he,
+"what excuse I could make to Charon in order to  obtain a little
+delay.  I have done every thing of consequence which I ever meant to
+do, and I could at no time expect to leave my relations and friends in
+a better situation than that in which I am now likely to leave them: I
+therefore have all reason to die contented."  He then diverted himself
+with inventing several jocular excuses, which he supposed he might
+make to Charon, and with imagining the very surly answers which it
+might suit the character of Charon to return to them.  "Upon further
+consideration," said he, "I thought I might say to him, 'Good Charon,
+I have been correcting my works for a new edition.  Allow me a little
+time, that I may see how the public receives the alterations.'  But
+Charon would answer, 'When you have seen the effect of these, you will
+be for making other alterations.  There will be no end of such
+excuses; so, honest friend, please step into the boat.'  But I might
+still urge, 'Have a little patience, good Charon, I have been
+endeavouring to open the eyes of the public.  If I live a few years
+longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of
+the prevailing systems of superstition.'  But Charon would then lose
+all temper and decency--'You loitering rogue, that will not happen
+these many hundred years.  Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for
+so long a term?  Get into the boat this instant, you lazy, loitering
+rogue.'"
+
+But though Mr. Hume always talked of his approaching dissolution with
+great cheerfulness, he never affected to make any parade of his
+magnanimity.  He never mentioned the subject, but when the
+conversation naturally led to it, and never dwelt longer upon it than
+the course of the conversation happened to require.  It was a subject,
+indeed, which occurred pretty frequently, in consequence of the
+inquiries which his friends, who came to see him, naturally made
+concerning the state of his health.  The conversation which I
+mentioned above, and which passed on Thursday the 8th of August, was
+the last, except one, that I ever had with him.  He had now become so
+very weak, that the company of his most intimate friends fatigued him;
+for his cheerfulness was still so great, his complaisance and social
+disposition were still so entire, that when any friend was with him,
+he could not help talking more, and with greater exertion, than suited
+the weakness of his body.  At his own desire, therefore, I agreed to
+leave Edinburgh, where I was staying partly upon his account, and
+returned to my mother's house here, at Kirkaldy, upon condition that
+he would send for me whenever he wished to see me; the physician who
+saw him most frequently, Dr. Black, undertaking in the mean time to
+write me occasionally an account of the state of his health.
+
+On the 22d of August, the doctor wrote me the following letter:
+
+"Since my last, Mr. Hume has passed his time pretty easily, but is
+much weaker.  He sits up, goes down stairs once a day, and amuses
+himself with reading, but seldom sees any body.  He finds, that the
+conversation of his most intimate friends fatigues and oppresses him;
+and it is happy that he does not need it, for he is quite free from
+anxiety, impatience, or low spirits, and passes his time very well
+with the assistance of amusing books."
+
+I received the day after a letter from Mr. Hume himself, of which the
+following is an extract:
+
+"Edinburgh, Aug. 23, 1776
+
+"MY DEAREST FRIEND,
+
+"I am obliged to make use of my nephew's hand in writing to you, as I
+do not rise to-day. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
+
+"I go very fast to decline, and last night had a small fever, which I
+hoped might put a quicker period to this tedious illness; but,
+unluckily, it has in a great measure gone off.  I cannot submit to
+your coming over here on my account, as it is possible for me to see
+you so small a part of the day; but Dr. Black can better inform you
+concerning the degree of strength which may from time to time remain
+with me.
+
+"Adieu, &c."
+
+Three days after, I received the following letter from Dr. Black:
+
+"Edinburgh, Monday, Aug. 26, 1776.
+
+"DEAR SIR,
+
+"Yesterday, about four o'clock, afternoon, Mr. Hume expired.  The near
+approach of his death became evident in the night between Thursday and
+Friday, when his disease became excessive, and soon weakened him so
+much, that he could no longer rise out of his bed.  He continued to
+the last perfectly sensible, and free from much pain or feelings of
+distress.  He never dropped the smallest expression of impatience; but
+when he had occasion to speak to the people about him, always did it
+with affection and tenderness.  I thought it improper to write to
+bring you over, especially as I heard that he had dictated a letter to
+you, desiring you not to come.  When he became very weak, it cost him
+an effort to speak, and he died in such a happy composure of mind that
+nothing could exceed it."
+
+Thus died our most excellent and never to be forgotten friend;
+concerning whose philosophical opinions men will no doubt judge
+variously, every one approving or condemning them, according as they
+happen to coincide or disagree with his own; but concerning whose
+character and conduct there can scarce be a difference of opinion.
+His temper, indeed, seemed to be more happily balanced, if I may be
+allowed such an expression, than that perhaps of any other man I have
+ever known.  Even in the lowest state of his fortune, his great and
+necessary frugality never hindered him from exercising, upon proper
+occasions, acts both of charity and generosity.  It was a frugality
+founded not upon avarice, but upon the love of independency.  The
+extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either the firmness of
+his mind, or the steadiness of his resolutions.  His constant
+pleasantry was the genuine effusion of good-nature and good-humour,
+tempered with delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest
+tincture of malignity, so frequently the disagreeable source of what
+is called wit in other men.  It never was the meaning of his raillery
+to mortify; and therefore, far from offending, it seldom failed to
+please and delight even those who were the objects of it.  To his
+friends, who were frequently the objects of it, there was not perhaps
+one of all his great and amiable qualities which contributed more to
+endear his conversation.  And that gaiety of temper, so agreeable in
+society, but which is so often accompanied with frivolous and
+superficial qualities, was in him certainly attended with the most
+severe application, the most extensive learning, the greatest depth of
+thought, and a capacity in every respect the most comprehensive.  Upon
+the whole, I have always considered him, both in his lifetime and
+since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly
+wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will
+permit.
+
+I ever am, dear Sir,
+
+Most affectionately yours,
+
+ADAM SMITH.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME I
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+The Britons.--Romans.--Saxons.--The Heptarchy.--The Kingdom of Kent--
+of Northumberland--of East Anglia--of Mercia--of Essex--of Sussex--of
+Wessex
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Egbert.--Ethelwolf.--Ethelbald and Ethelbert.--Ethered.--Alfred the
+Great.--Edward the Elder.--Athelstan.--Edmund.-Edred.--Edwy.--Edgar.--
+Edward the Martyr
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Ethelred.--Settlement of the Normans.--Edmund Ironside.--Canute.--
+Harold Harefoot.--Hardicanute.--Edward the Confessor.--Harold
+
+
+APPENDIX I.
+
+THE ANGLO-SAXON GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
+
+First Saxon Government.--Succession of the Kings.--The Wittenagemot.--
+The Aristocracy.--The several Orders of Men.--Courts of Justice.--
+Criminal Law.--Rules of Proof.-Military Force.--Public Revenue.--Value
+of Money.--Manners
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR
+
+Consequences of the Battle of Hastings.--Submission of the English.--
+Settlement of the Government.--King's Return to Normandy.--Discontents
+of the English.--Their Insurrections.--Rigours of the Norman
+Government.--New Insurrections.-New Rigours of the Government.--
+Introduction of the Feudal Law.--Innovation in Ecclesiastical
+Government.--Insurrection of the Norman Barons.--Dispute about
+Investitures.--Revolt of Prince Robert.--Domesday-Book.--The New
+Forest.--War with France.--Death and Character of William the
+Conqueror
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WILLIAM RUFUS
+
+Accession of William Rufus.--Conspiracy against the King.--Invasion of
+Normandy.--The Crusades.--Acquisition of Normandy.--Quarrel with
+Anselm, the Primate.--Death and Character of William Rufus
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+HENRY I.
+
+The Crusades.--Accession of Henry.--Marriage of the King.--Invasion by
+Duke Robert.--Accommodation with Robert.--Attack of Normandy.--
+Conquest of Normandy.--Continuation of the Quarrel with Anselm, the
+Primate.--Compromise with him.--Wars abroad.--Death of Prince
+William.--King's second Marriage.--Death and Character of Henry
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+STEPHEN
+
+Accession of Stephen.--War with Scotland.--Insurrection in favour of
+Matilda.--Stephen taken Prisoner.--Matilda crowned.--Stephen
+released.--Restored to the Crown.--Continuation of the Civil Wars.--
+Compromise between the King and Prince Henry.--Death of the King
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HENRY II.
+
+State of Europe--of France.--First Acts of Henry's Government.--
+Disputes between the Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers.-Thomas à Becket,
+Archbishop of Canterbury.--Quarrel between the King and Becket.--
+Constitutions of Clarendon.--Banishment of Becket.--Compromise with
+him.--His return from Banishment.-His Murder.--Grief and Submission of
+the King
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+State of Ireland.--Conquest of that Island.--The King's Accommodation
+with the Court of Rome.--Revolt of young Henry and  his brothers.--
+Wars and Insurrections.--War with Scotland.--Penance of Henry for
+Becket's Murder.--William, King of Scotland, defeated and taken
+Prisoner.--The King's Accommodation with his Sons.--The King's
+equitable Administration.--Crusades.--Revolt of Prince Richard.--Death
+and Character of Henry.--Miscellaneous Transactions of his Reign
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+RICHARD I.
+
+The King's Preparations for the Crusade.--Sets out on the Crusade.--
+Transactions in Sicily.--King's Arrival in Palestine.--State of
+Palestine.--Disorders in England.--The King's Heroic Actions in
+Palestine.--His Return from Palestine.--Captivity in Germany.--War
+with France.--The King's Delivery.--Return to England.--War with
+France.--Death and Character of the King.--Miscellaneous Transactions
+of this Reign
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+JOHN
+
+Accession of the King.--His Marriage.--War with France.--Murder of
+Arthur, Duke of Britany.--The King expelled the French Provinces.--The
+King's Quarrel with the Court of Rome.--Cardinal Langton appointed
+Archbishop of Canterbury.--Interdict of the Kingdom.--Excommunication
+of the King.-The King's Submission to the Pope.--Discontents of the
+Barons.--Insurrection of the Barons.--Magna Carta.--Renewal of the
+Civil Wars.--Prince Lewis called over.--Death and Character of the
+King
+
+
+APPENDIX II.
+
+THE FEUDAL AND ANGLO-NORMAN GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
+
+Origin of the Feudal Law.--Its Progress.--Feudal Government of
+England.--The Feudal Parliament.--The Commons.-Judicial Power.--
+Revenue of the Crown.--Commerce.--The Church.--Civil Laws.--Manners
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+HENRY III.
+
+Settlement of the Government.--General Pacification.--Death of the
+Protector.--Some Commotions.--Hubert de Burgh displaced.--The Bishop
+of Winchester Minister.--King's Partiality to Foreigners.--
+Grievances.--Ecclesiastical Grievances.--Earl of Cornwall elected King
+of the Romans.--Discontent of the Barons--Simon de Mountfort, Earl of
+Leicester.--Provisions of Oxford.--Usurpation of the Barons.--Prince
+Edward.--Civil Wars of the Barons.--Reference to the King of France.--
+Renewal of the Civil Wars.--Battle of Lewes.--House of Commons.--
+Battle of Evesham and death of Leicester.--Settlement of the
+Government.--Death and Character of the King.--Miscellaneous
+Transactions of this Reign
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE BRITONS.--ROMANS.--SAXONS.--THE HEPTARCHY.--THE KINGDOM OF KENT--
+OF NORTHUMBERLAND--OF EAST ANGLIA--OF MERCIA--OF ESSEX--OF SUSSEX--OF
+WESSEX
+
+
+
+[MN The Britons.]
+The curiosity, entertained by all civilized nations, of inquiring into
+the exploits and adventures of their ancestors, commonly excites a
+regret that the history of remote ages should always be so much
+involved in obscurity, uncertainty, and contradiction.  Ingenious men,
+possessed of leisure, are apt to push their researches beyond the
+period in which literary monuments are framed or preserved; without
+reflecting that the history of past events is immediately lost or
+disfigured when intrusted to memory or oral tradition; and that the
+adventures of barbarous nations, even if they were recorded, could
+afford little or no entertainment to men born in a more cultivated
+age.  The convulsions of a civilized state usually compose the most
+instructive and most interesting part of its history; but the sudden,
+violent, and unprepared revolutions incident to barbarians are so much
+guided by caprice, and terminate so often in cruelty, that they
+disgust us by the uniformity of their appearance; and it is rather
+fortunate for letters that they are buried in silence and oblivion.
+The only certain means by which nations can indulge their curiosity in
+researches concerning their  remote origin, is to consider the
+language, manners, and customs of their ancestors, and to compare them
+with those of the neighbouring nations.  The fables which are commonly
+employed to supply the place of true history ought entirely to be
+disregarded; or if any exception be admitted to this general rule, it
+can only be in favour of the ancient Grecian fictions, which are so
+celebrated and so agreeable, that they will ever be the objects of the
+attention of mankind.  Neglecting, therefore, all traditions, or
+rather tales, concerning the more early history of Britain, we shall
+only consider the state of the inhabitants as it appeared to the
+Romans on their invasion of this country: we shall briefly run over
+the events which attended the conquest made by that empire, as
+belonging more to Roman than British story: we shall hasten through
+the obscure and uninteresting period of Saxon annals: and shall
+reserve a more full narration for those times when the truth is both
+so well ascertained and so complete as to promise entertainment and
+instruction to the reader.
+
+All ancient writers agree in representing the first inhabitants of
+Britain as a tribe of the Gauls or Celtae, who peopled that island
+from the neighbouring continent.  Their language was the same; their
+manners, their government, their superstition, varied only by those
+small differences which time or communication with the bordering
+nations must necessarily introduce.  The inhabitants of Gaul,
+especially in those parts which lie contiguous to Italy, had acquired,
+from a commerce with their southern neighbours, some refinement in the
+arts, which gradually diffused themselves northwards, and spread but a
+very faint light over this island.  The Greek and Roman navigators or
+merchants (for there were scarcely any other travellers in those ages)
+brought back the most shocking accounts of the ferocity of the people,
+which they magnified, as usual, in order to excite the admiration of
+their countrymen.  The south-east parts, however, of Britain had
+already, before the age of Caesar, made the first, and most requisite
+step towards a civil settlement; and the Britons, by tillage and
+agriculture, had there increased to a great multitude [a].  The other
+inhabitants of the island still maintained themselves by pasture:
+they were clothed with skins of beasts. They dwelt in huts, which they
+reared in the forests and marshes, with which the country was covered:
+they shifted easily their habitation, when actuated either by the
+hopes of plunder, or the fear of an enemy: the convenience of feeding
+their cattle was even a sufficient motive for removing their seats:
+and as they were ignorant of all the refinements of life, their wants
+and their possessions were equally scanty and limited.
+[FN [a] Caesar. lib. 4.]
+
+The Britons were divided into many small nations or tribes; and being
+a military people, whose sole property was their arms and their
+cattle, it was impossible, after they had acquired a relish for
+liberty, for their princes or chieftains to establish any despotic
+authority over them.  Their governments, though monarchical [b], were
+free, as well as those of all the Celtic nations; and the common
+people seem even to have enjoyed more liberty among them [c] than
+among the nations of Gaul [d], from which they were descended.  Each
+state was divided into factions within itself [e]: it was agitated
+with jealousy or animosity against the neighbouring states: and while
+the arts of peace were yet unknown, wars were the chief occupation,
+and formed the chief object of ambition among the people.
+[FN [b] Diod. Sic. lib. 4.  Mela, lib. 3. cap. 6.  Strabo, lib. 4.
+[c] Dion. Cassius, lib. 75  [d] Caesar. lib. 6.  [e] Tacit. Agr.]
+
+The religion of the Britons was one of the most considerable parts of
+their government; and the Druids, who were their priests, possessed
+great authority among them.  Besides ministering at the altar, and
+directing all religious duties, they presided over the education of
+youth; they enjoyed an immunity from wars and taxes; they possessed
+both the civil and criminal jurisdiction; they decided all
+controversies among states as well as among private persons, and
+whoever refused to submit to their decree was exposed to the most
+severe penalties.  The sentence of excommunication was pronounced
+against him: he was forbidden access to the sacrifices or public
+worship: he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow-citizens,
+even in the common affairs of life: his company was universally
+shunned, as profane and dangerous.  He was refused the protection of
+law [f]; and death itself became an acceptable relief from the misery
+and infamy to which he was exposed.  Thus, the bands of government,
+which were naturally loose among that rude and turbulent people, were
+happily corroborated by the terrors of their superstition.
+[FN [f] Caesar, lib. 6.  Strabo, lib. 4.]
+
+No species of superstition was ever more terrible than that of the
+Druids.  Besides the severe penalties, which it was in the power of
+the ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the
+eternal transmigration of souls; and thereby extended their authority
+as far as the fears of their timorous votaries.  They practised their
+rites in dark groves or other secret recesses [g]; and in order to
+throw a greater mystery over their religion, they communicated their
+doctrines only to the initiated, and strictly forbad the committing of
+them to writing, lest they should at any time be exposed to the
+examination of the profane vulgar.  Human sacrifices were practised
+among them: the spoils of war were often devoted to their divinities;
+and they punished with the severest tortures whoever dared to secrete
+any part of the consecrated offering; these treasures they kept in
+woods and forests, secured by no other guard than the terrors of their
+religion [h]; and this steady conquest over human avidity may be
+regarded as more signal than their prompting men to the most
+extraordinary and most violent efforts.  No idolatrous worship ever
+attained such an ascendant over mankind as that of the ancient Gauls
+and Britons; and the Romans, after their conquest, finding it
+impossible to reconcile those nations to the law and institutions of
+their masters, while it maintained its authority, were at last obliged
+to abolish it by penal statutes; a violence which had never, in any
+other instance, been practised by those tolerating conquerors [i].
+[FN [g] Plin. lib. 12. cap. 1.  [h] Caesar, lib. 6.  [i] Sueton. in
+vita Claudii.]
+
+[MN The Romans.]
+The Britons had long remained in this rude but independent state, when
+Caesar, having overrun all Gaul by his victories, first cast his eye
+on their island.  He was not allured either by its riches or its
+renown; but being ambitious of carrying the Roman arms into a new
+world, then mostly unknown, he took advantage of a short interval in
+his Gaulic wars, and made an invasion on Britain.  The natives,
+informed of his intention, were sensible of the unequal contest, and
+endeavoured to appease him by submissions, which, however, retarded
+not the execution of his design.  After some resistance, he landed, as
+is supposed, at Deal; [MN Anno Ante C. 55.] and having obtained
+several advantages over the Britons, and obliged them to promise
+hostages for their future obedience, he was constrained, by the
+necessity of his affairs, and the approach of winter, to withdraw his
+forces into Gaul.  The Britons, relieved from the terror of his arms,
+neglected the performance of their stipulations; and that haughty
+conqueror resolved next summer to chastise them for this breach of
+treaty.  He landed with a greater force; and though he found a more
+regular resistance from the Britons, who had united under
+Cassivelaunus, one of their petty princes, he discomfited them in
+every action.  He advanced into the country; passed the Thames in the
+face of the enemy; took and burned the capital of Cassivelaunus;
+established his ally, Mandubratius, in the sovereignty of the
+Trinobantes; and having obliged the inhabitants to make him new
+submissions, he again returned with his army into Gaul, and left the
+authority of the Romans more nominal than real in this island.
+
+The civil wars which ensued, and which prepared the way for the
+establishment of monarchy in Rome, saved the Britons from that yoke
+which was ready to be imposed upon them.  Augustus, the successor of
+Caesar, content with the victory obtained over the liberties of his
+own country, was little ambitious of acquiring fame by foreign wars;
+and being apprehensive lest the same unlimited extent of dominion,
+which had subverted the republic, might also overwhelm the empire, he
+recommended it to his successors never to enlarge the territories of
+the Romans.  Tiberius, jealous of the fame which might be acquired by
+his generals, made this advice of Augustus a pretence for his
+inactivity [k].  The mad sallies of Caligula, in which he menaced
+Britain with an invasion, served only to expose himself and the empire
+to ridicule: and the Britons had now, during almost a century, enjoyed
+their liberty unmolested; when the Romans, in the reign of Claudius
+began to think seriously of reducing them under their dominion.
+Without seeking any more justifiable reasons of hostility than were
+employed by the late Europeans in subjugating the Africans and
+Americans, [MN A.D. 43.] they sent over an army under the command of
+Plautius, an able general, who gained some victories, and made a
+considerable progress in subduing the inhabitants.  Claudius himself,
+finding matters sufficiently prepared for his reception, made a
+journey into Britain, and received the submission of several British
+states, the Cantii, Atrebates, Regni, and Trinobantes, who inhabited
+the south-east part of the island, and whom their possessions and more
+cultivated manner of life rendered willing to purchase peace at the
+expense of their liberty.  The other Britons, under the command of
+Caractacus, still maintained an obstinate resistance, and the Romans
+made little progress against them, till Ostorius Scapula was sent over
+to command their armies.  This general advanced the Roman conquests
+over the Britons; [MN A.D. 50.] pierced into the country of the
+Silures, a warlike nation who inhabited the banks of the Severn;
+defeated Caractacus in a great battle; took him prisoner, and sent him
+to Rome, where his magnanimous behaviour procured him better treatment
+than those conquerors usually bestowed on captive princes [l].
+[FN [k] Tacit. Agr.  [l] Tacit. Ann. lib. 12.]
+
+Notwithstanding these misfortunes, the Britons were not subdued; and
+this island was regarded by the ambitious Romans as a field in which
+military honour might still be acquired.  [MN A.D. 59.]  Under the
+reign of Nero, Suetonius Paulinus was invested with the command, and
+prepared to signalize his name by victories over those barbarians.
+Finding that the island of Mona, now Anglesey, was the chief seat of
+the Druids, he resolved to attack it, and to subject a place which was
+the centre of their superstition, and which afforded protection to all
+their baffled forces.  The Britons endeavoured to obstruct his landing
+on this sacred island, both by the force of their arms and the terrors
+of their religion.  The women and priests were intermingled with the
+soldiers upon the shore; and running about with flaming torches in
+their hands, and tossing their dishevelled hair, they struck greater
+terror into the astonished Romans by their howlings, cries, and
+execrations, than the real danger from the armed forces was able to
+inspire.  But Suetonius, exhorting his troops to despise the menaces
+of a superstition which they despised, impelled them to the attack,
+drove the Britons off the field, burned the Druids in the same fires
+which those priests had prepared for their captive enemies, destroyed
+all the consecrated groves and altars; and, having thus triumphed over
+the religion of the Britons, he thought his future progress would be
+easy in reducing the people to subjection.  But he was disappointed in
+his expectations.  The Britons, taking advantage of his absence, were
+all in arms; and headed by Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, who had been
+treated in the most ignominious manner by the Roman tribunes, had
+already attacked with success several settlements of their insulting
+conquerors.  Suetonius hastened to the protection of London, which was
+already a flourishing Roman colony; but he found, on his arrival, that
+it would be requisite for the general safety to abandon that place to
+the merciless fury of the enemy.  London was reduced to ashes; such of
+the inhabitants as remained in it were cruelly massacred; the Romans
+and all strangers, to the number of 70,000, were every where put to
+the sword without distinction; and the Britons, by rendering the war
+thus bloody, seemed determined to cut off all hopes of peace or com-
+position with the enemy.  But this cruelty was revenged by Suetonius
+in a great and decisive battle, where 80,000 of the Britons are said
+to have .perished; and Boadicea herself; rather than fall into the
+hands of the enraged victor, put an end to her own life by poison [m].
+Nero soon after recalled Suetonius from a government, where, by
+suffering and inflicting so many severities, he was judged improper
+for composing the angry and alarmed minds of the inhabitants.  After
+some interval, Cerealis received the command from Vespasian, and by
+his bravery propagated the terror of the Roman arms.  Julius Frontinus
+succeeded Cerealis both in authority and in reputation: but the
+general who finally established the dominion of the Romans in this
+island was Julius Agricola, who governed it in the reigns of
+Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, and distinguished himself in that
+scene of action.
+[FN [m] Tacit. Ann. lib. 14]
+
+This great commander formed a regular plan for subduing Britain, and
+rendering the acquisition useful to the conquerors.  He carried his
+victorious arms northwards, defeated the Britons in every encounter,
+pierced into the inaccessible forests and mountains of Caledonia,
+reduced every state to subjection in the southern part of the island,
+and chased before him all the men of fiercer and more intractable
+spirits, who deemed war and death itself less intolerable than
+servitude under the victors.  He even defeated them in a decisive
+action, which they fought under Galgacus, their leader; and having
+fixed a chain of garrisons between the firths of Clyde and Forth, he
+thereby cut off the ruder and more barren parts of the island, and
+secured the Roman province from the incursions of the barbarous
+inhabitants [n].
+[FN [n] Tacit Agr.]
+
+During these military enterprises, he neglected not the arts of peace.
+He introduced laws and civility among the Britons, taught them to
+desire and raise all the conveniences of life, reconciled them to the
+Roman language and manners, instructed them in letters and science,
+and employed every expedient to render those chains which he had
+forged both easy and agreeable to them [o].  The inhabitants, having
+experienced how unequal their own force was to resist that of the
+Romans, acquiesced in the dominion of their masters, and were
+gradually incorporated as a part of that mighty empire.
+[FN [o] Ibid.]
+
+This was the last durable conquest made by the Romans; and Britain,
+once subdued, gave no farther inquietude to the victor.  Caledonia
+alone, defended by its barren mountains, and by the contempt which the
+Romans entertained for it, sometimes infested the more cultivated
+parts of the island by the incursions of its inhabitants.  The better
+to secure the frontiers of the empire, Adrian, who visited this
+island, built a rampart between the river Tyne and the firth of
+Solway: Lollius Urbicus, under Antoninus Pius, erected one in the
+place where Agricola had formerly established his garrisons: Severus,
+who made an expedition into Britain, and carried his arms to the more
+northern extremity of it, added new fortifications to the walls of
+Adrian; and, during the reigns of all the Roman emperors, such a
+profound tranquillity prevailed in Britain, that little mention is
+made of the affairs of that island by any historian.  The only
+incidents which occur are some seditions or rebellions of the Roman
+legions quartered there, and some usurpations of the Imperial dignity
+by the Roman governors.  The natives, disarmed, dispirited, and
+submissive, had lost all desire, and even idea of their former liberty
+and independence.
+
+But the period was now come when that enormous fabric of the Roman
+empire, which had diffused slavery and oppression, together with peace
+and civility, over so considerable a part of the globe, was
+approaching towards it final dissolution.  Italy and the centre of the
+empire, removed, during so many ages, from all concern in the wars,
+had entirely lost the military spirit, and were peopled by an
+enervated race, equally disposed to submit to a foreign yoke, or to
+the tyranny of their own rulers.  The emperors found themselves
+obliged to recruit their legions from the frontier provinces, where
+the genius of war, though languishing, was not totally extinct; and
+these mercenary forces, careless of laws, and civil institutions,
+established a military government, no less dangerous to the sovereign
+than to the people.  The further progress of the same disorders
+introduced the bordering barbarians into the service of the Romans;
+and those fierce nations, having now added discipline to their native
+bravery, could no longer be restrained by the impotent policy of the
+emperors, who were accustomed to employ one in the destruction of the
+others.  Sensible of their own force, and allured by the prospect of
+so rich a prize, the northern barbarians, in the reign of Arcadius and
+Honorius, assailed at once all the frontiers of the Roman empire; and
+having first satiated their avidity by plunder, began to think of
+fixing a settlement in the wasted provinces.  The more distant
+barbarians, who occupied the deserted habitations of the former,
+advanced in their acquisitions, and pressed with their incumbent
+weight the Roman state, already unequal to the load which it
+sustained.  Instead of arming the people in their own defence, the
+emperors recalled all the distant legions, in whom alone they could
+repose confidence; and collected the whole military force for the
+defence of the capital and centre of the empire.  The necessity of
+self-preservation had superseded the ambition of power; and the
+ancient point of honour never to contract the limits of the empire
+could no longer be attended to in this desperate extremity.
+
+Britain by its situation was removed from the fury of these barbarous
+incursions; and being also a remote province, not much valued by the
+Romans, the legions which defended it were carried over to the
+protection of Italy and Gaul.  But that province, though secured by
+the sea against the inroads of the greater tribes of barbarians, found
+enemies on its frontiers, who took advantage of its present
+defenceless situation.  The Picts and Scots, who dwelt in the northern
+parts, beyond the wall of Antoninus, made incursions upon their
+peaceable and effeminate neighbours; and besides the temporary
+depredations which they committed, these combined nations threatened
+the whole province with subjection, or what the inhabitants more
+dreaded, with plunder and devastation.  The Picts seem to have been a
+tribe of the native British race, who, having been chased into the
+northern parts by the conquest of Agricola, had there intermingled
+with the ancient inhabitants: the Scots were derived from the same
+Celtic origin, had first been established in Ireland, had migrated to
+the north-west coasts of this island, and had long been accustomed, as
+well from their old as their new seats, to infest the Roman province
+by piracy and rapine [p].  These tribes, finding their more opulent
+neighbours exposed to invasion, soon broke over the Roman wall, no
+longer defended by the Roman arms; and, though a contemptible enemy in
+themselves, met with no resistance from the unwarlike inhabitants.
+The Britons, accustomed to have recourse to the emperors for defence
+as well as government, made supplications to Rome; and one legion was
+sent over for their protection.  This force was an overmatch for the
+barbarians, repelled their invasion, routed them in every engagement,
+and having chased them into their ancient limits, returned in triumph
+to the defence of the southern provinces of the empire [q].  Their
+retreat brought on a new invasion of the enemy.  The Britons made
+again an application to Rome, and again obtained the assistance of a
+legion, which proved effectual for their relief: but the Romans,
+reduced to extremities at home, and fatigued with those distant
+expeditions, informed the Britons that they must no longer look to
+them for succour, exhorted them to arm in their own defence, and urged
+that, as they were now their own masters, it became them to protect by
+their valour that independence which their ancient lords had conferred
+upon them [r].  That they might leave the island with the better
+grace, the Romans assisted them in erecting anew the wall of Severus,
+which was built entirely of stone, and which the Britons had not at
+that time artificers skilful enough to repair [s].  And having done
+this last good office to the inhabitants, they bid a final adieu to
+Britain, about the year 448; after being masters of the more
+considerable part of it during the course of near four centuries.
+[FN [p] See note [A] at the end of the volume.  [q] Gildas.  Bede,
+lib. 1. cap. 12.  Paul. Diacon.  [r] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 12  [s] Ibid.]
+
+[MN The Britons.]
+The abject Britons. regarded this present of liberty as  fatal to
+them; and were in no condition to put in practice the prudent counsel
+given them by the Romans to arm in their own defence.  Unaccustomed
+both to the perils of war and to the cares of civil government, they
+found themselves incapable of forming or executing any measures for
+resisting the incursions of the barbarians.  Gratian also and
+Constantine, two Romans who had a little before assumed the purple in
+Britain, had carried over to the continent the flower of the British
+youth; and having perished in their unsuccessful attempts on the
+imperial throne, had despoiled the island of those who, in this
+desperate extremity, were best able to defend it.  The Picts and
+Scots, finding that the Romans had finally relinquished Britain, now
+regarded the whole as their prey, and attacked the northern wall with
+redoubled forces.  The Britons already subdued by their own fears,
+found the ramparts but a weak defence for them; and deserting their
+station, left the country entirely open to the inroads of the
+barbarous enemy.  The invaders carried devastation and ruin along with
+them; and exerted to the utmost their native ferocity, which was not
+mitigated by the helpless condition and submissive behaviour of the
+inhabitants [t].  The unhappy Britons had a third time recourse to
+Rome, which had declared its resolution for ever to abandon them.
+Aëtius, the patrician, sustained at that time, by his valour and
+magnanimity, the tottering ruins of the empire, and revived for a
+moment, among the degenerate Romans, the spirit as well as discipline
+of their ancestors.  The British ambassador carried to him the letter
+of their countrymen, which was inscribed, THE GROANS OF THE BRITONS.
+The tenor of the epistle was suitable to its superscription.  THE
+BARBARIANS, say they, ON THE ONE HAND, CHASE US INTO THE SEA; THE SEA,
+ON THE OTHER, THROWS US BACK UPON THE BARBARIANS; AND WE HAVE ONLY THE
+HARD CHOICE LEFT US, OF PERISHING BY THE SWORD OR BY THE WAVES [u].
+But Aëtius, pressed by the arms of Attila, the most terrible enemy
+that ever assailed the empire, had no leisure to attend to the
+complaints of allies, whom generosity alone could induce him to assist
+[v].  The Britons thus rejected were reduced to despair, deserted
+their habitations, abandoned tillage, and flying for protection to the
+forests and mountains, suffered equally from hunger and from the
+enemy.  The barbarians themselves began to feel the pressure of famine
+in a country which they had ravaged; and being harassed by the
+dispersed Britons, who had not dared to resist them in a body, they
+retreated with their spoils into their own country [w].
+[FN [t] Gildas.  Bede, lib. 1.  Ann. Beverl. p. 45.  [u] Gildas.
+Bede, lib. 1. cap. 13.  Malmesbury, lib. 1. cap. 1.  Ann. Beverl. p.
+45.  [v] Chron. Sax. p. 11 edit. 1692.  [w] Ann. Beverl. p. 45.]
+
+The Britons, taking advantage of this interval, returned to their
+usual occupations; and the favourable seasons which succeeded seconded
+their industry, made them soon forget their past miseries, and
+restored to them great plenty of all the necessaries of life.  No more
+can be imagined to have been possessed by a people so rude, who had
+not, without the assistance of the Romans, art of masonry sufficient
+to raise a stone rampart for their own defence; yet the Monkish
+historians [x], who treat of those events, complain of the luxury of
+the Britons during this period, and ascribe to that vice, not to their
+cowardice or improvident counsels, all their subsequent calamities.
+[FN [x] Gildas.  Bede, lib. 1. cap. 14.]
+
+The Britons, entirely occupied in the enjoyment of the present
+interval of peace, made no provision for resisting the enemy, who,
+invited by their former timid behaviour, soon threatened them with a
+new invasion.  We are not exactly informed what species of civil
+government the Romans on their departure had left among the Britons;
+but it appears probable, that the great men in, the different
+districts assumed a kind of regal though precarious authority; and
+lived in a great measure independent of each other [y].  To this
+disunion of counsels were also added the disputes of theology; and the
+disciples of Pelagius, who was himself a native of Britain, having
+increased to a great multitude, gave alarm to the clergy, who seem to
+have been more intent on suppressing them, than on opposing the public
+enemy [z].  Labouring under these domestic evils, and menaced with a
+foreign invasion, the Britons attended only to the suggestions of
+their present fears; and following the counsels of Vortigern, Prince
+of Dumnonium, who, though stained with every vice, possessed the chief
+authority among them [a], they sent into Germany a deputation to
+invite over the Saxons for their protection and assistance.
+[FN [y] Gildas.  Usher, Ant. Brit. p. 248, 347.  [z] Gildas.  Bede,
+lib. 1. cap. 17.  Constant. in vita Germ.  [a] Gildas.  Gul. Malm. p
+8.]
+
+[MN The Saxons.]
+Of all the barbarous nations, known either in ancient or modern times,
+the Germans seem to have been the most distinguished both by their
+manners and political institutions, and to have carried to the highest
+pitch the virtues of valour and love of liberty; the only virtues
+which can have place among an uncivilized people, where justice and
+humanity are commonly neglected.  Kingly government, even when
+established among the Germans, (for it was not universal,) possessed a
+very limited authority; and though the sovereign was usually chosen
+from among the royal family, he was directed in every measure by the
+common consent of the nation over whom he presided.  When any
+important affairs were transacted, all the warriors met in arms; the
+men of greatest authority employed persuasion to engage their consent;
+the people expressed their approbation by rattling their armour, or
+their dissent by murmurs; there was no necessity for a nice scrutiny
+of votes among a multitude, who were usually carried with a strong
+current to one side or the other; and the measure thus suddenly chosen
+by general agreement, was executed with alacrity and prosecuted with
+vigour.  Even in war, the princes governed more by example than by
+authority; but in peace the civil union was in a great measure
+dissolved, and the inferior leaders administered justice after an
+independent manner, each in his particular district.  These were
+elected by the votes of the people in their great councils; and though
+regard was paid to nobility in the choice, their personal qualities,
+chiefly their valour, procured them, from the suffrages of their
+fellow-citizens, that honourable but dangerous distinction.  The
+warriors of each tribe attached themselves to their leader with the
+most devoted affection and most unshaken constancy.  They attended him
+as his ornament in peace, as his defence in war, as his council in the
+administration of justice.  Their constant emulation in military
+renown dissolved not that inviolable friendship which they professed
+to their chieftain and to each other: to die for the honour of their
+band was their chief ambition: to survive its disgrace, or the death
+of their leader, was infamous.  They even carried into the field their
+women and children, who adopted all the martial sentiments of the men:
+and being thus impelled by every human motive, they were invincible;
+where they were not opposed either by the similar manners and
+institutions of the neighbouring Germans, or by the superior
+discipline, arms, and numbers of the Romans [b].
+[FN [b] Caesar, lib. 6.  Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]
+
+The leaders and their military companions were maintained by the
+labour of their slaves, or by that of the weaker and less warlike part
+of the community, whom they defended.  The contributions which they
+levied went not beyond a bare subsistence; and the honours, acquired
+by a superior rank, were the only reward of their superior dangers and
+fatigues.  All the refined arts of life were unknown among the
+Germans: tillage itself was almost wholly neglected: they even seem to
+have been anxious to prevent any improvements of that nature; and the
+leaders, by annually distributing anew all the land among the
+inhabitants of each village, kept them from attaching themselves to
+particular possessions, or making such progress in agriculture as
+might divert their attention from military expeditions, the chief
+occupation of the community [c].
+[FN [c] Caesar, lib. 6.  Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]
+
+The Saxons had been for some time regarded as one of the most warlike
+tribes of this fierce people, and had become the terror of the
+neighbouring nations [d].  They had diffused themselves from the
+northern parts of Germany and the Cimbrian Chersonesus, and had taken
+possession of all the sea-coast from the mouth of the Rhine to
+Jutland; whence they had long infested by their piracies all the
+eastern and southern parts of Britain, and the northern of Gaul [e].
+In order to oppose their inroads, the Romans had established an
+officer, whom they called COUNT OF THE SAXON SHORE; and as the naval
+arts can flourish among a civilized people alone, they seem to have
+been more successful in repelling the Saxons, than any of the other
+barbarians by whom they were invaded.  The dissolution of the Roman
+power invited them to renew their inroads; and it was an acceptable
+circumstance, that the deputies of the Britons appeared among them,
+and prompted them to undertake an enterprise, to which they were of
+themselves sufficiently inclined [f].
+[FN d Amm. Marcell. lib. 28.  Orosius.  [e] Marcell. lib. 27. cap. 7.
+lib. 28. cap. 7.  [f] Will. Malm. p. 8.]
+
+Hengist and Horsa, two brothers, possessed great credit among the
+Saxons, and were much celebrated both for their valour and nobility.
+They were reputed, as most of the Saxon princes, to be sprung from
+Woden, who was worshipped as a god among those nations, and they are
+said to be his great grandsons [g]; a circumstance which added much to
+their authority.  We shall not attempt to trace any higher the origin
+of those princes and nations.  It is evident what fruitless labour it
+must be to search, in those barbarous and illiterate ages, for the
+annals of a people, when their first leaders, known in any true
+history, were believed by them to be the fourth in descent from a
+fabulous deity, or from a man exalted by ignorance into that
+character.  The dark industry of antiquaries, led by imaginary
+analogies of names, or by uncertain traditions, would in vain attempt
+to pierce into that deep obscurity which covers the remote history of
+those nations.
+[FN [g] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15.  Saxon Chron. p. 13.  Nennius, cap.
+28.]
+
+These two brothers, observing the other provinces of Germany to be
+occupied by a warlike and necessitous people, and the rich provinces
+of Gaul already conquered or overrun by other German tribes, found it
+easy to persuade their countrymen to embrace the sole enterprise which
+promised a favourable opportunity of displaying their valour and
+gratifying their avidity.  They embarked their troops in three
+vessels, and about the year 449 or 450 [h], carried over 1600 men, who
+landed in the Isle of Thanet, and immediately marched to the defence
+of the Britons against the northern invaders.  The Scots and Picts
+were unable to resist the valour of these auxiliaries; and the
+Britons, applauding their own wisdom in calling over the Saxons, hoped
+thenceforth to enjoy peace and security under the powerful protection
+of that warlike people.
+[FN [h] Saxon Chronicle, p. 12.  Gul. Malm. p. 11.  Huntington, lib.
+2. p. 309.  Ethelwerd.  Brompton, p. 728.]
+
+But Hengist and Horsa perceiving, from their easy victory over the
+Scots and Picts, with what facility they might subdue the Britons
+themselves, who had not been able to resist those feeble invaders,
+were determined to conquer and fight for their own grandeur, not for
+the defence of their degenerate allies.  They sent intelligence to
+Saxony of the fertility and riches of Britain; and represented as
+certain the subjection of a people so long disused to arms, who, being
+now cut off from the Roman empire, of which they had been a province
+during so many ages, had not yet acquired any union among themselves,
+and were destitute of all affection to their new liberties and of all
+national attachments and regards [i].  The vices and pusillanimity of
+Vortigern, the British leader, were a new ground of hope; and the
+Saxons in Germany, following such agreeable prospects, soon reinforced
+Hengist and Horsa with 5000 men, who came over in seventeen vessels.
+The Britons now began to entertain apprehensions of their allies,
+whose numbers they found continually augmenting; but thought of no
+remedy, except a passive submission and connivance.  This weak
+expedient soon  failed them.  The Saxons sought a quarrel, by
+complaining that their subsidies were ill paid, and their provisions
+withdrawn [k]; and immediately taking off the mask, they formed an
+alliance with the Picts and Scots, and proceeded to open hostility
+against the Britons.
+[FN [i] Chron. Sax. p. 12.  Ann. Beverl. p. 42.  [k] Bede, lib. 1.
+cap. 15.  Nennius, cap. 35.  Gildas, Sec. 23.]
+
+The Britons, impelled by these violent extremities, and roused to
+indignation against their treacherous auxiliaries, were necessitated
+to take arms; and having deposed Vortigern, who had become odious from
+his vices, and from the bad event of his rash counsels, they put
+themselves under the command of his son, Vortimer.  They fought many
+battles with their enemies; and though the victories in these actions
+be disputed between the British and Saxon annalists, the progress
+still made by the Saxons proves that the advantage was commonly on
+their side.  In one battle, however, fought at Eaglesford, now
+Ailsford, Horsa, the Saxon general, was slain, and left the sole
+command over his countrymen in the hands of Hengist.  This active
+general, continually reinforced by fresh numbers from Germany, carried
+devastation into the most remote corners of Britain; and being chiefly
+anxious to spread the terror of his arms, he spared neither age, nor
+sex, nor condition, wherever he marched with his victorious forces.
+The private and public edifices of the Britons were reduced to ashes:
+the priests were slaughtered on the altars by those idolatrous
+ravagers: the bishops and nobility shared the fate of the vulgar: the
+people, flying to the mountains and deserts, were intercepted and
+butchered in heaps: some were glad to accept of life and servitude
+under their victors: others, deserting their native country, took
+shelter in the province of Armorica; where, being charitably received
+by a people of the same language and manners, they settled in great
+numbers, and gave the country the name of Britany [l].
+[FN [l] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15.  Usher, p.226.  Gildas, Sec. 24.]
+
+The British writers assign one cause which facilitated the entrance of
+the Saxons into this island; the love with which Vortigern was at
+first seized for Rovena, the daughter of Hengist, and which that
+artful warrior made use of to blind the eyes of the imprudent monarch
+[m].  The same historians add, that Vortimer died; and that Vortigern,
+being restored to the throne, accepted of a banquet from Hengist, at
+Stonehenge, where 300 of his nobility were treacherously slaughtered,
+and himself detained captive [n].  But these stories seem to have been
+invented by the Welsh authors, in order to palliate the weak
+resistance made at first by their countrymen, anal to account for the
+rapid progress and licentious devastations of the Saxons [o].
+[FN [m] Nennius, Galfr. lib. 6. cap. 12.  [n] Nennius, cap. 47.
+Galfr.  [o] Stillingfleet's Orig. Brit. p. 324, 325.]
+
+After the death of Vortimer, Ambrosius, a Briton, though of Roman
+descent, invested with the command over his countrymen, and
+endeavoured, not without success, to unite them in their resistance
+against the Saxons. Those contests increased the animosity between the
+two nations, and roused the military spirit of the ancient
+inhabitants, which had before been sunk into a fatal lethargy.
+Hengist, however, notwithstanding their opposition, still maintained
+his ground in Britain; and in order to divide the forces and attention
+of the natives, he called over a new tribe of Saxons, under the
+command of his brother Octa, and of Ebissa, the son of Octa; and he
+settled them in Northumberland.  He himself remained in the southern
+parts of the island, and laid the foundation of the kingdom of Kent,
+comprehending the county of that name, Middlesex, Essex, and part of
+Surrey.  He fixed his royal seat at Canterbury; where he governed
+about forty years, and he died in or near the year 488; leaving his
+new-acquired dominions to his posterity.
+
+The success of Hengist excited the avidity of the other northern
+Germans; and at different times, and under different leaders, they
+flocked over in multitudes to the invasion of this island.  These
+conquerors were chiefly composed of three tribes, the Saxons, Angles,
+and Jutes [p], who all passed under the common appellation, sometimes
+of Saxons, sometimes of Angles; and speaking the same language, and
+being governed by the same institutions, they were naturally led, from
+these causes, as well as from their common interest, to unite
+themselves against the ancient inhabitants.  The resistance, however,
+though unequal, was still maintained by the Britons; but became every
+day more feeble; and their calamities admitted of few intervals, till
+they were driven into Cornwall and Wales, and received protection from
+the remote situation or inaccessible mountains of those countries.
+[FN [p] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15.  Ethelwerd, p. 833. edit. Camdeni.
+Chron. Sax. p. 12.  Ann. Beverl. p. 78.  The inhabitants of Kent, and
+the Isle of Wight were Jutes.  Essex, Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex, and
+all the southern counties to Cornwall, were peopled by Saxons: Mercia,
+and other parts of the kingdom, were inhabited by Angles.]
+
+The first Saxon state, after that of Kent, which was established in
+Britain, was the kingdom of South Saxony.  In the year 477 [q], Aella,
+a Saxon chief, brought over an army from Germany; and landing on the
+southern coast, proceeded to take possession of the neighbouring
+territory.  The Britons, now armed, did not tamely abandon their
+possessions; nor were they expelled, till defeated in many battles by
+their warlike invaders.  The most memorable action, mentioned by
+historians, is that of Meacredes Burn [r]; where, though the Saxons
+seem to have obtained the victory, they suffered so considerable a
+loss, as somewhat retarded the progress of their conquests.  But
+Aella, reinforced by fresh numbers of his countrymen, again took the
+field against the Britons, and laid siege to Andred-Ceaster, which was
+defended by the garrison and inhabitants with desperate valour [s].
+The Saxons, enraged by this resistance, and by the fatigues and
+dangers which they had sustained, redoubled their efforts against the
+place, and when masters of it, put all their enemies to the sword
+without distinction.  This decisive advantage secured the conquests of
+Aella, who assumed the name of king, and extended his dominion over
+Sussex and a great part of Surrey.  He was stopped in his progress to
+the east by the kingdom of Kent: in that to the west by another tribe
+of Saxons, who had taken possession of that territory.
+[FN [q] Chron. Sax. p.14.  Ann. Beverl. p. 81.  [r] Saxon Chron. A.D.
+485.  Flor. Wigorn.  [s] Hen. Hunting. lib. 2.]
+
+These Saxons, from the situation of the country in which they settled,
+were called the West Saxons, and landed in the year 495, under the
+command of Cerdic, and of his son Kenric [t].  The Britons were, by
+past experience, so much on their guard, and so well prepared to
+receive the enemy, that they gave battle to Cerdic the very day of his
+landing; and though vanquished, still defended, for some time, their
+liberties against the invaders.  None of the other tribes of Saxons
+met with such vigorous resistance, or exerted such valour and
+perseverance in pushing their conquests.  Cerdic was even obliged to
+call for the assistance of his countrymen from the kingdoms of Kent
+and Sussex, as well as from Germany, and he was thence joined by a
+fresh army under the command of Porte, and of his sons Bleda, and
+Megla [u].  Strengthened by these succours, he fought in the year 508,
+a desperate battle with the Britons, commanded by Nazan-Leod, who was
+victorious in the beginning of the action, and routed the wing in
+which Cerdic himself commanded; but Kenric, who had prevailed in the
+other wing, brought timely assistance to his father, and restored the
+battle, which ended in a complete victory gained by the Saxons [w].
+Nazan-Leod perished with 5000 of his army; but left the Britons more
+weakened than discouraged by his death.  The war still continued,
+though the success was commonly on the side of the Saxons, whose short
+swords, and close manner of fighting, gave them great advantage over
+the missile weapons of the Britons.  Cerdic was not wanting to his
+good fortune; and in order to extend his conquests, he laid siege to
+Mount Badon or Banesdowne, near Bath, whither the most obstinate of
+the discomfited Britons had retired.  The southern Britons, in this
+extremity, applied for assistance to Arthur, Prince of the Silures,
+whose heroic valour now sustained the declining fate of his country
+[x].  This is that Arthur so much celebrated in the songs of
+Thaliessin, and the other British bards, and whose military
+achievements have been blended with so many fables, as even to give
+occasion for entertaining a doubt of his real existence. But poets,
+though they disfigure the most certain history by their fictions, and
+use strange liberties with truth where they are the sole historians,
+as among the Britons, have commonly some foundation for their wildest
+exaggerations.  Certain it is, that the siege of Badon was raised by
+the Britons in the year 520; and the Saxons were there discomfited in
+a great battle [y].  This misfortune stopped the progress of Cerdic;
+but was not sufficient to wrest from him the conquests which he had
+already made.  He and his son Kenric, who succeeded him, established
+the kingdom of the West Saxons, or of Wessex, over the counties of
+Hants, Dorset, Wilts, Berks, and the Isle of Wight, and left their
+new-acquired dominions to their posterity.  Cerdic died in 534, Kenric
+in 560.
+[FN [t] Will. Malm. lib. 1. cap. 1. p.12.  Chron. Sax. p. 15.  [u]
+Chron. Sax. p. 17.  [w] H. Hunting. lib. 2.  Ethelwerd, lib. 1. Chron.
+Sax. p. 17.  [x] Hunting. lib. 2.  [y] Gildas, Saxon Chron.  H.
+Hunting. lib. 2]
+
+While the Saxons made this progress in the south, their countrymen
+were not less active in other quarters.  In the year 527, a great
+tribe of adventurers, under several leaders, landed on the east coast
+of Britain; and after fighting many battles, of which history has
+preserved no particular account, they established three new kingdoms
+in this island.  Uffa assumed the title of King of the East Angles in
+575; Crida that of Mercia in 585 [z] and Erkenwin that of East Saxony,
+or Essex, nearly about the same time, but the year is uncertain.  This
+latter kingdom was dismembered from that of Kent, and comprehended
+Essex, Middlesex, and part of Hertfordshire.  That of the East Angles,
+the counties of Cambridge, Suffolk, and Norfolk; Mercia was extended
+over all the middle counties, from the banks of the Severn to the
+frontiers of these two kingdoms.
+[FN [z] Math. West. Huntington, lib. 2.]
+
+The Saxons, soon after the landing of Hengist, had been planted in
+Northumberland; but, as they met with an obstinate resistance, and
+made but small progress in subduing the inhabitants, their affairs
+were in so unsettled a condition, that none of their princes for a
+long time assumed the appellation of king.  At last, in 547 [a], Ida,
+a Saxon prince of great valour [b], who claimed a descent, as did the
+other princes of that nation, from Woden, brought over a reinforcement
+from Germany, and enabled the Northumbrians to carry on their
+conquests over the Britons.  He entirely subdued the county now called
+Northumberland, the bishopric of Durham, as well as some of the south-
+east counties of Scotland; and he assumed the crown under the title of
+King of Bernicia.  Nearly about the same time, Aella, another Saxon
+prince, having conquered Lancashire, and the greater part of
+Yorkshire, received the appellation of  King of Deiri [c].  These two
+kingdoms were united in the person of Ethilfrid, grandson of Ida, who
+married Acca, the daughter of Aella; and expelling her brother Edwin,
+established one of the most powerful of the Saxon kingdoms, by the
+title of Northumberland.  How far his dominions extended into the
+country now called Scotland, is uncertain; but it cannot be doubted,
+that all the lowlands, especially the east coast of that country, were
+peopled in a great measure from Germany; though the expeditions made
+by the several Saxon adventurers have escaped the records of history.
+The language spoken in those countries, which is purely Saxon, is a
+stronger proof of this event than can be opposed by the imperfect, or
+rather fabulous, annals which are obtruded on us by the Scottish
+historians.
+[FN [a] Chron. Sax. p 19.  [b] Will. Malmes. p. 19.  [c] Ann. Beverl.
+p. 78.]
+
+[MN The Heptarcy.]
+Thus was established, after a violent contest of near a hundred and
+fifty years, the Heptarchy, or seven Saxon kingdoms in Britain; and
+the whole southern part of the island, except Wales and Cornwall, had
+totally changed its inhabitants, language, customs, and political
+institutions.  The Britons, under the Roman dominion, had made such
+advances towards arts and civil manners, that they had built twenty-
+eight considerable cities within their province, besides a great
+number of villages and country seats [d].  But the fierce conquerors,
+by whom they were now subdued, threw every thing back into ancient
+barbarity, and those few natives who were not either massacred or
+expelled their habitations, were reduced to the most abject slavery.
+None of the other northern conquerors, the Franks, Goths, Vandals, or
+Burgundians, though they overran the southern provinces of the empire
+like a mighty torrent, made such devastations in the conquered
+territories, or were inflamed into so violent an animosity against the
+ancient inhabitants.  As the Saxons came over at intervals in separate
+bodies, the Britons, however at first unwarlike, were tempted to make
+resistance; and hostilities being thereby prolonged, proved more
+destructive to both parties, especially to the vanquished.  The first
+invaders from Germany, instead of excluding other adventurers  who
+must share with them the spoils of the ancient inhabitants, were
+obliged to solicit fresh supplies from their own country; and a total
+extermination of the Britons became the sole expedient for providing a
+settlement and subsistence to the new planters.  Hence there have been
+found in history few conquests more ruinous than that of the Saxons;
+and few revolutions more violent than that which they introduced.
+[FN  [d] Gildas. Bede. lib. 1.]
+
+So long as the contest was maintained with the natives, the several
+Saxon princes preserved a union of counsels and interests; but after
+the Britons were shut up in the barren counties of Cornwall and Wales,
+and gave no farther disturbance to the conquerors, the band of
+alliance was in a great measure dissolved among the princes of the
+Heptarchy.  Though one prince seems still to have been allowed, or to
+have assumed, an ascendant over the whole, his authority, if it ought
+ever to be deemed regular or legal, was extremely limited; and each
+state acted as if it had been independent, and wholly separate from
+the rest.  Wars therefore, and revolutions and dissensions, were
+unavoidable among a turbulent and military people; and these events,
+however intricate or confused, ought now to become the objects of our
+attention.  But, added to the difficulty of carrying on at once the
+history of seven independent kingdoms, there is great discouragement
+to a writer, arising from the uncertainty, at least barrenness, of the
+accounts transmitted to us.  The monks, who were the only annalists
+during those ages, lived remote from public affairs, considered the
+civil transactions as entirely subordinate to the ecclesiastical, and,
+besides partaking of the ignorance and barbarity which were then
+universal, were strongly infected with credulity, with the love of
+wonder, and with a propensity to imposture; vices almost inseparable
+from their profession and manner of life.  The history of that period
+abounds in names, but is extremely barren of events; or the events are
+related so much without circumstances and causes, that the most
+profound or most eloquent writer must despair of rendering them either
+instructive or entertaining to the reader.  Even the great learning
+and vigorous imagination of Milton sunk under the weight; and this
+author scruples not to declare, that the skirmishes of kites or crows
+as much merited a particular narrative, as the confused transactions
+and battles of the Saxon Heptarchy [e].  In order, however, to connect
+the events in some tolerable measure, we shall give a succinct account
+of the succession of kings, and of the more remarkable revolutions in
+each particular kingdom; beginning with that of Kent, which was the
+first established.
+[FN [e] Milton in Kennet, p. 50.]
+
+[MN The Kingdom of Kent.]
+Escus succeeded his father Hengist in the kingdom of Kent; but seems
+not to have possessed the military genius of that conqueror, who first
+made way for the entrance of the Saxon arms into Britain.  All the
+Saxons who sought either the fame of valour, or new establishments by
+arms, flocked to the standard of Aella, King of Sussex, who was
+carrying on successful war against the Britons, and laying the
+foundations of a new kingdom.  Escus was content to possess in
+tranquillity the kingdom of Kent, which he left in 512 to his son
+Octa, in whose time the East Saxons established their monarchy, and
+dismembered the provinces of Essex and Middlesex from that of Kent.
+His death, after a reign of twenty-two years, made room for his son
+Hermenric in 534, who performed nothing memorable during a reign of
+thirty-two years, except associating with him his son Ethelbert in the
+government, that he might secure the succession in his family, and
+prevent such revolutions as are incident to a turbulent and barbarous
+monarchy.
+
+Ethelbert revived the reputation of his family, which had languished
+for some generations.  The inactivity of his predecessors, and the
+situation of his country, secured from all hostility with the Britons,
+seem to have much enfeebled the warlike genius of the Kentish Saxons;
+and Ethelbert, in his first attempt to aggrandize his country, and
+distinguish his own name, was unsuccessful [f].  He was twice
+discomfited in battle by Ceaulin, King of Wessex; and obliged to yield
+the superiority in the Heptarchy to that ambitious monarch, who
+preserved no moderation in his victory, and by reducing the kingdom of
+Sussex to subjection, excited jealousy in all the other princes.  An
+association was formed against him; and Ethelbert, intrusted with the
+command of the allies  gave him battle, and obtained a decisive
+victory [g ].  Ceaulin died soon after; and Ethelbert succeeded as
+well to his ascendant among the Saxon states, as to his other
+ambitious projects.  He reduced all the princes, except the King of
+Northumberland, to a strict dependence upon him; and even established
+himself by force on the throne of Mercia, the most extensive of the
+Saxon kingdoms.  Apprehensive, however, of a dangerous league against
+him, like that by which he himself had been enabled to overthrow
+Ceaulin, he had the prudence to resign the kingdom of Mercia to Webba,
+the rightful heir, the son of Crida, who had first founded that
+monarchy.  But governed still by ambition more than by justice, he
+gave Webba possession of the crown on such conditions as rendered him
+little better than a tributary prince under his artful benefactor.
+[FN [f] Chron. Sax. p. 21.  [g] H. Hunting. lib. 2.]
+
+But the most memorable event which distinguished the reign of this
+great prince, was the introduction of the Christian religion among the
+English Saxons.  The superstition of the Germans, particularly that of
+the Saxons, was of the grossest and most barbarous kind; and being
+founded on traditional tales received from their ancestors, not
+reduced to any system, nor supported by political institutions, like
+that of the Druids, it seems to have made little impression on its
+votaries, and to have easily resigned its place to the new doctrine
+promulgated to them.  Woden, whom they deemed the ancestor of all
+their princes, was regarded as the god of war, and, by a natural
+consequence, became their supreme deity, and the chief object of their
+religious worship.  They believed that, if they obtained the favour of
+this divinity by their valour, (for they made less account of the
+other virtues,) they should be admitted after their death into his
+hall; and, reposing on couches, should satiate themselves with ale
+from the skulls of their enemies whom they had slain in battle.
+Incited by this idea of paradise, which gratified at once the passion
+of revenge and that of intemperance, the ruling inclinations of
+barbarians, they despised the dangers of war, and increased their
+native ferocity against the vanquished by their religious prejudices.
+We know little of the other theological tenets of the Saxons: we only
+learn that they were polytheists; that they worshipped the sun and
+moon; that they adored the god of thunder under the name of Thor; that
+they had images in their temples; that they practised sacrifices;
+believed firmly in spells and enchantments; and admitted in general a
+system of doctrines which they held as sacred, but which, like all
+other superstitions, must carry the air of the wildest extravagance,
+if propounded to those who are not familiarized to it from their
+earliest infancy.
+
+The constant hostilities which the Saxons maintained against the
+Britons, would naturally indispose them for receiving the Christian
+faith, when preached to them by such inveterate enemies; and perhaps
+the Britons, as is objected to them by Gildas and Bede, were not over
+fond of communicating to their cruel invaders the doctrine of eternal
+life and salvation.  But as a civilized people, however subdued by
+arms, still maintain a sensible superiority over barbarous and
+ignorant nations, all the other northern conquerors of Europe had been
+already induced to embrace the Christian faith, which they found
+established in the empire; and it was impossible but the Saxons,
+informed of this event, must have regarded with some degree of
+veneration a doctrine which had acquired the ascendant over all their
+brethren.  However limited in their views, they could not but have
+perceived a degree of cultivation in the southern countries beyond
+what they themselves possessed; and it was natural for them to yield
+to that superior knowledge as well as zeal, by which the inhabitants
+of the Christian kingdoms were even at that time distinguished.
+
+But these causes might long have failed of producing any considerable
+effect, had not a favourable incident prepared the means of
+introducing Christianity into Kent.  Ethelbert, in his father's
+lifetime, had married Bertha, the only daughter of Caribert, King of
+Paris [h], one of the descendants of Clovis, the conqueror of Gaul;
+but before he was admitted to this alliance, he was obliged to
+stipulate, that the princess should enjoy the free exercise of her
+religion; a concession not difficult to be obtained from the
+idolatrous Saxons [i].  Bertha brought over a  French bishop to the
+court of Canterbury; and being zealous for the propagation of her
+religion, she had been very assiduous in her devotional exercises, had
+supported the credit of her faith by an irreproachable conduct, and
+had employed every art of insinuation and address to reconcile her
+husband to her religious principles.  Her popularity in the court, and
+her influence over Ethelbert, had so well paved the way for the
+reception of the Christian doctrine, that Gregory, surnamed the Great,
+then Roman pontiff, began to entertain hopes of effecting a project,
+which he himself, before he mounted the papal throne, had once
+embraced, of converting the British Saxons.
+[FN [h] Greg. of Tours, lib. 9. cap. 26.  H. Hunting. lib. 2.  [i]
+Bede, lib. 1. cap. 25.  Brompton, p. 729.]
+
+It happened that this prelate, at that time in a private station, had
+observed in the market-place of Rome some Saxon youth exposed to sale,
+whom the Roman merchants, in their trading voyages to Britain, had
+bought of their mercenary parents.  Struck with the beauty of their
+fair complexions and blooming countenances, Gregory asked to what
+country they belonged; and being told they were ANGLES, he replied
+that they ought more properly to be denominated ANGELS: it were a pity
+that the prince of darkness should enjoy so fair a prey, and that so
+beautiful a frontispiece should cover a mind destitute of internal
+grace and righteousness.  Inquiring farther concerning the name of
+their province, he was informed that it was Deiri, a district of
+Northumberland: DEIRI, replied he, THAT IS GOOD!  THEY ARE CALLED TO
+THE MERCY OF GOD FROM HIS ANGER, De ira.  BUT WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE
+KING OF THAT PROVINCE?  He was told it was Aella or Alla: ALLELUIAH,
+cried he: WE MUST ENDEAVOUR THAT THE PRAISES OF GOD BE SUNG IN THAT
+COUNTRY.  Moved by these allusions, which appeared to him so happy, he
+determined to undertake himself a mission into Britain; and having
+obtained the pope's approbation, he prepared for that perilous
+journey: but his popularity at home was so great, that the Romans,
+unwilling to expose him to such dangers, opposed his design; and he
+was obliged, for the present, to lay aside all farther thoughts of
+executing that pious purpose [k].
+[FN [k] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 1.  Spell. Conc. p. 91.]
+
+The controversy between the Pagans and the Christians was not entirely
+cooled in that age; and no pontiff before Gregory, had ever carried to
+greater excess an intemperate zeal against the former religion.  He
+had waged war with all the precious monuments of the ancients, and
+even with their writings, which, as appears from the strain of his own
+wit, as well as from the style of his compositions, he had not taste
+or genius sufficient to comprehend.  Ambitious to distinguish his
+pontificate by the conversion of the British Saxons, he pitched on
+Augustine, a Roman monk, and sent him with forty associates to preach
+the gospel in this island.  These missionaries, terrified with the
+dangers which might attend their proposing a new doctrine to so fierce
+a people, of whose language they were ignorant, stopped some time in
+France, and sent back Augustine to lay the hazards and difficulties
+before the pope, and crave his permission to desist from the
+undertaking.  But Gregory exhorted them to persevere in their purpose,
+advised them to choose some interpreters from among the Franks, who
+still spoke the same language with the Saxons [l]; and recommended
+them to the good offices of Queen Brunehaut, who had at this time
+usurped the sovereign power in France.  This princess, though stained
+with every vice of treachery and cruelty, either possessed or
+pretended great zeal for the cause; and Gregory acknowledged that to
+her friendly assistance was, in a great measure, owing the success of
+that undertaking [m].
+[FN [1] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 23.  [m] Greg. Epist. lib. 9. epist. 56.
+Spell. Conc. p. 82]
+
+Augustine, on his arrival in Kent, in the year 597 [n] found the
+danger much less than he had apprehended.  Ethelbert, already well
+disposed towards the Christian faith, assigned him a habitation in the
+Isle of Thanet, and soon after admitted him to a conference.
+Apprehensive, however, lest spells or enchantments might be employed
+against him by priests, who brought an unknown worship from a distant
+country, he had the precaution to receive them in the open air, where
+he believed the force of their magic would be more easily dissipated
+[o].  Here Augustine, by means of his interpreters, delivered to him
+the tenets of the Christian faith, and promised him eternal joys
+above, and a kingdom in  heaven, without end, if he would be persuaded
+to receive that salutary doctrine [p].  "Your words and promises,"
+replied Ethelbert, "are fair; but because they are new and uncertain,
+I cannot entirely yield to them, and relinquish the principles which I
+and my ancestors have so long maintained.  You are welcome, however,
+to remain here in peace; and as you have undertaken so long a journey,
+solely, as it appears, for what you believe to be for our advantage, I
+will supply you with all necessaries, and permit you to deliver your
+doctrine to my subjects [q]"
+[FN [n] Higden. Polychron. lib. 5.  Chron. Sax. p. 23.  [o] Bede, lib.
+I. cap. 2  Hunting. lib. 3.  Brompton, p. 729  Parker Antiq. Brit.
+Eccl. p. 61. [p] Bede, lib. 1. cap 25.  Chron. W. Thorn. p. 1759.  [q]
+Bede, lib. 1. cap 25.  H. Hunting. lib. 3.  Brompton, p. 729]
+
+Augustine, encouraged by this favourable reception, and seeing now a
+prospect of success, proceeded with redoubled zeal to preach the
+gospel to the Kentish Saxons.  He attracted their attention by the
+austerity of his manners, by the severe penances to which he subjected
+himself, by the abstinence and self-denial which he practised: and
+having excited their wonder by a course of life which appeared so
+contrary to nature, he procured more easily their belief of miracles,
+which, it was pretended, he wrought for their conversion [r].
+Influenced by these motives, and by the declared favour of the court,
+numbers of the Kentish men were baptized; and the king himself was
+persuaded to submit to that rite of Christianity.  His example had
+great influence with his subjects; but he employed no force to bring
+them over to the new doctrine.  Augustine thought proper, in the
+commencement of his mission, to assume the appearance of the greatest
+lenity.  He told Ethelbert that the service of Christ must be entirely
+voluntary, and that no violence ought ever to be used in propagating
+so salutary a doctrine [s].
+[FN [r] Bede, lib. 1. cap 26.  [s] Ibid. lib. 1. cap 26.  H. Hunting.
+lib. 3.]
+
+The intelligence received of these spiritual conquests afforded great
+joy to the Romans; who now exulted as much in those peaceful trophies,
+as their ancestors had ever done in their most sanguinary triumphs,
+and most splendid victories.  Gregory wrote a letter to Ethelbert, in
+which, after informing him that the end of the world was approaching,
+he exhorted him to display his zeal in the conversion of his subjects,
+to exert rigour against the worship of idols, and to build up the good
+work of holiness by every expedient of exhortation, terror,
+blandishment, or correction [t]: a doctrine more suitable to that age,
+and to the usual papal maxims, than the tolerating principles which
+Augustine had thought it prudent to inculcate.  The pontiff also
+answered some questions which the missionary had put concerning the
+government of the new church of Kent.  Besides other queries which it
+is not material here to relate, Augustine asked, WHETHER COUSIN-
+GERMANS MIGHT BE ALLOWED TO MARRY? Gregory answered, that that liberty
+had indeed been formerly granted by the Roman law; but that experience
+had shown, that no issue could ever come from such marriages; and he
+therefore prohibited them.  Augustine, WHETHER A WOMAN PREGNANT MIGHT
+BE BAPTIZED?  Gregory answered that he saw no objection.  HOW SOON
+AFTER THE BIRTH THE CHILD MIGHT RECEIVE BAPTISM?  It was answered,
+Immediately, if necessary.  HOW SOON A HUSBAND MIGHT HAVE COMMERCE
+WITH HIS WIFE AFTER HER DELIVERY?  Not till she had given suck to her
+child: a practice to which Gregory exhorts all women.  HOW SOON A MAN
+MIGHT ENTER THE CHURCH, OR RECEIVE THE SACRAMENT, AFTER HAVING HAD
+COMMERCE WITH HIS WIFE?  It was replied, that unless he had approached
+her without desire, merely for the sake of propagating his species, he
+was not without sin: but in all cases it was requisite for him, before
+he entered the church, or communicated, to purge himself by prayer and
+ablution; and he ought not, even after using these precautions, to
+participate immediately of the sacred duties [u].  There are some
+other questions and replies still more indecent and more ridiculous
+[w].  And on the whole, it appears that Gregory and his missionary, if
+sympathy of manners have any influence, were better calculated than
+men of more refined understanding for making a progress with the
+ignorant and barbarous Saxons.
+[FN [t] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 32.  Brompton, p. 732.  Spell. Conc. p. 86.
+[u] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 27.  Spell. Conc. p. 97, 98, 99, &c.  [w]
+Augustine asks, Si mulier menstrua consuetudine tenetur, an ecclesiam
+intrare ei licet, aut sacrae communionis sacramenta percipere?
+Gregory answers, Sanctae communionis mysterium in eisdem diebus
+percipere non debit prohiberi.  Si autem ex veneratione magna
+precipere non praesumitur, laudanda est.  Augustine asks, Si post
+illusionem, quae per somnum solet accidere, vel corpus Domine quilibet
+accipere valeat; vel, si sacerdos sit, sacra mysteria celebrare.
+Gregory answers this learned question by many learned distinctions.]
+
+The more to facilitate the reception of Christianity Gregory enjoined
+Augustine to remove the idols from the heathen altars, but not to
+destroy the altars themselves; because the people, he said, would be
+allured to frequent the Christian worship, when they found it
+celebrated in a place which they were accustomed to revere.  And as
+the Pagans practised sacrifices, and feasted with the priests on their
+offerings, he also exhorted the missionary to persuade them, on
+Christian festivals, to kill their cattle in the neighbourhood of the
+church, and to indulge themselves in those cheerful entertainments, to
+which they had been habituated [x].  These political compliances show,
+that notwithstanding his ignorance and prejudices, he was not
+unacquainted with the arts of governing mankind.  Augustine was
+consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, was endowed by Gregory with
+authority over all the British churches, and received the pall, a
+badge of ecclesiastical honour, from Rome [y].  Gregory also advised
+him not to be too much elated with his gift of working miracles [z];
+and as Augustine, proud of the success of his mission, seemed to think
+himself entitled to extend his authority over the bishops of Gaul, the
+pope informed him, that they lay entirely without the bounds of his
+jurisdiction [a].
+[FN [x] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 30.  Spell. Conc. p.89.  Greg. Epist. lib.
+9. Epist. 71.  [y] Chron. Sax. p. 23, 24.  [z] H. Hunting. lib. 3.
+Spell. Conc. p. 83.  Bede, lib. 1.  Greg. Epist. lib. 9. Epist. 60.
+[a] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 27.]
+
+The marriage of Ethelbert with Bertha, and much more his embracing
+Christianity, begat a connexion of his subjects with the French,
+Italians, and other nations on the continent, and tended to reclaim
+them from that gross ignorance and barbarity in which all the Saxon
+tribes had been hitherto involved [b].  Ethelbert also enacted [c],
+with the consent of the states of his kingdom, a body of laws, the
+first written laws promulgated by any of the northern conquerors; and
+his reign was in every respect glorious to himself, and beneficial to
+his people.  He governed the kingdom of Kent fifty years, and dying in
+616, left the succession to his son, Eadbald.  This prince, seduced by
+a passion for his mother-in-law, deserted for some time the Christian
+faith, which permitted not these incestuous marriages: his whole
+people immediately returned with him to idolatry.  Laurentius, the
+successor of Augustine, found the Christian worship wholly abandoned,
+and was prepared to return to France, in order to escape the
+mortification of preaching the gospel without fruit to the infidels.
+Melitus and Justus, who had been consecrated Bishops of London and
+Rochester, had already departed the kingdom [d], when, Laurentius,
+before he should entirely abandon his dignity, made one effort to
+reclaim the king.  He appeared before that prince, and, throwing off
+his vestments, showed his body all torn with bruises and stripes,
+which he had received.  Eadbald, wondering that any man should have
+dared to treat in that manner a person of his rank, was told by
+Laurentius, that he had received this chastisement from St. Peter, the
+prince of the Apostles, who had appeared to him in a vision, and,
+severely reproving him for his intention to desert his charge, had
+inflicted on him these visible marks of his displeasure [e].  Whether
+Eadbald was struck with the miracle, or influenced by some other
+motive, he divorced himself from his mother-in-law, and returned to
+the profession of Christianity [f]: his whole people returned with
+him.  Eadbald reached not the fame or authority of his father, and
+died in 640, after a reign of twenty-five years, leaving two sons,
+Erminfred and Ercombert.
+[FN [b] Will. Malm. p.10.  [c] Wilkins Leges Sax. p. 13.  [d] Bede,
+lib. 2. cap. 5.  [e] Ibid. lib. 2. cap. 6.  Chron. Sax. p. 26.
+Higden, lib. 5.  [f] Brompton, p. 739.]
+
+Ercombert, though the younger son, by Emma, a French princess, found
+means to mount the throne.  He is celebrated by Bede for two exploits;
+for establishing the fast of Lent in his kingdom, and for utterly
+extirpating idolatry, which, notwithstanding the prevalence of
+Christianity, had hitherto been tolerated by the two preceding
+monarchs.  He reigned twenty-four years, and left the crown to Egbert,
+his son, who reigned nine years.  This prince is renowned for his
+encouragement of learning, but infamous for putting to death his two
+cousin germans, sons of Erminfred, his uncle.  The ecclesiastical
+writers praise him for bestowing on his sister, Domnona, some lands in
+the Isle of Thanet, where she founded a monastery.
+
+The bloody precaution of Egbert could not fix the crown on the head of
+his son, Edric.  Lothaire, brother  of the deceased prince, took
+possession of the kingdom, and, in order to secure the power in his
+family, he associated with him Richard, his son, in the administration
+of the government.  Edric, the dispossessed prince, had recourse to
+Edilwach, King of Sussex, for assistance, and being supported by that
+prince, fought a battle with his uncle, who was defeated and slain.
+Richard fled into Germany, and afterwards died in Lucca, a city of
+Tuscany.  William of Malmesbury ascribes Lothaire's bad fortune to two
+crimes; his concurrence in the murder of his cousins, and his contempt
+for relics [g].
+[FN [g] Will. Malm. p. 11.]
+
+Lothaire reigned eleven years; Edric, his successor, only two.  Upon
+the death of the latter, which happened in 686, Widred, his brother,
+obtained possession of the crown.  But as the succession had been of
+late so much disjointed by revolutions and usurpations, faction began
+to prevail among the nobility, which invited Ceodwalla, King of
+Wessex, with his brother, Mollo, to attack the kingdom.  These
+invaders committed great devastations in Kent; but the death of Mollo,
+who was slain in a skirmish [h], gave a short breathing-time to that
+kingdom.  Widred restored the affairs of Kent, and, after a reign of
+thirty-two years [i], left the crown to his posterity.  Eadbert,
+Ethelbert, and Alric, his descendants, successively mounted the
+throne.  After the death of the last, which happened in 794, the royal
+family of Kent was extinguished, and every factious leader who could
+entertain hopes of ascending the throne, threw the state into
+confusion [k].  Egbert, who first succeeded, reigned but two years;
+Cuthred, brother to the King of Mercia, six years; Baldred, an
+illegitimate branch of the royal family, eighteen; and, after a
+troublesome and precarious reign, he was, in the year 827, expelled by
+Egbert, King of Wessex, who dissolved the Saxon Heptarchy, and united
+the several kingdoms under his dominion.
+[FN [h] Higden, lib. 5.  [i] Chron. Sax. p. 52  [k] Will. Malmes. lib.
+1. cap. 1. p. 11.]
+
+[MN The kingdom of Northumberland.]
+Adelfrid, King of Bernicia, having married Acca, the daughter of
+Aella, King of Deiri, and expelled her infant brother, Edwin, had
+united all the countries north of Humber into one monarchy, and
+acquired a great ascendant in the Heptarchy.  He also spread the
+terror of the Saxon arms to the neighbouring people, and by his
+victories over the Scots and Picts, as well as Welsh, extended on all
+sides the bounds of his dominions.  Having laid siege to Chester, the
+Britons marched out with all their forces to engage him, and they were
+attended by a body of 1250 monks from the monastery of Bangor, who
+stood at a small distance from the field of battle, in order to
+encourage the combatants by their presence and exhortations.
+Adelfrid, inquiring the purpose of this unusual appearance, was told,
+that these priests had come to pray against him: THEN ARE THEY AS MUCH
+OUR ENEMIES, said he, AS THOSE WHO INTEND TO FIGHT AGAINST US [l]: and
+he immediately sent a detachment, who fell upon them, and did such
+execution, that only fifty escaped with their lives [m].  The Britons,
+astonished at this event, received a total defeat; Chester was obliged
+to surrender; and Adelfrid, pursuing his victory, made himself master
+of Bangor, and entirely demolished the monastery, a building so
+extensive that there was a mile's distance from one gate of it to
+another, and it contained two thousand one hundred monks, who are said
+to have been there maintained by their own labour [n].
+[FN [l] Brompton, p. 779.  [m] Trivet, apud Spell. Conc. p. 111.  [n]
+Bede, lib. 2. cap. 2.  W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 3.]
+
+Notwithstanding Adelfrid's success in war, he lived in inquietude on
+account of young Edwin, whom he had unjustly dispossessed of the crown
+of Deiri.  This prince, now grown to man's estate, wandered from place
+to place in continual danger from the attempts of Adelfrid, and
+received at last protection in the court of Redwald, King of the East
+Angles, where his engaging and gallant deportment procured him general
+esteem and affection.  Redwald, however, was strongly solicited by the
+King of Northumberland to kill or deliver up his guest; rich presents
+were promised him if he would comply, and war denounced against him in
+case of his refusal.  After rejecting several messages of this kind,
+his generosity began to yield to the motives of interest; and he
+retained the last ambassador till he should come to a resolution in a
+case of such importance.  Edwin, informed of his friend's perplexity,
+was yet determined at all hazards to remain in East Anglia, and
+thought that if the protection of that  court failed him, it were
+better to die, than prolong a life so much exposed to the persecutions
+of his powerful rival.  This confidence in Redwald's honour and
+friendship, with his other accomplishments, engaged the queen on his
+side, and she effectually represented to her husband the infamy of
+delivering up to certain destruction their royal guest, who had fled
+to them for protection against his cruel and jealous enemies [o].
+Redwald, embracing more generous resolutions, thought it safest to
+prevent Adelfrid, before that prince was aware of his intention, and
+to attack him while he was yet unprepared for defence.  He marched
+suddenly with an army into the kingdom of Northumberland, and fought a
+battle with Adelfrid, in which that monarch was defeated and killed,
+after avenging himself by the death of Regner, son of Redwald [p]: his
+own sons, Eanfrid, Oswald, and Oswy, yet infants, were carried into
+Scotland, and Edwin obtained possession of the crown of
+Northumberland.
+[FN [o] W.. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 3.  H. Hunting. lib. 3  Bede  [p]
+Bede, lib. 2. cap. 12.  Brompton, p. 781.]
+
+Edwin was the greatest prince of the Heptarchy in that age, and
+distinguished himself, both by his influence over the other kingdoms
+[q], and by the strict execution of justice in his own dominions.  He
+reclaimed his subjects from the licentious life to which they had been
+accustomed; and it was a common saying, that during his reign a woman
+or child might openly carry every where a purse of gold, without any
+danger of violence or robbery.  There is a remarkable instance,
+transmitted to us, of the affection borne him by his servants.
+Cuichelme, King of Wessex, was his enemy, but finding himself unable
+to maintain open war against so gallant and powerful a prince, he
+determined to use treachery against him, and he employed one Eumer for
+that criminal purpose.  The assassin, having obtained admittance by
+pretending to deliver a message from Cuichelme, drew his dagger and
+rushed upon the king.  Lilla, an officer of his army, seeing his
+master's danger, and having no other means of defence, interposed with
+his own body between the king and Eumer's dagger, which was pushed
+with such violence, that after piercing Lilla, it even wounded Edwin;
+but before the assassin  could renew his blow, he was despatched by
+the king's attendants.
+[FN [q] Chron. Sax. p. 27.]
+
+The East Angles conspired against Redwald, their king, and having put
+him to death, they offered their crown to Edwin, of whose valour and
+capacity they had had experience, while he resided among them.  But
+Edwin, from a sense of gratitude towards his benefactor, obliged them
+to submit to Earpwold, the son of Redwald; and that prince preserved
+his authority, though on a precarious footing, under the protection of
+the Northumbrian monarch [r].
+[FN [r] Gul. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 3.]
+
+Edwin, after his accession to the crown, married Ethelburga, the
+daughter of Ethelbert, King of Kent.  This princess, emulating the
+glory of her mother, Bertha, who had been the instrument for
+converting her husband and his people to Christianity, carried
+Paullinus, a learned bishop, along with her [s]; and besides
+stipulating a toleration for the exercise of her own religion, which
+was readily granted her, she used every reason to persuade the king to
+embrace it.  Edwin, like a prudent prince, hesitated on the proposal,
+but promised to examine the foundations of that doctrine, and declared
+that, if he found them satisfactory, he was willing to be converted
+[t].  Accordingly, he held several conferences with Paullinus;
+canvassed the arguments propounded with the wisest of his counsellors;
+retired frequently from company, in order to revolve alone that
+important question; and after a serious and long inquiry, declared in
+favour of the Christian religion [u]: the people soon after imitated
+his example.  Besides the authority and influence of the king, they
+were moved by another striking example.  Coifi, the high priest, being
+converted after a public conference with Paullinus, led the way in
+destroying the images which he had so long worshipped, and was forward
+in making this atonement for his past idolatry [w].
+[FN [s] H. Hunting. lib. 3.  [t] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 9.  [u] Ibid.  W.
+Malmes. lib 1. cap. 3.  [w] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 13.  Brompton, Higden,
+lib. 5.]
+
+This able prince perished with his son, Osfrid, in a great battle
+which he fought against Penda, King of Mercia, and Caedwalla, King of
+the Britons [x].  That event, which happened in the forty-eighth year
+of Edwin's age, and seventeenth of his reign [y], divided the monarchy
+of Northumberland, which that prince had united in his person.
+Eanfrid, the son of Adelfrid, returned with his brothers, Oswald and
+Oswy, from Scotland, and took possession of Bernicia, his paternal
+kingdom: Osric, Edwin's cousin-german, established himself at Deiri,
+the inheritance of his family, but to which the sons of Edwin had a
+preferable title.  Eanfrid, the elder surviving son, fled to Penda, by
+whom he was treacherously slain.  The younger son, Vuscfraea, with
+Yffi, the grandson of Edwin, by Osfrid, sought protection in Kent, and
+not finding themselves in safety there, retired into France to King
+Dagobert, where they died [z].
+[FN [x] Matth. West. p. 114  Chron. Sax. p. 29.  [y] W. Malmes. lib 1.
+cap. 3.  [z] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 20.]
+
+Osric, King of Deiri, and Eanfrid, of Bernicia, returned to paganism,
+and the whole people seem to have returned with them; since Paullinus,
+who was the first Archbishop of York, and who had converted them,
+thought proper to retire with Ethelburga, the queen dowager, into
+Kent.  Both these Northumbrian kings perished soon after, the first in
+battle against Caedwalla, the Briton; the second by the treachery of
+that prince.  Oswald, the brother of Eanfrid, of the race of Bernicia,
+united again the kingdom of Northumberland in the year 634, and
+restored the Christian religion in his dominions.  He gained a bloody
+and well-disputed battle against Caedwalla; the last vigorous effort
+which the Britons made against the Saxons.  Oswald is much celebrated
+for his sanctity and charity by the monkish historians, and they
+pretend that his relics wrought miracles, particularly the curing of a
+sick horse, which had approached the place of his interment [a].
+[FN [a] Ibid. lib. 3. cap. 9.]
+
+He died in battle against Penda, King of Mercia, and was succeeded by
+his brother Oswy, who established himself in the government of the
+whole Northumbrian kingdom, by putting to death Oswin, the son of
+Osric, the last king of the race of Deiri.  His son Egfrid succeeded
+him; who perishing in battle against the Picts, without leaving any
+children, because Adelthrid, his wife, refused to violate her vow of
+chastity, Alfred, his natural brother, acquired possession of the
+kingdom, which he governed for nineteen years, and he left it to
+Osred, his son, a boy of eight years of age.  This prince, after a
+reign of eleven years, was murdered by Kenred, his kinsman, who, after
+enjoying the crown only a year, perished by a like fate.  Osric, and
+after him Celwulph, the son of Kenred, next mounted the throne, which
+the latter relinquished in the year 735, in favour of Eadbert, his
+cousin-german, who, imitating his predecessor, abdicated the crown,
+and retired into a monastery.  Oswolf, son of Eadbert, was slain in a
+sedition, a year after his accession to the crown; and Mollo, who was
+not of the royal family, seized the crown.  He perished by the
+treachery of Ailred, a prince of the blood; and Ailred, having
+succeeded in his design upon the throne, was soon after expelled by
+his subjects.  Ethelred, his successor, the son of Mollo, underwent a
+like fate.  Celwold, the next king, the brother of Ailred, was deposed
+and slain by the people, and his place was filled by Osred, his
+nephew, who, after a short reign of a year, made way for Ethelbert,
+another son of Mollo, whose death was equally tragical with that of
+almost all his predecessors.  After Ethelbert's death an universal
+anarchy prevailed in Northumberland, and the people having, by so many
+fatal revolutions, lost all attachment to their government and
+princes, were well prepared for subjection to a foreign yoke, which
+Egbert, King of Wessex, finally imposed upon them.
+
+[MN The kingdom of East Anglia.]
+The history of this kingdom contains nothing memorable except the
+conversion of Earpwold, the fourth king, and great-grandson of Uffa,
+the founder of the monarchy.  The authority of Edwin, King of
+Northumberland, on whom that prince entirely depended, engaged him to
+take this step; but soon after, his wife, who was an idolatress,
+brought him back to her religion, and he was found unable to resist
+those allurements which had seduced the wisest of mankind.  After his
+death, which was violent, like that of most of the Saxon princes that
+did not early retire into monasteries, Sigebert, his successor and
+half brother, who had been educated in France, restored Christianity,
+and introduced learning among the East Angles.  Some pretend that he
+founded the university of Cambridge, or rather some schools in that
+place.  It is almost impossible,  and quite needless, to be more
+particular in relating the transactions of the East Angles.  What
+instruction or entertainment can it give the reader, to hear a long
+bead-roll of barbarous names, Egric, Annas, Ethelbert, Ethelwald,
+Aldulf; Elfwald, Beorne, Ethelred, Ethelbert, who successively
+murdered, expelled, or inherited from each other, and obscurely filled
+the throne of that kingdom?  Ethelbert, the last of these princes, was
+treacherously murdered by Offa, King of Mercia, in the year 792, and
+his state was thenceforth united with that of Offa, as we shall relate
+presently.
+
+[MN The kingdom of Mercia.]
+Mercia, the largest if not the most powerful kingdom of the Heptarchy,
+comprehended all the middle counties of England, and as its frontiers
+extended to those of all the other six kingdoms, as well as to Wales,
+it received its name from that circumstance.  Wibba, the son of Crida,
+founder of the monarchy, being placed on the throne, by Ethelbert,
+King of Kent, governed his paternal dominions by a precarious
+authority, and after his death, Ceorl, his kinsman, was, by the
+influence of the Kentish monarch, preferred to his son Penda, whose
+turbulent character appeared dangerous to that prince.  Penda was thus
+fifty years of age before he mounted the throne, and his temerity and
+restless disposition were found nowise abated by time, experience, or
+reflection.  He engaged in continual hostilities against all the
+neighbouring states, and by his injustice and violence rendered
+himself equally odious to his own subjects and to strangers.
+Sigebert, Egric, and Annas, three kings of East Anglia, perished
+successively in battle against him, as did also Edwin and Oswald, the
+two greatest princes that had reigned over Northumberland.  At last
+Oswy, brother to Oswald, having defeated and slain him in a decisive
+battle, freed the world from this sanguinary tyrant.  Peada, his son,
+mounted the throne of Mercia in 655, and lived under the protection of
+Oswy, whose daughter he had espoused.  This princess was educated in
+the Christian faith, and she employed her influence with success, in
+converting her husband and his subjects to that religion.  Thus the
+fair sex have had the merit of introducing the Christian doctrine into
+all the most considerable  kingdoms of the Saxon Heptarchy.  Peada
+died a violent death [b].  His son, Wolfhere, succeeded to the
+government, and, after having reduced to dependence the kingdoms of
+Essex and East Anglia, he, left the crown to his brother Ethelred,
+who, though a lover of peace, showed himself not unfit for military
+enterprises.  Besides making a successful expedition into Kent, he
+repulsed Egfrid, King of Northumberland, who had invaded his
+dominions; and he slew in battle Elfwin, the brother of that prince.
+Desirous, however, of composing all animosities with Egfrid, he paid
+him a sum of money as a compensation for the loss of his brother.
+After a prosperous reign of thirty years, he resigned the crown to
+Kendred, son of Wolfhere, and retired into the monastery of Bardney
+[c].  Kendred returned the present of the crown to Ceolred, the son of
+Ethelred, and making a pilgrimage to Rome, passed his life there in
+penance and devotion.  The place of Ceolred was supplied by Ethelbald,
+great-grand-nephew to Penda, by Alwy, his brother; and this prince,
+being slain in a mutiny, was succeeded by Offa, who was a degree more
+remote from Penda, by Eawa, another brother.
+[FN [b] Hugo Candidus, p. 4, says, that he was treacherously murdered
+by his queen, by whose persuasion he had embraced Christianity; but
+this account of the matter is found in that historian alone.  [c]
+Bede, lib. 5.]
+
+This prince, who mounted the throne in 775 [d], had some great
+qualities, and was successful in his warlike enterprises against
+Lothaire, King of Kent, and Kenwulph, King of Wessex.  He defeated the
+former in a bloody battle at Otford upon the Darent, and reduced his
+kingdom to a state of dependence: he gained a victory over the latter
+at Bensington in Oxfordshire; and conquering that county, together
+with that of Gloucester, annexed both to his dominions.  But all these
+successes were stained by his treacherous murder of Ethelbert, King of
+the East Angles, and his violent seizing of that kingdom.  This young
+prince, who is said to have possessed great merit, had paid his
+addresses to Elfrida, the daughter of Offa, and was invited with all
+his retinue to Hereford, in order to solemnize the nuptials.  Amidst
+the joy and festivity of these entertainments, he was seized by Offa,
+and secretly beheaded; and though Elfrida, who abhorred her father's
+treachery, had time to give warning to the East Anglian nobility, who
+escaped into their own country, Offa, having extinguished the royal
+family, succeeded in his design of subduing that kingdom [e].  The
+perfidious prince, desirous of re-establishing his character in the
+world, and perhaps of appeasing the remorses of his own conscience,
+paid great court to the clergy, and practised all the monkish devotion
+so much esteemed in that ignorant and superstitious age.  He gave the
+tenth of his goods to the church [f]; bestowed rich donations on the
+cathedral of Hereford, and even made a pilgrimage to Rome, where his
+great power and riches could not fail of procuring him the papal
+absolution.  The better to ingratiate himself with the sovereign
+pontiff, he engaged to pay him a yearly donation for the support of an
+English college at Rome [g]; and, in order to raise the sum, he
+imposed the tax of a penny on each house possessed of thirty pence a
+year.  This imposition being afterwards levied on all England, was
+commonly denominated Peter's Pence [h]: and though conferred at first
+as a gift, was afterwards claimed as a tribute by the Roman pontiff.
+Carrying his hypocrisy still farther, Offa, feigning to be directed by
+a vision from heaven, discovered at Verulam the relics of St. Alban,
+the martyr, and endowed a magnificent monastery in that place [i].
+Moved by all these acts of piety, Malmesbury, one of the best of the
+old English historians, declares himself at a loss to determine [k]
+whether the merits or crimes of this prince preponderated.  Offa died
+after a reign of thirty-nine years, in 794 [l].
+[FN [d] Chron. Sax. p. 59.  [e] Brompton, p. 750, 751, 752.  [f] Spell.
+Conc. p. 308.  Brompton, p. 776.  [g] Spell. Conc. p. 230, 310, 312.
+[h] Higden, lib. 5.  [i] Ingulph. p. 5.  W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 4.
+[k] Lib. 1. cap. 4.]
+
+This prince was become so considerable in the Heptarchy, that the
+Emperor Charlemagne entered into an alliance and friendship with him;
+a circumstance which did honour to Offa, as distant princes at that
+time had usually little communication with each other.  That emperor
+being a great lover of learning and learned men, in an age very barren
+of that ornament, Offa, at his desire, sent him over Alcuin, a
+clergyman, much celebrated for his knowledge, who received great
+honours from Charlemagne, and even became his preceptor in the
+sciences.  The chief reason why he had at first desired the company of
+Alcuin, was, that he might oppose his learning to the heresy of Felix,
+Bishop of Urgel, in Catalonia, who maintained that Jesus Christ,
+considered in his human nature, could more properly be denominated the
+adoptive, than the natural son of God [m].  This heresy was condemned
+in the council of Francfort, held in 794, and consisting of 300
+bishops.  Such were the questions which were agitated in that age, and
+which employed the attention not only of cloistered scholars, but of
+the wisest and greatest princes [n].
+[FN [l] Chron. Sax. p. 65  [m] Dupin, cent. 8. chap. 4.  [n] Offa, in
+order to protect his country from Wales; drew a rampart or ditch of a
+hundred miles in length, from Basinwerke in Flintshire, to the south-
+sea near Bristol.  See SPEED'S DESCRIPTION OF WALES.]
+
+Egfrith succeeded to his father Offa, but survived him only five
+months [o], when he made way for Kenulph, a descendant of the royal
+family.  This prince waged war against Kent, and taking Egbert the
+king prisoner, he cut off his hands, and put out his eyes, leaving
+Cuthred, his own brother, in possession of the crown of that kingdom.
+Kenulph was killed in an insurrection of the East Anglians, whose
+crown his predecessor, Offa, had usurped.  He left his son, Kenelm, a
+minor, who was murdered the same year by his sister, Quendrade, who
+had entertained the ambitious views of assuming the government [p].
+But she was supplanted by her uncle Ceolulf; who, two years after, was
+dethroned by Beornulf.  The reign of this usurper, who was not of the
+royal family, was short and unfortunate: he was defeated by the West
+Saxons, and killed by his own subjects, the East Angles [q].  Ludican,
+his successor, underwent the same fate [r]; and Wiglaff, who mounted
+this unstable throne, and found every thing in the utmost confusion,
+could not withstand the fortune of Egbert, who united all the Saxon
+kingdoms into one great monarchy.
+[FN [o] Ingulph. p. 6.  [p] Ibid. p. 7.  Brompton, p. 776  [q]
+Ingulph. p. 7.  [r] Ann. Beverl. p. 87.]
+
+[MN The kingdom of Essex.]
+This kingdom made no great figure in the Heptarchy, and the history of
+it is very imperfect.  Sleda succeeded to his father, Erkinwin, the
+founder of' the monarchy, and made way for his son, Sebert, who, being
+nephew to Ethelbert, King of Kent, was persuaded by that prince to
+embrace the Christian faith [s].  His sons and conjunct successors,
+Sexted and Seward, relapsed into idolatry, and were soon after slain
+in a battle against the West Saxons.  To show the rude manner of
+living in that age, Bede tells us [t], that these two kings expressed
+great desire to eat the white bread, distributed by Mellitus, the
+bishop, at the [u] communion.  But on his refusing them, unless they
+would submit to be baptized, they expelled him their dominions.  The
+names of the other princes who reigned successively in Essex, are
+Sigebert the Little, Sigebert the Good who restored Christianity,
+Swithelm, Sigheri, Offa.  This last prince, having made a vow of
+chastity, notwithstanding his marriage with Keneswitha, a Mercian
+princess, daughter to Penda, went in pilgrimage to Rome, and shut
+himself up during the rest of his life in a cloister.  Selred, his
+successor, reigned thirty-eight years, and was the last of the royal
+line; the failure of which threw the kingdom into great confusion, and
+reduced it to dependence under Mercia [w].  Switherd first acquired
+the crown, by the concession of the Mercian princes, and his death
+made way for Sigeric, who ended his life in a pilgrimage to Rome.  His
+successor, Sigered, unable to defend his kingdom, submitted to the
+victorious arms of Egbert.
+[FN [s] Chron. Sax. p. 24.  [t] Lib. 2. cap. 5.  [u] H. Hunting. lib.
+3.  Brompton, p. 738, 743.  Bede.  [w] Malmes lib. 1. cap. 6.]
+
+[MN The kingdom of Sussex.]
+The history of this kingdom, the smallest in the Heptarchy, is still
+more imperfect than that of Essex.  Aella, the founder of the
+monarchy, left the crown to his son Cissa, who is chiefly remarkable
+for his long reign of seventy-six years.  During his time, the South
+Saxons fell almost into a total dependence on the kingdom of Wessex,
+and we scarcely know the names of the princes who were possessed of
+this titular sovereignty.  Adelwalch, the last of them, was subdued in
+battle by Ceodwalla, King of Wessex, and was slain in the action,
+leaving two infant sons, who, falling into the hand of the conqueror,
+were murdered by him.  The Abbot of Retford opposed the order for this
+execution, but could only prevail on Ceodwalla to suspend it till they
+should be baptized.  Bercthun and Audhun, two noblemen of character,
+resisted some time the violence of the West Saxons, but their
+opposition served only to prolong the miseries of their country, and
+the subduing of this kingdom was the first step which the West Saxons
+made towards acquiring the sole monarchy of England [x].
+[FN [x] Brompton, p. 800.]
+
+[MN The Kingdom of Wessex.]
+The kingdom of Wessex, which finally swallowed up all the other Saxon
+states, met with great resistance on its first establishment: and the
+Britons, who were now inured to arms, yielded not tamely their
+possessions to those invaders.  Cerdic, the founder of the monarchy,
+and his son, Kenric, fought many successful, and some unsuccessful,
+battles against the natives; and the martial spirit, common to all the
+Saxons, was, by means of these hostilities, carried to the greatest
+height, among this tribe.  Ceaulin, who was the son and successor of
+Kenric, and who began his reign in 560, was still more ambitious and
+enterprising than his predecessors, and by waging continual war
+against the Britons, he added a great part of the counties of Devon
+and Somerset to his other dominions.  Carried along by the tide of
+success, he invaded the other Saxon states in his neighbourhood, and
+becoming terrible to all, he provoked a general confederacy against
+him.  This alliance proved successful under the conduct of Ethelbert,
+King of Kent; and Ceaulin, who had lost the affections of his own
+subjects by his violent disposition, and had now fallen into contempt
+from his misfortunes, was expelled the throne [y], and died in exile
+and misery.  Cuichelme and Cuthwin, his sons, governed jointly the
+kingdom, till the expulsion of the latter in 591, and the death of the
+former in 593, made way for Cealric, to whom succeeded Ceobald in 593,
+by whose death, which happened in 611, Kynegils inherited the crown.
+This prince embraced Christianity [z], through the persuasion of
+Oswald, King of Northumberland, who had married his daughter, and who
+had attained a great ascendant in the Heptarchy.  Kenwalch next
+succeeded to the monarchy, and dying in 672, left the succession so
+much disputed, that Sexburga, his widow, a woman of spirit [a], kept
+possession of the government till her death, which happened two years
+after.  Escwin then peaceably acquired the crown, and after a short
+reign of two years made way for Kentwin, who governed nine years.
+Ceodwalla, his successor, mounted not the throne without opposition,
+but proved a great prince according to the ideas of those times; that
+is, he was enterprising, warlike, and successful.  He entirely subdued
+the kingdom of Sussex, and annexed it to his own dominions.  He made
+inroads into Kent, but met with resistance from Widred, the king, who
+proved successful against Mollo, brother to Ceodwalla, and slew him in
+a skirmish.  Ceodwalla, at last, tired with wars and bloodshed, was
+seized with a fit of devotion; bestowed several endowments on the
+church; and made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he received baptism, and
+died in 689.  Ina, his successor, inherited the military virtues of
+Ceodwalla, and added to them the more valuable ones of justice,
+policy, and prudence.  He made war upon the Britons in Somerset, and
+having finally subdued that province, he treated the vanquished with a
+humanity hitherto unknown to the Saxon conquerors.  He allowed the
+proprietors to retain possession of their lands, encouraged marriages
+and alliances between them and his ancient subjects, and gave them the
+privilege of being governed by the same laws.  These laws he augmented
+and ascertained, and though he was disturbed by some insurrections at
+home, his long reign of thirty-seven years may be regarded as one of
+the most glorious and most prosperous of the Heptarchy.  In the
+decline of his age he made a pilgrimage to Rome, and after his return,
+shut himself up in a cloister, where he died.
+[FN [y] Chron. Sax. p. 22.  [z] Higden, lib. 5.  Chron. Sax. p. 15.
+Ann. Beverl. p. 93.  [a] Bede, lib 4 cap 12.  Chron. Sax. p. 41.]
+
+Though the kings of Wessex had always been princes of the blood,
+descended from Cerdic, the founder of the monarchy, the order of
+succession had been far from exact, and a more remote prince had often
+found means to mount the throne in preference to one descended from a
+nearer branch of the royal family.  Ina, therefore, having no children
+of his own, and lying much under the influence of Ethelburga, his
+queen, left by will the succession to Adelard, her brother, who was
+his remote kinsman; but this destination did not take place without
+some difficulty.  Oswald, a prince more nearly allied to the crown,
+took arms against Adelard; but he being suppressed, and dying soon
+after, the title of Adelard was not any farther disputed, and, in the
+year 741, he was succeeded by his cousin, Cudred.  The reign of this
+prince was distinguished by a great victory, which he obtained by
+means of Edelhun, his general, over Ethelbald, King of Mercia.  His
+death made way for Sigebert, his kinsman, who governed so ill, that
+his people rose in an insurrection and dethroned him, crowning Cenulph
+in his stead.  The exiled prince found a refuge with Duke Cumbran,
+governor of Hampshire, who, that he might add new obligations to
+Sigebert, gave him many salutary counsels for his future conduct,
+accompanied with some reprehensions for the past.  But these were so
+much resented by the ungrateful prince, that he conspired against the
+life of his protector, and treacherously murdered him.  After this
+infamous action, he was forsaken by all the world, and skulking about
+in the wilds and forests, was at last discovered by a servant of
+Cumbran's, who instantly took revenge upon him for the murder of his
+master [b].
+[FN [b] Higden, lib. 5.  W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 2.]
+
+Cenulph, who had obtained the crown on the expulsion of Sigebert, was
+fortunate in many expeditions against the Britons of Cornwall, but
+afterwards lost some reputation by his ill success against Offa, King
+of Mercia [c].  Kynehard also, brother to the deposed Sigebert, gave
+him disturbance, and though expelled the kingdom, he hovered on the
+frontiers, and watched an opportunity for attacking his rival.  The
+king had an intrigue with a young woman who lived at Merton in Surrey,
+whither having secretly retired, he was on a sudden environed, in the
+night time, by Kynehard and his followers, and, after making a
+vigorous resistance, was murdered with all his attendants.  The
+nobility and people of the neighbourhood, rising next day in arms,
+took revenge on Kynehard for the slaughter of their king, and put
+every one to the sword who had been engaged in that criminal
+enterprise.  This event happened in 784.
+[FN [c] W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap 3.]
+
+Brithric next obtained possession of the government, though remotely
+descended from the royal family, but he enjoyed not that dignity
+without inquietude.  Eoppa, nephew to King Ina, by his brother Ingild,
+who died before that prince, had begot Eta, father to Alchmond, from
+whom sprung Egbert [d], a young man of the most promising hopes, who
+gave great jealousy to Brithric, the reigning prince, both because he
+seemed by his birth better entitled to the crown, and because he had
+acquired, to an eminent degree, the affections of the people.  Egbert,
+sensible of his danger from the suspicions of Brithric, secretly
+withdrew into France [e], where he was well received by Charlemagne.
+By living in the court, and serving in the armies of that prince, the
+most able and most generous that had appeared in Europe during several
+ages, he acquired those accomplishments which afterwards enabled him
+to make such a shining figure on the throne; and familiarizing himself
+to the manners of the French, who, as Malmesbury observes [f], were
+eminent both for valour and civility above all the western nations, he
+learned to polish the rudeness and barbarity of the Saxon character:
+his early misfortunes thus proved of singular advantage to him.
+[FN [d] Chron. Sax. p. 16.  [e] H. Hunting. lib. 4.  [f] Lib. 2 cap.
+11.]
+
+It was not long ere Egbert had opportunities of displaying his natural
+and acquired talents.  Brithric, King of Wessex, had married Eadburga,
+natural daughter of Offa, King of Mercia, a profligate woman, equally
+infamous for cruelty and for incontinence.  Having great influence
+over her husband, she often instigated him to destroy such of the
+nobility as were obnoxious to her; and where this expedient failed,
+she scrupled not being herself active in traitorous attempts against
+them.  She had mixed a cup of poison for a young nobleman who had
+acquired her husband's friendship, and had on that account become the
+object of her jealousy; but, unfortunately, the king drank of the
+fatal cup along with his favourite, and soon after expired [g].  This
+tragical incident, joined to her other crimes, rendered Eadburga so
+odious, that she was obliged to fly into France, whence Egbert was at
+the same time recalled by the nobility, in order to ascent the throne
+of his ancestors [h].  He attained that dignity in the last year of
+the eighth century.
+[FN [g] Higden, lib. 5.  M. West. p. 152.  Asser. in vita Alfredi, p.
+3. ex edit. Camdeni.  [h] Chron. Sax. A. D. 800.  Brompton, p. 801.]
+
+In the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, an exact rule of succession was
+either unknown or not strictly observed, and thence the reigning
+prince was continually agitated with jealousy against all the princes
+of the blood, whom  he still considered as rivals, and whose death
+alone could give him entire security in his possession of the throne.
+From this fatal cause, together with the admiration of the monastic
+life, and the opinion of merit attending the preservation of chastity
+even in a married state, the royal families had been entirely
+extinguished in all the kingdoms except that of Wessex, and the
+emulations, suspicions, and conspiracies, which had formerly been
+confined to the princes of the blood alone, were now diffused among
+all the nobility in the several Saxon states.  Egbert was the sole
+descendant of those first conquerors who subdued Britain, and who
+enhanced their authority by claiming a pedigree from Woden, the
+supreme divinity of their ancestors.  But that prince, though invited
+by this favourable circumstance to make attempts on the neighbouring
+Saxons, gave them for some time no disturbance, and rather chose to
+turn his arms against the Britons in Cornwall, whom he defeated in
+several [i] battles.  He was recalled from the conquest of that
+country by an invasion made upon his dominions by Bernulf, King of
+Mercia.
+[FN [i] Chron. Sax. p. 69.]
+
+The Mercians, before the accession of Egbert, had very nearly attained
+the absolute sovereignty in the Heptarchy; they had reduced the East
+Angles under subjection, and established tributary princes in the
+kingdoms of Kent and Essex.  Northumberland was involved in anarchy;
+and no state of any consequence remained but that of Wessex, which,
+much inferior in extent to Mercia, was supported solely by the great
+qualities of its sovereign.  Egbert led his army against the invaders,
+and encountering them at Ellandun, in Wiltshire, obtained a complete
+victory, and by the great slaughter which he made of them in their
+flight, gave a mortal blow to the power of the Mercians.  Whilst he
+himself, in prosecution of his victory, entered their country on the
+side of Oxfordshire, and threatened the heart of their dominions, he
+sent an army into Kent, commanded by Ethelwolf, his eldest son [k],
+and expelling Baldred, the tributary king, soon made himself master of
+that country.  The kingdom of Essex was conquered with equal facility,
+and the East Angles, from their hatred to the Mercian government,
+which had been established over them by treachery and violence, and
+probably exercised with tyranny, immediately rose in arms, and craved
+the protection of Egbert [l].  Bernulf, the Mercian king, who marched
+against them, was defeated and slain; and two years after, Ludican,
+his successor, met with the same fate.  These insurrections and
+calamities facilitated the enterprises of Egbert, who advanced into
+the centre of the Mercian territories, and made easy conquests over a
+dispirited and divided people.  In order to engage them more easily to
+submission, he allowed Wiglef, their countryman, to retain the title
+of king, while he himself exercised the real powers of sovereignty
+[m].  The anarchy which prevailed in Northumberland, tempted him to
+carry still farther his victorious arms; and the inhabitants, unable
+to resist his power, and desirous of possessing some established form
+of government, were forward, on his first appearance, to send
+deputies, who submitted to his authority, and swore allegiance to him
+as their sovereign.  Egbert, however, still allowed to Northumberland,
+as he had done to Mercia and East Anglia, the power of electing a
+king, who paid him tribute, and was dependent on him.
+[FN [k] Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 2.  [1] Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 3.
+[m] Ingulph. p. 7, 8, 10]
+
+Thus were united all the kingdoms of the Heptarchy in one great state,
+near four hundred years after the first arrival of the Saxons in
+Britain, and the fortunate arms and prudent policy of Egbert at last
+effected what had been so often attempted in vain by so many princes
+[n].  Kent, Northumberland, and Mercia, which had successively aspired
+to general dominion, were now incorporated in his empire, and the
+other subordinate kingdoms seemed willingly to share the same fate.
+His territories were nearly of the same extent with what is now
+properly called England; and a favourable prospect was afforded to the
+Anglo-Saxons, of establishing a civilized monarchy, possessed of
+tranquillity within itself, and secure against foreign invasion.  This
+great event happened in the year 827 [o].
+[FN [n] Chron. Sax. p. 71.  [o] Ibid.]
+
+The Saxons, though they had been so long settled in the island, seem
+not as yet to have been much improved beyond their German ancestors,
+either in arts, civility, knowledge, humanity, justice, or obedience
+to the laws.  Even Christianity, though it opened the way to
+connexions between them and the more polished states of Europe, had
+not hitherto been very effectual in banishing their ignorance, or
+softening their barbarous manners.  As they received that doctrine
+through the corrupted channels of Rome, it carried along with it a
+great mixture of credulity and superstition, equally destructive to
+the understanding and to morals.  The reverence towards saints and
+relics seems to have almost supplanted the adoration of the Supreme
+Being.  Monastic observances were esteemed more meritorious than the
+active virtues; the knowledge of natural causes were neglected from
+the universal belief of miraculous interpositions and judgments;
+bounty to the church atoned for every violence against society; and
+the remorses for cruelty, murder, treachery, assassination, and the
+more robust vices, were appeased, not by amendment of life, but by
+penances, servility to the monks, and an abject and illiberal devotion
+[p].  The reverence for the clergy had been carried to such a height,
+that, wherever a person appeared in a sacerdotal habit, though on the
+high way, the people flocked around him, and, showing him all marks of
+profound respect, received every word he uttered as the most sacred
+oracle [q].  Even the military virtues, so inherent in all the Saxon
+tribes, began to be neglected; and the nobility, preferring the
+security and sloth of the cloister to the tumults and glory of war,
+valued themselves chiefly on endowing monasteries, of which they
+assumed the government [r].  The several kings, too, being extremely
+impoverished by continual benefactions to the church to which the
+states of their kingdoms had weakly assented, could bestow no rewards
+on valour or military services, and retained not even sufficient
+influence to support their government [s].
+[FN [p] These abuses were common to all the European churches, but the
+priests in Italy, Spain, and Gaul made some atonement for them, by
+other advantages which they rendered society.  For several ages, they
+were almost all Romans, or, in other words, the ancient natives, and
+they preserved the Roman language and laws, with some remains of the
+former civility.  But the priests in the Heptarchy, after the first
+missionaries, were wholly Saxons, and almost as ignorant and barbarous
+as the laity.  They contributed, therefore, little to the improvement
+of society in knowledge or the arts.  [q] Bede, lib 3. cap. 26.  [r]
+Ibid. lib. 5. cap. 23.  Epistola Bedae ad Egbert.  [s] Bedae Epist. ad
+Egbert.]
+
+Another inconvenience which attended this corrupt species of
+Christianity, was the superstitious attachment to Rome, and the
+gradual subjection of the kingdom to a foreign jurisdiction.  The
+Britons, having never acknowledged any subordination to the Roman
+pontiff, had conducted all ecclesiastical government by their domestic
+synods and councils [t]; but the Saxons, receiving their religion from
+Roman monks, were taught at the same time a profound reverence for
+that see, and were naturally led to regard it as the capital of their
+religion.  Pilgrimages to Rome were represented as the most
+meritorious acts of devotion.  Not only noblemen and ladies of rank
+undertook this tedious journey [u], but kings themselves, abdicating
+their crowns, sought for a secure passport to heaven at the feet of
+the Roman pontiff; new relics, perpetually sent from that endless mint
+of superstition, and magnified by lying miracles, invented in
+convents, operated on the astonished minds of the multitude; and every
+prince has attained the eulogies of the monks, the only historians of
+those ages, not in proportion to his civil and military virtues, but
+to his devoted attachment towards their order, and his superstitious
+reverence for Rome.
+[FN [t] Append. to Bede, numb. 10. ex edit, 1722.  Spellm. Conc. p.
+108, 109.  [u] Bede, lib. 5. c. 7.]
+
+The sovereign pontiff, encouraged by this blindness and submissive
+disposition of the people, advanced every day in his encroachments on
+the independence of the English churches.  Wilfrid, Bishop of
+Lindisferne, the sole prelate of the Northumbrian kingdom, increased
+this subjection in the eighth century, by his making an appeal to Rome
+against the decisions of an English synod, which had abridged his
+diocese by the erection of some new bishoprics [w].  Agatho, the pope,
+readily embraced this precedent of an appeal to his court; and
+Wilfrid, though the haughtiest and most luxurious prelate of his age
+[x], having obtained with the people the character of sanctity, was
+thus able to lay the foundation of this papal pretension.
+[FN [w] See Appendix to Bede, numb. 19.  Higden, lib. 5.  [x] Eddius,
+vita Vilfr. § 24, 60]
+
+The great topic by which Wilfrid confounded the imaginations of men
+was, that St. Peter, to whose custody the keys of heaven were
+intrusted, would certainly refuse admittance to every one who should
+be wanting in respect to his successor.  This conceit, well suited to
+vulgar conceptions, made great impression on the people during several
+ages, and has not even at present lost all influence in the catholic
+countries.
+
+Had this abject superstition produced general peace and tranquillity,
+it had made some atonement for the ill attending it; but besides the
+usual avidity of men for power and riches, frivolous controversies in
+theology were engendered by it, which were so much the more fatal, as
+they admitted not, like the others, of any final determination from
+established possession.  The disputes excited in Britain were of the
+most ridiculous kind, and entirely worthy of those ignorant and
+barbarous ages.  There were some intricacies, observed by all the
+Christian churches, in adjusting the day of keeping Easter, which
+depended on a complicated consideration of the course of the sun and
+moon: and it happened that the missionaries, who had converted the
+Scots and Britons, had followed a different calendar from that which
+was observed at Rome in the age when Augustine converted the Saxons.
+The priests also of all the Christian churches were accustomed to
+shave part of their head; but the form given to this tonsure was
+different in the former from what was practised in the latter.  The
+Scots and Britons pleaded the antiquity of THEIR usages; the Romans,
+and their disciples, the Saxons, insisted on the universality of
+THEIRS.  That Easter must necessarily be kept by a rule, which
+comprehended both the day of the year and age of the moon, was agreed
+by all; that the tonsure of a priest could not be omitted without the
+utmost impiety, was a point undisputed; but the Romans and Saxons
+called their antagonists schismatics, because they celebrated Easter
+on the very day of the full moon in March, if that day fell on a
+Sunday, instead of waiting till the Sunday following; and because they
+shaved the forepart of their head from ear to ear, instead of making
+that tonsure on the crown of the head, and in a circular form.  In
+order to render their antagonists odious, they affirmed, that once in
+seven years, they concurred with the Jews in the time of celebrating
+that festival [y]; and that they might recommend their own form of
+tonsure, they maintained that it imitated symbolically the crown of
+thorns worn by Christ in his passion, whereas the other form was
+invented by Simon Magus, without any regard to that representation
+[z].  These controversies had, from the beginning, excited such
+animosity between the British and Romish priests, that, instead of
+concurring in their endeavours to convert the idolatrous Saxons, they
+refused all communion together, and each regarded his opponent as no
+better than a pagan [a].  The dispute lasted more than a century, and
+was at last finished, not by menÂ’s discovering the folly of it, which
+would have been too great an effort for human reason to accomplish,
+but by the entire prevalence of the Romish ritual over the Scotch and
+British [b].  Wilfrid, Bishop of Lindisferne, acquired great merit,
+both with the court of Rome and with all the Southern Saxons, by
+expelling the quartodeciman schism, as it was called, from the
+Northumbrian kingdom, into which the neighbourhood of the Scots had
+formerly introduced it [c].
+[FN [y] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 19.  [z] Ibid. lib. 5. cap. 21.  Eddius,
+Sec. 24.  [a] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 2. 4. 20.  Eddius, Sec. 12.  [b]
+Bede, lib. 5. cap. 16, 22.  [c] Bede, lib. 3. cap. 25.  Eddius, Sec.
+12]
+
+Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, called, in the year 680, a synod
+at Hatfield, consisting of all the bishops in Britain [d], where was
+accepted and ratified the decree of the Lateran council, summoned by
+Martin, against the heresy of the Monothelites.  The council and synod
+maintained, in opposition to these heretics, that though the divine
+and human nature in Christ made but one person, yet they had different
+inclinations, wills, acts, and sentiments, and that the unity of the
+person implied not unity in the consciousness [e].  This opinion it
+seems somewhat difficult to comprehend; and no one, unacquainted with
+the ecclesiastical history of those ages, could imagine the height of
+zeal and violence with which it was then inculcated.  The decree of
+the Lateran council calls the Monothelites impious, execrable, wicked,
+abominable, and even diabolical; and curses and anathematizes them to
+all eternity [f].
+[FN [d] Spell. Conc. vol. 1. p. 168.  [e] Spell. Conc. vol. 1. p. 171.
+[f] Ibid. p. 172, 173, 174.]
+
+The Saxons, from the first introduction of Christianity among them,
+had admitted the use of images; and perhaps, that religion, without
+some of those exterior ornaments, had not made so quick a progress
+with these idolaters: but they had not paid any species of worship or
+address to images; and this abuse never prevailed among Christians,
+till it received the sanction of the second council of Nice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+EGBERT.--ETHELWOLF.--ETHELBALD AND ETHELBERT.--ETHERED.—ALFRED THE
+GREAT.--EDWARD THE ELDER.--ATHELSTAN.--EDMUND.—-EDRED--EDWY.--EDGAR.--
+EDWARD THE MARTYR.
+
+
+
+[MN Egbert 827.]
+The kingdoms of the Heptarchy, though united by so recent a conquest,
+seemed to be firmly cemented into one state under Egbert; and the
+inhabitants of the several provinces had lost all desire of revolting
+from that monarch, or of restoring their former independent
+governments.  Their language was every where nearly the same, their
+customs, laws, institutions, civil and religious; and as the race of
+the ancient kings was totally extinct in all the subjected states, the
+people readily transferred their allegiance to a prince who seemed to
+merit it by the splendour of his victories, the vigour of his
+administration, and the superior nobility of his birth.  A union also
+in government opened to them the agreeable prospect of future
+tranquillity; and it appeared more probable that they would henceforth
+become formidable to their neighbours, than be exposed to their
+inroads and devastations.  But these flattering views were soon
+overcast by the appearance of the Danes, who, during some centuries,
+kept the Anglo-Saxons in perpetual inquietude, committed the most
+barbarous ravages upon them, and at last reduced them to grievous
+servitude.
+
+The Emperor Charlemagne, though naturally generous and humane, had
+been induced by bigotry to exercise great severities upon the pagan
+Saxons in Germany, whom he subdued; and besides often ravaging their
+country with fire and sword, he had in cool blood decimated all the
+inhabitants for their revolts, and had obliged them, by the most
+rigorous edicts, to make a seeming compliance with the Christian
+doctrine.  That religion, which had easily made its way among the
+British Saxons by insinuation and address, appeared shocking to their
+German brethren, when imposed on them by the violence of Charlemagne,
+and the more generous and warlike of these pagans had fled northward
+into Jutland, in order to escape the fury of his persecutions.
+Meeting there with a people of similar manners, they were readily
+received among them; and they soon stimulated the natives to concur in
+enterprises, which both promised revenge on the haughty conqueror, and
+afforded subsistence to those numerous inhabitants with which the
+northern countries were now overburdened [g].  They invaded the
+provinces of France, which were exposed by the degeneracy and
+dissensions of CharlemagneÂ’s posterity; and being there known under
+the general name of Normans, which they received from their northern
+situation, they became the terror of all the maritime and even of the
+inland countries.  They were also tempted to visit England in their
+frequent excursions; and being able, by sudden inroads, to make great
+progress over a people who were not defended by any naval force, who
+had relaxed their military institutions, and who were sunk into a
+superstition which had become odious to the Danes and ancient Saxons,
+they made no distinction in their hostilities between the French and
+English kingdoms.  Their first appearance in this island was in the
+year 787 [h], when Brithric reigned in Wessex.  A small body of them
+landed in that kingdom, with a view of learning the state of the
+country; and when the magistrate of the place questioned them
+concerning their enterprise, and summoned them to appear before the
+king, and account for their intentions, they killed him, and, flying
+to their ships, escaped into their own country.  The next alarm was
+given to Northumberland in the year 794 [i], when a body of these
+pirates pillaged a monastery: but their ships being much damaged by a
+storm, and their leader slain in a skirmish, they were at last
+defeated by the inhabitants, and the remainder of them put to the
+sword.  Five years after Egbert had established his monarchy over
+England, the Danes landed in the Isle of Shepey, and having pillaged
+it, escaped with impunity [k].  They were not so fortunate in their
+next yearÂ’s enterprise, when they disembarked from thirty-five ships,
+and were encountered by Egbert, at Charmouth, in Dorsetshire.  The
+battle was bloody; but though the Danes lost great numbers, they
+maintained the post they had taken, and thence made good their retreat
+to their ships [l].  Having learned by experience, that they must
+expect a vigorous resistance from this warlike prince, they entered
+into an alliance with the Britons of Cornwall, and landing two years
+after in that country, made an inroad with their confederates into the
+county of Devon, but were met at Hengesdown by Egbert, and totally
+defeated [m].  While England remained in this state of anxiety, and
+defended itself more by temporary expedients than by any regular plan
+of administration, Egbert, who alone was able to provide effectually
+against this new evil, unfortunately died [MN 838.], and left the
+government to his son Ethelwolf.
+[FN [g] Ypod. Neustria, p. 414.  [h] Chron. Sax. p. 64.  [i] Chron.
+Sax. p 64.  Alur. Beverl. p. 108.  [k] Chron. Sax. p. 72.  [l] Chron.
+Sax. p. 72.  Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 2.  [m] Chron. Sax. p. 72.]
+
+[MN Ethelwolf.]
+This prince had neither the abilities nor the vigour of his father;
+and was better qualified for governing a convent than a kingdom [n].
+He began his reign with making a partition of his dominions, and
+delivering over to his eldest son, Athelstan, the new-conquered
+provinces of Essex, Kent, and Sussex.  But no inconveniences seem to
+have risen from this partition, as the continual terror of the Danish
+invasions prevented all domestic dissension.  A fleet of these
+ravagers, consisting of thirty-three sail, appeared at Southampton,
+but were repulsed with loss by Wolfhere, governor of the neighbouring
+county [o].  The same year, Aethelhelm, governor of Dorsetshire,
+routed another band which had disembarked at Portsmouth, but he
+obtained the victory after a furious engagement, and he bought it with
+the loss of his life [p].  Next year the Danes made several inroads
+into England, and fought battles, or rather skirmishes, in East Anglia
+and Lindesey and Kent, where, though they were sometimes repulsed and
+defeated, they always obtained their end of committing spoil upon the
+country, and carrying off their booty.  They avoided coming to a
+general engagement, which was not suited to their plan of operations.
+Their vessels were small, and ran easily up the creeks and rivers,
+where they drew them ashore, and having formed an entrenchment round
+them, which they guarded with part of their number, the remainder
+scattered themselves every where, and carrying off the inhabitants and
+cattle and goods, they hastened to their ships and quickly
+disappeared.  If the military force of the county were assembled, (for
+there was no time for troops to march from a distance,) the Danes
+either were able to repulse them, and to continue their ravages with
+impunity, or they betook themselves to their vessels, and setting
+sail, suddenly invaded some distant quarter, which was not prepared
+for their reception.  Every part of England was held in continual
+alarm, and the inhabitants of one county durst not give assistance to
+those of another, lest their own families and property should in the
+mean time be exposed by their absence to the fury of these barbarous
+ravagers [q].  All orders of men were involved in this calamity, and
+the priests and monks, who had been commonly spared in the domestic
+quarrels of the Heptarchy, were the chief objects on which the Danish
+idolators exercised their rage and animosity.  Every season of the
+year was dangerous, and the absence of the enemy was no reason why any
+man could esteem himself a moment in safety.
+[FN [n] Wm. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 2.  [o] Chron. Sax. p. 73.
+Ethelward, lib. 3.  [p] Chron. Sax. p. 73.  H. Hunting. lib. 5.  [q]
+Alured. Beverl. p. 108.]
+
+[MN 851.]
+These incursions had now become almost annual, when the Danes,
+encouraged by their successes against France as well as England, (for
+both kingdoms were alike exposed to this dreadful calamity,) invaded
+the last in so numerous a body, as seemed to threaten it with
+universal subjection.  But the English, more military than the
+Britons, whom a few centuries before they had treated with like
+violence, roused themselves with a vigour proportioned to the
+exigency.  Ceorle, governor of Devonshire, fought a battle with one
+body of the Danes at Wiganburgh [r], and put them to rout with great
+slaughter.  King Athelstan attacked another at sea near Sandwich, sunk
+nine of their ships, and put the rest to flight [s].  A body of them,
+however, ventured, for the first time, to take up winter quarters in
+England; and receiving in the spring a strong reinforcement of their
+countrymen in 350 vessels, they advanced from the Isle of Thanet,
+where they had stationed themselves, burnt the cities of London and
+Canterbury, and having put to flight Brichtric, who now governed
+Mercia under the title of king, they marched into the heart of Surrey,
+and laid every place waste around them.  Ethelwolf, impelled by the
+urgency of the danger, marched against them at the head of the West
+Saxons, and carrying with him his second son, Ethelbald, gave them
+battle at Okely, and gained a bloody victory over them.  This
+advantage procured but a short respite to the English.  The Danes
+still maintained their settlement in the Isle of Thanet, and being
+attacked by Ealher and Huda, governors of Kent and Surrey, though
+defeated in the beginning of the action, they finally repulsed the
+assailants [MN 853.], and killed both the governors.  They removed
+thence to the Isle of Shepey; where they took up their winter
+quarters, that they might farther extend their devastation and
+ravages.
+[FN [r] H. Hunt. lib. 5  Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 3.  Simeon Dunelm. p.
+120.  [s] Chron. Sax. p. 74.  Asserius, p. 2.]
+
+This unsettled state of England hindered not Ethelwolf from making a
+pilgrimage to Rome, whither he carried his fourth and favourite son,
+Alfred, then only six years of age [t].  He passed there a twelvemonth
+in exercises of devotion, and failed not in that most essential part
+of devotion, liberality to the church of Rome.  Besides giving
+presents to the more distinguished ecclesiastics, he made a perpetual
+grant of three hundred mancuses [u] a year to that see; one-third to
+support the lamps of St. PeterÂ’s, another those of St. PaulÂ’s, a third
+to the pope himself [w].  In his return home he married Judith,
+daughter of the emperor, Charles the Bald, but on his landing in
+England, he met with an opposition which he little looked for.
+[FN [t] Asserius, p. 2.  Chron. Sax. 76.  Hunt. lib. 5.  [u] A mancus
+was about the weight of our present half-crown: see SpellmanÂ’s
+Glossary, IN VERBO Mancus.  [w] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap 2.]
+
+His eldest son, Athelstan, being dead, Ethelbald, his second, who had
+assumed the government, formed, in concert with many of the nobles,
+the project of excluding his father from a throne, which his weakness
+and superstition seemed to have rendered him so ill-qualified to fill.
+The people were divided between the two princes, and a bloody civil
+war, joined to all the other calamities under which the English
+laboured, appeared inevitable, when Ethelwolf had the facility to
+yield to the greater part of his sonÂ’s pretensions.  He made with him
+a partition of the kingdom, and taking to himself the eastern part,
+which was always at that time esteemed the least considerable, as well
+as the most exposed [x], he delivered over to Ethelbald the
+sovereignty of the western.  Immediately after, he summoned the states
+of the whole kingdom, and with the same facility conferred a perpetual
+and important donation on the church.
+[FN [x] Asserius, p. 3.  W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 2.  Matth. West. p.
+1, 8.]
+
+The ecclesiastics, in those days of ignorance, made rapid advances in
+the acquisition of power and grandeur; and inculcating the most absurd
+and most interested doctrines, though they sometimes met, from the
+contrary interests of the laity, with an opposition which it required
+time and address to overcome, they found no obstacle in their reason
+or understanding.  Not content with the donations of land made them by
+the Saxon princes and nobles, and with temporary oblations, from the
+devotion of the people, they had cast a wishful eye on a vast revenue,
+which they claimed as belonging to them by a sacred and indefeasible
+title.  However little versed in the Scriptures, they had been able to
+discover that, under the Jewish law, a tenth of all the produce of
+land was conferred on the priesthood; and forgetting, what they
+themselves taught, that the moral part only of that law was obligatory
+on Christians, they insisted that this donation conveyed a perpetual
+property, inherent by divine right in those who officiated at the
+altar.  During some centuries, the whole scope of sermons and homilies
+was directed to this purpose, and one would have imagined, from the
+general tenor of these discourses, that all the practical parts of
+Christianity were comprised in the exact and faithful payment of
+tithes to the clergy [y].  Encouraged by their success in inculcating
+these doctrines, they ventured farther than they were warranted even
+by the Levitical law, and pretended to draw the tenth of all industry,
+merchandise, wages of labourers, and pay of soldiers [z]; nay, some
+canonists went so far as to affirm, that the clergy were entitled to
+the tithe of the profits made by courtesans in the exercise of their
+profession [a].  Though parishes had been instituted in England by
+Honorius, Archbishop of Canterbury, near two centuries before [b], the
+ecclesiastics had never yet been able to get possession of the tithes;
+they therefore seized the present favourable opportunity of making
+that acquisition, when a weak, superstitious prince filled the throne,
+and when the people, discouraged by their losses from the Danes, and
+terrified with the fear of future invasions, were susceptible of any
+impression which bore the appearance of religion [c].  So meritorious
+was this concession deemed by the English, that trusting entirely to
+supernatural assistance, they neglected the ordinary means of safety,
+and agreed, even in the present desperate extremity, that the revenues
+of the church should be exempted from all burthens, though imposed for
+national defence and security [d].
+[FN [y] Padre Paolo, sopra beneficii ecclesiastici, p. 51, 52. edit.
+Colon. 1675  [z] Spell. Conc. vol. i. p. 268.  [a] Padre Paolo, p.
+132.  [b] Parker, p. 77.  [c] lngulph. p. 862.  SeldenÂ’s Hist. of
+Tithes, c. 8.  [d] Asserius, p. 2.  Chron. Sax. p. 76.  W. Malmes.
+lib. 2. cap. 2.  Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 3.  M. West. p. 158.
+Ingulph. p. 17.  Alur. Beverl. p. 95]
+
+[MN Ethelbald and Ethelbert. 857.]
+Ethelwolf lived only two years after making this grant, and by his
+will he shared England between his two eldest sons, Ethelbald and
+Ethelbert; the west being assigned to the former, the east to the
+latter.  Ethelbald was a profligate prince, and marrying Judith, his
+mother-in-law, gave great offence to the people; but, moved by the
+remonstrances of Swithin, Bishop of Winchester, he was at last
+prevailed on to divorce her.  His reign was short; and Ethelbert, his
+brother, succeeding to the government [MN 860.], behaved himself,
+during a reign of five years, in a manner more worthy of his birth and
+station.  The kingdom, however, was still infested by the Danes, who
+made an inroad and sacked Winchester, but were there defeated.  A body
+also of these pirates, who were quartered in the Isle of Thanet,
+having deceived the English by a treaty, unexpectedly broke into Kent,
+and committed great outrages.
+
+[MN Ethered 866.]
+Ethelbert was succeeded by his brother Ethered, who, though he
+defended himself with bravery, enjoyed, during his whole reign, no
+tranquillity from those Danish irruptions.  His younger brother,
+Alfred, seconded him in all his enterprises, and generously sacrificed
+to the public good all resentment which he might entertain on account
+of his being excluded by Ethered from a large patrimony which had been
+left him by his father.
+
+The first landing of the Danes in the reign of Ethered was among the
+East Angles, who, more anxious for their present safety than for the
+common interest, entered into a separate treaty with the enemy, and
+furnished them with horses, which enabled them to make an irruption by
+land into the kingdom of Northumberland.  They there seized the city
+of York, and defended it against Osbricht and Aella, two Northumbrian
+princes, who perished in the assault [f].  Encouraged by these
+successes, and by the superiority which they had acquired in arms,
+they now ventured, under the command of Hinguar and Hubba, to leave
+the sea-coast, and penetrating into Mercia, they took up their winter
+quarters at Nottingham, where they threatened the kingdom with a final
+subjection.  The Mercians, in this extremity, applied to Ethered for
+succour, and that prince, with his brother Alfred, conducting a great
+army to Nottingham, obliged the enemy to dislodge [MN 870.], and to
+retreat into Northumberland.  Their restless disposition, and their
+avidity for plunder, allowed them not to remain long in those
+quarters; they broke into East Anglia, defeated and took prisoner
+Edmund, the king of that country, whom they afterwards murdered in
+cool blood, and committing the most barbarous ravages on the people,
+particularly on the monasteries, they gave the East Angles cause to
+regret the temporary relief which they had obtained by assisting the
+common enemy.
+[FN [f] Asser. p. 6.  Chron Sax. p. 79.]
+
+[MN 871.] The next station of the Danes was at Reading, whence they
+infested the neighbouring country by their incursions.  The Mercians,
+desirous of shaking off their dependence on Ethered, refused to join
+him with their forces; and that prince, attended by Alfred, was
+obliged to march against the enemy with the West Saxons alone, his
+hereditary subjects.  The Danes, being defeated in an action, shut
+themselves up in their garrison; but quickly making thence an
+irruption, they routed the West Saxons, and obliged them to raise the
+siege.  An action soon after ensued at Aston, in Berkshire, where the
+English, in the beginning of the day, were in danger of a total
+defeat.  Alfred, advancing with one division of the army, was
+surrounded by the enemy in disadvantageous ground; and Ethered, who
+was at that time hearing mass, refused to march to his assistance till
+prayers should be finished [g]: but as he afterwards obtained the
+victory, this success, not the danger of Alfred, was ascribed by the
+monks to the piety of that monarch.  This battle of Aston did not
+terminate the war: another battle was a little after fought at Basing,
+where the Danes were more successful; and being reinforced by a new
+army from their own country, they became every day more terrible to
+the English.  Amidst these confusions, Ethered died of a wound which
+he had received in an action with the Danes; and left the inheritance
+of his cares and misfortunes, rather than of his grandeur, to his
+brother, Alfred, who was now twenty-two years of age.
+[FN [g] Asser. p. 7.  W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 3.  Simeon Dunelm. p. 125.
+Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 205.]
+
+[MN Alfred 871.]
+This prince gave very early marks of those great virtues and shining
+talents, by which, during the most difficult times, he saved his
+country from utter ruin and subversion.  Ethelwolf, his father, the
+year after his return with Alfred from Rome, had again sent the young
+prince thither with a numerous retinue; and a report being spread of
+the kingÂ’s death, the pope, Leo III., gave Alfred the royal unction
+[h]; whether prognosticating his future greatness from the appearances
+of his pregnant genius, or willing to pretend, even in that age, to
+the right of conferring kingdoms.  Alfred, on his return home, became
+every day more the object of his fatherÂ’s affections; but being
+indulged in all youthful pleasures, he was much neglected in his
+education; and he had already reached his twelfth year, when he was
+yet totally ignorant of the lowest elements of literature.  His genius
+was first roused by the recital of Saxon poems, in which the queen
+took delight; and this species of erudition, which is sometimes able
+to make a considerable progress even among barbarians, expanded those
+noble and elevated sentiments which he had received from nature [i].
+Encouraged by the queen, and stimulated by his own ardent inclination,
+he soon learned to read those compositions; and proceeded thence to
+acquire the knowledge of the Latin tongue, in which he met with
+authors that better prompted his heroic spirit, and directed his
+generous views.  Absorbed in these elegant pursuits, he regarded his
+accession to royalty rather as an object of regret than of triumph
+[k]; but being called to the throne, in preference to his brotherÂ’s
+children, as well by the will of his father, a circumstance which had
+great authority with the Anglo-Saxons [l], as by the vows of the whole
+nation, and the urgency of public affairs, he shook off his literary
+indolence, and exerted himself in the defence of his people.  He had
+scarcely buried his brother, when he was obliged to take the field in
+order to oppose the Danes, who had seized Wilton, and were exercising
+their usual ravages on the countries around.  He marched against them
+with the few troops which he could assemble on a sudden; and giving
+them battle, gained at first an advantage, but by his pursuing the
+victory too far, the superiority of the enemyÂ’s numbers prevailed, and
+recovered them the day.  Their loss, however, in the action, was so
+considerable, that, fearing Alfred would receive daily reinforcement
+from his subjects, they were content to stipulate for a safe retreat,
+and promised to depart the kingdom.  For that purpose they were
+conducted to London, and allowed to take up winter quarters there;
+but, careless of their engagements, they immediately set themselves to
+the committing of spoil on the neighbouring country.  Burrhed, King of
+Mercia, in whose territories London was situated, made a new
+stipulation with them, and engaged them, by presents of money, to
+remove to Lindesey, in Lincolnshire, a country which they had already
+reduced to ruin and desolation.  Finding therefore no object in that
+place, either for their rapine or violence, they suddenly turned back
+upon Mercia, in a quarter where they expected to find it without
+defence; and fixing their station at Repton in Derbyshire, they laid
+the whole country desolate with fire and sword.  Burrhed, despairing
+of success against an enemy whom no force could resist, and no
+treaties bind, abandoned his kingdom, and flying to Rome, took shelter
+in a cloister [m].  He was brother-in-law to Alfred, and the last who
+bore the title of king in Mercia.
+[FN [h] Asser. p. 2.  W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 2.  Ingulph. p. 869.
+Simeon Dunelm. p. 120, 139.  [i] Asser. p. 5.  M. West. p. 167.  [k]
+Asser. p. 7.  [1] Ibid. p. 22.  Simeon Dunelm. p. 121.  [m] Asser. p.
+8.  Chron. Sax. p. 82.  Ethelward, lib. 4. cap. 4.]
+
+The West Saxons were now the only remaining power in England; and
+though supported by the vigour and abilities of Alfred, they were
+unable to sustain the efforts of those ravagers, who from all quarters
+invaded them. A new swarm of Danes came over this year under three
+princes, Guthrum, Oscitel, and Amund; and having first joined their
+countrymen at Repton, they soon found the necessity of separating, in
+order to provide for their subsistence.  Part of them, under the
+command of Haldene, their chieftain [n], marched into Northumberland,
+where they fixed their quarters; part of them took quarters at
+Cambridge, whence they dislodged in the ensuing summer, and seized
+Wereham, in the county of Dorset, the very centre of AlfredÂ’s
+dominions.  That prince so straitened them in these quarters, that
+they were content to come to a treaty with him, and stipulated to
+depart his country.  Alfred, well acquainted with their usual perfidy,
+obliged them to swear upon the holy relics to the observance of the
+treaty [o]; not that he expected they would pay any veneration to the
+relics; but he hoped, that, if they now violated this oath, their
+impiety would infallibly draw down upon them the vengeance of Heaven.
+But the Danes, little apprehensive of the danger, suddenly, without
+seeking any pretence, fell upon AlfredÂ’s army; and having put it to
+rout, marched westward, and took possession of Exeter.  The prince
+collected new forces, and exerted such vigour, that he fought in one
+year eight battles with the enemy [p], and reduced them to the utmost
+extremity.  He hearkened however to new proposals of peace; and was
+satisfied to stipulate with them, that they would settle somewhere in
+England [q], and would not permit the entrance of more ravagers into
+the kingdom. But while he was expecting the execution of this treaty,
+which it seemed the interest of the Danes themselves to fulfil, he
+heard that another body had landed, and having collected all the
+scattered troops of their countrymen, had surprised Chippenham, then a
+considerable town, and were exercising their usual ravages all around
+them.
+[FN [n] Chron. Sax. p. 83.  [o] Asser. p. 8.  [p] Ibid.  The Saxon
+Chronicle. p. 82, says nine battles.  [q] Asser. p. 9.  Alur. Beverl.
+p. 104.]
+
+This last incident quite broke the spirit of the Saxons, and reduced
+them to despair.  Finding that, after all the miserable havoc which
+they had undergone in their persons and in their property; after all
+the vigorous actions which they had exerted in their own defence; a
+new band, equally greedy of spoil and slaughter, had disembarked among
+them; they believed themselves abandoned by Heaven to destruction, and
+delivered over to those swarms of robbers, which the fertile north
+thus incessantly poured forth against them.  Some left their country
+and retired into Wales, or fled beyond sea: others submitted to the
+conquerors, in hopes of appeasing their fury by a servile obedience
+[r].  And every manÂ’s attention being now engrossed in concern for his
+own preservation, no one would hearken to the exhortations of the
+king, who summoned them to make, under his conduct, one effort more in
+defence of their prince, their country, and their liberties.  Alfred
+himself was obliged to relinquish the ensigns of his dignity, to
+dismiss his servants, and to seek shelter, in the meanest disguises,
+from the pursuit and fury of his enemies.  He concealed himself under
+a peasantÂ’s habit, and lived some time in the house of a neat-herd,
+who had been intrusted with the care of some of his cows [s].  There
+passed here an incident, which has been recorded by all the
+historians, and was long preserved by popular tradition; though it
+contains nothing memorable in itself, except so far as every
+circumstance is interesting which attends so much virtue and dignity
+reduced to such distress.  The wife of the neat-herd was ignorant of
+the condition of her royal guest; and observing him one day busy by
+the fire-side in trimming his bows and arrows, she desired him to take
+care of some cakes which were toasting, while she was employed
+elsewhere in other domestic affairs.  But Alfred, whose thoughts were
+otherwise engaged, neglected this injunction; and the good woman, on
+her return, finding her cakes all burnt, rated the king very severely,
+and upbraided him, that he always seemed very well pleased to eat her
+warm cakes, though he was thus negligent in toasting them [t].
+[FN [r] Chron. Sax. p. 84.  Alured Bever. p. 105.  [s] Asser. p. 9.
+[t] Ibid  M. West, p. 170.]
+
+By degrees, Alfred, as he found the search of the enemy become more
+remiss, collected some of his retainers, and retired into the centre
+of a bog, formed by the stagnating waters of the Thone and Parret, in
+Somersetshire.  He here found two acres of firm ground; and building a
+habitation on them, rendered himself secure by its fortifications, and
+still more by the unknown and inaccessible roads which led to it, and
+by the forests and morasses with which it was every way environed.
+This place he called Aethelingay, or the Isle of Nobles [u]; and it
+now bears the name of Athelney.  He thence made frequent and
+unexpected sallies upon the Danes, who often felt the vigour of his
+arm, but knew not from what quarter the blow came.  He subsisted
+himself and his followers by the plunder which he acquired; he
+procured them consolation by revenge; and from small successes he
+opened their minds to hope, that, notwithstanding his present low
+condition, more important victories might at length attend his valour.
+[FN [u] Chron. Sax. p. 65.  W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 4  Ethelward, lib.
+4. cap. 4.  Ingulph. p. 26.]
+
+Alfred lay here concealed, but not inactive, during a twelvemonth,
+when the news of a prosperous event reached his ears, and called him
+to the field.  Hubba, the Dane, having spread devastation, fire, and
+slaughter over Wales, had landed in Devonshire from twenty-three
+vessels, and laid siege to the castle of Kenwith, a place situated
+near the mouth of the small river Tau.  Oddune, Earl of Devonshire,
+with his followers, had taken shelter there; and being ill supplied
+with provisions, and even with water, he determined, by some vigorous
+blow, to prevent the necessity of submitting to the barbarous enemy.
+He made a sudden sally on the Danes before sun-rising; and taking them
+unprepared, he put them to rout, pursued them with great slaughter,
+killed Hubba himself; and got possession of the famous REAFEN, or
+enchanted standard, in which the Danes put great confidence [w].  It
+contained the figure of a raven, which had been inwoven by the three
+sisters of Hinguar and Hubba, with many magical incantations, and
+which, by its different movements, prognosticated, as the Danes
+believed, the good or bad success of any enterprise [x].
+[FN [w] Asser. p. 10.  Chron. Sax. p. 84.  Abbas Rieval, p. 395
+Alured Beverl. p. 105.  [x] Asser. p. 10.]
+
+When Alfred observed this symptom of successful resistance in his
+subjects, he left his retreat; but before he would assemble them in
+arms, or urge them to any attempt, which, if unfortunate, might, in
+their present despondency, prove fatal, he resolved to inspect himself
+the situation of the enemy, and to judge of the probability of
+success.  For this purpose he entered their camp under the disguise of
+a harper, and passed unsuspected through every quarter.  He so
+entertained them with his music and facetious humours, that he met
+with a welcome reception; and was even introduced to the tent of
+Guthrum, their prince, where he remained some days [y].  He remarked
+the supine security of the Danes, their contempt of the English, their
+negligence in foraging and plundering, and their dissolute wasting of
+what they gained by rapine and violence.  Encouraged by these
+favourable appearances, he secretly sent emissaries to the most
+considerable of his subjects, and summoned them to a rendezvous,
+attended by their warlike followers, at Brixton, on the borders of
+Selwood forest [z].  The English, who had hoped to put an end to their
+calamities by servile submission, now found the insolence and rapine
+of the conqueror more intolerable than all past fatigues and dangers;
+and, at the appointed day, they joyfully resorted to their prince.  On
+his appearance, they received him with shouts of applause [a]; and
+could not satiate their eyes with the sight of this beloved monarch,
+whom they had long regarded as dead, and who now, with voice and looks
+expressing his confidence of success, called them to liberty and to
+vengeance.  He instantly conducted them to Eddington, where the Danes
+were encamped; and taking advantage of his previous knowledge of the
+place, he directed his attack against the most unguarded quarter of
+the enemy.  The Danes, surprised to see an army of English, whom they
+considered as totally subdued, and still more astonished to hear that
+Alfred was at their head, made but a faint resistance, notwithstanding
+their superiority of number, and were soon put to flight with great
+slaughter.  The remainder of the routed army, with their prince, was
+besieged by Alfred in a fortified camp to which they fled; but being
+reduced to extremity by want and hunger, they had recourse to the
+clemency of the victor, and offered to submit on any conditions.  The
+king, no less generous than brave, gave them their lives; and even
+formed a scheme for converting them from mortal enemies into faithful
+subjects and confederates.  He knew that the kingdoms of East Anglia
+and Northumberland were totally desolated by the frequent inroads of
+the Danes, and he now proposed to repeople them, by settling there
+Guthrum and his followers.  He hoped that the new planters would at
+last betake themselves to industry, when, by reason of his resistance,
+and the exhausted condition of the country, they could no longer
+subsist by plunder; and that they might serve him as a rampart against
+any future incursions of their countrymen.  But before he ratified
+these mild conditions with the Danes, he required that they should
+give him one pledge of their submission, and of their inclination to
+incorporate with the English, by declaring their conversion to
+Christianity [b].  Guthrum and his army had no aversion to the
+proposal; and without much instruction, or argument, or conference,
+they were all admitted to baptism.  The king answered for Guthrum at
+the font, gave him the name of Athelstan, and received him as his
+adopted son [c].
+[FN [y] W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 4.  [z] Chron. Sax. p. 85.  [a] Asser.
+p. 10.  Chron. Sax. p. 85.  Simeon Dunelm. p. 128.  Alured Beverl. p.
+105.  Abbas Rieval, p. 354.  [b] Chron. Sax. p. 85.  [c] Asser. p. 10.
+Chron. Sax. p. 90.]
+
+[MN 880.] The success of the expedient seemed to correspond to
+AlfredÂ’s hopes: the greater part of the Danes settled peaceably in
+their new quarters: some smaller bodies of the same nation, which were
+dispersed in Mercia, were distributed into the five cities of Derby,
+Leicester, Stamford, Lincoln, and Nottingham, and were thence called
+the Fif or Five-burghers.  The more turbulent and unquiet made an
+expedition into France, under the command of Hastings [d]; and, except
+by a short incursion of Danes, who sailed up the Thames, and landed at
+Fulham, but suddenly retreated to their ships on finding the country
+in a posture of defence, Alfred was not for some years infested by the
+inroads of those barbarians [e].
+[FN [d] W. Malm. lib. 2. c. 4.  Ingulph. p. 26.  [e] Asser. p. 11.]
+
+The king employed this interval of tranquillity in restoring order to
+the state, which had been shaken by so many violent convulsions; in
+establishing civil and military institutions; in composing the minds
+of men to industry and justice; and in providing against the return of
+like calamities.  He was, more properly than his grandfather, Egbert,
+the sole monarch of the English, (for so the Saxons were now
+universally called,) because the kingdom of Mercia was at last
+incorporated in his state, and was governed by Ethelbert, his brother-
+in-law, who bore the title of Earl: and though the Danes, who peopled
+East Anglia and Northumberland, were for some time ruled immediately
+by their own princes, they all acknowledged a subordination to Alfred,
+and submitted to his superior authority.  As equality among subjects
+is the great source of concord, Alfred gave the same laws to the Danes
+and English, and put them entirely on a like footing in the
+administration both of civil and criminal justice.  The fine for the
+murder of a Dane was the same with that for the murder of an
+Englishman; the great symbol of equality in those ages.
+
+The king, after rebuilding the ruined cities, particularly London [f],
+which had been destroyed by the Danes in the reign of Ethelwolf,
+established a regular militia for the defence of the kingdom.  He
+ordained that all his people should be armed and registered; he
+assigned them a regular rotation of duty; he distributed part into the
+castles and fortresses which he built at proper places [g]; he
+required another part to take the field on any alarm, and to assemble
+at stated places of rendezvous; and he left a sufficient number at
+home, who were employed in the cultivation of the land, and who
+afterwards took their turn in military service [h].  The whole kingdom
+was like one great garrison; and the Danes could no sooner appear in
+one place, than a sufficient number was assembled to oppose them,
+without leaving the other quarters defenceless or disarmed [i].
+[FN [f] Asser. p. 15.  Chron. Sax. p. 88.  M. West. p. 171.  Simeon
+Dunelm. p. 131.  Brompton, p. 812.  Alured Beverl. ex edit. Hearne, p.
+106.  [g] Asser. p. 18.  Ingulph. p. 27.  [h] Chron. Sax. p. 92, 93.
+[i] SpellmanÂ’s Life of Alfred, p. 147. edit. 1709.]
+
+But Alfred, sensible that the proper method of opposing an enemy who
+made incursions by sea, was to meet them on their own element, took
+care to provide himself with a naval force [k], which though the most
+natural defence of an island, had hitherto been totally neglected by
+the English.  He increased the shipping of his kingdom both in number
+and strength, and trained his subjects in the practice, as well of
+sailing as of naval action.  He distributed his armed vessels in
+proper stations around the island, and was sure to meet the Danish
+ships either before or after they had landed their troops, and to
+pursue them in all their incursions.  Though the Danes might suddenly,
+by surprise, disembark on the coast, which was generally become
+desolate by their frequent ravages, they were encountered by the
+English fleet in their retreat; and escaped not, as formerly, by
+abandoning their booty, but paid, by their total destruction, the
+penalty of the disorders which they had committed.
+[FN [k] Asser. p. 9.  M. West. p. 179.]
+
+In this manner Alfred repelled several inroads of these piratical
+Danes, and maintained his kingdom, during some years, in safety and
+tranquillity.  A fleet of a hundred and twenty ships of war was
+stationed upon the coast; and being provided with warlike engines, as
+well as with expert seamen, both Frisians and English, (for Alfred
+supplied the defects of his own subjects by engaging able foreigners
+in his service,) maintained a superiority over these smaller bands
+with which England had so often been infested [l].  [MN 893.]  But at
+last Hastings, the famous Danish chief, having ravaged all the
+provinces of France, both along the seacoast and the Loire and Seine,
+and being obliged to quit that country, more by the desolation which
+he himself had occasioned, than by the resistance of the inhabitants,
+appeared off the coast of Kent with a fleet of 330 sail.  The greater
+part of the enemy disembarked in the Rother, and seized the fort of
+Apuldore.  Hastings himself, commanding a fleet of eighty sail,
+entered the Thames, and fortifying Milton in Kent, began to spread his
+forces over the country, and to commit the most destructive ravages.
+But Alfred, on the first alarm of this descent, flew to the defence of
+his people, at the head of a select band of soldiers, whom he always
+kept about his person [m]; and gathering to him the armed militia from
+all quarters, appeared in the field with a force superior to the
+enemy.  All straggling parties whom necessity, or love of plunder, had
+drawn to a distance from their chief encampment, were cut off by the
+English [n]; and these pirates, instead of increasing their spoil,
+found themselves cooped up in their fortifications, and obliged to
+subsist by the plunder which they had brought from France.  Tired of
+this situation, which must in the end prove ruinous to them, the Danes
+at Apuldore rose suddenly from their encampment, with an intention of
+marching towards the Thames, and passing over into Essex: but they
+escaped not the vigilance of Alfred, who encountered then at Farnham,
+put them to rout [o], seized all their horses and baggage, and chased
+the runaways on board their ships, which carried them up the Colne to
+Mersey, in Essex, where they intrenched themselves.  Hastings, at the
+same time, and probably by concert, made a like movement; and
+deserting Milton, took possession of Bamflete, near the Isle of
+Canvey, in the same county [p], where he hastily threw up
+fortifications for his defence against the power of Alfred.
+[FN [1] Asser. p. 11.  Chron. Sax. p. 86, 87.  M. West. p. 176.  [m]
+Asser. p.19.  [n] Chron. Sax. p. 92.  [o] Ibid. p. 93. Flor. Wigorn,
+p. 595.  [p] Chron. Sax. p. 93.]
+
+Unfortunately for the English, Guthrum, prince of the East Anglian
+Danes, was now dead; as was also Guthred, whom the king had appointed
+governor of the Northumbrians; and those restless tribes, being no
+longer restrained by the authority of their princes, and being
+encouraged by the appearance of so great a body of their countrymen,
+broke into rebellion, shook off the authority of Alfred, and yielding
+to their inveterate habits of war and depredation [q], embarked on
+board two hundred and forty vessels, and appeared before Exeter in the
+west of England.  Alfred lost not a moment in opposing this new enemy.
+Having left some forces at London to make head against Hastings and
+the other Danes, he marched suddenly to the west [r]; and falling on
+the rebels before they were aware, pursued them to their ships with
+great slaughter.  These ravagers, sailing next to Sussex, began to
+plunder the country near Chichester; but the order which Alfred had
+every where established, sufficed here, without his presence, for the
+defence of the place; and the rebels, meeting with a new repulse, in
+which many of them were killed, and some of their ships taken [s],
+were obliged to put again to sea, and were discouraged from attempting
+any other enterprise.
+[FN [q] Ibid. p. 92.  [r] Ibid. p. 93.  [s] Chron. Sax. p. 96.  Flor.
+Wigorn. p. 596.]
+
+Meanwhile, the Danish invaders in Essex, having united their force
+under the command of Hastings, advanced into the inland country, and
+made spoil of all around them; but soon had reason to repent of their
+temerity.  The English army left in London, assisted by a body of the
+citizens, attacked the enemy's intrenchments at Bamflete, overpowered
+the garrison, and having done great execution upon them, carried off
+the wife and two sons of Hastings [t].  Alfred generously spared these
+captives; and even restored them to Hastings [u], on condition that be
+should depart the kingdom.
+[FN [t] Chron. Sax. p. 94.  M. West. p. 178.  [u] M. West. p. 179.]
+
+But though the king had thus honourably rid himself of this dangerous
+enemy, he had not entirely subdued or expelled the invaders.  The
+piratical Danes willingly followed in an excursion any prosperous
+leader who gave them hopes of booty; but were not so easily induced to
+relinquish their enterprise, or submit to return, baffled and without
+plunder, into their native country.  Great numbers of them, after the
+departure of Hastings, seized and fortified Shobury, at the mouth of
+the Thames; and having left a garrison there, they marched along the
+River, till they came to Boddington, in the county of Gloucester;
+where, being reinforced by some Welsh, they threw up intrenchments,
+and prepared for their defence.  The king here surrounded them with
+the whole force of his dominions [w]; and as he had now a certain
+prospect of victory, he resolved to trust nothing to chance, but
+rather to master his enemies by famine than assault.  They were
+reduced to such extremities, that, having eaten their own horses, and
+having many of them perished with hunger [x], they made a desperate
+sally upon the English; and though the greater number fell in the
+action, a considerable body made their escape [y].  These roved about
+for some time in England, still pursued by the vigilance of Alfred;
+they attacked Leicester with success, defended themselves in Hartford,
+and then fled to Quatford, where they were finally broken and subdued.
+The small remains of them either dispersed themselves among their
+countrymen in Northumberland and East Anglia [z], or had recourse
+again to the sea, where they exercised piracy, under the command of
+Sigefert, a Northumbrian.  This freebooter, well acquainted with
+AlfredÂ’s naval preparations, had framed vessels of a new construction,
+higher, and longer, and swifter than those of the English; but the
+king soon discovered his superior skill, by building vessels still
+higher, and longer, and swifter than those of the Northumbrians; and
+falling upon them while they were exercising their ravages in the
+west, he took twenty of their ships, and having tried all the
+prisoners at Winchester, he hanged them as pirates, the common enemies
+of mankind.
+[FN [w] Chron. Sax. p. 94.  [x] Ibid.  M. West. p. 179.  Flor. Wigorn.
+p. 596.  [y] Chron. Sax. p. 95.  [z] Chron. Sax. p. 97.]
+
+The well-timed severity of this execution, together with the excellent
+posture of defence established every where, restored full tranquillity
+to England, and provided for the future security of the government.
+The East Anglian and Northumbrian Danes, on the first appearance of
+Alfred upon their frontiers, made anew the most humble submissions to
+him; and he thought it prudent to take them under his immediate
+government, without establishing over them a viceroy of their own
+nation [a].  The Welsh also acknowledged his authority; and this great
+prince had now, by prudence, and justice, and valour, established his
+sovereignty over all the southern parts of the island, from the
+English channel to the  frontiers of Scotland; when he died [MN 901.],
+in the vigour of his age and the full strength of his faculties,
+after a glorious reign of twenty-nine years and a half [b]; in which
+he deservedly attained the appellation of Alfred the Great, and the
+title of Founder of the English Monarchy.
+[FN [a] Flor. Wigorn. p. 598.  [b] Asser. p. 21.  Chron. Sax. p. 99.]
+
+The merit of this prince, both in private and public life, may with
+advantage be set in opposition to that of any monarch or citizen which
+the annals of any age or any nation can present to us.  He seems
+indeed to be the model of that perfect character, which, under the
+denomination of a sage or wise man, philosophers have been fond of
+delineating, rather as a fiction of their imagination, than in hopes
+of ever seeing it really existing: so happily were all his virtues
+tempered together; so justly were they blended; and so powerfully did
+each prevent the other from exceeding its proper boundaries.  He knew
+how to reconcile the most enterprising spirit with the coolest
+moderation; the most obstinate perseverance with the easiest
+flexibility; the most severe justice with the gentlest lenity; the
+greatest vigour in commanding with the most perfect affability of
+deportment [c]; the highest capacity and inclination for science, with
+the most shining talents for action.  His civil and his military
+virtues are almost equally the objects of our admiration; excepting
+only, that the former, being more rare among princes, as well as more
+useful, seem chiefly to challenge our applause.  Nature also, as if
+desirous that so bright a production of her skill should be set in the
+fairest light, had bestowed on him every bodily accomplishment, vigour
+of limbs, dignity of shape and air, with a pleasing, engaging, and
+open countenance [d].  Fortune alone, by throwing him into that
+barbarous age, deprived him of historians worthy to transmit his fame
+to posterity; and we wish to see him delineated in more lively
+colours, and with more particular strokes, that we may at least
+perceive some of those small specks and blemishes, from which, as a
+man, it is impossible he could be entirely exempted.
+[FN [c] Asser. p. 13.  [d] Ibid. p. 5.]
+
+But we should give but an imperfect idea of AlfredÂ’s merit, were we to
+confine our narration to his military exploits, and were not more
+particular in our account of his institutions for the execution of
+justice, and of his zeal for the encouragement of arts and sciences.
+
+After Alfred had subdued, and had settled or expelled the Danes, he
+found the kingdom in the most wretched condition; desolated by the
+ravages of those barbarians, and thrown into disorders, which were
+calculated to perpetuate its misery.  Though the great armies of the
+Danes were broken, the country was full of straggling troops of that
+nation, who, being accustomed to live by plunder, were become
+incapable of industry, and who, from the natural ferocity of their
+manners, indulged themselves in committing violence, even beyond what
+was requisite to supply their necessities.  The English themselves,
+reduced to the most extreme indigence by these continued depredations,
+had shaken off all bands of government; and those who had been
+plundered today, betook themselves next day to a like disorderly life,
+and, from despair, joined the robbers in pillaging and ruining their
+fellow-citizens.  These were the evils for which it was necessary that
+the vigilance and activity of Alfred should provide a remedy.
+
+That he might render the execution of justice strict and regular; he
+divided all England into counties; these counties he subdivided into
+hundreds; and, the hundreds into tithings.  Every householder was
+answerable for the behaviour of his family and slaves, and even of his
+guests, if they lived above three days in his house.  Ten neighbouring
+householders were formed into one corporation, who, under the name of
+a tithing, decennary, or fribourg, were answerable for each otherÂ’s
+conduct, and over whom one person, called a tithingman, headbourg, or
+borsholder, was appointed to preside.  Every man was punished as an
+outlaw who did not register himself in some tithing.  And no man could
+change his habitation, without a warrant or certificate from the
+borsholder of the tithing to which he formerly belonged.
+
+When any person in any tithing or decennary was guilty of a crime, the
+borsholder was summoned to answer for him; and if he were not willing
+to be surety for his appearance, and his clearing himself, the
+criminal was committed to prison, and there detained till his trial.
+If he fled, either before or after finding sureties, the borsholder
+and decennary became liable to inquiry, and were exposed to the
+penalties of law.  Thirty-one days were allowed them for producing the
+criminal; and if that time elapsed without their being able to find
+him, the borsholder, with two other members of the decennary, was
+obliged to appear, and, together with three chief members of the three
+neighbouring decennaries, (making twelve in all,) to swear that his
+decennary was free from all privity both of the crime committed, and
+of the escape of the criminal.  If the borsholder could not find such
+a number to answer for their innocence, the decennary was compelled by
+fine to make satisfaction to the king, according to the degree of the
+offence [f].  By this institution, every man was obliged from his own
+interest to keep a watchful eye over the conduct of his neighbours;
+and was in a manner surety for the behaviour of those who were placed
+under the division to which he belonged: whence these decennaries
+received the name of frank-pledges.
+[FN [f] Leges St. Edw. cap. 20. apud Wilkins, p. 202.]
+
+Such a regular distribution of the people, with such a strict
+confinement in their habitation, may not be necessary in times when
+men are more inured to obedience and justice; and it might perhaps be
+regarded as destructive of liberty and commerce in a polished state;
+but it was well calculated to reduce that fierce and licentious people
+under the salutary restraint of law and government.  But Alfred took
+care to temper these rigours by other institutions favourable to the
+freedom of the citizens; and nothing could be more popular and liberal
+than his plan for the administration of justice.  The borsholder
+summoned together his whole decennary to assist him in deciding any
+lesser difference which occurred among the members of this small
+community.  In affairs of greater moment, in appeals from the
+decennary, or in controversies arising between members of different
+decennaries, the cause was brought before the hundred, which consisted
+of ten decennaries, or a hundred families of freemen, and which was
+regularly assembled once in four weeks for the deciding of causes [g].
+Their method of decision deserves to be noted, as being the origin of
+juries; an institution admirable in itself, and the best calculated
+for the preservation of liberty and the administration of justice that
+ever was devised by the wit of man.  Twelve freeholders were chosen,
+who, having sworn, together with the hundreder, or presiding
+magistrate of that division, to administer impartial justice [h],
+proceeded to the examination of that cause which was submitted to
+their jurisdiction.  And beside these monthly meetings of the hundred,
+there was an annual meeting, appointed for a more general inspection
+of the police of the district; for the inquiry into crimes, the
+correction of abuses in magistrates, and the obliging of every person
+to show the decennary in which he was registered.  The people, in
+imitation of their ancestors, the ancient Germans, assembled there in
+arms; whence a hundred was sometimes called a wapentake, and its court
+served both for the support of military discipline, and for the
+administration of civil justice [i].
+[FN [g] Leg. Edw. cap. 2.  [h] Foedus Alfred. and Gothurn. apud
+Wilkins, cap. 3. p. 47.  Leg. Ethelstani, cap. 2. apud Wilkins, p. 58.
+LL. Ethelr. § 4.  Wilkins, p. 117.  [i] Spellman, IN VOCE Wapentake.]
+
+The next superior court to that of the hundred was the county-court,
+which met twice a year, after Michaelmas and Easter, and consisted of
+the freeholders of the county, who possessed an equal vote in the
+decision of causes.  The bishop presided in this court, together with
+the alderman; and the proper object of the court was the receiving of
+appeals from the hundreds and decennaries, and the deciding of such
+controversies as arose between men of different hundreds.  Formerly,
+the alderman possessed both the civil and military authority; but
+Alfred, sensible that this conjunction of powers rendered the nobility
+dangerous and independent, appointed also a sheriff in each county,
+who enjoyed a co-ordinate authority with the former in the judicial
+function [k].  His office also empowered him to guard the rights of
+the crown in the county, and to levy the fines imposed; which in that
+age formed no contemptible part of the public revenue.
+[FN [k] Ingulph. p. 870.]
+
+There lay an appeal, in default of justice, from all these courts to
+the king himself in council; and as the people, sensible of the equity
+and great talents of Alfred, placed their chief confidence in him, he
+was soon overwhelmed with appeals from all parts of England.  He was
+indefatigable in the despatch of these causes [l]; but finding that
+his time must be entirely engrossed by this branch of duty, he
+resolved to obviate the inconvenience, by correcting the ignorance or
+corruption of the inferior magistrates, from which it arose [m].  He
+took care to have his nobility instructed in letters and the laws [n].
+He chose the earls and sheriffs from among the men most celebrated for
+probity and knowledge: he punished severely all malversation in office
+[o]: and he removed all the earls, whom he found unequal to the trust
+[p]; allowing only some of the more elderly to serve by a deputy, till
+their death should make room for more worthy successors.
+[FN [1] Asser. p. 20.  [m] Ibid. p. 18, 21.  Flor. Wigorn p. 594.
+Abbas Rieval, p. 355.  [n] Flor. Wigorn. p. 594.  Brompton. p. 811.
+[o] Le Miroir de Justice, chap. 2.  [p] Asser. p. 20.]
+
+The better to guide the magistrates in the administration of justice,
+Alfred framed a body of laws; which, though now lost, served long as
+the basis of English jurisprudence, and is generally deemed the origin
+of what is denominated the COMMON LAW.  He appointed regular meetings
+of the states of England twice a year in London [q]; a city which he
+himself had repaired and beautified, and which he thus rendered the
+capital of the kingdom.  The similarity of these institutions to the
+customs of the ancient Germans, to the practice of the other northern
+conquerors, and to the Saxon laws during the Heptarchy, prevents us
+from regarding Alfred as the sole author of this plan of government;
+and leads us rather to think, that, like a wise man, he contented
+himself with reforming, extending, and executing the institutions
+which he found previously established.  But, on the whole, such
+success attended his legislation, that every thing bore suddenly a new
+face in England: robberies and iniquities of all kinds were repressed
+by the punishment or reformation of the criminals [r]: and so exact
+was the general police, that Alfred, it is said, hung up, by way of
+bravado, golden bracelets near the highways; and no man dared to touch
+them [s].  Yet, amidst these rigours of justice, this great prince
+preserved the most sacred regard to the liberty of his people; and it
+is a memorable sentiment preserved in his will, That it was just the
+English should for ever remain as free as their own thoughts [t].
+[FN [q] Le Miroir de Justice.  [r] Ingulph. p. 27.  [s] W Malmes. lib.
+2. cap. 4.  [t] Asser. p. 24.]
+
+As good morals and knowledge are almost inseparable in every age,
+though not in every individual; the care of Alfred for the
+encouragement of learning among his subjects was another useful branch
+of his legislation, and tended to reclaim the English from their
+former dissolute and ferocious manners: but the king was guided in
+this pursuit, less by political views, than by his natural bent and
+propensity towards letters.  When he came to the throne, he found the
+nation sunk into the grossest ignorance and barbarism, proceeding from
+the continued disorders in the government, and from the ravages of the
+Danes: the monasteries were destroyed, the monks butchered or
+dispersed, their libraries burnt; and thus the only seats of erudition
+in those ages were totally subverted.  Alfred himself complains, that
+on his accession he knew not one person, south of the Thames, who
+could so much as interpret the Latin service; and very few in the
+northern parts, who had reached even that pitch of erudition.  But
+this prince invited over the most celebrated scholars from all parts
+of Europe; he established schools every where for the instruction of
+his people; he founded, at least repaired, the university of Oxford,
+and endowed it with many privileges, revenues, and immunities; he
+enjoined by law all freeholders possessed of two hides [u] of land or
+more, to send their children to school for their instruction; he gave
+preferment both in church and state to such only as had made some
+proficiency in knowledge: and by all these expedients he had the
+satisfaction, before his death, to see a great change in the face of
+affairs; and in a work of his, which is still extant, he congratulates
+himself on the progress which learning, under his patronage, had
+already made in England.
+[FN [u] A hide contained land sufficient to employ one plough.  See H.
+Hunt. lib. 6. in A. D. 1008.  Annal. Waverl. in A.D. 1083.  Gervase of
+Tilbury says, it commonly contained about 100 acres.]
+
+But the most effectual expedient, employed by Alfred, for the
+encouragement of learning, was his own example, and the constant
+assiduity with which, notwithstanding the multiplicity and urgency of
+his affairs, he employed himself in the pursuits of knowledge.  He
+usually divided his time into three equal portions: one was employed
+in sleep, and the refection of his body by diet and exercise; another
+in the despatch of business; a third in study and devotion; and that
+he might more exactly measure the hours, he made use of burning tapers
+of equal length, which he fixed in lanterns [w]; an expedient suited
+to that rude age, when the geometry of dialling, and the mechanism of
+clocks and watches, were totally unknown.  And by such a regular
+distribution of his time, though he often laboured under great bodily
+infirmities [x], this martial hero, who fought in person fifty-six
+battles by sea and land [y], was able, during a life of no
+extraordinary length, to acquire more knowledge, and even to compose
+more books, than most studious men, though blessed with the greatest
+leisure and application, have, in more fortunate ages, made the object
+of their uninterrupted industry.
+[FN [w] Asser. p. 20.  W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 4.  Ingulph. p. 870.  [x]
+Asser. p. 4, 12, 13, 17.  [y] W. Malm. lib. 4. cap. 4.]
+
+Sensible that the people, at all times, especially when their
+understandings are obstructed by ignorance and bad education, are not
+much susceptible of speculative instruction, Alfred endeavoured to
+convey his morality by apologues, parables, stories, apophthegms,
+couched in poetry; and besides propagating among his subjects former
+compositions of that kind, which he found in the Saxon tongue [z], he
+exercised his genius in inventing works of a like nature [a], as well
+as in translating from the Greek the elegant fables of Aesop.  He also
+gave Saxon translations of OrosiusÂ’s and BedeÂ’s histories; and of
+Boethius concerning the consolation of philosophy [b].  And he deemed
+it nowise derogatory from his other great characters of sovereign,
+legislator, warrior, and politician, thus to lead the way to his
+people in the pursuits of literature.
+[FN [z] Asser. p. 13.  [a] Spellman, p. 124.  Abbas Rieval, p. 355.
+[b] W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 4.  Brompton, p. 814.]
+
+Meanwhile, this prince was not negligent in encouraging the vulgar and
+mechanical arts, which have a more sensible, though not a closer,
+connexion with the interests of society.  He invited, from all
+quarters, industrious foreigners to repeople his country, which had
+been desolated by the ravages of the Danes [c].  He introduced and
+encouraged manufactures of all kinds; and no inventor or improver of
+any ingenious art did he suffer to go unrewarded [d].  He prompted men
+of activity to betake themselves to navigation, to push commerce into
+the most remote countries, and to acquire riches by propagating
+industry among their fellow-citizens.  He set apart a seventh portion
+of his own revenue for maintaining a number of workmen, whom he
+constantly employed in rebuilding the ruined cities, castles, palaces,
+and monasteries [e].  Even the elegancies of life were brought to him
+from the Mediterranean and the Indies [f]; and his subjects, by seeing
+those productions of the peaceful arts, were taught to respect the
+virtues of justice and industry, from which alone they could arise.
+Both living and dead, Alfred was regarded by foreigners, no less than
+by his own subjects, as the greatest prince after Charlemagne that had
+appeared in Europe during several ages, and as one of the wisest and
+best that had ever adorned the annals of any nation.
+[FN [c] Asser. p. 13.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 588.  [d] Asser. p. 20.  [e]
+Asser. p. 20.  W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 4.  [f] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap.
+4.]
+
+Alfred had, by his wife, Ethelswitha, daughter of a Mercian earl,
+three sons and three daughters.  The eldest son, Edmund, died without
+issue, in his fatherÂ’s lifetime.  The third, Ethelward, inherited his
+fatherÂ’s passion for letters, and lived a private life.  The second,
+Edward, succeeded to his power; and passes by the appellation of
+Edward the Elder, being the first of that name who sat on the English
+throne.
+
+[MN Edward the Elder.  901.]
+This prince, who equalled his father in military talents, though
+inferior to him in knowledge and erudition [g], found, immediately on
+his accession, a specimen of that turbulent life to which all princes
+and even all individuals were exposed, in an age when men, less
+restrained by law or justice, and less occupied by industry, had no
+aliment for their inquietude, but wars, insurrections, convulsions,
+rapine, and depredation.  Ethelwald, his cousin-german, son of King
+Ethelbert, the elder brother of Alfred, insisted on his preferable
+title [h]; and arming his partisans, took possession of Winburne,
+where he seemed determined to defend himself to the last extremity,
+and to await the issue of his pretensions [i].  But when the king
+approached the town with a great army, Ethelwald, having the prospect
+of certain destruction, made his escape, and fled first into Normandy,
+thence into Northumberland; where he hoped that the people, who had
+been recently subdued by Alfred, and who were impatient of peace,
+would, on the intelligence of that great princeÂ’s death, seize the
+first pretence or opportunity of rebellion.  The event did not
+disappoint his expectations: the Northumbrians declared for him [k];
+and Ethelwald having thus connected his interests with the Danish
+tribes, went beyond sea, and collecting a body of these freebooters,
+he excited the hopes of all those who had been accustomed to subsist
+by rapine and violence [l].  The East Anglian Danes joined his party:
+the Five-burgers, who were seated in the heart of Mercia, began to put
+themselves in motion; and the English found that they were again
+menaced with those convulsions, from which the valour and policy of
+Alfred had so lately rescued them.  The rebels, headed by Ethelwald,
+made an incursion into the Counties of Gloucester, Oxford, and Wilts;
+and having exercised their ravages in these places, they retired with
+their booty, before the king, who had assembled an army, was able to
+approach them.  Edward, however, who was determined that his
+preparations should not be fruitless, conducted his forces into East
+Anglia, and retaliated the injuries which the inhabitants had
+committed, by spreading the like devastation among them.  Satiated
+with revenge, and loaded with booty, he gave orders to retire: but the
+authority of those ancient kings, which was feeble in peace, was not
+much better established in the field; and the Kentish men, greedy of
+more spoil, ventured, contrary to repeated orders, to stay behind him,
+and to take up their quarters in Bury. This disobedience proved in the
+issue fortunate to Edward.  The Danes assaulted the Kentish men; but
+met with so vigorous a resistance, that, though they gained the field
+of battle, they bought that advantage by the loss of their bravest
+leaders, and among the rest, by that of Ethelwald, who perished in the
+action [m]. The king, freed from the fear of so dangerous a
+competitor, made peace on advantageous terms with the East Angles [n].
+[FN [g] W. Malmes lib. 2. cap. 5  Hoveden, p. 421.  [h] Chron. Sax. p.
+99, 100.  [i] Ibid. p. 100.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 352.  [k] Chron.
+Sax. p. 100.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 352.  [l] Chron. Sax. p. 100.
+Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 24.  [m] Chron. Sax. p. 101.
+Brompton, p. 832.  [n] Chron. Sax. p. 102.  Brompton, p. 832.  Matth.
+West. p. 181.]
+
+In order to restore England to such a state of tranquillity as it was
+then capable of attaining, nought was wanting but the subjection of
+the Northumbrians, who, assisted by the scattered Danes in Mercia,
+continually infested the bowels of the kingdom.  Edward, in order to
+divert the force of these enemies, prepared a fleet to attack them by
+sea; hoping that, when his ships appeared on their coast, they must at
+least remain at home, and provide for their defence.  But the
+Northumbrians were less anxious to secure their own property, than
+greedy to commit spoil on their enemy; and concluding, that the chief
+strength of the English was embarked on board the fleet, they thought
+the opportunity favourable, and entered EdwardÂ’s territories with all
+their forces.  The king, who was prepared against this event, attacked
+them on their return at Tetenhall, in the county of Stafford, put them
+to rout, recovered all the booty, and pursued them with great
+slaughter into their own country.
+
+All the rest of EdwardÂ’s reign was a scene of continued and successful
+action against the Northumbrians, the East Angles, the Five-burgers,
+and the foreign Danes who invaded him from Normandy and Britany.  Nor
+was he less provident in putting his kingdom in a posture of defence,
+than vigorous in assaulting the enemy.  He fortified the towns of
+Chester, Eddesbury, Warwick, Cherbury, Buckingham, Towcester, Maldon,
+Huntingdon, and Colchester.  He fought two signal battles at Temsford
+and Maldon [o].  He vanquished Thurketill, a great Danish chief, and
+obliged him to retire with his followers into France, in quest of
+spoil and adventures.  He subdued the East Angles, and forced them to
+swear allegiance to him; he expelled the two rival princes of
+Northumberland, Reginald and Sidroc, and acquired, for the present,
+the dominion of that province: several tribes of the Britons were
+subjected by him; and even the Scots, who, during the reign of Egbert,
+had, under the conduct of Kenneth their king, increased their power by
+the final subjection of the Picts, were nevertheless obliged to give
+him marks of submission [p].  In all these fortunate achievements he
+was assisted by the activity and prudence of his sister, Ethelfleda,
+who was widow of Ethelbert, Earl of Mercia, and who, after her
+husbandÂ’s death, retained the government of that province.  This
+princess, who had been reduced to extremity in childbed, refused
+afterwards all commerce with her husband; not from any weak
+superstition, as was common in that age, but because she deemed all
+domestic occupations unworthy of her masculine and ambitious spirit
+[q].  She died before her brother; and Edward, during the remainder of
+his reign, took upon himself the immediate government of Mercia, which
+before had been entrusted to the authority of a governor [r].  The
+Saxon Chronicle fixes the death of this prince in 925 [s]: his kingdom
+devolved to Athelstan, his natural son.
+[FN [o] Chron. Sax. p. 108.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 601.  [p] Chron. Sax. p.
+110.  Hoveden, p. 421.  [q] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 5.  M. West. p.
+182.  Ingulph. p. 28.  Higden, p. 261.  [r] Chron. Sax. p. 110.
+Brompton, p. 831.  [s] Page 110.]
+
+[MN Athelstan 925.]
+The stain in this princeÂ’s birth was not, in those times, deemed so
+considerable as to exclude him from the throne; and Athelstan, being
+of an age, as well as of a capacity fitted for government, obtained
+the preference to EdwardÂ’s younger children, who, though legitimate,
+were of too tender years to rule a nation so much exposed both to
+foreign invasion and to domestic convulsions.  Some discontents,
+however, prevailed on his accession; and Alfred, a nobleman of
+considerable power, was thence encouraged to enter into a conspiracy
+against him.  This incident is related by historians with
+circumstances, which the reader, according to the degree of credit he
+is disposed to give them, may impute either to the invention of monks,
+who forged them, or to their artifice, who found means of making them
+real.  Alfred, it is said, being seized upon strong suspicions, but
+without any certain proof, firmly denied the .conspiracy imputed to
+him; and in order to justify himself, he offered to swear to his
+innocence before the pope, whose person, it was supposed, contained
+such superior sanctity, that no one could presume to give a false oath
+in his presence, and yet hope to escape the immediate vengeance of
+heaven.  The king accepted of the condition, and Alfred was conducted
+to Rome; where, either conscious of his innocence, or neglecting the
+superstition to which he appealed, he ventured to make the oath
+required of him before John, who then filled the papal chair.  But no
+sooner had he pronounced the fatal words, than he fell into
+convulsions, of which three days after he expired.  The king, as if
+the guilt of the conspirator were now fully ascertained, confiscated
+his estate, and made a present of it to the monastery of Malmesbury
+[t]; secure that no doubts would ever thenceforth be entertained
+concerning the justice of his proceedings.
+[FN [t] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 6.  Spell. Conc. p. 407.]
+
+The dominion of Athelstan was no sooner established over his English
+subjects, than he endeavoured to give security to the government, by
+providing against the insurrections of the Danes, which had created so
+much disturbance to his predecessors.  He marched into Northumberland;
+and finding that the inhabitants bore with impatience the English
+yoke, he thought it prudent to confer on Sithric, a Danish nobleman,
+the title of king, and to attach him to his interests, by giving him
+his sister, Editha, in marriage.  But this policy proved by accident
+the source of dangerous consequences.  Sithric died in a twelvemonth
+after; and his two sons by a former marriage, Anlaf and Godfrid,
+founding pretensions on their fatherÂ’s elevation, assumed the
+sovereignty without waiting for AthelstanÂ’s consent.  They were soon
+expelled by the power of that monarch; and the former took shelter in
+Ireland, as the latter did in Scotland; where he received, during some
+time, protection from Constantine, who then enjoyed the crown of that.
+kingdom.  The Scottish prince, however, continually solicited, and
+even menaced by Athelstan, at last promised to deliver up his guest;
+but secretly detesting this treachery, he gave Godfrid warning to make
+his escape [u]; and that fugitive, after subsisting by piracy for some
+years, freed the king by his death from any farther anxiety.
+Athelstan, resenting ConstantineÂ’s behaviour, entered Scotland with an
+army; and ravaging the country with impunity [w], he reduced the Scots
+to such distress, that their king was content to preserve his crown,
+by making submissions to the enemy.  The English historians assert
+[x], that Constantine did homage to Athelstan for his kingdom; and
+they add, that the latter prince, being urged by his courtiers to push
+the present favourable opportunity, and entirely subdue Scotland,
+replied, that it was more glorious to confer than conquer kingdoms
+[y].  But those annals, so uncertain and imperfect in themselves, lose
+all credit when national prepossessions and animosities have place:
+and on that account, the Scotch historians, who, without having any
+more knowledge of the matter, strenuously deny the fact, seem more
+worthy of belief.
+[FN [u] W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 6.  [w] Chron. Sax. p. 111.  Hoveden, p.
+422.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 354.  [x] Hoveden, p. 422.  [y] Wm.
+Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 6.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 212.]
+
+Constantine, whether he owed the retaining of his crown to the
+moderation of Athelstan, who was unwilling to employ all his
+advantages against him, or to the policy of that prince, who esteemed
+the humiliation of an enemy a greater acquisition than the subjection
+of a discontented and mutinous people, thought the behaviour of the
+English monarch more an object of resentment than of gratitude.  He
+entered into a confederacy with Anlaf, who had collected a great body
+of Danish pirates, whom he found hovering in the Irish seas; and with
+some Welsh princes, who were terrified at the growing power of
+Athelstan: and all these allies made by concert an irruption with a
+great army into England.  Athelstan, collecting his forces, met the
+enemy near Brunsbury, in Northumberland, and defeated them in a
+general engagement.  This victory was chiefly ascribed to the valour
+of Turketul, the English chancellor: for in those turbulent ages no
+one was so much occupied in civil employments, as wholly to lay aside
+the military character [z].
+[FN [z] The office of chancellor among the Anglo-Saxons resembled more
+that of a secretary of state, than that of our present chancellor.
+See Spellman, in voce CHANCELLARIUS.]
+
+There is a circumstance not unworthy of notice, which historians
+relate, with regard to the transactions of this war.  Anlaf, on the
+approach of the English army, thought that he could not venture too
+much to ensure a fortunate event; and, employing the artifice formerly
+practised by Alfred against the Danes, he entered the enemyÂ’s camp in
+the habit of a minstrel.  The stratagem was for the present attended
+with like success.  He gave such satisfaction to the soldiers who
+flocked about him, that they introduced him to the kingÂ’s tent; and
+Anlaf, having played before that prince and his nobles during their
+repast, was dismissed with a handsome reward.  His prudence kept him
+from refusing the present; but his pride determined him, on his
+departure, to bury it, while he fancied that he was unespied by all
+the world.  But a soldier in AthelstanÂ’s camp, who had formerly served
+under Anlaf, had been struck with some suspicion on the first
+appearance of the minstrel; and was engaged by curiosity to observe
+all his motions.  He regarded this last action as a full proof of
+AnlafÂ’s disguise; and he immediately carried the intelligence to
+Athelstan, who blamed him for not sooner giving him information, that
+he might have seized his enemy.  But the soldier told him, that, as he
+had formerly sworn fealty to Anlaf, he could never have pardoned
+himself the treachery of betraying and ruining his ancient master; and
+that Athelstan himself, after such an instance of his criminal
+conduct, would have had equal reason to distrust his allegiance.
+Athelstan, having praised the generosity of the soldierÂ’s principles,
+reflected on the incident, which he foresaw might be attended with
+important consequences.  He removed his station in the camp; and as a
+bishop arrived that evening with a reinforcement of troops, (for the
+ecclesiastics were then no less warlike than the civil magistrates,)
+he occupied with his train that very place which had been left vacant
+by the kingÂ’s removal.  The precaution of Athelstan was found prudent:
+for no sooner had darkness fallen, than Anlaf broke into the camp, and
+hastening directly to the place where he had left the kingÂ’s tent, put
+the bishop to death before he had time to prepare for his defence [a].
+[FN [a] W. Malmes. lib. 2 cap. 6.  Higden, p. 263]
+
+There fell several Danish and Welsh princes in the action of Brunsbury
+[b]; and Constantine and Anlaf made their escape with difficulty,
+leaving the greater part of their army on the field of battle.  After
+this success, Athelstan enjoyed his crown in tranquillity; and he is
+regarded as one of the ablest and most active of those ancient
+princes.  He passed a remarkable law, which was calculated for the
+encouragement of commerce, and which it required some liberality of
+mind in that age to have devised: that a merchant, who had made three
+long sea-voyages on his own account, should be admitted to the rank of
+a Thane or Gentleman.  This prince died at Gloucester in the year 941
+[c], after a reign of sixteen years, and was succeeded by Edmund, his
+legitimate brother.
+[FN [b] Brompton, p. 839  Ingulph. p. 29  [c] Chron. Sax. p. 114.]
+
+[MN Edmund 941.]
+Edmund, on his accession, met with disturbance from the restless
+Northumbrians, who lay in wait for every opportunity of breaking into
+rebellion.  But marching suddenly with his forces into their country,
+he so overawed the rebels, that they endeavoured to appease him by the
+most humble submissions [d].  In order to give him a surer pledge of
+their obedience, they offered to embrace Christianity; a religion
+which the English Danes had frequently professed, when reduced to
+difficulties, but which, for that very reason, they regarded as a
+badge of servitude, and shook off as soon as a favourable opportunity
+offered.  Edmund, trusting little to their sincerity in this forced
+submission, used the precaution of removing the Five-burgers from the
+towns of Mercia, in which they had been allowed to settle; because it
+was always found, that they took advantage of every commotion, and
+introduced the rebellious, or foreign Danes, into the heart of the
+kingdom.  He also conquered Cumberland from the Britons; and conferred
+that territory on Malcolm, King of Scotland, on condition that he
+should do him homage for it, and protect the north from all future
+incursions of the Danes.
+[FN [d] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 7.  Brompton, p. 857]
+
+Edmund was young when he came to the crown; yet was his reign short,
+as his death was violent.  One day as he was solemnizing a festival in
+the county of Gloucester, he remarked, that Leolf, a notorious robber,
+whom he had sentenced to banishment, had yet the boldness to enter the
+hall where he himself dined, and to sit at table with his attendants.
+Enraged at this insolence, he ordered him to leave the room; but on
+his refusing to obey, the king, whose temper, naturally choleric, was
+inflamed by this additional insult, leaped on him himself, and seized
+him by the hair: but the ruffian, pushed to extremity, drew his
+dagger, and gave Edmund a wound, of which he immediately expired.
+This event happened in the year 946, and in the sixth year of the
+kingÂ’s reign.  Edmund left male issue, but so young, that they were
+incapable of governing the kingdom; and his brother, Edred, was
+promoted to the throne.
+
+[MN Edred 946.]
+The reign of this prince, as those of his predecessors, was disturbed
+by the rebellions and incursions of the Northumbrian Danes, who,
+though frequently quelled, were never entirely subdued, nor had ever
+paid a sincere allegiance to the crown of England.  The accession of a
+new king seemed to them a favourable opportunity for shaking off the
+yoke; but on EdredÂ’s appearance with an army, they made him their
+wonted submissions; and the king having wasted the country with fire
+and sword, as a punishment for their rebellion, obliged them to renew
+their oaths of allegiance; and he straight retired with his forces.
+The obedience of the Danes lasted no longer than the present terror.
+Provoked at the devastations of Edred, and even reduced by necessity
+to subsist on plunder, they broke into a new rebellion, and were again
+subdued; but the king, now instructed by experience, took greater
+precautions against their future revolt.  He fixed English garrisons
+in their most considerable towns; and placed over them an English
+governor, who might watch all their motions, and suppress any
+insurrection on its first appearance.  He obliged also Malcolm, King
+of Scotland, to renew his homage for the lands which he held in
+England.
+
+Edred, though not unwarlike, nor unfit for active life, lay under the
+influence of the lowest superstition, and had blindly delivered over
+his conscience to the guidance of Dunstan, commonly called St.
+Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury, whom he advanced to the highest
+offices, and who covered, under the appearance of sanctity, the most
+violent and most insolent ambition.  Taking advantage of the implicit
+confidence reposed in him by the king, this churchman imported into
+England a new order of monks, who much changed the state of
+ecclesiastical affairs, and excited, on their first establishment, the
+most violent commotions.
+
+From the introduction of Christianity among the Saxons, there had been
+monasteries in England; and these establishments had extremely
+multiplied, by the donations of the princes and nobles; whose
+superstition, derived from their ignorance and precarious life, and
+increased by remorse for the crimes into which they were so frequently
+betrayed, knew no other expedient for appeasing the Deity than a
+profuse liberality towards the ecclesiastics.  But the monks had
+hitherto been a species of secular priests, who lived after the manner
+of the present canons or prebendaries, and were both intermingled, in
+some degree, with the world, and endeavoured to render themselves
+useful to it.  They were employed in the education of youth [e]: they
+had the disposal of their own time and industry: they were not
+subjected to the rigid rules of an order: they had made no vows of
+implicit obedience to their superiors [f]: and they still retained the
+choice, without quitting the convent, either of a married or a single
+life [g].  But a mistaken piety had produced in Italy a new species of
+monks called Benedictines; who, carrying farther the plausible
+principles of mortification, secluded themselves entirely from the
+world, renounced all claim to liberty, and made a merit of the most
+inviolable chastity.  These practices and principles, which
+superstition at first engendered, were greedily embraced and promoted
+by the policy of the court of Rome.  The Roman pontiff, who was making
+every day great advances towards an absolute sovereignty over the
+ecclesiastics, perceived that the celibacy of the clergy alone could
+break off entirely their connexion with the civil power, and depriving
+them of every other object of ambition, engage them to promote, with
+unceasing industry, the grandeur of their own order.  He was sensible,
+that so long as the monks were indulged in marriage, and were
+permitted to rear families, they never could be subjected to strict
+discipline, or reduced to that slavery under their superiors, which
+was requisite to procure to the mandates issued from Rome, a ready and
+zealous obedience.  Celibacy, therefore, began to be extolled, as the
+indispensable duty of priests; and the pope undertook to make all the
+clergy throughout the western world renounce at once the privilege of
+marriage: a fortunate policy; but at the same time an undertaking the
+most difficult of any, since he had the strongest propensities of
+human nature to encounter, and found, that the same connexions with
+the female sex, which generally encourage devotion, were here
+unfavourable to the success of his project.  It is no wonder
+therefore, that this master-stroke of art should have met with violent
+contradiction, and that the interests of the hierarchy, and the
+inclinations of the priests, being now placed in this singular
+opposition, should, notwithstanding the continued efforts of Rome,
+have retarded the execution of that bold scheme, during the course of
+near three centuries.
+[FN [e] Osberne in Anglia Sacra, tom. 2. p. 92.  [f] Osberne, p. 91.
+[g] See WhartonÂ’s notes to Anglia Sacra, tom. 2. p. 91.  Gervase, p.
+1645.  Chron Wint. MS. apud Spell. Conc. p. 434.]
+
+As the bishops and parochial clergy lived apart with their families,
+and were more connected with the world, the hopes of success with them
+were fainter; and the pretence for making them renounce marriage was
+much less plausible.  But the pope, having cast his eye on the monks
+as the basis of his authority, was determined to reduce them under
+strict rules of obedience, to procure them the credit of sanctity by
+an appearance of the most rigid mortification, and to break off all
+their other ties which might interfere with his spiritual policy.
+Under pretence, therefore, of reforming abuses, which were, in some
+degree, unavoidable in the ancient establishments, he had already
+spread over the southern countries of Europe the severe laws of the
+monastic life, and began to form attempts towards a like innovation in
+England.  The favourable opportunity offered itself, (and it was
+greedily seized,) arising from the weak, superstition of Edred, and
+the violent impetuous character of Dunstan.
+
+Dunstan was born of noble parents in the west of England; and being
+educated under his uncle Aldhelm, then Archbishop of Canterbury, had
+betaken himself to the ecclesiastical life, and had acquired some
+character in the court of Edmund.  He was, however, represented to
+that prince as a man of licentious manners [h]: and finding his
+fortune blasted by these suspicions, his ardent ambition prompted him
+to repair his indiscretions by running into an opposite extreme.  He
+secluded himself entirely from the world; he framed a cell so small,
+that he could neither stand erect in it nor stretch out his limbs
+during his repose; and he here employed himself perpetually either in
+devotion or in manual labour [i].  It is probable, that his brain
+became gradually crazed by these solitary occupations, and that his
+head was filled with chimeras, which, being believed by himself and
+his stupid votaries, procured him the general character of sanctity
+among the people.  He fancied that the devil, among the frequent
+visits which he paid him, was one day more earnest than usual in his
+temptations; till Dunstan, provoked at his importunity, seized him by
+the nose with a pair of red-hot pincers, as he put his head into the
+cell; and he held him there till that malignant spirit made the whole
+neighbourhood resound with his bellowings.  This notable exploit was
+seriously credited and extolled by the public: it is transmitted to
+posterity by one who, considering the age in which he lived, may pass
+for a writer of some eloquence [k]; and it ensured to Dunstan a
+reputation which no real piety, much less virtue, could, even in the
+most enlightened period, have ever procured him with the people.
+[FN [h] Osberne, p. 95  Matth West, p. 187.  [i] Osberne, p. 96.  [k]
+Osberne, p. 97.]
+
+Supported by the character obtained in his retreat, Dunstan appeared
+again in the world; and gained such an ascendant over Edred, who had
+succeeded to the crown, as made him not only the director of that
+princeÂ’s conscience, but his counsellor in the most momentous affairs
+of government.  He was placed at the head of the treasury [l], and
+being thus possessed both of power at court, and of credit with the
+populace, he was enabled to attempt with success the most arduous
+enterprises.  Finding that his advancement had been owing to the
+opinion of his austerity, he professed himself a partisan of the rigid
+monastic rules; and after introducing that reformation into the
+convents of Glastonbury and Abingdon, he endeavoured to render it
+universal in the kingdom.
+[FN [1] Ibid. p. 102.  Wallingford, p. 541.]
+
+The minds of men were already well prepared for this innovation.  The
+praises of an inviolable chastity had been carried to the highest
+extravagance by some of the first preachers of Christianity among the
+Saxons: the pleasures of love had been represented as incompatible
+with Christian perfection; and a total abstinence from all commerce
+with the sex was deemed such a meritorious penance, as was sufficient
+to atone for the greatest enormities.  The consequence seemed natural,
+that those, at least, who officiated at the altar should be clear of
+this pollution; and when the doctrine of transubstantiation, which was
+now creeping in [m], was once fully established, the reverence to the
+real body of Christ in the eucharist bestowed on this argument an
+additional force and influence.  The monks knew how to avail
+themselves of all these popular topics, and to set off their own
+character to the best advantage.  They affected the greatest austerity
+of life and manners: they indulged themselves in the highest strains
+of devotion: they inveighed bitterly against the vices and pretended
+luxury of the age: they were particularly vehement against the
+dissolute lives of the secular clergy, their rivals: every instance of
+libertinism in any individual of that order was represented as a
+general corruption: and where other topics of defamation were wanting,
+their marriage became a sure subject of invective, and their wives
+received the name of CONCUBINE, or other more opprobrious appellation.
+The secular clergy, on the other hand, who were numerous and rich, and
+possessed of the ecclesiastical dignities, defended themselves with
+vigour, and endeavoured to retaliate upon their adversaries.  The
+people were thrown into agitation; and few instances occur of more
+violent dissensions, excited by the most material differences in
+religion, or rather by the most frivolous: since it is a just remark,
+that the more affinity there is between theological parties, the
+greater commonly is their animosity.
+[FN [m] Spell. Conc. v. i. p. 452.]
+
+The progress of the monks, which was become considerable, was somewhat
+retarded by the death of Edred, their partisan, who expired after a
+reign of nine years [n].  He left children; but as they were infants,
+his nephew, Edwy, son of Edmund, was placed on the throne.
+[FN [n] Chron. Sax. p. 115.]
+
+[MN Edwy. 955.]
+Edwy, at the time of his accession, was not above sixteen or seventeen
+years of age, was possessed of the most amiable figure, and was even
+endowed, according to authentic accounts, with the most promising
+virtues [o].  He would have been the favourite of his people, had he
+not unhappily, at the commencement of his reign, been engaged in a
+controversy with the monks, whose rage, neither the graces of the body
+nor virtues of the mind could mitigate, and who have pursued his
+memory with the same unrelenting vengeance which they exercised
+against his person and dignity during his short and unfortunate reign.
+There was a beautiful princess of the royal blood, called Elgiva, who
+had made impression on the tender heart of Edwy; and as he was of an
+age when the force of the passions first begins to be felt, he had
+ventured, contrary to the advice of his gravest counsellors, and the
+remonstrances of the more dignified ecclesiastics [p], to espouse her;
+though she was within the degrees of affinity prohibited by the canon
+law [q].  As the austerity affected by the monks made them
+particularly violent on this occasion, Edwy entertained a strong
+prepossession against them; and seemed, on that account, determined
+not to second their project of expelling the seculars from all the
+convents, and of possessing themselves of those rich establishments.
+War was therefore declared between the king and the monks; and the
+former soon found reason to repent his provoking such dangerous
+enemies.  On the day of his coronation, his nobility were assembled in
+a great hall, and were indulging themselves in that riot and disorder,
+which, from the example of their German ancestors, had become habitual
+to the English [r]; when Edwy, attracted by softer pleasures, retired
+into the queenÂ’s apartment, and in that privacy gave reins to his
+fondness towards his wife, which was only moderately checked by the
+presence of her mother.  Dunstan conjectured the reason of the kingÂ’s
+retreat; and carrying along with him Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury,
+over whom he had gained an absolute ascendant, he burst into the
+apartment, upbraided Edwy with his lasciviousness, probably bestowed
+on the queen the most opprobrious epithet that can be applied to her
+sex, and tearing him from her arms, pushed him back, in a disgraceful
+manner, into the banquet of the nobles [s].  Edwy, though young, and
+opposed by the prejudices of the people, found an opportunity of
+taking revenge for this public insult.  He questioned Dunstan
+concerning the administration of the treasury during the reign of his
+predecessor [t]; and when that minister refused to give any account of
+money expended, as he affirmed, by orders of the late king, he accused
+him of malversation in his office and banished him the kingdom.  But
+DunstanÂ’s cabal was not inactive during his absence; they filled the
+public with high panegyrics on his sanctity; they exclaimed against
+the impiety of the king and queen; and having poisoned the minds of
+the people by these declamations, they proceeded to still more
+outrageous acts of violence against the royal authority.  Archbishop
+Odo sent into the palace a party of soldiers, who seized the queen,
+and, having burned her face with a red-hot iron, in order to destroy
+that fatal beauty which had seduced Edwy, they carried her by force
+into Ireland, there to remain in perpetual exile [u].  Edwy, finding
+it in vain to resist, was obliged to consent to his divorce, which was
+pronounced by Odo [w]; and catastrophe, still more dismal, awaited the
+unhappy Elgiva.  That amiable princess, being cured of her wounds, and
+having even obliterated the scars with which Odo had hoped to deface
+her beauty, returned into England, and was flying to the embraces of
+the king, whom she still regarded as her husband; when she fell into
+the hands of a party, whom the primate had sent to intercept her.
+Nothing but her death could now give security to Odo and the monks;
+and the most cruel death was requisite to satiate their vengeance.
+She was hamstringed; and expired a few days after at Gloucester, in
+the most acute torments [x].
+[FN [o] H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 356.  [p] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 7.
+[q] Ibid.  [r] Wallingford, p. 542.  [s] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 7.
+Osberne, p. 83, 105.  M. West. p. 195, 196.  [t] Wallingford, p. 542.
+Alur. Beverl. p. 112.  [u] Osberne, p. 84.  Gervase, p. 1644.  [w]
+Hoveden, p. 425.  [x] Osberne, p. 84.  Gervase, p. 1645, 1646.]
+
+The English, blinded with superstition, instead of being shocked with
+this inhumanity, exclaimed that the misfortunes of Edwy and his
+consort were a just judgment for their dissolute contempt of the
+ecclesiastical statutes.  They even proceeded to rebellion against
+their sovereign; and having placed Edgar at their head, the younger
+brother of Edwy, a boy of thirteen years of age, they soon put him in
+possession of Mercia, Northumberland, East Anglia; and chased Edwy
+into the southern counties.  That it might not be doubtful at whose
+instigation this revolt was undertaken, Dunstan returned into England,
+and took upon him the government of Edgar and his party.  He was first
+installed in the see of Worcester, then in that of London [y], and on
+OdoÂ’s death, and the violent expulsion of Brithelm, his successor, in
+that of Canterbury [z]; of all which he long kept possession.  Odo is
+transmitted to us by the monks under the character of a man of piety;
+Dunstan was even canonized: and is one of those numerous saints of the
+same stamp who disgrace the Romish calendar.  Meanwhile the unhappy
+Edwy was excommunicated [a], and pursued with unrelenting vengeance;
+but his death, which happened soon after, freed his enemies from all
+further inquietude, and gave Edgar peaceable possession of the
+government [b].
+[FN [y] Chron. Sax. p. 117.  Flor Wigorn. p. 605.  Wallingford, p. 544
+[z] Hoveden p. 425.  Osberne, p. 109.  [a] Brompton, p. 863.  [b] See
+note [B] at the end of the volume.]
+
+[MN Edgar.]
+This prince, who mounted the throne in such early youth, soon
+discovered an excellent capacity in the administration of affairs; and
+his reign is one of the most fortunate that we meet with in the
+ancient English history.  He showed no aversion to war, he made the
+wisest preparations against invaders; and by his vigour and foresight
+he was enabled, without any danger of suffering insults, to indulge
+his inclination towards peace, and to employ himself in supporting and
+improving the internal government of his kingdom.  He maintained a
+body of disciplined troops; which he quartered in the north, in order
+to keep the mutinous Northumbrians in subjection, and to repel the
+inroads of the Scots.  He built and supported a powerful navy [c]; and
+that he might retain the seamen in the practice of their duty, and
+always present a formidable armament to his enemies, he stationed
+three squadrons off the coast, and ordered them to make, from time to
+time, the circuit of his dominions [d].  The foreign Danes dared not
+to approach a country which appeared in such a posture of defence: the
+domestic Danes saw inevitable destruction to be the consequence of
+their tumults and insurrections: the neighbouring sovereigns, the King
+of Scotland, the Princes of Wales, of the Isle of Man, of the Orkneys,
+and even of Ireland [e], were reduced to pay submission to so
+formidable a monarch.  He carried his superiority to a great height,
+and might have excited an universal combination against him, had not
+his power been so well established as to deprive his enemies of all
+hope of shaking it.  It is said, that residing once at Chester, and
+having purposed to go by water to the abbey of St. John the Baptist,
+he obliged eight of his tributary princes to row him in a barge upon
+the Dee [f].  The English historians are fond of mentioning the name
+of Kenneth III, King of Scots, among the number: the Scottish
+historians either deny the fact, or assert that their king, if ever he
+acknowledged himself a vassal to Edgar, did him homage not for his
+crown, but for the dominions which he held in England.
+[FN [c] Higden, p. 265.  [d] See note [C] at the end of the volume.
+[e] Spell. Conc. p. 32.  [f] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Hoveden, p.
+406.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 356.]
+
+But the chief means by which Edgar maintained his authority, and
+preserved public peace, was the paying of court to Dunstan and the
+monks, who had at first placed him on the throne, and who, by their
+pretensions to superior sanctity and purity of manners, had acquired
+an ascendant over the people.  He favoured their scheme for
+dispossessing the secular canons of all the monasteries [g]; he
+bestowed preferment on none but their partisans; he allowed Dunstan to
+resign the see of Worcester into the hands of Oswald, one of his
+creatures [h]; and to place Ethelwold, another of them, in that of
+Winchester [i]; he consulted these prelates in the administration of
+all ecclesiastical, and even in that of many civil affairs; and though
+the vigour of his own genius prevented him from being implicitly
+guided by them, the king and the bishops found such advantages in
+their mutual agreement, that they always acted in concert, and united
+their influence in preserving the peace and tranquillity of the
+kingdom.
+[FN [g] Chron. Sax. p. 117, 118.  W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Hoveden,
+p. 425, 426  Osberne, p. 112.  [h] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.
+Hoveden, p. 425.]
+
+In order to complete the great work of placing the new order of monks
+in all the convents, Edgar summoned a general council of the prelates
+and the heads of the religious orders.  He here inveighed against the
+dissolute lives of the secular clergy; the smallness of their tonsure,
+which, it is probable, maintained no longer any resemblance to the
+crown of thorns; their negligence in attending the exercise of their
+function; their mixing with the laity in the pleasures of gaming,
+hunting, dancing, and singing; and their openly living with
+concubines, by which it is commonly supposed he meant their wives.  He
+then turned himself to Dunstan, the primate; and in the name of King
+Edred, whom he supposed to look down from heaven with indignation
+against all those enormities, he thus addressed him: "It is you,
+Dunstan, by whose advice I founded monasteries, built churches, and
+expended my treasure in the support of religion and religious houses.
+You were my counsellor and assistant in all my schemes: you were the
+director of my conscience: to you I was obedient in all things.  When
+did you call for supplies which I refused you?  Was my assistance ever
+wanting to the poor?  Did I deny support and establishments to the
+clergy and the convents?  Did I not hearken to your instructions, who
+told me that these charities were, of all others, the most grateful to
+my Maker, and fixed a perpetual fund for the support of religion?  And
+are all our pious endeavours now frustrated by the dissolute lives of
+the priests?  Not that I throw any blame on you; you have reasoned,
+besought, inculcated, inveighed; but it now behoves you to use sharper
+and more vigorous remedies; and conjoining your spiritual authority
+with the civil power, to purge effectually the temple of God from
+thieves and intruders [k]."  It is easy to imagine that this harangue
+had the desired effect; and that, when the king and prelates thus
+concurred with the popular prejudices, it was not long before the
+monks prevailed, and established their new discipline in almost all
+the convents.
+[FN [i] Gervase, p. 1646.  Brompton, p. 864.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 606.
+Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p 27, 28.  [k] Abbas Rieval. p. 360,
+361.  Spell. Conc. p. 476, 477, 478]
+
+We may remark, that the declamations against the secular clergy are,
+both here and in all the historians, conveyed in general terms; and as
+that order of men are commonly restrained by the decency of their
+character, it is difficult to believe that the complaints against
+their dissolute manners could be so universally just as is pretended.
+It is more probable that the monks paid court to the populace by an
+affected austerity of life; and representing the most innocent
+liberties, taken by the other clergy, as great and unpardonable
+enormities, thereby prepared the way for the increase of their own
+power and influence.  Edgar, however, like a true politician,
+concurred with the prevailing party; and he even indulged them in
+pretensions, which, though they might, when complied with, engage the
+monks to support royal authority during his own reign, proved
+afterwards dangerous to his successors, and gave disturbance to the
+whole civil power.  He seconded the policy of the court of Rome, in
+granting to some monasteries an exemption from episcopal jurisdiction;
+he allowed the convents, even those of royal foundation, to usurp the
+election of their own abbot: and he admitted their forgeries of
+ancient charters, by which, from the pretended grant of former kings,
+they assumed many privileges and immunities [l]
+[FN [l] Chron. Sax. p. 118.  W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Seldeni
+Spicileg. ad Eadm. p. 149, 157.]
+
+These merits of Edgar have procured him the highest panegyrics from
+the monks, and he is transmitted to us, not only under the character
+of a consummate statesman and an active prince, praises to which he
+seems to have been justly entitled, but under that of a of a great
+saint and a man of virtue.  But nothing could more betray both his
+hypocrisy in inveighing against the licentiousness of the secular
+clergy, and the interested spirit of his partisans, in bestowing such
+eulogies on his piety, than the usual tenour of his conduct, which was
+licentious to the highest degree, and violated every law, human and
+divine.  Yet those very monks who, as we are told by Ingulf, a very
+ancient historian, had no idea of any moral or religious merit, except
+chastity and obedience, not only connived at his enormities, but
+loaded him with the greatest praises.  History, however, has preserved
+some instances of his amours, from which, as from a specimen, we may
+form a conjecture of the rest.
+
+Edgar broke into a convent, carried off Editha, a nun, by force, and
+even committed violence on her person [m].  For this act of sacrilege
+he was reprimanded by Dunstan; and that he might reconcile himself to
+the church, he was obliged not to separate from his mistress, but to
+abstain from wearing his crown during seven years, and to deprive
+himself so long of that vain ornament [n]; punishment very unequal to
+that which had been inflicted on the unfortunate Edwy, who, for a
+marriage which, in the strictest sense, could only deserve the  name
+of irregular, was expelled his kingdom, saw his queen treated with
+singular barbarity, was loaded with calumnies, and has been
+represented to us under the most odious colours.  Such is the
+ascendant which may be attained, by hypocrisy and cabal, over mankind.
+[FN [m] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Osberne, p. 3.  Diceto p. 457.
+Higden, p. 265, 267, 266.  Spell. Conc. p. 481.  [n] Osberne, p. 111.]
+
+There was another mistress of Edgar, with whom he first formed a
+connexion by a kind of accident.  Passing one day by Andover, he
+lodged in the house of a nobleman, whose daughter, being endowed with
+all the graces of person and behaviour, inflamed him at first sight
+with the highest desire; and he resolved by any expedient to gratify
+it.  As he had not leisure to employ courtship or address for
+attaining his purpose, he went directly to her mother, declared the
+violence of his passion, and desired that the young lady might be
+allowed to pass that very night with him.  The mother was a woman of
+virtue, and determined not to dishonour her daughter and her family by
+compliance; but being well acquainted with the impetuosity of the
+kingÂ’s temper, she thought it would be easier, as well as safer, to
+deceive than refuse him.  She feigned therefore a submission to his
+will; but secretly ordered a waiting maid, of no disagreeable figure,
+to steal into the kingÂ’s bed, after all the company should be retired
+to rest.  In the morning before daybreak, the damsel, agreeably to the
+injunctions of her mistress, offered to retire; but Edgar, who had no
+reserve in his pleasures, and whose love to his bedfellow was rather
+inflamed by enjoyment, refused his consent, and employed force and
+entreaties to detain her.  Elfleda, (for that was the name of the
+maid,) trusting to her own charms, and to the love with which, she
+hoped, she had now inspired the king, made probably but a faint
+resistance; and the return of light discovered the deceit to Edgar.
+He had passed a night so much to his satisfaction, that he expressed
+no displeasure with the old lady on account of her fraud; his love was
+transferred to Elfleda; she became his favourite mistress; and
+maintained her ascendant over him till his marriage with Elfrida [o].
+[FN [o] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Higden, p. 268.]
+
+The circumstances of his marriage with this lady were more singular
+and more criminal.  Elfrida was daughter and heir of Olgar, Earl of
+Devonshire; and though she had been educated in the country, and had
+never appeared at court, she had filled all England with the
+reputation of her beauty.  Edgar himself, who was indifferent to no
+accounts of this nature, found his curiosity excited by the frequent
+panegyrics which he heard of Elfrida; and reflecting on her noble
+birth, he resolved, if he found her charms answerable to their fame,
+to obtain possession of her on honourable terms.  He communicated his
+intention to Earl Athelwold, his favourite; but used the precaution,
+before he made any advances to her parents, to order that nobleman, on
+some pretence, to pay them a visit, and to bring him a certain account
+of the beauty of their daughter.  Athelwold, when introduced to the
+young lady, found general report to have fallen short of the truth;
+and being actuated by the most vehement love, he determined to
+sacrifice to this new passion his fidelity to his master, and to the
+trust reposed in him.  He returned to Edgar and told him, that the
+riches alone, and high quality of Elfrida, had been the ground of the
+admiration paid her; and that her charms, far from being anywise
+extraordinary, would have been overlooked in a woman of inferior
+station.  When he had, by this deceit, diverted the king from his
+purpose, he took an opportunity, after some interval, of turning again
+the conversation on Elfrida; he remarked, that though the parentage
+and fortune of the lady had not produced on him, as on others, any
+illusion with regard to her beauty, he could not forbear reflecting,
+that she would, on the whole, be an advantageous match for him, and
+might, by her birth and riches, make him sufficient compensation for
+the homeliness of her person.  If the king, therefore, gave his
+approbation, he was determined to make proposals in his own behalf to
+the Earl of Devonshire, and doubted not to obtain his, as well as the
+young ladyÂ’s consent to the marriage.  Edgar, pleased with an
+expedient for establishing his favouriteÂ’s fortune, not only exhorted
+him to execute his purpose, but forwarded his success by his
+recommendations to the parents of Elfrida; and Athelwold was soon made
+happy in the possession of his mistress.  Dreading, however, the
+detection of the artifice, he employed every pretence for detaining
+Elfrida in the country, and for keeping her at a distance from Edgar.
+
+The violent passion of Athelwold had rendered him blind to the
+necessary consequences which must attend his conduct, and the
+advantages which the numerous enemies that always pursue a royal
+favourite would, by its means, be able to make against him.  Edgar was
+soon informed of the truth; but before he would execute vengeance on
+AthelwoldÂ’s treachery, he resolved to satisfy himself with his own
+eyes of the certainty and full extent of his guilt.  He told him that
+he intended to pay him a visit in his castle, and be introduced to the
+acquaintance of his new married wife; and Athelwold, as he could not
+refuse the honour, only craved leave to go before him a few hours,
+that he might the better prepare every thing for his reception.  He
+then discovered the whole matter to Elfrida; and begged her, if she
+had any regard either to her own honour or his life, to conceal from
+Edgar, by every circumstance of dress and behaviour, that fatal
+beauty, which had seduced him from fidelity to his friend, and had
+betrayed him into so many falsehoods.  Elfrida promised compliance,
+though nothing was farther from her intentions.  She deemed herself
+little beholden to Athelwold for a passion which had deprived her of a
+crown; and knowing the force of her own charms, she did not despair
+even yet of reaching that dignity, of which her husbandÂ’s artifice had
+bereaved her.  She appeared before the king with all the advantages
+which the richest attire and the most engaging airs could bestow upon
+her, and she excited at once in his bosom the highest love towards
+herself, and the most furious desire of revenge against her husband.
+He knew, however, how to dissemble these passions; and seducing
+Athelwold into a wood, on pretence of hunting, he stabbed him with his
+own hand, and soon after publicly espoused Elfrida [p].
+[FN [p] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Hoveden, p. 426.  Brompton, p.
+865, 866.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 606.  Higd. p. 268.]
+
+Before we conclude our account of this reign, we must mention two
+circumstances which are remarked  by historians.  The reputation of
+Edgar allured a great number of foreigners to visit his court; and he
+gave them encouragement to settle in England [q].  We are told that
+they imported all the vices of their respective countries, and
+contributed to corrupt the simple manners of the natives [r].  But as
+this simplicity of manners, so highly and often so injudiciously
+extolled, did not preserve them from barbarity and treachery, the
+greatest of all vices, and the most incident to a rude uncultivated
+people, we ought perhaps to deem their acquaintance with foreigners
+rather an advantage; as it tended to enlarge their views, and to cure
+them of those illiberal prejudices and rustic manners to which
+islanders are often subject.
+[FN [q] Chron. Sax. p. 116.  H. Hunting. lib 5. p. 356.  Brompton, p.
+865.  [r] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.]
+
+Another remarkable incident of this reign was the extirpation of
+wolves from England.  This advantage was attained by the industrious
+policy of Edgar.  He took great pains in hunting and pursuing those
+ravenous animals; and when he found that all that escaped him had
+taken shelter in the mountains and forests of Wales, he changed the
+tribute of money imposed on the Welsh princes by Athelstan, his
+predecessor [s], into an annual tribute of three hundred heads of
+wolves; which produced such diligence in hunting them, that the animal
+has been no more seen in this island.
+[FN [s] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 6.  Brompton, p. 838.]
+
+Edgar died after a reign of sixteen years, and in the thirty-third of
+his age.  He was succeeded by Edward, whom he had by his first
+marriage with the daughter of Earl Ordmer.
+
+[MN Edward the Martyr. 957.]
+The succession of this prince, who was only fifteen years of age at
+his fatherÂ’s death, did not take place without much difficulty and
+opposition.  Elfrida, his stepmother, had a son, Ethelred, seven years
+old, whom she attempted to raise to the throne: she affirmed that
+EdgarÂ’s marriage with the mother of Edward was exposed to insuperable
+objections; and as she had possessed great credit with her husband,
+she had found means to acquire partisans, who seconded all her
+pretensions.  But the title of Edward was supported by many
+advantages.  He was appointed successor by the will of his father [t]:
+he was approaching to manÂ’s estate, and might soon be able to take
+into his own hands the reins of government: the principal nobility,
+dreading the imperious temper of Elfrida, were averse to her sonÂ’s
+government, which must enlarge her authority, and probably put her in
+possession of the regency: above all, Dunstan, whose character of
+sanctity had given him the highest credit with the people, had
+espoused the cause of Edward, over whom he had already acquired a
+great ascendant [u]; and he was determined to execute the will of
+Edgar in his favour.  To cut off all opposite pretensions, Dunstan
+resolutely anointed and crowned the young prince at Kingston; and the
+whole kingdom, without farther dispute, submitted to him [w].
+[FN [t] Hoveden, p. 427.  Eadmer, p. 3.  [u] Eadmer, ex. edit.
+Seldeni, p. 3.  [w] W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 9.  Hoveden, p. 427.
+Osberne, p. 113.]
+
+It was of great importance to Dunstan and the monks, to place on the
+throne a king favourable to their cause: the secular clergy had still
+partisans in England, who wished to support them in the possession of
+the convents, and of the ecclesiastical authority.  On the first
+intelligence of EdgarÂ’s death, Alfere, Duke of Mercia, expelled the
+new orders of monks from all the monasteries which lay within his
+jurisdiction [x]; but Elfwin, Duke of East Anglia, and Brithnot, Duke
+of the East Saxons, protected them within their territories, and
+insisted upon the execution of the late laws enacted in their favour.
+In order to settle this controversy, there were summoned several
+synods, which, according to the practice of those times, consisted
+partly of ecclesiastical members, partly of the lay nobility.  The
+monks were able to prevail in these assemblies; though, as it appears,
+contrary to the secret wishes, if not the declared inclination, of the
+leading men in the nation [y]: they had more invention in forging
+miracles to support their cause; or having been so fortunate as to
+obtain, by their pretended austerities, the character of piety, their
+miracles were more credited by the populace.
+[FN [x] Chron. Sax. p. 123.  W. Malmes. lib. 2, cap. 9.  Hoveden, p.
+427.  Brompton, p. 870.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 607.  [y] W. Malmes. lib. 2.
+cap. 9.]
+
+In one synod, Dunstan, finding the majority of votes against him, rose
+up and informed the audience, that he had that instant received an
+immediate revelation in  behalf of the monks: the assembly was so
+astonished at this intelligence, or probably so overawed by the
+populace, that they proceeded no farther in their deliberations.  In
+another synod, a voice issued from the crucifix, and informed the
+members that the establishment of the monks was founded on the will of
+Heaven, and could not be opposed without impiety [z].  But the miracle
+performed in the third synod was still more alarming: the floor of the
+hall in which the assembly met sunk of a sudden and a great number of
+the members were either bruised or killed by the fall.  It was
+remarked, that Dunstan had that day prevented the king from attending
+the synod, and that the beam, on which his own chair stood, was the
+only one that did not sink under the weight of the assembly [a].  But
+these circumstances, instead of begetting any suspicion of
+contrivance, were regarded as the surest proof of the immediate
+interposition of Providence in behalf of those favourites of Heaven.
+[FN [z] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 9.  Osberne, p. 112.  Gervase, p.
+1647.  Brompton, p. 870.  Higden, p. 269.  [a] Chron. Sax. p. 124.  W.
+Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 9.  Hoveden, p. 427.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 357.
+Gervase, p. 1647.  Brompton, p. 870.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 607.  Higden,
+p. 269.  Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 29.]
+
+Edward lived four years after his accession, and there passed nothing
+memorable during his reign.  His death alone was memorable and
+tragical [b]: this young prince was endowed with the most amiable
+innocence of manners; and as his own intentions were always pure, he
+was incapable of entertaining any suspicion against others.  Though
+his step-mother had opposed his succession, and had raised a party in
+favour of her own son, he always showed her marks of regard, and even
+expressed, on all occasions, the most tender affection towards his
+brother.  He was hunting one day in Dorsetshire; and being led by the
+chase near Corfe-castle, where Elfrida resided, he took the
+opportunity of paying her a visit, unattended by any of his retinue,
+and he thereby presented her with the opportunity which she had long
+wished for.  After he had mounted his horse, he desired some liquor to
+be brought him: while he was holding the cup to his head, a servant of
+Elfrida approached him, and gave him a stab behind.  The prince,
+finding himself wounded, put spurs to his horse; but becoming faint by
+loss of blood, he fell from the saddle, his foot stuck in the stirrup,
+and he was dragged along by his unruly horse till he expired.  Being
+tracked by the blood, his body was found, and was privately interred
+at Wareham by his servants.
+[FN [b] Chron. Sax. p. 124.]
+
+The youth and innocence of this prince, with his tragical death, begat
+such compassion among the people, that they believed miracles to be
+wrought at his tomb; and they give him the appellation of Martyr,
+though his murder had no connexion with any religious principle or
+opinion.  Elfrida built monasteries, and performed many penances, in
+order to atone for her guilt; but could never, by all her hypocrisy or
+remorses, recover the good opinion of the public, though so easily
+deluded in those ignorant ages.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ETHELRED.--SETTLEMENT OF THE NORMANS.--EDMUND IRONSIDE.—CANUTE.--
+HAROLD HAREFOOT.--HARDICANUTE.--EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.--HAROLD.
+
+
+
+[MN Ethelred. 978.]
+The freedom which England had so long enjoyed from the depredations of
+the Danes seems to have proceeded, partly from the establishments
+which that piratical nation had obtained in the north of France, and
+which employed all their superfluous hands to people and maintain
+them; partly from the vigour and warlike spirit of a long race of
+English princes, who preserved the kingdom in a posture of defence by
+sea and land, and either prevented or repelled every attempt of the
+invaders.  But a new generation of men being now sprung up in the
+northern regions who could no longer disburthen themselves on
+Normandy; the English had reason to dread that the Danes would again
+visit an island to which they were invited, both by the memory of
+their past successes, and by the expectation of assistance from their
+countrymen, who, though long established in the kingdom, were not yet
+thoroughly incorporated with the natives, nor had entirely forgotten
+their inveterate habits of war and depredation.  And as the reigning
+prince was a minor, and even when he attained to manÂ’s estate never
+discovered either courage or capacity sufficient to govern his own
+subjects, much less to repel a formidable enemy, the people might
+justly apprehend the worst calamities from so dangerous a crisis.
+
+The Danes, before they durst attempt any important enterprise against
+England, made an inconsiderable descent by way of trial; and having
+landed from seven vessels near Southampton, they ravaged the country,
+enriched themselves by spoil, and departed with impunity.  Six years
+after, they made a like attempt in the west, and met with like
+success.  The invaders having now found affairs in a very different
+situation from that in which they formerly appeared, encouraged their
+countrymen to assemble a greater force, and to hope for more
+considerable advantages.  [MN 991.]  They landed in Essex, under the
+command of two leaders; and having defeated and slain at Maldon,
+Brithnot, duke of that county, who ventured, with a small body, to
+attack them, they spread their devastations over all the neighbouring
+provinces.  In this extremity, Ethelred, to whom historians give the
+epithet of the UNREADY, instead of rousing his people to defend with
+courage their honour and their property, hearkened to the advice of
+Siricius, Archbishop of Canterbury, which was seconded by many of the
+degenerate nobility; and paying the enemy the sum of ten thousand
+pounds, he bribed them to depart the kingdom.  This shameful expedient
+was attended with the success which might be expected.  The Danes next
+year appeared off the eastern coast, in hopes of subduing a people who
+defended themselves by their money, which invited assailants, instead
+of their arms, which repelled them.  But the English, sensible of
+their folly, had, in the interval, assembled in a great council, and
+had determined to collect at London a fleet able to give battle to the
+enemy [a]; though that judicious measure failed of success, from the
+treachery of Alfric, Duke of Mercia, whose name is infamous in the
+annals of that age, by the calamities which his repeated perfidy
+brought upon his country.  This nobleman had, in 983, succeeded to his
+father Alfere in that extensive command; but being deprived of it two
+years after, and banished the kingdom, he was obliged to employ all
+his intrigue, and all his power, which was too great for a subject, to
+be restored to his country, and reinstated in his authority.  Having
+had experience of the credit and malevolence of his enemies, he
+thenceforth trusted for security, not to his services, or to the
+affections of his fellow-citizens, but to the influence which he had
+obtained over his vassals, and to the public calamities, which he
+thought must, in every revolution, render his assistance necessary.
+Having fixed this resolution, he determined to prevent all such
+successes as might establish the royal authority, or render his own
+situation dependent or precarious.  As the English had formed the plan
+of surrounding and destroying the Danish fleet in harbour, he
+privately informed the enemy of their danger; and when they put to
+sea, in consequence of this intelligence, he deserted to them, with
+the squadron under his command, the night before the engagement, and
+thereby disappointed all the efforts of his countrymen [b].  Ethelred,
+enraged at his perfidy, seized his son Alfgar, and ordered his eyes to
+be put out [c].  But such was the power of Alfric, that he again
+forced himself into authority; and though he had given this specimen
+of his character, and received this grievous provocation, it was found
+necessary to intrust him anew with the government of Mercia.  This
+conduct of the court, which in all its circumstances is so barbarous,
+weak, and imprudent, both merited and prognosticated the most grievous
+calamities.
+[FN [a] Chron. Sax. p. 126.  [b] Chron.. Sax. p. 127.  W. Malm. p. 62.
+Higden, p. 270.  [c] Chron. Sax. p.128.  W. Malm. p. 62.]
+
+[MN 993.]  The northern invaders, now well acquainted with the
+defenceless condition of England, made a powerful descent under the
+command of Sweyn, King of Denmark, and Olave, King of Norway; and
+sailing up the Humber, spread on all sides their destructive ravages.
+Lindesey was laid waste; Banbury was destroyed; and all the
+Northumbrians, though mostly of Danish descent, were constrained
+either to join the invaders, or to suffer under their depredations.  A
+powerful army was assembled to oppose the Danes, and a general action
+ensued; but the English were deserted in the battle, from the
+cowardice or treachery of their three leaders, all of them men of
+Danish race, Frena, Frithegist, and Godwin, who gave the example of a
+shameful flight to the troops under their command.
+
+Encouraged by this success, and still more by the contempt which it
+inspired for their enemy, the pirates ventured to attack the centre of
+the kingdom; and entering the Thames in ninety-four vessels, laid
+siege to London, and threatened it with total destruction.  But the
+citizens, alarmed at the danger, and firmly united among themselves,
+made a bolder defence than the cowardice of the nobility and gentry
+gave the invaders reason to apprehend; and the besiegers, after
+suffering the greatest hardships, were finally frustrated in their
+attempt.  In order to revenge themselves, they laid waste Essex,
+Sussex, and Hampshire; and having there procured horses, they were
+thereby enabled to spread through the more inland counties the fury of
+their depredations.  In this extremity, Ethelred and his nobles had
+recourse to the former expedient; and sending ambassadors to the two
+northern kings, they promised them subsistence and tribute, on
+condition they would, for the present, put an end to their ravages,
+and soon after depart the kingdom.  Sweyn and Olave agreed to the
+terms, and peaceably took up their quarters at Southampton, where the
+sum of sixteen thousand pounds was paid to them.  Olave even made a
+journey to Andover, where Ethelred resided, and he received the rite
+of confirmation from the English bishops, as well as many rich
+presents from the king.  He here promised that he would never more
+infest the English territories; and he faithfully fulfilled the
+engagement.  This prince receives the appellation of St. Olave from
+the church of Rome; and notwithstanding the general presumption which
+lies either against the understanding or morals of every one who in
+those ignorant ages was dignified with that title, he seems to have
+been a man of merit and of virtue.  Sweyn, though less scrupulous than
+Olave, was constrained, upon the departure of the Norwegian prince, to
+evacuate also the kingdom with all his followers.
+
+[MN 996.]  This composition brought only a short interval to the
+miseries of the English.  The Danish pirates appeared soon after in
+the Severn; and having committed spoil in Wales, as well as in
+Cornwall and Devonshire, they sailed round to the south coast, and
+entering the Tamar, completed the devastation of these two counties.
+They then returned to the Bristol Channel; and penetrating into the
+country by the Avon, spread themselves over all that neighbourhood,
+and carried fire and sword even into Dorsetshire.  [MN 998.]  They
+next changed the seat of war; and after ravaging the Isle of Wight,
+they entered the Thames and Medway, and laid siege to Rochester, where
+they defeated the Kentish men in a pitched battle.  After this
+victory, the whole province of Kent was made a scene of slaughter,
+fire, and devastation.  The extremity of these miseries forced the
+English into councils for common defence both by sea and land; but the
+weakness of the king, the divisions among the nobility, the treachery
+of some, the cowardice of others, the want of concert in all,
+frustrated every endeavour; their fleets and armies either came too
+late to attack the enemy, or were repulsed with dishonour; and the
+people were thus equally ruined by resistance or by submission.  The
+English, therefore, destitute both of prudence and unanimity in
+council, of courage and conduct in the field, had recourse to the same
+weak expedient which by experience they had already found so
+ineffectual: they offered the Danes to buy peace, by paying them a
+large sum of money.  These ravagers rose continually in their demands;
+and now required the payment of twenty-four thousand pounds, to which
+the English were so mean and imprudent as to submit [d].  The
+departure of the Danes procured them another short interval of repose,
+which they enjoyed as if it were to be perpetual, without making any
+effectual preparations for a more vigorous resistance upon the next
+return of the enemy.
+[FN [d] Hoveden, p. 429.  Chron. Mailr. p. 150.]
+
+Besides receiving this sum, the Danes were engaged by another motive
+to depart a kingdom which appeared so little in a situation to resist
+their efforts: they were invited over by their countrymen in Normandy,
+who at this time were hard pressed by the arms of Robert, King of
+France, and who found it difficult to defend the settlement, which,
+with so much advantage to themselves and glory to their nation, they
+had made in that country.  It is probable, also, that Ethelred,
+observing the close connexions thus maintained among all the Danes,
+however divided in government or situation, was desirous of forming an
+alliance with that formidable people: for this purpose, being now a
+widower, he made his addresses to Emma, sister to Richard II., Duke of
+Normandy, and he soon succeeded in his negotiation.  [MN 1001.]  The
+princess came over this year to England, and was married to Ethelred
+[e].
+[FN [e] H. Hunt. p. 359.  Higden, p. 271.]
+
+[MN Settlement of the Normans.]
+In the end of the ninth and beginning of the tenth century, when the
+north, not yet exhausted by that multitude of people, or rather
+nations, which she had successively emitted, sent forth a new race,
+not of conquerors, as before, but of pirates and ravagers, who
+infested the countries possessed by her once warlike sons, lived
+Rollo, a petty prince or chieftain of Denmark, whose valour and
+abilities soon engaged the attention of his countrymen.  He was
+exposed in his youth to the jealousy of the King of Denmark, who
+attacked his small but independent principality; and who, being foiled
+in every assault, had recourse at last to perfidy for effecting his
+purpose, which he had often attempted in vain by force of arms [f]: he
+lulled Rollo into security by an insidious peace; and falling suddenly
+upon him, murdered his brother and his bravest officers, and forced
+him to fly for safety into Scandinavia.  Here many of his ancient
+subjects, induced partly by affection to their prince, partly by the
+oppressions of the Danish monarch, ranged themselves under his
+standard, and offered to follow him in every enterprise.  Rollo,
+instead of attempting to recover his paternal dominions, where he must
+expect a vigorous resistance from the Danes, determined to pursue an
+easier, but more important undertaking, and to make his fortune, in
+imitation of his countrymen, by pillaging the richer and more southern
+coasts of Europe.  He collected a body of troops, which, like that of
+all those ravagers, was composed of Norwegians, Swedes, Frisians,
+Danes, and adventurers of all nations, who, being accustomed to a
+roving unsettled life, took delight in nothing but war and plunder.
+His reputation brought him associates from all quarters; and a vision,
+which he pretended to have appeared to him in his sleep, and which,
+according to his interpretation of it, prognosticated the greatest
+successes, proved also a powerful incentive with those ignorant and
+superstitious people [g].
+[FN [f] Dudo, ex edit. Duchesne, p. 70, 71.  Gul. Gemeticencis, lib.
+2. cap. 2, 3.  [g] Dudo, p.71.  Gul. Gem. in Epist. ad Gul. Conq.]
+
+The first attempt made by Rollo was on England, near the end of
+Alfred's reign; when that great monarch, having settled Gothrum and
+his followers in East Anglia, and others of those freebooters in
+Northumberland, and having restored peace to his harassed country, had
+established the most excellent military as well as civil institutions
+among the English.  The prudent Dane, finding that no advantages could
+be gained over such a people, governed by such a prince, soon turned
+his enterprises against France, which he found more exposed to his
+inroads [h]; and during the reigns of Eudes, an usurper, and of
+Charles the Simple, a weak prince, he committed the most destructive
+ravages both on the inland and maritime provinces of that kingdom.
+The French, having no means of defence against a leader who united all
+the valour of his countrymen with the policy of more civilized
+nations, were obliged to submit to the expedient practised by Alfred,
+and to offer the invaders a settlement in some of those provinces
+which they had depopulated by their
+arms [i].
+[FN [h] Gul. Gemet. lib. 2. cap. 6.  [i] Dudo, p. 82.]
+
+The reason why the Danes for many years pursued measures so different
+from those which had been embraced by the Goths, Vandals, Franks,
+Burgundians, Lombards, and other northern conquerors, was the great
+difference in the method of attack which was practised by these
+several nations, and to which the nature of their respective
+situations necessarily confined them.  The latter tribes, living in an
+inland country, made incursions by land upon the Roman empire; and
+when they entered far into the frontiers, they were obliged to carry
+along with them their wives and families, whom they had no hopes of
+soon revisiting, and who could not otherwise participate of their
+plunder.  This circumstance quickly made them think of forcing a
+settlement in the provinces which they had overrun; and these
+barbarians, spreading themselves over the country, found an interest
+in protecting the property and industry of the people whom they had
+subdued.  But the Danes and Norwegians, invited by their maritime
+situation, and obliged to maintain themselves in their uncultivated
+country by fishing, had acquired some experience of navigation, and in
+their military excursions pursued the method practised against the
+Roman empire by the more early Saxons: they made descents in small
+bodies from their ships, or rather boats, and ravaging the coasts,
+returned with their booty to their families, whom they could not
+conveniently carry along with them in those hazardous enterprises.
+But when they increased their armaments, made incursions into the
+inland countries, and found it safe to remain longer in the midst of
+the enfeebled enemy, they had been accustomed to crowd their vessels
+with their wives and children; and having no longer any temptation to
+return to their own country, they willingly embraced an opportunity of
+settling in the warm climates and cultivated fields of the south.
+
+Affairs were in this situation with Rollo and his followers, when
+Charles proposed to relinquish to them part of the province formerly
+called Neustria, and to purchase peace on these hard conditions.
+After all the terms were fully settled, there appeared only one
+circumstance shocking to the haughty Dane: he was required to do
+homage to Charles for this province, and to put himself in that
+humiliating posture imposed on vassals by the rites of the feudal law.
+He long refused to submit to this indignity; but being unwilling to
+lose such important advantages for a mere ceremony, he made a
+sacrifice of his pride to his interest, and acknowledged himself, in
+form, the vassal of the French monarch [k].  Charles gave him his
+daughter, Gisla, in marriage; and that he might bind him faster to his
+interests, made him a donation of a considerable territory, besides
+that which he was obliged to surrender to him by his stipulations.
+When some of the French nobles informed him, that in return for so
+generous a present it was expected that he should throw himself at the
+king's feet and make suitable acknowledgments for his bounty, Rollo
+replied, that he would rather decline the present; and it was with
+some difficulty they could persuade him to make that compliment by one
+of his captains.  The Dane commissioned for this purpose, full of
+indignation at the order, and despising so unwarlike a prince, caught
+Charles by the foot, and pretending to carry it to his mouth, that he
+might kiss it, overthrew him before all his courtiers.  The French,
+sensible of their present weakness, found it prudent to overlook this
+insult [l].
+[FN [k] Ypod. Neust. p. 417.  [1] Gul Gemet. lib. 2. cap. 17.]
+
+Rollo, who was now in the decline of life, and was tired of wars and
+depredations, applied himself, with mature counsels, to the settlement
+of his newly-acquired territory, which was thenceforth called
+Normandy; and he parcelled it out among his captains and followers.
+He followed, in this partition, the customs of the feudal law, which
+was then universally established in the southern countries of Europe,
+and which suited the peculiar circumstances of that age.  He treated
+the French subjects, who submitted to him, with mildness and justice;
+he reclaimed his ancient followers from their ferocious violence; he
+established law and order throughout his state; and after a life spent
+in tumult and ravages, he died peaceably in a good old age, and left
+his dominions to his posterity [m].
+[FN [m] Ibid. cap. 19, 20, 21.]
+
+William I. who succeeded him, governed the duchy twenty-five years;
+and, during that time, the Normans were thoroughly intermingled with
+the French, had acquired their language, had imitated their manners,
+and had made such progress towards cultivation, that on the death of
+William, his son Richard, though a minor [n], inherited his dominions:
+a sure proof that the Normans were already somewhat advanced in
+civility, and that their government could now rest secure on its laws
+and civil institutions, and was not wholly sustained by the abilities
+of the sovereign.  Richard, after a long reign of fifty-four years,
+was succeeded by his son of the same name in the year 996 [o]; which
+was eighty-five years after the first establishment of the Normans in
+France.  This was the duke who gave his sister Emma in marriage to
+Ethelred, King of England, and who thereby formed connexions with a
+country which his posterity was so soon after destined to subdue.
+[FN [n] Order. Vitalis, p. 459.  Gul. Gemet. lib. 4. cap. 1.  [o]
+Order. Vitalis, p. 459.]
+
+The Danes had been established during a longer period in England than
+in France; and though the similarity of their original language to
+that of the Saxons invited them to a more early coalition with the
+natives, they had hitherto found so little example of civilized
+manners among the English, that they retained all their ancient
+ferocity, and valued themselves only on their national character of
+military bravery.  The recent as well as more ancient achievements of
+their countrymen tended to support this idea; and the English princes,
+particularly Athelstan and Edgar, sensible of that superiority, had
+been accustomed to keep in pay bodies of Danish troops, who were
+quartered about the country, and committed many violences upon the
+inhabitants.  These mercenaries had attained to such a height of
+luxury, according to the old English writers [p], that they combed
+their hair once a day, bathed themselves once a week, changed their
+clothes frequently; and by all these arts of effeminacy, as well as by
+their military character, had rendered themselves so agreeable to the
+fair sex, that they debauched the wives and daughters of the English,
+and dishonoured many families.  But what most provoked the
+inhabitants, was, that instead of defending them against invaders,
+they were ever ready to betray them to the foreign Danes, and to
+associate themselves with all straggling parties of that nation.  The
+animosity between the inhabitants of English and Danish race had from
+these repeated injuries risen to a great height; when Ethelred, from a
+policy incident to weak princes, embraced the cruel resolution of
+massacring the latter throughout all his dominions [q].  [MN 1002.]
+Secret orders were despatched to commence the execution everywhere on
+the same day; and the festival of St. Brice [MN Nov. 13.], which fell
+on a Sunday, the day on which the Danes usually bathed themselves, was
+chosen for that purpose.  It is needless to repeat the accounts
+transmitted concerning the barbarity of this massacre: the rage of the
+populace, excited by so many injuries, sanctioned by authority, and
+stimulated by example, distinguished not between innocence and guilt,
+spared neither sex nor age, and was not satiated without the tortures
+as well as death of the unhappy victims.  Even Gunilda, sister to the
+King of Denmark, who had married Earl Paling, and had embraced
+Christianity, was, by the advice of Edric, Earl of Wilts, seized and
+condemned to death by Ethelred, after seeing her husband and children
+butchered before her face.  This unhappy princess foretold, in the
+agonies of despair, that her murder would soon be avenged by the total
+ruin of the English nation.
+[FN [p] Wallingford, p. 547.  [q] See note [D] at the end of the
+volume.]
+
+[MN 1003.]
+Never was prophecy better fulfilled; and never did barbarous policy
+prove more fatal to the authors.  Sweyn and his Danes, who wanted but
+a pretence for invading the English, appeared off the western coast,
+and threatened to take full revenge for the slaughter of their
+countrymen.  Exeter fell first into their hands, from the negligence
+or treachery of Earl Hugh, a Norman, who had been made governor by the
+interest of Queen Emma.  They began to spread their devastations over
+the country; when the English, sensible what outrages they must now
+expect from their barbarous and offended enemy, assembled more early,
+and in greater numbers than usual, and made an appearance of vigorous
+resistance.  But all these preparations were frustrated by the
+treachery of Duke Alfric, who was intrusted with the command, and who,
+feigning sickness, refused to lead the army against the Danes, till it
+was dispirited, and at last dissipated, by his fatal misconduct.
+Alfric soon after died; and Edric, a greater traitor than he, who had
+married the king's daughter, and had acquired a total ascendant over
+him, succeeded Alfric in the government of Mercia, and in the command
+of the English armies.  A great famine, proceeding partly from the bad
+seasons, partly from the decay of agriculture, added to all the other
+miseries of the inhabitants.  The country, wasted by the Danes,
+harassed by the fruitless expeditions of its own forces, was reduced
+to the utmost desolation; and at last [MN 1007.] submitted to the
+infamy of purchasing a precarious peace from the enemy, by the payment
+of thirty thousand pounds.
+
+The English endeavoured to employ this interval in making preparations
+against the return of the Danes, which they had reason soon to expect.
+A law was made, ordering the proprietors of eight hides of land to
+provide each a horseman and a complete suit of armour; and those of
+three hundred and ten hides to equip a ship for the defence of the
+coast.  When this navy was assembled, which must have consisted of
+near eight  hundred vessels [r], all hopes of its success were
+disappointed by the factions, animosities, and dissensions of the
+nobility  Edric had impelled his brother Brightric to prefer an
+accusation of treason against Wolfnoth, Governor of Sussex, the father
+of the famous Earl Godwin; and that nobleman, well acquainted with the
+malevolence, as well as power of his enemy, found no means of safety
+but in deserting with twenty ships to the Danes.  Brightric pursued
+him with a fleet of eighty sail; but his ships being shattered in a
+tempest, and stranded on the coast, he was suddenly attacked by
+Wolfnoth, and all his vessels were burnt or destroyed.  The imbecility
+of the king was little capable of repairing this misfortune: the
+treachery of Edric frustrated every plan for future defence; and the
+English navy, disconcerted, discouraged, and divided, was at last
+scattered into its several harbours.
+[FN [r] There were 243,600 hides in England.  Consequently the ships
+equipped must be 785.  The cavalry was 30,450 men.]
+
+It is almost impossible, or would be tedious, to relate particularly
+all the miseries to which the English were thenceforth exposed.  We
+hear of nothing but the sacking and burning of towns; the devastation
+of the open country; the appearance of the enemy in every quarter of
+the kingdom; their cruel diligence in discovering any corner which had
+not been ransacked by their former violence.  The broken and
+disjointed narration of the ancient historians is here well adapted to
+the nature of the war, which was conducted by such sudden inroads as
+would have been dangerous even to an united and well-governed kingdom,
+but proved fatal, where nothing but a general consternation and mutual
+diffidence and dissension prevailed.  The governors of one province
+refused to march to the assistance of another, and were at last
+terrified from assembling their forces for the defence of their own
+province.  General councils were summoned; but either no resolution
+was taken, or none was carried into execution.  And the only expedient
+in which the English agreed, was the base and imprudent one of buying
+a new peace from the Danes, by the payment of forty-eight thousand
+pounds.
+
+[MN 1011.]  This measure did not bring them even that short interval
+of repose which they had expected from it.  The Danes, disregarding
+all engagements, continued their devastations and hostilities; levied
+a new contribution of eight thousand pounds upon the county of Kent
+alone; murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had refused to
+countenance this exaction; and the English nobility found no other
+resource than that of submitting every where to the Danish monarch,
+swearing allegiance to him [MN 1013.], and delivering him hostages for
+their fidelity.  Ethelred, equally afraid of the violence of the enemy
+and the treachery of his own subjects, fled into Normandy, whither he
+had sent before him Queen Emma and her two sons, Alfred and Edward.
+Richard received his unhappy guests with a generosity that does honour
+to his memory.
+
+[MN 1014.]  The king had not been above six weeks in Normandy when he
+heard of the death of Sweyn, who expired at Gainsborough, before he
+had time to establish himself in his newly acquired dominions.  The
+English prelates and nobility, taking advantage of this event, sent
+over a deputation to Normandy, inviting Ethelred to return to them,
+expressing a desire of being again governed by their native prince,
+and intimating their hopes, that being now tutored by experience, he
+would avoid all those errors which had been attended with such
+misfortunes to himself and to his people.  But the misconduct of
+Ethelred was incurable; and on his resuming the government, he
+discovered the same incapacity, indolence, cowardice, and credulity,
+which had so often exposed him to the insults of his enemies.  His
+son-in-law, Edric, notwithstanding his repeated treasons, retained
+such influence at court as to instil into the king jealousies of
+Sigefert and Morcar, two of the chief nobles of Mercia: Edric allured
+them into his house, where he murdered them; while Ethelred
+participated in the infamy of the action, by confiscating their
+estates and thrusting into a convent the widow of Sigefert.  She was a
+woman of singular beauty and merit; and in a visit which was paid her,
+during her confinement, by Prince Edmond, the kingÂ’s eldest son, she
+inspired him  with so violent an affection, that he released her from
+the convent, and soon after married her, without the consent of his
+father.
+
+Meanwhile the English found in Canute, the son and successor of Sweyn,
+an enemy no less terrible than the prince from whom death had so
+lately delivered them.  He ravaged the eastern coast with merciless
+fury, and put ashore all the English hostages at Sandwich, after
+having cut off their hands and noses.  He was obliged, by the
+necessity of his affairs, to make a voyage to Denmark; but returning
+soon after, he continued his depredations along the southern coast: he
+even broke into the counties of Dorset, Wilts, and Somerset; where an
+army was assembled against him, under the command of Prince Edmond and
+Duke Edric.  The latter still continued his perfidious machinations;
+and after endeavouring in vain to get the prince into his power, he
+found means to disperse the army; and he then openly deserted to
+Canute with forty vessels. [MN 1015.]
+
+Notwithstanding this misfortune, Edmond was not disconcerted; but,
+assembling all the force of England, was in a condition to give battle
+to the enemy.  The king had had such frequent experience of perfidy
+among his subjects, that he had lost all confidence in them: he
+remained at London, pretending sickness, but really from apprehensions
+that they intended to buy their peace, by delivering him into the
+hands of his enemies.  The army called aloud for their sovereign to
+march at their head against the Danes; and, on his refusal to take the
+field, they were so discouraged, that those vast preparations became
+ineffectual for the defence of the kingdom.  Edmond, deprived of all
+regular supplies to maintain his soldiers, was obliged to commit equal
+ravages with those which were practised by the Danes; and after making
+some fruitless expeditions into the north, which had submitted
+entirely to CanuteÂ’s power, he retired to London, determined there to
+maintain, to the last extremity, the small remains of English liberty.
+[MN 1016.]  He here found every thing in confusion by the death of the
+king, who expired after an unhappy and inglorious reign of thirty-five
+years.  He left two sons by his first marriage, Edmond, who succeeded
+him, and Edwy, whom Canute afterwards murdered.  His two sons by the
+second marriage, Alfred and Edward, were immediately, upon EthelredÂ’s
+death, conveyed into Normandy by Queen Emma.
+
+[MN Edmond Ironside.]
+This prince, who received the name of Ironside from his hardy valour,
+possessed courage and abilities sufficient to have prevented his
+country from sinking into those calamities, but not to raise it from
+that abyss of misery into which it had already fallen.  Among the
+other misfortunes of the English, treachery and disaffection had crept
+in among the nobility and prelates; and Edmond found no better
+expedient for stopping the farther progress of these fatal evils, than
+to lead his army instantly into the field, and to employ them against
+the common enemy.  After meeting with some success at Gillingham, he
+prepared himself to decide, in one general engagement, the fate of his
+crown; and at Scoerston, in the county of Gloucester, he offered
+battle to the enemy, who were commanded by Canute and Edric.  Fortune,
+in the beginning of the day, declared for him; but Edric, having cut
+off the head of one Osmer, whose countenance resembled that of Edmond,
+fixed it on a spear, carried it through the ranks in triumph, and
+called aloud to the English, that it was time to fly; for, behold! the
+head of their sovereign.  And though Edmond, observing the
+consternation of the troops, took off his helmet and showed himself to
+them, the utmost he could gain by his activity and valour was to leave
+the victory undecided.  Edric now took a surer method to ruin him, by
+pretending to desert to him, and as Edmond was well acquainted with
+his power, and probably knew no other of the chief nobility in whom he
+could repose more confidence, he was obliged, notwithstanding the
+repeated perfidy of the man, to give him a considerable command in the
+army.  A battle soon after ensued at Assington in Essex, where Edric,
+flying in the beginning of the day, occasioned the total defeat of the
+English, followed by a great slaughter of the nobility.  The
+indefatigable Edmond, however, had still resources; assembling a new
+army at Gloucester, he was again in a condition to dispute the field;
+when the Danish and English nobility, equally harassed  with those
+convulsions, obliged their kings to come to a compromise, and to
+divide the kingdom between them by treaty.  Canute reserved to himself
+the northern division, consisting of Mercia, East Anglia, and
+Northumberland, which he had entirely subdued; the southern parts were
+left to Edmond.  This prince survived the treaty about a month.  He
+was murdered at Oxford by two of his chamberlains, accomplices of
+Edric, who thereby made way for the succession of Canute the Dane to
+the crown of England.
+
+[MN Canute 1017.]
+The English, who had been unable to defend their country, and maintain
+their independency, under so active and brave a prince as Edmond,
+could, after his death, expect nothing but total subjection from
+Canute, who, active and brave himself, and at the head of a great
+force, was ready to take advantage of the minority of Edwin and
+Edward, the two sons of Edmond.  Yet this conqueror, who was commonly
+so little scrupulous, showed himself anxious to cover his injustice
+under plausible pretences; before he seized the dominions of the
+English princes, he summoned a general assembly of the states, in
+order to fix the succession of the kingdom.  He here suborned some
+nobles to depose that, in the treaty of Gloucester, it had been
+verbally agreed either to name Canute, in case of EdmondÂ’s death,
+successor to his dominions, or tutor to his children (for historians
+vary in this particular); and that evidence, supported by the great
+power of Canute, determined the states immediately to put the Danish
+monarch in possession of the government.  Canute, jealous of the two
+princes, but sensible that he should render himself extremely odious
+if he ordered them to be despatched in England, sent them abroad to
+his ally, the King of Sweden, whom he desired, as soon as they arrived
+at his court, to free him by their death from all farther anxiety.
+The Swedish monarch was too generous to comply with the request, but
+being afraid of drawing on himself a quarrel with Canute, by
+protecting the young princes, he sent them to Solomon, King of
+Hungary, to be educated in his court.  The elder, Edwin, was
+afterwards married to the sister of the King of Hungary, but the
+English prince dying without issue, Solomon gave his sister-in-law,
+Agatha, daughter of the Emperor Henry II., in marriage to Edward, the
+younger brother; and she bore him Edgar Atheling, Margaret, afterwards
+queen of Scotland, and Christiana, who retired into a convent.
+
+Canute, though he had reached the great point of his ambition, in
+obtaining possession of the English crown, was obliged at first to
+make great sacrifices to it; and to gratify the chief of the nobility,
+by bestowing on them the most extensive governments and jurisdictions.
+He created Thurkill Earl or Duke of East Anglia, (for these titles
+were then nearly of the same import,) Yric of Northumberland, and
+Edric of Mercia, reserving only to himself the administration of
+Wessex.  But seizing afterwards a favourable opportunity, he expelled
+Thurkill and Yric from their governments, and banished them the
+kingdom; he put to death many of the English nobility, on whose
+fidelity he could not rely, and whom he hated on account of their
+disloyalty to their native prince.  And even the traitor Edric, having
+had the assurance to reproach him with his services, was condemned to
+be executed, and his body to be thrown into the Thames; a suitable
+reward for his multiplied acts of perfidy and rebellion.
+
+Canute also found himself obliged, in the beginning of his reign, to
+load the people with heavy taxes, in order to reward his Danish
+followers: he exacted from them at one time the sum of seventy-two
+thousand pounds; besides eleven thousand pounds, which he levied on
+London alone.  He was probably willing, from political motives, to
+mulct severely that city, on account of the affection which it had
+borne to Edmond, and the resistance which it had made to the Danish
+power in two obstinate sieges [s].  But these rigours were imputed to
+necessity; and Canute, like a wise prince, was determined that the
+English, now deprived of all their dangerous leaders, should be
+reconciled to the Danish yoke by the justice and impartiality of his
+administration.  He sent back to Denmark as many of his followers as
+he could safely spare; he restored the Saxon customs in a general
+assembly of the states; he made no distinction between Danes and
+English in the distribution of justice; and he took care, by a strict
+execution of law, to protect the lives and properties of all his
+people.  The Danes were gradually incorporated with his new subjects;
+and both were glad to obtain a little respite from those multiplied
+calamities from which the one, no less than the other, had, in their
+fierce contest for power, experienced such fatal consequences.
+[FN [s] W. Malm. p. 72.  In one of these sieges, Canute diverted the
+course of the Thames, and by that means brought his ships above London
+bridge.]
+
+The removal of EdmondÂ’s children into so distant a country as Hungary,
+was, next to their death, regarded by Canute as the greatest security
+to his government: he had no farther anxiety, except with regard to
+Alfred and Edward, who were protected and supported by their uncle,
+Richard Duke of Normandy.  Richard even fitted out a great armament,
+in order to restore the English princes to the throne of their
+ancestors; and, though the navy was dispersed by a storm, Canute saw
+the danger to which he was exposed from the enmity of so warlike a
+people as the Normans.  In order to acquire the friendship of the
+duke, he paid his addresses to Queen Emma, sister of that prince; and
+promised that he would leave the children whom he should have by that
+marriage in possession of the crown of England.  Richard complied with
+his demand, and sent over Emma to England, where she was soon after
+married to Canute [t].  The English, though they disapproved of her
+espousing the mortal enemy of her former husband and his family, were
+pleased to find at court a sovereign to whom they were accustomed, and
+who had already formed connexions with them; and thus Canute, besides
+securing by this marriage the alliance of Normandy, gradually
+acquired, by the same means, the confidence of his own subjects [u].
+The Norman prince did not long survive the marriage of Emma; and he
+left the inheritance of the duchy to his eldest son of the same name;
+who dying a year after him without children, was succeeded by his
+brother Robert, a man of valour and abilities.
+[FN [t] Chron Sax. p. 151.  W. Malmes. p. 73.  [u] W. Malmes. p. 73.
+Higden, p. 275.]
+
+Canute, having settled his power in England beyond all danger of a
+revolution, made a voyage to Denmark, in order to resist the attacks
+of the King of Sweden; and he carried along with him a great body of
+the English, under the command of Earl Godwin.  This nobleman had here
+an opportunity of performing a service by which he both reconciled the
+kingÂ’s mind to the English nation, and, gaining to himself the
+friendship of his sovereign, laid the foundation of that immense
+fortune which he acquired to his family.  He was stationed next the
+Swedish camp, and observing a favourable opportunity which he was
+obliged suddenly to seize, he attacked the enemy in the night, drove
+them from their trenches, threw them into disorder, pursued his
+advantage, and obtained a decisive victory over them.  Next morning,
+Canute seeing the English camp entirely abandoned, imagined that those
+disaffected troops had deserted to the enemy: he was agreeably
+surprised to find that they were at that time engaged in pursuit of
+the discomfited Swedes.  He was so pleased with this success, and with
+the manner of obtaining it, that he bestowed his daughter in marriage
+upon Godwin, and treated him ever after with entire confidence and
+regard.
+
+[MN 1028.]  In another voyage, which he made afterwards to Denmark,
+Canute attacked Norway, and expelling the just but unwarlike Olaus,
+kept possession of his kingdom till the death of that prince.  He had
+now, by his conquests and valour, attained the utmost height of
+grandeur; having leisure from wars and intrigues, he felt the
+unsatisfactory nature of all human enjoyments; and, equally weary of
+the glories and turmoils of this life, he began to cast his view
+towards that future existence, which it is so natural for the human
+mind, whether satiated by prosperity, or disgusted with adversity, to
+make the object of its attention.  Unfortunately, the spirit which
+prevailed in that age gave a wrong direction to his devotion; instead
+of making compensation to those whom he had injured by his former acts
+of violence, he employed himself entirely in those exercises of piety
+which the monks represented as the most meritorious.  He built
+churches, he endowed monasteries, he enriched the ecclesiastics, and
+he bestowed revenues for the support of chantries at Assington and
+other places, where he appointed prayers to be said for the souls of
+those who had there fallen in battle against him.  He even undertook a
+pilgrimage to Rome, where he resided a considerable time; besides
+obtaining from the pope some privileges for the English school erected
+there, he engaged all the princes through whose dominions he was
+obliged to pass to desist from those heavy impositions and tolls which
+they were accustomed to exact from the English pilgrims.  By this
+spirit of devotion, no less than by his equitable and politic
+administration, he gained, in a good measure, the affections of his
+subjects.
+
+Canute, the greatest and most powerful monarch of his time, sovereign
+of Denmark and Norway, as well as of England, could not fail of
+meeting with adulation from his courtiers; a tribute which is
+liberally paid even to the meanest and weakest princes.  Some of his
+flatterers, breaking out one day in admiration of his grandeur,
+exclaimed, that every thing was possible for him; upon which the
+monarch, it is said, ordered his chair to be set on the sea-shore,
+while the tide was rising; and as the waters approached he commanded
+them to retire, and to obey the voice of him who was lord of the
+ocean.  He feigned to sit some time in expectation of their
+submission; but when the sea still advanced towards him, and began to
+wash him with its billows, he turned to his courtiers, and remarked to
+them, that every creature in the universe was feeble and impotent, and
+that power resided with one Being alone, in whose hands were all the
+elements of nature, who could say to the ocean, THUS FAR SHALT THOU
+GO, AND NO FARTHER; and who could level with his nod the most towering
+piles of human pride and ambition.
+
+[MN 1031.]  The only memorable action which Canute performed after his
+return from Rome was an expedition against Malcolm, King of Scotland.
+During the reign of Ethelred, a tax of a shilling a hide had been
+imposed on all the lands of England.  It was commonly called DANEGELT;
+because the revenue had been employed either in buying peace with the
+Danes, or in making preparations against the inroads of that hostile
+nation.  That monarch had required that the same tax should be paid by
+Cumberland, which was held by the Scots; but Malcolm, a warlike
+prince, told him, that, as he was always able to repulse the Danes by
+his own power, he would neither submit to buy peace of his enemies,
+nor pay others for resisting them.  Ethelred, offended  at this reply,
+which contained a secret reproach on his own conduct, undertook an
+expedition against Cumberland; but though he committed ravages upon
+the country, he could never bring Malcolm to a temper more humble or
+submissive.  Canute, after his accession, summoned the Scottish king
+to acknowledge himself a vassal for Cumberland to the crown of
+England; but Malcolm refused compliance, on pretence that he owed
+homage to those princes only who inherited that kingdom by right of
+blood.  Canute was not of a temper to bear this insult; and the King
+of Scotland soon found that the sceptre was in very different hands
+from those of the feeble and irresolute Ethelred.  Upon CanuteÂ’s
+appearing on the frontiers with a formidable army, Malcolm agreed that
+his grandson and heir, Duncan, whom he put in possession of
+Cumberland, should make the submissions required, and that the heirs
+of Scotland should always acknowledge themselves vassals to England
+for that province [w].
+[FN [w] W. Malmes p. 74.]
+
+Canute passed four years in peace after this enterprise, and he died
+at Shaftesbury [x]; leaving three sons, Sweyn, Harold, and
+Hardicanute.  Sweyn, whom he had by his first marriage with Alfwen,
+daughter of the Earl of Hampshire, was crowned in Norway: Hardicanute,
+whom Emma had borne him, was in possession of Denmark: Harold, who was
+of the same marriage with Sweyn, was at that time in England.
+[FN [x] Chron. Sax. p. 154.  W. Malmes. p. 76.]
+
+[MN Harold Harefoot. 1035.]
+Though Canute, in his treaty with Richard, Duke of Normandy, had
+stipulated that his children by Emma should succeed to the crown of
+England, he had either considered himself as released from that
+engagement by the death of Richard, or esteemed it dangerous to leave
+an unsettled and newly-conquered kingdom in the hands of so young a
+prince as Hardicanute; he therefore appointed by his will Harold
+successor to the crown.  This prince was, besides, present to maintain
+his claim; he was favoured by all the Danes, and he got immediately
+possession of his fatherÂ’s treasures, which might be equally useful,
+whether he found it necessary to proceed by force or intrigue in
+insuring his succession.  On the other hand, Hardicanute had the
+suffrages of the English, who, on account of his being born among them
+of Queen Emma, regarded him as their countryman; he was favoured by
+the articles of treaty with the Duke of Normandy; and, above all, his
+party was espoused by Earl Godwin, the most powerful nobleman in the
+kingdom, especially in the province of Wessex, the chief seat of the
+ancient English.  Affairs were likely to terminate in a civil war;
+when, by the interposition of the nobility of both parties, a
+compromise was made, and it was agreed that Harold should enjoy,
+together with London, all the provinces north of the Thames, while the
+possession of the south should remain to Hardicanute; and till that
+prince should appear and take possession of his dominions, Emma fixed
+her residence at Winchester, and established her authority over her
+sonÂ’s share of the partition.
+
+Meanwhile, Robert, Duke of Normandy, died in a pilgrimage to the Holy
+Land, and being succeeded by a son, yet a minor, the two English
+princes, Alfred and Edward, who found no longer any countenance or
+protection in that country, gladly embraced the opportunity of paying
+a visit, with a numerous retinue, to their mother Emma, who seemed to
+be placed in a state of so much power and splendour at Winchester.
+But the face of affairs soon wore a melancholy aspect.  Earl Godwin
+had been gained by the arts of Harold, who promised to espouse the
+daughter of that nobleman, and while the treaty was yet a secret,
+these two tyrants laid a plan for the destruction of the English
+princes.  Alfred was invited to London by Harold with many professions
+of friendship; but when he had reached Guilford, he was set upon by
+GodwinÂ’s vassals, about six hundred of his train were murdered in the
+most cruel manner, he himself was taken prisoner, his eyes were put
+out, and he was conducted to the monastery of Ely, where he died soon
+after [y].  Edward and Emma, apprized of the fate which was awaiting
+them, fled beyond sea, the former into Normandy, the latter into
+Flanders.  While Harold, triumphing in his bloody  policy, took
+possession, without resistance, of all the dominions assigned to his
+brother.
+[FN [y] H. Hunt. p. 365.  Ypod. Neustr. p. 434.  Hoveden, p. 438.
+Chron. Mailr. p. 156.  Higden, p. 277.  Chron. St. Petri de Burgo, p.
+39.  Sim. Dun. p. 179.  Abbas Rieval. p. 366, 374.  Brompton, p. 935.
+Gul. Gem. lib. 7, cap. 11.  Matth. West. p. 209.  Flor. Wigorn. p.
+622.  Alur. Beverl. p. 118.]
+
+This is the only memorable action performed during a reign of four
+years, by this prince, who gave so bad a specimen of his character,
+and whose bodily accomplishments alone are known to us by his
+appellation of HAREFOOT, which he acquired from his agility in running
+and walking.  He died on the 14th of April, 1039; little regretted or
+esteemed by his subjects, and left the succession open to his brother,
+Hardicanute.
+
+[MN Hardicanute. 1039.]
+Hardicanute, or Canute the Hardy, that is, the robust, (for he too is
+chiefly known by his bodily accomplishments,) though, by remaining so
+long in Denmark, he had been deprived of his share in the partition of
+the kingdom, had not abandoned his pretensions; and he had determined,
+before HaroldÂ’s death, to recover by arms what he had lost, either by
+his own negligence, or by the necessity of his affairs.  On pretence
+of paying a visit to the queen-dowager in Flanders, he had assembled a
+fleet of sixty sail, and was preparing to make a descent on England,
+when intelligence of his brotherÂ’s death induced him to sail
+immediately to London, where he was received in triumph, and
+acknowledged king without opposition.
+
+The first act of HardicanuteÂ’s government afforded his subjects a bad
+prognostic of his future conduct.  He was so enraged at Harold for
+depriving him of his share of the kingdom, and for the cruel treatment
+of his brother Alfred, that, in an impotent desire of revenge against
+the dead, he ordered his body to be dug up, and to be thrown into the
+Thames; and, when it was found by some fishermen, and buried in
+London, he ordered it again to be dug up, and to be thrown again into
+the river; but it was fished up a second time, and then interred with
+great secrecy.  Godwin, equally servile and insolent, submitted to be
+his instrument in this unnatural and brutal action.
+
+That nobleman knew that he was universally believed to have been an
+accomplice in the barbarity exercised on Alfred, and that he was on
+that account obnoxious to Hardicanute; and perhaps he hoped, by
+displaying this rage against HaroldÂ’s memory, to justify  himself from
+having had any participation in his counsels.  But Prince Edward,
+being invited over by the king, immediately on his appearance
+preferred an accusation against Godwin for the murder of Alfred, and
+demanded justice for that crime.  Godwin, in order to appease the
+king, made him a magnificent present of a galley with a gilt stern,
+rowed by fourscore men, who bore each of them a gold bracelet on his
+arm, weighing sixteen ounces, and were armed and clothed in the most
+sumptuous manner.  Hardicanute, pleased with the splendour of this
+spectacle, quickly forgot his brotherÂ’s murder; and on GodwinÂ’s
+swearing that he was innocent of the crime, he allowed him to be
+acquitted.
+
+Though Hardicanute, before his accession, had been called over by the
+vows of the English, he soon lost the affections of the nation by his
+misconduct; but nothing appeared more grievous to them, than his
+renewing the imposition of Danegelt, and obliging the nation to pay a
+great sum of money to the fleet which brought him from Denmark.  The
+discontents ran high in many places; in Worcester the populace rose,
+and put to death two of the collectors.  The king, enraged at this
+opposition, swore vengeance against the city, and ordered three
+noblemen, Godwin, Duke of Wessex, Siward, Duke of Northumberland, and
+Leofric, Duke of Mercia, to execute his menaces with the utmost
+rigour.  They were obliged to set fire to the city, and deliver it up
+to be plundered by their soldiers; but they saved the lives of the
+inhabitants, whom they confined in a small island of the Severn,
+called Bevery, till, by their intercession, they were able to appease
+the king, and obtain the pardon of the supplicants.
+
+This violent government was of short duration.  Hardicanute died in
+two years after his accession, at the nuptials of a Danish lord, which
+he had honoured with his presence.  His usual habits of intemperance
+were so well known, that, notwithstanding his robust constitution, his
+sudden death gave as little surprise as it did sorrow to his subjects.
+
+[MN Edward the Confessor. 1041.]
+The English, on the death of Hardicanute, saw a favourable opportunity
+for recovering their liberty, and for shaking off the Danish yoke,
+under which they  had so long laboured.  Sweyn, King of Norway, the
+eldest son of Canute, was absent; and as the two last kings had died
+without issue, none of that race presented himself, nor any whom the
+Danes could support as successor to the throne.  Prince Edward was
+fortunately at court on his brotherÂ’s demise; and though the
+descendants of Edmund Ironside were the true heirs of the Saxon
+family, yet their absence in so remote a country as Hungary, appeared
+a sufficient reason for their exclusion, to a people like the English,
+so little accustomed to observe a regular order in the succession of
+their monarchs.  All delays might be dangerous; and the present
+occasion must hastily be embraced; while the Danes, without concert,
+without a leader, astonished at the present incident, and anxious only
+for their personal safety, durst not oppose the united voice of the
+nation.
+
+But this concurrence of circumstances in favour of Edward might have
+failed of its effect, had his succession been opposed by Godwin, whose
+power, alliances, and abilities gave him a great influence at all
+times, especially amidst those sudden opportunities which always
+attend a revolution of government, and which, either seized or
+neglected, commonly prove decisive.  There were opposite reasons which
+divided menÂ’s hopes and fears with regard to GodwinÂ’s conduct.  On the
+one hand, the credit of that nobleman lay chiefly in Wessex, which was
+almost entirely inhabited by English: it was therefore presumed that
+he would second the wishes of that people, in restoring the Saxon line
+and in humbling the Danes, from whom he, as well as they, had reason
+to dread, as they had already felt the most grievous oppressions.  On
+the other hand, there subsisted a declared animosity between Edward
+and Godwin, on account of AlfredÂ’s murder, of which the latter had
+publicly been accused by the prince, and which he might believe so
+deep an offence, as could never, on account of any subsequent merits,
+be sincerely pardoned.  But their common friends here interposed; and,
+representing the necessity of their good correspondence, obliged them
+to lay aside all jealousy and rancour, and concur in restoring liberty
+to their  native country.  Godwin only stipulated, that Edward, as a
+pledge of his sincere reconciliation, should promise to marry his
+daughter Editha; and having fortified himself by this alliance, he
+summoned a general council at Gillingham, and prepared every measure
+for securing the succession to Edward.  The English were unanimous and
+zealous in their resolutions; the Danes were divided and dispirited:
+any small opposition which appeared in the assembly was browbeaten and
+suppressed; and Edward was crowned king, with every demonstration of
+duty and affection.
+
+The triumph of the English, upon this signal and decisive advantage,
+was at first attended with some assault and violence against the
+Danes; but the king, by the mildness of his character, soon reconciled
+the latter to his administration, and the distinction between the two
+nations gradually disappeared.  The Danes were interspersed with the
+English in most of the provinces; they spoke nearly the same language;
+they differed little in their manners and laws; domestic dissensions
+in Denmark prevented, for some years, any powerful invasion from
+thence, which might awaken past animosities; and as the Norman
+Conquest, which ensued soon after, reduced both nations to equal
+subjection, there is no further mention in history of any difference
+between them.  The joy, however, of their present deliverance made
+such impression on the minds of the English, that they instituted an
+annual festival for celebrating that great event; and it was observed
+in some counties even to the time of Spellman [z].
+[FN [z] Spellm. Glossary, in verbo HOCDAY.]
+
+The popularity which Edward enjoyed on his accession was not destroyed
+by the first act of his administration, his resuming all the grants of
+his immediate predecessors; an attempt which is commonly attended with
+the most dangerous consequences.  The poverty of the crown convinced
+the nation that this act of violence was become absolutely necessary;
+and as the loss fell chiefly on the Danes, who had obtained large
+grants from the late kings, their countrymen, on account of their
+services in subduing the kingdom, the English were rather pleased to
+see them reduced to their primitive poverty.  The kingÂ’s severity also
+towards his mother, the queen-dowager, though exposed to some more
+censure, met not with very general disapprobation.  He had hitherto
+lived on indifferent terms with the princess; he accused her of
+neglecting him and his brother during their adverse fortune [a]; he
+remarked that as the superior qualities of Canute, and his better
+treatment of her, had made her entirely indifferent to the memory of
+Ethelred, she also gave the preference to her children of the second
+bed, and always regarded Hardicanute as her favourite.  The same
+reasons had probably made her unpopular in England; and though her
+benefactions to the monks obtained her the favour of that order, the
+nation was not, in general, displeased to see her stripped by Edward
+of immense treasure which she had amassed.  He confined her, during
+the remainder of her life, in a monastery at Winchester, but carried
+his rigour against her no farther.  The stories of his accusing her of
+a participation in her son AlfredÂ’s murder, and of a criminal
+correspondence with the Bishop of Winchester, and also of her
+justifying herself by treading barefoot, without receiving any hurt,
+over nine burning ploughshares, were the inventions of the monkish
+historians, and were propagated and believed from the silly wonder of
+posterity [b].
+[FN [a] Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 237.  [b] Higden, p. 277.]
+
+The English flattered themselves that, by the accession of Edward,
+they were delivered for ever from the dominion of foreigners; but they
+soon found that this evil was not yet entirely removed.  The king had
+been educated in Normandy; and had contracted many intimacies with the
+natives of that country, as well as an affection for their manners
+[c].  The court of England was soon filled with Normans, who, being
+distinguished both by the favour of Edward, and by a degree of
+cultivation superior to that which was attained by the English in
+those ages, soon rendered their language, customs, and laws,
+fashionable in the kingdom.  The study of the French tongue became
+general among the people.  The courtiers affected to imitate that
+nation in their dress, equipage, and entertainments: even the lawyers
+employed a foreign language in their deeds and papers [d].  But, above
+all, the church felt the influence and dominion of those strangers:
+Ulf and William, two Normans, who had formerly been the kingÂ’s
+chaplains, were created Bishops of Dorchester and London.  Robert, a
+Norman also, was promoted to the see of Canterbury [e], and always
+enjoyed the highest favour of his master, of which his abilities
+rendered him not unworthy.  And though the kingÂ’s prudence, or his
+want of authority, made him confer almost all the civil and military
+employments on the natives, the ecclesiastical preferments fell often
+to the share of the Normans; and as the latter possessed EdwardÂ’s
+confidence, they had secretly a great influence on public affairs, and
+excited the jealousy of the English, particularly of Earl Godwin [f].
+[FN [c] Ingulph. p. 62.  [d] Ingulph. p. 62.  [e] Chron. Sax. p. 161.
+[f] W. Malm. p. 80.]
+
+This powerful nobleman, besides being Duke or Earl of Wessex, had the
+counties of Kent and Sussex annexed to his government.  His eldest
+son, Sweyn, possessed the same authority in the counties of Oxford,
+Berks, Gloucester, and Hereford; and Harold, his second son, was Duke
+of East Anglia, and at the same time governor of Essex.  The great
+authority of this family was supported by immense possessions and
+powerful alliances; and the abilities, as well as ambition of Godwin
+himself, contributed to render it still more dangerous.  A prince of
+greater capacity and vigour than Edward would have found it difficult
+to support the dignity of the crown under such circumstances; and as
+the haughty temper of Godwin made him often forget the respect due to
+his prince, EdwardÂ’s animosity against him was grounded on personal as
+well as political considerations, on recent as well as more ancient
+injuries.  The king, in pursuance of his engagements, had indeed
+married Editha, the daughter of Godwin [g]; but this alliance became a
+fresh source of enmity between them.  EdwardÂ’s hatred of the father
+was transferred to that princess; and Editha, though possessed of many
+amiable accomplishments, could never acquire the confidence and
+affection of her husband.  It is even pretended that, during the whole
+course of her life, he abstained from all commerce of love with her;
+and such was the absurd admiration paid to an inviolable chastity
+during those ages, that his conduct in this particular is highly
+celebrated by the monkish historians, and greatly contributed to his
+acquiring the title of Saint and Confessor [h].  [MN 1048]
+[FN [g] Chron. Sax. p. 157.  [h] Wm. Malm. p. 80  Higden, p. 277.
+Abbas Rieval. p. 366, 377.  Matth. West. p. 221.  Chron. Thom. Wykes,
+p. 21.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 241.]
+
+The most popular pretence on which Godwin could ground his
+disaffection to the king and his administration was to complain of the
+influence of the Normans in the government; and a declared opposition
+had thence arisen between him and these favourites.  It was not long
+before this animosity broke into action.  Eustace, Count of Boulogne,
+having paid a visit to the king, passed by Dover in his return; one of
+his train, being refused entrance to a lodging which had been assigned
+him, attempted to make his way by force, and in the contest he wounded
+the master of the house.  The inhabitants revenged this insult by the
+death of the stranger; the count and his train took arms, and murdered
+the wounded townsman; a tumult ensued; near twenty persons were killed
+on each side; and Eustace, being overpowered by numbers, was obliged
+to save his life by flight from the fury of the populace.  He hurried
+immediately to court and complained of the usage he had met with: the
+king entered zealously into the quarrel, and was highly displeased
+that a stranger of such distinction, whom he had invited over to his
+court, should, without any just cause, as he believed, have felt so
+sensibly the insolence and animosity of his people.  He gave orders to
+Godwin, in whose government Dover lay, to repair immediately to the
+place, and to punish the inhabitants for the crime: but Godwin, who
+desired rather to encourage than repress the popular discontents
+against foreigners, refused obedience, and endeavoured to throw the
+whole blame of the riot on the Count of Boulogne and his retinue [i].
+Edward, touched in so sensible a point, saw the necessity of exerting
+the royal authority; and he threatened Godwin, if he persisted in his
+disobedience, to make him feel the utmost effects of his resentment.
+[FN [i] Chron. Sax. p. 163.  W. Malm. p. 81.  Higden, p. 279.]
+
+The earl, perceiving a rupture to be unavoidable, and pleased to
+embark in a cause where it was likely he should be supported by his
+countrymen, made preparations for his own defence, or rather for an
+attack on Edward.  Under pretence of repressing some disorders on the
+Welsh frontier, he secretly assembled a great army, and was
+approaching the king, who resided, without any military force, and
+without suspicion, at Gloucester [k].  Edward applied for protection
+to Siward, Duke of Northumberland, and Leofric, Duke of Mercia, two
+powerful noblemen, whose jealousy of GodwinÂ’s greatness, as well as
+their duty to the crown, engaged them to defend the king in this
+extremity.  They hastened to him with such of their followers as they
+could assemble on a sudden; and finding the danger much greater than
+they had at first apprehended, they issued orders for mustering all
+the forces within their respective governments, and for marching them
+without delay to the defence of the kingÂ’s person and authority.
+Edward, meanwhile, endeavoured to gain time by negotiation; while
+Godwin, who thought the king entirely in his power, and who was
+willing to save appearances, fell into the snare; and, not sensible
+that he ought to have no farther reserve after he had proceeded so
+far, he lost the favourable opportunity of rendering himself master of
+the government.
+[FN [k] Chron. Sax. p. 163.  W. Malm. p. 81.]
+
+The English, though they had no high idea of EdwardÂ’s vigour and
+capacity, bore him great affection, on account of his humanity,
+justice, and piety, as well as the long race of their native kings
+from whom he was descended; and they hastened from all quarters to
+defend him from the present danger.  His army was now so considerable,
+that he ventured to take the field, and marching to London, he
+summoned a great council to judge of the rebellion of Godwin and his
+sons.  These noblemen pretended at first that they were willing to
+stand their trial; but having in vain endeavoured to make their
+adherents persist in rebellion, they offered to come to London,
+provided they might receive hostages for their safety: this proposal
+being rejected, they were obliged to disband the remains of their
+forces, and have recourse to flight.  Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, gave
+protection to Godwin and his three sons, Gurth, Sweyn, and Tosti; the
+latter of whom had married the daughter of that prince.  Harold and
+Leofwin, two other of his sons, took shelter in Ireland.  The estates
+of the father and sons were confiscated: their governments were given
+to others: Queen Editha was confined in a monastery at Warewel: and
+the greatness of this family, once so formidable, seemed now to be
+totally supplanted and overthrown.
+
+But Godwin had fixed his authority on too firm a basis, and he was too
+strongly supported by alliances, both foreign and domestic, not to
+occasion farther disturbances and make new efforts for his
+re-establishment.  [MN 1052.]  The Earl of Flanders permitted him to
+purchase and hire ships within his harbours; and Godwin, having manned
+them with his followers, and with freebooters of all nations, put to
+sea, and attempted to make a descent at Sandwich.  The king, informed
+of his preparations, had equipped a considerable fleet, much superior
+to that of the enemy; and the earl, hastily, before their appearance,
+made his retreat into the Flemish harbours [l].  The English court,
+allured by the present security, and destitute of all vigorous
+counsels, allowed the seamen to disband, and the fleet to go to decay
+[m], while Godwin, expecting the event, kept his men in readiness for
+action.  He put to sea immediately, and sailed to the Isle of Wight,
+where he was joined by Harold, with a squadron which the nobleman had
+collected in Ireland.  He was now master of the sea; and entering
+every harbour in the southern coast, he seized all the ships [n], and
+summoned his followers in those counties, which had so long been
+subject to his government, to assist him in procuring justice to
+himself, his family, and his country, against the tyranny of
+foreigners.  Reinforced by great numbers from all quarters, he entered
+the Thames; and appearing before London, threw every thing into
+confusion.  The king alone seemed resolute to defend himself to the
+last extremity; but the interposition of the English nobility, many of
+whom favoured GodwinÂ’s pretensions, made Edward hearken to terms of
+accommodation; and the feigned humility of the earl, who disclaimed
+all intentions of offering violence to his sovereign, and desired only
+to justify himself by a fair and open trial, paved the way  for his
+more easy admission.  It was stipulated that he should give hostages
+for his good behaviour, and that the primate and all the foreigners
+should be banished: by this treaty, the present danger of a civil war
+was obviated, but the authority of the crown was considerably
+impaired, or rather entirely annihilated.  Edward, sensible that he
+had not power sufficient to secure GodwinÂ’s hostages in England, sent
+them over to his kinsman, the young Duke of Normandy.
+[FN [1] Sim. Dun. p. 186.  [m] Chron. Sax. p. 166.  [n] Ibid.]
+
+GodwinÂ’s death, which happened soon after, while he was sitting at
+table with the king, prevented him from farther establishing the
+authority which he had acquired, and from reducing Edward to still
+greater subjection [o].  He was succeeded in the government of Wessex,
+Sussex, Kent, and Essex, and in the office of steward of the
+household, a place of great power, by his son Harold, who was actuated
+by an ambition equal to that of his father, and was superior to him in
+address, in insinuation, and in virtue.  By a modest and gentle
+demeanour, he acquired the good-will of Edward; at least softened that
+hatred which the prince had so long borne his family [p]; and gaining
+every day new partisans by his bounty and affability, he proceeded in
+a more silent and therefore a more dangerous manner, to the increase
+of his authority.  The king, who had not sufficient vigour directly to
+oppose his progress, knew of no other expedient than that hazardous
+one, of raising him a rival in the family of Leofric, Duke of Mercia,
+whose son Algar was invested with the government of East Anglia,
+which, before the banishment of Harold, had belonged to the latter
+nobleman.  But this policy, of balancing opposite parties, required a
+more steady hand to manage it than that of Edward, and naturally
+produced faction, and even civil broils, among nobles of such mighty
+and independent authority.  Algar was soon after expelled his
+government by the intrigues and power of Harold; but being protected
+by Griffith, Prince of Wales, who had married his daughter, as well as
+by the power of his father, Leofric, he obliged Harold to submit to an
+accommodation, and was reinstated in the government of East Anglia.
+This peace was not of long duration: Harold, taking advantage of
+LeofricÂ’s death, which happened soon after, expelled Algar anew, and
+banished him the kingdom; and though that nobleman made a fresh
+irruption into East Anglia with an army of Norwegians, and overran the
+country, his death soon freed Harold from the pretensions of so
+dangerous a rival.  Edward, the eldest son of Algar, was indeed
+advanced to the government of Mercia; but the balance which the king
+desired to establish between those potent families was wholly lost,
+and the influence of Harold greatly preponderated.
+[FN [o] See note [D] at the end of the volume.  [p] Brompton, p. 948.]
+
+[MN 1055.]  The death of Siward, Duke of Northumberland, made the way
+still more open to the ambition of that nobleman.  Siward, besides his
+other merits, had acquired honour to England by his successful conduct
+in the only foreign enterprise undertaken during the reign of Edward.
+Duncan, King of Scotland, was a prince of a gentle disposition, but
+possessed not the genius requisite for governing a country so
+turbulent, and so much infested by the intrigues and animosities of
+the great Macbeth, a powerful nobleman, and nearly allied to the
+crown, not content with curbing the kingÂ’s authority, carried still
+farther his pestilent ambition; he put his sovereign to death; chased
+Malcolm Kenmore, his son and heir, into England; and usurped the
+crown.  Siward, whose daughter was married to Duncan, embraced, by
+EdwardÂ’s orders, the protection of this distressed family: he marched
+an army into Scotland; and having defeated and killed Macbeth in
+battle, he restored Malcolm to the throne of his ancestors [q].  This
+service, added to his former connexions with the royal family of
+Scotland, brought a great accession to the authority of Siward in the
+north; but as he had lost his eldest son, Osberne, in the action with
+Macbeth, it proved in the issue fatal to his family.  His second son,
+Walthoef, appeared, on his fatherÂ’s death, too young to be intrusted
+with the government of Northumberland; and HaroldÂ’s influence obtained
+that dukedom for his own brother Tosti.
+[FN [q] W. Malm. p. 79.  Hoveden, p. 443.  Chron. Mailr. p. 158.
+Buchanan, p. 115. edit. 1715.]
+
+There are two circumstances related of Siward, which discover his high
+sense of honour, and his martial disposition.  When intelligence was
+brought him of his son OsberneÂ’s death, he was inconsolable till he
+heard that the wound was received in the breast, and that he had
+behaved with great gallantry in the action.  When he found his own
+death approaching, he ordered his servants to clothe him in a complete
+suit of armour; and sitting erect on the couch, with a spear in his
+hand, declared that in that posture, the only one worthy of a warrior,
+he would patiently await the fatal moment.
+
+The king, now worn out with cares and infirmities, felt himself far
+advanced in the decline of life; and having no issue himself, began to
+think of appointing a successor to the kingdom.  He sent a deputation
+to Hungary, to invite over his nephew, Edward, son of his elder
+brother, and the only remaining heir of the Saxon line.  That prince,
+whose succession to the crown would have been easy and undisputed,
+came to England with his children, Edgar, surnamed Atheling, Margaret,
+and Christina; but his death, which happened a few days after his
+arrival, threw the king into new difficulties.  He saw, that the great
+power and ambition of Harold had tempted him to think of obtaining
+possession of the throne on the first vacancy, and that Edgar, on
+account of his youth and inexperience, was very unfit to oppose the
+pretensions of so popular and enterprising a rival.  The animosity
+which he had long borne to Earl Godwin, made him averse to the
+succession of his son, and he could not, without extreme reluctance,
+think of an increase of grandeur to a family which had risen on the
+ruins of royal authority, and which, by the murder of Alfred his
+brother, had contributed so much to the weakening of the Saxon line.
+In this uncertainty, he secretly cast his eye towards his kinsman,
+William, Duke of Normandy, as the only person whose power, and
+reputation, and capacity, could support any destination which he might
+make in his favour, to the exclusion of Harold and his family [r].
+[FN [r] Ingulph. p. 68.]
+
+This famous prince was natural son of Robert, Duke of Normandy, by
+Harlotta, daughter of a tanner in Falaise [s], and was very early
+established in that grandeur from which his birth seemed to have set
+him at so  great a distance.  While he was but nine years of age, his
+father had resolved to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; a
+fashionable act of devotion, which had taken the place of pilgrimages
+to Rome, and which, as it was attended with more difficulty and
+danger, and carried those religious adventurers to the first sources
+of Christianity, appeared to them more meritorious.  Before his
+departure, he assembled the states of the duchy; and informing them of
+his design, he engaged them to swear allegiance to his natural son,
+William, whom, as he had no legitimate issue, he intended, in case he
+should die in the pilgrimage, to leave successor to his dominions [t].
+As he was a prudent prince, he could not but foresee the great
+inconveniences which must attend this journey, and this settlement of
+his succession, arising from the turbulency of the great, the claims
+of other branches of the ducal family, and the power of the French
+monarch; but all these considerations were surmounted by the
+prevailing zeal for pilgrimages [u]; and probably the more important
+they were, the more would Robert exult in sacrificing them to what he
+imagined to be his religious duty.
+[FN [s] Brompton, p. 910.  [t] W. Malm. p. 95.  [u] Ypod. Neust. p.
+452.]
+
+This prince, as he had apprehended, died in his pilgrimage; and the
+minority of his son was attended with all those disorders which were
+almost unavoidable in that situation.  The licentious nobles, freed
+from the awe of sovereign authority, broke out into personal
+animosities against each other, and made the whole country a scene of
+war and devastation [w].  Roger, Count of Toni, and Alain, Count of
+Britany, advanced claims to the dominion of the state; and Henry I.,
+King of France, thought the opportunity favourable for reducing the
+power of a vassal, who had originally acquired his settlement in so
+violent and invidious a manner, and who had long appeared formidable
+to his sovereign [x].  The regency established by Robert encountered
+great difficulties in supporting the government under this
+complication of dangers; and the young prince, when he came to
+maturity, found himself reduced to a very low condition.  But the
+great qualities which he soon displayed in the field and in the
+cabinet gave encouragement to his friends, and struck a terror into
+his enemies.  He opposed himself on all sides against his rebellious
+subjects, and against foreign invaders; and by his valour and conduct
+prevailed in every action.  He obliged the French king to grant him
+peace on reasonable terms; he expelled all pretenders to the
+sovereignty; and he reduced his turbulent barons to pay submission to
+his authority, and to suspend their mutual animosities.  The natural
+severity of his temper appeared in a rigorous administration of
+justice; and having found the happy effects of this plan of
+government, without which the laws in those ages became totally
+impotent, he regarded it as a fixed maxim, that an inflexible conduct
+was the first duty of a sovereign.
+[FN [w] W. Malm. p. 95.  Gul. Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 1.  [x] W. Malm. p.
+97.]
+
+The tranquillity which he had established in his dominions had given
+William leisure to pay a visit to the King of England during the time
+of GodwinÂ’s banishment; and he was received in a manner suitable to
+the great reputation which he had acquired, to the relation by which
+he was connected with Edward, and to the obligations which that prince
+owed to his family [y].  On the return of Godwin, and the expulsion of
+the Norman favourites, Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury, had, before
+his departure, persuaded Edward to think of adopting William as his
+successor; a counsel which was favoured by the kingÂ’s aversion to
+Godwin, his prepossessions for the Normans, and his esteem of the
+duke.  That prelate, therefore, received a commission to inform
+William of the kingÂ’s intentions in his favour; and he was the first
+person that opened the mind of the prince to entertain those ambitious
+hopes [z].  But Edward, irresolute and feeble in his purpose, finding
+that the English would more easily acquiesce in the restoration of the
+Saxon line, had, in the mean time, invited his brotherÂ’s descendants
+from Hungary, with a view of having them recognised heirs to the
+crown.  The death of his nephew, and the inexperience and unpromising
+qualities of young Edgar, made him resume his former intentions in
+favour of the Duke of Normandy; though his aversion to hazardous
+enterprises engaged him to postpone the execution, and even to keep
+his purpose secret from all his ministers.
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 442.  Ingulph. p. 65.  Chron. Mailr. p. 157.
+Higden, p. 279.  [z] Ingulph. p. 68.  Gul. Gemet lib. 7. cap. 31.
+Order. Vitalis, p. 492.]
+
+Harold, meanwhile, proceeded after a more open manner in increasing
+his popularity, in establishing his power, and in preparing the way
+for his advancement on the first vacancy; an event which, from the age
+and infirmities of the king, appeared not very distant.  But there was
+still an obstacle, which it was requisite for him previously to
+overcome.  Earl Godwin, when restored to his power and fortune, had
+given hostages for his good behaviour, and, among the rest, one son
+and one grandson, whom Edward, for greater security, as has been
+related, had consigned to the custody of the Duke of Normandy.
+Harold, though not aware of the dukeÂ’s being his competitor, was
+uneasy that such near relations should be detained prisoners in a
+foreign country; and he was afraid lest William should, in favour of
+Edgar, retain those pledges as a check on the ambition of any other
+pretender.  He represented, therefore, to the king, his unfeigned
+submission to royal authority, his steady duty to his prince, and the
+little necessity there was, after such a uniform trial of his
+obedience, to detain any longer those hostages who had been required
+on the first composing of civil discords.  By these topics, enforced
+by his great power, he extorted the kingÂ’s consent to release them;
+and in order to effect his purpose, he immediately proceeded, with a
+numerous retinue, on his journey to Normandy.  A tempest drove him on
+the territory of Guy, Count of Ponthieu, who, being informed of his
+quality, immediately detained him prisoner, and demanded an exorbitant
+sum for his ransom.  Harold found means to convey intelligence of his
+situation to the Duke of Normandy; and represented, that while he was
+proceeding to HIS court, in execution of a commission from the King of
+England, he had met with this harsh treatment from the mercenary
+disposition of the Count of Ponthieu.
+
+William was immediately sensible of the importance of the incident.
+He foresaw, that if he could once gain Harold, either by favours or
+menaces, his way to the throne of England would be open, and Edward
+would meet with no farther obstacle in executing the favourable
+intentions which he had entertained in his behalf.  He sent,
+therefore, a messenger to Guy, in order to demand the liberty of his
+prisoner; and that nobleman, not daring to refuse so great a prince,
+put Harold into the hands of the Norman, who conducted him to Rouen.
+William received him with every demonstration of respect and
+friendship; and after showing himself disposed to comply with his
+desire, in delivering up the hostages, he took an opportunity of
+disclosing to him the great secret of his pretensions to the crown of
+England, and of the will which Edward intended to make in his favour.
+He desired the assistance of Harold in perfecting that design; he made
+professions of the utmost gratitude in return for so great an
+obligation; he promised that the present grandeur of HaroldÂ’s family,
+which supported itself with difficulty under the jealousy and hatred
+of Edward, should receive new increase from a successor, who would be
+so greatly beholden to him for his advancement.  Harold was surprised
+at this declaration of the duke; but being sensible that he should
+never recover his own liberty, much less that of his brother and
+nephew, if he refused the demand, he feigned a compliance with
+William, renounced all hopes of the crown for himself, and professed
+his sincere intention of supporting the will of Edward, and seconding
+the pretensions of the Duke of Normandy.  William, to bind him faster
+to his interests, besides offering him one of his daughters in
+marriage, required him to take an oath that he would fulfil his
+promises; and in order to render the oath more obligatory, he employed
+an artifice well suited to the ignorance and superstition of the age.
+He secretly conveyed under the altar, on which Harold agreed to swear,
+the relics of some of the most revered martyrs; and when Harold had
+taken the oath, he showed him the relics, and admonished him to
+observe religiously an engagement which had been ratified by so
+tremendous a sanction [a].  The English nobleman was astonished; but
+dissembling his concern, he renewed the same professions, and was
+dismissed with all the marks of mutual confidence by the Duke of
+Normandy.
+[FN [a] Wace, p. 459, 460.  MS. penes Carte, p. 354.  W. Malm. p. 93.
+H. Hunt p. 366.  Hoveden, p. 449.  Brompton, p. 947.]
+
+When Harold found himself at liberty, his ambition suggested casuistry
+sufficient to justify to him the violation of an oath, which had been
+extorted from him by fear, and which, if fulfilled, might be attended
+with the subjection of his native country to a foreign power.  He
+continued still to practise every art of popularity; to increase the
+number of his partisans; to reconcile the minds of the English to the
+idea of his succession; to revive their hatred of the Normans; and by
+an ostentation of his power and influence, to deter the timorous
+Edward from executing his intended destination in favour of William.
+Fortune, about this time, threw two incidents in his way, by which he
+was enabled to acquire general favour, and to increase the character,
+which he had already attained, of virtue and abilities.
+
+The Welsh, though a less formidable enemy than the Danes, had long
+been accustomed to infest the western borders; and after committing
+spoil on the low countries, they usually made a hasty retreat into
+their mountains, where they were sheltered from the pursuit of their
+enemies, and were ready to seize the first favourable opportunity of
+renewing their depredations.  Griffith, the reigning prince, had
+greatly distinguished himself in those incursions; and his name had
+become so terrible to the English, that Harold found he could do
+nothing more acceptable to the public, and more honourable for
+himself, than the suppressing of so dangerous an enemy.  He formed the
+plan of an expedition against Wales; and having prepared some light-
+armed foot to pursue the natives into their fastnesses, some cavalry
+to scour the open country, and a squadron of ships to attack the
+seacoast, he employed at once all these forces against the Welsh,
+prosecuted his advantages with vigour, made no intermission in his
+assaults, and at last reduced the enemy to such distress, that, in
+order to prevent their total destruction, they made a sacrifice of
+their prince, whose head they cut off and sent to Harold; and they
+were content to receive as their sovereigns two Welsh noblemen
+appointed by Edward to rule over them.  The other incident was no less
+honourable to Harold.
+
+Tosti, brother of this nobleman, who had been created Duke of
+Northumberland, being of a violent tyrannical temper, had acted with
+such cruelty and injustice, that the inhabitants rose in rebellion,
+and chased him from his government.  Morcar and Edwin, two brothers,
+who possessed great power in those parts, and who were grandsons of
+the great Duke Leofric, concurred in the insurrection; and the former,
+being elected duke, advanced with an army to oppose Harold, who was
+commissioned by the king to reduce and chastise the Northumbrians.
+Before the armies came to action, Morcar, well acquainted with the
+generous disposition of the English commander, endeavoured to justify
+his own conduct.  He represented to Harold, that Tosti had behaved in
+a manner unworthy of the station to which he was advanced, and no one,
+not even a brother, could support such tyranny without participating,
+in some degree, of the infamy attending it; that the Northumbrians,
+accustomed to a legal administration, and regarding it as their birth-
+right, were willing to submit to the king, but required a governor who
+would pay regard to their rights and privileges; that they had been
+taught by their ancestors, that death was preferable to servitude, and
+had taken the field, determined to perish rather than suffer a renewal
+of those indignities to which they had so long been exposed; and they
+trusted that Harold, on reflection, would not defend in another that
+violent conduct, from which he himself, in his own government, had
+always kept at so great a distance.  This vigorous remonstrance was
+accompanied with such a detail of facts, so well supported, that
+Harold found it prudent to abandon his brotherÂ’s cause; and returning
+to Edward, he persuaded him to pardon the Northumbrians, and to
+confirm Morcar in the government.  He even married the sister of that
+nobleman [b]; and by his interest procured Edwin, the younger brother,
+to be elected into the government of Mercia.  Tosti in rage departed
+the kingdom, and took shelter in Flanders with Earl Baldwin, his
+father-in-law.
+[FN [b] Order Vitalis, p. 492.]
+
+By this marriage Harold broke all measures with the Duke of Normandy;
+and William clearly perceived that he could no longer rely on the
+oaths and promises which he had extorted from him.  But the English
+nobleman was now in such a situation, that he deemed it no longer
+necessary to dissemble.  He had in his conduct towards the
+Northumbrians, given such a specimen of his moderation as had gained
+him the affections of his countrymen.  He saw that almost all England
+was engaged in his interests; while he himself possessed the
+government of Wessex, Morcar that of Northumberland, and Edward that
+of Mercia.  He now openly aspired to the succession; and insisted,
+that since it was necessary, by the confession of all, to set aside
+the royal family, on account of the imbecility of Edgar, the sole
+surviving heir, there was no one as capable of filling the throne as a
+nobleman of great power, of mature age, of long experience, of
+approved courage and abilities, who, being a native of the kingdom,
+would effectually secure it against the dominion and tyranny of
+foreigners.  Edward, broken with age and infirmities, saw the
+difficulties too great for him to encounter; and though his inveterate
+prepossession kept him from seconding the pretensions of Harold, he
+took but feeble and irresolute steps for securing the succession to
+the Duke of Normandy [c].  While he continued in this uncertainty he
+was surprised by sickness, which brought him to his grave, on the
+fifth of January 1066, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and twenty-
+fifth of his reign.
+[FN [c] See note [F] at the end of the volume.]
+
+This prince, to whom the monks gave the title of Saint and Confessor,
+was the last of the Saxon line that ruled in England.  Though his
+reign was peaceable and fortunate, he owed his prosperity less to his
+own abilities than to the conjunctures of the times.  The Danes,
+employed in other enterprises, attempted not those incursions which
+had been so troublesome to all his predecessors, and fatal to some of
+them.  The facility of his disposition made him acquiesce under the
+government of Godwin and his son Harold; and the abilities, as well as
+the power, of these noblemen enabled them, while they were entrusted
+with authority, to preserve domestic peace and tranquillity.  The most
+commendable circumstance of EdwardÂ’s government was his attention to
+the administration of justice, and his compiling, for that purpose, a
+body of laws, which he collected from the laws of Ethelbert, Ina, and
+Alfred.  This compilation, though now lost, (for the laws that pass
+under EdwardÂ’s name were composed afterwards [d],) was long the object
+of affection to the English nation.
+[FN [d] Spellm. in verbo BELLIVA.]
+
+Edward the Confessor was the first that touched for the kingÂ’s evil:
+the opinion of his sanctity procured belief to this cure among the
+people: his successors regarded it as a part of their state and
+grandeur to uphold the same opinion.  It has been continued down to
+our time; and the practice was first dropped by the present royal
+family, who observed that it could no longer give amazement even to
+the populace, and was attended with ridicule in the eyes of all men of
+understanding.
+
+[MN Harold. 1066. January.]
+Harold had so well prepared matters before the death of Edward, that
+he immediately stepped into the vacant throne; and his accession was
+attended with as little opposition and disturbance, as if he had
+succeeded by the most undoubted hereditary title.  The citizens of
+London were his zealous partisans: the bishops and clergy had adopted
+his cause; and all the powerful nobility, connected with him by
+alliance or friendship, willingly seconded his pretensions.  The title
+of Edgar Atheling was scarcely mentioned; much less the claim of the
+Duke of Normandy: and Harold, assembling his partisans, received the
+crown from their hands, without waiting for the free deliberation of
+the states, or regularly submitting the question to their
+determination [e].  If any were averse to this measure, they were
+obliged to conceal their sentiments; and the new prince, taking a
+general silence for consent, and founding his title on the supposed
+suffrages of the people, which appeared unanimous, was, on the day
+immediately succeeding EdwardÂ’s death, crowned and anointed king, by
+Aldred, Archbishop of York.  The whole nation seemed joyful to
+acquiesce in his elevation.
+[FN [e] G. Pict. p. 196.  Ypod. Neust. p. 436.  Order. Vitalis, p.
+492.  M. West. p. 221  W. Malm. p. 93.  Ingulph. p. 68.  Brompton, p.
+957.  Knyghton, p. 2339.  H. Hunt. p. 210.  Many of the historians
+say, that Harold was regularly elected by the states: some, that
+Edward left him his successor by will.]
+
+The first symptoms of danger which the king discovered came from
+abroad, and from his own brother Tosti, who had submitted to a
+voluntary banishment in Flanders.  Enraged at the successful ambition
+of Harold, to which he himself had fallen a victim, he filled the
+court of Baldwin with complaints of the injustice which he had
+suffered; he engaged the interest of that family against his brother:
+he endeavoured to form intrigues with some of the discontented nobles
+in England: he sent his emissaries to Norway, in order to rouse to
+arms the freebooters of that kingdom, and to excite the hopes of
+reaping advantage from the unsettled state of affairs on the
+usurpation of the new king: and that he might render the combination
+more formidable, he made a journey to Normandy, in expectation that
+the duke, who had married Matilda, another daughter of Baldwin, would,
+in revenge of his own wrongs, as well as those of Tosti, second, by
+his counsels and forces, the projected invasion of England [f].
+[FN [f] Order. Vitalis, p. 492.]
+
+The Duke of Normandy, when he first received intelligence of HaroldÂ’s
+intrigues and accession, had been moved to the highest pitch of
+indignation; but that he might give the better colour to his
+pretensions, he sent an embassy to England, upbraiding that prince
+with his breach of faith, and summoning him to resign immediately
+possession of the kingdom.  Harold replied to the Norman ambassadors,
+that the oath with which he was reproached had been extorted by the
+well-grounded fear of violence, and could never, for that reason, be
+regarded as obligatory: that he had had no commission either from the
+late king, or the states of England, who alone could dispose of the
+crown, to make any tender of the succession to the Duke of Normandy;
+and if he, a private person, had assumed so much authority, and had
+even voluntarily sworn to support the dukeÂ’s pretensions, the oath was
+unlawful, and it was his duty to  seize the first opportunity of
+breaking it: that he had obtained the crown by the unanimous suffrages
+of the people; and should prove himself totally unworthy of their
+favour, did he not strenuously maintain those national liberties, with
+whose protection they had entrusted him: and that the duke, if he made
+any attempt by force of arms, should experience the power of an united
+nation, conducted by a prince, who, sensible of the obligations
+imposed on him by his royal dignity, was determined that the same
+moment should put a period to his life and to his government [g].
+[FN [g] W. Malm. p. 99.  Higden, p. 285.  Matth. West. p. 222.  De
+Gest. Angl. ancento auctore, p. 331.]
+
+This answer was no other than William expected; and he had previously
+fixed his resolution of making an attempt upon England.  Consulting
+only his courage, his resentment, and his ambition, he overlooked all
+the difficulties inseparable from an attack on a great kingdom by such
+inferior force, and he saw only the circumstances which would
+facilitate his enterprise.  He considered that England, ever since the
+accession of Canute, had enjoyed profound tranquillity during a period
+of over fifty years; and it would require time for its soldiers,
+enervated by long peace, to learn discipline, and its generals
+experience.  He knew that it was entirely unprovided with fortified
+towns, by which it could prolong the war; but must venture its whole
+fortune in one decisive action against a veteran enemy, who, being
+once master of the field, would be in a condition to overrun the
+kingdom.  He saw that Harold, though he had given proofs of vigour and
+bravery, had newly mounted a throne, which he had acquired by faction,
+from which he had excluded a very ancient royal family, and which was
+likely to totter under him by its own instability, much more if shaken
+by any violent external impulse; and he hoped, that the very
+circumstance of his crossing the sea, quitting his own country, and
+leaving himself no hopes of retreat, as it would astonish the enemy by
+the boldness of the enterprise, would inspirit his soldiers by
+despair, and rouse them to sustain the reputation of the Norman arms.
+
+The Normans, as they had long been distinguished by valour among all
+the European nations, had at this time attained to the highest pitch
+of military glory.  Besides acquiring by arms such a noble territory
+in France, besides defending it against continual attempts of the
+French monarch and all his neighbours, besides exerting many acts of
+vigour under their present sovereign; they had, about this very time,
+revived their ancient fame, by the most hazardous exploits, and the
+most wonderful successes in the other extremity of Europe.  A few
+Norman adventurers in Italy had acquired such an ascendant, not only
+over the Italians and Greeks, but the Germans and Saracens, that
+they expelled those foreigners, procured to themselves ample
+establishments, and laid the foundation of the opulent kingdom of
+Naples and Sicily [h].  These enterprises of men, who were all of them
+vassals in Normandy, many of them banished for faction and rebellion,
+excited the ambition of the haughty William, who disdained, after such
+examples of fortune and valour, to be deterred from making an attack
+on a neighbouring country, where he could be supported by the whole
+force of his principality.
+[FN [h] Gul. Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 30.]
+
+The situation also of Europe inspired William with hopes that, besides
+his brave Normans he might employ against England the flower of the
+military force which was dispersed in all the neighbouring states.
+France, Germany, and the Low Countries, by the progress of the feudal
+institutions, were divided and subdivided into many principalities and
+baronies; and the possessors, enjoying the civil jurisdiction within
+themselves, as well as the right of arms, acted, in many respects, as
+independent sovereigns, and maintained their properties and
+privileges, less by the authority of laws than by their own force and
+valour.  A military spirit had universally diffused itself throughout
+Europe; and the several leaders, whose minds were elevated by their
+princely situation, greedily embraced the most hazardous enterprises;
+and being accustomed to nothing from their infancy but recitals of the
+success attending wars and battles, they were prompted by a natural
+ambition to imitate those adventurers, which they heard so much
+celebrated, and which were so much exaggerated by the credulity of the
+age.  United, however loosely, by their duty to one superior lord, and
+by their connexions with the great body of the community to which they
+belonged, they desired to spread their fame each beyond his own
+district; and in all assemblies, whether instituted for civil
+deliberations, for military expeditions, or merely for show and
+entertainment, to outshine each other by the reputation of strength
+and prowess.  Hence their genius for chivalry; hence their impatience
+of peace and tranquillity; and hence their readiness to embark in any
+dangerous enterprise, how little soever interested in its failure or
+success.
+
+William, by his power, his courage, and his abilities, had long
+maintained a pre-eminence among those haughty chieftains; and every
+one who desired to signalize himself by his address in military
+exercises, or in valour in action, had been ambitious of acquiring a
+reputation in the court and in the armies of Normandy.  Entertained
+with that hospitality and courtesy which distinguished the age, they
+had formed attachments with the prince, and greedily attended to the
+prospects of the signal glory and elevation which he promised them in
+return for their concurrence in an expedition against England.  The
+more grandeur there appeared in the attempt, the more it suited their
+romantic spirit; the fame of the intended invasion was already
+diffused every where; multitudes crowded to tender to the Duke their
+service, with that of their vassals and retainers [i]; and William
+found less difficulty in completing his levies than in choosing the
+most veteran forces, and in rejecting the offers of those who were
+impatient to acquire fame under so renowned a leader.
+[FN [i] Gul. Pictavensis, p. 198.]
+
+Besides these advantages, which William owed to his personal valour
+and good conduct, he was indebted to fortune for procuring him some
+assistance, and also for removing many obstacles which it was natural
+for him to expect in an undertaking, in which all his neighbours were
+so deeply interested.  Conan, Count of Britany, was his mortal enemy;
+in order to throw a damp upon the dukeÂ’s enterprise, he chose this
+conjuncture for reviving his claim to Normandy itself; and he required
+that, in case of WilliamÂ’s success against England the possession of
+that duchy should devolve to him [k].  But Conan died suddenly after
+making this demand; and Hoel, his successor, instead of adopting the
+malignity, or, more properly speaking, the prudence of his
+predecessor, zealously seconded the dukeÂ’s views and sent his eldest
+son, Alain Fergant, to serve under him with a body of five thousand
+Bretons.  The counts of Anjou and of Flanders encouraged their
+subjects to engage in the expedition; and even the court of France,
+though it might justly fear the aggrandizement of so dangerous a
+vassal, pursued not its interests on this occasion with sufficient
+vigour and resolution.  Philip I., the reigning monarch, was a minor;
+and William, having communicated his project to the council, having
+desired assistance, and offered to do homage, in case of his success,
+for the crown of England, was indeed openly ordered to lay aside all
+thoughts of the enterprise; but the Earl of Flanders, his father-in-
+law, being at the head of the regency, favoured underhand his levies,
+and secretly encouraged the adventurous nobility to enlist under the
+standard of the Duke of Normandy.
+[FN [k] Gul Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 33.]
+
+The Emperor, Henry IV., besides openly giving all his vassals
+permission to embark in this expedition, which so much engaged the
+attention of Europe, promised his protection to the duchy of Normandy
+during the absence of the prince, and thereby enabled him to employ
+his whole force in the invasion of England [l].  But the most
+important ally whom William gained by his negotiations was the pope,
+who had a mighty influence over the ancient barons, no less devout in
+their religious principles, than valorous in their military
+enterprises.  The Roman pontiff, after an insensible progress, during
+several ages of darkness and ignorance, began now to lift his head
+openly above all the princes of Europe; to assume the office of a
+mediator, or even an arbiter, in the quarrels of the greatest
+monarchs; to interpose in all secular affairs; and to obtrude his
+dictates as sovereign laws on his obsequious disciples. It was a
+sufficient motive to Alexander II., the reigning pope, for embracing
+WilliamÂ’s quarrel, that he alone had made an appeal to his tribunal,
+and rendered him umpire of the dispute between him and Harold; but
+there were other advantages which that pontiff foresaw must result
+from the conquest of England by the Norman arms.  That kingdom, though
+at first converted by Romish missionaries, though it had afterwards
+advanced some farther steps towards subjection to Rome, maintained
+still a considerable independence in its ecclesiastical
+administration; and forming a world within itself, entirely separated
+from the rest of Europe, it had hitherto proved inaccessible to those
+exorbitant claims which supported the grandeur of the papacy.
+Alexander therefore hoped, that the French and Norman barons, if
+successful in their enterprise, might import into that country a more
+devoted reverence to the holy see, and bring the English churches to a
+nearer conformity with those of the continent.  He declared
+immediately in favour of WilliamÂ’s claim; pronounced Harold a perjured
+usurper; denounced excommunication against him and his adherents; and
+the more to encourage the Duke of Normandy in his enterprise, he sent
+him a consecrated banner, and a ring with one of St. PeterÂ’s hairs in
+it [m].  Thus were al1 the ambition and violence of that invasion
+covered over safely with the broad mantle of religion.
+[FN [l] Gul. Pict. p. 198.  [m] Baker, p. 22. edit. 1684.]
+
+The greatest difficulty which William had to encounter in his
+preparations, arose from his own subjects in Normandy.  The states of
+the duchy were assembled at Lislebonne; and supplies being demanded
+for the intended enterprise, which promised so much glory and
+advantage to their country, there appeared a reluctance in many
+members, both to grant sums so much beyond the common measure of taxes
+in that age, and to set a precedent of performing their military
+service at a distance from their own country.  The duke, finding it
+dangerous to solicit them in a body, conferred separately with the
+richest individuals in the province; and beginning with those on whose
+affections he most relied, he gradually engaged all of them to advance
+the sums demanded.  The Count of Longueville seconded him in his
+negotiation; as did the Count of Mortaigne, Odo, Bishop of Baieux, and
+especially William Fitz-Osborne, Count of Breteuil, and constable of
+the duchy.  Every person, when he himself was once engaged,
+endeavoured to bring over others; and at last the states themselves,
+after stipulating that this concession should be no precedent, voted
+that they would assist their prince to the utmost in his intended
+enterprise [n].
+[FN [n] Camden. Introd. ad Britan. p. 212. 2nd edit.  Gibs. Verstegan,
+p. 173.]
+
+William had now assembled a fleet of three thousand vessels, great and
+small [o], and had selected an army of sixty thousand men from among
+those numerous supplies which from every quarter solicited to be
+received into his service.  The camp bore a splendid yet a martial
+appearance, from the discipline of the men, the beauty and vigour of
+the horse, the lustre of the arms, and the accoutrements of both; but
+above all, from the high names of nobility who engaged under the
+banners of the Duke of Normandy.  The most celebrated were Eustace,
+Count of Boulogne, Aimeri de Thouars, Hugh dÂ’Estaples, William
+dÂ’Evreux, Geoffrey de Routrou, Roger de Beaumont, William de Warenne,
+Roger de Montgomery, Hugh de Grantmesnil, Charles Martel, and Geoffrey
+Giffard [p].  To these bold chieftains William held up the spoils of
+England as the prize of their valour; and pointing to the opposite
+shore, called to them, that THERE was the field on which they must
+erect trophies to their name, and fix their establishments.
+[FN [o] Gul. Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 34.  [p] Order. Vitalis, p. 501.]
+
+While he was making these mighty preparations, the  duke, that he
+might increase the number of Harold's enemies, excited the inveterate
+rancour of Tosti, and encouraged him, in concert with Harold Halfagar,
+King of Norway, to infest the coasts of England.  Tosti, having
+collected about sixty vessels in the ports of Flanders, put to sea;
+and after committing some depredations on the south and east coasts,
+he sailed to Northumberland, and was there joined by Halfagar, who
+came over with a great armament of three hundred sail.  The combined
+fleets entered the Humber, and disembarked the troops, who began to
+extend their depredations on all sides; when Morcar, Earl of
+Northumberland, and Edwin, Earl of Mercia, the kingÂ’s brother-in-law,
+having hastily collected some forces, ventured to give them battle.
+The action ended in the defeat and flight of these two noble men.
+
+Harold, informed of this defeat, hastened with an army to the
+protection of his people; and expressed the utmost ardour to show
+himself worthy of the crown which had been conferred upon him.  This
+prince, though he was not sensible of the full extent of his danger,
+from the great combination against him, had employed every art of
+popularity to acquire the affections of the public; and he gave so
+many proofs of an equitable and prudent administration that the
+English found no reason to repent the choice which they had made of a
+sovereign.  They flocked from all quarters to join his standard; and
+as soon as he reached the enemy at Standford, he found himself in a
+condition to give them battle.  [MN Sept. 25.]  The action was bloody;
+but the victory was decisive on the side of Harold, and ended in the
+total rout of the Norwegians, together with the death of Tosti and
+Halfagar.  Even the Norwegian fleet fell into the hands of Harold; who
+had the generosity to give Prince Olave, the son of Halfagar, his
+liberty, and allow him to depart with twenty vessels.  But he had
+scarcely time to rejoice for his victory, when he received
+intelligence that the Duke of Normandy was landed with a great army in
+the south of England.
+
+The Norman fleet and army had been assembled early in the summer, at
+the mouth of the small river Dive, and all the troops had been
+instantly embarked; but the winds proved long contrary, and detained
+them in that harbour.  The authority, however, of the duke, the good
+discipline maintained among the seamen and soldiers, and the great
+care in supplying them with provisions, had prevented any disorder;
+when at last the wind became favourable, and enabled them to sail
+along the coast, till they reached St. Valori.  There were, however,
+several vessels lost in this short passage; and as the wind again
+proved contrary, the army began to imagine that heaven had declared
+against them, and that, notwithstanding the pope's benediction, they
+were destined to certain destruction.  These bold warriors, who
+despised real dangers, were very subject to the dread of imaginary
+ones; and many of them began to mutiny, some of them even to desert
+their colours; when the duke, in order to support their drooping
+hopes, ordered a procession to be made with the relics of St. Valori
+[q], and prayers to be said for more favourable weather.  The wind
+instantly changed; and as this incident happened on the eve of the
+feast of St. Michael, the tutelar saint of Normandy, the soldiers,
+fancying they saw the hand of Heaven in all these concurring
+circumstances, set out with the greatest alacrity: they met with no
+opposition on their passage: a great fleet, which Harold has
+assembled, and which had cruized all summer off the Isle of Wight, had
+been dismissed, on his receiving false intelligence that William,
+discouraged by contrary winds and other accidents, had laid aside his
+preparations.  The Norman armament, proceeding in great order, arrived
+without any material loss, at Pevensey, in Sussex; and the army
+quietly disembarked.  The duke himself, as he leaped on shore,
+happened to stumble and fall; but had the presence of mind, it is
+said, to turn the omen to his advantage, by calling aloud that he had
+taken possession of the country.  And a soldier, running to a
+neighbouring cottage, plucked some thatch, which, as if giving seisin
+of the kingdom, he presented to his general.  The joy and alacrity of
+William and his whole army were so great, that they were nowise
+discouraged, even when they heard of HaroldÂ’s great victory over the
+Norwegians; they seemed rather to wait with impatience for the arrival
+of the enemy.
+[FN [q] Higden, p. 285.  Order. Vitalis, p. 500.  Matth. Paris, edit.
+Paris., anno 1644, p. 2.]
+
+The victory of Harold, though great and honourable, had proved in the
+main prejudicial to his interests, and may be regarded as the
+immediate cause of his ruin.  He lost many of his bravest officers and
+soldiers in the action: and he disgusted the rest by refusing to
+distribute the Norwegian spoils among them: a conduct which was little
+agreeable to his usual generosity of temper; but which his desire of
+sparing the people, in the war that impended over him from the Duke of
+Normandy, had probably occasioned.  He hastened, by quick marches, to
+reach this new invader; but though he was reinforced at London and
+other places with fresh troops, he found  himself also weakened by the
+desertion of his old soldiers, who, from fatigue and discontent,
+secretly withdrew from their colours.  His brother Gurth, a man of
+bravery and conduct, began to entertain apprehensions of the event;
+and remonstrated with the king, that it would be better policy to
+prolong the war; at least, to spare his own person in the action.  He
+urged to him, that the desperate situation of the Duke of Normandy
+made it requisite for that prince to bring matters to a speedy
+decision, and put his whole fortune on the issue of a battle; but that
+the King of England, in his own country, beloved by his subjects,
+provided with every supply, had more certain and less dangerous means
+of ensuring to himself the victory; that the Norman troops, elated on
+the one hand with the highest hopes, and seeing, on the other, no
+resource in case of a discomfiture, would fight to the last extremity;
+and being the flower of all the warriors of the continent, must be
+regarded as formidable to the English: that if their first fire, which
+is always the most dangerous, were allowed to languish for want of
+action; if they were harassed with small skirmishes, straitened in
+provisions, and fatigued with the bad weather and deep roads during
+the winter season which was approaching, they must fall an easy and a
+bloodless prey to their enemy: that if a general action were delayed,
+the English, sensible of the imminent danger to which their
+properties, as well as liberties, were exposed from those rapacious
+invaders, would hasten from all quarters to his assistance, and would
+render his army invincible: that at least, if he thought it necessary
+to hazard a battle, he ought not to expose his own person, but
+reserve, in case of disastrous accidents, some resource to the liberty
+and independence of the kingdom: and that having once been so
+unfortunate as to be constrained to swear, and that upon the holy
+relics, to support the pretensions of the Duke of Normandy, it were
+better that the command of the army should be intrusted to another,
+who not being bound by those sacred ties, might give the soldiers more
+assured hopes of a prosperous issue to the combat.
+
+Harold was deaf to all these remonstrances: elated with his past
+prosperity, as well as stimulated by his native courage, he resolved
+to give battle in person; and  for that purpose he drew near to the
+Normans, who had removed their camp and fleet to Hastings, where they
+fixed their quarters.  He was so confident of success, that he sent a
+message to the duke, promising him a sum of money if he would depart
+the kingdom without effusion of blood: but his offer was rejected with
+disdain; and William, not to be behind with his enemy in vaunting,
+sent him a message by some monks, requiring him either to resign the
+kingdom, or to hold it of him in fealty, or to submit their cause to
+the arbitration of the pope, or to fight him in single combat.  Harold
+replied, that the God of battles would soon be the arbiter of all
+their .differences [r].
+[FN [r] Higden, p. 286.]
+
+[MN 14th October.]  The English and Normans now prepared themselves
+for this important decision; but the aspect of things on the night
+before the battle was very different in the two camps.  The English
+spent the night in riot, and jollity, and disorder; the Normans in
+silence, and in prayer, and in the other functions of their religion
+[s].  On the morning, the duke called together the most considerable
+of his commanders, and made them a speech suitable to the occasion.
+He represented to them, that the event which they and he had long
+wished for was approaching; the whole fortune of the war now depended
+on their swords, and would be decided in a single action: that never
+army had greater motives for exerting a vigorous courage, whether they
+considered the prize which would attend their victory, or the
+inevitable destruction which must ensue upon their discomfiture: that
+if their martial and veteran bands could once break those raw
+soldiers, who had rashly dared to approach them, they conquered a
+kingdom at one blow, and were justly entitled to all its possessions
+as the reward of their prosperous valour: that, on the contrary, if
+they remitted in the least their wonted prowess, an enraged enemy hung
+upon their rear, the sea met them in their retreat, and an ignominious
+death was the certain punishment of their imprudent cowardice: that by
+collecting so numerous and brave a host, he had ensured every human
+means of conquest; and the commander of the enemy, by his criminal
+conduct, had given him just cause to hope for the favour of the
+Almighty, in whose hands alone lay the event of wars and battles: and
+that a perjured usurper, anathematized by the sovereign pontiff, and
+conscious of his own breach of faith, would be struck with terror on
+their appearance, and would prognosticate to himself that fate which
+his multiplied crimes had so justly merited [t].  The duke next
+divided his army into three lines: the first, led by Montgomery,
+consisted of archers and light-armed infantry: the second, commanded
+by Martel, was composed of his bravest battalions, heavy armed, and
+ranged in close order: his cavalry, at whose head he placed himself,
+formed the third line; and were so disposed, that they stretched
+beyond the infantry, and flanked each wing of the army [u].  He
+ordered the signal of battle to be given; and the whole army, moving
+at once, and singing the hymn or song of Roland, the famous peer of
+Charlemagne [w], advanced, in order, and with alacrity, towards the
+enemy.
+[FN [s] W. Malm. p. 101.  De Gest. Angl. p. 332.  [t] H. Hunt. p. 368.
+Brompton p. 959.  Gul. Pict. p. 201.  [u] Gul. Pict. p. 201.  Order.
+Vital. p. 501.  [w] W. Malm. p. 101.  Higden, p. 286.  Matth. West. p.
+223.  Du CangeÂ’s Glossary, in verbo CANTILENA ROLANDI.]
+
+Harold had seized the advantage of a rising ground, and having
+likewise drawn some trenches to secure his flanks, he resolved to
+stand upon the defensive, and to avoid all action with the cavalry, in
+which he was inferior.  The Kentish men were placed in the van, a post
+which they had always claimed as their due: the Londoners guarded the
+standard: and the king himself, accompanied by his two valiant
+brothers, Gurth and Leofwin, dismounting, placed himself at the head
+of his infantry, and expressed his resolution to conquer or to perish
+in the action.  The first attack of the Normans was desperate, but was
+received with equal valour by the English; and after a furious combat,
+which remained long undecided, the former, overcome by the difficulty
+of the ground, and hard pressed by the enemy, began first to relax
+their vigour, then to retreat; and confusion was spreading among the
+ranks, when William, who found himself on the brink of destruction,
+hastened with a select band to the relief of his dismayed forces.  His
+presence restored the action; the English were obliged to retire with
+loss; and the duke, ordering his second line to advance, renewed the
+attack with fresh forces, and with redoubled courage.  Finding that
+the enemy, aided by the advantage of ground, and animated by the
+example of their prince, still made a vigorous resistance, he tried a
+stratagem, which was very delicate in its management, but which seemed
+advisable in his desperate situation, where, if he gained not a
+decisive victory, he was totally undone: he commanded his troops to
+make a hasty retreat, and to allure the enemy from their ground by the
+appearance of flight.  The artifice succeeded against those
+inexperienced soldiers, who, heated by the action, and sanguine in
+their hopes, precipitately followed the Normans into the plain.
+William gave orders, that at once the infantry should face about upon
+their pursuers, and the cavalry make an assault upon their wings, and
+both of them pursue the advantage which the surprise and terror of the
+enemy must give them in that critical and decisive moment.  The
+English were repulsed with great slaughter, and driven back to the
+hill; where, being rallied by the bravery of Harold, they were able,
+notwithstanding their loss, to maintain their post, and continue the
+combat.  The duke tried the same stratagem a second time with the same
+success; but even after this double advantage, he still found a great
+body of the English, who, maintaining themselves in firm array, seemed
+determined to dispute the victory to the last extremity.  He ordered
+his heavy-armed infantry to make an assault upon them; while his
+archers placed behind, should gall the enemy, who were exposed by the
+situation of the ground, and who were intent on defending themselves
+against the swords and spears of the assailants.  By this disposition
+he at last prevailed: Harold was slain by an arrow while he was
+combating with great bravery at the head of his men: his two brothers
+shared the same fate: and the English, discouraged by the fall of
+those princes, gave ground on all sides, and were pursued with great
+slaughter by the victorious Normans.  A few troops, however, of the
+vanquished had still the courage to turn upon their pursuers; and
+attacking them in deep and miry ground, obtained some revenge for the
+slaughter and dishonour of the day.  But the appearance of the duke
+obliged them to seek their safety by flight; and darkness saved them
+from any farther pursuit by the enemy.
+
+Thus was gained by William, Duke of Normandy, the great and decisive
+victory of Hastings, after a battle which was fought from morning till
+sunset, and which seemed worthy, by the heroic valour displayed by
+both armies, and by both commanders, to decide the fate of a mighty
+kingdom.  William had three horses killed under him; and there fell
+near fifteen thousand men on the side of the Normans: the loss was
+still more considerable on that of the vanquished; besides the death
+of the king and his two brothers.  The dead body of Harold was brought
+to William, and was generously restored without ransom to his mother.
+The Norman army left not the field of battle without giving thanks to
+Heaven in the most solemn manner for their victory; and the prince,
+having refreshed his troops, prepared to push to the utmost his
+advantage against the divided, dismayed, and discomfited English.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX I.
+
+THE ANGLO-SAXON GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
+
+FIRST SAXON GOVERNMENT.--SUCCESSION OF THE KINGS.--THE WITTENAGEMOT.--
+THE ARISTOCRACY.--THE SEVERAL ORDERS OF MEN.—COURTS OF JUSTICE.--
+CRIMINAL LAW.--RULES OF PROOF.--MILITARY FORCE.--PUBLIC REVENUE.--
+VALUE OF MONEY.--MANNERS.
+
+
+
+The government of the Germans, and that of all the northern nations,
+who established themselves on the ruins of Rome, was always extremely
+free; and those fierce people, accustomed to independence and inured
+to arms, were more guided by persuasion than authority, in the
+submission which they paid to their princes.  The military despotism,
+which had taken place in the Roman empire, and which, previously to
+the irruption of those conquerors, had sunk the genius of men, and
+destroyed every noble principle of science and virtue, was unable to
+resist the vigorous efforts of a free people; and Europe, as from a
+new epoch, rekindled her ancient spirit, and shook off the base
+servitude to arbitrary will and authority under which she had so long
+laboured.  The free constitutions then established, however impaired
+by the encroachments of succeeding princes, still preserve an air of
+independence and legal administration, which distinguish the European
+nations; and if that part of the globe maintain sentiments of liberty,
+honour, equity and valour, superior to the rest of mankind, it owes
+these advantages chiefly to the seeds implanted by those generous
+barbarians.
+
+[MN First Saxon government.]
+The Saxons, who subdued Britain, as they enjoyed great liberty in
+their own country, obstinately retained that invaluable possession in
+their new settlement; and they imported into this island the same
+principles of independence which they had inherited from their
+ancestors.  The chieftains (for such they were, more properly than
+kings or princes) who commanded them in those military expeditions,
+still possessed a very limited authority; and as the Saxons
+exterminated, rather than subdued, the ancient inhabitants, they were
+indeed transplanted into a new territory, but preserved unaltered all
+their civil and military institutions.  The language was pure Saxon;
+even the names of places, which often remain while the tongue entirely
+changes, were almost all affixed by the conquerors; the manners and
+customs were wholly German; and the same picture of a fierce and bold
+liberty, which is drawn by the masterly pencil of Tacitus, will suit
+those founders of the English government.  The king, so far from being
+invested with arbitrary power, was only considered as the first among
+the citizens; his authority depended more on his personal qualities
+than on his station; he was even so far on a level with the people,
+that a stated price was fixed for his head, and a legal fine was
+levied upon his murderer, which, though proportionate to his station,
+and superior to that paid for the life of a subject, was a sensible
+mark of his subordination to the community.
+
+[MN Succession of the kings.]
+It is easy to imagine, that an independent people, so little
+restrained by law and cultivated by science, would not be very strict
+in maintaining a regular succession of their princes.  Though they
+paid great regard to the royal family, and ascribed to it an
+undisputed superiority, they either had no rule, or none that was
+steadily observed, in filling the vacant throne; and present
+convenience, in that emergency, was more attended to than general
+principles.  We are not, however, to suppose that the crown was
+considered as altogether elective; and that a regular plan was traced
+by the constitution for supplying, by the suffrages of the people,
+every vacancy made by the demise of the first magistrate.  If any king
+left a son of an age and capacity fit for government, the young prince
+naturally stepped into the throne: if he was a minor, his uncle, or
+the next prince of the blood, was promoted to the government, and left
+the sceptre to his posterity: any sovereign, by taking previous
+measures with the leading men, had it greatly in his power to appoint
+his successor: all these changes, and indeed the ordinary
+administration of government, required the express concurrence, or at
+least the tacit acquiescence, of the people; but possession, however
+obtained, was extremely apt to secure their obedience, and the idea of
+any right, which was once excluded, was but feeble and imperfect.
+This is so much the case in all barbarous monarchies, and occurs so
+often in the history of the Anglo-Saxons, that we cannot consistently
+entertain any other notion of their government.  The idea of an
+hereditary succession in authority is so natural to men, and is so
+much fortified by the usual rule in transmitting private possessions,
+that it must retain a great influence on every society, which does not
+exclude it by the refinements of a republican constitution.  But as
+there is a material difference between government and private
+possessions, and every man is not as much qualified for exercising the
+one, as for enjoying the other, a people, who are not sensible of the
+general advantages attending a fixed rule, and apt to make great leaps
+in the succession, and frequently to pass over the person, who, had he
+possessed the requisite years and abilities, would have been thought
+entitled to the sovereignty.  Thus, these monarchies are not, strictly
+speaking, either elective or hereditary; and though the destination of
+a prince may often be followed in appointing his successor, they can
+as little be regarded as wholly testamentary.  The states by their
+suffrage may sometimes establish a sovereign; but they more frequently
+recognize the person whom they find established: a few great men take
+the lead; the people, overawed and influenced, acquiesce in the
+government; and the reigning prince, provided he be of the royal
+family, passes undisputedly for the legal sovereign.
+
+[MN The Wittenagemot.]
+It is confessed, that our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon history and
+antiquities is too imperfect to afford us means of determining, with
+certainty, all the prerogatives of the crown and privileges of the
+people, or of giving an exact delineation of that government.  It is
+probable, also, that the constitution might be somewhat different in
+the different kingdoms of the Heptarchy, and that it changed
+considerably during the course of six centuries, which elapsed from
+the first invasion of the Saxons till the Norman conquest [a].  But
+most of these differences and changes, with their causes and effects,
+are unknown to us.  It only appears, that at all times, and in all the
+kingdoms, there was a national council, called a Wittenagemot, or
+assembly of the wise men, (for that is the import of the term,) whose
+consent was requisite for enacting laws, and for ratifying the chief
+acts of public administration.  The preambles to all the laws of
+Ethelbert, Ina, Alfred, Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edmond, Edgar,
+Ethelred, and Edward the Confessor; even those to the laws of Canute,
+though a kind of conqueror, put this matter beyond controversy, and
+carry proofs everywhere of a limited and legal government.  But who
+were the constituent members of this Wittenagemot has not been
+determined with certainty by antiquaries.  It is agreed, that the
+bishops and abbots [b] were an essential part; and it is also evident,
+from the tenour of those ancient laws, that the Wittenagemot enacted
+statutes which regulated the ecclesiastical as well as civil
+government, and that those dangerous principles, by which the church
+is totally severed from the state, were hitherto unknown to the
+Anglo-Saxons [c].  It also appears, that the aldermen, or governors of
+counties, who, after the Danish times, were often called earls [d],
+were admitted into this council, and gave their consent to the public
+statutes.  But besides the prelates and aldermen, there is also
+mention of the Wites, or Wise-men, as a component part of the
+Wittenagemot; but who THESE were, is not so clearly ascertained by the
+laws or the history of that period.  The matter would probably be of
+difficult discussion, even were it examined impartially; but as our
+modern parties have chosen to divide on this point, the question has
+been disputed with the greater obstinacy, and the arguments on both
+sides have become, on that account, the more captious and deceitful.
+Our monarchical faction maintain, that these WITES, or SAPIENTES, were
+the judges, or men learned in the law; the popular faction assert them
+to be representatives of the boroughs, or what we now call the
+Commons.
+[FN [a] We know of one change, not inconsiderable, in the Saxon
+constitution.  The Saxon Annals, p. 49, inform us, that it was in
+early times the prerogative of the king to name the dukes, earls,
+aldermen, and sheriffs of the counties.  Asser, a contemporary writer,
+informs us, that Alfred deposed all the ignorant aldermen, and
+appointed men of more capacity in their place.  Yet the laws of Edward
+the Confessor, Sec. 35, say expressly, that the Heretoghs or dukes,
+and the sheriffs, were chosen by the freeholders in the folkmote, a
+county court, which was assembled once a year, and where all the
+freeholders swore allegiance to the king.  [b] Sometimes abbesses were
+admitted; at least, they often sign the kingÂ’s charters or grants.
+Spellm. Gloss. in verbo PARLIAMENTUM.  [c] Wilkins, passim.  [d] See
+note [G] at the end of the volume.]
+
+The expressions employed by all ancient historians, in mentioning the
+Wittenagemot, seem to contradict the latter supposition.  The members
+are almost always called the PRINCIPES, SATRAPAE, OPTIMATES, MAGNATES,
+PROCERES; terms which seem to suppose an aristocracy, and to exclude
+the Commons.  The boroughs also, from the low state of commerce, were
+so small and so poor, and the inhabitants lived in such dependence on
+the great men [e], that it seemed nowise probable they would be
+admitted as a part of the national councils.  The Commons are well
+known to have had no share in the governments established by the
+Franks, Burgundians, and other northern nations; and we may conclude
+that the Saxons, who remained longer barbarous and uncivilized than
+those tribes, would never think of conferring such an extraordinary
+privilege on trade and industry.  The military profession alone was
+honourable among all those conquerors; the warriors subsisted by their
+possessions in land; they became considerable by their influence over
+their vassals, retainers, tenants, and slaves; and it requires strong
+proof to convince us that they would admit any of a rank so much
+inferior as the burgesses, to share with them in the legislative
+authority.  Tacitus indeed affirms, that among the ancient Germans,
+the consent of all the members of the community was required in every
+important deliberation; but he speaks not of representatives; and this
+ancient practice, mentioned by the Roman historian, could only have
+place in small tribes, where every citizen might, without
+inconvenience, be assembled upon any extraordinary emergency.  After
+principalities became extensive; after the difference of property had
+formed distinctions more important than those which arose from
+personal strength and valour, we may conclude, that the national
+assemblies must have been more limited in their number, and composed
+only of the more considerable citizens.
+[FN [e] BradyÂ’s Treatise of English Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, &c.]
+
+But though we must exclude the burgesses, or Commons from the Saxon
+Wittenagemot, there is some necessity for supposing that this assembly
+consisted of other members than the prelates, abbots, aldermen, and
+the judges or privy council.  For as all these, excepting some of the
+ecclesiastics [f], were anciently appointed by the king, had there
+been no other legislative authority, the royal power had been in a
+great measure absolute, contrary to the tenour of all the historians,
+and to the practice of all the northern nations.  We may therefore
+conclude, that the more considerable proprietors of land were, without
+any election, constituent members of the national assembly; there is
+reason to think that forty hides, or between four and five thousand
+acres, was the estate requisite for entitling the possessor to this
+honourable privilege.  We find a passage in an ancient author [g], by
+which it appears, that a person of very noble birth, even one allied
+to the crown, was not esteemed a PRINCEPS (the term usually employed
+by ancient historians, when the Wittenagemot is mentioned) till he had
+acquired a fortune of that amount.  Nor need we imagine that the
+public council would become disorderly or confused by admitting so
+great a multitude.  The landed property of England was probably in few
+hands during the Saxon times; at least during the latter part of that
+period; and as men had hardly any ambition to attend those public
+councils, there was no danger of the assemblyÂ’s becoming too numerous
+for the despatch of the little business which was brought before them.
+[FN [f] There is some reason to think, that the bishops were sometimes
+chosen by the Wittenagemot, and confirmed by the king.  Eddius, cap.
+2.  The abbots in the monasteries of royal foundation were anciently
+named by the king; though Edgar gave the monks the election, and only
+reserved to himself the ratification.  This destination was afterwards
+frequently violated; and the abbots, as well as bishops were
+afterwards all appointed by the king; as we learn from Ingulph, a
+writer contemporary with the conquest.  [g] Hist. Eliensis, lib. 2
+cap. 40.]
+
+It is certain, that, whatever we may determine concerning the
+constituent members of the Wittenagemot, in whom, with the king, the
+legislature resided, the Anglo-Saxon government, in the period
+preceding the Norman conquest, was become extremely aristocratical;
+the royal authority was very limited; the people, even if admitted to
+that assembly, were of little or no weight and consideration.  We have
+hints given us in historians, of the great power and riches of
+particular noblemen: and it could not but happen, after the abolition
+of the Heptarchy, when the king lived at a distance from the
+provinces, that those great proprietors, who resided on their estates,
+would much augment their authority over their vassals and retainers,
+and over all the inhabitants of the neighbourhood.  Hence the
+immeasurable power assumed by Harold, Godwin, Leofric, Siward, Morcar,
+Edwin, Edric, and Alfric, who controlled the authority of the kings,
+and rendered themselves quite necessary in the government.  The two
+latter, though detested by the people, on account of their joining a
+foreign enemy, still preserved their power and influence; and we may
+therefore conclude, that their authority was founded, not on
+popularity, but on family rights and possessions.  There is one
+Athelstan, mentioned in the reign of the king of that name, who is
+called Alderman of all England, and is said to be half-king; though
+the monarch himself was a prince of valour and abilities [h].  And we
+find, that in the latter Saxon times, and in these alone, the great
+office went from father to son, and became in a manner hereditary in
+the families [i].
+[FN [h] Hist. Rames. Sec. 3, p. 387.  [i] Roger Hoveden, giving the
+reason why William the Conqueror made Cospatric Earl of
+Northumberland, says, NAM EX MATERNO SANGUINE ATTINEBAT AD EUM HONOR
+ILLIUS COMITATUS.  ERAT ENIM EX MATRE ALGITHA, FILIA UTHREDI COMITIS.
+See also Sim. Dun. p. 205.  We see in those instances the same
+tendency towards rendering offices hereditary, which took place,
+during a more early period, on the continent, and which had already
+produced there its full effect.]
+
+The circumstances attending the invasions of the Danes would also
+serve much to increase the power of the principal nobility.  Those
+freebooters made unexpected inroads on all quarters; and there was a
+necessity that each county should resist them by its own force, and
+under the conduct of its own nobility and its own magistrates.  For
+the same reason that a general war, managed by the united efforts of
+the state, commonly augments the power of the crown; those private
+wars and inroads turned to the advantage of the aldermen and nobles.
+
+Among that military and turbulent people, so averse to commerce and
+the arts, and so little inured to industry, justice was commonly very
+ill administered, and great oppression and violence seem to have
+prevailed.  These disorders would be increased by the exorbitant power
+of the aristocracy; and would, in their turn, contribute to increase
+it.  Men, not daring to rely on the guardianship of the laws, were
+obliged to devote themselves to the service of some chieftain, whose
+orders they followed, even to the disturbance of the government, or
+the injury of their fellow-citizens, and who afforded them, in return,
+protection from any insult or injustice by strangers.  Hence, we find
+by the extracts which Dr. Brady has given us from Domesday, that
+almost all the inhabitants, even of towns, had placed themselves under
+the clientship of some particular nobleman, whose patronage they
+purchased by annual payments, and whom they were obliged to consider
+as their sovereign, more than the king himself, or even the
+legislature [k].  A client, though a freeman, was supposed so much to
+belong to his patron, that his murderer was obliged by law to pay a
+fine to the latter, as a compensation for his loss; in like manner as
+he paid a fine to the master for the murder of his slave [l].  Men who
+were of a more considerable rank, but not powerful enough each to
+support himself by his own independent authority, entered into formal
+confederacies with each other, and composed a kind of separate
+community, which rendered itself formidable to all aggressors.  Dr.
+Hickes has preserved a curious Saxon bond of this kind, which he calls
+a SODALITIUM, and which contains many particulars characteristical of
+the manners and customs of the times [m].  All the associates are
+there said to be gentlemen of Cambridgeshire, and they swear before
+the holy relics to observe their confederacy, and to be faithful to
+each other: they promise to bury any of the associates who dies, in
+whatever place he had appointed; to contribute to his funeral charges,
+and to attend at his interment; and whoever is wanting in this last
+duty, binds himself to pay a measure of honey.  When any of the
+associates is in danger, and calls for the assistance of his fellows,
+they promise, besides flying to his succour, to give information to
+the sheriff; and if he be negligent in protecting the person exposed
+to danger, they engage to levy a fine of one pound upon him: if the
+president of the society himself be wanting in this particular, he
+binds himself to pay one pound; unless he has the reasonable excuse of
+sickness, or of duty to his superior.  When any of the associates is
+murdered, they are to exact eight pounds from the murderer; and if he
+refuse to pay it, they are to prosecute him for the sum at their joint
+expense.  If any of the associates who happens to be poor kill a man,
+the society are to contribute, by a certain proportion, to pay his
+fine: a mark a-piece if the fine be seven hundred shillings; less if
+the person killed be a clown or ceorle; the half of that sum, again,
+if he be a Welshman.  But where any of the associates kills a man,
+wilfully and without provocation, he must himself pay the fine.  If
+any of the associates kill any of his fellows in a like criminal
+manner, besides paying the usual fine to the relations of the
+deceased, he must pay eight pounds to the society, or renounce the
+benefit of it; in which case, they bind themselves, under the penalty
+of one pound, never to eat or drink with him, except in the presence
+of the king, bishop, or alderman.  There are other regulations to
+protect themselves and their servants from all injuries, to revenge
+such as are committed, and to prevent their giving abusive language to
+each other; and the fine, which they engage to pay for this last
+offence, is a measure of honey.
+[FN [k] BradyÂ’s Treatise of Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, &c.  The case was
+the same with the freemen in the country.  See Pref. to his Hist. p.
+8, 9, 10, &c.  [1] LL. Edw. Conf. Sec. 8. apud Ingulph.  [m] Dissert.
+Epist. p. 21.]
+
+It is not to be doubted but a confederacy of this kind must have been
+a great source of friendship and attachment; when men lived in
+perpetual danger from enemies, robbers, and oppressors, and received
+protection chiefly from their personal valour, and from the assistance
+of their friends or patrons.  As animosities were then more violent,
+connexions were also more intimate, whether voluntary or derived from
+blood: the most remote degree of propinquity was regarded: an
+indelible memory of benefits was preserved: severe vengeance was taken
+for injuries, both from a point of honour, and as the best means of
+future security: and the civil union being weak, many private
+engagements were contracted in order to supply its place, and to
+procure men that safety which the laws and their own innocence were
+not alone able to insure to them.
+
+On the whole, notwithstanding the seeming liberty, or rather
+licentiousness, of the Anglo-Saxons, the great body even of the free
+citizens, in those ages, really enjoyed much less true liberty, than
+where the execution of the laws is the most severe, and where subjects
+are reduced to the strictest subordination and dependence on the civil
+magistrate.  The reason is derived from the excess itself of that
+liberty.  Men must guard themselves at any price against insults and
+injuries; and where they receive not protection from the laws and
+magistrate, they will seek it by submission to superiors, and by
+herding in some private confederacy which acts under the direction of
+a powerful leader.  And thus all anarchy is the immediate cause of
+tyranny, if not over the state, at least over many of the individuals.
+Security was provided by the Saxon laws to all members of the
+Wittenagemot, both in going and returning, EXCEPT THEY WERE NOTORIOUS
+THIEVES AND ROBBERS.
+
+[MN The several orders of men.]
+The German Saxons, as the other nations of that continent, were
+divided into three ranks of men, the noble, the free, and the slaves
+[n].  This distinction they brought over with them into Britain.
+[FN [n] Nithard. Hist. lib. 4.]
+
+The nobles were called thanes; and were of two kinds, the kingÂ’s
+thanes and lesser thanes.  The latter seem to have been dependent on
+the former; and to have received lands, for which they paid rent,
+services, or attendance in peace and war [o].  We know of no title
+which raised any one to the rank of thane, except noble birth and the
+possession of land.  The former was always much regarded by all the
+German nations, even in their most barbarous state; and as the Saxon
+nobility, having little credit, could scarcely burthen their estates
+with much debt, and as the Commons had little trade or industry by
+which they could accumulate riches, these two ranks of men, even
+though they were not separated by positive laws, might remain long
+distinct, and the noble families continue many ages in opulence and
+splendour.  There were no middle ranks of men that could gradually mix
+with their superiors, and insensibly procure to themselves honour and
+distinction.  If by any extraordinary accident a mean person acquired
+riches, a circumstance so singular made him be known and remarked; he
+became the object of envy, as well as of indignation, to all the
+nobles; he would have great difficulty to defend what he had acquired;
+and he would find it impossible to protect himself from oppression,
+except by courting the patronage of some great chieftain, and paying a
+large price for his safety.
+[FN [o] Spellm. Feuds and Tenures, p. 40.]
+
+There are two statutes among the Saxon laws which seem calculated to
+confound those different ranks of men; that of Athelstan, by which a
+merchant, who had made three long sea voyages on his own account, was
+entitled to the quality of thane [p]; and that of the same prince, by
+which a ceorle or husbandman, who had been able to purchase five hides
+of land, and had a chapel, a kitchen, a hall, and a bell, was raised
+to the same distinction [q].  But the opportunities were so few, by
+which a merchant or ceorle could thus exalt himself above his rank,
+that the law could never overcome the reigning prejudices; the
+distinction between noble and base blood would still be indelible; and
+the well-born thanes would entertain the highest contempt for those
+legal and factitious ones.  Though we are not informed of any of these
+circumstances by ancient historians, they are so much founded on the
+nature of things, that we may admit them as a necessary and infallible
+consequence of the situation of the kingdom during those ages.
+[FN [p] Wilkins, p. 71.  [q] Selden, Titles of Honour, p. 515.
+Wilkins, p. 70.]
+
+The cities appear by Domesday-book to have been at the Conquest little
+better than villages [r].  York itself, though it was always the
+second, at least the third [s], city in England, and was the capital
+of a great province, which never was thoroughly united with the rest,
+contained but one thousand four hundred and eighteen families [t].
+Malmsbury tells us [u], that the great distinction between the
+Anglo-Saxon nobility, and the French or Norman was, that the latter
+built magnificent and stately castles; whereas the former consumed
+their immense fortunes in riot and, hospitality, and in mean houses.
+We may thence infer, that the arts in general were much less advanced
+in England than in France; a greater number of idle servants and
+retainers lived about the great families; and as these, even in
+France, were powerful enough to disturb the execution of the laws, we
+may judge of the authority acquired by the aristocracy in England.
+When Earl Godwin besieged the Confessor in London, he summoned from
+all parts his huscarles or houseceorles and retainers, and thereby
+constrained his sovereign to accept of the conditions which he was
+pleased to impose upon him.
+[FN [r] Winchester, being the capital of the West Saxon monarchy, was
+anciently a considerable city.  Gul. Pict. p. 210.  [s] Norwich
+contained 738 houses, Exeter 315, Ipswich 538, Northampton 60,
+Hereford 146, Canterbury 262, Bath 64, Southampton 84, Warwick 225.
+See Brady of Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, 6, &c.  These are the most
+considerable he mentions.  The account of them is extracted from
+Domesday-book.  [t] BradyÂ’s Treatise of Boroughs, p. 10.  There were
+six wards, besides the archbishopÂ’s palace; and five of these wards
+contained the number of families here mentioned, which, at the rate of
+five persons to a family, makes about 7000 souls.  The sixth ward was
+laid waste.  [u] p. 102.  See also, De Gest. Angl. p. 333.]
+
+The lower rank of freemen were denominated ceorles among the
+Anglo-Saxons; and, where they were industrious, they were chiefly
+employed in husbandry: whence a ceorle and a husbandman became in a
+manner synonymous terms.  They cultivated the farms of the nobility or
+thanes, for which they paid rent; and they seem to have been
+removeable at pleasure.  For there is little mention of leases among
+the Anglo-Saxons; the pride of the nobility, together with the general
+ignorance of writing, must have rendered these contracts very rare,
+and must have kept the husbandmen in a dependent condition.  The rents
+of farms were then chiefly paid in kind [w].
+[FN [w] LL. Inae, Sec. 70.  These laws fixed the rents for a hide; but
+it is difficult to convert it into modern measures.]
+
+But the most numerous rank by far in the community seems to have been
+the slaves or villains, who were the property of their lords, and were
+consequently incapable themselves of possessing any property.  Dr.
+Brady assures us, from a survey of Domesday-book [x], that in all the
+counties of England, the far greater part of the land was occupied by
+them, and that the husbandmen, and still more the socmen, who were
+tenants that could not be removed at pleasure, were very few in
+comparison.  This was not the case with the German nations, as far as
+we can collect from the account given us by Tacitus.  The perpetual
+wars in the Heptarchy, and the depredations of the Danes, seem to have
+been the cause of this great alteration with the Anglo-Saxons.
+Prisoners taken in battle, or carried off in the frequent inroads,
+were then reduced to slavery; and became, by right of war [y],
+entirely at the disposal of their lords.  Great property in the
+nobles, especially if joined to an irregular administration of
+justice, naturally favours the power of the aristocracy; but still
+more so if the practice of slavery be admitted, and has become very
+common.  The nobility not only possess the influence which always
+attends riches, but also the power which the laws give them over their
+slaves and villains.  It then becomes difficult, and almost
+impossible, for a private man to remain altogether free and
+independent.
+[FN [x] General Preface to his Hist. p. 7, 8, 9 &c.  [y] LL. Edg. Sec.
+14 apud Spellm. Conc. vol. 1. p. 471.]
+
+There were two kinds of slaves among the Anglo-Saxons; household
+slaves, after the manner of the ancients, and praedial, or rustic,
+after the manner ofÂ’ the Germans [z].  These latter resembled the
+serfs, which are at present to be met with in Poland, Denmark, and
+some parts of Germany.  The power of a master over his slaves was not
+unlimited among the Anglo-Saxons, as it was among their ancestors.  If
+a man beat out his slaveÂ’s eye or teeth, the slave recovered his
+liberty [a]: if he killed him, he paid a fine to the king, provided
+the slave died within a day after the wound or blow; otherwise it
+passed unpunished [b].  The selling of themselves or children to
+slavery was always the practice among the German nations [c], and was
+continued by the Anglo-Saxons [d].
+[FN [z] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. SERRUS  [a] LL. Aelf. Sec. 20.  [b]
+Ibid 17.  [c] Tacit. de Morib. Germ.  [d] LL. Inae, Sec. 11  LL. Aelf.
+Sec. 12.]
+
+The great lords and abbots among the Anglo-Saxons possessed a criminal
+jurisdiction within their territories, and could punish without
+appeal, any thieves or robbers  whom they caught there [e].  This
+institution must have had a very contrary effect to that which was
+intended, and must have procured robbers a sure protection on the
+lands of such noblemen as did not sincerely mean to discourage crimes
+and violence.
+[FN [e] Higden, lib. 1. cap. 50.  LL. Edw. Conf. Sec. 26.  Spellm.
+Conc. vol. i. p. 415.  Gloss. in verb. HALIGEMOT ET INFANGENTHEFE.]
+
+[MN Courts of justice.]
+But though the general strain of the Anglo-Saxon government seems to
+have become aristocratical, there were still considerable remains of
+the ancient democracy, which were not indeed sufficient to protect the
+lowest of the people, without the patronage of some great lord, but
+might give security, and even some degree of dignity, to the gentry,
+or inferior nobility.  The administration of justice, in particular,
+by the courts of the decennary, the hundred, and the county, was well
+calculated to defend general liberty, and to restrain the power of the
+nobles.  In the county courts, or shiremotes, all the freeholders were
+assembled twice a year, and received appeals from the inferior courts.
+They there decided all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil; and
+the bishop, together with the alderman or earl, presided over them
+[f].  The affair was determined in a summary manner, without much
+pleading, formality, or delay, by a majority of voices; and the bishop
+and alderman had no farther authority than to keep order among the
+freeholders, and interpose with their opinion [g].  Where justice was
+denied during three sessions by the hundred, and then by the county
+court, there lay an appeal to the kingÂ’s court [h]; but this was not
+practised on slight occasions.  The alderman received a third of the
+fines levied in those courts [i]; and as most of the punishments were
+then pecuniary, this perquisite formed a considerable part of the
+profits belonging to his office.  The two-thirds also which went to
+the king, made no contemptible part of the public revenue.  Any
+freeholder was fined who absented himself thrice from these courts
+[k].
+[FN [f] LL. Edg. Sec. 5.  Wilkins, p. 78.  LL. Canut. Sec. 17.
+Wilkins, p. 136.  [g] Hickes, Dissert. Epist. p. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
+[h] LL. Edg Sec. 2.  Wilkins, p. 77.  LL. Canut. Sec. 18. apud
+Wilkins, p. 136.  [i] LL. Edw. Conf. Sec. 31.  [k] LL. Ethelst. Sec.
+20.]
+
+As the extreme ignorance of the age made deeds and writings very rare,
+the county or hundred court was the place where the most remarkable
+civil transactions were finished, in order to preserve the memory of
+them, and prevent all future disputes.  Here testaments were
+promulgated, slaves manumitted, bargains of sale concluded; and
+sometimes, for greater security, the most considerable of these deeds
+were inserted in the blank leaves of the parish bible, which thus
+became a kind of register too sacred to be falsified.  It was not
+unusual to add to the deed an imprecation on all such as should be
+guilty of that crime [l].
+[FN [1] Hickes, Dissert. Epist.]
+
+Among a people, who lived in so simple a manner as the Anglo-Saxons,
+the judicial power is always of greater importance than the
+legislative.  There were few or no taxes imposed by the states; there
+were few statutes enacted; and the nation was less governed by laws
+than by customs, which admitted a great latitude of interpretation.
+Though it should therefore be allowed that the Wittenagemot was
+altogether composed of the principal nobility, the county courts,
+where all the freeholders were admitted, and which regulated all the
+daily occurrences of life, formed a wide basis for the government, and
+were no contemptible checks on the aristocracy.  But there is another
+power still more important than either the judicial or legislative; to
+wit, the power of injuring or serving by immediate force and violence,
+for which it is difficult to obtain redress in courts of justice.  In
+all extensive governments, where the execution of the laws is feeble,
+this power naturally falls into the hands of the principal nobility;
+and the degree of it which prevails cannot be determined so much by
+the public statutes, as by small incidents in history, by particular
+customs, and sometimes by the reason and nature of things.  The
+Highlands of Scotland have long been entitled by law to every
+privilege of British subjects; but it was not till very lately that
+the common people could in fact enjoy these privileges.
+
+The powers of all the members of the Anglo-Saxon government are
+disputed among historians and antiquaries; the extreme obscurity of
+the subject, even though faction had never entered into the question,
+would naturally have begotten those controversies.  But the great
+influence of the lords over their slaves and tenants, the clientship
+of the burghers, the total want of a middling rank of men, the extent
+of the monarchy, the loose execution of the laws, the continued
+disorders and convulsions of the state; all these circumstances evince
+that the Anglo-Saxon government became at last extremely
+aristocratical; and the events, during the period immediately
+preceding the conquest, confirm this inference or conjecture.
+
+[MN Criminal law.]
+Both the punishments inflicted by the Anglo-Saxon courts of
+judicature, and the methods of proof employed in all causes, appear
+somewhat singular, and are very different from those which prevail at
+present among all civilized nations.
+
+We must conceive that the ancient Germans were little removed from the
+original state of nature: the social confederacy among them was more
+martial than civil: they had chiefly in view the means of attack or
+defence against public enemies, not those of protection against their
+fellow-citizens: their possessions were so slender and so equal, that
+they were not exposed to great danger; and the natural bravery of the
+people made every man trust to himself, and to his particular friends,
+for his defence or vengeance.  This defect in the political union drew
+much closer the knot of particular confederacies; an insult upon any
+man was regarded by all his relations and associates as a common
+injury; they were bound by honour, as well as by a sense of common
+interest, to revenge his death, or any violence which he had suffered:
+they retaliated on the aggressor by like acts of violence; and if he
+were protected, as was natural and usual, by his own clan, the quarrel
+was spread still wider, and bred endless disorders in the nation.
+
+The Frisians, a tribe of the Germans, had never advanced beyond this
+wild and imperfect state of society; and the right of private revenge
+still remained among them unlimited and uncontrolled [m].  But the
+other German nations, in the age of Tacitus, had made one step farther
+towards completing the political or civil union.  Though it still
+continued to be an indispensable point of honour for every clan to
+revenge the death or injury of a member, the magistrate had acquired a
+right of interposing in the quarrel, and of accommodating the
+difference.  He obliged the person maimed or injured, and the
+relations of one killed, to accept of a present from the aggressor and
+his relations [n], as a compensation for the injury [o], and to drop
+all farther prosecution of revenge.  That the accommodation of one
+quarrel might not be the source of more, this present was fixed and
+certain, according to the rank of the person killed, or injured, and
+was commonly paid in cattle, the chief property of those rude and
+uncultivated nations.  A present of this kind gratified the revenge of
+the injured family, by the loss which the aggressor suffered; it
+satisfied their pride, by the submission which it expressed; it
+diminished their regret for the loss or injury of a kinsman, by their
+acquisition of new property; and thus general peace was for a moment
+restored to the society [p].
+[FN [m] LL. Fris. tit. 2. apud. Lindenbrog. p. 491.  [n] LL. Aethelb.
+Sec. 23. LL. Aelf. Sec. 27.  [o] Called by the Saxons MOEGBOTA.  [p]
+Tacit. de Morib. Germ.  The author says, that the price of the
+composition was fixed; which must have been by the laws and the
+interposition of the magistrates.]
+
+But when the German nations had been settled some time in the
+provinces of the Roman empire, they made still another step towards a
+more cultivated life, and their criminal justice gradually improved
+and refined itself.  The magistrate, whose office it was to guard
+public peace, and to suppress private animosities, conceived himself
+to be injured by every injury done to any of his people; and besides
+the compensation to the person who suffered, or to his family, he
+thought himself entitled to exact a fine called the Fridwit as an
+atonement for the breach of peace, and as a reward for the pains which
+he had taken in accommodating the quarrel.  When this idea, which is
+so natural, was once suggested, it was willingly received both by
+sovereign and people.  The numerous fines which were levied augmented
+the revenue of the king; and the people were sensible that he would be
+more vigilant in interposing with his good offices, when he reaped
+such immediate advantage from them; and that injuries would be less
+frequent, when, besides compensation to the person injured, they were
+exposed to this additional penalty [q].
+[FN [q] Besides paying money to the relations of the deceased, and to
+the king, the murderer was also obliged to pay the master of a slave
+or vassal a sum as a compensation for his loss.  This was called the
+MANBOTE.  See Spell. Gloss. in verb. FREDUM, MANBOT.]
+
+This short abstract contains the history of the criminal jurisprudence
+of the northern nations for several centuries.  The state of England
+in this particular, during the period of the Anglo-Saxons, may be
+judged of by the collection of ancient laws, published by Lambard and
+Wilkins.  The chief purport of these laws is not to prevent or
+entirely suppress private quarrels, which the legislature knew to be
+impossible, but only to regulate and moderate them.  The laws of
+Alfred enjoin, that if any one know that his enemy or aggressor, after
+doing him an injury, resolves to keep within his own house, AND HIS
+OWN LANDS [r], he shall not fight him till he require compensation for
+the injury.  If he be strong enough to besiege him in his house, he
+may do it for seven days without attacking him; and if the aggressor
+be willing, during that time, to surrender himself and his arms, his
+adversary may detain him thirty days; but is afterwards obliged to
+restore him safe to his kindred, AND BE CONTENT WITH THE COMPENSATION.
+If the criminal fly to the temple, that sanctuary must not be
+violated.  Where the assailant has not force sufficient to besiege the
+criminal in his house, he must apply to the alderman for assistance;
+and if the alderman refuse aid, the assailant must have recourse to
+the king; and he is not allowed to assault the house till after this
+supreme magistrate has refused assistance.  If any one meet with his
+enemy, and be ignorant that he was resolved to keep within his own
+lands, he must, before he attack him, require him to surrender himself
+prisoner, and deliver up his arms; in which case he may detain him
+thirty days: but if he refuse to deliver up his arms, it is then
+lawful to fight him.  A slave may fight in his master's quarrel: a
+father may fight in his son's with any one, except with his master
+[s].
+[FN [r] The addition of these last words in Italics appears necessary
+from what follows in the same law.  [s] LL. Aelfr. Sec. 28  Wilkins,
+p. 43.]
+
+It was enacted by King Ina, that no man should take revenge for an
+injury till he had first demanded compensation, and had been refused
+it [t].
+[FN [t] LL. Inae, Sec. 9.]
+
+King Edmond, in the preamble to his laws, mentions the general misery
+occasioned by the multiplicity of private feuds and battles; and he
+establishes several expedients for remedying this grievance.  He
+ordained that if any one commit murder, be may, with the assistance of
+his kindred, pay within a twelvemonth the fine of his crime; and if
+they abandon him, he shall alone sustain the deadly feud or quarrel
+with the kindred of the murdered person: his own kindred are free from
+the feud, but on condition that they neither converse with the
+criminal, nor supply him with meat or OTHER NECESSARIES: if any of
+them, after renouncing him, receive him into their house, OR GIVE HIM
+ASSISTANCE, they are finable to the king, and are involved in the
+feud.  If the kindred of the murdered person take revenge on any but
+the criminal himself, AFTER HE IS ABANDONED BY HIS KINDRED, all their
+property is forfeited, and they are declared to be enemies to the king
+and all his friends [u].  It is also ordained, that the fine for
+murder shall never be remitted by the king [w]; and that no criminal
+shall be killed who flies to the church, or any of the kingÂ’s towns
+[x]; and the king himself declares, that his house shall give no
+protection to murderers, till they have satisfied the church by their
+penance, and the kindred of the deceased, by making compensation [y].
+The method appointed for transacting this composition is found in the
+same law [z].
+[FN [u] LL. Edm. Sec. 1.  Wilkins, p. 73.  [w] LL. Edm. Sec. 3.  [x]
+Ibid. Sec. 2.  [y] Ibid. Sec. 4.  [z] Ibid Sec. 7.]
+
+These attempts of Edmond, to contract and diminish the feuds, were
+contrary to the ancient spirit of the northern barbarians, and were a
+step towards a more regular administration of justice.  By the Salic
+law, any man might, by a public declaration, exempt himself from his
+family quarrels: but then he was considered by the law as no longer
+belonging to the family; and he was deprived of all right of
+succession, as the punishment of his cowardice [a].
+[FN [a] Tit. 63.]
+
+The price of the king's head, or his weregild, as it was then called,
+was by law thirty thousand thrimsas, near thirteen hundred pounds of
+present money.  The price of the prince's head was fifteen thousand
+thrimsas; that of a bishop's or alderman's, eight thousand; a
+sheriffÂ’s four thousand; a thane's or clergyman's, two thousand; a
+ceorle's, two hundred and sixty-six.  These prices were fixed by the
+laws of the Angles.  By the Mercian law, the price of a ceorle's head
+was two hundred shillings; that of a thane's six times as much; that
+of a king's six times more [b].  By the laws of Kent, the price of the
+archbishop's head was higher than that of the kingÂ’s [c].  Such
+respect was then paid to the ecclesiastics!  It must be understood,
+that where a person was unable or unwilling to pay the fine, he was
+put out of the protection of law, and the kindred of the deceased had
+liberty to punish him as they thought proper.
+[FN [b] Wilkins, p. 71, 72.  [c] LL. Elthredi, apud Wilkins, p. 110.]
+
+Some antiquarians [d] have thought, that these compensations were only
+given for manslaughter, not for wilful murder: but no such distinction
+appears in the laws; and it is contradicted by the practice of all the
+other barbarous nations [e], by that of the ancient Germans [f], and
+by that curious monument above mentioned, a Saxon antiquity, preserved
+by Hickes.  There is indeed a law of Alfred's, which makes wilful
+murder capital [g]; but this seems only to have been an attempt of
+that great legislator towards establishing a better police in the
+kingdom, and it probably remained without execution.  By the laws of
+the same prince, a conspiracy against the life of the king might be
+redeemed by a fine [h].
+[FN [d] Tyrrel, Introduction, vol. i. p.126.  Carte, vol. i. p. 366.
+[e] Lindenbrogius, passim.  [f] Tac. de Mor. Germ.  [g] LL. Aelf. Sec.
+12.  Wilkins, p. 29.  It is probable that by wilful murder Alfred
+means a treacherous murder, committed by one who had no declared feud
+with another.  [h] LL. Aelf. Sec. 4  Wilkins, p. 35.]
+
+The price of all kinds of wounds was likewise fixed by the Saxon laws:
+a wound of an inch long under the hair, was paid with one shilling;
+one of a like size in the face, two shillings: thirty shillings for
+the loss of an ear, and so forth [i].  There seems not to have been
+any difference made, according to the dignity of the person.  By the
+laws of Ethelbert, any one who committed adultery with his neighbour's
+wife, was obliged to pay him a fine, and buy him another wife [k].
+[FN [i] LL. Elf. Sec. 40.  See also, LL. Ethelb. Sec. 34, &c.  [k] LL.
+Ethelb. Sec. 32.]
+
+These institutions are not peculiar to the ancient Germans.  They seem
+to be the necessary progress of criminal jurisprudence among every
+free people, where the will of the sovereign is not implicitly obeyed.
+We find them among the ancient Greeks during the time of the Trojan
+war.  Compositions for murder are mentioned in Nestor's speech to
+Achilles in the ninth Iliad and are called APOINAI.  The Irish, who
+never had any connexions with the German nations, adopted the same
+practice till very lately; and the price of a man's head was called
+among them his ERIC; as we learn from Sir John Davis.  The same custom
+seems also to have prevailed among the Jews [l].
+[FN [l] Exod. cap. xxi. 29, 30.]
+
+Theft and robbery were frequent among the Anglo-Saxons.  In order to
+impose some check upon these crimes, it was ordained, that no man
+should sell or buy any thing above twenty-pence value, except in open
+market [m]; and every bargain of sale must be executed before
+witnesses [n].  Gangs of robbers much disturbed the peace of the
+country; and the law determined, that a tribe of banditti, consisting
+of between seven and thirty-five persons, was to be called a TURMA, or
+troop: any greater company was denominated an army [o].  The
+punishments for this crime were various, but none of them capital [p].
+If any man could track his stolen cattle into another's ground, the
+latter was obliged to show the tracks out of it, or pay their value
+[q].
+[FN [m] LL. Aethelst. Sec. 12.  [n] Ibid. Sec. 10, 12.  LL. Edg. apud
+Wilkins, p. 80.  LL. Ethelredi, Sec. 4 apud Wilkins, p. 103.  Hloth.
+and Eadm. Sec. 16.  LL. Canut. Sec. 22.  [o] LL. Inae, Sec. 12.  [p]
+LL. Inae, Sec. 37.  [q] LL. Aethelst. Sec. 2. Wilkins, p. 63.]
+
+Rebellion, to whatever excess it was carried, was not capital, but
+might be redeemed by a sum of money [r].  The legislators, knowing it
+impossible to prevent all disorders, only imposed a higher fine on
+breaches of the peace committed in the king's court, or before an
+alderman or bishop.  An alehouse too seems to have been considered as
+a privileged place; and any quarrels that arose there were more
+severely punished than elsewhere [s].
+[FN [r] LL. Ethelredi, apud Wilkins, p. 110.  LL. Aelf. Sec. 4.
+Wilkins, p. 35.  [s] LL. Hloth. and Eadm. Sec. 12, 13.  LL. Ethelr.
+apud Wilkins, p. 117.]
+
+[MN Rules of proof.]
+If the manner of punishing crimes among the Anglo-Saxons appear
+singular, the proofs were not less so; and were also the natural
+result of the situation of the people.  Whatever we may imagine
+concerning the usual truth and sincerity of men who live in a rude and
+barbarous state, there is much more falsehood, and even perjury among
+them, than among civilized nations; virtue which is nothing but a more
+enlarged and more cultivated reason, never flourishes to any degree,
+nor is founded on steady principles of honour, except where a good
+education becomes general; and where men are taught the pernicious
+consequences of vice, treachery, and immorality.  Even superstition,
+though more prevalent among ignorant nations, is but a poor supply for
+the defects in knowledge and education: our European ancestors, who
+employed every moment the expedient of swearing on extraordinary
+crosses and relics, were less honourable in all engagements than their
+posterity, who, from experience, have omitted those ineffectual
+securities.  This general proneness to perjury was much increased by
+the usual want of discernment in judges, who could not discuss an
+intricate evidence, and were obliged to number, not weigh, the
+testimony of the witnesses [t].  Hence the ridiculous practice of
+obliging men to bring compurgators, who, as they did not pretend to
+know any thing of the fact, expressed upon oath, that they believed
+the person spoke true; and these compurgators were in some cases
+multiplied to the number of three hundred [u].  The practice also of
+single combat was employed by most nations on the continent as a
+remedy against false evidence [w]; and though it was frequently
+dropped, from the opposition of the clergy, it was continually revived
+from experience of the falsehood attending the testimony of witnesses
+[x].  It became at last a species of jurisprudence: the cases were
+determined by law, in which the party might challenge his adversary,
+or the witnesses, or the judge himself [y]: and though these customs
+were absurd, they were rather an improvement on the methods of trial
+which had formerly been practised among those barbarous nations, and
+which still prevailed among the Anglo-Saxons.
+[FN [t] Sometimes the laws fixed easy general rules for weighing the
+credibility of witnesses.  A man whose life was estimated at 120
+shillings, counterbalanced six ceorles, each of whose lives was only
+valued at 20 shillings, and his oath was deemed equivalent to that of
+all the six.  See Wilkins, p. 72.  [u] Praef. Nicol. ad Wilkins, p 11.
+[w] LL. Burgund. cap. 45.  LL. Lomb. lib. 2. tit. 55, cap. 34.  [x]
+LL. Longob. lib. 2. tit. 55. cap. 23. apud Landenb. p. 661.  [y] See
+Desfontaines and Beaumanoir.]
+
+When any controversy about a fact became too intricate for those
+ignorant judges to unravel, they had recourse to what they called the
+judgment of God; that is, to fortune: their methods of consulting this
+oracle were various.  One of them was the decision of the CROSS: it
+was practised in this manner: when a person was accused of any crime,
+he first cleared himself by oath, and he was attended by eleven
+compurgators.  He next took two pieces of wood, one of which was
+marked with the sign of the cross, and wrapping both up in wool, he
+placed them on the altar, or on some celebrated relic.  After solemn
+prayers for the success of the experiment, a priest, or, in his stead,
+some unexperienced youth, took up one of the pieces of wood, and if he
+happened upon that which was marked with the figure of the cross, the
+person was pronounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty [z].  This
+practice, as it arose from superstition, was abolished by it in
+France.  The emperor, Lewis the Debonnaire, prohibited that method of
+trial, not because it was uncertain, but lest that sacred figure, says
+he, of the cross should be prostituted in common disputes and
+controversies [a].
+[FN [z] LL. Frison. tit. 14. apud Lindenbrogium, p. 496.  [a] Du
+Cange, in verb. CRUX.]
+
+The ordeal was another established method of trial among the Anglo-
+Saxons.  It was practised either by boiling water or red-hot iron.
+The former was appropriated to the common people; the latter to the
+nobility.  The water or iron was consecrated by many prayers, masses,
+fastings, and exorcisms [b]; after which the person accused either
+took up a stone sunk in the water [c] to a certain depth, or carried
+the iron to a certain distance; and his hand being wrapped up, and the
+covering sealed for three days, if there appeared, on examining it, no
+marks of burning, he was pronounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty
+[d].  The trial by cold water was different: the person was thrown
+into consecrated water; if he swam, he was guilty; if he sunk,
+innocent [e].  It is difficult for us to conceive how any innocent
+person could ever escape by the one trial, or any criminal be
+convicted by the other.  But there was another usage admirably
+calculated for allowing every criminal to escape who had confidence
+enough to try it.  A consecrated cake, called a corsned, was produced;
+which if the person could swallow and digest he was pronounced
+innocent [f].
+[FN [b] Spellm. in verb. ORDEAL.  Parker, p. 155.  Lindenbrog. p 1299.
+[c] LL. Inae, Sec. 77.  [d] Sometimes the person accused walked
+barefoot over red-hot iron.  [e] Spellm. in verb. ORDEALIUM.  [f]
+Spellm. in verb. CORSNED  Parker, p. 156.  Text. Roffens. p. 33.]
+
+[MN Military force.]
+The feudal law, if it had place at all among the Anglo-Saxons, which
+is doubtful, was not certainly extended over all the landed property,
+and was not attended with those consequences of homage, reliefs [g],
+wardship, marriage, and other burdens, which were inseparable from it
+in the kingdoms of the continent.  As the Saxons expelled, or almost
+entirely destroyed, the ancient Britons, they planted themselves in
+this island on the same footing with their ancestors in Germany, and
+found no occasion for the feudal institutions [h], which were
+calculated to maintain a kind of standing army, always in readiness to
+suppress any insurrection among the conquered people.  The trouble and
+expense of defending the state in England lay equally upon all the
+land; and it was usual for every five hides to equip a man for the
+service.  The TRINODA NECESSITAS, as it was called, or the burden of
+military expeditions, of repairing highways, and of building and
+supporting bridges, was inseparable from landed property, even though
+it belonged to the church or monasteries, unless exempted by a
+particular charter [i].  The ceorles or husbandmen were provided with
+arms, and were obliged to take their turn in military duty [k].  There
+were computed to be two hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred
+hides in England [l]; consequently, the ordinary military force of the
+kingdom consisted of forty-eight thousand seven hundred and twenty
+men; though, no doubt, on extraordinary occasions, a greater number
+might be assembled.  The king and nobility had some military tenants,
+who were called Sithcun-men [m].  And there were some lands annexed to
+the office of alderman, and to other offices; but these probably were
+not of great extent, and were possessed only during pleasure, as in
+the commencement of the feudal law in other countries of Europe.
+[FN [g] On the death of an alderman, a greater or lesser thane, there
+was a payment made to the king of his best arms; and this was called
+his heriot: but this was not of the nature of a relief.  See Spellm.
+of Tenures, p. 2.  The value of this heriot fixed by Canute's laws,
+Sec. 69.  [h] Bracton de Acqu. rer. domin. lib. 2. cap. 16.  See more
+fully Spellman of Feuds and Tenures, and Craigius de jure feud. lib.
+1. dieg. 7.  [i] Spellm. Conc. vol. i. p. 256.  [k] Inae, Sec. 51.
+[l] Spellm. of Feuds and Tenures, p. 17.  [m] Spellm. Conc. vol. i. p.
+195.]
+
+[MN Public revenue.]
+The revenue of the king seems to have consisted chiefly in his
+demesnes, which were large; and in the tolls and imposts which he
+probably levied at discretion on the boroughs and seaports that lay
+within his demesnes.  He could not alienate any part of the crown
+lands, even to religious uses, without the consent of the states [n].
+Danegelt was a land-tax of a shilling a hide, imposed by the states
+[o], either for payment of the sums exacted by the Danes, or for
+putting the kingdom in a posture of defence against those invaders
+[p].
+[FN [n] Spellm. Conc. vol. i. p. 340.  [o] Chron. Sax p. 128.  [p] LL.
+Edw. Con. Sec. 12.]
+
+[MN Value of money.]
+The Saxon pound, as likewise that which was coined for some centuries
+after the Conquest, was near three times the weight of our present
+money: there were forty-eight shillings in the pound, and five pence
+in a shilling [q]; consequently, a Saxon shilling was near a fifth
+heavier than ours, and a Saxon penny near three times as heavy [r].
+As to the value of money in those times, compared to commodities,
+there are some, though not very certain, means of computation.  A
+sheep, by the laws of Athelstan, was estimated at a shilling; that is,
+fifteen pence of our money.  The fleece was two fifths of the value of
+the whole sheep [s]; much above its present estimation; and the reason
+probably was, that the Saxons, like the ancients, were little
+acquainted with any clothing but what was made of wool.  Silk and
+cotton were quite unknown: linen was not much used.  An ox was
+computed at six times the value of a sheep; a cow at four [t].  If we
+suppose that the cattle in that age, from the defects in husbandry,
+were not so large as they are at present in England, we may compute
+that money was then near ten times of greater value.  A horse was
+valued at about thirty-six shillings of our money, or thirty Saxon
+shillings [u]; a mare a third less  A man at three pounds [w].  The
+board wages of a child the first year was eight shillings, together
+with a cow's pasture in summer, and an ox's in winter [x].  William of
+Malmesbury mentions it as a remarkably high price, that William Rufus
+gave fifteen marks for a horse, or about thirty pounds of our present
+money [y].  Between the years 900 and 1000, Ednoth bought a hide of
+land for about a hundred and eighteen shillings of our present money
+[z].  This was little more than a shilling an acre, which indeed
+appears to have been the usual price, as we may learn from other
+accounts [a].  A palfrey was sold for twelve shillings about the year
+966 [b].  The value of an ox in King Ethelred's time was between seven
+and eight shillings; a cow about six shillings [c].  Gervas of Tilbury
+says, that in Henry I.'s time, bread which would suffice a hundred men
+for a day was rated at three shillings, or a shilling of that age; for
+it is thought that, soon after the Conquest, a pound sterling was
+divided into twenty shillings: a sheep was rated at a shilling; and so
+of other things in proportion.  In Athelstan's time a ram was valued
+at a shilling, or four pence Saxon [d].  The tenants of Shireburn were
+obliged, at their choice, to pay either sixpence or four hens [e].
+About 1232, the Abbot of St. Alban's going on a journey, hired seven
+handsome stout horses; and agreed, if any of them died on the road, to
+pay the owner thirty shillings a-piece of our present money [f].  It
+is to be remarked, that in all ancient times the raising of corn,
+especially wheat, being a species of manufactory, that commodity
+always bore a higher price, compared to cattle, than it does in our
+times [g].  The Saxon Chronicle tells us [h], that in the reign of
+Edward the Confessor, there was the most terrible famine ever known;
+insomuch that a quarter of wheat rose to sixty pennies, or fifteen
+shillings of our present money.  Consequently it was as dear as if it
+now cost seven pounds ten shillings.  This much exceeds the great
+famine in the end of Queen Elizabeth, when a quarter of wheat was sold
+for four pounds.  Money in this last period was nearly of the same
+value as in our time.  These severe famines are a certain proof of bad
+husbandry.
+[FN [q] LL. Aelf. Sec. 40.  [r] FleetwoodÂ’s Chron. Pretiosum, p. 27,
+28, &c.  [s] LL. Inae, Sec. 69.  [t] Wilkins, p 66.  [u] Ibid. p. 126.
+[w] Ibid.  [x] LL. Inae, Sec. 38.  [y] p. 121.  [z] Hist. Rames, p.
+415.  [a] Hist. Eliens. p. 473.  [b] Ibid. p. 471.  [c] Wilkins, p.
+126.  [d] Ibid. p. 56.  [e] Monast. Anglic. vol. ii. p. 528.  [f] Mat.
+Paris.  [g] Fleetwood, p. 83, 94, 96, 98.  [h] p. 157.]
+
+On the whole, there are three things to be considered, wherever a sum
+of money is mentioned in ancient times.  First, the change of
+denomination, by which a pound has been reduced to the third part of
+its ancient weight in silver.  Secondly, the change in value by the
+greater plenty of money, which has reduced the same weight of silver
+to ten times less value compared to commodities; and consequently a
+pound sterling to the thirtieth part of the ancient value.  Thirdly,
+the fewer people and less industry, which were then to be found in
+every European kingdom.  This circumstance made even the thirtieth
+part of the sum more difficult to levy, and caused any sum to have
+more than thirty times greater weight and influence, both abroad and
+at home, than in our times; in the same manner that a sum, a hundred
+thousand pounds, for instance, is at present more difficult to levy in
+a small state, such as Bavaria, and can produce greater effects on
+such a small community, than on England.  This last difference is not
+easy to be calculated: but allowing that England has now six times
+more industry, and three times more people than it had at the
+Conquest, and for some reigns after that period, we are upon that
+supposition to conceive, taking all circumstances together, every sum
+of money mentioned by historians, as if it were multiplied more than a
+hundredfold above a sum of the same denomination at present.
+
+In the Saxon times, land was divided equally among all the male
+children of the deceased, according to the custom of Gavelkind.  The
+practice of entails is to be found in those times [i].  Land was
+chiefly of two kinds, bockland, or land held by book or charter, which
+was regarded as full property, and descended to the heirs of the
+possessor; and folkland, or the land held by the ceorles and common
+people, who were removable at pleasure, and were indeed only tenants
+during the will of their lords.
+[FN [i] LL Aelf. Sec. 37, apud Wilkins, p. 43.]
+
+The first attempt which we find in England to separate the
+ecclesiastical from the civil jurisdiction, was that law of Edgar, by
+which all disputes among the clergy were ordered to be carried before
+the bishop [k].  The penances were then very severe; but as a man
+could buy them off with money, or might substitute others to perform
+them, they lay easy upon the rich [l].
+[FN [k] Wilkins, p. 83.  [l] Wilkins, p. 96, 97.  Spellm. Conc. p.
+473.]
+
+[MN Manners.]
+With regard to the manners of the Anglo-Saxons we can say little, but
+that they were in general a rude uncultivated people, ignorant of
+letters, unskilled in the mechanical arts, untamed to submission under
+law and government, addicted to intemperance, riot, and disorder.
+Their best quality was their military courage, which yet was not
+supported by discipline or conduct.  Their want of fidelity to the
+prince, or to any trust reposed in them, appears strongly in the
+history of their later period; and their want of humanity in all their
+history.  Even the Norman historians, notwithstanding the low state of
+the arts in their own country, speak of them as barbarians, when they
+mention the invasion made upon them by the Duke of Normandy [m].  The
+Conquest put the people in a situation of receiving slowly, from
+abroad, the rudiments of science and cultivation, and of correcting
+their rough and licentious manners.
+[FN [m] Gul. Pict. p. 202.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CONSEQUENCES OF THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS.--SUBMISSION OF THE ENGLISH.--
+SETTLEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT.--KING'S RETURN TO NORMANDY.--DISCONTENTS
+OF THE ENGLISH.--THEIR INSURRECTIONS.--RIGOURS OF THE NORMAN
+GOVERNMENT.--NEW INSURRECTIONS.--NEW RIGOURS OF THE GOVERNMENT.--
+INTRODUCTION OF THE FEUDAL LAW.--INNOVATION IN ECCLESIASTICAL
+GOVERNMENT.--INSURRECTION OF THE NORMAN BARONS.--DISPUTE ABOUT
+INVESTITURES.--REVOLT OF PRINCE ROBERT.--DOMESDAY-BOOK.--THE NEW
+FOREST.--WAR WITH FRANCE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF WILLIAM THE
+CONQUEROR.
+
+
+
+[MN 1066.  Consequences of the battle of Hastings.]
+Nothing could exceed the consternation which seized the English, when
+they received intelligence of the unfortunate battle of Hastings, the
+death of their king, the slaughter of their principal nobility and of
+their bravest warriors, and the rout and dispersion of the remainder.
+But though the loss which they had sustained in that fatal action was
+considerable, it might have been repaired by a great nation; where the
+people were generally armed, and where there resided so many powerful
+noblemen in every province, who could have assembled their retainers,
+and have obliged the Duke of Normandy to divide his army, and probably
+to waste it in a variety of actions and rencounters.  It was thus that
+the kingdom had formerly resisted, for many years, its invaders, and
+had been gradually subdued, by the continued efforts of the Romans,
+Saxons, and Danes; and equal difficulties might have been apprehended
+by William in this bold and hazardous enterprise.  But there were
+several vices in the Anglo-Saxon constitution, which rendered it
+difficult for the English to defend their liberties in so critical an
+emergency.  The people had in a great measure lost all national pride
+and spirit, by their recent and long subjection to the Danes; and as
+Canute had, in the course of his administration, much abated the
+rigours of conquest, and had governed them equitably by their own
+laws, they regarded with the less terror the ignominy of a foreign
+yoke, and deemed the inconveniences of submission less formidable than
+those of bloodshed, war, and resistance.  Their attachment also to the
+ancient royal family had been much weakened by their habits of
+submission to the Danish princes, and by their late election of
+Harold, or their acquiescence in his usurpation.  And as they had long
+been accustomed to regard Edgar Atheling, the only heir of the Saxon
+line, as unfit to govern them even in times of order and tranquillity,
+they could entertain small hopes of his being able to repair such
+great losses as they had sustained, or to withstand the victorious
+arms of the Duke of Normandy.
+
+That they might not, however, be altogether wanting to themselves in
+this extreme necessity, the English took some steps towards adjusting
+their disjointed government, and uniting themselves against the common
+enemy.  The two potent earls, Edwin and Morcar, who had fled to London
+with the remains of the broken army, took the lead on this occasion:
+in concert with Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, a man possessed of
+great authority and of ample revenues, they proclaimed Edgar, and
+endeavoured to put the people in a posture of defence, and encouraged
+them to resist the Normans [a].  But the terror of the late defeat,
+and the near neighbourhood of the invaders, increased the confusion
+inseparable from great revolutions: and every resolution proposed was
+hasty, fluctuating, tumultuary; disconcerted by fear or faction,
+ill-planned, and worse executed.
+[FN [a] Gul. Pictav. p. 205.  Order. Vitalis, p. 502.  Hoveden, p.
+449.  Knyghton, p. 2343.]
+
+William, that his enemies might have no leisure to recover from their
+consternation, or unite their councils, immediately put himself in
+motion after his victory, and resolved to prosecute an enterprise
+which nothing but celerity and vigour could render finally successful.
+His first attempt was against Romney, whose inhabitants he severely
+punished, on account of their cruel treatment of some Norman seamen
+and soldiers, who had been carried thither by stress of weather, or by
+a mistake in their course [b]; and foreseeing that his conquest of
+England might still be attended with many difficulties and with much
+opposition, he deemed it necessary, before he should advance farther
+into the country, to make himself master of Dover, which would both
+secure him a retreat in case of adverse fortune, and afford him a safe
+landing-place for such supplies as might be requisite for pushing his
+advantages.  The terror diffused by his victory at Hastings was so
+great, that the garrison of Dover, though numerous and well provided,
+immediately capitulated; and as the Normans, rushing in to take
+possession of the town, hastily set fire to some of the houses,
+William, desirous to conciliate the minds of the English by an
+appearance of lenity and justice, made compensation to the inhabitants
+for their losses [c].
+[FN [b] Gul. Pictav. p. 204.  [c] Gul. Pictav. p. 204.]
+
+The Norman army, being much distressed with a dysentery, was obliged
+to remain here eight days, but the duke, on their recovery, advanced
+with quick marches towards London, and by his approach increased the
+confusions which were already so prevalent in the English councils.
+The ecclesiastics in particular, whose influence was great over the
+people, began to declare in his favour; and as most of the bishops and
+dignified clergymen were even then Frenchmen or Normans, the popeÂ’s
+bull, by which his enterprise was avowed and hallowed, was now openly
+insisted on as a reason for general submission.  The superior learning
+of those prelates, which, during the Confessor's reign, had raised
+them above the ignorant Saxons, made their opinions be received with
+implicit faith; and a young prince, like Edgar, whose capacity was
+deemed so mean, was but ill qualified to resist the impression which
+they made on the minds of the people.  A repulse which a body of
+Londoners received from five hundred Norman horse, renewed in the city
+the terror of the great defeat at Hastings; the easy submission of all
+the inhabitants of Kent was an additional discouragement to them; the
+burning of Southwark before their eyes made them dread a like fate to
+their own city; and no man any longer entertained thoughts but of
+immediate safety and of self-preservation.  Even the Earls Edwin and
+Morcar, in despair of making effectual resistance, retired with their
+troops to their own provinces; and the people thenceforth disposed
+themselves unanimously to yield to the  victor.  As soon as he passed
+the Thames at Wallingford, and reached Berkhamstead, Stigand, the
+primate, made submissions to him: before he came within sight of the
+city, all the chief nobility, and Edgar Atheling himself, the new-
+elected king, came into his camp, and declared their intention of
+yielding to his authority [d].  They requested him to mount their
+throne, which they now considered as vacant; and declared to him, that
+as they had always been ruled by regal power, they desired to follow,
+in this particular, the example of their ancestors, and knew of no one
+more worthy than himself to hold the reins of government [e].
+[FN [d] Hoveden, p. 450.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 634.  [e] Gul. Pict. p.
+205.  Ord. Vital. p. 503.]
+
+Though this was the great object to which the duke's enterprise
+tended, he feigned to deliberate on the offer; and being desirous at
+first of preserving the appearance of a legal administration, he
+wished to obtain a more explicit and formal consent of the English
+nation [f]: but Almar, of Aquitain, a man equally respected for valour
+in the field and for prudence in council, remonstrating with him on
+the danger of delay in so critical a conjuncture, he laid aside all
+farther scruples, and accepted of the crown which was tendered him.
+Orders were immediately issued to prepare every thing for the ceremony
+of his coronation; but as he was yet afraid to place entire confidence
+in the Londoners, who were numerous and warlike, he meanwhile
+commanded fortresses to be erected, in order to curb the inhabitants,
+and to secure his person and government [g].
+[FN [f] Gul. Pictav. p. 205.  [g] Ibid.]
+
+Stigand was not much in the dukeÂ’s favour, both because he had
+intruded into the see on the expulsion of Robert the Norman, and
+because he possessed such influence and authority over the English
+[h], as might be dangerous to a new-established monarch.  William,
+therefore, pretending that the primate had obtained his pall in an
+irregular manner from Pope Benedict IX., who was himself an usurper,
+refused to be consecrated by him, and conferred this honour on Aldred,
+Archbishop of York.  Westminster Abbey was the place appointed for
+that magnificent ceremony; the most considerable of the nobility, both
+English and Norman, attended the duke on this occasion: [MN 1066.
+Dec.] Aldred, in a short speech, asked the former whether they agreed
+to accept of William as their king: the Bishop of Coutance put the
+same question to the latter; and both being answered with acclamations
+[i], Aldred administered to the duke the usual coronation oath, by
+which he bound himself to protect the church, to administer justice,
+and to repress violence: he then anointed him, and put the crown upon
+his head [k].  There appeared nothing but joy in the countenances of
+the spectators: but in that very moment there burst forth the
+strongest symptoms of the jealousy and animosity which prevailed
+between the nations, and which continually increased during the reign
+of this prince.  The Norman soldiers, who were placed without, in
+order to guard the church, hearing the shouts within, fancied that the
+English were offering violence to their duke; and they immediately
+assaulted the populace, and set fire to the neighbouring houses.  The
+alarm was conveyed to the nobility who surrounded the prince; both
+English and Normans, full of apprehensions, rushed out to secure
+themselves from the present danger; and it was with difficulty that
+William himself was able to appease the tumult [l].
+[FN [h] Eadmer, p. 6.  [i] Order. Vital. p. 503.  [k] Malmesbury, p.
+271, says, that he also promised to govern the Normans and English by
+equal laws; and this addition to the usual oath seems not improbable,
+considering the circumstances of the times.  [l] Gul. Pict. p. 206.
+Order. Vitalis, p. 503.]
+
+[MN 1067.  Settlement of the government.]
+The king, thus possessed of the throne by a pretended destination of
+King Edward, and by an irregular election of the people, but still
+more by force of arms, retired from London to Berking, in Essex, and
+there received the submissions of all the nobility who had not
+attended his coronation.  Edric, surnamed the Forester, grand-nephew
+to that Edric, so noted for his repeated acts of perfidy during the
+reigns of Ethelred and Edmond; Earl Coxo, a man famous for bravery;
+even Edwin and Morcar, Earls of Mercia and Northumberland, with the
+other principal noblemen of England, came and swore fealty to him;
+were received into favour, and were confirmed in the possession of
+their estates and dignities [m].  Every thing bore the appearance of
+peace and tranquillity; and William had no other occupation than to
+give contentment to the foreigners who had assisted him to mount the
+throne, and to his new subjects, who had so readily submitted to him.
+[FN [m] Gul. Pict. p. 208.  Order. Vitalis, p. 506.]
+
+He had got possession of the treasure of Harold, which was
+considerable; and being also supplied with rich presents from the
+opulent men in all parts of England, who were solicitous to gain the
+favour of their new sovereign, he distributed great sums among his
+troops, and by this liberality gave them hopes of obtaining at length
+those more durable establishments which they had expected from his
+enterprise [n].  The ecclesiastics, both at home and abroad, had much
+forwarded his success, and he failed not, in return, to express his
+gratitude and devotion in the manner which was most acceptable to
+them: he sent Harold's standard to the pope, accompanied with many
+valuable presents: all the considerable monasteries and churches in
+France, where prayers had been put up for his success, now tasted of
+his bounty [o]: the English monks found him well disposed to favour
+their order; and be built a new convent near Hastings, which he called
+BATTLE ABBEY, and which, on pretence of supporting monks to pray for
+his own soul, and for that of Harold, served as a lasting memorial of
+his victory [p].
+[FN [n] Gul. Pict. p. 206.  [o] Ibid.  [p] Gul. Gemet. p. 288.  Chron.
+Sax. p. 189.  M. West. p. 226.  M. Paris p. 9.  Diceto, p. 482.  This
+convent was freed by him from all episcopal jurisdiction.  Monast.
+Ang. tom. i. p. 311, 312.]
+
+He introduced into England that strict execution of justice for which
+his administration had been much celebrated in Normandy; and even
+during this violent revolution, every disorder or oppression met with
+rigorous punishment [q].  His army, in particular, was governed with
+severe discipline; and, notwithstanding the insolence of victory, care
+was taken to give as little offence as possible to the jealousy of the
+vanquished.  The king appeared solicitous to unite, in an amicable
+manner, the Normans and the English, by intermarriages and alliances,
+and all his new subjects who approached his person were received with
+affability and regard.  No signs of suspicion appeared, not even
+towards Edgar Atheling, the heir of the ancient royal family, whom
+William confirmed in the honours of Earl of Oxford, conferred on him
+by Harold, and whom he affected to treat with the highest kindness, as
+nephew to the Confessor, his great friend and benefactor.  Though he
+confiscated the estates of Harold, and of those who had fought in the
+battle of Hastings on the side of that prince, whom he represented as
+an usurper, he seemed willing to admit of every plausible excuse for
+past opposition to his pretensions, and he received many into favour
+who had carried arms against him.  He confirmed the liberties and
+immunities of London and the other cities of England, and appeared
+desirous of replacing every thing on ancient establishments.  In his
+whole administration he bore the semblance of the lawful prince, not
+of the conqueror; and the English began to flatter themselves that
+they had changed, not the form of their government, but the succession
+only of their sovereigns, a matter which gave them small concern.  The
+better to reconcile his new subjects to his authority, William made a
+progress through some parts of England; and besides a splendid court
+and majestic presence, which overawed the people, already struck with
+his military fame, the appearance of his clemency and justice gained
+the approbation of the wise, attentive to the first steps of their new
+sovereign.
+[FN [q] Gul. Pict. p. 208.  Order. Vital. p. 506.]
+
+But amidst this confidence and friendship which he expressed for the
+English, the king took care to place all real power in the hands of
+his Normans, and still to keep possession of the sword, to which he
+was sensible he had owed his advancement to sovereign authority.  He
+disarmed the city of London and other places, which appeared most
+warlike and populous; and building citadels in that capital, as well
+as in Winchester, Hereford, and the cities best situated for
+commanding the kingdom, he quartered Norman soldiers in all of them,
+and left no where any power able to resist or oppose him.  He bestowed
+the forfeited estates on the most eminent of his captains, and
+established funds for the payment of his soldiers.  And thus, while
+his civil administration carried the face of a legal magistrate, his
+military institutions were those of a master and tyrant; at least of
+one who reserved to himself; whenever he pleased, the power of
+assuming that character.
+
+[MN 1067.  KingÂ’s return to Normandy.]
+By this mixture, however, of vigour and lenity, he had so soothed the
+minds of the English, that he thought he might safely revisit his
+native country, and enjoy the triumph and congratulation of his
+ancient subjects.  He left the administration in the hands of his
+uterine brother, Odo, Bishop of Baieux, and of William Fitz-Osberne.
+[MN March.]  That their authority might be exposed to less danger, he
+carried over with him all the most considerable nobility of England,
+who, while they served to grace his court by their presence and
+magnificent retinues, were in reality hostages for the fidelity of the
+nation.  Among these were Edgar Atheling, Stigand the Primate, the
+Earls Edwin and Morcar, Waltheof, the son of the brave Earl Siward,
+with others eminent for the greatness of their fortunes and families,
+or for their ecclesiastical and civil dignities.  He was visited at
+the abbey of Fescamp, where he resided, during some time, by Rodulph,
+uncle to the King of France, and by many powerful princes and nobles,
+who, having contributed to his enterprise, were desirous of
+participating in the joy and advantages of its success.  His English
+courtiers, willing to ingratiate themselves with their new sovereign,
+outvied each other in equipages and entertainments; and made a display
+of riches which struck the foreigners with astonishment.  William of
+Poictiers, a Norman historian [r], who was present, speaks with
+admiration of the beauty of their persons, the size and workmanship of
+their silver plate, the costliness of their embroideries, an art in
+which the English then excelled; and he expresses himself in such
+terms as tend much to exalt our idea of the opulence and cultivation
+of the people [s].  But though every thing bore the face of joy and
+festivity, and William himself treated his new courtiers with great
+appearance of kindness, it was impossible altogether to prevent the
+insolence of the Normans; and the English nobles derived little
+satisfaction from those entertainments, where they considered
+themselves as led in triumph by their ostentatious conqueror.
+[FN [r] P. 211, 212.  [s] As the historian chiefly insists on the
+silver plate, his panegyric on the English magnificence shows only how
+incompetent a judge he was of the matter.  Silver was then of ten
+times the value, and was more than twenty times more rare than at
+present; and consequently, of all species of luxury, plate must have
+been the rarest.]
+
+[MN 1067.  Discontents of the English.]
+In England affairs took still a worse turn during the absence of the
+sovereign.  Discontents and complaints multiplied every where; secret
+conspiracies were entered into against the government; hostilities
+were already begun in many places; and every thing seemed to menace a
+revolution, as rapid as that which had placed William on the throne.
+The historian above-mentioned, who is a panegyrist of his master,
+throws the blame entirely on the fickle and mutinous disposition of
+the English, and highly celebrates the justice and lenity of Odo's and
+Fitz-Osberne's administration [t].  But other historians, with more
+probability, impute the cause chiefly to the Normans, who, despising a
+people that had so easily submitted to the yoke, envying their riches,
+and grudging the restraints imposed upon their own rapine, were
+desirous of provoking them to a rebellion, by which they expected to
+acquire new confiscations and forfeitures, and to gratify those
+unbounded hopes which they had formed in entering on this enterprise
+[u].
+[FN [t] P. 212.  [u] Order. Vital. p. 507.]
+
+It is evident that the chief reason of this alteration in the
+sentiments of the English must be ascribed to the departure of
+William, who was alone able to curb the violence of his captains and
+to overawe the mutinies of the people.  Nothing indeed appears more
+strange, than that this prince, in less than three months after the
+conquest of a great, warlike, and turbulent nation, should absent
+himself in order to revisit his own country, which remained in
+profound tranquillity, and was not menaced by any of its neighbours;
+and should so long leave his jealous subjects at the mercy of an
+insolent and licentious army.  Were we not assured of the solidity of
+his genius, and the good sense displayed in all other circumstances of
+his conduct, we might ascribe this measure to a vain ostentation,
+which rendered him impatient to display his pomp and magnificence
+among his ancient subjects.  It is therefore more natural to believe,
+that in so extraordinary a step he was guided by a concealed policy,
+and that, though he had thought proper at first to allure the people
+to submission by the semblance of a legal administration, he found
+that he could neither satisfy his rapacious captains, nor secure his
+unstable government without farther exerting the rights of conquest,
+and seizing the possessions of the English.  In order to have a
+pretext for this violence, he endeavoured, without discovering his
+intentions, to provoke and allure them into insurrections, which, he
+thought, could never prove dangerous, while he detained all the
+principal nobility in Normandy, while a great and victorious army was
+quartered in England, and while he himself was so near to suppress any
+tumult or rebellion.  But as no ancient writer has ascribed this
+tyrannical purpose to William, it scarcely seems allowable, from
+conjecture alone, to throw such an imputation upon him.
+
+[MN Their insurrections.]
+But whether we are to account for that measure from the king's vanity
+or from his policy, it was the immediate cause of all the calamities
+which the English endured during this and the subsequent reigns, and
+gave rise to those mutual jealousies and animosities between them and
+the Normans, which were never appeased till a long tract of time had
+gradually united the two nations, and made them one people.  The
+inhabitants of Kent, who had first submitted to the conqueror, were
+the first that attempted to throw off the yoke; and in confederacy
+with Eustace, Count of Boulogne, who had also been disgusted by the
+Normans, they made an attempt, though without success, on the garrison
+of Dover [w].  Edric the Forester, whose possessions lay on the banks
+of the Severn, being provoked at the depredations of some Norman
+captains in his neighbourhood, formed an alliance with Blethyn and
+Rowallan, two Welsh princes; and endeavoured, with their assistance,
+to repel force by force [x].  But though these open hostilities were
+not very considerable, the disaffection was general among the English,
+who had become sensible, though too late, of their defenceless
+condition, and began already to experience those insults and injuries
+which a nation must always expect, that allows itself to be reduced to
+that abject situation.  A secret conspiracy was entered into to
+perpetrate, in one day, a general massacre of the Normans, like that
+which had formerly been executed upon the Danes; and the quarrel was
+become so general and national, that the vassals of Earl Coxo, having
+desired him to head them in an insurrection, and finding him resolute
+in maintaining his fidelity to William, put him to death as a traitor
+to his country.
+[FN [w] Gul. Gemet. p. 289.  Order. Vital. p. 508.  Anglia Sacra, vol.
+i. p. 245.  [x] Hoveden, p. 450.  M. West. p. 226.  Sim. Dunelm. p.
+197.]
+
+[MN Dec. 6.]
+The king, informed of these dangerous discontents, hastened over to
+England; and by his presence, and the vigorous measures which he
+pursued, disconcerted all the schemes of the conspirators.  Such of
+them as had been more violent in their mutiny, betrayed their guilt by
+flying or concealing themselves; and the confiscation of their
+estates, while it increased the number of malecontents, both enabled
+William to gratify farther the rapacity of his Norman captains, and
+gave them the prospect of new forfeitures and attainders.  The king
+began to regard all his English subjects as inveterate and
+irreclaimable enemies; and thenceforth either embraced, or was more
+fully confirmed in the resolution of seizing their possessions, and of
+reducing them to the most abject slavery.  Though the natural violence
+and severity of his temper made him incapable of feeling any remorse
+in the execution of this tyrannical purpose, he had art enough to
+conceal his intention, and to preserve still some appearance of
+justice in his oppressions.  He ordered all the English, who had been
+arbitrarily expelled by the Normans during his absence, to be restored
+to their estates [y]: but at the same time he imposed a general tax on
+the people, that of Danegelt, which had been abolished by the
+Confessor, and which had always been extremely odious to the nation
+[z].
+[FN [y] Chron. Sax. p. 173.  This fact is a full proof that the
+Normans had committed great injustice, and were the real cause of the
+insurrections of the English.  [z] Hoveden, p. 450.  Sim. Dunelm. p
+197.  Alur. Beverl. p. 127.]
+
+[MN 1068.]  As the vigilance of William overawed the malecontents,
+their insurrections were more the result of an impatient humour in the
+people, than of any regular conspiracy which could give them a
+rational hope of success against the established power of the Normans.
+The inhabitants of Exeter, instigated by Githa, mother to King Harold,
+refused to admit a Norman garrison, and betaking themselves to arms,
+were strengthened by the accession of the neighbouring inhabitants of
+Devonshire and Cornwall [a].  The king hastened with his forces to
+chastise this revolt; and on his approach, the wiser and more
+considerable citizens, sensible of the unequal contest, persuaded the
+people to submit, and to deliver hostages for their obedience.  A
+sudden mutiny of the populace broke this agreement; and William,
+appearing before the walls, ordered the eyes of one of the hostages to
+be put out, as an earnest of that severity which the rebels must
+expect if they persevered in their revolt [b].  The inhabitants were
+anew seized with terror, and surrendering at discretion, threw
+themselves at the king's feet, and supplicated his clemency and
+forgiveness.  William was not destitute of generosity, when his temper
+was not hardened either by policy or passion: he was prevailed on to
+pardon the rebels, and he set guards on all the gates, in order to
+prevent the rapacity and insolence of his soldiery [c].  Githa escaped
+with her treasures to Flanders.  The malecontents of Cornwall imitated
+the example of Exeter, and met with like treatment: and the king,
+having built a citadel in that city, which he put under the command of
+Baldwin, son of Earl Gilbert, returned to Winchester, and dispersed
+his army into their quarters.  He was here joined by his wife Matilda,
+who had not before visited England, and whom he now ordered to be
+crowned by Archbishop Aldred.  Soon after she brought him an accession
+to his family by the birth of a fourth son, whom he named Henry.  His
+three elder sons, Robert, Richard, and William, still resided in
+Normandy.
+[FN [a] Order. Vital. p. 510.  [b] Ibid.  [c] Ibid.]
+
+But though the king appeared thus fortunate, both in public and
+domestic life, the discontents of his English subjects augmented
+daily; and the injuries committed and suffered on both sides rendered
+the quarrel between them and the Normans absolutely incurable.  The
+insolence of victorious masters, dispersed throughout the kingdom,
+seemed intolerable to the natives; and wherever they found the
+Normans, separate or assembled in small bodies, they secretly set upon
+them, and gratified their vengeance by the slaughter of their enemies.
+But an insurrection in the north drew thither the general attention,
+and seemed to threaten more important consequences.  Edwin and Morcar
+appeared at the head of this rebellion; and these potent noblemen,
+before they took arms, stipulated for foreign succours from their
+nephew Blethyn, Prince of North Wales, from Malcolm, King of Scotland,
+and from Sweyn, King of Denmark.  Besides the general discontent which
+had seized the English, the two earls were incited to this revolt by
+private injuries.  William, in order to ensure them to his interests,
+had, on his accession, promised his daughter in marriage to Edwin; but
+either he had never seriously intended to perform this engagement, or,
+having changed his plan of administration in England from clemency to
+rigour, he thought it was to little purpose, if he gained one family,
+while he enraged the whole nation.  When Edwin, therefore, renewed his
+applications, be gave him an absolute denial [d]; and this
+disappointment, added to so many other reasons of disgust, induced
+that nobleman and his brother to concur with their incensed
+countrymen, and to make one general effort for the recovery of their
+ancient liberties.  William knew the importance of celerity in
+quelling an insurrection, supported by such powerful leaders, and so
+agreeable to the wishes of the people, and having his troops always in
+readiness, he advanced by great journeys to the north.  On his march
+he gave orders to fortify the castle of Warwick, of which he left
+Henry de Beaumont governor, and that of Nottingham, which he committed
+to the custody of William Peverell, another Norman captain [e].  He
+reached York before the rebels were in any condition for resistance,
+or were joined by any of the foreign succours which they expected,
+except a small reinforcement from Wales [f]; and the two earls found
+no means of safety, but having recourse to the clemency of the victor.
+Archil, a potent nobleman in those parts, imitated their example and
+delivered his son as a hostage for his fidelity [g]; nor were the
+people, thus deserted by their leaders, able to make any farther
+resistance.  But the treatment which William gave the chiefs was very
+different from that which fell to the share of their followers.  He
+observed religiously the terms which he had granted to the former, and
+allowed them for the present to keep possession of their estates; but
+he extended the rigours of his confiscations over the latter, and gave
+away their lands to his foreign adventurers.  These, planted
+throughout the whole country, and in possession of the military power,
+left Edwin and Morcar, whom he pretended to spare, destitute of all
+support, and ready to fall, whenever he should think proper to command
+their ruin.  A peace which he made with Malcolm, who did him homage
+for Cumberland, seemed at the same time to deprive them of all
+prospect of foreign assistance [h].
+[FN [d] Order. Vital. p. 511.  [e] Ibid.  [f] Ibid.  [g] Ibid.  [h]
+Order. Vital. p. 511.]
+
+[MN Rigours of the Norman government.]
+The English were now sensible that their final destruction was
+intended; and that instead of a sovereign, whom they had hoped to gain
+by their submission, they had tamely surrendered themselves, without
+resistance, to a tyrant and a conqueror.  Though the early
+confiscation of Harold's followers might seem iniquitous, being
+inflicted on men who had never sworn fealty to the Duke of Normandy,
+who were ignorant of his pretensions, and who only fought in defence
+of the government which they themselves had established in their own
+country; yet were these rigours, however contrary to the ancient Saxon
+laws, excused on account of the urgent necessities of the prince; and
+those who were not involved in the present ruin hoped that they should
+thenceforth enjoy, without molestation, their possessions and their
+dignities.  But the successive destruction of so many other families
+convinced them that the king intended to rely entirely on the support
+and affections of foreigners; and they foresaw new forfeitures,
+attainders, and acts of violence as the necessary result of this
+destructive plan of administration.  They observed that no Englishman
+possessed his confidence, or was intrusted with any command or
+authority; and that the strangers, whom a rigorous discipline could
+have but ill restrained, were encouraged in their insolence and
+tyranny against them.  The easy submission of the kingdom on its first
+invasion had exposed the natives to contempt; the subsequent proofs of
+their animosity and resentment had made them the object of hatred; and
+they were now deprived of every expedient by which they could hope to
+make themselves either regarded or beloved by their sovereign.
+Impressed with the sense of this dismal situation, many Englishmen
+fled into foreign countries with an intention of passing their lives
+abroad free from oppression, or of returning on a favourable
+opportunity to assist their friends in the recovery of their native
+liberties [i].  Edgar Atheling himself, dreading the insidious
+caresses of William, was persuaded by Cospatric, a powerful
+Northumbrian, to escape with him into Scotland; and he carried thither
+his two sisters, Margaret and Christina.  They were well received by
+Malcolm, who soon after espoused Margaret, the elder sister; and
+partly with a view of strengthening his kingdom by the accession of so
+many strangers, partly in hopes of employing them against the growing
+power of William, he gave great countenance to all the English exiles.
+Many of them settled there; and laid the foundation of families which
+afterwards made a figure in that country.
+[FN [i] Order. Vital. p. 508.  M. West. p. 225.  M. Paris, p. 4.  Sim.
+Dun. p. 197.]
+
+While the English suffered under these oppressions, even the
+foreigners were not much at their ease; but finding themselves
+surrounded on all hands by enraged enemies, who took every advantage
+against them, and menaced them with still more bloody effects of the
+public resentment, they began to wish again for the tranquillity and
+security of their native country.  Hugh de Grentmesnil, and Humphry de
+Teliol, though intrusted with great commands, desired to be dismissed
+the service; and some others imitated their example: a desertion which
+was highly resented by the king, and which he punished by the
+confiscation of all their possessions in England [k].  But William's
+bounty to his followers could not fail of alluring many new
+adventurers into his service; and the rage of the vanquished English
+served only to excite the attention of the king and those warlike
+chiefs, and keep them in readiness to suppress every commencement of
+domestic rebellion or foreign invasion.
+[FN [k] Order. Vitalis, p. 512.]
+
+[MN 1069.  New insurrections.]
+It was not long before they found occupation for their prowess and
+military conduct.  Godwin, Edmond, and Magnus, three sons of Harold,
+had, immediately after the defeat at Hastings, sought a retreat in
+Ireland; where, having met with a kind reception from Dermot and other
+princes of that country, they projected an invasion on England, and
+they hoped that all the exiles from Denmark, Scotland, and Wales,
+assisted by forces from these several countries, would at once
+commence hostilities, and rouse the indignation of the English against
+their haughty conquerors.  They landed in Devonshire; but found Brian,
+son of the Count of Britany, at the head of some foreign troops, ready
+to oppose them; and being defeated in several actions, they were
+obliged to retreat to their ships, and to return with great loss to
+Ireland [l].  The efforts of the Normans were now directed to the
+north, where affairs had fallen into the utmost confusion.  The more
+impatient of the Northumbrians had attacked Robert de Comyn, who was
+appointed governor of Durham; and gaining the advantage over him from
+his negligence, they put him to death in that city, with seven hundred
+of his followers [m].  This success animated the inhabitants of York,
+who, rising in arms, slew Robert Fitz-Richard, their governor [n]; and
+besieged in the castle William Mallet, on whom the command now
+devolved.  A little after, the Danish troops landed from three hundred
+vessels; Osberne, brother to King Sweyn, was intrusted with the
+command of these forces, and he was accompanied by Harold and Canute,
+two sons of that monarch.  Edgar Atheling appeared from Scotland, and
+brought along with him Cospatric, Waltheof, Siward, Bearne,
+Merleswain, Adelin, and other leaders, who, partly from the hopes
+which they gave of Scottish succours, partly from their authority in
+those parts, easily persuaded the warlike and discontented
+Northumbrians to join the insurrection.  Mallet, that he might better
+provide for the defence of the citadel of York, set fire to some
+houses which lay contiguous; but this expedient proved the immediate
+cause of his destruction.  The flames, spreading into the neighbouring
+streets, reduced the whole city to ashes: the enraged inhabitants,
+aided by the Danes, took advantage of the confusion to attack the
+castle, which they carried by assault; and the garrison, to the number
+of three thousand men, was put to the sword without mercy [o].
+[FN [l] Gul. Gemet. p. 290.  Order. Vital. p. 513.  Anglia Sacra, vol.
+i. p. 246.  [m] Order. Vital. p. 512.  Chron. de Mailr. p. 116.
+Hoveden, p. 450.  M. Paris, p. 5.  Sim. Dun. p. 198.  [n] Order.
+Vital. p. 512.  [o] Order. Vital. p. 513.  Hoveden, p. 451.]
+
+This success proved a signal to many other parts of England, and gave
+the people an opportunity of showing their malevolence to the Normans.
+Hereward, a nobleman in East Anglia celebrated for valour, assembled
+his followers, and taking shelter in the Isle of Ely, made inroads on
+all the neighbouring country [p].  The English in the counties of
+Somerset and Dorset rose in arms, and assaulted Montacute, the Norman
+governor; while the inhabitants of Cornwall and Devon invested Exeter,
+which, from the memory of William's clemency, still remained faithful
+to him.  Edric the Forester, calling in the assistance of the Welsh,
+laid siege to Shrewsbury, and made head against Earl Brient and
+Fitz-Osberne, who commanded in those quarters [q].  The English, every
+where, repenting their former easy submission, seemed determined to
+make by concert one great effort for the recovery of their liberties,
+and for the expulsion of their oppressors.
+[FN [p] Ingulph. p. 71.  Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 47.  [q]
+Order. Vital. p. 514.]
+
+William, undismayed amidst this scene of confusion, assembled his
+forces, and animating them with the prospect of new confiscations and
+forfeitures, he marched against the rebels in the north, whom he
+regarded as the most formidable, and whose defeat he knew would strike
+a terror into all the other malecontents.  Joining policy to force, he
+tried before his approach to weaken the enemy, by detaching the Danes
+from them; and he engaged Osberne, by large presents, and by offering
+him the liberty of plundering the sea-coast, to retire, without
+committing farther hostilities, into Denmark [r].  Cospatric, also, in
+despair of success, made his peace with the king, and paying a sum of
+money as an atonement for his insurrection, was received into favour,
+and even invested with the earldom of Northumberland.  Waltheof, who
+long defended York with great courage, was allured with this
+appearance of clemency; and as William knew how to esteem valour, even
+in an enemy, that nobleman had no reason to repent of his confidences
+[s].  Even Edric, compelled by necessity, submitted to the conqueror,
+and received forgiveness, which was soon after followed by some degree
+of trust and favour.  Malcolm, coming too late to support his
+confederates, was constrained to retire; and all the English rebels in
+other parts, except Hereward, who still kept in his fastnesses,
+dispersed themselves, and left the Normans undisputed masters of the
+kingdom.  Edgar Atheling, with his followers, sought again a retreat
+in Scotland from the pursuit of his enemies.
+[FN [r] Hoveden, p. 451.  Chron Abb. St Petri de Burgo, p. 47.  Sim.
+Dun. p. 199.  [s] Malmes. p. 104.  H. Hunt. p. 369.]
+
+[MN 1070.  New rigours of the government.]
+But the seeming clemency of William towards the English leaders
+proceeded only from artifice, or from his esteem of individuals: his
+heart was hardened against all compassion towards the people; and he
+scrupled no measure, however violent or severe, which seemed requisite
+to support his plan of tyrannical administration.  Sensible of the
+restless disposition of the Northumbrians, he determined to
+incapacitate them ever after from giving him disturbance, and he
+issued orders for laying entirely waste that fertile country which,
+for the extent of sixty miles, lies between the Humber and the Tees
+[t].  The houses were reduced to ashes by the merciless Normans; the
+cattle seized and driven away; the instruments of husbandry destroyed;
+and the inhabitants compelled either to seek for a subsistence in the
+southern parts of Scotland, or if they lingered in England, from a
+reluctance to abandon their ancient habitations, they perished
+miserably in the woods from cold and hunger.  The lives of a hundred
+thousand persons are computed to have been sacrificed to this stroke
+of barbarous policy [u], which, by seeking a remedy for a temporary
+evil, thus inflicted a lasting wound on the power and populousness of
+the nation.
+[FN [t] Chron. Sax. p. 174.  Ingulph. p. 79.  Malmes. p. 103.
+Hoveden, p. 451.  Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 47.  M. Paris, p.
+5.  Sim. Dun. p. 199.  Brompton, p. 966.  Knyghton, p. 2344.  Anglia
+Sacra, vol. i. p. 702.  [u] Order. Vital. p. 515.]
+
+But William finding himself entirely master of a people who had given
+him such sensible proofs of their impotent rage and animosity, now
+resolved to proceed to extremities against all the natives of England,
+and to reduce them to a condition in which they should no longer be
+formidable to his government.  The insurrections and conspiracies in
+so many parts of the kingdom had involved the bulk of the landed
+proprietors, more or less, in the guilt of treason; and the king took
+advantage of executing against them, with the utmost rigour, the laws
+of forfeiture and attainder.  Their lives were indeed commonly spared;
+but their estates were confiscated, and either annexed to the royal
+demesnes, or conferred with the most profuse bounty on the Normans and
+other foreigners [w].  While the king's declared intention was to
+depress, or rather entirely extirpate the English gentry [x], it is
+easy to believe that scarcely the form of justice would be observed in
+those violent proceedings [y]; and that any suspicions served as the
+most undoubted proofs of guilt against a people thus devoted to
+destruction.  It was crime sufficient in an Englishman to be opulent,
+or noble, or powerful; and the policy of the king, concurring with the
+rapacity of foreign adventurers, produced almost a total revolution in
+the landed property of the kingdom.  Ancient and honourable families
+were reduced to beggary; the nobles themselves were every where
+treated with ignominy and contempt; they had the mortification of
+seeing their castles and manors possessed by Normans of the meanest
+birth and lowest stations [z]; and they found themselves carefully
+excluded from every road which led either to riches or preferment [a].
+[FN [w] W. Malmes. p. 104.  [x] H. Hunt p. 370.  [y] See note [H], at
+the end of the volume.  [z] Order. Vitalis, p. 521.  M. West. p. 229.
+[a] See note [I], at the end of the volume.]
+
+[MN Introduction of the feudal law.]
+As power naturally follows property, this revolution alone gave great
+security to the foreigners; but William, by the new institutions which
+he established, took also care to retain for ever the military
+authority in those hands which had enabled him to subdue the kingdom.
+He introduced into England the feudal law, which he found established
+in France and Normandy, and which, during that age, was the foundation
+both of the stability and of the disorders in most of the monarchical
+governments of Europe.  He divided all the lands of England, with very
+few exceptions, beside the royal demesnes, into baronies, and he
+conferred these, with the reservation of stated services and payments,
+on the most considerable of his adventurers.  These great barons, who
+held immediately of the crown, shared out a great part of their lands
+to other foreigners, who were denominated knights or vassals, and who
+paid their lord the same duty and submission in peace and war, which
+he himself owed to his sovereign.  The whole kingdom contained about
+seven hundred chief tenants, and sixty thousand two hundred and
+fifteen knights-fees [b]; and as none of the native English were
+admitted into the first rank, the few who retained their landed
+property were glad to be received into the second, and under the
+protection of some powerful Norman, to load themselves and their
+posterity with this grievous burden, for estates which they had
+received free from their ancestors [c].  The small mixture of English
+which entered into this civil or military fabric (for it partook of
+both species) was so restrained by subordination under the foreigners,
+that the Norman dominion seemed now to be fixed on the most durable
+basis, and to defy all the efforts of its enemies.
+[FN [b] Order. Vital. p. 523.  Secretum Abbatis, apud Selden, Titles
+of Honour, p. 573.  Spellm. Gloss. in verbo FEODUM.  Sir Robert
+Cotton.  [c] M. West. p. 225.  M. Paris, p. 4.  Bracton, lib. 1. cap.
+II. num. 1.  Fleta, lib i. cap. 8. n. 2.]
+
+The better to unite the parts of the government, and to bind them into
+one system, which might serve both for defence against foreigners, and
+for the support of domestic tranquillity, William reduced the
+ecclesiastical revenues under the same feudal law; and though he had
+courted the church on his invasion and accession, he now subjected it
+to services which the clergy regarded as a grievous slavery, and as
+totally unbefitting their profession.  The bishops and abbots were
+obliged, when required, to furnish to the king, during war, a number
+of knights, or military tenants, proportioned to the extent of
+property possessed by each see or abbey; and they were liable, in case
+of failure, to the same penalties which were exacted from the laity
+[d]  The pope and the ecclesiastics exclaimed against this tyranny, as
+they called it; but the king's authority was so well established over
+the army, who held every thing from his bounty, that superstition
+itself, even in that age, when it was most prevalent, was constrained
+to bend under his superior influence.
+[FN [d] M. Paris, p. 5.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 248.]
+
+But as the great body of the clergy were still natives, the king had
+much reason to dread the effects of their resentment; he therefore
+used the precaution of expelling the English from all the considerable
+dignities, and of advancing foreigners in their place.  The partiality
+of the Confessor towards the Normans had been so great, that, aided by
+their superior learning, it had promoted them to many of the sees in
+England; and even before the period of the Conquest, scarcely more
+than six or seven of the prelates were natives of the country.  But
+among these was Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury; a man who, by his
+address and vigour, by the greatness of his family and alliances, by
+the extent of his possessions, as well as by the dignity of his
+office, and his authority among the English, gave jealousy to the king
+[e].  Though William had, on his accession, affronted this prelate by
+employing the Archbishop of York to officiate at his consecration, he
+was careful on other occasions to load hint with honours and caresses,
+and to avoid giving him farther offence till the opportunity should
+offer of effecting his final destruction [f].  The suppression of the
+late rebellions, and the total subjection of the English, made him
+hope that an attempt against Stigand, however violent, would be
+covered by his great successes, and be overlooked amidst the other
+important revolutions which affected so deeply the property and
+liberty of the kingdom.  Yet, notwithstanding these great advantages,
+he did not think it safe to violate the reverence usually paid to the
+primate; but under cover of a new superstition, which he was the great
+instrument of introducing into England.
+[FN [e] Parker, p. 161.  [f] Ibid. p. 164.]
+
+[MN Innovation in ecclesiastical government.]
+The doctrine which exalted the papacy above all human power had
+gradually diffused itself from the city and court of Rome; and was,
+during that age, much more prevalent in the southern than in the
+northern kingdoms of Europe.  Pope Alexander, who had assisted William
+in his conquests, naturally expected that the French and Normans would
+import into England the same reverence for his sacred character with
+which they were impressed in their own country; and would break the
+spiritual as well as civil independency of the Saxons, who had
+hitherto conducted their ecclesiastical government, with an
+acknowledgment indeed of primacy in the see of Rome, but without much
+idea of its title to dominion or authority.  As soon, therefore, as
+the Norman prince seemed fully established on the throne, the pope
+despatched Ermenfroy, Bishop of Sion, as his legate into England; and
+this prelate was the first that had ever appeared with that character
+in any part of the British islands.  The king, though he was probably
+led by principle to pay this submission to Rome, determined, as is
+usual, to employ the incident as a means of serving his political
+purposes, and of degrading those English prelates who were become
+obnoxious to him.  The legate submitted to become the instrument of
+his tyranny; and thought, that the more violent the exertion of power,
+the more certainly did it confirm the authority of that court from
+which he derived his commission.  He summoned, therefore, a council of
+the prelates and abbots at Winchester; and being assisted by two
+cardinals, Peter and John, he cited before him Stigand, Archbishop of
+Canterbury, to answer for his conduct.  The primate was accused of
+three crimes: the holding of the see of Winchester, together with that
+of Canterbury; the officiating in the pall of Robert his predecessor;
+and the having received his own pall from Benedict IX., who was
+afterwards deposed for simony, and for intrusion into the papacy [g].
+These crimes of Stigand were mere pretences; since the first had been
+a practice not unusual in England, and was never any where subjected
+to a higher penalty than a resignation of one of the sees; the second
+was a pure ceremonial; and as Benedict was the only pope who then
+officiated, and his acts were never repealed, all the prelates of the
+church, especially those who lay at a distance, were excusable for
+making their applications to him.  Stigand's ruin, however, was
+resolved on, and was prosecuted with great severity.  The legate
+degraded him from  his dignity: the king confiscated his estate, and
+cast him into prison, where he continued, in poverty and want, during
+the remainder of his life.  Like rigour was exercised against the
+other English prelates: Agelric, Bishop of Selesey and Agelmare, of
+Elmham, were deposed by the legate, and imprisoned by the king.  Many
+considerable abbots shared the same fate: Egelwin, Bishop of Durham,
+fled the kingdom: Wulstan, of Worcester, a man of an inoffensive
+character, was the only English prelate that escaped this general
+proscription [h], and remained in possession of his dignity.  Aldred,
+Archbishop of York, who had set the crown on William's head, had died
+a little before of grief and vexation, and had left his malediction to
+that prince on account of the breach of his coronation oath, and of
+the extreme tyranny with which he saw he was determined to treat his
+English subjects [i].
+[FN [g] Hoveden, p. 453.  Diceto, p. 482.  Knyghton, p. 2345.  Anglia
+Sacra, vol. i. p. 5, 6.  Ypod. Neust. p. 438.  [h] Brompton relates,
+that Wulstan was also deprived by the synod; but refusing to deliver
+his pastoral staff and ring to any but the person from whom he first
+received it, he went immediately to King Edward's tomb, and struck the
+staff so deeply into the stone, that none but himself was able to pull
+it out: upon which he was allowed to keep his bishopric.  This
+instance may serve, instead of many, as a specimen of the monkish
+miracles.  See also the annals of Burton, p. 284.  [i] Malmes. de
+Gest. Pont. p. 154.]
+
+It was a fixed maxim in this reign, as well as in some of the
+subsequent, that no native of the island should ever be advanced to
+any dignity, ecclesiastical, civil, or military [k]  The king,
+therefore, upon Stigand's deposition, promoted Lanfranc, a Milanese
+monk, celebrated for his learning and piety, to the vacant see.  This
+prelate was rigid in defending the prerogatives of his station; and
+after a long process before the pope, he obliged Thomas, a Norman
+monk, who had been appointed to the see of York, to acknowledge the
+primacy of the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Where ambition can be so
+happy as to cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under
+the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible
+of all human passions.  Hence Lanfranc's zeal in promoting the
+interests of the papacy, by which he himself augmented his own
+authority, was indefatigable; and met with proportionable success.
+The devoted attachment to Rome continually increased in England; and
+being favoured by the sentiments of the conquerors, as well as by the
+monastic establishments formerly introduced by Edred and by Edgar, it
+soon reached the same height at which it had, during some time, stood
+in France and Italy [l].  [MN 1070.]  It afterwards went much farther;
+being favoured by that very remote situation which had at first
+obstructed its progress; and being less checked by knowledge and a
+liberal education, which were still somewhat more common in the
+southern countries.
+[FN [k] Ingulph. p. 70, 71.  [l] M. West. p. 228.  Lanfranc wrote in
+defence of the real presence against Berengarius; and in those ages of
+stupidity and ignorance, he was greatly applauded for that
+performance.]
+
+The prevalence of this superstitious spirit became dangerous to some
+of William's successors, and incommodious to most of them; but the
+arbitrary sway of this king over the English, and his extensive
+authority over the foreigners, kept him from feeling any immediate
+inconveniences from it.  He retained the church in great subjection,
+as well as his lay subjects; and would allow none, of whatever
+character, to dispute his sovereign will and pleasure.  He prohibited
+his subjects from acknowledging any one for pope whom he himself had
+not previously received: he required that all the ecclesiastical
+canons, voted in any synod, should first be laid before him, and be
+ratified by his authority: even bulls or letters from Rome could not
+legally be produced, till they received the same sanction: and none of
+his ministers or barons, whatever offences they were guilty of, could
+be subjected to spiritual censures till he himself had given his
+consent to their excommunication [m].  These regulations were worthy
+of a sovereign, and kept united the civil and ecclesiastical powers,
+which the principles introduced by this prince himself had an
+immediate tendency to separate.
+[FN [m] Eadmer, p. 6.]
+
+But the English had the cruel mortification to find that their king's
+authority, however acquired or however extended, was all employed in
+their oppression; and that the scheme of their subjection, attended
+with every circumstance of insult and indignity [n], was deliberately
+formed by the prince, and wantonly prosecuted by his followers [o].
+William had even entertained the difficult project of totally
+abolishing the English language; and, for that purpose, he ordered,
+that in  all schools throughout the kingdom, the youth should be
+instructed in the French tongue; a practice which was continued from
+custom till after the reign of Edward III., and was never indeed
+totally discontinued in England.  The pleadings in the supreme courts
+of judicature were in French [p]: the deeds were often drawn in the
+same language: the laws were composed in that idiom [q]: no other
+tongue was used at court: it became the language of all fashionable
+company; and the English themselves, ashamed of their own country,
+affected to excel in that foreign dialect.  From this attention of
+William, and from the extensive foreign dominions long annexed to the
+crown of England, proceeded that mixture of French which is at present
+to be found in the English tongue, and which composes the greatest and
+best part of our language.  But amidst those endeavours to depress the
+English nation, the king, moved by the remonstrances of some of his
+prelates, and by the earnest desires of the people, restored a few of
+the laws of King Edward [r]; which, though seemingly of no great
+importance towards the protection of general liberty, gave them
+extreme satisfaction, as a memorial of their ancient government, and
+an unusual mark of complaisance in their imperious conquerors [s].
+[FN [n] Order. Vital. p. 523.  H. Hunt. p. 370.  [o] Ingulph. p. 71.
+[p] 36 Edw. III. cap. 15.  Selden Spicileg. ad Eadmer, p. 189.
+Fortescue de laud leg. Angl. cap. 48.  [q] Chron. Rothom. A. D. 1066.
+[r] Ingulph. p. 88.  Brompton, p. 982.  Knyghton, p. 2355.  Hoveden,
+p. 600.  [s] See note [K], at the end of the volume.]
+
+[MN 1071.]  The situation of the two great earls, Morcar and Edwin,
+became now very disagreeable.  Though they had retained their
+allegiance during this general insurrection of their countrymen, they
+had not gained the king's confidence, and they found themselves
+exposed to the malignity of the courtiers, who envied them on account
+of their opulence and greatness, and at the same time involved them in
+that general contempt which they entertained for the English.
+Sensible that they had entirely lost their dignity, and could not even
+hope to remain long in safety; they determined, though too late, to
+share the same fate with their countrymen.  While Edwin retired to his
+estate in the north, with a view of commencing an insurrection, Morcar
+took shelter in the Isle of Ely with the brave Hereward, who, secured
+by the inaccessible situation of the place, still defended himself
+against the Normans.  But this attempt served only to accelerate the
+ruin of the few English who had hitherto been able to preserve their
+rank or fortune during the past convulsions.  William employed all his
+endeavours to subdue the Isle of Ely; and having surrounded it with
+flat-bottomed boats, and made a causeway through the morasses to the
+extent of two miles, he obliged the rebels to surrender at discretion.
+Hereward alone forced his way, sword in hand, through the enemy; and
+still continued his hostilities by sea against the Normans, till at
+last William, charmed with his bravery, received him into favour, and
+restored him to his estate.  Earl Morcar, and Egelwin, Bishop of
+Durham, who had joined the malecontents, were thrown into prison, and
+the latter soon after died in confinement.  Edwin, attempting to make
+his escape into Scotland, was betrayed by some of his followers, and
+was killed by a party of Normans, to the great affliction of the
+English, and even to that of William, who paid a tribute of generous
+tears to the memory of this gallant and beautiful youth.  The King of
+Scotland, in hopes of profiting by these convulsions, had fallen upon
+the northern counties; but on the approach of William, he retired; and
+when the king entered his country, he was glad to make peace, and to
+pay the usual homage to the English crown.  To complete the king's
+prosperity, Edgar Atheling himself, despairing of success, and weary
+of a fugitive life, submitted to his enemy; and receiving a decent
+pension for his subsistence, was permitted to live in England
+unmolested.  But these acts of generosity towards the leaders were
+disgraced, as usual, by William's rigour against the inferior
+malecontents.  He ordered the hands to be lopt off; and the eyes to be
+put out, of many of the prisoners whom he had taken in the Isle of
+Ely; and he dispersed them in that miserable condition throughout the
+country, as monuments of his severity.
+
+[MN 1073.]  The province of Maine, in France, had, by the will of
+Herbert, the last count, fallen under the dominion of William some
+years before his conquest of England; but the inhabitants,
+dissatisfied with the Norman government, and instigated by Fulk, Count
+of Anjou, who had some pretensions to the succession, now rose in
+rebellion, and expelled the magistrates whom the king had placed over
+them.  The full settlement of England afforded him leisure to punish
+this insult on his authority; but being unwilling to remove his Norman
+forces from this island, he carried over a considerable army, composed
+almost entirely of English; and joining them to some troops levied in
+Normandy, he entered the revolted province.  The English appeared
+ambitious of distinguishing themselves on this occasion, and of
+retrieving that character of valour which had long been national among
+them; but which their late easy subjection under the Normans had
+somewhat degraded and obscured.  Perhaps too they hoped that, by their
+zeal and activity, they might recover the confidence of their
+sovereign, as their ancestors had formerly, by like means, gained the
+affections of Canute; and might conquer his inveterate prejudices in
+favour of his own countrymen.  The king's military conduct, seconded
+by these brave troops, soon overcame all opposition in Maine: the
+inhabitants were obliged to submit, and the Count of Anjou
+relinquished his pretensions.
+
+[MN 1074.  Insurrection of the Norman barons.]
+But during these transactions the government of England was greatly
+disturbed; and that too by those very foreigners who owed every thing
+to the kingÂ’s bounty, and who were the sole object of his friendship
+and regard.  The Norman barons, who had engaged with their duke in the
+conquest of England, were men of the most independent spirit; and
+though they obeyed their leader in the field, they would have regarded
+with disdain the richest acquisitions, had they been required in
+return to submit, in their civil government, to the arbitrary will of
+one man.  But the imperious character of William, encouraged by his
+absolute dominion over the English, and often impelled by the
+necessity of his affairs, had prompted him to stretch his authority
+over the Normans themselves beyond what the free genius of that
+victorious people could easily bear.  The discontents were become
+general among those haughty nobles; and even Roger, Earl of Hereford,
+son and heir of Fitz-Osberne, the king's chief favourite, was strongly
+infected with them.  This nobleman, intending to marry his sister to
+Ralph de Guader, Earl of Norfolk, had thought it his duty to inform
+the king of his purpose, and to desire the royal consent; but meeting
+with a refusal, he proceeded nevertheless to complete the nuptials,
+and assembled all his friends, and those of Guader, to attend the
+solemnity.  The two earls, disgusted by the denial of their request,
+and dreading William's resentment for their disobedience, here
+prepared measures for a revolt; and during the gaiety of the festival,
+while the company was heated with wine, they opened the design to
+their guests.  They inveighed against the arbitrary conduct of the
+king; his tyranny over the English, whom they affected on this
+occasion to commiserate; his imperious behaviour to his barons of the
+noblest birth; and his apparent intention of reducing the victors and
+the vanquished to a like ignominious servitude.  Amidst their
+complaints, the indignity of submitting to a bastard [t] was not
+forgotten; the certain prospect of success in a revolt, by the
+assistance of the Danes and the discontented English, was insisted on;
+and the whole company, inflamed with the same sentiments, and warmed
+by the jollity of the entertainment, entered, by a solemn engagement,
+into the design of shaking off the royal authority.  Even Earl
+Waltheof; who was present, inconsiderately expressed his approbation
+of the conspiracy, and promised his concurrence towards its success.
+[FN [t] William was so little ashamed of his birth, that be assumed
+the appellation of bastard in some of his letters and charters.
+Spellm. Gloss. in verb. BASTARDUS.  Camden in RICHMONDSHIRE.]
+
+This nobleman, the last of the English who, for some generations,
+possessed any power or authority, had, after his capitulation at York,
+been received into favour by the Conqueror; had even married Judith,
+niece to that prince; and had been promoted to the earldoms of
+Huntingdon and Northampton [u].  Cospatric, Earl of Northumberland,
+having, on some new disgust from William, retired into Scotland, where
+he received the earldom of Dunbar from the bounty of Malcolm; Waltheof
+was appointed his successor in that important command, and seemed
+still to possess the confidence and friendship of his sovereign [w].
+But as he was a man of generous principles, and loved his country, it
+is probable that the tyranny exercised over the English lay heavy upon
+his mind, and destroyed all the satisfaction which he could reap from
+his own grandeur and advancement.  When a prospect, therefore, was
+opened of retrieving their liberty, he hastily embraced it; while the
+fumes of the liquor, and the ardour of the company, prevented him from
+reflecting on the consequences of that rash attempt.  But after his
+cool judgment returned, he foresaw that the conspiracy of those
+discontented barons was not likely to prove successful against the
+established power of William; or if it did, that the slavery of the
+English, instead of being alleviated by that event, would become more
+grievous, under a multitude of foreign leaders, factious and
+ambitious, whose union and whose discord would be equally oppressive
+to the people.  Tormented with these reflections, he opened his mind
+to his wife Judith, of whose fidelity he entertained no suspicion, but
+who, having secretly fixed her affections on another, took this
+opportunity of ruining her easy and credulous husband.  She conveyed
+intelligence of the conspiracy to the king, and aggravated every
+circumstance, which, she believed, would tend to incense him against
+Waltheof, and render him absolutely implacable [x].  Meanwhile the
+earl, still dubious with regard to the part which he should act,
+discovered the secret in confession to Lanfranc, on whose probity and
+judgment he had a great reliance: he was persuaded by the prelate,
+that he owed no fidelity to those rebellious barons, who had by
+surprise gained his consent to a crime; that his first duty was to his
+sovereign and benefactor; his next to himself and his family; and
+that, if he seized not the opportunity of making atonement for his
+guilt by revealing it, the temerity of the conspirators was so great,
+that they would give some other person the means of acquiring the
+merit of the discovery.  Waltheof, convinced by these arguments, went
+over to Normandy; but though he was well received by the king, and
+thanked for his fidelity, the account previously transmitted by Judith
+had sunk deep into William's mind, and had destroyed all the merit of
+her husband's repentance.
+[FN [u] Order. Vital. p. 522.  Hoveden, p. 454.  [w] Sim. Dun. p. 205.
+[x] Order. Vital. p. 536.]
+
+The conspirators, hearing of Waltheof's departure, immediately
+concluded their design to be betrayed; and they flew to arms before
+their schemes were ripe for execution, and before the arrival of the
+Danes, in whose aid they placed their chief confidence.  The Earl of
+Hereford was checked by Walter de Lacy, a great baron in those parts,
+who, supported by the Bishop of Worcester and the Abbot of Evesham,
+raised some forces, and prevented the earl from passing the Severn, or
+advancing into the heart of the kingdom.  The Earl of Norfolk was
+defeated at Fagadun, near Cambridge, by Odo, the regent, assisted by
+Richard de Bienfaite and William de Warenne, the two justiciaries.
+The prisoners taken in this action had their right foot cut off, as a
+punishment of their treason: the earl himself escaped to Norwich,
+thence to Denmark; where the Danish fleet, which had made an
+unsuccessful attempt upon the coast of England [y], soon after
+arrived, and brought him intelligence, that all his confederates were
+suppressed, and were either killed, banished, or taken prisoners [z].
+Ralph retired in despair to Britany, where he possessed a large estate
+and extensive jurisdictions.
+[FN [y] Chron. Sax. p. 183.  M. Paris, p. 7.  [z] Many of the
+fugitive Normans are supposed to have fled into Scotland; where they
+were protected, as well as the fugitive English, by Malcolm.  Whence
+come the many French and Norman families, which are found at present
+in that country.]
+
+The king, who hastened over to England in order to suppress the
+insurrection, found that nothing remained but the punishment of the
+criminals, which he executed with great severity.  Many of the rebels
+were hanged; some had their eyes put out; others their hands cut off.
+But William, agreeably to his usual maxims, showed more lenity to
+their leader, the Earl of Hereford, who was only condemned to a
+forfeiture of his estate, and to imprisonment during pleasure.  The
+king seemed even disposed to remit this last part of the punishment,
+had not Roger, by a fresh insolence, provoked him to render his
+confinement perpetual.  [MN 1075.]  But Waltheof, being an Englishman,
+was not treated with so much humanity; though his guilt, always much
+inferior to that of the other  conspirators, was atoned for by an
+early repentance and return to his duty.  William, instigated by his
+niece, as well as by his rapacious courtiers, who longed for so rich a
+forfeiture, ordered him to be tried, condemned, and executed.  [MN
+29th April 1075.]  The English, who considered this nobleman as the
+last resource of their nation, grievously lamented his fate, and
+fancied that miracles were wrought by his relics, as a testimony of
+his innocence and sanctity.  The infamous Judith, falling soon after
+under the king's displeasure, was abandoned by all the world, and
+passed the rest of her life in contempt, remorse, and misery.
+
+Nothing remained to complete William's satisfaction but the punishment
+of Ralph de Guader; and he hastened over to Normandy in order to
+gratify his vengeance on that criminal.  But though the contest seemed
+very unequal between a private nobleman and the King of England, Ralph
+was so well supported both by the Earl of Britany and the King of
+France, that William, after besieging him for some time in Dol, was
+obliged to abandon the enterprise, and make with those powerful
+princes a peace, in which Ralph himself was included.  England, during
+his absence, remained in tranquillity, and nothing remarkable
+occurred, except two ecclesiastical synods which were summoned, one at
+London, another at Winchester.  In the former the precedency among the
+episcopal sees was settled, and the seat of some of them was removed
+from small villages to the most considerable town within the diocese.
+In the second was transacted a business of more importance.
+
+[MN 1076.  Dispute about investitures]
+The industry and perseverance are surprising, with which the popes had
+been treasuring up powers and pretensions during so many ages of
+ignorance; while each pontiff employed every fraud for advancing
+purposes of imaginary piety, and cherished all claims which might turn
+to the advantage of his successors, though he himself could not expect
+ever to reap any benefit from them.  All this immense store of
+spiritual and civil authority was now devolved on Gregory VII. of the
+name of Hildebrand, the most enterprising pontiff that had ever filled
+that chair, and the least restrained by fear, decency, or moderation.
+Not content with shaking off the yoke of the emperors, who had
+hitherto exercised the power of appointing the pope on every vacancy,
+or at least of ratifying his election; he undertook the arduous task
+of entirely disjoining the ecclesiastical from the civil power, and of
+excluding profane laymen from the right which they had assumed of
+filling the vacancies of bishoprics, abbeys, and other spiritual
+dignities [a].  The sovereigns who had long exercised this power, and
+who had acquired it not by encroachments on the church, but on the
+people, to whom it originally belonged [b], made great opposition to
+this claim of the court of Rome; and Henry IV., the reigning emperor,
+defended this prerogative of his crown with a vigour and resolution
+suitable to its importance.  The few offices, either civil or
+military, which the feudal institutions left the sovereign the power
+of bestowing, made the prerogative of conferring the pastoral ring and
+staff the most valuable jewel of the royal diadem; especially as the
+general ignorance of the age bestowed a consequence on the
+ecclesiastical offices, even beyond the great extent of power and
+property which belonged to them.  Superstition, the child of
+ignorance, invested the clergy with an authority almost sacred; and as
+they engrossed the little learning of the age, their interposition
+became requisite in all civil business, and a real usefulness in
+common life was thus superadded to the spiritual sanctity of their
+character.
+[FN [a] L'Abbé Conc. tom. x. p. 371, 372. com. 2.  [b] Padre Paolo
+sopra benef. eccles. p. 30.]
+
+When the usurpations, therefore, of the church had come to such
+maturity as to embolden her to attempt extorting the right of
+investitures from the temporal power, Europe, especially Italy and
+Germany, was thrown into the most violent convulsions, and the pope
+and the emperor waged implacable war on each other.  Gregory dared to
+fulminate the sentence of excommunication against Henry and his
+adherents, to pronounce him rightfully deposed, to free his subjects
+from their oaths of allegiance; and instead of shocking mankind by
+this gross encroachment on the civil authority, he found the stupid
+people ready to second his most exorbitant pretensions.  Every
+minister, servant, or vassal of the emperor, who received any disgust,
+covered his rebellion under the pretence of principle; and even the
+mother of this  monarch, forgetting all the ties of nature, was
+seduced to countenance the insolence of his enemies.  Princes
+themselves, not attentive to the pernicious consequences of those
+papal claims, employed them for their present purposes; and the
+controversy, spreading into every city of Italy, engendered the
+parties of Guelf and Ghibbelin; the most durable and most inveterate
+factions that ever arose from the mixture of ambition and religious
+zeal.  Besides numberless assassinations, tumults, and convulsions to
+which they gave rise, it is computed that the quarrel occasioned no
+less than sixty battles in the reign of Henry IV., and eighteen in
+that of his successor, Henry V., when the claims of the sovereign
+pontiff finally prevailed [c].
+[FN [c] Padre Paolo sopra benef. eccles. p. 113.]
+
+But the bold spirit of Gregory, not dismayed with the vigorous
+opposition which he met with from the emperor, extended his
+usurpations all over Europe; and well knowing the nature of mankind,
+whose blind astonishment ever inclines them to yield to the most
+impudent pretensions, he seemed determined to set no bounds to the
+spiritual, or rather temporal monarchy, which he had undertaken to
+erect.  He pronounced the sentence of excommunication against
+Nicephorus, Emperor of the East: Robert Guiscard, the adventurous
+Norman, who had acquired the dominion of Naples, was attacked by the
+same dangerous weapon: he degraded Boleslas, King of Poland, from the
+rank of king; and even deprived Poland of the title of a kingdom: he
+attempted to treat Philip, King of France, with the same rigour which
+he had employed against the emperor [d]: he pretended to the entire
+property and dominion of Spain; and he parcelled it out amongst
+adventurers, who undertook to conquer it from the Saracens, and to
+hold it in vassalage under the see of Rome [e]: even the Christian
+bishops, on whose aid he relied for subduing the temporal princes, saw
+that he was determined to reduce them to servitude; and by assuming
+the whole legislative and judicial power of the church, to centre all
+authority in the sovereign pontiff [f].
+[FN [d] Epist. Greg. VII. epist. 32, 35. lib. 2. epist. 5.  [e] Epist.
+Greg. VII. lib. 1. epist. 7.  [f] Greg. epist. lib. 2. epist. 55.]
+
+William the Conqueror, the most potent, the most haughty, and the most
+vigorous prince in Europe, was not, amidst all his splendid successes,
+secure from the attacks of this enterprising pontiff.  Gregory wrote
+him a letter, requiring him to fulfil his promise in doing homage for
+the kingdom of England to the see of Rome, and to send him over that
+tribute, which all his predecessors had been accustomed to pay to the
+vicar of Christ.  By the tribute he meant Peter's pence; which, though
+at first a charitable donation of the Saxon princes, was interpreted,
+according to the usual practice of the Romish court, to be a badge of
+subjection acknowledged by the kingdom.  William replied, that the
+money should be remitted as usual; but that neither had he promised to
+do homage to Rome, nor was it in the least his purpose to impose that
+servitude on his state [g].  And the better to show Gregory his
+independence, he ventured, notwithstanding the frequent complaints of
+the pope, to refuse to the English bishops the liberty of attending a
+general council which that pontiff had summoned against his enemies.
+[FN [g] Spicileg. Seldeni ad Eadmer, p. 4.]
+
+But though the king displayed this vigour in supporting the royal
+dignity, he was infected with the general superstition of the age, and
+he did not perceive the ambitious scope of those institutions, which,
+under colour of strictness in religion, were introduced or promoted by
+the court of Rome.  Gregory, while he was throwing all Europe into
+combustion by his violence and impostures, affected an anxious care
+for the purity of manners; and even the chaste pleasures of the
+marriage-bed were inconsistent, in his opinion, with the sanctity of
+the sacerdotal character.  He had issued a decree prohibiting the
+marriage of priests, excommunicating all clergymen who retained their
+wives, declaring such unlawful commerce to be fornication, and
+rendering it criminal in the laity to attend divine worship, when such
+profane priests officiated at the altar [h].  This point was a great
+object in the politics of the Roman pontiffs; and it cost them
+infinitely more pains to establish it, than the propagation of any
+speculative absurdity which they had ever attempted to introduce.
+Many synods were summoned in different parts of Europe before it was
+finally settled; and it was there constantly remarked, that the
+younger clergymen complied cheerfully with the pope's decrees in this
+particular, and that the chief reluctance appeared in those who were
+more advanced in years: an event so little consonant to men's natural
+expectations, that it could not fail to be glossed on, even in that
+blind and superstitious age.  William allowed the pope's legate to
+assemble, in his absence, a synod at Winchester, in order to establish
+the celibacy of the clergy; but the church of England could not yet be
+carried the whole length expected.  The synod was content with
+decreeing, that the bishops should not thenceforth ordain any priests
+or deacons without exacting from them a promise of celibacy; but they
+enacted, that none, except those who belonged to collegiate or
+cathedral churches, should be obliged to separate from their wives.
+[FN [h] Hoveden, p. 455, 457.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 638.  Spellm. Concil.
+fol. 13 A. D. 1076.]
+
+[MN Revolt of Prince Robert.]
+The king passed some years in Normandy; but his long residence there
+was not entirely owing to his declared preference of that duchy: his
+presence was also necessary for composing those disturbances which had
+arisen in that favourite territory, and which had even originally
+proceeded from his own family.  Robert, his eldest son, surnamed
+Gambaron or Curthose, from his short legs, was a prince who inherited
+all the bravery of his family and nation; but without that policy and
+dissimulation, by which his father was so much distinguished, and
+which, no less than his military valour, had contributed to his great
+successes.  Greedy of fame, impatient of contradiction, without
+reserve in his friendships, declared in his enmities, this prince
+could endure no control even from his imperious father, and openly
+aspired to that independence, to which his temper, as well as some
+circumstances in his situation, strongly invited him [i].  When
+William first received the submissions of the province of Maine, he
+had promised the inhabitants that Robert should be their prince; and
+before he undertook the expedition against England, he had, on the
+application of the French court, declared him his successor in
+Normandy, and had obliged the barons of that duchy to do him homage as
+their future sovereign.  By this artifice, he had endeavoured to
+appease the jealousy of his neighbours, as affording them a prospect
+of separating England from his dominions on the continent; but when
+Robert demanded of him the execution of those engagements, he gave him
+an absolute refusal, and told him, according to the homely saying,
+that he never intended to throw off his clothes till he went to bed
+[k].  Robert openly declared his discontent; and was suspected of
+secretly instigating the King of France and the Earl of Britany to the
+opposition which they made to William, and which had formerly
+frustrated his attempts upon the town of Dol.  And as the quarrel
+still augmented, Robert proceeded to entertain a strong jealousy of
+his two surviving brothers, William and Henry, (for Richard was killed
+in hunting by a stag,) who, by greater submission and complaisance,
+had acquired the affections of their father.  In this disposition on
+both sides, the greatest trifle sufficed to produce a rupture between
+them.
+[FN [i] Order. Vital. p. 545.  Hoveden, p. 457.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 639.
+[k] Chron. de Mailr. p. 160.]
+
+The three princes, residing with their father in the castle of L'Aigle
+in Normandy, were one day engaged in sport together; and after some
+mirth and jollity, the two younger took a fancy of throwing over some
+water on Robert as he passed through the court on leaving their
+apartment [l]; a frolic, which he would naturally have regarded as
+innocent, had it not been for the suggestions of Alberic de
+Grentmesnil, son of that Hugh de Grentmesnil whom William had formerly
+deprived of his fortunes, when that baron deserted him during his
+greatest difficulties in England.  The young man, mindful of the
+injury, persuaded the prince that this action was meant as a public
+affront, which it behoved him in honour to resent; and the choleric
+Robert, drawing his sword, ran upstairs, with an intention of taking
+revenge on his brothers [m].  The whole castle was filled with tumult,
+which the king himself, who hastened from his apartment, found some
+difficulty to appease.  But he could by no means appease the
+resentment of his eldest son, who, complaining of his partiality, and
+fancying that no proper atonement had been made him for the insult,
+left the court that very evening, and hastened to Rouen, with an
+intention of seizing the citadel of that place [n].  But being
+disappointed in this view by the precaution and vigilance of Roger de
+Ivery, the governor, he fled to Hugh de Neufchatel, a powerful Norman
+baron, who gave him protection in his castles; and he openly levied
+war against his father [o].  The popular character of the prince, and
+a similarity of manners, engaged all the young nobility of Normandy
+and Maine, as well as of Anjou and Britany, to take part with him; and
+it was suspected, that Matilda, his mother, whose favourite he was,
+supported him in his rebellion by secret remittances of money, and by
+the encouragement which she gave his partisans.
+[FN [l] Order. Vital. p. 545.  [m] Ibid.  [n] Order. Vital. p. 545.
+[o] Ibid.  Hoveden, p. 457.  Sim. Dun. p. 210.  Diceto, p. 487.]
+
+[MN 1079.]  All the hereditary provinces of William, as well as his
+family, were, during several years, thrown into convulsions by this
+war; and he was at last obliged to have recourse to England, where
+that species of military government which he had established gave him
+greater authority than the ancient feudal institutions permitted him
+to exercise in Normandy.  He called over an army of English under his
+ancient captains, who soon expelled Robert and his adherents from
+their retreats, and restored the authority of the sovereign in all his
+dominions.  The young prince was obliged to take shelter in the castle
+of Gerberoy in the Beauvoisis, which the King of France, who secretly
+fomented all these dissensions, had provided for him.  In this
+fortress he was closely besieged by his father, against whom, having a
+strong garrison, he made an obstinate defence.  There passed under the
+walls of this place many rencounters, which resembled more the single
+combats of chivalry than the military actions of armies; but one of
+them was remarkable for its circumstances and its event.  Robert
+happened to engage the king, who was concealed by his helmet; and both
+of them being valiant, a fierce combat ensued, till at last the young
+prince wounded his father in the arm, and unhorsed him.  On his
+calling out for assistance, his voice discovered him to his son, who,
+struck with remorse for his past guilt, and astonished with the
+apprehensions of one much greater, which he had so nearly incurred,
+instantly threw himself at his father's feet, craved pardon for his
+offences, and offered to purchase forgiveness by any atonement [p].
+The resentment harboured by William was so implacable, that he did not
+immediately correspond to this dutiful submission of his son with like
+tenderness; but giving him his malediction, departed for his own camp,
+on Robert's horse, which that prince had assisted him to mount.  He
+soon after raised the siege, and marched with his army to Normandy;
+where the interposition of the queen, and other common friends,
+brought about a reconcilement, which was probably not a little
+forwarded by the generosity of the son's behaviour in this action, and
+by the returning sense of his past misconduct.  The king seemed so
+fully appeased, that he even took Robert with him into England; where
+he intrusted him with the command of an army, in order to repel an
+inroad of Malcolm, King of Scotland, and to retaliate by a like inroad
+into that country.  The Welsh, unable to resist William's power, were,
+about the same time, necessitated to pay a compensation for their
+incursions; and every thing was reduced to full tranquillity in this
+island.
+[FN [p] Malmes. p. 106.  H. Hunt. p. 369.  Hoveden, p. 457.  Flor.
+Wig. p. 639.  Sim. Dun. p. 210.  Diceto, p. 287.  Knyghton, p. 2351.
+Alur. Beverl. p. 135.]
+
+[MN 1081.  Doomsday-book.]
+The state of affairs gave William leisure to begin and finish an
+undertaking, which proves his extensive genius, and does honour to his
+memory: it was a general survey of all the lands in the kingdom, their
+extent in each district, their proprietors, tenures, value; the
+quantity of meadow, pasture, wood, and arable land, which they
+contained; and in some counties the number of tenants, cottagers, and
+slaves of all denominations, who lived upon them.  He appointed
+commissioners for this purpose, who entered every particular in their
+register by the verdict of juries; and after a labour of six years
+(for the work was so long in finishing) brought him an exact account
+of all the landed property of his kingdom [q].  This monument, called
+Doomsday-book, the most valuable piece of antiquity possessed by any
+nation, is still preserved in the Exchequer; and though only some
+extracts of it have hitherto been published, it serves to illustrate
+to us, in many particulars, the ancient state of England.  The great
+Alfred had finished a like survey of the kingdom in his time, which
+was long kept at Winchester, and which probably served as a model to
+William in this undertaking [r].
+[FN [q] Chron. Sax. p. 190.  Ingulph, p. 79.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 23.
+H. Hunt. p. 370.  Hoveden, p. 460.  M. West. p. 229.  Flor. Wigorn. p.
+641.  Chron. Abb. de Petri de Burgo, p. 51.  M. Paris, p. 8.  The more
+northern counties were not comprehended in this survey; I suppose
+because of their wild, uncultivated state.  [r] Ingulph, p. 8.]
+
+The king was naturally a great economist; and though no prince had
+ever been more bountiful to his officers and servants, it was merely
+because he had rendered himself universal proprietor of England, and
+had a whole kingdom to bestow.  He reserved an ample revenue for the
+crown; and in the general distribution of land among his followers, he
+kept possession of no less than one thousand four hundred and twenty-
+two manors in different parts of England [s], which paid him rent,
+either in money, or in corn, cattle, and the usual produce of the
+soil.  An ancient historian computes, that his annual fixed income,
+besides escheats, fines, reliefs, and other casual profits to a great
+value, amounted to near four hundred thousand pounds a year [t]; a sum
+which, if all circumstances be attended to, will appear wholly
+incredible.  A pound in that age, as we have already observed,
+contained three times the weight of silver that it does at present;
+and the same weight of silver, by the most probable computation, would
+purchase near ten times more of the necessaries of life, though not in
+the same proportion of the finer manufactures.  This revenue,
+therefore, of William, would be equal to at least nine or ten millions
+at present; and as that prince had neither fleet nor army to support,
+the former being only an occasional expense, and the latter being
+maintained without any charge to him by his military vassals, we must
+thence conclude, that no emperor or prince, in any age or nation, can
+be compared to the Conqueror for opulence and riches.  This leads us
+to suspect a great mistake in the computation of the historian:
+though, if we consider that avarice is always imputed to William, as
+one of his vices, and that having by the sword rendered himself master
+of all the lands in the kingdom, he would certainly in the partition
+retain a great proportion for his own share; we can scarcely be guilty
+of any error in asserting, that perhaps no king of England was ever
+more opulent, was more able to support by his revenue the splendour
+and magnificence of a court, or could bestow more on his pleasures, or
+in liberalities to his servants and favourites [u].
+[FN [s] West's inquiry into the manner of creating peers, p. 24.  [t]
+Order. Vital. p. 523.  He says one thousand and sixty pounds and some
+odd shillings and pence a day.  [u] Fortescue, de Dom. reg. et
+politic. cap. 111.]
+
+[MN The new forest.]
+There was one pleasure to which William, as well as all the Normans
+and ancient Saxons, was extremely addicted, and that was hunting; but
+this pleasure he indulged more at the expense of his unhappy subjects,
+whose interests he always disregarded, than to the loss or diminution
+of his own revenue.  Not content with those large forests which former
+kings possessed in all parts of England, he resolved to make a new
+forest near Winchester, the usual place of his residence; and for that
+purpose he laid waste the country in Hampshire for an extent of thirty
+miles, expelled the inhabitants from their houses, seized their
+property, even demolished churches and convents, and made the
+sufferers no compensation for the injury [w].  At the same time, he
+enacted new laws, by which he prohibited all his subjects from hunting
+in any of his forests, and rendered the penalties more severe than
+ever had been inflicted for such offences.  The killing of a deer or
+boar, or even a hare, was punished with the loss of the delinquent's
+eyes; and that at a time, when the killing of a man could be atoned
+for by paying a moderate fine or composition.
+[FN [w] Malmes. p. 3.  H. Hunt. p. 731.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p.
+258.]
+
+The transactions recorded during the remainder of this reign may be
+considered more as domestic occurrences which concern the prince, than
+as national events which regard England.  Odo, Bishop of Baieux, the
+king's uterine brother, whom he had created Earl of Kent, and
+intrusted with a great share of power during his whole reign, had
+amassed immense riches; and agreeably to the usual progress of human
+wishes, he began to regard his present acquisitions but as a step to
+farther grandeur.  He had formed the chimerical project of buying the
+papacy; and though Gregory, the reigning pope, was not of advanced
+years, the prelate had confided so much in the predictions of an
+astrologer, that he reckoned upon the pontiffÂ’s death, and upon
+attaining, by his own intrigues and money, that envied state of
+greatness.  Resolving, therefore, to remit all his riches to Italy, he
+had persuaded many considerable barons, and among the rest, Hugh, Earl
+of Chester, to take the same course; in hopes that, when he should
+mount the papal throne, he would bestow on them more considerable
+establishments in that country.  [MN 1082.]  The king, from whom all
+these projects had been carefully concealed, at last got intelligence
+of the design, and ordered Odo to be arrested.  His officers, from
+respect to the immunities which the ecclesiastics now assumed,
+scrupled to execute the command, till the king himself was obliged in
+person to seize him; and when Odo insisted that he was a prelate, and
+exempt from all temporal jurisdiction, William replied, that he
+arrested him not as Bishop of Baieux, but as Earl of Kent.  He was
+sent prisoner to Normandy; and, notwithstanding the remonstrances and
+menaces of Gregory, was detained in custody during the remainder of
+this reign.
+
+[MN 1083.]  Another domestic event gave the king much more concern: it
+was the death of Matilda, his consort, whom he tenderly loved, and for
+whom he had ever preserved the most sincere friendship.  Three years
+afterwards he passed into Normandy, and carried with him Edgar
+Atheling, to whom he willingly granted permission to make a pilgrimage
+to the Holy Land.  [MN 1087.  War with France.]  He was detained on
+the continent by a misunderstanding, which broke out between him and
+the King of France, and which was occasioned by inroads made into
+Normandy by some French barons on the frontiers.  It was little in the
+power of princes at that time to restrain their licentious nobility;
+but William suspected, that these barons durst not have provoked his
+indignation, had they not been assured of the countenance and
+protection of Philip.  His displeasure was increased by the account he
+received of some railleries which that monarch had thrown out against
+him.  William, who was become corpulent, had been detained in bed some
+time by sickness; upon which Philip expressed his surprise that his
+brother of England should be so long in being delivered of his big
+belly.  The king sent him word, that, as soon as he was up, he would
+present so many lights at Notre-dame, as would perhaps give little
+pleasure to the King of France; alluding to the usual practice at that
+time of women after childbirth.  Immediately on his recovery, he led
+an army into L'Isle de France, and laid every thing waste with fire
+and sword.  He took the town of Mante, which he reduced to ashes.  But
+the progress of these hostilities was stopped by an accident which
+soon after put an end to William's life.  His horse starting aside of
+a sudden, he bruised his belly on the pommel of the saddle; and being
+in a bad habit of body, as well as somewhat advanced in years, he
+began to apprehend the consequences, and ordered himself to be carried
+in a litter to the monastery of St. Gervas.  Finding his illness
+increase, and being sensible of the approach of death, he discovered
+at last the vanity of all human grandeur, and was struck with remorse
+for those horrible cruelties and acts of violence, which, in the
+attainment and defence of it, he had committed during the course of
+his reign over England.  He endeavoured to make atonement by presents
+to churches and monasteries; and he issued orders, that Earl Morcar,
+Siward, Bearne, and other English prisoners, should be set at liberty.
+He was even prevailed on, though not without reluctance, to consent,
+with his dying breath, to release his brother Odo, against whom he was
+extremely incensed.  He left Normandy and Maine to his eldest son
+Robert: he wrote to Lanfranc, desiring him to crown William King of
+England: he bequeathed to Henry nothing but the possessions of his
+mother Matilda; but foretold that he would one day surpass both his
+brothers in power and opulence.  He expired in the sixty-third year of
+his age, in the twenty-first year of his reign over England, and in
+the fifty-fourth of that over Normandy.
+
+[MN 9th Sept.  Death and character of William the Conqueror.]
+Few princes have been more fortunate than this great monarch, or were
+better entitled to grandeur and prosperity, from the abilities and the
+vigour of mind which he displayed in all his conduct.  His spirit was
+bold and enterprising, yet guided by prudence: his ambition, which was
+exorbitant, and lay little under the restraints of justice, still less
+under those of humanity, ever submitted to the dictates of sound
+policy.  Born in an age when the minds of men were intractable and
+unacquainted with submission, he was yet able to direct them to his
+purposes; and partly from the ascendant of his vehement character,
+partly from art and dissimulation, to establish an unlimited
+authority.  Though not insensible to generosity, he was hardened
+against compassion; and he seemed equally ostentatious and equally
+ambitious of show and parade in his clemency and in his severity.  The
+maxims of his administration were austere; but might have been useful,
+had they been solely employed to preserve order in an established
+government [x]; they were ill calculated for softening the rigours
+which, under the most gentle management, are inseparable from
+conquest.  His attempt against England was the last great enterprise
+of the kind which, during the course of seven hundred years, has fully
+succeeded in Europe; and the force of his genius broke through those
+limits, which first the feudal institutions, then the refined policy
+of princes, have fixed to the several states of Christendom.  Though
+he rendered himself infinitely odious to his English subjects, he
+transmitted his power to his posterity, and the throne is still filled
+by his descendants: a proof, that the foundations which he laid were
+firm and solid, and that, amidst all his violence, while he seemed
+only to gratify the present passion, he had still an eye towards
+futurity.
+[FN [x] M. West. p. 230.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 258.]
+
+Some writers have been desirous of refusing to this prince the title
+of Conqueror, in the sense which that term commonly bears; and, on
+pretence that the word is sometimes in old books applied to such as
+make an acquisition of territory by any means, they are willing to
+reject William's title, by right of war, to the crown of England.  It
+is needless to enter into a controversy, which, by the terms of it,
+must necessarily degenerate into a dispute of words.  It suffices to
+say, that the Duke of Normandy's first invasion of the island was
+hostile; that his subsequent administration was entirely supported by
+arms; that in the very frame of his laws, he made a distinction
+between the Normans and English, to the advantage of the former [y];
+that he acted in every thing as absolute master over the natives,
+whose interest and affections he totally disregarded; and that if
+there was an interval when he assumed the appearance of a legal
+sovereign, the period was very short, and was nothing but a temporary
+sacrifice, which he, as has been the case with most conquerors, was
+obliged to make of his inclination to his present policy.  Scarce any
+of those revolutions, which both in history and in common language,
+have always been denominated conquests, appear equally violent, or
+were attended with so sudden an alteration both of power and property.
+The Roman state, which spread its dominion over Europe, left the
+rights of individuals in a great measure untouched; and those
+civilized conquerors, while they made their own country the seat of
+empire, found that they could draw most advantage from the subjected
+provinces, by securing to the natives the free enjoyment of their own
+laws and of their private possessions.  The barbarians who subdued the
+Roman empire, though they settled in the conquered countries, yet
+being accustomed to a rude uncultivated life, found a part only of the
+land sufficient to supply all their wants; and they were not tempted
+to seize extensive possessions, which they knew neither how to
+cultivate nor enjoy.  But the Normans and other foreigners, who
+followed the standard of William, while they made the vanquished
+kingdom the seat of government, were yet so far advanced in arts as to
+be acquainted with the advantages of a large property; and having
+totally subdued the natives, they pushed the rights of conquest (very
+extensive in the eyes of avarice and ambition, however narrow in those
+of reason) to the utmost extremity against them.  Except the former
+conquest of England by the Saxons themselves, who were induced, by
+peculiar circumstances, to proceed even to the extermination of the
+natives, it would be difficult to find in all history a revolution
+more destructive, or attended with a more complete subjection of the
+ancient inhabitants.  Contumely seems even to have been wantonly added
+to oppression [z]; and the natives were universally reduced to such a
+state of meanness and poverty, that the English name became a term of
+reproach; and several generations elapsed before one family of Saxon
+pedigree was raised to any considerable honours; or could so much as
+attain the rank of baron of the realm [a].  These facts are so
+apparent from the whole tenour of the English history, that none would
+have been tempted to deny or elude them, were they not heated by the
+controversies of faction; while one party was ABSURDLY afraid of those
+ABSURD consequences, which they saw the other party inclined to draw
+from this event.  But it is evident that the present rights and
+privileges of the people, who are a mixture of English and Normans,
+can never be affected by a transaction, which passed seven hundred
+years ago; and as all ancient authors [b] who lived nearest the time,
+and best knew the state of the country, unanimously speak of the
+Norman dominion as a conquest by war and arms, no reasonable man, from
+the fear of imaginary consequences, will ever be tempted to reject
+their concurring and undoubted testimony.
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 600.  [z] H. Hunt. p. 370.  Brompton, p. 980.  [a]
+So late as the reign of King Stephen, the Earl of Albemarle, before
+the battle of the Standard, addressed the officers of his army in
+these terms, PROCERES ANGLIAE CLARISSIMI ET GENERE NORMANNI, &c.
+Brompton, p. 1026.  See farther Abbas Rieval, p. 339, &c.  All the
+barons and military men of England still called themselves Normans.
+[b] See note [L], at the end of the volume.]
+
+King William had issue, besides his three sons who survived him, five
+daughters, to wit, (1.) Cicely, a nun in the monastery of Feschamp,
+afterwards abbess in the Holy Trinity at Caen, where she died in 1127.
+(2.) Constantia, married to Alan Fergent, Earl of Britany.  She died
+without issue.  (3.) Alice, contracted to Harold.  (4.) Adela, married
+to Stephen, Earl of Blois, by whom she had four sons, William,
+Theobald, Henry, and Stephen; of whom the elder was neglected on
+account of the imbecility of his understanding.  (5.) Agatha, who died
+a virgin, but was betrothed to the King of Gallicia.  She died on her
+journey thither, before she joined her bridegroom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+WILLIAM RUFUS.
+
+ACCESSION OF WILLIAM RUFUS.--CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE KING.—INVASION OF
+NORMANDY.--THE CRUSADES.--ACQUISITION OF NORMANDY.—QUARREL WITH
+ANSELM, THE PRIMATE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF WILLIAM RUFUS
+
+
+
+[MN 1087.  Accession of William Rufus.]
+William, surnamed RUFUS, or the RED, from the colour of his hair, had
+no sooner procured his father's recommendatory letter to Lanfranc, the
+primate, than he hastened to take measures for securing to himself the
+government of England.  Sensible that a deed so unformal, and so
+little prepared, which violated Robert's right of primogeniture, might
+meet with great opposition, he trusted entirely for success to his own
+celerity; and having left St. Gervas, while William was breathing his
+last, he arrived in England before intelligence of his father's death
+had reached that kingdom [a].  Pretending orders from the king, he
+secured the fortresses of Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings, whose
+situation rendered them of the greatest importance; and he got
+possession of the royal treasure at Winchester, amounting to the sum
+of sixty thousand pounds, by which he hoped to encourage and increase
+his partisans [b].  The primate, whose rank and reputation in the
+kingdom gave him great authority, had been intrusted with the care of
+his education, and had conferred on him the honour of knighthood [c];
+and being connected with him by these ties, and probably deeming his
+pretensions just, declared that he would pay a willing obedience to
+the last will of the Conqueror, his friend and benefactor.  Having
+assembled some bishops, and some of the principal nobility, he
+instantly proceeded to the ceremony of crowning the new king [d]; and
+by this despatch endeavoured to prevent all faction and resistance.
+At the same time Robert, who had been already  acknowledged successor
+to Normandy, took peaceable possession of that duchy.
+[FN [a] W. Malmes, p. 120.  M. Paris, p. 10.  [b] Chron. Sax. p. 192.
+Brompton, p. 983.  [c] W. Malmes. p. 120.  M. Paris, p. 10. Thom.
+Rudborne, p. 263.  [d] Hoveden, p. 461.]
+
+[MN 1087.  Conspiracy against the king.]
+But though this partition appeared to have been made without any
+violence or opposition, there remained in England many causes of
+discontent, which seemed to menace that kingdom with a sudden
+revolution.  The barons, who generally possessed large estates both in
+England and in Normandy, were uneasy at the separation of those
+territories; and foresaw, that as it would be impossible for them to
+preserve long their allegiance to two masters, they must necessarily
+resign either their ancient patrimony or their new acquisitions [e].
+RobertÂ’s title to the duchy they esteemed incontestable; his claim to
+the kingdom plausible; and they all desired that this prince, who
+alone had any pretensions to unite these states, should be put in
+possession of both.  A comparison also of the personal qualities of
+the two brothers led them to give the preference to the elder.  The
+duke was brave, open, sincere, generous: even his predominant faults,
+his extreme indolence and facility, were not disagreeable to those
+haughty barons, who affected independence, and submitted with
+reluctance to a vigorous administration in their sovereign.  The king,
+though equally brave, was violent, haughty, tyrannical, and seemed
+disposed to govern more by the fear than by the love of his subjects.
+Odo, Bishop of Baieux, and Robert, Earl of Mortaigne, maternal
+brothers of the Conqueror, envying the great credit of Lanfranc, which
+was increased by his late services, enforced all these motives with
+their partisans, and engaged them in a formal conspiracy to dethrone
+the king.  They communicated their design to Eustace, Count of
+Boulogne; Roger, Earl of Shrewsbury and Arundel; Robert de Belesme,
+his eldest son; William, Bishop of Durham; Robert de Moubray; Roger
+Bigod; Hugh de Grentmesnil; and they easily procured the assent of
+these potent noblemen.  The conspirators, retiring to their castles,
+hastened to put themselves in a military posture; and expecting to be
+soon supported by a powerful army from Normandy, they had already
+begun hostilities in many places.
+[FN [e] Order. Vital. p. 666.]
+
+The king, sensible of his perilous situation, endeavoured to engage
+the affections of the native English.  As that people were now so
+thoroughly subdued that they no longer aspired to the recovery of
+their ancient liberties, and were content with the prospect of some
+mitigation in the tyranny of the Norman princes, they zealously
+embraced William's cause, upon receiving general promises of good
+treatment, and of enjoying the license of hunting in the royal
+forests.  The king was soon in a situation to take the field; and as
+he knew the danger of delay, he suddenly marched into Kent; where his
+uncles had already seized the fortresses of Pevensey and Rochester.
+These places he successively reduced by famine; and though he was
+prevailed on by the Earl of Chester, William de Warenne, and Robert
+Fitz-Hammon, who had embraced his cause, to spare the lives of the
+rebels, he confiscated all their estates, and banished them the
+kingdom [f].  This success gave authority to his negotiations with
+Roger, Earl of Shrewsbury, whom he detached from the confederates; and
+as his powerful fleet, joined to the indolent conduct of Robert,
+prevented the arrival of the Norman succours, all the other rebels
+found no resource but in flight or submission.  Some of them received
+a pardon; but the greater part were attainted; and the king bestowed
+their estates on the Norman barons, who had remained faithful to him.
+[FN [f] Chron. Sax. p. 195.  Order. Vital. p. 668.]
+
+[MN 1089.]  William, freed from the danger of these insurrections,
+took little care of fulfilling his promises to the English, who still
+found themselves exposed to the same oppresions which they had
+undergone during the reign of the Conqueror, and which were rather
+augmented by the insolent impetuous temper of the present monarch.
+The death of Lanfranc, who retained great influence over him, gave
+soon after a full career to his tyranny; and all orders of men found
+reason to complain of an arbitrary and illegal administration.  Even
+the privileges of the church, held sacred in those days, were a feeble
+rampart against his usurpations.  He seized the temporalities of all
+the vacant bishoprics and abbeys; he delayed the appointment of
+successors to those dignities, that he might the longer enjoy the
+profits of their revenue; he bestowed some of the church lands in
+property on his captains and favourites; and he openly set to sale
+such sees and abbeys as he thought proper to dispose of.  Though the
+murmurs of the ecclesiastics; which were quickly propagated to the
+nation, rose high against this grievance, the terror of William's
+authority, confirmed by the suppression of the late insurrections,
+retained every one in subjection, and preserved general tranquillity
+in England.
+
+[MN 1090.  Invasion of Normandy.]
+The king even thought himself enabled to disturb his brother in the
+possession of Normandy.  The loose and negligent administration of
+that prince had emboldened the Norman barons to affect a great
+independency; and their mutual quarrels and devastations had rendered
+the whole territory a scene of violence and outrage.  Two of them,
+Walter and Odo, were bribed by William to deliver the fortresses of
+St. Valori and Albemarle into his hands: others soon after imitated
+the example of revolt; while Philip, King of France who ought to have
+protected his vassal in the possession of his fief, was, after making
+some efforts in his favour, engaged by large presents to remain
+neuter.  The duke had also reason to apprehend danger from the
+intrigues of his brother Henry.  This young prince, who had inherited
+nothing of his father's great possessions, but some of his money, had
+furnished Robert, while he was making his preparations against
+England, with the sum of three thousand marks; and in return for so
+slender a supply, had been put in possession of the Cotentin, which
+comprehended near a third of the duchy of Normandy.  Robert
+afterwards, upon some suspicion, threw him into prison; but finding
+himself exposed to invasion from the King of England, and dreading the
+conjunction of the two brothers against him, he now gave Henry his
+liberty, and even made use of his assistance in suppressing the
+insurrections of his rebellious subjects.  Conan, a rich burgess of
+Rouen, had entered into a conspiracy to deliver that city to William;
+but Henry, on the detection of his guilt, carried the traitor up to a
+high tower, and with his own hands flung him from the battlements.
+
+The king appeared in Normandy at the head of an army; and affairs
+seemed to have come to extremity between the brothers; when the
+nobility on both sides, strongly connected by interest and alliances,
+interposed and mediated an accommodation.  The chief advantage of this
+treaty accrued to William, who obtained possession of the territory of
+Eu, the towns of Aumale, Fescamp, and other places; but in return, he
+promised that he would assist his brother in subduing Maine, which had
+rebelled; and that the Norman barons, attainted in Robert's cause,
+should be restored to their estates in England.  The two brothers also
+stipulated, that on the demise of either without issue, the survivor
+should inherit all his dominions; and twelve of the most powerful
+barons on each side swore, that they would employ their power to
+ensure the effectual execution of the whole treaty [g]: a strong proof
+of the great independence and authority of the nobles in those ages!
+[FN [g] Chron. Sax. p. 197.  W. Malmes. p. 121.  Hoveden, p. 462.  M.
+Paris, p. 11.  Annal. Waverl. p. 137.  W. Heming. p. 463.  Sim.
+Dunelm. p. 216.  Brompton, p. 986.]
+
+Prince Henry, disgusted that so little care had been taken of his
+interests in this accommodation, retired to St. Michael's Mount, a
+strong fortress on the coast of Normandy, and infested the
+neighbourhood with his incursions.  Robert and William, with their
+joint forces, besieged him in this place, and had nearly reduced him
+by the scarcity of water; when the elder, hearing of his distress,
+granted him permission to supply himself, and also sent him some pipes
+of wine for his own table.  Being reproved by William for this
+ill-timed generosity, he replied, WHAT, SHALL I SUFFER MY BROTHER TO
+DIE OF THIRST?  WHERE SHALL WE FIND ANOTHER WHEN HE IS GONE?  The king
+also, during this siege, performed an act of generosity which was less
+suitable to his character.  Riding out one day alone, to take a survey
+of the fortress, he was attacked by two soldiers and dismounted.  One
+of them drew his sword in order to despatch him; when the king
+exclaimed, HOLD, KNAVE!  I AM THE KING OF ENGLAND.  The soldier
+suspended his blow; and raising the king from the ground, with
+expressions of respect, received a handsome reward, and was taken into
+his service.  Prince Henry was soon  after obliged to capitulate; and
+being despoiled of all his patrimony, wandered about for some time
+with very few attendants, and often in great poverty.
+
+[MN 1091.]  The continued intestine discord among the barons was alone
+in that age destructive; the public wars were commonly short and
+feeble, produced little bloodshed, and were attended with no memorable
+event.  To this Norman war, which was so soon concluded, there
+succeeded hostilities with Scotland, which were not of longer
+duration.  Robert here commanded his brother's army, and obliged
+Malcolm to accept of peace, and do homage to the crown of England.
+This peace was not more durable.  [MN 1093.]  Malcolm, two years
+after, levying an army, invaded England; and after ravaging
+Northumberland, he laid siege to Alnwick, where a party of Earl
+Moubray's troops falling upon him by surprise, a sharp action ensued,
+in which Malcolm was slain.  This incident interrupted for some years
+the regular succession to the Scottish crown.  Though Malcolm left
+legitimate sons, his brother, Donald, on account of the youth of these
+princes, was advanced to the throne; but kept not long possession of
+it.  Duncan, natural son of Malcolm, formed a conspiracy against him;
+and being assisted by William with a small force, made himself master
+of the kingdom.  New broils ensued with Normandy.  The frank, open,
+remiss temper of Robert was ill fitted to withstand the interested,
+rapacious character of William, who, supported by greater power, was
+still encroaching on his brother's possessions, and instigating his
+turbulent barons to rebellion against him.  [MN 1094.]  The king,
+having gone over to Normandy to support his partisans, ordered an army
+of twenty thousand men to be levied in England and to be conducted to
+the sea-coast, as if they were instantly to be embarked.  Here Ralph
+Flambard, the king's minister, and the chief instrument of his
+extortions, exacted ten shillings a-piece from them, in lieu of their
+service, and then dismissed them into their several counties.  This
+money was so skilfully employed by William that it rendered him better
+service than he could have expected from the army.  He engaged the
+French king by new presents to depart from the protection of Robert,
+and he daily bribed the Norman barons to desert his service; but was
+prevented from pushing his advantages by an incursion of the Welsh,
+which obliged him to return to England.  He found no difficulty in
+repelling the enemy; but was not able to make any considerable
+impression on a country guarded by its mountainous situation.  [MN
+1095.]  A conspiracy of his own barons, which was detected at this
+time, appeared a more serious concern, and engrossed all his
+attention.   Robert Moubray, Earl of Northumberland, was at the head
+of this combination; and he engaged in it the Count d'Eu, Richard de
+Tunbridge, Roger de Lacy, and many others.  The purpose of the
+conspirators was to dethrone the king, and to advance in his stead
+Stephen, Count of Aumale, nephew to the Conqueror.  William's despatch
+prevented the design from taking effect, and disconcerted the
+conspirators.  Moubray made some resistance, but being taken prisoner,
+was attainted, and thrown into confinement, where he died about thirty
+years after.  [MN 1096.]  The Count d'Eu denied his concurrence in the
+plot; and to justify himself, fought, in the presence of the court at
+Windsor, a duel with Geoffrey Bainard, who accused him.  But being
+worsted in the combat, he was condemned to be castrated, and to have
+his eyes put out.  William de Alderi, another conspirator, was
+supposed to be treated with more rigour, when he was sentenced to be
+hanged.
+
+[MN The Crusades.]
+But the noise of these petty wars and commotions was quite sunk in the
+tumult of the crusades, which now engrossed the attention of Europe,
+and have ever since engaged the curiosity of mankind, as the most
+signal and most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared
+in any age or nation.  After Mahomet had, by means of his pretended
+revelations, united the dispersed Arabians under one head, they issued
+forth from their deserts in great multitudes; and being animated with
+zeal for their new religion, and supported by the vigour of their new
+government, they made deep impression on the eastern empire, which was
+far in the decline, with regard both to military discipline and to
+civil policy.  Jerusalem, by its situation, became one of their most
+early conquests; and the Christians had the mortification to see the
+holy sepulchre, and the other places, consecrated by the presence of
+their religious founder, fallen into the possession of infidels.  But
+the Arabians or Saracens were so employed in military enterprises, by
+which they spread their empire, in a few years, from the banks of the
+Ganges to the Straits of Gibraltar, that they had no leisure for
+theological controversy; and though the Alcoran, the original monument
+of their faith, seems to contain some violent precepts, they were much
+less infected with the spirit of bigotry and persecution than the
+indolent and speculative Greeks, who were continually refining on the
+several articles of their religious system.  They gave little
+disturbance to those zealous pilgrims who daily flocked to Jerusalem;
+and they allowed every man, after paying a moderate tribute, to visit
+the holy sepulchre, to perform his religious duties, and to return in
+peace.  But the Turcomans or Turks, a tribe of Tartars, who had
+embraced Mahometanism, having wrested Syria from the Saracens, and
+having, in the year 1065, made themselves masters of Jerusalem,
+rendered the pilgrimage much more difficult and dangerous to the
+Christians.  The barbarity of their manners, and the confusions
+attending their unsettled government, exposed the pilgrims to many
+insults, robberies, and extortions; and these zealots, returning from
+their meritorious fatigues and sufferings, filled all Christendom with
+indignation against the infidels, who profaned the holy city by their
+presence, and derided the sacred mysteries in the very place of their
+completion.  Gregory VII., among the other vast ideas which he
+entertained, had formed the design of uniting all the western
+Christians against the Mahometans; but the egregious and violent
+invasions of that pontiff on the civil power of princes had created
+him so many enemies, and had rendered his schemes so suspicious, that
+he was not able to make great progress in this undertaking.  The work
+was reserved for a meaner instrument, whose low condition in life
+exposed him to no jealousy, and whose folly was well calculated to
+coincide with the prevailing principles of the times.
+
+Peter, commonly called the Hermit, a native of Amiens in Picardy, had
+made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  Being deeply affected with the
+dangers to which that act of piety now exposed the pilgrims, as well
+as with the instances of oppression under which the eastern Christians
+laboured, he entertained the bold, and in all appearance
+impracticable, project of leading into Asia, from the farthest
+extremities of the West, armies sufficient to subdue those potent and
+warlike nations which now held the holy city in subjection [h].  He
+proposed his views to Martin II., who filled the papal chair, and who,
+though sensible of the advantages which the head of the Christian
+religion must reap from a religious war, and though he esteemed the
+blind zeal of Peter a proper means for effecting the purpose [i],
+resolved not to interpose his authority, till he saw a greater
+probability of success.  He summoned a council at Placentia, which
+consisted of four thousand ecclesiastics, and thirty thousand
+seculars; and which was so numerous that no hall could contain the
+multitude, and it was necessary to hold the assembly in a plain.  The
+harangues of the pope, and of Peter himself, representing the dismal
+situation of their brethren in the East, and the indignity suffered by
+the Christian name, in allowing the holy city to remain in the hands
+of infidels, here found the minds of men so well prepared, that the
+whole multitude, suddenly and violently, declared for the war, and
+solemnly devoted themselves to perform this service, so meritorious,
+as they believed it, to God and religion.
+[FN [h] Gul. Tyrius, lib. 1. cap. 11.  M. Paris, p. 17.  [i] Gul.
+Tyrius, lib. 1. cap. 13.]
+
+But though Italy seemed thus to have zealously embraced the
+enterprise, Martin knew that, in order to ensure success, it was
+necessary to enlist the greater and more warlike nations in the same
+engagement; and having previously exhorted Peter to visit the chief
+cities and sovereigns of Christendom, he summoned another council at
+Clermont in Auvergne [k].  The fame of this great and pious design
+being now universally diffused, procured the attendance of the
+greatest prelates, nobles, and princes; and when the pope and the
+Hermit renewed their pathetic exhortations, the whole assembly, as if
+impelled by an immediate inspiration, not moved by their preceding
+impressions, exclaimed with one voice, IT IS THE WILL OF GOD!  IT IS
+THE WILL OF GOD!  Words deemed so memorable, and so much the result of
+a divine influence, that they were employed as the signal of
+rendezvous and battle in all the future exploits of those adventurers
+[l].  Men of all ranks flew to arms with the utmost ardour; and an
+exterior symbol too, a circumstance of chief moment, was here chosen
+by the devoted combatants.  The sign of the cross, which had been
+hitherto so much revered among Christians, and which, the more it was
+an object of reproach among the pagan world, was the more passionately
+cherished by them, became the badge of union, and was affixed to the
+right shoulder, by all who enlisted themselves in this sacred warfare
+[m].
+[FN [k] Concil. tom. x.  Concil. Clarom.  Matth. Paris, p. 16.  M.
+West. p. 233.  [l] Historia Bell. Sacri, tom. i.  Musaei Ital.  [m]
+Hist. Bell. Sacri, tom. i.  Mus. Ital.  Order. Vital. p. 721.]
+
+Europe was at this time sunk into profound ignorance and superstition:
+the ecclesiastics had acquired the greatest ascendant over the human
+mind: the people, who, being little restrained by honour, and less by
+law, abandoned themselves to the worst crimes and disorders, knew of
+no other expiation than the observances imposed on them by their
+spiritual pastors; and it was easy to represent the holy war as an
+equivalent for all penances [n], and an atonement for every violation
+of justice and humanity.  But, amidst the abject superstition which
+now prevailed, the military spirit also had universally diffused
+itself; and though not supported by art or discipline, was become the
+general passion of the nations governed by the feudal law.  All the
+great lords possessed the right of peace and war: they were engaged in
+perpetual hostilities with each other: the open country was become a
+scene of outrage and disorder: the cities, still mean and poor, were
+neither guarded by walls, nor protected by privileges, and were
+exposed to every insult: individuals were obliged to depend for safety
+on their own force, or their private alliances: and valour was the
+only excellence which was held in esteem, or gave one man the
+pre-eminence above another.  When all the particular superstitions,
+therefore, were here united in one great object, the ardour for
+military enterprises took the same direction; and Europe, impelled by
+its two ruling passions, was loosened, as it  were, from its
+foundations, and seemed to precipitate itself in one united body upon
+the East.
+[FN [n] Order. Vital. p. 720.]
+
+All orders of men, deeming the crusades the only road to Heaven,
+enlisted themselves under these sacred banners, and were impatient to
+open the way with their sword to the holy city.  Nobles, artisans,
+peasants, even priests [o], enrolled their names; and to decline this
+meritorious service, was branded with the reproach of impiety, or what
+perhaps was esteemed still more disgraceful, of cowardice and
+pusillanimity [p].  The infirm and aged contributed to the expedition
+by presents and money; and many of them, not satisfied with the merit
+of this atonement, attended it in person, and were determined, if
+possible, to breathe their last in sight of that city where their
+Saviour had died for them.  Women themselves, concealing their sex
+under the disguise of armour, attended the camp; and commonly forgot
+still more the duty of their sex, by prostituting themselves, without
+reserve, to the army [q].  The greatest criminals were forward in a
+service which they regarded as a propitiation for all crimes; and the
+most enormous disorders were, during the course of those expeditions,
+committed by men inured to wickedness, encouraged by example, and
+impelled by necessity.  The multitude of the adventurers soon became
+so great, that their more sagacious leaders, Hugh, Count of
+Vermandois, brother to the French king, Raymond, Count of Toulouse,
+Godfrey of Bouillon, Prince of Brabant, and Stephen, Count of Blois,
+became apprehensive lest the greatness itself of the armament should
+disappoint its purpose; and they permitted an undisciplined multitude,
+computed at three hundred thousand men, to go before them, under the
+command of Peter the Hermit, and Walter the Moneyless [s].  These men
+took the road towards Constantinople through Hungary and Bulgaria; and
+trusting that Heaven, by supernatural assistance, would supply all
+their necessities, they made no provision for subsistence on their
+march.  They soon found themselves obliged to obtain by plunder what
+they had vainly expected from miracles; and the enraged inhabitants of
+the countries through which they passed, gathering together in arms,
+attacked the disorderly multitude, and put them to slaughter without
+resistance.  The more disciplined armies followed after; and passing
+the straits at Constantinople, they were mustered in the plains of
+Asia, and amounted in the whole to the number of seven hundred
+thousand combatants [t].
+[FN [o] Order. Vital. p. 720.  [p] W. Malm. p. 133.  [q] Vertot, Hist.
+de Chev. de Malte, vol. i. p. 46.  [r] Sim. Dunelm. p. 222.  [s]
+Matth. Paris, p. 17.  [t] Matth. Paris, p. 20, 21.]
+
+Amidst this universal frenzy, which spread itself by contagion
+throughout Europe, especially in France and Germany, men were not
+entirely forgetful of their present interests; and both those who went
+on this expedition, and those who stayed behind, entertained schemes
+of gratifying, by its means, their avarice or their ambition.  The
+nobles who enlisted themselves were moved, from the romantic spirit of
+the age, to hope for opulent establishments in the East, the chief
+seat of arts and commerce during those ages; and in pursuit of these
+chimerical projects, they sold at the lowest price their ancient
+castles and inheritances, which had now lost all value in their eyes.
+The greater princes, who remained at home, besides establishing peace
+in their dominions by giving occupation abroad to the inquietude and
+martial disposition of their subjects, took the opportunity of
+annexing to their crown many considerable fiefs, either by purchase,
+or by the extinction of heirs.  The pope frequently turned the zeal of
+the crusaders from the infidels against his own enemies, whom he
+represented as equally criminal with the enemies of Christ.  The
+convents and other religious societies bought the possessions of the
+adventurers, and as the contributions of the faithful were commonly
+intrusted to their management, they often diverted to this purpose
+what was intended to be employed against the infidels [u].  But no one
+was a more immediate gainer by this epidemic fury than the King of
+England, who kept aloof from all connexions with those fanatical and
+romantic warriors.
+[FN [u] Padre Paolo Hist. delle benef. ecclesiast. p. 128.]
+
+[MN Acquisition of Normandy.]
+Robert, Duke of Normandy, impelled by the bravery and mistaken
+generosity of his spirit, had early enlisted himself in the crusade;
+but being always unprovided with money, he found that it would be
+impracticable for him to appear in a manner suitable to his rank and
+station, at the head of his numerous vassals and subjects, who,
+transported with the general rage, were determined to follow him into
+Asia.  He resolved, therefore, to mortgage, or rather to sell his
+dominion; which he had not talents to govern; and he offered them to
+his brother William for the very unequal sum of ten thousand marks
+[w].  The bargain was soon concluded: the king raised the money by
+violent extortions on his subjects of all ranks, even on the convents,
+who were obliged to melt their plate in order to furnish the quota
+demanded of them [x]: he was put in possession of Normandy and Maine,
+and Robert, providing himself with a magnificent train, set out for
+the Holy Land, in pursuit of glory, and in full confidence of securing
+his eternal salvation.
+[FN [w] W. Malm. p. 123.  Chron. T. Wykes. p. 24.  Annal. Waverl. p.
+139.  W. Heming. p. 467.  Flor. Wig. p. 648.  Sim. Dunelm. p. 222.
+Knyghton, p. 2564.  [x] Eadmer, p. 35.  W. Malm. p. 123.  W. Heming.
+p. 467.]
+
+The smallness of this sum, with the difficulties which William found
+in raising it, suffices alone to refute the account which is
+heedlessly adopted by historians, of the enormous revenue of the
+Conqueror.  Is it credible that Robert would consign to the rapacious
+hands of his brother such considerable dominion, for a sum, which,
+according to that account, made not a week's income of his father's
+English revenue alone?  Or that the King of England could not on
+demand, without oppressing his subjects, have been able to pay him the
+money?  The Conqueror, it is agreed, was frugal as well as rapacious;
+yet his treasure, at his death, exceeded not sixty thousand pounds,
+which hardly amounted to his income for two months: another certain
+refutation of that exaggerated account.
+
+The fury of the crusades, during this age, less infected England than
+the neighbouring kingdoms; probably because the Norman conquerors,
+finding their settlement in that kingdom still somewhat precarious,
+durst not abandon their homes in quest of distant adventures.  The
+selfish interested spirit also of the king, which kept him from
+kindling in the general flame, checked its progress among his
+subjects: and as he is accused of open profaneness [y], and was endued
+with a sharp wit [z], it is likely that he made the romantic chivalry
+of the crusaders the object of his perpetual raillery.  As an instance
+of his irreligion, we are told, that he once accepted of sixty marks
+from a Jew, whose son had been converted to Christianity, and who
+engaged him by that present to assist him in bringing back the youth
+to Judaism.  William employed both menaces and persuasion for that
+purpose; but finding the convert obstinate in his new faith, he sent
+for the father and told him, that as he had not succeeded, it was not
+just that he should keep the present; but as he had done his utmost,
+it was but equitable that he should be paid for his pains; and he
+would therefore retain only thirty marks of the money [a].  At another
+time, it is said, he sent for some learned Christian theologians and
+some rabbies, and bade them fairly dispute the question of their
+religion in his presence: he was perfectly indifferent between them;
+had his ears open to reason and conviction; and would embrace that
+doctrine which upon comparison should be found supported by the most
+solid arguments [b].  If this story be true, it is probable that he
+meant only to amuse himself by turning both into ridicule: but we must
+be cautious of admitting every thing related by the monkish historians
+to the disadvantage of this prince: he had the misfortune to be
+engaged in quarrels with the ecclesiastics, particularly with Anselm,
+commonly called St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury; and it is no
+wonder his memory should be blackened by the historians of that order.
+[FN [y] G. Newbr. p. 358.  W. Gemet. p. 292.  [z] W. Malm. p. 122.
+[a] Eadmer, p. 47.  [b] W. Malm. p. 123.]
+
+[MN Quarrel the Anselm, the primate.]
+After the death of Lanfranc, the king, for several years, retained in
+his own hands the revenues of Canterbury, as he did those of many
+other vacant bishoprics; but falling into a dangerous sickness, he was
+seized with remorse, and the clergy represented to him, that he was in
+danger of eternal perdition, if before his death he did not make
+atonement for those multiplied impieties and sacrileges of which he
+had been guilty [c].  He resolved therefore to supply instantly the
+vacancy of Canterbury; and for that purpose he sent for Anselm, a
+Piedmontese by birth, Abbot of Bec in Normandy, who was much
+celebrated for his learning and piety.  The abbot earnestly refused
+the dignity, fell on his knees, wept, and entreated the king to change
+his purpose [d]; and when he found the prince obstinate in forcing the
+pastoral staff upon him, he kept his fist so fast clenched, that it
+required the utmost violence of the bystanders to open it, and force
+him to receive that ensign of spiritual dignity [e].  William soon
+after recovered; and his passions regaining their wonted vigour, he
+returned to his former violence and rapine.  He detained in prison
+several persons whom he had ordered to be freed during the time of his
+penitence; he still preyed upon the ecclesiastical benefices; the sale
+of spiritual dignities continued as open as ever; and he kept
+possession of a considerable part of the revenues belonging to the see
+of Canterbury [f].  But he found in Anselm that persevering opposition
+which he had reason to expect from the ostentatious humility which
+that prelate had displayed in refusing his promotion.
+[FN [c] Eadmer, p. 16.  Chron. Sax. p. 198.  [d] Eadmer, p. 17.
+Diceto, p. 494.  [e] Eadmer, p. 18.  [f] Eadmer, p. 19, 43.  Chron.
+Sax. p. 119.]
+
+The opposition made by Anselm was the more dangerous on account of the
+character of piety which he soon acquired in England by his great zeal
+against all abuses, particularly those in dress and ornament.  There
+was a mode, which, in that age, prevailed throughout Europe, both
+among men and women, to give an enormous length to their shoes, to
+draw the toe to a sharp point, and to affix to it the figure of a
+bird's bill, or some such ornament, which was turned upwards, and
+which was often sustained by gold or silver chains tied to the knee
+[g].  The ecclesiastics took exception at this ornament, which they
+said was an attempt to belie the scripture, where it is affirmed, that
+no man can add a cubit to his stature; and they declaimed against it
+with great vehemence, nay, assembled some synods, who absolutely
+condemned it.  But, such are the strange contradictions in human
+nature! though the clergy, at that time, could overturn thrones, and
+had authority sufficient to send above a million of men on THEIR
+errand to the deserts of Asia, they could never prevail against these
+long pointed shoes: on the contrary, that caprice, contrary to all
+other modes, maintained its ground during several centuries; and if
+the clergy had not at last desisted from their persecution of it, it
+might still have been the prevailing fashion in Europe.
+[FN [g] Order. Vital. p. 682.  W. Malmes. p. 123.  Knyghton, p. 2369.]
+
+But Anselm was more fortunate in decrying the particular mode which
+was the object of his aversion, and which probably had not taken such
+fast hold of the affections of the people.  He preached zealously
+against the long hair and curled locks which were then fashionable
+among the courtiers; he refused the ashes on Ash-Wednesday to those
+who were so accoutred; and his authority and eloquence had such
+influence, that the young men universally abandoned that ornament, and
+appeared in the cropped hair, which was recommended to them by the
+sermons of the primate.  The noted historian of Anselm, who was also
+his companion and secretary, celebrates highly this effort of his zeal
+and piety [h].
+[FN [h] Eadmer, p. 23.]
+
+When William's profaneness therefore returned to him with his health,
+he was soon engaged in controversies with this austere prelate.  There
+was at that time a schism in the church between Urban and Clement, who
+both pretended to the papacy [i]; and Anselm, who, as Abbot of Bec,
+had already acknowledged the former, was determined, without the
+king's consent, to introduce his authority into England [k].  William,
+who, imitating his father's example, had prohibited his subjects from
+recognizing any pope whom he had not previously received, was enraged
+at this attempt; and summoned a synod at Rockingham, with an intention
+of deposing Anselm: but the prelate's suffragans declared, that
+without the papal authority, they knew of no expedient for inflicting
+that punishment on their primate [l].  The king was at last engaged by
+other motives to give the preference to Urban's title: Anselm received
+the pall from that pontiff; and matters seemed to be accommodated
+between the king and the primate [m], when the quarrel broke out
+afresh from a new cause.  William had undertaken an expedition against
+Wales, and required the archbishop to furnish his quota of soldiers
+for that service; but Anselm, who regarded the demand as an oppression
+on the church, and yet durst not refuse compliance, sent them so
+miserably accoutred, that the king was extremely displeased, and
+threatened him with a prosecution [n].  Anselm, on the other hand,
+demanded positively that all the revenues of his see should be
+restored to him; appealed to Rome against the king's injustice [o];
+and affairs came to such extremities, that the primate, finding it
+dangerous to remain in the kingdom, desired and obtained the king's
+permission to retire beyond sea.  All his temporalities were seized
+[p]; but he was received with great respect by Urban, who considered
+him as a martyr in the cause of religion, and even menaced the king on
+account of his proceedings against the primate and the church, with
+the sentence of excommunication.  Anselm assisted at the council of
+Bari, where, besides fixing the controversy between the Greek and
+Latin churches, concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost [q], the
+right of election to church preferments was declared to belong to the
+clergy alone, and spiritual censures were denounced against all
+ecclesiastics, who did homage to laymen for their sees or benefices,
+and against all laymen who exacted it [r].  The right of homage, by
+the feudal customs, was, that the vassal should throw himself on his
+knees, should put his joined hands between those of his superior, and
+should in that posture swear fealty to him [s].  But the council
+declared it execrable, that pure hands, which could create God, and
+could offer him up as a sacrifice for the salvation of mankind, should
+be put, after this humiliating manner, between profane hands, which,
+besides being inured to rapine and bloodshed, were employed day and
+night in impure purposes, and obscene contacts [t].  Such were the
+reasonings prevalent in that age; reasonings which, though they cannot
+be passed over in silence, without omitting the most curious, and
+perhaps not the least instructive part of history, can scarcely be
+delivered with the requisite decency and gravity.
+[FN [i] Hoveden, p. 463.  [k] Eadmer, p. 25.  M. Paris, p. 13.
+Diceto, p. 494.  Spellm. Conc. vol ii. p. 16.  [l] Eadmer, p. 30.  [m]
+Diceto, p. 495.  [n] Eadmer, p. 37, 43.  [o] Ibid. p. 40.  [p] M.
+Paris, p. 13.  Parker, p. 178.  [q] Eadmer, p. 49.  M. Paris, p. 13.
+Sim. Dun. p. 224.  [r] M. Paris, p. 14.  [s] Spellman, Du Cange, in
+verb. HOMINIUM.  [t] W. Heming. p. 467.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 649.  Sim.
+Dunelm. p. 224.  Brompton, p. 994.]
+
+[MN 1097.]  The cession of Normandy and Maine by Duke Robert increased
+the king's territories; but brought him no great increase of power,
+because of the unsettled state of those countries, the mutinous
+disposition of the barons, and the vicinity of the French king, who
+supported them in all their insurrections.  Even Helie, Lord of La
+Fleche, a small town in Anjou, was able to give him inquietude; and
+this great monarch was obliged to make several expeditions abroad,
+without being able to prevail over so petty a baron, who had acquired
+the confidence and affections of the inhabitants of Maine.  He was,
+however, so fortunate as at last to take him prisoner in a rencounter;
+but having released him at the intercession of the French king and the
+Count of Anjou, he found the province of Maine still exposed to his
+intrigues and incursions.  Helie, being introduced by the citizens
+into the town of Mans, besieged the garrison in the citadel: [MN
+1099.] William, who was hunting in the new forest when he received
+intelligence of this hostile attempt, was so provoked, that he
+immediately turned his horse, and galloped to the sea-shore at
+Dartmouth; declaring, that he would not stop a moment till he had
+taken vengeance for the offence.  He found the weather so cloudy and
+tempestuous, that the mariners thought it dangerous to put to sea: but
+the king hurried on board, and ordered them to set sail instantly;
+telling them, that they never yet heard of a king that was drowned
+[u].  By this vigour and celerity, he delivered the citadel of Mans
+from its present danger: and pursuing Helie into his own territories,
+he laid siege to Majol, a small castle in those parts: [MN 1100.] but
+a wound, which he received before this place, obliged him to raise the
+siege; and he returned to England.
+[FN [u] W. Malm. p. 124.  H. Hunt. p. 378.  M. Paris, p. 36.  Ypod.
+Neust p. 442.]
+
+The weakness of the greatest monarchs, during this age, in their
+military expeditions against their nearest neighbours, appears the
+more surprising, when we consider the prodigious numbers which even
+petty princes, seconding the enthusiastic rage of the people, were
+able to assemble, and to conduct in dangerous enterprises to the
+remote provinces of Asia.  William, Earl of Poitiers and Duke of
+Guienne, inflamed with the glory, and not discouraged by the
+misfortunes, which had attended the former adventurers in the
+crusades, had put himself at the head of an immense multitude,
+computed by some historians to amount to sixty thousand horse, and a
+much greater number of foot [w], and he purposed to lead them into the
+Holy Land against the infidels.  He wanted money to forward the
+preparations requisite for this expedition, and he offered to mortgage
+all his dominions to William, without entertaining any scruple on
+account of that rapacious and iniquitous hand to which he resolved to
+consign them [x].  The king accepted the offer, and had prepared a
+fleet and an army, in order to escort the money, and take possession
+of the rich provinces of Guienne and Poictou; [MN 2d August.] when an
+accident put an end to his life, and to all his ambitious projects.
+He was engaged in hunting, the sole amusement, and indeed the chief
+occupation of princes in those rude times, when society was little
+cultivated, and the arts afforded few objects worthy of attention.
+Walter Tyrrel, a French gentleman, remarkable for his address in
+archery, attended him in this recreation, of which the new forest was
+the scene; and as William had dismounted after a chase, Tyrrel,
+impatient to show his dexterity, let fly an arrow at a stag, which
+suddenly started before him.  The arrow, glancing from a tree, struck
+the king in the breast, and instantly slew him [y]; while Tyrrel,
+without informing any one of the accident, put spurs to his horse,
+hastened to the sea-shore, embarked for France, and joined the crusade
+in an expedition to Jerusalem; a penance which he imposed on himself
+for this involuntary crime.  The body of William was found in the
+forest by the country people, and was buried without any pomp or
+ceremony at Winchester.  His courtiers were negligent in performing
+the last duties to a master who was so little beloved; and every one
+was too much occupied in the interesting object of fixing his
+successor, to attend the funeral of a dead sovereign.
+[FN [w] W. Malm. p. 149.  The whole is said by Order. Vital., p. 789,
+to amount to three hundred thousand men.  [x] W. Malmes. p. 127.  [y]
+Ibid. p. 126.  H. Hunt. p. 378.  M. Paris, p. 37.  Petr. Blois, p.
+110.]
+
+[MN Death and character of William Rufus.]
+The memory of this monarch is transmitted to us with little advantage
+by the churchmen, whom he had offended; and though we may suspect, in
+general, that their account of his vices is somewhat exaggerated, his
+conduct affords little reason for contradicting the character which
+they have assigned him, or for attributing to him any very estimable
+qualities.  He seems to have been a violent and tyrannical prince; a
+perfidious, encroaching, and dangerous neighbour; an unkind and
+ungenerous relation.  He was equally prodigal and rapacious in the
+management of his treasury; and if he possessed abilities, he lay so
+much under the government of impetuous passions, that he made little
+use of them in his administration; and he indulged, without reserve,
+that domineering policy, which suited his temper, and which, if
+supported, as it was in him, with courage and vigour, proves often
+more successful in disorderly times, than the deepest foresight and
+most refined artifice.
+
+The monuments which remain of this prince in England, are the Tower,
+Westminster-hall, and London-bridge, which he built.  The most
+laudable foreign enterprise which he undertook, was the sending of
+Edgar Atheling, three years before his death, into Scotland with a
+small army, to restore Prince Edgar, the true heir of that kingdom,
+son of Malcolm, and of Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling; and the
+enterprise proved successful.  It was remarked in that age, that
+Richard, an elder brother of William's, perished by an accident in the
+new forest; Richard, his nephew, natural son of Duke Robert, lost his
+life in the same place, after the same manner; and all men, upon the
+king's fate, exclaimed, that, as the Conqueror had been guilty of
+extreme violence, in expelling all the inhabitants of that large
+district to make room for his game, the just vengeance of Heaven was
+signalized, in the same place, by the slaughter of his posterity.
+William was killed in the thirteenth year of his reign, and about the
+fortieth of his age.  As he was never married, he left no legitimate
+issue.
+
+In the eleventh year of this reign, Magnus, King of Norway, made a
+descent on the Isle of Anglesea, but was repulsed by Hugh, Earl of
+Shrewsbury.  This is the last attempt made by the northern nations
+upon England.  That restless people seem about this time to have
+learnt the practice of tillage, which thenceforth kept them at home,
+and freed the other nations of Europe from the devastations spread
+over them by those piratical invaders.  This proved one great cause of
+the subsequent settlement and improvement of the southern nations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+HENRY I.
+
+THE CRUSADES.--ACCESSION OF HENRY.--MARRIAGE OF THE KING.--INVASION BY
+DUKE ROBERT.--ACCOMMODATION WITH ROBERT.—ATTACK OF NORMANDY.--CONQUEST
+OF NORMANDY.--CONTINUATION OF THE QUARREL WITH ANSELM, THE PRIMATE.--
+COMPROMISE WITH HIM.—WARS ABROAD.--DEATH OF PRINCE WILLIAM.--KING'S
+SECOND MARRIAGE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF HENRY
+
+
+
+[MN 1100.  The Crusades.]
+After the adventurers in the holy war were assembled on the banks of
+the Bosphorus, opposite to Constantinople, they proceeded on their
+enterprise; but immediately experienced those difficulties which their
+zeal had hitherto concealed from them, and for which, even if they had
+foreseen them, it would have been almost impossible to provide a
+remedy.  The Greek emperor, Alexius Comnenus, who had applied to the
+western Christians for succour against the Turks, entertained hopes,
+and those but feeble ones, of obtaining such a moderate supply, as,
+acting under his command, might enable him to repulse the enemy: but
+he was extremely astonished to see his dominions overwhelmed, on a
+sudden, by such an inundation of licentious barbarians, who, though
+they pretended friendship, despised his subjects as unwarlike, and
+detested them as heretical.  By all the arts of policy, in which he
+excelled, he endeavoured to divert the torrent; but while he employed
+professions, caresses, civilities, and seeming services towards the
+leaders of the crusade, he secretly regarded those imperious allies as
+more dangerous than the open enemies by whom his empire had been
+formerly invaded.  Having effected that difficult point of
+disembarking them safely in Asia, he entered into a private
+correspondence with Soliman, Emperor of the Turks; and practised every
+insidious art, which his genius, his power, or his situation enabled
+him to employ, for disappointing the enterprise, and discouraging the
+Latins from making thenceforward any such prodigious migrations.  His
+dangerous policy was seconded by the disorders inseparable from so
+vast a multitude, who were not united under one head, and were
+conducted by leaders of the most independent, intractable spirit,
+unacquainted with military discipline, and determined enemies to civil
+authority and submission.  The scarcity of provisions, the excess of
+fatigue, the influence of unknown climates, joined to the want of
+concert in their operations, and to the sword of a warlike enemy,
+destroyed the adventurers by thousands, and would have abated the
+ardour of men impelled to war by less powerful motives.  Their zeal,
+however, their bravery, and their irresistible force, still carried
+them forward, and continually advanced them to the great end of their
+enterprise.  After an obstinate siege they took Nice, the seat of the
+Turkish empire; they defeated Soliman in two great battles; they made
+themselves masters of Antioch; and entirely broke the force of the
+Turks, who had so long retained those countries in subjection: the
+Soldan of Egypt, whose alliance they had hitherto courted, recovered,
+on the fall of the Turkish power, his former authority in Jerusalem;
+and he informed them by his ambassadors, that if they came disarmed to
+that city, they might now perform their religious vows, and that all
+Christian pilgrims, who should thenceforth visit the holy sepulchre,
+might expect the same good treatment which they had ever received from
+his predecessors.  The offer was rejected; the soldan was required to
+yield up the city to the Christians; and on his refusal, the champions
+of the Cross advanced to the siege of Jerusalem, which they regarded
+as the consummation of their labours.  By the detachments which they
+had made, and the disasters which they had undergone, they were
+diminished to the number of twenty thousand foot and fifteen hundred
+horse; but these were still formidable, from their valour, their
+experience, and the obedience which, from past calamities, they had
+learned to pay to their leaders.  After a siege of five weeks, they
+took Jerusalem by assault; and, impelled by a mixture of military and
+religious rage, they put the numerous garrison and inhabitants to the
+sword without distinction.  Neither arms defended the valiant, nor
+submission the timorous: no age or sex was spared: infants on the
+breast were pierced by the same blow with their mothers, who implored
+for mercy: even a multitude, to the number of ten thousand persons,
+who had surrendered themselves prisoners, and were promised quarter,
+were butchered in cool blood by those ferocious conquerors [a].  The
+streets of Jerusalem were covered with dead bodies [b]; and the
+triumphant warriors, after every enemy was subdued and slaughtered,
+immediately turned themselves, with the sentiments of humiliation and
+contrition, towards the holy sepulchre.  They threw aside their arms,
+still streaming with blood: they advanced with reclined bodies, and
+naked feet and heads, to the sacred monument: they sung anthems to
+their Saviour who had there purchased their salvation by his death and
+agony: and their devotion, enlivened by the presence of the place
+where he had suffered, so overcame their fury, that they dissolved in
+tears, and bore the appearance of every soft and tender sentiment.  So
+inconsistent is human nature with itself! and so easily does the most
+effeminate superstition ally, both with the most heroic courage and
+with the fiercest barbarity!
+[FN [a] Vertot, vol. i. p. 57.  [b] M. Paris, p. 34.  Order. Vital. p.
+756.  Diceto, p. 498.]
+
+This great event happened on the 5th of July, in the last year of the
+eleventh century.  The Christian princes and nobles, after choosing
+Godfrey of Bouillon King of Jerusalem, began to settle themselves in
+their new conquests; while some of them returned to Europe, in order
+to enjoy at home that glory which their valour had acquired them in
+this popular and meritorious enterprise.  Among these was Robert, Duke
+of Normandy, who, as he had relinquished the greatest dominions of any
+prince that attended the crusade, had all along distinguished himself
+by the most intrepid courage, as well as by that affable disposition
+and unbounded generosity which gain the hearts of soldiers, and
+qualify a prince to shine in a military life.  In passing through
+Italy, he became acquainted with Sibylla, daughter of the Count of
+Conversana, a young lady of great beauty and merit, whom he espoused:
+indulging himself in this new passion, as well as fond of enjoying
+ease and pleasure after the fatigues of so many rough campaigns, he
+lingered a twelvemonth in that delicious climate; and though his
+friends in the north looked every moment for his arrival, none of them
+knew when they could with certainty expect it.  By this delay he lost
+the kingdom of England, which the great fame he had acquired during
+the crusades, as well as his undoubted title, both by birth, and by
+the preceding agreement with his deceased brother, would, had he been
+present, have infallibly secured to him.
+
+[MN Accession of Henry.]
+Prince Henry was hunting with Rufus in the new forest, when
+intelligence of that monarch's death was brought him; and being
+sensible of the advantage attending the conjuncture, he hurried to
+Winchester, in order to secure the royal treasure, which he knew to be
+a necessary implement for facilitating his designs on the crown.  He
+had scarcely reached the place when William of Breteuil, keeper of the
+treasure, arrived, and opposed himself to Henry's pretensions.  This
+nobleman, who had been engaged in the same party of hunting, had no
+sooner heard of his master's death, than he hastened to take care of
+his charge; and he told the prince that this treasure, as well as the
+crown, belonged to his elder brother, who was now his sovereign; and
+that he himself, for his part, was determined, in spite of all other
+pretensions, to maintain his allegiance to him.  But Henry, drawing
+his sword, threatened him with instant death if he dared to disobey
+him; and as others of the late king's retinue, who came every moment
+to Winchester, joined the prince's party, Breteuil was obliged to
+withdraw his opposition, and to acquiesce in this insolence [c].
+[FN [c] Order. Vital. p. 782.]
+
+Henry, without losing a moment, hastened with the money to London; and
+having assembled some noblemen and prelates, whom his address, or
+abilities, or presents, gained to his side, he was suddenly elected,
+or rather saluted, king, and immediately proceeded to the exercise of
+royal authority.  In less than three days after his brother's death,
+the ceremony of his coronation was performed by Maurice, Bishop of
+London, who was persuaded to officiate on that occasion [d]; and thus
+by his courage and celerity, he intruded himself into the vacant
+throne.  No one had sufficient spirit or sense of duty to appear in
+defence of the absent prince: all men were seduced or intimidated:
+present possession supplied the apparent defects in Henry's title,
+which was indeed founded on plain usurpation: and the barons, as well
+as the people, acquiesced in a claim which, though it could neither be
+justified nor comprehended, could now, they found, be opposed through
+the perils alone of civil war and rebellion.
+[FN [d] Chron. Sax. p. 208.  Order. Vital. p. 783.]
+
+But as Henry foresaw that a crown, usurped against all rules of
+justice, would sit unsteady on his head, he resolved, by fair
+professions at least, to gain the affections of all his subjects.
+Besides taking the usual coronation oath to maintain the laws and
+execute justice, he passed a charter, which was calculated to remedy
+many of the grievous oppressions which had been complained of during
+the reigns of his father and brother [e].  He there promised, that, at
+the death of any bishop or abbot, he never would seize the revenues of
+the see or abbey during the vacancy, but would leave the whole to be
+reaped by the successor; and that he would never let to farm any
+ecclesiastical benefice, nor dispose of it for money.  After this
+concession to the church, whose favour was of so great importance, he
+proceeded to enumerate the civil grievances which he purposed to
+redress.  He promised, that, upon the death of any earl, baron, or
+military tenant, his heir should be admitted to the possession of his
+estate, on paying a just and lawful relief; without being exposed to
+such violent exactions as had been usual during the late reigns: he
+remitted the wardship of minors, and allowed guardians to be
+appointed, who should be answerable for the trust: he promised not to
+dispose of any heiress in marriage but by the advice of all the
+barons; and if any baron intended to give his daughter, sister, niece,
+or kinswoman in marriage, it should only be necessary for him to
+consult the king, who promised to take no money for his consent, nor
+ever to refuse permission, unless the  person to whom it was purposed
+to many her should happen to be his enemy: he granted his barons and
+military tenants the power of bequeathing, by will, their money or
+personal estates; and if they neglected to make a will, he promised
+that their heirs should succeed to them: he renounced the right of
+imposing money-age, and of levying taxes at pleasure on the farms
+which the barons retained in their own hands [f]: he made some general
+professions of moderating fines: he offered a pardon for all offences;
+and he remitted all debts due to the crown: he required that the
+vassals of the barons should enjoy the same privileges which he
+granted to his own barons: and he promised a general confirmation and
+observance of the laws of King Edward.  This is the substance of the
+chief articles contained in that famous charter [g].
+[FN [e] Chron. Sax. p. 208.  Sim. Dunelm. p. 225.  [f] See Appendix
+II.  [g] M. Paris, p. 38.  Hoveden, p. 468.  Brompton, p. 1021.
+Hagulstadt, p. 310.]
+
+To give greater authenticity to these concessions, Henry lodged a copy
+of his charter in some abbey of each county, as if desirous that it
+should be exposed to the view of all his subjects, and remain a
+perpetual rule for the limitation and direction of his government: yet
+it is certain, that, after the present purpose was served, he never
+once thought, during his reign, of observing one single article of it;
+and the whole fell so much into neglect and oblivion, that in the
+following century, when the barons, who had heard an obscure tradition
+of it, desired to make it the model of the great charter which they
+exacted from King John, they could with difficulty find a copy of it
+in the kingdom.  But as to the grievances here meant to be redressed,
+they were still continued in their full extent; and the royal
+authority, in all those particulars, lay under no manner of
+restriction.  Reliefs of heirs, so capital an article, were never
+effectually fixed till the time of Magna Charta [h]; and it is evident
+that the general promise here given, of accepting a just and lawful
+relief, ought to have been reduced to more precision, in order to give
+security to the subject.  The oppression of wardship and marriage was
+perpetuated even till the reign of Charles II.  And it appears from
+Glanville [i], the famous justiciary of Henry II., that in his time,
+where any man died intestate, an accident which must have been very
+frequent when the art of writing was so little known, the king, or the
+lord of the fief, pretended to seize all the movables, and to exclude
+every heir, even the children of the deceased: a sure mark of a
+tyrannical and arbitrary government.
+[FN [h] Glanv. lib. 2. cap. 36.  What is called a relief in the
+Conqueror's laws, preserved by Ingulph, seems to have been the heriot;
+since reliefs, as well as the other burdens of the feudal law, were
+unknown in the age of the Confessor, whose laws these originally were.
+[i] Lib. 7. cap. 16.  This practice was contrary to the laws of King
+Edward ratified by the Conqueror, as we learn from Ingulph, p. 91.
+But laws had at this time very little influence: power and violence
+governed every thing.]
+
+The Normans, indeed, who domineered in England, were, during this age,
+so licentious a people, that they may be pronounced incapable of any
+true or regular liberty; which requires such improvement in knowledge
+and morals as can only be the result of reflection and experience, and
+must grow to perfection during several ages of settled and established
+government.  A people so insensible to the rights of their sovereign
+as to disjoint, without necessity, the hereditary succession, and
+permit a younger brother to intrude himself into the place of the
+elder, whom they esteemed, and who was guilty of no crime, but being
+absent, could not expect that that prince would pay any greater regard
+to their privileges, or allow his engagements to fetter his power and
+debar him from any considerable interest or convenience.  They had,
+indeed, arms in their hands, which prevented the establishment of a
+total despotism, and left their posterity sufficient power, whenever
+they should attain a sufficient degree of reason, to assure true
+liberty: but their turbulent disposition frequently prompted them to
+make such use of their arms, that they were more fitted to obstruct
+the execution of justice, than to stop the career of violence and
+oppresion.  The prince, finding that greater opposition was often made
+to him when he enforced the laws than when he violated them, was apt
+to render his own will and pleasure the sole rule of government; and,
+at every emergence, to consider more the power of the persons whom he
+might offend, than the rights of those whom he might injure.  The very
+form of this charter of Henry proves that the Norman barons (for they,
+rather than the people of England, were chiefly concerned in it) were
+totally ignorant of the nature of united monarchy, and were ill
+qualified to conduct, in conjunction with their sovereign, the machine
+of government.  It is an act of his sole power, is the result of his
+free grace, contains some articles which bind others as well as
+himself, and is therefore unfit to be the deed of any one who
+possesses not the whole legislative power, and who may not at pleasure
+revoke all his concessions.
+
+Henry, farther to increase his popularity, degraded and committed to
+prison Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, who had been the chief
+instrument of oppresion under his brother [k]: but this act was
+followed by another, which was a direct violation of his own charter,
+and was a bad prognostic of his sincere intentions to observe it: he
+kept the see of Durham vacant for five years, and during that time
+retained possession of all its revenues.  Sensible of the great
+authority which Anselm had acquired by his character of piety, and by
+the persecutions which he had undergone from William, he sent repeated
+messages to him at Lyons, where he resided, and invited him to return
+and take possession of his dignities [l].  On the arrival of the
+prelate, he proposed to him the renewal of that homage which he had
+done his brother, and which he had never been refused by any English
+bishop: but Anslem  had acquired other sentiments by his journey to
+Rome, and gave the king an absolute refusal.  He objected to the
+decrees of the council of Bari, at which he himself had assisted; and
+he declared, that so far from doing homage for his spiritual dignity,
+he would not so much as communicate with any ecclesiastic who paid
+that submission, or who accepted of investitures from laymen.  Henry;
+who expected, in his present delicate situation, to reap great
+advantages from the authority and popularity of Anselm, durst not
+insist on his demand [m]: he only desired that the controversy might
+be suspended: and that messengers might be sent to Rome, in order to
+accommodate matters with the pope, and obtain his confirmation of the
+laws and customs of England.
+[FN [k] Chron. Sax. p. 208.  W. Malm. p. 156.  Matth. Paris, p. 39.
+Alur. Beverl. p. 144.  [l] Chron. Sax. p. 208.  Order. Vital. p. 783.
+Matth. Paris, p. 39.  T. Rudborne, p. 273.  [m] W. Malm. p. 225.]
+
+[MN 1100.  Marriage of the king.]
+There immediately occurred an important affair, in which the king was
+obliged to have recourse to the authority of Anselm.  Matilda,
+daughter of Malcolm III., King of Scotland, and niece to Edgar
+Atheling, had, on her father's death, and the subsequent revolutions
+in the Scottish government, been brought to England, and educated
+under her aunt Christina, in the nunnery of Rumsey.  This princess
+Henry purposed to marry; but as she had worn the veil, though never
+taken the vows, doubts might arise concerning the lawfulness of the
+act; and it behoved him to be very careful not to shock, in any
+particular, the religious prejudices of his subjects.  The affair was
+examined by Anselm in a council of the prelates and nobles, which was
+summoned at Lambeth; Matilda there proved that she had put on the
+veil, not with the view of entering into a religious life, but merely
+in consequence of a custom familiar to the English ladies, who
+protected their chastity from the brutal violence of the Normans by
+taking shelter under that habit [n], which, amidst the horrible
+licentiousness of the times, was yet generally revered.  The council,
+sensible that even a princess had otherwise no security for her
+honour, admitted this reason as valid; they pronounced that Matilda
+was still free to marry [o] and her espousals with Henry were
+celebrated by Anselm with great pomp and solemnity [p].  No act of the
+king's reign rendered him equally popular with his English subjects,
+and tended more to establish him on the throne.  Though Matilda,
+during the life of her uncle and brothers, was not heir of the Saxon
+line, she was become very dear to the English on account of her
+connexions with it: and that people, who, before the Conquest, had
+fallen into a kind of indifference towards their ancient royal family,
+had felt so severely the tyranny of the Normans, that they reflected
+with extreme regret on their former liberty, and hoped for more equal
+and mild administration, when the blood of their native princes should
+be mingled with that of their new sovereigns [q].
+[FN [n] Eadmer, p. 57.  [o] Ibid.  [p] Hoveden, p. 468.  [q] M. Paris,
+p. 40.]
+
+[MN 1100.  Invasion by Duke Robert.]
+But the policy and prudence of Henry, which, if time had been allowed
+for these virtues to produce their full effect, would have secured him
+possession of the crown, ran great hazard of being frustrated by the
+sudden appearance of Robert, who returned to Normandy about a month
+after the death of his brother William.  [MN 1101.]  He took
+possession, without opposition, of that duchy; and immediately made
+preparations for recovering England, of which, during his absence, he
+had, by Henry's intrigues, been so unjustly defrauded.  The great fame
+which he had acquired in the East forwarded his pretensions; and the
+Norman barons, sensible of the consequences, expressed the same
+discontent at the separation of the duchy and kingdom, which had
+appeared on the accession of William.  Robert de Belesme, Earl of
+Shrewsbury and Arundel, William de la Warenne, Earl of Surrey, Arnulf
+de Montgomery, Walter Giffard, Robert de Pontefract, Robert de Mallet,
+Yvo de Grentmesnil, and many others of the principal nobility [r],
+invited Robert to make an attempt upon England, and promised, on his
+landing, to join him with all their forces.  Even the seamen were
+affected with the general popularity of his name, and they carried
+over to him the greater part of a fleet which had been equipped to
+oppose his passage.  Henry, in this extremity, began to be
+apprehensive for his life, as well as for his crown, and had recourse
+to the superstition of the people, in order to oppose their sentiment
+of justice.  He paid diligent court to Anselm, whose sanctity and
+wisdom he pretended to revere.  He consulted him in all difficult
+emergencies; seemed to be governed by him in every measure; promised a
+strict regard to ecclesiastical privileges; professed a great
+attachment to Rome, and a resolution of persevering in an implicit
+obedience to the decrees of councils, and to the will of the sovereign
+pontiff.  By these caresses and declarations, he entirely gained the
+confidence of the primate, whose influence over the people, and
+authority with the barons, were of the utmost service to him in his
+present situation.  Anselm scrupled not to assure the nobles of the
+king's sincerity in those professions which he made of avoiding the
+tyrannical and oppressive government of his father and brother: he
+even rode through the ranks of the army, recommended to the soldiers
+the defence of their prince, represented the duty of keeping their
+oaths of allegiance, and prognosticated to them the greatest happiness
+from the government of so wise and just a sovereign.  By this
+expedient, joined to the influence of the Earls of Warwick and
+Mellent, of Roger Bigod, Richard de Redvers, and Robert Fitz-Hamon,
+powerful barons, who still adhered to the present government, the army
+was retained in the king's interest, and marched, with seeming union
+and firmness, to oppose Robert, who had landed with his forces at
+Portsmouth.
+[FN [r] Order. Vital. p. 785.]
+
+[MN Accommodation with Robert.]
+The two armies lay in sight of each other for some days without coming
+to action; and both princes, being apprehensive of the event, which
+would probably be decisive, hearkened the more willingly to the
+counsels of Anselm and the other great men, who mediated an
+accommodation between them.  After employing some negotiation, it was
+agreed that Robert should resign his pretensions to England, and
+receive in lieu of them an annual pension of three thousand marks;
+that, if either of the princes died without issue, the other should
+succeed to his dominions; that the adherents of each should be
+pardoned and restored to all their possessions either in Normandy or
+England; and that neither Robert nor Henry should thenceforth
+encourage, receive, or protect the enemies of the other [s].
+[FN [s] Chron. Sax. p. 209.  W. Malmes. p. 156.]
+
+[MN 1102.]  This treaty, though calculated so much for HenryÂ’s
+advantage, he was the first to violate.  He restored, indeed, the
+estates of all Robert's adherents; but was secretly determined, that
+noblemen so powerful and so ill-affected, who had both inclination and
+ability to disturb his government, should not long remain unmolested
+in their present opulence and grandeur.  He began with the Earl of
+Shrewsbury, who was watched for some time by spies, and then indicted
+on a charge, consisting of forty-five articles.  This turbulent
+nobleman, knowing his own guilt, as well as the prejudices of his
+judges and the power of his prosecutor, had recourse to arms for
+defence; but, being soon suppressed by the activity and address of
+Henry, he was banished the kingdom, and his great estate was
+confiscated.  His ruin involved that of his two brothers, Arnulf de
+Montgomery, and Roger Earl of Lancaster.  Soon after followed the
+prosecution and condemnation of Robert de Pontefract, and Robert de
+Mallet, who had distinguished themselves among Robert's adherents.
+[MN 1103.]  William de Warenne was the next victim: even William Earl
+of Cornwall, son of the Earl of Mortaigne, the king's uncle, having
+given matter of suspicion against him, lost all the vast acquisitions
+of his family in England.  Though the usual violence and tyranny of
+the Norman barons afforded a plausible pretence for those
+prosecutions, and it is probable that none of the sentences pronounced
+against these noblemen was wholly iniquitous, men easily saw or
+conjectured, that the chief part of their guilt was not the injustice
+or illegality of their conduct.  Robert, enraged at the fate of his
+friends, imprudently ventured to come into England; and he
+remonstrated with his brother, in severe terms, against this breach of
+treaty; but met with so bad a reception, that he began to apprehend
+danger to his own liberty, and was glad to purchase an escape by
+resigning his pension.
+
+The indiscretion of Robert soon exposed him to more fatal injuries.
+This prince, whose bravery and candour procured him respect while at a
+distance, had no sooner attained the possession of power and enjoyment
+of peace, than all the vigour of his mind relaxed, and he fell into
+contempt among those who approached his person, or were subjected to
+his authority.  Alternately abandoned to dissolute pleasures and to
+womanish superstition, he was so remiss, both in the care of his
+treasure and the exercise of his government, that his servants
+pillaged his money with impunity, stole from him his very clothes, and
+proceeded thence to practise every species of extortion on his
+defenceless subjects.  The barons, whom a severe administration alone
+could have restrained, gave reins to their unbounded rapine upon their
+vassals, and inveterate animosities against each other; and all
+Normandy, during the reign of this benign prince, was become a scene
+of violence and depredation.  [MN 1103.  Attack of Normandy.]  The
+Normans, at last, observing the regular government which Henry,
+notwithstanding his usurped title, had been able to establish in
+England, applied to him, that he might use his authority for the
+suppression of these disorders, and they thereby afforded him a
+pretence for interposing in the affairs of Normandy.  Instead of
+employing his mediation to render his brother's government
+respectable, or to redress the grievances of the Normans, he was only
+attentive to support his own partisans, and to increase their number
+by every art of bribery, intrigue, and insinuation.  Having found, in
+a visit which he made to that duchy, that the nobility were more
+disposed to pay submission to him than to their legal sovereign, he
+collected, by arbitrary extortions on England, a great army and
+treasure [MN 1105.], and returned next year to Normandy, in a
+situation to obtain, either by violence or corruption, the dominion of
+that province.  He took Bayeux by storm, after an obstinate siege: he
+made himself master of Caen by the voluntary submission of the
+inhabitants; but, being repulsed at Falaise, and obliged by the winter
+season to raise the siege, he returned into England, after giving
+assurance to his adherents, that he would persevere in supporting and
+protecting them.
+
+[MN 1106.  Conquest of Normandy.]
+Next year he opened the campaign with the siege of Tenchebray; and it
+became evident, from his preparations and progress, that he intended
+to usurp the entire possession of Normandy.  Robert was at last roused
+from his lethargy; and being supported by the Earl of Mortaigne and
+Robert de Bellesme, the king's inveterate enemies, he raised a
+considerable army, and approached his brother's camp, with a view of
+finishing, in one decisive battle, the quarrel between them.  He was
+now entered on that scene of action in which alone he was qualified to
+excel; and he so animated his troops by his example, that they threw
+the English into disorder, and had nearly obtained the victory [t];
+when the flight of Bellesme spread a panic among the Normans, and
+occasioned their total defeat.  Henry, besides doing great execution
+on the enemy, made near ten thousand prisoners, among whom was Duke
+Robert himself, and all the most considerable barons who adhered to
+his interests [u].  This victory was followed by the final reduction
+of Normandy: Rouen immediately submitted to the conqueror: Falaise,
+after some negotiation, opened its gates; and by this acquisition,
+besides rendering himself master of an important fortress, he got into
+his hands Prince William, the only son of Robert: he assembled the
+states of Normandy; and having received the homage of all the vassals
+of the duchy, having settled the government, revoked his brother's
+donations, and dismantled the castles lately built, he returned into
+England, and carried along with him the duke as prisoner.  That
+unfortunate prince was detained in custody during the remainder of his
+life, which was no less than twenty-eight years, and he died in the
+castle of Cardiff, in Glamorganshire, happy if, without losing his
+liberty, he could have relinquished that power which he was not
+qualified either to hold or exercise.  Prince William was committed to
+the care of Helie de St. Saen, who had married Robert's natural
+daughter, and who, being a man of probity and honour beyond what was
+usual in those ages, executed the trust with great affection and
+fidelity.  Edgar Atheling, who had followed Robert in the expedition
+to Jerusalem, and who had lived with him ever since in Normandy, was
+another illustrious prisoner taken in the battle of Tenchebray [w].
+Henry gave him his liberty, and settled a small pension on him, with
+which he retired; and he lived to a good old age in England, totally
+neglected and forgotten.  This prince was distinguished by personal
+bravery: but nothing can be a stronger proof of his mean talents in
+every other respect, than that, notwithstanding he possessed the
+affections of the English, and enjoyed the only legal title to the
+throne, he was allowed, during the reigns of so many violent and
+jealous usurpers, to live unmolested, and go to his grave in peace.
+[FN [t] H. Hunt. p. 379.  M. Paris, p .43.  Brompton, p. 1002.  [u]
+Eadmer, p. 90.  Chron. Sax. p. 214.  Order. Vital. p. 821.  [w] Chron.
+Sax. p. 214.  Ann. Waverl. n. 144.]
+
+[MN 1107.  Continuation of the quarrel with Anselm, the primate.]
+A little after Henry had completed the conquest of Normandy, and
+settled the government of that province, he finished a controversy,
+which had been long depending between him and the pope, with regard to
+the investitures in ecclesiastical benefices; and though he was here
+obliged to relinquish sonic of the ancient rights of the crown, he
+extricated himself from the difficulty on easier terms than most
+princes who, in that age, were so unhappy as to be engaged in disputes
+with the apostolic see.  The king's situation, in the beginning of his
+reign, obliged him to pay great court to Anselm: the advantages which
+he had reaped from the zealous friendship of that prelate had made him
+sensible how prone the minds of his people were to superstition, and
+what an ascendant the ecclesiastics had been able to assume over them.
+He had seen, on the accession of his brother Rufus, that, though the
+rights of primogeniture were then violated, and the inclinations of
+almost all the barons thwarted, yet the authority of Lanfranc, the
+primate, had prevailed over all other considerations: his own case,
+which was still more unfavourable, afforded an instance in which the
+clergy had more evidently shown their influence and authority.  These
+recent examples, while they made him cautious not to offend that
+powerful body, convinced him, at the same time, that it was extremely
+his interest to retain the former prerogative of the crown in filling
+offices of such vast importance, and to check the ecclesiastics in
+that independence to which they visibly aspired.  The choice, which
+his brother, in a fit of penitence, had made of Anselm, was so far
+unfortunate to the king's pretensions, that this prelate was
+celebrated for his piety and zeal, and austerity of manners; and
+though his monkish devotion and narrow principles prognosticated no
+great knowledge of the world or depth of policy, he was, on that very
+account, a more dangerous instrument in the hands of politicians, and
+retained a greater ascendant over the bigoted populace.  The prudence
+and temper of the king appeared in nothing more conspicuous than in
+the management of this delicate affair; where he was always sensible
+that it had become necessary for him to risk his whole crown in order
+to preserve the most invaluable jewel of it [x].
+[FN [x] Eadmer, p. 56.]
+
+Anselm had no sooner returned from banishment, than his refusal to do
+homage to the king raised a dispute, which Henry evaded at that
+critical juncture, by promising to send a messenger, in order to
+compound the matter with Pascal II., who then filled the papal throne.
+The messenger, as was probably foreseen, returned with an absolute
+refusal of the king's demands [y]; and that fortified by many reasons,
+which were well qualified to operate on the understandings of men in
+those ages.  Pascal quoted the Scriptures to prove that Christ was the
+door; and he thence inferred, that all ecclesiastics must enter into
+the church through Christ alone, not through the civil magistrate, or
+any profane laymen [z].  "It is monstrous," added the pontiff, "that a
+son should pretend to beget his father, or a man to create his God:
+priests are called gods in Scripture, as being the vicars of God: and
+will you, by your abominable pretensions to grant them their
+investiture, assume the right of creating them [a]?"
+[FN [y] W. Malm. p. 225.  [z] Eadmer, p. 60.  This topic is farther
+enforced in p. 73, 74.  See also W. Malm. p. 163.  [a] Eadmer, p. 61.
+I much suspect that this text of Scripture is a forgery of his
+holiness; for I have not been able to find it.  Yet it passed current
+in those ages, and was often quoted by the clergy as the foundation of
+their power.  See St. Thom. p. 169.]
+
+But how convincing soever these arguments, they could not persuade
+Henry to resign so important a prerogative; and perhaps, as he was
+possessed of great reflection and learning, he thought that the
+absurdity of a man's creating his God, even allowing priests to be
+gods, was not urged with the best grace by the Roman pontiff.  But as
+he desired still to avoid, at least to delay, the coming to any
+dangerous extremity with the church, he persuaded Anselm, that he
+should be able, by farther negotiation, to obtain some composition
+with Pascal; and for that purpose he despatched three bishops to Rome,
+while Anselm sent two messengers of his own to be more fully assured
+of the pope's intentions [b].  Pascal wrote back letters equally
+positive and arrogant, both to the king and primate; urging to the
+former, that, by assuming the right of investitures, he committed a
+kind of spiritual adultery with the church, who was the spouse of
+Christ, and who must not admit of such a commerce with any other
+person [c]; and insisting with the latter, that the pretension of
+kings to confer benefices was the source of all simony: a topic which
+had but too much foundation in those ages [d].
+[FN [b] Eadmer, p. 62.  W. Malm. p. 225.  [c] Eadmer, p. 63.  [d]
+Eadmer, p. 64, 66.]
+
+Henry had now no other expedient than to suppress the letter addressed
+to himself, and to persuade the three bishops to prevaricate, and
+assert, upon their episcopal faith, that Pascal had assured them in
+private of his good intentions towards Henry, and of his resolution
+not to resent any future exertion of his prerogative in granting
+investitures; though he himself scrupled to give this assurance under
+his hand, lest other princes should copy the example, and assume a
+like privilege [e].  Anselm's two messengers, who were monks, affirmed
+to him that it was impossible this story could have any foundation:
+but their word was not deemed equal to that of three bishops; and the
+king, as if he had finally gained his cause, proceeded to fill the
+sees of Hereford and Salisbury, and to invest the new bishops in the
+usual manner [f].  But Anselm, who, as he had good reason, gave no
+credit to the asseveration of the king's messengers, refused not only
+to consecrate them, but even to communicate with them, and the bishops
+themselves, finding how odious they were become, returned to Henry the
+ensigns of their dignity.  The quarrel every day increased between the
+king and the primate: the former, notwithstanding the prudence and
+moderation of his temper, threw out menaces against such as should
+pretend to oppose him in exerting the ancient prerogatives of his
+crown; and Anselm, sensible of his own dangerous situation, desired
+leave to make a journey to Rome, in order to lay the case before the
+sovereign pontiff.  Henry, well pleased to rid himself, without
+violence, of so inflexible an antagonist, readily granted him
+permission.  The prelate was attended to the shore by infinite
+multitudes, not only of monks and clergymen, but people of all ranks,
+who scrupled not in this manner to declare for their primate against
+their sovereign, and who regarded his departure as the final abolition
+of religion and true piety in the kingdom [g].  The king, however,
+seized all the revenues of his see; and sent William de Warelwast to
+negotiate with Pascal, and to find some means of accommodation in this
+delicate affair.
+[FN [e] Ibid. p. 65.  W. Malm. p. 225.  [f] Eadmer, p. 66.  W. Malm.
+p. 225.  Hoveden, p. 469.  Sim. Dunelm. p. 228.  [f] Eadmer, p. 71.]
+
+The English minister told Pascal, that his master would rather lose
+his crown than part with the right of granting investitures.  "And I,"
+replied Pascal, "would rather lose my head than allow him to retain it
+[h]."  Henry secretly prohibited Anselm from returning, unless he
+resolved to conform himself to the laws and usages of the kingdom; and
+the primate took up his residence at Lyons, in expectation that the
+king would at last be obliged to yield the point which was the present
+object of controversy between them.  Soon after he was permitted to
+return to his monastery at Bec in Normandy; and Henry, besides
+restoring to him the revenues of his see, treated him with the
+greatest respect, and held several conferences with him, in order to
+soften his opposition, and bend him to submission [i].  The people of
+England, who thought all differences now accommodated, were inclined
+to blame their primate for absenting himself so long from his charge;
+and he daily received letters from his partizans, representing the
+necessity of his speedy return.  The total extinction, they told him,
+of religion and Christianity were likely to ensue from the want of his
+fatherly care: the most shocking customs prevail in England; and the
+dread of his severity being now removed, sodomy, and the practice of
+wearing long hair, gain ground among all ranks of men, and these
+enormities openly appear every where without sense of shame or fear of
+punishment [k].
+[FN [h] Eadmer, p. 73.  W. Malm. p. 226.  M. Paris, p. 40.  [i]
+Hoveden, p. 471.  [k] Eadmer, p. 81.]
+
+The policy of the court of Rome has commonly been much admired; and
+men, judging by success, have bestowed the highest eulogies on that
+prudence by which a power from such slender beginnings, could advance,
+without force of arms, to establish an universal and almost absolute
+monarchy in Europe.  But the wisdom of so long a succession of men who
+filled the papal throne, and who were of such different ages, tempers,
+and interests, is not intelligible, and could never have place in
+nature.  The instrument, indeed, with which they wrought, the
+ignorance and superstition of the people, is so gross an engine, of
+such universal prevalence, and so little liable to accident or
+disorder, that it may be successful even in the most unskilful hands;
+and scarce any indiscretion can frustrate its operations.  While the
+court of Rome was openly abandoned to the most flagrant disorders,
+even while it was torn with schisms and factions, the power of the
+church daily made a sensible progress in Europe; and the temerity of
+Gregory and caution of Pascal were equally fortunate in promoting it.
+The clergy, feeling the necessity which they lay under of being
+protected against the violence of princes or rigour of the laws, were
+well pleased to adhere to a foreign head, who, being removed from the
+fear of the civil authority, could freely employ the power of the
+whole church, in defending her ancient or usurped properties and
+privileges, when invaded in any particular country: the monks,
+desirous of an independence of their diocesans, professed a still more
+devoted attachment to the triple crown; and the stupid people
+possessed no science or reason, which they could oppose to the most
+exorbitant pretensions.  Nonsense passed for demonstration: the most
+criminal means were sanctified by the piety of the end: treaties were
+not supposed to be binding, where the interests of God were concerned:
+the ancient laws and customs of states had no authority against a
+divine right: impudent forgeries were received as authentic monuments
+of antiquity: and the champions of holy church, if successful, were
+celebrated as heroes; if unfortunate, were worshipped as martyrs; and
+all events thus turned out equally to the advantage of clerical
+usurpations.  Pascal himself, the reigning pope, was, in the course of
+this very controversy concerning investitures, involved in
+circumstances and necessitated to follow a conduct, which would have
+drawn disgrace and ruin on any temporal prince that had been so
+unfortunate as to fall into a like situation.  His person was seized
+by the Emperor, Henry V., and he was obliged, by a formal treaty, to
+resign to that monarch the right of granting investitures, for which
+they had so long contended [l].  In order to add greater solemnity to
+this agreement, the emperor and pope communicated together on the same
+host, one half of which was given to the prince, the other taken by
+the pontiff: the most tremendous imprecations were publicly denounced
+on either of them who should violate the treaty: yet no sooner did
+Pascal recover his liberty, than he revoked all his concessions, and
+pronounced the sentence of excommunication against the emperor, who,
+in the end, was obliged to submit to the terms required of him, and to
+yield up all his pretensions, which he never could resume [m].
+[FN [l] W. Malm. p. 167.  [m] Padre Paolo sopra benef. eccles. p. 112.
+W. Malmes. p. 170.  Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 63.  Sim.
+Dunelm. p. 233.]
+
+The King of England had very nearly fallen into the same dangerous
+situation: Pascal had already excommunicated the Earl of Mellent, and
+the other ministers of Henry, who were instrumental in supporting his
+pretensions [n]: he daily menaced the king himself with a like
+sentence; and he suspended the blow only to give him leisure to
+prevent it by a timely submission.  The malecontents waited
+impatiently for the opportunity of disturbing his government by
+conspiracies and insurrections [o]: the king's best friends were
+anxious at the prospect of an incident which would set their religious
+and civil duties at variance; and the Countess of Blois, his sister, a
+princess of piety, who had great influence over him, was affrightened
+with the danger of her brother's eternal damnation [p].  Henry, on the
+other hand, seemed determined to run all hazards, rather than resign a
+prerogative of such importance, which had been enjoyed by all his
+predecessors; and it seemed probable, from his great prudence and
+abilities, that he might be able to sustain his rights, and finally
+prevail in the contest.  While Pascal and Henry thus stood mutually in
+awe of each other, it was the more easy to bring about an
+accommodation between them, and to find a medium in which they might
+agree.
+[FN [n] Eadmer, p. 79.  [o] Ibid. p. 80.  [p] Ibid. p. 79.]
+
+[MN Compromise with Anselm.]
+Before bishops took possession of their dignities, they had formerly
+been accustomed to pass through two ceremonies: they received from the
+hands of the sovereign a ring and crosier, as symbols of their office;
+and this was called their INVESTITURE: they also made those
+submissions to the prince which were required of vassals by the rights
+of the feudal law, and which received the name of HOMAGE.  And as the
+king might refuse both to grant the INVESTITURE and to receive the
+HOMAGE, though the chapter had, by some canons of the middle age, been
+endowed with the right of election, the sovereign had in reality the
+sole power of appointing prelates.  Urban II. had equally deprived
+laymen of the rights of granting investiture and of receiving homage
+[q]: the emperors never were able, by all their wars and negotiations,
+to make any distinction be admitted between them: the interposition of
+profane laymen, in any particular, was still represented as impious
+and abominable; and the church openly aspired to a total independence
+on the state.  But Henry had put England as well as Normandy in such a
+situation as gave greater weight to his negotiations; and Pascal was
+for the present satisfied with his resigning the right of granting
+investitures, by which the spiritual dignity was supposed to be
+conferred; and he allowed the bishops to do homage for their temporal
+properties and privileges [r].  The pontiff was well pleased to have
+made this acquisition, which, he hoped, would in time involve the
+whole; and the king, anxious to procure an escape from a very
+dangerous situation, was content to retain some, though a more
+precarious authority, in the election of prelates.
+[FN [q] Eadmer, p. 91.  W. Malm. p. 163.  Sim. Dunelm. p. 230.  [r]
+Eadmer, p. 91.  W. Malm. p. 164, 227.  Hoveden, p. 471.  M. Paris, p.
+43.  T. Rudb. p. 274.  Brompton, p. 1000.  Wilkins, p. 303.  Chron.
+Dunst. p. 21.]
+
+After the principal controversy was accommodated, it was not difficult
+to adjust the other differences.  The pope allowed Anselm to
+communicate with the prelates who had already received investitures
+from the crown; and he only required of them some submissions for
+their past misconduct [s].  He also granted Anselm a plenary power of
+remedying every other disorder, which, he said, might arise from the
+barbarousness of the country [t].  Such was the idea which the popes
+then entertained of the English; and nothing can be a stronger proof
+of the miserable ignorance in which that people were then plunged,
+than that a man who sat on the papal throne, and who subsisted by
+absurdities and nonsense, should think himself entitled to treat them
+as barbarians.
+[FN [s] Eadmer p. 87.  [t] Ibid. p. 91.]
+
+During the course of these controversies, a synod was held at
+Westminster, where the king, intent only on the main dispute, allowed
+some canons of less importance to be enacted, which tended to promote
+the usurpations of the clergy.  The celibacy of priests was enjoined,
+a point which it was still found very difficult to carry into
+execution; and even laymen were not allowed to marry within the
+seventh degree of affinity [u].  By this contrivance the pope
+augmented the profits which he reaped from granting dispensations, and
+likewise those from divorces.  For as the art of writing was then
+rare, and parish registers were not regularly kept, it was not easy to
+ascertain the degrees of affinity even among people of rank; and any
+man who had money sufficient to pay for it, might obtain a divorce, on
+pretence that his wife was more nearly related to him than was
+permitted by the canons.  The synod also passed a vote, prohibiting
+the laity from wearing long hair [w].  The aversion of the clergy to
+this mode was not confined to England.  When the king went to
+Normandy, before he had conquered that province, the Bishop of Seez,
+in a formal harangue, earnestly exhorted him to redress the manifold
+disorders under which the government laboured, and to oblige the
+people to poll their hair in a decent form.  Henry, though he would
+not resign his prerogatives to the church, willingly parted with his
+hair: he cut it in the form which they required of him, and obliged
+all the courtiers to imitate his example [x].
+[FN [u] Eadmer, p. 67, 68.  Spellm. Conc. vol. ii. p. 22.  [w] Eadmer,
+p. 68.  [x] Order. Vital. p. 816.]
+
+[MN Wars abroad.]
+The acquisition of Normandy was a great point of Henry's ambition;
+being the ancient patrimony of his family, and the only territory,
+which, while in his possession, gave him any weight or consideration
+on the continent: but the injustice of his usurpation was the source
+of great inquietude, involved him in frequent wars, and obliged him to
+impose on his English subjects those many heavy and arbitrary taxes,
+of which all the historians of  that age unanimously complain [y].
+His nephew, William, was but six years of age when he committed him to
+the care of Helie de St. Saen; and it is probable, that his reason for
+intrusting that important charge to a man of so unblemished a
+character was to prevent all malignant suspicions, in case any
+accident should befall the life of the young prince.  [MN 1110.]  He
+soon repented of his choice, but when he desired to recover possession
+of WilliamÂ’s person, Helie withdrew his pupil, and carried him to the
+court of Fulk, Count of Anjou, who gave him protection [z].  In
+proportion as the prince grew up to man's estate, he discovered
+virtues becoming his birth; and wandering through different courts of
+Europe, he excited the friendly compassion of many princes, and raised
+a general indignation against his uncle, who had so unjustly bereaved
+him of his inheritance.  Lewis the Gross, son of Philip, was at this
+time King of France, a brave and generous prince, who having been
+obliged, during the lifetime of his father, to fly into England, in
+order to escape the persecutions of his step-mother, Bertrude, had
+been protected by Henry, and had thence conceived a personal
+friendship for him.  But these ties were soon dissolved after the
+accession of Lewis, who found his interests to be in so many
+particulars opposite to those of the English monarch, and who became
+sensible of the danger attending the annexation of Normandy to
+England.  He joined, therefore, the Counts of Anjou and Flanders in
+giving disquiet to Henry's government; and this monarch, in order to
+defend his foreign dominions, found himself obliged to go over to
+Normandy, where he resided two years.  The war which ensued amongst
+those princes was attended with no memorable event, and produced only
+slight skirmishes on the frontiers, agreeable to the weak condition of
+the sovereigns in that age whenever their subjects were not roused by
+some great and urgent occasion.  Henry, by contracting his eldest son,
+William, to the daughter of Fulk, detached the prince from the
+alliance, and obliged the others to come to an accommodation with him.
+This peace was not of  long duration.  His nephew, William, retired to
+the court of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, who espoused his cause; and
+the King of France having soon after, for other reasons, joined the
+party, a new war was kindled in Normandy, which produced no event more
+memorable than had attended the former.  [MN 1113.]  At last the death
+of Baldwin, who was slain in an action near Eu, gave some respite to
+Henry, and enabled him to carry on war with more advantage against his
+enemies.
+[FN [y] Eadmer, p. 83.  Chron. Sax. p. 211, 212, 213, 219, 220, 228.
+H. Hunt p. 380.  Hoveden, p. 470.  Ann. Waverl. p. 143.  [z] Order
+Vital. p. 837.]
+
+Lewis, finding himself unable to wrest Normandy from the king by force
+of arms, had recourse to the dangerous expedient of applying to the
+spiritual power, and of affording the ecclesiastics a pretence to
+interpose in the temporal concerns of princes.  He carried young
+William to a general council, which was assembled at Rheims by Pope
+Calixtus II., presented the Norman prince to them, complained of the
+manifest usurpation and injustice of Henry, craved the assistance of
+the church for reinstating the true heir in his dominions, and
+represented the enormity of detaining in captivity so brave a prince
+as Robert, one of the most eminent champions of the cross, and who, by
+that very quality, was placed under the immediate protection of the
+holy see.  Henry knew how to defend the rights of his crown with
+vigour, and yet with dexterity.  He had sent over the English bishops
+to this synod; but at the same time had warned them, that if any
+farther claims were started by the pope or the ecclesiastics, he was
+determined to adhere to the laws and customs of England, and maintain
+the prerogatives transmitted to him by his predecessors.  "Go," said
+he to them, "salute the pope in my name; hear his apostolical
+precepts; but take care to bring none of his new inventions into my
+kingdom."  Finding, however, that it would be easier for him to elude
+than oppose the efforts of Calixtus, he gave his ambassadors orders to
+gain the pope and his favourites by liberal presents and promises.
+[MN 1119.]  The complaints of the Norman prince were thenceforth heard
+with great coldness by the council; and Calixtus confessed, after a
+conference which he had the same summer with Henry, and when that
+prince probably renewed his presents, that, of all men whom he had
+ever yet been acquainted with, he was, beyond comparison, the most
+eloquent and persuasive.
+
+The warlike measures of Lewis proved as ineffectual as his intrigues.
+He had laid a scheme for surprising Noyon; but Henry having received
+intelligence of the design, marched to the relief of the place, and
+suddenly attacked the French at Brenneville, as they were advancing
+towards it.  A sharp conflict ensued, where Prince William behaved
+with great bravery, and the king himself was in the most imminent
+danger.  He was wounded in the head by Crispin, a gallant Norman
+officer, who had followed the fortunes of William [a]; but, being
+rather animated than terrified by the blow, he immediately beat his
+antagonist to the ground, and so encouraged his troops by the example,
+that they put the French to total rout, and had very nearly taken
+their king prisoner.  The dignity of the persons engaged in this
+skirmish rendered it the most memorable action of the war; for, in
+other respects, it was not of great importance.  There were nine
+hundred horsemen, who fought on both sides; yet were there only two
+persons slain.  The rest were defended by that heavy armour worn by
+the cavalry in those times [b].  An accommodation soon after ensued
+between the Kings of France and England; and the interests of young
+William were entirely neglected in it.
+[FN [a] H. Hunt. p. 381.  M. Paris, p. 47.  Diceto, p. 503.  [b]
+Order. Vital. p. 854.]
+
+[MN 1120.  Death of Prince William.]
+But this public prosperity of Henry was much overbalanced by a
+domestic calamity which befel him.  His only son, William, had now
+reached his eighteenth year, and the king, from the facility with
+which he himself had usurped the crown, dreading that a like
+revolution might subvert his family, had taken care to have him
+recognized successor by the states of the kingdom, and had carried him
+over to Normandy, that he might receive the homage of the barons of
+that duchy.  The king, on his return, set sail from Barfleur, and was
+soon carried by a fair wind out of sight of land.  The prince was
+detained by some accident; and his sailors, as well as their captain,
+Thomas Fitz-Stephens, having spent the interval in drinking, were so
+flustered, that being in  a hurry to follow the king, they heedlessly
+carried the ship on a rock, where she immediately foundered.  William
+was put into the long boat, and had got clear of the ship, when,
+hearing the cries of his natural sister, the Countess of Perche, he
+ordered the seamen to row back in hopes of saving her; but the numbers
+who then crowded in soon sunk the boat; and the prince, with all his
+retinue, perished.  Above a hundred and forty young noblemen, of the
+principal families of England and Normandy, were lost on this
+occasion.  A butcher of Rouen was the only person on board who escaped
+[c].  He clung to the mast, and was taken up next morning by
+fishermen.  Fitz-Stephens also took hold of the mast, but being
+informed by the butcher that Prince William had perished, he said that
+he would not survive the disaster; and he threw himself headlong into
+the sea [d].  Henry entertained hopes for three days, that his son had
+put into some distant port of England; but when certain intelligence
+of the calamity was brought him, he fainted away; and it was remarked,
+that he never after was seen to smile, nor ever recovered his wonted
+cheerfulness [e].
+[FN [c] Sim. Dunelm. p. 242.  Alured Beverl. p. 148.  [d] Order.
+Vital. p. 868.  [e] Hoveden, p. 476.  Order. Vital. p. 869.]
+
+The death of William may be regarded, in one respect, as a misfortune
+to the English; because it was the immediate source of those civil
+wars, which, after the demise of the king, caused such confusion in
+the kingdom; but it is remarkable, that the young prince had
+entertained a violent aversion to the natives; and had been heard to
+threaten, that when he should be king, he would make them draw the
+plough, and would turn them into beasts of burden.  These
+prepossessions he inherited from his father, who, though he was wont,
+when it might serve his purpose, to value himself on his birth, as a
+native of England [f], showed, in the course of his government, an
+extreme prejudice against that people.  All hopes of preferment, to
+ecclesiastical as well as civil dignities, were denied them during
+this whole reign; and any foreigner, however ignorant or worthless,
+was sure to have the preference in every competition [g].  As the
+English had given no disturbance to the government during the course
+of fifty years, this inveterate antipathy in a prince of so much
+temper as well as penetration, forms a presumption that the English of
+that age were still a rude and barbarous people, even compared to the
+Normans, and impresses us with no very favourable idea of the Anglo-
+Saxon manners.
+[FN [f] Gu1. Neub. lib. 1. cap. 3.  [g] Eadmer, p. 110.]
+
+Prince William left no children; and the king had not now any
+legitimate issue, except one daughter, Matilda, whom, in 1110, he had
+betrothed, though only eight years of age [h], to the Emperor Henry
+V., and whom he had then sent over to be educated in Germany [i].  But
+as her absence from the kingdom, and her marriage into a foreign
+family, might endanger the succession, Henry, who was now a widower,
+was induced to marry, in hopes of having male heirs; [MN KingÂ’s second
+marriage.  1121.] and he made his addresses to Adelais, daughter of
+Godfrey, Duke of Lovaine, and niece of Pope Calixtus, a young princess
+of an amiable person [k].  But Adelais brought him no children; and
+the prince who was most likely to dispute the succession, and even the
+immediate possession of the crown, recovered hopes of subverting his
+rival, who had successively seized all his patrimonial dominions.
+William, the son of Duke Robert, was still protected in the French
+court; and as Henry's connexions with the Count of Anjou were broken
+off by the death of his son, Fulk joined the party of the unfortunate
+prince, gave him his daughter in marriage, and aided him in raising
+disturbances in Normandy.  But Henry found the means of drawing off
+the Count of Anjou, by forming anew with him a nearer connexion than
+the former, and one more material to the interests of that count's
+family.  [MN 1127.]  The emperor, his son-in-law, dying without issue,
+he bestowed his daughter on Geoffrey, the eldest son of Fulk, and
+endeavoured to ensure her succession by having her recognized heir to
+all his dominions, and obliging the barons, both of Normandy and
+England to swear fealty to her.  [MN 1128.]  He hoped that the choice
+of this husband would be more agreeable to all his subjects than that
+of the emperor; as securing them from the danger of falling under the
+dominion of a great and distant potentate, who might bring them into
+subjection, and reduce their country to the rank of a province: but
+the barons were displeased that a step so material to national
+interests had been taken without consulting them [l]; and Henry had
+too sensibly experienced the turbulence of their disposition, not to
+dread the effects of their resentment.  It seemed probable, that his
+nephew's party might gain force from the increase of the malecontents:
+an accession of power which that prince acquired a little after,
+tended to render his pretensions still more dangerous.  Charles, Earl
+of Flanders, being assassinated during the celebration of divine
+service, King Lewis immediately put the young prince in possession of
+that country, to which he had pretensions in the right of his
+grandmother Matilda, wife to the Conqueror.  But William survived a
+very little time this piece of good fortune, which seemed to open the
+way to still farther prosperity.  He was killed in a skirmish with the
+Landgrave of Alsace, his competitor for Flanders; and his death put an
+end, for the present, to the jealousy and inquietude of Henry.
+[FN [h] Chron. Sax. p. 215.  W. Malm. p. 166.  Order. Vital. p. 83.
+[i] See note [M], at the end of the volume.  [k] Chron. Sax. p. 223.
+W. Malm. p. 165.  [l] W. Malm. p. 175.  The annals of Waverly, p. 150,
+say, that the king asked and obtained the consent of all the barons.]
+
+The chief merit of this monarch's government consists in the profound
+tranquillity which he established and maintained throughout all his
+dominions during the greater part of his reign.  The mutinous barons
+were retained in subjection; and his neighbours, in every attempt
+which they made upon him, found him so well prepared, that they were
+discouraged from continung or renewing their enterprises.  In order to
+repress the incursions of the Welsh, he brought over some Flemings, in
+the year 1111, and settled them in Pembrokeshire, where they long
+maintained a different language, and customs, and manners, from their
+neighbours.  Though his government seems to have been arbitrary in
+England, it was judicious and prudent; and was as little oppressive as
+the necessity of his affairs would permit.  He wanted not attention to
+the redress of grievances; and historians mention in particular the
+levying of purveyance, which he endeavoured to moderate and restrain.
+The tenants in the king's demesne lands were at that time obliged to
+supply, GRATIS, the court with provisions, and to furnish carriages on
+the same hard terms, when the king made a progress, as he did
+frequently, into any of the counties.  These exactions were so
+grievous, and levied in so licentious a manner, that the farmers, when
+they heard of the approach of the court, often deserted their houses
+as if an enemy had invaded the country [m], and sheltered their
+persons and families in the woods from the insults of the king's
+retinue.  Henry prohibited those enormities, and punished the persons
+guilty of them by cutting off their hands, legs, or other members [n].
+But the prerogative was perpetual; the remedy applied by Henry was
+temporary; and the violence itself of this remedy, so far from giving
+security to the people, was only a proof of the ferocity of the
+government, and threatened a quick return of like abuses.
+[FN [m] Eadmer, p. 94.  Chron. Sax. p. 212.  [n] Eadmer, p. 94.]
+
+One great and difficult object of the king's prudence was, the
+guarding against the encroachments of the court of Rome, and
+protecting the liberties of the church of England.  The pope, in the
+year 1101, had sent Guy, Archbishop of Vienne, as legate into Britain;
+and though he was the first that for many years had appeared there in
+that character, and his commission gave general surprise [o], the
+king, who was then in the commencement of his reign, and was involved
+in many difficulties, was obliged to submit to this encroachment on
+his authority.  But in the year 1116, Anselm, Abbot of St. Sabas, who
+was coming over with a like legatine commission, was prohibited from
+entering the kingdom [p]; and Pope Calixtus who, in his turn, was then
+labouring under many difficulties, by reason of the pretensions of
+Gregory, an anti-pope, was obliged to promise that he never would for
+the future, except when solicited by the king himself, send any legate
+into England [q].  Notwithstanding this engagement, the pope, as soon
+as he had suppressed his antagonist, granted the Cardinal de Crema a
+legatine commission over that kingdom; and the king, who, by reason of
+his nephew's intrigues and invasions, found himself at that time in a
+dangerous situation, was obliged  to submit to the exercise of this
+commission [r].  A synod was called by the legate at London; where,
+among other canons, a vote passed, enacting severe penalties on the
+marriages of the clergy [s].  The cardinal, in a public harangue,
+declared it to be an unpardonable enormity, that a priest should dare
+to consecrate and touch the body of Christ immediately after he had
+risen from the side of a strumpet; for that was the decent appellation
+which he gave to the wives of the clergy.  But it happened that, the
+very next night, the officers of justice, breaking into a disorderly
+house, found the cardinal in bed with a courtezan [t]; an incident
+which threw such ridicule upon him, that he immediately stole out of
+the kingdom: the synod broke up; and the canons against the marriage
+of clergymen were worse executed than ever [u].
+[FN [o] Ibid. p. 58.  [p] Hoveden, p. 474.  [q] Eadmer, p. 125, 137,
+138.  [r] Chron. Sax. p. 229.  [s] Spellm. Conc. vol. ii. p. 34.  [t]
+Hoveden, p. 478.  M. Paris, p. 48.  Matth. West. ad. ann. 1125.  H.
+Huntingdon, p. 382.  It is remarkable that this last writer, who was a
+clergyman as well as the others, makes an apology for using such
+freedom with the fathers of the church; but says, that the fact was
+notorious, and ought not to be concealed.  [u] Chron. Sax. p. 234.]
+
+Henry, in order to prevent this alternate revolution of concessions
+and encroachments, sent William, then Archbishop of Canterbury, to
+remonstrate with the court of Rome against those abuses, and to assert
+the liberties of the English church.  It was a usual maxim with every
+pope, when he found that he could not prevail in any pretension, to
+grant princes or states a power which they had always exercised, to
+resume, at a proper juncture, the claim which seemed to be resigned,
+and to pretend that the civil magistrate had possessed the authority
+only from a special indulgence of the Roman pontiff.  After this
+manner, the pope, finding that the French nation would not admit his
+claim of granting investitures, had passed a bull, giving the king
+that authority; and he now practised a like invention to elude the
+complaints of the King of England.  He made the Archbishop of
+Canterbury his legate, renewed his commission from time to time, and
+still pretended that the rights which that prelate had ever exercised
+as metropolitan were entirely derived from the indulgence of the
+apostolic see.  The English princes, and Henry in particular, who were
+glad to avoid any immediate contest of so dangerous a nature, commonly
+acquiesced by their silence in these pretensions of the court of Rome
+[w].
+[FN [w] See note [N], at the end of the volume.]
+
+As every thing in England remained in tranquillity, Henry took the
+opportunity of paying a visit to Normandy, to which he was invited, as
+well by his affection for that country, as by his tenderness for his
+daughter, the Empress Matilda, who was always his favourite.  [MN
+1132.]  Some time after, that princess was delivered of a son, who
+received the name of Henry; and the king, farther to ensure her
+succession, made all the nobility of England and Normandy renew the
+oath of fealty, which they had already sworn to her [x].  The joy of
+this event, and the satisfaction which he reaped from his daughter's
+company, who bore successively two other sons, made his residence in
+Normandy very agreeable to him [y]; [MN 1135.] and he seemed
+determined to pass the remainder of his days in that country; when an
+incursion of the Welsh obliged him to think of returning into England.
+He was preparing for the journey, but was seized with a sudden illness
+at St. Dennis le Forment [MN 1st. Dec.], from eating too plentifully
+of lampreys, a food which always agreed better with his palate than
+his constitution [z].  [MN Death, and character of Henry.]  He died in
+the sixty-seventh year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his reign;
+leaving by will his daughter, Matilda, heir of all his dominions,
+without making any mention of her husband Geoffrey, who had given him
+several causes of displeasure [a].
+[FN [x] W. Malm. p. 177.  [y] H. Hunt. p. 385.  [z] Ibid. p. 385.  M.
+Paris, p. 50.  [a] W. Malm. p. 178.]
+
+This prince was one of the most accomplished that has filled the
+English throne, and possessed all the great qualities both of body and
+mind, natural and acquired which could fit him for the high station to
+which he attained.  His person was manly, his countenance engaging,
+his eyes clear, serene, and penetrating.  The affability of his
+address encouraged those who might be overawed by the sense of his
+dignity or of his wisdom; and though he often indulged his facetious
+humour, he knew how to temper it with discretion, and ever kept at a
+distance from all indecent familiarities with his courtiers.  His
+superior eloquence and judgment would have given him an ascendant,
+even had he been born in a private station; and his personal bravery
+would have procured him respect, though it had been less supported by
+art and policy.  By his great progress in literature, he acquired the
+name of BEAUCLERK, or the Scholar: but his application to those
+sedentary pursuits abated nothing of the activity and vigilance of his
+government; and though the learning of that age was better fitted to
+corrupt than improve the understanding, his natural good sense
+preserved itself untainted both from the pedantry and superstition
+which were then so prevalent among men of letters.  His temper was
+susceptible of the sentiments as well of friendship as of resentment
+[b]; and his ambition though high, might be deemed moderate and
+reasonable, had not his conduct towards his brother and nephew showed
+that he was too much disposed to sacrifice to it all the maxims of
+justice and equity.  But the total incapacity of Robert for government
+afforded his younger brother a reason or pretence for seizing the
+sceptre both of England and Normandy; and when violence and usurpation
+are once begun, necessity obliges a prince to continue in the same
+criminal course, and engages him in measures which his better judgment
+and sounder principles would otherwise have induced him to reject with
+warmth and indignation.
+[FN [b] Order. Vital. p. 805.]
+
+King Henry was much addicted to women; and historians mention no less
+than seven illegitimate sons and six daughters born to him [c].
+Hunting was also one of his favourite amusements; and he exercised
+great rigour against those who encroached on the royal forests, which
+were augmented during his reign [d], though their number and extent
+were already too great.  To kill a stag was as criminal as to murder a
+man: he made all the dogs be mutilated which were kept on the borders
+of his forests; and he sometimes deprived his subjects of the liberty
+of hunting on their own lands, or even cutting their own woods.  In
+other respects, he executed justice, and that with rigour; the best
+maxim which a prince in that age could follow.  Stealing was first
+made capital in this reign [e]; false coining, which was then a very
+common crime, and by which the money had been extremely debased, was
+severely punished by Henry [f].  Near fifty criminals of this kind
+were at one time hanged or mutilated; and though these punishments
+seem to have been exercised in a manner somewhat arbitrary, they were
+grateful to the people, more attentive to present advantages than
+jealous of general laws.  There is a code which passes under the name
+of Henry I., but the best antiquaries have agreed to think it
+spurious.  It is however a very ancient compilation, and may be useful
+to instruct us in the manners and customs of the times.  We learn from
+it, that a great distinction was then made between the English and
+Normans, much to the advantage of the latter [g].  The deadly feuds,
+and the liberty of private revenge, which had been avowed by the Saxon
+laws, were still continued, and were not yet wholly illegal [h].
+[FN [c] Gul. Gemet. lib. 8. cap. 29.  [d] W. Malm. p. 179.  [e] Sim.
+Dunelm p. 231.  Brompton, p. 1000.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 653.  Hoveden, p.
+471.  [f] Sim. Dunelm. p. 231.  Brompton, p. 1000.  Hoveden, p. 471.
+Annal. Waverl. p. 149.  [g] LL. Hen. I. Sec, 18, 75.  [h] Ibid. Sec.
+82.]
+
+Among the laws granted on the king's accession, it is remarkable that
+the reunion of the civil and ecclesiastical courts, as in the Saxon
+times, was enacted [i].  But this law, like the articles of his
+charter, remained without effect, probably from the opposition of
+Archbishop Anselm.
+[FN [i] Spellm. p. 305.  Blackstone, vol. iii. p. 63.  Coke, 2 Inst.
+70.]
+
+Henry, on his accession, granted a charter to London, which seems to
+have been the first step towards rendering that city a corporation.
+By this charter, the city was empowered to keep the farm of Middlesex
+at three hundred pounds a year, to elect its own sheriff and
+justiciary, and to hold pleas of the crown: and it was exempted from
+scot, Danegelt, trials by combat, and lodging the king's retinue.
+These, with a confirmation of the privileges of their court of
+hustings, wardmotes, and common halls, and their liberty of hunting in
+Middlesex and Surrey, are the chief articles of this charter [k].
+[FN [k] Lambardi Archaionomia ex edit. Twisden.  Wilkins, p. 235.]
+
+It is said [l], that this prince, from indulgence to his tenants,
+changed the rents of his demesnes, which were formerly paid in kind,
+into money, which was more easily  remitted to the exchequer.  But the
+great scarcity of coin would render that commutation difficult to be
+executed, while at the same time provisions could not be sent to a
+distant quarter of the kingdom.  This affords a probable reason why
+the ancient kings of England so frequently changed their place of
+abode: they carried their court from one place to another, that they
+might consume upon the spot the revenue of their several demesnes.
+[FN [l] Dial. de Scaccario, lib. 1. cap. 7.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+STEPHEN.
+
+ACCESSION OF STEPHEN--WAR WITH SCOTLAND.--INSURRECTION IN FAVOUR OF
+MATILDA.--STEPHEN TAKEN PRISONER.--MATILDA CROWNED.—STEPHEN RELEASED.
+--RESTORED TO THE CROWN.--CONTINUATION OF THE CIVIL WARS.--COMPROMISE
+BETWEEN THE KING AND PRINCE HENRY.—DEATH OF THE KING.
+
+
+
+[MN 1135.]  In the progress and settlement of the feudal law, the male
+succession to fiefs had taken place some time before the female was
+admitted; and estates being considered as military benefices, not as
+property, were transmitted to such only as could serve in the armies,
+and perform in person the conditions upon which they were originally
+granted.  But when the continuance of rights, during some generations,
+in the same family, had in a great measure, obliterated the primitive
+idea, the females were gradually admitted to the possession of feudal
+property; and the same revolution of principles which procured them
+the inheritance of private estates naturally introduced their
+succession to government and authority.  The failure, therefore, of
+male heirs to the kingdom of England and duchy of Normandy seemed to
+leave the succession open, without a rival, to the Empress Matilda;
+and as Henry had made all his vassals, in both states, swear fealty to
+her, he presumed that they would not easily be induced to depart at
+once from her hereditary right, and from their own reiterated oaths
+and engagements.  But the irregular manner in which he himself had
+acquired the crown might have instructed him, that neither his Norman
+nor English subjects were as yet capable of adhering to a strict rule
+of government; and as every precedent of this kind seems to give
+authority to new usurpations, he had reason to dread, even from his
+own family, some invasion of his daughter's title which he had taken
+such pains to establish.
+
+Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, had been married to Stephen,
+Count of Blois, and had brought him several sons, among whom Stephen
+and Henry, the two youngest, had been invited over to England by the
+late king, and had received great honours, riches, and preferment,
+from the zealous friendship which that prince bore to every one that
+had been so fortunate as to acquire his favour and good opinion.
+Henry, who had betaken himself to the ecclesiastical profession, was
+created Abbot of Glastonbury and Bishop of Winchester; and though
+these dignities were considerable, Stephen had, from his uncle's
+liberality, attained establishments still more solid and durable [a].
+The king had married him to Matilda, who was daughter and heir of
+Eustace Count of Boulogne, and who brought him, besides that feudal
+sovereignty in France, an immense property in England, which, in the
+distribution of lands, had been conferred by the Conqueror on the
+family of Boulogne.  Stephen also by this marriage acquired a new
+connexion with the royal family of England; as Mary, his wife's
+mother, was sister to David the reigning King of Scotland, and to
+Matilda, the first wife of Henry, and mother of the empress.  The
+king, still imagining that he strengthened the interests of his family
+by the aggrandizement of Stephen, took pleasure in enriching him by
+the grant of new possessions; and he conferred on him the great estate
+forfeited by Robert Mallet in England, and that forfeited by the Earl
+of Mortaigne in Normandy.  Stephen, in return, professed great
+attachment to his uncle; and appeared so zealous for the succession of
+Matilda, that when the barons swore fealty to that princess, he
+contended with Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the king's natural son, who
+should first be admitted to give her this testimony of devoted zeal
+and fidelity [b].  Meanwhile he continued to cultivate, by every art
+of popularity, the friendship of the English nation; and many virtues,
+with which he seemed to be endowed, favoured the success of his
+intentions.  By his bravery, activity, and vigour, he acquired the
+esteem of the barons: by his generosity, and by an affable and
+familiar address, unusual in that age among men of his high quality,
+he obtained the affections of the people, particularly of the
+Londoners [c].  And though he dared not to take any steps towards his
+farther grandeur, lest he should expose himself to the jealousy of so
+penetrating a prince as Henry; he still hoped that, by accumulating
+riches and power, and by acquiring popularity, he might in time be
+able to open his way to the throne.
+[FN [a] Gul. Neubr. p. 360.  Brompton, p. 1023.  [b] W. Malm. p. 192.]
+
+No sooner had Henry breathed his last, than Stephen, insensible to all
+the ties of gratitude and fidelity, and blind to danger, gave full
+reins to his criminal ambition, and trusted that, even without any
+previous intrigue, the celerity of his enterprise, and the boldness of
+his attempt, might overcome the weak attachment which the English and
+Normans in that age bore to the law and to the rights of their
+sovereign.  He hastened over to England; and though the citizens of
+Dover, and those of Canterbury, apprized of his purpose, shut their
+gates against him, he stopped not till he arrived at London, where
+some of the lower rank, instigated by his emissaries, as well as moved
+by his general popularity, immediately saluted him king.  His next
+point was to acquire the good will of the clergy; and by performing
+the ceremony of his coronation, to put himself in possession of the
+throne, from which he was confident it would not be easy afterwards to
+expel him.  His brother, the Bishop of Winchester, was useful to him
+in these capital articles: having gained Roger, Bishop of Salisbury,
+who, though he owed a great fortune and advancement to the favour of
+the late king, preserved no sense of gratitude to that prince's
+family, he applied, in conjunction with that prelate, to William,
+Archbishop of Canterbury, and required him, in virtue of his office,
+to give the royal unction to Stephen.  The primate, who, as all the
+others, had shown fealty to Matilda, refused to perform this ceremony;
+but his opposition was overcome by an expedient equally dishonourable
+with the other steps by which this revolution was effected.  Hugh
+Bigod, steward of the household, made oath before the primate, that
+the late king, on his deathbed, had shown a dissatisfaction with his
+daughter Matilda, and had expressed his intention of leaving the Count
+of Boulogne heir to all his dominions [d].  [MN 1135. 22d. Dec.]
+William, either believing, of feigning to believe, Bigod's testimony,
+anointed Stephen, and put the crown upon his head; and from this
+religious ceremony that prince, without any shadow either of
+hereditary title, or consent of the nobility or people, was allowed to
+proceed to the exercise of sovereign authority.  Very few barons
+attended his coronation [e]; but none opposed his usurpation, however
+unjust or flagrant.  The sentiment of religion, which, if corrupted
+into superstition, has often little efficacy in fortifying the duties
+of civil society, was not affected by the multiplied oaths taken in
+favour of Matilda, and only rendered the people obedient to a prince,
+who was countenanced by the clergy, and who had received from the
+primate the rite of royal unction and consecration [f].
+[FN [c] W. Malm. p. 179.  Gest. Steph. p. 928.  [d] Matt. Paris, p.
+51.  Diceto, p. 505.  Chron. Dunst. p. 23.  [e] Brompton, p. 1023.
+[f] Such stress was formerly laid on the rite of coronation, that the
+monkish writers never give any prince the title of king till he is
+crowned; though he had for some time been in possession of the crown,
+and exercised all the powers of sovereignty.]
+
+Stephen, that he might farther secure his tottering throne, passed a
+charter, in which he made liberal promises to all orders of men: to
+the clergy, that he would speedily fill all vacant benefices, and
+would never levy the rents of any of them during the vacancy; to the
+nobility, that he would reduce the royal forests to their ancient
+boundaries, and correct all encroachments; and to the people, that he
+would remit the tax of Danegelt, and restore the laws of King Edward
+[g].  The late king had a great treasure at Winchester, amounting to a
+hundred thousand pounds; and Stephen, by seizing this money,
+immediately turned against Henry's family the precaution, which that
+prince had employed for their grandeur and security: an event which
+naturally attends the policy of amassing treasures.  By means of this
+money, the usurper ensured the compliance, though not the attachment,
+of the principal clergy and nobility; but not trusting to this frail
+security, he invited over from the continent, particularly from
+Britany and Flanders, great numbers of these bravoes or disorderly
+soldiers, with whom every country in Europe, by reason of the general
+ill police and turbulent government, extremely abounded [h].  These
+mercenary troops guarded his throne by the terrors of the sword; and
+Stephen, that he might also overawe all malecontents by new and
+additional terrors of religion, procured a bull from Rome, which
+ratified his title, and which the pope, seeing this prince in
+possession of the throne, and pleased with an appeal to his authority
+in secular controversies, very readily granted him [i].
+[FN [g] W. Malmes. p. 179.  Hoveden, p. 482.  [h] W. Malm. p. 179.
+[i] Hagulstadt, p. 259, 313.]
+
+[MN 1136.]  Matilda, and her husband Geoffrey, were as unfortunate in
+Normandy as they had been in England.  The Norman nobility, moved by
+an hereditary animosity against the Angevins, first applied to
+Theobald, Count of Blois, Stephen's elder brother, for protection and
+assistance; but hearing afterwards that Stephen had got possession of
+the English crown, and having many of them the same reasons as
+formerly for desiring a continuance of their union with that kingdom,
+they transferred their allegiance to Stephen, and put him in
+possession of their government.  Lewis the younger, the reigning King
+of France, accepted the homage of Eustace, Stephen's eldest son, for
+the duchy; and the more to corroborate his connexions with that
+family, he betrothed his sister, Constantia, to the young prince.  The
+Count of Blois resigned all his pretensions, and received, in lieu of
+them, an annual pension of two thousand marks; and Geoffrey himself
+was obliged to conclude a truce for two years with Stephen, on
+condition of the king's paying him, during that time, a pension of
+five thousand [k].  Stephen, who had taken a journey to Normandy,
+finished all these transactions in person, and soon after returned to
+England.
+[FN [k] M. Paris, p. 52.]
+
+Robert, Earl of Gloucester, natural son of the late king, was a man of
+honour and abilities; and as he was much attached to the interests of
+his sister, Matilda, and zealous for the lineal succession, it was
+chiefly from his intrigues and resistance that the king had reason to
+dread a new revolution of government.  This nobleman, who was in
+Normandy when he received intelligence of Stephen's accession, found
+himself much embarrassed concerning the measures which he should
+pursue in that difficult emergency.  To swear allegiance to the
+usurper appeared to him dishonourable, and a breach of his oath to
+Matilda: to refuse giving this pledge of his fidelity, was to banish
+himself from England, and be totally incapacitated from serving the
+royal family, or contributing to their restoration [l].  He offered
+Stephen to do him homage, and to take the oath of fealty; but with an
+express condition, that the king should maintain all his stipulations,
+and should never invade any of Robert's rights or dignities: and
+Stephen, though sensible that this reserve, so unusual in itself, and
+so unbefitting the duty of a subject, was meant only to afford Robert
+a pretence for a revolt on the first favourable opportunity, was
+obliged, by the numerous friends and retainers of that nobleman, to
+receive him on those terms [m].  The clergy, who could scarcely, at
+this time, be deemed subjects to the crown, imitated that dangerous
+example: they annexed to their oaths of allegiance this condition,
+that they were only bound so long as the king defended the
+ecclesiastical liberties, and supported the discipline of the church
+[n].  The barons, in return for their submission, exacted terms still
+more destructive of public peace, as well as of royal authority: many
+of them required the right of fortifying their castles, and of putting
+themselves in a posture of defence; and the king found himself totally
+unable to refuse his consent to this exorbitant demand [o].  All
+England was immediately filled with those fortresses, which the
+noblemen garrisoned either with their vassals, or with licentious
+soldiers, who flocked to them from all quarters.  Unbounded rapine was
+exercised upon the people for the maintenance of these troops; and
+private animosities, which had with difficulty been restrained by law,
+now breaking out without control, rendered England a scene of
+uninterrupted violence and devastation.  Wars between the nobles were
+carried on with the utmost fury in every quarter; the barons even
+assumed the right of coining money, and of exercising, without appeal,
+every act of jurisdiction [p]; and the inferior gentry, as well as the
+people, finding no defence from the laws during this total dissolution
+of sovereign authority, were obliged for their immediate safety, to
+pay court to some neighbouring chieftain, and to purchase his
+protection, both by submitting to his exactions, and by assisting him
+in his rapine upon others.  The erection of one castle proved the
+immediate cause of building many others; and even those who obtained
+not the king's permission, thought that they were entitled, by the
+great principle of self-preservation, to put themselves on an equal
+footing with their neighbours, who commonly were also their enemies
+and rivals.  The aristocratical power, which is usually so oppressive
+in the feudal governments, had now risen to its utmost height, during
+the reign of a prince, who, though endowed with vigour and abilities,
+had usurped the throne without the pretence of a title, and who was
+necessitated to tolerate in others the same violence, to which he
+himself had been beholden for his sovereignty.
+[FN [l] W Malmes. p. 179.  [m] Ibid.  M. Paris, p. 51.  [n] W. Malm,
+p. 179.  [o] Ibid. p. 180.  [p] Trivet, p. 19  Gill. Neub. p. 372.
+Chron. Heming. p. 487.  Brompton, p. 1035.]
+
+But Stephen was not of a disposition to submit long to these
+usurpations, without making some effort for the recovery of royal
+authority.  Finding that the legal prerogatives of the crown were
+resisted and abridged, he was also tempted to make his power the sole
+measure of his conduct; and to violate all those concessions which he
+himself had made on his accession [q], as well as the ancient
+privileges of his subjects.  The mercenary soldiers, who chiefly
+supported his authority, having exhausted the royal treasure,
+subsisted by depredations; and every place was filled with the best
+grounded complaints against the government.  [MN 1137.]  The Earl of
+Gloucester, having now settled with his friends the plan of an
+insurrection, retired beyond sea, sent the king a defiance, solemnly
+renounced his allegiance, and upbraided him with the breach of those
+conditions which had been annexed to the oath of fealty sworn by that
+nobleman [r]. [MN 1138.  War with Scotland.]  David, King of Scotland,
+appeared at the head of an army in defence of his niece's title, and
+penetrating into Yorkshire, committed the most barbarous devastations
+on that country.  The fury of his massacres and ravages enraged the
+northern nobility, who might otherwise  have been inclined to join
+him; and William, Earl of Albemarle, Robert de Ferrers, William
+Piercy, Robert de Brus, Roger Moubray, Ilbert Lacey, Walter l'Espec,
+powerful barons in those parts, assembled an army with which they
+encamped at North-Allerton, and awaited the arrival of the enemy.  [MN
+22d. Aug.]  A great battle was here fought, called the battle of the
+STANDARD, from a high crucifix, erected by the English on a waggon,
+and carried along with the army as a military ensign.  The King of
+Scots was defeated, and he himself, as well as his son Henry, narrowly
+escaped falling into the hands of the English.  This success overawed
+the malecontents in England, and might have given some stability to
+Stephen's throne, had he not been so elated with prosperity as to
+engage in a controversy with the clergy, who were at that time an
+overmatch for any monarch.
+[FN [q] W. Malm. p. 180.  M. Paris, p. 51.  [r] W. Malm. p. 180.]
+
+Though the great power of the church, in ancient times, weakened the
+authority of the crown, and interrupted the course of the laws, it may
+be doubted, whether, in ages of such violence and outrage, it was not
+rather advantageous that some limits were set to the power of the
+sword, both in the hands of the prince and nobles, and that men were
+taught to pay regard to some principles and privileges.  The chief
+misfortune was, that the prelates on some occasions acted entirely as
+barons, employed military power against their sovereign or their
+neighbours, and thereby often increased those disorders which it was
+their duty to repress.  The Bishop of Salisbury, in imitation of the
+nobility, had built two strong castles, one at Sherborne, another at
+Devizes, and had laid the foundations of a third at Malmesbury: his
+nephew, Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, had erected a fortress at
+Newark: and Stephen, who was now sensible from experience of the
+mischiefs attending these multiplied citadels, resolved to begin with
+destroying those of the clergy, who, by their function, seemed less
+entitled than the barons to such military securities [s].  [MN 1139.]
+Making pretence of a fray which had arisen in court between the
+retinue of the Bishop of Salisbury and that of the Earl of Britany, he
+seized both that prelate and the Bishop of Lincoln, threw them into
+prison, and obliged them by menaces to deliver up those places of
+strength which they had lately erected [t].
+[FN [s] Gul. Neubr. p. 362.  [t] Chron. Sax. p. 238.  W. Malmes. p.
+181.]
+
+Henry, Bishop of Winchester, the king's brother, being armed with a
+legatine commission, now conceived himself to be an ecclesiastical
+sovereign, no less powerful than the civil; and, forgetting the ties
+of blood which connected him with the king, he resolved to vindicate
+the clerical privileges, which, he pretended, were here openly
+violated.  [MN 30th Aug.]  He assembled a synod at Westminster, and
+there complained of the impiety of Stephen's measures, who had
+employed violence against the dignitaries of the church, and had not
+awaited the sentence of a spiritual court, by which alone, he
+affirmed, they could lawfully be tried and condemned, if their conduct
+had anywise merited censure or punishment. [u].  The synod ventured to
+send a summons to the king charging him to appear before them, and to
+justify his measures [w]; and Stephen, instead of resenting this
+indignity, sent Aubrey de Vere to plead his cause before that
+assembly.  De Vere accused the two prelates of treason and sedition;
+but the synod refused to try the cause, or examine their conduct, till
+those castles, of which they had been dispossessed, were previously
+restored to them [x].  The Bishop of Salisbury declared that he would
+appeal to the pope; and had not Stephen and his partisans employed
+menaces, and even shown a disposition of executing violence by the
+hands of the soldiery, affairs had instantly come to extremity between
+the crown and the mitre [y].
+[FN [u] W. Malm. p. 182.  [w] Ibid.  M Paris, p. 53.  [x] W. Malm. p.
+183.  [y] Ibid.]
+
+While this quarrel, joined to so many other grievances, increased the
+discontents among the people, the empress, invited by the opportunity,
+and secretly encouraged by the legate himself, landed in England with
+Robert Earl of Gloucester, and a retinue of a hundred and forty
+knights.  She fixed her residence at Arundel Castle, whose gates were
+opened to her by Adelais, the queen-dowager, now married to William de
+Albini, Earl of Sussex; and she excited, by messengers, her partisans
+to take arms in every county of England.  [MN 1139.  22d Sept.
+Insurrection in favour of Matilda.]  Adelais, who had expected that
+her daughter-in-law would have invaded the kingdom with a much greater
+force, became apprehensive of danger; and Matilda, to ease her of her
+fears, removed, first to Bristol, which belonged to her brother
+Robert, thence to Gloucester, where she remained under the protection
+of Milo, a gallant nobleman in those parts, who had embraced her
+cause.  Soon after Geoffrey Talbot, William Mohun, Ralph Lovel,
+William Fitz-John, William Fitz-Alan, Paganell, and many other barons,
+declared for her; and her party, which was generally favoured in the
+kingdom, seemed every day to gain ground upon that of her antagonist.
+
+Were we to relate all the military events transmitted to us by
+contemporary and authentic historians, it would be easy to swell our
+accounts of this reign into a large volume: but those incidents, so
+little memorable in themselves, and so confused both in time and
+place, could afford neither instruction nor entertainment to the
+reader.  It suffices to say, that the war was spread into every
+quarter, and that those turbulent barons, who had already shaken off,
+in a great measure, the restraint of government, having now obtained
+the pretence of a public cause, carried on their devastations with
+redoubled fury, exercised implacable vengeance on each other, and set
+no bounds to their oppressions over the people.  The castles of the
+nobility were become receptacles of licensed robbers; who, sallying
+forth day and night, committed spoil on the open country, on the
+villages, and even on the cities, put the captives to torture, in
+order to make them reveal their treasures; sold their persons to
+slavery; and set fire to their houses, after they had pillaged them of
+every thing valuable.  The fierceness of their disposition, leading
+them to commit wanton destruction, frustrated their rapacity of its
+purpose; and the property and persons even of the ecclesiastics,
+generally so much revered, were at last, from necessity, exposed to
+the same outrage which had laid waste the rest of the kingdom.  The
+land was left untilled; the instruments of husbandry were destroyed or
+abandoned; and a grievous famine, the natural result of those
+disorders, affected equally both parties, and reduced the spoilers as
+well as the defenceless people to the most extreme want and indigence
+[z].
+[FN [z] Chron. Sax. p. 238.  W. Malmes. p. 185.  Gest. Steph p. 961.]
+
+[MN 1140.]  After several fruitless negotiations and treaties of
+peace, which never interrupted these destructive hostilities, there
+happened at last an event, which seemed to promise some end of the
+public calamities.  Ralph, Earl of Chester, and his half-brother,
+William de Roumara, partisans of Matilda, had surprised the castle of
+Lincoln; but the citizens, who were better affected to Stephen, having
+invited him to their aid, that prince laid close siege to the castle,
+in hopes of soon rendering himself master of the place, either by
+assault or by famine.  The Earl of Gloucester hastened with an army to
+the relief of his friends; and Stephen, informed of his approach, took
+the field with a resolution of giving him battle.  [MN 1141.  2d Feb.]
+After a violent shock, the two wings of the royalists were put to
+flight; and Stephen himself, surrounded by the enemy, was at last,
+after exerting great efforts of valour, borne down by numbers, and
+taken prisoner.  [MN Stephen taken prisoner.]  He was conducted to
+Gloucester; and though at first treated with humanity was soon after,
+on some suspicion, thrown into prison and loaded with irons.
+
+Stephen's party was entirely broken by the captivity of their leader,
+and the barons came in daily from all quarters, and did homage to
+Matilda.  The princess, however, amidst all her prosperity, knew that
+she was not secure of success unless she could gain the confidence of
+the clergy; and as the conduct of the legate had been of late very
+ambiguous, and shown his intentions to have rather aimed at humbling
+his brother than totally ruining him, she employed every endeavour to
+fix him in her interests.  [MN 2d March.]  She held a conference with
+him in an open plain near Winchester, where she promised, upon oath,
+that if he would acknowledge her for sovereign, would recognize her
+title as the sole descendant of the late king, and would again submit
+to the allegiance which he, as well as the rest of the kingdom, had
+sworn to her, he should in return be entire master of the
+administration, and, in particular, should, at his pleasure, dispose
+of all vacant bishoprics and abbeys.  Earl Robert, her brother, Brian
+Fitz-Count, Milo of Gloucester, and other great men, became guarantees
+for her observing these engagements [a]; and the prelate was at last
+induced to promise her allegiance, but that still burdened with the
+express condition, that she should, on her part, fulfil her promises.
+He then conducted her to Winchester, led her in procession to the
+cathedral, and with great solemnity, in the presence of many bishops
+and abbots, denounced curses against all those who cursed her, poured
+out blessings on those who blessed her, granted absolution to such as
+were obedient to her, and excommunicated such as were rebellious [b].
+Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, soon after came also to court, and
+swore allegiance to the empress [c].
+[FN [a] W. Malm. p. 187.  [b] Chron. Sax. p. 242.  Contin. Flor. Wig.
+p. 676.  [c] W. Malmes p. 187.]
+
+[MN Matilda crowned.]  Matilda, that she might farther ensure the
+attachment of the clergy, was willing to receive the crown from their
+hands; and instead of assembling the states of the kingdom, the
+measure which the constitution, had it been either fixed or regarded,
+seemed necessarily to require, she was content that the legate should
+assemble an ecclesiastical synod, and that her title to the throne
+should there be acknowledged.  The legate, addressing himself to the
+assembly, told them, that in the absence of the empress, Stephen, his
+brother, had been permitted to reign, and, previously to his ascending
+the throne, had induced them by many fair promises, of honouring and
+exalting the church, of maintaining the laws, and of reforming all
+abuses: that it grieved him to observe how much that prince had, in
+every particular, been wanting to his engagements; public peace was
+interrupted, crimes were daily committed with impunity, bishops were
+thrown into prison and forced to surrender their possessions, abbeys
+were put to sale, churches were pillaged, and the most enormous
+disorders prevailed in the administration: that he himself, in order
+to procure a redress of these grievances, had formerly summoned the
+king before a council of bishops; but, instead of inducing him to
+amend his conduct, had rather offended him by that expedient: that,
+how much soever misguided, that prince was still his brother, and the
+object of his aflections; but his interests, however, must be regarded
+as subordinate to those of their heavenly Father, who had now rejected
+him, and thrown him into the hands of his enemies: that it principally
+belonged to the clergy to elect and ordain kings; he had summoned them
+together for that purpose and having invoked the divine assistance; he
+now pronounced Matilda, the only descendant of Henry, the late
+sovereign, Queen of England.  The whole assembly by their acclamations
+or silence, gave, or seemed to give, their assent to this declaration
+[d].
+[FN [d] W. Malmes. p. 188.  This author, a judicious man, was present,
+and says, that he was very attentive to what passed.  This speech,
+therefore, may he regarded as entirely genuine.]
+
+The only laymen summoned to this council, which decided the fate of
+the crown, were the Londoners; and even these were required not to
+give their opinion but to submit to the decrees of the synod.  The
+deputies of London, however, were not so passive: they insisted that
+their king should be delivered from prison; but were told by the
+legate, that it became not the Londoners, who were regarded as
+noblemen in England, to take part with those barons, who had basely
+forsaken their lord in battle, and who had treated the holy church
+with contumely [e]: it is with reason that the citizens of London
+assumed so much authority, if it be true, what is related by
+Fitz-Stephen, a contemporary author, that that city could at this time
+bring into the field no less than eighty thousand combatants [f].
+[FN [e] W. Malmes. p. 188.  [f] P. 4. Were this account to be depended
+on, London must at that time have contained near four hundred thousand
+inhabitants, which is above double the number it contained at the
+death of Queen Elizabeth.  But these loose calculations, or rather
+guesses, deserve very little credit.  Peter of Blois, a contemporary
+writer, and a man of sense, says there were then only forty thousand
+inhabitants in London, which is much more likely.  See Epist. 151.
+What Fitz-Stephen says of the prodigious riches, splendour, and
+commerce of London, proves only the great poverty of the other towns
+of the kingdom, and indeed of all the northern parts of Europe.]
+
+London, notwithstanding its great power, and its attachment to
+Stephen, was at length obliged to submit to Matilda; and her
+authority, by the prudent conduct of Earl Robert, seemed to be
+established over the whole kingdom: but affairs remained not long in
+this situation.  That princess, besides the disadvantages of her sex,
+which weakened her influence over a turbulent and martial people, was
+of a passionate, imperious spirit, and knew not how to temper with
+affability the harshness of a refusal.  Stephen's queen, seconded by
+many of the nobility, petitioned for the liberty of her husband; and
+offered that, on this condition, he should renounce the crown and
+retire into a convent.  The legate desired that Prince Eustace, his
+nephew, might inherit Boulogne and the other patrimonial estates of
+his father [g]: the Londoners applied for the establishment of King
+Edward's laws, instead of those of King Henry, which, they said, were
+grievous and oppressive [h].  All these petitions were rejected in the
+most haughty and peremptory manner.
+[FN [g] Brompton, p. 1031.  [h] Contin. Flor. Wig. p. 577.  Gervase,
+p. 1355.]
+
+The legate, who had probably never been sincere in his compliance with
+Matilda's government, availed himself of the ill-humour excited by
+this imperious conduct, and secretly instigated the Londoners to a
+revolt.  A conspiracy was entered into to seize the person of the
+empress; and she saved herself from the danger by a precipitate
+retreat.  She fled to Oxford: soon after she went to Winchester;
+whither the legate, desirous to save appearances, and watching the
+opportunity to ruin her cause, had retired.  But having assembled all
+his retainers, he openly joined his force to that of the Londoners,
+and to Stephen's mercenary troops, who had not yet evacuated the
+kingdom; and he besieged Matilda in Winchester.  The princess, being
+hard pressed by famine, made her escape; but in the flight, Earl
+Robert, her brother, fell into the hands of the enemy.  This nobleman,
+though a subject, was as much the life and soul of his own party, as
+Stephen was of the other; [MN Stephen released.] and the empress,
+sensible of his merit and importance, consented to exchange the
+prisoners on equal terms.  The civil war was again kindled with
+greater fury than ever.
+
+[MN 1142.]  Earl Robert, finding the successes on both sides nearly
+balanced, went over to Normandy, which, during Stephen's captivity,
+had submitted to the Earl of Anjou; and he persuaded Geoffrey to allow
+his eldest son, Henry, a young prince of great hopes, to take a
+journey into England, and appear at the head of his partisans.  This
+expedient, however, produced nothing decisive.  Stephen took Oxford
+after a long siege [MN 1143.]: he was defeated by Earl Robert at
+Wilton: and the empress, though of a masculine spirit, yet being
+harassed with a variety of good and bad fortune, and alarmed with
+continual dangers to her person and family, at last retired into
+Normandy, whither she had sent her son some time before.  [MN 1146.
+Continuation of the civil wars.]  The death of her brother, which
+happened nearly about the same time, would have proved fatal to her
+interests, had not some incidents occurred which checked the course of
+Stephen's prosperity.  This prince, finding that the castles built by
+the noblemen of his own party encouraged the spirit of independence,
+and were little less dangerous than those which remained in the hands
+of the enemy, endeavoured to extort from them a surrender of those
+fortresses; and he alienated the affections of many of them by this
+equitable demand.  The artillery also of the church, which his brother
+had brought over to his side, had, after some interval, joined the
+other party.  Eugenius III. had mounted the papal throne; the Bishop
+of Winchester was deprived of the legatine commission, which was
+conferred on Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, the enemy and rival
+of the former legate.  That pontiff also, having summoned a general
+council at Rheims, in Champaigne, instead of allowing the church of
+England, as had been usual, to elect its own deputies, nominated five
+English bishops to represent that church, and required their
+attendance in the council.  Stephen, who, notwithstanding his present
+difficulties, was jealous of the rights of his crown, refused them
+permission to attend [i]; and the pope, sensible of his advantage in
+contending with a prince who reigned by a disputed title, took revenge
+by laying all Stephen's party under an interdict [k].  [MN 1147.]  The
+discontents of the royalists, at being thrown into this situation,
+were augmented by a comparison with Matilda's party, who enjoyed all
+the benefits of the sacred ordinances; and Stephen was at last
+obliged, by making proper submissions to the see of Rome, to remove
+the reproach from his party [l].
+[FN [i] Epist. St. Thom. p. 225.  [k] Chron. W. Thorn. p. 1807.  [l]
+Epist St. Thom. p. 226.]
+
+[MN 1148.]  The weakness of both sides, rather than any decrease of
+mutual animosity, having produced a tacit cessation of arms in
+England, many of the nobility, Roger de Moubray, William de Warenne,
+and others, finding no opportunity to exert their military ardour at
+home, enlisted themselves in a new crusade, which, with surprising
+success, after former disappointments and misfortunes, was now
+preached by St. Bernard [m].  But an event soon after happened which
+threatened a revival of hostilities in England.  Prince Henry, who had
+reached his sixteenth year, was desirous of receiving the honour of
+knighthood; a ceremony which every gentleman in that age passed
+through before he was admitted to the use of arms, and which was even
+deemed requisite for the greatest princes.  He intended to receive his
+admission from his great-uncle, David, King of Scotland; and for that
+purpose he passed through England with a great retinue, and was
+attended by the most considerable of his partisans.  He remained some
+time with the King of Scotland; made incursions into England; and by
+his dexterity and vigour in all manly exercises, by his valour in war,
+and his prudent conduct in every occurrence, he roused the hopes of
+his party, and gave symptoms of those great qualities which he
+afterwards displayed when he mounted the throne of England.  [MN
+1150.]  Soon after his return to Normandy, he was, by Matilda's
+consent, invested in that duchy; and upon the death of his father,
+Geoffrey, which happened in the subsequent year, he took possession
+both of Anjou and Maine, and concluded a marriage, which brought him a
+great accession of power, and rendered him extremely formidable to his
+rival.  Eleanor, the daughter and heir of William, Duke of Guienne and
+Earl of Poictou, had been married sixteen years to Lewis VII. King of
+France, [MN 1152.] and had attended him in a crusade, which that
+monarch conducted against the infidels; but having there lost the
+affections of her husband, and even fallen under some suspicion of
+gallantry with a handsome Saracen, Lewis, more delicate than politic,
+procured a divorce from her, and restored her those rich provinces,
+which by her marriage she had annexed to the crown of France.  Young
+Henry, neither discouraged by the inequality of years, nor by the
+reports of Eleanor's gallantries, made successful courtship to that
+princess, and, espousing her six weeks after her divorce, got
+possession of all her dominions as her dowry.  The lustre which he
+received from this acquisition, and the prospect of his rising
+fortune, had such an effect in England, that, when Stephen, desirous
+to ensure the crown to his son Eustace, required the Archbishop of
+Canterbury to anoint that prince as his successor, the primate refused
+compliance, and made his escape beyond sea, to avoid the violence and
+resentment of Stephen.
+[FN [m] Hagulst. p. 275, 276.]
+
+[MN 1153.]  Henry, informed of these dispositions in the people, made
+an invasion on England.  Having gained some advantage over Stephen at
+Malmesbury, and having taken that place, he proceeded thence to throw
+succours into Wallingford, which the king had advanced with a superior
+army to besiege.  A decisive action was every day expected; when the
+great men of both sides, terrified at the prospect of farther
+bloodshed and confusion, interposed with their good offices, and set
+on foot a negotiation between the rival princes.  The death of
+Eustace, during the course of the treaty, facilitated its conclusion;
+[MN Compromise between the king and Prince Henry.] an accommodation
+was settled, by which it was agreed, that Stephen should possess the
+crown during his lifetime, that justice should be administered in his
+name, even in the provinces which had submitted to Henry, and that
+this latter prince should, on Stephen's demise, succeed to the
+kingdom, and William, Stephen's son, to Boulogne and his patrimonial
+estate.  After all the barons had sworn to the observance of this
+treaty, and done homage to Henry, as to the heir of the crown, that
+prince evacuated the kingdom; [MN Death of the king, Oct. 25, 1154.]
+and the death of Stephen, which happened the next year, after a short
+illness, prevented all those quarrels and jealousies which were likely
+to have ensued in so delicate a situation.
+
+England suffered great miseries during the reign of this prince: but
+his personal character, allowing for the temerity and injustice of his
+usurpation, appears not liable to any great exception; and he seems to
+have been well qualified, had he succeeded by a just title, to have
+promoted the happiness and prosperity of his subjects [n].  He was
+possessed of industry, activity, and courage, to a great degree;
+though not endowed with a sound judgment, he was not deficient in
+abilities; he had the talent of gaining men's affections; and
+notwithstanding his precarious situation, he never indulged himself in
+the exercise of any cruelty or revenge [o].  His advancement to the
+throne procured him neither tranquillity nor happiness; and though the
+situation of England prevented the neighbouring states from taking any
+durable advantage of her confusions, her intestine disorders were to
+the last degree ruinous and destructive.  The court of Rome was also
+permitted, during those civil wars, to make farther advances in her
+usurpations; and appeals to the pope, which had always been strictly
+prohibited by the English laws, became now common in every
+ecclesiastical controversy [p].
+[FN [n] W. Malm. p. 180.  [o] M. Paris, p. 51.  Hagul. p. 312.  [p] H.
+Hunt. p. 395.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HENRY II.
+
+STATE OF EUROPE--OF FRANCE.--FIRST ACTS OF HENRY'S GOVERNMENT--
+DISPUTES BETWEEN THE CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POWERS.—THOMAS À BECKET,
+ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.--QUARREL BETWEEN THE KING AND BECKET.--
+CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON.--BANISHMENT OF BECKET.--COMPROMISE WITH
+HIM.--HIS RETURN FROM BANISHMENT.--HIS MURDER--GRIEF AND SUBMISSION OF
+THE KING.
+
+
+
+[MN 1154.  State of Europe]
+The extensive confederacies by which the European potentates are now
+at once united and set in opposition to each other, and which, though
+they are apt to diffuse the least spark of dissension throughout the
+whole, are at least attended with this advantage, that they prevent
+any violent revolutions or conquests in particular states, were
+totally unknown in ancient ages; and the theory of foreign politics,
+in each kingdom, formed a speculation much less complicated and
+involved than at present.  Commerce had not yet bound together the
+most distant nations in so close a chain: wars, finished in one
+campaign, and often in one battle, were little affected by the
+movements of remote states: the imperfect communication among the
+kingdoms, and their ignorance of each other's situation, made it
+impracticable for a great number of them to combine in one project or
+effort: and above all, the turbulent spirit and independent situation
+of the barons or great vassals in each state gave so much occupation
+to the sovereign, that he was obliged to confine his attention chiefly
+to his own state and his own system of government, and was more
+indifferent about what passed among his neighbours.  Religion alone,
+not politics, carried abroad the views of princes; while it either
+fixed their thoughts on the Holy Land, whose conquest and defence was
+deemed a point of common honour and interest, or engaged them in
+intrigues with the Roman pontiff, to whom they had yielded the
+direction of ecclesiastical affairs, and who was every day assuming
+more authority than they were willing to allow him.
+
+Before the conquest of England by the Duke of Normandy, this island
+was as much separated from the rest of the world in politics as in
+situation; and except from the inroads of the Danish pirates, the
+English, happily confined at home, had neither enemies nor allies on
+the continent.  The foreign dominions of William connected them with
+the king and great vassals of France; and while the opposite
+pretensions of the pope and emperor in Italy produced a continual
+intercourse between Germany and that country, the two great monarchs
+of France and England formed, in another part of Europe, a separate
+system; and carried on their wars and negotiations, without meeting
+either with opposition or support from the others.
+
+[MN State of France.]
+On the decline of the Carlovingian race, the nobles in every province
+of France, taking advantage of the weakness of the sovereign, and
+obliged to provide, each for his own defence, against the ravages of
+the Norman freebooters, had assumed, both in civil and military
+affairs, an authority almost independent, and had reduced within very
+narrow limits the prerogative of their princes.  The accession of Hugh
+Capet, by annexing a great fief to the crown, had brought some
+addition to the royal dignity; but this fief, though considerable for
+a subject, appeared a narrow basis of power for a prince who was
+placed at the head of so great a community.  The royal demesnes
+consisted only of Paris, Orleans, Estampes, Compeigne, and a few
+places scattered over the northern provinces: in the rest of the
+kingdom, the prince's authority was rather nominal than real: the
+vassals were accustomed, nay entitled, to make war, without his
+permission, on each other: they were even entitled, if they conceived
+themselves injured, to turn their arms against their sovereign: they
+exercised all civil jurisdiction, without appeal, over their tenants
+and inferior vassals: their common jealousy of the crown easily united
+them against any attempt on their exorbitant privileges; and as some
+of them had attained the power and authority of great princes, even
+the smallest baron was sure of immediate and effectual protection.
+Besides six ecclesiastical peerages, which, with the other immunities
+of the church, cramped extremely the general execution of justice,
+there were six lay peerages, Burgundy, Normandy, Guienne, Flanders,
+Toulouse, and Champaigne, which formed very extensive and puissant
+sovereignties.  And though the combination all those princes and
+barons could, on urgent occasions, muster a mighty power; yet it was
+very difficult to set that great machine in movement; it was almost
+impossible to preserve harmony in its parts; a sense of common
+interest alone could, for a time, unite them under their sovereign
+against a common enemy; but if the king attempted to turn the force of
+the community against any mutinous vassal, the same sense of common
+interest made the others oppose themselves to the success of his
+pretensions.  Lewis the Gross, the last sovereign, marched at one time
+to his frontiers against the Germans at the head of an army of two
+hundred thousand men; but a petty lord of Corbeil, of Puiset, of
+Couci, was able, at another period, to set that prince at defiance,
+and to maintain open war against him.
+
+The authority of the English monarch was much more extensive within
+his kingdom, and the disproportion much greater between him and the
+most powerful of his vassals.  His demesnes and revenue were large,
+compared to the greatness of his state: he was accustomed to levy
+arbitrary exactions on his subjects; his courts of judicature extended
+their jurisdiction into every part of the kingdom: he could crush by
+his power, or by a judicial sentence, well or ill founded, any
+obnoxious baron: and though the feudal institutions which prevailed in
+his kingdom had the same tendency as in other states to exalt the
+aristocracy and depress the monarchy, it required, in England,
+according to its present constitution, a great combination of the
+vassals to oppose their sovereign lord, and there had not hitherto
+arisen any baron so powerful, as of himself to levy war against the
+prince, and to afford protection to the inferior barons.
+
+While such were the different situations of France and England, and
+the latter enjoyed so many advantages above the former, the accession
+of Henry II., a prince of great abilities, possessed of so many rich
+provinces on the continent, might appear an event dangerous, if not
+fatal, to the French monarchy, and sufficient to break entirely the
+balance between the states.  He was master, in the right of his
+father, of Anjou and Touraine; in that of his mother, of Normandy and
+Maine; in that of his wife, of Guienne, Poictou, Xaintogne, Auvergne,
+Perigord, Angoumois, the Limousin.  He soon after annexed Britany to
+his other states, and was already possessed of the superiority over
+that province, which, on the first cession of Normandy to Rollo, the
+Dane, had been granted by Charles the Simple, in vassalage to that
+formidable ravager.  These provinces composed above a third of the
+whole French monarchy, and were much superior, in extent and opulence,
+to those territories which were subjected to the immediate
+jurisdiction and government of the king.  The vassal was here more
+powerful than his liege lord: the situation which had enabled Hugh
+Capet to depose the Carlovingian princes seemed to be renewed, and
+that with much greater advantages on the side of the vassal; and when
+England was added to so many provinces, the French king had reason to
+apprehend, from this conjuncture, some great disaster to himself and
+to his family: but in reality, it was this circumstance, which
+appeared so formidable, that saved the Capetian race, and, by its
+consequences, exalted them to that pitch of grandeur which they at
+present enjoy.
+
+The limited authority of the prince in the feudal constitutions
+prevented the King of England from employing with advantage the force
+of so many states, which were subjected to his government; and these
+different members, disjoined in situation, and disagreeing in laws,
+language, and manners, were never thoroughly cemented into one
+monarchy.  He soon became, both from his distant place of residence,
+and from the incompatibility of interests, a kind of foreigner to his
+French dominions; and his subjects on the continent considered their
+allegiance as more naturally due to their superior lord, who lived in
+their neighbourhood, and who was acknowledged to be the supreme head
+of their nation.  He was always at hand to invade them; their
+immediate lord was often at too great a distance to protect them; and
+any disorder in any part of his dispersed dominions gave advantages
+against him.  The other powerful vassals of the French crown were
+rather pleased to see the expulsion of the English, and were not
+affected with that jealousy, which  would have arisen from the
+oppression of a co-vassal, who was of the same rank with themselves.
+By this means, the King of France found it more easy to conquer those
+numerous provinces from England, than to subdue a Duke of Normandy or
+Guienne, a Count of Anjou, Maine, or Poictou.  And after reducing such
+extensive territories, which immediately incorporated with the body of
+the monarchy, he found greater facility in uniting to the crown the
+other great fiefs which still remained separate and independent.
+
+But as these important consequences could not be foreseen by human
+wisdom, the King of France remarked with terror the rising grandeur of
+the house of Anjou, or Plantagenet; and, in order to retard its
+progress, he had ever maintained a strict union with Stephen, and had
+endeavoured to support the tottering fortunes of that bold usurper.
+But after this prince's death it was too late to think of opposing the
+succession of Henry, or preventing the performance of those
+stipulations which, with the unanimous consent of the nation, he had
+made with his predecessor.  The English, harassed with civil wars, and
+disgusted with the bloodshed and depredations which, during the course
+of so many years, had attended them, were little disposed to violate
+their oaths, by excluding the lawful heir from the succession of their
+monarchy [a].  Many of the most considerable fortresses were in the
+hands of his partisans; the whole nation had had occasion to see the
+noble qualities with which he was endowed [b], and to compare them
+with the mean talents of William the son of Stephen; and as they were
+acquainted with his great power, and were rather pleased to see the
+accession of so many foreign dominions to the crown of England, they
+never entertained the least thoughts of resisting them.  Henry
+himself, sensible of the advantages attending his present situation,
+was in no hurry to arrive in England; and being engaged in the siege
+of a castle on the frontiers of Normandy, when he received
+intelligence of Stephen's death, [MN Dec.] he made it a point of
+honour not to depart from his enterprise till he had brought it to an
+issue.  He then set out on his journey and was received in England
+with the acclamations of all orders of men, who swore with pleasure
+the oath of fealty and allegiance to him.
+[FN [a] Matt. Paris, p. 65.  [b] Gul. Neubr. p. 381.]
+
+[MN 1155.  First acts of HenryÂ’s government.]
+The first acts of Henry's government corresponded to the high idea
+entertained of his abilities, and prognosticated the re-establishment
+of justice and tranquillity, of which the kingdom had so long been
+bereaved.  He immediately dismissed all those mercenary soldiers who
+had committed great disorders in the nation; and he sent them abroad,
+together with William of Ypres, their leader, the friend and confidant
+of Stephen [c].  He revoked all the grants made by his predecessor
+[d], even those which necessity had extorted from the Empress Matilda;
+and that princess, who had resigned her rights in favour of Henry,
+made no opposition to a measure so necessary for supporting the
+dignity of the crown.  He repaired the coin, which had been extremely
+debased during the reign of his predecessor; and he took proper
+measures against the return of a like abuse [e].  He was vigorous in
+the execution of justice, and in the suppression of robbery and
+violence; and that he might restore authority to the laws, he caused
+all the new erected castles to be demolished, which had proved so many
+sanctuaries to freebooters and rebels [f].  The Earl of Albemarle,
+Hugh Mortimer, and Roger the son of Milo of Gloucester, were inclined
+to make some resistance to this salutary measure; but the approach of
+the king with his forces soon obliged them to submit.
+[FN [c] Fitz-Steph. p. 13.  M. Paris, p. 65.  Neubr. p. 381.  Chron.
+T. Wykes, p. 30.  [d] Neub. p. 382.  [e] Hoveden, p. 491.  [f]
+Hoveden, p. 491.  Fitz-Steph. p. 13.  M. Paris, p. 65.  Neubr. p. 381.
+Brompton, p. 1043.]
+
+[MN 1156.]  Every thing being restored to full tranquillity in
+England, Henry went abroad in order to oppose the attempts of his
+brother Geoffrey, who, during his absence, had made an incursion into
+Anjou and Maine, had advanced some pretensions to those provinces, and
+had got possession of a considerable part of them [g].  On the kingÂ’s
+appearance, the people returned to their allegiance; and Geoffrey,
+resigning his claim for an annual pension of a thousand pounds,
+departed and took possession of the county of Nantz, which the
+inhabitants, who had expelled Count Hoel, their prince, had put into
+his hands.  [MN 1157.]  Henry returned to England the following year:
+the incursions of the Welsh then provoked him to make an invasion upon
+them; where the natural fastnesses of the country occasioned him great
+difficulties, and even brought him into danger.  His vanguard, being
+engaged in a narrow pass, was put to rout.  Henry de Essex, the
+hereditary standard-bearer, seized with a panic, threw down the
+standard, took to flight and exclaimed, that the king. was slain: and
+had not the prince immediately appeared in person, and led on his
+troops with great gallantry, the consequences might have proved fatal
+to the whole army [h].  For this misbehaviour, Essex was afterwards
+accused of felony by Robert de Montfort; was vanquished in single
+combat; his estate was confiscated; and he himself was thrust into a
+convent [i].  The submissions of the Welsh procured them an
+accommodation with England.
+[FN [g] See note [O], at the end of the volume.  [h] Neubr. p. 383.
+Chron. W. Heming. p. 492.  [i] M. Paris, p. 70  Neubr. p. 383.]
+
+[MN 1158.]  The martial disposition of the princes in that age engaged
+them to head their own armies in every enterprise, even the most
+frivolous; and their feeble authority made it commonly impracticable
+for them to delegate, on occasion, the command to their generals.
+Geoffrey, the king's brother, died soon after he had acquired
+possession of Nantz: though he had no other title to that county than
+the voluntary submission or election of the inhabitants two years
+before, Henry laid claim to the territory as devolved to him by
+hereditary right, and he went over to support his pretensions by force
+of arms.  Conan, Duke or Earl of Britany, (for these titles are given
+indifferently by historians to those princes,) pretended that Nantz
+had been lately separated by rebellion from his principality, to which
+of right it belonged; and immediately on Geoffrey's death he took
+possession of the disputed territory.  Lest Lewis, the French king,
+should interpose in the controversy, Henry paid him a visit; and so
+allured him by caresses and civilities, that an alliance was
+contracted between them; and they agreed that young Henry, heir to the
+English monarchy, should be affianced to Margaret of France though the
+former was only five years of age, and the latter was still in her
+cradle.  Henry, now secure of meeting with no interruption on this
+side, advanced with his army into Britany; and Conan, in despair of
+being able to make resistance, delivered up the county of Nantz to
+him.  The able conduct of the king procured him farther and more
+important advantages from this incident.  Conan, harassed with the
+turbulent disposition of his subjects, was desirous of procuring to
+himself the support of so great a monarch; and he betrothed his
+daughter and only child, yet an infant, to Geoffrey, the king's third
+son, who was of the same tender years.  The Duke of Britany died about
+seven years after; and Henry being MESNE lord, and also natural
+guardian to his son and daughter-in-law, put himself in possession of
+that principality, and annexed it for the present to his other great
+dominions.
+
+[MN 1159.]  The king had a prospect of making still farther
+acquisitions; and the activity of his temper suffered no opportunity
+of that kind to escape him.  Philippa, Duchess of Guienne, mother of
+Queen Eleanor, was the only issue of William IV., Count of Toulouse;
+and would have inherited his dominions, had not that prince, desirous
+of preserving the succession in the male line, conveyed the
+principality to his brother, Raymond de St. Gilles, by a contract of
+sale which was in that age regarded as fictitious and illusory.  By
+this means the title to the county of Toulouse came to be disputed
+between the male and female heirs; and the one or the other, as
+opportunities favoured them, had obtained possession.  Raymond,
+grandson of Raymond de St. Gilles, was the reigning sovereign; and on
+HenryÂ’s reviving his wifeÂ’s claim, this prince had recourse for
+protection to the King of France, who was so much concerned in policy
+to prevent the farther aggrandizement of the English monarch.  Lewis
+himself, when married to Eleanor, had asserted the justice of her
+claim, and had demanded possession of Toulouse [k]; but his sentiments
+changing with his interest, he now determined to defend, by his power
+and authority, the title of Raymond.  Henry found that it would be
+requisite to support his pretensions against potent antagonists; and
+that nothing but a formidable army could maintain a claim which he had
+in vain asserted by arguments and manifestoes.
+[FN [k] Neubr. p. 387.  Chron. W. Heming. p. 494.]
+
+An army, composed of feudal vassals, was commonly very intractable and
+undisciplined, both because of the independent spirit of the persons
+who served in it, and because the commands were not given, either by
+the choice of the sovereign, or from the military capacity and
+experience of the officers.  Each baron conducted his own vassals: his
+rank was greater or less, proportioned to the extent of his property:
+even the supreme command under the prince was often attached to birth;
+and as the military vassals were obliged to serve only forty days at
+their own charge; though if the expedition were distant, they were put
+to great expense; the prince reaped little benefit from their
+attendance.  Henry, sensible of these inconveniences, levied upon his
+vassals in Normandy, and other provinces which were remote from
+Toulouse, a sum of money in lieu of their service; and this
+commutation, by reason of the great distance, was still more
+advantageous to his English vassals.  He imposed, therefore, a scutage
+of one hundred and eighty thousand pounds on the knightÂ’s fees, a
+commutation to which, though it was unusual, and the first perhaps to
+be met with in history [l], the military tenants willingly submitted;
+and with this money he levied an army which was more under his
+command, and whose service was more durable and constant.  Assisted by
+Berenger, Count of Barcelona, and Trincaval, Count of Nismes, whom he
+had gained to his party, he invaded the county of Toulouse; and after
+taking Verdun, Castlenau, and other places, he besieged the capital of
+the province, and was likely to prevail in the enterprise: when Lewis,
+advancing before the arrival of his main body, threw himself into the
+place with a small reinforcement.  [MN 1160.]  Henry was urged by some
+of his ministers to prosecute the siege, to take Lewis prisoner, and
+to impose his own terms in the pacification; but he either thought it
+so much his interest to maintain the feudal principles, by which his
+foreign dominions were secured, or bore so much respect to his
+superior lord, that he declared he would  not attack a place defended
+by him in person; and he immediately raised the siege [m].  He marched
+into Normandy, to protect that province against an incursion which the
+Count of Dreux, instigated by King Lewis, his brother, had made upon
+it.  War was now openly carried on between the two monarchs, but
+produced no memorable event: it soon ended in a cessation of arms, and
+that followed by a peace, which was not, however, attended with any
+confidence or good correspondence between those rival princes.  The
+fortress of Gisors, being part of the dowry stipulated to Margaret of
+France, had been consigned by agreement to the Knights Templars, on
+condition that it should be delivered into Henry's hands after the
+celebration of the nuptials.  The king, that he might have a pretence
+for immediately demanding the place, ordered the marriage to be
+solemnized between the prince and princess, though both infants [n];
+and he engaged the Grand Master of the Templars, by large presents, as
+was generally suspected, to put him in possession of Gisors [o].  [MN
+1161.]  Lewis, resenting this fraudulent conduct, banished the
+Templars, and would have made war upon the King of England, had it not
+been for the mediation and authority of Pope Alexander III., who had
+been chased from Rome by the anti-pope, Victor IV., and resided at
+that time in France.  That we may form an idea of the authority
+possessed by the Roman pontiff during those ages, it may be proper to
+observe, that the two kings had, the year before, met the pope at the
+castle of Torci, on the Loire; and they gave him such marks of
+respect, that both dismounted to receive him, and holding each of them
+one of the reins of his bridle, walked on foot by his side, and
+conducted him in that submissive manner into the castle [p].  A
+SPECTACLE, cries Baronius in an ecstasy, TO GOD, ANGELS AND MEN; AND
+SUCH AS HAD NEVER BEFORE BEEN EXHIBITED TO THE WORLD!
+[FN [l] Madox, p. 435.  Gervase, p. 1381.  See Note [P], at the end of
+the volume.  [m] Fitz-Steph. p. 22.  Diceto, p. 531.  [n] Hoveden, p.
+492.  Neubr. p. 400.  Diceto, p. 532.  Brompton, p. 1450.  [o] Since
+the first publication of this history, Lord Lyttelton has published a
+copy of the treaty between Henry and Lewis, by which it appears, if
+there was no secret article, that Henry was not guilty of any fraud in
+this transaction.  [p] Trivet, p. 48.]
+
+[MN 1162.]  Henry, soon after he had accommodated his differences with
+Lewis, by the pope's mediation, returned to England; where he
+commenced an enterprise which, though required by sound policy, and
+even conducted in the main with prudence, bred him great disquietude,
+involved him in danger, and was not concluded without some loss and
+dishonour.
+
+[MN Disputes between the civil and ecclesiastical powers.]
+The usurpations of the clergy, which had at first been gradual, were
+now become so rapid, and had mounted to such a height, that the
+contest between the regale and pontificale was really arrived at a
+crisis in England, and it became necessary to determine whether the
+king or the priests, particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury, should
+be sovereign of the kingdom [q].  The aspiring spirit of Henry, which
+gave inquietude to all his neighbours, was not likely long to pay a
+tame submission to the encroachments of subjects; and as nothing
+opened the eyes of men so readily as their interests, he was in no
+danger of falling, in this respect, into that abject superstition
+which retained his people in subjection.  From the commencement of his
+reign, in the government of his foreign dominions, as well as of
+England, he had shown a fixed purpose to repress clerical usurpations,
+and to maintain those prerogatives which had been transmitted to him
+by his predecessors.  During the schism of the papacy between
+Alexander and Victor, he had determined, for some time, to remain
+neuter: and when informed that the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop
+of Mans had, from their own authority, acknowledged Alexander as
+legitimate pope, he was so enraged, that, though he spared the
+archbishop on account of his great age, he immediately issued orders
+for overthrowing the houses of the Bishop of Mans and Archdeacon of
+Rouen [r]; and it was not till he had deliberately examined the
+matter, by those views which usually enter into the councils of
+princes, that he allowed that pontiff to exercise authority over any
+of his dominions.  In England, the mild character and advanced years
+of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, together with his merits in
+refusing to put the crown on the head of Eustace, son of Stephen,
+prevented Henry, during the lifetime of that primate, from taking  any
+measures against the multiplied encroachments of the clergy; but after
+his death, the king resolved to exert himself with more activity, and
+that he might be secure against any opposition, he advanced to that
+dignity Becket, his chancellor, on whose compliance he thought he
+could entirely depend.
+[FN [q] Fitz-Stephen, p. 27.  [r] See note [Q], at the end of the
+volume.]
+
+[MN June 3.  Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.]
+Thomas à Becket, the first man of English descent who, since the
+Norman conquest, had, during the course of a whole century, risen to
+any considerable station, was born of reputable parents in the city of
+London; and being endowed both with industry and capacity, he early
+insinuated himself into the favour of Archbishop Theobald, and
+obtained from that prelate some preferments and offices.  By their
+means he was enabled to travel for improvement to Italy, where he
+studied the civil and canon law at Bologna; and on his return, he
+appeared to have made such proficiency in knowledge, that he was
+prompted by his patron to the Archdeaconry of Canterbury, an office of
+considerable trust and profit.  He was afterwards employed with
+success by Theobald, in transacting business at Rome; and, on Henry's
+accession, he was recommended to that monarch as worthy of farther
+preferment.  Henry. who knew that Becket had been instrumental in
+supporting that resolution of the archbishop, which had tended so much
+to facilitate his own advancement to the throne, was already pre-
+possessed in his favour; and finding, on farther acquaintance, that
+his spirit and abilities entitled him to any trust, he soon promoted
+him to the dignity of chancellor, one of the first civil offices in
+the kingdom.  The chancellor, in that age, besides the custody of the
+great seal, had possession of all vacant prelacies and abbeys; he was
+the guardian of all such minors and pupils as were the king's tenants;
+all baronies which escheated to the crown were under his
+administration; he was entitled to a place in council, even though he
+were not particularly summoned; and as he exercised also the office of
+secretary of state, and it belonged to him to countersign all
+commissions, writs, and letters patent, he was a kind of prime
+minister, and was concerned in the despatch of every business of
+importance [s].  Besides exercising this high office, Becket, by the
+favour of the king or archbishop, was made Provost of Beverley, Dean
+of Hastings, and Constable of the Tower: he was put in possession of
+the honours of Eye and Berkham, large baronies that had escheated to
+the crown: and, to complete his grandeur, he was intrusted with the
+education of Prince Henry, the kingÂ’s eldest son, and heir of the
+monarchy [t].  The pomp of his retinue, the sumptuousness of his
+furniture, the luxury of his table, the munificence of his presents,
+corresponded to these great preferments; or rather exceeded any thing
+that England had ever before seen in any subject.  His historian and
+secretary, Fitz-Stephens [u], mentions, among other particulars, that
+his apartments were every day in winter covered with clean straw or
+hay, and in summer with green rushes or boughs; lest the gentlemen who
+paid court to him, and who could not, by reason of their great number,
+find a place at table, should soil their fine clothes by sitting on a
+dirty floor [w].  A great number of knights were retained in his
+service; the greatest barons were proud of being received at his
+table; his house was a place of education for the sons of the chief
+nobility; and the king himself frequently vouchsafed to partake of his
+entertainments.  As his way of life was splendid and opulent, his
+amusements and occupations were gay, and partook of the cavalier
+spirit, which, as he had only taken deacon's orders, he did not think
+unbefitting his character.  He employed himself at leisure hours in
+hunting, hawking, gaming, and horsemanship; he exposed his person in
+several military actions [x]; he carried over, at his own charge,
+seven hundred knights to attend the king in his wars at Toulouse; in
+the subsequent wars on the frontiers of Normandy he maintained, during
+forty days, twelve hundred knights, and four thousand of their train
+[y]; and in an embassy to France, with which he was intrusted, he
+astonished that court with the number and magnificence of his retinue.
+[FN [s] Fitz-Steph. p. 13.  [t] Fitz-Steph. p. 15.  Hist. Quad. p. 9,
+14.  [u] P. 15.  [w] John Baldwin held the manor of Oterarsfee, in
+Aylesbury, of the king by soccage, by the service of finding litter
+for the king's bed, viz. in summer, grass or herbs, and two grey
+geese; and in winter, straw, and three eels, thrice in the year if the
+king should come thrice in the year to Aylesbury.  Madox, Bar.
+Anglica, p. 247.  [x] Fitz-Steph. p. 23.  Hist. Quad. p. 9.  [y] Fitz-
+Steph. p. 19, 20, 22, 23.]
+
+Henry, besides committing all his more important business to Becket's
+management, honoured him with his friendship and intimacy; and
+whenever he was disposed to relax himself by sports of any kind, he
+admitted his chancellor to the party [z]  An instance of their
+familiarity is mentioned by Fitz-Stephens, which, as it shows the
+manners of the age, it may not be improper to relate.  One day, as the
+king and the chancellor were riding together in the streets of London,
+they observed a beggar, who was shivering with cold.  Would it not be
+very praiseworthy, said the king, to give that poor man a warm coat in
+this severe season?  It would, surely, replied the chancellor; and you
+do well, sir, in thinking of such good actions.  Then he shall have
+one presently, cried the king; and seizing the skirt of the
+chancellor's coat, which was scarlet, and lined with ermine, began to
+pull it violently.  The chancellor defended himself for some time; and
+they had both of them liked to have tumbled off their horses in the
+street, when Becket, after a vehement struggle, let go his coat; which
+the king bestowed on the beggar, who, being ignorant of the quality of
+the persons, was not a little surprised at the present [a].
+[FN [z] Fitz-Steph. p. 16.  Hist. Quad. p. 8.  [a] Fitz-Steph. p. 16.]
+
+Becket, who, by his complaisance and good humour, had rendered himself
+agreeable, and by his industry and abilities useful, to his master,
+appeared to him the fittest person for supplying the vacancy made by
+the death of Theobald.  As he was well acquainted with the king's
+intentions [b] of retrenching, or rather confining within the ancient
+bounds, all ecclesiastical privileges, and always showed a ready
+disposition to comply with them [c], Henry, who never expected any
+resistance from that quarter, immediately issued orders for electing
+him Archbishop of Canterbury.  But this resolution, which was taken
+contrary to the opinion of Matilda, and many of the ministers [d],
+drew after it very unhappy consequences; and never prince of so great
+penetration appeared, in the issue, to have so little understood the
+genius and character of his minister.
+[FN [b] Ibid. p. 17.  [c] Ibid p. 23.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 232.  [d]
+Epist. St. Thom. p. 167.]
+
+No sooner was Becket installed in this high dignity, which rendered
+him for life the second person in the kingdom, with some pretensions
+of aspiring to be the first, than he totally altered his demeanour and
+conduct, and endeavoured to acquire the character of sanctity, of
+which his former busy and ostentatious course of life might, in the
+eyes of the people, have naturally bereaved him.  Without consulting
+the king, he immediately returned into his hands the commission of
+chancellor; pretending that he must thenceforth detach himself from
+secular affairs, and be solely employed in the exercise of his
+spiritual function; but in reality, that he might break off all
+connexions with Henry, and apprize him, that Becket, as Primate of
+England, was now become entirely a new personage.  He maintained in
+his retinue and attendants alone his ancient pomp and lustre, which
+was useful to strike the vulgar: in his own person he affected the
+greatest austerity and most rigid mortification, which, he was
+sensible, would have an equal or a greater tendency to the same end.
+He wore sackcloth next his skin, which, by his affected care to
+conceal it, was necessarily the more remarked by all the world: he
+changed it so seldom, that it was filled with dirt and vermin: his
+usual diet was bread; his drink water, which he even rendered farther
+unpalatable by the mixture of unsavoury herbs: he tore his back with
+the frequent discipline which he inflicted on it: he daily on his
+knees washed, in imitation of Christ, the feet of thirteen beggars,
+whom he afterwards dismissed with presents [e]: he gained the
+affections of the monks by his frequent charities to the convents and
+hospitals: every one who made profession of sanctity was admitted to
+his conversation, and returned full of panegyrics on the humility as
+well as on the piety and mortification of the holy primate: he seemed
+to be perpetually employed in reciting prayers and pious lectures, or
+in perusing religious discourses: his aspect wore the appearance of
+seriousness and  mental recollection, and secret devotion: and all men
+of penetration plainly saw that he was meditating some great design
+and that the ambition and ostentation of his character had turned
+itself towards a new and more dangerous object.
+[FN [e] Fitz-Steph. p. 25.  Hist. Quad. p. 19.]
+
+[MN 1163.  Quarrel between the king and Becket.]
+Becket waited not till Henry should commence those projects against
+the ecclesiastical power, which, he knew, had been formed by that
+prince: he was himself the aggressor; and endeavoured to overawe the
+king by the intrepidity and boldness of his enterprises.  He summoned
+the Earl of Clare to surrender the barony of Tunbridge, which, ever
+since the Conquest, had remained in the family of that nobleman, but
+which, as it had formerly belonged to the see of Canterbury, Becket
+pretended his predecessors were prohibited by the canons to alienate.
+The Earl of Clare, besides the lustre which he derived from the
+greatness of his own birth, and the extent of his possessions, was
+allied to all the principal families in the kingdom; his sister, who
+was a celebrated beauty, had farther extended his credit among the
+nobility, and was even supposed to have gained the king's affections;
+and Becket could not better discover, than by attacking so powerful an
+interest, his resolution of maintaining with vigour the rights, real
+or pretended, of his see [f].
+[FN [f] Fitz-Steph. p. 28  Gervase, p. 1384.]
+
+William de Eynsford, a military tenant of the crown, was patron of a
+living which belonged to a manor that held of the Archbishop of
+Canterbury: but Becket, without regard to William's right, presented,
+on a new and illegal pretext, one Laurence to that living, who was
+violently expelled by Eynsford.  The primate, making himself, as was
+usual in spiritual courts, both judge and party, issued, in a summary
+manner, the sentence of excommunication against Eynsford, who
+complained to the king, that he who held IN CAPITE of the crown
+should, contrary to the practice established by the Conqueror, and
+maintained ever since by his successors, be subjected to that terrible
+sentence, without the previous consent of the sovereign [g].  Henry,
+who had now broken off all personal intercourse with Becket, sent him,
+by a messenger, his orders to absolve Eynsford; but received for
+answer, that it belonged not to the king to inform him whom he should
+absolve and whom excommunicate [h]: and it was not till after many
+remonstrances and menaces, that Becket, though with the worst grace
+imaginable, was induced to comply with the royal mandate.
+[FN [g] M. Paris, p. 7.  Diceto, p. 536.  [h] Fitz-Steph. p. 28.]
+
+Henry, though he found himself thus grievously mistaken in the
+character of the person whom he had promoted to the primacy,
+determined not to desist from his former intention of retrenching
+clerical usurpations.  He was entirely master of his extensive
+dominions: the prudence and vigour of his administration, attended
+with perpetual success, had raised his character above that of any of
+his predecessors [i]: the papacy seemed to be weakened by a schism
+which divided all Europe: and he rightly judged, that if the present
+favourable opportunity were neglected, the crown must, from the
+prevalent superstition of the people, be in danger of falling into an
+entire subordination under the mitre.
+[FN [i] Epist. St. Thom. p. 130.]
+
+The union of the civil and ecclesiastic power serves extremely, in
+every civilized government, to the maintenance of peace and order; and
+prevents those mutual encroachments which, as there can be no ultimate
+judge between them, are often attended with the most dangerous
+consequences.  Whether the supreme magistrate, who unites these
+powers, receives the appellation of prince or prelate, is not
+material: the superior weight which temporal interests commonly bear
+in the apprehensions of men above spiritual, renders the civil part of
+his character most prevalent; and in time prevents those gross
+impostures and bigoted persecutions, which, in all false religions,
+are the chief foundation of clerical authority.  But during the
+progress of ecclesiastical usurpations, the state, by the resistance
+of the civil magistrate, is naturally thrown into convulsions; and it
+behoves the prince, both for his own interest and for that of the
+public, to provide, in time, sufficient barriers against so dangerous
+and insidious a rival.  This precaution had hitherto been much
+neglected in England, as well as in other Catholic countries; and
+affairs at last seemed to have come to a dangerous crisis: a sovereign
+of the greatest abilities was now on the throne: a prelate of the most
+inflexible and intrepid character was possessed of the primacy: the
+contending powers appeared to be armed with their full force, and it
+was natural to expect some extraordinary event to result from their
+conflict.
+
+Among their other inventions to obtain money, the clergy had
+inculcated the necessity of penance as an atonement for sin; and
+having again introduced the practice of paying them large sums as a
+commutation, or species of atonement, for the remission of those
+penances, the sins of the people, by these means, had become a revenue
+to the priests; and the king computed that, by this invention alone,
+they levied more money upon his subjects than flowed, by all the funds
+and taxes, into the royal exchequer [k]  That he might ease the people
+of so heavy and arbitrary an imposition, Henry required that a civil
+officer of his appointment should be present in all ecclesiastical
+courts, and should, for the future, give his consent to every
+composition which was made with sinners for their spiritual offences.
+[FN [k] Fitz-Steph. p. 32.]
+
+The ecclesiastics, in that age, had renounced all immediate
+subordination to the magistrate: they openly pretended to an
+exemption, in criminal accusations, from a trial before courts of
+justice; and were gradually introducing a like exemption in civil
+causes: spiritual penalties alone could be inflicted on their
+offences; and as the clergy had extremely multiplied in England, and
+many of them were consequently of very low characters, crimes of the
+deepest dye, murders, robberies, adulteries, rapes, were daily
+committed with impunity by the ecclesiastics.  It had been found, for
+instance, on inquiry, that no less than a hundred murders had, since
+the king's accession, been perpetrated by men of that profession, who
+had never been called to account for these offences [l]; and holy
+orders were become a full protection for all enormities.  A clerk in
+Worcestershire, having debauched a gentleman's daughter, had, at this
+time, proceeded to murder the father: and the general indignation
+against this crime moved the king to attempt the remedy of an abuse
+which was become so palpable, and to require that the clerk should be
+delivered up, and receive condign punishment from the magistrate [m].
+Becket insisted on the privileges of the church; confined the criminal
+in the bishop's prison, lest he should be seized by the king's
+officers; maintained that no greater punishment could be inflicted on
+him than degradation; and when the king demanded, that, immediately
+after he was degraded, he should be tried by the civil power, the
+primate asserted, that it was iniquitous to try a man twice upon the
+same accusation, and for the same offence [n].
+[FN [l] Neubr. p. 394.  [m] Fitz-Steph. p. 33.  Hist. Quad. p. 32.
+[n] Fitz-Steph. p. 29.  Hist. Quad. p. 33, 45.  Hoveden, p. 492.  M.
+Paris, p. 72.  Diceto, p. 536, 537.  Brompton, p. 1058.  Gervase, p.
+1384.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 208, 209.]
+
+Henry, laying hold of so plausible a pretence, resolved to push the
+clergy with regard to all their privileges, which they had raised to
+an enormous height, and to determine at once those controversies,
+which daily multiplied between the civil and the ecclesiastical
+jurisdictions.  He summoned an assembly of all the prelates of
+England; and he put to them this concise and decisive question,
+Whether or not they were willing to submit to the ancient laws and
+customs of the kingdom?  The bishops unanimously replied, that they
+were willing, SAVING THEIR OWN ORDER [o]: a device by which they
+thought to elude the present urgency of the king's demand, yet reserve
+to themselves, on a favourable opportunity, the power of resuming all
+their pretensions.  The king was sensible of the artifice, and was
+provoked to the highest indignation.  He left the assembly, with
+visible marks of his displeasure: he required the primate instantly to
+surrender the honours and castles of Eye and Berkham: the bishops were
+terrified, and expected still farther effects of his resentment.
+Becket alone was inflexible; and nothing but the interposition of the
+pope's legate and almoner, Philip, who dreaded a breach with so
+powerful a prince at so unseasonable a juncture, could have prevailed
+on him to retract the saving clause, and give a general and absolute
+promise of observing the ancient customs [p].
+[FN [o] Fitz-Steph. p. 31.  Hist. Quad. p. 34.  Hoveden, p. 492.  [p]
+Hist. Quad. p. 37.  Hoveden, p. 493.  Gervase, p. 1385.]
+
+But Henry was not content with a declaration in these general terms:
+he resolved, ere it was too late, to define expressly those customs
+with which he required compliance, and to put a stop to clerical
+usurpations before they were fully consolidated, and could plead
+antiquity, as they already did a sacred authority, in their favour.
+The claims of the church were open and visible.  After a gradual and
+insensible progress during many centuries, the mask had at last been
+taken off; and several ecclesiastical councils, by their canons which
+were pretended to be irrevocable and infallible, had positively
+defined those privileges and immunities which gave such general
+offence, and appeared so dangerous to the civil magistrate.  Henry,
+therefore, deemed it necessary to define with the same precision the
+limits of the civil power; to oppose his legal customs to their divine
+ordinances; to determine the exact boundaries of the rival
+jurisdictions; and for this purpose he summoned a general council of
+the nobility and prelates at Clarendon, to whom he submitted this
+great and important question.
+
+[MN 1164.  15th Jan.  Constitutions of Clarendon.]
+The barons were all gained to the king's party, either by the reasons
+which he urged, or by his superior authority: the bishops were
+overawed by the general combination against them: and the following
+laws, commonly called the CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON, were voted
+without opposition by this assembly [q].  It was enacted, that all
+suits concerning the advowson and presentation of churches should be
+determined in the civil courts: that the churches belonging to the
+king's see should not be granted in perpetuity without his consent:
+that clerks, accused of any crime, should be tried in the civil
+courts: that no person, particularly no clergyman of any rank, should
+depart the kingdom without the king's licence: that excommunicated
+persons should not be bound to give security for continuing in their
+present place of abode: that laics should not be accused in spiritual
+courts, except by legal and reputable promoters and witnesses: that no
+chief tenant of the crown should be excommunicated, nor his lands be
+put under an interdict, except with the king's consent: that all
+appeals in spiritual causes should be carried from the archdeacon to
+the bishop, from the bishop to the primate, from him to the king; and
+should be carried no farther without the king's consent: that if any
+lawsuit arose between a layman and a clergyman concerning a tenant,
+and it be disputed whether the land be a lay or an ecclesiastical fee,
+it should first be determined by the verdict of twelve lawful men to
+what class it belonged; and if it be found to be a lay-fee, the cause
+should finally be determined in the civil courts: that no inhabitant
+in demesne should be excommunicated for non-appearance in a spiritual
+court, till the chief officer of the place where he resides be
+consulted, that he may compel him by the civil authority to give
+satisfaction to the church: that the archbishops, bishops, and other
+spiritual dignitaries, should be regarded as barons of the realm;
+should possess the privileges and be subjected to the burdens
+belonging to that rank; and should be bound to attend the king in his
+great councils, and assist at all trials, till the sentence, either of
+death or loss of members, be given against the criminal: that the
+revenue of vacant sees should belong to the king; the chapter, or such
+of them as he pleases to summon, should sit in the king's chapel till
+they made the new election with his consent, and that the bishop-elect
+should do homage to the crown: that if any baron or tenant IN CAPITE
+should refuse to submit to the spiritual courts, the king should
+employ his authority in obliging him to make such submissions; if any
+of them throw off his allegiance to the king, the prelates should
+assist the king with their censures in reducing him: that goods
+forfeited to the king should not be protected in churches or
+churchyards: that the clergy should no longer pretend to the right of
+enforcing payment of debts contracted by oath or promise; but should
+leave these lawsuits, equally with others, to the determination of the
+civil courts: and that the sons of villains should not be ordained
+clerks, without the consent of their lord [r].
+[FN [q] Fitz-Steph. p. 33.  [r] Hist. Quad. p. 163.  M. Paris, p. 70,
+71.  Spellm. Conc. vol. ii. p. 63.  Gervase, p. 1386, 1387.  Wilkins,
+p. 321.]
+
+These articles, to the number of sixteen, were calculated to prevent
+the chief abuses which had prevailed in ecclesiastical affairs, and to
+put an effectual stop to the usurpations of the church, which,
+gradually stealing on, had threatened the total destruction of the
+civil power.  Henry, therefore, by reducing those ancient customs of
+the realm to writing, and by collecting them in a body, endeavoured to
+prevent all future dispute with regard to them; and by passing so many
+ecclesiastical ordinances in a national and civil assembly, he fully
+established the superiority of the legislature above all papal decrees
+or spiritual canons, and gained a signal victory over the
+ecclesiastics.  But as he knew that the bishops, though overawed by
+the present combination of the crown and the barons, would take the
+first favourable opportunity of denying the authority which had
+enacted these constitutions, he resolved that they should all set
+their seal to them, and give a promise to observe them.  None of the
+prelates dared to oppose his will, except Becket, who, though urged by
+the Earls of Cornwall and Leicester, the barons of principal authority
+in the kingdom, obstinately withheld his assent.  At last, Richard de
+Hastings, Grand Prior of the Templars in England, threw himself on his
+knees before him; and with many tears entreated him, if he paid any
+regard, either to his own safety or that of the church, not to
+provoke, by a fruitless opposition, the indignation of a great
+monarch, who was resolutely bent on his purpose, and who was
+determined to take full revenge on every one that should dare to
+oppose him [s].  Becket, finding himself deserted by all the world,
+even by his own brethren, was at last obliged to comply; and he
+promised, LEGALLY, WITH GOOD FAITH, AND WITHOUT FRAUD OR RESERVE [t],
+to observe the constitutions; and he took an oath to that purpose [u].
+The king, thinking that he had now finally prevailed in this great
+enterprise, sent the constitutions to Pope Alexander, who then resided
+in France; and he required that pontiff's ratification of them: but
+Alexander, who, though he had owed the most important obligations to
+the king, plainly saw that these laws were calculated to establish the
+independency of England on the papacy, and of the royal power on the
+clergy, condemned them in the strongest terms; abrogated, annulled,
+and rejected them.  There were only six articles, the least important,
+which, for the sake of peace, he was willing to ratify.
+[FN [s] Hist. Quad. p. 38.  Hoveden, p. 493.  [t] Fitz-Steph. p. 35.
+Epist. St. Thom. p. 25.  [u] Fitz-Steph. p. 45.  Hist. Quad. p. 39.
+Gervase, p. 1386.]
+
+Becket, when he observed that he might hope for support in an
+opposition, expressed the deepest sorrow for his compliance; and
+endeavoured to engage all the other bishops in a confederacy to adhere
+to their common rights, and to the ecclesiastical privileges, in which
+he represented the interest and honour of God to be so deeply
+concerned.  He redoubled his austerities, in order to punish himself
+for his criminal assent to the constitutions of Clarendon: he
+proportioned his discipline to the enormity of his supposed offence;
+and he refused to exercise any part of his archiepiscopal function,
+till he should receive absolution from the pope; which was readily
+granted him.  Henry, informed of his present dispositions, resolved to
+take vengeance for this refractory behaviour; and he attempted to
+crush him, by means of that very power which Becket made such merit in
+supporting.  He applied to the pope, that he should grant the
+commission of legate in his dominions to the Archbishop of York; but
+Alexander, as politic as he, though he granted the commission, annexed
+a clause, that it should not empower the legate to execute any act of
+prejudice of the Archbishop of Canterbury [w]; and the king, finding
+how fruitless such an authority would prove, sent back the commission
+by the same messenger that brought it [x].
+[FN [w] Epist. St. Thom. p. 13, 14.  [x] Hoveden, p.493.  Gervase, p.
+1388.]
+
+The primate, however, who found himself still exposed to the king's
+indignation, endeavoured twice to escape secretly from the kingdom,
+but was as often detained by contrary winds; and Henry hastened to
+make him feel the effects of an obstinacy which he deemed so criminal.
+He instigated John, mareschal of the exchequer, to sue Becket in the
+archiepiscopal court for some lands, part of the manor of Pageham; and
+to appeal thence to the king's court for justice [y].  On the day
+appointed for trying the cause, the primate sent four knights to
+represent certain irregularities in John's appeal; and at the same
+time to excuse himself, on account of sickness, for not appearing
+personally that day in the court.  This slight offence (if it even
+deserve the name) was represented as a grievous contempt; the four
+knights were menaced and with difficulty escaped being sent to prison,
+as offering falsehoods to the court [z].  And Henry, being determined
+to prosecute Becket to the utmost, summoned, at Northampton, a great
+council, which he purposed to make the instrument of his vengeance
+against the inflexible prelate.
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 494.  M. Paris, p. 72.  Diceto, p. 537.  [z] See
+note [R], at the end of the volume.]
+
+The king had raised Becket from a low station to the highest offices,
+had honoured him with his countenance and friendship, had trusted to
+his assistance in forwarding his favourite project against the clergy;
+and when he found him become of a sudden his most rigid opponent,
+while every one beside complied with his will, rage at the
+disappointment, and indignation against such signal ingratitude,
+transported him beyond all bounds of moderation; and there seems to
+have entered more of passion than of justice, or even of policy, in
+this violent prosecution [a].  The barons, notwithstanding, in the
+great council, voted whatever sentence he was pleased to dictate to
+them; and the bishops themselves, who undoubtedly bore a secret favour
+to Becket, and regarded him as the champion of their privileges,
+concurred with the rest in the design of oppressing their primate.  In
+vain did Becket urge that his court was proceeding with the utmost
+regularity and justice in trying the maresehal's cause; which,
+however, he said, would appear, from the sheriff's testimony, to be
+entirely unjust and iniquitous: that he himself had discovered no
+contempt of the king's court; but, on the contrary, by sending four
+knights to excuse his absence, had virtually acknowledged its
+authority: that he also, in consequence of the king's summons,
+personally appeared at present in the great council, ready to justify
+his cause against the mareschal, and to submit his conduct to their
+inquiry and jurisdiction: that even should it be found that he had
+been guilty of non-appearance, the laws had affixed a very slight
+penalty to that offence: and that, as he was an inhabitant of Kent,
+where his archiepiscopal palace was seated, he was by law entitled to
+some greater indulgence than usual in the rate of his fine [b].
+Notwithstanding these pleas, he was condemned as guilty of a contempt
+of the king's court, and as wanting in the fealty which he had sworn
+to his sovereign; all his goods and chattels were confiscated [c]; and
+that this triumph over the church might be carried to the utmost,
+Henry, Bishop of Winchester, the prelate who had been so powerful in
+the former reign, was, in spite of his remonstrances, obliged, by
+order of the court, to pronounce the sentence against him [d].  The
+primate submitted to the decree; and all the prelates, except Folliot,
+Bishop of London, who paid court to the king by this singularity,
+became sureties for him [e].  It is remarkable that seven Norman
+barons voted in this council; and we may conclude, with some
+probability, that a like practice had prevailed in many of the great
+councils summoned since the Conquest.  For the contemporary historian,
+who has given us a full account of these transactions, does not
+mention this circumstance as anywise singular [f]; and Becket, in all
+his subsequent remonstrances with regard to the severe treatment which
+he had met with, never founds any objection on an irregularity which
+to us appears very palpable and flagrant.  So little precision was
+there at that time in the government and constitution!
+[FN [a] Neubr. p. 394.  [b] Fitz-Steph. p. 37, 42.  [c] Hist. Quad. p.
+47  Hoveden, p. 494.  Gervase, p. 1389.  [d] Fitz-Steph. p. 37.  [e]
+Ibid.  [f] Ibid. p. 36.]
+
+The king was not content with this sentence, however violent and
+oppressive.  Next day, he demanded of Becket the sum of three hundred
+pounds, which the primate had levied upon the honours of Eye and
+Berkham, while in his possession.  Becket, after premising that he was
+not obliged to answer to this suit, because it was not contained in
+his summons; after remarking that he had expended more than that sum
+in the repair of those castles, and of the royal palace at London;
+expressed however his resolution, that money should not be any ground
+of quarrel between him and his sovereign; he agreed to pay the sum;
+and immediately gave surety for it [g].  In the subsequent meeting,
+the king demanded five hundred marks, which, he affirmed, he had lent
+Becket during the war at Toulouse [h]; and another sum in the same
+amount for which that prince had been surety for him to a Jew.
+Immediately after these two claims, he preferred a third of still
+greater importance: he required him to give in the accounts of his
+administration while chancellor, and to pay the balance due from the
+revenues of all the prelacies, abbeys, and baronies, which had, during
+that time, been subjected to his management [i].  Becket observed,
+that, as this demand was totally unexpected, he had not come prepared
+to answer it; but he required a delay, and promised in that case to
+give satisfaction.  The king insisted upon sureties; and Becket
+desired leave to consult his suffragans in a case of such importance
+[k].
+[FN [g] Ibid. p. 38.  [h] Hist. Quad. p. 47.  [i] Hoveden, p. 494.
+Diceto, p. 537.  [k] Fitz-Steph. p. 38.]
+
+It is apparent, from the known character of Henry, and from the usual
+vigilance of his government, that, when he promoted Becket to the see
+of Canterbury, he was on good grounds, well pleased with his
+administration in the former high office with which he had entrusted
+him; and that, even if that prelate had dissipated money beyond the
+income of his place, the king was satisfied that his expenses were not
+blameable, and had in the main been calculated for his service [l].
+Two years had since elapsed; no demand had, during that time, been
+made upon him; it was not till the quarrel arose concerning
+ecclesiastical privileges that the claim was started, and the primate
+was, of a sudden, required to produce accounts of such intricacy and
+extent before a tribunal which had showed a determined resolution to
+ruin and oppress him.  To find sureties that he should answer so
+boundless and uncertain a claim, which in the king's estimation
+amounted to forty-four thousand marks [m], was impracticable; and
+Becket's suffragans were extremely at a loss what counsel to give him
+in such a critical emergency.  By the advice of the Bishop of
+Winchester, he offered two thousand marks as a general satisfaction
+for all demands: but this offer was rejected by the king [n].  Some
+prelates exhorted him to resign his see, on condition of receiving an
+acquittal: others were of opinion that he ought to submit himself
+entirely to the kingÂ’s mercy [o]: but the primate, thus pushed to the
+utmost, had too much courage to sink under oppression: he determined
+to brave all his enemies, to trust to the sacredness of his character
+for protection, to involve his cause with that of God and religion,
+and to stand the utmost efforts of royal indignation.
+[FN [l] Hoveden, p. 495.  [m] Epist. St. Thom. p. 315.
+[n] Fitz-Steph. p. 38.  [o] Ibid. p. 39.  Gervase, p. 1390.]
+
+After a few days spent in deliberation, Becket went to church and said
+mass, where he had previously ordered that the introit to the
+communion service should begin with these words, PRINCES SAT, AND
+SPAKE AGAINST ME; the passage appointed for the martyrdom of St.
+Stephen, whom the primate thereby tacitly pretended to resemble, in
+his sufferings for the sake of righteousness.  He went thence to
+court, arrayed in his sacred vestments: as soon as he arrived within
+the palace gate, he took the cross into his own hands, bore it aloft
+as his protection, and marched, in that posture, into the royal
+apartments [p].  The king, who was in an inner room, was astonished at
+this parade, by which the primate seemed to menace him and his court
+with the sentence of excommunication; and he sent some of the prelates
+to remonstrate with him on account of such audacious behaviour.  These
+prelates complained to Becket, that, by subscribing himself to the
+constitutions of Clarendon, he had seduced them to imitate his
+example; and that now, when it was too late, he pretended to shake off
+all subordination to the civil power, and appeared desirous of
+involving them in the guilt which must attend any violation of those
+laws, established by their consent, and ratified by their
+subscriptions [q].  Becket replied, that he had indeed subscribed the
+constitutions of Clarendon, LEGALLY, WITH GOOD FAITH, AND WITHOUT
+FRAUD OR RESERVE; but in these words was virtually implied a salvo for
+the rights of their order, which, being connected with the cause of
+God and his church, could never be relinquished by their oaths and
+engagements: that if he and they had erred in resigning the
+ecclesiastical privileges, the best atonement they could now make was
+to retract their consent, which, in such a case, could never be
+obligatory, and to follow the pope's authority, who had solemnly
+annulled the constitutions of Clarendon, and had absolved them from
+all oaths which they had taken to observe them: that a  determined
+resolution was evidently embraced to oppress the church; the storm had
+first broken upon him; for a slight offence, and which too was falsely
+imputed to him, he had been tyrannically condemned to a grievous
+penalty; a new and unheard-of claim was since started, in which he
+could expect no justice; and he plainly saw, that he was the destined
+victim, who, by his ruin, must prepare the way for the abrogation of
+all spiritual immunities; that he strictly inhibited them who were his
+suffragans from assisting at any such trial, or giving their sanction
+to any sentence against him; he put himself and his see under the
+protection of the supreme pontiff; and appealed to him against any
+penalty which his iniquitous judges might think proper to inflict upon
+him: and that, however terrible the indignation of so great a monarch
+as Henry, his sword could only kill the body; while that of the
+church, intrusted into the hands of the primate, could kill the soul,
+and throw the disobedient into infinite and eternal perdition [r].
+[FN [p] Fitz-Steph. p. 40.  Hist. Quad. p. 53.  Hoveden, p. 404.
+Neubr. p. 394.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 43.  [q] Fitz-Steph. p. 35.  [r]
+Fitz-Steph. p. 42, 44, 45, 46.  Hist. Quad. p. 57.  Hoveden, p. 495.
+M. Paris, p. 72.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 45, 195.]
+
+Appeals to the pope, even in ecclesiastical causes, had been abolished
+by the constitutions of Clarendon, and were become criminal by law;
+but an appeal in a civil cause, such as the king's demand upon Becket,
+was a practice altogether new and unprecedented; it tended directly to
+the subversion of the government, and could receive no colour of
+excuse, except from the determined resolution, which was but too
+apparent, in Henry and the great council, to effectuate, without
+justice, but under colour of law, the total ruin of the inflexible
+primate.  The king, having now obtained a pretext so much more
+plausible for his violence, would probably have pushed the affair to
+the utmost extremity against him; but Becket gave him no leisure to
+conduct the prosecution.  He refused so much as to hear the sentence,
+which the barons, sitting apart from the bishops, and joined to some
+sheriffs and barons of the second rank [s], had given upon the king's
+claim: he departed from the palace; [MN Banishment of Becket.] asked
+Henry's immediate permission to leave Northampton, and upon meeting
+with a refusal, he withdrew secretly, wandered about in disguise for
+some time; and at last took shipping, and arrived safely at
+Gravelines.
+[FN [s] Fitz-Steph. p. 46.  This historian is supposed to mean the
+more considerable vassals of the chief barons: these had no title to
+sit in the great council, and the giving them a place there was a
+palpable irregularity; which, however, is not insisted on in any of
+Becket's remonstrances.  A farther proof how little fixed the
+constitution was at that time.]
+
+The violent and unjust prosecution of Becket had a natural tendency to
+turn the public favour on his side and to make men overlook his former
+ingratitude toward the king, and his departure from all oaths and
+engagements, as well as the enormity of those ecclesiastical
+privileges, of which he affected to be the champion.  There were many
+other reasons which procured his countenance and protection in foreign
+countries.  Philip, Earl of Flanders [t], and Lewis, King of France
+[u], jealous of the rising greatness of Henry, were well pleased to
+give him disturbance in his government; and, forgetting that this was
+the common cause of princes, they affected to pity extremely the
+condition of the exiled primate; and the latter even honoured him with
+a visit at Soissons, in which city he had invited him to fix his
+residence [w].  The pope, whose interests were more immediately
+concerned in supporting him, gave a cold reception to a magnificent
+embassy which Henry sent to accuse him; while Becket himself, who had
+come to Sens in order to justify his cause before the sovereign
+pontiff, was received with the greatest marks of distinction.  The
+king, in revenge, sequestered the revenues of Canterbury; and, by a
+conduct which might be esteemed arbitrary, had there been at that time
+any regular check on royal authority, he banished all the primate's
+relations and domestics, to the number of four hundred, whom he
+obliged to swear, before their departure, that they would instantly
+join their patron.  But this policy, by which Henry endeavoured to
+reduce Becket sooner to necessity, lost its effect: the pope, when
+they arrived beyond sea, absolved them from their oath, and
+distributed them among the convents in France and Flanders: a
+residence was assigned to Becket himself in the convent of Pontigny,
+where he lived for some years in great magnificence, partly from a
+pension granted him on the revenues of the abbey, partly from
+remittances made him by the French monarch.
+[FN [t] Epist. St. Thom. p. 35.  [u] Ibid. p. 36, 37.  [w] Hist. Quad.
+p. 76.]
+
+[MN 1165.]  The more to ingratiate himself with the pope, Becket
+resigned into his hands the see of Canterbury, to which, he affirmed,
+he had been uncanonically elected by the authority of the royal
+mandate; and Alexander, in his turn, besides investing him anew with
+that dignity, pretended to abrogate, by a bull, the sentence which the
+great council of England had passed against him.  Henry, after
+attempting in vain to procure a conference with the pope, who departed
+soon after for Rome, whither the prosperous state of his affairs now
+invited him, made provisions against the consequences of that breach
+which impended between his kingdom and the apostolic see.  He issued
+orders to his justiciaries, inhibiting, under severe penalties, all
+appeals to the pope or archbishop; forbidding any one to receive any
+mandates from them, or apply in any case to their authority; declaring
+it treasonable to bring from either of them an interdict upon the
+kingdom, and punishable in secular clergymen by the loss of their eyes
+and by castration, in regulars by amputation of their feet, and in
+laics with death; and menacing, with sequestration and banishment, the
+persons themselves, as well as their kindred, who should pay obedience
+to any such interdict: and he farther obliged all his subjects to
+swear to the observance of those orders [x].  These were edicts of the
+utmost importance, affected the lives and properties of all the
+subjects, and even changed, for the time, the national religion, by
+breaking off all communication with Rome: yet were they enacted by the
+sole authority of the king, and were derived entirely from his will
+and pleasure.
+[FN [x] Hist. Quad. p. 88, 167.  Hoveden, p. 496.  M. Paris, p. 73.]
+
+The spiritual powers, which, in the primitive church, were, in a great
+measure, dependent on the civil, had, by a gradual progress, reached
+an equality and independence; and though the limits of the two
+jurisdictions were difficult to ascertain or define, it was not
+impossible, but, by moderation on both sides, government might still
+have been conducted in that imperfect and irregular manner which
+attends all human  institutions.  But as the ignorance of the age
+encouraged the ecclesiastics daily to extend their privileges, and
+even to advance maxims totally incompatible with civil government [y],
+Henry had thought it high time to put an end to their pretensions, and
+formally, in a public council, to fix those powers which belonged to
+the magistrate, and which he was for the future determined to
+maintain.  In this attempt, he was led to re-establish customs, which,
+though ancient, were beginning to be abolished by a contrary practice,
+and which were still more strongly opposed by the prevailing opinions
+and sentiments of the age.  Principle, therefore, stood on the one
+side; power on the other; and if the English had been actuated by
+conscience more than by present interest, the controversy must soon,
+by the general defection of Henry's subjects, have been decided
+against him.  Becket, in order to forward this event, filled all
+places with exclamations against the violence which he had suffered.
+He compared himself to Christ, who had been condemned by a lay
+tribunal [z], and who was crucified anew in the present oppressions
+under which his church laboured: he took it for granted, as a point
+incontestable, that his cause was the cause of God [a]: he assumed the
+character of champion for the patrimony of the Divinity: he pretended
+to be the spiritual father of the king and all the people of England
+[b]: he even told Henry that kings reigned solely by the authority of
+the church [c]: and though he had thus torn off the veil more openly
+on the one side than that prince had on the other, he seemed still,
+from the general favour borne him by the ecclesiastics, to have all
+the advantage in the argument.  The king, that he might employ the
+weapons of temporal power remaining in his hands, suspended the
+payment of Peter's pence; he made advances towards an alliance with
+the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, who was at that time engaged in
+violent wars with Pope Alexander; he discovered some intentions of
+acknowledging Pascal III., the present anti-pope, who was protected by
+that emperor; and by these expedients he endeavoured to terrify the
+enterprising though prudent pontiff from proceeding to extremities
+against him.
+[FN [y] QUIS DUBITET, says Becket to the king, SACERDOTES CHRISTI
+REGUM ET PRINCIPUM OMNIUMQUE FIDELIIUM PATRES ET MAGISTROS CENSERI,
+Epist St. Thom. p. 97, 148.  [z] Epist. St. Thom. p. 63, 105, 194.
+[a] Ibid. p. 29, 30, 31, 226.  [b] Fitz-Steph. p. 46.  Epist. St Thom.
+p. 52, 148.  [c] Brady's Append. No. 36.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 94, 95,
+97, 99, 197.  Hoveden, p. 497.]
+
+[MN 1166.]  But the violence of Becket, still more than the nature of
+the controversy, kept affairs from remaining long in suspense between
+the parties.  That prelate, instigated by revenge, and animated by the
+present glory attending his situation, pushed matters to a decision,
+and issued a censure, excommunicating the king's chief ministers by
+name, and comprehending in general all those who favoured or obeyed
+the constitutions of Clarendon: these constitutions he abrogated and
+annulled; he absolved all men from the oaths which they had taken to
+observe them; and he suspended the spiritual thunder over Henry
+himself, only that the prince might avoid the blow by a timely
+repentance [d].
+[FN [d] Fitz-Steph. p. 56.  Hist. Quad. p. 93.  M. Paris, p. 74.
+Beaulieu, Vie de St. Thom. p. 213.  Epist. St. Thom. p 149, 229.
+Hoveden, p. 499.]
+
+The situation of Henry was so unhappy, that he could employ no
+expedient for saving his ministers from this terrible censure, but by
+appealing to the pope himself, and having recourse to a tribunal whose
+authority he had himself attempted to abridge in this very article of
+appeals, and which, he knew, was so deeply engaged on the side of his
+adversary.  But even this expedient was not likely to be long
+effectual.  Becket had obtained from the pope a legatine commission
+over England; and in virtue of that authority, which admitted of no
+appeal, he summoned the Bishops of London, Salisbury, and others, to
+attend him, and ordered, under pain of excommunication, the
+ecclesiastics, sequestered on his account, to be restored in two
+months to all their benefices.  But John of Oxford, the king's agent
+with the pope, had the address to procure orders for suspending this
+sentence: and he gave the pontiff such hopes of a speedy reconcilement
+between the king and Becket, that two legates, William of Pavia and
+Otho, were sent to Normandy, where the king then resided, and they
+endeavoured to find expedients for that purpose.  But the pretensions
+of the parties were, as yet, too opposite to admit of an
+accommodation: the king required, that all the constitutions of
+Clarendon should be ratified: Becket, that previously to any
+agreement, he and his adherents should be restored to their
+possessions: and as the legates had no power to pronounce a definitive
+sentence on either side, the negotiation soon after came to nothing.
+The Cardinal of Pavia also, being much attached to Henry, took care to
+protract the negotiation; to mitigate the pope, by the accounts which
+he sent of that prince's conduct; and to procure him every possible
+indulgence from the see of Rome.  About this time, the king had also
+the address to obtain a dispensation for the marriage of his third
+son, Geoffrey, with the heiress of Britany; a concession which,
+considering Henry's demerits towards the church, gave great scandal
+both to Becket, and to his zealous patron, the King of France.
+
+[MN 1167.]  The intricacies of the feudal law had, in that age,
+rendered the boundaries of power between the prince and his vassals,
+and between one prince and another, as uncertain as those between the
+crown and the mitre; and all wars took their origin from disputes,
+which, had there been any tribunal possessed of power to enforce their
+decrees, ought to have been decided only before a court of judicature.
+Henry, in prosecution of some controversies, in which he was involved
+with the Count of Auvergne, a vassal of the duchy of Guienne, had
+invaded the territories of that nobleman, who had recourse to the King
+of France, his superior lord, for protection, and thereby kindled a
+war between the two monarchs.  But this war was, as usual, no less
+feeble in its operations than it was frivolous in its cause and
+object; and after occasioning some mutual depredations [e], and some
+insurrections among the barons of Poictou and Guienne, was terminated
+by a peace.  The terms of this peace were rather disadvantageous to
+Henry, and prove that that prince had, by reason of his contest with
+the church, lost the  superiority which he had hitherto maintained
+over the crown of France: an additional motive to him for
+accommodating those differences.
+[FN [e] Hoveden, p. 517.  M. Paris, p. 75.  Diceto, p. 547.  Gervase,
+p. 1402, 1403.  Robert de Monte.]
+
+The pope and the king began at last to perceive, that, in the present
+situation of affairs, neither of them could expect a final and
+decisive victory over the other, and that they had more to fear than
+to hope from the duration of the controversy.  Though the vigour of
+Henry's government had confirmed his authority in all his dominions,
+his throne might be shaken by a sentence of excommunication; and if
+England itself could, by its situation, be more easily guarded against
+the contagion of superstitious prejudices, his French provinces at
+least, whose communication was open with the neighbouring states,
+would be much exposed, on that account, to some great revolution or
+convulsion [f].  He could not, therefore, reasonably imagine that the
+pope, while he retained such a check upon him, would formally
+recognize the constitutions of Clarendon, which both put an end to
+papal pretensions in England, and would give an example to other
+states of asserting a like independency [g].  [MN 1168.]  Pope
+Alexander, on the other hand, being still engaged in dangerous wars
+with the Emperor Frederic, might justly apprehend that Henry, rather
+than relinquish claims of such importance, would join the party of his
+enemy; and as the trials hitherto made of the spiritual weapons by
+Becket had not succeeded to his expectation, and every thing had
+remained quiet in all the king's dominions, nothing seemed impossible
+to the capacity and vigilance of so great a monarch. The disposition
+of minds on both sides, resulting from these circumstances, produced
+frequent attempts towards an accommodation; but as both parties knew
+that the essential articles of the dispute could not then be
+terminated, they entertained a perpetual jealousy of each other, and
+were anxious not to lose the least advantage in the negotiation.  The
+nuncios, Gratian and Vivian, having received a commission to endeavour
+a reconciliation, met with the king in Normandy; and after all
+differences seemed to be adjusted, Henry offered to sign the treaty,
+with a salvo to his royal dignity; which gave such umbrage to Becket,
+that the negotiation, in the end, became fruitless, and the
+excommuications were renewed against the king's ministers.  Another
+negotiation was conducted at Montmirail, in presence of the King of
+France, and the French prelates; where Becket also offered to make his
+submissions, with a salvo to the honour of God and the liberties of
+the church; which, for the like reason, was extremely offensive to the
+king, and rendered the treaty abortive.  [MN 1169.]  A third
+conference, under the same mediation, was broken off, by Becket's
+insisting on a like reserve in his submissions; and even in a fourth
+treaty, when all the terms were adjusted, and when the primate
+expected to be introduced to the king, and to receive the kiss of
+peace, which it was usual for princes to grant in those times, and
+which was regarded as a sure pledge of forgiveness, Henry refused him
+that honour; under pretence that, during his anger, he had made a rash
+vow to that purpose.  This formality served, among such jealous
+spirits, to prevent the conclusion of the treaty; and though the
+difficulty was attempted to be overcome by a dispensation which the
+pope granted to Henry from his vow, that prince could not be prevailed
+on to depart from the resolution which he had taken.
+[FN [f] Epist. St. Thom. p. 230.  [g] Ibid. p. 276.]
+
+In one of these conferences, at which the French king was present,
+Henry said to that monarch: "There have been many kings of England,
+some of greater, some of less authority than myself; there have also
+been many Archbishops of Canterbury, holy and good men, and entitled
+to every kind of respect: let Becket but act towards me with the same
+submission which the greatest of his predecessors have paid to the
+least of mine, and there shall be no controversy between us."  Lewis
+was so struck with this state of the case, and with an offer which
+Henry made to submit his cause to the French clergy, that he could not
+forbear condemning the primate, and withdrawing his friendship from
+him during some time: but the bigotry of that prince, and their common
+animosity against Henry, soon produced a renewal of their former good
+correspondence.
+
+[MN 1170.  22d July.]  All difficulties were at last adjusted between
+the parties; and the king allowed Becket to return, on conditions
+which may be esteemed both honourable and advantageous to that
+prelate.  [MN Compromise with Becket.]  He was not required to give up
+any rights of the church, or resign any of those pretensions which had
+been the original ground of the controversy.  It was agreed that all
+these questions should be buried in oblivion; but that Becket and his
+adherents should, without making farther submission, be restored to
+all their livings, and that even the possessors of such benefices as
+depended on the see of Canterbury, and had been filled during the
+primate's absence, should be expelled, and Becket have liberty to
+supply the vacancies [h].  In return for concessions which intrenched
+so deeply on the honour and dignity of the crown, Henry reaped only
+the advantage of seeing his ministers absolved from the sentence of
+excommunication pronounced against them, and of preventing the
+interdict, which, if these hard conditions had not been complied with,
+was ready to be laid on all his dominions [i].  It was easy to see how
+much he dreaded that event, when a prince of so high a spirit could
+submit to terms so dishonourable in order to prevent it.  So anxious
+was Henry to accommodate all differences, and to reconcile himself
+fully with Becket, that he took the most extraordinary steps to
+flatter his vanity, and even, on one occasion, humiliated himself so
+far as to hold the stirrup of that haughty prelate while he mounted
+[k].
+[FN [h] Fitz-Steph. p. 68, 69.  Hoveden, p. 520.  [i] Hist. Quad. p.
+104.  Brompton, p. 1062.  Gervase, p. 1408.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 704,
+705, 706, 707, 792, 793, 794.  Benedict. Abbas, p. 70.  [k] Epist. 45.
+lib. 5.]
+
+But the king attained not even that temporary tranquillity which he
+had hoped to reap from these expedients.  During the heat of his
+quarrel with Becket, while he was every day expecting an interdict to
+be laid on his kingdom, and a sentence of excommunication to be
+fulminated against his person, he had thought it prudent to have his
+son, Prince Henry, associated with him in the royalty, and to make him
+be crowned king by the hands of Roger, Archbishop of York.  By this
+precaution he both insured the succession of that prince, which,
+considering the many past irregularities in that point, could not but
+be esteemed somewhat precarious; and he preserved at least his family
+on the throne, if the sentence of excommunication should have the
+effect which he dreaded, and should make his subjects renounce their
+allegiance to him.  Though this design was conducted with expedition
+and secrecy, Becket, before it was carried into execution, had got
+intelligence of it; and being desirous of obstructing all Henry's
+measures, as well as anxious to prevent this affront to himself, who
+pretended to the sole right, as Archbishop of Canterbury, to officiate
+in the coronation, he had inhibited all the prelates of England from
+assisting at this ceremony, had procured from the pope a mandate to
+the same purpose [l], and had incited the King of France to protest
+against the coronation of young Henry, unless the princess, daughter
+of that monarch, should at the same time receive the royal unction.
+There prevailed in that age an opinion, which was akin to its other
+superstitions, that the royal unction was essential to the exercise of
+royal power [m]: it was therefore natural both for the King of France,
+careful of his daughter's establishment, and for Becket, jealous of
+his own dignity, to demand, in the treaty with Henry, some
+satisfaction in this essential point.  Henry, after apologizing to
+Lewis for the omission with regard to Margaret, and excusing it on
+account of the secrecy and despatch requisite for conducting that
+measure, promised that the ceremony should be renewed in the persons
+both of the prince and princess: and he assured Becket that, besides
+receiving the acknowledgments of Roger and the other bishops for the
+seeming affront put on the see of Canterbury, the primate should, as a
+farther satisfaction, recover his rights by officiating in this
+coronation.  But the violent spirit of Becket, elated by the power of
+the church, and by the victory which he had already obtained over his
+sovereign, was not content with this voluntary compensation, but
+resolved to make the injury which he pretended to have suffered a
+handle for taking revenge on all his enemies.  [MN BecketÂ’s return
+from banishment.]  On his arrival in England, he met the Archbishop of
+York, and the Bishops of London and Salisbury, who were on their
+journey to the king in Normandy: he notified to the archbishop the
+sentence of suspension, and to the two bishops that of
+excommunication, which, at his solicitation, the pope had pronounced
+against them.  Reginald de Warenne, and Gervase de Cornhill, two of
+the king's ministers who were employed on their duty in Kent, asked
+him, on hearing of this bold attempt, whether he meant to bring fire
+and sword into the kingdom?  But the primate, heedless of the reproof,
+proceeded, in the most ostentatious manner, to take possession of his
+diocese.  In Rochester, and all the towns through which he passed, he
+was received with the shouts and acclamations of the populace.  As he
+approached Southwark, the clergy, the laity, men of all ranks and
+ages, came forth to meet him, and celebrated with hymns of joy his
+triumphant entrance.  And though he was obliged, by order of the young
+prince, who resided at Woodstoke, to return to his diocese, he found
+that he was not mistaken when he reckoned upon the highest veneration
+of the public towards his person and his dignity.  He proceeded,
+therefore, with the more courage, to dart his spiritual thunders: he
+issued the sentence of excommunication against Robert de Brock, and
+Nigel de Sackville, with many others, who either had assisted at the
+coronation of the prince, or been active in the late persecution of
+the exiled clergy.  This violent measure, by which he in effect
+denounced war against the king himself, is commonly ascribed to the
+vindictive disposition and imperious character of Becket; but as this
+prelate was also a man of acknowledged abilities, we are not, in his
+passions alone, to look for the cause of his conduct, when he
+proceeded to these extremities against his enemies.  His sagacity had
+led him to discover all Henry's intentions; and he proposed, by this
+bold and unexpected assault, to prevent the execution of them.
+[FN [l] Hist. Quad. p. 103.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 682.  Gervase, p.
+1412.  [m] Epist. St. Thom. p. 708.]
+
+The king, from his experience of the dispositions of the people, was
+become sensible that his enterprise had been too bold in establishing
+the constitutions of Clarendon, in defining all the branches of royal
+power, and in endeavouring to extort from the Church of England, as
+well as from the pope, an express avowal of these disputed
+prerogatives.  Conscious also of his own violence in attempting to
+break or subdue the inflexible primate, he was not displeased to undo
+that measure which had given his enemies such advantage against him;
+and he was contented that the controversy should terminate in that
+ambiguous manner, which was the utmost that princes, in those ages,
+could hope to attain in their disputes with the see of Rome.  Though
+he dropped, for the present, the prosecution of Becket, he still
+reserved to himself the right of maintaining that the constitutions of
+Clarendon, the original ground of the quarrel, were both the ancient
+customs and the present law of the realm: and though he knew that the
+papal clergy asserted them to be impious in themselves, as well as
+abrogated by the sentence of the sovereign pontiff, he intended, in
+spite of their clamours, steadily to put those laws in execution [n],
+and to trust to his own abilities, and to the course of events, for
+success in that perilous enterprise.  He hoped that Becket's
+experience of a six years' exile would, after his pride was fully
+gratified by his restoration, be sufficient to teach him more reserve
+in his opposition; or, if any controversy arose, he expected
+thenceforth to engage in a more favourable cause, and to maintain with
+advantage, while the primate was now in his power [o], the ancient and
+undoubted customs of the kingdom against the usurpations of the
+clergy.  But Becket determined not to betray the ecclesiastical
+privileges by his connivance [p], and apprehensive lest a prince of
+such profound policy, if allowed to proceed in his own way, might
+probably in the end prevail, he resolved to take all the advantage
+which his present victory gave him, and to disconcert the cautious
+measures of the king, by the vehemence and vigour of his own conduct
+[q].  Assured of support from Rome, he was little intimidated by
+dangers which his courage taught him to despise, and which, even if
+attended with the most fatal consequences, would serve only to gratify
+his ambition and thirst of glory [r].
+[FN [n]  Epist. St. Thom. p. 837, 839.  [o] Fitz-Steph. p. 65.  [p]
+Epist. St. Thom. p. 345.  [q] Fitz-Steph. p. 74.  [r] Epist. St. Thom.
+p. 818, 848.]
+
+When the suspended and excommunicated prelates arrived at Baieux,
+where the king then resided, and complained to him of the violent
+proceedings of Becket, he instantly perceived the consequences; was
+sensible that his whole plan of operations was overthrown; foresaw
+that the dangerous contest between the civil and spiritual powers, a
+contest which he himself had first aroused, but which he had
+endeavoured, by all his late negotiations and concessions, to appease,
+must come to an immediate and decisive issue; and he was thence thrown
+into the most violent commotion.  The Archbishop of York remarked to
+him, that, so long as Becket lived, he could never expect to enjoy
+peace or tranquillity: the king himself being vehemently agitated,
+burst forth into an exclamation against his servants, whose want of
+zeal, he said, had so long left him exposed to the enterprises of that
+ungrateful and imperious prelate [s].  Four gentlemen of his
+household, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de Traci, Hugh de Moreville,
+and Richard Brito, taking these passionate expressions to be a hint
+for Becket's death, immediately communicated their thoughts to each
+other; and swearing to revenge their prince's quarrel, secretly
+withdrew from court [t].  Some menacing expressions which they had
+dropped gave a suspicion of their design; and the king despatched a
+messenger after them, charging them to attempt nothing against the
+person of the primate [u]: but these orders arrived too late to
+prevent their fatal purpose.  The four assassins, though they took
+different roads to England, arrived nearly about the same time at
+Saltwoode, near Canterbury; and being there joined by some assistants,
+they proceeded in great haste to the archiepiscopal palace.  They
+found the primate, who trusted entirely to the sacredness of his
+character, very slenderly attended; and though they threw out many
+menaces and reproaches against him, he was so incapable of fear, that,
+without using any precautions against their violence, he immediately
+went to St. BenedictÂ’s church to hear vespers.  They followed him
+thither, attacked him before the altar, and having cloven his head
+with many blows, retired without meeting any opposition.  [MN 1170.
+Dec. 29.  Murder of Thomas à Becket.]  This was the tragical end of
+Thomas à Becket, a prelate of the most lofty, intrepid, and inflexible
+spirit, who was able to cover to the world, and probably to himself,
+the enterprises of pride and ambition under the disguise of sanctity
+and of zeal for the interests of religion: an extraordinary personage,
+surely had he been allowed to remain in his first station, and had
+directed the vehemence of his character to the support of law and
+justice; instead of being engaged, by the prejudices of the times, to
+sacrifice all private duties and public connexions to ties which he
+imagined or represented as superior to every civil and political
+consideration.  But no man who enters into the genius of that age can
+reasonably doubt of this prelate's sincerity.  The spirit of
+superstition was so prevalent, that it infallibly caught every
+careless reasoner, much more every one whose interest, and honour, and
+ambition were engaged to support it.  All the wretched literature of
+the times was enlisted on that side: some faint glimmerings of common
+sense might sometimes pierce through the thick cloud of ignorance, or
+what was worse, the illusions of perverted science, which had blotted
+out the sun, and enveloped the face of nature: but those who preserved
+themselves untainted by the general contagion proceeded on no
+principles which they could pretend to justify: they were more
+indebted to their total want of instruction than to their knowledge,
+if they still retained some share of understanding: folly was
+possessed of all the schools as well as all the churches; and her
+votaries assumed the garb of philosophers, together with the ensigns
+of spiritual dignities.  Throughout that large collection of letters,
+which bears the name of St. Thomas, we find, in all the retainers of
+the aspiring prelate, no less than in himself, a most entire and
+absolute conviction of the reason and piety of their own party, and a
+disdain of their antagonists: nor is there less cant and grimace in
+their style, when they address each other, than when they compose
+manifestos for the perusal of the public.  The spirit of revenge,
+violence, and ambition, which accompanied their conduct, instead of
+forming a presumption of hypocrisy, are the surest pledges of their
+sincere attachment to a cause, which so much flattered these
+domineering passions.
+[FN [s] Gervase, p. 1414.  Parker, p. 207.  [t] M. Paris, p. 86.
+Brompton, p. 1065.  Benedict. Abbas, p. 10.  [u] Hist. Quad. p. 144.
+Trivet, p. 55.]
+
+[MN Grief,]  Henry, on the first report of Becket's violent measures,
+had purposed to have him arrested, and had already taken some steps
+towards the execution of that design: but the intelligence of his
+murder threw the prince into great consternation; and he was
+immediately sensible of the dangerous consequences which he had reason
+to apprehend from so unexpected an event.  An archbishop of reputed
+sanctity, assassinated before the altar, in the exercise of his
+functions, and on account of his zeal in maintaining ecclesiastical
+privileges, must attain the highest honours of martyrdom; while his
+murderer would be ranked among the most bloody tyrants that ever were
+exposed to the hatred and detestation of mankind.  Interdicts and
+excommunications, weapons in themselves so terrible, would, he
+foresaw, be armed with double force when employed in a cause so much
+calculated to work on the human passions, and so peculiarly adapted to
+the eloquence of popular preachers and declaimers.  In vain would he
+plead his own innocence, and even his total ignorance of the fact: he
+was sufficiently guilty, if the church thought proper to esteem him
+such; and his concurrence in Becket's martyrdom, becoming a religious
+opinion, would be received with all the implicit credit which belonged
+to the most established articles of faith.  These considerations gave
+the king the most unaffected concern; and as it was extremely his
+interest to clear himself from all suspicion, he took no care to
+conceal the depth of his affliction [w].  He shut himself up from the
+light of day, and from all commerce with his servants: he even
+refused, during three days, all food and sustenance [x]: the
+courtiers, apprehending dangerous effects from his despair, were at
+last obliged to break in upon his solitude; and they employed every
+topic of consolation, induced him to accept of nourishment, and
+occupied his leisure in taking precautions against the consequences
+which he so justly apprehended from the murder of the primate.
+[FN [w] Ypod. Neust. p. 447.  M. Paris, p. 87.  Diceto, p. 556.
+Gervase, p. 1419.  [x] Hist. Quad. p. 143.]
+
+[MN 1171.  and submission of the king.]  The point of chief importance
+to Henry was to convince the pope of his innocence; or rather, to
+persuade him that he would reap greater advantages from the
+submissions of England, than from proceeding to extremities against
+that kingdom.  The Archbishop of Rouen, the Bishops of Worcester and
+Evreux, with five persons of inferior quality, were immediately
+despatched to Rome [y], and orders were given them to perform their
+journey with the utmost expedition.  Though the name and authority of
+the court of Rome were so terrible in the remote countries of Europe,
+which were sunk in profound ignorance, and were entirely unacquainted
+with its character and conduct; the pope was so little revered at
+home, that his inveterate enemies surrounded the gates of Rome itself,
+and even controlled his government in that city; and the ambassadors,
+who, from a distant extremity of Europe, carried to him the humble or
+rather abject submissions of the greatest potentate of the age, found
+the utmost difficulty to make their way to him, and to throw
+themselves at his feet.  It was at length agreed, that Richard Barre,
+one of their number, should leave the rest behind, and run all the
+hazards of the passage [z]; in order to prevent the fatal consequences
+which might ensue from any delay in giving satisfaction to his
+holiness.  He found, on his arrival, that Alexander was already
+wrought up to the greatest rage against the king; that Becket's
+partisans were daily stimulating him to revenge; that the king of
+France had exhorted him to fulminate the most dreadful sentence
+against England; and that the very mention of Henry's name before the
+sacred college was received with every expression of horror and
+execration.  The Thursday before Easter was now approaching, when it
+is customary for the pope to denounce annual curses against all his
+enemies; and it was expected that Henry should, with all the
+preparations peculiar to the discharge of that sacred artillery, be
+solemnly comprehended in the number.  But Barre found means to appease
+the pontiff, and to deter him from a measure, which, if it failed of
+success, could not afterwards be easily recalled: the anathemas were
+only levelled in general against all the actors, accomplices, and
+abettors of Becket's murder.  The Abbot of Valasse, and the
+Archdeacons of Salisbury and Lisieux, with others of Henry's
+ministers, who soon after arrived, besides asserting their prince's
+innocence, made oath before the whole consistory that he would stand
+to the pope's judgment in the affair, and make every submission that
+should be required of him.  The terrible blow was thus artfully
+eluded; the Cardinals Albert and Theodin were appointed legates to
+examine the cause, and were ordered to proceed to Normandy for that
+purpose; and though Henry's foreign dominions were already laid under
+an interdict by the Archbishop of Sens, Becket's great partisan, and
+the pope's legate in France, the general expectation that the monarch
+would easily exculpate himself from any concurrence in the guilt, kept
+every one in suspense, and prevented all the bad consequences which
+might be dreaded from that sentence.
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 526.  M. Paris, p. 87.  [z] Hoveden, p. 26.
+Epist. St. Thom. p. 863.]
+
+The clergy, meanwhile, though their rage was happily diverted from
+falling on the king, were not idle in magnifying the sanctity of
+Becket; in extolling the merits of his martyrdom; and in exalting him
+above all that devoted tribe, who in several ages had, by their blood,
+cemented the fabric of the temple.  Other saints had only borne
+testimony by their sufferings to the general doctrines of
+Christianity; but Becket had sacrificed his life to the power and
+privileges of the clergy; and this peculiar merit challenged, and not
+in vain, a suitable acknowledgment to his memory.  Endless were the
+panegyrics on his virtues; and the miracles wrought by his relics were
+more numerous, more nonsensical, and more impudently attested, than
+those which ever filled the legend of any confessor or martyr.  Two
+years after his death he was canonized by Pope Alexander; a solemn
+jubilee was established for celebrating his merits; his body was
+removed to a magnificent shrine, enriched with presents from all parts
+of Christendom; pilgrimages were performed to obtain his intercession
+with Heaven; and it was computed, that in one year above a hundred
+thousand  pilgrims arrived in Canterbury, and paid their devotions at
+his tomb.  It is indeed a mortifying reflection to those who are
+actuated by the love of fame, so justly denominated the last infirmity
+of noble minds, that the wisest legislator, and most exalted genius
+that ever reformed or enlightened the world, can never expect such
+tributes of praise as are lavished on the memory of pretended saints,
+whose whole conduct was probably to the last degree odious or
+contemptible, and whose industry was entirely directed to the pursuit
+of objects pernicious to mankind.  It is only a conqueror, a personage
+no less entitled to our hatred, who can pretend to the attainment of
+equal renown and glory.
+
+It may not be amiss to remark, before we conclude the subject of
+Thomas à Becket, that the king, during his controversy with that
+prelate, was on every occasion more anxious than usual to express his
+zeal for religion, and to avoid all appearance of a profane negligence
+on that head.  He gave his consent to the imposing of a tax on all his
+dominions for the delivery of the Holy Land, now threatened by the
+famous Saladine: this tax amounted to two-pence a pound for one year,
+and a penny a pound for the four subsequent [a].  Almost all the
+princes of Europe laid a like imposition on their subjects, which
+received the name of Saladine's tax.  During this period, there came
+over from Germany about thirty heretics of both sexes, under the
+direction of one Gerard; simple ignorant people, who could give no
+account of their faith, but declared themselves ready to suffer for
+the tenets of their master.  They made only one convert in England, a
+woman as ignorant as themselves; yet they gave such umbrage to the
+clergy, that they were delivered over to the secular arm, and were
+punished by being burned on the forehead, and then whipped through the
+streets.  They seemed to exult in their sufferings, and, as they went
+along, sung the beatitude, BLESSED ARE YE, WHEN MEN HATE YOU AND
+PERSECUTE YOU [b].  After they were whipped, they were thrust out
+almost naked in the midst of winter and perished through cold and
+hunger; no one daring or being willing, to give them the least relief.
+We are ignorant of the particular tenets of these people; for it would
+be imprudent to rely on the representations left of them by the
+clergy, who affirmed that they denied the efficacy of the sacraments,
+and the unity of the church.  It is probable that their departure from
+the standard of orthodoxy was still more subtle and minute.  They seem
+to have been the first that ever suffered for heresy in England.
+[FN [a] Chron. Gervase, p. 1399.  M. Paris, p. 74.  [b] Neubr. p. 391.
+M. Paris, p. 74.  Heming. p. 494.]
+
+As soon as Henry found that he was in no immediate danger from the
+thunders of the Vatican, he undertook an expedition against Ireland; a
+design which he had long projected, and by which he hoped to recover
+his credit, somewhat impaired by his late transactions with the
+hierarchy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+STATE OF IRELAND.--CONQUEST OF THAT ISLAND.--THE KINGÂ’S ACCOMMODATION
+WITH THE COURT OF ROME.--REVOLT OF YOUNG HENRY AND HIS BROTHERS.--WARS
+AND INSURRECTIONS.--WAR WITH SCOTLAND.--PENANCE OF HENRY FOR BECKET'S
+MURDER.--WILLIAM, KING OF SCOTLAND, DEFEATED AND TAKEN PRISONER.--THE
+KING'S ACCOMMODATION WITH HIS SONS.--THE KING'S EQUITABLE
+ADMINISTRATION.--CRUSADES.--REVOLT OF PRINCE RICHARD.--DEATH AND
+CHARACTER OF HENRY.--MISCELLANEOUS TRANSACTIONS OF HIS REIGN.
+
+
+
+[MN 1172.  State of Ireland.]
+As Britain was first peopled from Gaul, so was Ireland probably from
+Britain; and the inhabitants of all these countries seem to have been
+so many tribes of the Celtae, who derive their origin from an
+antiquity that lies far beyond the records of any history or
+tradition.  The Irish, from the beginning of time, had been buried in
+the most profound barbarism and ignorance; and as they were never
+conquered, or even invaded by the Romans, from whom all the western
+world derived its civility, they continued still in the most rude
+state of society, and were distinguished by those vices alone, to
+which human nature, not tamed by education, or restrained by laws, is
+for ever subject.  The small principalities into which they were
+divided exercised perpetual rapine and violence against each other;
+the uncertain succession of their princes was a continual source of
+domestic convulsions; the usual title of each petty sovereign was the
+murder of his predecessor; courage and force, though exercised in the
+commission of crimes, were more honoured than any pacific virtues; and
+the most simple arts of life, even tillage and agriculture, were
+almost wholly unknown among them.  They had felt the invasions of the
+Danes and the other northern tribes; but these inroads, which had
+spread barbarism in other parts of Europe, tended rather to improve
+the Irish; and the only towns which were to be found in the island had
+been planted along the coast by the freebooters of Norway and Denmark.
+The other inhabitants exercised pasturage in the open country; sought
+protection from any danger in their forests and morasses; and being
+divided by the fiercest animosities against each other, were still
+more intent on the means of mutual injury, than on the expedients for
+common or even for private interest.
+
+Besides many small tribes, there were in the age of Henry II. five
+principal sovereignties in the island, Munster, Leinster, Meath,
+Ulster, and Connaught; and as it had been usual for the one or the
+other of these to take the lead in their wars, there was commonly some
+prince, who seemed, for the time, to act as monarch of Ireland.
+Roderic O'Connor, King of Connaught, was then advanced to this dignity
+[a]; but his government, ill obeyed even within his own territory,
+could not unite the people in any measures either for the
+establishment of order, or for defence against foreigners.  The
+ambition of Henry had, very early in his reign, been moved by the
+prospect of these advantages to attempt the subjecting of Ireland; and
+a pretence was only wanting to invade a people who, being always
+confined to their own island, had never given any reason of complaint
+to any of their neighbours.  For this purpose, he had recourse to
+Rome, which assumed a right to dispose of kingdoms and empires; and,
+not foreseeing the dangerous disputes which he was one day to maintain
+with that see, he helped, for present, or rather for an imaginary,
+convenience, to give sanction to claims which were now become
+dangerous to all sovereigns.  Adrian III., who then filled the papal
+chair, was by birth an Englishman; and being, on that account, the
+more disposed to oblige Henry, he was easily persuaded to act as
+master of the world, and to make, without any hazard or expense, the
+acquisition of a great island to his spiritual jurisdiction. The Irish
+had, by precedent missions from the Britons, been imperfectly
+converted to Christianity; and, what the pope regarded as the surest
+mark of their imperfect conversion, they followed the doctrines of
+their first teachers, and had never acknowledged any subjection to the
+see of Rome.  Adrian, therefore, in the year 1156, issued a bull in
+favour of Henry; in which, after premising that this prince had ever
+shown an anxious care to enlarge the church of God on earth, and to
+increase the number of his saints and elect in heaven; he represents
+his design of subduing Ireland as derived from the same pious motives:
+he considers his care of previously applying for the apostolic
+sanction as a sure earnest of success and victory; and having
+established it as a point incontestable, that all Christian kingdoms
+belong to the patrimony of St. Peter, he acknowledges it to be his own
+duty to sow among them the seeds of the gospel, which might in the
+last day fructify to their eternal salvation: he exhorts the king to
+invade Ireland, in order to extirpate the vice and wickedness of the
+natives, and oblige them to pay yearly, from every house, a penny to
+the see of Rome: he gives him entire right and authority over the
+island, commands all the inhabitants to obey him as their sovereign,
+and invests with full power all such godly instruments as he should
+think proper to employ in an enterprise thus calculated for the glory
+of God and the salvation of the souls of men [b].  Henry, though armed
+with this authority, did not immediately put his design in execution;
+but being detained by more interesting business on the continent,
+waited for a favourable opportunity of invading Ireland.
+[FN [a] Hoveden, p. 527.  [b] M. Paris, p. 67.  Girald. Cambr. Spellm.
+Concil. vol. ii. p. 51.  Rymer, vol. i. p. 15.]
+
+Dermot Macmorrogh, King of Leinster, had, by his licentious tyranny,
+rendered himself odious to his subjects, who seized with alacrity the
+first occasion that offered of throwing off the yoke, which was become
+grievous and oppressive to them.  This prince had formed a design on
+Dovergilda, wife of Ororic, Prince of Breffny; and taking advantage of
+her husband's absence, who, being obliged to visit a distant part of
+his territory, had left his wife secure, as he thought, in an island
+surrounded by a bog, he suddenly invaded the place and carried off the
+princess [c].  This exploit, though usual among the Irish, and rather
+deemed a proof of gallantry and spirit [d], provoked the resentment of
+the husband; who, having collected forces, and being strengthened by
+the alliance of Roderic, King of Connaught, invaded the dominions  of
+Dermot, and expelled him his kingdom.  The exiled prince had recourse
+to Henry, who was at this time in Guienne, craved his assistance in
+restoring him to his sovereignty, and offered, on that event, to hold
+his kingdom in vassalage under the crown of England.  Henry, whose
+views were already turned towards making acquisitions in Ireland,
+readily accepted the offer; but being at that time embarrassed by the
+rebellions of his French subjects, as well as by his disputes with the
+see of Rome, he declined for the present embarking in the enterprise,
+and gave Dermot no farther assistance than letters patent, by which he
+empowered all his subjects to aid the Irish prince in the recovery of
+his dominions [e].  Dermot, supported by this authority, came to
+Bristol; and after endeavouring, though for some time in vain, to
+engage adventurers in the enterprise, he at last formed a treaty with
+Richard, surnamed Strongbow, Earl of Strigul.  This nobleman, who was
+of the illustrious house of Clare, had impaired his fortune by
+expensive pleasures; and being ready for any desperate undertaking, he
+promised assistance to Dermot, on condition that he should espouse
+Eva, daughter of that prince, and be declared heir to all his
+dominions [f].  While Richard was assembling his succours, Dermot went
+into Wales; and meeting with Robert Fitz-Stephens, Constable of
+Abertivi, and Maurice Fitz-Gerald, he also engaged them in his
+service, and obtained their promise of invading Ireland.  Being now
+assured of succour, he returned privately to his own state; and
+lurking in the monastery of Fernes, which he had founded, (for this
+ruffian was also a founder of monasteries,) he prepared every thing
+for the reception of his English allies [g].
+[FN [c] Girald. Cambr. p. 760.  [d] Spencer, vol. vi.  [e] Girald.
+Cambr. p. 760.  [f] Ibid. p. 761.  [g] Ibid.]
+
+[MN Conquest of that island.]
+The troops of Fitz-Stephens were first ready.  That gentleman landed
+in Ireland with thirty knights, sixty esquires, and three hundred
+archers; but this small body, being brave men, not unacquainted with
+discipline, and completely armed, a thing almost unknown in Ireland,
+struck a great terror into the barbarous inhabitants, and seemed to
+menace them with some signal revolution.  The conjunction of Maurice
+de Pendergast, who, about the same time, brought over ten knights and
+sixty archers, enabled Fitz-Stephens to attempt the siege of Wexford,
+a town inhabited by the Danes; and after gaining an advantage, he made
+himself master of the place [h].  Soon after, Fitz-Gerald arrived with
+ten knights, thirty esquires, and a hundred archers [i]; and being
+joined by the former adventurers, composed a force which nothing in
+Ireland was able to withstand.  Roderic, the chief monarch of the
+island, was foiled in different actions; the Prince of Ossory was
+obliged to submit, and give hostages for his peaceable behaviour; and
+Dermot, not content with being restored to his kingdom of Leinster,
+projected the dethroning of Roderic, and aspired to the sole dominion
+over the Irish.
+[FN [h] Girald. Cambr. p. 761, 762.  [i] Ibid. p. 766.]
+
+In prosecution of these views, he sent over a messenger to the Earl of
+Strigul, challenging the performance of his promise, and displaying
+the mighty advantages which might now be reaped by a reinforcement of
+warlike troops from England.  Richard, not satisfied with the general
+allowance given by Henry to all his subjects, went to that prince,
+then in Normandy; and having obtained a cold or ambiguous permission,
+prepared himself for the execution of his designs.  He first sent over
+Raymond, one of his retinue, with ten knights and seventy archers,
+who, landing near Waterford, defeated a body of three thousand Irish,
+that had ventured to attack him [k]; and as Richard himself, who
+brought over two hundred horse, and a body of archers, joined, a few
+days after, the victorious English, they made themselves masters of
+Waterford, and proceeded to Dublin, which was taken by assault.
+Roderic, in revenge, cut off the head of Dermot's natural son, who had
+been left as a hostage in his hands; and Richard, marrying Eva, became
+soon after, by the death of Dermot, master of the kingdom of Leinster,
+and prepared to extend his authority over all Ireland.  Roderic, and
+the other Irish princes, were alarmed at the danger; and, combining
+together, besieged Dublin with an army of thirty thousand men; but
+Earl Richard making a sudden sally at the head of ninety knights, with
+their followers, put this numerous army to rout, chased them off the
+field, and pursued  them with great slaughter.  None in Ireland now
+dared to oppose themselves to the English [l].
+[FN [k] Ibid. p. 767.  [l] Girald. Cambr. p. 773.]
+
+Henry, jealous of the progress made by his own subjects, sent orders
+to recall all the English, and he made preparations to attack Ireland
+in person [m]: but Richard, and the other adventurers, found means to
+appease him by making him the most humble submissions, and offering to
+hold all their acquisitions in vassalage to his crown [n].  That
+monarch landed in Ireland at the head of five hundred knights, besides
+other soldiers: he found the Irish so dispirited by their late
+misfortunes, that, in a progress which he made through the island, he
+had no other occupation than to receive the homage of his new
+subjects.  He left most of the Irish chieftains or princes in
+possession of their ancient territories; bestowed some lands on the
+English adventurers; gave Earl Richard the commission of Seneschal of
+Ireland; and after a stay of a few months, returned in triumph to
+England.  By these trivial exploits, scarcely worth relating, except
+for the importance of the consequences, was Ireland subdued, and
+annexed to the English crown.
+[FN [m] Ibid. p. 770.  [n] Ibid. p. 775.]
+
+The low state of commerce and industry, during those ages, made it
+impracticable for princes to support regular armies, which might
+retain a conquered country in subjection; and the extreme barbarism
+and poverty of Ireland could still less afford means of bearing the
+expense.  The only expedient, by which a durable conquest could then
+be made or maintained, was by pouring in a multitude of new
+inhabitants, dividing among them the lands of the vanquished,
+establishing them in all offices of trust and authority, and thereby
+transforming the ancient inhabitants into a new people.  By this
+policy, the northern invaders of old, and of late the Duke of
+Normandy, had been able to fix their dominions, and to erect kingdoms,
+which remained stable on their foundations, and were transmitted to
+the posterity of the first conquerors.  But the state of Ireland
+rendered that island so little inviting to the English, that only a
+few of desperate fortunes could be persuaded, from time to time, to
+transport themselves thither [o]; and instead of reclaiming the
+natives from their uncultivated manners, they were gradually
+assimilated to the ancient inhabitants, and degenerated from the
+customs of their own nation.  It was also found requisite to bestow
+great military and arbitrary powers on the leaders, who commanded a
+handful of men amidst such hostile multitudes; and law and equity, in
+a little time, became as much unknown in the English settlements as
+they had ever been among the Irish tribes.  Palatinates were erected
+in favour of the new adventurers; independent authority conferred; the
+natives, never fully subdued, still retained their animosity against
+the conquerors; their hatred was retaliated by like injuries; and from
+these causes, the Irish, during the course of four centuries, remained
+still savage and untractable: it was not till the latter end of
+ElizabethÂ’s reign that the island was fully subdued; nor till that of
+her successor that it gave hopes of becoming a useful conquest to the
+English nation.
+[FN [o] Brompton, p. 1069.  Neubrig. p. 403.]
+
+Besides that the easy and peaceable submission of the Irish left Henry
+no farther occupation in that island, he was recalled from it by
+another incident, which was of the last importance to his interest and
+safety.  The two legates, Albert and Theodin, to whom was committed
+the trial of his conduct in the murder of Archbishop Becket, were
+arrived in Normandy; and being impatient of delay, sent him frequent
+letters, full of menaces, if he protracted any longer making his
+appearance before them [p].  He hastened therefore to Normandy, and
+had a conference with them at Savigny, where their demands were so
+exorbitant, that he broke off the negotiation, threatened to return to
+Ireland, and bade them do their worst against him.  They perceived
+that the season was now past for taking advantage of that tragical
+incident; which, had it been hotly pursued by interdicts and
+excommunications, was capable of throwing the whole kingdom into
+combustion.  But the time which Henry had happily gained had
+contributed to appease the minds of men: the event could not now have
+the same influence as when it was recent; and as the clergy every day
+looked for an accommodation with the king, they had not opposed the
+pretensions of his partisans, who had been very industrious in
+representing to the people his entire innocence in the murder of the
+primate, and his ignorance of the designs formed by the assassins.
+The legates, therefore, found themselves obliged to lower their terms;
+and Henry was so fortunate as to conclude an accommodation with them.
+He declared upon oath, before the relics of the saints, that, so far
+from commanding or desiring the death of the archbishop, he was
+extremely grieved when he received intelligence of it: but as the
+passion which he had expressed on account of that prelate's conduct
+had probably been the occasion of his murder, he stipulated the
+following conditions, as an atonement for the offence.  [MN The kingÂ’s
+accommodation with the court of Rome.]  He promised, that he should
+pardon all such as had been banished for adhering to Becket, and
+should restore them to their livings; that the see of Canterbury
+should be reinstated in all its ancient possessions; that he should
+pay the Templars a sum of money for the subsistence of two hundred
+knights during a year in the Holy Land; that he should himself take
+the cross at the Christmas following, and, if the pope required it,
+serve three years against the infidels either in Spain or Palestine;
+that he should not insist on the observance of such customs,
+derogatory to ecclesiastical privileges, as had been introduced in his
+own time; and that he should not obstruct appeals to the pope in
+ecclesiastical causes, but should content himself with exacting
+sufficient security from such clergymen as left his dominions to
+prosecute an appeal, that they should attempt nothing against the
+rights of his crown [q].  Upon signing these concessions, Henry
+received absolution from the legates, and was confirmed in the grant
+of Ireland made by Pope Adrian [r]; and nothing proves more strongly
+the great abilities of this monarch, than his extricating himself on
+such easy terms from so difficult a situation.  He had always insisted
+that the laws established at Clarendon contained not any new claims,
+but the ancient customs of the kingdom; and he was still at liberty,
+notwithstanding the articles of this agreement, to maintain his
+pretensions.  Appeals to the pope were indeed permitted by that
+treaty; but as the king was also permitted to exact reasonable
+securities from the parties, and might stretch his demands on this
+head as far as he pleased, he had it virtually in his power to prevent
+the pope from reaping any advantage by this seeming concession.  And
+on the whole, the constitutions of Clarendon remained still the law of
+the realm; though the pope and his legates seem so little to have
+conceived the king's power to lie under any legal limitations, that
+they were satisfied with his departing, by treaty, from one of the
+most momentous articles of these constitutions, without requiring any
+repeal by the states of the kingdom.
+[FN [p] Girald. Cambr. p. 778.  [q] M. Paris, p. 88.  Benedict. Abb.
+p. 34.  Hoveden, p. 529.  Diceto, p 560.  Chron. Gerv. p. 1422.  [r]
+Brompton, p. 1071  Liber Nig. Scac. p. 47.]
+
+Henry, freed from this dangerous controversy with the ecclesiastics
+and with the see of Rome, seemed now to have reached the pinnacle of
+human grandeur and felicity, and to be equally happy in his domestic
+situation and in his political government.  A numerous progeny of sons
+and daughters gave both lustre and authority to his crown, prevented
+the dangers of a disputed succession, and repressed all pretensions of
+the ambitious barons.  The king's precaution, also, in establishing
+the several branches of his family, seemed well calculated to prevent
+all jealousy among the brothers, and to perpetuate the greatness of
+his family.  He had appointed Henry, his eldest son, to be his
+successor in the kingdom of England, the duchy of Normandy, and the
+counties of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine; territories which lay
+contiguous, and which, by that means, might easily lend to each other
+mutual assistance, both against intestine commotions and foreign
+invasions.  Richard, his second son, was invested in the duchy of
+Guienne and county of Poictou; Geoffrey, his third son, inherited, in
+right of his wife, the duchy of Britany; and the new conquest of
+Ireland was destined for the appanage of John, his fourth son.  He had
+also negotiated, in favour of this last prince, a marriage with
+Adelais, the only daughter of Humbert, Count of Savoy and Maurienne;
+and was to receive as her dowry considerable demesnes in Piedmont,
+Savoy, Bresse, and  Dauphiny [s].  But this exaltation of his family
+excited the jealousy of all his neighbours, who made those very sons,
+whose fortunes he had so anxiously established, the means of
+embittering his future life, and disturbing his government.
+[FN [s] Ypod. Neust. p. 448.  Bened. Abb. p. 38.  Hoveden, p. 532.
+Diceto, p. 562.  Brompton, p. 1081.  Rymer, vol. i. p. 33.]
+
+Young Henry, who was rising to man's estate, began to display his
+character, and aspire to independence: brave, ambitious, liberal,
+munificent, affable; he discovered qualities which give great lustre
+to youth; prognosticate a shining fortune; but unless tempered in
+mature age with discretion, are the forerunners of the greatest
+calamities [t].  It is said, that at the time when this prince
+received the royal unction, his father, in order to give greater
+dignity to the ceremony, officiated at table as one of the retinue;
+and observed to his son, that never king was more royally served.  IT
+IS NOTHING EXTRAORDINARY, said young Henry to one of his courtiers, IF
+THE SON OF A COUNT SHOULD SERVE THE SON OF A KING.  This saying, which
+might pass only for an innocent pleasantry, or even for an oblique
+compliment to his father, was however regarded as a symptom of his
+aspiring temper; and his conduct soon after justified the conjecture.
+[FN [t] Chron. Gerv. p. 1463.]
+
+Henry, agreeably to the promise which he had given both to the pope
+and French king, permitted his son to be crowned anew by the hands of
+the Archbishop of Rouen, and associated the Princess Margaret, spouse
+to young Henry, in the ceremony [u]  [MN 1173.]  He afterwards allowed
+him to pay a visit to his father-in-law at Paris, who took the
+opportunity of instilling into the young prince those ambitious
+sentiments, to which he was naturally but too much inclined [w].  [MN
+Revolt of young Henry and his brothers.]  Though it had been the
+constant practice of France, ever since the accession of the Capetian
+line, to crown the son during the lifetime of the father, without
+conferring on him any present participation of royalty, Lewis
+persuaded his son-in-law, that, by this ceremony, which in those ages
+was deemed so important, he had acquired a title to sovereignty, and
+that the king could not, without injustice, exclude him from immediate
+possession of the whole or at least a part of his dominions.  In
+consequence of these extravagant ideas, young Henry, on his return,
+desired the king to resign to him either the crown of England, or the
+duchy of Normandy; discovered great discontent on the refusal; spake
+in the most undutiful terms of his father; and soon after, in concert
+with Lewis, made his escape to Paris, where he was protected and
+supported by that monarch.
+[FN [u] Hoveden, p. 529.  Diceto, p. 560.  Brompton, p. 1080.  Chron.
+Gerv. p. 1421.  Trivet, p. 58.  It appears from Madox's History of the
+Exchequer, that silk garments were then known in England, and that the
+coronation robes of the young king and queen cost eighty-seven pounds
+ten shillings and four pence, money of that age.  [w] Girald. Camb. p.
+782.]
+
+While Henry was alarmed at this incident, and had the prospect of
+dangerous intrigues, or even of a war, which, whether successful or
+not, must be extremely calamitous and disagreeable to him, he received
+intelligence of new misfortunes, which must have affected him in the
+most sensible manner.  Queen Eleanor, who had disgusted her first
+husband by her gallantries, was no less offensive to her second by her
+jealousy; and after this manner carried to extremity, in the different
+periods of her life, every circumstance of female weakness.  She
+communicated her discontents against Henry to her two younger sons,
+Geoffrey and Richard; persuaded them that they were also entitled to
+present possession of the territories assigned to them; engaged them
+to fly secretly to the court of France; and was meditating, herself,
+an escape to the same court, and had even put on man's apparel for
+that purpose; when she was seized by orders from her husband, and
+thrown into confinement.  Thus, Europe saw with astonishment the best
+and most indulgent of parents at war with his whole family; three
+boys, scarcely arrived at the age of puberty, required a great
+monarch, in the full vigour of his age and height of his reputation,
+to dethrone himself in their favour; and several princes not ashamed
+to support them in these unnatural and absurd pretensions.
+
+Henry, reduced to this perilous and disagreeable situation, had
+recourse to the court of Rome: though sensible of the danger attending
+the interposition of ecclesiastical authority in temporal disputes, he
+applied to the pope, as his superior lord, to excommunicate his
+enemies, and by these censures to reduce to obedience his undutiful
+children, whom he found such reluctance to punish by the sword of the
+magistrate [x].  Alexander, well pleased to exert his power in so
+justifiable a cause, issued the bulls required of him; but it was soon
+found that these spiritual weapons had not the same force as when
+employed in a spiritual controversy; and that the clergy were very
+negligent in supporting a sentence which was nowise calculated to
+promote the immediate interests of their order.  The king, after
+taking in vain this humiliating step, was obliged to have recourse to
+arms, and to enlist such auxiliaries as are the usual resource of
+tyrants, and have seldom been employed by so wise and just a monarch.
+[FN [x] Epist. Petri Bles. epist. 136. in Biblioth. Patr. tom. xxiv.
+p. 1048.  His words are, VESTRAE JURISDICTIONIS EST REGNUM ANGLIAE, ET
+QUANTUM AD FEUDATORII JURIS OBLIGATIONEM, VOBIS DUNTAXAT OBNOXIUS
+TENEOR.  The same strange paper is in Rymer, vol. i. p. 35, and
+Trivet, vol. i. p. 62.]
+
+The loose government which prevailed in all the states of Europe, the
+many private wars carried on among the neighbouring nobles, and the
+impossibility of enforcing any general execution of the laws, had
+encouraged a tribe of banditti to disturb every where the public
+peace, to infest the highways, to pillage the open country, and to
+brave all the efforts of the civil magistrate, and even the
+excommunications of the church, which were fulminated against them
+[y].  Troops of them were sometimes enlisted in the service of one
+prince or baron, sometimes in that of another: they often acted in an
+independent manner, under leaders of their own: the peaceable and
+industrious inhabitants, reduced to poverty by their ravages, were
+frequently obliged, for subsistence, to betake themselves to a like
+disorderly course of life; and a continual intestine war, pernicious
+to industry, as well as to the execution of justice, was thus carried
+on in the bowels of every kingdom [z].  Those desperate ruffians
+received the name sometimes of Brabancons, sometimes of Routiers or
+Cottereaux; but for what reason is not agreed by historians; and they
+formed a kind of society or government among themselves, which set at
+defiance the rest of mankind.  The greatest monarchs were not ashamed,
+on occasion, to have recourse to their assistance; and as their habits
+of war and depredation had given them experience, hardiness, and
+courage, they generally composed the most formidable part of those
+armies which decided the political quarrels of princes.  Several of
+them were enlisted among the forces levied by Henry's enemies [a]; but
+the great treasures amassed by that prince enabled him to engage more
+numerous troops of them in his service; and the situation of his
+affairs rendered even such banditti the only forces on whose fidelity
+he could repose any confidence.  His licentious barons, disgusted with
+a vigilant government, were more desirous of being ruled by young
+princes, ignorant of public affairs, remiss in their conduct, and
+profuse in their grants [b]; and as the king had ensured to his sons
+the succession to every particular province of his dominions, the
+nobles dreaded no danger in adhering to those who, they knew, must
+some time become their sovereigns.  Prompted by these motives, many of
+the Norman nobility had deserted to his son Henry; the Breton and
+Gascon barons seemed equally disposed to embrace the quarrel of
+Geoffrey and Richard.  Disaffection had crept in among the English;
+and the Earls of Leicester and Chester in particular had openly
+declared against the king.  Twenty thousand Brabancons, therefore,
+joined to some troops which he brought over from Ireland, and a few
+barons of approved fidelity, formed the sole force with which he
+intended to resist his enemies.
+[FN [y] Neubrig. p 413.  [z] Chron. Gerv. p. 1461.  [a] Petr. Bles.
+epist. 47.  [b] Diceto, p. 570.]
+
+Lewis, in order to bind the confederates in a close union, summoned at
+Paris an assembly of the chief vassals of the crown, received their
+approbation of his measures, and engaged them by oath to adhere to the
+cause of young Henry.  This prince, in return, bound himself by a like
+tie never to desert his French allies; and having made a new great
+seal, he lavishly distributed among them many considerable parts of
+those territories which he purposed to conquer from his father.  The
+Counts of Flanders, Boulogne, Blois, and Eu, partly moved by the
+general jealousy arising from Henry's power and ambition, partly
+allured by the prospect of reaping advantage from the inconsiderate
+temper and the necessities of the young prince, declared openly in
+favour of the latter.  William, King of Scotland, had also entered
+into this great confederacy; and a plan was concerted for a general
+invasion on different parts of the king's extensive and factious
+dominions.
+
+Hostilities were first commenced by the Counts of Flanders and
+Boulogne on the frontiers of Normandy.  Those princes laid siege to
+Aumale, which was delivered into their hands by the treachery of the
+count of that name: this nobleman surrendered himself prisoner; and,
+on pretence of thereby paying his ransom, opened the gates of all his
+other fortresses.  The two counts next besieged and made themselves
+masters of Drincourt; but the Count of Boulogne was here mortally
+wounded in the assault; and this incident put some stop to the
+progress of the Flemish arms.
+
+[MN Wars and insurrections.]
+In another quarter, the King of France, being strongly assisted by his
+vassals, assembled a great army of seven thousand knights and their
+followers on horseback, and a proportionable number of infantry:
+carrying young Henry along with him, he laid siege to Verneuil, which
+was vigorously defended by Hugh de Lacy and Hugh de Beauchamp, the
+governors.  After he had lain a month before the place, the garrison,
+being straitened for provisions, were obliged to capitulate; and they
+engaged, if not relieved within three days, to surrender the town, and
+to retire into the citadel.  On the last of these days, Henry appeared
+with his army upon the heights above Verneuil.  Lewis, dreading an
+attack, sent the Archbiship of Sens and the Count of Blois to the
+English camp, and desired that next day should be appointed for a
+conference, in order to establish a general peace, and terminate the
+difference between Henry and his sons.  The king, who passionately
+desired this accommodation, and suspected no fraud, gave his consent;
+but Lewis, that morning, obliging the garrison to surrender, according
+to the capitulation, set fire to the place, and began to retire with
+his army.  Henry, provoked at this artifice, attacked the rear with
+vigour, put them to rout, did some execution, and took  several
+prisoners.  The French army, as their time of service was now expired,
+immediately dispersed themselves into their several provinces; and
+left Henry free to prosecute his advantages against his other enemies.
+
+The nobles of Britany, instigated by the Earl of Chester and Ralph de
+Fougeres, were all in arms; but their progress was checked by a body
+of Brabancons which the king, after Lewis's retreat, had sent against
+them.  The two armies came to an action near Dol, where the rebels
+were defeated, fifteen hundred killed on the spot, and the leaders,
+the Earls of Chester and Fougeres, obliged to take shelter in the town
+of Dol.  Henry hastened to form the siege of that place, and carried
+on the attack with such ardour, that he obliged the governor and
+garrison to surrender themselves prisoners.  By these vigorous
+measures and happy successes the insurrections were entirely quelled
+in Britany; and the king, thus fortunate in all quarters, willingly
+agreed to a conference with Lewis, in hopes that his enemies, finding
+all their mighty efforts entirely frustrated, would terminate
+hostilities on some moderate and reasonable conditions.
+
+The two monarchs met between Trie and Gisors; and Henry had here the
+mortification to see his three sons in the retinue of his mortal
+enemy.  As Lewis had no other pretence for war than supporting the
+claims of the young princes, the king made them such offers as
+children might be ashamed to insist on, and could be extorted from him
+by nothing but his parental affection, or by the present necessity of
+his affairs [c].  He insisted only on retaining the sovereign
+authority in all his dominions; but offered young Henry half the
+revenues of England, with some places of surety in that kingdom; or,
+if he rather chose to reside in Normandy, half the revenues of that
+duchy, with all those of Anjou.  He made a like offer to Richard in
+Guienne: he promised to resign Britany to Geoffrey; and if these
+concessions were not deemed sufficient, he agreed to add to them
+whatever the pope's legates, who were present, should require of him
+[d].  The Earl of Leicester was also present at the negotiation; and
+either from the impetuosity of his temper, or from a view of abruptly
+breaking off a conference which must cover the allies with confusion,
+he gave vent to the most violent reproaches against Henry, and he even
+put his hand to his sword, as if he meant to attempt some violence
+against him.  This furious action threw the whole company into
+confusion, and put an end to the treaty [e].
+[FN [c] Hoveden, p. 538.  [d] Ibid. p. 536.  Brompton, p. 1088.  [e]
+Hoveden, p. 536.]
+
+The chief hopes of Henry's enemies seemed now to depend on the state
+of affairs in England, where his authority was exposed to the most
+imminent danger.  One article of Prince Henry's agreement with his
+foreign confederates was, that he should resign Kent, with Dover, and
+all its other fortresses, into the hands of the Earl of Flanders [f]:
+yet so little national or public spirit prevailed among the
+independent English nobility, so wholly bent were they on the
+aggrandizement each of himself and his own family, that
+notwithstanding this pernicious concession, which must have produced
+the ruin of the kingdom, the greater part of them had conspired to
+make an insurrection, and to support the prince's pretensions.  The
+king's principal resource lay in the church and the bishops, with whom
+he was now in perfect agreement; whether that the decency of their
+character made them ashamed of supporting so unnatural a rebellion, or
+that they were entirely satisfied with Henry's atonement for the
+murder of Becket, and for his former invasion of ecclesiastical
+immunities.  That prince, however, had resigned none of the essential
+rights of his crown in the accommodation; he maintained still the same
+prudent jealousy of the court of Rome; admitted no legate into
+England, without his swearing to attempt nothing against the royal
+prerogatives; and he had even obliged the monks of Canterbury, who
+pretended to a free election on the vacancy made by the death of
+Becket, to choose Roger, prior of Dover, in the place of that
+turbulent prelate [g].
+[FN [f] Ibid. p. 533.  Brompton, p. 1084.  Neubr. p. 508.  [g]
+Hoveden, p. 537.]
+
+[MN War with Scotland.]
+The King of Scotland made an irruption into Northumberland, and
+committed great devastations; but being opposed by Richard de Lucy,
+whom Henry had left guardian of the realm, he retreated into his own
+country, and agreed to a cessation of arms.  This truce enabled the
+guardian to march southward with his army, in order to oppose an
+invasion, which the Earl of Leicester, at the head of a great body of
+Flemings, had made upon Suffolk.  The Flemings had been joined by Hugh
+Bigod, who made them masters of his castle of Framlingham; and
+marching into the heart of the kingdom, where they hoped to be
+supported by Leicester's vassals, they were met by Lucy, who, assisted
+by Humphrey Bohun, the constable, and the Earls of Arundel,
+Gloucester, and Cornwall, had advanced to Farnham, with a less
+numerous but braver army to oppose them.  The Flemings, who were
+mostly weavers and artificers, (for manufactures were now beginning to
+be established in Flanders,) were broken in an instant, ten thousand
+of them were put to the sword, the Earl of Leicester was taken
+prisoner, and the remains of the invaders were glad to compound for a
+safe retreat into their own country.
+
+[MN 1174.]  This great defeat did not dishearten the malecontents;
+who, being supported by the alliance of so many foreign princes, and
+encouraged by the king's own sons, determined to persevere in their
+enterprise.  The Earl of Ferrars, Roger de Mowbray, Architel de
+Mallory, Richard de Morreville, Hamo de Mascie, together with many
+friends of the Earls of Leicester and Chester, rose in arms: the
+fidelity of the Earls of Clare and Gloucester was suspected; and the
+guardian, though vigorously supported by Geoffrey, Bishop of Lincoln,
+the king's natural son by the fair Rosamond, found it difficult to
+defend himself on all quarters from so many open and concealed
+enemies.  The more to augment the confusion, the King of Scotland, on
+the expiration of the truce, broke into the northern provinces with a
+great army [h] of eighty thousand men; which, though undisciplined and
+disorderly, and better fitted for committing devastation than for
+executing any military enterprise, was become dangerous from the
+present factious and turbulent spirit of the kingdom.  Henry, who had
+baffled all his enemies in France, and had put his frontiers in a
+posture of defence, now found England the seat of danger; and he
+determined by his presence to overawe the malecontents, or by his
+conduct and courage to subdue them. [MN 8th July.  Penance of Henry
+for BecketÂ’s murder.]  He landed at Southampton; and knowing the
+influence of superstition over the minds of the people, he hastened to
+Canterbury, in order to make atonement to the ashes of Thomas à
+Becket, and tender his submissions to a dead enemy.  As soon as he
+came within sight of the church of Canterbury, he dismounted, walked
+barefoot towards it, prostrated himself before the shrine of the
+saint, remained in fasting and prayer during a whole day, and watched
+all night the holy relics.  Not content with this hypocritical
+devotion towards a man whose violence and ingratitude had so long
+disquieted his government, and had been the object of his most
+inveterate animosity, he submitted to a penance still more singular
+and humiliating.  He assembled a chapter of the monks, disrobed
+himself before them, put a scourge of discipline into the hands of
+each, and presented his bare shoulders to the lashes which these
+ecclesiastics successively inflicted upon him.  Next day he received
+absolution; and departing for London, got soon after the agreeable
+intelligence of a great victory which his generals had obtained over
+the Scots, and which being gained, as was reported, on the very day of
+his absolution, was regarded as the earnest of his final
+reconciliation with Heaven and with Thomas à Becket.
+[FN [h] Heming, p. 501.]
+
+William, King of Scots, though repulsed before the castle of Prudhow,
+and other fortified places, had committed the most horrible
+depredations upon the northern provinces: but on the approach of Ralph
+de Glanville, the famous justiciary, seconded by Bernard de Baliol,
+Robert de Stuteville, Odonel de Umfreville, William de Vesci, and
+other northern barons, together with the gallant Bishop of Lincoln, he
+thought proper to retreat nearer his own country, and he fixed his
+camp at Alnwick.  He had here weakened his army extremely, by sending
+out numerous detachments in order to extend his ravages; and he lay
+absolutely safe, as he imagined, from any attack of the enemy.  But
+Glanville, informed of his situation, made a hasty and fatiguing march
+to Newcastle; and, allowing his soldiers only a small interval for
+refreshment, he immediately set out towards evening for Alnwick.  [MN
+13th July.]  He marched that night above thirty miles; arrived in the
+morning, under cover of a mist, near the Scottish camp; and regardless
+of the great numbers of the enemy, he began the attack with his small
+but determined body of cavalry.  William was living in such supine
+security that he took the English, at first, for a body of his own
+ravagers, who were returning to the camp; but the sight of their
+banners convincing him of his mistake, he entered on the action with
+no greater body than a hundred horse in confidence that the numerous
+army which surrounded him would soon hasten to his relief.  [MN
+William, King of Scotlamd, defeated and taken prisoner.]  He was
+dismounted on the first shock, and taken prisoner; while his troops,
+hearing of this disaster, fled on all sides with the utmost
+precipitation.  The dispersed ravagers made the best of their way to
+their own country; and discord arising among them, they proceeded even
+to mutual hostilities, and suffered more from each other's sword than
+from that of the enemy.
+
+This great and important victory proved at last decisive in favour of
+Henry, and entirely broke the spirit of the English rebels.  The
+Bishop of Durham, who was preparing to revolt, made his submissions;
+Hugh Bigod, though he had received a strong reinforcement of Flemings,
+was obliged to surrender all his castles, and throw himself on the
+king's mercy; no better resource was left to the Earl of Ferrars and
+Roger de Mowbray; the inferior rebels imitating the example, all
+England was restored to tranquillity in a few weeks; and as the king
+appeared to lie under the immediate protection of Heaven, it was
+deemed impious any longer to resist him.  The clergy exalted anew the
+merits and powerful intercession of Becket; and Henry, instead of
+opposing this superstition, plumed himself on the new friendship of
+the saint, and propagated an opinion which was so favourable to his
+interests [i].
+[FN [i] Hoveden, p. 539.]
+
+Prince Henry, who was ready to embark at Gravelines, with the Earl of
+Flanders and a great army, hearing that his partisans in England were
+suppressed, abandoned all thoughts of the enterprise, and joined the
+camp of Lewis, who, during the absence of the king, had made an
+irruption into Normandy, and had laid siege to Rouen [k].  The place
+was defended with great vigour by the inhabitants [l]; and Lewis,
+despairing of success by open force, tried to gain the town by a
+stratagem, which, in that superstitious age, was deemed not very
+honourable.  He proclaimed in his own camp a cessation of arms, on
+pretence of celebrating the festival of St. Laurence; and when the
+citizens, supposing themselves in safety, were so imprudent as to
+remit their guard, he proposed to take advantage of their security.
+Happily, some priests had, from mere curiosity, mounted a steeple
+where the alarm-bell hung; and, observing the French camp in motion,
+they immediately rang the bell, and gave warning to the inhabitants,
+who ran to their several stations.  The French who, on hearing the
+alarm, hurried to the assault, had already mounted the walls in
+several places; but being repulsed by the enraged citizens, were
+obliged to retreat with considerable loss [m].  Next day, Henry, who
+had hastened to the defence of his Norman dominions, passed over the
+bridge in triumph, and entered Rouen in sight of the French army.  The
+city was now in absolute safety; and the king, in order to brave the
+French monarch, commanded the gates, which had been walled up, to be
+opened; and he prepared to push his advantages against the enemy.
+Lewis saved himself from this perilous situation by a new piece of
+deceit, not so justifiable.  He proposed a conference for adjusting
+the terms of a general peace, which he knew would be greedily embraced
+by Henry; and while the king of England trusted to the execution of
+his promise, he made a retreat with his army into France.
+[FN [k] Brompton, p. 1096.  [l] Diceto, p. 578.  [m] Brompton, p.
+1096.  Neubrig. p. 411.  Heming, p. 503.]
+
+There was, however, a necessity on both sides for an accommodation.
+Henry could no longer bear to see his three sons in the hands of his
+enemy; and Lewis dreaded lest this great monarch, victorious in all
+quarters, crowned with glory, and absolute master of his dominions
+might take revenge for the many dangers and disquietudes which the
+arms, and still more the intrigues of France had, in his disputes both
+with Becket and his sons, found means to raise him.  After making a
+cessation of arms, a conference was agreed on near Tours; where Henry
+granted his sons much less advantageous terms than he had formerly
+offered, and he received their submissions.  [MN The king's
+accommodation with his sons.]  The most material of his concessions
+were some pensions which he stipulated to pay them, and some castles
+which he granted them for the place of their residence; together with
+an indemnity for all their adherents, who were restored to their
+estates and honours [n].
+[FN [n] Rymer, vol. i. p. 35.  Bened. Abb. p. 88.  Hoveden, p. 540.
+Diceto, p. 584.  Brompton, p. 1098.  Heming. p. 505.  Chron. Dunst. p.
+36.]
+
+Of all those who had embraced the cause of the young princes, William,
+King of Scotland, was the only considerable loser by that invidious
+and unjust enterprise.  Henry delivered from confinement, without
+exacting any ransom, about nine hundred knights whom he had taken
+prisoners; but it cost William the ancient independency of his crown
+as the price of his liberty.  He stipulated to do homage to Henry for
+Scotland, and all his other possessions; he engaged that all the
+barons and nobility of his kingdom should also do homage; that the
+bishops should take an oath of fealty; that both should swear to
+adhere to the King of England against their native prince, if the
+latter should break his engagements; and that the fortresses of
+Edinburgh, Stirling, Berwick, Roxburgh, and Jedburgh, should be
+delivered into Henry's hands, till the performance of articles [o].
+[MN 1175.  10th Aug.]  This severe and humiliating treaty was excuted
+in its full rigour.  William, being released, brought up all his
+barons, prelates, and abbots; and they did homage to Henry in the
+cathedral of York, and acknowledged him and his successors for their
+superior lord [p].  The English monarch stretched still farther the
+rigour of the conditions which he exacted.  He engaged the king and
+states of Scotland to make a perpetual cession of the fortresses of
+Berwick and Roxburgh, and to allow the castle of Edinburgh to remain
+in his hands for a limited time.  This was the first great ascendancy
+which England obtained over Scotland; and indeed the first important
+transaction which had passed between the kingdoms.  Few princes have
+been so fortunate as to gain considerable advantages over their weaker
+neighbours with less violence and injustice than was practised by
+Henry against the King of Scots, whom he had taken prisoner in battle,
+and who had wantonly engaged in a war, in which all the neighbours of
+that prince, and even his own family, were, without provocation,
+combined against him [q].
+[FN [o] M. Paris, p. 91.  Chron. Dunst. p. 36.  Hoveden, p. 545.  M.
+West. p. 251.  Diceto, p. 584.  Brompton, p. 1103.  Rymer, vol. i. p.
+39.  Liber Niger Scaccarii, p. 36.  [p] Bened. Abb. p. 113.  [q] Some
+Scotch historians pretend that William paid, besides, 100,000 pounds
+of ransom, which is quite incredible.  The ransom of Richard I., who,
+besides England, possessed so many rich territories in France, was
+only 150,000 marks, and yet was levied with great difficulty.  Indeed,
+two-thirds of it only could he paid before his deliverance.]
+
+[MN 1175.  KingÂ’s equitable administration.]
+Henry having thus, contrary to expectation, extricated himself with
+honour from a situation in which his throne was exposed to great
+danger, was employed for several years in the administration of
+justice, in the execution of the laws, and in guarding against those
+inconveniences, which either the past convulsions of his state, or the
+political institutions of that age, unavoidably occasioned.  The
+provisions which he made show such largeness of thought as qualified
+him for being a legislator; and they were commonly calculated as well
+for the future as the present happiness of his kingdom.
+
+[MN 1176.]  He enacted severe penalties against robbery, murder, false
+coining, arson; and ordained that these crimes should be punished by
+the amputation of the right hand and right foot [r].  The pecuniary
+commutation for crimes which has a false appearance of lenity, had
+been gradually disused, and seems to have been entirely abolished by
+the rigour of these statutes.  The superstitious trial by water
+ordeal, though condemned by the church [s], still subsisted; but Henry
+ordained, that any man accused of murder, or any heinous felony, by
+the oath of the legal knights of the county, should, even though
+acquitted by the ordeal, be obliged to abjure the realm [t].
+[FN [r] Bened. Abb. p. 132.  Hoveden, p. 549.  [s] Seld. Spicileg. ad
+Eadm. p. 204.  [t] Bened. Abb. p. 132.]
+
+All advances towards reason and good sense are slow and gradual.
+Henry, though sensible of the great absurdity attending the trial by
+duel or battle, did not venture to abolish it: he only admitted either
+of the parties to challenge a trial by an assize or jury of twelve
+freeholders [u].  This latter method of trial seems to have been very
+ancient in England, and was fixed by the laws of King Alfred: but the
+barbarous and violent genius of the age had of late given more credit
+to the trial by battle, which had become the general method of
+deciding all important controversies.  It was never abolished by law
+in England; and there is an instance of it so late as the reign of
+Elizabeth; but the institution revived by this king, being found more
+reasonable and more suitable to a civilized people, gradually
+prevailed over it.
+[FN [u] Glanv. lib. 2. cap. 7.]
+
+The partition of England into four divisions, and the appointment of
+itinerant justices to go the circuit in each division, and to decide
+the causes in the counties, was another important ordinance of this
+prince, which had a direct tendency to curb the oppressive barons, and
+to protect the inferior gentry and common people in their property
+[w].  Those justices were either prelates or considerable noblemen;
+who, besides carrying the authority of the king's commission, were
+able, by the dignity of their own character, to give weight and credit
+to the laws.
+[FN [w] Hoveden, p. 590.]
+
+That there might be fewer obstacles to the execution of justice, the
+king was vigilant in demolishing all the new-erected castles of the
+nobility, in England as well as in his foreign dominions; and he
+permitted no fortress to remain in the custody of those whom he found
+reason to suspect [x].
+[FN [x] Benedict. Abbas, p. 202.  Diceto, p. 585.]
+
+But lest the kingdom should be weakened by this demolition of the
+fortresses, the king fixed an assize of arms, by which all his
+subjects were obliged to put themselves in a situation for defending
+themselves and the realm.  Every man possessed of a knight's fee was
+ordained to have for each fee a coat of mail, a helmet, a shield, and
+a lance; every free layman, possessed of goods to the value of sixteen
+marks, was to be armed in like manner; every one that possessed ten
+marks was obliged to have an iron gorget, a cap of iron, and a lance;
+all burgesses were to have a cap of iron, a lance, and a wambais; that
+is, a coat quilted with wool, tow, or such like materials [y].  It
+appears that archery, for which the English were afterwards so
+renowned, had not, at this time, become very common among them.  The
+spear was the chief weapon employed in battle.
+[FN [y] Bened. Abb. p. 305  Annal. Waverl. p. 161.]
+
+The clergy and the laity were, during that age, in a strange situation
+with regard to each other, and such as may seem totally incompatible
+with a civilized, and, indeed, with any species of government.  If a
+clergyman were guilty of murder, he could be punished by degradation
+only: if he were murdered, the murderer was exposed to nothing but
+excommunication and ecclesiastical censures; and the crime was atoned
+for by penances and submission [z].  Hence the assassins of Thomas à
+Becket himself, though guilty of the most atrocious wickedness, and
+the most repugnant to the sentiments of that age, lived securely in
+their own houses, without being called to account by Henry himself,
+who was so much concerned, both in honour and interest, to punish that
+crime, and who professed, or affected on all occasions, the most
+extreme abhorrence of it.  It was not till they found their presence
+shunned by every one as excommunicated persons that they were induced
+to take a journey to Rome, to throw themselves at the feet of the
+pontiff, and to submit to the penances imposed upon them: after which
+they continued to possess, without molestation, their honours and
+fortunes, and seemed even to have recovered the countenance and good
+opinion of the public.  But as the king, by the constitutions of
+Clarendon, which he endeavoured still to maintain [a], had subjected
+the clergy to a trial by the civil magistrate, it seemed but just to
+give them the protection of that power to which they owed obedience;
+it was enacted, that the murderers of clergymen should be tried before
+the justiciary, in the presence of the bishop or his official; and
+besides the usual punishment for murder, should be subjected to a
+forfeiture of their estates, and a confiscation of their goods and
+chattels [b].
+[FN [z] Petri Blessen. epist. 73. apud Bibl. Patr. tom. xxiv. p. 992.
+[a] Chron. Gervase, p. 1433.  [b] Diceto, p. 592.  Chron. Gervase,
+1433.]
+
+The king passed an equitable law, that the goods of a vassal should
+not be seized for the debt of his lord, unless the vassal be surety
+for the debt; and that the rents of vassals should be paid to the
+creditors of the lord, not to the lord himself.  It is remarkable that
+this law was enacted by the king in a council which he held at
+Verneuil, and which consisted of some prelates and barons of England,
+as well as some of Normandy, Poictou, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and
+Britany; and the statute took place in all these last-mentioned
+territories [c], though totally unconnected with each other [d]; a
+certain proof how irregular the ancient feudal government was, and how
+near the sovereigns, in some instances, approached to despotism,
+though in others they seemed scarcely to possess any authority.  If a
+prince, much dreaded and revered, like Henry, obtained but the
+appearance of general consent to an ordinance which was equitable and
+just, it became immediately an established law, and all his subjects
+acquiesced in it.  If the prince was hated or despised; if the nobles
+who supported him had small influence; if the humours of the times
+disposed the people to question the justice of his ordinance; the
+fullest and most authentic assembly had no authority.  Thus all was
+confusion and disorder; no regular idea of a constitution; force and
+violence decided every thing.
+[FN [c] Bened. Abb. p. 248. It was usual for the kings of England,
+after the conquest of Ireland, to summon barons and members of that
+country to the English Parliament.  Mollineux's case of Ireland, p.
+64, 65, 66.  [d] Spellman even doubts whether the law were not also
+extended to England.  If it were not, it could only be because Henry
+did not choose it; for his authority was greater in that kingdom than
+in his transmarine dominions.]
+
+The success which had attended Henry in his wars did not much
+encourage his neighbours to form any attempt against him; and his
+transactions with them during several years, contain little memorable.
+Scotland remained in that state of feudal subjection to which he had
+reduced it, and gave him no farther inquietude.  He sent over his
+fourth son, John, into Ireland, with a view of making a more complete
+conquest of the island; but the petulance and incapacity of this
+prince, by which he enraged the Irish chieftains, obliged the king
+soon after to recall him [e].  The King of France had fallen into an
+abject superstition; and was induced, by a devotion more sincere than
+that of Henry, to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Becket, in order to
+obtain his intercession for the cure of Philip, his eldest son.  He
+probably thought himself well entitled to the favour of that saint on
+account of their ancient intimacy; and hoped that Becket, whom he had
+protected while on earth, would not now, when he was so highly exalted
+in heaven, forgot his old friend and benefactor.  The monks, sensible
+that their saint's honour was concerned in the case, failed not to
+publish that Lewis's prayers were answered, and that the young prince
+was restored to health by Becket's intercession.  That king himself
+was soon after struck with an apoplexy, which deprived him of his
+understanding: Philip, though a youth of fifteen, took on him the
+administration, till his father's death, which happened soon after,
+opened his way to the throne; and he proved the ablest and greatest
+monarch that had governed that kingdom since the age of Charlemagne.
+The superior years, however, and experience of Henry, while they
+moderated his ambition, gave him such an ascendant over this prince,
+that no dangerous rivalship, for a long time, arose between them.  [MN
+1180.]  The English monarch, instead of taking advantage of his own
+situation, rather employed his good offices in composing the quarrels
+which arose in the royal family of France; and he was successful in
+mediating a reconciliation between Philip and his mother and uncles.
+These services were but ill requited by Philip, who, when he came to
+man's estate, fomented all the domestic discords in the royal family
+of England, and encouraged Henry's sons in their ungrateful and
+undutiful behaviour towards him.
+[FN [e] Bened. Abb. p. 437, &c.]
+
+Prince Henry, equally impatient of obtaining power, and incapable of
+using it, renewed to the king the demand of his resigning Normandy;
+and on meeting with a refusal, he fled with his consort to the court
+of France: but not finding Philip at that time disposed to enter into
+war for his sake, he accepted of his father's offers of
+reconciliation, and made him submissions.  It was a cruel circumstance
+in the king's fortune, that he could hope for no tranquillity from the
+criminal enterprises of his sons but by their mutual discord and
+animosities, which disturbed his family, and threw his state into
+convulsions.  Richard, whom he had made master of Guienne, and who had
+displayed his valour and military genius by suppressing the revolts of
+his mutinous barons, refused to obey Henry's orders, in doing homage
+to his elder brother for that duchy, and he defended himself against
+young Henry and Geoffrey, who, uniting their  arms, carried war into
+his territories [f].  The king, with some difficulty, composed this
+difference; but immediately found his eldest son engaged in
+conspiracies, and ready to take arms against himself.  While the young
+prince was conducting these criminal intrigues, he was seized with a
+fever at Martel, [MN 1183.] a castle near Turenne, to which he had
+retired in discontent; and seeing the approaches of death, he was at
+last struck with remorse for his undutiful behaviour towards his
+father.  He sent a message to the king, who was not far distant;
+expressed his contrition for his faults; and entreated the favour of a
+visit, that he might at least die with the satisfaction of having
+obtained his forgiveness.  Henry, who had so often experienced the
+prince's ingratitude and violence, apprehended that his sickness was
+entirely feigned, and he durst not intrust himself into his son's
+hands: but when he soon after received intelligence of young Henry's
+death, [MN 11th June.  Death of young Henry.] and the proofs of his
+sincere repentance, this good prince was affected with the deepest
+sorrow; he thrice fainted away; he accused his own hard-heartedness in
+refusing the dying request of his son; and he lamented that he had
+deprived that prince of the last opportunity of making atonement for
+his offences, and of pouring out his soul in the bosom of his
+reconciled father [s].  This prince died in the twenty-eighth year of
+his age.
+[FN [f] Ypod. Neust. p. 451.  Bened. Abb. p. 383.  Diceto, p. 617.
+[g] Bened. Abb. p. 393.  Hoveden, p. 621.  Trivet, vol. i. p. 84.]
+
+The behaviour of his surviving children did not tend to give the king
+any consolation for the loss.  As Prince Henry had left no posterity,
+Richard was become heir to all his dominions; and the king intended
+that John, his third surviving son and favourite, should inherit
+Guienne as his appanage; but Richard refused his consent, fled into
+that duchy, and even made preparations for carrying on war, as well
+against his father as against his brother Geoffrey, who was now put in
+possession of Britany.  Henry sent for Eleanor his queen, the heiress
+of Guienne, and required Richard to deliver up to her the dominion of
+these territories; which the prince, either dreading an insurrection
+of the Gascons in her favour, or retaining some sense of duty towards
+her, readily performed; and he peaceably returned to his father's
+court.  No sooner was this quarrel accommodated, than Geoffrey, the
+most vicious perhaps of all Henry's unhappy family, broke out into
+violence; demanded Anjou to be annexed to his dominions of Britany;
+and on meeting with a refusal, fled to the court of France, and levied
+forces against his father [h].  [MN 1185.]  Henry was freed from this
+danger by his son's death, who was killed in a tournament at Paris
+[i].  The widow of Geoffrey, soon after his decease, was delivered of
+a son, who received the name of Arthur, and was invested in the duchy
+of Britany, under the guardianship of his grandfather, who, as Duke of
+Normandy, was also superior lord of that territory.  Philip, as lord
+paramount, disputed some time his title to this wardship; but was
+obliged to yield to the inclinations of the Bretons, who preferred the
+government of Henry.
+[FN [h] Neubrig. p. 422.  [i] Bened. Abb. p. 451  Chron. Gervase, p.
+1480.]
+
+[MN Crusades.]
+But the rivalship between these potent princes, and all their inferior
+interests, seemed now to have given place to the general passion for
+the relief of the Holy Land, and the expulsion of the Saracens.  Those
+infidels, though obliged to yield to the immense inundation of
+Christians in the first crusade, had recovered courage after the
+torrent was past; and attacking on all quarters the settlements of the
+Europeans, had reduced these adventurers to great difficulties, and
+obliged them to apply again for succours from the West.  A second
+crusade, under the Emperor Conrade and Lewis VII., King of France, in
+which there perished above two hundred thousand men, brought them but
+a temporary relief; and those princes, after losing such immense
+armies, and seeing the flower of their nobility fall by their side,
+returned with little honour into Europe.  But these repeated
+misfortunes, which drained the western world of its people and
+treasure, were not yet sufficient to cure men of their passion for
+those spiritual adventures; and a new incident rekindled with fresh
+fury the zeal of the ecclesiastics and military adventurers among the
+Latin Christians.  Saladin, a prince of great generosity, bravery, and
+conduct, having fixed himself on the throne of Egypt, began to extend
+his conquests over the East; and finding the settlement of the
+Christians in Palestine an invincible obstacle to the progress of his
+arms, he bent the whole force of his policy and valour to subdue that
+small and barren, but important territory.  Taking advantage of
+dissensions which prevailed among the champions of the cross, and
+having secretly gained the Count of Tripoli, who commanded their
+armies, he invaded the frontiers with a mighty power; and, aided by
+the treachery of that count, gained over them at Tiberiade a complete
+victory, which utterly annihilated the force of the already
+languishing kingdom of Jerusalem.  The holy city itself fell into his
+hands, after a feeble resistance; the kingdom of Antioch was almost
+entirely subdued; and except some maritime towns, nothing considerable
+remained of those boasted conquests, which, near a century before, it
+had cost the efforts of all Europe to acquire [k].
+[FN [k] M. Paris, p. 100.]
+
+[MN 1187.]  The western Christians were astonished on receiving this
+dismal intelligence.  Pope Urban III, it is pretended, died of grief,
+and his successor, Gregory VIII., employed the whole time of his short
+pontificate in rousing to arms all the Christians who acknowledged his
+authority.  The general cry was, that they were unworthy of enjoying
+any inheritance in heaven, who did not vindicate from the dominion of
+the infidel the inheritance of God on earth, and deliver from slavery
+that country which had been consecrated by the footsteps of their
+Redeemer.  [MN 1188.  21st Jan.]  William, Archbishop of Tyre, having
+procured a conference between Henry and Philip near Gisors, enforced
+all these topics; gave a pathetic description of the miserable state
+of the eastern Christians, and employed every argument to excite the
+ruling passions of the age, superstition and jealousy of military
+honour [l].  The two monarchs immediately took the cross; many of
+their most considerable vassals imitated the example [m]; and as the
+Emperor Frederick I. entered into the same confederacy, some
+well-grounded hopes of success were entertained; and men flattered
+themselves that an enterprise which had failed under the conduct of
+many independent leaders, or of impruddent princes, might, at last, by
+the efforts of such potent and able monarchs, be brought to a happy
+issue.
+[FN [l] Bened. Abb. p. 531.  [m] Neubrig. p. 435.  Heming, p. 512.]
+
+The kings of France and England imposed a tax, amounting to the tenth
+of all moveable goods on such as remained at home [n]; but as they
+exempted from this burden most of the regular clergy, the secular
+aspired to the same immunity; pretended that their duty obliged them
+to assist the crusade with their prayers alone; and it was with some
+difficulty they were constrained to desist from an opposition, which
+in them who had been the chief promoters of those pious enterprises,
+appeared with the worst grace imaginable [o].  This backwardness of
+the clergy is perhaps a symptom, that the enthusiastic ardour which
+had at first seized the people for crusades, was now by time and ill
+success considerably abated; and that the frenzy was chiefly supported
+by the military genius and love of glory in the monarchs.
+[FN [n] Bened. Abb. p. 498.  [o] Petri Blessen. epist. 112.]
+
+But before this great machine could be put in motion, there were still
+many obstacles to surmount.  Philip, jealous of Henry's power, entered
+into a private confederacy with young Richard; and, working on his
+ambitious and impatient temper, persuaded him, instead of supporting
+and aggrandizing that monarchy which he was one day to inherit, to
+seek present power and independence by disturbing and dismembering it.
+[MN 1189.  Revolt of Prince Richard.]  In order to give a pretence for
+hostilities between the two kings, Richard broke into the territories
+of Raymond, Count of Toulouse, who immediately carried complaints of
+this violence before the King of France as his superior lord.  Philip
+remonstrated with Henry; but received for answer, that Richard had
+confessed to the Archbishop of Dublin, that his enterprise against
+Raymond had been undertaken by the approbation of Philip himself, and
+was conducted by his authority.  The King of France, who might have
+been covered with shame and confusion by this detection, still
+prosecuted his design, and invaded the provinces of Berri and
+Auvergne, under colour of revenging the quarrel of the Count of
+Toulouse [p].  Henry retaliated by making inroads upon the frontiers
+of France, and burning Dreux.  As this war, which destroyed all hopes
+of success in the projected crusade, gave great scandal, the two kings
+held a conference at the accustomed place between Gisors and Trie, in
+order to find means of accommodating their differences: they separated
+on worse terms than before; and Philip, to show his disgust, ordered a
+great elm, under which the conferences had been usually held, to be
+cut down [q]; as if he had renounced all desire of accommodation, and
+was determined to carry the war to extremities against the King of
+England.  But his own vassals refused to serve under him in so
+invidious a cause [r]; and he was obliged to come anew to a conference
+with Henry, and to offer terms of peace.  These terms were such as
+entirely opened the eyes of the King of England, and fully convinced
+him of the perfidy of his son, and his secret alliance with Philip, of
+which he had before only entertained some suspicion.  The King of
+France required that Richard should be crowned King of England in the
+lifetime of his father, should be invested in all his transmarine
+dominions, and should immediately espouse Alice, Philip's sister, to
+whom he had formerly been affianced, and who had already been
+conducted into England [s].  Henry had experienced such fatal effects
+both from the crowning of his eldest son, and from that prince's
+alliance with the royal family of France, that he rejected these
+terms; and Richard, in consequence of his secret agreement with
+Philip, immediately revolted from him [t], did homage to the King of
+France for all the dominions which Henry held of that crown, and
+received the investitures as if he had already been the lawful
+possessor.  Several historians assert, that Henry himself had become
+enamoured of young Alice and mention this as an additional reason for
+his refusing these conditions: but he had so many other just and
+equitable motives for his conduct, that it is superfluous to assign a
+cause, which the great prudence and advanced age of that monarch
+rendered somewhat improbable.
+[FN [p] Bened. Abb. p. 508.  [q] Bened. Abb. p. 517, 532.  [r] Ibid.
+p. 519.  [s] Ibid. p. 521.  Hoveden, p. 652.  [t] Brompton, p. 114.
+Neubrig. p. 437.]
+
+Cardinal Albano, the pope's legate, displeased with these increasing
+obstacles to the crusade, excommunicated Richard, as the chief spring
+of discord: but the sentence of excommunication, which, when it was
+properly prepared, and was zealously supported by the clergy, had
+often great influence in that age, proved entirely ineffectual in the
+present case.  The chief barons of Poictou, Guienne, Normandy, and
+Anjou, being attached to the young prince, and finding that he had now
+received the investiture from their superior lord, declared for him,
+and made inroads into the territories of such as still adhered to the
+king.  Henry, disquieted by the daily revolts of his mutinous
+subjects, and dreading still worse effects from their turbulent
+disposition, had again recourse to papal authority; and engaged the
+Cardinal Anagni, who had succeeded Albano in the legateship, to
+threaten Philip with laying an interdict on all his dominions.  But
+Philip, who was a prince of great vigour and capacity, despised the
+menace, and told Anagni, that it belonged not to the pope to interpose
+in the temporal disputes of princes, much less in those between him
+and his rebellious vassal.  He even proceeded so far as to reproach
+him with partiality, and with receiving bribes from the king of
+England [u]; while Richard, still more outrageous, offered to draw his
+sword against the legate, and was hindered by the interposition alone
+of the company from committing violence upon him [w].
+[FN [u] M. Paris, p. 104.  Bened. Abb. p. 542.  Hoveden, p. 652.  [w]
+M. Paris, p. 104.]
+
+The King of England was now obliged to defend his dominions by arms,
+and to engage in a war with France, and with his eldest son, a prince
+of great valour, on such disadvantageous terms.  Ferté-Barnard fell
+first into the hands of the enemy: Mans was next taken by assault; and
+Henry, who had thrown himself into that place, escaped with some
+difficulty [x]: Amboise, Chaumont, and Chateau de Loire, opened their
+gates on the appearance of Philip and Richard: Tours was menaced; and
+the king, who had retired to Saumur, and had daily instances of the
+cowardice or infidelity of his governors, expected the most dismal
+issue to all his enterprises.  While he was in this state of
+despondency, the Duke of Burgundy, the Earl of Flanders, and the
+Archbishop of Rheims, interposed with their good offices; and the
+intelligence which he received of the taking of Tours, and which made
+him fully sensible of the desperate situation of his affairs, so
+subdued his spirit that he submitted to all the rigorous terms which
+were imposed upon him.  He agreed that Richard should marry the
+Princess Alice; that that prince should receive the homage and oath of
+fealty of all his subjects both in England and his transmarine
+dominions; that he himself should pay twenty thousand marks to the
+King of France as a compensation for the charges of the war; that his
+own barons should engage to make him observe this treaty by force, and
+in case of his violating it, should promise to join Philip and Richard
+against him; and that all his vassals who had entered into confederacy
+with Richard, should receive an indemnity for the offence [y].
+[FN [x] Ibid. p. 105.  Bened. Abb. p. 543.  Hoveden, p. 653.  [y] M.
+Paris, p. 106.  Bened. Abb. p. 545.  Hoveden, p. 653.]
+
+But the mortification which Henry, who had been accustomed to give the
+law in most treaties, received from these disadvantageous terms, was
+the least that he met with on this occasion.  When he demanded a list
+of those barons, to whom he was bound to grant a pardon for their
+connexions with Richard, he was astonished to find at the head of them
+the name of his second son John [z]; who had always been his
+favourite, whose interests he had ever anxiously at heart, and who had
+even, on account of his ascendant over him, often excited the jealousy
+of Richard [a].  The unhappy father, already overloaded with cares and
+sorrows, finding this last disappointment in his domestic tenderness,
+broke out into expressions of the utmost despair, cursed the day in
+which he received his miserable being, and bestowed on his ungrateful
+and undutiful children a malediction which he never could be prevailed
+on to retract [b].  The more his heart was disposed to friendship and
+affection, the more he resented the barbarous return which his four
+sons had successively made to his parental care; and this finishing
+blow, by depriving him of every comfort in life, quite broke his
+spirit and threw him into a lingering fever, of which he expired at
+the Castle of Chinon, near Saumur.  [MN 1189.  6th July.  Death,]  His
+natural son Geoffrey, who alone had behaved dutifully towards him,
+attended his corpse to the nunnery of Fontevrault; where it lay in
+state in the abbey church.  Next day Richard, who came to visit the
+dead body of his father, and who, notwithstanding his criminal
+conduct, was not wholly destitute of generosity, was struck with
+horror and remorse at the sight; and as the attendants observed, that,
+at that very instant, blood gushed from the mouth and nostrils of the
+corpse [c], he exclaimed, agreeably to a vulgar superstition, that he
+was his father's murderer; and he expressed a deep sense, though too
+late, of that undutiful behaviour which had brought his parent to an
+untimely grave [d].
+[FN [z] Hoveden. p. 654.  [a] Bened. Abb. p. 541.  [b] Hoveden, p.
+654.  [c] Bened. Abb. p. 547.  Brompton, p. 1151.  [d] M. Paris, p.
+107.]
+
+[MN and character of Henry.]  Thus died, in the fifty-eighth year of
+his age, and thirty-fifth of his reign, the greatest prince of his
+time, for wisdom, virtue, and abilities, and the most powerful in
+extent of dominion of all those that had ever filled the throne of
+England.  His character, in private as well as in public life, is
+almost without a blemish; and he seems to have possessed every
+accomplishment, both of body and mind, which makes a man either
+estimable or amiable.  He was of a middle stature, strong and well
+proportioned; his countenance was lively and engaging; his
+conversation affable and entertaining; his elocution easy, persuasive,
+and ever at command.  He loved peace, but possessed both bravery and
+conduct in war; was provident without timidity; severe in the
+execution of justice without rigour; and temperate without austerity.
+He preserved health, and kept himself from corpulency, to which he was
+somewhat inclined, by an abstemious diet and by frequent exercise,
+particularly hunting.  When he could enjoy leisure, he recreated
+himself either in learned conversation or in reading; and he
+cultivated his natural talents by study, above any prince of his time.
+His affections, as well as his enmities, were warm and durable; and
+his long experience of the ingratitude and infidelity of men never
+destroyed the natural sensibility of his temper, which disposed him to
+friendship and society.  His character has been transmitted to us by
+several writers who were his contemporaries [e]; and it extremely
+resembles, in its most remarkable features, that of his maternal
+grandfather Henry I.: excepting only that ambition, which was a ruling
+passion in both, found not in the first Henry such unexceptionable
+means of exerting itself, and pushed that prince into measures which
+were both criminal in themselves, and were the cause of farther
+crimes, from which his grandsonÂ’s conduct was happily exempted.
+[FN [e] Petri Bles. epist. 46, 47. in Bibliotheca Patrum, vol. xxiv.
+p. 985, 986, &c.  Girald. Camb. p. 783, &c.]
+
+[MN Miscellaneous transactions of this reign.]
+This prince, like most of his predecessors of the Norman line, except
+Stephen, passed more of his time on the continent than in this island:
+he was surrounded with the English gentry and nobility, when abroad:
+the French gentry and nobility attended him when he resided in
+England: both nations acted in the government as if they were the same
+people: and, on many occasions, the legislatures seem not to have been
+distinguished.  As the king and all the English barons were of French
+extraction, the manners of that people acquired the ascendant, and
+were regarded as the models of imitation.  All foreign improvements,
+therefore, such as they were, in literature and politeness, in laws
+and arts, seem now to have been, in a good measure, transplanted into
+England; and that kingdom was become little inferior, in all the
+fashionable accomplishments, to any of its neighbours on the
+continent.  The more homely but more sensible manners and principles
+of the Saxons were exchanged for the affectations of chivalry, and the
+subtleties of school philosophy: the feudal ideas of civil government,
+the Romish sentiments in religion, had taken entire possession of the
+people: by the former, the sense of submission towards princes was
+somewhat diminished in the barons; by the latter the devoted
+attachment to papal authority was much augmented among the clergy.
+The Norman and other foreign families established in England had now
+struck deep root; and being entirely incorporated with the people,
+whom at first they oppressed and despised, they no longer thought that
+they needed  protection of the crown for the enjoyment of their
+possessions, or considered their tenure as precarious.  They aspired
+to the same liberty and independence which they saw enjoyed by their
+brethren on the continent, and desired to restrain those exorbitant
+prerogatives and arbitrary practices, which the necessities of war and
+the violence of conquest had at first obliged them to indulge in their
+monarch.  That memory also of a more equal government under the Saxon
+princes, which remained with the English, diffused still farther the
+spirit of liberty, and made the barons both desirous of more
+independence to themselves, and willing to indulge it to the people.
+And it was not long ere this secret revolution in the sentiments of
+men produced, first violent convulsions in the state, then an evident
+alteration in the maxims of government.
+
+The history of all the preceding Kings of England since the Conquest
+gives evident proofs of the disorders attending the feudal
+institutions; the licentiousness of the barons, their spirit of
+rebellion against the prince and laws, and of animosity against each
+other: the conduct of the barons in the transmarine dominions of those
+monarchs afforded perhaps still more flagrant instances of these
+convulsions; and the history of France, during several ages, consists
+almost entirely of narrations of this nature.  The cities, during the
+continuance of this violent government, could neither be very numerous
+nor populous; and there occur instances which seem to evince, that
+though these are always the first seat of law and liberty, their
+police was in general loose and irregular, and exposed to the same
+disorders with those by which the country was generally infested.  It
+was a custom in London for great numbers, to the amount of a hundred
+or more, the sons and relations of considerable citizens, to form
+themselves into a licentious confederacy, to break into rich houses
+and plunder them, to rob and murder the passengers, and to commit with
+impunity all sorts of disorder.  By these crimes, it had become so
+dangerous to walk the streets by night, that the citizens durst no
+more venture abroad after sunset than if they had been exposed to the
+incursions of a public enemy.  The brother of the Earl of Ferrars had
+been murdered by some of those nocturnal rioters; and the death of so
+eminent a person, which was much more regarded than that of many
+thousands of an inferior station, so provoked the king, that he swore
+vengeance against the criminals and became thenceforth more rigorous
+in the execution of the laws [f].
+[FN [f] Bened. Abb. p. 196.]
+
+There is another instance given by historians, which proves to what a
+height such riots had proceeded, and how open these criminals were in
+committing their robberies.  A band of them had attacked the house of
+a rich citizen, with an intention of plundering it; had broken through
+a stone wall with hammers and wedges; and had already entered the
+house sword in hand; when the citizen armed cap-a-pie, and supported
+by his faithful servants, appeared in the passage to oppose them; he
+cut off the right hand of the first robber that entered; and made such
+stout resistance, that his neighbours had leisure to assemble, and
+come to his relief.  The man who lost his hand was taken; and was
+tempted by the promise of pardon to reveal his confederates; among
+whom was one John Senex, esteemed among the richest and best-born
+citizens in London.  He was convicted by the ordeal; and though he
+offered five hundred marks for his life, the king refused the money,
+and ordered him to be hanged [g].  It appears from a statute of Edward
+I. that these disorders were not remedied even in that reign.  It was
+then made penal to go out at night after the hour of the curfew, to
+carry a weapon, or to walk without a light or lantern [h].  It is said
+in the preamble to this law, that, both by night and by day, there
+were continual frays in the streets of London.
+[FN [g] Ibid. p. 197, 198.  [h] Observations on the ancient Statutes,
+p. 216.]
+
+Henry's care in administering justice had gained him so great a
+reputation, that even foreign and distant princes made him arbiter,
+and submitted their differences to his judgment.  Sanchez, King of
+Navarre, having some controversies with Alphonso, King of Castile, was
+contented, though Alphonso had married the daughter of Henry, to
+choose this prince for a referee; and they agreed each of them to
+consign three castles into neutral hands as a pledge of their not
+departing from his award.  Henry  made the cause be examined before
+his great council, and gave a sentence, which was submitted to by both
+parties.  These two Spanish kings sent each a stout champion to the
+court of England, in order to defend his cause by arms, in case the
+way of duel had been chosen by Henry [i].
+[FN [i] Rymer, vol. iv. p. 43.  Bened. Abb. p. 172.  Diceto, p. 597.
+Brompton, p. 1120.]
+
+Henry so far abolished the barbarous and absurd practice of
+confiscating ships which had been wrecked on the coast, that he
+ordained, if one man or animal were alive in the ship, that the vessel
+and goods should be restored to the owners [k].
+[FN [k] Rymer, vol. i. p. 36.]
+
+The reign of Henry was remarkable also for an innovation which was
+afterwards carried farther by his successors, and was attended with
+the most important consequences.  This prince was disgusted with the
+species of military force which was established by the feudal
+institutions, and which, though it was extremely burdensome to the
+subject, yet rendered very little service to the sovereign.  The
+barons, or military tenants, came late into the field; they were
+obliged to serve only forty days; they were unskilful and disorderly
+in all their operations; and they were apt to carry into the camp the
+same refractory and independent spirit, to which they were accustomed
+in their civil government.  Henry, therefore, introduced the practice
+of making a commutation of their military service for money; and he
+levied scutages from his baronies and knights' fees, instead of
+requiring the personal attendance of his vassals.  There is mention
+made, in the History of the Exchequer, of these scutages in his
+second, fifth, and eighteenth year [l]; and other writers give us an
+account of three more of them [m].  When the prince had thus obtained
+money, he made a contract with some of those adventurers in which
+Europe at that time abounded: they found him soldiers of the same
+character with themselves, who were bound to serve for a stipulated
+time: the armies were less numerous, but more useful, than when
+composed of all the military vassals of the crown: the feudal
+institutions began to relax: the kings became rapacious for money, on
+which all their power depended: the barons, seeing no end of
+exactions, sought to defend their property: and as the same causes had
+nearly the same effects in the different countries of Europe, the
+several crowns either lost or acquired authority, according to their
+different success in the contest.
+[FN [l] Madox, p. 435, 436, 437, 438.  [m] Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 466,
+from the records.]
+
+This prince was also the first that levied a tax on the moveables or
+personal estates of his subjects, nobles as well as commons.  Their
+zeal for the holy wars made them submit to this innovation; and a
+precedent being once obtained, this taxation became, in following
+reigns, the usual method of supplying the necessities of the crown.
+The tax of Danegelt, so generally odious to the nation, was remitted
+in this reign.
+
+It was a usual practice of the Kings of England to repeat the ceremony
+of their coronation thrice every year, on assembling the states at the
+three great festivals.  Henry, after the first years of his reign,
+never renewed this ceremony, which was found to be very expensive and
+very useless.  None of his successors revived it.  It is considered as
+a great act of grace in this prince, that he mitigated the rigour of
+the forest laws, and punished any transgressions of them, not
+capitally, but by fines, imprisonments, and other more moderate
+penalties.
+
+Since we are here collecting some detached incidents which show the
+genius of the age, and which could not so well enter into the body of
+our history, it may not be improper to mention the quarrel between
+Roger, Archbishop of York, and Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury.  We
+may judge of the violence of military men and laymen, when
+ecclesiastics could proceed to such extremities.  Cardinal Haguezun
+being sent, in 1176, as legate into Britain, summoned an assembly of
+the clergy at London; and as both the archbishops pretended to sit on
+his right hand, this question of precedency begat a controversy
+between them.  The monks and retainers of Archbishop Richard fell upon
+Roger, in the presence of the cardinal and of the synod, threw him to
+the ground, trampled him under foot, and so bruised him with blows
+that he was taken up half dead, and his life was with difficulty saved
+from their violence.  The Archbishop of Canterbury was obliged to pay
+a large sum of money to the legate, in order to suppress all
+complaints with regard to this enormity [n].
+[FN [n] Bened. Abb. p. 138, 139.  Brompton, p. 1109.  Chron Gerv. p.
+1433.  Neubrig. p. 413.]
+
+We are told by Giraldus Cambrensis, that the monks and prior of St.
+Swithun threw themselves one day prostrate on the ground and in the
+mire before Henry, complaining, with many tears and much doleful
+lamentation, that the Bishop of Winchester, who was also their abbot,
+had cut off three dishes from their table.  How many has he left you?
+said the king.  Ten only, replied the disconsolate monks.  I myself,
+exclaimed the king, never have more than three; and I enjoin your
+bishop to reduce you to the same number [o].
+[FN [o] Gir. Camb. cap. 5. in Anglia Sacra, vol. ii.]
+
+This king left only two legitimate sons, Richard who succeeded him,
+and John who inherited no territory, though his father had often
+intended to leave him a part of his extensive dominions.  He was
+thence commonly denominated LACKLAND.  Henry left three legitimate
+daughters: Maud, born in 1156, and married to Henry, Duke of Saxony;
+Eleanor, born in 1162, and married to Alphonso, King of Castile; Joan,
+born in 1165, and married to William, King of Sicily [p].
+[FN [p] Diceto, p. 616.]
+
+Henry is said by ancient historians to have been of a very amorous
+disposition: they mention two of his natural sons by Rosamond,
+daughter of Lord Clifford; namely, Richard Longespee, or Longsword,
+(so called from the sword he usually wore,) who was afterwards married
+to Ela, the daughter and heir of the Earl of Salisbury; and Geoffrey,
+first Bishop of Lincoln, then Archbishop of York.  All the other
+circumstances of the story, commonly told of that lady, seem to be
+fabulous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+RICHARD I.
+
+THE KING'S PREPARATIONS FOR THE CRUSADE.--SETS OUT ON THE CRUSADE.--
+TRANSACTIONS IN SICILY.--KING'S ARRIVAL IN PALESTINE.--STATE OF
+PALESTINE.--DISORDERS IN ENGLAND.--THE KING'S HEROIC ACTIONS IN
+PALESTINE.--HIS RETURN FROM PALESTINE.--CAPTIVITY IN GERMANY.--WAR
+WITH FRANCE.--THE KING'S DELIVERY.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--WAR WITH
+FRANCE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF THE KING.--MISCELLANEOUS TRANSACTIONS
+OF THIS REIGN.
+
+
+
+[MN 1189.]  The compunction of Richard for his undutiful behaviour
+towards his father was durable, and influenced him in the choice of
+his ministers and servants after his accession.  Those who had
+seconded and favoured his rebellion, instead of meeting with that
+trust and honour which they expected, were surprised to find that they
+lay under disgrace with the new king, and were on all occasions hated
+and despised by him.  The faithful ministers of Henry, who had
+vigorously opposed all the enterprises of his sons, were received with
+open arms, and were continued in those offices which they had
+honourably discharged to their former master [a].  This prudent
+conduct might be the result of reflection; but in a prince like
+Richard, so much guided by passion, and so little by policy, it was
+commonly ascribed to a principle still more virtuous and more
+honourable.
+[FN [a] Hoveden, p. 655.  Bened. Abb. p. 547.  M. Paris, p. 107.]
+
+Richard, that he might make atonement to one parent for his breach of
+duty to the other, immediately sent orders for releasing the queen-
+dowager from the confinement in which she had long been detained; and
+he intrusted her with the government of England till his arrival in
+that kingdom.  His bounty to his brother John was rather profuse and
+imprudent.  Besides bestowing on him the county of Mortaigne, in
+Normandy, granting him a pension of four thousand marks a year, and
+marrying him to Avisa, the daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, by whom
+he inherited all the possessions of that opulent family, he increased
+his appanage, which the late king had destined him, by other extensive
+grants and concessions.  He conferred on him the whole estate of
+William Peverell, which had escheated to the crown: he put him in
+possession of eight castles, with all the forests and honours annexed
+to them: he delivered over to him no less than six earldoms, Cornwall,
+Devon, Somerset, Nottingham, Dorset, Lancaster, and Derby.  And
+endeavouring by favours, to fix that vicious prince in his duty, he
+put it too much in his power, whenever he pleased, to depart from it.
+
+[MN The kingÂ’s preparations for the crusade.]
+The king, impelled more by the love of military glory than by
+superstition, acted from the beginning of his reign, as if the sole
+purpose of his government had been the relief of the Holy Land, and
+the recovery of Jerusalem from the Saracens.  This zeal against
+infidels, being communicated to his subjects, broke out in London on
+the day of his coronation, and made them find a crusade less
+dangerous, and attended with more immediate profit.  The prejudices of
+the age had made the lending of money on interest pass by the
+invidious name of usury; yet the necessity of the practice had still
+continued it, and the greater part of that kind of dealing fell
+everywhere into the hands of the Jews; who being already infamous on
+account of their religion, had no honour to lose, and were apt to
+exercise a profession, odious in itself, by every kind of rigour, and
+even sometimes by rapine and extortion.  The industry and frugality of
+this people had put them in possession of all the ready money, which
+the idleness and profusion, common to the English with other European
+nations, enabled them to lend at exorbitant and unequal interest.  The
+monkish writers represent it as a great stain on the wise and
+equitable government of Henry, that he had carefully protected this
+infidel race from all injures and insults; but the zeal of Richard
+afforded the populace a pretence for venting their animosity against
+them.  The king had issued an edict prohibiting their appearance at
+his coronation; but some of them, bringing him large presents from
+their nation, presumed, in confidence of that merit, to approach the
+hall in which he dined: being discovered, they were exposed to the
+insults of the bystanders; they took to flight; the people pursued
+them; the rumour was spread that the king had issued orders to
+massacre all the Jews; a command so agreeable was executed in an
+instant on such as fell into the hands of the populace; those who had
+kept at home were exposed to equal danger; the people, moved by
+rapacity and zeal, broke into their houses, which they plundered,
+after having murdered the owners; where the Jews barricaded their
+doors, and defended themselves with vigour, the rabble set fire to the
+houses, and made way through the flames to exercise their pillage and
+violence; the usual licentiousness of London, which the sovereign
+power with difficulty restrained, broke out with fury, and continued
+these outrages; the houses of the richest citizens, though Christians,
+were next attacked and plundered; and weariness and satiety at last
+put an end to the disorder: yet, when the king empowered Glanville,
+the justiciary, to inquire into the authors of these crimes, the guilt
+was found to involve so many of the most considerable citizens, that
+it was deemed more prudent to drop the prosecution; and very few
+suffered the punishment due to this enormity.  But the disorder
+stopped not at London.  The inhabitants of the other cities of
+England, hearing of this slaughter of the Jews, imitated the example:
+in York, five hundred of that nation, who had retired into the castle
+for safety, and found themselves unable to defend the place, murdered
+their own wives and children, threw the dead bodies over the walls
+upon the populace, and then setting fire to the houses perished in the
+flames.  The gentry of the neighbourhood, who were all indebted to the
+Jews, ran to the cathedral, where their bonds were kept, and made a
+solemn bonfire of the papers before the altar.  The compiler of the
+Annals of Waverley, in relating these events, blesses the Almighty for
+thus delivering over this impious race to destruction [b].
+[FN [b] Gale's Collect. vol. iii. p. 165.]
+
+The ancient situation of England, when the people possessed little
+riches and the public no credit, made it impossible for sovereigns to
+bear the expense of a steady or durable war, even on their frontiers;
+much less could they find regular means for the support of distant
+expeditions like those into Palestine, which were more the result of
+popular frenzy than of sober reason or deliberate policy.  Richard,
+therefore, knew that he must carry with him all the treasure necessary
+for his enterprise, and that both the remoteness of his own country
+and its poverty made it unable to furnish him with those continued
+supplies, which the exigencies of so perilous a war must necessarily
+require.  His father had left him a treasure of above a hundred
+thousand marks; and the king, negligent of every consideration but his
+present object, endeavoured to augment this sum by all expedients, how
+pernicious soever to the public, or dangerous to royal authority.  He
+put to sale the revenues and manors of the crown; the offices of
+greatest trust and power, even those of forester and sheriff, which
+anciently were so important [c], became venal; the dignity of chief
+justiciary, in whose hands was lodged the whole execution of the laws,
+was sold to Hugh de Puzas, Bishop of Durham, for a thousand marks; the
+same prelate bought the earldom of Northumberland for life [d]; many
+of the champions of the cross, who had repented of the vow, purchased
+the liberty of violating it; and Richard, who stood less in need of
+men than of money, dispensed, on these conditions, with their
+attendance.  Elated with the hopes of fame, which, in that age,
+attended no wars but those against the infidels, he was blind to every
+other consideration; and when some of his wiser ministers objected to
+this dissipation of the revenue and power of the crown, he replied
+that he would sell London itself, could he find a purchaser [e].
+Nothing, indeed, could be a stronger proof how negligent he was of all
+future interests in comparison of the crusade, than his selling, for
+so small a sum as ten thousand marks, the vassalage of Scotland,
+together with the fortresses of Roxburgh and Berwick, the greatest
+acquisition that had been made by his father during the course of his
+victorious reign; and his accepting the homage of William in the usual
+terms, merely for the territories which that prince held in England
+[f].  The English of all ranks and stations were oppressed by numerous
+exactions; menaces were employed, both against the innocent and the
+guilty, in order to extort money from them; and where a pretence was
+wanting against the rich, the king obliged them, by the fear of his
+displeasure, to lend him sums which, he knew, it would never be in his
+power to repay.
+[FN [c] The sheriff had anciently both the administration of justice
+and the management of the king's revenue committed to him in the
+county. See HALE, OF SHERIFFÂ’S ACCOUNTS.  [d] M. Paris, p. 109.  [e]
+W. Heming. p. 519.  Knyghton, p. 2402.  [f] Hoveden, p. 662.  Rymer,
+vol. i. p. 64.  M. West. p. 257.]
+
+But Richard, though he sacrificed every interest and consideration to
+the success of this pious enterprise, carried so little the appearance
+of sanctity in his conduct, that Fulk, curate of Neuilly, a zealous
+preacher of the crusade, who, from that merit, had acquired the
+privilege of speaking the boldest truths, advised him to rid himself
+of his notorious vices, particularly his pride, avarice, and
+voluptuousness, which he called the king's three favourite daughters.
+YOU COUNSEL WELL, replied Richard, and I HEREBY DISPOSE OF THE FIRST
+TO THE TEMPLARS, OF THE SECOND TO THE BENEDICTINES, AND OF THE THIRD
+TO MY PRELATES.
+
+Richard, jealous of attempts which might be made on England during his
+absence, laid Prince John, as well as his natural brother, Geoffrey,
+Archbishop of York, under engagements, confirmed by their oaths, that
+neither of them should enter the kingdom till his return; though he
+thought proper, before his departure, to withdraw this prohibition.
+The administration was left in the hands of Hugh, Bishop of Durham,
+and of Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, whom he appointed justiciaries and
+guardians of the realm.  The latter was a Frenchman, of mean birth,
+and of a violent character; who, by art and address, had insinuated
+himself into favour, whom Richard had created chancellor, and whom he
+had engaged the pope also to invest with the legatine authority, that,
+by centering every kind of power in his person, he might the better
+ensure the public tranquillity.  All the military and turbulent
+spirits flocked about the person of the king, and were impatient to
+distinguish themselves against the infidels in Asia; whither his
+inclinations, his engagements, led him, and whither he was impelled by
+messages from the King of France, ready to embark in this enterprise.
+
+The Emperor Frederic, a prince of great spirit and conduct, had
+already taken the road to Palestine, at the head of one hundred and
+fifty thousand men, collected from Germany and all the northern
+states.  Having surmounted every obstacle thrown in his way by the
+artifices of the Greeks and the power of the infidels, he had
+penetrated to the borders of Syria; when, bathing in the cold river
+Cydnus during the greatest heat of the summer season, he was seized
+with a mortal distemper, which put an end to his life and his rash
+enterprise [g].  His army, under the command of his son, Conrade,
+reached Palestine; but was so diminished by fatigue, famine, maladies,
+and the sword, that it scarcely amounted to eight thousand men; and
+was unable to make any progress against the great power, valour, and
+conduct of Saladin.  These reiterated calamities attending the
+crusades had taught the Kings of France and England the necessity of
+trying another road to the Holy Land; and they determined to conduct
+their armies thither by sea, to carry provisions along with them, and,
+by means of their naval power, to maintain an open communication with
+their own states, and with the western parts of Europe.  The place of
+rendezvous was appointed in the plains of Vezelay, on the borders of
+Burgundy [h]: [MN 1190.  29th June.] Philip and Richard, on their
+arrival there, found their combined army amount to one hundred
+thousand men [i]; a mighty force, animated with glory and religion,
+conducted by two warlike monarchs, provided with every thing which
+their several dominions could supply, and not to be overcome but by
+their own misconduct, or by the unsurmountable obstacles of nature.
+[FN [g] Bened. Abb. p. 556.  [h] Hoveden, p. 660.  [i] Vinisauf, p.
+305.]
+
+[MN King sets out on the crusade.]
+The French prince and the English here reiterated their promises of
+cordial friendship, pledged their faith not to invade each other's
+dominions during the crusade, mutually exchanged the oaths of all
+their barons and prelates to the same effect, and subjected themselves
+to the penalty of interdicts and excommunications, if they should ever
+violate this public and solemn engagement.  They then separated;
+Philip took the road to Genoa, Richard that to Marseilles, with a view
+of meeting their fleets, which were severally appointed to rendezvous
+in these harbours.  [MN 14th Sept.]  They put to sea; and, nearly
+about the same time, were obliged, by stress of weather, to take
+shelter in Messina, where they were detained during the whole winter.
+This incident laid the foundation of animosities which proved fatal to
+their enterprise.
+
+Richard and Philip were, by the situation and extent of their
+dominions, rivals in power; by their age and inclinations, competitors
+for glory; and these causes of emulation which, had the princes been
+employed in the field against the common enemy, might have stimulated
+them to martial enterprises, soon excited, during the present leisure
+and repose, quarrels between monarchs of such a fiery character.
+Equally haughty, ambitious, intrepid, and inflexible, they were
+irritated with the least appearance of injury, and were incapable, by
+mutual condescensions, to efface those causes of complaint, which
+unavoidably arose between them.  Richard, candid, sincere,
+undesigning, impolitic, violent, laid himself open, on every occasion,
+to the designs of his antagonist; who, provident, interested,
+intriguing, failed not to take all advantages against him: and thus,
+both the circumstances of their disposition in which they were
+similar, and those in which they differed, rendered it impossible for
+them to persevere in that harmony which was so necessary to the
+success of their undertaking.
+
+[MN Transactions in Sicily.]
+The last King of Sicily and Naples was William II., who had married
+Joan, sister to Richard, and who, dying without issue, had bequeathed
+his dominions to his paternal aunt, Constantia, the only legitimate
+descendant surviving of Roger, the first sovereign of those states who
+had been honoured with the royal title.  This princess had, in
+expectation of that rich inheritance, been married to Henry VI., the
+reigning emperor [k]; but Tancred, her natural brother, had fixed such
+an interest among the barons, that, taking advantage of Henry's
+absence, he had acquired possession of the throne, and maintained his
+claim, by force of arms, against all the efforts of the Germans [l].
+The approach of the crusaders naturally gave him apprehensions for his
+unstable government; and he was uncertain, whether he had most reason
+to dread the presence of the French or of the English monarch.  Philip
+was engaged in a strict alliance with the emperor his competitor;
+Richard was disgusted by his rigours towards the queen-dowager, whom
+the Sicilian prince had confined in Palermo, because she had opposed
+with all her interest his succession to the crown.  Tancred,
+therefore, sensible of the present necessity, resolved to pay court to
+both these formidable princes; and he was not unsuccessful in his
+endeavours.  He persuaded Philip that it was highly improper for him
+to interrupt his enterprise against the infidels, by any attempt
+against a Christian state: he restored Queen Joan to her liberty; and
+even found means to make an alliance with Richard, who stipulated by
+treaty to marry his nephew, Arthur, the young Duke of Britany, to one
+of the daughters of Tancred [m].  But before these terms of friendship
+were settled, Richard, jealous both of Tancred and of the inhabitants
+of Messina, had taken up his quarters in the suburbs, and had
+possessed himself of a small fort, which commanded the harbour; and he
+kept himself extremely on his guard against their enterprises.  [MN 3d
+Oct.]  The citizens took umbrage.  Mutual insults and attacks passed
+between them and the English: Philip, who had quartered his troops in
+the town, endeavoured to accommodate the quarrel, and held a
+conference with Richard for that purpose.  While the two kings,
+meeting in the open fields, were engaged in discourse on this subject,
+a body of those Sicilians seemed to be drawing towards them; and
+Richard pushed forwards, in order to inquire into the reason of this
+extraordinary movement [n].  The English, insolent from their power,
+and inflamed with former animosities, wanted but a pretence for
+attacking the Messinese: they soon chased them off the field, drove
+them into the town, and entered with them at the gates.  The king
+employed his authority to restrain them from pillaging and massacring
+the defenceless inhabitants; but he gave orders, in token of his
+victory, that the standard of England should be erected on the walls.
+Philip, who considered that place as his quarters, exclaimed against
+the insult, and ordered some of his troops to pull down the standard:
+but Richard informed him by a messenger, that, though he himself would
+willingly remove that ground of offence, he would not permit it to be
+done by others; and if the French king attempted such an insult upon
+him, he should not succeed but by the utmost effusion of blood.
+Philip, content with this species of haughty submission, recalled his
+orders [o]; the difference was seemingly accommodated; but still left
+the remains of rancour and jealousy in the breasts of the two
+monarchs.
+[FN [k] Bened. Abb. p. 580.  [1] Hoveden, p. 663.  [m] Hoveden, p.
+676, 677.  Bened Abb. p. 615.  [n] Bened. Abb. p. 608.  [o] Hoveden,
+p. 674.]
+
+Tancred, who, for his own security, desired to inflame their mutual
+hatred, employed an artifice which might have been attended with
+consequences still more fatal.  [MN 1191.]  He showed Richard a
+letter, signed by the French king, and delivered to him, as he
+pretended, by the Duke of Burgundy; in which that monarch desired
+Tancred to fall upon the quarters of the English, and promised to
+assist him in putting them to the sword, as common enemies.  The
+unwary Richard gave credit to the information; but was too candid not
+to betray his discontent to Philip, who absolutely denied the letter,
+and charged the Sicilian prince with forgery and falsehood.  Richard
+either was, or pretended to be, entirely satisfied [p].
+[FN [p] Ibid. p. 688.  Bened. Abb. p. 642, 643.  Brompton, p. 1195.]
+
+Lest these jealousies and complaints should multiply between them, it
+was proposed, that they should, by a solemn treaty, obviate all future
+differences, and adjust every point that could possibly hereafter
+become a controversy between them.  But this expedient started a new
+dispute, which might have proved more dangerous than any of the
+foregoing, and which deeply concerned the honour of Philip's family.
+When Richard, in every treaty with the late king, insisted so
+strenuously on being allowed to marry Alice of France, he had only
+sought a pretence for quarrelling; and never meant to take to his bed
+a princess suspected of a criminal amour with his own father.  After
+he became master, he no longer spake of that alliance: he even took
+measures for espousing Berengaria, daughter of Sanchez, King of
+Navarre, with whom he had become enamoured during his abode in Guienne
+[q]; Queen Eleanor was daily expected with that princess at Messina
+[r] and when Philip renewed to him his applications for espousing his
+sister Alice, Richard was obliged to give him an absolute refusal.  It
+is pretended by Hoveden and other historians [s], that he was able to
+produce such convincing proofs of Alice's infidelity, and even of her
+having borne a child to Henry, that her brother desisted from his
+applications, and chose to wrap up the dishonour of his family in
+silence and oblivion.  It is certain, from the treaty itself, which
+remains [t], that whatever were his motives, he permitted Richard to
+give his hand to Berengaria; and having settled all other
+controversies with that prince, he immediately set sail for the Holy
+Land.  Richard awaited some time the arrival of his mother and bride;
+and when they joined him, he separated his fleet into two squadrons,
+and set forward on his enterprise.  Queen Eleanor returned to England,
+but Berengaria and the queen-dowager of Sicily, his sister, attended
+him on the expedition [u].
+[FN [q] Vinisauf, p. 316.  [r] M. Paris, p. 112.  Trivet, p. 102.  W.
+Heming, p. 519.  [s] Hoveden, p. 688.  [t] Rymer, vol. i. p. 69.
+Chron. de Dunst, p. 44.  [u] Bened. Abb. p. 644.]
+
+The English fleet, on leaving the port of Messina, met with a furious
+tempest, and the squadron on which the two princesses were embarked
+was driven on the coast of Cyprus, and some of the vessels were
+wrecked near Limisso in that island.  [MN 12th April.]  Isaac, Prince
+of Cyprus, who assumed the magnificent title of Emperor, pillaged the
+ships that were stranded, threw the seamen and passengers into prison,
+and even refused to the princesses liberty, in their dangerous
+situation, of entering the harbour of Limisso.  But Richard, who
+arrived soon after, took ample vengeance on him for the injury.  He
+disembarked his troops; defeated the tyrant, who opposed his landing;
+entered Limisso by storm; gained next day a second victory; obliged
+Isaac to surrender at discretion; and established governors over the
+island.  The Greek prince, being thrown into prison and loaded with
+irons, complained of the little regard with which he was treated: upon
+which, Richard ordered silver fetters to be made for him; and this
+emperor, pleased with the distinction, expressed a sense of the
+generosity of his conqueror [w].  [MN 1191.  12th May.]  The king here
+espoused Berengaria, who, immediately embarking, carried along with
+her to Palestine the daughter of the Cypriot prince; a dangerous
+rival, who was believed to have seduced the affections of her husband.
+Such were the libertine character and conduct of the heroes engaged in
+this pious enterprise!
+[FN [w] Bened. Abb. p. 650.  Ann. Waverl. p. 164.  Vinisauf, p. 328.
+W. Heming. p. 523.]
+
+[MN The kingÂ’s arrival in Palestine.]
+The English army arrived in time to partake in the glory of the siege
+of Acre or Ptolemais, which had been attacked for above two years by
+the united forces of all the Christians in Palestine, and had been
+defended by the utmost efforts of Saladin and the Saracens.  The
+remains of the German army, conducted by the Emperor Frederic, and the
+separate bodies of adventurers who continually poured in from the
+West, had enabled the King of Jerusalem to form this important
+enterprise [x]: but Saladin, having thrown a strong garrison into the
+place under the command of Caracos, his own master in the art of war,
+and molesting the besiegers with continual attacks and sallies, had
+protracted the success of the enterprise, and wasted the force of his
+enemies.  The arrival of Philip and Richard inspired new life into the
+Christians; and these princes, acting by concert, and sharing the
+honour and danger of every action, gave hopes of a final victory over
+the infidels.  They agreed on this plan of operations: when the French
+monarch attacked the town, the English guarded the trenches: next day,
+when the English prince conducted the assault, the French succeeded
+him in providing for the safety of the assailants.  The emulation
+between those rival kings and rival nations produced extraordinary
+acts of valour: Richard in particular, animated with a more
+precipitate courage than Philip, and more agreeable to the romantic
+spirit of that age, drew to himself the general attention, and
+acquired a great and splendid reputation.  But this harmony was of
+short duration; and occasions of discord soon arose between these
+jealous and haughty princes.
+[FN [x] Vinisauf, p. 269, 271, 279.]
+
+[MN 1191.  State of Palestine.]
+The family of Bouillon, which had first been placed on the throne of
+Jerusalem, ending in a female, Fulk, Count of Anjou, grandfather to
+Henry II. of England, married the heiress of that kingdom, and
+transmitted his title to the younger branches of his family.  The
+Anjevin race ending also in a female, Guy de Lusignan, by espousing
+Sibylla, the heiress, had succeeded to the title; and though he lost
+his kingdom by the invasion of Saladin, he was still acknowledged by
+all the Christians for king of Jerusalem [y].  But as Sibylla died
+without issue, during the siege of Acre, Isabella, her younger sister,
+put in her claim to that titular kingdom, and required Lusignan to
+resign his pretensions to her husband, Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat.
+Lusignan maintaining that the royal title was unalienable and
+indefeasible, had recourse to the protection of Richard, attended on
+him before he left Cyprus, and engaged him to embrace his cause [z].
+There needed no other reason for throwing Philip into the party of
+Conrade; and the opposite views of these great monarchs brought
+faction and dissension into the Christian army, and retarded all its
+operations.  The Templars, the Genoese, and the Germans declared for
+Philip and Conrade; the Flemings, the Pisans, the Knights of the
+Hospital of St. John, adhered to Richard and Lusignan.  But
+notwithstanding these disputes, as the length of the siege had reduced
+the Saracen garrison to the last extremity, [MN 12th July.] they
+surrendered themselves prisoners; stipulated, in return for their
+lives, other advantages to the Christians, such as the restoring of
+the Christian prisoners, and the delivery of the wood of the true
+cross [a]; and this great enterprise, which had long engaged the
+attention of all Europe and Asia, was, at last, after the loss of
+three hundred thousand men, brought to a happy period.
+[FN [y] Vinisauf, p. 281.  [z] Trivet, p. 134.  Vinisauf, p. 342.  W.
+Heming. p. 524.  [a] This true cross was lost in the battle of
+Tiberiade, to which it had been carried by the crusaders for their
+protection.  Rigord, an author of that age, says, that after this
+dismal event, all the children who were born throughout all
+Christendom had only twenty or twenty-two teeth, instead of thirty or
+thirty-two, which was their former complement, p. 14.]
+
+But Philip, instead of pursuing the hopes of farther conquest, and of
+redeeming the holy city from slavery, being disgusted with the
+ascendant assumed and acquired by Richard, and having views of many
+advantages, which he might reap by his presence in Europe, declared
+his resolution of returning to France; and he pleaded his bad state of
+health as an excuse for his desertion of the common cause.  He left,
+however, to Richard ten thousand of his troops, under the command of
+the Duke of Burgundy; and he renewed his oath never to commence
+hostilities against that princeÂ’s dominions during his absence.  But
+he had no sooner reached Italy than he applied, it is pretended, to
+Pope Celestine III. for a dispensation from his vow; and when denied
+that request, he still proceeded, though after a covert manner, in a
+project, which the present situation of England rendered inviting, and
+which gratified, in an eminent degree, both his resentment and his
+ambition.
+
+[MN Disorders in England.]
+Immediately after Richard had left England, and begun his march to the
+Holy Land, the two prelates, whom he had appointed guardians of the
+realm, broke out into animosities against each other, and threw the
+kingdom into combustion.  Longchamp, presumptuous in his nature,
+elated by the favour which he enjoyed with his master, and armed with
+the legatine commission, could not submit to an equality with the
+Bishop of Durham: he even went so far as to arrest his colleague, and
+to extort from him a resignation of the earldom of Northumberland, and
+of his other dignities, as the price of his liberty [b].  The king,
+informed of these dissensions, ordered, by letters from Marseilles,
+that the bishop should be reinstated in his offices; but Longchamp had
+still the boldness to refuse compliance, on pretence that he himself
+was better acquainted with the kingÂ’s secret intentions [c].  He
+proceeded to govern the kingdom by his sole authority; to treat all
+the nobility with arrogance; and to display his power and riches with
+an invidious ostentation.  He never travelled without a strong guard
+of fifteen hundred foreign soldiers, collected from that licentious
+tribe with which the age was generally infested: nobles and knights
+were proud of being admitted into his train: his retinue wore the
+aspect of royal magnificence: and when, in his progress through the
+kingdom, he lodged in any monastery, his attendants, it is said, were
+sufficient to devour, in one night, the revenue of several years [d].
+The king, who was detained in Europe longer than the haughty prelate
+expected, hearing of this ostentation, which exceeded even what the
+habits of that age indulged in ecclesiastics; being also informed of
+the insolent, tyrannical conduct of his minister, thought proper to
+restrain his power: he sent new orders, appointing Walter Archbishop
+of Rouen, William Mareschal Earl of Strigul, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter,
+William Briewere, and Hugh Bardolf, counsellors to Longchamp, and
+commanding him to take no measure of importance without their
+concurrence and approbation.  But such general terror had this man
+impressed by his violent conduct, that even the Archbishop of Rouen
+and the Earl of Strigul durst not produce this mandate of the king's;
+and Longchamp still maintained an uncontrolled authority over the
+nation.  But when he proceeded so far as to throw into prison
+Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, who had opposed his measures, this
+breach of ecclesiastical privileges excited such an universal ferment,
+that Prince John, disgusted with the small share he possessed in the
+government, and personally disobliged by Longchamp, ventured to
+summon, at Reading, a general council of the nobility and prelates,
+and cite him to appear before them.  Longchamp thought it dangerous to
+intrust his person in their hands, and he shut himself up in the Tower
+of London; but being soon obliged to surrender that fortress, he fled
+beyond sea, concealed under a female habit, and was deprived of his
+offices of chancellor and chief justiciary; the last of which was
+conferred on the Archbishop of Rouen, a prelate of prudence and
+moderation.  The commission of legate, however, which had been renewed
+to Longchamp by Pope Celestine, still gave him, notwithstanding his
+absence, great authority in the kingdom, enabled him to disturb the
+government, and forwarded the views of Philip, who watched every
+opportunity of annoying Richard's dominions.  [MN 1192.]  That monarch
+first attempted to carry open war into Normandy; but as the French
+nobility refused to follow him in an invasion of a state which they
+had sworn to protect, and as the pope, who was the general guardian of
+all princes that had taken the cross, threatened him with
+ecclesiastical censures, he desisted from his enterprise, and employed
+against England the expedient of secret policy and intrigue.  He
+debauched Prince John from his allegiance; promised him his sister
+Alice in marriage; offered to give him possession of all Richard's
+transmarine dominions; and had not the authority of Queen Eleanor, and
+the menaces of the English council, prevailed over the inclinations of
+that turbulent prince, he was ready to have crossed the seas, and to
+have put in execution his criminal enterprises.
+[FN [b] Hoveden, p. 665.  Knyghton, p. 2403.  [c] W. Heming. p. 528.
+[d] Hoveden, p. 680.  Bened. Abb. p. 626, 700.  Brompton, p. 1193.]
+
+[MN The kingÂ’s heroic actions in Palestine.]
+The jealousy of Philip was every moment excited by the glory which the
+great actions of Richard were gaining him in the East, and which,
+being compared to his own desertion of that popular cause, threw a
+double lustre on his rival.  His envy, therefore, prompted him to
+obscure that fame which he had not equalled; and he embraced every
+pretence of throwing the most violent and most improbable calumnies on
+the King of England.  There was a petty prince in Asia, commonly
+called THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, who had acquired such an ascendant
+over his fanatical subjects, that they paid the most implicit
+deference to his commands; esteemed assassination meritorious when
+sanctified by his mandate; courted danger, and even certain death, in
+the execution of his orders; and fancied, that when they sacrificed
+their lives for his sake, the highest joys of paradise were the
+infallible reward of their devoted obedience [e].  It was the custom
+of this prince, when he imagined himself injured, to despatch secretly
+some of his subjects against the aggressor, to charge them with the
+execution of his revenge, to instruct them in every art of disguising
+their purpose; and no precaution was sufficient to guard any man,
+however powerful, against the attempts of these subtle and determined
+ruffians.  The greatest monarchs stood in awe of this Prince of the
+Assassins, (for that was the name of his people; whence the word has
+passed into most European languages,) and it was the highest
+indiscretion in Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat, to offend and affront
+him.  The inhabitants of Tyre, who were governed by that nobleman, had
+put to death some of this dangerous people: the prince demanded
+satisfaction; for, as he piqued himself on never beginning any offence
+[f], he had his regular and established formalities in requiring
+atonement: Conrade treated his messengers with disdain: the prince
+issued the fatal order: two of his subjects, who had insinuated
+themselves in disguise among Conrade's guards, openly, in the streets
+of Sidon, wounded him mortally; and when they were seized and put to
+the most cruel tortures, they triumphed amidst their agonies, and
+rejoiced that they had been destined by heaven to suffer in so just
+and meritorious a cause.
+[FN [e] W. Heming. p. 532.  Brompton, p. 1243.  [f] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+71.]
+
+Every one in Palestine knew from what hand the blow came.  Richard was
+entirely free from suspicion.  Though that monarch had formerly
+maintained the cause of Lusignan against Conrade, he had become
+sensible of the bad effects attending those dissensions, and had
+voluntarily conferred on the former the kingdom of Cyprus, on
+condition that he should resign to his rival all pretensions to the
+crown of Jerusalem [g].  Conrade himself, with his dying breath, had
+recommended his widow to the protection of Richard [h]; the Prince of
+the Assassins avowed the action in a formal narrative which he sent to
+Europe [i]; yet, on this foundation, the King of France thought fit to
+build the most egregious calumnies, and to impute to Richard the
+murder of the Marquis of Montferrat, whose elevation he had once
+openly opposed.  He filled all Europe with exclamations against the
+crime; appointed a guard for his own person, in order to defend
+himself against a like attempt [k]; and endeavoured, by these shallow
+artifices, to cover the infamy of attacking the dominions of a prince
+whom he himself had deserted, and who was engaged with so much glory
+in a war, universally acknowledged to be the common cause of
+Christendom.
+[FN [g] Vinisauf, p. 391.  [h] Brompton, p. 1243.  [i] Rymer, vol. i.
+p. 71.  Trivet, p. 124.  W. Heming. p. 544.  Diceto, p. 680.  [k] W
+Heming. p. 532.  Brompton, p. 1245.]
+
+But Richard's heroic actions in Palestine were the best apology for
+his conduct.  The Christian adventurers under his command determined,
+on opening the campaign, to attempt the siege of Ascalon, in order to
+prepare the way for that of Jerusalem; and they marched along the sea-
+coast with that intention.  Saladin purposed to intercept their
+passage; and he placed himself on the road with an army, amounting to
+three hundred thousand combatants.  On this occasion was fought one of
+the greatest battles of that age; and the most celebrated, for the
+military genius of the commanders, for the number and valour of the
+troops, and for the great variety of events which attended it.  Both
+the right wing of the Christians, commanded by d'Avesnes, and the
+left, conducted by the Duke of Burgundy, were, in the beginning of the
+day, broken and defeated; when Richard, who led on the main body,
+restored the battle; attacked the enemy with intrepidity and presence
+of mind; performed the part both of a consummate general and gallant
+soldier; and not only gave his two wings leisure to recover from their
+confusion, but obtained a complete victory over the Saracens, of whom
+forty thousand are said to have perished in the field [l].  Ascalon
+soon after fell into the hands of the Christians: other sieges were
+carried on with equal success: Richard was even able to advance within
+sight of Jerusalem, the object of his enterprise, when he had the
+mortification to find that he must abandon all hopes of immediate
+success, and must put a stop to his career of victory.  The crusaders,
+animated with an enthusiastic ardour for the holy wars, broke at first
+through all regards to safety or interest in the prosecution of their
+purpose; and trusting to the immediate assistance of Heaven, set
+nothing before their eyes but fame and victory in this world, and a
+crown of glory in the next.  But long absence from home, fatigue,
+disease, want, and the variety of incidents which naturally attend
+war, had gradually abated that fury, which nothing was able directly
+to withstand; and every one, except the King of England, expressed a
+desire of speedily returning into Europe.  The Germans and the
+Italians declared their resolution of desisting from the enterprise:
+the French were still more obstinate in this purpose: the Duke of
+Burgundy, in order to pay court to Philip, took all opportunities of
+mortifying and opposing Richard [m]: and there appeared an absolute
+necessity of abandoning for the present all hopes of farther conquest,
+and of securing the acquisitions of the Christians by an accommodation
+with Saladin.  Richard, therefore, concluded a truce with that
+monarch; and stipulated that Acre, Joppa, and other sea-port towns of
+Palestine, should remain in the hands of the Christians, and that
+every one of that religion should have liberty to perform his
+pilgrimage to Jerusalem unmolested.  This truce was concluded for
+three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours; a
+magical number, which had probably been devised by the Europeans, and
+which was suggested by a superstition well suited to the object of the
+war.
+[FN [l] Hoveden, p. 698.  Bened. Abb. p. 677.  Diceto, p. 662.
+Brompton, p. 1214.  [m] Vinisauf, p. 380.]
+
+The liberty, in which Saladin indulged the Christians, to perform
+their pilgrimages to Jerusalem, was an easy sacrifice on his part; and
+the furious wars which he waged in defence of the barren territory of
+Judea were not with him, as with the European adventurers, the result
+of superstition, but of policy.  The advantage indeed of science,
+moderation, humanity, was at that time entirely on the side of the
+Saracens; and this gallant emperor, in particular, displayed, during
+the course of the war, a spirit and generosity, which even his bigoted
+enemies were obliged to acknowledge and admire.  Richard, equally
+martial and brave, carried with him more of the barbarian character,
+and was guilty of acts of ferocity, which threw a stain on his
+celebrated victories.  When Saladin refused to ratify the capitulation
+of Acre, the king of England ordered all his prisoners, to the number
+of five thousand, to be butchered; and the Saracens found themselves
+obliged to retaliate upon the Christians by a like cruelty [n].
+Saladin died at Damascus soon after concluding this truce with the
+princes of the crusade: it is memorable that, before he expired, he
+ordered his winding-sheet to be carried as a standard through every
+street of the city; while a crier went before, and proclaimed with a
+loud voice, THIS IS ALL THAT REMAINS TO THE MIGHTY SALADIN, THE
+CONQUEROR OF THE EAST.  By his last will he ordered charities to be
+distributed to the poor without distinction of Jew, Christian, or
+Mahometan.
+[FN [n] Hoveden, p. 697.  Bened. Abb. p. 673.  M. Paris, p. 115.
+Vinisauf, p. 346.  W. Heming. p. 531.]
+
+[MN 1192.  The kingÂ’s return from Palestine.]
+There remained, after the truce, no business of importance to detain
+Richard in Palestine; and the intelligence which he received,
+concerning the intrigues of his brother John, and those of the King of
+France, made him sensible that his presence was necessary in Europe.
+As he dared not to pass through France, be sailed to the Adriatic; and
+being shipwrecked near Aquileia, he put on the disguise of a pilgrim,
+with a purpose of taking his journey secretly through Germany.
+Pursued by the governor of Istria, he was forced out of the direct
+road to England, and was obliged to pass by Vienna, [MN 20th Dec.]
+where his expenses and liberalities betrayed the monarch in the habit
+of the pilgrim; and he was arrested by orders of Leopold, Duke of
+Austria.  This prince had served under Richard at the siege of Acre;
+but being disgusted by some insult of that haughty monarch, he was so
+ungenerous as to seize the present opportunity of gratifying at once
+his avarice and revenge; and he threw the king into prison.  [MN
+1193.]  The emperor, Henry VI., who also considered Richard as an
+enemy, on account of the alliance contracted by him with Tancred, King
+of Sicily, despatched messengers to the Duke of Austria, required the
+royal captive to be delivered to him, and stipulated a large sum of
+money as a reward for this service.  [MN Captivity in Germany.]  Thus,
+the King of England, who had filled the whole world with his renown,
+found himself, during the most critical state of his affairs, confined
+in a dungeon, and loaded with irons, in the heart of Germany [o], and
+entirely at the mercy of his enemies, the basest and most sordid of
+mankind.
+[FN [o] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 35.]
+
+The English council was astonished on receiving this fatal
+intelligence; and foresaw all the dangerous consequences which might
+naturally arise from that event.  The queen-dowager wrote reiterated
+letters to Pope Celestine, exclaiming against the injury which her son
+had sustained; representing the impiety of detaining in prison the
+most illustrious prince that had yet carried the banners of Christ
+into the Holy Land; claiming the protection of the apostolic see,
+which was due even to the meanest of those adventurers; and upbraiding
+the pope, that in a cause where justice, religion, and the dignity of
+the church, were so much concerned, a cause which it might well befit
+his holiness himself to support, by taking in person a journey to
+Germany, the spiritual thunders should so long be suspended over those
+sacrilegious offenders [p].  The zeal of Celestine corresponded not to
+the impatience of the queen-mother; and the regency of England were,
+for a long time, left to struggle alone with all their domestic and
+foreign enemies.
+[FN [p] Rymer, vol. i. p. 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, &c.]
+
+[MN War with France.]
+The King of France, quickly informed of Richard's confinement by a
+message from the emperor [q], prepared himself to take advantage of
+the incident; and he employed every means of force and intrigue, of
+war and negotiation, against the dominions and the person of his
+unfortunate rival.  He revived the calumny of Richard's assassinating
+the Marquis of Montferrat; and by that absurd pretence he induced his
+barons to violate their oaths, by which they had engaged that, during
+the crusade, they never would, on any account, attack the dominions of
+the King of England.  He made the emperor the largest offers, if he
+would deliver into his hands the royal prisoner, or at least detain
+him in perpetual captivity: he even formed an alliance by marriage
+with the King of Denmark, desired that the ancient Danish claim to the
+crown of England should be transferred to him, and solicited a supply
+of shipping to maintain it.  But the most successful of Philip's
+negotiations was with Prince John, who, forgetting every tie to his
+brother, his sovereign, and his benefactor, thought of nothing but how
+to make his own advantage of the public calamities.  That traitor, on
+the first invitation from the court of France, suddenly went abroad,
+had a conference with Philip, and made a treaty, of which the object
+was the perpetual ruin of his unhappy brother.  He stipulated to
+deliver into Philip's hands a great part of Normandy [r]; he received,
+in return, the investiture of all Richard's transmarine dominions; and
+it is reported by several historians, that he even did homage to the
+French king for the crown of England.
+[FN [q] Ibid. p. 70.  [r] Rymer, vol. i. p. 85.]
+
+In consequence of this treaty, Philip invaded Normandy; and by the
+treachery of John's emissaries, made himself master, without
+opposition, of many fortresses, Neuf-chatel, Neaufle, Gisors, Pacey,
+Ivree: he subdued the counties of Eu and Aumale; and advancing to form
+the siege of Rouen, he threatened to put all the inhabitants to the
+sword if they dared to make resistance.  Happily, Robert, Earl of
+Leicester, appeared in that critical moment; a gallant nobleman, who
+had acquired great honour during the crusade, and who, being more
+fortunate than his master in finding his passage homewards, took on
+him the command in Rouen, and exerted himself, by his exhortations and
+example, to infuse courage into the dismayed Normans.  Philip was
+repulsed in every attack; the time of service from his vassals
+expired; and he consented to a truce with the English regency,
+received in return the promise of twenty thousand marks, and had four
+castles put into his hands, as security for the payment [s].
+[FN [s] Hoveden, p.730, 731.  Rymer, vol. i. p. 81.]
+
+Prince John, who, with a view of increasing the general confusion,
+went over to England, was still less successful in his enterprises.
+He was only able to make himself master of the castles of Windsor and
+Wallingford; but when he arrived in London, and claimed the kingdom as
+heir to his brother, of whose death he pretended to have received
+certain intelligence, he was rejected by all the barons, and measures
+were taken to oppose and subdue him [t].  The justiciaries, supported
+by the general affection of the people, provided so well for the
+defence of the kingdom, that John was obliged, after some fruitless
+efforts, to conclude a truce with them; and before its expiration, he
+thought it prudent to return to France, where he openly avowed his
+alliance with Philip [u].
+[FN [t] Hoveden, p. 724.  [u] W. Heming. p. 536.]
+
+Meanwhile the high spirit of Richard suffered in Germany every kind of
+insult and indignity.  The French ambassadors, in their master's name,
+renounced him as a vassal to the crown of France, and declared  all
+his fiefs to be forfeited to his liege lord.  The emperor, that he
+might render him more impatient for the recovery of his liberty, and
+make him submit to the payment of a larger ransom, treated him with
+the greatest severity, and reduced him to a condition worse than that
+of the meanest malefactor.  He was even produced before the diet of
+the empire at Worms, and accused by Henry of many crimes and
+misdemeanours; of making an alliance with Tancred, the usurper of
+Sicily; of turning the arms of the crusade against a Christian prince,
+and subduing Cyprus; of affronting the Duke of Austria before Acre; of
+obstructing the progress of the Christian arms by his quarrels with
+the King of France; of assassinating Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat;
+and of concluding a truce with Saladin, and leaving Jerusalem in the
+hands of the Saracen emperor [w].  Richard, whose spirit was not
+broken by his misfortunes, and whose genius was rather roused by these
+frivolous or scandalous imputations; after premising, that his dignity
+exempted him from answering before any jurisdiction, except that of
+Heaven; yet condescended, for the sake of his reputation, to justify
+his conduct before that great assembly.  He observed, that he had no
+hand in Tancred's elevation, and only concluded a treaty with a prince
+whom he found in possession of the throne; that the king, or rather
+tyrant of Cyprus, had provoked his indignation by the most ungenerous
+and unjust proceedings; and though he chastised this aggressor, he had
+not retarded a moment the progress of his chief enterprise: that if he
+had at any time been wanting in civility to the Duke of Austria, he
+had already been sufficiently punished for that sally of passion; and
+it better became men, embarked together in so holy a cause, to forgive
+each other's infirmities, than to pursue a slight offence with such
+unrelenting vengeance: that it had sufficiently appeared by the event,
+whether the King of France or he were most zealous for the conquest of
+the Holy Land, and were most likely to sacrifice private passions and
+animosities to that great object: that if the whole tenour of his life
+had not shown him incapable of a base assassination, and justified him
+from that imputation in the eyes of his very enemies, it was in vain
+for him, at present, to make his apology, or plead the many
+irrefragable arguments which he could produce in his own favour: and
+that, however he might regret the necessity, he was so far from being
+ashamed of his truce with Saladin, that he rather gloried in that
+event; and thought it extremely honourable, that, though abandoned by
+all the world, supported only by his own courage, and by the small
+remains of his national troops, he could yet obtain such conditions
+from the most powerful and most warlike emperor that the East had ever
+yet produced.  Richard, after thus deigning to apologize for his
+conduct, burst out into indignation at the cruel treatment which he
+had met with; that he, the champion of the cross, still wearing that
+honourable badge, should, after expending the blood and treasure of
+his subjects in the common cause of Christendom, be intercepted by
+Christian princes in his return to his own country, be thrown into a
+dungeon, be loaded with irons, be obliged to plead his cause, as if he
+were a subject and a malefactor; and what he still more regretted, be
+thereby prevented from making preparations for a new crusade, which he
+had projected, after the expiration of the truce, and from redeeming
+the sepulchre of Christ, which had so long been profaned by the
+dominion of infidels.  The spirit and eloquence of Richard made such
+impression on the German princes, that they exclaimed loudly against
+the conduct of the emperor; the pope threatened him with
+excommunication; and Henry, who had hearkened to the proposals of the
+King of France and Prince John, found that it would be impracticable
+for him to execute his and their base purposes, or to detain the King
+of England any longer in captivity.  [MN The kingÂ’s delivery.]  He
+therefore concluded with him a treaty for his ransom, and agreed to
+restore him to his freedom for the sum of a hundred and fifty thousand
+marks, about three hundred thousand pounds of our present money; of
+which a hundred thousand marks were to be paid before he received his
+liberty, and sixty-seven hostages delivered for the remainder [x].
+The emperor, as if to gloss over the infamy of this transaction, made
+at the same time a present to Richard of the kingdom of Arles,
+comprehending Provence, Dauphiny, Narbonne, and other states, over
+which the empire had some antiquated claims; a present which the king
+very wisely neglected.
+[FN [w] M Paris, p. 121.  W. Heming. p. 536.  [x] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+84.]
+
+The captivity of the superior lord was one of the cases provided for
+by the feudal tenures; and all the vassals were in that event obliged
+to give an aid for his ransom.  Twenty shillings were therefore levied
+on each knight's fee in England; but as this money came in slowly, and
+was not sufficient for the intended purpose, the voluntary zeal of the
+people readily supplied the deficiency.  The churches and monasteries
+melted down their plate, to the amount of thirty thousand marks; the
+bishops, abbots, and nobles, paid a fourth of their yearly rent; the
+parochial clergy contributed a tenth of their tithes; [MN 1194.  4th
+Feb.] and the requisite sum being thus collected, Queen Eleanor, and
+Walter, Archbishop of Rouen, set out with it for Germany; paid the
+money to the emperor and the Duke of Austria at Mentz; delivered them
+hostages for the remainder; and freed Richard from captivity.  His
+escape was very critical.  Henry had been detected in the
+assassination of the Bishop of Liege, and in an attempt of a like
+nature on the Duke of Louvaine; and finding himself extremely
+obnoxious to the German princes on account of these odious practices,
+he had determined to seek support from an alliance with the King of
+France; to detain Richard, the enemy of that prince, in perpetual
+captivity; to keep in his hands the money which he had already
+received for his ransom; and to extort fresh sums from Philip and
+Prince John, who were very liberal in their offers to him.  He
+therefore gave orders that Richard should be pursued and arrested; but
+the king, making all imaginable haste, had already embarked at the
+mouth of the Schelde, and was out of sight of land, when the
+messengers of the emperor reached Antwerp.
+
+[MN KingÂ’s return to England, 20th March.]
+The joy of the English was extreme on the appearance of their monarch,
+who had suffered so many calamities, who had acquired so much glory,
+and who had spread the reputation of their name into the farthest
+East, whither their fame had never before been able to extend.  He
+gave them, soon after his arrival, an opportunity of publicly
+displaying their exultation, by ordering himself to be crowned anew at
+Winchester; as if he intended, by that ceremony, to reinstate himself
+in his throne, and to wipe off the ignominy of his captivity.  Their
+satisfaction was not damped, even when he declared his purpose of
+resuming all those exorbitant grants, which he had been necessitated
+to make before his departure for the Holy Land.  The barons, also, in
+a great council, confiscated, on account of his treason, all Prince
+John's possessions in England; and they assisted the king in reducing
+the fortresses which still remained in the hands of his brother's
+adherents [y].  Richard, having settled every thing in England, passed
+over with an army into Normandy; being impatient to make war on
+Philip, and to revenge himself for the many injuries which he had
+received from that monarch [z].  As soon as Philip heard of the king's
+deliverance from captivity, he wrote to his confederate John in these
+terms: TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF: THE DEVIL IS BROKEN LOOSE [a].
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 737.  Ann. Waverl. p. 165.  W. Heming, p. 540.
+[z] Hoveden, p. 740.  [a] Ibid. p. 739.]
+
+[MN War with France.]
+When we consider such powerful and martial monarchs inflamed with
+personal animosity against each other, enraged by mutual injuries,
+excited by rivalship, impelled by opposite interests, and instigated
+by the pride and violence of their own temper; our curiosity is
+naturally raised, and we expect an obstinate and furious war,
+distinguished by the greatest events, and concluded by some remarkable
+catastrophe.  Yet are the incidents which attend those hostilities so
+frivolous that scarce any historian can entertain such a passion for
+military descriptions as to venture on a detail of them: a certain
+proof of the extreme weakness of princes in those ages, and of the
+little authority they possessed over their refractory vassals!  The
+whole amount of the exploits on both sides is, the taking of a castle,
+the surprise of a straggling party, a rencounter of horse, which
+resembles more a rout than a battle.  Richard obliged Philip to raise
+the siege of Verneuil; he took Loches, a small town in Anjou: he made
+himself master of Beaumont, and some other places of little
+consequence; and after these trivial exploits, the two kings began
+already to hold conferences for an accommodation.  Philip insisted
+that, if a general peace were concluded, the barons on each side
+should, for the future, be prohibited from carrying on private wars
+against each other: but Richard replied, that this was a right claimed
+by his vassals, and he could not debar them from it.  After this
+fruitless negotiation, there ensued an action between the French and
+English cavalry at Fretteval, in which the former were routed, and the
+King of France's cartulary and records, which commonly at that time
+attended his person, were taken.  But this victory leading to no
+important advantages, a truce for a year was at last, from mutual
+weakness, concluded between the two monarchs.
+
+During this war, Prince John deserted from Philip, threw himself at
+his brother's feet, craved pardon for his offences, and by the
+intercession of Queen Eleanor was received into favour.  I FORGIVE
+HIM, said the king, AND HOPE I SHALL AS EASILY FORGET HIS INJURIES AS
+HE WILL MY PARDON.  John was incapable even of returning to his duty,
+without committing a baseness.  Before he left Philip's party, he
+invited to dinner all the officers of the garrison, which that prince
+had placed in the citadel of Evreux: he massacred them during the
+entertainment: fell, with the assistance of the townsmen, on the
+garrison, whom he put to the sword; and then delivered up the place to
+his brother.
+
+The King of France was the great object of Richard's resentment and
+animosity: the conduct of John, as well as that of the emperor and
+Duke of Austria, had been so base, and was exposed to such general
+odium and reproach, that the king deemed himself sufficiently revenged
+for their injuries; and he seems never to have entertained any project
+of vengeance against any of them.  The Duke of Austria, about this
+time, having crushed his leg by the fall of his horse at a tournament,
+was thrown into a fever; and being struck, on the approaches of death,
+with remorse for his injustice to  Richard, he ordered, by will, all
+the English hostages in his hands to be set at liberty, and the
+remainder of the debt due to him to be remitted: his son, who seemed
+inclined to disobey these orders, was constrained by his ecclesiastics
+to execute them [b].  [MN 1195.]  The emperor also made advances for
+Richard's friendship, and offered to give him a discharge of all the
+debt not yet paid to him provided he would enter into an offensive
+alliance against the King of France; a proposal which was very
+acceptable to Richard, and was greedily embraced by him.  The treaty
+with the emperor took no effect; but it served to rekindle the war
+between France and England before the expiration of the truce.  This
+war was not distinguished by any more remarkable instances than the
+foregoing.  After mutually ravaging the open country, and taking a few
+insignificant castles, the two kings concluded a peace at Louviers,
+and made an exchange of some territories with each other [c].  [MN
+1196.]  Their inability to wage war occasioned the peace: their mutual
+antipathy engaged them again in war before two months expired.
+Richard imagined that he had now found an opportunity of gaining great
+advantages over his rival, by forming an alliance with the Counts of
+Flanders, Toulouse, Boulogne, Champagne, and other considerable
+vassals of the crown of France [d].  But he soon experienced the
+insincerity of those princes, and was not able to make any impression
+on that kingdom, while governed by a monarch of so much vigour and
+activity as Philip.  The most remarkable incident of this war was the
+taking prisoner in battle the Bishop of Beauvais, a martial prelate,
+who was of the family of Dreux, and a near relation of the French
+king's.  Richard, who hated that bishop, threw him into prison and
+loaded him with irons; and when the pope demanded his liberty, and
+claimed him as his son, the king sent to his holiness the coat of mail
+which the prelate had worn in battle, and which was all besmeared with
+blood; and he replied to him, in the terms employed by Jacob's sons to
+that patriarch, THIS HAVE WE FOUND: KNOW NOW WHETHER IT BE THY SON'S
+COAT OR NO [e].  This  new war between England and France, though
+carried out with such animosity that both kings frequently put out the
+eyes of their prisoners, was soon finished by a truce of five years;
+and immediately after signing this treaty, the kings were ready, on
+some new offence, to break out again into hostilities; when the
+mediation of the Cardinal of St. Mary, the pope's legate, accommodated
+the difference [f].  This prelate even engaged the princes to commence
+a treaty for a more durable peace; but the death of Richard put an end
+to the negotiation.
+[FN [b] Rymer, vol i. p. 88, 102.  [c] Ibid. p. 91.  [d] W. Heming, p.
+549.  Brompton, p. 1273.  Rymer, vol. i. p. 94.  [e] Genesis, chap.
+xxxvii. ver. 32.  M. Paris, p. 128.  Brompton, p. 1273.  [f] Rymer,
+vol. i. p. 109, 110.]
+
+[MN 1199.]  Vidomar, Viscount of Limoges, a vassal of the king's, had
+found a treasure, of which he sent part to that prince as a present.
+Richard, as superior lord, claimed the whole; and at the head of some
+Brabancons, besieged the viscount in the castle of Chalons, near
+Limoges, in order to make him comply with his demand [g].  The
+garrison offered to surrender; but the king replied, that, since he
+had taken the pains to come thither and besiege the place in person,
+he would take it by force, and would hang every one of them.  The same
+day, Richard, accompanied by Marcadee, leader of his Brabancons,
+approached the castle in order to survey it; when one Bertrand de
+Gourdon, an archer, took aim at him, and pierced his shoulder with an
+arrow.  [MN 28th March.]  The king, however, gave orders for the
+assault, took the place, and hanged all the garrison, except Gourdon,
+who had wounded him, and whom he reserved for a more deliberate and
+more cruel execution [h].
+[FN [g] Hoveden, p. 791.  Knyghton, p. 2413.  [h] Ibid.]
+
+The wound was not in itself dangerous; but the unskilfulness of the
+surgeon made it mortal: he so rankled Richard's shoulder in pulling
+out the arrow, that a gangrene ensued; and that prince was now
+sensible that his life was drawing towards a period.  He sent for
+Gourdon, and asked him, WRETCH, WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE TO YOU, TO
+OBLIGE YOU TO SEEK MY LIFE?--WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME? replied coolly
+the prisoner: YOU KILLED WITH YOUR OWN HANDS MY FATHER AND MY TWO
+BROTHERS; AND YOU INTENDED TO HAVE HANGED MYSELF: I AM NOW IN YOUR
+POWER, AND YOU MAY TAKE REVENGE, BY INFLICTING ON ME THE MOST SEVERE
+TORMENTS: BUT I SHALL ENDURE THEM ALL WITH PLEASURE, PROVIDED I CAN
+THINK THAT I HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY AS TO RID THE WORLD OF SUCH A NUISANCE
+[i].  Richard, struck with the reasonableness of this reply, and
+humbled by the near approach of death, ordered Gourdon to be set at
+liberty, and a sum of money to be given him: but Marcadee, unknown to
+him, seized the unhappy man, flayed him alive, and then hanged him.
+[MN 6th April.  Death,]  Richard died in the tenth year of his reign,
+and the forty-second of his age; and he left no issue behind him.
+[FN [i] Hoveden, p. 791.  Brompton, p. 1277.  Knyghton, p. 2413.]
+
+[MN and character of the king.]
+The most shining parts of this prince's character are his military
+talents.  No man, even in that romantic age, carried personal courage
+and intrepidity to a greater height; and this quality gained him the
+appellation of the lion-hearted, COEUR DE LION.  He passionately loved
+glory, chiefly military glory; and as his conduct in the field was not
+inferior to his valour, he seems to have possessed every talent
+necessary for acquiring it.  His resentments also were high; his pride
+unconquerable; and his subjects, as well as his neighbours, had
+therefore reason to apprehend, from the continuance of his reign, a
+perpetual scene of blood and violence.  Of an impetuous and vehement
+spirit, he was distinguished by all the good as well as the bad
+qualities incident to that character: he was open, frank, generous,
+sincere, and brave; he was revengeful, domineering, ambitious,
+haughty, and cruel; and was thus better calculated to dazzle men by
+the splendour of his enterprises, than either to promote their
+happiness or his own grandeur by a sound and well-regulated policy.
+As military talents made great impression on the people, he seems to
+have been much beloved by his English subjects; and he is remarked to
+have been the first prince of the Norman line that bore any sincere
+regard to them.  He passed however only four months of his reign in
+that kingdom: the crusade employed him near three years; he was
+detained about fourteen months in captivity; the rest of his reign was
+spent either in war, or preparations for war, against France; and he
+was so pleased with the fame which he had acquired in the East, that
+he determined, notwithstanding his past misfortunes, to have farther
+exhausted his kingdom, and to have exposed himself to new hazards, by
+conducting another expedition against the infidels.
+
+[MN Miscellaneous transactions of this reign.]
+Though the English pleased themselves with the glory which the king's
+martial genius procured them, his reign was very oppressive and
+somewhat arbitrary, by the high taxes which he levied on them, and
+often without consent of the states or great council.  In the ninth
+year of his reign, he levied five shillings on each hide of land; and
+because the clergy refused to contribute their share, he put them out
+of the protection of law, and ordered the civil courts to give them no
+sentence for any debts which they might claim [k].  Twice in his reign
+he ordered all his charters to be sealed anew, and the parties to pay
+fees for the renewal [l].  It is said that Hubert, his justiciary,
+sent him over to France, in the space of two years, no less a sum than
+one million one hundred thousand marks, besides bearing all the
+charges of the government in England.  But this account is quite
+incredible, unless we suppose that Richard made a thorough
+dilapidation of the demesnes of the crown, which it is not likely he
+could do with any advantage after his former resumption of all grants.
+A king who possessed such a revenue could never have endured fourteen
+months' captivity for not paying a hundred and fifty thousand marks to
+the emperor, and be obliged at last to leave hostages for a third of
+the sum.  The prices of commodities in this reign are also a certain
+proof that no such enormous sum could be levied on the people.  A hide
+of land, or about a hundred and twenty acres, was commonly let at
+twenty shillings a year, money of that time.  As there were two
+hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred hides in England, it is
+easy to compute the amount of all the landed rents of the kingdom.
+The general and stated price of an ox was four shillings; of a
+labouring horse the same; of a sow, one shilling; of a sheep with fine
+wool, tenpence; with coarse wool, sixpence [m].  These commodities
+seem not to have advanced in their prices since the conquest [n], and
+to have still been ten times cheaper than at present.
+[FN [k] Hoveden, p. 743.  Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 563.  [l] Prynne's
+Chronol. Vindic. tom. i. p. 1133.  [m] Hoveden, p. 745.  [n] See note
+[S], at the end of the volume.]
+
+Richard renewed the severe laws against transgressors in his forests,
+whom he punished by castration and putting out their eyes, as in the
+reign of his great-grandfather.  He established by law one weight and
+measure throughout his kingdom [o]: a useful institution, which the
+mercenary disposition and necessities of his successor engaged him to
+dispense with for money.
+[FN [o] M. Paris, p. 109, 134.  Trivet, p. 127.  Ann. Waverl. p. 165.
+Hoveden, p. 774.]
+
+The disorders in London, derived from its bad police, had risen to a
+great height during this reign; and in the year 1196, there seemed to
+be formed so regular a conspiracy among the numerous malefactors, as
+threatened the city with destruction.  There was one William
+Fitz-Osbert, commonly called LONGBEARD, a lawyer, who had rendered
+himself extremely popular among the lower rank of citizens; and, by
+defending them on all occasions, had acquired the appellation of the
+advocate or saviour of the poor.  He exerted his authority, by
+injuring and insulting the more substantial citizens, with whom he
+lived in a state of hostility, and who were every moment exposed to
+the most outrageous violences from him and his licentious emissaries.
+Murders were daily committed in the streets; houses were broken open
+and pillaged in daylight; and it is pretended that no less than fifty-
+two thousand persons had entered into an association, by which they
+bound themselves to obey all the orders of this dangerous ruffian.
+Archbishop Hubert, who was then chief justiciary, summoned him before
+the council to answer for his conduct; but he came so well attended,
+that no one durst accuse him, or give evidence against him; and the
+primate, finding the impotence of law, contented himself with exacting
+from the citizens hostages for their good behaviour.  He kept,
+however, a watchful eye on Fitz-Osbert; and seizing a favourable
+opportunity, attempted to commit him to custody; but the criminal,
+murdering one of the public officers, escaped with his concubine to
+the church of St. Mary le Bow, where he defended himself by force of
+arms.  He was at last forced from his retreat, condemned, and
+executed, amidst the regrets of the populace, who were so devoted to
+his memory, that they stole his gibbet, paid the same veneration to it
+as to the cross, and were equally zealous in propagating and attesting
+reports of the miracles wrought by it [p].  But though the sectaries
+of this superstition were punished by the justiciary [q], it received
+so little encouragement from the established clergy, whose property
+was endangered by such seditious practices, that it suddenly sunk and
+vanished.
+[FN [p] Hoveden, p 765.  Diceto, p. 691.  Neubrig. p. 492, 493.  [q]
+Gervase, p. 1551.]
+
+It was during the crusades that the custom of using coats of arms was
+first introduced into Europe.  The knights, cased up in armour, had no
+way to make themselves be known and distinguished in battle but by the
+devices on their shields; and these were gradually adopted by their
+posterity and families, who were proud of the pious and military
+enterprises of their ancestors.
+
+King Richard was a passionate lover of poetry; there even remain some
+poetical works of his composition; and he bears a rank among the
+Provencal poets or TROBADORES, who were the first of the modern
+Europeans that distinguished themselves by attempts of that nature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+JOHN.
+
+ACCESSION OF THE KING.--HIS MARRIAGE.--WAR WITH FRANCE.—MURDER OF
+ARTHUR, DUKE OF BRITANY.--THE KING EXPELLED THE FRENCH PROVINCES.--THE
+KING'S QUARREL WITH THE COURT OF ROME.—CARDINAL LANGTON APPOINTED
+ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.--INTERDICT OF THE KINGDOM.--EXCOMMUNICATION
+OF THE KING.--THE KING'S SUBMISSION TO THE POPE.--DISCONTENTS OF THE
+BARONS.--INSURRECTION OF THE BARONS.--MAGNA CHARTA.--RENEWAL OF THE
+CIVIL WARS.—PRINCE LEWIS CALLED OVER.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF THE
+KING.
+
+
+
+[MN 1199.  Accession of the king.]
+The noble and free genius of the ancients, which made the government
+of a single person be always regarded as a species of tyranny and
+usurpation, and kept them from forming any conception of a legal and
+regular monarchy, had rendered them entirely ignorant both of the
+rights of PRIMOGENITURE, and a REPRESENTATION in succession;
+inventions so necessary for preserving order in the lines of princes,
+for obviating the evils of civil discord and of usurpation, and for
+begetting moderation in that species of government, by giving security
+to the ruling sovereign.  These innovations arose from the feudal law,
+which, first introducing the right of primogeniture, made such a
+distinction between the families of the elder and younger brothers,
+that the son of the former was thought entitled to succeed to his
+grandfather, preferably to his uncles, though nearer allied to the
+deceased monarch.  But though this progress of ideas was natural, it
+was gradual.  In the age of which we treat, the practice of
+representation was indeed introduced, but not thoroughly established;
+and the minds of men fluctuated between opposite principles.  Richard,
+when he entered on the holy war, declared his nephew, Arthur, Duke of
+Britany, his successor; and by a formal deed he set aside, in his
+favour, the title of his brother John, who was younger than Geoffrey,
+the father of that prince [a].  But John so little acquiesced in that
+destination, that when he gained the ascendant in the English
+ministry, by expelling Longchamp, the chancellor and great justiciary,
+he engaged all the English barons to swear that they would maintain
+his right of succession; and Richard, on his return, took no steps
+towards restoring or securing the order which he had at first
+established.  He was even careful, by his last will, to declare his
+brother John heir to all his dominions [b]; whether that he now
+thought Arthur, who was only twelve years of age, incapable of
+asserting his claim against John's faction, or was influenced by
+Eleanor, the queen-mother, who hated Constantia, mother of the young
+duke, and who dreaded the credit which that princess would naturally
+acquire if her son should mount the throne.  The authority of a
+testament was great in that age, even where the succession of a
+kingdom was concerned; and John had reason to hope that this title,
+joined to his plausible right in other respects, would ensure him the
+succession. But the idea of representation seems to have made, at this
+time, greater progress in France than in England: the barons of the
+transmarine provinces, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, immediately
+declared in favour of Arthur's title, and applied for assistance to
+the French monarch as their superior lord.  Philip, who desired only
+an occasion to embarrass John, and dismember his dominions, embraced
+the cause of the young Duke of Britany, took him under his protection,
+and sent him to Paris to be educated, along with his own son Lewis
+[c].  In this emergence, John hastened to establish his authority in
+the chief members of the monarchy; and after sending Eleanor into
+Poictou and Guienne, where her right was incontestable, and was
+readily acknowledged, he hurried to Rouen, and having secured the
+duchy of Normandy, he passed over, without loss of time, to England.
+Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, William Mareschal, Earl of Strigul,
+who also passes by the name of Earl of Pembroke, and Geoffrey
+Fitz-Peter, the justiciary, the three most favoured ministers of the
+late king, were already engaged on his side [d]; and the submission or
+acquiescence of all the other barons put him, without opposition, in
+possession of the throne.
+[FN [a] Hoveden, p. 677.  M Paris, p. 112.  Chron. de Dunst. p. 43.
+Rymer, vol i p. 66, 68.  Bened. Abb. p. 619.  [b] Hoveden, p. 791.
+Trivet, p. 138.  [c] Hoveden, p. 792.  M. Paris, p. 137.  M. West. p.
+263.  Knyghton, p. 2414.  [d] Hoveden, p. 793.  M. Paris, p. 137.]
+
+The king soon returned to France, in order to conduct the war against
+Philip, and to recover the revolted provinces from his nephew Arthur.
+The alliances which Richard had formed with the Earl of Flanders [e],
+and other potent French princes, though they had not been very
+effectual, still subsisted, and enabled John to defend himself against
+all the efforts of his enemy.  In an action between the French and
+Flemings, the elect Bishop of Cambray was taken prisoner by the
+former; and when the Cardinal of Capua claimed his liberty, Philip,
+instead of complying, reproached him with the weak efforts which he
+had employed in favour of the Bishop of Beauvais, who was in a like
+condition.  The legate, to show his impartiality, laid, at the same
+time, the kingdom of France and the duchy of Normandy under an
+interdict; and the two kings found themselves obliged to make an
+exchange of these military prelates.
+[FN [e] Rymer, vol. i. p. 114.  Hoveden, p. 794.  M. Paris, p. 138.]
+
+[MN 1200.]  Nothing enabled the king to bring this war to a happy
+issue so much as the selfish intriguing character of Philip, who acted
+in the provinces that had declared for Arthur, without any regard to
+the interests of that prince.  Constantia, seized with a violent
+jealousy that he intended to usurp the entire dominion of them [f],
+found means to carry off her son secretly from Paris: she put him into
+the hands of his uncle; restored the provinces which had adhered to
+the young prince; and made him do homage for the duchy of Britany,
+which was regarded as a rerefief of Normandy.  From this incident,
+Philip saw that he could not hope to make any progress against John;
+and being threatened with an interdict on account of his irregular
+divorce from Ingelburga, the Danish princess whom he had espoused, he
+became desirous of concluding a peace with England.  After some
+fruitless conferences, the terms were at last adjusted; and the two
+monarchs seemed in this treaty to have an intention, besides ending
+the present quarrel, of preventing all future causes of discord, and
+of obviating every controversy which could thereafter arise between
+them.  They adjusted the limits of all their territories, mutually
+secured the interests of their vassals; and, to render the union more
+durable, John gave his niece, Blanche of Castile, in marriage to
+Prince Lewis, Philip's eldest son, and with her the baronies of
+Issoudun and Gracai, and other fiefs in Berri.  Nine barons of the
+King of England, and as many of the King of France, were guarantees of
+this treaty; and all of them swore that if their sovereign violated
+any article of it, they would declare themselves against him, and
+embrace the cause of the injured monarch [g].
+[FN [f] Hoveden, p.795.  [g] Norman Duchesnii, p. 1055.  Rymer, vol.
+i. p. 117, 118, 119.  Hoveden, p. 814.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 47.]
+
+John, now secure, as he imagined, on the side of France, indulged his
+passion for Isabella, the daughter and heir of Aymar Tailleffer, Count
+of Angouleme, a lady with whom he had become much enamoured.  His
+queen, the heiress of the family of Gloucester, was still alive:
+Isabella was married to the Count de la Marche, and was already
+consigned to the care of that nobleman; though, by reason of her
+tender years, the marriage had not been consummated.  The passion of
+John made him overlook all these obstacles: he persuaded the Count of
+Angouleme to carry off his daughter from her husband; and having, on
+some pretence or other, procured a divorce from his own wife, he
+espoused Isabella; [MN The kingÂ’s marriage.] regardless both of the
+menaces of the pope, who exclaimed against these irregular
+proceedings, and of the resentment of the injured count, who soon
+found means of punishing his powerful and insolent rival.
+
+[MN 1201.]  John had not the art of attaching his barons either by
+affection or by fear.  The Count de la Marche, and his brother, the
+Count d'Eu, taking advantage of the general discontent against him,
+excited commotions in Poictou and Normandy, and obliged the king to
+have recourse to arms, in order to suppress the insurrection of his
+vassals.  He summoned together the barons of England, and required
+them to pass the sea under his standard, and to quell the rebels: he
+found that he possessed as little authority in that kingdom as in his
+transmarine provinces.  The English barons unanimously replied, that
+they would not attend him on this expedition, unless he would promise
+to restore and preserve their privileges [h]: the first symptom of a
+regular association and plan of liberty among those noblemen! but
+affairs were not yet fully ripe for the revolution projected.  John,
+by menacing the barons, broke the concert; and both engaged many of
+them to follow him into Normandy, and obliged the rest who stayed
+behind to pay him a scutage of two marks on each knight's fee, as the
+price of their exemption from the service.
+[FN [h] Annal. Burton, p. 262.]
+
+The force which John carried abroad with him, and that which joined
+him in Normandy, rendered him much superior to his malecontent barons;
+and so much the more as Philip did not publicly give them any
+countenance, and seemed as yet determined to persevere steadily in the
+alliance which he had contracted with England.  But the king, elated
+with his superiority, advanced claims which gave an universal alarm to
+his vassals, and diffused still wider the general discontent.  As the
+jurisprudence of those times required that the causes in the lords'
+court should chiefly be decided by duel, he carried along with him
+certain bravos, whom he retained as champions, and whom he destined to
+fight with his barons, in order to determine any controversy which he
+might raise against them [i].  The Count de la Marche, and other
+noblemen, regarded this proceeding as an affront, as well as an
+injury; and declared that they would never draw their swords against
+men of such inferior quality.  The king menaced them with vengeance;
+but he had not vigour to employ against them the force in his hands,
+or to prosecute the injustice, by crushing entirely the nobles who
+opposed it.
+[FN [i] Ibid.]
+
+[MN War with France.]
+This government, equally feeble and violent, gave the injured barons
+courage, as well as inclination, to carry farther their opposition;
+they appealed to the King of France; complained of the denial of
+justice in JohnÂ’s court; demanded redress from him as their superior
+lord; and entreated him to employ his authority, and prevent their
+final ruin and oppression.  [MN 1202.]  Philip perceived his
+advantage, opened his mind to great projects, interposed in behalf of
+the French barons, and began to talk in a high and menacing style to
+the King of England.  John, who could not disavow Philip's authority,
+replied, that it belonged to himself first to grant them a trial by
+their peers in his own court; it was not till he failed in this duty
+that he was answerable to his peers in the supreme court of the French
+king [k]; and he promised, by a fair and equitable judicature, to give
+satisfaction to his barons.  When the nobles, in consequence of this
+engagement, demanded a safe conduct, that they might attend his court,
+he at first refused it; upon the renewal of Philip's menaces, he
+promised to grant their demand; he violated this promise; fresh
+menaces extorted from him a promise to surrender to Philip the
+fortresses of Tillieres and Boutavant, as a security for performance;
+he again violated his engagement; his enemies, sensible both of his
+weakness and want of faith, combined still closer in the resolution of
+pushing him to extremities; and a new and powerful ally soon appeared
+to encourage them in their invasion of this odious and despicable
+government.
+[FN [k] Philipp. lib. vi.]
+
+[MN 1203.]  The young Duke of Britany, who was now rising to manÂ’s
+estate, sensible of the dangerous character of his uncle, determined
+to seek both his security and elevation by a union with Philip and the
+malecontent barons.  He joined the French army, which had begun
+hostilities against the King of England: he was received with great
+marks of distinction by Philip; was knighted by him; espoused his
+daughter Mary; and was invested not only in the duchy of Britany, but
+in the counties of Anjou and Maine, which he had formerly resigned to
+his uncle [l].  Every attempt succeeded with the allies.  Tillieres
+and Boutavant were taken by Philip, after making a feeble defence:
+Mortimar and Lyons fell into his hands almost without resistance.
+That prince next invested Gournai; and opening the sluices of a lake
+which lay in the neighbourhood, poured such a torrent of water into
+the place, that the garrison deserted it, and the French monarch,
+without striking a blow, made himself master of that important
+fortress.  The progress of the French arms was rapid, and promised
+more considerable success than usually in that age attended military
+enterprises.  In answer to every advance which the king made towards
+peace, Philip still insisted that he should resign all his transmarine
+dominions to his nephew, and rest contented with the kingdom of
+England; when an event happened which seemed to turn the scales in
+favour of John, and to give him a decisive superiority over his
+enemies.
+[FN [l] Trivet, p. 142.]
+
+Young Arthur, fond of military renown, had broken into Poictou at the
+head of a small army; and passing near Mirebeau, he heard that his
+grandmother, Queen Eleanor, who had always opposed his interests, was
+lodged in that place, and was protected by a weak garrison and ruinous
+fortifications [m].  He immediately determined to lay siege to the
+fortress, and make himself master of her person: but John, roused from
+his indolence by so pressing an occasion, collected an army of English
+and Brabancons, and advanced from Normandy with hasty marches to the
+relief of the queen-mother.  He fell on Arthur's camp before that
+prince was aware of the danger; dispersed his army; took him prisoner,
+together with the Count de la Marche, Geoffrey de Lusignan, and the
+most considerable of the revolted barons; and returned in triumph to
+Normandy [n].  [MN 1st Aug.]  Philip, who was lying before Arques in
+that duchy, raised the siege, and retired upon his approach [o].  The
+greater part of the prisoners were sent over to England; but Arthur
+was shut up in the castle of Falaise.
+[FN [m] Ann. Waverl. p. 167.  M. West. p. 264.  [n] Ann. Marg. p. 213.
+M. West. p. 264.  [o] M. West. p. 264.]
+
+The king had here a conference with his nephew; represented to him the
+folly of his pretensions; and required him to renounce the French
+alliance, which had encouraged him to live in a state of enmity with
+all his family: but the brave, though imprudent youth, rendered more
+haughty from misfortunes, maintained the justice of his cause;
+asserted his claim not only to the French provinces, but to the crown
+of England; and in his turn, required the king to restore the son of
+his elder brother to the possession of his inheritance [p].  John,
+sensible from these symptoms of spirit that the young prince, though
+now a prisoner, might hereafter prove a dangerous enemy, determined to
+prevent all future peril by despatching his nephew; and Arthur was
+never more heard of.  [MN 1203.  Murder of Arthur, Duke of Britany.]
+The circumstances which attended this deed of darkness were, no doubt,
+carefully concealed by the actors, and are variously related by
+historians: but the most probable account is as follows: the king, it
+is said, first proposed to William de la Bray, one of his servants, to
+despatch Arthur; but William replied that he was a gentleman, not a
+hangman; and he positively refused compliance.  Another instrument of
+murder was found, and was despatched with proper orders to Falaise;
+but Hubert de Bourg, chamberlain to the king, and constable of the
+castle, feigning that he himself would execute the king's mandate,
+sent back the assassin, spread the report that the young prince was
+dead, and publicly performed all the ceremonies of his interment; but
+finding that the Bretons vowed revenge for the murder, and that all
+the revolted barons persevered more obstinately in their rebellion, he
+thought it prudent to reveal the secret, and to inform the world that
+the Duke of Britany was still alive, and in his custody.  This
+discovery proved fatal to the young prince: John first removed him to
+the castle of Rouen; and coming in a boat, during the night-time, to
+that place, commanded Arthur to be brought forth to him.  The young
+prince, aware of his danger, and now more subdued by the continuance
+of his misfortunes, and by the approach of death, threw himself on his
+knees before his uncle, and begged for mercy: but the barbarous
+tyrant, making no reply, stabbed him with his own hands; and fastening
+a stone to the dead body, threw it into the Seine.
+[FN [p] Ibid. p. 264.]
+
+All men were struck with horror at this inhuman deed; and from that
+moment the king, detested by his subjects, retained a very precarious
+authority over both the people and the barons in his dominions.  The
+Bretons, enraged at this disappointment in their fond hopes, waged
+implacable war against him; and fixing the succession of their
+government, put themselves in a posture to revenge the murder of their
+sovereign.  John had got into his power his niece, Eleanor, sister to
+Arthur, commonly called THE DAMSEL OF BRITANY; and carrying her over
+to England, detained her ever after in captivity [q]; but the Bretons,
+in despair of recovering this princess, chose Alice for their
+sovereign; a younger daughter of Constantia, by her second marriage
+with Guy de Thouars; and they intrusted the government of the duchy to
+that nobleman.  The states of Britany, meanwhile, carried their
+complaints before Philip, as their liege lord, and demanded justice
+for the violence committed by John on the person of Arthur, so near a
+relation, who, notwithstanding the homage which he did to Normandy,
+was always regarded as one of the chief vassals of the crown.  Philip
+received their application with pleasure; summoned John to stand a
+trial before him, and on his non-appearance passed sentence, with the
+concurrence of the peers, upon that prince; declared him guilty of
+felony and parricide; and adjudged him to forfeit to his superior lord
+all his seignories and fiefs in France [r].
+[FN [q] Trivet, p. 145.  T. Wykes, p. 36.  Ypod. Neust. p. 459.  [r]
+W. Heming, p. 455.  M. West. p. 264.  Knyghton, p. 2420.]
+
+[MN The King expelled from the French provinces.]
+The King of France, whose ambitious and active spirit had been
+hitherto confined, either by the sound policy of Henry, or the martial
+genius of Richard, seeing now the opportunity favourable against this
+base and odious prince, embraced the project of expelling the English,
+or rather the English king, from France, and of annexing to the crown
+so many considerable fiefs, which, during several ages, had been
+dismembered from it.  Many of the other great vassals, whose jealousy
+might have interposed, and have obstructed the execution of this
+project, were not at present in a situation to oppose it; and the rest
+either looked on with indifference, or gave their assistance to this
+dangerous aggrandizement of their superior lord.  The Earls of
+Flanders and Blois were engaged in the holy war: the Count of
+Champagne was an infant, and under the guardianship of Philip: the
+duchy of Britany, enraged at the murder of their prince, vigorously
+promoted all his measures: and the general defection of John's vassals
+made every enterprise easy and successful against him.  Philip, after
+taking several castles and fortresses beyond the Loire, which he
+either garrisoned or dismantled, received the submissions of the Count
+of Alencon, who deserted John, and delivered up all the places under
+his command to the French: upon which Philip broke up his camp, in
+order to give the troops some repose after the fatigues of the
+campaign.  John, suddenly recollecting some forces, laid siege to
+Alencon; and Philip, whose dispersed army could not be brought
+together in time to succour it, saw himself exposed to the disgrace of
+suffering the oppression of his friend and confederate.  But his
+active and fertile genius found an expedient against this evil.  There
+was held at that very time a tournament at Moret, in the Gatinois;
+whither all the chief nobility of France and the neighbouring
+countries had resorted, in order to signalize their prowess and
+address.  Philip presented himself before them; craved their
+assistance in his distress; and pointed out the plains of Alencon, as
+the most honourable field in which they could display their generosity
+and martial spirit.  Those valorous knights vowed that they would take
+vengeance on the base parricide, the stain of arms and of chivalry;
+and putting themselves, with all their retinue, under the command of
+Philip, instantly marched to raise the siege of Alencon.  John,
+hearing of their approach, fled from before the place; and, in the
+hurry, abandoned all his tents, machines, and baggage, to the enemy.
+
+This feeble effort was the last exploit of that slothful and cowardly
+prince for the defence of his dominions.  He thenceforth remained in
+total inactivity at Rouen; passing all his time with his young wife in
+pastimes and amusements, as if his state had been in the most profound
+tranquillity, or his affairs in the most prosperous condition.  If he
+ever mentioned war, it was only to give himself vaunting airs, which,
+in the eyes of all men, rendered him still more despicable and
+ridiculous.  LET THE FRENCH GO ON, said he, I WILL RETAKE IN A DAY
+WHAT IT HAS COST THEM YEARS TO ACQUIRE [s].  His stupidity and
+indolence appeared so extraordinary, that the people endeavoured to
+account for the infatuation by sorcery, and believed that he was
+thrown into this lethargy by some magic or witchcraft.  The English
+barons, finding that their time was wasted to no purpose, and that
+they must suffer the disgrace of seeing, without resistance, the
+progress of the French arms, withdrew from their colours, and secretly
+returned to their own country [t].  No one thought of defending a man
+who seemed to have deserted himself; and his subjects regarded his
+fate with the same indifference to which in this pressing exigency
+they saw him totally abandoned.
+[FN [s] M. Paris, p. 146.  M. West. p. 266.  [t] M. Paris, p. 146.  M.
+West. p. 264.]
+
+John, while he neglected all domestic resources, had the meanness to
+betake himself to a foreign power, whose protection he claimed: he
+applied to the pope, Innocent III., and entreated him to interpose his
+authority between him and the French monarch.  Innocent, pleased with
+any occasion of exerting his superiority, sent Philip orders to stop
+the progress of his arms, and to make peace with the King of England.
+But the French barons received the message with indignation;
+disclaimed the temporal authority assumed by the pontiff; and vowed
+that they would, to the uttermost, assist their prince against all his
+enemies; Philip, seconding their ardour, proceeded, instead of obeying
+the pope's envoys, to lay siege to Chateau Gaillard, the most
+considerable fortress which remained to guard the frontiers of
+Normandy.
+
+[MN 1204.]  Chateau Gaillard was situated partly on an island in the
+river Seine, partly on a rock opposite to it; and was secured by every
+advantage which either art or nature could bestow upon it.  The late
+king, having cast his eye on this favourable situation, had spared no
+labour or expense in fortifying it; and it was defended by Roger de
+Laci, Constable of Chester, a determined officer, at the head of a
+numerous garrison.  Philip, who despaired of taking the place by
+force, purposed to reduce it by famine; and, that he might cut off its
+communication with the neighbouring country, he threw a bridge across
+the Seine, while he himself, with his army, blockaded it by land.  The
+Earl of Pembroke, the man of greatest vigour and capacity in the
+English court, formed a plan for breaking through the French
+intrenchments, and throwing relief into the place.  He carried with
+him an army of four thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, and
+suddenly attacked, with great success, Philip's camp in the
+night-time; having left orders that a fleet of seventy flat-bottomed
+vessels should sail up the Seine, and fall at the same instant on the
+bridge.  But the wind and the current of the river, by retarding the
+vessels, disconcerted this plan of operations; and it was morning
+before the fleet appeared; when Pembroke, though successful in the
+beginning of the action, was already repulsed with considerable loss,
+and the King of France had leisure to defend himself against these new
+assailants, who also met with a repulse.  After this misfortune, John
+made no farther efforts for the relief of Chateau Gaillard; and Philip
+had all the leisure requisite for conducting and finishing the siege.
+Roger de Laci defended himself for a twelvemonth with great obstinacy;
+and having bravely repelled every attack, and patiently borne all the
+hardships of famine, he was at last overpowered by a sudden assault in
+the night-time, and made prisoner of war, with his garrison [u].
+Philip, who knew how to respect valour even in an enemy, treated him
+with civility, and gave him the whole city of Paris for the place of
+his confinement.
+[FN [u] Trivet, p. 144.  Gul. Britto, lib. 7.  Ann. Waverl. p. 168.]
+
+When this bulwark of Normandy was once subdued, all the province lay
+open to the inroads of Philip; and the King of England despaired of
+being any longer able to defend it.  He secretly prepared vessels for
+a scandalous flight, and that the Normans might no longer doubt of his
+resolution to abandon them, he ordered the fortifications of Pont de
+l'Arche, Molineaux, and Montfort l'Amauri, to be demolished.  Not
+daring to repose confidence in any of his barons, whom he believed to
+be universally engaged in a conspiracy against him, he intrusted the
+government of the province to Archas Martin and Lupicaire, two
+mercenary Brabancons, whom he had retained in his service.  Philip,
+now secure of his prey, pushed his conquests with vigour and success
+against the dismayed Normans.  Falaise was first besieged; and
+Lupicaire, who commanded in this impregnable fortress, after
+surrendering the place, enlisted himself with his troops in the
+service of Philip, and carried on hostilities against his ancient
+master.  Caen, Coutance, Seez, Evreux, Baieux, soon fell into the
+hands of the French monarch, and all the Lower Normandy was reduced
+under his dominion.  To forward his enterprises on the other division
+of the province, Gui de Thouars, at the head of the Bretons, broke
+into the territory, and took Mount St. Michael, Avranches, and all the
+other fortresses in that neighbourhood.  The Normans, who abhorred the
+French yoke, and who would have defended themselves to the last
+extremity if their prince had appeared to conduct them, found no
+resource but in submission; and every city opened its gates as soon as
+Philip appeared before it.  [MN 1205.]  Rouen alone, Arques, and
+Verneuil, determined to maintain their liberties, and formed a
+confederacy for mutual defence.  Philip began with the siege of Rouen:
+the inhabitants were so inflamed with hatred to France, that, on the
+appearance of his army, they fell on all the natives of that country
+whom they found within their walls, and put them to death.  But after
+the French king had begun his operations with success, and had taken
+some of their outworks, the citizens, seeing no resource, offered to
+capitulate; and demanded only thirty days to advertise their prince of
+their danger, and to require succours against the enemy.  [MN 1st
+June.]  Upon the expiration of the term, as no supply had arrived,
+they opened their gates to Philip [w]; and the whole province soon
+after imitated the example, and submitted to the victor.  Thus was
+this important territory re-united to the crown of France, about three
+centuries after the cession of it by Charles the Simple to Rollo, the
+first duke: and the Normans, sensible that this conquest was probably
+final, demanded the privilege of being governed by French laws; which
+Philip, making a few alterations on the ancient Norman customs,
+readily granted them.  But the French monarch had too much ambition
+and genius to stop in his present career of success.  He carried his
+victorious army into the western provinces; soon reduced Anjou, Maine,
+Touraine, and part of Poictou [x]; and in this manner the French
+crown, during the reign of one able and active prince, received such
+an accession of power and grandeur, as in the  ordinary course of
+things, it would have required several ages to attain.
+[FN [w] Trivet. p. 147.  Ypod. Neust. p. 459.  [x] Trivet, p. 149.]
+
+John, on his arrival in England, that he might cover the disgrace of
+his own conduct, exclaimed loudly against his barons, who, he
+pretended, had deserted his standard in Normandy; and he arbitrarily
+extorted from them a seventh of all their moveables, as a punishment
+for the offence [y].  Soon after he forced them to grant him a scutage
+of two marks and a half on each knight's fee for an expedition into
+Normandy; but he did not attempt to execute the service for which he
+pretended to exact it.  Next year he summoned all the barons of his
+realm to attend him on this foreign expedition, and collected ships
+from all the sea-ports; but meeting with opposition from some of his
+ministers, and abandoning his design, he dismissed both fleet and
+army, and then renewed his exclamations against the barons for
+deserting him.  He next put to sea with a small army, and his subjects
+believed that he was resolved to expose himself to the utmost hazard
+for the defence and recovery of his dominions: but they were
+surprised, after a few days, to see him return again into harbour,
+without attempting any thing.  [MN 1206.]  In the subsequent season,
+he had the courage to carry his hostile measures a step farther.  Gui
+de Thouars, who governed Britany, jealous of the rapid progress made
+by his ally, the French king, promised to join the King of England
+with all his forces; and John ventured abroad with a considerable
+army, and landed at Rochelle.  He marched to Angers, which he took and
+reduced to ashes.  But the approach of Philip with an army threw him
+into a panic; and he immediately made proposals for peace, and fixed a
+place of interview with his enemy: but instead of keeping his
+engagement, he stole off with his army, embarked at Rochelle, and
+returned, loaded with new shame and disgrace, into England.  The
+mediation of the pope, procured him at last a truce for two years with
+the French monarch [z]; almost all the transmarine provinces were
+ravished from him; and his English barons, though harassed with
+arbitrary taxes and fruitless expeditions, saw themselves and their
+country baffled and affronted in every enterprise.
+[FN [y] M. Paris, p. 146.  M. West. p. 265.  [z] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+141.]
+
+In an age when personal valour was regarded as the chief
+accomplishment, such conduct as that of John, always disgraceful, must
+be exposed to peculiar contempt; and he must thenceforth have expected
+to rule his turbulent vassals with a very doubtful authority.  But the
+government exercised by the Norman princes had wound up the royal
+power to so high a pitch, and so much beyond the usual tenour of the
+feudal constitutions, that it still behoved him to be debased by new
+affronts and disgraces, ere his barons could entertain the view of
+conspiring against him, in order to retrench his prerogatives.  The
+church, which at that time declined not a contest with the most
+powerful and vigorous monarchs, took first advantage of John's
+imbecility; and, with the most aggravating circumstances of insolence
+and scorn, fixed her yoke upon him.
+
+[MN 1207.  The kingÂ’s quarrel with the court of Rome.]
+The papal chair was then filled by Innocent III., who, having attained
+that dignity at the age of thirty-seven years, and being endowed with
+a lofty and enterprising genius, gave full scope to his ambition, and
+attempted, perhaps more openly than any of his predecessors, to
+convert that superiority which was yielded him by all the European
+princes into a real dominion over them.  The hierarchy, protected by
+the Roman pontiff, had already carried to an enormous height its
+usurpations upon the civil power; but in order to extend them farther,
+and render them useful to the court of Rome, it was necessary to
+reduce the ecclesiastics themselves under an absolute monarchy, and to
+make them entirely dependent on their spiritual leader.  For this
+purpose, Innocent first attempted to impose taxes at pleasure upon the
+clergy; and in the first year of this century, taking advantage of the
+popular frenzy for crusades, he sent collectors over all Europe, who
+levied, by his authority, the fortieth of all ecclesiastical revenues
+for the relief of the Holy Land, and received the voluntary
+contributions of the laity to a like amount [a].  The same year
+Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, attempted another innovation,
+favourable to ecclesiastical and papal power: in the king's absence,
+he summoned, by his legatine authority, a synod of all the English
+clergy, contrary to the inhibition of Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, the chief
+justiciary; and no proper censure was ever passed on this
+encroachment, the first of the kind, upon the royal power.  But a
+favourable incident soon after happened, which enabled so aspiring a
+pontiff as Innocent to extend still farther his usurpations on so
+contemptible a prince as John.
+[FN [a] Rymer, vol. i. p. 119.]
+
+Hubert the primate died in 1205; and as the monks or canons of Christ-
+Church, Canterbury, possessed a right of voting in the election of
+their archbishop, some of the juniors of the order, who lay in wait
+for that event, met clandestinely the very night of Hubert's death,
+and, without any congé d'élire from the king, chose Reginald, their
+sub-prior, for the successor; installed him in the archiepiscopal
+throne before midnight; and, having enjoined him the strictest
+secrecy, sent him immediately to Rome, in order to solicit the
+confirmation of his election [b].  The vanity of Reginald prevailed
+over his prudence; and he no sooner arrived in Flanders, than he
+revealed to every one the purpose of his journey, which was
+immediately known in England [c].  The king was enraged at the novelty
+and temerity of the attempt, in filling so important an office without
+his knowledge or consent: the suffragan bishops of Canterbury, who
+were accustomed to concur in the choice of their primate, were no less
+displeased at the exclusion given them in this election: the senior
+monks of Christ-Church were injured by the irregular proceedings of
+their juniors: the juniors themselves, ashamed of their conduct, and
+disgusted with the levity of Reginald, who had broken his engagements
+with them, were willing to set aside his election [d]: and all men
+concurred in the design of remedying the false measures which had been
+taken.  But as John knew that this affair would be canvassed before a
+superior tribunal, where the interposition of royal authority in
+bestowing ecclesiastical benefices was very invidious; where even the
+cause of suffragan bishops was not so favourable as that of monks; he
+determined to make the new election entirely unexceptionable: he
+submitted the affair wholly to the canons of Christ-Church, and,
+departing from the right claimed by his predecessors, ventured no
+farther than to inform them privately, that they would do him an
+acceptable service if they chose John de Gray, Bishop of Norwich, for
+their primate [e].  The election of that prelate was accordingly made
+without a contradictory vote; and the king, to obviate all contests,
+endeavoured to persuade the suffragan bishops not to insist on their
+claim of concurring in the election; but those prelates, persevering
+in their pretensions, sent an agent to maintain their cause before
+Innocent; while the king and the convent of Christ-Church, despatched
+twelve monks of that order to support, before the same tribunal, the
+election of the Bishop of Norwich.
+[FN [b] M. Paris, p. 148.  M. West. p. 266.  [c] Ibid.  [d] M. West.
+p. 266.  [e] M. Paris, p. 149.  M. West. p. 266.]
+
+Thus there lay three different claims before the pope, whom all
+parties allowed to be the supreme arbiter in the contest.  The claim
+of the suffragans, being so opposite to the usual maxims of the papal
+court, was soon set aside: the election of Reginald was so obviously
+fraudulent and irregular, that there was no possibility of defending
+it; but Innocent maintained that, though this election was null and
+invalid, it ought previously to have been declared such by the
+sovereign pontiff, before the monks could proceed to a new election;
+and that the choice of the Bishop of Norwich was of course as
+uncanonical as that of his competitor [f].  Advantage was therefore
+taken of this subtlety for introducing a precedent, by which the see
+of Canterbury, the most important dignity in the church after the
+papal throne, should ever after be at the disposal of the court of
+Rome.
+[FN [f] M. Paris, p. 155.  Chron. de Mailr. p. 182.]
+
+While the pope maintained so many fierce contests, in order to wrest
+from princes the right of granting investitures, and to exclude laymen
+from all authority in conferring ecclesiastical benefices, he was
+supported by the united influence of the clergy, who, aspiring to
+independence, fought with all the ardour of ambition, and all the zeal
+of superstition, under his sacred banners.  But no sooner was this
+point, after a great effusion of blood, and the convulsions of many
+states, established in some tolerable degree, than the victorious
+leader, as is usual, turned his arms against his own community, and
+aspired to centre all power in his person.  By the invention of
+reserves, provisions, commendants, and other devices, the pope
+gradually assumed the right of filling vacant benefices; and the
+plenitude of his apostolic power, which was not subject to any
+limitations, supplied all defects of title in the person on whom he
+bestowed preferment.  The canons which regulated elections were
+purposely rendered intricate and involved: frequent disputes arose
+among candidates: appeals were every day carried to Rome: the
+apostolic see, besides reaping pecuniary advantages from these
+contests, often exercised the power of setting aside both the
+litigants, and, on pretence of appeasing faction, nominated a third
+person, who might be more acceptable to the contending parties.
+
+The present controversy about the election to the see of Canterbury
+afforded Innocent an opportunity of claiming this right; and he failed
+not to perceive and avail himself of the advantage.  He sent for the
+twelve monks deputed by the convent to maintain the cause of the
+Bishop of Norwich; and commanded them, under the penalty of
+excommunication, to choose for their primate Cardinal Langton, an
+Englishman by birth, but educated in France, and connected, by his
+interest and attachments, with the see of Rome [g].  [MN Cardinal
+Langton appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.]  In vain did the monks
+represent, that they had received from their convent no authority for
+this purpose; that an election, without a previous writ from the king,
+would be deemed highly irregular; and that they were merely agents for
+another person, whose right they had no power or pretence to abandon.
+None of them had the courage to persevere in this opposition, except
+one, Elias de Brantefield: all the rest, overcome by the menaces and
+authority of the pope, complied with his orders, and made the election
+required of them.
+[FN [g] M. Paris, p. 155.  Ann. Waverl. p. 169.  W. Heming. p. 553.
+Knyghton, p. 2415.]
+
+Innocent, sensible that this flagrant usurpation would be highly
+resented by the court of England, wrote John a mollifying letter; sent
+him four golden rings set with precious stones; and endeavoured to
+enhance the value of the present by informing him of the many
+mysteries implied in it.  He begged him to consider seriously the FORM
+of the rings, their NUMBER, their MATTER, and their COLOUR.  Their
+form, he said, being round, shadowed out eternity, which had neither
+beginning nor end; and he ought thence to learn his duty of aspiring
+from earthly objects to heavenly, from things temporal to things
+eternal.  The number four, being a square, denoted steadiness of mind,
+not to be subverted either by adversity or prosperity, fixed for ever
+on the firm basis of the four cardinal virtues.  Gold, which is the
+matter, being the most precious of metals, signified wisdom, which is
+the most valuable of all accomplishments, and justly preferred by
+Solomon to riches, power, and all exterior attainments.  The blue
+colour of the sapphire represented faith; the verdure of the emerald,
+hope; the redness of the ruby, charity; and the splendour of the
+topaz, good works [h].  By these conceits Innocent endeavoured to
+repay John for one of the most important prerogatives of his crown,
+which he had ravished from him; conceits probably admired by Innocent
+himself: for it is easily possible for a man, especially in a
+barbarous age, to unite strong talents for business with an absurd
+taste for literature and the arts.
+[FN [h] Rymer, vol. i. p. 139.  M. Paris, p. 155.]
+
+John was inflamed with the utmost rage when he heard of this attempt
+of the court of Rome [i]; and he immediately vented his passion on the
+monks of Christ-Church, whom he found inclined to support the election
+made by their fellows at Rome.  He sent Fulke de Cantelupe, and Henry
+de Cornhulle, two knights of his retinue, men of violent tempers and
+rude manners, to expel them the convent, and take possession of their
+revenues.  These knights entered the monastery with drawn swords,
+commanded the prior and the monks to depart the kingdom, and menaced
+them, that, in case of disobedience, they would instantly burn them
+with the convent [k].  Innocent, prognosticating, from the violence
+and imprudence of these measures, that John would finally sink in the
+contest, persevered the more vigorously in his pretensions, and
+exhorted the king not to oppose God and the church any longer, nor to
+prosecute that cause for which the holy martyr, St. Thomas, had
+sacrificed his life, and which had exalted him equal to the highest
+saints in heaven [l]: a clear hint to John to profit by the example of
+his father; and to remember the prejudices and established principles
+of his subjects, who bore a profound veneration to that martyr, and
+regarded his merits as the subject of their chief glory and
+exultation.
+[FN [i] Rymer, vol. i. p. 143.  [k] M. Paris, p. 156.  Trivet, p. 151.
+Ann. Waverl. p. 169.  [l] M. Paris, p. 157.]
+
+Innocent, finding that John was not sufficiently tamed to submission,
+sent three prelates, the Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, to
+intimate, that if he persevered in his disobedience, the sovereign
+pontiff would be obliged to lay the kingdom under an interdict [m].
+All the other prelates threw themselves on their knees before him, and
+entreated him, with tears in their eyes, to prevent the scandal of
+this sentence, by making a speedy submission to his spiritual father,
+by receiving from his hands the new-elected primate, and by restoring
+the monks of Christ-Church to all their rights and possessions.  He
+burst out into the most indecent invectives against the prelates;
+swore by God's teeth, (his usual oath,) that if the pope presumed to
+lay his kingdom under an interdict, he would send to him all the
+bishops and clergy of England, and would confiscate all their estates;
+and threatened that, if thenceforth he caught any Romans in his
+dominions, he would put out their eyes and cut off their noses, in
+order to set a mark upon them which might distinguish them from all
+other nations [n].  Amidst all this idle violence, John stood on such
+bad terms with his nobility, that he never dared to assemble the
+states of the kingdom, who, in so just a cause, would probably have
+adhered to any other monarch, and have defended with vigour the
+liberties of the nation against these palpable usurpations of the
+court of Rome.  [MN Interdict of the kingdom.]  Innocent, therefore,
+perceiving the king's weakness, fulminated at last the sentence of
+interdict, which he had for some time held suspended over him [o].
+[FN [m] Ibid.  [n] Ibid.  [o] M. Paris, p. 157.  Trivet, p. 152.  Ann.
+Waverl. p. 170.  M. West. p. 268.]
+
+The sentence of interdict was at that time the great instrument of
+vengeance and policy employed by the court of Rome; was denounced
+against sovereigns for the lightest offences; and made the guilt of
+one person involve the ruin of millions, even in their spiritual and
+eternal welfare.  The execution of it was calculated to strike the
+senses in the highest degree, and to operate with irresistible force
+on the superstitious minds of the people.  The nation was of a sudden
+deprived of all exterior exercise of its religion: the altars were
+despoiled of their ornaments: the crosses, the relics, the images, the
+statues of the saints, were laid on the ground; and, as if the air
+itself were profaned, and might pollute them by its contact, the
+priests carefully covered them up, even from their own approach and
+veneration.  The use of bells entirely ceased in all the churches: the
+bells themselves were removed from the steeples, and laid on the
+ground with the other sacred utensils.  Mass was celebrated with shut
+doors, and none but the priests were admitted to that holy
+institution.  The laity partook of no religious rite, except baptism
+to new-born infants, and the communion to the dying: the dead were not
+interred in consecrated ground: they were thrown into ditches, or
+buried in common fields; and their obsequies were not attended with
+prayers or any hallowed ceremony.  Marriage was celebrated in the
+church-yard [p]; and that every action in life might bear the marks of
+this dreadful situation, the people were prohibited the use of meat,
+as in Lent, or times of the highest penance; were debarred from all
+pleasures and entertainments; and were forbidden even to salute each
+other, or so much as to shave their beards, and give any decent
+attention to their person and apparel.  Every circumstance carried
+symptoms of the deepest distress, and of the most immediate
+apprehension of divine vengeance and indignation.
+[FN [p] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 51.]
+
+The king, that he might oppose HIS temporal to THEIR spiritual
+terrors, immediately, from his own authority, confiscated the estates
+of all the clergy who obeyed the interdict [q]; banished the prelates,
+confined the monks in their convent, and gave them only such a small
+allowance from their own estates as would suffice to provide them with
+food and raiment.  He treated with the utmost rigour all Langton's
+adherents, and every one that showed any disposition to obey the
+commands of Rome; and in order to distress the clergy in the tenderest
+point, and at the same time expose them to reproach and ridicule, he
+threw into prison all their concubines, and required high fines as the
+price of their liberty [r].
+[FN [q] Ann. Waverl. p. 170.  [r] M. Paris, p. 158.  Ann. Waverl. p.
+170.]
+
+After the canons which established the celibacy of the clergy were, by
+the zealous endeavours of Archbishop Anselm, more rigorously executed
+in England, the ecclesiastics gave, almost universally, and avowedly,
+in to the use of concubinage; and the court of Rome, which had no
+interest in prohibiting this practice, made very slight opposition to
+it.  The custom was become so prevalent, that, in some cantons of
+Switzerland, before the reformation, the laws not only permitted, but,
+to avoid scandal, enjoined the use of concubines to the younger clergy
+[s]; and it was usual every where for priests to apply to the
+ordinary, and obtain from him a formal liberty for this indulgence.
+The bishop commonly took care to prevent the practice from
+degenerating into licentiousness: he confined the priest to the use of
+one woman, required him to be constant to her bed, obliged him to
+provide for her subsistence and that of her children; and though the
+offspring was, in the eye of the law, deemed illegitimate, this
+commerce was really a kind of inferior marriage, such as is still
+practised in Germany among the nobles; and may be regarded by the
+candid as an appeal from the tyranny of civil and ecclesiastical
+institutions, to the more virtuous and more unerring laws of nature.
+[FN [s] Padre Paolo, Hist. Conc. Trid. lib. I.]
+
+The quarrel between the king and the see of Rome continued for some
+years; and though many of the clergy, from the fear of punishment,
+obeyed the orders of John, and celebrated divine service, they
+complied with the utmost reluctance, and were regarded, both by
+themselves and the people, as men who betrayed their principles, and
+sacrificed their conscience to temporal regards and interests.  During
+this violent situation, the king, in order to give a lustre to his
+government, attempted military expeditions against Scotland, against
+Ireland, against the Welsh [t]; and he commonly prevailed, more from
+the weakness of his enemies, than from his own vigour or abilities.
+Meanwhile, the danger to which his government stood continually
+exposed from the discontents of the ecclesiastics increased his
+natural propension to tyranny; and he seems to have even wantonly
+disgusted all orders of men, especially his nobles, from whom alone he
+could reasonably expect support and assistance.  He dishonoured their
+families by his licentious amours; he published edicts, prohibiting
+them from hunting feathered game, and thereby restrained them from
+their favourite occupation and amusement [u]; he ordered all the
+hedges and fences near his forests to be levelled, that his deer might
+have more ready access into the fields for pasture; and he continually
+loaded the nation with arbitrary impositions.  [MN 1208.]  Conscious
+of the general hatred which he had incurred, he required his nobility
+to give him hostages for security of their allegiance; and they were
+obliged to put into his hands their sons, nephews, or near relations.
+When his messengers came with like orders to the castle of William de
+Braouse, a baron of great note, the lady of that nobleman replied,
+that she would never intrust her son into the hands of one who had
+murdered his own nephew while in his custody.  Her husband reproved
+her for the severity of this speech; but, sensible of his danger, he
+immediately fled with his wife and son into Ireland, where he
+endeavoured to conceal himself.  The king discovered the unhappy
+family in their retreat; seized the wife and son, whom he starved to
+death in prison; and the baron himself narrowly escaped, by flying
+into France.
+[FN [t] W. Heming. p. 556.  Ypod. Neust, p. 460.  Knyghton, p. 2420.
+[u] M. West. p. 268.]
+
+[MN 1209.]  The court of Rome had artfully contrived a gradation of
+sentences, by which it kept offenders in awe; still affording them an
+opportunity of preventing the next anathema by submission; and in case
+of their obstinacy, was able to refresh the horror of the people
+against them by new denunciations of the wrath and vengeance of
+Heaven.  As the sentence of interdict had not produced the desired
+effect on John, and as his people, though extremely discontented, had
+hitherto been restrained from rising in open rebellion against him, he
+was soon to look for the sentence of excommunication; and he had
+reason to apprehend, that, notwithstanding all his precautions, the
+most dangerous consequences might ensue from it.  He was witness of
+the other scenes, which, at that very time, were acting in Europe, and
+which displayed the unbounded and uncontrolled power of the papacy.
+Innocent, far from being dismayed at his contests with the King of
+England, had excommunicated the Emperor Otho, John's nephew [w]; and
+soon brought that powerful and haughty prince to submit to his
+authority.  He published a crusade against the Abigenses, a species of
+enthusiasts in the south of France, whom he denominated heretics,
+because, like other enthusiasts, they neglected the rites of the
+church, and opposed the power and influence of the clergy: the people
+from all parts of Europe, moved by their superstition and their
+passion for wars and adventures, flocked to his standard: Simon de
+Montfort, the general of the crusade, acquired to himself a
+sovereignty in these provinces: the Count of Toulouse, who protected,
+or perhaps only tolerated the Albigenses, was stripped of his
+dominions: and these sectaries themselves, though the most innocent
+and inoffensive of mankind, were exterminated with all the
+circumstances of extreme violence and barbarity.  Here were therefore
+both an army and a general, dangerous from their zeal and valour, who
+might be directed to act against John; and Innocent, after keeping the
+thunder long suspended, gave, at last, authority to the Bishops of
+London, Ely, and Worcester, to fulminate the sentence of
+excommunication against him [x].  [MN Excommunication of the king.]
+These prelates obeyed; though their brethren were deterred from
+publishing, as the pope required of them, the sentence in the several
+churches of their dioceses.
+[FN [w] M. Paris, p. 160.  Trivet, p. 154.  M. West. p. 269.  [x] M.
+Paris, p. 159.  M. West. p. 270.]
+
+No sooner was the excommunication known, than the effects of it
+appeared.  Geoffrey, Archdeacon of Norwich, who was intrusted with a
+considerable office in the court of exchequer, being informed of it
+while sitting on the bench, observed to his colleagues the danger of
+serving under an excommunicated king; and he immediately left his
+chair, and departed the court.  John gave orders to seize him, to
+throw him into prison, to cover his head with a great leaden cope;
+and, by this and other severe usage, he soon put an end to his life
+[y]: nor was there any thing wanting to Geoffrey, except the dignity
+and rank of Becket, to exalt him to an equal station in heaven with
+that great and celebrated martyr.  Hugh de Wells, the chancellor,
+being elected by the king's appointment Bishop of Lincoln, upon a
+vacancy in that see, desired leave to go abroad, in order to receive
+consecration from the Archbishop of Rouen; but he no sooner reached
+France than he hastened to Pontigny, where Langton then resided, and
+paid submissions to him as his primate.  The bishops, finding
+themselves exposed either to the jealousy of the king or hatred of the
+people, gradually stole out of the kingdom; and, at last, there
+remained only three prelates to perform the functions of the episcopal
+office [z].  Many of the nobility, terrified by JohnÂ’s tyranny, and
+obnoxious to him on different accounts, imitated the example of the
+bishops; and most of the others who remained were, with reason,
+suspected of having secretly entered into a confederacy against him
+[a].  John was alarmed at his dangerous situation; a situation which
+prudence, vigour, and popularity might formerly have prevented, but
+which no virtues or abilities were now sufficient to retrieve.  He
+desired a conference with Langton at Dover; offered to acknowledge him
+as primate, to submit to the pope, to restore the exiled clergy, even
+to pay them a limited sum as a compensation for the rents of their
+confiscated estates.  But Langton, perceiving his advantage, was not
+satisfied with these concessions: he demanded that full restitution
+and reparation should be made to all the clergy; a condition so
+exorbitant, that the king, who probably had not the power of
+fulfilling it, and who foresaw that this estimation of damages might
+amount to an immense sum, finally broke off the conference [b].
+[FN [y] M. Paris, p. 159.  [z] Ann. Waverl. p. 170.  Ann. Marg. p. 14.
+[a] M. Paris, p. 162.  M. West. p. 270, 271.  [b] Ann. Waverl. p.
+171.]
+
+[MN 1212.]  The next gradation of papal sentences was to absolve
+John's subjects from their oaths of fidelity and allegiance, and to
+declare every one excommunicated who had any commerce with him in
+public or in private; at his table, in his council, or even in private
+conversation [c]; and this sentence was accordingly, with all
+imaginable solemnity, pronounced against him.  But as John still
+persevered in his contumacy, there remained nothing but the sentence
+of deposition; which, though intimately connected with the former, had
+been distinguished from it by the artifice of the court of Rome; and
+Innocent determined to dart this last thunderbolt against the
+refractory monarch.  But as a sentence of this kind required an armed
+force to execute it, the pontiff, casting his eyes around, fixed at
+last on Philip, King of France, as the person into whose powerful hand
+he could most properly intrust that weapon, the ultimate resource of
+his ghostly authority.  And he offered the monarch, besides the
+remission of all his sins and endless spiritual benefits, the property
+and possession of the kingdom of England, as the reward of his labour
+[d].
+[FN [c] M. Paris, p. 161.  M. West. p. 270.  [d] M. Paris, p. 162.  M.
+West. p. 271.]
+
+[MN 1213.]  It was the common concern of all princes to oppose these
+exorbitant pretensions of the Roman pontiff, by which they themselves
+were rendered vassals, and vassals totally dependent, of the papal
+crown: yet even Philip, the most able monarch of the age, was seduced
+by present interest, and by the prospect of so tempting a prize, to
+accept this liberal offer of the pontiff, and thereby to ratify that
+authority which, if he ever opposed its boundless usurpations, might,
+next day, tumble him from the throne.  He levied a great army;
+summoned all the vassals of the crown to attend him at Rouen;
+collected a fleet of seventeen hundred vessels, great and small, in
+the sea-ports of Normandy and Picardy; and partly from the zealous
+spirit of the age, partly from the personal regard universally paid
+him, prepared a force, which seemed equal to the greatness of his
+enterprise.  The king, on the other hand, issued out writs, requiring
+the attendance of all his military tenants at Dover, and even of all
+able-bodied men, to defend the kingdom in this dangerous extremity.  A
+great number appeared; and he selected an army of sixty thousand men;
+a power invincible, had they been united in affection to their prince,
+and animated with a becoming zeal for the defence of their native
+country [e].  But the people were swayed by superstition, and regarded
+their king with horror, as anathematized by papal censures: the
+barons, besides lying under the same prejudices, were all disgusted by
+his tyranny, and were, many of them, suspected of holding a secret
+correspondence with the enemy; and the incapacity and cowardice of the
+king himself, ill fitted to contend with those mighty difficulties,
+made men prognosticate the most fatal effects from the French
+invasion.
+[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 163.  M. West. p. 271.]
+
+Pandolf, whom the pope had chosen for his legate, and appointed to
+head this important expedition, had, before he left Rome, applied for
+a secret conference with his master, and had asked him, whether, if
+the King of England, in this desperate situation, were willing to
+submit to the apostolic see, the church should, without the consent of
+Philip, grant him any terms of accommodation [f]!  Innocent, expecting
+from his agreement with a prince so abject both in character and
+fortune, more advantages than from his alliance with a great and
+victorious monarch, who, after such mighty acquisitions, might become
+too haughty to be bound by spiritual chains, explained to Pandolf the
+conditions on which he was willing to be reconciled to the King of
+England.  The legate, therefore, as soon as he arrived in the north of
+France, sent over two Knights Templars to desire an interview with
+John at Dover, which was readily granted: he there represented to him,
+in such strong and probably in such true colours, his lost condition,
+the disaffection of his subjects, the secret combination of his
+vassals against him, the mighty armament of France, that John yielded
+at discretion [g], and subscribed to all the conditions which Pandolf
+was pleased to impose upon him.  [MN 13th May.  The kingÂ’s submission
+to the pope.]  He promised, among other articles, that he would submit
+himself entirely to the judgment of the pope; that he would
+acknowledge Langton for primate; that he would restore all the exiled
+clergy and laity, who had been banished on account of the contest;
+that he would make them full restitution of their goods, and
+compensation for all damages, and instantly consign eight thousand
+pounds in part of payment; and that every one outlawed or imprisoned
+for his adherence to the pope should immediately be received into
+grace and favour [h].  Four barons swore, along with the king, to the
+observance of this ignominious treaty [i].
+[FN [f] M. Paris, p. 162.  [g] M. West. p. 271.  [h] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+166.  M. Paris, p. 163.  Annal. Burt. p. 268.  [i] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+170.  M. Paris, p. 163.]
+
+But the ignominy of the king was not yet carried to its full height.
+Pandolf required him, as the first trial of obedience, to resign his
+kingdom to the church; and he persuaded him, that he could nowise so
+effectually disappoint the French invasion as by thus putting himself
+under the immediate protection of the apostolic see.  John, lying
+under the agonies of present terror, made no scruple of submitting to
+this condition.  He passed a charter, in which he said, that, not
+constrained by fear, but of his own free will, and by the common
+advice and consent of his barons, he had, for remission of his own
+sins, and those of his family, resigned England and Ireland, to God,
+to St. Peter and St. Paul, and to Pope Innocent and his successors in
+the apostolic chair: he agreed to hold these dominions as feudatory of
+the church of Rome, by the annual payment of a thousand marks; seven
+hundred for England, three hundred for Ireland: and he stipulated that
+if he or his successors should ever presume to revoke or infringe this
+charter, they should instantly, except upon admonition they repented
+of their offence, forfeit all right to their dominions [k].
+[FN [k] Rymer, vol. i. p. 176.  M. Paris, p. 165.]
+
+[MN 15th May.]  In consequence of this agreement, John did homage to
+Pandolf, as the pope's legate, with all the submissive rites which the
+feudal law required of vassals before their liege lord and superior.
+He came disarmed into the legate's presence, who was seated on a
+throne; he flung himself on his knees before him; he lifted up his
+joined hands, and put them within those of Pandolf; he swore fealty to
+the pope; and he paid part of the tribute which he owed for his
+kingdom as the patrimony of St. Peter.  The legate, elated by this
+supreme triumph of sacerdotal power, could not forbear discovering
+extravagant symptoms of joy and exultation: he trampled on the money,
+which was laid at his feet as an earnest of the subjection of the
+kingdom; an insolence of which, however offensive to all the English,
+no one present, except the Archbishop of Dublin, dared to take any
+notice.  But though Pandolf had brought the king to submit to these
+base conditions, he still refused to free him from the excommunication
+and interdict, till an estimation should be taken of the losses of the
+ecclesiastics, and full compensation and restitution should be made
+them.
+
+John, reduced to this abject situation under a foreign power, still
+showed the same disposition to tyrannize over his subjects, which had
+been the chief cause of all his misfortunes.  One Peter of Pomfret, a
+hermit, had foretold that the king, this very year, should lose his
+crown; and for that rash prophecy he had been thrown into prison in
+Corfe-castle.  John now determined to bring him to punishment as an
+impostor; and though the man pleaded that his prophecy was fulfilled,
+and that the king had lost the royal and independent crown which he
+formerly wore, the defence was supposed to aggravate his guilt: he was
+dragged at horses' tails to the town of Warham, and there hanged on a
+gibbet with his son [l].
+[FN [l] M. Paris, p. 165.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 56.]
+
+When Pandolf, after receiving the homage of John, returned to France,
+he congratulated Philip on the success of his pious enterprise; and
+informed him that John, moved by the terror of the French arms, had
+now come to a just sense of his guilt; had returned to obedience under
+the apostolic see, and even consented to do homage to the pope for his
+dominions; and having thus made his kingdom a part of St. Peter's
+patrimony, had rendered it impossible for any Christian prince,
+without the most manifest and most flagrant impiety, to attack him
+[m].  Philip was enraged on receiving this intelligence: he exclaimed
+that having, at the popeÂ’s instigation, undertaken an expedition,
+which had cost him above sixty thousand pounds sterling, he was
+frustrated of his purpose, at the time when its success was become
+infallible: he complained that all the expense had fallen upon him;
+all the advantages had accrued to Innocent: he threatened to be no
+longer the dupe of these hypocritical pretences; and, assembling his
+vassals, he laid before them the ill-treatment which he had received,
+exposed the interested and fraudulent conduct of the pope, and
+required their assistance to execute his enterprise against England,
+in which he told them, that, notwithstanding the inhibitions and
+menaces of the legate, he was determined to persevere.  The French
+barons were, in that age, little less ignorant and superstitious than
+the English: yet, so much does the influence of those religious
+principles depend on the present dispositions of men, they all vowed
+to follow their prince on his intended expedition, and were resolute
+not to be disappointed of that glory and those riches which they had
+long expected from this enterprise.  The Earl of Flanders alone, who
+had previously formed a secret treaty with John, declaring against the
+injustice and impiety of the undertaking, retired with his forces [n];
+and Philip, that he might not leave so dangerous an enemy behind him,
+first turned his arms against the dominions of that prince.
+Meanwhile, the English fleet was assembled under the Earl of
+Salisbury, the king's natural brother; and though inferior in number,
+received orders to attack the French in their harbours.  Salisbury
+performed this service with so much success, that he took three
+hundred ships; destroyed a hundred more [o]; and Philip, finding it
+impossible to prevent the rest from falling into the hands of the
+enemy, set fire to them himself, and thereby rendered it impossible
+for him to proceed any farther in his enterprise.
+[FN [m] Trivet, p. 160.  [n] M. Paris, p. 166.  [o] Ibid. p. 166.
+Chron. Dunst, vol. i. p. 59.  Trivet, p. 157.]
+
+John, exulting in his present security, insensible to his past
+disgrace, was so elated with this success, that he thought of no less
+than invading France in his turn, and recovering all those provinces
+which the prosperous arms of Philip had formerly ravished from him.
+He proposed this expedition to the barons, who were already assembled
+for the defence of the kingdom.  But the English nobles both hated and
+despised their prince: they prognosticated no success to any
+enterprise conducted by such a leader; and pretending that their time
+of service was elapsed, and all their provisions exhausted, they
+refused to second his undertaking [p].  The king, however, resolute in
+his purpose, embarked with a few followers, and sailed to Jersey, in
+the foolish expectation that the barons would at last be ashamed to
+stay behind [q].  But finding himself disappointed, he returned to
+England; and, raising some troops, threatened to take vengeance on all
+his nobles for their desertion and disobedience.  The Archbishop of
+Canterbury, who was in a confederacy with the barons, here interposed;
+strictly inhibited the king from thinking of such an attempt; and
+threatened him with a renewal of the sentence of excommunication, if
+he pretended to levy war upon any of his subjects, before the kingdom
+were freed from the sentence of interdict [r].
+[FN [p] M. Paris, p. 166.  [q] M. Paris, p. 166.  [r] Ibid. p. 167.]
+
+The church had recalled the several anathemas pronounced against John,
+by the same gradual progress with which she had at first issued them.
+By receiving his homage, and admitting him to the rank of a vassal,
+his deposition had been virtually annulled, and his subjects were
+again bound by their oaths of allegiance.  The exiled prelates had
+then returned in great triumph, with Langton at their head; and the
+king, hearing of their approach, went forth to meet them, and throwing
+himself on the ground before them, he entreated them, with tears, to
+have compassion on him and the kingdom of England [s].  [MN July.]
+The primate, seeing these marks of sincere penitence, led him to the
+chapter-house of Winchester, and there administered an oath to him, by
+which he again swore fealty and obedience to Pope Innocent and his
+successors; promised to love, maintain, and defend holy church and the
+clergy; engaged that he would re-establish the good laws of his
+predecessors, particularly those of St. Edward, and would abolish the
+wicked ones; and expressed his resolution of maintaining justice and
+right in all his dominions [t].  The primate next gave him absolution
+in the requisite forms, and admitted him to dine with him, to the
+great joy of all the people.  The sentence of interdict, however, was
+still upheld against the kingdom.  A new legate, Nicholas, Bishop of
+Frescati, came into England in the room of Pandolf; and he declared it
+to be the pope's intentions never to loosen that sentence till full
+restitution were made to the clergy of every thing taken from them,
+and ample reparation for all damages which they had sustained.  He
+only permitted mass to be said with a low voice in the churches, till
+those losses and damages could be estimated to the satisfaction of the
+parties.  Certain barons were appointed to take an account of the
+claims; and John was astonished at the greatness of the sums to which
+the clergy made their losses to amount.  No less than twenty thousand
+marks were demanded by the monks of Canterbury alone; twenty-three
+thousand for the see of Lincoln; and the king, finding these
+pretensions to be exorbitant and endless, offered the clergy the sum
+of a hundred thousand marks for a final acquittal.  The clergy
+rejected the offer with disdain; but the pope, willing to favour his
+new vassal, whom he found zealous in his declarations of fealty, and
+regular in paying the stipulated tribute to Rome, directed his legate
+to accept of forty thousand.  The issue of the whole was, that the
+bishops and considerable abbots got reparation beyond what they had
+any title to demand; the inferior clergy were obliged to sit down
+contented with their losses; and the king, after the interdict was
+taken off, renewed, in the most solemn manner, and by a new charter,
+sealed with gold, his professions of homage and obedience to the see
+of Rome.
+[FN [s] Ibid. p. 166.  Ann. Waverl. p. 178.  [t] M. Paris, p. 166.]
+
+[MN 1214.]  When this vexatious affair was at last brought to a
+conclusion, the king, as if he had nothing farther to attend to but
+triumphs and victories, went over to Poictou, which still acknowledged
+his authority [u]; and he carried war into Philip's dominions.  He
+besieged a castle near Angiers; but the approach of Prince Lewis,
+Philip's son, obliged him to raise the siege with such precipitation,
+that he left his tents, machines, and baggage behind him; and he
+returned to England with disgrace.  About the same time he heard of
+the great and decisive victory gained by the King of France at Bovines
+over the Emperor Otho, who had entered France at the head of a hundred
+and fifty thousand Germans; a victory which established for ever the
+glory of Philip, and gave full security to all his dominions.  John
+could, therefore, think henceforth of nothing farther than of ruling
+peaceably his own kingdom; and his close connexions with the pope,
+which he was determined at any price to maintain, ensured him, as he
+imagined, the certain attainment of that object.  But the last and
+most grievous scene of this princeÂ’s misfortunes still awaited him;
+and he was destined to pass through a series of more humiliating
+circumstances than had ever yet fallen to the lot of any other
+monarch.
+[FN [u] Queen Eleanor died in 1203 or 1204.]
+
+[MN Discontents of the barons.]
+The introduction of the feudal law into England by William the
+Conqueror had much infringed the liberties, however imperfect, enjoyed
+by the Anglo-Saxons in their ancient government, and had reduced the
+whole people to a state of vassalage under the king or barons, and
+even the greater part of them to a state of real slavery.  The
+necessity also of intrusting great power in the hands of a prince, who
+was to maintain military dominion over a vanquished nation, had
+engaged the Norman barons to submit to a more severe and absolute
+prerogative than that to which men of their rank, in other feudal
+governments, were commonly subjected.  The power of the crown, once
+raised to a high pitch, was not easily reduced; and the nation, during
+the course of a hundred and fifty years, was governed by an authority
+unknown, in the same degree, to all the kingdoms founded by the
+northern conquerors.  Henry I., that he might allure the people to
+give an exclusion to his elder brother Robert, had granted them a
+charter, favourable in many particulars to their liberties; Stephen
+had renewed the grant; Henry II. had confirmed it: but the concessions
+of all these princes had still remained without effect; and the same
+unlimited, at least irregular authority, continued to be exercised
+both by them and their successors.  The only happiness was, that arms
+were never yet ravished from the hands of the barons and people: the
+nation, by a great confederacy, might still vindicate its liberties;
+and nothing was more likely than the character, conduct, and fortunes
+of the reigning prince to produce such a general combination against
+him.  Equally odious and contemptible, both in public and private
+life, he affronted the barons by his insolence, dishonoured their
+families by his gallantries, enraged them by his tyranny,  and gave
+discontent to all ranks of men by his endless exactions and
+impositions [w].  The effect of these lawless practices had already
+appeared in the general demand made by the barons of a restoration of
+their privileges; and after he had reconciled himself to the pope, by
+abandoning the independence of the kingdom, he appeared to all his
+subjects in so mean a light, that they universally thought they might
+with safety and honour insist upon their pretensions.
+[FN [w] Chron Mailr. p. 188.  T. Wykes, p. 36.  Ann. Waverl. p. 181.
+W. Heming. p. 557.]
+
+But nothing forwarded this confederacy so much as the concurrence of
+Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury; a man whose memory, though he was
+obtruded on the nation by a palpable encroachment of the see of Rome,
+ought always to be respected by the English.  This prelate, whether he
+was moved by the generosity of his nature and his affection to public
+good; or had entertained an animosity against John on account of the
+long opposition made by that prince to his election; or thought that
+an acquisition of liberty to the people would serve to increase and
+secure the privileges of the church; had formed the plan of reforming
+the government, and had prepared the way for that great innovation, by
+inserting those singular clauses above-mentioned in the oath which he
+administered to the king, before he would absolve him from the
+sentence of excommunication.  Soon after, in a private meeting of some
+principal barons at London, he showed them a copy of Henry I.'s
+charter, which, he said, he had happily found in a monastery; and he
+exhorted them to insist on the renewal and observance of it: the
+barons swore, that they would sooner lose their lives than depart from
+so reasonable a demand [x].  The confederacy began now to spread
+wider, and to comprehend almost all the barons in England; and a new
+and more numerous meeting was summoned by Langton at St. Edmondsbury,
+under colour of devotion.  [MN Nov. 1.]  He again produced to the
+assembly the old charter of Henry; renewed his exhortations of
+unanimity and vigour in the prosecution of their purpose; and
+represented in the strongest colours the tyranny to which they had so
+long been subjected, and from which it now behoved them to free
+themselves and their posterity [y].  The barons, inflamed by his
+eloquence, incited by the sense of their own wrongs, and encouraged by
+the appearance of their power and numbers, solemnly took an oath,
+before the high altar, to adhere to each other, to insist on their
+demands, and to make endless war on the king, till he should submit to
+grant them [z].  They agreed that, after the festival of Christmas,
+they would prefer in a body their common petition; and, in the mean
+time, they separated, after mutually engaging that they would put
+themselves in a posture of defence, would enlist men and purchase
+arms, and would supply their castles with the necessary provisions.
+[FN [x] M. Paris, p. 167.  [y] M. Paris, p. 175.  [z] Ibid. p. 176.]
+
+[MN 1215.  6th Jan.]
+The barons appeared in London on the day appointed, and demanded of
+the king, that, in consequence of his own oath before the primate, as
+well as in deference to their just rights, he should grant them a
+renewal of Henry's charter, and a confirmation of the laws of St.
+Edward.  The king, alarmed with their zeal and unanimity, as well as
+with their power, required a delay; promised that, at the festival of
+Easter, he would give them a positive answer to their petition; and
+offered them the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Ely, and the
+Earl of Pembroke, the mareschal, as sureties for his fulfilling this
+engagement [a].  The barons accepted of the terms, and peaceably
+returned to their castles.
+[FN [a] Ibid. p. 176.  M. West. p. 273.]
+
+[MN 15th Jan.]  During this interval, John, in order to break or
+subdue the league of his barons, endeavoured to avail himself of the
+ecclesiastical power, of whose influence he had, from his own recent
+misfortunes, had such fatal experience.  He granted to the clergy a
+charter, relinquishing for ever that important prerogative, for which
+his father and all his ancestors had zealously contended; yielding to
+them the free election on all vacancies; reserving only the power to
+issue a congé d'élire, and to subjoin a confirmation of the election;
+and declaring that, if either of these were withheld, the choice
+should nevertheless be deemed just and valid [b].  He made a vow to
+lead an army into Palestine against the infidels, and he took on him
+the cross; in hopes that he should receive from the church that
+protection which she tendered to every one that had entered into this
+sacred and meritorious engagement [c].  And he sent to Rome his agent,
+William de Mauclerc, in order to appeal to the pope against the
+violence of his barons, and procure him a favourable sentence from
+that powerful tribunal [d].  The barons also were not negligent on
+their part in endeavouring to engage the pope in their interests: they
+despatched Eustace de Vescie to Rome; laid their case before Innocent
+as their feudal lord: and petitioned him to interpose his authority
+with the king, and oblige him to restore and confirm all their just
+and undoubted privileges [e].
+[FN [b] Rymer, vol. i. p. 197.  [c] Rymer, vol. i. p. 200.  Trivet, p.
+162.  T. Wykes, p. 37.  M. West. p. 273.  [d] Rymer, vol. i. p. 184.
+[e] Ibid.]
+
+Innocent beheld with regret the disturbances which had arisen in
+England, and was much inclined to favour John in his pretensions.  He
+had no hopes of retaining and extending his newly-acquired superiority
+over that kingdom, but by supporting so base and degenerate a prince,
+who was willing to sacrifice every consideration to his present
+safety: and he foresaw that, if the administration should fall into
+the hands of those gallant and high-spirited barons, they would
+vindicate the honour, liberty, and independence of the nation, with
+the same ardour which they now exerted in defence of their own.  He
+wrote letters therefore to the prelates, to the nobility, and to the
+king himself.  He exhorted the first to employ their good offices in
+conciliating peace between the contending parties, and putting an end
+to civil discord: to the second he expressed his disapprobation of
+their conduct in employing force to extort concessions from their
+reluctant sovereign: the last he advised to treat his nobles with
+grace and indulgence, and to grant them such of their demands as
+should appear just and reasonable [f].
+[FN [f] Ibid. p. 196, 197.]
+
+The barons easily saw, from the tenour of these letters, that they
+must reckon on having the pope, as well as the king, for their
+adversary; but they had already advanced too far to recede from their
+pretensions, and their passions were so deeply engaged, that it
+exceeded even the power of superstition itself any longer to control
+them.  They also foresaw, that the thunders of Rome, when not seconded
+by the efforts of the English ecclesiastics, would be of small avail
+against them; and they perceived that the most considerable of the
+prelates, as well as all the inferior clergy, professed the highest
+approbation of their cause.  Besides that these men were seized with
+the national passion for laws and liberty, blessings of which they
+themselves expected to partake, there concurred very powerful causes
+to loosen their devoted attachment to the apostolic see.  It appeared
+from the late usurpations of the Roman pontiff, that he pretended to
+reap alone all the advantages accruing from that victory which, under
+his banners, though at their own peril, they had every where obtained
+over the civil magistrate.  The pope assumed a despotic power over all
+the churches: their particular customs, privileges, and immunities,
+were treated with disdain: even the canons of general councils were
+set aside by his dispensing power: the whole administration of the
+church was centered in the court of Rome: all preferments ran of
+course in the same channel: and the provincial clergy saw, at least
+felt, that there was a necessity for limiting these pretensions.  The
+legate, Nicholas, in filling those numerous vacancies which had fallen
+in England during an interdict of six years, had proceeded in the most
+arbitrary manner; and had paid no regard, in conferring dignities, to
+personal merit, to rank, to the inclination of the electors, or to the
+customs of the country.  The English church was universally disgusted;
+and Langton himself, though he owed his elevation to an encroachment
+of the Romish see, was no sooner established in his high office than
+he became jealous of the privileges annexed to it, and formed
+attachments with the country subjected to his jurisdiction.  These
+causes, though they opened slowly the eyes of men, failed not to
+produce their effect: they set bounds to the usurpations of the
+papacy: the tide first stopped, and then turned against the sovereign
+pontiff: and it is otherwise inconceivable how that age, so prone to
+superstition, and so sunk in ignorance, or rather so devoted to a
+spurious erudition, could have escaped falling into an absolute and
+total slavery under the court of Rome.
+
+[MN 1215.  Insurrection of the barons.]
+About the time that the pope's letters arrived in England, the
+malecontent barons, on the approach of the festival of Easter, when
+they were to expect the king's answer to their petition, met by
+agreement at Stamford; and they assembled a force, consisting of above
+two thousand knights, besides their retainers and inferior persons
+without number.  [MN 27th April.]  Elated with their power, they
+advanced in a body to Brackley, within fifteen miles of Oxford, the
+place where the court then resided; and they there received a message
+from the king, by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl of
+Pembroke, desiring to know what those liberties were which they so
+zealously challenged from their sovereign.  They delivered to these
+messengers a schedule containing the chief articles of their demands;
+which was no sooner shown to the king than he burst into a furious
+passion, and asked why the barons did not also demand of him his
+kingdom? swearing that he would never grant them such liberties as
+must reduce himself to slavery [g].
+[FN [g] M. Paris, p. 176.]
+
+No sooner were the confederated nobles informed of John's reply than
+they chose Robert Fitz-Walter their general, whom they called THE
+MARESCHAL OF THE ARMY OF GOD AND OF HOLY CHURCH; and they proceeded
+without farther ceremony to levy war upon the king.  They besieged the
+castle of Northampton during fifteen days, though without success [h]:
+the gates of Bedford castle were willingly opened to them by William
+Beauchamp, its owner: [MN 24th May.] they advanced to Ware in their
+way to London, where they held a correspondence with the principal
+citizens: they were received without opposition into that capital: and
+finding now the great superiority of their force, they issued
+proclamations, requiring the other barons to join them; and menacing
+them, in case of refusal or delay, with committing devastation on
+their houses and estates [i].  In order to show what might be expected
+from their prosperous arms, they made incursions from London, and laid
+waste the king's parks and palaces; and all the barons, who had
+hitherto carried the semblance of supporting the royal party, were
+glad of this pretence for openly joining a cause which they always had
+secretly favoured.  The king was left at Odiham in Hampshire, with a
+poor retinue of only seven knights; and after trying several
+expedients to elude the blow, after offering to refer all differences
+to the pope alone, or to eight barons, four to be chosen by himself,
+and four by the confederates [k], he found himself at last obliged to
+submit at discretion.
+[FN [h] Ibid. p. 177.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 71.  [i] M. Paris, p.
+177.  [k] Rymer, vol. i. p. 200.]
+
+[MN 15th June.  Magna Charta.]
+A conference between the king and the barons was appointed at
+Runnemede, between Windsor and Staines; a place which has ever since
+been extremely celebrated on account of this great event.  The two
+parties encamped apart, like open enemies; and after a debate of a few
+days, the king, with a facility somewhat suspicious, signed and sealed
+the charter which was required of him.  [MN 19th June.]  This famous
+deed, commonly called the GREAT CHARTER, either granted or secured
+very important liberties and privileges to every order of men in the
+kingdom; to the clergy, to the barons, and to the people.
+
+The freedom of elections was secured to the clergy; the former charter
+of the king was confirmed, by which the necessity of a royal congé'
+d'élire and confirmation was superseded: all check upon appeals to
+Rome was removed, by the allowance granted every man to depart the
+kingdom at pleasure: and the fines to be imposed on the clergy for any
+offence were ordained to be proportional to their lay estates, not to
+their ecclesiastical benefices.
+
+The privileges granted to the barons were either abatements in the
+rigour of the feudal law, or determinations in points which had been
+left by that law, or had become, by practice, arbitrary and ambiguous.
+The reliefs of heirs succeeding to a military fee were ascertained; an
+earl's and baron's at a hundred marks, a knight's at a hundred
+shillings.  It was ordained by the charter, that, if the heir be a
+minor, he shall immediately, upon his majority, enter upon his estate,
+without paying any relief: the king shall not sell his  wardship: he
+shall levy only reasonable profits upon the estate, without committing
+waste, or hurting the property: he shall uphold the castles, houses,
+mills, parks, and ponds: and if he commit the guardianship of the
+estate to the sheriff or any other, he shall previously oblige them to
+find surety to the same purpose.  During the minority of a baron,
+while his lands are in wardship, and are not in his own possession, no
+debt which he owes to the Jews shall bear any interest.  Heirs shall
+be married without disparagement; and before the marriage be
+contracted, the nearest relations of the person shall be informed of
+it.  A widow, without paying any relief, shall enter upon her dower,
+the third part of her husband's rents: she shall not be compelled to
+marry, so long as she chooses to continue single; she shall only give
+security never to marry without her lord's consent.  The king shall
+not claim the wardship of any minor who hold lands by military tenure
+of a baron, on pretence that he also holds lands of the crown by
+soccage or any other tenure.  Scutages shall be estimated at the same
+rate as in the time of Henry I.; and no scutage or aid, except in the
+three general feudal cases, the king's captivity, the knighting of his
+eldest son, and the marrying of his eldest daughter, shall be imposed
+but by the great council of the kingdom: the prelates, earls, and
+great barons, shall be called to this great council, each by a
+particular writ; the lesser barons by a general summons of the
+sheriff.  The king shall not seize any baron's land for a debt to the
+crown, if the baron possesses as many goods and chattels as are
+sufficient to discharge the debt.  No man shall be obliged to perform
+more service for his fee than he is bound to by his tenure.  No
+governor or constable of a castle shall oblige any knight to give
+money for castle-guard, if the knight be willing to perform the
+service in person, or by another able-bodied man; and if the knight be
+in the field himself, by the king's command, he shall be exempted from
+all other service of this nature.  No vassal shall be allowed to sell
+so much of his land as to incapacitate himself from performing his
+service to his lord.
+
+These were the principal articles calculated for the interest of the
+barons; and had the charter contained nothing farther, national
+happiness and liberty had been very little promoted by it, as it would
+only have tended to increase the power and independence of an order of
+men who were already too powerful, and whose yoke might have become
+more heavy on the people than even that of an absolute monarch.  But
+the barons, who alone drew and imposed on the prince this memorable
+charter, were necessitated to insert in it other clauses of a more
+extensive and more beneficent nature: they could not expect the
+concurrence of the people without comprehending, together with their
+own, the interests of inferior ranks of men; and all provisions which
+the barons, for their own sake, were obliged to make, in order to
+ensure the free and equitable administration of justice, tended
+directly to the benefit of the whole community.  The following were
+the principal clauses of this nature.
+
+It was ordained, that all the privileges and immunities above-
+mentioned, granted to the barons against the king, should be extended
+by the barons to their inferior vassals.  The king bound himself not
+to grant any writ, empowering a baron to levy aids from his vassals,
+except in the three feudal cases.  One weight and one measure shall be
+established throughout the kingdom.  Merchants shall be allowed to
+transact all business, without being exposed to any arbitrary tolls
+and impositions; they and all freemen shall be allowed to go out of
+the kingdom and return to it at pleasure: London, and all cities and
+burghs, shall preserve their ancient liberties, immunities, and free
+customs: aids shall not be required of them but by the consent of the
+great council: no towns or individuals shall be obliged to make or
+support bridges but by ancient custom: the goods of every freeman
+shall be disposed of according to his will: if he die intestate, his
+heirs shall succeed to them.  No officer of the crown shall take any
+horses, carts, or wood, without the consent of the owner.  The king's
+courts of justice shall be stationary, and shall no longer follow his
+person: they shall be open to every one; and justice shall no longer
+be sold, refused, or delayed by them.  Circuits shall be regularly
+held every year: the inferior tribunals of justice, the county court,
+sheriff's turn, and court leet, shall meet at their appointed time and
+place: the sheriffs shall be incapacitated to hold pleas of the crown,
+and shall not put any person upon his trial from rumour or suspicion
+alone, but upon the evidence of lawful witnesses.  No freeman shall be
+taken or imprisoned, or dispossessed of his free tenement and
+liberties, or outlawed, or banished, or anywise hurt or injured,
+unless by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land;
+and all who suffered otherwise, in this or the two former reigns,
+shall be restored to their rights and possessions.  Every freeman
+shall be fined in proportion to his fault; and no fine shall be levied
+on him to his utter ruin: even a villain or rustic shall not, by any
+fine, be bereaved of his carts, ploughs, and implements of husbandry.
+This was the only article calculated for the interests of this body of
+men, probably at that time the most numerous in the kingdom.
+
+It must be confessed, that the former articles of the great charter
+contain such mitigations and explanations of the feudal law as are
+reasonable and equitable; and that the latter involve all the chief
+outlines of a legal government, and provide for the equal distribution
+of justice and free enjoyment of property; the great objects for which
+political society was at first founded by men, which the people have a
+perpetual and unalienable right to recall, and which no time, nor
+precedent, nor statute, nor positive institution, ought to deter them
+from keeping ever uppermost in their thoughts and attention.  Though
+the provisions made by this charter might, conformably to the genius
+of the age, be esteemed too concise, and too bare of circumstances, to
+maintain the execution of its articles, in opposition to the chicanery
+of lawyers, supported by the violence of power; time gradually
+ascertained the sense of all the ambiguous expressions; and those
+generous barons who first extorted this concession still held their
+swords in their hands, and could turn them against those who dared, on
+any pretence, to depart from the original spirit and meaning of the
+grant.  We may now, from the tenour of this charter, conjecture what
+those laws were of King Edward, which the English nation, during so
+many generations, still desired, with such an obstinate perseverance,
+to have recalled and established.  They were chiefly these latter
+articles of MAGNA CHARTA; and the barons who, at the beginning of
+these commotions, demanded the revival of the Saxon laws, undoubtedly
+thought that they had sufficiently satisfied the people, by procuring
+them this concession, which comprehended the principal objects to
+which they had so long aspired.  But what we are most to admire is,
+the prudence and moderation of those haughty nobles themselves, who
+were enraged by injuries, inflamed by opposition, and elated by a
+total victory over their sovereign.  They were content, even in this
+plenitude of power, to depart from some articles of Henry I.Â’s
+charter, which they made the foundation of their demands, particularly
+from the abolition of wardships, a matter of the greatest importance;
+and they seem to have been sufficiently careful not to diminish too
+far the power and revenue of the crown.  If they appear, therefore, to
+have carried other demands to too great a height, it can be ascribed
+only to the faithless and tyrannical character of the king himself, of
+which they had long had experience, and which, they foresaw, would, if
+they provided no farther security, lead him soon to infringe their new
+liberties, and revoke his own concessions.  This alone gave birth to
+those other articles, seemingly exorbitant, which were added as a
+rampart for the safeguard of the great charter.
+
+The barons obliged the king to agree that London should remain in
+their hands, and the Tower be consigned to the custody of the primate,
+till the fifteenth of August ensuing, or till the execution of the
+several articles of the great charter [l].  The better to ensure the
+same end, he allowed them to choose five-and-twenty members from their
+own body, as conservators of the public liberties; and no bounds were
+set to the authority of these men either in extent or duration.  If
+any complaint were made of a violation of the charter, whether
+attempted by the king, justiciaries, sheriffs, or foresters, any four
+of these barons might admonish the  king to redress the grievance: if
+satisfaction were not obtained, they could assemble the whole council
+of twenty-five, who, in conjunction with the great council, were
+empowered to compel him to observe the charter, and, in case of
+resistance, might levy war against him, attack his castles, and employ
+every kind of violence, except against his royal person, and that of
+his queen and children.  All men throughout the kingdom were bound,
+under the penalty of confiscation, to swear obedience to the twenty-
+five barons; and the freeholders of each county were to choose twelve
+knights, who were to make report of such evil customs as required
+redress, conformably to the tenour of the great charter [m].  The
+names of those conservators were, the Earls of Clare, Albemarle,
+Gloucester, Winchester, Hereford, Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, Robert
+de Vere, Earl of Oxford, William Mareschal the younger, Robert
+Fitz-Walter, Gilbert de Clare, Eustace de Vescey, Gilbert Delaval,
+William de Mowbray, Geoffrey de Say, Roger de Mombezon, William de
+Huntingfield, Robert de Ros, the constable of Chester, William de
+Aubenie, Richard de Perci, William Malet, John Fitz-Robert, William de
+Lanvalay, Hugh de Bigod, and Roger de Montfichet [n].  These men were,
+by this convention, really invested with the sovereignty of the
+kingdom: they were rendered co-ordinate with the king, or rather
+superior to him, in the exercise of the executive power: and as there
+was no circumstance of government which, either directly or
+indirectly, might not bear a relation to the security or observance of
+the great charter, there could scarcely occur any incident in which
+they might not lawfully interpose their authority.
+[FN [l] Rymer, vol. i. p. 201.  Chron. Dunst vol. i. p. 73.  [m] This
+seems a very strong proof that the House of Commons was not then in
+being; otherwise the knights and burgesses from the several counties
+could have given in to the Lords a list of grievances, without so
+unusual an election.  [n] M. Paris, p. 181.]
+
+John seemed to submit passively to all these regulations, however
+injurious to majesty: he sent writs to all the sheriffs, ordering them
+to constrain every one to swear obedience to the twenty-five barons
+[o]: he dismissed all his foreign forces: he pretended that his
+government was thenceforth to run in a new tenour, and be more
+indulgent to the liberty and independence of his people.  But he only
+dissembled, till he should find a favourable opportunity for annulling
+all his concessions.  The injuries and indignities which he had
+formerly suffered from the pope and the King of France, as they came
+from equals or superiors, seemed to make but small impression on him:
+but the sense of this perpetual and total subjection under his own
+rebellious vassals sunk deep in his mind, and he was determined, at
+all hazards, to throw off so ignominious a slavery [p].  He grew
+sullen, silent, and reserved: he shunned the society of his courtiers
+and nobles: he retired into the Isle of Wight, as if desirous of
+hiding his shame and confusion; but in this retreat he meditated the
+most fatal vengeance against all his enemies [q].  He secretly sent
+abroad his emissaries to enlist foreign soldiers, and to invite the
+rapacious Brabancons into his service, by the prospect of sharing the
+spoils of England, and reaping the forfeitures of so many opulent
+barons, who had incurred the guilt of rebellion by rising in arms
+against him [r]: and he despatched a messenger to Rome, in order to
+lay before the pope the great charter, which he had been compelled to
+sign, and to complain, before that tribunal, of the violence which had
+been imposed upon him [s].
+[FN [o] Ibid. p. 182.  [p] M. Paris, p. 183.  [q] Ibid.  [r] Ibid.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p.72.  Chron. Malr. p. 188.  [s] M. Paris, p.
+183.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 73.]
+
+Innocent, considering himself as feudal lord of the kingdom, was
+incensed at the temerity of the barons, who, though they pretended to
+appeal to his authority, had dared, without waiting for his consent,
+to impose such terms on a prince, who, by resigning to the Roman
+pontiff his crown and independence, had placed himself immediately
+under the papal protection.  He issued, therefore, a bull, in which,
+from the plenitude of his apostolic power, and from the authority
+which God had committed to him, to build and destroy kingdoms, to
+plant and overthrow, he annulled and abrogated the whole charter, as
+unjust in itself, as obtained by compulsion, and as derogatory to the
+dignity of the apostolic see.  He prohibited the barons from exacting
+the observance of it: he even prohibited the king himself from paying
+any regard to it: he absolved him and his  subjects from all oaths
+which they had been constrained to take to that purpose: and he
+pronounced a general sentence of excommunication against every one who
+should persevere in maintaining such treasonable and iniquitous
+pretensions [t].
+[FN [t] Rymer, vol. i. p. 203, 204, 205, 208.  M. Paris, p. 184, 185,
+187.]
+
+[MN Renewal of the civil wars.]
+The king, as his foreign forces arrived along with this bull, now
+ventured to take off the mask; and, under sanction of the pope's
+decree, recalled all the liberties which he had granted to his
+subjects, and which he had solemnly sworn to observe.  But the
+spiritual weapon was found, upon trial, to carry less force with it
+than he had reason from his own experience to apprehend.  The primate
+refused to obey the pope in publishing the sentence of excommunication
+against the barons: and though he was cited to Rome, that he might
+attend a general council there assembled, and was suspended, on
+account of his disobedience to the pope, and his secret correspondence
+with the kingÂ’s enemies [u]; though a new and particular sentence of
+excommunication was pronounced by name against the principal barons
+[w]; John still found, that his nobility and people, and even his
+clergy, adhered to the defence of their liberties, and to their
+combination against him: the sword of his foreign mercenaries was all
+he had to trust to for restoring his authority.
+[FN [u] M. Paris, p. 189.  [w] Rymer, vol. i. p. 211.  M. Paris, p.
+192.]
+
+The barons, after obtaining the great charter, seem to have been
+lulled into a fatal security, and to have taken no rational measures,
+in case of the introduction of a foreign force, for reassembling their
+armies.  The king was, from the first, master of the field; and
+immediately laid siege to the castle of Rochester, which was
+obstinately defended by William de Aubenie, at the head of a hundred
+and forty knights with their retainers, but was at last reduced by
+famine.  [MN 30th Nov.]  John, irritated with the resistance, intended
+to have hanged the governor and all the garrison; but, on the
+representation of William de Mauleon, who suggested to him the danger
+of reprisals, he was content to sacrifice, in this barbarous manner,
+the inferior prisoners only [x].  The captivity of William de Aubenie,
+the best officer among the confederated barons, was an irreparable
+loss to their cause; and no regular opposition was thenceforth made to
+the progress of the royal arms.  The ravenous and barbarous
+mercenaries, incited by a cruel and enraged prince, were let loose
+against the estates, tenants, manors, houses, parks of the barons, and
+spread devastation over the face of the kingdom.  Nothing was to be
+seen but the flames of villages and castles reduced to ashes, the
+consternation and misery of the inhabitants, tortures exercised by the
+soldiery to make them reveal their concealed treasures, and reprisals
+no less barbarous committed by the barons and their partisans on the
+royal demesnes, and on the estates of such as still adhered to the
+crown.  The king, marching through the whole extent of England, from
+Dover to Berwick, laid the provinces waste on each side of him; and
+considered every estate, which was not his immediate property, as
+entirely hostile, and the object of military execution.  The nobility
+of the north, in particular, who had shown the greatest violence in
+the recovery of their liberties, and who, acting in a separate body,
+had expressed their discontent even at the concessions made by the
+great charter, as they could expect no mercy, fled before him with
+their wives and families, and purchased the friendship of Alexander,
+the young King of Scots, by doing homage to him.
+[FN [x] M. Paris, p. 187.]
+
+[MN Prince Lewis called over.]
+The barons, reduced to this desperate extremity, and menaced with the
+total loss of their liberties, their properties, and their lives,
+employed a remedy no less desperate; and making applications to the
+court of France, they offered to acknowledge Lewis, the eldest son of
+Philip, for their sovereign, on condition that he would afford them
+protection from the violence of their enraged prince.  Though the
+sense of the common rights of mankind, the only rights that are
+entirely indefeasible, might have justified them in the deposition of
+their king; they declined insisting, before Philip, on a pretension
+which is commonly so disagreeable to sovereigns, and which sounds
+harshly in the royal ears.  They affirmed, that John was incapable of
+succeeding to the crown, by reason of the attainder passed upon him
+during his brother's reign; though that attainder had been reversed,
+and Richard. had even, by his last will, declared him his  successor.
+They pretended that he was already legally deposed by sentence of the
+Peers of France, on account of the murder of his nephew; though that
+sentence could not possibly regard any thing but his transmarine
+dominions, which alone he held in vassalage to that crown.  On more
+plausible grounds they affirmed, that he had already deposed himself
+by doing homage to the pope, changing the nature of his sovereignty,
+and resigning an independent crown for a fee under a foreign power.
+And as Blanche of Castile, the wife of Lewis, was descended by her
+mother from Henry II., they maintained, though many other princes
+stood before her in the order of succession, that they had not shaken
+off the royal family, in choosing her husband for their sovereign.
+
+Philip was strongly tempted to lay hold on the rich prize which was
+offered to him.  The legate menaced interdicts and excommunications,
+if he invaded the patrimony of St. Peter, or attacked a prince who was
+under the immediate protection of the holy see [y]: but as Philip was
+assured of the obedience of his own vassals, his principles were
+changed with the times, and he now undervalued as much all papal
+censures, as he formerly pretended to pay respect to them.  His chief
+scruple was with regard to the fidelity which he might expect from the
+English barons in their new engagements, and the danger of intrusting
+his son and heir into the hands of men, who might, on any caprice or
+necessity, make peace with their native sovereign, by sacrificing a
+pledge of so much value.  He therefore exacted from the barons twenty-
+five hostages of the most noble birth in the kingdom [z]; and having
+obtained this security, he sent over first a small army to the relief
+of the confederates; then more numerous forces, which arrived with
+Lewis himself at their head.
+[FN [y] M. Paris, p. 194.  M. West. p. 275.  [z] M. Paris, p. 193.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 74.]
+
+The first effect of the young prince's appearance in England was the
+desertion of John's foreign troops, who, being mostly levied in
+Flanders, and other provinces of France, refused to serve against the
+heir of their monarchy [a].  The Gascons and Poictevins alone, who
+were still John's subjects, adhered to his cause; but they were too
+weak to maintain that superiority in the field which they had hitherto
+supported against the confederated barons.  Many considerable noblemen
+deserted JohnÂ’s party, the Earls of Salisbury, Arundel, Warrenne,
+Oxford, Albemarle, and William Mareschal the younger: his castles fell
+daily into the hands of the enemy; Dover was the only place which,
+from the valour and fidelity of Hubert de Burgh, the governor, made
+resistance to the progress of Lewis [b]: and the barons had the
+melancholy prospect of finally succeeding in their purpose, and of
+escaping the tyranny of their own king, by imposing on themselves and
+the nation a foreign yoke.  But this union was of short duration
+between the French and English nobles: and the imprudence of Lewis,
+who, on every occasion, showed too visible a preference to the former,
+increased that jealousy which it was so natural for the latter to
+entertain in their present situation [c].  The Viscount of Melun, too,
+it is said, one of his courtiers, fell sick at London, and finding the
+approaches of death, he sent for some of his friends among the English
+barons, and warning them of their danger, revealed LewisÂ’s secret
+intentions of exterminating them and their families as traitors to
+their prince, and of bestowing their estates and dignities on his
+native subjects, in whose fidelity he could more reasonably place
+confidence [d]: this story, whether true or false, was universally
+reported and believed; and concurring with other circumstances which
+rendered it credible, did great prejudice to the cause of Lewis.  The
+Earl of Salisbury, and other noblemen, deserted again to John's party
+[e]; and as men easily change sides in a civil war, especially where
+their power is founded on an hereditary and independent authority, and
+is not derived from the opinion and favour of the people, the French
+prince had reason to dread a sudden reverse of fortune.  The king was
+assembling a considerable army, with a view of fighting one great
+battle for his crown; but passing from Lynn to Lincolnshire, his road
+lay along the sea-shore, which was overflowed at high water; and not
+choosing the proper time for his journey, he lost in the inundation
+all his carriages, treasure,  baggage, and regalia.  The affliction
+for this disaster, and vexation from the distracted state of his
+affairs, increased the sickness under which he then laboured; and
+though he reached the castle of Newark, he was obliged to halt there,
+[MN 17th Oct.  Death,] and his distemper soon after put an end to his
+life, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and eighteenth of his reign;
+and freed the nation from the dangers to which it was equally exposed
+by his success or by his misfortunes.
+[FN [a] M. Paris, p. 195.  [b] M. Paris, p. 198.  Chron. Dunst. vol.
+i. p. 75, 76.  [c] W. Heming. p. 559.  [d] M. Paris, p. 199.  M. West.
+p. 277.  [e] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 76.]
+
+[MN and character of the king.]  The character of this prince is
+nothing but a complication of vices, equally mean and odious; ruinous
+to himself, and destructive to his people.  Cowardice, inactivity,
+folly, levity, licentiousness, ingratitude, treachery, tyranny, and
+cruelty; all these qualities appear too evidently in the several
+incidents of his life, to give us room to suspect that the
+disagreeable picture has been anywise overcharged by the prejudices of
+the ancient historians.  It is hard to say whether his conduct to his
+father, his brother, his nephew, or his subjects, was most culpable;
+or whether his crimes, in these respects, were not even exceeded by
+the baseness which appeared in his transactions with the King of
+France, the pope, and the barons.  His European dominions, when they
+devolved to him by the death of his brother, were more extensive than
+have ever, since his time, been ruled by an English monarch; but he
+first lost, by his misconduct, the flourishing provinces in France,
+the ancient patrimony of his family: he subjected his kingdom to a
+shameful vassalage under the see of Rome: he saw the prerogatives of
+his crown diminished by law, and still more reduced by faction: and he
+died at last, when in danger of being totally expelled by a foreign
+power, and of either ending his life miserably in prison, or seeking
+shelter, as a fugitive, from the pursuit of his enemies.
+
+The prejudices against this prince were so violent, that he was
+believed to have sent an embassy to the Miramoulin, or Emperor of
+Morocco, and to have offered to change his religion and become
+Mahometan, in order to purchase the protection of that monarch.  But
+though this story is told us, on plausible authority, by Matthew Paris
+[f], it is in itself utterly improbable; except that there is nothing
+so incredible but may be believed to proceed from the folly and
+wickedness of John.
+[FN [f] P. 169.]
+
+The monks throw great reproaches on this prince for his impiety and
+even infidelity; and as an instance of it, they tell us, that having
+one day caught a very fat stag, he exclaimed, HOW PLUMP AND WELL FED
+IS THIS ANIMAL! AND YET, I DARE SWEAR, HE NEVER HEARD MASS [g].  This
+sally of wit upon the usual corpulency of the priests, more than all
+his enormous crimes and iniquities, made him pass with them for an
+atheist.
+
+John left two legitimate sons behind him; Henry, born on the first of
+October, 1207, and now nine years of age; and Richard, born on the
+sixth of January, 1209; and three daughters; Jane, afterwards married
+to Alexander King of Scots; Eleanor, married first to William
+Mareschal the younger, Earl of Pembroke, and then to Simon Mountfort,
+Earl of Leicester; and Isabella, married to the Emperor Frederic II.
+All these children were born to him by Isabella of Angoulesme, his
+second wife.  His illegitimate children were numerous, but none of
+them were anywise distinguished.
+
+It was this king who, in the ninth year of his reign, first gave by
+charter, to the city of London, the right of electing, annually, a
+mayor out of its own body, an office which was till now held for life.
+He gave the city also power to elect and remove its sheriffs at
+pleasure, and its common-councilmen annually.  London-bridge was
+finished in this reign.  The former bridge was of wood.  Maud, the
+empress, was the first that built a stone bridge in England.
+[FN [g] M. Paris, p. 170.]
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX II.
+
+THE FEUDAL AND ANGLO-NORMAN GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
+
+ORIGIN OF THE FEUDAL LAW.--ITS PROGRESS.--FEUDAL GOVERNMENT OF
+ENGLAND.--THE FEUDAL PARLIAMENT.--THE COMMONS.--JUDICAL POWER.--
+REVENUE OF THE CROWN.--COMMERCE.--THE CHURCH.--CIVIL LAWS.--MANNERS.
+
+
+
+The feudal law is the chief foundation, both of the political
+government and of the jurisprudence established by the Normans in
+England.  Our subject therefore requires, that we should form a just
+idea of this law, in order to explain the state, as well of that
+kingdom, as of all other kingdoms of Europe, which, during those ages,
+were governed by similar institutions.  And though I am sensible, that
+I must here repeat many observations and reflections which have been
+communicated by others [a]; yet, as every book, agreeably to the
+observation of a great historian [b], should be as complete as
+possible within itself, and should never refer, for any thing
+material, to other books, it will be necessary, in this place, to
+deliver a short plan of that prodigious fabric, which, for several
+centuries, preserved such a mixture of liberty and oppression, order
+and anarchy, stability and revolution, as was never experienced in any
+other age, or any other part of the world.
+[FN [a] L'Esprit des Loix.  Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland.  [b]
+Padre Paolo, Hist. Conc. Trid.]
+
+[MN Origin of the feudal law.]
+After the northern nations had subdued the provinces of the Roman
+empire, they were obliged to establish a system of government which
+might secure their conquests, as well against the revolt of their
+numerous subjects, who remained in the provinces, as from the inroads
+of other tribes, who might be tempted to ravish from them their new
+acquisitions.  The great change of circumstances made them here depart
+from those institutions which prevailed among them while they remained
+in the forests  of Germany; yet it was still natural for them to
+retain, in their present settlement, as much of their ancient customs
+as was compatible with their new situation.
+
+The German governments, being more a confederacy of independent
+warriors than a civil subjection, derived their principal force from
+many inferior and voluntary associations, which individuals formed
+under a particular head or chieftain, and which it became the highest
+point of honour to maintain with inviolable fidelity.  The glory of
+the chief consisted in the number, the bravery, and the zealous
+attachment of his retainers: the duty of the retainers required, that
+they should accompany their chief in all wars and dangers, that they
+should fight and perish by his side, and that they should esteem his
+renown or his favour a sufficient recompense for all their services
+[c].  The prince himself was nothing but a great chieftain, who was
+chosen from among the rest on account of his superior valour or
+nobility; and who derived his power from the voluntary association or
+attachment of the other chieftains.
+[FN [c] Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]
+
+When a tribe, governed by these ideas, and actuated by these
+principles, subdued a large territory, they found, that though it was
+necessary to keep themselves in a military posture, they could neither
+remain united in a body, nor take up their quarters in several
+garrisons, and that their manners and institutions debarred them from
+using these expedients; the obvious ones, which, in a like situation,
+would have been employed by a more civilized nation.  Their ignorance
+in the art of finances, and perhaps the devastations inseparable from
+such violent conquests, rendered it impracticable for them to levy
+taxes sufficient for the pay of numerous armies; and their repugnance
+to subordination, with their attachment to rural pleasures, made the
+life of the camp or garrison, if perpetuated during peaceful times,
+extremely odious and disgustful to them.  They seized, therefore, such
+a portion of the conquered lands as appeared necessary; they assigned
+a share for supporting the dignity of their prince and government;
+they distributed other parts, under the title of fiefs, to the chiefs;
+these made a new partition among their retainers: the express
+condition  of all these grants was, that they might be resumed at
+pleasure, and that the possessor, so long as he enjoyed them, should
+still remain in readiness to take the field for the defence of the
+nation.  And though the conquerors immediately separated, in order to
+enjoy their new acquisitions, their martial disposition made them
+readily fulfil the terms of their engagement: they assembled on the
+first alarm; their habitual attachment to the chieftain made them
+willingly submit to his command; and thus a regular military force,
+though concealed, was always ready to defend, on any emergence, the
+interest and honour of the community.
+
+We are not to imagine that all the conquered lands were seized by the
+northern conquerors; or that the whole of the land thus seized was
+subjected to those military services.  This supposition is confuted by
+the history of all the nations on the continent.  Even the idea given
+us of the German manners by the Roman historian may convince us, that
+that bold people would never have been content with so precarious a
+subsistence, or have fought to procure establishments which were only
+to continue during the good pleasure of their sovereign.  Though the
+northern chieftains accepted of lands, which, being considered as a
+kind of military pay, might be resumed at the will of the king or
+general; they also took possession of estates, which being hereditary
+and independent, enabled them to maintain their native liberty, and
+support, without court favour, the honour of their rank and family.
+
+[MN Progress of the feudal law.]
+But there is a great difference, in the consequences, between the
+distribution of a pecuniary subsistence, and the assignment of lands
+burdened with the condition of military service.  The delivery of the
+former, at the weekly, monthly, or annual terms of payment, still
+recalls the idea of a voluntary gratuity from the prince, and reminds
+the soldier of the precarious tenure by which he holds his commission.
+But the attachment naturally formed with a fixed portion of land
+gradually begets the idea of something like property, and makes the
+possessor forget his dependent situation, and the condition which was
+at first annexed to the grant.  It seemed equitable that one who had
+cultivated and sowed a field should reap the harvest: hence fiefs,
+which were at first entirely precarious, were soon made annual.  A man
+who had employed his money in building, planting, or other
+improvements, expected to reap the fruits of his labour or expense:
+hence they were next granted during a term of years.  It would be
+thought hard to expel a man from his possessions, who had always done
+his duty, and performed the conditions on which he originally received
+them: hence the chieftains, in a subsequent period, thought themselves
+entitled to demand the enjoyment of their feudal lands during life.
+It was found that a man would more willingly expose himself in battle,
+if assured that his family should inherit his possessions, and should
+not be left by his death in want and poverty: hence fiefs were made
+hereditary in families, and descended, during one age, to the son,
+then to the grandson, next to the brothers, and afterwards to more
+distant relations [d].  The idea of property stole in gradually upon
+that of military pay; and each century made some sensible addition to
+the stability of fiefs and tenures.
+[FN [d] Lib. Feud. lib. I. tit. 1.]
+
+In all these successive acquisitions, the chief was supported by his
+vassals; who, having originally a strong connexion with him, augmented
+by the constant intercourse of good offices, and by the friendship
+arising from vicinity and dependence, were inclined to follow their
+leader against all his enemies, and voluntarily, in his private
+quarrels, paid him the same obedience, to which, by their tenure, they
+were bound in foreign wars.  While he daily advanced new pretensions
+to secure the possession of his superior fief, they expected to find
+the same advantage, in acquiring stability to their subordinate ones;
+and they zealously opposed the intrusion of a new lord, who would be
+inclined, as he was fully entitled, to bestow the possession of their
+lands on his own favourites and retainers.  Thus the authority of the
+sovereign gradually decayed; and each noble, fortified in his own
+territory by the attachment of his vassals, became too powerful to be
+expelled by an order from the throne; and he secured by law what he
+had at first acquired by usurpation.
+
+During this precarious state of the supreme power, a difference would
+immediately be experienced between those portions of territory which
+were subjected to the feudal tenures, and those which were possessed
+by an allodial or free title.  Though the latter possessions had at
+first been esteemed much preferable, they were soon found, by the
+progressive changes introduced into public and private law, to be of
+an inferior condition to the former.  The possessors of a feudal
+territory, united by a regular subordination under one chief, and by
+the mutual attachments of the vassals, had the same advantages over
+the proprietors of the other, that a disciplined army enjoys over a
+dispersed multitude; and were enabled to commit with impunity all
+injuries on their defenceless neighbours.  Every one, therefore,
+hastened to seek that protection which he found so necessary; and each
+allodial proprietor, resigning his possessions into the hands of the
+king, or of some nobleman respected for power or valour, received them
+back with the condition of feudal services [e], which, though a burden
+somewhat grievous, brought him ample compensation, by connecting him
+with the neighbouring proprietors, and placing him under the
+guardianship of a potent chieftain.  The decay of the political
+government thus necessarily occasioned the extension of the feudal:
+the kingdoms of Europe were universally divided into baronies, and
+these into inferior fiefs: and the attachment of vassals to their
+chief, which was at first an essential part of the German manners, was
+still supported by the same causes from which it at first arose; the
+necessity of mutual protection, and the continued intercourse between
+the head and the members, of benefits and services.
+[FN [e] Marculf. Form. 47. apud Lindenbr. p. 1238.]
+
+But there was another circumstance which corroborated these feudal
+dependencies, and tended to connect the vassals with their superior
+lord by an indissoluble bond of union.  The northern conquerors, as
+well as the more early Greeks and Romans, embraced a policy which is
+unavoidable to all nations that have made slender advances in
+refinement: they every where united the civil jurisdiction with the
+military power.  Law, in its commencement, was not an intricate
+science, and was  more governed by maxims of equity, which seem
+obvious to common sense, than by numerous and subtle principles,
+applied to a variety of cases by profound reasonings from analogy.  An
+officer, though he had passed his life in the field, was able to
+determine all legal controversies which could occur within the
+district committed to his charge; and his decisions were the most
+likely to meet with a prompt and ready obedience, from men who
+respected his person, and were accustomed to act under his command.
+The profit arising from punishments, which were then chiefly
+pecuniary, was another reason for his desiring to retain the judicial
+power; and when his fief became hereditary, this authority, which was
+essential to it, was also transmitted to his posterity.  The counts
+and other magistrates, whose power was merely official, were tempted,
+in imitation of the feudal lords, whom they resembled in so many
+particulars, to render their dignity perpetual and hereditary; and in
+the decline of the regal power, they found no difficulty in making
+good their pretensions.  After this manner, the vast fabric of feudal
+subordination became quite solid and comprehensive; it formed every
+where an essential part of the political constitution; and the Norman
+and other barons, who followed the fortunes of William, were so
+accustomed to it that they could scarcely form an idea of any other
+species of civil government [f].
+[FN [f] The ideas of the feudal government were so rooted, that even
+lawyers, in those ages, could not form a notion of any other
+Constitution  REGNUM (says Bracton, lib. 2. cap. 34.) QUOD EX
+COMITATIBUS ET BARONIBUS DICITUR ESSE CONSTITUTUM.]
+
+The Saxons who conquered England, as they exterminated the ancient
+inhabitants, and thought themselves secured by the sea against new
+invaders, found it less requisite to maintain themselves in a military
+posture: the quantity of land which they annexed to offices seems to
+have been of small value; and for that reason continued the longer in
+its original situation, and was always possessed during pleasure by
+those who were intrusted with the command.  These conditions were too
+precarious to satisfy the Norman barons, who enjoyed more independent
+possessions and jurisdictions in their own country; and William was
+obliged, in the new distribution of land, to copy the tenures which
+were now become universal on the continent.  England of a sudden
+became a feudal kingdom [g]; and received all the advantages, and was
+exposed to all the inconveniences, incident to that species of civil
+polity.
+[FN [g] Coke, Comm. on Lit. p. 1, 2. ad sect. 1.]
+
+[MN The feudal government of England.]
+According to the principles of the feudal law, the king was the
+supreme lord of the landed property: all possessors, who enjoyed the
+fruits or revenue of any part of it, held those privileges, either
+mediately or immediately, of him; and their property was conceived to
+be in some degree conditional [h].  The land was still apprehended to
+be a species of BENEFICE, which was the original conception of a
+feudal property; and the vassal owed, in return for it, stated
+services to his baron, as the baron himself did for his land to the
+crown.  The vassal was obliged to defend his baron in war; and the
+baron, at the head of his vassals, was bound to fight in defence of
+the king and kingdom.  But besides these military services, which were
+casual, there were others imposed of a civil nature, which were more
+constant and durable.
+[FN [h] Somner of Gavelk. p. 109.  Smith de Rep. lib. 3. cap. 10.]
+
+The northern nations had no idea that any man, trained up to honour,
+and inured to arms, was ever to be governed, without his own consent,
+by the absolute will of another; or that the administration of justice
+was ever to be exercised by the private opinion of any one magistrate,
+without the concurrence of some other persons, whose interest might
+induce them to check his arbitrary and iniquitous decisions.  The
+king, therefore, when he found it necessary to demand any service of
+his barons or chief tenants, beyond what was due by their tenures, was
+obliged to assemble them in order to obtain their CONSENT: and when it
+was necessary to determine any controversy which might arise among the
+barons themselves, the question must be discussed in their presence,
+and be decided according to their opinion or ADVICE.  In these two
+circumstances of consent and advice consisted chiefly the civil
+services of the ancient barons; and these implied all the considerable
+incidents of government.  In one view, the barons regarded this
+attendance as their principal PRIVILEGE; in another, as a grievous
+BURDEN.  That no momentous affairs could be transacted without their
+consent and advice was in GENERAL esteemed the great security of their
+possessions and dignities: but as they reaped no immediate profit from
+their attendance at court, and were exposed to great inconvenience and
+charge by an absence from their own estates, every one was glad to
+exempt himself from each PARTICULAR exertion of this power; and was
+pleased both that the call for that duty should seldom return upon
+him, and that others should undergo the burden in his stead.  The
+king, on the other hand, was usually anxious, for several reasons,
+that the assembly of the barons should be full at every stated or
+casual meeting: this attendance was the chief badge of their
+subordination to his crown, and drew them from that independence which
+they were apt to affect in their own castles and manors; and where the
+meeting was thin or ill attended, its determinations had less
+authority, and commanded not so ready an obedience from the whole
+community.
+
+The case was the same with the barons in their courts, as with the
+king in the supreme council of the nation.  It was requisite to
+assemble the vassals, in order to determine by their vote any question
+which regarded the barony; and they sat along with the chief in all
+trials, whether civil or criminal, which occurred within the limits of
+their jurisdiction.  They were bound to pay suit and service at the
+court of their baron: and as their tenure was military, and
+consequently honourable, they were admitted into his society, and
+partook of his friendship.  Thus, a kingdom was considered only as a
+great barony, and a barony as a small kingdom.  The barons were peers
+to each other in the national council, and, in some degree, companions
+to the king: the vassals were peers to each other in the court of
+barony, and companions to their baron [i].
+[FN [i] Du Cange, Gloss. in verb. PAR  Cujac. Commun. in Lib. Feud.
+lib. I. tit. p. 18.  Spellm. Gloss. in verb.]
+
+But though this resemblance so far took place, the vassals, by the
+natural course of things, universally, in the feudal constitutions,
+fell into a greater subordination under the baron, than the baron
+himself under his  sovereign; and these governments had a necessary
+and infallible tendency to augment the power of the nobles.  The great
+chief, residing in his country-seat, which he was commonly allowed to
+fortify, lost, in a great measure, his connexion or acquaintance with
+the prince; and added every day new force to his authority over the
+vassals of the barony.  They received from him education in all
+military exercises: his hospitality invited them to live and enjoy
+society in his hall: their leisure, which was great, made them
+perpetual retainers on his person, and partakers of his country sports
+and amusements: they had no means of gratifying their ambition but by
+making a figure in his train: his favour and countenance was their
+greatest honour: his displeasure exposed them to contempt and
+ignominy: and they felt every moment the necessity of his protection,
+both in the controversies which occurred with other vassals, and, what
+was more material, in the daily inroads and injuries which were
+committed by the neighbouring barons.  During the time of general war,
+the sovereign, who marched at the head of his armies, and was the
+great protector of the state, always acquired some accession to his
+authority, which he lost during the intervals of peace and
+tranquillity: but the loose police, incident to the feudal
+constitutions, maintained a perpetual, though secret hostility,
+between the several members of the state; and the vassals found no
+means of securing themselves against the injuries to which they were
+continually exposed, but by closely adhering to their chief, and
+falling into a submissive dependence upon him.
+
+If the feudal government was so little favourable to the true liberty
+even of the military vassal, it was still more destructive of the
+independence and security of the other members of the state, or what,
+in a proper sense, we call the people.  A great part of them were
+SERFS, and lived in a state of absolute slavery or villanage: the
+other inhabitants of the country paid their rents in services, which
+were in a great measure arbitrary; and they could expect no redress of
+injuries, in a court of barony, from men who thought they had a right
+to oppress and tyrannize over them.  The towns were situated either
+within the demesnes of the king, or the lands of the great barons, and
+were almost entirely subjected to the absolute will of their master.
+The languishing state of commerce kept the inhabitants poor and
+contemptible; and the political institutions were calculated to render
+that poverty perpetual.  The barons and gentry, living in rustic
+plenty and hospitality, gave no encouragement to the arts, and had no
+demand for any of the more elaborate manufactures: every profession
+was held in contempt but that of arms: and if any merchant or
+manufacturer rose by industry and frugality to a degree of opulence,
+he found himself but the more exposed to injuries, from the envy and
+avidity of the military nobles.
+
+These concurring causes gave the feudal governments so strong a bias
+towards aristocracy, that the royal authority was extremely eclipsed
+in all the European states; and, instead of dreading the growth of
+monarchical power, we might rather expect, that the community would
+every where crumble into so many independent baronies, and lose the
+political union by which they were cemented.  In elective monarchies,
+the event was commonly answerable to this expectation; and the barons,
+gaining ground on every vacancy of the throne, raised themselves
+almost to a state of sovereignty, and sacrificed to their power both
+the rights of the crown and the liberties of the people.  But
+hereditary monarchies had a principle of authority which was not so
+easily subverted; and there were several causes which still maintained
+a degree of influence in the hands of the sovereign.
+
+The greatest baron could never lose view entirely of those principles
+of the feudal constitution which bound him, as a vassal, to submission
+and fealty towards his prince; because he was every moment obliged to
+have recourse to those principles, in exacting fealty and submission
+from his own vassals.  The lesser barons, finding that the
+annihilation of royal authority left them exposed, without protection,
+to the insults and injuries of more potent neighbours, naturally
+adhered to the crown, and promoted the execution of general and equal
+laws.  The people had still a stronger interest to desire the grandeur
+of the sovereign; and the king, being the legal magistrate, who
+suffered by every internal convulsion or oppression, and who regarded
+the great nobles as his immediate rivals, assumed the salutary office
+of general guardian or protector of the Commons.  Besides the
+prerogatives with which the law invested him, his large demesnes and
+numerous retainers rendered him, in one sense, the greatest baron in
+his kingdom; and where he was possessed of personal vigour and
+abilities, (for his situation required these advantages,) he was
+commonly able to preserve his authority, and maintain his station as
+head of the community, and the chief fountain of law and justice.
+
+The first kings of the Norman race were favoured by another
+circumstance, which preserved them from the encroachments of their
+barons.  They were generals of a conquering army, which was obliged to
+continue in a military posture, and to maintain great subordination
+under their leader, in order to secure themselves from the revolt of
+the numerous natives, whom they had bereaved of all their properties
+and privileges.  But though this circumstance supported the authority
+of William and his immediate successors, and rendered them extremely
+absolute, it was lost as soon as the Norman barons began to
+incorporate with the nation, to acquire a security in their
+possessions, and to fix their influence over their vassals, tenants,
+and slaves: and the immense fortunes which the Conqueror had bestowed
+on his chief captains served to support their independence, and make
+them formidable to their sovereign.
+
+He gave, for instance, to Hugh de Abrincis, his sister's son, the
+whole county of Chester, which he erected into a palatinate, and
+rendered by his grant almost independent of the crown [k].  Robert,
+Earl of Mortaigne, had 973 manors and lordships: Allan, Earl of
+Britany and Richmond, 442: Odo, Bishop of Baieux, 439 [l]: Geoffrey,
+Bishop of Coutance, 280 [m]: Walter Giffard, Earl of Buckingham, 107:
+William, Earl Warrenne, 298, besides 28 towns or hamlets in Yorkshire:
+Todenei, 81: Roger Bigod, 123: Robert, Earl of Eu, 119: Roger
+Mortimer, 132, besides several hamlets: Robert de Stafford, 130:
+Walter de Eurus, Earl of Salisbury, 46: Geoffrey de Mandeville, 118:
+Richard de Clare, 171: Hugh de Beauchamp, 47: Baldwin de Ridvers, 164:
+Henry de Ferrars, 222: William de Percy, 119 [n]: Norman d'Arcy, 33
+[o].  Sir Henry Spellman computes, that, in the large county of
+Norfolk, there were not, in the Conqueror's time, above sixty-six
+proprietors of land [p].  Men, possessed of such princely revenues and
+jurisdictions, could not long be retained in the rank of subjects.
+The great Earl Warrenne, in a subsequent reign, when he was questioned
+concerning his right to the lands which he possessed, drew his sword,
+which he produced as his title; adding, that William the Bastard did
+not conquer the kingdom himself; but that the barons, and his ancestor
+among the rest, were joint adventurers in the enterprise [q].
+[FN [k] Camd. in Chesh.  Spellm. Gloss. in verb. COMES PALATINUS.  [l]
+Brady's Hist. p. 198, 200.  [m] Order. Vital.  [n] Dugdale's Baronage,
+from Doomsday Book, vol. i. p. 60, 74; iii. 112, 132, 136, 138, 156,
+174, 200, 207, 223, 254, 257, 269.  [o] Ibid. p. 369.  It is
+remarkable, that this family of d'Arcy seems to be the only male
+descendants of any of the Conqueror's barons now remaining among the
+Peers.  Lord Holdernesse is the heir of that family.  [p] Spellm.
+Gloss. in verb. DOMESDAY.  [q] Dugd. Bar. vol. i. p. 79.  Ibid.
+Origines Juridicales, p. 13.]
+
+[MN The feudal Parliament.]
+The supreme legislative power of England was lodged in the king and
+great council, or what was afterwards called the Parliament.  It is
+not doubted but the archbishops, bishops, and most considerable
+abbots, were constituent members of this council.  They sat by a
+double title: by prescription, as having always possessed that
+privilege, through the whole Saxon period, from the first
+establishment of Christianity; and by their right of baronage, as
+holding of the king IN CAPITE, by military service.  These two titles
+of the prelates were never accurately distinguished.  When the
+usurpations of the church had risen to such a height as to make the
+bishops affect a separate dominion, and regard their seat in
+Parliament as a degradation of their episcopal dignity; the king
+insisted, that they were barons, and, on that account, obliged, by the
+general principles of the feudal law, to attend on him in his great
+councils [r].  Yet there still remained some practices, which
+supposed their title to be derived merely from ancient possession.
+When a bishop was elected, he sat in Parliament before the king had
+made him restitution of his temporalities; and during the vacancy of a
+see, the guardian of the spiritualities was summoned to attend along
+with the bishops.
+[FN [r] Spellm. Gloss. In verb. BARO.]
+
+The barons were another constituent part of the great council of the
+nation.  These held immediately of the crown by a military tenure:
+they were the most honourable members of the state, and had a RIGHT to
+be consulted in all public deliberations: they were the immediate
+vassals of the crown, and owed as a SERVICE their attendance in the
+court of their supreme lord.  A resolution taken without their consent
+was likely to be but ill executed; and no determination of any cause
+or controversy among them had any validity, where the vote and advice
+of the body did not concur.  The dignity of earl or count was official
+and territorial, as well as hereditary; and as all the earls were also
+barons, they were considered as military vassals of the crown, were
+admitted in that capacity into the general council, and formed the
+most honourable and powerful branch of it.
+
+But there was another class of the immediate military tenants of the
+crown, no less, or probably more numerous than the barons, the tenants
+IN CAPITE by knights' service; and these, however inferior in power or
+property, held by a tenure which was equally honourable with that of
+the others.  A barony was commonly composed of several knights' fees;
+and though the number seems not to have been exactly defined, seldom
+consisted of less than fifty hides of land [s]: but where a man held
+of the king only one or two knights' fees, he was still an immediate
+vassal of the crown, and as such had a title to have a seat in the
+general councils.  But as this attendance was usually esteemed a
+burden, and one too great for a man of slender fortune to bear
+constantly, it is probable that, though he had a title, if he pleased,
+to be admitted, he was not obliged, by any penalty, like the barons,
+to pay a regular attendance.  All the immediate military tenants of
+the crown amounted not fully to 700, when Doomsday Book was framed;
+and as the members were well pleased, on any pretext, to excuse
+themselves from attendance, the assembly was never likely to become
+too numerous for the despatch of public business.
+[FN [s] Four hides made one knight's fee: the relief of a barony was
+twelve times greater than that of a knight's fee; whence we may
+conjecture its usual value.  Spellm. Gloss. in verb. FEODUM.  There
+were 243,600 hides in England, and 60,215 knights' fees; whence it is
+evident, that there were a little more than four hides in each
+knight's fee.]
+
+[MN The Commons.]
+So far the nature of a general council, or ancient Parliament, is
+determined, without any doubt or controversy.  The only question seems
+to be with regard to the Commons, or the representatives of counties
+and boroughs, whether they were also, in more early times, constituent
+parts of Parliament?  This question was once disputed in England with
+great acrimony; but such is the force of time and evidence, that they
+can sometimes prevail, even over faction; and the question seems by
+general consent, and even by their own, to be at last determined
+against the ruling party.  It is agreed, that the Commons were no part
+of the great council, till some ages after the Conquest; and that the
+military tenants alone of the crown composed that supreme and
+legislative assembly.
+
+The vassals of a baron were, by their tenure, immediately dependent on
+him, owed attendance at his court, and paid all their duty to the
+king, through that dependence which their lord was obliged by HIS
+tenure to acknowledge to his sovereign and superior.  Their land,
+comprehended in the barony, was represented in Parliament by the baron
+himself, who was supposed, according to the fictions of the feudal
+law, to possess the direct property of it; and it would have been
+deemed incongruous to give it any other representation.  They stood in
+the same capacity to him, that he and the other barons did to the
+king.  The former were peers of the barony; the latter were peers of
+the realm.  The vassals possessed a subordinate rank within their
+district; the baron enjoyed a superior dignity in the great assembly:
+they were in some degree his companions at home; he the king's
+companion at court: and nothing can be more evidently repugnant to all
+feudal ideas, and to that gradual subordination which was essential to
+those ancient institutions, than to imagine that the king would apply
+either for the advice or consent of men, who were of a rank so much
+inferior, and whose duty was immediately paid to the MESNE lord that
+was interposed between them and the throne [t].
+[FN [t] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. BARO.]
+
+If it be unreasonable to think that the vassals of a barony, though
+their tenure was military, and noble, and honourable, were ever
+summoned to give their opinion in national councils, much less can it
+be supposed, that the tradesmen or inhabitants of boroughs, whose
+condition was so much inferior, would be admitted to that privilege.
+It appears from Doomsday, that the greatest boroughs were, at the time
+of the Conquest, scarcely more than country villages; and that the
+inhabitants lived in entire dependence on the king or great lords, and
+were of a station little better than servile [u].  They were not then
+so much as incorporated; they formed no community; were not regarded
+as a body politic; and being really nothing but a number of low
+dependent tradesmen, living, without any particular civil tie, in
+neighbourhood together, they were incapable of being represented in
+the states of the kingdom.  Even in France, a country which made more
+early advances in arts and civility than England, the first
+corporation is sixty years posterior to the Conquest under the Duke of
+Normandy; and the erecting of these communities was an invention of
+Lewis the Gross, in order to free the people from slavery under the
+lords, and to give them protection, by means of certain privileges and
+a separate jurisdiction [w].  An ancient French writer calls them a
+new and wicked device, to procure liberty to slaves, and encourage
+them in shaking off the dominion of their masters [x].  The famous
+charter, as it is called, of the Conqueror to the city of London,
+though granted at a time when he assumed the appearance of gentleness
+and lenity, is nothing but a letter of protection, and a declaration
+that the citizens should not be treated as slaves [y].  By the English
+feudal law, the superior lord was prohibited from marrying his female
+ward to a burgess or a villain [z]; so near were these two ranks
+esteemed to each other, and so much inferior to the nobility and
+gentry.  Besides possessing the advantages of birth, riches, civil
+powers, and privileges, the nobles and gentlemen alone were armed; a
+circumstance which gave them a mighty superiority, in an age when
+nothing but the military profession was honourable, and when the loose
+execution of laws gave so much encouragement to open violence, and
+rendered it so decisive in all disputes and controversies [a].
+[FN [u]  LIBER HOMO anciently signified a gentleman; for scarce any
+one beside was entirely free.  Spellm. Gloss. in verbo.  [w] Du
+CangeÂ’s Gloss in verb. COMMUNE, COMMUNITAS.  [x] Guibertus, de vita
+sua, lib. 2. cap. 7.  [y] Stat. of Merton, 1235. cap. 6.  [z]
+Hollingshed, vol. iii. p. 15.  [a] Madox's Baron. Angl. p. 19.]
+
+The great similarity among the feudal governments of Europe is well
+known to every man that has any acquaintance with ancient history; and
+the antiquaries of all foreign countries, where the question was never
+embarrassed by party disputes, have allowed, that the Commons came
+very late to be admitted to a share in the legislative power.  In
+Normandy particularly, whose constitution was most likely to be
+William's model in raising his new fabric of English government, the
+states were entirely composed of the clergy and nobility; and the
+first incorporated boroughs or communities of that duchy were Rouen
+and Falaise, which enjoyed their privileges by a grant of Philip
+Augustus in the year 1207 [b].  All the ancient English historians,
+when they mention the great council of the nation, call it an assembly
+of the baronage, nobility, or great men; and none of their
+expressions, though several hundred passages might be produced, can,
+without the utmost violence, be tortured to a meaning, which will
+admit the Commons to be constituent members of that body [c].  If in
+the long period of two hundred years, which elapsed between the
+Conquest and the latter end of Henry III., and which abounded in
+factions, revolutions, and convulsions of all kinds, the House of
+Commons never performed one single legislative act, so considerable as
+to be once mentioned by any of the numerous historians of that age,
+they must have been totally insignificant: and, in that case, what
+reason can be assigned for their ever being assembled?  Can it be
+supposed that men of so little weight or importance possessed a
+negative voice against the king and the barons?  Every page of the
+subsequent histories discovers their existence; though these histories
+are not written with greater accuracy than the preceding ones, and
+indeed scarcely equal them in that particular.  The MAGNA CHARTA of
+King John provides, that no scutage or aid should be imposed, either
+on the land or towns, but by consent of the great council; and for
+more security, it enumerates the persons entitled to a seat in that
+assembly, the prelates and immediate tenants of the crown, without any
+mention of the Commons: an authority so full, certain, and explicit,
+that nothing but the zeal of party could ever have procured credit to
+any contrary hypothesis.
+[FN [b] Norman. Du Chesnii, p. 1066.  Du Cange, Gloss, in verb.
+COMMUNE.  [c] Sometimes the historians mention the people, POPULUS, as
+part of the Parliament; but they always mean the laity, in opposition
+to the clergy.  Sometimes the word COMMUNITAS is found; but it always
+means COMMUNITAS BARONAGII.  These points are clearly proved by Dr.
+Brady.  There is also mention sometimes made of a crowd or multitude
+that thronged into the great council on particular interesting
+occasions; but as deputies from boroughs are never once spoken of, the
+proof that they had not then any existence becomes the more certain
+and undeniable.  These never could make a crowd, as they must have had
+a regular place assigned them, if they had made a regular part of the
+legislative body.  There were only one hundred and thirty boroughs who
+received writs of summons from Edward I.  It is expressly said in
+Gesta. Reg. Steph. p. 932, that it was usual for the populace, VULGUS,
+to crowd into the great councils; where they were plainly mere
+spectators, and could only gratify their curiosity.]
+
+It was probably the example of the French barons which first
+emboldened the English to require greater independence from their
+sovereign: it is also probable, that the boroughs and corporations of
+England were established in imitation of those of France.  It may,
+therefore, be proposed as no unlikely conjecture, that both the chief
+privileges of the Peers in England and the liberty of the Commons were
+originally the growth of that foreign country.
+
+In ancient times, men were little solicitous to obtain a place in the
+legislative assemblies; and rather regarded their attendance as a
+burden, which was not compensated by any return of profit or honour
+proportionate to the trouble and expense.  The only reason for
+instituting those public councils was, on the part of the subject,
+that they desired some security from the attempts of arbitrary power;
+and on the part of the sovereign, that he despaired of governing men
+of such independent spirits without their own consent and concurrence.
+But the Commons, or the inhabitants of boroughs, had not as yet
+reached such a degree of consideration as to desire SECURITY against
+their prince, or to imagine that, even if they were assembled in a
+representative body, they had power or rank sufficient to enforce it.
+The only protection which they aspired to, was against the immediate
+violence and injustice of their fellow-citizens; and this advantage
+each of them looked for, from the courts of justice, or from the
+authority of some great lord, to whom, by law or his own choice, he
+was attached.  On the other hand, the sovereign was sufficiently
+assured of obedience in the whole community, if he procured the
+concurrence of the nobles; nor had he reason to apprehend, that any
+order of the state could resist his and their united authority.  The
+military sub-vassals could entertain no idea of opposing both their
+prince and their superiors: the burgesses and tradesmen could much
+less aspire to such a thought: and thus, even if history were silent
+on the head, we have reason to conclude, from the known situation of
+society during those ages, that the Commons were never admitted as
+members of the legislative body.
+
+The EXECUTIVE power of the Anglo-Norman government was lodged in the
+king.  Besides the stated meetings of the national council at the
+three great festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide [d], he
+was accustomed, on any sudden exigence, to summon them together.  He
+could at his pleasure command the attendance of his barons and their
+vassals, in which consisted the military force of the kingdom; and
+could employ them, during forty days, either in resisting a foreign
+enemy, or reducing his rebellious subjects.  And what was of great
+importance, the whole JUDICIAL power was ultimately in his hands, and
+was exercised by officers and ministers of his appointment.
+[FN [d] Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 15.  Spellm. Gloss. In verbo
+PARLIAMENTUM.]
+
+[MN Judicial power.]
+The general plan of the Anglo-Norman government was, that the court of
+barony was appointed to decide  such controversies as arose between
+the several vassals or subjects of the same barony; the hundred court
+and county court, which were still continued as during the Saxon times
+[e], to judge between the subjects of different baronies [f]; and the
+CURIA REGIS, or king's court, to give sentence among the barons
+themselves [g].  But this plan, though simple, was attended with some
+circumstances which, being derived from a very extensive authority
+assumed by the Conqueror, contributed to increase the royal
+prerogative: and, as long as the state was not disturbed by arms,
+reduced every order of the community to some degree of dependence and
+subordination.
+[FN [e] Ang. Sacra, vol. i. p. 334, &c.  Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 27, 29.
+Madox, Hist. of Exch. p. 75, 76.  Spellm. Gloss. in verbo HUNDRED.
+[f] None of the feudal governments in Europe had such institutions as
+the county courts, which the great authority of the Conqueror still
+retained from the Saxon customs.  All the freeholders of the county,
+even the greatest barons, were obliged to attend the sheriffs in these
+courts, and to assist them in the administration of justice.  By these
+means they received frequent and sensible admonitions of their
+dependence on the king or supreme magistrate: they formed a kind of
+community with their fellow barons and freeholders: they were often
+drawn from their individual and independent state, peculiar to the
+feudal system, and were made members of a political body: and,
+perhaps, this institution of county courts in England has had greater
+effects on the government than has yet been distinctly pointed out by
+historians, or traced by antiquaries.  The barons were never able to
+free themselves from this attendance on the sheriffs and itinerant
+justices till the reign of Henry III.  [g] Brady, Pref. p. 143.]
+
+The king himself often sat in his court, which always attended his
+person [h]: he there heard causes and pronounced judgment [i]; and
+though he was assisted by the advice of the other members, it is not
+to be imagined that a decision could easily be obtained contrary to
+his inclination or opinion.  In his absence the chief justiciary
+presided, who was the first magistrate in the state, and a kind of
+viceroy, on whom depended all the civil affairs of the kingdom [k]
+The other chief officers of the crown, the constable, mareschal,
+seneschal, chamberlain, treasurer, and chancellor [l], were members,
+together with such feudal barons as thought proper to attend, and the
+barons of the exchequer, who at first were also feudal barons,
+appointed by the king [m].  This court, which was sometimes called the
+king's court, sometimes the court of exchequer, judged in all causes,
+civil and criminal, and comprehended the whole business which is now
+shared out among four courts, the chancery, the king's-bench, the
+common-pleas, and the exchequer [n].
+[FN [h] Madox, Hist. of Exch. p. 103.  [i] Bracton, lib. 3. cap. 9.
+Sec. 1. cap. 10. Sec. 1.  [k] Spellm. Gloss. in verbo JUSTICIARII.
+[l] Madox, Hist. Exch. p. 27, 29, 33, 38, 41, 54.  The Normans
+introduced the practice of sealing charters; and the chancellor's
+office was to keep the great seal.  Ingulph. Dugd. p. 33, 34.  [m]
+Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 134, 135.  Gerv. Dorob. p. 1387.  [n]
+Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 56, 70.]
+
+Such an accumulation of powers was itself a great source of authority,
+and rendered the jurisdiction of the court formidable to all the
+subjects; but the turn which judicial trials took soon after the
+Conquest served still more to increase its authority, and to augment
+the royal prerogatives.  William, among the other violent changes
+which he attempted and effected, had introduced the Norman law into
+England [o], had ordered all the pleadings to be in that tongue, and
+had interwoven, with the English jurisprudence, all the maxims and
+principles, which the Normans, more advanced in cultivation, and
+naturally litigious, were accustomed to observe in the distribution of
+justice.  Law now became a science, which at first fell entirely into
+the hands of the Normans; and which, even after it was communicated to
+the English, required so much study and application, that the laity,
+in those ignorant ages, were incapable of attaining it, and it was a
+mystery almost solely confined to the clergy, and chiefly to the monks
+[p]. The great officers of the crown, and the feudal barons, who were
+military men, found themselves unfit to penetrate into those
+obscurities; and though they were entitled to a seat in the supreme
+judicature, the business of the court was wholly managed by the chief
+justiciary and the law barons, who were men appointed by the king and
+entirely at his disposal [q].  This natural course of things was
+forwarded by the multiplicity of business which flowed into that
+court, and which daily augmented by the appeals from all the
+subordinate judicatures of the kingdom.
+[FN [o] Dial. de Scac. p. 30. apud Madox, Hist. of the Exchequer.  [p]
+Malmes. lib. 4. p. 123.  [q] Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 25.]
+
+In the Saxon times, no appeal was received in the king's court, except
+upon the denial or delay of justice by the inferior courts; and the
+same practice was still observed in most of the feudal kingdoms of
+Europe.  But the great power of the Conqueror established, at first,
+in England, an authority, which the monarchs in France were not able
+to attain till the reign of St. Lewis, who lived near two centuries
+after: he empowered his court to receive appeals both from the courts
+of barony and the county courts, and by that means brought the
+administration of justice ultimately into the hands of the sovereign
+[r].  And lest the expense or trouble of a journey to courts should
+discourage suitors, and make them acquiesce in the decision of the
+inferior judicatures, itinerant judges were afterwards established,
+who made their circuits throughout the kingdom, and tried all causes
+that were brought before them [s].  By this expedient the courts of
+barony were kept in awe; and if they still preserved some influence,
+it was only from the apprehensions which the vassals might entertain
+of disobliging their superior, by appealing from his jurisdiction.
+But the county courts were much discredited; and as the freeholders
+were found ignorant of the intricate principles and forms of the new
+law, the lawyers gradually brought all business before the king's
+judges, and abandoned the ancient simple and popular judicature.
+After this manner, the formalities of justice, which, though they
+appear tedious and cumbersome, are found requisite to the support of
+liberty in all monarchical governments, proved at first, by a
+combination of causes, very advantageous to royal authority in
+England.
+[FN [r] Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 65.   Glanv. lib. 12. cap. 1. 7.
+LL. Hen. I. Sec. 31, apud Wilkins, p. 248.  Fitz-Stephens, p. 36.
+Coke's Comment. on the statute of Marlbridge, cap. 20.  [s] Madox,
+Hist. of the Exch. p. 83, 84, 100.  Gerv. Dorob. p. 1410.  What made
+the Anglo-Norman barons more readily submit to appeals from their
+court to the king's court of exchequer, was their being accustomed to
+like appeals in Normandy to the ducal court of exchequer.  See
+Gilbert's History of the Exchequer, p. 1, 2; though the author thinks
+it doubtful, whether the Norman court was not rather copied from the
+English, p. 6.]
+
+[MN Revenue of the crown.]
+The power of the Norman kings was also much supported by a great
+revenue; and by a revenue that was fixed, perpetual, and independent
+of the subject.  The people, without betaking themselves to arms, had
+no check upon the king, and no regular security for the due
+administration of justice.  In those days of violence, many instances
+of oppression passed unheeded; and soon after were openly pleaded as
+precedents, which it was unlawful to dispute or control.  Princes and
+ministers were too ignorant to be themselves sensible of the
+advantages attending an equitable administration; and there was no
+established council or assembly which could protect the people, and,
+by withdrawing supplies, regularly and peaceably admonish the king of
+his duty, and ensure the execution of the laws.
+
+The first branch of the king's stated revenue was the royal demesnes
+or crown lands, which were very extensive, and comprehended, besides a
+great number of manors, most of the chief cities of the kingdom.  It
+was established by law, that the king could alienate no part of his
+demesne, and that he himself, or his successor, could at any time
+resume such donations [t]: but this law was never regularly observed;
+which happily rendered in time the crown somewhat more dependent.  The
+rent of the crown lands, considered merely as so much riches, was a
+source of power: the influence of the king over his tenants and the
+inhabitants of his towns increased this power: but the other numerous
+branches of his revenue, besides supplying his treasury, gave, by
+their very nature, a great latitude to arbitrary authority, and were a
+support of the prerogative; as will appear from an enumeration of
+them.
+[FN [t] Fleta, lib. 1. cap. 8. Sec. 17. lib. 3. cap. 6. Sec. 3.
+Bracton, lib. 2. cap. 5.]
+
+The king was never content with the stated rents, but levied heavy
+talliages at pleasure on the inhabitants both of town and country, who
+lived within his demesne.  All bargains of sale, in order to prevent
+theft, being prohibited, except in boroughs and public markets [u], he
+pretended to exact tolls, on all goods which were there sold [w].  He
+seized two hogsheads, one before and one behind the mast, from every
+vessel that imported wine.  All goods paid to his customs a
+proportionable part of their value [x]: passage over bridges and on
+rivers was loaded with tolls at pleasure [y]: and though the boroughs
+by degrees bought the liberty of farming these impositions, yet the
+revenue profited by these bargains: new sums were often exacted for
+the renewal and confirmation of their charters [z] and the people were
+thus held in perpetual dependence.
+[FN [u] LL. Will. I. cap. 61.  [w] Madox, p. 530.  [x] Ibid. p. 529.
+This author says a fifteenth.  But it is not easy to reconcile this
+account to other authorities.  [y] Madox, p. 529.  [z] Madox's Hist.
+of the Exch. p. 275, 276, 277, &c.]
+
+Such was the situation of the inhabitants within the royal demesnes.
+But the possessors of land, or the military tenants, though they were
+better protected both by law, and by the great privilege of carrying
+arms, were, from the nature of their tenures, much exposed to the
+inroads of power, and possessed not what we should esteem, in our age,
+a very durable security.  The Conqueror ordained, that the barons
+should be obliged to pay nothing beyond their stated services [a],
+except a reasonable aid to ransom his person if he were taken in war,
+to make his eldest son a knight, and to marry his eldest daughter.
+What should, on these occasions, be deemed a reasonable aid, was not
+determined; and the demands of the crown were so far discretionary.
+[FN [a] LL. Will. Conq. Sec. 55.]
+
+The king could require in war the personal attendance of his vassals,
+that is, of almost all the landed proprietors; and if they declined
+the service, they were obliged to pay him a composition in money,
+which was called a scutage.  The sum was, during some reigns,
+precarious and uncertain; it was sometimes levied without allowing the
+vassal the liberty of personal service [b]; and it was an usual
+artifice of the king, to pretend an expedition, that he might be
+entitled to levy the scutage from his military tenants.  Danegelt was
+another species of land-tax levied by the early Norman kings,
+arbitrarily, and contrary to the laws of the Conqueror [c].  Moneyage
+was also a general land-tax of the same nature, levied by the two
+first Norman kings, and abolished by the charter of Henry I. [d].  It
+was a shilling paid every three years by each hearth, to induce the
+king not to use his prerogative in debasing the coin.  Indeed it
+appears from that charter, that though the Conqueror had granted his
+military tenants an immunity from all taxes and talliages, he and his
+son William had never thought themselves bound to observe that rule,
+but had levied impositions at pleasure on all the landed estates of
+the kingdom.  The utmost that Henry grants, is, that the land
+cultivated by the military tenant himself shall not be so burdened;
+but he reserves the power of taxing the farmers; and as it is known
+that Henry's charter was never observed in any one article, we may be
+assured that this prince and his successors retracted even this small
+indulgence, and levied arbitrary impositions on all the lands of all
+their subjects.  These taxes were sometimes very heavy; since
+Malmesbury tells us, that in the reign of William Rufus, the farmers,
+on account of them, abandoned tillage, and a famine ensued [e].
+[FN [b] Gervase de Tilbury, p. 25.  [c] Madox's Hist of the Exch. p.
+475.  [d] Matth. Paris, p. 38.  [e] So also Chron. Abb. St. Petri de
+Burgo, p. 55.  Knyghton, p. 2366.]
+
+The escheats were a great branch both of power and of revenue,
+especially during the first reigns after the Conquest.  In default of
+posterity from the first baron, his land reverted to the crown, and
+continually augmented the king's possessions.  The prince had indeed
+by law a power of alienating these escheats; but by this means he had
+an opportunity of establishing the fortunes of his friends and
+servants, and thereby enlarging his authority.  Sometimes he retained
+them in his own hands; and they were gradually confounded with the
+royal demesnes, and became difficult to be distinguished from them.
+This confusion is probably the reason why the king acquired the right
+of alienating his demesnes.
+
+But besides escheats from default of heirs, those which ensued from
+crimes, or breach of duty towards the superior lord, were frequent in
+ancient times.  If the vassal, being thrice summoned to attend his
+superiorÂ’s court, and do fealty, neglected or refused obedience, he
+forfeited all title to his land [f].  If he denied his tenure, or
+refused his service, he was exposed to the same penalty [g].  If he
+sold his estate without licence from his lord [h], or if he sold it
+upon any other tenure or title than that by which he himself held it
+[i], he lost all right to it.  The adhering to his lord's enemies [k],
+deserting him in war [l], betraying his secrets [m], debauching his
+wife, or his near relations [n], or even using indecent freedoms with
+them [o], might be punished by forfeiture.  The higher crimes, rapes,
+robbery, murder, arson, &c., were called felony; and being interpreted
+want of fidelity to his lord, made him lose his fief [p].  Even where
+the felon was vassal to a baron, though his immediate lord enjoyed the
+forfeiture, the king might retain possession of his estate during a
+twelvemonth, and had the right of spoiling and destroying it, unless
+the baron paid him a reasonable composition [q].  We have not here
+enumerated all the species of felonies, or of crimes by which
+forfeiture was incurred: we have said enough to prove, that the
+possession of feudal property was anciently somewhat precarious, and
+that the primary idea was never lost, of its being a kind of FEE or
+BENEFICE.
+[FN [f] Hottom. de Feud. Disp. cap. 38. col. 886.  [g] Lib. Feud. lib.
+3. tit. 1; lib. 4. tit. 21, 39.  [h] Id. lib. 1. tit. 21.  [i] Id.
+lib. 4. tit. 44.  [k] Id. lib. 3. tit. 1.  [l] Id. lib. 4. tit. 14,
+21.  [m] Id. lib. 4. tit. 14.  [n] Id. lib. 1. tit. 14, 23.  [o] Id.
+lib. 1. tit. 1.  [p] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. FELONIA.  [q] Ibid.
+Glanville, lib. 7 cap. 17.]
+
+When a baron died, the king immediately took possession of the estate;
+and the heir, before he recovered his right, was obliged to make
+application to the crown, and desire that he might be admitted to do
+homage for his land, and pay a composition to the king.  This
+composition was not at first fixed by law, at least by practice: the
+king was often exorbitant in his demands, and kept possession of the
+land till they were complied with.
+
+If the heir were a minor, the king retained the whole profit of the
+estate till his majority; and might grant what sum he thought proper
+for the education and maintenance of the young baron.  This practice
+was also founded on the notion, that a fief was a benefice, and that
+while the heir could not perform his military services, the revenue
+devolved to the superior, who employed another in his stead.  It is
+obvious, that a great proportion of the landed property must, by means
+of this device, be continually in the hands of the prince, and that
+all the noble families were thereby held in perpetual dependence.
+When the king granted the wardship of a rich heir to any one, he had
+the opportunity of enriching a favourite or minister: if he sold it,
+he thereby levied a considerable sum of money.  Simon de Mountfort
+paid Henry III. ten thousand marks, an immense sum in those days, for
+the wardship of Gilbert de Umfreville [r].  Geoffrey de Mandeville
+paid to the same prince the sum of twenty thousand marks, that he
+might marry Isabel, Countess of Gloucester, and possess all her lands
+and knights' fees.  This sum would be equivalent to three hundred
+thousand, perhaps four hundred thousand pounds in our time [s].
+[FN [r] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 223.  [s] MadoxÂ’s Hist. of the
+Exch. p. 322.]
+
+If the heir were a female, the king was entitled to offer her any
+husband of her rank he thought proper; and if she refused him, she
+forfeited her land.  Even a male heir could not marry without the
+royal consent; and it was usual for men to pay large sums for the
+liberty of making their own choice in marriage [t].  No man could
+dispose of his land, either by sale or will, without the consent of
+his superior.  The possessor was never considered as full proprietor:
+he was still a kind of beneficiary; and could not oblige his superior
+to accept of any vassal that was not agreeable to him.
+[FN [t] Ibid. p. 320.]
+
+Fines, amerciaments, and oblatas, as they were called, were another
+considerable branch of the royal power and revenue.  The ancient
+records of the exchequer, which are still preserved, give surprising
+accounts of the numerous fines and amerciaments levied in those days
+[u] and of the strange inventions fallen upon to exact money from the
+subject.  It appears that the ancient kings of England put themselves
+entirely on the footing of the barbarous eastern princes, whom no man
+must approach without a present, who sell all their good offices, and
+who intrude themselves into every business that they may have a
+pretence for extorting money.  Even justice was avowedly bought and
+sold; the king's court itself, though the supreme judicature of the
+kingdom, was open to none that brought not presents to the king; the
+bribes given for the expedition, delay [w], suspension, and, doubtless
+for the perversion of justice, were entered in the public registers of
+the royal revenue, and remain as monuments of the perpetual iniquity
+and tyranny of the times.  The barons of the exchequer, for instance,
+the first nobility of the kingdom, were not ashamed to insert, as an
+article in their records, that the county of Norfolk paid a sum that
+they might be fairly dealt with [x]; the borough of Yarmouth, that the
+king's charters, which they have for their liberties, might not be
+violated [y]; Richard, son of Gilbert, for the king's helping him to
+recover his debt from the Jews [z]; Serlo, son of Terlavaston, that he
+might be permitted to make his defence in case he were accused of a
+certain homicide [a]; Walter de Burton, for free law, if accused of
+wounding another [b]; Robert de Essart, for having an inquest to find
+whether Roger the Butcher, and Wace and Humphrey, accused him of
+robbery and theft out of envy and ill-will or not [c]; William
+Buhurst, for having an inquest to find whether he were accused of the
+death of one Godwin out of ill-will, or for just cause [d].  I have
+selected these few instances from a great number of a like kind, which
+Madox had selected from a still greater number, preserved in the
+ancient rolls of the exchequer [e].
+[FN [u] Id. p. 272.  [w] Id. p. 274, 309.  [x] Id. p. 295.  [y] Id.
+ibid.  [z] MadoxÂ’s Hist. of the Exch. p. 296.  He paid two hundred
+marks, great sum in those days.  [a] Id. p. 296.  [b] Id. ibid.  [c]
+Id. p. 298.  [d] Id. p. 302.  [e] Id. chap. 12.]
+
+Sometimes the party litigant offered the king a certain portion, a
+half, a third, a fourth, payable out of the debts, which he, as the
+executor of justice, should assist him in recovering [f].  Theophania
+de Westland agreed to pay the half of two hundred and twelve marks,
+that she might recover that sum against James de Fughleston [g];
+Solomon, the Jew, engaged to pay one mark out of every seven that he
+should recover against Hugh de la Hose [h]; Nicholas Morrel promised
+to pay sixty pounds, that the Earl of Flanders might be distrained to
+pay him three hundred and forty-three pounds, which the earl had taken
+from him; and these sixty pounds were to be paid out of the first
+money that Nicholas should recover from the earl [i].
+[FN [f] Id. p. 311.  [g] Id. ibid.  [h] Id. p. 79, 312.  [i] Id. p.
+312.]
+
+As the king assumed the entire power over trade, he was to be paid for
+a permission to exercise commerce or industry of any kind [k].  Hugh
+Oisel paid four hundred marks for liberty to trade in England [l];
+Nigel de Havene gave fifty marks for the partnership in merchandize
+which he had with Gervase de Hanton [m]; the men of Worcester paid one
+hundred shillings, that they might have the liberty of selling and
+buying dyed cloth as formerly [n]; several other towns paid for a like
+liberty [o].  The commerce indeed of the kingdom was so much  under
+the control of the king, that he erected guilds, corporations, and
+monopolies, wherever he pleased; and levied sums for these exclusive
+privileges [p].
+[FN [k] Id. p. 323.  [l] Id. ibid.  [m] Id. ibid.  [n] Id. p. 324.
+[o] Id. ibid.  [p] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 232, 233, &c.]
+
+There were no profits so small as to be below the king's attention.
+Henry, son of Arthur, gave ten dogs to have a recognition against the
+Countess of Copland for one knight's fee [q].  Roger, son of Nicholas,
+gave twenty lampreys and twenty shads for an inquest to find, whether
+Gilbert, son of Alured, gave to Roger two hundred muttons to obtain
+his confirmation for certain lands, or whether Roger took them from
+him by violence [r]; Geoffrey Fitz-Pierre, the chief justiciary, gave
+two good Norway hawks, that Walter le Madine might have leave to
+export a hundred weight of cheese out of the king's dominions [s].
+[FN [q] Id. p. 298.  [r] Id. p. 305.  [s] Id. p. 325.]
+
+It is really amusing to remark the strange business in which the king
+sometimes interfered, and never without a present.  The wife of Hugh
+de Neville gave the king two hundred hens, that she might lie with her
+husband one night [t]; and she brought with her two sureties, who
+answered each for a hundred hens.  It is probable that her husband was
+a prisoner, which debarred her from having access to him.  The Abbot
+of Rucford paid ten marks for leave to erect houses and place men upon
+his land near Welhang, in order to secure his wood there from being
+stolen [u].  Hugh, Archdeacon of Wells, gave one tun of wine for leave
+to carry six hundred sums of corn whither he would [w]; Peter de
+Peraris gave twenty marks for leave to salt fishes, as Peter Chevalier
+used to do [x].
+[FN [t] Id. p. 320.  [u] Id. p. 326.  [w] Id. p. 320.  [x] Id. p.
+326.]
+
+It was usual to pay high fines, in order to gain the king's good-will,
+or mitigate his anger.  In the reign of Henry II., Gilbert, the son of
+Fergus, fines in nine hundred and nineteen pounds, nine shillings, to
+obtain that prince's favour; William de Chataignes, a thousand marks,
+that he would remit his displeasure.  In the reign of Henry III., the
+city of London fines in no less a sum than twenty thousand pounds on
+the same account [y].
+[FN [y] Id. p. 327, 329.]
+
+The king's protection and good offices of every kind were bought and
+sold.  Robert Grislet paid twenty marks of silver, that the king would
+help him against the Earl of Mortaigne, in a certain plea [z]: Robert
+de Cundet gave thirty marks of silver, that the king would bring him
+to an accord with the Bishop of Lincoln [a]: Ralph de Breckham gave a
+hawk, that the king would protect him [b]; and this is a very frequent
+reason for payments: John, son of Ordgar, gave a Norway hawk, to have
+the king's request to the king of Norway to let him have his brother
+Godard's chattels [c]: Richard de Neville gave twenty palfreys to
+obtain the king's request to Isolda Bisset, that she should take him
+for a husband [d]: Roger Fitz-Walter gave three good palfreys to have
+the king's letter to Roger Bertram's mother, that she should marry him
+[e]: Eling, the dean, paid one hundred marks, that his whore and his
+children might be let out upon bail [f]: the Bishop of Winchester gave
+one tun of good wine for his not putting the king in mind to give a
+girdle to the Countess of Albemarle [g]: Robert de Veaux gave five of
+the best palfreys, that the king would hold his tongue about Henry
+Pinel's wife [h].  There are in the records of exchequer, many other
+singular instances of a like nature [i].  It will, however, be just to
+remark, that the same  ridiculous practices and dangerous abuses
+prevailed in Normandy, and probably in all the other states of Europe
+[k]: England was not, in this respect, more barbarous than its
+neighbours.
+[FN [z] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 329.  [a] Id. p. 330.  [b] Id.
+p. 332.  [c] Id. ibid.  [d] Id. p. 333.  [e] Id. ibid.  [f] Id. p.
+342.  PRO HABENDA AMICA SUA ET FILIIS, &c.  [g] Id. p. 352.  [h] Id.
+ibid.  UT REX TACERET DE UXORE HENRICI PINEL.  [i] WE SHALL GRATIFY
+THE READER'S CURIOSITY BY SUBJOINING A FEW MORE INSTANCES FROM MADOX,
+p. 332.  Hugh Oisel was to give the king two robes of a good green
+colour, to have the king's letters patent to the merchants of
+Flanders, with a request to render him one thousand marks, which he
+lost in Flanders.  The Abbot of Hyde paid thirty marks, to have the
+king's letters of request to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to remove
+certain monks that were against the abbot.  Roger de Trihanton paid
+twenty marks and a palfrey, to have the king's request to Richard de
+Umfreville to give him his sister to wife, and to the sister, that she
+would accept him for a husband.  William de Cheveringworth paid five
+marks, to have the king's letter to the Abbot of Perfore, to let him
+enjoy peaceably his tithes as formerly.  Matthew de Hereford, clerk,
+paid ten marks for a letter of request to the Bishop of Llandaff, to
+let him enjoy peaceably his church of Schenfrith.  Andrew Neulun gave
+three Flemish caps for the king's request to the Prior of Chikesand,
+for performance of an agreement made between them.  Henry de Fontibus
+gave a Lombardy horse of value, to have the king's request to Henry
+Fitz-Hervey, that he would grant him his daughter to wife.  Roger, son
+of Nicholas, promised all the lampreys he could get, to have the
+king's request to Earl William Marshall, that he would grant him the
+manor of Langeford at Firm.  The burgesses of Gloucester promised
+three hundred lampreys, that they might not be distrained to find the
+prisoners of Poictou with necessaries, unless they pleased.  Id. p.
+352.  Jordan, son of Reginald, paid twenty marks, to have the king's
+request to William Paniel, that he would grant him the land of Mill
+Nieresult, and the custody of his heirs: and if Jordan obtained the
+same, he was pay the twenty marks, otherwise not.  Id. p. 333.  [k]
+Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 359.]
+
+These iniquitous practices of the Norman kings were so well known,
+that on the death of Hugh Bigod, in the reign of Henry II., the best
+and most just of these princes, the eldest son and the widow of this
+nobleman came to court, and strove, by offering large presents to the
+king, each of them to acquire possession of that rich inheritance.
+The king was so equitable as to order the cause to be tried by the
+great council!  But, in the mean time, he seized all the money and
+treasure of the deceased [l].  Peter of Blois, a judicious, and even
+an elegant writer for that age, gives a pathetic description of the
+venality of justice, and the oppressions of the poor, under the reign
+of Henry; and he scruples not to complain to the king himself of these
+abuses [m].  We may judge what the case would be under the government
+of worst princes.  The articles of inquiry concerning the conduct of
+sheriffs, which Henry promulgated in 1170, show the great power, as
+well as the licentiousness of these officers [n].
+[FN [l] Bened. Abb. p. 180, 181.  [m] Petri Bles. Epist. 95. apud
+Bibl. Patrum, tom. p. xxiv. 2014.  [n] Hoveden, Chron. Gerv. p. 1410.]
+
+Amerciaments, or fines for crimes and trespasses, were another
+considerable branch of the royal revenue [o].  Most crimes were atoned
+for by money; the fines imposed were not limited by any rule or
+statute; and frequently occasioned the total ruin of the person, even
+for the slightest trespasses.  The forest-laws, particularly, were a
+great source of oppression.  The king possessed sixty-eight forests,
+thirteen chases, and seven hundred and eighty-one parks, in different
+parts of England [p]; and considering the extreme passion of the
+English and Normans for hunting, these were so many snares laid for
+the people, by which they were allured into trespasses, and brought
+within the reach of arbitrary and rigorous laws, which the king had
+thought proper to enact by his own authority.
+[FN [o] Madox, chap. 14.  [p] Spellm. Gloss. in verbo FORESTA.]
+
+But the most barefaced acts of tyranny and oppression were practised
+against the Jews, who were entirely out of the protection of law, were
+extremely odious from the bigotry of the people, and were abandoned to
+the immeasurable rapacity of the king and his ministers.  Besides many
+other indignities to which they were continually exposed, it appears
+that they were once all thrown into prison, and the sum of sixty-six
+thousand marks exacted for their liberty [q]: at another time, Isaac
+the Jew paid alone five thousand one hundred marks [r]; Brun, three
+thousand marks [s]; Jurnet, two thousand; Bennet, five hundred: at
+another, Licorica, widow of David, the Jew of Oxford, was required to
+pay six thousand marks; and she was delivered over to six of the
+richest and discreetest Jews in England, who were to answer for the
+sum [t].  Henry III. borrowed five thousand marks from the Earl of
+Cornwall; and for his repayment, consigned over to him all the Jews in
+England [u].  The revenue arising from exactions upon this nation was
+so considerable, that there was a particular court of exchequer set
+apart for managing it [w].
+[FN [q] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 151.  This happened in the reign
+of King John.  [r] Id. p. 151.  [s] Id. p. 153.  [t] Id. p. 168.  [u]
+Id. p. 156.  [w] Id. chap. 7.]
+
+[MN Commerce.]
+We may judge concerning the low state of commerce among the English,
+when the Jews, notwithstanding these oppressions, could still find
+their account in trading among them, and lending them money.  And as
+the improvements of agriculture were also much checked by the immense
+possessions of the nobility, by the disorders of the times, and by the
+precarious state of feudal property, it appears that industry of no
+kind could then have place in the kingdom [x].
+[FN [x] We learn from the extracts given us of Doomsday by Brady, in
+his Treatise of Boroughs, that almost all the boroughs of England had
+suffered in the shock of the Conquest, and had extremely decayed
+between the death of the Confessor, and the time when Doomsday was
+framed.]
+
+It is asserted by Sir Henry Spellman [y], as an undoubted truth, that,
+during the reigns of the first Norman princes, every edict of the
+king, issued with the consent of his privy council, had the full force
+of law.  But the barons, surely, were not so passive as to intrust a
+power, entirely arbitrary and despotic, into the hands of the
+sovereign.  It only appears, that the constitution had not fixed any
+precise boundaries to the royal power; that the right of issuing
+proclamations on any emergence, and of exacting obedience to them, a
+right which was always supposed inherent in the crown, is very
+difficult to be distinguished from a legislative authority; that the
+extreme imperfection of the ancient laws, and the sudden exigencies
+which often occurred in such turbulent governments, obliged the prince
+to exert frequently the latent powers of his prerogative; that he
+naturally proceeded, from the acquiescence of the people, to assume,
+in many particulars of moment, an authority from which he had excluded
+himself by express statutes, charters, or concessions, and which was,
+in the main, repugnant to the general genius of the constitution; and
+that the lives, the personal liberty, and the properties of all his
+subjects, were less secured by law against the exertion of his
+arbitrary authority, than by the independent power and private
+connexions of each individual.  It appears from the great charter
+itself, that not only John, a tyrannical prince, and Richard, a
+violent one, but their father, Henry, under whose reign the prevalence
+of gross abuses is the least to be suspected, were accustomed, from
+their sole authority, without process of law, to imprison, banish, and
+attaint the freemen of their kingdom.
+[FN [y] Gloss. in verb. JUDICIUM DEI.  The author of the MIROIR DES
+JUSTICES complains, that ordinances are only made by the king and his
+clerks, and by aliens and others, who dare not contradict the king,
+but study to please him.  Whence, he concludes, laws are oftener
+dictated by will, than founded on right.]
+
+A great baron, in ancient times, considered himself as a kind of
+sovereign within his territory; and was attended by courtiers and
+dependents more zealously attached to him than the ministers of state
+and the great officers were commonly to THEIR sovereign.  He often
+maintained in his court the parade of royalty, by establishing a
+justiciary, constable, mareschal, chamberlain, seneschal, and
+chancellor, and assigning to each of these officers a separate
+province and command.  He was usually very assiduous in exercising his
+jurisdiction; and took such delight in that image of sovereignty, that
+it was found necessary to restrain his activity, and prohibit him by
+law from holding courts too frequently [z].  It is not to be doubted,
+but the example, set him by the prince of a  mercenary and sordid
+extortion, would be faithfully copied, and that all his good and bad
+offices, his justice and injustice, were equally put to sale.  He had
+the power, with the king's consent, to exact talliages even from the
+free citizens who lived within his barony; and as his necessities made
+him rapacious, his authority was usually found to be more oppressive
+and tyrannical than that of the sovereign [a].  He was ever engaged in
+hereditary or personal animosities or confederacies with his
+neighbours, and often gave protection to all desperate adventurers and
+criminals, who could be useful in serving his violent purposes.  He
+was able alone, in times of tranquillity, to obstruct the execution of
+justice within his territories; and by combining with a few
+malecontent barons of high rank and power, he could throw the state
+into convulsions.  And, on the whole, though the royal authority was
+confined within bounds, and often within very narrow ones, yet the
+check was irregular, and frequently the source of great disorders; nor
+was it derived from the liberty of the people, but from the military
+power of many petty tyrants, who were equally dangerous to the prince
+and oppressive to the subject.
+[FN [z] Dugd. Jurid. Orig. p. 26.  [a] Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p.
+520.]
+
+[MN The Church.]
+The power of the church was another rampart against royal authority;
+but this defence was also the cause of many mischiefs and
+inconveniences.  The dignified clergy, perhaps, were not so prone to
+immediate violence as the barons; but as they pretended to a total
+independence on the state, and could always cover themselves with the
+appearances of religion, they proved, in one respect, an obstruction
+to the settlement of the kingdom, and to the regular execution of the
+laws.  The policy of the Conqueror was in this particular liable to
+some exception.  He augmented the superstitious veneration for Rome,
+to which that age was so much inclined; and he broke those bands of
+connexion, which, in the Saxon times, had preserved an union between
+the lay and the clerical orders.  He prohibited the bishops from
+sitting in the county courts; he allowed ecclesiastical causes to be
+tried in spiritual courts only [b]; and he so much exalted the power
+of the clergy, that of sixty thousand two hundred and fifteen knights'
+fees, into which he divided England, he placed no less than twenty-
+eight thousand and fifteen under the church [c].
+[FN [b] Char. Will. apud Wilkins, p. 230.  Spellm. Conc. vol. ii. p.
+14.  [c] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. MANUS MORTUA.  We are not to imagine,
+as some have done, that the church possessed lands in this proportion,
+but only that they and their vassals enjoyed such a proportionable
+part of the landed property.]
+
+[MN Civil laws.]
+The right of primogeniture was introduced with the feudal law: an
+institution which is hurtful, by producing and maintaining an unequal
+division of private property; but is advantageous, in another respect,
+by accustoming the people to a preference in favour of the eldest son,
+and thereby preventing a partition or disputed succession in the
+monarchy.  The Normans introduced the use of surnames, which tend to
+preserve the knowledge of families and pedigrees.  They abolished none
+of the old absurd methods of trial by the cross or ordeal; and they
+added a new absurdity, the trial by single combat [d], which became a
+regular part of jurisprudence, and was conducted with all the order,
+method, devotion, and solemnity imaginable [e].  The ideas of chivalry
+also seem to have been imported by the Normans: no traces of those
+fantastic notions are to be found among the plain and rustic Saxons.
+[FN [d] LL. Will. cap. 68.  [e] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. CAMPUS.  The
+last instance of these duels was in the 15th of Eliz.  So long did
+that absurdity remain.]
+
+[MN Manners.]
+The feudal institutions, by raising the military tenants to a kind of
+sovereign dignity, by rendering personal strength and valour
+requisite, and by making every knight and baron his own protector and
+avenger, begat that martial pride and sense of honour, which, being
+cultivated and embellished by the poets and romance-writers of the
+age, ended in chivalry.  The virtuous knight fought not only in his
+own quarrel, but in that of the innocent, of the helpless, and, above
+all, of the fair, whom he supposed to be for ever under the
+guardianship of his valiant arm.  The uncourteous knight who, from his
+castle, exercised robbery on travellers, and committed violence on
+virgins, was the object of his perpetual indignation; and he put him
+to death, without scruple, or trial, or appeal, whenever he met with
+him.  The great independence of men made personal honour and fidelity
+the chief tie among them; and rendered it the capital virtue of every
+true knight, or genuine professor of chivalry.  The solemnities of
+single combat, as established by law, banished the notion of every
+thing unfair or unequal in rencounters; and maintained an appearance
+of courtesy between the combatants till the moment of their
+engagement.  The credulity of the age grafted on this stock the notion
+of giants, enchanters, dragons, spells [f], and a thousand wonders,
+which still multiplied during the time of the crusades; when men,
+returning from so great a distance, used the liberty of imposing every
+fiction on their believing audience.  These ideas of chivalry infected
+the writings, conversation, and behaviour of men, during some ages;
+and even after they were, in a great measure, banished by the revival
+of learning, they left modern GALLANTRY and the POINT OF HONOUR, which
+still maintain their influence, and are the genuine offspring of those
+ancient affectations.
+[FN [f] In all legal single combats, it was part of the champion's
+oath, that he carried not about him any herb, spell, or enchantment,
+by which he might procure victory.  Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 82.]
+
+The concession of the great charter, or rather its full establishment,
+(for there was a considerable interval of time between the one and the
+other,) gave rise, by degrees, to a new species of government, and
+introduced some order and justice into the administration.  The
+ensuing scenes of our history are therefore somewhat different from
+the preceding.  Yet the great charter contained no establishment of
+new courts, magistrates, or senates, nor abolition of the old.  It
+introduced no new distribution of the powers of the commonwealth, and
+no innovation in the political or public law of the kingdom.  It only
+guarded, and that merely by verbal clauses, against such tyrannical
+practices as are incompatible with civilized government, and, if they
+become very frequent, are incompatible with all government.  The
+barbarous license of the kings, and perhaps of the nobles, was
+thenceforth somewhat more restrained: men acquired some more security
+for their properties and their liberties: and government approached a
+little nearer to that end for which it was originally instituted, the
+distribution of justice, and the equal protection of the citizens.
+Acts of violence and iniquity in the crown, which before were only
+deemed injurious to individuals, and were hazardous chiefly in
+proportion to the number, power, and dignity of the persons affected
+by them, were now regarded, in some degree, as public injuries, and as
+infringements of a charter calculated for general security.  And thus
+the establishment of the great charter, without seeming anywise to
+innovate in the distribution of political power, became a kind of
+epoch in the constitution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+HENRY III.
+
+SETTLEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT.--GENERAL PACIFICATION.--DEATH OF THE
+PROTECTOR.--SOME COMMOTIONS.--HUBERT DE BURGH DISPLACED.--THE BISHOP
+OF WINCHESTER MINISTER.--KINGÂ’S PARTIALITY TO FOREIGNERS.--
+GRIEVANCES.--ECCLESIASTICAL GRIEVANCES.--EARL OF CORNWALL ELECTED KING
+OF THE ROMANS.--DISCONTENT OF THE BARONS.--SIMON DE MOUNTFORT, EARL OF
+LEICESTER.--PROVISIONS OF OXFORD.—USURPATION OF THE BARONS.--PRINCE
+EDWARD.--CIVIL WARS OF THE BARONS.--REFERENCE TO THE KING OF FRANCE.--
+RENEWAL OF THE CIVIL WARS.--BATTLE OF LEWES.--HOUSE OF COMMONS.--
+BATTLE OF EVESHAM AND DEATH OF LEICESTER.--SETTLEMENT OF THE
+GOVERNMENT.--DEATH--AND CHARACTER OF THE KING.--MISCELLANEOUS
+TRANSACTIONS OF THIS REIGN.
+
+
+
+[MN 1216.]  Most sciences, in proportion as they increase and improve,
+invent methods by which they facilitate their reasonings; and,
+employing general theorems, are enabled to comprehend, in a few
+propositions, a great number of inferences and conclusions.  History
+also, being a collection of facts which are multiplying without end,
+is obliged to adopt such arts of abridgment, to retain the more
+material events, and to drop all the minute circumstances, which are
+only interesting during the time, or to the persons engaged in the
+transactions.  This truth is no where more evident than with regard to
+the reign upon which we are going to enter.  What mortal could have
+the patience to write or read a long detail of such frivolous events
+as those with which it is filled, or attend to a tedious narrative
+which would follow, through a series of fifty-six years, the caprices
+and weaknesses of so mean a prince as Henry?  The chief reason why
+Protestant writers have been so anxious to spread out the incidents of
+this reign is, in order to expose the rapacity, ambition, and
+artifices of the court of Rome; and to prove that the great
+dignitaries of the Catholic church, while they pretended to have
+nothing in view but the salvation of souls, had bent all their
+attention to the acquisition of riches, and were restrained by no
+sense of justice or of honour in the pursuit of that great object [a].
+But this conclusion would readily be allowed them, though it were not
+illustrated by such a detail of uninteresting incidents; and follows,
+indeed, by an evident necessity, from the very situation in which that
+church was placed with regard to the rest of Europe.  For, besides
+that ecclesiastical power, as it can always cover its operations under
+a cloak of sanctity, and attacks men on the side where they dare not
+employ their reason, lies less under control than civil government;
+besides this general cause, I say, the pope and his courtiers were
+foreigners to most of the churches which they governed; they could not
+possibly have any other object than to pillage the provinces for
+present gain; and as they lived at a distance, they would be little
+awed by shame or remorse, in employing every lucrative expedient which
+was suggested to them.  England being one of the most remote provinces
+attached to the Romish hierarchy, as well as the most prone to
+superstition, felt severely during this reign, while its patience was
+not yet fully exhausted, the influence of these causes; and we shall
+often have occasion to touch cursorily upon such incidents.  But we
+shall not attempt to comprehend every transaction transmitted to us;
+and, till the end of the reign, when the events become more memorable,
+we shall not always observe an exact chronological order in our
+narration.
+[FN [a] M. Paris, p. 623.]
+
+[MN Settlement of the government.]
+The Earl of Pembroke, who, at the time of John's death, was Mareschal
+of England, was, by his office, at the head of the armies, and
+consequently, during a state of civil wars and convulsions, at the
+head of the government; and it happened fortunately for the young
+monarch and for the nation, that the power could not have been
+intrusted into more able and more faithful hands.  This nobleman, who
+had maintained his loyalty unshaken to John, during the lowest fortune
+of that monarch, determined to support the authority of the infant
+prince; nor was he dismayed at the number and violence of his enemies.
+Sensible that Henry, agreeably to the prejudices of the times, would
+not be deemed a sovereign till crowned and anointed by a churchman, he
+immediately carried the young prince to Gloucester, [MN 1216.  28th
+Oct.] where the ceremony of coronation was performed, in the presence
+of Gualo, the legate, and of a few noblemen, by the Bishops of
+Winchester and Bath [b].  As the concurrence of the papal authority
+was requisite to support the tottering throne, Henry was obliged to
+swear fealty to the pope, and renew that homage to which his father
+had already subjected the kingdom [c]; and in order to enlarge the
+authority of Pembroke, and to give him a more regular and legal title
+to it, a general council of the barons was soon after summoned at
+Bristol, [MN 11th Nov.] where that nobleman was chosen protector of
+the realm.
+[FN [b] M. Paris, p. 200.  Hist. Croyl. cont. p. 474.  W. Heming. p.
+562  Trivet, p. 168.  [c] M. Paris, p. 200.]
+
+Pembroke, that he might reconcile all men to the government of his
+pupil, made him grant a new charter of liberties, which, though mostly
+copied from the former concessions extorted from John, contains some
+alterations which may be deemed remarkable [d].  The full privilege of
+elections in the clergy, granted by the late king, was not confirmed,
+nor the liberty of going out of the kingdom, without the royal
+consent: whence we may conclude, that Pembroke and the barons, jealous
+of the ecclesiastical power, both were desirous of renewing the king's
+claim to issue a congé d'élire to the monks and chapters, and thought
+it requisite to put some check to the frequent appeals to Rome.  But
+what may chiefly surprise us, is, that the obligation to which John
+had subjected himself, of obtaining the consent of the great council
+before he levied any aids or scutages upon the nation, was omitted;
+and this article was even declared hard and severe, and was expressly
+left to future deliberation.  But we must consider, that, though this
+limitation may perhaps appear to us the most momentous in the whole
+charter of John, it was not regarded in that light by the ancient
+barons, who were more jealous in guarding against particular acts of
+violence in the crown, than against such general impositions, which,
+unless they were evidently reasonable and necessary, could scarcely,
+without general consent, be levied upon men who had arms in their
+hands, and who could repel any act of oppression by which they were
+all immediately affected.  We accordingly find, that Henry, in the
+course of his reign, while he gave frequent occasions for complaint,
+with regard to his violations of the great charter, never attempted,
+by his mere will, to levy any aids or scutages; though he was often
+reduced to great necessities, and was refused supply by his people.
+So much easier was it for him to transgress the law, when individuals
+alone were affected, than even to exert his acknowledged prerogatives,
+where the interest of the whole body was concerned.
+[FN [d] Rymer, vol. i. p. 215.]
+
+This charter was again confirmed by the king in the ensuing year, with
+the addition of some articles, to prevent the oppressions by sheriffs;
+and also with an additional charter of forests, a circumstance of
+great moment in those ages, when hunting was so much the occupation of
+the nobility, and when the king comprehended so considerable a part of
+the kingdom within his forests, which he governed by peculiar and
+arbitrary laws.  All the forests which had been enclosed since the
+reign of Henry II. were disafforested; and new perambulations were
+appointed for that purpose: offences in the forests were declared to
+be no longer capital; but punishable by fine, imprisonment, and more
+gentle penalties: and all the proprietors of land recovered the power
+of cutting and using their own wood at their pleasure.
+
+Thus these famous charters were brought nearly to the shape in which
+they have ever since stood; and they were, during many generations,
+the peculiar favourites of the English nation, and esteemed the most
+sacred rampart to national liberty and independence.  As they secured
+the rights of all orders of men, they were anxiously defended by all,
+and became the basis, in a manner, of the English monarchy, and a kind
+of original contract, which both limited the authority of the king,
+and ensured the conditional allegiance of his subjects.  Though often
+violated, they were still claimed by the nobility and people; and as
+no precedents were supposed valid that infringed them, they rather
+acquired than lost authority, from the frequent attempts made against
+them, in several ages, by regal and arbitrary power.
+
+While Pembroke, by renewing and confirming the great charter, gave so
+much satisfaction and security to the nation in general, he also
+applied himself successfully to individuals.  He wrote letters, in the
+king's name, to all the malecontent barons; in which he represented to
+them, that, whatever jealousy and animosity they might have
+entertained against the late king, a young prince, the lineal heir of
+their ancient monarchs, had now succeeded to the throne, without
+succeeding either to the resentments or principles of his predecessor:
+that the desperate expedient, which they had employed of calling in a
+foreign potentate, had, happily for them, as well as for the nation,
+failed of entire success; and it was still in their power, by a speedy
+return to their duty, to restore the independence of the kingdom, and
+to secure that liberty for which they so zealously contended: that as
+all past offences of the barons were now buried in oblivion, they
+ought, on their part, to forget their complaints against their late
+sovereign, who, if he had been anywise blameable in his conduct, had
+left to his son the salutary warning, to avoid the paths which had led
+to such fatal extremities; and that, having now obtained a charter for
+their liberties, it was their interest to show, by their conduct, that
+this acquisition was not incompatible with their allegiance, and that
+the rights of king and people, so far from being hostile and opposite,
+might mutually support and sustain each other [e].
+[FN [e] Rymer, vol i. p. 25.  Brady's App. No. 143.]
+
+These considerations, enforced by the character of honour and
+constancy which Pembroke had ever maintained, had a mighty influence
+on the barons; and most of them began secretly to negotiate with him,
+and many of them openly returned to their duty.  The diffidence which
+Lewis discovered of their fidelity forwarded this general propension
+towards the king; and when the French prince refused the government of
+the castle of Hertford to Robert Fitz-Walter, who had been so active
+against the late king, and who claimed that fortress as his property,
+they plainly saw that the English were excluded from every trust, and
+that foreigners had engrossed all the confidence and affection of
+their new sovereign [f].  The excommunication, too, denounced by the
+legate against all the adherents of Lewis, failed not, in the turn
+which men's dispositions had taken, to produce a mighty effect upon
+them; and they were easily persuaded to consider a cause as impious,
+for which they had already entertained an unsurmountable aversion [g].
+Though Lewis made a journey to France, and brought over succours from
+that kingdom [h], he found, on his return, that his party was still
+more weakened by the desertion of his English confederates, and that
+the death of John had, contrary to his expectations, given an
+incurable wound to his cause.  The Earls of Salisbury, Arundel, and
+Warrenne, together with William Mareschal, eldest son of the
+protector, had embraced Henry's party, and every English nobleman was
+plainly watching for an opportunity of returning to his allegiance.
+Pembroke was so much strengthened by these accessions that he ventured
+to invest Mountsorel; though, upon the approach of the Count de Perche
+with the French army, he desisted from his enterprise, and raised the
+siege [i].  The count, elated with this success, marched to Lincoln;
+and being admitted into the town, he began to attack the castle, which
+he soon reduced to extremity.  The protector summoned all his forces
+from every quarter, in order to relieve a place of such importance;
+and he appeared so much superior to the French, that they shut
+themselves up within the city, and resolved to act upon the defensive
+[k].  But the garrison of the castle having received a strong
+reinforcement, made a vigorous sally upon the besiegers; while the
+English army, by concert, assaulted them in the same instant from
+without, mounted the walls by scalade, and bearing down all
+resistance, entered the city sword in hand.  Lincoln was delivered
+over to be pillaged; the French army was totally routed; the Count de
+Perche, with only two persons more, was killed; but many of the chief
+commanders, and about four hundred knights, were made prisoners by the
+English [l].  So little blood was shed in this important action, which
+decided the fate of one of the most powerful kingdoms in Europe; and
+such wretched soldiers were those ancient barons, who yet were
+unacquainted with every thing but arms!
+[FN [f] M. Paris, p. 200, 202.  [g] Ibid. p. 200.  M. West. p. 277.
+[h] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 79.  M. West. p. 277.  [i] M. Paris, p.
+203.  [k] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 81.  [l] M. Paris, p.204, 205.
+Chron. de Mailr. p. 195.]
+
+Prince Lewis was informed of this fatal event while employed in the
+siege of Dover, which was still valiantly defended against him by
+Hubert de Burgh.  He immediately retreated to London, the centre and
+life of his party; and he there received intelligence of a new
+disaster, which put an end to all his hopes.  A French fleet, bringing
+over a strong reinforcement, had appeared on the coast of Kent, where
+they were attacked by the English, under the command of Philip
+d'Albiney, and were routed with considerable loss.  D'Albiney employed
+a stratagem against them, which is said to have contributed to the
+victory.  Having gained the wind of the French, he came down upon them
+with violence; and throwing in their faces a great quantity of
+quicklime, which he purposely carried on board, he so blinded them,
+that they were disabled from defending themselves [m].
+[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 206.  Ann. Waverl. p. 183.  W. Heming. p. 563.
+Trivet, p. 169.  M. West. p. 277.  Knyghton, p. 2428.]
+
+After this second misfortune of the French, the English barons
+hastened every where to make peace with the protector, and, by an easy
+submission, to prevent those attainders to which they were exposed on
+account of their rebellion.  Lewis, whose cause was now totally
+desperate, began to be anxious for the safety of his person, and was
+glad, on any honourable conditions, to make his escape from a country
+where he found every thing was now become hostile to him.  He
+concluded a peace with Pembroke, promised to evacuate the kingdom, and
+only stipulated, in return, an indemnity to his adherents, and a
+restitution of their honours and fortunes, together with the free and
+equal enjoyment of those liberties which had been granted to the rest
+of the nation [n].  Thus was happily ended a civil war, which  seemed
+to be founded on the most incurable hatred and jealousy, and had
+threatened the kingdom with the most fatal consequences.
+[FN [n] Rymer, vol. i. p. 221.  M. Paris, p. 207.  Chron. Dunst. vol.
+i. p. 83.  M. West. p. 278.  Knyghton, p. 2429.]
+
+[MN 1216.  General pacification.]
+The precautions which the King of France used in the conduct of this
+whole affair are remarkable.  He pretended that his son had accepted
+of the offer from the English barons without his advice, and contrary
+to his inclination: the armies sent to England were levied in Lewis's
+name.  When that prince came over to France for aid, his father
+publicly refused to grant him any assistance, and would not so much as
+admit him to his presence.  Even after Henry's party acquired the
+ascendant, and Lewis was in danger of falling into the hands of his
+enemies, it was Blanche of Castile, his wife, not the king, his
+father, who raised armies, and equipped fleets for his succour [o].
+All these artifices were employed, not to satisfy the pope, for he had
+too much penetration to be so easily imposed on; nor yet to deceive
+the people, for they were too gross even for that purpose.  They only
+served for a colouring to Philip's cause; and, in public affairs, men
+are often better pleased that the truth, though known to every body,
+should be wrapped up under a decent cover, than if it were exposed in
+open daylight to the eyes of all the world.
+[FN [o] M. Paris, p. 256.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 82.]
+
+After the expulsion of the French, the prudence and equity of the
+protector's subsequent conduct contributed to cure entirely those
+wounds which had been made by intestine discord.  He received the
+rebellious barons into favour; observed strictly the terms of peace
+which he had granted them; restored them to their possessions; and
+endeavoured, by an equal behaviour, to bury all past animosities in
+perpetual oblivion.  The clergy alone, who had adhered to Lewis, were
+sufferers in this revolution.  As they had rebelled against their
+spiritual sovereign, by disregarding the interdict and
+excommunication, it was not in Pembroke's power to make any
+stipulations in their favour; and Gualo, the legate, prepared to take
+vengeance on them for their disobedience [p].  Many of them were
+deposed; many suspended; some banished; and all who escaped punishment
+made atonement for their offence by paying large sums to the legate,
+who amassed an immense treasure by this expedient.
+[FN [p] Brady's App. No. 144  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 83.]
+
+[MN Death of the protector.]
+The Earl of Pembroke did not long survive the pacification, which had
+been chiefly owing to his wisdom and valour [q]; and he was succeeded
+in the government by Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, and
+Hubert de Burgh, the justiciary.  The councils of the latter were
+chiefly followed; and had he possessed equal authority in the kingdom
+with Pembroke, he seemed to be every way worthy of filling the place
+of that virtuous nobleman.  [MN Some commotions.]  But the licentious
+and powerful barons, who had once broken the reins of subjection to
+their prince, and had obtained, by violence, an enlargement of their
+liberties and independence, could ill be restrained by laws under a
+minority; and the people, no less than the king, suffered from their
+outrages and disorders.  They retained by force the royal castles,
+which they had seized during the past convulsions, or which had been
+committed to their custody by the protector [r]: they usurped the
+king's demesnes [s]: they oppressed their vassals: they infested their
+weaker neighbours: they invited all disorderly people to enter in
+their retinue, and to live upon their lands: and they gave them
+protection in all their robberies and extortions.
+[FN [q] M. Paris, p. 210.  [r] Trivet p. 174.  [s] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+276.]
+
+No one was more infamous for these violent and illegal practices than
+the Earl of Albemarle; who, though he had early returned to his duty,
+and had been serviceable in expelling the French, augmented to the
+utmost the general disorder, and committed outrages in all the
+counties of the north.  In order to reduce him to obedience, Hubert
+seized an opportunity of getting possession of Rockingham Castle,
+which Albemarle had garrisoned with his licentious retinue: but this
+nobleman, instead of submitting, entered into a secret confederacy
+with Fawkes de Breauté, Peter de Mauleon, and other barons, and both
+fortified the castle of Biham for his defence, and made himself
+master, by surprise, of that of Fotheringay.  Pandolf, who was
+restored to his legateship, was active in suppressing this rebellion;
+and, with the concurrence of eleven bishops, he pronounced the
+sentence of excommunication against Albemarle and his adherents [t]:
+an army was levied: a scutage of ten shillings a knight's fee was
+imposed on all the military tenants: Albemarle's associates gradually
+deserted him: and he himself was obliged at last to sue for mercy.  He
+received a pardon, and was restored to his whole estate.
+[FN [t] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 102.]
+
+This impolitic lenity, too frequent in those times, was probably the
+result of a secret combination among the barons, who never could
+endure to see the total ruin of one of their own order: but it
+encouraged Fawkes de Breauté, a man whom King John had raised from a
+low origin, to persevere in the course of violence to which he had
+owed his fortune, and to set at nought all law and justice.  When
+thirty-five verdicts were at one time found against him, on account of
+his violent expulsion of so many freeholders from their possessions,
+he came to the court of justice with an armed force, seized the judge
+who had pronounced the verdicts, and imprisoned him in Bedford castle.
+He then levied open war against the king; but being subdued and taken
+prisoner, his life was granted him; but his estate was confiscated,
+and he was banished the kingdom [u].
+[FN [u] Rymer, vol. i. p. 198.  M. Paris, p. 221, 224.  Ann. Waverl.
+p. 188.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 141, 146.  M. West. p. 283.]
+
+[MN 1222.]  Justice was executed with greater severity against
+disorders less premeditated, which broke out in London.  A frivolous
+emulation in a match of wrestling, between the Londoners on the one
+hand, and the inhabitants of Westminster and those of the neighbouring
+villages on the other, occasioned this commotion.  The former rose in
+a body, and pulled down some houses belonging to the Abbot of
+Westminster: but this riot, which, considering the tumultuous
+disposition familiar to that capital, would have been little regarded,
+seemed to become more serious by the symptoms which then appeared of
+the former attachment of the citizens to the French interest.  The
+populace, in the tumult, made use of the cry of war commonly employed
+by the French troops: MOUNTJOY, MOUNTJOY, GOD HELP US AND OUR LORD
+LEWIS!  The justiciary made inquiry into the disorder; and finding one
+Constantine Fitz-Arnulf to have been the ringleader, an insolent man,
+who justified his crime in Hubert's presence, he proceeded against him
+by martial law, and ordered him immediately to be hanged, without
+trial or form of process.  He also cut off the feet of some of
+Constantine's accomplices [w].
+[FN [w] M. Paris, p. 217, 218, 259.  Ann. Waverl. p. 187.  Chron.
+Dunst. vol. i. p. 129.]
+
+This act of power was complained of as an infringement of the great
+charter: yet the justiciary, in a Parliament summoned at Oxford, (for
+the great councils about this time began to receive that appellation,)
+made no scruple to grant, in the king's name, a renewal and
+confirmation of that charter.  When the assembly made application to
+the crown for this favour, as a law in those times seemed to lose its
+validity if not frequently renewed, William de Briewere, one of the
+council of regency, was so bold as to say openly, that those liberties
+were extorted by force, and ought not to be observed: but he was
+reprimanded by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and was not countenanced
+by the king or his chief ministers [x].  A new confirmation was
+demanded and granted two years after; and an aid, amounting to a
+fifteenth of all moveables, was given by the Parliament, in return for
+this indulgence.  The king issued writs anew to the sheriffs,
+enjoining the observance of the charter; but he inserted a remarkable
+clause in the writs, that those who paid not the fifteenth should not
+for the future be entitled to the benefit of those liberties [y].
+[FN [x] M. West. p. 282.  [y] Clause 9. H. 3. m. 9. and m. 6. d.]
+
+The low state into which the crown was fallen made it requisite for a
+good minister to be attentive to the preservation of the royal
+prerogatives, as well as to the security of public liberty.  Hubert
+applied to the pope, who had always great authority in the kingdom,
+and was now considered as its superior lord, and desired him to issue
+a bull declaring the king to be of full age, and entitled to exercise
+in person all the acts of royalty [z].  In consequence of this
+declaration, the justiciary resigned into Henry's hands the two
+important fortresses of the Tower and Dover Castle, which had been
+intrusted to his custody; and he required the other barons to imitate
+his example.  They refused compliance: the Earls of Chester and
+Albemarle, John Constable of Chester, John de Lacy, Brian de l'Isle,
+and William de Cantel, with some others, even formed a conspiracy to
+surprise London, and met in arms at Waltham with that intention: but
+finding the king prepared for defence, they desisted from their
+enterprise.  When summoned to court in order to answer for their
+conduct, they scrupled not to appear, and to confess the design: but
+they told the king, that they had no bad intentions against his
+person, but only against Hubert de Burgh, whom they were determined to
+remove from his office [a].  They appeared too formidable to be
+chastised; and they were so little discouraged by the failure of their
+first enterprise, that they again met in arms at Leicester, in order
+to seize the king, who then resided at Northampton: but Henry,
+informed of their purpose, took care to be so well armed and attended
+that the barons found it dangerous to make the attempt; and they sat
+down and kept Christmas in his neighbourhood [b].  The archbishop and
+the prelates, finding every thing tending towards a civil war,
+interposed with their authority, and threatened the barons with the
+sentence of excommunication, if they persisted in detaining the king's
+castles.  This menace at last prevailed: most of the fortresses were
+surrendered; though the barons complained that Hubert's castles were
+soon after restored to him, while the king still kept theirs in his
+own custody.  There are said to have been eleven hundred and fifteen
+castles at that time in England [c].
+[FN [z] M. Paris, p. 220.  [a] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 137.  [b] M.
+Paris, p. 221.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 138.  [c] Coke's Comment. on
+Magna Charta, chap. 17.]
+
+It must be acknowledged that the influence of the prelates and the
+clergy was often of great service to the public.  Though the religion
+of that age can merit no better name than that of superstition, it
+served to unite together a body of men who had great sway over the
+people, and who kept the community from falling to pieces, by the
+factions and independent power of the nobles; and what was of great
+importance, it threw a mighty authority into the hands of men, who, by
+their profession, were averse to arms and violence; who tempered by
+their mediation the general disposition towards  military enterprises;
+and who still maintained, even amidst the shock of arms, those secret
+links, without which it is impossible for human society to subsist.
+
+Notwithstanding these intestine commotions in England, and the
+precarious authority of the crown, Henry was obliged to carry on war
+in France; and he employed to that purpose the fifteenth which had
+been granted him by Parliament.  Lewis VIII., who had succeeded his
+father Philip, instead of complying with Henry's claim, who demanded
+the restitution of Normandy, and the other provinces wrested from
+England, made an irruption into Poictou, took Rochelle [d], after a
+long siege, and seemed determined to expel the English from the few
+provinces which still remained to them.  Henry sent over his uncle,
+the Earl of Salisbury, together with his brother, Prince Richard, to
+whom he had granted the earldom of Cornwall, which had escheated to
+the crown.  Salisbury stopped the progress of Lewis's arms, and
+retained the Poictevin and Gascon vassals in their allegiance: but no
+military action of any moment was performed on either side.  The Earl
+of Cornwall, after two years' stay in Guienne, returned to England.
+[FN [d] Rymer, vol. i. p. 269.  Trivet, p. 179.]
+
+[MN 1227.]  This prince was nowise turbulent or factious in his
+disposition: his ruling passion was to amass money, in which he
+succeeded so well as to become the richest subject in Christendom: yet
+his attention to gain threw him sometimes into acts of violence; and
+gave disturbance to the government.  There was a manor which had
+formerly belonged to the earldom of Cornwall, but had been granted to
+Waleran de Ties, before Richard had been invested with that dignity,
+and while the earldom remained in the crown.  Richard claimed this
+manor, and expelled the proprietor by force: Waleran complained: the
+king ordered his brother to do justice to the man, and restore him to
+his rights: the earl said, that he would not submit to these orders,
+till the cause should be decided against him by the judgment of his
+peers: Henry replied, that it was first necessary to reinstate Waleran
+in possession, before the cause could be tried; and he reiterated his
+orders to the earl [e].  We may judge of the state of the government,
+when this  affair had nearly produced a civil war.  The Earl of
+Cornwall, finding Henry peremptory in his commands, associated himself
+with the young Earl of Pembroke, who had married his sister, and who
+was displeased on account of the king's requiring him to deliver up
+some royal castles which were in his custody.  These two malecontents
+took into the confederacy the Earls of Chester, Warrenne, Gloucester,
+Hereford, Warwick, and Ferrers, who were all disgusted on a like
+account [f].  They assembled an army; which the king had not the power
+or courage to resist; and he was obliged to give his brother
+satisfaction, by grants of much greater importance than the manor
+which had been the first ground of the quarrel [g].
+[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 233.  [f] M. Paris, p. 233.  [g] Ibid.]
+
+The character of the king, as he grew to man's estate, became every
+day better known; and he was found in every respect unqualified for
+maintaining a proper sway among those turbulent barons, whom the
+feudal constitution subjected to his authority.  Gentle, humane, and
+merciful even to a fault, he seems to have been steady in no other
+circumstance of his character; but to have received every impression
+from those who surrounded him, and whom he loved, for the time, with
+the most imprudent and most unreserved affection.  Without activity or
+vigour, he was unfit to conduct war: without policy or art, he was ill
+fitted to maintain peace: his resentments, though hasty and violent,
+were not dreaded, while he was found to drop them with such facility;
+his friendships were little valued, because they were neither derived
+from choice, nor maintained with constancy.  A proper pageant of state
+in a regular monarchy, where his ministers could have conducted all
+affairs in his name and by his authority; but too feeble in those
+disorderly times to sway a sceptre, whose weight depended entirely on
+the firmness and dexterity of the hand which held it.
+
+[MN Hugh de Burgh displaced.]
+The ablest and most virtuous minister that Henry ever possessed was
+Hubert de Burgh [h]; a man who had been steady to the crown in the
+most difficult and dangerous times, and who yet showed no disposition,
+in the height of his power, to enslave or oppress the people.  The
+only exceptionable part of his conduct is that which is mentioned by
+Matthew Paris [i], if the fact be really true; and proceeded from
+Hubert's advice, namely, the recalling publicly and the annulling of
+the charter of forests, a concession so reasonable in itself, and so
+passionately claimed both by the nobility and people: but it must be
+confessed that this measure is so unlikely, both from the
+circumstances of the times and character of the minister, that there
+is reason to doubt of its reality, especially as it is mentioned by no
+other historian.  Hubert, while he enjoyed his authority, had an
+entire ascendant over Henry, and was loaded with honours and favours
+beyond any other subject.  Besides acquiring the property of many
+castles and manors, he married the eldest sister of the King of Scots,
+was created Earl of Kent, and, by an unusual concession, was made
+chief justiciary of England for life: [MN 1231.] yet Henry, in a
+sudden caprice, threw off this faithful minister, and exposed him to
+the violent persecutions of his enemies.  Among other frivolous crimes
+objected to him, he was accused of gaining the king's affections by
+enchantment, and of purloining from the royal treasury a gem, which
+had the virtue to render the wearer invulnerable, and of sending this
+valuable curiosity to the Prince of Wales [k].  The nobility, who
+hated Hubert on account of his zeal in resuming the rights and
+possessions of the crown, no sooner saw the opportunity favourable,
+than they inflamed the king's animosity against him, and pushed him to
+seek the total ruin of his minister.  Hubert took sanctuary in a
+church: the king ordered him to be dragged from thence: he recalled
+those orders: he afterwards renewed them: he was obliged by the clergy
+to restore him to the sanctuary: he constrained him soon after to
+surrender himself prisoner, and he confined him in the castle of
+Devizes.  Hubert made his escape, was expelled the kingdom, was again
+received into favour, recovered a great share of the king's
+confidence, but never showed any inclination to reinstate himself in
+power and authority [l].
+[FN [h] Ypod. Neustriae, p. 464.  [i] P. 232.  M. West. p. 216,
+ascribes this counsel to Peter, Bishop of Winchester.  [k] M. Paris,
+p. 259.  [l] Ibid. p. 259, 260, 261, 266.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 41, 42.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 220, 221.  M. West. p. 291, 301.]
+
+[MN Bishop of Winchester minister.]
+The man who succeeded him in the government of the king and kingdom
+was Peter, Bishop of Winchester, a Poictevin by birth, who had been
+raised by the late king, and who was no less distinguished by his
+arbitrary principles and violent conduct, than by his courage and
+abilities.  This prelate had been left by King John justiciary and
+regent of the kingdom during an expedition which that prince made into
+France; and his illegal administration was one chief cause of that
+great combination among the barons which finally extorted from the
+crown the charter of liberties, and laid the foundations of the
+English constitution.  Henry, though incapable, from his character, of
+pursuing the same violent maxims which had governed his father, had
+imbibed the same arbitrary principles; and, in prosecution of Peter's
+advice, he invited over a great number of Poictevins, and other
+foreigners, who, he believed, could more safely be trusted than the
+English, and who seemed useful to counterbalance the great and
+independent power of the nobility [m].  Every office and command was
+bestowed on these strangers: they exhausted the revenues of the crown,
+already too much impoverished [n]; they invaded the rights of the
+people; and their insolence, still more provoking than their power,
+drew on them the hatred and envy of all orders of men in the kingdom
+[o].
+[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 263.  [n] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 151.  [o] M.
+Paris, p. 268.]
+
+[MN 1233.]  The barons formed a combination against this odious
+ministry, and withdrew from Parliament, on pretence of the danger to
+which they were exposed from the machinations of the Poictevins.  When
+again summoned to attend, they gave for answer, that the king should
+dismiss his foreigners, otherwise they would drive both him and them
+out of the kingdom, and put the crown on another head more worthy to
+wear it [p]: such was the style they used to their sovereign!  They at
+last came to Parliament, but so well attended, that they seemed in a
+condition to prescribe laws to the king and ministry.  Peter des
+Roches, however, had in the interval found means of sowing dissension
+among them, and of bringing over to his party the Earl of Cornwall, as
+well as the Earls of Lincoln and Chester.  The confederates were
+disconcerted in their measures: Richard, Earl Mareschal, who had
+succeeded to that dignity on the death of his brother William, was
+chased into Wales; he thence withdrew into Ireland, where he was
+treacherously murdered by the contrivance of the Bishop of Winchester
+[q].  The estates of the more obnoxious barons were confiscated,
+without legal sentence or trial by their peers [r], and were bestowed
+with a profuse liberality on the Poictevins.  Peter even carried his
+insolence so far as to declare publicly, that the barons of England
+must not pretend to put themselves on the same footing with those of
+France; or assume the same liberties and privileges: the monarch in
+the former country had a more absolute power than in the latter.  It
+had been more justifiable for him to have said, that men, so unwilling
+to submit to the authority of laws, could with the worst grace claim
+any shelter or protection from them.
+[FN [p] Ibid. p. 265.  [q] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 219.  [r] M.
+Paris, p. 265.]
+
+When the king at any time was checked in his illegal practices, and
+when the authority of the great charter was objected to him, he was
+wont to reply, "Why should I observe this charter, which is neglected
+by all my grandees, both prelates and nobility?"  It was very
+reasonably said to him, "You ought, sir, to set them the example [s]."
+[FN [s] Ibid. p. 609.]
+
+So violent a ministry as that of the Bishop of Winchester could not be
+of long duration; but its fall proceeded at last from the influence of
+the church, not from the efforts of the nobles.  Edmond, the primate,
+came to court, attended by many of the other prelates, and represented
+to the king the pernicious measures embraced by Peter des Roches, the
+discontents of his people, the ruin of his affairs; and, after
+requiring the dismission of the minister and his associates,
+threatened him with excommunication in case of his refusal.  Henry,
+who knew that an excommunication so agreeable to the sense of the
+people could not fail of producing the most dangerous effects, was
+obliged to submit: foreigners were banished: the natives were restored
+to their place in council [t]: the primate, who was a man of prudence,
+and who took care to execute the laws, and observe the charter of
+liberties, bore the chief sway in the government.
+[FN [t] Ibid. p. 271, 272.]
+
+[MN 1236.  Jan.]  But the English in vain flattered themselves that
+they should be long free from the dominion of foreigners.  [MN King's
+partiality to foreigners.]  The king having married Eleanor, daughter
+of the Count of Provence [u], was surrounded by a great number of
+strangers from that country, whom he caressed with the fondest
+affection, and enriched by an imprudent generosity [w].  The Bishop of
+Valence, a prelate of the house of Savoy, and maternal uncle to the
+queen, was his chief minister, and employed every art to amass wealth
+for himself and his relations.  Peter of Savoy, a brother of the same
+family, was invested in the honour of Richmond, and received the rich
+wardship of Earl Warrenne: Boniface of Savoy was promoted to the see
+of Canterbury.  Many young ladies were invited over from Provence, and
+married to the chief noblemen in England, who were the king's wards
+[x].  And as the source of Henry's bounty began to fail, his Savoyard
+ministry applied to Rome, and obtained a bull, permitting him to
+resume all past grants; absolving him from the oath which he had taken
+to maintain them; even enjoining him to make such a resumption, and
+representing those grants as invalid, on account of the prejudice
+which ensued from them to the Roman pontiff, in whom the superiority
+of the kingdom was vested [y].  The opposition made to the intended
+resumption prevented it from taking place; but the nation saw the
+indignities to which the king was willing to submit, in order to
+gratify the avidity of his foreign favourites.  About the same time he
+published in England the sentence of excommunication pronounced
+against the Emperor Frederic, his brother-in-law [z]; and said, in
+excuse, that, being the pope's vassal, he was obliged by his
+allegiance to obey all the commands of his holiness.  In this weak
+reign, when any neighbouring potentate insulted the king's dominions,
+instead of taking revenge for the injury, he complained to the pope as
+his superior lord, and begged him to give protection to his vassal
+[a].
+[FN [u] Rymer, vol. i. p. 448.  M. Paris, p. 286.  [w] M. Paris, p.
+236, 301, 305, 316, 541.  M. West. p. 302, 304.  [x] M. Paris, p. 484.
+M. West. p. 338.  [y] M. Paris, p. 295, 301.  [z] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+383.  [a] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 150.]
+
+[MN 1236.  Grievances.]
+The resentment of the English barons rose high at the preference given
+to foreigners; but no remonstrance or complaint could ever prevail on
+the king to abandon them, or even to moderate his attachment towards
+them.  After the Provencals and Savoyards might have been supposed
+pretty well satiated with the dignities and riches which they had
+acquired, a new set of hungry foreigners were invited over, and shared
+among them those favours, which the king ought in policy to have
+conferred on the English nobility, by whom his government could have
+been supported and defended.  His mother, Isabella, who had been
+unjustly taken by the late king from the Count de la Marche, to whom
+she was betrothed, was no sooner mistress of herself, by the death of
+her husband, than she married that nobleman [b]; [MN 1247.] and she
+had borne him four sons, Guy, William, Geoffrey, and Aymer, whom she
+sent over to England, in order to pay a visit to their brother.  The
+good-natured and affectionate disposition of Henry was moved at the
+sight of such near relations; and he considered neither his own
+circumstances, nor the inclinations of his people, in the honours and
+riches which he conferred upon them [c].  Complaints rose as high
+against the credit of the Gascon, as ever they had done against that
+of the Poictevin and of the Savoyard favourites; and to a nation
+prejudiced against them, all their measures appeared exceptionable and
+criminal.  Violations of the great charter were frequently mentioned;
+and it is indeed more than probable that foreigners, ignorant of the
+laws, and relying on the boundless affections of a weak prince, would,
+in an age when a regular administration was not any where known, pay
+more attention to their present interest than to the liberties of the
+people.  It is reported that the Poictevins and other strangers, when
+the laws were at any time appealed to, in opposition to their
+oppressions, scrupled not to reply, WHAT DID THE ENGLISH LAWS SIGNIFY
+TO THEM?  THEY MINDED THEM NOT.  And as words are often more offensive
+than actions, this open contempt of the English tended much to
+aggravate the general discontent, and made every act of violence
+committed by the foreigners appear not only an injury but an affront
+to them [d].
+[FN [b] Trivet, p. 174.  [c] M. Paris, p. 491.  M. West. p. 338.
+Knyghton, p. 2436.  [d] M. Paris, p. 566, 666.  Ann. Waverl. p. 214.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 335.]
+
+I reckon not among the violations of the great charter some arbitrary
+exertions of prerogative, to which Henry's necessities pushed him, and
+which, without producing any discontent, were uniformly continued by
+all his successors till the last century.  As the Parliament often
+refused him supplies, and that in a manner somewhat rude and indecent
+[e], he obliged his opulent subjects, particularly the citizens of
+London, to grant him loans of money; and it is natural to imagine,
+that the same want of economy which reduced him to the necessity of
+borrowing, would prevent him from being very punctual in the repayment
+[f].  He demanded benevolences, or pretended voluntary contributions,
+from his nobility and prelates [g].  He was the first king of England
+since the Conquest that could fairly be said to lie under the
+restraint of law; and he was also the first that practised the
+dispensing power, and employed the clause of NON OBSTANTE in his
+grants and patents.  When objections were made to this novelty, he
+replied, that the pope exercised that authority; and why might not he
+imitate the example?  But the abuse which the pope made of his
+dispensing power, in violating the canons of general councils, in
+invading the privileges and customs of all particular churches, and in
+usurping on the rights of patrons, was more likely to excite the
+jealousy of the people, than to reconcile them to a similar practice
+in their civil government.  Roger de Thurkesby, one of the king's
+justices, was so displeased with the precedent, that he exclaimed,
+ALAS!  WHAT TIMES ARE WE FALLEN INTO!  BEHOLD, THE CIVIL COURT IS
+CORRUPTED IN IMITATION OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL, AND THE RIVER IS
+POISONED FROM THE FOUNTAIN.
+[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 301.  [f] Ibid. p. 406.  [g] Ibid. p. 507.]
+
+The king's partiality and profuse bounty to his foreign relations, and
+to their friends and favourites, would have appeared more tolerable to
+the English, had any thing been done meanwhile for the honour of the
+nation; or had Henry's enterprises in foreign countries been attended
+with any success or glory to himself or to the public: at least, such
+military talents in the king would have served to keep his barons in
+awe, and have given weight and authority to his government.  But
+though he declared war against Lewis IX. in 1242, and made an
+expedition into Guienne, upon the invitation of his father-in-law, the
+Count de la Marche, who promised to join him with all his forces, he
+was unsuccessful in his attempts against that great monarch, was
+worsted at Taillebourg, was deserted by his allies, lost what remained
+to him of Poictou, and was obliged to return, with loss of honour,
+into England [h].  The Gascon nobility were attached to the English
+government, because the distance of their sovereign allowed them to
+remain in a state of almost total independence; [MN 1253.] and they
+claimed, some time after, Henry's protection against an invasion,
+which the King of Castile made upon that territory.  Henry returned
+into Guienne, and was more successful in this expedition; but he
+thereby involved himself and his nobility in an enormous debt, which
+both increased their discontents, and exposed him to greater danger
+from their enterprises [i].
+[FN [h] M. Paris, p. 393, 394, 398, 399, 405.  W. Heming. p. 574.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 153.  [i] M. Paris, p. 614.]
+
+Want of economy, and an ill-judged liberality, were Henry's great
+defects; and his debts, even before this expedition, had become so
+troublesome, that he sold all his plate and jewels, in order to
+discharge them.  When this expedient was first proposed to him, he
+asked where he should find purchasers?  It was replied, the citizens
+of London.  ON MY WORD, said he, IF THE TREASURY OF AUGUSTUS WERE
+BROUGHT FOR SALE, THE CITIZENS ARE ABLE TO BE THE PURCHASERS: THESE
+CLOWNS, WHO ASSUME TO THEMSELVES THE NAME OF BARONS, ABOUND IN EVERY
+THING, WHILE WE ARE REDUCED TO NECESSITIES [k].  And he was
+thenceforth observed to be more forward and greedy in his exactions
+upon the citizens [l].
+[FN [k] Ibid. p. 501.  [l] Ibid. p. 501, 507, 518, 578, 606, 625,
+648.]
+
+[MN Ecclesiastical grievances.]
+But the grievances, which the English during this reign had reason to
+complain of in the civil government, seem to have been still less
+burdensome than those which they suffered from the usurpations and
+exactions of the court of Rome.  [MN 1253.]  On the death of Langton
+in 1228, the monks of Christ-church elected Walter de Hemesham, one of
+their own body, for his successor: but as Henry refused to confirm the
+election, the pope, at his desire, annulled it [m]; and immediately
+appointed Richard, Chancellor of Lincoln, for archbishop, without
+waiting for a new election.  On the death of Richard in 1231, the
+monks elected Ralph de Neville, Bishop of Chichester; and though Henry
+was much pleased with the election, the pope, who thought that prelate
+too much attached to the crown, assumed the power of annulling his
+election [n].  He rejected two clergymen more, whom the monks had
+successively chosen; and he at last told them, that, if they would
+elect Edmond, treasurer of the church of Salisbury, he would confirm
+their choice; and his nomination was complied with.  The pope had the
+prudence to appoint both times very worthy primates; but men could not
+forbear observing his intention of thus drawing gradually to himself
+the right of bestowing that important dignity.
+[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 224.  [n] Ibid. p. 254.]
+
+The avarice, however, more than the ambition, of the see of Rome,
+seems to have been in this age the ground of general complaint.  The
+papal ministers, finding a vast stock of power amassed by their
+predecessors, were desirous of turning it to immediate profit which
+they enjoyed at home, rather than of enlarging their authority in
+distant countries, where they never intended to reside.  Every thing
+was become venal in the Romish tribunals; simony was openly practised;
+no favours, and even no justice, could be obtained without a bribe;
+the highest bidder was sure to have the preference, without regard
+either to the merits of the person or of the cause; and besides the
+usual perversions of right in the decision of controversies, the pope
+openly assumed an absolute and uncontrolled authority of setting
+aside, by the plenitude of his apostolic power, all particular rules,
+and all privileges of patrons, churches, and convents.  On pretence of
+remedying these abuses, Pope Honorius, in 1226, complaining of the
+poverty of his see as the source of all grievances, demanded from
+every cathedral two of the best prebends, and from every convent two
+monks' portions, to be set apart as a perpetual and settled revenue of
+the papal crown: but all men being sensible that the revenue would
+continue for ever, the abuses immediately return, his demand was
+unanimously rejected.  About three years after, the pope demanded and
+obtained the tenth of all ecclesiastical revenues, which he levied in
+a very oppressive manner; requiring payment before the clergy had
+drawn their rents or tithes, and sending about usurers, who advanced
+them the money at exorbitant interest.  In the year 1240, Otho, the
+legate, having in vain attempted the clergy in a body, obtained
+separately, by intrigues and menaces, large sums from the prelates and
+convents, and on his departure is said to have carried more money out
+of the kingdom than he left in it.  This experiment was renewed four
+years after with success by Martin the nuncio, who brought from Rome
+powers of suspending and excommunicating all clergymen that refused to
+comply with his demands.  The king, who relied on the pope for the
+support of his tottering authority, never failed to countenance those
+exactions.
+
+Meanwhile, all the chief benefices of the kingdom were conferred on
+Italians; great numbers of that nation were sent over at one time to
+be provided for; non-residence and pluralities were carried to an
+enormous height; Mansel, the king's chaplain, is computed to have held
+at once seven hundred ecclesiastical livings; and the abuses became so
+evident as to be palpable to the blindness of superstition itself.
+The people, entering into associations, rose against the Italian
+clergy; pillaged their barns; wasted their lands; insulted the persons
+of such of them as they found in the kingdom [o]; and when the
+justices made inquiry into the authors of this disorder, the guilt was
+found to involve so many, and those of such high rank, that it passed
+unpunished.  At last, when Innocent IV., in 1245, called a general
+council at Lyons, in order to excommunicate the Emperor Frederic, the
+king and nobility sent over agents to complain before the council of
+the rapacity of the Romish church.  They represented, among many other
+grievances, that the benefices of the Italian clergy in England had
+been estimated, and were found to amount to sixty thousand marks [p] a
+year, a sum which exceeded the annual revenue of the crown [q].  They
+obtained only an evasive answer from the pope; but as mention had been
+made before the council of the feudal subjection of England to the see
+of Rome, the English agents, at whose head was Roger Bigod, Earl of
+Norfolk, exclaimed against the pretension, and insisted that King John
+had no right, without the consent of his barons, to subject the
+kingdom to so ignominious a servitude [r].  The popes, indeed, afraid
+of carrying matters too far against England, seem thenceforth to have
+little insisted on that pretension.
+[FN [o] Rymer, vol. i. p. 323.  M. Paris, p. 255, 257.  [p] Innocent's
+bull in Rymer, vol. i. p. 471, says only fifty thousand marks a year.
+[q] M. Paris, p. 451.  The customs were part of Henry's revenue, and
+amounted to six thousand pounds a year: they were at first small sums
+paid by the merchants for the use of the king's warehouses, measures,
+weights, &c.  See Gilbert's History of the Exch. p. 214.  [r] M.
+Paris, p. 460.]
+
+This check, received at the council of Lyons, was not able to stop the
+court of Rome in its rapacity; Innocent exacted the revenues of all
+vacant benefices, the twentieth of all ecclesiastical revenues without
+exception; the third of such as exceeded a hundred marks a year, and
+the half of such as were possessed by non-residents [s].  He claimed
+the goods of all intestate clergymen [t]; he pretended a title to
+inherit all money gotten by usury; he levied benevolences upon the
+people; and when the king, contrary to his usual practice, prohibited
+these exactions, he threatened to pronounce against him the same
+censures which he had emitted against the Emperor Frederic [u].
+[FN [s] Ibid. p. 480.  Ann. Burt. p. 305, 373.  [t] M. Paris, p. 474.
+[u] Ibid. p. 476.]
+
+[MN 1255.]  But the most oppressive expedient employed by the pope was
+the embarking of Henry in a project for the conquest of Naples or
+Sicily on this side the Fare, as it was called; an enterprise, which
+threw much dishonour on the king, and involved him, during some years,
+in great trouble and expense.  The Romish church, taking advantage of
+favourable incidents, had reduced the kingdom of Sicily to the same
+state of feudal vassalage which she pretended to extend over England,
+and which, by reason of the distance, as well as high spirit of this
+latter kingdom, she was not able to maintain.  After the death of the
+Emperor Frederic II., the succession of Sicily devolved to Conradine,
+grandson of that monarch; and Mainfroy, his natural son, under
+pretence of governing the kingdom during the minority of the prince,
+had formed a scheme of establishing his own authority.  Pope Innocent,
+who had carried on violent war against the Emperor Frederic, and had
+endeavoured to dispossess him of his Italian dominions, still
+continued hostilities against his grandson; but being disappointed in
+all his schemes by the activity and artifices of Mainfroy, he found
+that his own force alone was not sufficient to bring to a happy issue
+so great an enterprise.  He pretended to dispose of the Sicilian
+crown, both as superior lord of that particular kingdom, and as vicar
+of Christ, to whom all kingdoms of the earth were subjected; and he
+made a tender of it to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, whose immense
+riches, he flattered himself, would be able to support the military
+operations against Mainfroy.  As Richard had the prudence to refuse
+the present [w], he applied to the king, whose levity and thoughtless
+disposition gave Innocent more hopes of success; and he offered him
+the crown of Sicily for his second son, Edmond [x].  Henry, allured by
+so magnificent a present, without reflecting on the consequences,
+without consulting either with his brother or the Parliament, accepted
+of the insidious proposal; and gave the pope unlimited credit to
+expend whatever sums he thought necessary for completing the conquest
+of Sicily.  Innocent, who was engaged by his own interests to wage war
+with Mainfroy, was glad to carry on his enterprises at the expense of
+his ally: Alexander IV., who succeeded him in the papal throne,
+continued the same policy; and Henry was surprised to find himself on
+a sudden involved in an immense debt, which he had never been
+consulted in contracting.  The sum already amounted to one hundred and
+thirty-five thousand five hundred and forty-one marks, besides
+interest [y]; and he  had the prospect, if he answered this demand, of
+being soon loaded with more exorbitant expenses; if he refused it, of
+both incurring the pope's displeasure, and losing the crown of Sicily,
+which he hoped soon to have the glory of fixing on the head of his
+son.
+[FN [w] M. Paris, p. 650.  [x] Rymer, vol. i. p. 502, 512, 530.  M.
+Paris, p. 599, 613.  [y] Rymer, vol. i. p. 587.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i.
+p. 319.]
+
+He applied to the Parliament for supplies; and that he might be sure
+not to meet with opposition, he sent no writs to the more refractory
+barons; but even those who were summoned, sensible of the ridiculous
+cheat imposed by the pope, determined not to lavish their money on
+such chimerical projects; and making a pretext of the absence of their
+brethren, they refused to take the king's demands into consideration
+[z].  In this extremity the clergy were his only resource; and as both
+their temporal and spiritual sovereign concurred in loading them, they
+were ill able to defend themselves against this united authority.
+[FN [z] M. Paris, p. 614.]
+
+The pope published a crusade for the conquest of Sicily; and required
+every one, who had taken the cross against the infidels, or had vowed
+to advance money for that service, to support the war against
+Mainfroy, a more terrible enemy, as he pretended, to the Christian
+faith than any Saracen [a].  He levied a tenth on all ecclesiastical
+benefices in England for three years; and gave orders to excommunicate
+all bishops who made not punctual payment.  He granted to the king the
+goods of intestate clergymen; the revenues of vacant benefices; the
+revenues of all non-residents [b].  But these taxations, being levied
+by some rule, were deemed less grievous than another imposition, which
+arose from the suggestion of the Bishop of Hereford, and which might
+have opened the door to endless and intolerable abuses.
+[FN [a] Rymer, vol. i. p. 547, 548, &c.  [b] Ibid. vol. i. p. 597,
+598.]
+
+This prelate, who resided at the court of Rome, by a deputation from
+the English church, drew bills of different values, but amounting on
+the whole to one hundred and fifty thousand five hundred and forty
+marks, on all the bishops and abbots of the kingdom; and granted these
+bills to Italian merchants, who, it was pretended, had advanced money
+for the service of the war against Mainfroy [c].  As there was no
+likelihood of the English prelates submitting, without compulsion, to
+such an extraordinary demand, Rustand, the legate, was charged with
+the commission of employing authority to that purpose; and he summoned
+an assembly of the bishops and abbots, whom he acquainted with the
+pleasure of the pope and of the king.  Great were the surprise and
+indignation of the assembly.  The Bishop of Worcester exclaimed, that
+he would lose his life rather than comply: the Bishop of London said,
+that the pope and king were more powerful than he; but if his mitre
+were taken off his head, he would clap on a helmet in its place [d].
+The legate was no less violent on the other hand; and he told the
+assembly, in plain terms, that all ecclesiastical benefices were the
+property of the pope, and he might dispose of them, either in whole or
+in part, as he saw proper [e].  In the end, the bishops and abbots,
+being threatened with excommunication, which made all the revenues
+fall into the king's hands, were obliged to submit to the exaction;
+and the only mitigation which the legate allowed them was, that the
+tenths, already granted, should be accepted as a partial payment of
+the bills.  But the money was still insufficient for the pope's
+purpose: the conquest of Sicily was as remote as ever: the demands
+which came from Rome were endless: Pope Alexander became so urgent a
+creditor, that he sent over a legate to England, threatening the
+kingdom with an interdict, and the king with excommunication, if the
+arrears, which he pretended to be due to him, were not instantly
+remitted [f].  And at last Henry, sensible of the cheat, began to
+think of breaking off the agreement, and of resigning into the pope's
+hands that crown, which it was not intended by Alexander, that he or
+his family should ever enjoy [g].
+[FN [c] M. Paris, p. 612, 628.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 54.  [d] M. Paris,
+p. 614.  [e] Ibid. p. 619.  [f] Rymer, vol. i. p. 624.  M. Paris, p.
+648.  [g] Rymer, vol. i. p. 630.]
+
+[MN Earl of Cornwall elected King of the Romans.]
+The Earl of Cornwall had now reason to value himself on his foresight,
+in refusing the fraudulent bargain with Rome, and in preferring the
+solid honours of an opulent and powerful prince of the blood of
+England, to the empty and precarious glory of a foreign dignity.  But
+he had not always firmness sufficient to adhere to this resolution:
+his vanity and ambition prevailed at last over his prudence and his
+avarice; and he was engaged in an enterprise no less extensive and
+vexatious than that of his brother, and not attended with much greater
+probability of success.  The immense opulence of Richard having made
+the German princes cast their eye on him as a candidate for the
+empire, he was tempted to expend vast sums of money on his election;
+and he succeeded so far as to be chosen King of the Romans, which
+seemed to render his succession infallible to the imperial throne.  He
+went over to Germany, and carried out of the kingdom no less a sum
+than seven hundred thousand marks, if we may credit the account given
+by some ancient authors [h], which is probably much exaggerated [i].
+His money, while it lasted, procured him friends and partisans; but it
+was soon drained from him by the avidity of the German princes; and
+having no personal or family connexions in that country, and no solid
+foundation of power, he found at last that he had lavished away the
+frugality of a whole life in order to procure a splendid title; and
+that his absence from England, joined to the weakness of his brother's
+government, gave reins to the factious and turbulent dispositions of
+the English barons, and involved his own country and family in great
+calamities.
+[FN [h] M. Paris, p. 638.  The same author, a few pages before, makes
+Richard's treasures amount to little more than half the sum, p. 634.
+The king's dissipations and expenses, throughout his whole reign,
+according to the same author, had amounted only to about nine hundred
+and forty thousand marks, p. 638.  [i] The sums mentioned by ancient
+authors, who were almost all monks, are often improbable, and never
+consistent.  But we know, from an infallible authority, the public
+remonstrance to the council of Lyons, that the king's revenues were
+below sixty thousand marks a year: his brother, therefore, could never
+have been master of seven hundred thousand marks; especially as he did
+not sell his estates in England, as we learn from the same author: and
+we hear afterwards of his ordering all his woods to be cut, in order
+to satisfy the rapacity of the German princes.  His son succeeded to
+the earldom of Cornwall, and his other revenues.]
+
+[MN Discontents of the barons.]
+The successful revolt of the nobility from King John, and their
+imposing on him and his successors limitations of their royal power,
+had made them feel their own weight and importance, had set a
+dangerous precedent of resistance, and being followed by a long
+minority, had impoverished as well as weakened that crown, which they
+were at last induced, from the fear of worse consequences, to replace
+on the head of young Henry.  In the king's situation, either great
+abilities and vigour were requisite to overawe the barons, or great
+caution and reserve to give them no pretence for complaints; and it
+must be confessed that this prince was possessed of neither of these
+talents.  He had not prudence to choose right measures; he wanted even
+that constancy, which sometimes gives weight to wrong ones; he was
+entirely devoted to his favourites, who were always foreigners; he
+lavished on them, without discretion, his diminished revenue; and
+finding that his barons indulged their disposition towards tyranny,
+and observed not to their own vassals the same rules which they had
+imposed on the crown, he was apt, in his administration, to neglect
+all the salutary articles of the great charter, which he remarked to
+be so little regarded by his nobility.  This conduct had extremely
+lessened his authority in the kingdom; had multiplied complaints
+against him; and had frequently exposed him to affronts, and even to
+dangerous attempts upon his prerogative.  In the year 1244, when he
+desired a supply from Parliament, the barons, complaining of the
+frequent breaches of the great charter, and of the many fruitless
+applications which they had formerly made for the redress of this and
+other grievances, demanded, in return, that he should give them the
+nomination of the great justiciary and of the chancellor, to whose
+hands chiefly the administration of justice was committed; and if we
+may credit the historian [k], they had formed the plan of other
+limitations, as well as of associations to maintain them, which would
+have reduced the king to be an absolute cipher; and have held the
+crown in perpetual pupilage and dependence.  The king, to satisfy
+them, would agree to nothing but a renewal of the charter, and a
+general permission to excommunicate all the violaters of it; and he
+received no supply, except a scutage of twenty shillings on each
+knight's fee, for the marriage of his eldest daughter to the King of
+Scotland; a burden which was expressly annexed to their feudal
+tenures.
+[FN [k] M. Paris, p. 432.]
+
+Four years after, in a full Parliament, when Henry demanded a new
+supply, he was openly reproached with a breach of his word, and the
+frequent violations of the charter.  He was asked, whether he did not
+blush to desire any aid from his people, whom he professedly hated and
+despised, to whom, on all occasions, he preferred aliens and
+foreigners, and who groaned under the oppressions which he either
+permitted or exercised over them.  He was told that, besides
+disparaging his nobility, by forcing them to contract unequal and mean
+marriages with strangers, no rank of men was so low as to escape
+vexatious from him or his ministers; that even the victuals consumed
+in his household, the clothes which himself and his servants wore,
+still more the wine which they used, were all taken by violence from
+the lawful owners, and no compensation was ever made them for the
+injury; that foreign merchants, to the great prejudice and infamy of
+the kingdom, shunned the English harbours, as if they were possessed
+by pirates, and the commerce with all nations was thus cut off by
+these acts of violence; that loss was added to loss, and injury to
+injury, while the merchants, who had been despoiled of their goods,
+were also obliged to carry them at their own charge to whatever place
+the king was pleased to appoint them; that even the poor fishermen on
+the coast could not escape his oppressions and those of his courtiers;
+and finding that they had not full liberty to dispose of their
+commodities in the English market, were frequently constrained to
+carry them to foreign ports, and to hazard all the perils of the
+ocean, rather than those which awaited them from his oppressive
+emissaries; and that his very religion was a ground of complaint to
+his subjects, while they observed, that the waxen tapers and splendid
+silks, employed in so many useless processions, were the spoils which
+he had forcibly ravished from the true owners [l].  Throughout this
+remonstrance, in which the complaints, derived from an abuse of the
+ancient right of purveyance, may be supposed to be somewhat
+exaggerated, there appears a strange mixture of regal tyranny in the
+practices which gave rise to it, and of aristocratical liberty, or
+rather licentiousness, in the expressions employed by the Parliament.
+But a mixture of this kind is observable in all the ancient feudal
+governments; and both of them proved equally hurtful to the people.
+[FN [l] M. Paris, p. 498.  See farther, p. 578.  M. West. p. 348.]
+
+As the king, in answer to their remonstrance, gave the Parliament only
+good words and fair promises, attended with the most humble
+submissions, which they had often found deceitful, he obtained at that
+time no supply; and therefore, in the year 1253, when he found himself
+again under the necessity of applying to Parliament, he had provided a
+new pretence, which he deemed infallible, and taking the vow of a
+crusade, he demanded their assistance in that pious enterprise [m].
+The Parliament, however, for some time hesitated to comply; and the
+ecclesiastical order sent a deputation, consisting of four prelates,
+the primate, and the Bishops of Winchester, Salisbury, and Carlisle,
+in order to remonstrate with him on his frequent violations of their
+privileges, the oppressions with which he had loaded them and all his
+subjects [n], and the uncanonical and forced elections which were made
+to vacant dignities.  "It is true," replied the king, "I have been
+somewhat faulty in this particular: I obtruded you, my Lord of
+Canterbury, upon your see: I was obliged to employ both entreaties and
+menaces, my Lord of Winchester, to have you elected: my proceedings, I
+confess, were very irregular, my Lords of Salisbury and Carlisle, when
+I raised you from the lowest stations to your present dignities: I am
+determined henceforth to correct these abuses; and it will also become
+you, in order to make a thorough reformation, to resign your present
+benefices, and try to enter again in a more regular and canonical
+manner [o]."  The bishops, surprised at these unexpected sarcasms,
+replied, that the question was not at present how to correct past
+errors, but to avoid them for the future.  The king promised redress
+both of ecclesiastical and civil grievances; and the Parliament in
+return agreed to grant him a supply, a tenth of the ecclesiastical
+benefices, and a scutage of three marks on each knight's fee: but as
+they had experienced his frequent breach of promise, they required
+that he should ratify the great charter in a manner still more
+authentic and more solemn than any which he had hitherto employed.
+All the prelates and abbots were assembled: they held burning tapers
+in their hands: the great charter was read before them: they denounced
+the sentence of excommunication against every one who should
+thenceforth violate that fundamental law: they threw their tapers on
+the ground, and exclaimed, MAY THE SOUL OF EVERY ONE WHO INCURS THIS
+SENTENCE SO STINK AND CORRUPT IN HELL!  The king bore a part in this
+ceremony, and subjoined, "So help me God, I will keep all these
+articles inviolate, as I am a man, as I am a Christian, as I am a
+knight, and as I am a king crowned and anointed [p]."  Yet was the
+tremendous ceremony no sooner finished, than his favourites, abusing
+his weakness, made him return to the same arbitrary and irregular
+administration; and the reasonable expectations of his people were
+thus perpetually eluded and disappointed [q].
+[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 518, 558, 568.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 293.
+[n] M. Paris, p. 568.  [o] Ibid. p. 579.  [p] M. Paris, p. 580.  Ann.
+Burt. p. 323.  Ann. Waverl. p. 210.  W. Heming. p. 571.  M. West. p.
+353.  [q] M. Paris, p. 597, 608.]
+
+[MN 1258.  Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester.]
+All these imprudent and illegal measures afforded a pretence to Simon
+de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, to attempt an innovation in the
+government, and to wrest the sceptre from the feeble and irresolute
+hand which held it.  This nobleman was a younger son of that Simon de
+Montfort, who had conducted, with such valour and renown, the crusade
+against the Albigenses, and who, though he tarnished his famous
+exploits by cruelty and ambition, had left a name very precious to all
+the bigots of that age, particularly to the ecclesiastics.  A large
+inheritance in England fell by succession to this family; but as the
+elder brother enjoyed still more opulent possessions in France, and
+could not perform fealty to two masters, he transferred his right to
+Simon, his younger brother, who came over to England, did homage for
+his lands, and was raised to the dignity of Earl of Leicester.  In the
+year 1238, he espoused Eleanor, dowager of William, Earl of Pembroke,
+and sister to the king [r]; but the marriage of this princess with a
+subject and a foreigner, though contracted with Henry's consent, was
+loudly complained of by the Earl of Cornwall and all the barons of
+England; and Leicester was supported against their violence by the
+king's favour and authority alone [s].  But he had no sooner
+established himself in his possessions and dignities, than he
+acquired, by insinuation and address, a strong interest with the
+nation, and gained equally the affections of all orders of men.  He
+lost, however, the friendship of Henry, from the usual levity and
+fickleness of that prince; he was banished the court; he was recalled;
+he was intrusted with the command of Guienne [t], where he did good
+service and acquired honour; he was again disgraced by the king, and
+his banishment from court seemed now final and irrevocable.  Henry
+called him traitor to his face: Leicester gave him the lie, and told
+him, that if he were not his sovereign, he would soon make him repent
+of that insult.  Yet was this quarrel accommodated, either from the
+good nature or timidity of the king; and Leicester was again admitted
+into some degree of favour and authority.  But as this nobleman was
+become too great to preserve an entire complaisance to Henry's
+humours, and to act in subserviency to his other minions, he found
+more advantage in cultivating his interest with the public, and in
+inflaming the general discontents which prevailed against the
+administration.  He filled every place with complaints against the
+infringement of the great charter, the acts of violence committed on
+the people, the combination between the pope and the king in their
+tyranny and extortions, Henry's neglect of his native subjects and
+barons; and though he himself a foreigner, he was more loud than any
+in representing the indignity of submitting to the dominion of
+foreigners.  By his hypocritical pretensions to devotion, he gained
+the favour of the zealots and clergy: by his seeming concern for
+public good, he acquired the affections of the public: and besides the
+private friendships which he had cultivated with the barons, his
+animosity against the favourites created an union of interests between
+him and that powerful order.
+[FN [r] Ibid. p. 314.  [s] M. Paris, p. 315.  [t] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+459, 513.]
+
+A recent quarrel, which broke out between Leicester and William de
+Valence, Henry's half-brother, and chief favourite, brought matters to
+extremity [u], and determined the former to give full scope to his
+bold and unbounded ambition, which the laws and the king's authority
+had hitherto with difficulty restrained.  He secretly called a meeting
+of the most considerable barons, particularly Humphrey de Bohun, high
+constable, Roger Bigod, earl mareschal, and the Earls of Warwick and
+Gloucester; men who by their family and possessions stood in the first
+rank of the English nobility.  He represented to this company the
+necessity of reforming the state, and of putting the execution of the
+laws into other hands than those which had hitherto appeared, from
+repeated experience, so unfit for the charge with which they were
+intrusted.  He exaggerated the oppressions exercised against the lower
+orders of the state, the violations of the barons' privileges, the
+continued depredations made on the clergy; and in order to aggravate
+the enormity of his conduct, he appealed to the great charter, which
+Henry had so often ratified, and which was calculated to prevent for
+ever the return of those intolerable grievances.  He magnified the
+generosity of their ancestors, who, at a great expense of blood, had
+extorted that famous concession from the crown; but lamented their own
+degeneracy, who allowed so important an advantage, once obtained, to
+be wrested from them by a weak prince and by insolent strangers.  And
+he insisted, that the king's word, after so many submissions and
+fruitless promises on his part, could no longer be relied on; and that
+nothing but his absolute inability to violate national privileges
+could henceforth ensure the regular observance of them.
+[FN [u] M. Paris, p. 649.]
+
+These topics, which were founded in truth, and suited so well to the
+sentiments of the company, had the desired effect; and the barons
+embraced a resolution of redressing the public grievances, by taking
+into their own hands the administration of government.  Henry having
+summoned a Parliament, in expectation of receiving supplies for his
+Sicilian project, the barons appeared in the hall, clad in complete
+armour, and with their swords by their side: the king on his entry,
+struck with the unusual appearance, asked them what was their purpose,
+and whether they intended to make him their prisoner [w]: Roger Bigod
+replied, in the name of the rest, that he was not their prisoner, but
+their sovereign; that they even intended to grant him large supplies,
+in order to fix his son on the throne of Sicily; that they only
+expected some return for this expense and service; and that, as he had
+frequently made submissions to the Parliament, had acknowledged his
+past errors, and had still allowed himself to be carried into the same
+path, which gave them such just reason of complaint, he must now yield
+to more strict regulations, and confer authority on those who were
+able and willing to redress the national grievances.  Henry, partly
+allured by the hopes of supply, partly intimidated by the union and
+martial appearance of the barons, agreed to their demand: and promised
+to summon another Parliament at Oxford, in order to digest the new
+plan of government, and to elect the persons who were to be intrusted
+with the chief authority.
+[FN [w] Annal. Theokesbury.]
+
+[MN 11th June.  Provisions of Oxford.]
+This Parliament, which the royalists, and even the nation, from
+experience of the confusions that attended its measures, afterwards
+denominated the MAD PARLIAMENT, met on the day appointed; and as all
+the barons brought along with them their military vassals, and
+appeared with an armed force, the king, who had taken no precautions
+against them, was in reality a prisoner in their hands, and was
+obliged to submit to all the terms which they were pleased to impose
+upon him.  Twelve barons were selected from among the king's
+ministers; twelve more were chosen by Parliament: to these twenty-
+four, unlimited authority was granted to reform the state; and the
+king himself took an oath, that he would maintain whatever ordinances
+they should think proper to enact for that purpose [x].  Leicester was
+at the head of the supreme council, to which the legislative power was
+thus in reality transferred; and all their measures were taken by his
+secret influence and direction.  Their first step bore a specious
+appearance, and seemed well calculated for the end which they
+professed to be the object of all these innovations: they ordered that
+four knights should be chosen by each county; that they should make
+inquiry into the grievances of which their neighbourhood had reason to
+complain, and should attend the ensuing Parliament, in order to give
+information to that assembly of the state of their particular counties
+[y]: a nearer approach to our present constitution than had been made
+by the barons in the reign of King John, when the knights were only
+appointed to meet in their several counties, and there to draw up a
+detail of their grievances.  Meanwhile the twenty-four barons
+proceeded to enact some regulations as a redress of such grievances as
+were supposed to be sufficiently notorious.  They ordered that three
+sessions of Parliament should be regularly held every year in the
+months of February, June, and October; that a new sheriff should be
+annually elected by the votes of the freeholders in each county [z];
+that the sheriffs should have no power of fining the barons who did
+not attend their courts, or the circuits of the justiciaries; that no
+heirs should be committed to the wardship of foreigners, and no
+castles intrusted to their custody; and that no new warrens or forests
+should be created, nor the revenues of any counties or hundreds be let
+to farm.  Such were the regulations which the twenty-four barons
+established at Oxford, for the redress of public grievances.
+[FN [x] Rymer, vol. i. p. 655.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 334.
+Knyghton, p. 2445.  [y] M. Paris, p. 657.  Addit. p. 140.  Ann. Burt.
+p. 412.  [z] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 336.]
+
+But the Earl of Leicester and his associates, having advanced so far
+to satisfy the nation, instead of continuing in this popular course,
+or granting the king that supply which they had promised him,
+immediately provided for the extension and continuance of their own
+authority.  They roused anew the popular clamour which had long
+prevailed against foreigners; and they fell with the utmost violence
+on the king's half-brothers, who were supposed to be the authors of
+all national grievances, and whom Henry had no longer any power to
+protect.  The four brothers, sensible of their danger, took to flight,
+with an intention of making their escape out of the kingdom; they were
+eagerly pursued by the barons; Aymer, one of the brothers, who had
+been elected to the see of Winchester, took shelter in his episcopal
+palace, and carried the others along with him; they were surrounded in
+that place, and threatened to be dragged out by force, and to be
+punished for their crimes and misdemeanors; and the king, pleading the
+sacredness of an ecclesiastical sanctuary, was glad to extricate them
+from this danger by banishing them the kingdom.  In this act of
+violence, as well as in the former usurpations of the barons, the
+queen and her uncles were thought to have secretly concurred; being
+jealous of the credit acquired by the brothers, which they found had
+eclipsed and annihilated their own.
+
+[MN Usurpations of the barons.]
+But the subsequent proceedings of the twenty-four barons were
+sufficient to open the eyes of the nation, and to prove their
+intention of reducing for ever both the king and the people under the
+arbitrary power of a very narrow aristocracy, which must at last have
+terminated either in anarchy, or in a violent usurpation and tyranny.
+They pretended that they had not yet digested all the regulations
+necessary for the reformation of the state and for the redress of
+grievances; and they must still retain their power, till that great
+purpose were thoroughly effected: in other words, that they must be
+perpetual governors, and must continue to reform, till they were
+pleased to abdicate their authority.  They formed an association among
+themselves, and swore that they would stand by each other with their
+lives and fortunes; they displaced all the chief officers of the
+crown, the justiciary, the chancellor, the treasurer; and advanced
+either themselves or their own creatures in their place: even the
+officers of the king's household were disposed of at their pleasure:
+the government of all the castles was put into hands in whom they
+found reason to confide: and the whole power of the state being thus
+transferred to them, they ventured to impose an oath, by which all the
+subjects were obliged to swear, under the penalty of being declared
+public enemies, that they would obey and execute all the regulations,
+both known and unknown, of the twenty-four barons; and all this for
+the greater glory of God, the honour of the church, the service of the
+king, and the advantage of the kingdom [a].  No one dared to withstand
+this tyrannical authority.  Prince Edward himself, the king's eldest
+son, a youth of eighteen, who began to give indications of that great
+and manly spirit which appeared throughout the whole course of his
+life, was, after making some opposition, constrained to take that oath
+which really deposed his father and his family from sovereign
+authority [b].  Earl Warrenne was the last person in the kingdom that
+could be brought to give the confederated barons this mark of
+submission.
+[FN [a] Chron T. Wykes, p. 52.  [b] Ann. Burt. p. 411.]
+
+But the twenty-four barons, not content with the usurpation of the
+royal power, introduced an innovation in the constitution of
+Parliament, which was of the utmost importance.  They ordained that
+this assembly should choose a committee of twelve persons, who should,
+in the intervals of the sessions, possess the authority of the whole
+Parliament, and should attend, on a summons, the person of the king in
+all his motions.  But so powerful were these barons, that this
+regulation was also submitted to; the whole government was overthrown,
+or fixed on new foundations; and the monarchy was totally subverted,
+without its being possible for the king to strike a single stroke in
+defence of the constitution against the newly-elected oligarchy.
+
+[MN 1259.]  The report that the King of the Romans intended to pay a
+visit to England gave alarm to the ruling barons, who dreaded lest the
+extensive influence and established authority of that prince would be
+employed to restore the prerogatives of his family, and overturn their
+plan of government [c].  They sent over the Bishop of Worcester, who
+met him at St. Omars; asked him, in the name of the barons, the reason
+of his journey, and how long he intended to stay in England; and
+insisted that, before he entered the kingdom, he should swear to
+observe the regulations established at Oxford.  On Richard's refusal
+to take this oath, they prepared to resist him as a public enemy; they
+fitted out a fleet, assembled an army, and exciting the inveterate
+prejudices of the people against foreigners, from whom they had
+suffered so many oppressions, spread the report that Richard, attended
+by a number of strangers, meant to restore by force the authority of
+his exiled brothers, and to violate all the securities provided for
+public liberty.  The King of the Romans was at last obliged to submit
+to the terms required of him [d].
+[FN [c] M. Paris, p. 661.  [d] Ibid. p. 661, 662.  Chron. T. Wykes, p.
+53.]
+
+But the barons, in proportion to their continuance in power, began
+gradually to lose that popularity which had assisted them in obtaining
+it; and men repined that regulations, which were occasionally
+established for the reformation of the state, were likely to become
+perpetual, and to subvert entirely the ancient constitution.  They
+were apprehensive lest the power of the nobles, always oppressive,
+should now exert itself without control, by removing the counterpoise
+of the crown; and their fears were increased by some new edicts of the
+barons, which were plainly calculated to procure to themselves an
+impunity in all their violences.  They appointed that the circuits of
+the itinerant justices, the sole check on their arbitrary conduct,
+should be held only once in seven years; and men easily saw that a
+remedy, which returned after such long intervals against an oppressive
+power, which was perpetual, would prove totally insignificant and
+useless [e].  The cry became loud in the nation, that the barons
+should finish their intended regulations.  The knights of the shires,
+who seem now to have been pretty regularly assembled, and sometimes in
+a separate house, made remonstrances against the slowness of their
+proceedings.  They represented that, though the king had performed all
+the conditions required of him, the barons had hitherto done nothing
+for the public good, and had only been careful to promote their own
+private advantage, and to make inroads on the royal authority; and
+they even appealed to Prince Edward, and claimed his interposition for
+the interests of the nation and the reformation of the government [f].
+The prince replied, that though it was from constraint, and contrary
+to his private sentiments, he had sworn to maintain the provisions of
+Oxford, he was determined to observe his oath: but he sent a message
+to the barons, requiring them to bring their undertaking to a speedy
+conclusion, and fulfil their engagements to the public: otherwise he
+menaced them, that, at the expense of his life, he would oblige them
+to do their duty, and would shed the last drop of his blood in
+promoting the interests, and satisfying the just wishes of the nation
+[g].
+[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 667.  Trivet, p. 209.  [f] Annal. Burt. p. 427.
+[g] Id. ibid.]
+
+The barons, urged by so pressing a necessity, published at last a new
+code of ordinances for the reformation of the state [h]; but the
+expectations of the people were extremely disappointed, when they
+found that these consisted only of some trivial alterations in the
+municipal law, and still more, when the barons pretended that the task
+was not yet finished, and that they must farther prolong their
+authority, in order to bring the work of reformation to the desired
+period.  The current of popularity was now much turned to the side of
+the crown; and the barons had little to rely on for their support,
+besides the private influence and power of their families, which,
+though exorbitant, was likely to prove inferior to the combination of
+king and people.  Even this basis of power was daily weakened by their
+intestine jealousies and animosities; their ancient and inveterate
+quarrels broke out when they came to share the spoils of the crown;
+and the rivalship between the Earls of Leicester and Gloucester, the
+chief leaders among them, began to disjoint the whole confederacy.
+The latter, more moderate in his pretensions, was desirous of stopping
+or retarding the career of the barons' usurpations; but the former,
+enraged at the opposition which he met with in his own party,
+pretended to throw up all concern in English affairs, and he retired
+into France [i].
+[FN [h] Ann. Burt. p. 428, 439.  [i] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 348.]
+
+The kingdom of France, the only state with which England had any
+considerable intercourse, was at this time governed by Lewis IX., a
+prince of the most singular character that is to be met with in all
+the records of history.  This monarch united, to the mean and abject
+superstition of a monk, all the courage and magnanimity of the
+greatest hero; and, what may be deemed more extraordinary, the justice
+and integrity of a disinterested patriot, the mildness and humanity of
+an accomplished philosopher.  So far from taking advantage of the
+divisions among the English, or attempting to expel those dangerous
+rivals from the provinces which they still possessed in France, he had
+entertained many scruples with regard to the sentence of attainder
+pronounced against the king's father, had even expressed some
+intention of restoring the other provinces, and was only prevented
+from taking that imprudent resolution by the united remonstrances of
+his own barons, who represented the extreme danger of such a measure
+[k], and, what had a greater influence on Lewis, the justice of
+punishing, by a legal sentence, the barbarity and felony of John.
+Whenever this prince interposed in English affairs, it was always with
+an intention of composing the differences between the king and his
+nobility; he recommended to both parties every peaceable and
+reconciling measure; and he used all his authority with the Earl of
+Leicester, his native subject, to bend him to compliance with Henry.
+[MN 20th May.]  He made a treaty with England, at a time when the
+distractions of that kingdom were at the greatest height, and when the
+king's authority was totally annihilated; and the terms which he
+granted might, even in a more prosperous state of their affairs, be
+deemed reasonable and advantageous to the English.  He yielded up some
+territories which had been conquered from Poictou and Guienne; he
+ensured the peaceable possession of the latter province to Henry; he
+agreed to pay that prince a large sum of money; and he only required
+that the king should, in return, make a final cession of Normandy and
+the other provinces, which he could never entertain any hopes of
+recovering by force of arms [l].  This cession was ratified by Henry,
+by his two sons, and two daughters, and by the King of the Romans and
+his three sons: Leicester alone, either moved by a vain arrogance, or
+desirous to ingratiate himself with the English populace, protested
+against the deed, and insisted on the right, however distant, which
+might accrue to his consort [m].  Lewis saw, in his obstinacy, the
+unbounded ambition of the man; and as the barons insisted that the
+money due by treaty should be at their disposal, not at Henry's, he
+also saw, and probably with regret, the low condition to which this
+monarch, who had more erred from weakness than from any bad intention,
+was reduced by the turbulence of his own subjects.
+[FN [k] M. Paris, p. 604.  [l] Rymer, vol. i. p. 675.  M. Paris, p.
+566.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 53.  Trivet, p. 208.  M. West. p. 371.  [m]
+Chron. T. Wykes, p. 53.]
+
+[MN 1261.]  But the situation of Henry soon after wore a more
+favourable aspect.  The twenty-four barons had now enjoyed the
+sovereign power near three years; and had visibly employed it, not for
+the reformation of the state, which was their first pretence, but for
+the aggrandizement of themselves and of their families.  The breach of
+trust was apparent to all the world: every order of men felt it, and
+murmured against it: the dissensions among the barons themselves,
+which increased the evil, made also the remedy more obvious and easy;
+and the secret desertion, in particular, of the Earl of Gloucester to
+the crown, seemed to promise Henry certain success in any attempt to
+resume his authority.  Yet durst he not take that step, so
+reconcilable both to justice and policy, without making a previous
+application to Rome, and desiring an absolution from his oaths and
+engagements [n].
+[FN [n] Ann. Burt. p. 389.]
+
+The pope was at this time much dissatisfied with the conduct of the
+barons, who, in order to gain the favour of the people and clergy of
+England, had expelled all the Italian ecclesiastics, had confiscated
+their benefices, and seemed determined to maintain the liberties and
+privileges of the English church, in which the rights of patronage,
+belonging to their own families, were included.  The extreme animosity
+of the English clergy against the Italians was also a source of his
+disgust to this order; and an attempt, which had been made by them for
+farther liberty and greater independence on the civil power, was
+therefore less acceptable to the court of Rome [o].  About the same
+time that the barons at Oxford had annihilated the prerogatives of the
+monarchy, the clergy met in a synod at Merton, and passed several
+ordinances, which were no less calculated to promote their own
+grandeur at the expense of the crown.  They decreed, that it was
+unlawful to try ecclesiastics by secular judges; that the clergy were
+not to regard any prohibitions from civil courts; that lay patrons had
+no right to confer spiritual benefices; that the magistrate was
+obliged, without farther inquiry, to imprison all excommunicated
+persons; and that ancient usage, without any particular grant or
+charter, was a sufficient authority for any clerical possessions or
+privileges [p].  About a century before, these claims would have been
+supported by the court of Rome beyond the most fundamental articles of
+faith: they were the chief points maintained by the great martyr,
+Becket; and his resolution in defending them had exalted him to the
+high station which he held in the catalogue of Romish saints.  But
+principles were changed with the times: the pope was become somewhat
+jealous of the great independence of the English clergy, which made
+them stand less in need of his protection, and even imboldened them to
+resist his authority, and to complain of the preference given to the
+Italian courtiers, whose interests, it is natural to imagine, were the
+chief object of his concern.  He was ready, therefore, on the king's
+application, to annul these new constitutions of the church of England
+[q].  And, at the same time, he absolved the king, and all his
+subjects, from the oath which they had taken to observe the provisions
+of Oxford [r].
+[FN [o] Rymer, vol. i. p. 755.  [p] Ann. Burt. p. 389.  [q] Rymer,
+vol. i. p. 755.  [r] Ibid. p. 722.  M. Paris, p. 666.  W. Heming. p.
+580.  Ypod. Neust. p. 463.  Knyghton, p. 2446.]
+
+[MN Prince Edward.]
+Prince Edward, whose liberal mind, though in such early youth, had
+taught him the great prejudice which his father had incurred, by his
+levity, inconstancy, and frequent breach of promise, refused for a
+long time to take advantage of this absolution; and declared, that the
+provisions of Oxford, how unreasonable soever in themselves, and how
+much soever abused by the barons, ought still to be adhered to by
+those who had sworn to observe them [s]: he himself had been
+constrained by violence to take that oath; yet he was determined to
+keep it.  By this scrupulous fidelity, the prince acquired the
+confidence of all parties, and was afterwards enabled to recover fully
+the royal authority, and to perform such great actions, both during
+his own reign and that of his father.
+[FN [s] M. Paris, p. 667.]
+
+The situation of England, during this period, as well as that of most
+European kingdoms, was somewhat peculiar.  There was no regular
+military force maintained in the nation: the sword, however, was not,
+properly speaking, in the hands of the people: the barons were alone
+intrusted with the defence of the community; and after any effort
+which they made, either against their own prince or against
+foreigners, as the military retainers departed home, the armies were
+disbanded, and could not speedily be re-assembled at pleasure.  It was
+easy, therefore, for a few barons, by a combination, to get the start
+of the other party, to collect suddenly their troops, and to appear
+unexpectedly in the field with an army, which their antagonists,
+though equal, or even superior in power and interest, would not dare
+to encounter.  Hence the sudden revolutions which often took place in
+those governments: hence the frequent victories obtained, without a
+blow, by one faction over the other: and hence it happened, that the
+seeming prevalence of a party was seldom a prognostic of its long
+continuance in power and authority.
+
+[MN 1262.]  The king, as soon as he received the pope's absolution
+from his oath, accompanied with menaces of excommunication against all
+opponents, trusting to the countenance of the church, to the support
+promised him by many considerable barons, and to the returning favour
+of the people, immediately took off the mask.  After justifying his
+conduct by a proclamation, in which he set forth the private ambition,
+and the breach of trust, conspicuous in Leicester and his associates,
+he declared, that he had resumed the government, and was determined
+thenceforth to exert the royal authority for the protection of his
+subjects.  He removed Hugh le Despenser and Nicholas de Ely, the
+justiciary and chancellor appointed by the barons; and put Philip
+Basset and Walter de Merton in their place.  He substituted new
+sheriffs in all the counties, men of character and honour: he placed
+new governors in most of the castles: he changed all the officers of
+his household: [MN 23d April.] he summoned a Parliament, in which the
+resumption of his authority was ratified, with only five dissenting
+voices: and the barons, after making one fruitless effort to take the
+king by surprise at Winchester, were obliged to acquiesce in those new
+regulations [t].
+[FN [t] M. Paris, p. 668.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 55.]
+
+The king, in order to cut off every objection to his conduct, offered
+to refer all the differences between  him and the Earl of Leicester,
+to Margaret, Queen of France [u].  The celebrated integrity of Lewis
+gave a mighty influence to any decision which issued from his court;
+and Henry probably hoped, that the gallantry, on which all barons, as
+true knights, valued themselves, would make them ashamed not to submit
+to the award of that princess.  Lewis merited the confidence reposed
+in him.  By an admirable conduct, probably as political as just, he
+continually interposed his good offices to allay the civil discords of
+the English: he forwarded all healing measures, which might give
+security to both parties: and he still endeavoured, though in vain, to
+soothe, by persuasion, the fierce ambition of the Earl of Leicester,
+and to convince him how much it was his duty to submit peaceably to
+the authority of his sovereign.
+[FN [u] Rymer, vol. i. p. 724.]
+
+[MN 1263.]  That bold and artful conspirator was nowise discouraged by
+the bad success of his past enterprises.  The death of Richard, Earl
+of Gloucester, who was his chief rival in power, and who, before his
+decease, had joined the royal party, seemed to open a new field to his
+violence, and to expose the throne to fresh insults and injuries.  It
+was in vain that the king professed his intentions of observing
+strictly the great charter, even of maintaining all the regulations
+made by the reforming barons at Oxford or afterwards, except those
+which entirely annihilated the royal authority: these powerful
+chieftains, now obnoxious to the court, could not peaceably resign the
+hopes of entire independence and uncontrolled power, with which they
+had flattered themselves, and which they had so long enjoyed.  [MN
+Civil wars of the barons.]  Many of them engaged in Leicester's views;
+and among the rest, Gilbert, the young Earl of Gloucester, who brought
+him a mighty accession of power, from the extensive authority
+possessed by that opulent family.  Even Henry, son of the King of the
+Romans, commonly called Henry d'Allmaine, though a prince of the
+blood, joined the party of the barons against the king, the head of
+his own family.  Leicester himself, who still resided in France,
+secretly formed the links of this great conspiracy, and planned the
+whole scheme of operations.
+
+The princes of Wales, notwithstanding the great power of the monarchs,
+both of the Saxon and Norman line, still preserved authority in their
+own country.  Though they had often been constrained to pay tribute to
+the crown of England, they were with difficulty retained in
+subordination, or even in peace; and almost through every reign since
+the Conquest, they had infested the English frontiers with such petty
+incursions and sudden inroads, as seldom merit to have place in a
+general history.  The English, still content with repelling their
+invasions, and chasing them back into their mountains, had never
+pursued the advantages obtained over them, nor been able, even under
+their greatest and most active princes, to fix a total, or so much as
+a feudal subjection on the country.  This advantage was reserved to
+the present king, the weakest and most indolent.  In the year 1237,
+Lewellyn, Prince of Wales, declining in years, and broken with
+infirmities, but still more harassed with the rebellion and undutiful
+behaviour of his youngest son, Griffin, had recourse to the protection
+of Henry; and consenting to subject his principality, which had so
+long maintained, or soon recovered, its independence, to vassalage
+under the crown of England, had purchased security and tranquillity on
+these dishonourable terms.  His eldest son and heir, David, renewed
+the homage to England; and having taken his brother prisoner,
+delivered him into Henry's hands, who committed him to custody in the
+Tower.  That prince, endeavouring to make his escape, lost his life in
+the attempt; and the Prince of Wales, freed from the apprehensions of
+so dangerous a rival, paid thenceforth less regard to the English
+monarch, and even renewed those incursions, by which the Welsh, during
+so many ages, had been accustomed to infest the English borders.
+Lewellyn, however, the son of Griffin, who succeeded to his uncle, had
+been obliged to renew the homage, which was now claimed by England as
+an established right; but he was well pleased to inflame those civil
+discords, on which he rested his present security, and founded his
+hopes of future independence.  He entered into a confederacy with the
+Earl of Leicester, and collecting all the force of his principality,
+invaded England with an army of thirty thousand men.  He ravaged the
+lands of Roger de Mortimer, and of all the barons who adhered to the
+crown [w]; he marched into Cheshire, and committed like depredations
+on Prince Edward's territories; every place where his disorderly
+troops appeared was laid waste with fire and sword; and though
+Mortimer, a gallant and expert soldier, made stout resistance, it was
+found necessary that the prince himself should head the army against
+this invader.  Edward repulsed Prince Lewellyn, and obliged him to
+take shelter in the mountains of North Wales: but he was prevented
+from making farther progress against the enemy, by the disorders which
+soon after broke out in England.
+[FN [w] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 354.]
+
+The Welsh invasion was the appointed signal for the malecontent barons
+to rise in arms, and Leicester, coming over secretly from France,
+collected all the forces of his party, and commenced an open
+rebellion.  He seized the person of the Bishop of Hereford; a prelate
+obnoxious to all the inferior clergy, on account of his devoted
+attachment to the court of Rome [x].  Simon, Bishop of Norwich, and
+John Mansel, because they had published the pope's bull, absolving the
+king and kingdom from their oaths to observe the provisions of Oxford,
+were made prisoners, and exposed to the rage of the party.  The king's
+demesnes were ravaged with unbounded fury [y]: and as it was
+Leicester's interest to allure to his side, by the hopes of plunder,
+all the disorderly ruffians in England, he gave them a general licence
+to pillage the barons of the opposite party, and even all neutral
+persons.  But one of the principal resources of his faction was the
+populace of the cities, particularly of London; and as he had, by his
+hypocritical pretensions to sanctity, and his zeal against Rome,
+engaged the monks and lower ecclesiastics in his party, his dominion
+over the inferior ranks of men became uncontrollable.  Thomas
+Fitz-Richard, Mayor of London, a furious and licentious man, gave the
+countenance of authority to these disorders in the capital; and having
+declared war against the substantial citizens, he loosened all the
+bands of government, by which that turbulent city was commonly but ill
+restrained.  On the approach of Easter, the zeal of superstition, the
+appetite for plunder, or what is often as prevalent with the populace
+as either of these motives, the pleasure of committing havoc and
+destruction, prompted them to attack the unhappy Jews, who were first
+pillaged without resistance, then massacred to the number of five
+hundred persons [z].  The Lombard bankers wore next exposed to the
+rage of the people; and though, by taking sanctuary in the churches,
+they escaped with their lives, all their money and goods became a prey
+to the licentious multitude.  Even the houses of the rich citizens,
+though English, were attacked by night; and way was made by sword and
+by fire to the pillage of their goods, and often to the destruction of
+their persons.  The queen, who, though defended by the Tower, was
+terrified by the neighbourhood of such dangerous commotions, resolved
+to go by water to the castle of Windsor; but as she approached the
+bridge, the populace assembled against her: the cry ran, DROWN THE
+WITCH; and besides abusing her with the most opprobrious language, and
+pelting her with rotten eggs and dirt, they had prepared large stones
+to sink her barge, when she should attempt to shoot the bridge; and
+she was so frightened, that she returned to the Tower [a].
+[FN [x] Trivet, p. 211.  M. West. p. 382, 392.  [y] Trivet, p. 211.
+M. West. p. 382.  [z] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 59.  [a] Ibid. p. 57.]
+
+The violence and fury of Leicester's faction had risen to such a
+height in all parts of England, that the king, unable to resist their
+power, was obliged to set on foot a treaty of peace; and to make an
+accommodation with the barons on the most disadvantageous terms [b].
+[MN July.]  He agreed to confirm anew the provisions of Oxford, even
+those which entirely annihilated the royal authority; and the barons
+were again reinstated in the sovereignty of the kingdom.  They
+restored Hugh le Despenser to the office of chief justiciary; they
+appointed their own creatures sheriffs in every county in England;
+they took possession of all the royal castles and fortresses; they
+even named all the officers of the king's household; and they summoned
+a Parliament to meet at Westminster, in order to settle more fully
+their plan of government.  [MN 1263.  14th Oct.]  They here produced a
+new list of twenty-four barons, to whom they proposed that the
+administration should be entirely committed; and they insisted that
+the authority of this junto should continue, not only during the reign
+of the king, but also during that of Prince Edward.
+[FN [b] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 358.  Trivet, p. 211.]
+
+This prince, the life and soul of the royal party, had unhappily,
+before the king's accommodation with the barons, been taken prisoner
+by Leicester in a parley at Windsor [c]; and that misfortune, more
+than any other incident, had determined Henry to submit to the
+ignominious conditions imposed upon him.  But Edward, having recovered
+his liberty by the treaty, employed his activity in defending the
+prerogatives of his family; and he gained a great party even among
+those who had at first adhered to the cause of the barons.  His cousin
+Henry d'Allmaine, Roger Bigod, earl marshal, Earl Warrenne, Humphrey
+Bohun, Eaff of Hereford, John Lord Basset, Ralph Basset, Hammond
+l'Estrange, Roger Mortimer, Henry de Piercy, Robert do Brus, Roger de
+Leybourne, with almost all the lords marchers, as they were called, on
+the borders of Wales and of Scotland, the most warlike parts of the
+kingdom, declared in favour of the royal cause; and hostilities, which
+were scarcely well composed, were again renewed in every part of
+England.  But the near balance of the parties, joined to the universal
+clamour of the people, obliged the king and barons to open anew the
+negotiations for peace; and it was agreed, by both sides, to submit
+their differences to the arbitration of the King of France [d].
+[FN [c] M. Paris, p. 669.  Trivet, p. 213.  [d] M. Paris, p. 668.
+Chron. T. Wykes, p. 58.  W. Heming, p. 580.  Chron Dunst. vol. i. p.
+363.]
+
+[MN Reference to the King of France.]
+This virtuous prince, the only man who, in like circumstances, could
+safely have been intrusted with such an authority by a neighbouring
+nation, had never ceased to interpose his good offices between the
+English factions; and had even, during the short interval of peace,
+invited over to Paris both the king and the Earl of Leicester, in
+order to accommodate the differences between them; but found, that the
+fears and animosities on both sides, as well as the ambition of
+Leicester, were so violent, as to render all his endeavours
+ineffectual.  But when this solemn appeal, ratified by the oaths and
+subscriptions of the leaders in both factions, was made to his
+judgment, he was not discouraged from pursuing his honourable purpose:
+[MN 1264.] he summoned the states of France at Amiens; and there, in
+the presence of that assembly, as well as in that of the King of
+England, and Peter de Montfort, Leicester's son, he brought this great
+cause to a trial and examination.  It appeared to him, that the
+provisions of Oxford, even had they not been extorted by force, had
+they not been so exorbitant in their nature, and subversive of the
+ancient constitution, were expressly established as a temporary
+expedient, and could not, without breach of trust, be rendered
+perpetual by the barons.  [MN 23d Jan.]  He therefore annulled these
+provisions; restored to the king the possession of his castles, and
+the power of nomination to the great offices; allowed him to retain
+what foreigners he pleased in his kingdom, and even to confer on them
+places of trust and dignity; and, in a word, re-established the royal
+power in the same condition on which it stood before the meeting of
+the Parliament at Oxford.  But while he thus suppressed dangerous
+innovations, and preserved unimpaired the prerogatives of the English
+crown, he was not negligent of the rights of the people; and besides
+ordering that a general amnesty should be granted for all past
+offences, he declared that his award was not anywise meant to derogate
+from the privileges and liberties which the nation enjoyed by any
+former concessions or charters of the crown [e].
+[FN [e] Rymer, vol. i. p. 776, 777, &c.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 58.
+Knyghton, p. 2446.]
+
+This equitable sentence was no sooner known in England, than Leicester
+and his confederates determined to reject it, and to have recourse to
+arms, in order to procure to themselves more safe and advantageous
+conditions [f].  [MN Renewal of the civil wars.]  Without regard to
+his oaths and subscriptions, that enterprising conspirator directed
+his two sons, Richard and Peter de Montfort, in conjunction with
+Robert de Ferrars, Earl of Derby, to attack the city of Worcester;
+while Henry and Simon de Montfort, two others of his sons, assisted by
+the Prince of Wales, were ordered to lay  waste the estate of Roger de
+Mortimer.  He himself resided at London; and employing, as his
+instrument, Fitz-Richard, the seditious mayor, who had violently and
+illegally prolonged his authority, he wrought up that city to the
+highest ferment and agitation.  The populace formed themselves into
+bands and companies; chose leaders; practised all military exercises;
+committed violence on the royalists; and to give them greater
+countenance in their disorders, an association was entered into
+between the city and eighteen great barons, never to make peace with
+the king but by common consent and approbation.  At the head of those
+who swore to maintain this association were the Earls of Leicester,
+Gloucester, and Derby, with le Despenser, the chief justiciary; men
+who had all previously sworn to submit to the award of the French
+monarch.  Their only pretence for this breach of faith was, that the
+latter part of Lewis's sentence was, as they affirmed, a contradiction
+to the former: he ratified the charter of liberties, yet annulled the
+provisions of Oxford; which were only calculated, as they maintained,
+to preserve that charter; and without which, in their estimation, they
+had no security for its observance.
+[FN [f] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 363.]
+
+The king and prince finding a civil war inevitable, prepared
+themselves for defence; and summoning the military vassals from all
+quarters, and being reinforced by Baliol, Lord of Galloway, Brus, Lord
+of Annandale, Henry Piercy, John Comyn [g], and other barons of the
+north, they composed an army, formidable, as well from its numbers as
+its military prowess and experience.  The first enterprise of the
+royalists was the attack of Northampton, which was defended by Simon
+de Montfort, with many of the principal barons of that party; and a
+breach being made in the walls by Philip Basset, the place was carried
+by assault, and both the governor and the garrison were made
+prisoners.  [MN 5th April.]  The royalists marched thence to Leicester
+and Nottingham; both which places having opened their gates to them,
+Prince Edward proceeded with a detachment into the county of Derby, in
+order to ravage with fire and sword the lands of the earl of that
+name, and take revenge on him for his disloyalty.  Like maxims of war
+prevailed with both parties throughout England; and the kingdom was
+thus exposed in a moment to greater devastation, from the animosities
+of the rival barons, than it would have suffered from many years of
+foreign or even domestic hostilities, conducted by more humane and
+more generous principles.
+[FN [g] Rymer, vol. i. p 772.  M. West. p. 385.  Ypod. Neust. p. 469.]
+
+The Earl of Leicester, master of London, and of the counties in the
+south-east of England, formed the siege of Rochester, which alone
+declared for the king in those parts, and which, besides Earl
+Warrenne, the governor, was garrisoned by many noble and powerful
+barons of the royal party.  The king and prince hastened from
+Nottingham, where they were then quartered, to the relief of the
+place; and on their approach, Leicester raised the siege, and
+retreated to London, which, being the centre of his power, he was
+afraid might, in his absence, fall into the king's hands, either by
+force, or by a correspondence with the principal citizens, who were
+all secretly inclined to the royal cause.  Reinforced by a great body
+of Londoners, and having summoned his partisans from all quarters, he
+thought himself strong enough to hazard a general battle with the
+royalists, and to determine the fate of the nation in one great
+engagement; which, if it proved successful, must be decisive against
+the king, who had no retreat for his broken troops in those parts;
+while Leicester himself, in case of any sinister accident, could
+easily take shelter in the city.  To give the better colouring to his
+cause, he previously sent a message with conditions of peace to Henry,
+submissive in the language, but exorbitant in the demands [h]; and
+when the messenger returned with the lie and defiance from the king,
+the prince, and the King of the Romans, he sent a new message,
+renouncing in the name of himself and of the associated barons, all
+fealty and allegiance to Henry.  He then marched out of the city, with
+his army divided into four bodies: the first commanded by his two
+sons, Henry and Guy de Montfort, together with Humphrey de Bohun, Earl
+of Hereford, who had deserted to the barons; the second led by the
+Earl of Gloucester, with William de Montchesney and John Fitz-John;
+the third, composed of Londoners, under the command of Nicholas de
+Segrave; the fourth headed by himself in person.  The Bishop of
+Chichester gave a general absolution to the army, accompanied with
+assurances that, if any of them fell in the ensuing action, they would
+infallibly be received into heaven, as the reward of their suffering
+in so meritorious a cause.
+[FN [h] M. Paris, p. 669.  W. Heming. p. 583.]
+
+[MN Battle of Lewes.  14th May.]
+Leicester, who possessed great talents for war, conducted his march
+with such skill and secrecy, that he had well nigh surprised the
+royalists in their quarters at Lewes in Sussex: but the vigilance and
+activity of Prince Edward soon repaired this negligence; and he led
+out the king's army to the field in three bodies.  He himself
+conducted the van, attended by Earl Warrenne and William de Valence:
+the main body was commanded by the King of the Romans and his son
+Henry: the king himself was placed in the rear at the head of his
+principal nobility.  Prince Edward rushed upon the Londoners, who had
+demanded the post of honour in leading the rebel army, but who, from
+their ignorance of discipline and want of experience, were ill fitted
+to resist the gentry and military men, of whom the prince's body was
+composed.  They were broken in an instant; were chased off the field;
+and Edward, transported by his martial ardour, and eager to revenge
+the insolence of the Londoners against his mother [i], put them to the
+sword for the length of four miles, without giving them any quarter,
+and without reflecting on the fate which in the mean time attended the
+rest of the army.  The Earl of Leicester, seeing the royalists thrown
+into confusion by their eagerness in the pursuit, led on his remaining
+troops against the bodies commanded by the two royal brothers: he
+defeated, with great slaughter, the forces headed by the King of the
+Romans; and that prince was obliged to yield himself prisoner to the
+Earl of Gloucester; he penetrated to the body where the king himself
+was placed, threw it into disorder, pursued his advantage, chased it
+into the town of Lewes, and obliged Henry to surrender himself
+prisoner [k].
+[FN [i] M. Paris, p. 670.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 62.  W. Heming. p. 583.
+M. West. p. 387.  Ypod. Neust. p. 469.  H. Knyghton, p. 2450.  [k] M.
+Paris, p. 670.  M. West. p. 387.]
+
+Prince Edward, returning to the field of battle from his precipitate
+pursuit of the Londoners, was astonished to find it covered with the
+dead bodies of his friends and still more to hear, that his father and
+uncle were defeated and taken prisoners, and that Arundel, Comyn Brus,
+Hamond L'Estrange, Roger Leybourne, and many considerable barons of
+his party, were in the hands of the victorious enemy.  Earl Warrenne,
+Hugh Bigod, and William de Valence, struck with despair at this event,
+immediately took to flight, hurried to Pevensey, and made their escape
+beyond sea [l]: but the prince, intrepid amidst the greatest
+disasters, exhorted his troops to revenge the death of their friends,
+to relieve the royal captives, and to snatch an easy conquest from an
+enemy disordered by their own victory [m].  He found his followers
+intimidated by their situation; while Leicester, afraid of a sudden
+and violent blow from the prince, amused him by a feigned negotiation,
+till he was able to recall his troops from the pursuit, and to bring
+them into order [n].  There now appeared no farther resource to the
+royal party, surrounded by the armies and garrisons of the enemy,
+destitute of forage and provisions, and deprived of their sovereign,
+as well as of their principal leaders, who could alone inspirit them
+to an obstinate resistance.  The prince, therefore, was obliged to
+submit to Leicester's terms, which were short and severe, agreeably to
+the suddenness and necessity of the situation: he stipulated, that he
+and Henry d'Allmaine should surrender themselves prisoners as pledges
+in lieu of the two kings; that all other prisoners on both sides
+should be released [o]; and that, in order to settle fully the terms
+of agreement, application should be made to the King of France, that
+he should name six Frenchmen, three prelates, and three noblemen:
+these six to choose two others of their own country; and these two to
+choose one Englishman, who, in conjunction with themselves, were to be
+invested by both parties with full powers to make what regulations
+they thought proper for the settlement of the kingdom.  The prince and
+young Henry accordingly delivered themselves into Leicester's hands,
+who sent them under a guard to Dover castle.  Such are the terms of
+agreement commonly called the MISE of Lewes, from an obsolete French
+term of that meaning: for it appears, that all the gentry and nobility
+of England, who valued themselves on their Norman extraction, and who
+disdained the language of their native country, made familiar use of
+the French tongue till this period, and for some time after.
+[FN [l] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 63.  [m] W. Heming. p. 584.  [n] Ibid.
+[o] M. Paris, p. 671  Knyghton, p. 2451.]
+
+Leicester had no sooner obtained this great advantage, and gotten the
+whole royal family in his power, than he openly violated every article
+of the treaty, and acted as sole master, and even tyrant of the
+kingdom.  He still detained the king in effect a prisoner, and made
+use of that prince's authority to purposes the most prejudicial to his
+interests, and the most oppressive of his people [p].  He every where
+disarmed the royalists, and kept all his own partisans in a military
+posture [q]: he observed the same partial conduct in the deliverance
+of the captives, and even threw many of the royalists into prison,
+besides those who were taken in the battle of Lewes: he carried the
+king from place to place, and obliged all the royal castles, on
+pretence of Henry's commands, to receive a governor and garrison of
+his own appointment: all the officers of the crown and of the
+household were named by him; and the whole authority, as well as arms
+of the state, was lodged in his hands: he instituted in the counties a
+new kind of magistracy, endowed with new and arbitrary powers, that of
+conservators of the peace [r]: his avarice appeared bare-faced, and
+might induce us to question the greatness of his ambition, at least
+the largeness of his mind, if we had not reason to think, that he
+intended to employ his acquisitions as the instruments for attaining
+farther power and grandeur.  He seized the estates of no less than
+eighteen barons, as his share of the spoil gained in the battle of
+Lewes: he engrossed to himself the ransom of all the prisoners; and
+told his barons, with a wanton insolence, that it was sufficient for
+them that he had saved them, by that victory, from the forfeitures
+and attainders which hung over them [s]: he even treated the Earl of
+Gloucester in the same injurious manner, and applied to his own use
+the ransom of the King of the Romans, who, in the field of battle, had
+yielded himself prisoner to that nobleman.  Henry, his eldest son,
+made a monopoly of all the wool in the kingdom, the only valuable
+commodity for foreign markets which it at that time produced [t].  The
+inhabitants of the cinque-ports, during the present dissolution of
+government, betook themselves to the most licentious piracy, preyed on
+the ships of all nations, threw the mariners into the sea, and, by
+these practices, soon banished all merchants from the English coasts
+and harbours.  Every foreign commodity rose to an exorbitant price;
+and woollen cloth, which the English had not then the art of dyeing,
+was worn by them white, and without receiving the last hand of the
+manufacturer.  In answer to the complaints which arose on this
+occasion, Leicester replied, that the kingdom could well enough
+subsist within itself, and needed no intercourse with foreigners; and
+it was found that he even combined with the pirates of the
+cinque-ports, and received as his share the third of their prizes [u].
+[FN [p] Rymer, vol. i. p. 790, 791, &c.  [q] Ibid. p. 795.  Brady's
+Appeals, No. 211, 212.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 63.  [r] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+792.  [s] Knyghton, p. 2451.  [t] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 65.  [u] Ibid.]
+
+No farther mention was made of the reference to the King of France, so
+essential an article in the agreement of Lewes; and Leicester summoned
+a Parliament, composed altogether of his own partisans, in order to
+rivet, by their authority, that power which he had acquired by so much
+violence, and which he used with so much tyranny and injustice.  An
+ordinance was there passed, to which the king's consent had been
+previously extorted, that every act of royal power should be exercised
+by a council of nine persons, who were to be chosen and removed by the
+majority of three, Leicester himself, the Earl of Gloucester, and the
+Bishop of Chichester [w].  By this intricate plan of government, the
+sceptre was really put into Leicester's hands; as he had the entire
+direction of the Bishop of Chichester, and thereby commanded all the
+resolutions of the council of three, who could  appoint or discard at
+pleasure every member of the supreme council.
+[FN [w] Rymer, vol. i. p. 793.  Brady's App. No. 213.]
+
+But it was impossible that things could long remain in this strange
+situation.  It behoved Leicester either to descend with some peril
+into the rank of a subject or to mount up with no less into that of a
+sovereign; and his ambition, unrestrained either by fear or by
+principle, gave too much reason to suspect him of the latter
+intention.  Meanwhile he was exposed to anxiety from every quarter;
+and felt that the smallest incident was capable of overturning that
+immense and ill-cemented fabric which he had reared.  The queen, whom
+her husband had left abroad, had collected in foreign parts an army of
+desperate adventurers, and had assembled a great number of ships, with
+a view of invading the kingdom, and of bringing relief to her
+unfortunate family.  Lewis, detesting Leicester's usurpations and
+perjuries, and disgusted at the English barons, who had refused to
+submit to his award, secretly favoured all her enterprises, and was
+generally believed to be making preparations for the same purpose.  An
+English army, by the pretended authority of the captive king, was
+assembled on the seacoast to oppose this projected invasion [x]; but
+Leicester owed his safety more to cross winds, which long detained and
+at last dispersed and ruined the queen's fleet, than to any resistance
+which, in their present situation, could have been expected from the
+English.
+[FN [x] Brady's App. No. 216, 217.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 373.  M.
+West. p. 385.]
+
+Leicester found himself better able to resist the spiritual thunders
+which were levelled against him.  The pope, still adhering to the
+king's cause, against the barons, despatched Cardinal Guido as his
+legate into England, with orders to excommunicate, by name, the three
+earls, Leicester, Gloucester, and Norfolk, and all others, in general,
+who concurred in the oppression and captivity of their sovereign [y].
+Leicester menaced the legate with death, if he set foot within the
+kingdom; but Guido, meeting in France the Bishops of Winchester,
+London, and Worcester, who had been sent thither on a negotiation,
+commanded them, under the penalty of ecclesiastical censures, to carry
+his bull into England, and to publish it against the barons.  When the
+prelates arrived off the coast, they were boarded by the piratical
+mariners of the cinque-ports, to whom probably they gave a hint of the
+cargo which they brought along with them: the bull was torn and thrown
+into the sea; which furnished the artful prelates with a plausible
+excuse for not obeying the orders of the legate.  Leicester appealed
+from Guido to the pope in person; but before the ambassadors,
+appointed to defend his cause, could reach Rome, the pope was dead;
+and they found the legate himself, from whom they had appealed, seated
+on the papal throne, by the name of Urban IV.  That daring leader was
+nowise dismayed with this incident; and as he found that a great part
+of his popularity in England was founded on his opposition to the
+court of Rome, which was now become odious, he persisted with the more
+obstinacy in the prosecution of his measures.
+[FN [y] Rymer, vol. i. p. 798.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 373.]
+
+[MN 1265.  20th Jan.]  That he might both increase and turn to
+advantage his popularity, Leicester summoned a new Parliament in
+London, where he knew his power was uncontrollable; and he fixed this
+assembly on a more democratical basis than any which had ever been
+summoned since the foundation of the monarchy.  Besides the barons of
+his own party, and several ecclesiastics who were not immediate
+tenants of the crown, he ordered returns to be made of two knights
+from each shire, and what is more remarkable, of deputies from the
+boroughs, an order of men which, in former ages, had always been
+regarded as too mean to enjoy a place in the national councils [z].
+[MN House of Commons.]  This period is commonly esteemed the epoch of
+the House of Commons in England; and it is certainly the first time
+that historians speak of any representatives sent to Parliament by the
+boroughs.  In all the general accounts given in preceding times of
+those assemblies, the prelates and barons only are mentioned as the
+constituent members; and even in the most particular narratives
+delivered of parliamentary transactions, as in the trial of Thomas à
+Becket, where the events of each day, and almost of each hour, are
+carefully recorded by contemporary authors [a], there is not,
+throughout the whole, the least appearance of a House of Commons.  But
+though that House derived  its existence from so precarious and even
+so invidious an origin as Leicester's usurpation, it soon proved, when
+summoned by the legal princes, one of the most useful, and, in process
+of time, one of the most powerful members of the national
+constitution; and gradually rescued the kingdom from aristocratical as
+well as from regal tyranny.  But Leicester's policy, if we must
+ascribe to him so great a blessing, only forwarded by some years an
+institution, for which the general state of things had already
+prepared the nation; and it is otherwise inconceivable, that a plant
+set by so inauspicious a hand could have attained to so vigorous a
+growth, and have flourished in the midst of such tempests and
+convulsions.  The feudal system, with which the liberty, much more the
+power of the Commons, was totally incompatible, began gradually to
+decline; and both the king and the commonalty, who felt its
+inconveniences, contributed to favour this new power, which was more
+submissive than the barons to the regular authority of the crown, and
+at the same time afforded protection to the inferior orders of the
+state.
+[FN [z] Rymer, vol. i. p. 802.  [a] Fitz-Stephen, Hist. Quadrip.
+Hoveden, &c.]
+
+Leicester having thus assembled a Parliament of his own model, and
+trusting to the attachment of the populace of London, seized the
+opportunity of crushing his rivals among the powerful barons.  Robert
+de Ferrars, Earl of Derby, was accused in the king's name, seized, and
+committed to custody without being brought to any legal trial [b].
+John Gifford, menaced with the same fate, fled from London, and took
+shelter in the borders of Wales.  Even the Earl of Gloucester, whose
+power and influence had so much contributed to the success of the
+barons, but who of late was extremely disgusted with Leicester's
+arbitrary conduct, found himself in danger from the prevailing
+authority of his ancient confederate; and he retired from Parliament
+[c].  This known dissension gave courage to all Leicester's enemies
+and to the king's friends, who were now sure of protection from so
+potent a leader.  Though Roger Mortimer, Hamond L'Estrange, and other
+powerful marchers of Wales, had been obliged to leave the kingdom,
+their authority still remained over the territories subjected to their
+jurisdiction; and there were many others who were disposed to give
+disturbance to the new government.  The animosities, inseparable from
+the feudal aristocracy, broke out with fresh violence, and threatened
+the kingdom with new convulsions and disorders.
+[FN [b] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 66.  Ann. Waverl. p. 216.  [c] M. Paris,
+p. 671.  Ann. Waverl. p. 216.]
+
+The Earl of Leicester, surrounded with these difficulties, embraced a
+measure from which he hoped to reap some present advantages, but which
+proved in the end the source of all his future calamities.  The active
+and intrepid Prince Edward had languished in prison ever since the
+fatal battle of Lewes; and as he was extremely popular in the kingdom,
+there arose a general desire of seeing him again restored to liberty
+[d].  Leicester, finding that he could with difficulty oppose the
+concurring wishes of the nation, stipulated with the prince, that, in
+return, he should order his adherents to deliver up to the barons all
+their castles, particularly those on the borders of Wales; and should
+swear neither to depart the kingdom during three years, nor introduce
+into it any foreign forces [e].  The king took an oath to the same
+effect, and he also passed a charter, in which he confirmed the
+agreement or MISE of Lewes; and even permitted his subjects to rise in
+arms against him if he should ever attempt to infringe it [f].  So
+little care did Leicester take, though he constantly made use of the
+authority of this captive prince, to preserve to him any appearance of
+royalty or kingly prerogatives!
+[FN [d] Knyghton, p. 2451.  [e] Ann. Waverl. p. 216.  [f] Blackstone's
+Mag. Charta.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 378.]
+
+[MN 11th Mar.]  In consequence of this treaty, Prince Edward was
+brought into Westminster-hall, and was declared free by the barons:
+but instead of really recovering his liberty, as he had vainly
+expected, he found that the whole transaction was a fraud on the part
+of Leicester; that he himself still continued a prisoner at large, and
+was guarded by the emissaries of that nobleman; and that, while the
+faction reaped all the benefit from the performance of his part of the
+treaty, care was taken that he should enjoy no advantage by it.  As
+Gloucester, on his rupture with the barons, had retired for safety to
+his estates on the borders of Wales, Leicester followed him with an
+army to Hereford [g]; continued still to menace and negotiate; and
+that he might add authority to his cause, he carried both the king and
+prince along with him.  The Earl of Gloucester here concerted with
+young Edward the manner of that prince's escape.  He found means to
+convey to him a horse of extraordinary swiftness; and appointed Roger
+Mortimer, who had returned into the kingdom, to be ready at hand with
+a small party to receive the prince, and to guard him to a place of
+safety.  Edward pretended to take the air with some of Leicester's
+retinue, who were his guards; and making matches between their horses,
+after he thought he had tired and blown them sufficiently, he suddenly
+mounted Gloucester's horse and called to his attendants, that he had
+long enough enjoyed the pleasure of their company, and now bid them
+adieu.  They followed him for some time, without being able to
+overtake him; and the appearance of Mortimer with his company put an
+end to their pursuit.
+[FN [g] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 67.  Ann. Waverl. p. 218.  W. Heming. p.
+585.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 383, 384.]
+
+The royalists, secretly prepared for this event, immediately flew to
+arms; and the joy of this gallant prince's deliverance, the
+oppressions under which the nation laboured, the expectation of a new
+scene of affairs, and the countenance of the Earl of Gloucester,
+procured Edward an army which Leicester was utterly unable to
+withstand.  This nobleman found himself in a remote quarter of the
+kingdom, surrounded by his enemies, barred from all communication with
+his friends by the Severn, whose bridges Edward had broken down, and
+obliged to fight the cause of his party under these multiplied
+disadvantages.  In this extremity he wrote to his son, Simon de
+Montfort, to hasten from London with an army for his relief; and Simon
+had advanced to Kenilworth with that view, where, fancying that all
+Edward's force and attention were directed against his father, he lay
+secure and unguarded.  But the prince, making a sudden and forced
+march, surprised him in his camp, dispersed his army, and took the
+Earl of Oxford and many other noblemen prisoners, almost without
+resistance.  Leicester, ignorant of his son 's fate, passed the Severn
+in boats during Edward's absence, and lay at Evesham, in expectation
+of being every hour joined by his friends from London; when the
+prince, who availed himself of every favourable moment, appeared in
+the field before him.  [MN Battle of Evesham and death of Leicester.
+4th Aug.]  Edward made a body of his troops advance from the road
+which led to Kenilworth, and ordered them to carry the banners taken
+from Simon's army; while he himself, making a circuit with the rest of
+his forces, purposed to attack the enemy on the other quarter.
+Leicester was long deceived by this stratagem, and took one division
+of Edward's army for his friends; but at last, perceiving his mistake,
+and observing the great superiority and excellent disposition of the
+royalists, he exclaimed that they had learned from him the art of war,
+adding, "The Lord have mercy on our souls, for I see our bodies are
+the prince's!"  The battle immediately began, though on very unequal
+terms.  Leicester's army, by living on the mountains of Wales without
+bread, which was not then much used among the inhabitants, had been
+extremely weakened by sickness and desertion, and was soon broken by
+the victorious royalists; while his Welsh allies, accustomed only to a
+desultory kind of war, immediately took to flight, and were pursued
+with great slaughter.  Leicester himself; asking for quarter, was
+slain in the heat of the action, with his eldest son Henry, Hugh le
+Despenser, and about one hundred and sixty knights, and many other
+gentlemen of his party.  The old king had been purposely placed by the
+rebels in the front of the battle; and being clad in armour, and
+thereby not known by his friends, he received a wound, and was in
+danger of his life; but crying out, I AM HENRY OF WINCHESTER, YOUR
+KING, he was saved, and put in a place of safety by his son, who flew
+to his rescue.
+
+The violence, ingratitude, tyranny, rapacity, and treachery of the
+Earl of Leicester, give a very bad idea of his moral character, and
+make us regard his death as the most fortunate event which, in this
+conjuncture, could have happened to the English nation; yet must we
+allow the man to have possessed great abilities, and the appearance of
+great virtues, who, though a stranger, could at a time when strangers
+were the most odious, and the most universally decried, have acquired
+so extensive an interest in the kingdom, and have so nearly paved his
+way to the throne itself.  His military capacity and his political
+craft were equally eminent: he possessed the talents both of governing
+men and conducting business: and though his ambition was boundless, it
+seems neither to have exceeded his courage nor his genius; and he had
+the happiness of making the low populace, as well as the haughty
+barons, co-operate towards the success of his selfish and dangerous
+purposes.  A prince of greater abilities and vigour than Henry, might
+have directed the talents of this nobleman either to the exaltation of
+his throne, or to the good of his people: but the advantages given to
+Leicester by the weak and variable administration of the king, brought
+on the ruin of royal authority, and produced great confusions in the
+kingdom, which however, in the end, preserved and extremely improved
+national liberty and the constitution.  His popularity, even after his
+death, continued so great, that though he was excommunicated by Rome,
+the people believed him to be a saint; and many miracles were said to
+be wrought upon his tomb [h].
+[FN [h] Chron. de Mailr. p. 232.]
+
+[MN Settlement of the government.]
+The victory of Evesham, with the death of Leicester, proved decisive
+in favour of the royalists, and made an equal, though an opposite,
+impression on friends and enemies in every part of England.  The King
+of the Romans recovered his liberty: the other prisoners of the royal
+party were not only freed, but courted by their keepers: Fitz-Richard,
+the seditious Mayor of London, who had marked out forty of the most
+wealthy citizens for slaughter, immediately stopped his hand on
+receiving intelligence of this great event: and almost all the
+castles, garrisoned by the barons, hastened to make their submissions,
+and to open their gates to the king.  The isle of Axholme alone, and
+that of Ely, trusting to the strength of their situation, ventured to
+make resistance; but were at last reduced, as well as the castle of
+Dover, by the valour and activity of Prince Edward [i].  [MN 1266.]
+Adam de Gourdon, a courageous baron, maintained himself during some
+time in the forests of Hampshire, committed depredations in the
+neighbourhood, and obliged the prince to lead a body of troops into
+that county against him.  Edward attacked the camp of the rebels; and
+being transported by the ardour of battle, leaped over the trench with
+a few followers, and encountered Gourdon in single combat.  The
+victory was long disputed between these valiant combatants; but ended
+at last in the prince's favour, who wounded his antagonist, threw him
+from his horse, and took him prisoner.  He not only gave him his life,
+but introduced him that very night to the queen at Guildford, procured
+him his pardon, restored him to his estate, received him into favour,
+and was ever after faithfully served by him [k].
+[FN [i] M. Paris, p. 676.  W. Heming, p. 588.  [k] M. Paris, p. 675.]
+
+A total victory of the sovereign over so extensive a rebellion
+commonly produces a revolution of government, and strengthens as well
+as enlarges, for some time, the prerogatives of the crown: yet no
+sacrifices of national liberty were made on this occasion; the great
+charter remained still inviolate; and the king, sensible that his own
+barons, by whose assistance alone he had prevailed, were no less
+jealous of their independence than the other party, seems thenceforth
+to have more carefully abstained from all those exertions of power
+which had afforded so plausible a pretence to the rebels.  The
+clemency of this victory is also remarkable: no blood was shed on the
+scaffold: no attainders, except of the Montfort family, were carried
+into execution: and though a Parliament, assembled at Winchester,
+attainted all those who had borne arms against the king, easy
+compositions were made with them for their lands [1]; and the highest
+sum levied on the most obnoxious offenders exceeded not five years'
+rent of their estate.  Even the Earl of Derby, who again rebelled,
+after having been pardoned and restored to his fortune, was obliged to
+pay only seven years' rent, and was a second time restored.  The mild
+disposition of the king, and the prudence of the prince, tempered the
+insolence of victory, and gradually restored order to the several
+members of the state, disjointed by so long a continuance of civil
+wars and commotions.
+[FN [l] Id. ibid.]
+
+The city of London, which had carried farthest the rage and animosity
+against the king, and which seemed determined to stand upon its
+defence after almost all the kingdom had submitted, was, after some
+interval, restored to most of its liberties and privileges; and
+Fitz-Richard the mayor, who had been guilty of so much illegal
+violence, was only punished by fine and imprisonment.  The Countess of
+Leicester, the king's sister, who had been extremely forward in all
+attacks on the royal family, was dismissed the kingdom with her two
+sons, Simon and Guy, who proved very ungrateful for this lenity.  Five
+years afterwards, they assassinated, at Viterbo in Italy, their cousin
+Henry d'Allmaine, who at that very time was endeavouring to make their
+peace with the king; and by taking sanctuary in the church of the
+Franciscans, they escaped the punishment due to so great an enormity
+[m].
+[FN [m] Rymer, vol. i. p. 879. vol. ii. p. 4, 5.  Chron. T. Wykes, p.
+94.  W. Heming. p. 589.  Trivet, p. 240.]
+
+[MN 1267.]  The merits of the Earl of Gloucester, after he returned to
+his allegiance, had been so great in restoring the prince to his
+liberty, and assisting him in his victories against the rebellious
+barons, that it was almost impossible to content him in his demands;
+and his youth and temerity, as well as his great power, tempted him,
+on some new disgust, to raise again the flames of rebellion in the
+kingdom.  The mutinous populace of London, at his instigation, took to
+arms; and the prince was obliged to levy an army of thirty thousand
+men in order to suppress them.  Even this second rebellion did not
+provoke the king to any act of cruelty; and the Earl of Gloucester
+himself escaped with total impunity.  He was only obliged to enter
+into a bond of twenty thousand marks, that he should never again be
+guilty of rebellion: a strange method of enforcing the laws, and a
+proof of the dangerous independence of the barons in those ages!
+These potent nobles were, from the danger of the precedent, averse to
+the execution of the laws of forfeiture and felony against any of
+their fellows; though they could not, with a good grace, refuse to
+concur in obliging them to fulfil any voluntary contract and
+engagement into which they had entered.
+
+[MN 1270.]  The prince, finding the state of the kingdom tolerably
+composed, was seduced, by his avidity for glory and by the prejudices
+of the age, as well as by the earnest solicitations of the King of
+France, to undertake an expedition against the infidels in the Holy
+Land [n]; and he endeavoured previously to settle the state in such a
+manner as to dread no bad effects from his absence.  As the formidable
+power and turbulent disposition of the Earl of Gloucester gave him
+apprehensions, he insisted on carrying him along with him, in
+consequence of a vow which that nobleman had made to undertake the
+same voyage: in the mean time, he obliged him to resign some of his
+castles, and to enter into a new bond not to disturb the peace of the
+kingdom [o].  He sailed from England with an army, and arrived in
+Lewis's camp before Tunis in Africa, where he found that monarch
+already dead from the intemperance of the climate and the fatigues of
+his enterprise.  The great, if not only, weakness of this prince in
+his government, was the imprudent passion for crusades; but it was his
+zeal chiefly that procured him from the clergy the title of St. Lewis,
+by which he is known in the French history; and if that appellation
+had not been so extremely prostituted, as to become rather a term of
+reproach, he seems by his uniform probity and goodness, as well as his
+piety, to have fully merited the title.  He was succeeded by his son
+Philip, denominated the Hardy; a prince of some merit, though much
+inferior to that of his father.
+[FN [n] M. Paris, p. 677.  [o] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 90.]
+
+[MN 1271.]  Prince Edward, not discouraged by this event, continued
+his voyage to the Holy Land, where he signalized himself by acts of
+valour; revived the glory of the English name in those parts; and
+struck such terror into the Saracens, that they employed an assassin
+to murder him, who wounded him in the arm, but perished in the attempt
+[p].  Meanwhile, his absence from England was attended with many of
+those pernicious consequences  which had been dreaded from it.  The
+laws were not executed: the barons oppressed the common people with
+impunity [q]: they gave shelter on their estates to bands of robbers,
+whom they employed in committing ravages on the estates of their
+enemies: the populace of London returned to their usual
+licentiousness: and the old king, unequal to the burden of public
+affairs, called aloud for his gallant son to return [r], and to assist
+him in swaying that sceptre which was ready to drop from his feeble
+and irresolute hands.  [MN 1272.  16th Nov.  Death,]  At last,
+overcome by the cares of government and the infirmities of age, he
+visibly declined, and he expired at St. Edmondsbury, in the
+sixty-fourth year of his age, and fifty-sixth of his reign; the
+longest reign that is to be met with in the English annals.  His
+brother, the King of the Romans, (for he never attained the title of
+Emperor,) died about seven months before him.
+[FN [p] M. Paris, p. 678, 679.  W. Heming. p. 520.  [q] Chron. Dunst.
+vol. i. p. 404.  [r] Rymer, vol. i. p. 869.  M. Paris, p. 678.]
+
+[MN and character of the king.]  The most obvious circumstance of
+Henry's character is his incapacity for government, which rendered him
+as much a prisoner in the hands of his own ministers and favourites,
+and as little at his own disposal, as when detained a captive in the
+hands of his enemies.  From this source, rather than from insincerity
+or treachery, arose his negligence in observing his promises; and he
+was too easily induced, for the sake of present convenience, to
+sacrifice the lasting advantages arising from the trust and confidence
+of his people.  Hence too were derived his profusion to favourites,
+his attachment to strangers, the variableness of his conduct, his
+hasty resentments, and his sudden forgiveness and return of affection.
+Instead of reducing the dangerous power of his nobles, by obliging
+them to observe the laws towards their inferiors, and setting them the
+salutary example in his own government, he was seduced to imitate
+their conduct, and to make his arbitrary will, or rather that of his
+ministers, the rule of his actions.  Instead of accommodating himself,
+by a strict frugality, to the embarrassed situation in which his
+revenue had been left by the military expeditions of his uncle, the
+dissipations of his father, and the usurpations of the barons; he was
+tempted to levy money by irregular exactions, which, without enriching
+himself, impoverished, at least disgusted, his people.  Of all men,
+nature seemed least to have fitted him for being a tyrant; yet there
+are instances of oppression in his reign, which, though derived from
+the precedents left him by his predecessors, had been carefully
+guarded against by the great charter, and are inconsistent with all
+rules of good government.  And on the whole, we may say, that greater
+abilities, with his good dispositions, would have prevented him from
+falling into his faults; or, with worse dispositions, would have
+enabled him to maintain and defend them.
+
+This prince was noted for his piety and devotion, and his regular
+attendance on public worship; and a saying of his on that head is much
+celebrated by ancient writers.  He was engaged in a dispute with Lewis
+IX. of France, concerning the preference between sermons and masses:
+he maintained the superiority of the latter, and affirmed that he
+would rather have one hour's conversation with a friend, than hear
+twenty of the most elaborate discourses pronounced in his praise [s].
+[FN [s] Walsing. Edw. I. p. 43.]
+
+Henry left two sons, Edward, his successor, and Edmond, Earl of
+Lancaster; and two daughters, Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and
+Beatrix, Duchess of Britany.  He had five other children, who died in
+their infancy.
+
+[MN Miscellaneous transactions of the reign.]
+The following are the most remarkable laws enacted during this reign.
+There had been great disputes between the civil and ecclesiastical
+courts concerning bastardy.  The common law had deemed all those to be
+bastards who were born before wedlock; by the canon law they were
+legitimate: and when any dispute of inheritance arose, it had formerly
+been usual for the civil courts to issue writs to the spiritual,
+directing them to inquire into the legitimacy of the person.  The
+bishop always returned an answer agreeable to the canon law, though
+contrary to the municipal law of the kingdom.  For this reason the
+civil courts had changed the terms of their writ; and instead of
+requiring the spiritual courts to make inquisition concerning the
+legitimacy of the person, they only proposed the simple question of
+fact, whether he were born, before or after wedlock?  The prelates
+complained of this practice to the Parliament assembled at Merton in
+the twentieth of this king, and desired that the municipal law might
+be rendered conformable to the canon; but received from all the
+nobility the memorable reply, NOLUMUS LEGES ANGLIAE MUTARE!  We will
+not change the laws of England [t].
+[FN [t] Statute of Merton, chap. 9.]
+
+After the civil wars, the Parliament, summoned at Marlebridge, gave
+their approbation to most of the ordinances which had been established
+by the reforming barons, and which, though advantageous to the
+security of the people, had not received the sanction of a legal
+authority.  Among other laws, it was there enacted, that all appeals
+from the courts of inferior lords should be carried directly to the
+king's courts without passing through the courts of the lords
+immediately superior [u].  It was ordained that money should bear no
+interest during the minority of the debtor [w].  This law was
+reasonable, as the estates of minors were always in the hands of their
+lords, and the debtors could not pay interest where they had no
+revenue.  The charter of King John had granted this indulgence: it was
+omitted in that of Henry III., for what reason is not known; but it
+was renewed by the statute of Marlebridge.  Most of the other articles
+of this statute are calculated to restrain the oppressions of
+sheriffs, and the violence and iniquities committed in distraining
+cattle and other goods.  Cattle and the instruments of husbandry
+formed at that time the chief riches of the people.
+[FN [u] Statute of Marleb. chap. 20.  [w] Ibid. chap. 16.]
+
+In the thirty-fifth year of this king an assize was fixed of bread,
+the price of which was settled, according to the different prices of
+corn, from one shilling a quarter to seven shillings and sixpence [x],
+money of that age.  These great variations are alone a proof of bad
+tillage [y]: yet did the prices often rise much higher than any taken
+notice of by the statute.  The Chronicle of Dunstable tells us, that,
+in this reign, wheat was once sold for a mark, nay, for a pound, a
+quarter, that is, three pounds of our present money [z].  The same law
+affords us a proof of the little communication between the parts of
+the kingdom, from the very different prices which the same commodity
+bore at the same time.  A brewer, says the statute, may sell two
+gallons of ale for a penny in cities, and three or four gallons for
+the same price in the country.  At present, such commodities, by the
+great consumption of the people, and the great stocks of the brewers,
+are rather cheapest in cities.  The Chronicle above mentioned
+observes, that wheat one year was sold in many places for eight
+shillings a quarter, but never rose in Dunstable above a crown.
+[FN [x] Statutes at Large, p. 6.  [y] We learn from Cicero's Orations
+against Verres, lib. 3, cap. 84, 92, that the price of corn in Sicily
+was, during the praetorship of Sacerdos, five Denarii a Modius; during
+that of Verres, which immediately succeeded, only two Sesterces; that
+is, ten times lower; a presumption, or rather a proof, of the very bad
+state of tillage in ancient times.  [z]  Knyghton, p. 2444.]
+
+Though commerce was still very low, it seems rather to have increased
+since the Conquest; at least if we may judge of the increase of money
+by the price of corn.  The medium between the highest and lowest
+prices of wheat, assigned by the statute, is four shillings and three
+pence a quarter, that is, twelve shillings and nine pence of our
+present money.  This is near half of the middling price in our time.
+Yet the middling price of cattle, so late as the reign of King
+Richard, we find to be above eight, near ten times lower than the
+present.  Is not this the true inference, from comparing these facts,
+that, in all uncivilized nations, cattle, which propagate of
+themselves, bear always a lower price than corn, which requires more
+art and stock to render it plentiful than those nations are possessed
+of?  It is to be remarked that Henry's assize of corn was copied from
+a preceding assize established by King John; consequently, the prices
+which we have here compared of corn and cattle may be looked on as
+contemporary; and they were drawn, not from one particular year, but
+from an estimation of the middling prices for a series of years.  It
+is true, the prices assigned by the assize of Richard were meant as a
+standard for the accompts of sheriffs and escheators; and as
+considerable profits were allowed to these ministers, we may naturally
+suppose, that the common value of cattle was somewhat higher: yet
+still, so great a difference between the prices of corn and cattle as
+that of four to one, compared to the present rates, affords important
+reflections concerning the very different state of industry and
+tillage in the two periods.
+
+Interest had in that age amounted to an enormous height, as might be
+expected from the barbarism of the times and men's ignorance of
+commerce.  Instances occur of fifty per cent paid for money [a].
+There is an edict of Philip Augustus near this period, limiting the
+Jews in France to forty-eight per cent [b].  Such profits tempted the
+Jews to remain in the kingdom, notwithstanding the grievous
+oppressions to which, from the prevalent bigotry and rapine of the
+age, they were continually exposed.  It is easy to imagine how
+precarious their state must have been under an indigent prince,
+somewhat restrained in his tyranny over his native subjects, but who
+possessed an unlimited authority over the Jews, the sole proprietors
+of money in the kingdom, and hated, on account of their riches, their
+religion, and their usury: yet will our ideas scarcely come up to the
+extortions which, in fact, we find to have been practised upon them.
+In the year 1241, twenty thousand marks were exacted from them [c]:
+two years after money was again extorted; and one Jew alone, Aaron of
+York, was obliged to pay above four thousand marks [d].  In 1250,
+Henry renewed his oppressions; and the same Aaron was condemned to pay
+him thirty thousand marks upon an accusation of forgery [e]: the high
+penalty imposed upon him, and which, it seems, he was thought able to
+pay, is rather a presumption of his innocence than of his guilt.  In
+1255, the king demanded eight thousand marks from the Jews, and
+threatened to hang them if they refused compliance.  They now lost all
+patience, and desired leave to retire with their effects out of the
+kingdom.  But the king replied: "How can I remedy the oppressions you
+complain of?  I am myself a beggar.  I am spoiled, I am stripped of
+all my revenues: I owe above two hundred thousand marks; and if I had
+said three hundred thousand, I should not exceed the truth: I am
+obliged to pay my son, Prince Edward, fifteen thousand marks a year: I
+have not a farthing; and I must have money, from any hand, from any
+quarter, or by any means."  He then delivered over the Jews to the
+Earl of Cornwall, that those whom the one brother had flayed, the
+other might embowel, to make use of the words of the historian [f].
+King John, his father, once demanded ten thousand marks from a Jew of
+Bristol; and on his refusal, ordered one of his teeth to be drawn
+every day till he should comply.  The Jew lost seven teeth, and then
+paid the sum required of him [g].  One talliage paid upon the Jews in
+1243 amounted to sixty thousand marks [h]; a sum equal to the whole
+yearly revenue of the crown.
+[FN [a] M. Paris, p. 586.  [b] Brussel, Traité des Fiefs, vol. i. p.
+576  [c] M. Paris, p. 372.  [d] Ibid. p. 410.  [e] Ibid. p. 525.  [f]
+M. Paris, p. 606.  [g] Ibid. p. 160.  [h] Madox, p. 152.]
+
+To give a better pretence for extortions, the improbable and absurd
+accusation, which has been at different times advanced against that
+nation, was revived in England, that they had crucified a child in
+derision of the sufferings of Christ.  Eighteen of them were hanged at
+once for this crime [i]: though it is nowise credible, that even the
+antipathy borne them by the Christians, and the oppressions under
+which they laboured, would ever have pushed them to be guilty of that
+dangerous enormity.  But it is natural to imagine, that a race,
+exposed to such insults and indignities, both from king and people,
+and who had so uncertain an enjoyment of their riches, would carry
+usury to the utmost extremity, and by their great profits make
+themselves some compensation for their continual perils.
+[FN [i] M. Paris, p. 613.]
+
+Though these acts of violence against the Jews proceeded much from
+bigotry, they were still more derived from avidity and rapine.  So far
+from desiring in that age to convert them, it was enacted by law in
+France, that if any Jew embraced Christianity, he forfeited all his
+goods, without exception, to the king, or his superior lord.  These
+plunderers were careful, lest the profits, accruing from their
+dominion over that unhappy race, should be diminished by their
+conversion [k].
+[FN [k] Brussel, vol. i. p. 622.  Du Cange, verbo JUDAEI.]
+
+Commerce must be in a wretched condition, where interest was so high,
+and where the sole proprietors of money employed it in usury only, and
+were exposed to such extortion and injustice.  But the bad police of
+the country was another obstacle to improvements; and rendered all
+communication dangerous, and all property precarious.  The Chronicle
+of Dunstable says [l], that men were never secure in the houses, and
+that whole villages were often plundered by bands of robbers, though
+no civil wars at that time prevailed in the kingdom.  In 1249, some
+years before the insurrection of the barons, two merchants of Brabant
+came to the king at Winchester, and told him that they had been
+spoiled of all their goods by certain robbers, whom they knew, because
+they saw their faces every day in his court; that like practices
+prevailed all over England, and travellers were continually exposed to
+the danger of being robbed, bound, wounded, and murdered; that these
+crimes escaped with impunity, because the ministers of justice
+themselves were in a confederacy was the robbers; and that they, for
+their part, instead of bringing matters to a fruitless trial by law,
+were willing, though merchants, to decide their cause with the robbers
+by arms and a duel.  The king, provoked at these abuses, ordered a
+jury to be enclosed, and to try the robbers: the jury, though
+consisting of twelve men of property in Hampshire, were found to be
+also in a confederacy with the felons, and acquitted them.  Henry, in
+a rage, committed the jury to prison, threatened them with a severe
+punishment, and ordered a new jury to be enclosed, who, dreading the
+fate of their fellows, at last found a verdict against the criminals.
+Many of the king's own household were discovered to have participated
+in the guilt; and they said for their excuse, that they received no
+wages from him, and were obliged to rob for a maintenance [m].
+KNIGHTS AND ESQUIRES, says the Dictum of Kenilworth, WHO WERE ROBBERS,
+IF THEY HAVE NO LAND, SHALL PAY THE HALF OF THEIR GOODS, AND FIND
+SUFFICIENT SECURITY TO KEEP HENCEFORTH THE PEACE OF THE KINGDOM.  Such
+were the matters of the times!
+[FN [1] Vol. i. p. 155.  [m] M. Paris, p. 509.]
+
+One can the less repine, during the prevalence of such manners, at the
+frauds and forgeries of the clergy; as it gives less disturbance to
+society, to take men's money from them with their own consent, though
+by deceits and lies, than to ravish it by open force and violence.
+During this reign the papal power was at its summit, and was even
+beginning insensibly to decline, by reason of the immeasurable avarice
+and extortions of the court of Rome, which disgusted the clergy as
+well as laity, in  every kingdom of Europe.  England itself, though
+sunk in the deepest abyss of ignorance and superstition, had seriously
+entertained thoughts of shaking off the papal yoke [n]; and the Roman
+pontiff was obliged to think of new expedients for riveting it faster
+upon the Christian world.  For this purpose, Gregory IX. published his
+decretals [o], which are a collection of forgeries, favourable to the
+court of Rome, and consist of the supposed decrees of popes in the
+first centuries.  But these forgeries are so gross, and confound so
+palpably all language, history, chronology, and antiquities, matters
+more stubborn than any speculative truths whatsoever, that even that
+church, which is not startled at the most monstrous contradictions and
+absurdities, has been obliged to abandon them to the critics.  But in
+the dark period of the thirteenth century they passed for undisputed
+and authentic; and men, entangled in the mazes of this false
+literature, joined to the philosophy, equally false, of the times, had
+nothing wherewithal to defend themselves, but some small remains of
+common sense, which passed for profaneness and impiety, and the
+indelible regard to self-interest, which, as it was the sole motive in
+the priests for framing these impostures, served also, in some degree,
+to protect the laity against them.
+[FN [n] M. Paris, p. 421.  [o] Trivet, p. 191.]
+
+Another expedient, devised by the church of Rome, in this period, for
+securing her power, was the institution of new religious orders,
+chiefly the Dominicans and Franciscans, who proceeded with all the
+zeal and success that attend novelties; were better qualified to gain
+the populace than the old orders, now become rich and indolent;
+maintained a perpetual rivalship with each other in promoting their
+gainful superstitions; and acquired a great dominion over the minds,
+and, consequently, over the purses of men, by pretending a desire of
+poverty and a contempt for riches.  The quarrels which arose between
+these orders, lying still under the control of the sovereign pontiff,
+never disturbed the peace of the church, and served only as a spur to
+their industry in promoting the common cause; and though the
+Dominicans lost some popularity by their denial of the immaculate
+conception, a point in which they unwarily engaged too far to be able
+to recede with honour, they counterbalanced this disadvantage, by
+acquiring more solid establishments, by gaining the confidence of
+kings and princes, and by exercising the jurisdiction assigned them,
+of ultimate judges and punishers of heresy.  Thus, the several orders
+of monks became a kind of regular troops or garrisons of the Romish
+church; and though the temporal interests of society, still more the
+cause of true piety, were hurt, by their various devices to captivate
+the populace, they proved the chief supports of that mighty fabric of
+superstition, and till the revival of true learning, secured it from
+any dangerous invasion.
+
+The trial by ordeal was abolished in this reign by order of council: a
+faint mark of improvement in the age [p].
+[FN [p] Rymer, vol. i. p. 228.  Spellman, p. 326.]
+
+Henry granted a charter to the town of Newcastle, in which he gave the
+inhabitants a licence to dig coal.  This is the first mention of coal
+in England.
+
+We learn from Madox [q], that this king gave, at one time, one hundred
+shillings to master Henry, his poet: also the same year he orders this
+poet ten pounds.
+[FN [q] Page 268.]
+
+It appears from Selden, that, in the forty-seventh of his reign, a
+hundred and fifty temporal, and fifty spiritual barons were summoned
+to perform the service due by their tenures [r].  In the thirty-fifth
+of the subsequent reign, eighty-six temporal barons, twenty bishops,
+and forty-eight abbots, were summoned to a Parliament convened at
+Carlisle [s].
+[FN [r] Titles of Honour, part ii. Chap. 3.  [s] Parl. Hist. vol. i.
+p. 151.]
+
+
+
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+
+NOTE [A]
+
+This question has been disputed with as great zeal and even acrimony,
+between the Scotch and Irish antiquaries, as if the honour of their
+respective countries were the most deeply concerned in the decision.
+We shall not enter into any detail on so uninteresting a subject, but
+shall propose our opinion in a few words.  It appears more than
+probable, from the similitude of language and manners, that Britain
+either was originally peopled, or was subdued, by the migration of
+inhabitants from Gaul, and Ireland from Britain: the position of the
+several countries is an additional reason that favours this
+conclusion.  It appears also probable, that the migration of that
+colony of Gauls or Celts, who peopled or subdued Ireland, was
+originally made from the north-west parts of Britain; and this
+conjecture (if it do not merit a higher name) is founded both on the
+Irish language, which is a very different dialect from the Welsh, and
+from the language anciently spoken in South Britain; and on the
+vicinity of Lancashire, Cumberland, Galloway, and Argyleshire, to that
+island.  These events, as they passed long before the age of history
+and records, must be known by reasoning alone, which in this case
+seems to be pretty satisfactory: Caesar and Tacitus, not to mention a
+multitude of other Greek and Roman authors, were guided by like
+inferences.  But besides these primitive facts, which lie in a very
+remote antiquity, it is a matter of positive and undoubted testimony,
+that the Roman province of Britain, during the time of the lower
+empire, was much infested by bands of robbers or pirates, whom the
+provincial Britons called Scots or Scuits; a name which was probably
+used as a term of reproach, and which these banditti themselves did
+not acknowledge or assume.  We may infer from two passages in
+Claudian, and from one in Orosius, and another in Isidore, that the
+chief seat of these Scots was in Ireland.  That some part of the Irish
+freebooters migrated back to the north-west parts of Britain, whence
+their ancestors had probably been derived in a more remote age, is
+positively asserted by Bede, and implied in Gildas.  I grant that
+neither Bede nor Gildas are Caesars or Tacituses; but such as they
+are, they remain the sole testimony on the subject, and therefore must
+be relied on for want of better: happily, the frivolousness of the
+question corresponds to the weakness of the authorities.  Not to
+mention, that if any part of the traditional history of a barbarous
+people can be relied on, it is the genealogy of nations, and even
+sometimes that of families.  It is in vain to argue against these
+facts from the supposed warlike disposition of the Highlanders, and
+unwarlike of the ancient Irish.  Those arguments are still much weaker
+than the authorities.  Nations change very quickly in these
+particulars.  The Britons were unable to resist the Picts and Scots,
+and invited over the Saxons for their defence, who repelled those
+invaders: yet the same Britons valiantly resisted for one hundred and
+fifty years, not only this victorious band of Saxons, but infinite
+numbers more, who poured in upon them from all quarters.  Robert
+Bruce, in 1322, made a peace, in which England, after many defeats,
+was constrained to acknowledge the independence of his country: yet in
+no more distant period than ten years after, Scotland was totally
+subdued by a small handful of English, led by a few private noblemen.
+All history is full of such events.  The Irish Scots, in the course of
+two or three centuries, might find time and opportunities sufficient
+to settle in North Britain, though we can neither assign the period
+nor causes of that revolution.  Their barbarous manner of life
+rendered them much fitter than the Romans for subduing these
+mountaineers.  And, in a word, it is clear from the language of the
+two countries, that the Highlanders and the Irish are the same people,
+and that the one are a colony from the other.  We have positive
+evidence which, though from neutral persons, is not perhaps the best
+that may be wished for, that the former, in the third or fourth
+century, sprang from the latter: we have no evidence at all that the
+latter sprang from the former.  I shall add, that the name of Erse or
+Irish given by the low-country Scotch to the language of the Scotch
+Highlanders, is a certain proof of the traditional opinion delivered
+from father to son, that the latter people came originally from
+Ireland.
+
+
+NOTE [B]
+
+There is a seeming contradiction in ancient historians with regard to
+some circumstances in the story of Edwy and Elgiva.  It is agreed that
+this prince had a violent passion for his second or third cousin,
+Elgiva, whom he married, though within the degrees prohibited by the
+canons.  It is also agreed, that he was dragged from a lady on the day
+of his coronation, and that the lady was afterwards treated with the
+singular barbarity above mentioned.  The only difference is, that
+Osberne and some others call her his strumpet, not his wife, as she is
+said to be by Malmesbury.  But this difference is easily reconciled;
+for if Edwy married her contrary to the canons, the monks would be
+sure to deny her to be his wife, and would insist that she could be
+nothing but his strumpet; to that, on the whole, we may esteem this
+representation of the matter as certain, at least, as by far the most
+probable.  If Edwy had only kept a mistress, it is well known that
+there are methods of accommodation with the church, which would have
+prevented the clergy from proceeding to such extremities against him:
+but his marriage contrary to the canons, was an insult on their
+authority, and called for their highest resentment.
+
+
+NOTE [C]
+
+Many of the English historians make Edgar's ships amount to an
+extravagant number, to three thousand, or three thousand six hundred:
+see Hoveden, p. 426.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 607.  Abbas Rieval. p. 360.
+Brompton, p. 869, says, that Edgar had four thousand vessels.  How can
+these accounts be reconciled to probability, and to the state of the
+navy in the time of Alfred?  W. Thorne makes the whole number amount
+only to three hundred, which is more probable.  The fleet of Ethelred,
+Edgar's son, must have been short of one thousand ships; yet the Saxon
+Chronicle, p. 137, says, it was the greatest navy that ever had been
+seen in England.
+
+
+NOTE [D]
+
+Almost all the ancient historians speak of this massacre of the Danes
+as if it had been universal, and as if every individual of that nation
+throughout England had been put to death.  But the Danes were almost
+the sole inhabitants in the kingdoms of Northumberland and East-
+Anglia, and were very numerous in Mercia.  This representation,
+therefore, of the matter is absolutely impossible.  Great resistance
+must have been made, and violent wars ensued; which was not the case.
+This account given by Wallingford, though he stands single, must he
+admitted as the only true one.  We are told that the name LURDANE,
+LORD DANE, for an idle lazy fellow, who lives at other people's
+expense, came from the conduct of the Danes, who were put to death.
+But the English princes had been entirely masters for several
+generations; and only supported a military corps of that nation.  It
+seems probable, therefore, that it was these Danes only that were put
+to death.
+
+
+NOTE [E]
+
+The ingenious author of the article GODWIN, in the Biographia
+Britannica, has endeavoured to clear the memory of that nobleman, upon
+the supposition, that all the English annals had been falsified by the
+Norman historians after the Conquest.  But that this supposition has
+not much foundation, appears hence, that almost all these historians
+have given a very good character to his son Harold, whom it was much
+more the interest of the Norman cause to blacken.
+
+
+NOTE [F]
+
+The whole story of the transactions between Edward, Harold, and the
+Duke of Normandy, is told so differently by the ancient writers, that
+there are few important passages of the English history liable to so
+great uncertainty.  I have followed the account which appeared to me
+the most consistent and probable.  It does not seem likely, that
+Edward ever executed a will in the duke's favour, much less that he
+got it ratified by the states of the kingdom, as is affirmed by some.
+The will would have been known to all, and would have been produced by
+the Conqueror, to whom it gave so plausible, and really so just a
+title; but the doubtful and ambiguous manner in which he seems always
+to have mentioned it, proves that he could only plead the known
+intentions of that monarch in his favour, which he was desirous to
+call a will.  There is indeed a charter of the Conqueror preserved by
+Dr. Hickes, vol. i., where he calls himself REX HEREDITARIUS, meaning
+heir by will; but a prince possessed of so much power, and attended
+with so much success, may employ what pretence he pleases: it is
+sufficient to refute his pretences, to observe that there is a great
+difference and variation among historians, with regard to a point
+which, had it been real, must have been agreed upon by all of them.
+
+Again, some historians, particularly Malmesbury and Matthew of
+Westminster, affirm that Harold had no intention of going over to
+Normandy, but, that taking the air in a pleasure boat on the coast, he
+was driven over, by stress of weather, to the territories of Guy,
+Count of Ponthieu: but besides that this story is not probable in
+itself, and is contradicted by most of the ancient historians, it is
+contradicted by a very curious and authentic monument lately
+discovered.  It is a tapestry, preserved in the ducal palace of Rouen,
+and supposed to have been wrought by orders of Matilda, wife to the
+emperor: at least it is of very great antiquity.  Harold is there
+represented as taking his departure from King Edward in execution of
+some commission, and mounting his vessel with a great train.  The
+design of redeeming his brother and nephew, who were hostages, is the
+most likely cause that can be assigned; and is accordingly mentioned
+by Eadmer, Hoveden, Brompton, and Simeon of Durham.  For a farther
+account of this piece of tapestry, see Histoire de l'Academie de
+Littérature, tom. ix. p. 535.
+
+
+NOTE [G]
+
+It appears from the ancient translations of the Saxon annals and laws,
+and from King Alfred's translation of Bede, as well as from all the
+ancient historians, that COMES in Latin, ALDERMAN in Saxon, and EARL
+in Dano-Saxon, were quite synonymous.  There is only a clause in a law
+of King Athelstan's (see Spellm. Conc. p. 406) which has stumbled some
+antiquaries, and has made them imagine that an earl was superior to an
+alderman.  The weregild, or the price of an earl's blood, is there
+fixed at fifteen thousand thrimsas, equal to that of an archbishop;
+whereas that of a bishop and alderman is only eight thousand thrimsas.
+To solve this difficulty we must have recourse to Selden's conjecture,
+(see his Titles of Honour, chap. v. p. 603, 604,) that the term of
+earl was in the age of Athelstan just beginning to be in use in
+England, and stood at that time for the atheling or prince of the
+blood, heir to the crown.  This he confirms by a law of Canute, Sec.
+55, where an atheling and an archbishop are put upon the same footing.
+In another law of the same Athelstan, the weregild of the prince, or
+atheling, is said to be fifteen thousand thrimsas.  See Wilkins, p.
+71.  He is therefore the same who is called earl in the former law.
+
+
+NOTE [H]
+
+There is a paper or record of the family of Sharneborn, which
+pretends, that that family, which was Saxon, was restored upon proving
+their innocence, as well as other Saxon families which were in the
+same situation.  Though this paper was able to impose on such great
+antiquaries as Spellman (see Gloss. in verbo DRENGES) and Dugdale,
+(see Baron. vol. i. p. 118,) it is proved by Dr. Brady (see Answ. to
+Petyt, p. 11, 12) to have been a forgery; and is allowed as such by
+Tyrrel, though a pertinacious defender of his party notions (see his
+Hist. vol. ii. introd. p. 51, 73).  Ingulf, p. 70, tells us, that very
+early, Hereward, though absent during the time of the Conquest, was
+turned out of all his estate, and could not obtain redress.  William
+even plundered the monasteries.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 636.  Chron. Abb.
+St. Petri de Burgo, p. 48.  M. Paris, p. 5.  Sim. Dun. p. 200.
+Diceto, p. 482.  Brompton, p. 967.  Knyghton, p. 2344.  Alur. Beverl.
+p. 130.  We are told by Ingulf, that Ivo de Taillebois plundered the
+monastery of Croyland of a great part of its land, and no redress
+could be obtained.
+
+
+NOTE [I]
+
+The obliging of all the inhabitants to put out their fires and lights
+at certain hours, upon the sounding of a bell called the COURFEU, is
+represented by Polydore Vergil, lib. 9, as a mark of the servitude of
+the English.  But this was a law of police, which William had
+previously established in Normandy.  See Du Moulin, Hist. de
+Normandie, p. 160.  The same law had place in Scotland.  LL. Burgor
+cap. 86.
+
+
+NOTE [K]
+
+What these laws were of Edward the Confessor, which the English, every
+reign during a century and a half, desire so passionately to have
+restored, is much disputed by antiquaries, and our ignorance of them
+seems one of the greatest defects in the ancient English history.  The
+collection of laws in Wilkins, which pass under the name of Edward,
+are plainly a posterior and an ignorant compilation.  Those to be
+found in Ingulf are genuine; but so imperfect, and contain so few
+clauses favourable to the subject, that we see no great reason for
+their contending for them so vehemently.  It is probable, that the
+English meant the COMMON LAW, as it prevailed during the reign of
+Edward; which we may conjecture to have been more indulgent to liberty
+than the Norman institutions.  The most material articles of it were
+afterwards comprehended in Magna Charta.
+
+
+NOTE [L]
+
+Ingulf, p. 70.  H. Hunt. p. 370, 372.  M. West. p. 225.  Gul. Neub. p.
+357.  Alured. Beverl. p. 124.  De Gest. Angl. p. 333.  M. Paris, p. 4.
+Sim. Dun. p. 206.  Brompton, p. 962, 980, 1161.  Gervase Tilb. lib. i.
+cap. 16.  Textus Roffensis apud Seld. Spicileg. ad Eadm. p. 179.  Gul.
+Pict. p. 206.  Ordericus Vitalis, p. 621, 666, 853.  Epist. St. Thom.
+p. 801.  Gul. Malmes. p. 52, 57.  Knyghton, p. 2354.  Eadmer. p. 110.
+Thom. Rudborne in Ang. Sacra, vol. i. p. 248.  Monach. Roff. in Ang
+Sacra, vol. ii. p. 276.  Girald. Camb. in eadem, vol. ii. p. 413.
+Hist Elyensis, p. 516.  The words of this last historian, who is very
+ancient, are remarkable and worth transcribing: "REX ITAQUE FACTUS
+WILLIELMUS, QUID IN PRINCIPES ANGLORUM, QUI TANTAE CLADI SUPERESSE
+POTERANT, FECERIT, DICERE, CUM NIHIL PROSIT, OMITTO.  QUID ENIM
+PRODESSET, SI NEC UNUM IN TOTO REGNO DE ILLIS DICEREM PRISTINA
+POTESTATE UTI PERMISSUM, SED OMNES AUT IN GRAVEM PAUPERTATIS AERUMNAM
+DETRUSOS, AUT EXHAEREDATOS, PATRIA PULSOS, AUT EFFOSSIS OCULIS, VEL
+CAETERIS AMPUTATIS MEMBRIS OPPROBRIUM HOMINUM FACTOS, AUT CERTE
+MISERRIME AFFLICTOS, VITA PRIVATOS?  SIMILI MODO UTILITATE CARERE
+EXISTIMO DICERE QUID IN MINOREM POPULUM, NON SOLUM AB EO, SED A SUIS
+ACTUM SIT, CUM ID DICTU SCIAMUS DIFFICILE, ET OB IMMANEM CRUDELITATEM,
+FORTASSIS INCREDIBILE."
+
+
+NOTE [M]
+
+Henry, by the feudal customs, was entitled to levy a tax for the
+marrying of his eldest daughter, and he exacted three shillings a hide
+on all England.  H. Hunt. p. 379.  Some historians (Brady, p. 270, and
+Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 182) heedlessly make this sum amount to above
+eight hundred thousand pounds of our present money: but it could not
+exceed one hundred and thirty-five thousand.  Five hides, sometimes
+less, made a knight's fee, of which there were about sixty thousand in
+England, consequently near three hundred thousand hides; and at the
+rate of three shillings a hide, the sum would amount to forty-five
+thousand pounds, or one hundred and thirty-five thousand of our
+present money.  See Rudborne, p. 257.  In the Saxon times, there were
+only computed two hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred hides
+in England.
+
+
+NOTE [N]
+
+The legates À LATERE, as they were called, were a kind of delegates
+who possessed the full power of the pope in all the provinces
+committed to their charge, and were very busy in extending as well as
+exercising it.  They nominated to all vacant benefices, assembled
+synods, and were anxious to maintain ecclesiastical privileges, which
+never could be fully protected without encroachments on the civil
+power.  If there were the least concurrence or opposition, it was
+always supposed that the civil power was to give way: every deed which
+had the least pretence of holding of any thing spiritual, as
+marriages, testaments, promissory oaths, were brought into the
+spiritual court, and could not be canvassed before a civil magistrate.
+These were the established laws of the church; and where a legate was
+sent immediately from Rome, he was sure to maintain the papal claims
+with the utmost rigour: but it was an advantage to the king to have
+the Archbishop of Canterbury appointed legate, because the connexions
+of that prelate with the kingdom tended to moderate his measures.
+
+
+NOTE [O]
+
+William of Newbridge, p. 383, (who is copied by later historians,)
+asserts, that Geoffrey had some title to the counties of Maine and
+Anjou.  He pretends that Count Geoffrey, his father, had left him
+these dominions by a secret will, and had ordered that his body should
+not be buried, till Henry should swear to the observance of it, which
+he, ignorant of the contents, was induced to do.  But besides that
+this story is not very likely in itself, and savours of monkish
+fiction, it is found in no other ancient writer, and is contradicted
+by some of them, particularly the monk of Marmoutier, who had better
+opportunities than Newbridge of knowing the truth.  See Vita Gauf.
+Duc. Norman. p. 103.
+
+
+NOTE [P]
+
+The sum scarcely appears credible, as it would amount to much above
+half the rent of the whole land.  Gervase is indeed a contemporary
+author; but churchmen are often guilty of strange mistakes of that
+nature, and are commonly but little acquainted with the public
+revenues.  This sum would make five hundred and forty thousand pounds
+of our present money.  The Norman Chronicle, p. 995, says that Henry
+raised only sixty Angevin shillings on each knight's fee in his
+foreign dominions: this is only a fourth of the sum which Gervase says
+he levied on England; an inequality nowise probable.  A nation may, by
+degrees, be brought to bear a tax of fifteen shillings in the pound,
+but a sudden and precarious tax can never be imposed to that amount,
+without a very visible necessity, especially in an age so little
+accustomed to taxes.  In the succeeding reign the rent of a knight's
+fee was computed at four pounds a year.  There were sixty thousand
+knights' fees in England.
+
+
+NOTE [Q]
+
+Fitz-Stephens, p. 18.  This conduct appears violent and arbitrary, but
+was suitable to the strain of administration in those days.  His
+father Geoffrey, though represented as a mild prince, set him an
+example of much greater violence.  When Geoffrey was master of
+Normandy, the chapter of sees presumed, without his consent, to
+proceed to the election of a bishop; upon which be ordered all of
+them, with the bishop elect, to be castrated, and made all their
+testicles be brought him in a platter.  Fitz-Steph. p. 44.  In the war
+of Toulouse, Henry laid a heavy and an arbitrary tax on all the
+churches within his dominions.  See Epist. St. Thom. p. 232.
+
+
+NOTE [R]
+
+I follow here the narrative of Fitz-Stephens, who was secretary to
+Becket; though, no doubt, he may be suspected of partiality towards
+his patron.  Lord Lyttleton chooses to follow the authority of a
+manuscript letter, or rather manifesto, of Folliot, Bishop of London,
+which is addressed to Becket himself, at the time when the bishop
+appealed to the pope from the excommunication pronounced against him
+by his primate.  My reasons, why I give the preference to
+Fitz-Stephens, are, (1.) If the friendship of Fitz-Stephens might
+render him partial to Becket, even after the death of that prelate,
+the declared enmity of the bishop must, during his lifetime, have
+rendered him more partial on the other side.  (2.) The bishop was
+moved by interest, as well as enmity, to calumniate Becket.  He had
+himself to defend against the sentence of excommunication, dreadful to
+all, especially to a prelate: and no more effectual means than to
+throw all the blame on his adversary.  (3.) He has actually been
+guilty of palpable calumnies in that letter.  Among these, I reckon
+the following:--He affirms that, when Becket subscribed the
+Constitutions of Clarendon, he said plainly to all the bishops of
+England, "It is my master's pleasure that I should forswear myself,
+and at present I submit to it, and do resolve to incur a perjury, and
+repent afterwards as I may."  However barbarous the times, and however
+negligent zealous churchmen were then of morality, these are not words
+which a primate of great sense, and of much seeming sanctity, would
+employ in an assembly of his suffragans: he might act upon these
+principles, but never surely would publicly avow them.  Folliot also
+says, that all the bishops were resolved obstinately to oppose the
+Constitutions of Clarendon, but the primate himself betrayed them from
+timidity, and led the way to their subscribing.  This is contrary to
+the testimony of all the historians, and directly contrary to Becket's
+character, who surely was not destitute either of courage or of zeal
+for ecclesiastical immunities.  (4.) The violence and injustice of
+Henry, ascribed to him by Fitz-Stephens, is of a piece with the rest
+of the prosecution.  Nothing could be more iniquitous, than, after two
+years' silence, to make a sudden and unprepared demand upon Becket to
+the amount of forty-four thousand marks, (equal to a sum of near a
+million in our time,) and not allow him the least interval to bring in
+his accounts.  If the king was so palpably oppressive in one article,
+he may he presumed to be equally so in the rest.  (5.) Though
+Folliot's letter, or rather manifesto, be addressed to Becket himself,
+it does not acquire more authority on that account.  We know not what
+answer was made by Becket: the collection of letters cannot he
+supposed quite complete.  But that the collection was not made by one
+(whoever he were) very partial to that primate, appears from the tenor
+of them, where there are many passages very little favourable to him:
+insomuch that the editor of them at Brussels, a jesuit, thought proper
+to publish them with great omissions, particularly of this letter of
+Folliot's.  Perhaps Becket made no answer at all, as not deigning to
+write to an excommunicated person, whose very commerce would
+contaminate him; and the bishop, trusting to this arrogance of his
+primate, might calumniate him the more freely.  (6.) Though the
+sentence pronounced on Becket by the great council implies that he had
+refused to make any answer to the king's court, this does not fortify
+the narrative of Folliot.  For if his excuse was rejected as false and
+frivolous, it would he treated as no answer.  Becket submitted so far
+to the sentence of confiscation of goods and chattels, that he gave
+surety, which is a proof that he meant not at that time to question
+the authority of the king's courts.  (7.) It may be worth observing,
+that both the author of Historia quadripartita, and Gervase,
+contemporary writers, agree with Fitz-Stephens; and the latter is not
+usually very partial to Becket.  All the ancient historians give the
+same account.
+
+
+NOTE [S]
+
+Madox, in his Baronia Anglica, cap. 14, tells us, that in the
+thirtieth of Henry II. thirty-three cows and two bulls cost but eight
+pounds seven shillings, money of that age; five hundred sheep, twenty-
+two pounds ten shillings, or about ten pence three farthings per
+sheep; sixty-six oxen, eighteen pounds three shillings; fifteen
+breeding mares, two pounds twelve shillings and sixpence; and
+twenty-two hogs, one pound two shillings.  Commodities seem then to
+have been about ten times cheaper than at present; all except the
+sheep, probably on account of the value of the fleece.  The same
+author, in his Formulare Anglicanum, p. 17, says, "that in the tenth
+year of Richard I. mention is made of ten per cent. paid for money:
+but the Jews frequently exacted much higher interest."
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10574 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #10574 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10574)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The History of England, Volume I, by David
+Hume
+
+
+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: The History of England, Volume I
+
+Author: David Hume
+
+Release Date: January 2, 2004  [eBook #10574]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, VOLUME I***
+
+
+E-text prepared by David J. Cole
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+     Like much 18th and 19th century publishing, the edition of
+     David Hume's "History of England" from which this text was
+     prepared makes extensive use of both footnotes and marginal
+     notes.  Since this e-text format does not allow use of the
+     original superscripts to denote the lettered footnotes, they
+     are indicated by the relevant letter within brackets, thus
+     "[a]", and the footnotes themselves are reproduced within
+     brackets and preceded by "FN" at the end of the PARAGRAPH to
+     which they relate; since some of Hume's paragraphs are
+     considerably longer than is normal in 21st century American or
+     British writing, you may have to scroll some distance to find
+     the text of the footnote.  All footnotes are reproduced
+     exactly as in the printed text.
+
+     More discretion has been exercised regarding marginal notes.
+     Those which simply repeat chapter numbers and dates already
+     given in the text are omitted as non-essential clutter.  The
+     remainder are reproduced within brackets and preceded by "MN".
+     Those marginal notes which appear to correspond to sub-chapter
+     headings are reproduced as the first line of the paragraph to
+     which they relate.  Other marginal notes are reproduced within
+     the text of the paragraph.  Some apparently incomplete
+     marginal notes ending or beginning with ellipses are due to
+     cases where what is logically a single marginal note has been
+     broken into two or more pieces separated by a considerable
+     vertical distance.
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, VOLUME I
+
+From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688
+
+by
+
+DAVID HUME, ESQ.
+
+With the Author's Last Corrections and Improvements, to which is
+prefixed a Short Account of His Life Written by Himself
+
+
+
+COMPLETE IN SIX VOLUMES
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MY OWN LIFE.
+
+It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity;
+therefore I shall be short.  It may be thought an instance of vanity
+that I pretend at all to write my life; but this narrative shall
+contain little more than the history of my writings; as, indeed,
+almost all my life has been spent in literary pursuits and
+occupations.  The first success of most of my writings was not such as
+to be an object of vanity.
+
+I was born the 26th of April, 1711, old style, at Edinburgh.  I was of
+a good family, both by father and mother: my father's family is a
+branch of the Earl of Home's, or Hume's; and my ancestors had been
+proprietors of the estate which my brother possesses, for several
+generations.  My mother was daughter of Sir David Falconer, President
+of the College of Justice: the title of Lord Halkerton came by
+succession to her brother.
+
+My family, however, was not rich; and being myself a younger brother,
+my patrimony, according to the mode of my country, was of course very
+slender.  My father, who passed for a man of parts, died when I was an
+infant, leaving me, with an elder brother and a sister, under the care
+of our mother, a woman of singular merit, who, though young and
+handsome, devoted herself entirely to the rearing and educating of her
+children.  I passed through the ordinary course of education with
+success, and was seized very early with a passion for literature,
+which has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of
+my enjoyments.  My studious disposition, my sobriety, and my industry,
+gave my family a notion that the law was a proper profession for me;
+but I found an unsurmountable aversion to every thing but the pursuits
+of philosophy and general learning; and while they fancied I was
+poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which
+I was secretly devouring.
+
+My very slender fortune, however, being unsuitable to this plan of
+life, and my health being a little broken by my ardent application, I
+was tempted, or rather forced, to make a very feeble trial for
+entering into a more active scene of life.  In 1734 I went to Bristol,
+with some recommendations to several merchants; but in a few months
+found that scene totally unsuitable to me.  I went over to France with
+a view of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat; and I there
+laid that plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued.
+I resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of
+fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every
+object as contemptible, except the improvement of my talents in
+literature.
+
+During my retreat in France, first at Rheims but chiefly at La Fleche,
+in Anjou, I composed my Treatise of Human Nature.  After passing three
+years very agreeably in that country, I came over to London in  1737.
+In the end of 1738 I published my Treatise, and immediately went down
+to my mother and my brother, who lived at his country-house, and
+employed himself very judiciously and successfully in the improvement
+of his fortune.
+
+Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human
+Nature.  It fell DEAD-BORN FROM THE PRESS, without reaching such
+distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots.  But being
+naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I very soon recovered the
+blow, and prosecuted with great ardour my studies in the country.  In
+1742 I printed at Edinburgh the first part of my Essays: the work was
+favourably received, and soon made me entirely forget my former
+disappointment.  I continued with my mother and brother in the
+country, and in that time recovered the knowledge of the Greek
+language, which I had too much neglected in my early youth.
+
+In 1745 I received a letter from the Marquis of Annandale, inviting me
+to come and live with him in England; I found, also, that the friends
+and family of that young nobleman were desirous of putting him under
+my care and direction, for the state of his mind and health required
+it.--I lived with him a twelve-month.  My appointments during that
+time made a considerable accession to my small fortune.  I then
+received an invitation from General St. Clair to attend him as a
+secretary to his expedition, which was at first meant against Canada,
+but ended in an incursion on the coast of France.  Next year, to wit,
+1747, I received an invitation from the general to attend him in the
+same station in his military embassy to the courts of Vienna and
+Turin.  I then wore the uniform of an  officer, and was introduced at
+these courts as aide-de-camp to the general, along with Sir Harry
+Erskine and Captain Grant, now General Grant.  These two years were
+almost the only interruptions which my studies have received during
+the course of my life: I passed them agreeably and in good company;
+and my appointments, with my frugality, had made me reach a fortune
+which I called independent, though most of my friends were inclined to
+smile when I said so: in short, I was now master of near a thousand
+pounds.
+
+I had always entertained a notion, that my want of success in
+publishing the Treatise of Human Nature, had proceeded more from the
+manner than the matter, and that I had been guilty of a very usual
+indiscretion, in going to the press too early.  I therefore cast the
+first part of that work anew in the Enquiry concerning Human
+Understanding, which was published while I was at Turin.  But this
+piece was at first little more successful than the Treatise of Human
+Nature.  On my return from Italy, I had the mortification to find all
+England in a ferment, on account of Dr. Middleton's Free Enquiry,
+while my performance was entirely over-looked and neglected.  A new
+edition which had been published in London, of my Essays, moral and
+political, met not with a much better reception.
+
+Such is the force of natural temper, that these disappointments made
+little or no impression on me.  I went down in 1749, and lived two
+years with my brother at his country-house, for my mother was now
+dead.  I there composed the second part of my Essay, which I called
+Political Discourses, and also my Enquiry concerning the Principles of
+Morals, which is another part of my treatise that I cast anew.
+Meanwhile my bookseller, A. Miller, informed me that my former
+publications (all but the unfortunate Treatise) were beginning to be
+the subject of conversation; that the sale of them was gradually
+increasing; and that new editions were demanded.  Answers by Reverends
+and Right Reverends came out two or three in a year; and I found, by
+Dr. Warburton's railing, that the books were beginning to be esteemed
+in good company.  However, I had a fixed resolution, which I
+inflexibly maintained, never to reply to any body; and not being very
+irascible in my temper, I have easily kept myself clear of all
+literary squabbles.  These symptoms of a rising reputation gave me
+encouragement, as I was ever more disposed to see the favourable than
+the unfavourable side of things; a turn of mind which it is more happy
+to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year.
+
+In 1751 I removed from the country to the town, the true scene for a
+man of letters.  In 1752 were published at Edinburgh, where I then
+lived, my Political Discourses, the only work of mine that was
+successful on the first publication.  It was well received at home and
+abroad.  In the same year was published, in London, my Enquiry
+concerning the Principles of Morals; which, in my own opinion, (who
+ought not to judge on that subject,) is of all my writings,
+historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best.  It
+came unnoticed and unobserved into the world.
+
+In 1752 the Faculty of Advocates chose me their librarian; an office
+from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the
+command of a large library.  I then formed the plan of writing the
+History of England; but being frightened with the notion of continuing
+a narrative through a period of one thousand seven hundred years, I
+commenced with the accession of the house of Stuart, an epoch when, I
+thought, the misrepresentations of faction began chiefly to take
+place.  I was, I own, sanguine in my expectations of the success of
+this work.  I thought that I was the only historian that had at once
+neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of
+popular prejudices; and as the subject was suited to every capacity,
+I expected proportional applause.  But miserable was my
+disappointment: I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation,
+and even detestation; English, Scotch, and Irish, whig and tory,
+churchman and sectary, freethinker and religionist, patriot and
+courtier, united in their rage against the man who had presumed to
+shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of
+Strafford; and after the first ebullitions of their fury were over,
+what was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink into oblivion.
+Mr. Miller told me, that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five
+copies of it.  I scarcely, indeed, heard of one man in the three
+kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the
+book.  I must only except the primate of England, Dr. Herring, and the
+primate of Ireland, Dr. Stone, which seem two odd exceptions.  These
+dignified prelates separately sent me a message not to be discouraged.
+
+I was, however, I confess, discouraged; and had not the war at that
+time been breaking out between France and England, I had certainly
+retired to some provincial town of the former kingdom, have changed my
+name, and never more have returned to my native country. But as this
+scheme was not now practicable, and the  subsequent volume was
+considerably advanced, I resolved to pick up courage and to persevere.
+
+In this interval I published at London my Natural History of Religion,
+along with some other small pieces: its public entry was rather
+obscure, except only that Dr. Hurd wrote a pamphlet against it, with
+all the illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility, which
+distinguish the Warburtonian school.  This pamphlet gave me some
+consolation for the otherwise indifferent reception of my performance.
+
+In 1756, two years after the fall of the first volume, was published
+the second volume of my History, containing the period from the death
+of Charles I. till the Revolution.  This performance happened to give
+less displeasure to the whigs, and was better received.  It not only
+rose itself, but helped to buoy up its unfortunate brother.
+
+But though I had been taught by experience, that the whig party were
+in possession of bestowing all places, both in the state and in
+literature, I was so little inclined to yield to their senseless
+clamour, that in above a hundred alterations, which farther study,
+reading, or reflection, engaged me to make in the reigns of the two
+first Stuarts, I have made all of them invariably to the tory side.
+It is ridiculous to consider the English constitution before that
+period as a regular plan of liberty.
+
+In 1759 I published my History of the House of Tudor.  The clamour
+against this performance was almost equal to that against the History
+of the two first Stuarts.  The reign of Elizabeth was particularly
+obnoxious.  But I was now callous against the impressions of public
+folly, and continued very peaceably and contentedly in my retreat in
+Edinburgh, to finish, in two volumes, the more early part of the
+English History, which I gave to the public in 1761, with tolerable,
+and but tolerable, success.
+
+But notwithstanding this variety of winds and seasons to which my
+writings have been exposed, they had still been making such advances,
+that the copy-money given me by the booksellers much exceeded any
+thing formerly known in England: I retired to my native country of
+Scotland, determined never more to set my foot out of it; and
+retaining the satisfaction of never having preferred a request to one
+great man, or even making advances of friendship to any of them.  As I
+was now turned of fifty, I thought of passing all the rest of my life
+in this philosophical manner, when I received, in 1763, an invitation
+from the Earl of Hertford, with whom I was not in the least
+acquainted, to attend him on his embassy to Paris, with a near
+prospect of being appointed secretary to the embassy; and, in the
+meanwhile, of performing the functions of that office.  This offer,
+however inviting, I at first declined, both because I was reluctant to
+begin connexions with the great, and because I was afraid that the
+civilities and gay company of Paris would prove disagreeable to a
+person of my age and humour: but on his lordship's repeating the
+invitation, I accepted of it.  I have every reason, both of pleasure
+and interest, to think myself happy in my connexions with that
+nobleman, as well as afterwards with his brother General Conway.
+
+Those who have not seen the strange effects of modes will never
+imagine the reception I met with at Paris, from men and women of all
+ranks and stations.  The more I resiled from their excessive
+civilities, the more I was loaded with them.  There is, however, a
+real satisfaction in living at Paris, from the great number of
+sensible, knowing, and polite company with which that city abounds
+above all places in the universe.  I thought once of settling there
+for life.
+
+I was appointed secretary to the embassy; and in summer, 1765, Lord
+Hertford left me, being appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.  I was
+chargé d'affaires till the arrival of the Duke of Richmond, towards
+the end of the year.  In the beginning of 1766 I left Paris, and next
+summer went to Edinburgh, with the same view as formerly of burying
+myself in a philosophical retreat. I returned to that place, not
+richer, but with much more money, and a much larger income, by means
+of Lord Hertford's friendship, than I left it; and I was desirous of
+trying what superfluity could produce, as I had formerly made an
+experiment of a competency.  But in 1767 I received from Mr. Conway an
+invitation to be under-secretary; and this invitation, both the
+character of the person, and my connexions with Lord Hertford,
+prevented me from declining.  I returned to Edinburgh in 1769, very
+opulent, (for I possessed a revenue of 1000L. a year,) healthy, and,
+though somewhat stricken in years, with the prospect of enjoying long
+my ease, and of seeing the increase of my reputation.
+
+In spring, 1775, I was struck with a disorder in my bowels, which at
+first gave me no alarm, but has since, as I apprehend it, become
+mortal and incurable.  I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution.  I have
+suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange
+have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a
+moment's abatement of my spirits, inasmuch that were I to name a
+period of my life which I should most choose to pass over again, I
+might be tempted to point to this later period.  I possess the same
+ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company.  I consider,
+besides, that a man of sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few years
+of infirmities; and though I see many symptoms of my literary
+reputation's breaking out at last with additional lustre, I know that
+I could have but few years to enjoy it.  It is difficult to be more
+detached from life than I am at present.
+
+To conclude historically with my own character.  I am, or rather was,
+(for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which
+emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments)--I was, I say, a man of
+mild disposition, of command of temper, of an open, social, and
+cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of
+enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions.  Even my love of
+literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper,
+notwithstanding my frequent disappointments.  My company was not
+unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and
+literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest
+women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with
+from them.  In a word, though most men, anywise eminent, have found
+reason to complain of calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked
+by her baleful tooth; and though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage
+of both civil and religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my
+behalf of their wonted fury.  My friends never had occasion to
+vindicate any one circumstance of my  character and conduct: not but
+that the zealots, we may well suppose, would have been glad to invent
+and propagate any story to my disadvantage, but they could never find
+any which they thought would wear the face of probability.  I cannot
+say there is no vanity in making this funeral oration of myself; but I
+hope it is not a misplaced one; and this is a matter of fact which is
+easily cleared and ascertained.
+
+
+April 18, 1776.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER
+
+FROM
+
+ADAM SMITH. LL. D.
+
+To
+
+WILLIAM STRAHAN, ESQ.
+
+
+Kirkaldy, Fifeshire, Nov. 9, 1776
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+It is with a real, though a very melancholy pleasure, that I sit down
+to give you some account of the behaviour of our late excellent
+friend, Mr. Hume, during his last illness.
+
+Though in his own judgment his disease was mortal and incurable, yet
+he allowed himself to be prevailed upon, by the entreaty of his
+friends, to try what might be the effects of a long journey.  A few
+days before he set out, he wrote that account of his own life, which,
+together with his other papers, he has left to your care. My account,
+therefore, shall begin where his ends.
+
+He set out for London towards the end of April, and at Morpeth met
+with Mr. John Home, and myself, who had both come down from London on
+purpose to see him, expecting to have found him at Edinburgh.  Mr.
+Home returned with him, and attended him, during the whole of his stay
+in England, with that care and attention which might be expected from
+a temper so perfectly friendly and affectionate.  As I had written to
+my mother that she might expect me in Scotland, I was under the
+necessity of continuing my journey.  His disease seemed to yield to
+exercise and change of air, and when he arrived in London, he was
+apparently in much better health  than when he left Edinburgh.  He was
+advised to go to Bath to drink the waters, which appeared for some
+time to have so good an effect upon him, that even he himself began to
+entertain, what he was not apt to do, a better opinion of his own
+health.  His symptoms, however, soon returned with their usual
+violence, and from that moment he gave up all thoughts of recovery,
+but submitted with the utmost cheerfulness, and the most perfect
+complacency and resignation.  Upon his return to Edinburgh, though he
+found himself much weaker, yet his cheerfulness never abated, and he
+continued to divert himself, as usual, with correcting his own works
+for a new edition, with reading books of amusement, with the
+conversation of his friends, and sometimes in the evening with a party
+at his favourite game of whist.  His cheerfulness was so great, and
+his conversation and amusements ran so much in their usual strain,
+that, notwithstanding all bad symptoms, many people could not believe
+he was dying.  "I shall tell your friend, Colonel Edmonstone," said
+Doctor Dundas to him one day, "that I left you much better, and in a
+fair way of recovery." "Doctor," said he, "as I believe you would not
+choose to tell any thing but the truth, you had better tell him, that
+I am dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as
+easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire."  Colonel
+Edmonstone soon afterwards came to see him, and take leave of him; and
+on his way home he could not forbear writing him a letter, bidding him
+once more an eternal adieu, and applying to him, as to a dying man,
+the beautiful French verses in which the Abbé Chaulieu, in expectation
+of his own death, laments his approaching separation from his friend
+the Marquis de la Fare.  Mr. Hume's magnanimity and firmness were
+such, that his most affectionate friends knew that they hazarded
+nothing in talking or writing to him as to a dying man, and that, so
+far from being hurt by this frankness, he was rather pleased and
+flattered by it.  I happened to come into his room while he was
+reading this letter, which he had just received, and which he
+immediately showed me.  I told him, that though I was sensible how
+very much he was weakened, and that appearances were in many respects
+very bad, yet his cheerfulness was still so great, the spirit of life
+seemed still to be so very strong in him,  that I could not help
+entertaining some faint hopes.  He answered, "Your hopes are
+groundless.  An habitual diarrhoea of more than a year's standing
+would be a very bad disease at any age: at my age it is a mortal one.
+When I lie down in the evening I feel myself weaker than when I rose
+in the morning, and when I rise in the morning weaker than when I lay
+down in the evening.  I am sensible, besides, that some of my vital
+parts are affected, so that I must soon die." "Well," said I, "if it
+must be so, you have at least the satisfaction of leaving all your
+friends, your brother's family in particular, in great prosperity."
+He said that he felt that satisfaction so sensibly, that when he was
+reading, a few days before, Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead, among all
+the excuses which are alleged to Charon for not entering readily into
+his boat, he could not find one that fitted him; he had no house to
+finish, he had no daughter to provide for, he had no enemies upon whom
+he wished to revenge himself.  "I could not well imagine," said he,
+"what excuse I could make to Charon in order to  obtain a little
+delay.  I have done every thing of consequence which I ever meant to
+do, and I could at no time expect to leave my relations and friends in
+a better situation than that in which I am now likely to leave them: I
+therefore have all reason to die contented."  He then diverted himself
+with inventing several jocular excuses, which he supposed he might
+make to Charon, and with imagining the very surly answers which it
+might suit the character of Charon to return to them.  "Upon further
+consideration," said he, "I thought I might say to him, 'Good Charon,
+I have been correcting my works for a new edition.  Allow me a little
+time, that I may see how the public receives the alterations.'  But
+Charon would answer, 'When you have seen the effect of these, you will
+be for making other alterations.  There will be no end of such
+excuses; so, honest friend, please step into the boat.'  But I might
+still urge, 'Have a little patience, good Charon, I have been
+endeavouring to open the eyes of the public.  If I live a few years
+longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of
+the prevailing systems of superstition.'  But Charon would then lose
+all temper and decency--'You loitering rogue, that will not happen
+these many hundred years.  Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for
+so long a term?  Get into the boat this instant, you lazy, loitering
+rogue.'"
+
+But though Mr. Hume always talked of his approaching dissolution with
+great cheerfulness, he never affected to make any parade of his
+magnanimity.  He never mentioned the subject, but when the
+conversation naturally led to it, and never dwelt longer upon it than
+the course of the conversation happened to require.  It was a subject,
+indeed, which occurred pretty frequently, in consequence of the
+inquiries which his friends, who came to see him, naturally made
+concerning the state of his health.  The conversation which I
+mentioned above, and which passed on Thursday the 8th of August, was
+the last, except one, that I ever had with him.  He had now become so
+very weak, that the company of his most intimate friends fatigued him;
+for his cheerfulness was still so great, his complaisance and social
+disposition were still so entire, that when any friend was with him,
+he could not help talking more, and with greater exertion, than suited
+the weakness of his body.  At his own desire, therefore, I agreed to
+leave Edinburgh, where I was staying partly upon his account, and
+returned to my mother's house here, at Kirkaldy, upon condition that
+he would send for me whenever he wished to see me; the physician who
+saw him most frequently, Dr. Black, undertaking in the mean time to
+write me occasionally an account of the state of his health.
+
+On the 22d of August, the doctor wrote me the following letter:
+
+"Since my last, Mr. Hume has passed his time pretty easily, but is
+much weaker.  He sits up, goes down stairs once a day, and amuses
+himself with reading, but seldom sees any body.  He finds, that the
+conversation of his most intimate friends fatigues and oppresses him;
+and it is happy that he does not need it, for he is quite free from
+anxiety, impatience, or low spirits, and passes his time very well
+with the assistance of amusing books."
+
+I received the day after a letter from Mr. Hume himself, of which the
+following is an extract:
+
+"Edinburgh, Aug. 23, 1776
+
+"MY DEAREST FRIEND,
+
+"I am obliged to make use of my nephew's hand in writing to you, as I
+do not rise to-day. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
+
+"I go very fast to decline, and last night had a small fever, which I
+hoped might put a quicker period to this tedious illness; but,
+unluckily, it has in a great measure gone off.  I cannot submit to
+your coming over here on my account, as it is possible for me to see
+you so small a part of the day; but Dr. Black can better inform you
+concerning the degree of strength which may from time to time remain
+with me.
+
+"Adieu, &c."
+
+Three days after, I received the following letter from Dr. Black:
+
+"Edinburgh, Monday, Aug. 26, 1776.
+
+"DEAR SIR,
+
+"Yesterday, about four o'clock, afternoon, Mr. Hume expired.  The near
+approach of his death became evident in the night between Thursday and
+Friday, when his disease became excessive, and soon weakened him so
+much, that he could no longer rise out of his bed.  He continued to
+the last perfectly sensible, and free from much pain or feelings of
+distress.  He never dropped the smallest expression of impatience; but
+when he had occasion to speak to the people about him, always did it
+with affection and tenderness.  I thought it improper to write to
+bring you over, especially as I heard that he had dictated a letter to
+you, desiring you not to come.  When he became very weak, it cost him
+an effort to speak, and he died in such a happy composure of mind that
+nothing could exceed it."
+
+Thus died our most excellent and never to be forgotten friend;
+concerning whose philosophical opinions men will no doubt judge
+variously, every one approving or condemning them, according as they
+happen to coincide or disagree with his own; but concerning whose
+character and conduct there can scarce be a difference of opinion.
+His temper, indeed, seemed to be more happily balanced, if I may be
+allowed such an expression, than that perhaps of any other man I have
+ever known.  Even in the lowest state of his fortune, his great and
+necessary frugality never hindered him from exercising, upon proper
+occasions, acts both of charity and generosity.  It was a frugality
+founded not upon avarice, but upon the love of independency.  The
+extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either the firmness of
+his mind, or the steadiness of his resolutions.  His constant
+pleasantry was the genuine effusion of good-nature and good-humour,
+tempered with delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest
+tincture of malignity, so frequently the disagreeable source of what
+is called wit in other men.  It never was the meaning of his raillery
+to mortify; and therefore, far from offending, it seldom failed to
+please and delight even those who were the objects of it.  To his
+friends, who were frequently the objects of it, there was not perhaps
+one of all his great and amiable qualities which contributed more to
+endear his conversation.  And that gaiety of temper, so agreeable in
+society, but which is so often accompanied with frivolous and
+superficial qualities, was in him certainly attended with the most
+severe application, the most extensive learning, the greatest depth of
+thought, and a capacity in every respect the most comprehensive.  Upon
+the whole, I have always considered him, both in his lifetime and
+since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly
+wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will
+permit.
+
+I ever am, dear Sir,
+
+Most affectionately yours,
+
+ADAM SMITH.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME I
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+The Britons.--Romans.--Saxons.--The Heptarchy.--The Kingdom of Kent--
+of Northumberland--of East Anglia--of Mercia--of Essex--of Sussex--of
+Wessex
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Egbert.--Ethelwolf.--Ethelbald and Ethelbert.--Ethered.--Alfred the
+Great.--Edward the Elder.--Athelstan.--Edmund.-Edred.--Edwy.--Edgar.--
+Edward the Martyr
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Ethelred.--Settlement of the Normans.--Edmund Ironside.--Canute.--
+Harold Harefoot.--Hardicanute.--Edward the Confessor.--Harold
+
+
+APPENDIX I.
+
+THE ANGLO-SAXON GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
+
+First Saxon Government.--Succession of the Kings.--The Wittenagemot.--
+The Aristocracy.--The several Orders of Men.--Courts of Justice.--
+Criminal Law.--Rules of Proof.-Military Force.--Public Revenue.--Value
+of Money.--Manners
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR
+
+Consequences of the Battle of Hastings.--Submission of the English.--
+Settlement of the Government.--King's Return to Normandy.--Discontents
+of the English.--Their Insurrections.--Rigours of the Norman
+Government.--New Insurrections.-New Rigours of the Government.--
+Introduction of the Feudal Law.--Innovation in Ecclesiastical
+Government.--Insurrection of the Norman Barons.--Dispute about
+Investitures.--Revolt of Prince Robert.--Domesday-Book.--The New
+Forest.--War with France.--Death and Character of William the
+Conqueror
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WILLIAM RUFUS
+
+Accession of William Rufus.--Conspiracy against the King.--Invasion of
+Normandy.--The Crusades.--Acquisition of Normandy.--Quarrel with
+Anselm, the Primate.--Death and Character of William Rufus
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+HENRY I.
+
+The Crusades.--Accession of Henry.--Marriage of the King.--Invasion by
+Duke Robert.--Accommodation with Robert.--Attack of Normandy.--
+Conquest of Normandy.--Continuation of the Quarrel with Anselm, the
+Primate.--Compromise with him.--Wars abroad.--Death of Prince
+William.--King's second Marriage.--Death and Character of Henry
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+STEPHEN
+
+Accession of Stephen.--War with Scotland.--Insurrection in favour of
+Matilda.--Stephen taken Prisoner.--Matilda crowned.--Stephen
+released.--Restored to the Crown.--Continuation of the Civil Wars.--
+Compromise between the King and Prince Henry.--Death of the King
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HENRY II.
+
+State of Europe--of France.--First Acts of Henry's Government.--
+Disputes between the Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers.-Thomas à Becket,
+Archbishop of Canterbury.--Quarrel between the King and Becket.--
+Constitutions of Clarendon.--Banishment of Becket.--Compromise with
+him.--His return from Banishment.-His Murder.--Grief and Submission of
+the King
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+State of Ireland.--Conquest of that Island.--The King's Accommodation
+with the Court of Rome.--Revolt of young Henry and  his brothers.--
+Wars and Insurrections.--War with Scotland.--Penance of Henry for
+Becket's Murder.--William, King of Scotland, defeated and taken
+Prisoner.--The King's Accommodation with his Sons.--The King's
+equitable Administration.--Crusades.--Revolt of Prince Richard.--Death
+and Character of Henry.--Miscellaneous Transactions of his Reign
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+RICHARD I.
+
+The King's Preparations for the Crusade.--Sets out on the Crusade.--
+Transactions in Sicily.--King's Arrival in Palestine.--State of
+Palestine.--Disorders in England.--The King's Heroic Actions in
+Palestine.--His Return from Palestine.--Captivity in Germany.--War
+with France.--The King's Delivery.--Return to England.--War with
+France.--Death and Character of the King.--Miscellaneous Transactions
+of this Reign
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+JOHN
+
+Accession of the King.--His Marriage.--War with France.--Murder of
+Arthur, Duke of Britany.--The King expelled the French Provinces.--The
+King's Quarrel with the Court of Rome.--Cardinal Langton appointed
+Archbishop of Canterbury.--Interdict of the Kingdom.--Excommunication
+of the King.-The King's Submission to the Pope.--Discontents of the
+Barons.--Insurrection of the Barons.--Magna Carta.--Renewal of the
+Civil Wars.--Prince Lewis called over.--Death and Character of the
+King
+
+
+APPENDIX II.
+
+THE FEUDAL AND ANGLO-NORMAN GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
+
+Origin of the Feudal Law.--Its Progress.--Feudal Government of
+England.--The Feudal Parliament.--The Commons.-Judicial Power.--
+Revenue of the Crown.--Commerce.--The Church.--Civil Laws.--Manners
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+HENRY III.
+
+Settlement of the Government.--General Pacification.--Death of the
+Protector.--Some Commotions.--Hubert de Burgh displaced.--The Bishop
+of Winchester Minister.--King's Partiality to Foreigners.--
+Grievances.--Ecclesiastical Grievances.--Earl of Cornwall elected King
+of the Romans.--Discontent of the Barons--Simon de Mountfort, Earl of
+Leicester.--Provisions of Oxford.--Usurpation of the Barons.--Prince
+Edward.--Civil Wars of the Barons.--Reference to the King of France.--
+Renewal of the Civil Wars.--Battle of Lewes.--House of Commons.--
+Battle of Evesham and death of Leicester.--Settlement of the
+Government.--Death and Character of the King.--Miscellaneous
+Transactions of this Reign
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE BRITONS.--ROMANS.--SAXONS.--THE HEPTARCHY.--THE KINGDOM OF KENT--
+OF NORTHUMBERLAND--OF EAST ANGLIA--OF MERCIA--OF ESSEX--OF SUSSEX--OF
+WESSEX
+
+
+
+[MN The Britons.]
+The curiosity, entertained by all civilized nations, of inquiring into
+the exploits and adventures of their ancestors, commonly excites a
+regret that the history of remote ages should always be so much
+involved in obscurity, uncertainty, and contradiction.  Ingenious men,
+possessed of leisure, are apt to push their researches beyond the
+period in which literary monuments are framed or preserved; without
+reflecting that the history of past events is immediately lost or
+disfigured when intrusted to memory or oral tradition; and that the
+adventures of barbarous nations, even if they were recorded, could
+afford little or no entertainment to men born in a more cultivated
+age.  The convulsions of a civilized state usually compose the most
+instructive and most interesting part of its history; but the sudden,
+violent, and unprepared revolutions incident to barbarians are so much
+guided by caprice, and terminate so often in cruelty, that they
+disgust us by the uniformity of their appearance; and it is rather
+fortunate for letters that they are buried in silence and oblivion.
+The only certain means by which nations can indulge their curiosity in
+researches concerning their  remote origin, is to consider the
+language, manners, and customs of their ancestors, and to compare them
+with those of the neighbouring nations.  The fables which are commonly
+employed to supply the place of true history ought entirely to be
+disregarded; or if any exception be admitted to this general rule, it
+can only be in favour of the ancient Grecian fictions, which are so
+celebrated and so agreeable, that they will ever be the objects of the
+attention of mankind.  Neglecting, therefore, all traditions, or
+rather tales, concerning the more early history of Britain, we shall
+only consider the state of the inhabitants as it appeared to the
+Romans on their invasion of this country: we shall briefly run over
+the events which attended the conquest made by that empire, as
+belonging more to Roman than British story: we shall hasten through
+the obscure and uninteresting period of Saxon annals: and shall
+reserve a more full narration for those times when the truth is both
+so well ascertained and so complete as to promise entertainment and
+instruction to the reader.
+
+All ancient writers agree in representing the first inhabitants of
+Britain as a tribe of the Gauls or Celtae, who peopled that island
+from the neighbouring continent.  Their language was the same; their
+manners, their government, their superstition, varied only by those
+small differences which time or communication with the bordering
+nations must necessarily introduce.  The inhabitants of Gaul,
+especially in those parts which lie contiguous to Italy, had acquired,
+from a commerce with their southern neighbours, some refinement in the
+arts, which gradually diffused themselves northwards, and spread but a
+very faint light over this island.  The Greek and Roman navigators or
+merchants (for there were scarcely any other travellers in those ages)
+brought back the most shocking accounts of the ferocity of the people,
+which they magnified, as usual, in order to excite the admiration of
+their countrymen.  The south-east parts, however, of Britain had
+already, before the age of Caesar, made the first, and most requisite
+step towards a civil settlement; and the Britons, by tillage and
+agriculture, had there increased to a great multitude [a].  The other
+inhabitants of the island still maintained themselves by pasture:
+they were clothed with skins of beasts. They dwelt in huts, which they
+reared in the forests and marshes, with which the country was covered:
+they shifted easily their habitation, when actuated either by the
+hopes of plunder, or the fear of an enemy: the convenience of feeding
+their cattle was even a sufficient motive for removing their seats:
+and as they were ignorant of all the refinements of life, their wants
+and their possessions were equally scanty and limited.
+[FN [a] Caesar. lib. 4.]
+
+The Britons were divided into many small nations or tribes; and being
+a military people, whose sole property was their arms and their
+cattle, it was impossible, after they had acquired a relish for
+liberty, for their princes or chieftains to establish any despotic
+authority over them.  Their governments, though monarchical [b], were
+free, as well as those of all the Celtic nations; and the common
+people seem even to have enjoyed more liberty among them [c] than
+among the nations of Gaul [d], from which they were descended.  Each
+state was divided into factions within itself [e]: it was agitated
+with jealousy or animosity against the neighbouring states: and while
+the arts of peace were yet unknown, wars were the chief occupation,
+and formed the chief object of ambition among the people.
+[FN [b] Diod. Sic. lib. 4.  Mela, lib. 3. cap. 6.  Strabo, lib. 4.
+[c] Dion. Cassius, lib. 75  [d] Caesar. lib. 6.  [e] Tacit. Agr.]
+
+The religion of the Britons was one of the most considerable parts of
+their government; and the Druids, who were their priests, possessed
+great authority among them.  Besides ministering at the altar, and
+directing all religious duties, they presided over the education of
+youth; they enjoyed an immunity from wars and taxes; they possessed
+both the civil and criminal jurisdiction; they decided all
+controversies among states as well as among private persons, and
+whoever refused to submit to their decree was exposed to the most
+severe penalties.  The sentence of excommunication was pronounced
+against him: he was forbidden access to the sacrifices or public
+worship: he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow-citizens,
+even in the common affairs of life: his company was universally
+shunned, as profane and dangerous.  He was refused the protection of
+law [f]; and death itself became an acceptable relief from the misery
+and infamy to which he was exposed.  Thus, the bands of government,
+which were naturally loose among that rude and turbulent people, were
+happily corroborated by the terrors of their superstition.
+[FN [f] Caesar, lib. 6.  Strabo, lib. 4.]
+
+No species of superstition was ever more terrible than that of the
+Druids.  Besides the severe penalties, which it was in the power of
+the ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the
+eternal transmigration of souls; and thereby extended their authority
+as far as the fears of their timorous votaries.  They practised their
+rites in dark groves or other secret recesses [g]; and in order to
+throw a greater mystery over their religion, they communicated their
+doctrines only to the initiated, and strictly forbad the committing of
+them to writing, lest they should at any time be exposed to the
+examination of the profane vulgar.  Human sacrifices were practised
+among them: the spoils of war were often devoted to their divinities;
+and they punished with the severest tortures whoever dared to secrete
+any part of the consecrated offering; these treasures they kept in
+woods and forests, secured by no other guard than the terrors of their
+religion [h]; and this steady conquest over human avidity may be
+regarded as more signal than their prompting men to the most
+extraordinary and most violent efforts.  No idolatrous worship ever
+attained such an ascendant over mankind as that of the ancient Gauls
+and Britons; and the Romans, after their conquest, finding it
+impossible to reconcile those nations to the law and institutions of
+their masters, while it maintained its authority, were at last obliged
+to abolish it by penal statutes; a violence which had never, in any
+other instance, been practised by those tolerating conquerors [i].
+[FN [g] Plin. lib. 12. cap. 1.  [h] Caesar, lib. 6.  [i] Sueton. in
+vita Claudii.]
+
+[MN The Romans.]
+The Britons had long remained in this rude but independent state, when
+Caesar, having overrun all Gaul by his victories, first cast his eye
+on their island.  He was not allured either by its riches or its
+renown; but being ambitious of carrying the Roman arms into a new
+world, then mostly unknown, he took advantage of a short interval in
+his Gaulic wars, and made an invasion on Britain.  The natives,
+informed of his intention, were sensible of the unequal contest, and
+endeavoured to appease him by submissions, which, however, retarded
+not the execution of his design.  After some resistance, he landed, as
+is supposed, at Deal; [MN Anno Ante C. 55.] and having obtained
+several advantages over the Britons, and obliged them to promise
+hostages for their future obedience, he was constrained, by the
+necessity of his affairs, and the approach of winter, to withdraw his
+forces into Gaul.  The Britons, relieved from the terror of his arms,
+neglected the performance of their stipulations; and that haughty
+conqueror resolved next summer to chastise them for this breach of
+treaty.  He landed with a greater force; and though he found a more
+regular resistance from the Britons, who had united under
+Cassivelaunus, one of their petty princes, he discomfited them in
+every action.  He advanced into the country; passed the Thames in the
+face of the enemy; took and burned the capital of Cassivelaunus;
+established his ally, Mandubratius, in the sovereignty of the
+Trinobantes; and having obliged the inhabitants to make him new
+submissions, he again returned with his army into Gaul, and left the
+authority of the Romans more nominal than real in this island.
+
+The civil wars which ensued, and which prepared the way for the
+establishment of monarchy in Rome, saved the Britons from that yoke
+which was ready to be imposed upon them.  Augustus, the successor of
+Caesar, content with the victory obtained over the liberties of his
+own country, was little ambitious of acquiring fame by foreign wars;
+and being apprehensive lest the same unlimited extent of dominion,
+which had subverted the republic, might also overwhelm the empire, he
+recommended it to his successors never to enlarge the territories of
+the Romans.  Tiberius, jealous of the fame which might be acquired by
+his generals, made this advice of Augustus a pretence for his
+inactivity [k].  The mad sallies of Caligula, in which he menaced
+Britain with an invasion, served only to expose himself and the empire
+to ridicule: and the Britons had now, during almost a century, enjoyed
+their liberty unmolested; when the Romans, in the reign of Claudius
+began to think seriously of reducing them under their dominion.
+Without seeking any more justifiable reasons of hostility than were
+employed by the late Europeans in subjugating the Africans and
+Americans, [MN A.D. 43.] they sent over an army under the command of
+Plautius, an able general, who gained some victories, and made a
+considerable progress in subduing the inhabitants.  Claudius himself,
+finding matters sufficiently prepared for his reception, made a
+journey into Britain, and received the submission of several British
+states, the Cantii, Atrebates, Regni, and Trinobantes, who inhabited
+the south-east part of the island, and whom their possessions and more
+cultivated manner of life rendered willing to purchase peace at the
+expense of their liberty.  The other Britons, under the command of
+Caractacus, still maintained an obstinate resistance, and the Romans
+made little progress against them, till Ostorius Scapula was sent over
+to command their armies.  This general advanced the Roman conquests
+over the Britons; [MN A.D. 50.] pierced into the country of the
+Silures, a warlike nation who inhabited the banks of the Severn;
+defeated Caractacus in a great battle; took him prisoner, and sent him
+to Rome, where his magnanimous behaviour procured him better treatment
+than those conquerors usually bestowed on captive princes [l].
+[FN [k] Tacit. Agr.  [l] Tacit. Ann. lib. 12.]
+
+Notwithstanding these misfortunes, the Britons were not subdued; and
+this island was regarded by the ambitious Romans as a field in which
+military honour might still be acquired.  [MN A.D. 59.]  Under the
+reign of Nero, Suetonius Paulinus was invested with the command, and
+prepared to signalize his name by victories over those barbarians.
+Finding that the island of Mona, now Anglesey, was the chief seat of
+the Druids, he resolved to attack it, and to subject a place which was
+the centre of their superstition, and which afforded protection to all
+their baffled forces.  The Britons endeavoured to obstruct his landing
+on this sacred island, both by the force of their arms and the terrors
+of their religion.  The women and priests were intermingled with the
+soldiers upon the shore; and running about with flaming torches in
+their hands, and tossing their dishevelled hair, they struck greater
+terror into the astonished Romans by their howlings, cries, and
+execrations, than the real danger from the armed forces was able to
+inspire.  But Suetonius, exhorting his troops to despise the menaces
+of a superstition which they despised, impelled them to the attack,
+drove the Britons off the field, burned the Druids in the same fires
+which those priests had prepared for their captive enemies, destroyed
+all the consecrated groves and altars; and, having thus triumphed over
+the religion of the Britons, he thought his future progress would be
+easy in reducing the people to subjection.  But he was disappointed in
+his expectations.  The Britons, taking advantage of his absence, were
+all in arms; and headed by Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, who had been
+treated in the most ignominious manner by the Roman tribunes, had
+already attacked with success several settlements of their insulting
+conquerors.  Suetonius hastened to the protection of London, which was
+already a flourishing Roman colony; but he found, on his arrival, that
+it would be requisite for the general safety to abandon that place to
+the merciless fury of the enemy.  London was reduced to ashes; such of
+the inhabitants as remained in it were cruelly massacred; the Romans
+and all strangers, to the number of 70,000, were every where put to
+the sword without distinction; and the Britons, by rendering the war
+thus bloody, seemed determined to cut off all hopes of peace or com-
+position with the enemy.  But this cruelty was revenged by Suetonius
+in a great and decisive battle, where 80,000 of the Britons are said
+to have .perished; and Boadicea herself; rather than fall into the
+hands of the enraged victor, put an end to her own life by poison [m].
+Nero soon after recalled Suetonius from a government, where, by
+suffering and inflicting so many severities, he was judged improper
+for composing the angry and alarmed minds of the inhabitants.  After
+some interval, Cerealis received the command from Vespasian, and by
+his bravery propagated the terror of the Roman arms.  Julius Frontinus
+succeeded Cerealis both in authority and in reputation: but the
+general who finally established the dominion of the Romans in this
+island was Julius Agricola, who governed it in the reigns of
+Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, and distinguished himself in that
+scene of action.
+[FN [m] Tacit. Ann. lib. 14]
+
+This great commander formed a regular plan for subduing Britain, and
+rendering the acquisition useful to the conquerors.  He carried his
+victorious arms northwards, defeated the Britons in every encounter,
+pierced into the inaccessible forests and mountains of Caledonia,
+reduced every state to subjection in the southern part of the island,
+and chased before him all the men of fiercer and more intractable
+spirits, who deemed war and death itself less intolerable than
+servitude under the victors.  He even defeated them in a decisive
+action, which they fought under Galgacus, their leader; and having
+fixed a chain of garrisons between the firths of Clyde and Forth, he
+thereby cut off the ruder and more barren parts of the island, and
+secured the Roman province from the incursions of the barbarous
+inhabitants [n].
+[FN [n] Tacit Agr.]
+
+During these military enterprises, he neglected not the arts of peace.
+He introduced laws and civility among the Britons, taught them to
+desire and raise all the conveniences of life, reconciled them to the
+Roman language and manners, instructed them in letters and science,
+and employed every expedient to render those chains which he had
+forged both easy and agreeable to them [o].  The inhabitants, having
+experienced how unequal their own force was to resist that of the
+Romans, acquiesced in the dominion of their masters, and were
+gradually incorporated as a part of that mighty empire.
+[FN [o] Ibid.]
+
+This was the last durable conquest made by the Romans; and Britain,
+once subdued, gave no farther inquietude to the victor.  Caledonia
+alone, defended by its barren mountains, and by the contempt which the
+Romans entertained for it, sometimes infested the more cultivated
+parts of the island by the incursions of its inhabitants.  The better
+to secure the frontiers of the empire, Adrian, who visited this
+island, built a rampart between the river Tyne and the firth of
+Solway: Lollius Urbicus, under Antoninus Pius, erected one in the
+place where Agricola had formerly established his garrisons: Severus,
+who made an expedition into Britain, and carried his arms to the more
+northern extremity of it, added new fortifications to the walls of
+Adrian; and, during the reigns of all the Roman emperors, such a
+profound tranquillity prevailed in Britain, that little mention is
+made of the affairs of that island by any historian.  The only
+incidents which occur are some seditions or rebellions of the Roman
+legions quartered there, and some usurpations of the Imperial dignity
+by the Roman governors.  The natives, disarmed, dispirited, and
+submissive, had lost all desire, and even idea of their former liberty
+and independence.
+
+But the period was now come when that enormous fabric of the Roman
+empire, which had diffused slavery and oppression, together with peace
+and civility, over so considerable a part of the globe, was
+approaching towards it final dissolution.  Italy and the centre of the
+empire, removed, during so many ages, from all concern in the wars,
+had entirely lost the military spirit, and were peopled by an
+enervated race, equally disposed to submit to a foreign yoke, or to
+the tyranny of their own rulers.  The emperors found themselves
+obliged to recruit their legions from the frontier provinces, where
+the genius of war, though languishing, was not totally extinct; and
+these mercenary forces, careless of laws, and civil institutions,
+established a military government, no less dangerous to the sovereign
+than to the people.  The further progress of the same disorders
+introduced the bordering barbarians into the service of the Romans;
+and those fierce nations, having now added discipline to their native
+bravery, could no longer be restrained by the impotent policy of the
+emperors, who were accustomed to employ one in the destruction of the
+others.  Sensible of their own force, and allured by the prospect of
+so rich a prize, the northern barbarians, in the reign of Arcadius and
+Honorius, assailed at once all the frontiers of the Roman empire; and
+having first satiated their avidity by plunder, began to think of
+fixing a settlement in the wasted provinces.  The more distant
+barbarians, who occupied the deserted habitations of the former,
+advanced in their acquisitions, and pressed with their incumbent
+weight the Roman state, already unequal to the load which it
+sustained.  Instead of arming the people in their own defence, the
+emperors recalled all the distant legions, in whom alone they could
+repose confidence; and collected the whole military force for the
+defence of the capital and centre of the empire.  The necessity of
+self-preservation had superseded the ambition of power; and the
+ancient point of honour never to contract the limits of the empire
+could no longer be attended to in this desperate extremity.
+
+Britain by its situation was removed from the fury of these barbarous
+incursions; and being also a remote province, not much valued by the
+Romans, the legions which defended it were carried over to the
+protection of Italy and Gaul.  But that province, though secured by
+the sea against the inroads of the greater tribes of barbarians, found
+enemies on its frontiers, who took advantage of its present
+defenceless situation.  The Picts and Scots, who dwelt in the northern
+parts, beyond the wall of Antoninus, made incursions upon their
+peaceable and effeminate neighbours; and besides the temporary
+depredations which they committed, these combined nations threatened
+the whole province with subjection, or what the inhabitants more
+dreaded, with plunder and devastation.  The Picts seem to have been a
+tribe of the native British race, who, having been chased into the
+northern parts by the conquest of Agricola, had there intermingled
+with the ancient inhabitants: the Scots were derived from the same
+Celtic origin, had first been established in Ireland, had migrated to
+the north-west coasts of this island, and had long been accustomed, as
+well from their old as their new seats, to infest the Roman province
+by piracy and rapine [p].  These tribes, finding their more opulent
+neighbours exposed to invasion, soon broke over the Roman wall, no
+longer defended by the Roman arms; and, though a contemptible enemy in
+themselves, met with no resistance from the unwarlike inhabitants.
+The Britons, accustomed to have recourse to the emperors for defence
+as well as government, made supplications to Rome; and one legion was
+sent over for their protection.  This force was an overmatch for the
+barbarians, repelled their invasion, routed them in every engagement,
+and having chased them into their ancient limits, returned in triumph
+to the defence of the southern provinces of the empire [q].  Their
+retreat brought on a new invasion of the enemy.  The Britons made
+again an application to Rome, and again obtained the assistance of a
+legion, which proved effectual for their relief: but the Romans,
+reduced to extremities at home, and fatigued with those distant
+expeditions, informed the Britons that they must no longer look to
+them for succour, exhorted them to arm in their own defence, and urged
+that, as they were now their own masters, it became them to protect by
+their valour that independence which their ancient lords had conferred
+upon them [r].  That they might leave the island with the better
+grace, the Romans assisted them in erecting anew the wall of Severus,
+which was built entirely of stone, and which the Britons had not at
+that time artificers skilful enough to repair [s].  And having done
+this last good office to the inhabitants, they bid a final adieu to
+Britain, about the year 448; after being masters of the more
+considerable part of it during the course of near four centuries.
+[FN [p] See note [A] at the end of the volume.  [q] Gildas.  Bede,
+lib. 1. cap. 12.  Paul. Diacon.  [r] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 12  [s] Ibid.]
+
+[MN The Britons.]
+The abject Britons. regarded this present of liberty as  fatal to
+them; and were in no condition to put in practice the prudent counsel
+given them by the Romans to arm in their own defence.  Unaccustomed
+both to the perils of war and to the cares of civil government, they
+found themselves incapable of forming or executing any measures for
+resisting the incursions of the barbarians.  Gratian also and
+Constantine, two Romans who had a little before assumed the purple in
+Britain, had carried over to the continent the flower of the British
+youth; and having perished in their unsuccessful attempts on the
+imperial throne, had despoiled the island of those who, in this
+desperate extremity, were best able to defend it.  The Picts and
+Scots, finding that the Romans had finally relinquished Britain, now
+regarded the whole as their prey, and attacked the northern wall with
+redoubled forces.  The Britons already subdued by their own fears,
+found the ramparts but a weak defence for them; and deserting their
+station, left the country entirely open to the inroads of the
+barbarous enemy.  The invaders carried devastation and ruin along with
+them; and exerted to the utmost their native ferocity, which was not
+mitigated by the helpless condition and submissive behaviour of the
+inhabitants [t].  The unhappy Britons had a third time recourse to
+Rome, which had declared its resolution for ever to abandon them.
+Aëtius, the patrician, sustained at that time, by his valour and
+magnanimity, the tottering ruins of the empire, and revived for a
+moment, among the degenerate Romans, the spirit as well as discipline
+of their ancestors.  The British ambassador carried to him the letter
+of their countrymen, which was inscribed, THE GROANS OF THE BRITONS.
+The tenor of the epistle was suitable to its superscription.  THE
+BARBARIANS, say they, ON THE ONE HAND, CHASE US INTO THE SEA; THE SEA,
+ON THE OTHER, THROWS US BACK UPON THE BARBARIANS; AND WE HAVE ONLY THE
+HARD CHOICE LEFT US, OF PERISHING BY THE SWORD OR BY THE WAVES [u].
+But Aëtius, pressed by the arms of Attila, the most terrible enemy
+that ever assailed the empire, had no leisure to attend to the
+complaints of allies, whom generosity alone could induce him to assist
+[v].  The Britons thus rejected were reduced to despair, deserted
+their habitations, abandoned tillage, and flying for protection to the
+forests and mountains, suffered equally from hunger and from the
+enemy.  The barbarians themselves began to feel the pressure of famine
+in a country which they had ravaged; and being harassed by the
+dispersed Britons, who had not dared to resist them in a body, they
+retreated with their spoils into their own country [w].
+[FN [t] Gildas.  Bede, lib. 1.  Ann. Beverl. p. 45.  [u] Gildas.
+Bede, lib. 1. cap. 13.  Malmesbury, lib. 1. cap. 1.  Ann. Beverl. p.
+45.  [v] Chron. Sax. p. 11 edit. 1692.  [w] Ann. Beverl. p. 45.]
+
+The Britons, taking advantage of this interval, returned to their
+usual occupations; and the favourable seasons which succeeded seconded
+their industry, made them soon forget their past miseries, and
+restored to them great plenty of all the necessaries of life.  No more
+can be imagined to have been possessed by a people so rude, who had
+not, without the assistance of the Romans, art of masonry sufficient
+to raise a stone rampart for their own defence; yet the Monkish
+historians [x], who treat of those events, complain of the luxury of
+the Britons during this period, and ascribe to that vice, not to their
+cowardice or improvident counsels, all their subsequent calamities.
+[FN [x] Gildas.  Bede, lib. 1. cap. 14.]
+
+The Britons, entirely occupied in the enjoyment of the present
+interval of peace, made no provision for resisting the enemy, who,
+invited by their former timid behaviour, soon threatened them with a
+new invasion.  We are not exactly informed what species of civil
+government the Romans on their departure had left among the Britons;
+but it appears probable, that the great men in, the different
+districts assumed a kind of regal though precarious authority; and
+lived in a great measure independent of each other [y].  To this
+disunion of counsels were also added the disputes of theology; and the
+disciples of Pelagius, who was himself a native of Britain, having
+increased to a great multitude, gave alarm to the clergy, who seem to
+have been more intent on suppressing them, than on opposing the public
+enemy [z].  Labouring under these domestic evils, and menaced with a
+foreign invasion, the Britons attended only to the suggestions of
+their present fears; and following the counsels of Vortigern, Prince
+of Dumnonium, who, though stained with every vice, possessed the chief
+authority among them [a], they sent into Germany a deputation to
+invite over the Saxons for their protection and assistance.
+[FN [y] Gildas.  Usher, Ant. Brit. p. 248, 347.  [z] Gildas.  Bede,
+lib. 1. cap. 17.  Constant. in vita Germ.  [a] Gildas.  Gul. Malm. p
+8.]
+
+[MN The Saxons.]
+Of all the barbarous nations, known either in ancient or modern times,
+the Germans seem to have been the most distinguished both by their
+manners and political institutions, and to have carried to the highest
+pitch the virtues of valour and love of liberty; the only virtues
+which can have place among an uncivilized people, where justice and
+humanity are commonly neglected.  Kingly government, even when
+established among the Germans, (for it was not universal,) possessed a
+very limited authority; and though the sovereign was usually chosen
+from among the royal family, he was directed in every measure by the
+common consent of the nation over whom he presided.  When any
+important affairs were transacted, all the warriors met in arms; the
+men of greatest authority employed persuasion to engage their consent;
+the people expressed their approbation by rattling their armour, or
+their dissent by murmurs; there was no necessity for a nice scrutiny
+of votes among a multitude, who were usually carried with a strong
+current to one side or the other; and the measure thus suddenly chosen
+by general agreement, was executed with alacrity and prosecuted with
+vigour.  Even in war, the princes governed more by example than by
+authority; but in peace the civil union was in a great measure
+dissolved, and the inferior leaders administered justice after an
+independent manner, each in his particular district.  These were
+elected by the votes of the people in their great councils; and though
+regard was paid to nobility in the choice, their personal qualities,
+chiefly their valour, procured them, from the suffrages of their
+fellow-citizens, that honourable but dangerous distinction.  The
+warriors of each tribe attached themselves to their leader with the
+most devoted affection and most unshaken constancy.  They attended him
+as his ornament in peace, as his defence in war, as his council in the
+administration of justice.  Their constant emulation in military
+renown dissolved not that inviolable friendship which they professed
+to their chieftain and to each other: to die for the honour of their
+band was their chief ambition: to survive its disgrace, or the death
+of their leader, was infamous.  They even carried into the field their
+women and children, who adopted all the martial sentiments of the men:
+and being thus impelled by every human motive, they were invincible;
+where they were not opposed either by the similar manners and
+institutions of the neighbouring Germans, or by the superior
+discipline, arms, and numbers of the Romans [b].
+[FN [b] Caesar, lib. 6.  Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]
+
+The leaders and their military companions were maintained by the
+labour of their slaves, or by that of the weaker and less warlike part
+of the community, whom they defended.  The contributions which they
+levied went not beyond a bare subsistence; and the honours, acquired
+by a superior rank, were the only reward of their superior dangers and
+fatigues.  All the refined arts of life were unknown among the
+Germans: tillage itself was almost wholly neglected: they even seem to
+have been anxious to prevent any improvements of that nature; and the
+leaders, by annually distributing anew all the land among the
+inhabitants of each village, kept them from attaching themselves to
+particular possessions, or making such progress in agriculture as
+might divert their attention from military expeditions, the chief
+occupation of the community [c].
+[FN [c] Caesar, lib. 6.  Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]
+
+The Saxons had been for some time regarded as one of the most warlike
+tribes of this fierce people, and had become the terror of the
+neighbouring nations [d].  They had diffused themselves from the
+northern parts of Germany and the Cimbrian Chersonesus, and had taken
+possession of all the sea-coast from the mouth of the Rhine to
+Jutland; whence they had long infested by their piracies all the
+eastern and southern parts of Britain, and the northern of Gaul [e].
+In order to oppose their inroads, the Romans had established an
+officer, whom they called COUNT OF THE SAXON SHORE; and as the naval
+arts can flourish among a civilized people alone, they seem to have
+been more successful in repelling the Saxons, than any of the other
+barbarians by whom they were invaded.  The dissolution of the Roman
+power invited them to renew their inroads; and it was an acceptable
+circumstance, that the deputies of the Britons appeared among them,
+and prompted them to undertake an enterprise, to which they were of
+themselves sufficiently inclined [f].
+[FN d Amm. Marcell. lib. 28.  Orosius.  [e] Marcell. lib. 27. cap. 7.
+lib. 28. cap. 7.  [f] Will. Malm. p. 8.]
+
+Hengist and Horsa, two brothers, possessed great credit among the
+Saxons, and were much celebrated both for their valour and nobility.
+They were reputed, as most of the Saxon princes, to be sprung from
+Woden, who was worshipped as a god among those nations, and they are
+said to be his great grandsons [g]; a circumstance which added much to
+their authority.  We shall not attempt to trace any higher the origin
+of those princes and nations.  It is evident what fruitless labour it
+must be to search, in those barbarous and illiterate ages, for the
+annals of a people, when their first leaders, known in any true
+history, were believed by them to be the fourth in descent from a
+fabulous deity, or from a man exalted by ignorance into that
+character.  The dark industry of antiquaries, led by imaginary
+analogies of names, or by uncertain traditions, would in vain attempt
+to pierce into that deep obscurity which covers the remote history of
+those nations.
+[FN [g] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15.  Saxon Chron. p. 13.  Nennius, cap.
+28.]
+
+These two brothers, observing the other provinces of Germany to be
+occupied by a warlike and necessitous people, and the rich provinces
+of Gaul already conquered or overrun by other German tribes, found it
+easy to persuade their countrymen to embrace the sole enterprise which
+promised a favourable opportunity of displaying their valour and
+gratifying their avidity.  They embarked their troops in three
+vessels, and about the year 449 or 450 [h], carried over 1600 men, who
+landed in the Isle of Thanet, and immediately marched to the defence
+of the Britons against the northern invaders.  The Scots and Picts
+were unable to resist the valour of these auxiliaries; and the
+Britons, applauding their own wisdom in calling over the Saxons, hoped
+thenceforth to enjoy peace and security under the powerful protection
+of that warlike people.
+[FN [h] Saxon Chronicle, p. 12.  Gul. Malm. p. 11.  Huntington, lib.
+2. p. 309.  Ethelwerd.  Brompton, p. 728.]
+
+But Hengist and Horsa perceiving, from their easy victory over the
+Scots and Picts, with what facility they might subdue the Britons
+themselves, who had not been able to resist those feeble invaders,
+were determined to conquer and fight for their own grandeur, not for
+the defence of their degenerate allies.  They sent intelligence to
+Saxony of the fertility and riches of Britain; and represented as
+certain the subjection of a people so long disused to arms, who, being
+now cut off from the Roman empire, of which they had been a province
+during so many ages, had not yet acquired any union among themselves,
+and were destitute of all affection to their new liberties and of all
+national attachments and regards [i].  The vices and pusillanimity of
+Vortigern, the British leader, were a new ground of hope; and the
+Saxons in Germany, following such agreeable prospects, soon reinforced
+Hengist and Horsa with 5000 men, who came over in seventeen vessels.
+The Britons now began to entertain apprehensions of their allies,
+whose numbers they found continually augmenting; but thought of no
+remedy, except a passive submission and connivance.  This weak
+expedient soon  failed them.  The Saxons sought a quarrel, by
+complaining that their subsidies were ill paid, and their provisions
+withdrawn [k]; and immediately taking off the mask, they formed an
+alliance with the Picts and Scots, and proceeded to open hostility
+against the Britons.
+[FN [i] Chron. Sax. p. 12.  Ann. Beverl. p. 42.  [k] Bede, lib. 1.
+cap. 15.  Nennius, cap. 35.  Gildas, Sec. 23.]
+
+The Britons, impelled by these violent extremities, and roused to
+indignation against their treacherous auxiliaries, were necessitated
+to take arms; and having deposed Vortigern, who had become odious from
+his vices, and from the bad event of his rash counsels, they put
+themselves under the command of his son, Vortimer.  They fought many
+battles with their enemies; and though the victories in these actions
+be disputed between the British and Saxon annalists, the progress
+still made by the Saxons proves that the advantage was commonly on
+their side.  In one battle, however, fought at Eaglesford, now
+Ailsford, Horsa, the Saxon general, was slain, and left the sole
+command over his countrymen in the hands of Hengist.  This active
+general, continually reinforced by fresh numbers from Germany, carried
+devastation into the most remote corners of Britain; and being chiefly
+anxious to spread the terror of his arms, he spared neither age, nor
+sex, nor condition, wherever he marched with his victorious forces.
+The private and public edifices of the Britons were reduced to ashes:
+the priests were slaughtered on the altars by those idolatrous
+ravagers: the bishops and nobility shared the fate of the vulgar: the
+people, flying to the mountains and deserts, were intercepted and
+butchered in heaps: some were glad to accept of life and servitude
+under their victors: others, deserting their native country, took
+shelter in the province of Armorica; where, being charitably received
+by a people of the same language and manners, they settled in great
+numbers, and gave the country the name of Britany [l].
+[FN [l] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15.  Usher, p.226.  Gildas, Sec. 24.]
+
+The British writers assign one cause which facilitated the entrance of
+the Saxons into this island; the love with which Vortigern was at
+first seized for Rovena, the daughter of Hengist, and which that
+artful warrior made use of to blind the eyes of the imprudent monarch
+[m].  The same historians add, that Vortimer died; and that Vortigern,
+being restored to the throne, accepted of a banquet from Hengist, at
+Stonehenge, where 300 of his nobility were treacherously slaughtered,
+and himself detained captive [n].  But these stories seem to have been
+invented by the Welsh authors, in order to palliate the weak
+resistance made at first by their countrymen, anal to account for the
+rapid progress and licentious devastations of the Saxons [o].
+[FN [m] Nennius, Galfr. lib. 6. cap. 12.  [n] Nennius, cap. 47.
+Galfr.  [o] Stillingfleet's Orig. Brit. p. 324, 325.]
+
+After the death of Vortimer, Ambrosius, a Briton, though of Roman
+descent, invested with the command over his countrymen, and
+endeavoured, not without success, to unite them in their resistance
+against the Saxons. Those contests increased the animosity between the
+two nations, and roused the military spirit of the ancient
+inhabitants, which had before been sunk into a fatal lethargy.
+Hengist, however, notwithstanding their opposition, still maintained
+his ground in Britain; and in order to divide the forces and attention
+of the natives, he called over a new tribe of Saxons, under the
+command of his brother Octa, and of Ebissa, the son of Octa; and he
+settled them in Northumberland.  He himself remained in the southern
+parts of the island, and laid the foundation of the kingdom of Kent,
+comprehending the county of that name, Middlesex, Essex, and part of
+Surrey.  He fixed his royal seat at Canterbury; where he governed
+about forty years, and he died in or near the year 488; leaving his
+new-acquired dominions to his posterity.
+
+The success of Hengist excited the avidity of the other northern
+Germans; and at different times, and under different leaders, they
+flocked over in multitudes to the invasion of this island.  These
+conquerors were chiefly composed of three tribes, the Saxons, Angles,
+and Jutes [p], who all passed under the common appellation, sometimes
+of Saxons, sometimes of Angles; and speaking the same language, and
+being governed by the same institutions, they were naturally led, from
+these causes, as well as from their common interest, to unite
+themselves against the ancient inhabitants.  The resistance, however,
+though unequal, was still maintained by the Britons; but became every
+day more feeble; and their calamities admitted of few intervals, till
+they were driven into Cornwall and Wales, and received protection from
+the remote situation or inaccessible mountains of those countries.
+[FN [p] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15.  Ethelwerd, p. 833. edit. Camdeni.
+Chron. Sax. p. 12.  Ann. Beverl. p. 78.  The inhabitants of Kent, and
+the Isle of Wight were Jutes.  Essex, Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex, and
+all the southern counties to Cornwall, were peopled by Saxons: Mercia,
+and other parts of the kingdom, were inhabited by Angles.]
+
+The first Saxon state, after that of Kent, which was established in
+Britain, was the kingdom of South Saxony.  In the year 477 [q], Aella,
+a Saxon chief, brought over an army from Germany; and landing on the
+southern coast, proceeded to take possession of the neighbouring
+territory.  The Britons, now armed, did not tamely abandon their
+possessions; nor were they expelled, till defeated in many battles by
+their warlike invaders.  The most memorable action, mentioned by
+historians, is that of Meacredes Burn [r]; where, though the Saxons
+seem to have obtained the victory, they suffered so considerable a
+loss, as somewhat retarded the progress of their conquests.  But
+Aella, reinforced by fresh numbers of his countrymen, again took the
+field against the Britons, and laid siege to Andred-Ceaster, which was
+defended by the garrison and inhabitants with desperate valour [s].
+The Saxons, enraged by this resistance, and by the fatigues and
+dangers which they had sustained, redoubled their efforts against the
+place, and when masters of it, put all their enemies to the sword
+without distinction.  This decisive advantage secured the conquests of
+Aella, who assumed the name of king, and extended his dominion over
+Sussex and a great part of Surrey.  He was stopped in his progress to
+the east by the kingdom of Kent: in that to the west by another tribe
+of Saxons, who had taken possession of that territory.
+[FN [q] Chron. Sax. p.14.  Ann. Beverl. p. 81.  [r] Saxon Chron. A.D.
+485.  Flor. Wigorn.  [s] Hen. Hunting. lib. 2.]
+
+These Saxons, from the situation of the country in which they settled,
+were called the West Saxons, and landed in the year 495, under the
+command of Cerdic, and of his son Kenric [t].  The Britons were, by
+past experience, so much on their guard, and so well prepared to
+receive the enemy, that they gave battle to Cerdic the very day of his
+landing; and though vanquished, still defended, for some time, their
+liberties against the invaders.  None of the other tribes of Saxons
+met with such vigorous resistance, or exerted such valour and
+perseverance in pushing their conquests.  Cerdic was even obliged to
+call for the assistance of his countrymen from the kingdoms of Kent
+and Sussex, as well as from Germany, and he was thence joined by a
+fresh army under the command of Porte, and of his sons Bleda, and
+Megla [u].  Strengthened by these succours, he fought in the year 508,
+a desperate battle with the Britons, commanded by Nazan-Leod, who was
+victorious in the beginning of the action, and routed the wing in
+which Cerdic himself commanded; but Kenric, who had prevailed in the
+other wing, brought timely assistance to his father, and restored the
+battle, which ended in a complete victory gained by the Saxons [w].
+Nazan-Leod perished with 5000 of his army; but left the Britons more
+weakened than discouraged by his death.  The war still continued,
+though the success was commonly on the side of the Saxons, whose short
+swords, and close manner of fighting, gave them great advantage over
+the missile weapons of the Britons.  Cerdic was not wanting to his
+good fortune; and in order to extend his conquests, he laid siege to
+Mount Badon or Banesdowne, near Bath, whither the most obstinate of
+the discomfited Britons had retired.  The southern Britons, in this
+extremity, applied for assistance to Arthur, Prince of the Silures,
+whose heroic valour now sustained the declining fate of his country
+[x].  This is that Arthur so much celebrated in the songs of
+Thaliessin, and the other British bards, and whose military
+achievements have been blended with so many fables, as even to give
+occasion for entertaining a doubt of his real existence. But poets,
+though they disfigure the most certain history by their fictions, and
+use strange liberties with truth where they are the sole historians,
+as among the Britons, have commonly some foundation for their wildest
+exaggerations.  Certain it is, that the siege of Badon was raised by
+the Britons in the year 520; and the Saxons were there discomfited in
+a great battle [y].  This misfortune stopped the progress of Cerdic;
+but was not sufficient to wrest from him the conquests which he had
+already made.  He and his son Kenric, who succeeded him, established
+the kingdom of the West Saxons, or of Wessex, over the counties of
+Hants, Dorset, Wilts, Berks, and the Isle of Wight, and left their
+new-acquired dominions to their posterity.  Cerdic died in 534, Kenric
+in 560.
+[FN [t] Will. Malm. lib. 1. cap. 1. p.12.  Chron. Sax. p. 15.  [u]
+Chron. Sax. p. 17.  [w] H. Hunting. lib. 2.  Ethelwerd, lib. 1. Chron.
+Sax. p. 17.  [x] Hunting. lib. 2.  [y] Gildas, Saxon Chron.  H.
+Hunting. lib. 2]
+
+While the Saxons made this progress in the south, their countrymen
+were not less active in other quarters.  In the year 527, a great
+tribe of adventurers, under several leaders, landed on the east coast
+of Britain; and after fighting many battles, of which history has
+preserved no particular account, they established three new kingdoms
+in this island.  Uffa assumed the title of King of the East Angles in
+575; Crida that of Mercia in 585 [z] and Erkenwin that of East Saxony,
+or Essex, nearly about the same time, but the year is uncertain.  This
+latter kingdom was dismembered from that of Kent, and comprehended
+Essex, Middlesex, and part of Hertfordshire.  That of the East Angles,
+the counties of Cambridge, Suffolk, and Norfolk; Mercia was extended
+over all the middle counties, from the banks of the Severn to the
+frontiers of these two kingdoms.
+[FN [z] Math. West. Huntington, lib. 2.]
+
+The Saxons, soon after the landing of Hengist, had been planted in
+Northumberland; but, as they met with an obstinate resistance, and
+made but small progress in subduing the inhabitants, their affairs
+were in so unsettled a condition, that none of their princes for a
+long time assumed the appellation of king.  At last, in 547 [a], Ida,
+a Saxon prince of great valour [b], who claimed a descent, as did the
+other princes of that nation, from Woden, brought over a reinforcement
+from Germany, and enabled the Northumbrians to carry on their
+conquests over the Britons.  He entirely subdued the county now called
+Northumberland, the bishopric of Durham, as well as some of the south-
+east counties of Scotland; and he assumed the crown under the title of
+King of Bernicia.  Nearly about the same time, Aella, another Saxon
+prince, having conquered Lancashire, and the greater part of
+Yorkshire, received the appellation of  King of Deiri [c].  These two
+kingdoms were united in the person of Ethilfrid, grandson of Ida, who
+married Acca, the daughter of Aella; and expelling her brother Edwin,
+established one of the most powerful of the Saxon kingdoms, by the
+title of Northumberland.  How far his dominions extended into the
+country now called Scotland, is uncertain; but it cannot be doubted,
+that all the lowlands, especially the east coast of that country, were
+peopled in a great measure from Germany; though the expeditions made
+by the several Saxon adventurers have escaped the records of history.
+The language spoken in those countries, which is purely Saxon, is a
+stronger proof of this event than can be opposed by the imperfect, or
+rather fabulous, annals which are obtruded on us by the Scottish
+historians.
+[FN [a] Chron. Sax. p 19.  [b] Will. Malmes. p. 19.  [c] Ann. Beverl.
+p. 78.]
+
+[MN The Heptarcy.]
+Thus was established, after a violent contest of near a hundred and
+fifty years, the Heptarchy, or seven Saxon kingdoms in Britain; and
+the whole southern part of the island, except Wales and Cornwall, had
+totally changed its inhabitants, language, customs, and political
+institutions.  The Britons, under the Roman dominion, had made such
+advances towards arts and civil manners, that they had built twenty-
+eight considerable cities within their province, besides a great
+number of villages and country seats [d].  But the fierce conquerors,
+by whom they were now subdued, threw every thing back into ancient
+barbarity, and those few natives who were not either massacred or
+expelled their habitations, were reduced to the most abject slavery.
+None of the other northern conquerors, the Franks, Goths, Vandals, or
+Burgundians, though they overran the southern provinces of the empire
+like a mighty torrent, made such devastations in the conquered
+territories, or were inflamed into so violent an animosity against the
+ancient inhabitants.  As the Saxons came over at intervals in separate
+bodies, the Britons, however at first unwarlike, were tempted to make
+resistance; and hostilities being thereby prolonged, proved more
+destructive to both parties, especially to the vanquished.  The first
+invaders from Germany, instead of excluding other adventurers  who
+must share with them the spoils of the ancient inhabitants, were
+obliged to solicit fresh supplies from their own country; and a total
+extermination of the Britons became the sole expedient for providing a
+settlement and subsistence to the new planters.  Hence there have been
+found in history few conquests more ruinous than that of the Saxons;
+and few revolutions more violent than that which they introduced.
+[FN  [d] Gildas. Bede. lib. 1.]
+
+So long as the contest was maintained with the natives, the several
+Saxon princes preserved a union of counsels and interests; but after
+the Britons were shut up in the barren counties of Cornwall and Wales,
+and gave no farther disturbance to the conquerors, the band of
+alliance was in a great measure dissolved among the princes of the
+Heptarchy.  Though one prince seems still to have been allowed, or to
+have assumed, an ascendant over the whole, his authority, if it ought
+ever to be deemed regular or legal, was extremely limited; and each
+state acted as if it had been independent, and wholly separate from
+the rest.  Wars therefore, and revolutions and dissensions, were
+unavoidable among a turbulent and military people; and these events,
+however intricate or confused, ought now to become the objects of our
+attention.  But, added to the difficulty of carrying on at once the
+history of seven independent kingdoms, there is great discouragement
+to a writer, arising from the uncertainty, at least barrenness, of the
+accounts transmitted to us.  The monks, who were the only annalists
+during those ages, lived remote from public affairs, considered the
+civil transactions as entirely subordinate to the ecclesiastical, and,
+besides partaking of the ignorance and barbarity which were then
+universal, were strongly infected with credulity, with the love of
+wonder, and with a propensity to imposture; vices almost inseparable
+from their profession and manner of life.  The history of that period
+abounds in names, but is extremely barren of events; or the events are
+related so much without circumstances and causes, that the most
+profound or most eloquent writer must despair of rendering them either
+instructive or entertaining to the reader.  Even the great learning
+and vigorous imagination of Milton sunk under the weight; and this
+author scruples not to declare, that the skirmishes of kites or crows
+as much merited a particular narrative, as the confused transactions
+and battles of the Saxon Heptarchy [e].  In order, however, to connect
+the events in some tolerable measure, we shall give a succinct account
+of the succession of kings, and of the more remarkable revolutions in
+each particular kingdom; beginning with that of Kent, which was the
+first established.
+[FN [e] Milton in Kennet, p. 50.]
+
+[MN The Kingdom of Kent.]
+Escus succeeded his father Hengist in the kingdom of Kent; but seems
+not to have possessed the military genius of that conqueror, who first
+made way for the entrance of the Saxon arms into Britain.  All the
+Saxons who sought either the fame of valour, or new establishments by
+arms, flocked to the standard of Aella, King of Sussex, who was
+carrying on successful war against the Britons, and laying the
+foundations of a new kingdom.  Escus was content to possess in
+tranquillity the kingdom of Kent, which he left in 512 to his son
+Octa, in whose time the East Saxons established their monarchy, and
+dismembered the provinces of Essex and Middlesex from that of Kent.
+His death, after a reign of twenty-two years, made room for his son
+Hermenric in 534, who performed nothing memorable during a reign of
+thirty-two years, except associating with him his son Ethelbert in the
+government, that he might secure the succession in his family, and
+prevent such revolutions as are incident to a turbulent and barbarous
+monarchy.
+
+Ethelbert revived the reputation of his family, which had languished
+for some generations.  The inactivity of his predecessors, and the
+situation of his country, secured from all hostility with the Britons,
+seem to have much enfeebled the warlike genius of the Kentish Saxons;
+and Ethelbert, in his first attempt to aggrandize his country, and
+distinguish his own name, was unsuccessful [f].  He was twice
+discomfited in battle by Ceaulin, King of Wessex; and obliged to yield
+the superiority in the Heptarchy to that ambitious monarch, who
+preserved no moderation in his victory, and by reducing the kingdom of
+Sussex to subjection, excited jealousy in all the other princes.  An
+association was formed against him; and Ethelbert, intrusted with the
+command of the allies  gave him battle, and obtained a decisive
+victory [g ].  Ceaulin died soon after; and Ethelbert succeeded as
+well to his ascendant among the Saxon states, as to his other
+ambitious projects.  He reduced all the princes, except the King of
+Northumberland, to a strict dependence upon him; and even established
+himself by force on the throne of Mercia, the most extensive of the
+Saxon kingdoms.  Apprehensive, however, of a dangerous league against
+him, like that by which he himself had been enabled to overthrow
+Ceaulin, he had the prudence to resign the kingdom of Mercia to Webba,
+the rightful heir, the son of Crida, who had first founded that
+monarchy.  But governed still by ambition more than by justice, he
+gave Webba possession of the crown on such conditions as rendered him
+little better than a tributary prince under his artful benefactor.
+[FN [f] Chron. Sax. p. 21.  [g] H. Hunting. lib. 2.]
+
+But the most memorable event which distinguished the reign of this
+great prince, was the introduction of the Christian religion among the
+English Saxons.  The superstition of the Germans, particularly that of
+the Saxons, was of the grossest and most barbarous kind; and being
+founded on traditional tales received from their ancestors, not
+reduced to any system, nor supported by political institutions, like
+that of the Druids, it seems to have made little impression on its
+votaries, and to have easily resigned its place to the new doctrine
+promulgated to them.  Woden, whom they deemed the ancestor of all
+their princes, was regarded as the god of war, and, by a natural
+consequence, became their supreme deity, and the chief object of their
+religious worship.  They believed that, if they obtained the favour of
+this divinity by their valour, (for they made less account of the
+other virtues,) they should be admitted after their death into his
+hall; and, reposing on couches, should satiate themselves with ale
+from the skulls of their enemies whom they had slain in battle.
+Incited by this idea of paradise, which gratified at once the passion
+of revenge and that of intemperance, the ruling inclinations of
+barbarians, they despised the dangers of war, and increased their
+native ferocity against the vanquished by their religious prejudices.
+We know little of the other theological tenets of the Saxons: we only
+learn that they were polytheists; that they worshipped the sun and
+moon; that they adored the god of thunder under the name of Thor; that
+they had images in their temples; that they practised sacrifices;
+believed firmly in spells and enchantments; and admitted in general a
+system of doctrines which they held as sacred, but which, like all
+other superstitions, must carry the air of the wildest extravagance,
+if propounded to those who are not familiarized to it from their
+earliest infancy.
+
+The constant hostilities which the Saxons maintained against the
+Britons, would naturally indispose them for receiving the Christian
+faith, when preached to them by such inveterate enemies; and perhaps
+the Britons, as is objected to them by Gildas and Bede, were not over
+fond of communicating to their cruel invaders the doctrine of eternal
+life and salvation.  But as a civilized people, however subdued by
+arms, still maintain a sensible superiority over barbarous and
+ignorant nations, all the other northern conquerors of Europe had been
+already induced to embrace the Christian faith, which they found
+established in the empire; and it was impossible but the Saxons,
+informed of this event, must have regarded with some degree of
+veneration a doctrine which had acquired the ascendant over all their
+brethren.  However limited in their views, they could not but have
+perceived a degree of cultivation in the southern countries beyond
+what they themselves possessed; and it was natural for them to yield
+to that superior knowledge as well as zeal, by which the inhabitants
+of the Christian kingdoms were even at that time distinguished.
+
+But these causes might long have failed of producing any considerable
+effect, had not a favourable incident prepared the means of
+introducing Christianity into Kent.  Ethelbert, in his father's
+lifetime, had married Bertha, the only daughter of Caribert, King of
+Paris [h], one of the descendants of Clovis, the conqueror of Gaul;
+but before he was admitted to this alliance, he was obliged to
+stipulate, that the princess should enjoy the free exercise of her
+religion; a concession not difficult to be obtained from the
+idolatrous Saxons [i].  Bertha brought over a  French bishop to the
+court of Canterbury; and being zealous for the propagation of her
+religion, she had been very assiduous in her devotional exercises, had
+supported the credit of her faith by an irreproachable conduct, and
+had employed every art of insinuation and address to reconcile her
+husband to her religious principles.  Her popularity in the court, and
+her influence over Ethelbert, had so well paved the way for the
+reception of the Christian doctrine, that Gregory, surnamed the Great,
+then Roman pontiff, began to entertain hopes of effecting a project,
+which he himself, before he mounted the papal throne, had once
+embraced, of converting the British Saxons.
+[FN [h] Greg. of Tours, lib. 9. cap. 26.  H. Hunting. lib. 2.  [i]
+Bede, lib. 1. cap. 25.  Brompton, p. 729.]
+
+It happened that this prelate, at that time in a private station, had
+observed in the market-place of Rome some Saxon youth exposed to sale,
+whom the Roman merchants, in their trading voyages to Britain, had
+bought of their mercenary parents.  Struck with the beauty of their
+fair complexions and blooming countenances, Gregory asked to what
+country they belonged; and being told they were ANGLES, he replied
+that they ought more properly to be denominated ANGELS: it were a pity
+that the prince of darkness should enjoy so fair a prey, and that so
+beautiful a frontispiece should cover a mind destitute of internal
+grace and righteousness.  Inquiring farther concerning the name of
+their province, he was informed that it was Deiri, a district of
+Northumberland: DEIRI, replied he, THAT IS GOOD!  THEY ARE CALLED TO
+THE MERCY OF GOD FROM HIS ANGER, De ira.  BUT WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE
+KING OF THAT PROVINCE?  He was told it was Aella or Alla: ALLELUIAH,
+cried he: WE MUST ENDEAVOUR THAT THE PRAISES OF GOD BE SUNG IN THAT
+COUNTRY.  Moved by these allusions, which appeared to him so happy, he
+determined to undertake himself a mission into Britain; and having
+obtained the pope's approbation, he prepared for that perilous
+journey: but his popularity at home was so great, that the Romans,
+unwilling to expose him to such dangers, opposed his design; and he
+was obliged, for the present, to lay aside all farther thoughts of
+executing that pious purpose [k].
+[FN [k] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 1.  Spell. Conc. p. 91.]
+
+The controversy between the Pagans and the Christians was not entirely
+cooled in that age; and no pontiff before Gregory, had ever carried to
+greater excess an intemperate zeal against the former religion.  He
+had waged war with all the precious monuments of the ancients, and
+even with their writings, which, as appears from the strain of his own
+wit, as well as from the style of his compositions, he had not taste
+or genius sufficient to comprehend.  Ambitious to distinguish his
+pontificate by the conversion of the British Saxons, he pitched on
+Augustine, a Roman monk, and sent him with forty associates to preach
+the gospel in this island.  These missionaries, terrified with the
+dangers which might attend their proposing a new doctrine to so fierce
+a people, of whose language they were ignorant, stopped some time in
+France, and sent back Augustine to lay the hazards and difficulties
+before the pope, and crave his permission to desist from the
+undertaking.  But Gregory exhorted them to persevere in their purpose,
+advised them to choose some interpreters from among the Franks, who
+still spoke the same language with the Saxons [l]; and recommended
+them to the good offices of Queen Brunehaut, who had at this time
+usurped the sovereign power in France.  This princess, though stained
+with every vice of treachery and cruelty, either possessed or
+pretended great zeal for the cause; and Gregory acknowledged that to
+her friendly assistance was, in a great measure, owing the success of
+that undertaking [m].
+[FN [1] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 23.  [m] Greg. Epist. lib. 9. epist. 56.
+Spell. Conc. p. 82]
+
+Augustine, on his arrival in Kent, in the year 597 [n] found the
+danger much less than he had apprehended.  Ethelbert, already well
+disposed towards the Christian faith, assigned him a habitation in the
+Isle of Thanet, and soon after admitted him to a conference.
+Apprehensive, however, lest spells or enchantments might be employed
+against him by priests, who brought an unknown worship from a distant
+country, he had the precaution to receive them in the open air, where
+he believed the force of their magic would be more easily dissipated
+[o].  Here Augustine, by means of his interpreters, delivered to him
+the tenets of the Christian faith, and promised him eternal joys
+above, and a kingdom in  heaven, without end, if he would be persuaded
+to receive that salutary doctrine [p].  "Your words and promises,"
+replied Ethelbert, "are fair; but because they are new and uncertain,
+I cannot entirely yield to them, and relinquish the principles which I
+and my ancestors have so long maintained.  You are welcome, however,
+to remain here in peace; and as you have undertaken so long a journey,
+solely, as it appears, for what you believe to be for our advantage, I
+will supply you with all necessaries, and permit you to deliver your
+doctrine to my subjects [q]"
+[FN [n] Higden. Polychron. lib. 5.  Chron. Sax. p. 23.  [o] Bede, lib.
+I. cap. 2  Hunting. lib. 3.  Brompton, p. 729  Parker Antiq. Brit.
+Eccl. p. 61. [p] Bede, lib. 1. cap 25.  Chron. W. Thorn. p. 1759.  [q]
+Bede, lib. 1. cap 25.  H. Hunting. lib. 3.  Brompton, p. 729]
+
+Augustine, encouraged by this favourable reception, and seeing now a
+prospect of success, proceeded with redoubled zeal to preach the
+gospel to the Kentish Saxons.  He attracted their attention by the
+austerity of his manners, by the severe penances to which he subjected
+himself, by the abstinence and self-denial which he practised: and
+having excited their wonder by a course of life which appeared so
+contrary to nature, he procured more easily their belief of miracles,
+which, it was pretended, he wrought for their conversion [r].
+Influenced by these motives, and by the declared favour of the court,
+numbers of the Kentish men were baptized; and the king himself was
+persuaded to submit to that rite of Christianity.  His example had
+great influence with his subjects; but he employed no force to bring
+them over to the new doctrine.  Augustine thought proper, in the
+commencement of his mission, to assume the appearance of the greatest
+lenity.  He told Ethelbert that the service of Christ must be entirely
+voluntary, and that no violence ought ever to be used in propagating
+so salutary a doctrine [s].
+[FN [r] Bede, lib. 1. cap 26.  [s] Ibid. lib. 1. cap 26.  H. Hunting.
+lib. 3.]
+
+The intelligence received of these spiritual conquests afforded great
+joy to the Romans; who now exulted as much in those peaceful trophies,
+as their ancestors had ever done in their most sanguinary triumphs,
+and most splendid victories.  Gregory wrote a letter to Ethelbert, in
+which, after informing him that the end of the world was approaching,
+he exhorted him to display his zeal in the conversion of his subjects,
+to exert rigour against the worship of idols, and to build up the good
+work of holiness by every expedient of exhortation, terror,
+blandishment, or correction [t]: a doctrine more suitable to that age,
+and to the usual papal maxims, than the tolerating principles which
+Augustine had thought it prudent to inculcate.  The pontiff also
+answered some questions which the missionary had put concerning the
+government of the new church of Kent.  Besides other queries which it
+is not material here to relate, Augustine asked, WHETHER COUSIN-
+GERMANS MIGHT BE ALLOWED TO MARRY? Gregory answered, that that liberty
+had indeed been formerly granted by the Roman law; but that experience
+had shown, that no issue could ever come from such marriages; and he
+therefore prohibited them.  Augustine, WHETHER A WOMAN PREGNANT MIGHT
+BE BAPTIZED?  Gregory answered that he saw no objection.  HOW SOON
+AFTER THE BIRTH THE CHILD MIGHT RECEIVE BAPTISM?  It was answered,
+Immediately, if necessary.  HOW SOON A HUSBAND MIGHT HAVE COMMERCE
+WITH HIS WIFE AFTER HER DELIVERY?  Not till she had given suck to her
+child: a practice to which Gregory exhorts all women.  HOW SOON A MAN
+MIGHT ENTER THE CHURCH, OR RECEIVE THE SACRAMENT, AFTER HAVING HAD
+COMMERCE WITH HIS WIFE?  It was replied, that unless he had approached
+her without desire, merely for the sake of propagating his species, he
+was not without sin: but in all cases it was requisite for him, before
+he entered the church, or communicated, to purge himself by prayer and
+ablution; and he ought not, even after using these precautions, to
+participate immediately of the sacred duties [u].  There are some
+other questions and replies still more indecent and more ridiculous
+[w].  And on the whole, it appears that Gregory and his missionary, if
+sympathy of manners have any influence, were better calculated than
+men of more refined understanding for making a progress with the
+ignorant and barbarous Saxons.
+[FN [t] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 32.  Brompton, p. 732.  Spell. Conc. p. 86.
+[u] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 27.  Spell. Conc. p. 97, 98, 99, &c.  [w]
+Augustine asks, Si mulier menstrua consuetudine tenetur, an ecclesiam
+intrare ei licet, aut sacrae communionis sacramenta percipere?
+Gregory answers, Sanctae communionis mysterium in eisdem diebus
+percipere non debit prohiberi.  Si autem ex veneratione magna
+precipere non praesumitur, laudanda est.  Augustine asks, Si post
+illusionem, quae per somnum solet accidere, vel corpus Domine quilibet
+accipere valeat; vel, si sacerdos sit, sacra mysteria celebrare.
+Gregory answers this learned question by many learned distinctions.]
+
+The more to facilitate the reception of Christianity Gregory enjoined
+Augustine to remove the idols from the heathen altars, but not to
+destroy the altars themselves; because the people, he said, would be
+allured to frequent the Christian worship, when they found it
+celebrated in a place which they were accustomed to revere.  And as
+the Pagans practised sacrifices, and feasted with the priests on their
+offerings, he also exhorted the missionary to persuade them, on
+Christian festivals, to kill their cattle in the neighbourhood of the
+church, and to indulge themselves in those cheerful entertainments, to
+which they had been habituated [x].  These political compliances show,
+that notwithstanding his ignorance and prejudices, he was not
+unacquainted with the arts of governing mankind.  Augustine was
+consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, was endowed by Gregory with
+authority over all the British churches, and received the pall, a
+badge of ecclesiastical honour, from Rome [y].  Gregory also advised
+him not to be too much elated with his gift of working miracles [z];
+and as Augustine, proud of the success of his mission, seemed to think
+himself entitled to extend his authority over the bishops of Gaul, the
+pope informed him, that they lay entirely without the bounds of his
+jurisdiction [a].
+[FN [x] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 30.  Spell. Conc. p.89.  Greg. Epist. lib.
+9. Epist. 71.  [y] Chron. Sax. p. 23, 24.  [z] H. Hunting. lib. 3.
+Spell. Conc. p. 83.  Bede, lib. 1.  Greg. Epist. lib. 9. Epist. 60.
+[a] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 27.]
+
+The marriage of Ethelbert with Bertha, and much more his embracing
+Christianity, begat a connexion of his subjects with the French,
+Italians, and other nations on the continent, and tended to reclaim
+them from that gross ignorance and barbarity in which all the Saxon
+tribes had been hitherto involved [b].  Ethelbert also enacted [c],
+with the consent of the states of his kingdom, a body of laws, the
+first written laws promulgated by any of the northern conquerors; and
+his reign was in every respect glorious to himself, and beneficial to
+his people.  He governed the kingdom of Kent fifty years, and dying in
+616, left the succession to his son, Eadbald.  This prince, seduced by
+a passion for his mother-in-law, deserted for some time the Christian
+faith, which permitted not these incestuous marriages: his whole
+people immediately returned with him to idolatry.  Laurentius, the
+successor of Augustine, found the Christian worship wholly abandoned,
+and was prepared to return to France, in order to escape the
+mortification of preaching the gospel without fruit to the infidels.
+Melitus and Justus, who had been consecrated Bishops of London and
+Rochester, had already departed the kingdom [d], when, Laurentius,
+before he should entirely abandon his dignity, made one effort to
+reclaim the king.  He appeared before that prince, and, throwing off
+his vestments, showed his body all torn with bruises and stripes,
+which he had received.  Eadbald, wondering that any man should have
+dared to treat in that manner a person of his rank, was told by
+Laurentius, that he had received this chastisement from St. Peter, the
+prince of the Apostles, who had appeared to him in a vision, and,
+severely reproving him for his intention to desert his charge, had
+inflicted on him these visible marks of his displeasure [e].  Whether
+Eadbald was struck with the miracle, or influenced by some other
+motive, he divorced himself from his mother-in-law, and returned to
+the profession of Christianity [f]: his whole people returned with
+him.  Eadbald reached not the fame or authority of his father, and
+died in 640, after a reign of twenty-five years, leaving two sons,
+Erminfred and Ercombert.
+[FN [b] Will. Malm. p.10.  [c] Wilkins Leges Sax. p. 13.  [d] Bede,
+lib. 2. cap. 5.  [e] Ibid. lib. 2. cap. 6.  Chron. Sax. p. 26.
+Higden, lib. 5.  [f] Brompton, p. 739.]
+
+Ercombert, though the younger son, by Emma, a French princess, found
+means to mount the throne.  He is celebrated by Bede for two exploits;
+for establishing the fast of Lent in his kingdom, and for utterly
+extirpating idolatry, which, notwithstanding the prevalence of
+Christianity, had hitherto been tolerated by the two preceding
+monarchs.  He reigned twenty-four years, and left the crown to Egbert,
+his son, who reigned nine years.  This prince is renowned for his
+encouragement of learning, but infamous for putting to death his two
+cousin germans, sons of Erminfred, his uncle.  The ecclesiastical
+writers praise him for bestowing on his sister, Domnona, some lands in
+the Isle of Thanet, where she founded a monastery.
+
+The bloody precaution of Egbert could not fix the crown on the head of
+his son, Edric.  Lothaire, brother  of the deceased prince, took
+possession of the kingdom, and, in order to secure the power in his
+family, he associated with him Richard, his son, in the administration
+of the government.  Edric, the dispossessed prince, had recourse to
+Edilwach, King of Sussex, for assistance, and being supported by that
+prince, fought a battle with his uncle, who was defeated and slain.
+Richard fled into Germany, and afterwards died in Lucca, a city of
+Tuscany.  William of Malmesbury ascribes Lothaire's bad fortune to two
+crimes; his concurrence in the murder of his cousins, and his contempt
+for relics [g].
+[FN [g] Will. Malm. p. 11.]
+
+Lothaire reigned eleven years; Edric, his successor, only two.  Upon
+the death of the latter, which happened in 686, Widred, his brother,
+obtained possession of the crown.  But as the succession had been of
+late so much disjointed by revolutions and usurpations, faction began
+to prevail among the nobility, which invited Ceodwalla, King of
+Wessex, with his brother, Mollo, to attack the kingdom.  These
+invaders committed great devastations in Kent; but the death of Mollo,
+who was slain in a skirmish [h], gave a short breathing-time to that
+kingdom.  Widred restored the affairs of Kent, and, after a reign of
+thirty-two years [i], left the crown to his posterity.  Eadbert,
+Ethelbert, and Alric, his descendants, successively mounted the
+throne.  After the death of the last, which happened in 794, the royal
+family of Kent was extinguished, and every factious leader who could
+entertain hopes of ascending the throne, threw the state into
+confusion [k].  Egbert, who first succeeded, reigned but two years;
+Cuthred, brother to the King of Mercia, six years; Baldred, an
+illegitimate branch of the royal family, eighteen; and, after a
+troublesome and precarious reign, he was, in the year 827, expelled by
+Egbert, King of Wessex, who dissolved the Saxon Heptarchy, and united
+the several kingdoms under his dominion.
+[FN [h] Higden, lib. 5.  [i] Chron. Sax. p. 52  [k] Will. Malmes. lib.
+1. cap. 1. p. 11.]
+
+[MN The kingdom of Northumberland.]
+Adelfrid, King of Bernicia, having married Acca, the daughter of
+Aella, King of Deiri, and expelled her infant brother, Edwin, had
+united all the countries north of Humber into one monarchy, and
+acquired a great ascendant in the Heptarchy.  He also spread the
+terror of the Saxon arms to the neighbouring people, and by his
+victories over the Scots and Picts, as well as Welsh, extended on all
+sides the bounds of his dominions.  Having laid siege to Chester, the
+Britons marched out with all their forces to engage him, and they were
+attended by a body of 1250 monks from the monastery of Bangor, who
+stood at a small distance from the field of battle, in order to
+encourage the combatants by their presence and exhortations.
+Adelfrid, inquiring the purpose of this unusual appearance, was told,
+that these priests had come to pray against him: THEN ARE THEY AS MUCH
+OUR ENEMIES, said he, AS THOSE WHO INTEND TO FIGHT AGAINST US [l]: and
+he immediately sent a detachment, who fell upon them, and did such
+execution, that only fifty escaped with their lives [m].  The Britons,
+astonished at this event, received a total defeat; Chester was obliged
+to surrender; and Adelfrid, pursuing his victory, made himself master
+of Bangor, and entirely demolished the monastery, a building so
+extensive that there was a mile's distance from one gate of it to
+another, and it contained two thousand one hundred monks, who are said
+to have been there maintained by their own labour [n].
+[FN [l] Brompton, p. 779.  [m] Trivet, apud Spell. Conc. p. 111.  [n]
+Bede, lib. 2. cap. 2.  W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 3.]
+
+Notwithstanding Adelfrid's success in war, he lived in inquietude on
+account of young Edwin, whom he had unjustly dispossessed of the crown
+of Deiri.  This prince, now grown to man's estate, wandered from place
+to place in continual danger from the attempts of Adelfrid, and
+received at last protection in the court of Redwald, King of the East
+Angles, where his engaging and gallant deportment procured him general
+esteem and affection.  Redwald, however, was strongly solicited by the
+King of Northumberland to kill or deliver up his guest; rich presents
+were promised him if he would comply, and war denounced against him in
+case of his refusal.  After rejecting several messages of this kind,
+his generosity began to yield to the motives of interest; and he
+retained the last ambassador till he should come to a resolution in a
+case of such importance.  Edwin, informed of his friend's perplexity,
+was yet determined at all hazards to remain in East Anglia, and
+thought that if the protection of that  court failed him, it were
+better to die, than prolong a life so much exposed to the persecutions
+of his powerful rival.  This confidence in Redwald's honour and
+friendship, with his other accomplishments, engaged the queen on his
+side, and she effectually represented to her husband the infamy of
+delivering up to certain destruction their royal guest, who had fled
+to them for protection against his cruel and jealous enemies [o].
+Redwald, embracing more generous resolutions, thought it safest to
+prevent Adelfrid, before that prince was aware of his intention, and
+to attack him while he was yet unprepared for defence.  He marched
+suddenly with an army into the kingdom of Northumberland, and fought a
+battle with Adelfrid, in which that monarch was defeated and killed,
+after avenging himself by the death of Regner, son of Redwald [p]: his
+own sons, Eanfrid, Oswald, and Oswy, yet infants, were carried into
+Scotland, and Edwin obtained possession of the crown of
+Northumberland.
+[FN [o] W.. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 3.  H. Hunting. lib. 3  Bede  [p]
+Bede, lib. 2. cap. 12.  Brompton, p. 781.]
+
+Edwin was the greatest prince of the Heptarchy in that age, and
+distinguished himself, both by his influence over the other kingdoms
+[q], and by the strict execution of justice in his own dominions.  He
+reclaimed his subjects from the licentious life to which they had been
+accustomed; and it was a common saying, that during his reign a woman
+or child might openly carry every where a purse of gold, without any
+danger of violence or robbery.  There is a remarkable instance,
+transmitted to us, of the affection borne him by his servants.
+Cuichelme, King of Wessex, was his enemy, but finding himself unable
+to maintain open war against so gallant and powerful a prince, he
+determined to use treachery against him, and he employed one Eumer for
+that criminal purpose.  The assassin, having obtained admittance by
+pretending to deliver a message from Cuichelme, drew his dagger and
+rushed upon the king.  Lilla, an officer of his army, seeing his
+master's danger, and having no other means of defence, interposed with
+his own body between the king and Eumer's dagger, which was pushed
+with such violence, that after piercing Lilla, it even wounded Edwin;
+but before the assassin  could renew his blow, he was despatched by
+the king's attendants.
+[FN [q] Chron. Sax. p. 27.]
+
+The East Angles conspired against Redwald, their king, and having put
+him to death, they offered their crown to Edwin, of whose valour and
+capacity they had had experience, while he resided among them.  But
+Edwin, from a sense of gratitude towards his benefactor, obliged them
+to submit to Earpwold, the son of Redwald; and that prince preserved
+his authority, though on a precarious footing, under the protection of
+the Northumbrian monarch [r].
+[FN [r] Gul. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 3.]
+
+Edwin, after his accession to the crown, married Ethelburga, the
+daughter of Ethelbert, King of Kent.  This princess, emulating the
+glory of her mother, Bertha, who had been the instrument for
+converting her husband and his people to Christianity, carried
+Paullinus, a learned bishop, along with her [s]; and besides
+stipulating a toleration for the exercise of her own religion, which
+was readily granted her, she used every reason to persuade the king to
+embrace it.  Edwin, like a prudent prince, hesitated on the proposal,
+but promised to examine the foundations of that doctrine, and declared
+that, if he found them satisfactory, he was willing to be converted
+[t].  Accordingly, he held several conferences with Paullinus;
+canvassed the arguments propounded with the wisest of his counsellors;
+retired frequently from company, in order to revolve alone that
+important question; and after a serious and long inquiry, declared in
+favour of the Christian religion [u]: the people soon after imitated
+his example.  Besides the authority and influence of the king, they
+were moved by another striking example.  Coifi, the high priest, being
+converted after a public conference with Paullinus, led the way in
+destroying the images which he had so long worshipped, and was forward
+in making this atonement for his past idolatry [w].
+[FN [s] H. Hunting. lib. 3.  [t] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 9.  [u] Ibid.  W.
+Malmes. lib 1. cap. 3.  [w] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 13.  Brompton, Higden,
+lib. 5.]
+
+This able prince perished with his son, Osfrid, in a great battle
+which he fought against Penda, King of Mercia, and Caedwalla, King of
+the Britons [x].  That event, which happened in the forty-eighth year
+of Edwin's age, and seventeenth of his reign [y], divided the monarchy
+of Northumberland, which that prince had united in his person.
+Eanfrid, the son of Adelfrid, returned with his brothers, Oswald and
+Oswy, from Scotland, and took possession of Bernicia, his paternal
+kingdom: Osric, Edwin's cousin-german, established himself at Deiri,
+the inheritance of his family, but to which the sons of Edwin had a
+preferable title.  Eanfrid, the elder surviving son, fled to Penda, by
+whom he was treacherously slain.  The younger son, Vuscfraea, with
+Yffi, the grandson of Edwin, by Osfrid, sought protection in Kent, and
+not finding themselves in safety there, retired into France to King
+Dagobert, where they died [z].
+[FN [x] Matth. West. p. 114  Chron. Sax. p. 29.  [y] W. Malmes. lib 1.
+cap. 3.  [z] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 20.]
+
+Osric, King of Deiri, and Eanfrid, of Bernicia, returned to paganism,
+and the whole people seem to have returned with them; since Paullinus,
+who was the first Archbishop of York, and who had converted them,
+thought proper to retire with Ethelburga, the queen dowager, into
+Kent.  Both these Northumbrian kings perished soon after, the first in
+battle against Caedwalla, the Briton; the second by the treachery of
+that prince.  Oswald, the brother of Eanfrid, of the race of Bernicia,
+united again the kingdom of Northumberland in the year 634, and
+restored the Christian religion in his dominions.  He gained a bloody
+and well-disputed battle against Caedwalla; the last vigorous effort
+which the Britons made against the Saxons.  Oswald is much celebrated
+for his sanctity and charity by the monkish historians, and they
+pretend that his relics wrought miracles, particularly the curing of a
+sick horse, which had approached the place of his interment [a].
+[FN [a] Ibid. lib. 3. cap. 9.]
+
+He died in battle against Penda, King of Mercia, and was succeeded by
+his brother Oswy, who established himself in the government of the
+whole Northumbrian kingdom, by putting to death Oswin, the son of
+Osric, the last king of the race of Deiri.  His son Egfrid succeeded
+him; who perishing in battle against the Picts, without leaving any
+children, because Adelthrid, his wife, refused to violate her vow of
+chastity, Alfred, his natural brother, acquired possession of the
+kingdom, which he governed for nineteen years, and he left it to
+Osred, his son, a boy of eight years of age.  This prince, after a
+reign of eleven years, was murdered by Kenred, his kinsman, who, after
+enjoying the crown only a year, perished by a like fate.  Osric, and
+after him Celwulph, the son of Kenred, next mounted the throne, which
+the latter relinquished in the year 735, in favour of Eadbert, his
+cousin-german, who, imitating his predecessor, abdicated the crown,
+and retired into a monastery.  Oswolf, son of Eadbert, was slain in a
+sedition, a year after his accession to the crown; and Mollo, who was
+not of the royal family, seized the crown.  He perished by the
+treachery of Ailred, a prince of the blood; and Ailred, having
+succeeded in his design upon the throne, was soon after expelled by
+his subjects.  Ethelred, his successor, the son of Mollo, underwent a
+like fate.  Celwold, the next king, the brother of Ailred, was deposed
+and slain by the people, and his place was filled by Osred, his
+nephew, who, after a short reign of a year, made way for Ethelbert,
+another son of Mollo, whose death was equally tragical with that of
+almost all his predecessors.  After Ethelbert's death an universal
+anarchy prevailed in Northumberland, and the people having, by so many
+fatal revolutions, lost all attachment to their government and
+princes, were well prepared for subjection to a foreign yoke, which
+Egbert, King of Wessex, finally imposed upon them.
+
+[MN The kingdom of East Anglia.]
+The history of this kingdom contains nothing memorable except the
+conversion of Earpwold, the fourth king, and great-grandson of Uffa,
+the founder of the monarchy.  The authority of Edwin, King of
+Northumberland, on whom that prince entirely depended, engaged him to
+take this step; but soon after, his wife, who was an idolatress,
+brought him back to her religion, and he was found unable to resist
+those allurements which had seduced the wisest of mankind.  After his
+death, which was violent, like that of most of the Saxon princes that
+did not early retire into monasteries, Sigebert, his successor and
+half brother, who had been educated in France, restored Christianity,
+and introduced learning among the East Angles.  Some pretend that he
+founded the university of Cambridge, or rather some schools in that
+place.  It is almost impossible,  and quite needless, to be more
+particular in relating the transactions of the East Angles.  What
+instruction or entertainment can it give the reader, to hear a long
+bead-roll of barbarous names, Egric, Annas, Ethelbert, Ethelwald,
+Aldulf; Elfwald, Beorne, Ethelred, Ethelbert, who successively
+murdered, expelled, or inherited from each other, and obscurely filled
+the throne of that kingdom?  Ethelbert, the last of these princes, was
+treacherously murdered by Offa, King of Mercia, in the year 792, and
+his state was thenceforth united with that of Offa, as we shall relate
+presently.
+
+[MN The kingdom of Mercia.]
+Mercia, the largest if not the most powerful kingdom of the Heptarchy,
+comprehended all the middle counties of England, and as its frontiers
+extended to those of all the other six kingdoms, as well as to Wales,
+it received its name from that circumstance.  Wibba, the son of Crida,
+founder of the monarchy, being placed on the throne, by Ethelbert,
+King of Kent, governed his paternal dominions by a precarious
+authority, and after his death, Ceorl, his kinsman, was, by the
+influence of the Kentish monarch, preferred to his son Penda, whose
+turbulent character appeared dangerous to that prince.  Penda was thus
+fifty years of age before he mounted the throne, and his temerity and
+restless disposition were found nowise abated by time, experience, or
+reflection.  He engaged in continual hostilities against all the
+neighbouring states, and by his injustice and violence rendered
+himself equally odious to his own subjects and to strangers.
+Sigebert, Egric, and Annas, three kings of East Anglia, perished
+successively in battle against him, as did also Edwin and Oswald, the
+two greatest princes that had reigned over Northumberland.  At last
+Oswy, brother to Oswald, having defeated and slain him in a decisive
+battle, freed the world from this sanguinary tyrant.  Peada, his son,
+mounted the throne of Mercia in 655, and lived under the protection of
+Oswy, whose daughter he had espoused.  This princess was educated in
+the Christian faith, and she employed her influence with success, in
+converting her husband and his subjects to that religion.  Thus the
+fair sex have had the merit of introducing the Christian doctrine into
+all the most considerable  kingdoms of the Saxon Heptarchy.  Peada
+died a violent death [b].  His son, Wolfhere, succeeded to the
+government, and, after having reduced to dependence the kingdoms of
+Essex and East Anglia, he, left the crown to his brother Ethelred,
+who, though a lover of peace, showed himself not unfit for military
+enterprises.  Besides making a successful expedition into Kent, he
+repulsed Egfrid, King of Northumberland, who had invaded his
+dominions; and he slew in battle Elfwin, the brother of that prince.
+Desirous, however, of composing all animosities with Egfrid, he paid
+him a sum of money as a compensation for the loss of his brother.
+After a prosperous reign of thirty years, he resigned the crown to
+Kendred, son of Wolfhere, and retired into the monastery of Bardney
+[c].  Kendred returned the present of the crown to Ceolred, the son of
+Ethelred, and making a pilgrimage to Rome, passed his life there in
+penance and devotion.  The place of Ceolred was supplied by Ethelbald,
+great-grand-nephew to Penda, by Alwy, his brother; and this prince,
+being slain in a mutiny, was succeeded by Offa, who was a degree more
+remote from Penda, by Eawa, another brother.
+[FN [b] Hugo Candidus, p. 4, says, that he was treacherously murdered
+by his queen, by whose persuasion he had embraced Christianity; but
+this account of the matter is found in that historian alone.  [c]
+Bede, lib. 5.]
+
+This prince, who mounted the throne in 775 [d], had some great
+qualities, and was successful in his warlike enterprises against
+Lothaire, King of Kent, and Kenwulph, King of Wessex.  He defeated the
+former in a bloody battle at Otford upon the Darent, and reduced his
+kingdom to a state of dependence: he gained a victory over the latter
+at Bensington in Oxfordshire; and conquering that county, together
+with that of Gloucester, annexed both to his dominions.  But all these
+successes were stained by his treacherous murder of Ethelbert, King of
+the East Angles, and his violent seizing of that kingdom.  This young
+prince, who is said to have possessed great merit, had paid his
+addresses to Elfrida, the daughter of Offa, and was invited with all
+his retinue to Hereford, in order to solemnize the nuptials.  Amidst
+the joy and festivity of these entertainments, he was seized by Offa,
+and secretly beheaded; and though Elfrida, who abhorred her father's
+treachery, had time to give warning to the East Anglian nobility, who
+escaped into their own country, Offa, having extinguished the royal
+family, succeeded in his design of subduing that kingdom [e].  The
+perfidious prince, desirous of re-establishing his character in the
+world, and perhaps of appeasing the remorses of his own conscience,
+paid great court to the clergy, and practised all the monkish devotion
+so much esteemed in that ignorant and superstitious age.  He gave the
+tenth of his goods to the church [f]; bestowed rich donations on the
+cathedral of Hereford, and even made a pilgrimage to Rome, where his
+great power and riches could not fail of procuring him the papal
+absolution.  The better to ingratiate himself with the sovereign
+pontiff, he engaged to pay him a yearly donation for the support of an
+English college at Rome [g]; and, in order to raise the sum, he
+imposed the tax of a penny on each house possessed of thirty pence a
+year.  This imposition being afterwards levied on all England, was
+commonly denominated Peter's Pence [h]: and though conferred at first
+as a gift, was afterwards claimed as a tribute by the Roman pontiff.
+Carrying his hypocrisy still farther, Offa, feigning to be directed by
+a vision from heaven, discovered at Verulam the relics of St. Alban,
+the martyr, and endowed a magnificent monastery in that place [i].
+Moved by all these acts of piety, Malmesbury, one of the best of the
+old English historians, declares himself at a loss to determine [k]
+whether the merits or crimes of this prince preponderated.  Offa died
+after a reign of thirty-nine years, in 794 [l].
+[FN [d] Chron. Sax. p. 59.  [e] Brompton, p. 750, 751, 752.  [f] Spell.
+Conc. p. 308.  Brompton, p. 776.  [g] Spell. Conc. p. 230, 310, 312.
+[h] Higden, lib. 5.  [i] Ingulph. p. 5.  W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 4.
+[k] Lib. 1. cap. 4.]
+
+This prince was become so considerable in the Heptarchy, that the
+Emperor Charlemagne entered into an alliance and friendship with him;
+a circumstance which did honour to Offa, as distant princes at that
+time had usually little communication with each other.  That emperor
+being a great lover of learning and learned men, in an age very barren
+of that ornament, Offa, at his desire, sent him over Alcuin, a
+clergyman, much celebrated for his knowledge, who received great
+honours from Charlemagne, and even became his preceptor in the
+sciences.  The chief reason why he had at first desired the company of
+Alcuin, was, that he might oppose his learning to the heresy of Felix,
+Bishop of Urgel, in Catalonia, who maintained that Jesus Christ,
+considered in his human nature, could more properly be denominated the
+adoptive, than the natural son of God [m].  This heresy was condemned
+in the council of Francfort, held in 794, and consisting of 300
+bishops.  Such were the questions which were agitated in that age, and
+which employed the attention not only of cloistered scholars, but of
+the wisest and greatest princes [n].
+[FN [l] Chron. Sax. p. 65  [m] Dupin, cent. 8. chap. 4.  [n] Offa, in
+order to protect his country from Wales; drew a rampart or ditch of a
+hundred miles in length, from Basinwerke in Flintshire, to the south-
+sea near Bristol.  See SPEED'S DESCRIPTION OF WALES.]
+
+Egfrith succeeded to his father Offa, but survived him only five
+months [o], when he made way for Kenulph, a descendant of the royal
+family.  This prince waged war against Kent, and taking Egbert the
+king prisoner, he cut off his hands, and put out his eyes, leaving
+Cuthred, his own brother, in possession of the crown of that kingdom.
+Kenulph was killed in an insurrection of the East Anglians, whose
+crown his predecessor, Offa, had usurped.  He left his son, Kenelm, a
+minor, who was murdered the same year by his sister, Quendrade, who
+had entertained the ambitious views of assuming the government [p].
+But she was supplanted by her uncle Ceolulf; who, two years after, was
+dethroned by Beornulf.  The reign of this usurper, who was not of the
+royal family, was short and unfortunate: he was defeated by the West
+Saxons, and killed by his own subjects, the East Angles [q].  Ludican,
+his successor, underwent the same fate [r]; and Wiglaff, who mounted
+this unstable throne, and found every thing in the utmost confusion,
+could not withstand the fortune of Egbert, who united all the Saxon
+kingdoms into one great monarchy.
+[FN [o] Ingulph. p. 6.  [p] Ibid. p. 7.  Brompton, p. 776  [q]
+Ingulph. p. 7.  [r] Ann. Beverl. p. 87.]
+
+[MN The kingdom of Essex.]
+This kingdom made no great figure in the Heptarchy, and the history of
+it is very imperfect.  Sleda succeeded to his father, Erkinwin, the
+founder of' the monarchy, and made way for his son, Sebert, who, being
+nephew to Ethelbert, King of Kent, was persuaded by that prince to
+embrace the Christian faith [s].  His sons and conjunct successors,
+Sexted and Seward, relapsed into idolatry, and were soon after slain
+in a battle against the West Saxons.  To show the rude manner of
+living in that age, Bede tells us [t], that these two kings expressed
+great desire to eat the white bread, distributed by Mellitus, the
+bishop, at the [u] communion.  But on his refusing them, unless they
+would submit to be baptized, they expelled him their dominions.  The
+names of the other princes who reigned successively in Essex, are
+Sigebert the Little, Sigebert the Good who restored Christianity,
+Swithelm, Sigheri, Offa.  This last prince, having made a vow of
+chastity, notwithstanding his marriage with Keneswitha, a Mercian
+princess, daughter to Penda, went in pilgrimage to Rome, and shut
+himself up during the rest of his life in a cloister.  Selred, his
+successor, reigned thirty-eight years, and was the last of the royal
+line; the failure of which threw the kingdom into great confusion, and
+reduced it to dependence under Mercia [w].  Switherd first acquired
+the crown, by the concession of the Mercian princes, and his death
+made way for Sigeric, who ended his life in a pilgrimage to Rome.  His
+successor, Sigered, unable to defend his kingdom, submitted to the
+victorious arms of Egbert.
+[FN [s] Chron. Sax. p. 24.  [t] Lib. 2. cap. 5.  [u] H. Hunting. lib.
+3.  Brompton, p. 738, 743.  Bede.  [w] Malmes lib. 1. cap. 6.]
+
+[MN The kingdom of Sussex.]
+The history of this kingdom, the smallest in the Heptarchy, is still
+more imperfect than that of Essex.  Aella, the founder of the
+monarchy, left the crown to his son Cissa, who is chiefly remarkable
+for his long reign of seventy-six years.  During his time, the South
+Saxons fell almost into a total dependence on the kingdom of Wessex,
+and we scarcely know the names of the princes who were possessed of
+this titular sovereignty.  Adelwalch, the last of them, was subdued in
+battle by Ceodwalla, King of Wessex, and was slain in the action,
+leaving two infant sons, who, falling into the hand of the conqueror,
+were murdered by him.  The Abbot of Retford opposed the order for this
+execution, but could only prevail on Ceodwalla to suspend it till they
+should be baptized.  Bercthun and Audhun, two noblemen of character,
+resisted some time the violence of the West Saxons, but their
+opposition served only to prolong the miseries of their country, and
+the subduing of this kingdom was the first step which the West Saxons
+made towards acquiring the sole monarchy of England [x].
+[FN [x] Brompton, p. 800.]
+
+[MN The Kingdom of Wessex.]
+The kingdom of Wessex, which finally swallowed up all the other Saxon
+states, met with great resistance on its first establishment: and the
+Britons, who were now inured to arms, yielded not tamely their
+possessions to those invaders.  Cerdic, the founder of the monarchy,
+and his son, Kenric, fought many successful, and some unsuccessful,
+battles against the natives; and the martial spirit, common to all the
+Saxons, was, by means of these hostilities, carried to the greatest
+height, among this tribe.  Ceaulin, who was the son and successor of
+Kenric, and who began his reign in 560, was still more ambitious and
+enterprising than his predecessors, and by waging continual war
+against the Britons, he added a great part of the counties of Devon
+and Somerset to his other dominions.  Carried along by the tide of
+success, he invaded the other Saxon states in his neighbourhood, and
+becoming terrible to all, he provoked a general confederacy against
+him.  This alliance proved successful under the conduct of Ethelbert,
+King of Kent; and Ceaulin, who had lost the affections of his own
+subjects by his violent disposition, and had now fallen into contempt
+from his misfortunes, was expelled the throne [y], and died in exile
+and misery.  Cuichelme and Cuthwin, his sons, governed jointly the
+kingdom, till the expulsion of the latter in 591, and the death of the
+former in 593, made way for Cealric, to whom succeeded Ceobald in 593,
+by whose death, which happened in 611, Kynegils inherited the crown.
+This prince embraced Christianity [z], through the persuasion of
+Oswald, King of Northumberland, who had married his daughter, and who
+had attained a great ascendant in the Heptarchy.  Kenwalch next
+succeeded to the monarchy, and dying in 672, left the succession so
+much disputed, that Sexburga, his widow, a woman of spirit [a], kept
+possession of the government till her death, which happened two years
+after.  Escwin then peaceably acquired the crown, and after a short
+reign of two years made way for Kentwin, who governed nine years.
+Ceodwalla, his successor, mounted not the throne without opposition,
+but proved a great prince according to the ideas of those times; that
+is, he was enterprising, warlike, and successful.  He entirely subdued
+the kingdom of Sussex, and annexed it to his own dominions.  He made
+inroads into Kent, but met with resistance from Widred, the king, who
+proved successful against Mollo, brother to Ceodwalla, and slew him in
+a skirmish.  Ceodwalla, at last, tired with wars and bloodshed, was
+seized with a fit of devotion; bestowed several endowments on the
+church; and made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he received baptism, and
+died in 689.  Ina, his successor, inherited the military virtues of
+Ceodwalla, and added to them the more valuable ones of justice,
+policy, and prudence.  He made war upon the Britons in Somerset, and
+having finally subdued that province, he treated the vanquished with a
+humanity hitherto unknown to the Saxon conquerors.  He allowed the
+proprietors to retain possession of their lands, encouraged marriages
+and alliances between them and his ancient subjects, and gave them the
+privilege of being governed by the same laws.  These laws he augmented
+and ascertained, and though he was disturbed by some insurrections at
+home, his long reign of thirty-seven years may be regarded as one of
+the most glorious and most prosperous of the Heptarchy.  In the
+decline of his age he made a pilgrimage to Rome, and after his return,
+shut himself up in a cloister, where he died.
+[FN [y] Chron. Sax. p. 22.  [z] Higden, lib. 5.  Chron. Sax. p. 15.
+Ann. Beverl. p. 93.  [a] Bede, lib 4 cap 12.  Chron. Sax. p. 41.]
+
+Though the kings of Wessex had always been princes of the blood,
+descended from Cerdic, the founder of the monarchy, the order of
+succession had been far from exact, and a more remote prince had often
+found means to mount the throne in preference to one descended from a
+nearer branch of the royal family.  Ina, therefore, having no children
+of his own, and lying much under the influence of Ethelburga, his
+queen, left by will the succession to Adelard, her brother, who was
+his remote kinsman; but this destination did not take place without
+some difficulty.  Oswald, a prince more nearly allied to the crown,
+took arms against Adelard; but he being suppressed, and dying soon
+after, the title of Adelard was not any farther disputed, and, in the
+year 741, he was succeeded by his cousin, Cudred.  The reign of this
+prince was distinguished by a great victory, which he obtained by
+means of Edelhun, his general, over Ethelbald, King of Mercia.  His
+death made way for Sigebert, his kinsman, who governed so ill, that
+his people rose in an insurrection and dethroned him, crowning Cenulph
+in his stead.  The exiled prince found a refuge with Duke Cumbran,
+governor of Hampshire, who, that he might add new obligations to
+Sigebert, gave him many salutary counsels for his future conduct,
+accompanied with some reprehensions for the past.  But these were so
+much resented by the ungrateful prince, that he conspired against the
+life of his protector, and treacherously murdered him.  After this
+infamous action, he was forsaken by all the world, and skulking about
+in the wilds and forests, was at last discovered by a servant of
+Cumbran's, who instantly took revenge upon him for the murder of his
+master [b].
+[FN [b] Higden, lib. 5.  W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 2.]
+
+Cenulph, who had obtained the crown on the expulsion of Sigebert, was
+fortunate in many expeditions against the Britons of Cornwall, but
+afterwards lost some reputation by his ill success against Offa, King
+of Mercia [c].  Kynehard also, brother to the deposed Sigebert, gave
+him disturbance, and though expelled the kingdom, he hovered on the
+frontiers, and watched an opportunity for attacking his rival.  The
+king had an intrigue with a young woman who lived at Merton in Surrey,
+whither having secretly retired, he was on a sudden environed, in the
+night time, by Kynehard and his followers, and, after making a
+vigorous resistance, was murdered with all his attendants.  The
+nobility and people of the neighbourhood, rising next day in arms,
+took revenge on Kynehard for the slaughter of their king, and put
+every one to the sword who had been engaged in that criminal
+enterprise.  This event happened in 784.
+[FN [c] W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap 3.]
+
+Brithric next obtained possession of the government, though remotely
+descended from the royal family, but he enjoyed not that dignity
+without inquietude.  Eoppa, nephew to King Ina, by his brother Ingild,
+who died before that prince, had begot Eta, father to Alchmond, from
+whom sprung Egbert [d], a young man of the most promising hopes, who
+gave great jealousy to Brithric, the reigning prince, both because he
+seemed by his birth better entitled to the crown, and because he had
+acquired, to an eminent degree, the affections of the people.  Egbert,
+sensible of his danger from the suspicions of Brithric, secretly
+withdrew into France [e], where he was well received by Charlemagne.
+By living in the court, and serving in the armies of that prince, the
+most able and most generous that had appeared in Europe during several
+ages, he acquired those accomplishments which afterwards enabled him
+to make such a shining figure on the throne; and familiarizing himself
+to the manners of the French, who, as Malmesbury observes [f], were
+eminent both for valour and civility above all the western nations, he
+learned to polish the rudeness and barbarity of the Saxon character:
+his early misfortunes thus proved of singular advantage to him.
+[FN [d] Chron. Sax. p. 16.  [e] H. Hunting. lib. 4.  [f] Lib. 2 cap.
+11.]
+
+It was not long ere Egbert had opportunities of displaying his natural
+and acquired talents.  Brithric, King of Wessex, had married Eadburga,
+natural daughter of Offa, King of Mercia, a profligate woman, equally
+infamous for cruelty and for incontinence.  Having great influence
+over her husband, she often instigated him to destroy such of the
+nobility as were obnoxious to her; and where this expedient failed,
+she scrupled not being herself active in traitorous attempts against
+them.  She had mixed a cup of poison for a young nobleman who had
+acquired her husband's friendship, and had on that account become the
+object of her jealousy; but, unfortunately, the king drank of the
+fatal cup along with his favourite, and soon after expired [g].  This
+tragical incident, joined to her other crimes, rendered Eadburga so
+odious, that she was obliged to fly into France, whence Egbert was at
+the same time recalled by the nobility, in order to ascent the throne
+of his ancestors [h].  He attained that dignity in the last year of
+the eighth century.
+[FN [g] Higden, lib. 5.  M. West. p. 152.  Asser. in vita Alfredi, p.
+3. ex edit. Camdeni.  [h] Chron. Sax. A. D. 800.  Brompton, p. 801.]
+
+In the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, an exact rule of succession was
+either unknown or not strictly observed, and thence the reigning
+prince was continually agitated with jealousy against all the princes
+of the blood, whom  he still considered as rivals, and whose death
+alone could give him entire security in his possession of the throne.
+From this fatal cause, together with the admiration of the monastic
+life, and the opinion of merit attending the preservation of chastity
+even in a married state, the royal families had been entirely
+extinguished in all the kingdoms except that of Wessex, and the
+emulations, suspicions, and conspiracies, which had formerly been
+confined to the princes of the blood alone, were now diffused among
+all the nobility in the several Saxon states.  Egbert was the sole
+descendant of those first conquerors who subdued Britain, and who
+enhanced their authority by claiming a pedigree from Woden, the
+supreme divinity of their ancestors.  But that prince, though invited
+by this favourable circumstance to make attempts on the neighbouring
+Saxons, gave them for some time no disturbance, and rather chose to
+turn his arms against the Britons in Cornwall, whom he defeated in
+several [i] battles.  He was recalled from the conquest of that
+country by an invasion made upon his dominions by Bernulf, King of
+Mercia.
+[FN [i] Chron. Sax. p. 69.]
+
+The Mercians, before the accession of Egbert, had very nearly attained
+the absolute sovereignty in the Heptarchy; they had reduced the East
+Angles under subjection, and established tributary princes in the
+kingdoms of Kent and Essex.  Northumberland was involved in anarchy;
+and no state of any consequence remained but that of Wessex, which,
+much inferior in extent to Mercia, was supported solely by the great
+qualities of its sovereign.  Egbert led his army against the invaders,
+and encountering them at Ellandun, in Wiltshire, obtained a complete
+victory, and by the great slaughter which he made of them in their
+flight, gave a mortal blow to the power of the Mercians.  Whilst he
+himself, in prosecution of his victory, entered their country on the
+side of Oxfordshire, and threatened the heart of their dominions, he
+sent an army into Kent, commanded by Ethelwolf, his eldest son [k],
+and expelling Baldred, the tributary king, soon made himself master of
+that country.  The kingdom of Essex was conquered with equal facility,
+and the East Angles, from their hatred to the Mercian government,
+which had been established over them by treachery and violence, and
+probably exercised with tyranny, immediately rose in arms, and craved
+the protection of Egbert [l].  Bernulf, the Mercian king, who marched
+against them, was defeated and slain; and two years after, Ludican,
+his successor, met with the same fate.  These insurrections and
+calamities facilitated the enterprises of Egbert, who advanced into
+the centre of the Mercian territories, and made easy conquests over a
+dispirited and divided people.  In order to engage them more easily to
+submission, he allowed Wiglef, their countryman, to retain the title
+of king, while he himself exercised the real powers of sovereignty
+[m].  The anarchy which prevailed in Northumberland, tempted him to
+carry still farther his victorious arms; and the inhabitants, unable
+to resist his power, and desirous of possessing some established form
+of government, were forward, on his first appearance, to send
+deputies, who submitted to his authority, and swore allegiance to him
+as their sovereign.  Egbert, however, still allowed to Northumberland,
+as he had done to Mercia and East Anglia, the power of electing a
+king, who paid him tribute, and was dependent on him.
+[FN [k] Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 2.  [1] Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 3.
+[m] Ingulph. p. 7, 8, 10]
+
+Thus were united all the kingdoms of the Heptarchy in one great state,
+near four hundred years after the first arrival of the Saxons in
+Britain, and the fortunate arms and prudent policy of Egbert at last
+effected what had been so often attempted in vain by so many princes
+[n].  Kent, Northumberland, and Mercia, which had successively aspired
+to general dominion, were now incorporated in his empire, and the
+other subordinate kingdoms seemed willingly to share the same fate.
+His territories were nearly of the same extent with what is now
+properly called England; and a favourable prospect was afforded to the
+Anglo-Saxons, of establishing a civilized monarchy, possessed of
+tranquillity within itself, and secure against foreign invasion.  This
+great event happened in the year 827 [o].
+[FN [n] Chron. Sax. p. 71.  [o] Ibid.]
+
+The Saxons, though they had been so long settled in the island, seem
+not as yet to have been much improved beyond their German ancestors,
+either in arts, civility, knowledge, humanity, justice, or obedience
+to the laws.  Even Christianity, though it opened the way to
+connexions between them and the more polished states of Europe, had
+not hitherto been very effectual in banishing their ignorance, or
+softening their barbarous manners.  As they received that doctrine
+through the corrupted channels of Rome, it carried along with it a
+great mixture of credulity and superstition, equally destructive to
+the understanding and to morals.  The reverence towards saints and
+relics seems to have almost supplanted the adoration of the Supreme
+Being.  Monastic observances were esteemed more meritorious than the
+active virtues; the knowledge of natural causes were neglected from
+the universal belief of miraculous interpositions and judgments;
+bounty to the church atoned for every violence against society; and
+the remorses for cruelty, murder, treachery, assassination, and the
+more robust vices, were appeased, not by amendment of life, but by
+penances, servility to the monks, and an abject and illiberal devotion
+[p].  The reverence for the clergy had been carried to such a height,
+that, wherever a person appeared in a sacerdotal habit, though on the
+high way, the people flocked around him, and, showing him all marks of
+profound respect, received every word he uttered as the most sacred
+oracle [q].  Even the military virtues, so inherent in all the Saxon
+tribes, began to be neglected; and the nobility, preferring the
+security and sloth of the cloister to the tumults and glory of war,
+valued themselves chiefly on endowing monasteries, of which they
+assumed the government [r].  The several kings, too, being extremely
+impoverished by continual benefactions to the church to which the
+states of their kingdoms had weakly assented, could bestow no rewards
+on valour or military services, and retained not even sufficient
+influence to support their government [s].
+[FN [p] These abuses were common to all the European churches, but the
+priests in Italy, Spain, and Gaul made some atonement for them, by
+other advantages which they rendered society.  For several ages, they
+were almost all Romans, or, in other words, the ancient natives, and
+they preserved the Roman language and laws, with some remains of the
+former civility.  But the priests in the Heptarchy, after the first
+missionaries, were wholly Saxons, and almost as ignorant and barbarous
+as the laity.  They contributed, therefore, little to the improvement
+of society in knowledge or the arts.  [q] Bede, lib 3. cap. 26.  [r]
+Ibid. lib. 5. cap. 23.  Epistola Bedae ad Egbert.  [s] Bedae Epist. ad
+Egbert.]
+
+Another inconvenience which attended this corrupt species of
+Christianity, was the superstitious attachment to Rome, and the
+gradual subjection of the kingdom to a foreign jurisdiction.  The
+Britons, having never acknowledged any subordination to the Roman
+pontiff, had conducted all ecclesiastical government by their domestic
+synods and councils [t]; but the Saxons, receiving their religion from
+Roman monks, were taught at the same time a profound reverence for
+that see, and were naturally led to regard it as the capital of their
+religion.  Pilgrimages to Rome were represented as the most
+meritorious acts of devotion.  Not only noblemen and ladies of rank
+undertook this tedious journey [u], but kings themselves, abdicating
+their crowns, sought for a secure passport to heaven at the feet of
+the Roman pontiff; new relics, perpetually sent from that endless mint
+of superstition, and magnified by lying miracles, invented in
+convents, operated on the astonished minds of the multitude; and every
+prince has attained the eulogies of the monks, the only historians of
+those ages, not in proportion to his civil and military virtues, but
+to his devoted attachment towards their order, and his superstitious
+reverence for Rome.
+[FN [t] Append. to Bede, numb. 10. ex edit, 1722.  Spellm. Conc. p.
+108, 109.  [u] Bede, lib. 5. c. 7.]
+
+The sovereign pontiff, encouraged by this blindness and submissive
+disposition of the people, advanced every day in his encroachments on
+the independence of the English churches.  Wilfrid, Bishop of
+Lindisferne, the sole prelate of the Northumbrian kingdom, increased
+this subjection in the eighth century, by his making an appeal to Rome
+against the decisions of an English synod, which had abridged his
+diocese by the erection of some new bishoprics [w].  Agatho, the pope,
+readily embraced this precedent of an appeal to his court; and
+Wilfrid, though the haughtiest and most luxurious prelate of his age
+[x], having obtained with the people the character of sanctity, was
+thus able to lay the foundation of this papal pretension.
+[FN [w] See Appendix to Bede, numb. 19.  Higden, lib. 5.  [x] Eddius,
+vita Vilfr. § 24, 60]
+
+The great topic by which Wilfrid confounded the imaginations of men
+was, that St. Peter, to whose custody the keys of heaven were
+intrusted, would certainly refuse admittance to every one who should
+be wanting in respect to his successor.  This conceit, well suited to
+vulgar conceptions, made great impression on the people during several
+ages, and has not even at present lost all influence in the catholic
+countries.
+
+Had this abject superstition produced general peace and tranquillity,
+it had made some atonement for the ill attending it; but besides the
+usual avidity of men for power and riches, frivolous controversies in
+theology were engendered by it, which were so much the more fatal, as
+they admitted not, like the others, of any final determination from
+established possession.  The disputes excited in Britain were of the
+most ridiculous kind, and entirely worthy of those ignorant and
+barbarous ages.  There were some intricacies, observed by all the
+Christian churches, in adjusting the day of keeping Easter, which
+depended on a complicated consideration of the course of the sun and
+moon: and it happened that the missionaries, who had converted the
+Scots and Britons, had followed a different calendar from that which
+was observed at Rome in the age when Augustine converted the Saxons.
+The priests also of all the Christian churches were accustomed to
+shave part of their head; but the form given to this tonsure was
+different in the former from what was practised in the latter.  The
+Scots and Britons pleaded the antiquity of THEIR usages; the Romans,
+and their disciples, the Saxons, insisted on the universality of
+THEIRS.  That Easter must necessarily be kept by a rule, which
+comprehended both the day of the year and age of the moon, was agreed
+by all; that the tonsure of a priest could not be omitted without the
+utmost impiety, was a point undisputed; but the Romans and Saxons
+called their antagonists schismatics, because they celebrated Easter
+on the very day of the full moon in March, if that day fell on a
+Sunday, instead of waiting till the Sunday following; and because they
+shaved the forepart of their head from ear to ear, instead of making
+that tonsure on the crown of the head, and in a circular form.  In
+order to render their antagonists odious, they affirmed, that once in
+seven years, they concurred with the Jews in the time of celebrating
+that festival [y]; and that they might recommend their own form of
+tonsure, they maintained that it imitated symbolically the crown of
+thorns worn by Christ in his passion, whereas the other form was
+invented by Simon Magus, without any regard to that representation
+[z].  These controversies had, from the beginning, excited such
+animosity between the British and Romish priests, that, instead of
+concurring in their endeavours to convert the idolatrous Saxons, they
+refused all communion together, and each regarded his opponent as no
+better than a pagan [a].  The dispute lasted more than a century, and
+was at last finished, not by men’s discovering the folly of it, which
+would have been too great an effort for human reason to accomplish,
+but by the entire prevalence of the Romish ritual over the Scotch and
+British [b].  Wilfrid, Bishop of Lindisferne, acquired great merit,
+both with the court of Rome and with all the Southern Saxons, by
+expelling the quartodeciman schism, as it was called, from the
+Northumbrian kingdom, into which the neighbourhood of the Scots had
+formerly introduced it [c].
+[FN [y] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 19.  [z] Ibid. lib. 5. cap. 21.  Eddius,
+Sec. 24.  [a] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 2. 4. 20.  Eddius, Sec. 12.  [b]
+Bede, lib. 5. cap. 16, 22.  [c] Bede, lib. 3. cap. 25.  Eddius, Sec.
+12]
+
+Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, called, in the year 680, a synod
+at Hatfield, consisting of all the bishops in Britain [d], where was
+accepted and ratified the decree of the Lateran council, summoned by
+Martin, against the heresy of the Monothelites.  The council and synod
+maintained, in opposition to these heretics, that though the divine
+and human nature in Christ made but one person, yet they had different
+inclinations, wills, acts, and sentiments, and that the unity of the
+person implied not unity in the consciousness [e].  This opinion it
+seems somewhat difficult to comprehend; and no one, unacquainted with
+the ecclesiastical history of those ages, could imagine the height of
+zeal and violence with which it was then inculcated.  The decree of
+the Lateran council calls the Monothelites impious, execrable, wicked,
+abominable, and even diabolical; and curses and anathematizes them to
+all eternity [f].
+[FN [d] Spell. Conc. vol. 1. p. 168.  [e] Spell. Conc. vol. 1. p. 171.
+[f] Ibid. p. 172, 173, 174.]
+
+The Saxons, from the first introduction of Christianity among them,
+had admitted the use of images; and perhaps, that religion, without
+some of those exterior ornaments, had not made so quick a progress
+with these idolaters: but they had not paid any species of worship or
+address to images; and this abuse never prevailed among Christians,
+till it received the sanction of the second council of Nice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+EGBERT.--ETHELWOLF.--ETHELBALD AND ETHELBERT.--ETHERED.—ALFRED THE
+GREAT.--EDWARD THE ELDER.--ATHELSTAN.--EDMUND.—-EDRED--EDWY.--EDGAR.--
+EDWARD THE MARTYR.
+
+
+
+[MN Egbert 827.]
+The kingdoms of the Heptarchy, though united by so recent a conquest,
+seemed to be firmly cemented into one state under Egbert; and the
+inhabitants of the several provinces had lost all desire of revolting
+from that monarch, or of restoring their former independent
+governments.  Their language was every where nearly the same, their
+customs, laws, institutions, civil and religious; and as the race of
+the ancient kings was totally extinct in all the subjected states, the
+people readily transferred their allegiance to a prince who seemed to
+merit it by the splendour of his victories, the vigour of his
+administration, and the superior nobility of his birth.  A union also
+in government opened to them the agreeable prospect of future
+tranquillity; and it appeared more probable that they would henceforth
+become formidable to their neighbours, than be exposed to their
+inroads and devastations.  But these flattering views were soon
+overcast by the appearance of the Danes, who, during some centuries,
+kept the Anglo-Saxons in perpetual inquietude, committed the most
+barbarous ravages upon them, and at last reduced them to grievous
+servitude.
+
+The Emperor Charlemagne, though naturally generous and humane, had
+been induced by bigotry to exercise great severities upon the pagan
+Saxons in Germany, whom he subdued; and besides often ravaging their
+country with fire and sword, he had in cool blood decimated all the
+inhabitants for their revolts, and had obliged them, by the most
+rigorous edicts, to make a seeming compliance with the Christian
+doctrine.  That religion, which had easily made its way among the
+British Saxons by insinuation and address, appeared shocking to their
+German brethren, when imposed on them by the violence of Charlemagne,
+and the more generous and warlike of these pagans had fled northward
+into Jutland, in order to escape the fury of his persecutions.
+Meeting there with a people of similar manners, they were readily
+received among them; and they soon stimulated the natives to concur in
+enterprises, which both promised revenge on the haughty conqueror, and
+afforded subsistence to those numerous inhabitants with which the
+northern countries were now overburdened [g].  They invaded the
+provinces of France, which were exposed by the degeneracy and
+dissensions of Charlemagne’s posterity; and being there known under
+the general name of Normans, which they received from their northern
+situation, they became the terror of all the maritime and even of the
+inland countries.  They were also tempted to visit England in their
+frequent excursions; and being able, by sudden inroads, to make great
+progress over a people who were not defended by any naval force, who
+had relaxed their military institutions, and who were sunk into a
+superstition which had become odious to the Danes and ancient Saxons,
+they made no distinction in their hostilities between the French and
+English kingdoms.  Their first appearance in this island was in the
+year 787 [h], when Brithric reigned in Wessex.  A small body of them
+landed in that kingdom, with a view of learning the state of the
+country; and when the magistrate of the place questioned them
+concerning their enterprise, and summoned them to appear before the
+king, and account for their intentions, they killed him, and, flying
+to their ships, escaped into their own country.  The next alarm was
+given to Northumberland in the year 794 [i], when a body of these
+pirates pillaged a monastery: but their ships being much damaged by a
+storm, and their leader slain in a skirmish, they were at last
+defeated by the inhabitants, and the remainder of them put to the
+sword.  Five years after Egbert had established his monarchy over
+England, the Danes landed in the Isle of Shepey, and having pillaged
+it, escaped with impunity [k].  They were not so fortunate in their
+next year’s enterprise, when they disembarked from thirty-five ships,
+and were encountered by Egbert, at Charmouth, in Dorsetshire.  The
+battle was bloody; but though the Danes lost great numbers, they
+maintained the post they had taken, and thence made good their retreat
+to their ships [l].  Having learned by experience, that they must
+expect a vigorous resistance from this warlike prince, they entered
+into an alliance with the Britons of Cornwall, and landing two years
+after in that country, made an inroad with their confederates into the
+county of Devon, but were met at Hengesdown by Egbert, and totally
+defeated [m].  While England remained in this state of anxiety, and
+defended itself more by temporary expedients than by any regular plan
+of administration, Egbert, who alone was able to provide effectually
+against this new evil, unfortunately died [MN 838.], and left the
+government to his son Ethelwolf.
+[FN [g] Ypod. Neustria, p. 414.  [h] Chron. Sax. p. 64.  [i] Chron.
+Sax. p 64.  Alur. Beverl. p. 108.  [k] Chron. Sax. p. 72.  [l] Chron.
+Sax. p. 72.  Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 2.  [m] Chron. Sax. p. 72.]
+
+[MN Ethelwolf.]
+This prince had neither the abilities nor the vigour of his father;
+and was better qualified for governing a convent than a kingdom [n].
+He began his reign with making a partition of his dominions, and
+delivering over to his eldest son, Athelstan, the new-conquered
+provinces of Essex, Kent, and Sussex.  But no inconveniences seem to
+have risen from this partition, as the continual terror of the Danish
+invasions prevented all domestic dissension.  A fleet of these
+ravagers, consisting of thirty-three sail, appeared at Southampton,
+but were repulsed with loss by Wolfhere, governor of the neighbouring
+county [o].  The same year, Aethelhelm, governor of Dorsetshire,
+routed another band which had disembarked at Portsmouth, but he
+obtained the victory after a furious engagement, and he bought it with
+the loss of his life [p].  Next year the Danes made several inroads
+into England, and fought battles, or rather skirmishes, in East Anglia
+and Lindesey and Kent, where, though they were sometimes repulsed and
+defeated, they always obtained their end of committing spoil upon the
+country, and carrying off their booty.  They avoided coming to a
+general engagement, which was not suited to their plan of operations.
+Their vessels were small, and ran easily up the creeks and rivers,
+where they drew them ashore, and having formed an entrenchment round
+them, which they guarded with part of their number, the remainder
+scattered themselves every where, and carrying off the inhabitants and
+cattle and goods, they hastened to their ships and quickly
+disappeared.  If the military force of the county were assembled, (for
+there was no time for troops to march from a distance,) the Danes
+either were able to repulse them, and to continue their ravages with
+impunity, or they betook themselves to their vessels, and setting
+sail, suddenly invaded some distant quarter, which was not prepared
+for their reception.  Every part of England was held in continual
+alarm, and the inhabitants of one county durst not give assistance to
+those of another, lest their own families and property should in the
+mean time be exposed by their absence to the fury of these barbarous
+ravagers [q].  All orders of men were involved in this calamity, and
+the priests and monks, who had been commonly spared in the domestic
+quarrels of the Heptarchy, were the chief objects on which the Danish
+idolators exercised their rage and animosity.  Every season of the
+year was dangerous, and the absence of the enemy was no reason why any
+man could esteem himself a moment in safety.
+[FN [n] Wm. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 2.  [o] Chron. Sax. p. 73.
+Ethelward, lib. 3.  [p] Chron. Sax. p. 73.  H. Hunting. lib. 5.  [q]
+Alured. Beverl. p. 108.]
+
+[MN 851.]
+These incursions had now become almost annual, when the Danes,
+encouraged by their successes against France as well as England, (for
+both kingdoms were alike exposed to this dreadful calamity,) invaded
+the last in so numerous a body, as seemed to threaten it with
+universal subjection.  But the English, more military than the
+Britons, whom a few centuries before they had treated with like
+violence, roused themselves with a vigour proportioned to the
+exigency.  Ceorle, governor of Devonshire, fought a battle with one
+body of the Danes at Wiganburgh [r], and put them to rout with great
+slaughter.  King Athelstan attacked another at sea near Sandwich, sunk
+nine of their ships, and put the rest to flight [s].  A body of them,
+however, ventured, for the first time, to take up winter quarters in
+England; and receiving in the spring a strong reinforcement of their
+countrymen in 350 vessels, they advanced from the Isle of Thanet,
+where they had stationed themselves, burnt the cities of London and
+Canterbury, and having put to flight Brichtric, who now governed
+Mercia under the title of king, they marched into the heart of Surrey,
+and laid every place waste around them.  Ethelwolf, impelled by the
+urgency of the danger, marched against them at the head of the West
+Saxons, and carrying with him his second son, Ethelbald, gave them
+battle at Okely, and gained a bloody victory over them.  This
+advantage procured but a short respite to the English.  The Danes
+still maintained their settlement in the Isle of Thanet, and being
+attacked by Ealher and Huda, governors of Kent and Surrey, though
+defeated in the beginning of the action, they finally repulsed the
+assailants [MN 853.], and killed both the governors.  They removed
+thence to the Isle of Shepey; where they took up their winter
+quarters, that they might farther extend their devastation and
+ravages.
+[FN [r] H. Hunt. lib. 5  Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 3.  Simeon Dunelm. p.
+120.  [s] Chron. Sax. p. 74.  Asserius, p. 2.]
+
+This unsettled state of England hindered not Ethelwolf from making a
+pilgrimage to Rome, whither he carried his fourth and favourite son,
+Alfred, then only six years of age [t].  He passed there a twelvemonth
+in exercises of devotion, and failed not in that most essential part
+of devotion, liberality to the church of Rome.  Besides giving
+presents to the more distinguished ecclesiastics, he made a perpetual
+grant of three hundred mancuses [u] a year to that see; one-third to
+support the lamps of St. Peter’s, another those of St. Paul’s, a third
+to the pope himself [w].  In his return home he married Judith,
+daughter of the emperor, Charles the Bald, but on his landing in
+England, he met with an opposition which he little looked for.
+[FN [t] Asserius, p. 2.  Chron. Sax. 76.  Hunt. lib. 5.  [u] A mancus
+was about the weight of our present half-crown: see Spellman’s
+Glossary, IN VERBO Mancus.  [w] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap 2.]
+
+His eldest son, Athelstan, being dead, Ethelbald, his second, who had
+assumed the government, formed, in concert with many of the nobles,
+the project of excluding his father from a throne, which his weakness
+and superstition seemed to have rendered him so ill-qualified to fill.
+The people were divided between the two princes, and a bloody civil
+war, joined to all the other calamities under which the English
+laboured, appeared inevitable, when Ethelwolf had the facility to
+yield to the greater part of his son’s pretensions.  He made with him
+a partition of the kingdom, and taking to himself the eastern part,
+which was always at that time esteemed the least considerable, as well
+as the most exposed [x], he delivered over to Ethelbald the
+sovereignty of the western.  Immediately after, he summoned the states
+of the whole kingdom, and with the same facility conferred a perpetual
+and important donation on the church.
+[FN [x] Asserius, p. 3.  W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 2.  Matth. West. p.
+1, 8.]
+
+The ecclesiastics, in those days of ignorance, made rapid advances in
+the acquisition of power and grandeur; and inculcating the most absurd
+and most interested doctrines, though they sometimes met, from the
+contrary interests of the laity, with an opposition which it required
+time and address to overcome, they found no obstacle in their reason
+or understanding.  Not content with the donations of land made them by
+the Saxon princes and nobles, and with temporary oblations, from the
+devotion of the people, they had cast a wishful eye on a vast revenue,
+which they claimed as belonging to them by a sacred and indefeasible
+title.  However little versed in the Scriptures, they had been able to
+discover that, under the Jewish law, a tenth of all the produce of
+land was conferred on the priesthood; and forgetting, what they
+themselves taught, that the moral part only of that law was obligatory
+on Christians, they insisted that this donation conveyed a perpetual
+property, inherent by divine right in those who officiated at the
+altar.  During some centuries, the whole scope of sermons and homilies
+was directed to this purpose, and one would have imagined, from the
+general tenor of these discourses, that all the practical parts of
+Christianity were comprised in the exact and faithful payment of
+tithes to the clergy [y].  Encouraged by their success in inculcating
+these doctrines, they ventured farther than they were warranted even
+by the Levitical law, and pretended to draw the tenth of all industry,
+merchandise, wages of labourers, and pay of soldiers [z]; nay, some
+canonists went so far as to affirm, that the clergy were entitled to
+the tithe of the profits made by courtesans in the exercise of their
+profession [a].  Though parishes had been instituted in England by
+Honorius, Archbishop of Canterbury, near two centuries before [b], the
+ecclesiastics had never yet been able to get possession of the tithes;
+they therefore seized the present favourable opportunity of making
+that acquisition, when a weak, superstitious prince filled the throne,
+and when the people, discouraged by their losses from the Danes, and
+terrified with the fear of future invasions, were susceptible of any
+impression which bore the appearance of religion [c].  So meritorious
+was this concession deemed by the English, that trusting entirely to
+supernatural assistance, they neglected the ordinary means of safety,
+and agreed, even in the present desperate extremity, that the revenues
+of the church should be exempted from all burthens, though imposed for
+national defence and security [d].
+[FN [y] Padre Paolo, sopra beneficii ecclesiastici, p. 51, 52. edit.
+Colon. 1675  [z] Spell. Conc. vol. i. p. 268.  [a] Padre Paolo, p.
+132.  [b] Parker, p. 77.  [c] lngulph. p. 862.  Selden’s Hist. of
+Tithes, c. 8.  [d] Asserius, p. 2.  Chron. Sax. p. 76.  W. Malmes.
+lib. 2. cap. 2.  Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 3.  M. West. p. 158.
+Ingulph. p. 17.  Alur. Beverl. p. 95]
+
+[MN Ethelbald and Ethelbert. 857.]
+Ethelwolf lived only two years after making this grant, and by his
+will he shared England between his two eldest sons, Ethelbald and
+Ethelbert; the west being assigned to the former, the east to the
+latter.  Ethelbald was a profligate prince, and marrying Judith, his
+mother-in-law, gave great offence to the people; but, moved by the
+remonstrances of Swithin, Bishop of Winchester, he was at last
+prevailed on to divorce her.  His reign was short; and Ethelbert, his
+brother, succeeding to the government [MN 860.], behaved himself,
+during a reign of five years, in a manner more worthy of his birth and
+station.  The kingdom, however, was still infested by the Danes, who
+made an inroad and sacked Winchester, but were there defeated.  A body
+also of these pirates, who were quartered in the Isle of Thanet,
+having deceived the English by a treaty, unexpectedly broke into Kent,
+and committed great outrages.
+
+[MN Ethered 866.]
+Ethelbert was succeeded by his brother Ethered, who, though he
+defended himself with bravery, enjoyed, during his whole reign, no
+tranquillity from those Danish irruptions.  His younger brother,
+Alfred, seconded him in all his enterprises, and generously sacrificed
+to the public good all resentment which he might entertain on account
+of his being excluded by Ethered from a large patrimony which had been
+left him by his father.
+
+The first landing of the Danes in the reign of Ethered was among the
+East Angles, who, more anxious for their present safety than for the
+common interest, entered into a separate treaty with the enemy, and
+furnished them with horses, which enabled them to make an irruption by
+land into the kingdom of Northumberland.  They there seized the city
+of York, and defended it against Osbricht and Aella, two Northumbrian
+princes, who perished in the assault [f].  Encouraged by these
+successes, and by the superiority which they had acquired in arms,
+they now ventured, under the command of Hinguar and Hubba, to leave
+the sea-coast, and penetrating into Mercia, they took up their winter
+quarters at Nottingham, where they threatened the kingdom with a final
+subjection.  The Mercians, in this extremity, applied to Ethered for
+succour, and that prince, with his brother Alfred, conducting a great
+army to Nottingham, obliged the enemy to dislodge [MN 870.], and to
+retreat into Northumberland.  Their restless disposition, and their
+avidity for plunder, allowed them not to remain long in those
+quarters; they broke into East Anglia, defeated and took prisoner
+Edmund, the king of that country, whom they afterwards murdered in
+cool blood, and committing the most barbarous ravages on the people,
+particularly on the monasteries, they gave the East Angles cause to
+regret the temporary relief which they had obtained by assisting the
+common enemy.
+[FN [f] Asser. p. 6.  Chron Sax. p. 79.]
+
+[MN 871.] The next station of the Danes was at Reading, whence they
+infested the neighbouring country by their incursions.  The Mercians,
+desirous of shaking off their dependence on Ethered, refused to join
+him with their forces; and that prince, attended by Alfred, was
+obliged to march against the enemy with the West Saxons alone, his
+hereditary subjects.  The Danes, being defeated in an action, shut
+themselves up in their garrison; but quickly making thence an
+irruption, they routed the West Saxons, and obliged them to raise the
+siege.  An action soon after ensued at Aston, in Berkshire, where the
+English, in the beginning of the day, were in danger of a total
+defeat.  Alfred, advancing with one division of the army, was
+surrounded by the enemy in disadvantageous ground; and Ethered, who
+was at that time hearing mass, refused to march to his assistance till
+prayers should be finished [g]: but as he afterwards obtained the
+victory, this success, not the danger of Alfred, was ascribed by the
+monks to the piety of that monarch.  This battle of Aston did not
+terminate the war: another battle was a little after fought at Basing,
+where the Danes were more successful; and being reinforced by a new
+army from their own country, they became every day more terrible to
+the English.  Amidst these confusions, Ethered died of a wound which
+he had received in an action with the Danes; and left the inheritance
+of his cares and misfortunes, rather than of his grandeur, to his
+brother, Alfred, who was now twenty-two years of age.
+[FN [g] Asser. p. 7.  W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 3.  Simeon Dunelm. p. 125.
+Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 205.]
+
+[MN Alfred 871.]
+This prince gave very early marks of those great virtues and shining
+talents, by which, during the most difficult times, he saved his
+country from utter ruin and subversion.  Ethelwolf, his father, the
+year after his return with Alfred from Rome, had again sent the young
+prince thither with a numerous retinue; and a report being spread of
+the king’s death, the pope, Leo III., gave Alfred the royal unction
+[h]; whether prognosticating his future greatness from the appearances
+of his pregnant genius, or willing to pretend, even in that age, to
+the right of conferring kingdoms.  Alfred, on his return home, became
+every day more the object of his father’s affections; but being
+indulged in all youthful pleasures, he was much neglected in his
+education; and he had already reached his twelfth year, when he was
+yet totally ignorant of the lowest elements of literature.  His genius
+was first roused by the recital of Saxon poems, in which the queen
+took delight; and this species of erudition, which is sometimes able
+to make a considerable progress even among barbarians, expanded those
+noble and elevated sentiments which he had received from nature [i].
+Encouraged by the queen, and stimulated by his own ardent inclination,
+he soon learned to read those compositions; and proceeded thence to
+acquire the knowledge of the Latin tongue, in which he met with
+authors that better prompted his heroic spirit, and directed his
+generous views.  Absorbed in these elegant pursuits, he regarded his
+accession to royalty rather as an object of regret than of triumph
+[k]; but being called to the throne, in preference to his brother’s
+children, as well by the will of his father, a circumstance which had
+great authority with the Anglo-Saxons [l], as by the vows of the whole
+nation, and the urgency of public affairs, he shook off his literary
+indolence, and exerted himself in the defence of his people.  He had
+scarcely buried his brother, when he was obliged to take the field in
+order to oppose the Danes, who had seized Wilton, and were exercising
+their usual ravages on the countries around.  He marched against them
+with the few troops which he could assemble on a sudden; and giving
+them battle, gained at first an advantage, but by his pursuing the
+victory too far, the superiority of the enemy’s numbers prevailed, and
+recovered them the day.  Their loss, however, in the action, was so
+considerable, that, fearing Alfred would receive daily reinforcement
+from his subjects, they were content to stipulate for a safe retreat,
+and promised to depart the kingdom.  For that purpose they were
+conducted to London, and allowed to take up winter quarters there;
+but, careless of their engagements, they immediately set themselves to
+the committing of spoil on the neighbouring country.  Burrhed, King of
+Mercia, in whose territories London was situated, made a new
+stipulation with them, and engaged them, by presents of money, to
+remove to Lindesey, in Lincolnshire, a country which they had already
+reduced to ruin and desolation.  Finding therefore no object in that
+place, either for their rapine or violence, they suddenly turned back
+upon Mercia, in a quarter where they expected to find it without
+defence; and fixing their station at Repton in Derbyshire, they laid
+the whole country desolate with fire and sword.  Burrhed, despairing
+of success against an enemy whom no force could resist, and no
+treaties bind, abandoned his kingdom, and flying to Rome, took shelter
+in a cloister [m].  He was brother-in-law to Alfred, and the last who
+bore the title of king in Mercia.
+[FN [h] Asser. p. 2.  W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 2.  Ingulph. p. 869.
+Simeon Dunelm. p. 120, 139.  [i] Asser. p. 5.  M. West. p. 167.  [k]
+Asser. p. 7.  [1] Ibid. p. 22.  Simeon Dunelm. p. 121.  [m] Asser. p.
+8.  Chron. Sax. p. 82.  Ethelward, lib. 4. cap. 4.]
+
+The West Saxons were now the only remaining power in England; and
+though supported by the vigour and abilities of Alfred, they were
+unable to sustain the efforts of those ravagers, who from all quarters
+invaded them. A new swarm of Danes came over this year under three
+princes, Guthrum, Oscitel, and Amund; and having first joined their
+countrymen at Repton, they soon found the necessity of separating, in
+order to provide for their subsistence.  Part of them, under the
+command of Haldene, their chieftain [n], marched into Northumberland,
+where they fixed their quarters; part of them took quarters at
+Cambridge, whence they dislodged in the ensuing summer, and seized
+Wereham, in the county of Dorset, the very centre of Alfred’s
+dominions.  That prince so straitened them in these quarters, that
+they were content to come to a treaty with him, and stipulated to
+depart his country.  Alfred, well acquainted with their usual perfidy,
+obliged them to swear upon the holy relics to the observance of the
+treaty [o]; not that he expected they would pay any veneration to the
+relics; but he hoped, that, if they now violated this oath, their
+impiety would infallibly draw down upon them the vengeance of Heaven.
+But the Danes, little apprehensive of the danger, suddenly, without
+seeking any pretence, fell upon Alfred’s army; and having put it to
+rout, marched westward, and took possession of Exeter.  The prince
+collected new forces, and exerted such vigour, that he fought in one
+year eight battles with the enemy [p], and reduced them to the utmost
+extremity.  He hearkened however to new proposals of peace; and was
+satisfied to stipulate with them, that they would settle somewhere in
+England [q], and would not permit the entrance of more ravagers into
+the kingdom. But while he was expecting the execution of this treaty,
+which it seemed the interest of the Danes themselves to fulfil, he
+heard that another body had landed, and having collected all the
+scattered troops of their countrymen, had surprised Chippenham, then a
+considerable town, and were exercising their usual ravages all around
+them.
+[FN [n] Chron. Sax. p. 83.  [o] Asser. p. 8.  [p] Ibid.  The Saxon
+Chronicle. p. 82, says nine battles.  [q] Asser. p. 9.  Alur. Beverl.
+p. 104.]
+
+This last incident quite broke the spirit of the Saxons, and reduced
+them to despair.  Finding that, after all the miserable havoc which
+they had undergone in their persons and in their property; after all
+the vigorous actions which they had exerted in their own defence; a
+new band, equally greedy of spoil and slaughter, had disembarked among
+them; they believed themselves abandoned by Heaven to destruction, and
+delivered over to those swarms of robbers, which the fertile north
+thus incessantly poured forth against them.  Some left their country
+and retired into Wales, or fled beyond sea: others submitted to the
+conquerors, in hopes of appeasing their fury by a servile obedience
+[r].  And every man’s attention being now engrossed in concern for his
+own preservation, no one would hearken to the exhortations of the
+king, who summoned them to make, under his conduct, one effort more in
+defence of their prince, their country, and their liberties.  Alfred
+himself was obliged to relinquish the ensigns of his dignity, to
+dismiss his servants, and to seek shelter, in the meanest disguises,
+from the pursuit and fury of his enemies.  He concealed himself under
+a peasant’s habit, and lived some time in the house of a neat-herd,
+who had been intrusted with the care of some of his cows [s].  There
+passed here an incident, which has been recorded by all the
+historians, and was long preserved by popular tradition; though it
+contains nothing memorable in itself, except so far as every
+circumstance is interesting which attends so much virtue and dignity
+reduced to such distress.  The wife of the neat-herd was ignorant of
+the condition of her royal guest; and observing him one day busy by
+the fire-side in trimming his bows and arrows, she desired him to take
+care of some cakes which were toasting, while she was employed
+elsewhere in other domestic affairs.  But Alfred, whose thoughts were
+otherwise engaged, neglected this injunction; and the good woman, on
+her return, finding her cakes all burnt, rated the king very severely,
+and upbraided him, that he always seemed very well pleased to eat her
+warm cakes, though he was thus negligent in toasting them [t].
+[FN [r] Chron. Sax. p. 84.  Alured Bever. p. 105.  [s] Asser. p. 9.
+[t] Ibid  M. West, p. 170.]
+
+By degrees, Alfred, as he found the search of the enemy become more
+remiss, collected some of his retainers, and retired into the centre
+of a bog, formed by the stagnating waters of the Thone and Parret, in
+Somersetshire.  He here found two acres of firm ground; and building a
+habitation on them, rendered himself secure by its fortifications, and
+still more by the unknown and inaccessible roads which led to it, and
+by the forests and morasses with which it was every way environed.
+This place he called Aethelingay, or the Isle of Nobles [u]; and it
+now bears the name of Athelney.  He thence made frequent and
+unexpected sallies upon the Danes, who often felt the vigour of his
+arm, but knew not from what quarter the blow came.  He subsisted
+himself and his followers by the plunder which he acquired; he
+procured them consolation by revenge; and from small successes he
+opened their minds to hope, that, notwithstanding his present low
+condition, more important victories might at length attend his valour.
+[FN [u] Chron. Sax. p. 65.  W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 4  Ethelward, lib.
+4. cap. 4.  Ingulph. p. 26.]
+
+Alfred lay here concealed, but not inactive, during a twelvemonth,
+when the news of a prosperous event reached his ears, and called him
+to the field.  Hubba, the Dane, having spread devastation, fire, and
+slaughter over Wales, had landed in Devonshire from twenty-three
+vessels, and laid siege to the castle of Kenwith, a place situated
+near the mouth of the small river Tau.  Oddune, Earl of Devonshire,
+with his followers, had taken shelter there; and being ill supplied
+with provisions, and even with water, he determined, by some vigorous
+blow, to prevent the necessity of submitting to the barbarous enemy.
+He made a sudden sally on the Danes before sun-rising; and taking them
+unprepared, he put them to rout, pursued them with great slaughter,
+killed Hubba himself; and got possession of the famous REAFEN, or
+enchanted standard, in which the Danes put great confidence [w].  It
+contained the figure of a raven, which had been inwoven by the three
+sisters of Hinguar and Hubba, with many magical incantations, and
+which, by its different movements, prognosticated, as the Danes
+believed, the good or bad success of any enterprise [x].
+[FN [w] Asser. p. 10.  Chron. Sax. p. 84.  Abbas Rieval, p. 395
+Alured Beverl. p. 105.  [x] Asser. p. 10.]
+
+When Alfred observed this symptom of successful resistance in his
+subjects, he left his retreat; but before he would assemble them in
+arms, or urge them to any attempt, which, if unfortunate, might, in
+their present despondency, prove fatal, he resolved to inspect himself
+the situation of the enemy, and to judge of the probability of
+success.  For this purpose he entered their camp under the disguise of
+a harper, and passed unsuspected through every quarter.  He so
+entertained them with his music and facetious humours, that he met
+with a welcome reception; and was even introduced to the tent of
+Guthrum, their prince, where he remained some days [y].  He remarked
+the supine security of the Danes, their contempt of the English, their
+negligence in foraging and plundering, and their dissolute wasting of
+what they gained by rapine and violence.  Encouraged by these
+favourable appearances, he secretly sent emissaries to the most
+considerable of his subjects, and summoned them to a rendezvous,
+attended by their warlike followers, at Brixton, on the borders of
+Selwood forest [z].  The English, who had hoped to put an end to their
+calamities by servile submission, now found the insolence and rapine
+of the conqueror more intolerable than all past fatigues and dangers;
+and, at the appointed day, they joyfully resorted to their prince.  On
+his appearance, they received him with shouts of applause [a]; and
+could not satiate their eyes with the sight of this beloved monarch,
+whom they had long regarded as dead, and who now, with voice and looks
+expressing his confidence of success, called them to liberty and to
+vengeance.  He instantly conducted them to Eddington, where the Danes
+were encamped; and taking advantage of his previous knowledge of the
+place, he directed his attack against the most unguarded quarter of
+the enemy.  The Danes, surprised to see an army of English, whom they
+considered as totally subdued, and still more astonished to hear that
+Alfred was at their head, made but a faint resistance, notwithstanding
+their superiority of number, and were soon put to flight with great
+slaughter.  The remainder of the routed army, with their prince, was
+besieged by Alfred in a fortified camp to which they fled; but being
+reduced to extremity by want and hunger, they had recourse to the
+clemency of the victor, and offered to submit on any conditions.  The
+king, no less generous than brave, gave them their lives; and even
+formed a scheme for converting them from mortal enemies into faithful
+subjects and confederates.  He knew that the kingdoms of East Anglia
+and Northumberland were totally desolated by the frequent inroads of
+the Danes, and he now proposed to repeople them, by settling there
+Guthrum and his followers.  He hoped that the new planters would at
+last betake themselves to industry, when, by reason of his resistance,
+and the exhausted condition of the country, they could no longer
+subsist by plunder; and that they might serve him as a rampart against
+any future incursions of their countrymen.  But before he ratified
+these mild conditions with the Danes, he required that they should
+give him one pledge of their submission, and of their inclination to
+incorporate with the English, by declaring their conversion to
+Christianity [b].  Guthrum and his army had no aversion to the
+proposal; and without much instruction, or argument, or conference,
+they were all admitted to baptism.  The king answered for Guthrum at
+the font, gave him the name of Athelstan, and received him as his
+adopted son [c].
+[FN [y] W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 4.  [z] Chron. Sax. p. 85.  [a] Asser.
+p. 10.  Chron. Sax. p. 85.  Simeon Dunelm. p. 128.  Alured Beverl. p.
+105.  Abbas Rieval, p. 354.  [b] Chron. Sax. p. 85.  [c] Asser. p. 10.
+Chron. Sax. p. 90.]
+
+[MN 880.] The success of the expedient seemed to correspond to
+Alfred’s hopes: the greater part of the Danes settled peaceably in
+their new quarters: some smaller bodies of the same nation, which were
+dispersed in Mercia, were distributed into the five cities of Derby,
+Leicester, Stamford, Lincoln, and Nottingham, and were thence called
+the Fif or Five-burghers.  The more turbulent and unquiet made an
+expedition into France, under the command of Hastings [d]; and, except
+by a short incursion of Danes, who sailed up the Thames, and landed at
+Fulham, but suddenly retreated to their ships on finding the country
+in a posture of defence, Alfred was not for some years infested by the
+inroads of those barbarians [e].
+[FN [d] W. Malm. lib. 2. c. 4.  Ingulph. p. 26.  [e] Asser. p. 11.]
+
+The king employed this interval of tranquillity in restoring order to
+the state, which had been shaken by so many violent convulsions; in
+establishing civil and military institutions; in composing the minds
+of men to industry and justice; and in providing against the return of
+like calamities.  He was, more properly than his grandfather, Egbert,
+the sole monarch of the English, (for so the Saxons were now
+universally called,) because the kingdom of Mercia was at last
+incorporated in his state, and was governed by Ethelbert, his brother-
+in-law, who bore the title of Earl: and though the Danes, who peopled
+East Anglia and Northumberland, were for some time ruled immediately
+by their own princes, they all acknowledged a subordination to Alfred,
+and submitted to his superior authority.  As equality among subjects
+is the great source of concord, Alfred gave the same laws to the Danes
+and English, and put them entirely on a like footing in the
+administration both of civil and criminal justice.  The fine for the
+murder of a Dane was the same with that for the murder of an
+Englishman; the great symbol of equality in those ages.
+
+The king, after rebuilding the ruined cities, particularly London [f],
+which had been destroyed by the Danes in the reign of Ethelwolf,
+established a regular militia for the defence of the kingdom.  He
+ordained that all his people should be armed and registered; he
+assigned them a regular rotation of duty; he distributed part into the
+castles and fortresses which he built at proper places [g]; he
+required another part to take the field on any alarm, and to assemble
+at stated places of rendezvous; and he left a sufficient number at
+home, who were employed in the cultivation of the land, and who
+afterwards took their turn in military service [h].  The whole kingdom
+was like one great garrison; and the Danes could no sooner appear in
+one place, than a sufficient number was assembled to oppose them,
+without leaving the other quarters defenceless or disarmed [i].
+[FN [f] Asser. p. 15.  Chron. Sax. p. 88.  M. West. p. 171.  Simeon
+Dunelm. p. 131.  Brompton, p. 812.  Alured Beverl. ex edit. Hearne, p.
+106.  [g] Asser. p. 18.  Ingulph. p. 27.  [h] Chron. Sax. p. 92, 93.
+[i] Spellman’s Life of Alfred, p. 147. edit. 1709.]
+
+But Alfred, sensible that the proper method of opposing an enemy who
+made incursions by sea, was to meet them on their own element, took
+care to provide himself with a naval force [k], which though the most
+natural defence of an island, had hitherto been totally neglected by
+the English.  He increased the shipping of his kingdom both in number
+and strength, and trained his subjects in the practice, as well of
+sailing as of naval action.  He distributed his armed vessels in
+proper stations around the island, and was sure to meet the Danish
+ships either before or after they had landed their troops, and to
+pursue them in all their incursions.  Though the Danes might suddenly,
+by surprise, disembark on the coast, which was generally become
+desolate by their frequent ravages, they were encountered by the
+English fleet in their retreat; and escaped not, as formerly, by
+abandoning their booty, but paid, by their total destruction, the
+penalty of the disorders which they had committed.
+[FN [k] Asser. p. 9.  M. West. p. 179.]
+
+In this manner Alfred repelled several inroads of these piratical
+Danes, and maintained his kingdom, during some years, in safety and
+tranquillity.  A fleet of a hundred and twenty ships of war was
+stationed upon the coast; and being provided with warlike engines, as
+well as with expert seamen, both Frisians and English, (for Alfred
+supplied the defects of his own subjects by engaging able foreigners
+in his service,) maintained a superiority over these smaller bands
+with which England had so often been infested [l].  [MN 893.]  But at
+last Hastings, the famous Danish chief, having ravaged all the
+provinces of France, both along the seacoast and the Loire and Seine,
+and being obliged to quit that country, more by the desolation which
+he himself had occasioned, than by the resistance of the inhabitants,
+appeared off the coast of Kent with a fleet of 330 sail.  The greater
+part of the enemy disembarked in the Rother, and seized the fort of
+Apuldore.  Hastings himself, commanding a fleet of eighty sail,
+entered the Thames, and fortifying Milton in Kent, began to spread his
+forces over the country, and to commit the most destructive ravages.
+But Alfred, on the first alarm of this descent, flew to the defence of
+his people, at the head of a select band of soldiers, whom he always
+kept about his person [m]; and gathering to him the armed militia from
+all quarters, appeared in the field with a force superior to the
+enemy.  All straggling parties whom necessity, or love of plunder, had
+drawn to a distance from their chief encampment, were cut off by the
+English [n]; and these pirates, instead of increasing their spoil,
+found themselves cooped up in their fortifications, and obliged to
+subsist by the plunder which they had brought from France.  Tired of
+this situation, which must in the end prove ruinous to them, the Danes
+at Apuldore rose suddenly from their encampment, with an intention of
+marching towards the Thames, and passing over into Essex: but they
+escaped not the vigilance of Alfred, who encountered then at Farnham,
+put them to rout [o], seized all their horses and baggage, and chased
+the runaways on board their ships, which carried them up the Colne to
+Mersey, in Essex, where they intrenched themselves.  Hastings, at the
+same time, and probably by concert, made a like movement; and
+deserting Milton, took possession of Bamflete, near the Isle of
+Canvey, in the same county [p], where he hastily threw up
+fortifications for his defence against the power of Alfred.
+[FN [1] Asser. p. 11.  Chron. Sax. p. 86, 87.  M. West. p. 176.  [m]
+Asser. p.19.  [n] Chron. Sax. p. 92.  [o] Ibid. p. 93. Flor. Wigorn,
+p. 595.  [p] Chron. Sax. p. 93.]
+
+Unfortunately for the English, Guthrum, prince of the East Anglian
+Danes, was now dead; as was also Guthred, whom the king had appointed
+governor of the Northumbrians; and those restless tribes, being no
+longer restrained by the authority of their princes, and being
+encouraged by the appearance of so great a body of their countrymen,
+broke into rebellion, shook off the authority of Alfred, and yielding
+to their inveterate habits of war and depredation [q], embarked on
+board two hundred and forty vessels, and appeared before Exeter in the
+west of England.  Alfred lost not a moment in opposing this new enemy.
+Having left some forces at London to make head against Hastings and
+the other Danes, he marched suddenly to the west [r]; and falling on
+the rebels before they were aware, pursued them to their ships with
+great slaughter.  These ravagers, sailing next to Sussex, began to
+plunder the country near Chichester; but the order which Alfred had
+every where established, sufficed here, without his presence, for the
+defence of the place; and the rebels, meeting with a new repulse, in
+which many of them were killed, and some of their ships taken [s],
+were obliged to put again to sea, and were discouraged from attempting
+any other enterprise.
+[FN [q] Ibid. p. 92.  [r] Ibid. p. 93.  [s] Chron. Sax. p. 96.  Flor.
+Wigorn. p. 596.]
+
+Meanwhile, the Danish invaders in Essex, having united their force
+under the command of Hastings, advanced into the inland country, and
+made spoil of all around them; but soon had reason to repent of their
+temerity.  The English army left in London, assisted by a body of the
+citizens, attacked the enemy's intrenchments at Bamflete, overpowered
+the garrison, and having done great execution upon them, carried off
+the wife and two sons of Hastings [t].  Alfred generously spared these
+captives; and even restored them to Hastings [u], on condition that be
+should depart the kingdom.
+[FN [t] Chron. Sax. p. 94.  M. West. p. 178.  [u] M. West. p. 179.]
+
+But though the king had thus honourably rid himself of this dangerous
+enemy, he had not entirely subdued or expelled the invaders.  The
+piratical Danes willingly followed in an excursion any prosperous
+leader who gave them hopes of booty; but were not so easily induced to
+relinquish their enterprise, or submit to return, baffled and without
+plunder, into their native country.  Great numbers of them, after the
+departure of Hastings, seized and fortified Shobury, at the mouth of
+the Thames; and having left a garrison there, they marched along the
+River, till they came to Boddington, in the county of Gloucester;
+where, being reinforced by some Welsh, they threw up intrenchments,
+and prepared for their defence.  The king here surrounded them with
+the whole force of his dominions [w]; and as he had now a certain
+prospect of victory, he resolved to trust nothing to chance, but
+rather to master his enemies by famine than assault.  They were
+reduced to such extremities, that, having eaten their own horses, and
+having many of them perished with hunger [x], they made a desperate
+sally upon the English; and though the greater number fell in the
+action, a considerable body made their escape [y].  These roved about
+for some time in England, still pursued by the vigilance of Alfred;
+they attacked Leicester with success, defended themselves in Hartford,
+and then fled to Quatford, where they were finally broken and subdued.
+The small remains of them either dispersed themselves among their
+countrymen in Northumberland and East Anglia [z], or had recourse
+again to the sea, where they exercised piracy, under the command of
+Sigefert, a Northumbrian.  This freebooter, well acquainted with
+Alfred’s naval preparations, had framed vessels of a new construction,
+higher, and longer, and swifter than those of the English; but the
+king soon discovered his superior skill, by building vessels still
+higher, and longer, and swifter than those of the Northumbrians; and
+falling upon them while they were exercising their ravages in the
+west, he took twenty of their ships, and having tried all the
+prisoners at Winchester, he hanged them as pirates, the common enemies
+of mankind.
+[FN [w] Chron. Sax. p. 94.  [x] Ibid.  M. West. p. 179.  Flor. Wigorn.
+p. 596.  [y] Chron. Sax. p. 95.  [z] Chron. Sax. p. 97.]
+
+The well-timed severity of this execution, together with the excellent
+posture of defence established every where, restored full tranquillity
+to England, and provided for the future security of the government.
+The East Anglian and Northumbrian Danes, on the first appearance of
+Alfred upon their frontiers, made anew the most humble submissions to
+him; and he thought it prudent to take them under his immediate
+government, without establishing over them a viceroy of their own
+nation [a].  The Welsh also acknowledged his authority; and this great
+prince had now, by prudence, and justice, and valour, established his
+sovereignty over all the southern parts of the island, from the
+English channel to the  frontiers of Scotland; when he died [MN 901.],
+in the vigour of his age and the full strength of his faculties,
+after a glorious reign of twenty-nine years and a half [b]; in which
+he deservedly attained the appellation of Alfred the Great, and the
+title of Founder of the English Monarchy.
+[FN [a] Flor. Wigorn. p. 598.  [b] Asser. p. 21.  Chron. Sax. p. 99.]
+
+The merit of this prince, both in private and public life, may with
+advantage be set in opposition to that of any monarch or citizen which
+the annals of any age or any nation can present to us.  He seems
+indeed to be the model of that perfect character, which, under the
+denomination of a sage or wise man, philosophers have been fond of
+delineating, rather as a fiction of their imagination, than in hopes
+of ever seeing it really existing: so happily were all his virtues
+tempered together; so justly were they blended; and so powerfully did
+each prevent the other from exceeding its proper boundaries.  He knew
+how to reconcile the most enterprising spirit with the coolest
+moderation; the most obstinate perseverance with the easiest
+flexibility; the most severe justice with the gentlest lenity; the
+greatest vigour in commanding with the most perfect affability of
+deportment [c]; the highest capacity and inclination for science, with
+the most shining talents for action.  His civil and his military
+virtues are almost equally the objects of our admiration; excepting
+only, that the former, being more rare among princes, as well as more
+useful, seem chiefly to challenge our applause.  Nature also, as if
+desirous that so bright a production of her skill should be set in the
+fairest light, had bestowed on him every bodily accomplishment, vigour
+of limbs, dignity of shape and air, with a pleasing, engaging, and
+open countenance [d].  Fortune alone, by throwing him into that
+barbarous age, deprived him of historians worthy to transmit his fame
+to posterity; and we wish to see him delineated in more lively
+colours, and with more particular strokes, that we may at least
+perceive some of those small specks and blemishes, from which, as a
+man, it is impossible he could be entirely exempted.
+[FN [c] Asser. p. 13.  [d] Ibid. p. 5.]
+
+But we should give but an imperfect idea of Alfred’s merit, were we to
+confine our narration to his military exploits, and were not more
+particular in our account of his institutions for the execution of
+justice, and of his zeal for the encouragement of arts and sciences.
+
+After Alfred had subdued, and had settled or expelled the Danes, he
+found the kingdom in the most wretched condition; desolated by the
+ravages of those barbarians, and thrown into disorders, which were
+calculated to perpetuate its misery.  Though the great armies of the
+Danes were broken, the country was full of straggling troops of that
+nation, who, being accustomed to live by plunder, were become
+incapable of industry, and who, from the natural ferocity of their
+manners, indulged themselves in committing violence, even beyond what
+was requisite to supply their necessities.  The English themselves,
+reduced to the most extreme indigence by these continued depredations,
+had shaken off all bands of government; and those who had been
+plundered today, betook themselves next day to a like disorderly life,
+and, from despair, joined the robbers in pillaging and ruining their
+fellow-citizens.  These were the evils for which it was necessary that
+the vigilance and activity of Alfred should provide a remedy.
+
+That he might render the execution of justice strict and regular; he
+divided all England into counties; these counties he subdivided into
+hundreds; and, the hundreds into tithings.  Every householder was
+answerable for the behaviour of his family and slaves, and even of his
+guests, if they lived above three days in his house.  Ten neighbouring
+householders were formed into one corporation, who, under the name of
+a tithing, decennary, or fribourg, were answerable for each other’s
+conduct, and over whom one person, called a tithingman, headbourg, or
+borsholder, was appointed to preside.  Every man was punished as an
+outlaw who did not register himself in some tithing.  And no man could
+change his habitation, without a warrant or certificate from the
+borsholder of the tithing to which he formerly belonged.
+
+When any person in any tithing or decennary was guilty of a crime, the
+borsholder was summoned to answer for him; and if he were not willing
+to be surety for his appearance, and his clearing himself, the
+criminal was committed to prison, and there detained till his trial.
+If he fled, either before or after finding sureties, the borsholder
+and decennary became liable to inquiry, and were exposed to the
+penalties of law.  Thirty-one days were allowed them for producing the
+criminal; and if that time elapsed without their being able to find
+him, the borsholder, with two other members of the decennary, was
+obliged to appear, and, together with three chief members of the three
+neighbouring decennaries, (making twelve in all,) to swear that his
+decennary was free from all privity both of the crime committed, and
+of the escape of the criminal.  If the borsholder could not find such
+a number to answer for their innocence, the decennary was compelled by
+fine to make satisfaction to the king, according to the degree of the
+offence [f].  By this institution, every man was obliged from his own
+interest to keep a watchful eye over the conduct of his neighbours;
+and was in a manner surety for the behaviour of those who were placed
+under the division to which he belonged: whence these decennaries
+received the name of frank-pledges.
+[FN [f] Leges St. Edw. cap. 20. apud Wilkins, p. 202.]
+
+Such a regular distribution of the people, with such a strict
+confinement in their habitation, may not be necessary in times when
+men are more inured to obedience and justice; and it might perhaps be
+regarded as destructive of liberty and commerce in a polished state;
+but it was well calculated to reduce that fierce and licentious people
+under the salutary restraint of law and government.  But Alfred took
+care to temper these rigours by other institutions favourable to the
+freedom of the citizens; and nothing could be more popular and liberal
+than his plan for the administration of justice.  The borsholder
+summoned together his whole decennary to assist him in deciding any
+lesser difference which occurred among the members of this small
+community.  In affairs of greater moment, in appeals from the
+decennary, or in controversies arising between members of different
+decennaries, the cause was brought before the hundred, which consisted
+of ten decennaries, or a hundred families of freemen, and which was
+regularly assembled once in four weeks for the deciding of causes [g].
+Their method of decision deserves to be noted, as being the origin of
+juries; an institution admirable in itself, and the best calculated
+for the preservation of liberty and the administration of justice that
+ever was devised by the wit of man.  Twelve freeholders were chosen,
+who, having sworn, together with the hundreder, or presiding
+magistrate of that division, to administer impartial justice [h],
+proceeded to the examination of that cause which was submitted to
+their jurisdiction.  And beside these monthly meetings of the hundred,
+there was an annual meeting, appointed for a more general inspection
+of the police of the district; for the inquiry into crimes, the
+correction of abuses in magistrates, and the obliging of every person
+to show the decennary in which he was registered.  The people, in
+imitation of their ancestors, the ancient Germans, assembled there in
+arms; whence a hundred was sometimes called a wapentake, and its court
+served both for the support of military discipline, and for the
+administration of civil justice [i].
+[FN [g] Leg. Edw. cap. 2.  [h] Foedus Alfred. and Gothurn. apud
+Wilkins, cap. 3. p. 47.  Leg. Ethelstani, cap. 2. apud Wilkins, p. 58.
+LL. Ethelr. § 4.  Wilkins, p. 117.  [i] Spellman, IN VOCE Wapentake.]
+
+The next superior court to that of the hundred was the county-court,
+which met twice a year, after Michaelmas and Easter, and consisted of
+the freeholders of the county, who possessed an equal vote in the
+decision of causes.  The bishop presided in this court, together with
+the alderman; and the proper object of the court was the receiving of
+appeals from the hundreds and decennaries, and the deciding of such
+controversies as arose between men of different hundreds.  Formerly,
+the alderman possessed both the civil and military authority; but
+Alfred, sensible that this conjunction of powers rendered the nobility
+dangerous and independent, appointed also a sheriff in each county,
+who enjoyed a co-ordinate authority with the former in the judicial
+function [k].  His office also empowered him to guard the rights of
+the crown in the county, and to levy the fines imposed; which in that
+age formed no contemptible part of the public revenue.
+[FN [k] Ingulph. p. 870.]
+
+There lay an appeal, in default of justice, from all these courts to
+the king himself in council; and as the people, sensible of the equity
+and great talents of Alfred, placed their chief confidence in him, he
+was soon overwhelmed with appeals from all parts of England.  He was
+indefatigable in the despatch of these causes [l]; but finding that
+his time must be entirely engrossed by this branch of duty, he
+resolved to obviate the inconvenience, by correcting the ignorance or
+corruption of the inferior magistrates, from which it arose [m].  He
+took care to have his nobility instructed in letters and the laws [n].
+He chose the earls and sheriffs from among the men most celebrated for
+probity and knowledge: he punished severely all malversation in office
+[o]: and he removed all the earls, whom he found unequal to the trust
+[p]; allowing only some of the more elderly to serve by a deputy, till
+their death should make room for more worthy successors.
+[FN [1] Asser. p. 20.  [m] Ibid. p. 18, 21.  Flor. Wigorn p. 594.
+Abbas Rieval, p. 355.  [n] Flor. Wigorn. p. 594.  Brompton. p. 811.
+[o] Le Miroir de Justice, chap. 2.  [p] Asser. p. 20.]
+
+The better to guide the magistrates in the administration of justice,
+Alfred framed a body of laws; which, though now lost, served long as
+the basis of English jurisprudence, and is generally deemed the origin
+of what is denominated the COMMON LAW.  He appointed regular meetings
+of the states of England twice a year in London [q]; a city which he
+himself had repaired and beautified, and which he thus rendered the
+capital of the kingdom.  The similarity of these institutions to the
+customs of the ancient Germans, to the practice of the other northern
+conquerors, and to the Saxon laws during the Heptarchy, prevents us
+from regarding Alfred as the sole author of this plan of government;
+and leads us rather to think, that, like a wise man, he contented
+himself with reforming, extending, and executing the institutions
+which he found previously established.  But, on the whole, such
+success attended his legislation, that every thing bore suddenly a new
+face in England: robberies and iniquities of all kinds were repressed
+by the punishment or reformation of the criminals [r]: and so exact
+was the general police, that Alfred, it is said, hung up, by way of
+bravado, golden bracelets near the highways; and no man dared to touch
+them [s].  Yet, amidst these rigours of justice, this great prince
+preserved the most sacred regard to the liberty of his people; and it
+is a memorable sentiment preserved in his will, That it was just the
+English should for ever remain as free as their own thoughts [t].
+[FN [q] Le Miroir de Justice.  [r] Ingulph. p. 27.  [s] W Malmes. lib.
+2. cap. 4.  [t] Asser. p. 24.]
+
+As good morals and knowledge are almost inseparable in every age,
+though not in every individual; the care of Alfred for the
+encouragement of learning among his subjects was another useful branch
+of his legislation, and tended to reclaim the English from their
+former dissolute and ferocious manners: but the king was guided in
+this pursuit, less by political views, than by his natural bent and
+propensity towards letters.  When he came to the throne, he found the
+nation sunk into the grossest ignorance and barbarism, proceeding from
+the continued disorders in the government, and from the ravages of the
+Danes: the monasteries were destroyed, the monks butchered or
+dispersed, their libraries burnt; and thus the only seats of erudition
+in those ages were totally subverted.  Alfred himself complains, that
+on his accession he knew not one person, south of the Thames, who
+could so much as interpret the Latin service; and very few in the
+northern parts, who had reached even that pitch of erudition.  But
+this prince invited over the most celebrated scholars from all parts
+of Europe; he established schools every where for the instruction of
+his people; he founded, at least repaired, the university of Oxford,
+and endowed it with many privileges, revenues, and immunities; he
+enjoined by law all freeholders possessed of two hides [u] of land or
+more, to send their children to school for their instruction; he gave
+preferment both in church and state to such only as had made some
+proficiency in knowledge: and by all these expedients he had the
+satisfaction, before his death, to see a great change in the face of
+affairs; and in a work of his, which is still extant, he congratulates
+himself on the progress which learning, under his patronage, had
+already made in England.
+[FN [u] A hide contained land sufficient to employ one plough.  See H.
+Hunt. lib. 6. in A. D. 1008.  Annal. Waverl. in A.D. 1083.  Gervase of
+Tilbury says, it commonly contained about 100 acres.]
+
+But the most effectual expedient, employed by Alfred, for the
+encouragement of learning, was his own example, and the constant
+assiduity with which, notwithstanding the multiplicity and urgency of
+his affairs, he employed himself in the pursuits of knowledge.  He
+usually divided his time into three equal portions: one was employed
+in sleep, and the refection of his body by diet and exercise; another
+in the despatch of business; a third in study and devotion; and that
+he might more exactly measure the hours, he made use of burning tapers
+of equal length, which he fixed in lanterns [w]; an expedient suited
+to that rude age, when the geometry of dialling, and the mechanism of
+clocks and watches, were totally unknown.  And by such a regular
+distribution of his time, though he often laboured under great bodily
+infirmities [x], this martial hero, who fought in person fifty-six
+battles by sea and land [y], was able, during a life of no
+extraordinary length, to acquire more knowledge, and even to compose
+more books, than most studious men, though blessed with the greatest
+leisure and application, have, in more fortunate ages, made the object
+of their uninterrupted industry.
+[FN [w] Asser. p. 20.  W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 4.  Ingulph. p. 870.  [x]
+Asser. p. 4, 12, 13, 17.  [y] W. Malm. lib. 4. cap. 4.]
+
+Sensible that the people, at all times, especially when their
+understandings are obstructed by ignorance and bad education, are not
+much susceptible of speculative instruction, Alfred endeavoured to
+convey his morality by apologues, parables, stories, apophthegms,
+couched in poetry; and besides propagating among his subjects former
+compositions of that kind, which he found in the Saxon tongue [z], he
+exercised his genius in inventing works of a like nature [a], as well
+as in translating from the Greek the elegant fables of Aesop.  He also
+gave Saxon translations of Orosius’s and Bede’s histories; and of
+Boethius concerning the consolation of philosophy [b].  And he deemed
+it nowise derogatory from his other great characters of sovereign,
+legislator, warrior, and politician, thus to lead the way to his
+people in the pursuits of literature.
+[FN [z] Asser. p. 13.  [a] Spellman, p. 124.  Abbas Rieval, p. 355.
+[b] W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 4.  Brompton, p. 814.]
+
+Meanwhile, this prince was not negligent in encouraging the vulgar and
+mechanical arts, which have a more sensible, though not a closer,
+connexion with the interests of society.  He invited, from all
+quarters, industrious foreigners to repeople his country, which had
+been desolated by the ravages of the Danes [c].  He introduced and
+encouraged manufactures of all kinds; and no inventor or improver of
+any ingenious art did he suffer to go unrewarded [d].  He prompted men
+of activity to betake themselves to navigation, to push commerce into
+the most remote countries, and to acquire riches by propagating
+industry among their fellow-citizens.  He set apart a seventh portion
+of his own revenue for maintaining a number of workmen, whom he
+constantly employed in rebuilding the ruined cities, castles, palaces,
+and monasteries [e].  Even the elegancies of life were brought to him
+from the Mediterranean and the Indies [f]; and his subjects, by seeing
+those productions of the peaceful arts, were taught to respect the
+virtues of justice and industry, from which alone they could arise.
+Both living and dead, Alfred was regarded by foreigners, no less than
+by his own subjects, as the greatest prince after Charlemagne that had
+appeared in Europe during several ages, and as one of the wisest and
+best that had ever adorned the annals of any nation.
+[FN [c] Asser. p. 13.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 588.  [d] Asser. p. 20.  [e]
+Asser. p. 20.  W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 4.  [f] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap.
+4.]
+
+Alfred had, by his wife, Ethelswitha, daughter of a Mercian earl,
+three sons and three daughters.  The eldest son, Edmund, died without
+issue, in his father’s lifetime.  The third, Ethelward, inherited his
+father’s passion for letters, and lived a private life.  The second,
+Edward, succeeded to his power; and passes by the appellation of
+Edward the Elder, being the first of that name who sat on the English
+throne.
+
+[MN Edward the Elder.  901.]
+This prince, who equalled his father in military talents, though
+inferior to him in knowledge and erudition [g], found, immediately on
+his accession, a specimen of that turbulent life to which all princes
+and even all individuals were exposed, in an age when men, less
+restrained by law or justice, and less occupied by industry, had no
+aliment for their inquietude, but wars, insurrections, convulsions,
+rapine, and depredation.  Ethelwald, his cousin-german, son of King
+Ethelbert, the elder brother of Alfred, insisted on his preferable
+title [h]; and arming his partisans, took possession of Winburne,
+where he seemed determined to defend himself to the last extremity,
+and to await the issue of his pretensions [i].  But when the king
+approached the town with a great army, Ethelwald, having the prospect
+of certain destruction, made his escape, and fled first into Normandy,
+thence into Northumberland; where he hoped that the people, who had
+been recently subdued by Alfred, and who were impatient of peace,
+would, on the intelligence of that great prince’s death, seize the
+first pretence or opportunity of rebellion.  The event did not
+disappoint his expectations: the Northumbrians declared for him [k];
+and Ethelwald having thus connected his interests with the Danish
+tribes, went beyond sea, and collecting a body of these freebooters,
+he excited the hopes of all those who had been accustomed to subsist
+by rapine and violence [l].  The East Anglian Danes joined his party:
+the Five-burgers, who were seated in the heart of Mercia, began to put
+themselves in motion; and the English found that they were again
+menaced with those convulsions, from which the valour and policy of
+Alfred had so lately rescued them.  The rebels, headed by Ethelwald,
+made an incursion into the Counties of Gloucester, Oxford, and Wilts;
+and having exercised their ravages in these places, they retired with
+their booty, before the king, who had assembled an army, was able to
+approach them.  Edward, however, who was determined that his
+preparations should not be fruitless, conducted his forces into East
+Anglia, and retaliated the injuries which the inhabitants had
+committed, by spreading the like devastation among them.  Satiated
+with revenge, and loaded with booty, he gave orders to retire: but the
+authority of those ancient kings, which was feeble in peace, was not
+much better established in the field; and the Kentish men, greedy of
+more spoil, ventured, contrary to repeated orders, to stay behind him,
+and to take up their quarters in Bury. This disobedience proved in the
+issue fortunate to Edward.  The Danes assaulted the Kentish men; but
+met with so vigorous a resistance, that, though they gained the field
+of battle, they bought that advantage by the loss of their bravest
+leaders, and among the rest, by that of Ethelwald, who perished in the
+action [m]. The king, freed from the fear of so dangerous a
+competitor, made peace on advantageous terms with the East Angles [n].
+[FN [g] W. Malmes lib. 2. cap. 5  Hoveden, p. 421.  [h] Chron. Sax. p.
+99, 100.  [i] Ibid. p. 100.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 352.  [k] Chron.
+Sax. p. 100.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 352.  [l] Chron. Sax. p. 100.
+Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 24.  [m] Chron. Sax. p. 101.
+Brompton, p. 832.  [n] Chron. Sax. p. 102.  Brompton, p. 832.  Matth.
+West. p. 181.]
+
+In order to restore England to such a state of tranquillity as it was
+then capable of attaining, nought was wanting but the subjection of
+the Northumbrians, who, assisted by the scattered Danes in Mercia,
+continually infested the bowels of the kingdom.  Edward, in order to
+divert the force of these enemies, prepared a fleet to attack them by
+sea; hoping that, when his ships appeared on their coast, they must at
+least remain at home, and provide for their defence.  But the
+Northumbrians were less anxious to secure their own property, than
+greedy to commit spoil on their enemy; and concluding, that the chief
+strength of the English was embarked on board the fleet, they thought
+the opportunity favourable, and entered Edward’s territories with all
+their forces.  The king, who was prepared against this event, attacked
+them on their return at Tetenhall, in the county of Stafford, put them
+to rout, recovered all the booty, and pursued them with great
+slaughter into their own country.
+
+All the rest of Edward’s reign was a scene of continued and successful
+action against the Northumbrians, the East Angles, the Five-burgers,
+and the foreign Danes who invaded him from Normandy and Britany.  Nor
+was he less provident in putting his kingdom in a posture of defence,
+than vigorous in assaulting the enemy.  He fortified the towns of
+Chester, Eddesbury, Warwick, Cherbury, Buckingham, Towcester, Maldon,
+Huntingdon, and Colchester.  He fought two signal battles at Temsford
+and Maldon [o].  He vanquished Thurketill, a great Danish chief, and
+obliged him to retire with his followers into France, in quest of
+spoil and adventures.  He subdued the East Angles, and forced them to
+swear allegiance to him; he expelled the two rival princes of
+Northumberland, Reginald and Sidroc, and acquired, for the present,
+the dominion of that province: several tribes of the Britons were
+subjected by him; and even the Scots, who, during the reign of Egbert,
+had, under the conduct of Kenneth their king, increased their power by
+the final subjection of the Picts, were nevertheless obliged to give
+him marks of submission [p].  In all these fortunate achievements he
+was assisted by the activity and prudence of his sister, Ethelfleda,
+who was widow of Ethelbert, Earl of Mercia, and who, after her
+husband’s death, retained the government of that province.  This
+princess, who had been reduced to extremity in childbed, refused
+afterwards all commerce with her husband; not from any weak
+superstition, as was common in that age, but because she deemed all
+domestic occupations unworthy of her masculine and ambitious spirit
+[q].  She died before her brother; and Edward, during the remainder of
+his reign, took upon himself the immediate government of Mercia, which
+before had been entrusted to the authority of a governor [r].  The
+Saxon Chronicle fixes the death of this prince in 925 [s]: his kingdom
+devolved to Athelstan, his natural son.
+[FN [o] Chron. Sax. p. 108.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 601.  [p] Chron. Sax. p.
+110.  Hoveden, p. 421.  [q] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 5.  M. West. p.
+182.  Ingulph. p. 28.  Higden, p. 261.  [r] Chron. Sax. p. 110.
+Brompton, p. 831.  [s] Page 110.]
+
+[MN Athelstan 925.]
+The stain in this prince’s birth was not, in those times, deemed so
+considerable as to exclude him from the throne; and Athelstan, being
+of an age, as well as of a capacity fitted for government, obtained
+the preference to Edward’s younger children, who, though legitimate,
+were of too tender years to rule a nation so much exposed both to
+foreign invasion and to domestic convulsions.  Some discontents,
+however, prevailed on his accession; and Alfred, a nobleman of
+considerable power, was thence encouraged to enter into a conspiracy
+against him.  This incident is related by historians with
+circumstances, which the reader, according to the degree of credit he
+is disposed to give them, may impute either to the invention of monks,
+who forged them, or to their artifice, who found means of making them
+real.  Alfred, it is said, being seized upon strong suspicions, but
+without any certain proof, firmly denied the .conspiracy imputed to
+him; and in order to justify himself, he offered to swear to his
+innocence before the pope, whose person, it was supposed, contained
+such superior sanctity, that no one could presume to give a false oath
+in his presence, and yet hope to escape the immediate vengeance of
+heaven.  The king accepted of the condition, and Alfred was conducted
+to Rome; where, either conscious of his innocence, or neglecting the
+superstition to which he appealed, he ventured to make the oath
+required of him before John, who then filled the papal chair.  But no
+sooner had he pronounced the fatal words, than he fell into
+convulsions, of which three days after he expired.  The king, as if
+the guilt of the conspirator were now fully ascertained, confiscated
+his estate, and made a present of it to the monastery of Malmesbury
+[t]; secure that no doubts would ever thenceforth be entertained
+concerning the justice of his proceedings.
+[FN [t] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 6.  Spell. Conc. p. 407.]
+
+The dominion of Athelstan was no sooner established over his English
+subjects, than he endeavoured to give security to the government, by
+providing against the insurrections of the Danes, which had created so
+much disturbance to his predecessors.  He marched into Northumberland;
+and finding that the inhabitants bore with impatience the English
+yoke, he thought it prudent to confer on Sithric, a Danish nobleman,
+the title of king, and to attach him to his interests, by giving him
+his sister, Editha, in marriage.  But this policy proved by accident
+the source of dangerous consequences.  Sithric died in a twelvemonth
+after; and his two sons by a former marriage, Anlaf and Godfrid,
+founding pretensions on their father’s elevation, assumed the
+sovereignty without waiting for Athelstan’s consent.  They were soon
+expelled by the power of that monarch; and the former took shelter in
+Ireland, as the latter did in Scotland; where he received, during some
+time, protection from Constantine, who then enjoyed the crown of that.
+kingdom.  The Scottish prince, however, continually solicited, and
+even menaced by Athelstan, at last promised to deliver up his guest;
+but secretly detesting this treachery, he gave Godfrid warning to make
+his escape [u]; and that fugitive, after subsisting by piracy for some
+years, freed the king by his death from any farther anxiety.
+Athelstan, resenting Constantine’s behaviour, entered Scotland with an
+army; and ravaging the country with impunity [w], he reduced the Scots
+to such distress, that their king was content to preserve his crown,
+by making submissions to the enemy.  The English historians assert
+[x], that Constantine did homage to Athelstan for his kingdom; and
+they add, that the latter prince, being urged by his courtiers to push
+the present favourable opportunity, and entirely subdue Scotland,
+replied, that it was more glorious to confer than conquer kingdoms
+[y].  But those annals, so uncertain and imperfect in themselves, lose
+all credit when national prepossessions and animosities have place:
+and on that account, the Scotch historians, who, without having any
+more knowledge of the matter, strenuously deny the fact, seem more
+worthy of belief.
+[FN [u] W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 6.  [w] Chron. Sax. p. 111.  Hoveden, p.
+422.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 354.  [x] Hoveden, p. 422.  [y] Wm.
+Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 6.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 212.]
+
+Constantine, whether he owed the retaining of his crown to the
+moderation of Athelstan, who was unwilling to employ all his
+advantages against him, or to the policy of that prince, who esteemed
+the humiliation of an enemy a greater acquisition than the subjection
+of a discontented and mutinous people, thought the behaviour of the
+English monarch more an object of resentment than of gratitude.  He
+entered into a confederacy with Anlaf, who had collected a great body
+of Danish pirates, whom he found hovering in the Irish seas; and with
+some Welsh princes, who were terrified at the growing power of
+Athelstan: and all these allies made by concert an irruption with a
+great army into England.  Athelstan, collecting his forces, met the
+enemy near Brunsbury, in Northumberland, and defeated them in a
+general engagement.  This victory was chiefly ascribed to the valour
+of Turketul, the English chancellor: for in those turbulent ages no
+one was so much occupied in civil employments, as wholly to lay aside
+the military character [z].
+[FN [z] The office of chancellor among the Anglo-Saxons resembled more
+that of a secretary of state, than that of our present chancellor.
+See Spellman, in voce CHANCELLARIUS.]
+
+There is a circumstance not unworthy of notice, which historians
+relate, with regard to the transactions of this war.  Anlaf, on the
+approach of the English army, thought that he could not venture too
+much to ensure a fortunate event; and, employing the artifice formerly
+practised by Alfred against the Danes, he entered the enemy’s camp in
+the habit of a minstrel.  The stratagem was for the present attended
+with like success.  He gave such satisfaction to the soldiers who
+flocked about him, that they introduced him to the king’s tent; and
+Anlaf, having played before that prince and his nobles during their
+repast, was dismissed with a handsome reward.  His prudence kept him
+from refusing the present; but his pride determined him, on his
+departure, to bury it, while he fancied that he was unespied by all
+the world.  But a soldier in Athelstan’s camp, who had formerly served
+under Anlaf, had been struck with some suspicion on the first
+appearance of the minstrel; and was engaged by curiosity to observe
+all his motions.  He regarded this last action as a full proof of
+Anlaf’s disguise; and he immediately carried the intelligence to
+Athelstan, who blamed him for not sooner giving him information, that
+he might have seized his enemy.  But the soldier told him, that, as he
+had formerly sworn fealty to Anlaf, he could never have pardoned
+himself the treachery of betraying and ruining his ancient master; and
+that Athelstan himself, after such an instance of his criminal
+conduct, would have had equal reason to distrust his allegiance.
+Athelstan, having praised the generosity of the soldier’s principles,
+reflected on the incident, which he foresaw might be attended with
+important consequences.  He removed his station in the camp; and as a
+bishop arrived that evening with a reinforcement of troops, (for the
+ecclesiastics were then no less warlike than the civil magistrates,)
+he occupied with his train that very place which had been left vacant
+by the king’s removal.  The precaution of Athelstan was found prudent:
+for no sooner had darkness fallen, than Anlaf broke into the camp, and
+hastening directly to the place where he had left the king’s tent, put
+the bishop to death before he had time to prepare for his defence [a].
+[FN [a] W. Malmes. lib. 2 cap. 6.  Higden, p. 263]
+
+There fell several Danish and Welsh princes in the action of Brunsbury
+[b]; and Constantine and Anlaf made their escape with difficulty,
+leaving the greater part of their army on the field of battle.  After
+this success, Athelstan enjoyed his crown in tranquillity; and he is
+regarded as one of the ablest and most active of those ancient
+princes.  He passed a remarkable law, which was calculated for the
+encouragement of commerce, and which it required some liberality of
+mind in that age to have devised: that a merchant, who had made three
+long sea-voyages on his own account, should be admitted to the rank of
+a Thane or Gentleman.  This prince died at Gloucester in the year 941
+[c], after a reign of sixteen years, and was succeeded by Edmund, his
+legitimate brother.
+[FN [b] Brompton, p. 839  Ingulph. p. 29  [c] Chron. Sax. p. 114.]
+
+[MN Edmund 941.]
+Edmund, on his accession, met with disturbance from the restless
+Northumbrians, who lay in wait for every opportunity of breaking into
+rebellion.  But marching suddenly with his forces into their country,
+he so overawed the rebels, that they endeavoured to appease him by the
+most humble submissions [d].  In order to give him a surer pledge of
+their obedience, they offered to embrace Christianity; a religion
+which the English Danes had frequently professed, when reduced to
+difficulties, but which, for that very reason, they regarded as a
+badge of servitude, and shook off as soon as a favourable opportunity
+offered.  Edmund, trusting little to their sincerity in this forced
+submission, used the precaution of removing the Five-burgers from the
+towns of Mercia, in which they had been allowed to settle; because it
+was always found, that they took advantage of every commotion, and
+introduced the rebellious, or foreign Danes, into the heart of the
+kingdom.  He also conquered Cumberland from the Britons; and conferred
+that territory on Malcolm, King of Scotland, on condition that he
+should do him homage for it, and protect the north from all future
+incursions of the Danes.
+[FN [d] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 7.  Brompton, p. 857]
+
+Edmund was young when he came to the crown; yet was his reign short,
+as his death was violent.  One day as he was solemnizing a festival in
+the county of Gloucester, he remarked, that Leolf, a notorious robber,
+whom he had sentenced to banishment, had yet the boldness to enter the
+hall where he himself dined, and to sit at table with his attendants.
+Enraged at this insolence, he ordered him to leave the room; but on
+his refusing to obey, the king, whose temper, naturally choleric, was
+inflamed by this additional insult, leaped on him himself, and seized
+him by the hair: but the ruffian, pushed to extremity, drew his
+dagger, and gave Edmund a wound, of which he immediately expired.
+This event happened in the year 946, and in the sixth year of the
+king’s reign.  Edmund left male issue, but so young, that they were
+incapable of governing the kingdom; and his brother, Edred, was
+promoted to the throne.
+
+[MN Edred 946.]
+The reign of this prince, as those of his predecessors, was disturbed
+by the rebellions and incursions of the Northumbrian Danes, who,
+though frequently quelled, were never entirely subdued, nor had ever
+paid a sincere allegiance to the crown of England.  The accession of a
+new king seemed to them a favourable opportunity for shaking off the
+yoke; but on Edred’s appearance with an army, they made him their
+wonted submissions; and the king having wasted the country with fire
+and sword, as a punishment for their rebellion, obliged them to renew
+their oaths of allegiance; and he straight retired with his forces.
+The obedience of the Danes lasted no longer than the present terror.
+Provoked at the devastations of Edred, and even reduced by necessity
+to subsist on plunder, they broke into a new rebellion, and were again
+subdued; but the king, now instructed by experience, took greater
+precautions against their future revolt.  He fixed English garrisons
+in their most considerable towns; and placed over them an English
+governor, who might watch all their motions, and suppress any
+insurrection on its first appearance.  He obliged also Malcolm, King
+of Scotland, to renew his homage for the lands which he held in
+England.
+
+Edred, though not unwarlike, nor unfit for active life, lay under the
+influence of the lowest superstition, and had blindly delivered over
+his conscience to the guidance of Dunstan, commonly called St.
+Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury, whom he advanced to the highest
+offices, and who covered, under the appearance of sanctity, the most
+violent and most insolent ambition.  Taking advantage of the implicit
+confidence reposed in him by the king, this churchman imported into
+England a new order of monks, who much changed the state of
+ecclesiastical affairs, and excited, on their first establishment, the
+most violent commotions.
+
+From the introduction of Christianity among the Saxons, there had been
+monasteries in England; and these establishments had extremely
+multiplied, by the donations of the princes and nobles; whose
+superstition, derived from their ignorance and precarious life, and
+increased by remorse for the crimes into which they were so frequently
+betrayed, knew no other expedient for appeasing the Deity than a
+profuse liberality towards the ecclesiastics.  But the monks had
+hitherto been a species of secular priests, who lived after the manner
+of the present canons or prebendaries, and were both intermingled, in
+some degree, with the world, and endeavoured to render themselves
+useful to it.  They were employed in the education of youth [e]: they
+had the disposal of their own time and industry: they were not
+subjected to the rigid rules of an order: they had made no vows of
+implicit obedience to their superiors [f]: and they still retained the
+choice, without quitting the convent, either of a married or a single
+life [g].  But a mistaken piety had produced in Italy a new species of
+monks called Benedictines; who, carrying farther the plausible
+principles of mortification, secluded themselves entirely from the
+world, renounced all claim to liberty, and made a merit of the most
+inviolable chastity.  These practices and principles, which
+superstition at first engendered, were greedily embraced and promoted
+by the policy of the court of Rome.  The Roman pontiff, who was making
+every day great advances towards an absolute sovereignty over the
+ecclesiastics, perceived that the celibacy of the clergy alone could
+break off entirely their connexion with the civil power, and depriving
+them of every other object of ambition, engage them to promote, with
+unceasing industry, the grandeur of their own order.  He was sensible,
+that so long as the monks were indulged in marriage, and were
+permitted to rear families, they never could be subjected to strict
+discipline, or reduced to that slavery under their superiors, which
+was requisite to procure to the mandates issued from Rome, a ready and
+zealous obedience.  Celibacy, therefore, began to be extolled, as the
+indispensable duty of priests; and the pope undertook to make all the
+clergy throughout the western world renounce at once the privilege of
+marriage: a fortunate policy; but at the same time an undertaking the
+most difficult of any, since he had the strongest propensities of
+human nature to encounter, and found, that the same connexions with
+the female sex, which generally encourage devotion, were here
+unfavourable to the success of his project.  It is no wonder
+therefore, that this master-stroke of art should have met with violent
+contradiction, and that the interests of the hierarchy, and the
+inclinations of the priests, being now placed in this singular
+opposition, should, notwithstanding the continued efforts of Rome,
+have retarded the execution of that bold scheme, during the course of
+near three centuries.
+[FN [e] Osberne in Anglia Sacra, tom. 2. p. 92.  [f] Osberne, p. 91.
+[g] See Wharton’s notes to Anglia Sacra, tom. 2. p. 91.  Gervase, p.
+1645.  Chron Wint. MS. apud Spell. Conc. p. 434.]
+
+As the bishops and parochial clergy lived apart with their families,
+and were more connected with the world, the hopes of success with them
+were fainter; and the pretence for making them renounce marriage was
+much less plausible.  But the pope, having cast his eye on the monks
+as the basis of his authority, was determined to reduce them under
+strict rules of obedience, to procure them the credit of sanctity by
+an appearance of the most rigid mortification, and to break off all
+their other ties which might interfere with his spiritual policy.
+Under pretence, therefore, of reforming abuses, which were, in some
+degree, unavoidable in the ancient establishments, he had already
+spread over the southern countries of Europe the severe laws of the
+monastic life, and began to form attempts towards a like innovation in
+England.  The favourable opportunity offered itself, (and it was
+greedily seized,) arising from the weak, superstition of Edred, and
+the violent impetuous character of Dunstan.
+
+Dunstan was born of noble parents in the west of England; and being
+educated under his uncle Aldhelm, then Archbishop of Canterbury, had
+betaken himself to the ecclesiastical life, and had acquired some
+character in the court of Edmund.  He was, however, represented to
+that prince as a man of licentious manners [h]: and finding his
+fortune blasted by these suspicions, his ardent ambition prompted him
+to repair his indiscretions by running into an opposite extreme.  He
+secluded himself entirely from the world; he framed a cell so small,
+that he could neither stand erect in it nor stretch out his limbs
+during his repose; and he here employed himself perpetually either in
+devotion or in manual labour [i].  It is probable, that his brain
+became gradually crazed by these solitary occupations, and that his
+head was filled with chimeras, which, being believed by himself and
+his stupid votaries, procured him the general character of sanctity
+among the people.  He fancied that the devil, among the frequent
+visits which he paid him, was one day more earnest than usual in his
+temptations; till Dunstan, provoked at his importunity, seized him by
+the nose with a pair of red-hot pincers, as he put his head into the
+cell; and he held him there till that malignant spirit made the whole
+neighbourhood resound with his bellowings.  This notable exploit was
+seriously credited and extolled by the public: it is transmitted to
+posterity by one who, considering the age in which he lived, may pass
+for a writer of some eloquence [k]; and it ensured to Dunstan a
+reputation which no real piety, much less virtue, could, even in the
+most enlightened period, have ever procured him with the people.
+[FN [h] Osberne, p. 95  Matth West, p. 187.  [i] Osberne, p. 96.  [k]
+Osberne, p. 97.]
+
+Supported by the character obtained in his retreat, Dunstan appeared
+again in the world; and gained such an ascendant over Edred, who had
+succeeded to the crown, as made him not only the director of that
+prince’s conscience, but his counsellor in the most momentous affairs
+of government.  He was placed at the head of the treasury [l], and
+being thus possessed both of power at court, and of credit with the
+populace, he was enabled to attempt with success the most arduous
+enterprises.  Finding that his advancement had been owing to the
+opinion of his austerity, he professed himself a partisan of the rigid
+monastic rules; and after introducing that reformation into the
+convents of Glastonbury and Abingdon, he endeavoured to render it
+universal in the kingdom.
+[FN [1] Ibid. p. 102.  Wallingford, p. 541.]
+
+The minds of men were already well prepared for this innovation.  The
+praises of an inviolable chastity had been carried to the highest
+extravagance by some of the first preachers of Christianity among the
+Saxons: the pleasures of love had been represented as incompatible
+with Christian perfection; and a total abstinence from all commerce
+with the sex was deemed such a meritorious penance, as was sufficient
+to atone for the greatest enormities.  The consequence seemed natural,
+that those, at least, who officiated at the altar should be clear of
+this pollution; and when the doctrine of transubstantiation, which was
+now creeping in [m], was once fully established, the reverence to the
+real body of Christ in the eucharist bestowed on this argument an
+additional force and influence.  The monks knew how to avail
+themselves of all these popular topics, and to set off their own
+character to the best advantage.  They affected the greatest austerity
+of life and manners: they indulged themselves in the highest strains
+of devotion: they inveighed bitterly against the vices and pretended
+luxury of the age: they were particularly vehement against the
+dissolute lives of the secular clergy, their rivals: every instance of
+libertinism in any individual of that order was represented as a
+general corruption: and where other topics of defamation were wanting,
+their marriage became a sure subject of invective, and their wives
+received the name of CONCUBINE, or other more opprobrious appellation.
+The secular clergy, on the other hand, who were numerous and rich, and
+possessed of the ecclesiastical dignities, defended themselves with
+vigour, and endeavoured to retaliate upon their adversaries.  The
+people were thrown into agitation; and few instances occur of more
+violent dissensions, excited by the most material differences in
+religion, or rather by the most frivolous: since it is a just remark,
+that the more affinity there is between theological parties, the
+greater commonly is their animosity.
+[FN [m] Spell. Conc. v. i. p. 452.]
+
+The progress of the monks, which was become considerable, was somewhat
+retarded by the death of Edred, their partisan, who expired after a
+reign of nine years [n].  He left children; but as they were infants,
+his nephew, Edwy, son of Edmund, was placed on the throne.
+[FN [n] Chron. Sax. p. 115.]
+
+[MN Edwy. 955.]
+Edwy, at the time of his accession, was not above sixteen or seventeen
+years of age, was possessed of the most amiable figure, and was even
+endowed, according to authentic accounts, with the most promising
+virtues [o].  He would have been the favourite of his people, had he
+not unhappily, at the commencement of his reign, been engaged in a
+controversy with the monks, whose rage, neither the graces of the body
+nor virtues of the mind could mitigate, and who have pursued his
+memory with the same unrelenting vengeance which they exercised
+against his person and dignity during his short and unfortunate reign.
+There was a beautiful princess of the royal blood, called Elgiva, who
+had made impression on the tender heart of Edwy; and as he was of an
+age when the force of the passions first begins to be felt, he had
+ventured, contrary to the advice of his gravest counsellors, and the
+remonstrances of the more dignified ecclesiastics [p], to espouse her;
+though she was within the degrees of affinity prohibited by the canon
+law [q].  As the austerity affected by the monks made them
+particularly violent on this occasion, Edwy entertained a strong
+prepossession against them; and seemed, on that account, determined
+not to second their project of expelling the seculars from all the
+convents, and of possessing themselves of those rich establishments.
+War was therefore declared between the king and the monks; and the
+former soon found reason to repent his provoking such dangerous
+enemies.  On the day of his coronation, his nobility were assembled in
+a great hall, and were indulging themselves in that riot and disorder,
+which, from the example of their German ancestors, had become habitual
+to the English [r]; when Edwy, attracted by softer pleasures, retired
+into the queen’s apartment, and in that privacy gave reins to his
+fondness towards his wife, which was only moderately checked by the
+presence of her mother.  Dunstan conjectured the reason of the king’s
+retreat; and carrying along with him Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury,
+over whom he had gained an absolute ascendant, he burst into the
+apartment, upbraided Edwy with his lasciviousness, probably bestowed
+on the queen the most opprobrious epithet that can be applied to her
+sex, and tearing him from her arms, pushed him back, in a disgraceful
+manner, into the banquet of the nobles [s].  Edwy, though young, and
+opposed by the prejudices of the people, found an opportunity of
+taking revenge for this public insult.  He questioned Dunstan
+concerning the administration of the treasury during the reign of his
+predecessor [t]; and when that minister refused to give any account of
+money expended, as he affirmed, by orders of the late king, he accused
+him of malversation in his office and banished him the kingdom.  But
+Dunstan’s cabal was not inactive during his absence; they filled the
+public with high panegyrics on his sanctity; they exclaimed against
+the impiety of the king and queen; and having poisoned the minds of
+the people by these declamations, they proceeded to still more
+outrageous acts of violence against the royal authority.  Archbishop
+Odo sent into the palace a party of soldiers, who seized the queen,
+and, having burned her face with a red-hot iron, in order to destroy
+that fatal beauty which had seduced Edwy, they carried her by force
+into Ireland, there to remain in perpetual exile [u].  Edwy, finding
+it in vain to resist, was obliged to consent to his divorce, which was
+pronounced by Odo [w]; and catastrophe, still more dismal, awaited the
+unhappy Elgiva.  That amiable princess, being cured of her wounds, and
+having even obliterated the scars with which Odo had hoped to deface
+her beauty, returned into England, and was flying to the embraces of
+the king, whom she still regarded as her husband; when she fell into
+the hands of a party, whom the primate had sent to intercept her.
+Nothing but her death could now give security to Odo and the monks;
+and the most cruel death was requisite to satiate their vengeance.
+She was hamstringed; and expired a few days after at Gloucester, in
+the most acute torments [x].
+[FN [o] H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 356.  [p] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 7.
+[q] Ibid.  [r] Wallingford, p. 542.  [s] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 7.
+Osberne, p. 83, 105.  M. West. p. 195, 196.  [t] Wallingford, p. 542.
+Alur. Beverl. p. 112.  [u] Osberne, p. 84.  Gervase, p. 1644.  [w]
+Hoveden, p. 425.  [x] Osberne, p. 84.  Gervase, p. 1645, 1646.]
+
+The English, blinded with superstition, instead of being shocked with
+this inhumanity, exclaimed that the misfortunes of Edwy and his
+consort were a just judgment for their dissolute contempt of the
+ecclesiastical statutes.  They even proceeded to rebellion against
+their sovereign; and having placed Edgar at their head, the younger
+brother of Edwy, a boy of thirteen years of age, they soon put him in
+possession of Mercia, Northumberland, East Anglia; and chased Edwy
+into the southern counties.  That it might not be doubtful at whose
+instigation this revolt was undertaken, Dunstan returned into England,
+and took upon him the government of Edgar and his party.  He was first
+installed in the see of Worcester, then in that of London [y], and on
+Odo’s death, and the violent expulsion of Brithelm, his successor, in
+that of Canterbury [z]; of all which he long kept possession.  Odo is
+transmitted to us by the monks under the character of a man of piety;
+Dunstan was even canonized: and is one of those numerous saints of the
+same stamp who disgrace the Romish calendar.  Meanwhile the unhappy
+Edwy was excommunicated [a], and pursued with unrelenting vengeance;
+but his death, which happened soon after, freed his enemies from all
+further inquietude, and gave Edgar peaceable possession of the
+government [b].
+[FN [y] Chron. Sax. p. 117.  Flor Wigorn. p. 605.  Wallingford, p. 544
+[z] Hoveden p. 425.  Osberne, p. 109.  [a] Brompton, p. 863.  [b] See
+note [B] at the end of the volume.]
+
+[MN Edgar.]
+This prince, who mounted the throne in such early youth, soon
+discovered an excellent capacity in the administration of affairs; and
+his reign is one of the most fortunate that we meet with in the
+ancient English history.  He showed no aversion to war, he made the
+wisest preparations against invaders; and by his vigour and foresight
+he was enabled, without any danger of suffering insults, to indulge
+his inclination towards peace, and to employ himself in supporting and
+improving the internal government of his kingdom.  He maintained a
+body of disciplined troops; which he quartered in the north, in order
+to keep the mutinous Northumbrians in subjection, and to repel the
+inroads of the Scots.  He built and supported a powerful navy [c]; and
+that he might retain the seamen in the practice of their duty, and
+always present a formidable armament to his enemies, he stationed
+three squadrons off the coast, and ordered them to make, from time to
+time, the circuit of his dominions [d].  The foreign Danes dared not
+to approach a country which appeared in such a posture of defence: the
+domestic Danes saw inevitable destruction to be the consequence of
+their tumults and insurrections: the neighbouring sovereigns, the King
+of Scotland, the Princes of Wales, of the Isle of Man, of the Orkneys,
+and even of Ireland [e], were reduced to pay submission to so
+formidable a monarch.  He carried his superiority to a great height,
+and might have excited an universal combination against him, had not
+his power been so well established as to deprive his enemies of all
+hope of shaking it.  It is said, that residing once at Chester, and
+having purposed to go by water to the abbey of St. John the Baptist,
+he obliged eight of his tributary princes to row him in a barge upon
+the Dee [f].  The English historians are fond of mentioning the name
+of Kenneth III, King of Scots, among the number: the Scottish
+historians either deny the fact, or assert that their king, if ever he
+acknowledged himself a vassal to Edgar, did him homage not for his
+crown, but for the dominions which he held in England.
+[FN [c] Higden, p. 265.  [d] See note [C] at the end of the volume.
+[e] Spell. Conc. p. 32.  [f] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Hoveden, p.
+406.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 356.]
+
+But the chief means by which Edgar maintained his authority, and
+preserved public peace, was the paying of court to Dunstan and the
+monks, who had at first placed him on the throne, and who, by their
+pretensions to superior sanctity and purity of manners, had acquired
+an ascendant over the people.  He favoured their scheme for
+dispossessing the secular canons of all the monasteries [g]; he
+bestowed preferment on none but their partisans; he allowed Dunstan to
+resign the see of Worcester into the hands of Oswald, one of his
+creatures [h]; and to place Ethelwold, another of them, in that of
+Winchester [i]; he consulted these prelates in the administration of
+all ecclesiastical, and even in that of many civil affairs; and though
+the vigour of his own genius prevented him from being implicitly
+guided by them, the king and the bishops found such advantages in
+their mutual agreement, that they always acted in concert, and united
+their influence in preserving the peace and tranquillity of the
+kingdom.
+[FN [g] Chron. Sax. p. 117, 118.  W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Hoveden,
+p. 425, 426  Osberne, p. 112.  [h] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.
+Hoveden, p. 425.]
+
+In order to complete the great work of placing the new order of monks
+in all the convents, Edgar summoned a general council of the prelates
+and the heads of the religious orders.  He here inveighed against the
+dissolute lives of the secular clergy; the smallness of their tonsure,
+which, it is probable, maintained no longer any resemblance to the
+crown of thorns; their negligence in attending the exercise of their
+function; their mixing with the laity in the pleasures of gaming,
+hunting, dancing, and singing; and their openly living with
+concubines, by which it is commonly supposed he meant their wives.  He
+then turned himself to Dunstan, the primate; and in the name of King
+Edred, whom he supposed to look down from heaven with indignation
+against all those enormities, he thus addressed him: "It is you,
+Dunstan, by whose advice I founded monasteries, built churches, and
+expended my treasure in the support of religion and religious houses.
+You were my counsellor and assistant in all my schemes: you were the
+director of my conscience: to you I was obedient in all things.  When
+did you call for supplies which I refused you?  Was my assistance ever
+wanting to the poor?  Did I deny support and establishments to the
+clergy and the convents?  Did I not hearken to your instructions, who
+told me that these charities were, of all others, the most grateful to
+my Maker, and fixed a perpetual fund for the support of religion?  And
+are all our pious endeavours now frustrated by the dissolute lives of
+the priests?  Not that I throw any blame on you; you have reasoned,
+besought, inculcated, inveighed; but it now behoves you to use sharper
+and more vigorous remedies; and conjoining your spiritual authority
+with the civil power, to purge effectually the temple of God from
+thieves and intruders [k]."  It is easy to imagine that this harangue
+had the desired effect; and that, when the king and prelates thus
+concurred with the popular prejudices, it was not long before the
+monks prevailed, and established their new discipline in almost all
+the convents.
+[FN [i] Gervase, p. 1646.  Brompton, p. 864.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 606.
+Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p 27, 28.  [k] Abbas Rieval. p. 360,
+361.  Spell. Conc. p. 476, 477, 478]
+
+We may remark, that the declamations against the secular clergy are,
+both here and in all the historians, conveyed in general terms; and as
+that order of men are commonly restrained by the decency of their
+character, it is difficult to believe that the complaints against
+their dissolute manners could be so universally just as is pretended.
+It is more probable that the monks paid court to the populace by an
+affected austerity of life; and representing the most innocent
+liberties, taken by the other clergy, as great and unpardonable
+enormities, thereby prepared the way for the increase of their own
+power and influence.  Edgar, however, like a true politician,
+concurred with the prevailing party; and he even indulged them in
+pretensions, which, though they might, when complied with, engage the
+monks to support royal authority during his own reign, proved
+afterwards dangerous to his successors, and gave disturbance to the
+whole civil power.  He seconded the policy of the court of Rome, in
+granting to some monasteries an exemption from episcopal jurisdiction;
+he allowed the convents, even those of royal foundation, to usurp the
+election of their own abbot: and he admitted their forgeries of
+ancient charters, by which, from the pretended grant of former kings,
+they assumed many privileges and immunities [l]
+[FN [l] Chron. Sax. p. 118.  W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Seldeni
+Spicileg. ad Eadm. p. 149, 157.]
+
+These merits of Edgar have procured him the highest panegyrics from
+the monks, and he is transmitted to us, not only under the character
+of a consummate statesman and an active prince, praises to which he
+seems to have been justly entitled, but under that of a of a great
+saint and a man of virtue.  But nothing could more betray both his
+hypocrisy in inveighing against the licentiousness of the secular
+clergy, and the interested spirit of his partisans, in bestowing such
+eulogies on his piety, than the usual tenour of his conduct, which was
+licentious to the highest degree, and violated every law, human and
+divine.  Yet those very monks who, as we are told by Ingulf, a very
+ancient historian, had no idea of any moral or religious merit, except
+chastity and obedience, not only connived at his enormities, but
+loaded him with the greatest praises.  History, however, has preserved
+some instances of his amours, from which, as from a specimen, we may
+form a conjecture of the rest.
+
+Edgar broke into a convent, carried off Editha, a nun, by force, and
+even committed violence on her person [m].  For this act of sacrilege
+he was reprimanded by Dunstan; and that he might reconcile himself to
+the church, he was obliged not to separate from his mistress, but to
+abstain from wearing his crown during seven years, and to deprive
+himself so long of that vain ornament [n]; punishment very unequal to
+that which had been inflicted on the unfortunate Edwy, who, for a
+marriage which, in the strictest sense, could only deserve the  name
+of irregular, was expelled his kingdom, saw his queen treated with
+singular barbarity, was loaded with calumnies, and has been
+represented to us under the most odious colours.  Such is the
+ascendant which may be attained, by hypocrisy and cabal, over mankind.
+[FN [m] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Osberne, p. 3.  Diceto p. 457.
+Higden, p. 265, 267, 266.  Spell. Conc. p. 481.  [n] Osberne, p. 111.]
+
+There was another mistress of Edgar, with whom he first formed a
+connexion by a kind of accident.  Passing one day by Andover, he
+lodged in the house of a nobleman, whose daughter, being endowed with
+all the graces of person and behaviour, inflamed him at first sight
+with the highest desire; and he resolved by any expedient to gratify
+it.  As he had not leisure to employ courtship or address for
+attaining his purpose, he went directly to her mother, declared the
+violence of his passion, and desired that the young lady might be
+allowed to pass that very night with him.  The mother was a woman of
+virtue, and determined not to dishonour her daughter and her family by
+compliance; but being well acquainted with the impetuosity of the
+king’s temper, she thought it would be easier, as well as safer, to
+deceive than refuse him.  She feigned therefore a submission to his
+will; but secretly ordered a waiting maid, of no disagreeable figure,
+to steal into the king’s bed, after all the company should be retired
+to rest.  In the morning before daybreak, the damsel, agreeably to the
+injunctions of her mistress, offered to retire; but Edgar, who had no
+reserve in his pleasures, and whose love to his bedfellow was rather
+inflamed by enjoyment, refused his consent, and employed force and
+entreaties to detain her.  Elfleda, (for that was the name of the
+maid,) trusting to her own charms, and to the love with which, she
+hoped, she had now inspired the king, made probably but a faint
+resistance; and the return of light discovered the deceit to Edgar.
+He had passed a night so much to his satisfaction, that he expressed
+no displeasure with the old lady on account of her fraud; his love was
+transferred to Elfleda; she became his favourite mistress; and
+maintained her ascendant over him till his marriage with Elfrida [o].
+[FN [o] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Higden, p. 268.]
+
+The circumstances of his marriage with this lady were more singular
+and more criminal.  Elfrida was daughter and heir of Olgar, Earl of
+Devonshire; and though she had been educated in the country, and had
+never appeared at court, she had filled all England with the
+reputation of her beauty.  Edgar himself, who was indifferent to no
+accounts of this nature, found his curiosity excited by the frequent
+panegyrics which he heard of Elfrida; and reflecting on her noble
+birth, he resolved, if he found her charms answerable to their fame,
+to obtain possession of her on honourable terms.  He communicated his
+intention to Earl Athelwold, his favourite; but used the precaution,
+before he made any advances to her parents, to order that nobleman, on
+some pretence, to pay them a visit, and to bring him a certain account
+of the beauty of their daughter.  Athelwold, when introduced to the
+young lady, found general report to have fallen short of the truth;
+and being actuated by the most vehement love, he determined to
+sacrifice to this new passion his fidelity to his master, and to the
+trust reposed in him.  He returned to Edgar and told him, that the
+riches alone, and high quality of Elfrida, had been the ground of the
+admiration paid her; and that her charms, far from being anywise
+extraordinary, would have been overlooked in a woman of inferior
+station.  When he had, by this deceit, diverted the king from his
+purpose, he took an opportunity, after some interval, of turning again
+the conversation on Elfrida; he remarked, that though the parentage
+and fortune of the lady had not produced on him, as on others, any
+illusion with regard to her beauty, he could not forbear reflecting,
+that she would, on the whole, be an advantageous match for him, and
+might, by her birth and riches, make him sufficient compensation for
+the homeliness of her person.  If the king, therefore, gave his
+approbation, he was determined to make proposals in his own behalf to
+the Earl of Devonshire, and doubted not to obtain his, as well as the
+young lady’s consent to the marriage.  Edgar, pleased with an
+expedient for establishing his favourite’s fortune, not only exhorted
+him to execute his purpose, but forwarded his success by his
+recommendations to the parents of Elfrida; and Athelwold was soon made
+happy in the possession of his mistress.  Dreading, however, the
+detection of the artifice, he employed every pretence for detaining
+Elfrida in the country, and for keeping her at a distance from Edgar.
+
+The violent passion of Athelwold had rendered him blind to the
+necessary consequences which must attend his conduct, and the
+advantages which the numerous enemies that always pursue a royal
+favourite would, by its means, be able to make against him.  Edgar was
+soon informed of the truth; but before he would execute vengeance on
+Athelwold’s treachery, he resolved to satisfy himself with his own
+eyes of the certainty and full extent of his guilt.  He told him that
+he intended to pay him a visit in his castle, and be introduced to the
+acquaintance of his new married wife; and Athelwold, as he could not
+refuse the honour, only craved leave to go before him a few hours,
+that he might the better prepare every thing for his reception.  He
+then discovered the whole matter to Elfrida; and begged her, if she
+had any regard either to her own honour or his life, to conceal from
+Edgar, by every circumstance of dress and behaviour, that fatal
+beauty, which had seduced him from fidelity to his friend, and had
+betrayed him into so many falsehoods.  Elfrida promised compliance,
+though nothing was farther from her intentions.  She deemed herself
+little beholden to Athelwold for a passion which had deprived her of a
+crown; and knowing the force of her own charms, she did not despair
+even yet of reaching that dignity, of which her husband’s artifice had
+bereaved her.  She appeared before the king with all the advantages
+which the richest attire and the most engaging airs could bestow upon
+her, and she excited at once in his bosom the highest love towards
+herself, and the most furious desire of revenge against her husband.
+He knew, however, how to dissemble these passions; and seducing
+Athelwold into a wood, on pretence of hunting, he stabbed him with his
+own hand, and soon after publicly espoused Elfrida [p].
+[FN [p] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Hoveden, p. 426.  Brompton, p.
+865, 866.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 606.  Higd. p. 268.]
+
+Before we conclude our account of this reign, we must mention two
+circumstances which are remarked  by historians.  The reputation of
+Edgar allured a great number of foreigners to visit his court; and he
+gave them encouragement to settle in England [q].  We are told that
+they imported all the vices of their respective countries, and
+contributed to corrupt the simple manners of the natives [r].  But as
+this simplicity of manners, so highly and often so injudiciously
+extolled, did not preserve them from barbarity and treachery, the
+greatest of all vices, and the most incident to a rude uncultivated
+people, we ought perhaps to deem their acquaintance with foreigners
+rather an advantage; as it tended to enlarge their views, and to cure
+them of those illiberal prejudices and rustic manners to which
+islanders are often subject.
+[FN [q] Chron. Sax. p. 116.  H. Hunting. lib 5. p. 356.  Brompton, p.
+865.  [r] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.]
+
+Another remarkable incident of this reign was the extirpation of
+wolves from England.  This advantage was attained by the industrious
+policy of Edgar.  He took great pains in hunting and pursuing those
+ravenous animals; and when he found that all that escaped him had
+taken shelter in the mountains and forests of Wales, he changed the
+tribute of money imposed on the Welsh princes by Athelstan, his
+predecessor [s], into an annual tribute of three hundred heads of
+wolves; which produced such diligence in hunting them, that the animal
+has been no more seen in this island.
+[FN [s] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 6.  Brompton, p. 838.]
+
+Edgar died after a reign of sixteen years, and in the thirty-third of
+his age.  He was succeeded by Edward, whom he had by his first
+marriage with the daughter of Earl Ordmer.
+
+[MN Edward the Martyr. 957.]
+The succession of this prince, who was only fifteen years of age at
+his father’s death, did not take place without much difficulty and
+opposition.  Elfrida, his stepmother, had a son, Ethelred, seven years
+old, whom she attempted to raise to the throne: she affirmed that
+Edgar’s marriage with the mother of Edward was exposed to insuperable
+objections; and as she had possessed great credit with her husband,
+she had found means to acquire partisans, who seconded all her
+pretensions.  But the title of Edward was supported by many
+advantages.  He was appointed successor by the will of his father [t]:
+he was approaching to man’s estate, and might soon be able to take
+into his own hands the reins of government: the principal nobility,
+dreading the imperious temper of Elfrida, were averse to her son’s
+government, which must enlarge her authority, and probably put her in
+possession of the regency: above all, Dunstan, whose character of
+sanctity had given him the highest credit with the people, had
+espoused the cause of Edward, over whom he had already acquired a
+great ascendant [u]; and he was determined to execute the will of
+Edgar in his favour.  To cut off all opposite pretensions, Dunstan
+resolutely anointed and crowned the young prince at Kingston; and the
+whole kingdom, without farther dispute, submitted to him [w].
+[FN [t] Hoveden, p. 427.  Eadmer, p. 3.  [u] Eadmer, ex. edit.
+Seldeni, p. 3.  [w] W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 9.  Hoveden, p. 427.
+Osberne, p. 113.]
+
+It was of great importance to Dunstan and the monks, to place on the
+throne a king favourable to their cause: the secular clergy had still
+partisans in England, who wished to support them in the possession of
+the convents, and of the ecclesiastical authority.  On the first
+intelligence of Edgar’s death, Alfere, Duke of Mercia, expelled the
+new orders of monks from all the monasteries which lay within his
+jurisdiction [x]; but Elfwin, Duke of East Anglia, and Brithnot, Duke
+of the East Saxons, protected them within their territories, and
+insisted upon the execution of the late laws enacted in their favour.
+In order to settle this controversy, there were summoned several
+synods, which, according to the practice of those times, consisted
+partly of ecclesiastical members, partly of the lay nobility.  The
+monks were able to prevail in these assemblies; though, as it appears,
+contrary to the secret wishes, if not the declared inclination, of the
+leading men in the nation [y]: they had more invention in forging
+miracles to support their cause; or having been so fortunate as to
+obtain, by their pretended austerities, the character of piety, their
+miracles were more credited by the populace.
+[FN [x] Chron. Sax. p. 123.  W. Malmes. lib. 2, cap. 9.  Hoveden, p.
+427.  Brompton, p. 870.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 607.  [y] W. Malmes. lib. 2.
+cap. 9.]
+
+In one synod, Dunstan, finding the majority of votes against him, rose
+up and informed the audience, that he had that instant received an
+immediate revelation in  behalf of the monks: the assembly was so
+astonished at this intelligence, or probably so overawed by the
+populace, that they proceeded no farther in their deliberations.  In
+another synod, a voice issued from the crucifix, and informed the
+members that the establishment of the monks was founded on the will of
+Heaven, and could not be opposed without impiety [z].  But the miracle
+performed in the third synod was still more alarming: the floor of the
+hall in which the assembly met sunk of a sudden and a great number of
+the members were either bruised or killed by the fall.  It was
+remarked, that Dunstan had that day prevented the king from attending
+the synod, and that the beam, on which his own chair stood, was the
+only one that did not sink under the weight of the assembly [a].  But
+these circumstances, instead of begetting any suspicion of
+contrivance, were regarded as the surest proof of the immediate
+interposition of Providence in behalf of those favourites of Heaven.
+[FN [z] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 9.  Osberne, p. 112.  Gervase, p.
+1647.  Brompton, p. 870.  Higden, p. 269.  [a] Chron. Sax. p. 124.  W.
+Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 9.  Hoveden, p. 427.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 357.
+Gervase, p. 1647.  Brompton, p. 870.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 607.  Higden,
+p. 269.  Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 29.]
+
+Edward lived four years after his accession, and there passed nothing
+memorable during his reign.  His death alone was memorable and
+tragical [b]: this young prince was endowed with the most amiable
+innocence of manners; and as his own intentions were always pure, he
+was incapable of entertaining any suspicion against others.  Though
+his step-mother had opposed his succession, and had raised a party in
+favour of her own son, he always showed her marks of regard, and even
+expressed, on all occasions, the most tender affection towards his
+brother.  He was hunting one day in Dorsetshire; and being led by the
+chase near Corfe-castle, where Elfrida resided, he took the
+opportunity of paying her a visit, unattended by any of his retinue,
+and he thereby presented her with the opportunity which she had long
+wished for.  After he had mounted his horse, he desired some liquor to
+be brought him: while he was holding the cup to his head, a servant of
+Elfrida approached him, and gave him a stab behind.  The prince,
+finding himself wounded, put spurs to his horse; but becoming faint by
+loss of blood, he fell from the saddle, his foot stuck in the stirrup,
+and he was dragged along by his unruly horse till he expired.  Being
+tracked by the blood, his body was found, and was privately interred
+at Wareham by his servants.
+[FN [b] Chron. Sax. p. 124.]
+
+The youth and innocence of this prince, with his tragical death, begat
+such compassion among the people, that they believed miracles to be
+wrought at his tomb; and they give him the appellation of Martyr,
+though his murder had no connexion with any religious principle or
+opinion.  Elfrida built monasteries, and performed many penances, in
+order to atone for her guilt; but could never, by all her hypocrisy or
+remorses, recover the good opinion of the public, though so easily
+deluded in those ignorant ages.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ETHELRED.--SETTLEMENT OF THE NORMANS.--EDMUND IRONSIDE.—CANUTE.--
+HAROLD HAREFOOT.--HARDICANUTE.--EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.--HAROLD.
+
+
+
+[MN Ethelred. 978.]
+The freedom which England had so long enjoyed from the depredations of
+the Danes seems to have proceeded, partly from the establishments
+which that piratical nation had obtained in the north of France, and
+which employed all their superfluous hands to people and maintain
+them; partly from the vigour and warlike spirit of a long race of
+English princes, who preserved the kingdom in a posture of defence by
+sea and land, and either prevented or repelled every attempt of the
+invaders.  But a new generation of men being now sprung up in the
+northern regions who could no longer disburthen themselves on
+Normandy; the English had reason to dread that the Danes would again
+visit an island to which they were invited, both by the memory of
+their past successes, and by the expectation of assistance from their
+countrymen, who, though long established in the kingdom, were not yet
+thoroughly incorporated with the natives, nor had entirely forgotten
+their inveterate habits of war and depredation.  And as the reigning
+prince was a minor, and even when he attained to man’s estate never
+discovered either courage or capacity sufficient to govern his own
+subjects, much less to repel a formidable enemy, the people might
+justly apprehend the worst calamities from so dangerous a crisis.
+
+The Danes, before they durst attempt any important enterprise against
+England, made an inconsiderable descent by way of trial; and having
+landed from seven vessels near Southampton, they ravaged the country,
+enriched themselves by spoil, and departed with impunity.  Six years
+after, they made a like attempt in the west, and met with like
+success.  The invaders having now found affairs in a very different
+situation from that in which they formerly appeared, encouraged their
+countrymen to assemble a greater force, and to hope for more
+considerable advantages.  [MN 991.]  They landed in Essex, under the
+command of two leaders; and having defeated and slain at Maldon,
+Brithnot, duke of that county, who ventured, with a small body, to
+attack them, they spread their devastations over all the neighbouring
+provinces.  In this extremity, Ethelred, to whom historians give the
+epithet of the UNREADY, instead of rousing his people to defend with
+courage their honour and their property, hearkened to the advice of
+Siricius, Archbishop of Canterbury, which was seconded by many of the
+degenerate nobility; and paying the enemy the sum of ten thousand
+pounds, he bribed them to depart the kingdom.  This shameful expedient
+was attended with the success which might be expected.  The Danes next
+year appeared off the eastern coast, in hopes of subduing a people who
+defended themselves by their money, which invited assailants, instead
+of their arms, which repelled them.  But the English, sensible of
+their folly, had, in the interval, assembled in a great council, and
+had determined to collect at London a fleet able to give battle to the
+enemy [a]; though that judicious measure failed of success, from the
+treachery of Alfric, Duke of Mercia, whose name is infamous in the
+annals of that age, by the calamities which his repeated perfidy
+brought upon his country.  This nobleman had, in 983, succeeded to his
+father Alfere in that extensive command; but being deprived of it two
+years after, and banished the kingdom, he was obliged to employ all
+his intrigue, and all his power, which was too great for a subject, to
+be restored to his country, and reinstated in his authority.  Having
+had experience of the credit and malevolence of his enemies, he
+thenceforth trusted for security, not to his services, or to the
+affections of his fellow-citizens, but to the influence which he had
+obtained over his vassals, and to the public calamities, which he
+thought must, in every revolution, render his assistance necessary.
+Having fixed this resolution, he determined to prevent all such
+successes as might establish the royal authority, or render his own
+situation dependent or precarious.  As the English had formed the plan
+of surrounding and destroying the Danish fleet in harbour, he
+privately informed the enemy of their danger; and when they put to
+sea, in consequence of this intelligence, he deserted to them, with
+the squadron under his command, the night before the engagement, and
+thereby disappointed all the efforts of his countrymen [b].  Ethelred,
+enraged at his perfidy, seized his son Alfgar, and ordered his eyes to
+be put out [c].  But such was the power of Alfric, that he again
+forced himself into authority; and though he had given this specimen
+of his character, and received this grievous provocation, it was found
+necessary to intrust him anew with the government of Mercia.  This
+conduct of the court, which in all its circumstances is so barbarous,
+weak, and imprudent, both merited and prognosticated the most grievous
+calamities.
+[FN [a] Chron. Sax. p. 126.  [b] Chron.. Sax. p. 127.  W. Malm. p. 62.
+Higden, p. 270.  [c] Chron. Sax. p.128.  W. Malm. p. 62.]
+
+[MN 993.]  The northern invaders, now well acquainted with the
+defenceless condition of England, made a powerful descent under the
+command of Sweyn, King of Denmark, and Olave, King of Norway; and
+sailing up the Humber, spread on all sides their destructive ravages.
+Lindesey was laid waste; Banbury was destroyed; and all the
+Northumbrians, though mostly of Danish descent, were constrained
+either to join the invaders, or to suffer under their depredations.  A
+powerful army was assembled to oppose the Danes, and a general action
+ensued; but the English were deserted in the battle, from the
+cowardice or treachery of their three leaders, all of them men of
+Danish race, Frena, Frithegist, and Godwin, who gave the example of a
+shameful flight to the troops under their command.
+
+Encouraged by this success, and still more by the contempt which it
+inspired for their enemy, the pirates ventured to attack the centre of
+the kingdom; and entering the Thames in ninety-four vessels, laid
+siege to London, and threatened it with total destruction.  But the
+citizens, alarmed at the danger, and firmly united among themselves,
+made a bolder defence than the cowardice of the nobility and gentry
+gave the invaders reason to apprehend; and the besiegers, after
+suffering the greatest hardships, were finally frustrated in their
+attempt.  In order to revenge themselves, they laid waste Essex,
+Sussex, and Hampshire; and having there procured horses, they were
+thereby enabled to spread through the more inland counties the fury of
+their depredations.  In this extremity, Ethelred and his nobles had
+recourse to the former expedient; and sending ambassadors to the two
+northern kings, they promised them subsistence and tribute, on
+condition they would, for the present, put an end to their ravages,
+and soon after depart the kingdom.  Sweyn and Olave agreed to the
+terms, and peaceably took up their quarters at Southampton, where the
+sum of sixteen thousand pounds was paid to them.  Olave even made a
+journey to Andover, where Ethelred resided, and he received the rite
+of confirmation from the English bishops, as well as many rich
+presents from the king.  He here promised that he would never more
+infest the English territories; and he faithfully fulfilled the
+engagement.  This prince receives the appellation of St. Olave from
+the church of Rome; and notwithstanding the general presumption which
+lies either against the understanding or morals of every one who in
+those ignorant ages was dignified with that title, he seems to have
+been a man of merit and of virtue.  Sweyn, though less scrupulous than
+Olave, was constrained, upon the departure of the Norwegian prince, to
+evacuate also the kingdom with all his followers.
+
+[MN 996.]  This composition brought only a short interval to the
+miseries of the English.  The Danish pirates appeared soon after in
+the Severn; and having committed spoil in Wales, as well as in
+Cornwall and Devonshire, they sailed round to the south coast, and
+entering the Tamar, completed the devastation of these two counties.
+They then returned to the Bristol Channel; and penetrating into the
+country by the Avon, spread themselves over all that neighbourhood,
+and carried fire and sword even into Dorsetshire.  [MN 998.]  They
+next changed the seat of war; and after ravaging the Isle of Wight,
+they entered the Thames and Medway, and laid siege to Rochester, where
+they defeated the Kentish men in a pitched battle.  After this
+victory, the whole province of Kent was made a scene of slaughter,
+fire, and devastation.  The extremity of these miseries forced the
+English into councils for common defence both by sea and land; but the
+weakness of the king, the divisions among the nobility, the treachery
+of some, the cowardice of others, the want of concert in all,
+frustrated every endeavour; their fleets and armies either came too
+late to attack the enemy, or were repulsed with dishonour; and the
+people were thus equally ruined by resistance or by submission.  The
+English, therefore, destitute both of prudence and unanimity in
+council, of courage and conduct in the field, had recourse to the same
+weak expedient which by experience they had already found so
+ineffectual: they offered the Danes to buy peace, by paying them a
+large sum of money.  These ravagers rose continually in their demands;
+and now required the payment of twenty-four thousand pounds, to which
+the English were so mean and imprudent as to submit [d].  The
+departure of the Danes procured them another short interval of repose,
+which they enjoyed as if it were to be perpetual, without making any
+effectual preparations for a more vigorous resistance upon the next
+return of the enemy.
+[FN [d] Hoveden, p. 429.  Chron. Mailr. p. 150.]
+
+Besides receiving this sum, the Danes were engaged by another motive
+to depart a kingdom which appeared so little in a situation to resist
+their efforts: they were invited over by their countrymen in Normandy,
+who at this time were hard pressed by the arms of Robert, King of
+France, and who found it difficult to defend the settlement, which,
+with so much advantage to themselves and glory to their nation, they
+had made in that country.  It is probable, also, that Ethelred,
+observing the close connexions thus maintained among all the Danes,
+however divided in government or situation, was desirous of forming an
+alliance with that formidable people: for this purpose, being now a
+widower, he made his addresses to Emma, sister to Richard II., Duke of
+Normandy, and he soon succeeded in his negotiation.  [MN 1001.]  The
+princess came over this year to England, and was married to Ethelred
+[e].
+[FN [e] H. Hunt. p. 359.  Higden, p. 271.]
+
+[MN Settlement of the Normans.]
+In the end of the ninth and beginning of the tenth century, when the
+north, not yet exhausted by that multitude of people, or rather
+nations, which she had successively emitted, sent forth a new race,
+not of conquerors, as before, but of pirates and ravagers, who
+infested the countries possessed by her once warlike sons, lived
+Rollo, a petty prince or chieftain of Denmark, whose valour and
+abilities soon engaged the attention of his countrymen.  He was
+exposed in his youth to the jealousy of the King of Denmark, who
+attacked his small but independent principality; and who, being foiled
+in every assault, had recourse at last to perfidy for effecting his
+purpose, which he had often attempted in vain by force of arms [f]: he
+lulled Rollo into security by an insidious peace; and falling suddenly
+upon him, murdered his brother and his bravest officers, and forced
+him to fly for safety into Scandinavia.  Here many of his ancient
+subjects, induced partly by affection to their prince, partly by the
+oppressions of the Danish monarch, ranged themselves under his
+standard, and offered to follow him in every enterprise.  Rollo,
+instead of attempting to recover his paternal dominions, where he must
+expect a vigorous resistance from the Danes, determined to pursue an
+easier, but more important undertaking, and to make his fortune, in
+imitation of his countrymen, by pillaging the richer and more southern
+coasts of Europe.  He collected a body of troops, which, like that of
+all those ravagers, was composed of Norwegians, Swedes, Frisians,
+Danes, and adventurers of all nations, who, being accustomed to a
+roving unsettled life, took delight in nothing but war and plunder.
+His reputation brought him associates from all quarters; and a vision,
+which he pretended to have appeared to him in his sleep, and which,
+according to his interpretation of it, prognosticated the greatest
+successes, proved also a powerful incentive with those ignorant and
+superstitious people [g].
+[FN [f] Dudo, ex edit. Duchesne, p. 70, 71.  Gul. Gemeticencis, lib.
+2. cap. 2, 3.  [g] Dudo, p.71.  Gul. Gem. in Epist. ad Gul. Conq.]
+
+The first attempt made by Rollo was on England, near the end of
+Alfred's reign; when that great monarch, having settled Gothrum and
+his followers in East Anglia, and others of those freebooters in
+Northumberland, and having restored peace to his harassed country, had
+established the most excellent military as well as civil institutions
+among the English.  The prudent Dane, finding that no advantages could
+be gained over such a people, governed by such a prince, soon turned
+his enterprises against France, which he found more exposed to his
+inroads [h]; and during the reigns of Eudes, an usurper, and of
+Charles the Simple, a weak prince, he committed the most destructive
+ravages both on the inland and maritime provinces of that kingdom.
+The French, having no means of defence against a leader who united all
+the valour of his countrymen with the policy of more civilized
+nations, were obliged to submit to the expedient practised by Alfred,
+and to offer the invaders a settlement in some of those provinces
+which they had depopulated by their
+arms [i].
+[FN [h] Gul. Gemet. lib. 2. cap. 6.  [i] Dudo, p. 82.]
+
+The reason why the Danes for many years pursued measures so different
+from those which had been embraced by the Goths, Vandals, Franks,
+Burgundians, Lombards, and other northern conquerors, was the great
+difference in the method of attack which was practised by these
+several nations, and to which the nature of their respective
+situations necessarily confined them.  The latter tribes, living in an
+inland country, made incursions by land upon the Roman empire; and
+when they entered far into the frontiers, they were obliged to carry
+along with them their wives and families, whom they had no hopes of
+soon revisiting, and who could not otherwise participate of their
+plunder.  This circumstance quickly made them think of forcing a
+settlement in the provinces which they had overrun; and these
+barbarians, spreading themselves over the country, found an interest
+in protecting the property and industry of the people whom they had
+subdued.  But the Danes and Norwegians, invited by their maritime
+situation, and obliged to maintain themselves in their uncultivated
+country by fishing, had acquired some experience of navigation, and in
+their military excursions pursued the method practised against the
+Roman empire by the more early Saxons: they made descents in small
+bodies from their ships, or rather boats, and ravaging the coasts,
+returned with their booty to their families, whom they could not
+conveniently carry along with them in those hazardous enterprises.
+But when they increased their armaments, made incursions into the
+inland countries, and found it safe to remain longer in the midst of
+the enfeebled enemy, they had been accustomed to crowd their vessels
+with their wives and children; and having no longer any temptation to
+return to their own country, they willingly embraced an opportunity of
+settling in the warm climates and cultivated fields of the south.
+
+Affairs were in this situation with Rollo and his followers, when
+Charles proposed to relinquish to them part of the province formerly
+called Neustria, and to purchase peace on these hard conditions.
+After all the terms were fully settled, there appeared only one
+circumstance shocking to the haughty Dane: he was required to do
+homage to Charles for this province, and to put himself in that
+humiliating posture imposed on vassals by the rites of the feudal law.
+He long refused to submit to this indignity; but being unwilling to
+lose such important advantages for a mere ceremony, he made a
+sacrifice of his pride to his interest, and acknowledged himself, in
+form, the vassal of the French monarch [k].  Charles gave him his
+daughter, Gisla, in marriage; and that he might bind him faster to his
+interests, made him a donation of a considerable territory, besides
+that which he was obliged to surrender to him by his stipulations.
+When some of the French nobles informed him, that in return for so
+generous a present it was expected that he should throw himself at the
+king's feet and make suitable acknowledgments for his bounty, Rollo
+replied, that he would rather decline the present; and it was with
+some difficulty they could persuade him to make that compliment by one
+of his captains.  The Dane commissioned for this purpose, full of
+indignation at the order, and despising so unwarlike a prince, caught
+Charles by the foot, and pretending to carry it to his mouth, that he
+might kiss it, overthrew him before all his courtiers.  The French,
+sensible of their present weakness, found it prudent to overlook this
+insult [l].
+[FN [k] Ypod. Neust. p. 417.  [1] Gul Gemet. lib. 2. cap. 17.]
+
+Rollo, who was now in the decline of life, and was tired of wars and
+depredations, applied himself, with mature counsels, to the settlement
+of his newly-acquired territory, which was thenceforth called
+Normandy; and he parcelled it out among his captains and followers.
+He followed, in this partition, the customs of the feudal law, which
+was then universally established in the southern countries of Europe,
+and which suited the peculiar circumstances of that age.  He treated
+the French subjects, who submitted to him, with mildness and justice;
+he reclaimed his ancient followers from their ferocious violence; he
+established law and order throughout his state; and after a life spent
+in tumult and ravages, he died peaceably in a good old age, and left
+his dominions to his posterity [m].
+[FN [m] Ibid. cap. 19, 20, 21.]
+
+William I. who succeeded him, governed the duchy twenty-five years;
+and, during that time, the Normans were thoroughly intermingled with
+the French, had acquired their language, had imitated their manners,
+and had made such progress towards cultivation, that on the death of
+William, his son Richard, though a minor [n], inherited his dominions:
+a sure proof that the Normans were already somewhat advanced in
+civility, and that their government could now rest secure on its laws
+and civil institutions, and was not wholly sustained by the abilities
+of the sovereign.  Richard, after a long reign of fifty-four years,
+was succeeded by his son of the same name in the year 996 [o]; which
+was eighty-five years after the first establishment of the Normans in
+France.  This was the duke who gave his sister Emma in marriage to
+Ethelred, King of England, and who thereby formed connexions with a
+country which his posterity was so soon after destined to subdue.
+[FN [n] Order. Vitalis, p. 459.  Gul. Gemet. lib. 4. cap. 1.  [o]
+Order. Vitalis, p. 459.]
+
+The Danes had been established during a longer period in England than
+in France; and though the similarity of their original language to
+that of the Saxons invited them to a more early coalition with the
+natives, they had hitherto found so little example of civilized
+manners among the English, that they retained all their ancient
+ferocity, and valued themselves only on their national character of
+military bravery.  The recent as well as more ancient achievements of
+their countrymen tended to support this idea; and the English princes,
+particularly Athelstan and Edgar, sensible of that superiority, had
+been accustomed to keep in pay bodies of Danish troops, who were
+quartered about the country, and committed many violences upon the
+inhabitants.  These mercenaries had attained to such a height of
+luxury, according to the old English writers [p], that they combed
+their hair once a day, bathed themselves once a week, changed their
+clothes frequently; and by all these arts of effeminacy, as well as by
+their military character, had rendered themselves so agreeable to the
+fair sex, that they debauched the wives and daughters of the English,
+and dishonoured many families.  But what most provoked the
+inhabitants, was, that instead of defending them against invaders,
+they were ever ready to betray them to the foreign Danes, and to
+associate themselves with all straggling parties of that nation.  The
+animosity between the inhabitants of English and Danish race had from
+these repeated injuries risen to a great height; when Ethelred, from a
+policy incident to weak princes, embraced the cruel resolution of
+massacring the latter throughout all his dominions [q].  [MN 1002.]
+Secret orders were despatched to commence the execution everywhere on
+the same day; and the festival of St. Brice [MN Nov. 13.], which fell
+on a Sunday, the day on which the Danes usually bathed themselves, was
+chosen for that purpose.  It is needless to repeat the accounts
+transmitted concerning the barbarity of this massacre: the rage of the
+populace, excited by so many injuries, sanctioned by authority, and
+stimulated by example, distinguished not between innocence and guilt,
+spared neither sex nor age, and was not satiated without the tortures
+as well as death of the unhappy victims.  Even Gunilda, sister to the
+King of Denmark, who had married Earl Paling, and had embraced
+Christianity, was, by the advice of Edric, Earl of Wilts, seized and
+condemned to death by Ethelred, after seeing her husband and children
+butchered before her face.  This unhappy princess foretold, in the
+agonies of despair, that her murder would soon be avenged by the total
+ruin of the English nation.
+[FN [p] Wallingford, p. 547.  [q] See note [D] at the end of the
+volume.]
+
+[MN 1003.]
+Never was prophecy better fulfilled; and never did barbarous policy
+prove more fatal to the authors.  Sweyn and his Danes, who wanted but
+a pretence for invading the English, appeared off the western coast,
+and threatened to take full revenge for the slaughter of their
+countrymen.  Exeter fell first into their hands, from the negligence
+or treachery of Earl Hugh, a Norman, who had been made governor by the
+interest of Queen Emma.  They began to spread their devastations over
+the country; when the English, sensible what outrages they must now
+expect from their barbarous and offended enemy, assembled more early,
+and in greater numbers than usual, and made an appearance of vigorous
+resistance.  But all these preparations were frustrated by the
+treachery of Duke Alfric, who was intrusted with the command, and who,
+feigning sickness, refused to lead the army against the Danes, till it
+was dispirited, and at last dissipated, by his fatal misconduct.
+Alfric soon after died; and Edric, a greater traitor than he, who had
+married the king's daughter, and had acquired a total ascendant over
+him, succeeded Alfric in the government of Mercia, and in the command
+of the English armies.  A great famine, proceeding partly from the bad
+seasons, partly from the decay of agriculture, added to all the other
+miseries of the inhabitants.  The country, wasted by the Danes,
+harassed by the fruitless expeditions of its own forces, was reduced
+to the utmost desolation; and at last [MN 1007.] submitted to the
+infamy of purchasing a precarious peace from the enemy, by the payment
+of thirty thousand pounds.
+
+The English endeavoured to employ this interval in making preparations
+against the return of the Danes, which they had reason soon to expect.
+A law was made, ordering the proprietors of eight hides of land to
+provide each a horseman and a complete suit of armour; and those of
+three hundred and ten hides to equip a ship for the defence of the
+coast.  When this navy was assembled, which must have consisted of
+near eight  hundred vessels [r], all hopes of its success were
+disappointed by the factions, animosities, and dissensions of the
+nobility  Edric had impelled his brother Brightric to prefer an
+accusation of treason against Wolfnoth, Governor of Sussex, the father
+of the famous Earl Godwin; and that nobleman, well acquainted with the
+malevolence, as well as power of his enemy, found no means of safety
+but in deserting with twenty ships to the Danes.  Brightric pursued
+him with a fleet of eighty sail; but his ships being shattered in a
+tempest, and stranded on the coast, he was suddenly attacked by
+Wolfnoth, and all his vessels were burnt or destroyed.  The imbecility
+of the king was little capable of repairing this misfortune: the
+treachery of Edric frustrated every plan for future defence; and the
+English navy, disconcerted, discouraged, and divided, was at last
+scattered into its several harbours.
+[FN [r] There were 243,600 hides in England.  Consequently the ships
+equipped must be 785.  The cavalry was 30,450 men.]
+
+It is almost impossible, or would be tedious, to relate particularly
+all the miseries to which the English were thenceforth exposed.  We
+hear of nothing but the sacking and burning of towns; the devastation
+of the open country; the appearance of the enemy in every quarter of
+the kingdom; their cruel diligence in discovering any corner which had
+not been ransacked by their former violence.  The broken and
+disjointed narration of the ancient historians is here well adapted to
+the nature of the war, which was conducted by such sudden inroads as
+would have been dangerous even to an united and well-governed kingdom,
+but proved fatal, where nothing but a general consternation and mutual
+diffidence and dissension prevailed.  The governors of one province
+refused to march to the assistance of another, and were at last
+terrified from assembling their forces for the defence of their own
+province.  General councils were summoned; but either no resolution
+was taken, or none was carried into execution.  And the only expedient
+in which the English agreed, was the base and imprudent one of buying
+a new peace from the Danes, by the payment of forty-eight thousand
+pounds.
+
+[MN 1011.]  This measure did not bring them even that short interval
+of repose which they had expected from it.  The Danes, disregarding
+all engagements, continued their devastations and hostilities; levied
+a new contribution of eight thousand pounds upon the county of Kent
+alone; murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had refused to
+countenance this exaction; and the English nobility found no other
+resource than that of submitting every where to the Danish monarch,
+swearing allegiance to him [MN 1013.], and delivering him hostages for
+their fidelity.  Ethelred, equally afraid of the violence of the enemy
+and the treachery of his own subjects, fled into Normandy, whither he
+had sent before him Queen Emma and her two sons, Alfred and Edward.
+Richard received his unhappy guests with a generosity that does honour
+to his memory.
+
+[MN 1014.]  The king had not been above six weeks in Normandy when he
+heard of the death of Sweyn, who expired at Gainsborough, before he
+had time to establish himself in his newly acquired dominions.  The
+English prelates and nobility, taking advantage of this event, sent
+over a deputation to Normandy, inviting Ethelred to return to them,
+expressing a desire of being again governed by their native prince,
+and intimating their hopes, that being now tutored by experience, he
+would avoid all those errors which had been attended with such
+misfortunes to himself and to his people.  But the misconduct of
+Ethelred was incurable; and on his resuming the government, he
+discovered the same incapacity, indolence, cowardice, and credulity,
+which had so often exposed him to the insults of his enemies.  His
+son-in-law, Edric, notwithstanding his repeated treasons, retained
+such influence at court as to instil into the king jealousies of
+Sigefert and Morcar, two of the chief nobles of Mercia: Edric allured
+them into his house, where he murdered them; while Ethelred
+participated in the infamy of the action, by confiscating their
+estates and thrusting into a convent the widow of Sigefert.  She was a
+woman of singular beauty and merit; and in a visit which was paid her,
+during her confinement, by Prince Edmond, the king’s eldest son, she
+inspired him  with so violent an affection, that he released her from
+the convent, and soon after married her, without the consent of his
+father.
+
+Meanwhile the English found in Canute, the son and successor of Sweyn,
+an enemy no less terrible than the prince from whom death had so
+lately delivered them.  He ravaged the eastern coast with merciless
+fury, and put ashore all the English hostages at Sandwich, after
+having cut off their hands and noses.  He was obliged, by the
+necessity of his affairs, to make a voyage to Denmark; but returning
+soon after, he continued his depredations along the southern coast: he
+even broke into the counties of Dorset, Wilts, and Somerset; where an
+army was assembled against him, under the command of Prince Edmond and
+Duke Edric.  The latter still continued his perfidious machinations;
+and after endeavouring in vain to get the prince into his power, he
+found means to disperse the army; and he then openly deserted to
+Canute with forty vessels. [MN 1015.]
+
+Notwithstanding this misfortune, Edmond was not disconcerted; but,
+assembling all the force of England, was in a condition to give battle
+to the enemy.  The king had had such frequent experience of perfidy
+among his subjects, that he had lost all confidence in them: he
+remained at London, pretending sickness, but really from apprehensions
+that they intended to buy their peace, by delivering him into the
+hands of his enemies.  The army called aloud for their sovereign to
+march at their head against the Danes; and, on his refusal to take the
+field, they were so discouraged, that those vast preparations became
+ineffectual for the defence of the kingdom.  Edmond, deprived of all
+regular supplies to maintain his soldiers, was obliged to commit equal
+ravages with those which were practised by the Danes; and after making
+some fruitless expeditions into the north, which had submitted
+entirely to Canute’s power, he retired to London, determined there to
+maintain, to the last extremity, the small remains of English liberty.
+[MN 1016.]  He here found every thing in confusion by the death of the
+king, who expired after an unhappy and inglorious reign of thirty-five
+years.  He left two sons by his first marriage, Edmond, who succeeded
+him, and Edwy, whom Canute afterwards murdered.  His two sons by the
+second marriage, Alfred and Edward, were immediately, upon Ethelred’s
+death, conveyed into Normandy by Queen Emma.
+
+[MN Edmond Ironside.]
+This prince, who received the name of Ironside from his hardy valour,
+possessed courage and abilities sufficient to have prevented his
+country from sinking into those calamities, but not to raise it from
+that abyss of misery into which it had already fallen.  Among the
+other misfortunes of the English, treachery and disaffection had crept
+in among the nobility and prelates; and Edmond found no better
+expedient for stopping the farther progress of these fatal evils, than
+to lead his army instantly into the field, and to employ them against
+the common enemy.  After meeting with some success at Gillingham, he
+prepared himself to decide, in one general engagement, the fate of his
+crown; and at Scoerston, in the county of Gloucester, he offered
+battle to the enemy, who were commanded by Canute and Edric.  Fortune,
+in the beginning of the day, declared for him; but Edric, having cut
+off the head of one Osmer, whose countenance resembled that of Edmond,
+fixed it on a spear, carried it through the ranks in triumph, and
+called aloud to the English, that it was time to fly; for, behold! the
+head of their sovereign.  And though Edmond, observing the
+consternation of the troops, took off his helmet and showed himself to
+them, the utmost he could gain by his activity and valour was to leave
+the victory undecided.  Edric now took a surer method to ruin him, by
+pretending to desert to him, and as Edmond was well acquainted with
+his power, and probably knew no other of the chief nobility in whom he
+could repose more confidence, he was obliged, notwithstanding the
+repeated perfidy of the man, to give him a considerable command in the
+army.  A battle soon after ensued at Assington in Essex, where Edric,
+flying in the beginning of the day, occasioned the total defeat of the
+English, followed by a great slaughter of the nobility.  The
+indefatigable Edmond, however, had still resources; assembling a new
+army at Gloucester, he was again in a condition to dispute the field;
+when the Danish and English nobility, equally harassed  with those
+convulsions, obliged their kings to come to a compromise, and to
+divide the kingdom between them by treaty.  Canute reserved to himself
+the northern division, consisting of Mercia, East Anglia, and
+Northumberland, which he had entirely subdued; the southern parts were
+left to Edmond.  This prince survived the treaty about a month.  He
+was murdered at Oxford by two of his chamberlains, accomplices of
+Edric, who thereby made way for the succession of Canute the Dane to
+the crown of England.
+
+[MN Canute 1017.]
+The English, who had been unable to defend their country, and maintain
+their independency, under so active and brave a prince as Edmond,
+could, after his death, expect nothing but total subjection from
+Canute, who, active and brave himself, and at the head of a great
+force, was ready to take advantage of the minority of Edwin and
+Edward, the two sons of Edmond.  Yet this conqueror, who was commonly
+so little scrupulous, showed himself anxious to cover his injustice
+under plausible pretences; before he seized the dominions of the
+English princes, he summoned a general assembly of the states, in
+order to fix the succession of the kingdom.  He here suborned some
+nobles to depose that, in the treaty of Gloucester, it had been
+verbally agreed either to name Canute, in case of Edmond’s death,
+successor to his dominions, or tutor to his children (for historians
+vary in this particular); and that evidence, supported by the great
+power of Canute, determined the states immediately to put the Danish
+monarch in possession of the government.  Canute, jealous of the two
+princes, but sensible that he should render himself extremely odious
+if he ordered them to be despatched in England, sent them abroad to
+his ally, the King of Sweden, whom he desired, as soon as they arrived
+at his court, to free him by their death from all farther anxiety.
+The Swedish monarch was too generous to comply with the request, but
+being afraid of drawing on himself a quarrel with Canute, by
+protecting the young princes, he sent them to Solomon, King of
+Hungary, to be educated in his court.  The elder, Edwin, was
+afterwards married to the sister of the King of Hungary, but the
+English prince dying without issue, Solomon gave his sister-in-law,
+Agatha, daughter of the Emperor Henry II., in marriage to Edward, the
+younger brother; and she bore him Edgar Atheling, Margaret, afterwards
+queen of Scotland, and Christiana, who retired into a convent.
+
+Canute, though he had reached the great point of his ambition, in
+obtaining possession of the English crown, was obliged at first to
+make great sacrifices to it; and to gratify the chief of the nobility,
+by bestowing on them the most extensive governments and jurisdictions.
+He created Thurkill Earl or Duke of East Anglia, (for these titles
+were then nearly of the same import,) Yric of Northumberland, and
+Edric of Mercia, reserving only to himself the administration of
+Wessex.  But seizing afterwards a favourable opportunity, he expelled
+Thurkill and Yric from their governments, and banished them the
+kingdom; he put to death many of the English nobility, on whose
+fidelity he could not rely, and whom he hated on account of their
+disloyalty to their native prince.  And even the traitor Edric, having
+had the assurance to reproach him with his services, was condemned to
+be executed, and his body to be thrown into the Thames; a suitable
+reward for his multiplied acts of perfidy and rebellion.
+
+Canute also found himself obliged, in the beginning of his reign, to
+load the people with heavy taxes, in order to reward his Danish
+followers: he exacted from them at one time the sum of seventy-two
+thousand pounds; besides eleven thousand pounds, which he levied on
+London alone.  He was probably willing, from political motives, to
+mulct severely that city, on account of the affection which it had
+borne to Edmond, and the resistance which it had made to the Danish
+power in two obstinate sieges [s].  But these rigours were imputed to
+necessity; and Canute, like a wise prince, was determined that the
+English, now deprived of all their dangerous leaders, should be
+reconciled to the Danish yoke by the justice and impartiality of his
+administration.  He sent back to Denmark as many of his followers as
+he could safely spare; he restored the Saxon customs in a general
+assembly of the states; he made no distinction between Danes and
+English in the distribution of justice; and he took care, by a strict
+execution of law, to protect the lives and properties of all his
+people.  The Danes were gradually incorporated with his new subjects;
+and both were glad to obtain a little respite from those multiplied
+calamities from which the one, no less than the other, had, in their
+fierce contest for power, experienced such fatal consequences.
+[FN [s] W. Malm. p. 72.  In one of these sieges, Canute diverted the
+course of the Thames, and by that means brought his ships above London
+bridge.]
+
+The removal of Edmond’s children into so distant a country as Hungary,
+was, next to their death, regarded by Canute as the greatest security
+to his government: he had no farther anxiety, except with regard to
+Alfred and Edward, who were protected and supported by their uncle,
+Richard Duke of Normandy.  Richard even fitted out a great armament,
+in order to restore the English princes to the throne of their
+ancestors; and, though the navy was dispersed by a storm, Canute saw
+the danger to which he was exposed from the enmity of so warlike a
+people as the Normans.  In order to acquire the friendship of the
+duke, he paid his addresses to Queen Emma, sister of that prince; and
+promised that he would leave the children whom he should have by that
+marriage in possession of the crown of England.  Richard complied with
+his demand, and sent over Emma to England, where she was soon after
+married to Canute [t].  The English, though they disapproved of her
+espousing the mortal enemy of her former husband and his family, were
+pleased to find at court a sovereign to whom they were accustomed, and
+who had already formed connexions with them; and thus Canute, besides
+securing by this marriage the alliance of Normandy, gradually
+acquired, by the same means, the confidence of his own subjects [u].
+The Norman prince did not long survive the marriage of Emma; and he
+left the inheritance of the duchy to his eldest son of the same name;
+who dying a year after him without children, was succeeded by his
+brother Robert, a man of valour and abilities.
+[FN [t] Chron Sax. p. 151.  W. Malmes. p. 73.  [u] W. Malmes. p. 73.
+Higden, p. 275.]
+
+Canute, having settled his power in England beyond all danger of a
+revolution, made a voyage to Denmark, in order to resist the attacks
+of the King of Sweden; and he carried along with him a great body of
+the English, under the command of Earl Godwin.  This nobleman had here
+an opportunity of performing a service by which he both reconciled the
+king’s mind to the English nation, and, gaining to himself the
+friendship of his sovereign, laid the foundation of that immense
+fortune which he acquired to his family.  He was stationed next the
+Swedish camp, and observing a favourable opportunity which he was
+obliged suddenly to seize, he attacked the enemy in the night, drove
+them from their trenches, threw them into disorder, pursued his
+advantage, and obtained a decisive victory over them.  Next morning,
+Canute seeing the English camp entirely abandoned, imagined that those
+disaffected troops had deserted to the enemy: he was agreeably
+surprised to find that they were at that time engaged in pursuit of
+the discomfited Swedes.  He was so pleased with this success, and with
+the manner of obtaining it, that he bestowed his daughter in marriage
+upon Godwin, and treated him ever after with entire confidence and
+regard.
+
+[MN 1028.]  In another voyage, which he made afterwards to Denmark,
+Canute attacked Norway, and expelling the just but unwarlike Olaus,
+kept possession of his kingdom till the death of that prince.  He had
+now, by his conquests and valour, attained the utmost height of
+grandeur; having leisure from wars and intrigues, he felt the
+unsatisfactory nature of all human enjoyments; and, equally weary of
+the glories and turmoils of this life, he began to cast his view
+towards that future existence, which it is so natural for the human
+mind, whether satiated by prosperity, or disgusted with adversity, to
+make the object of its attention.  Unfortunately, the spirit which
+prevailed in that age gave a wrong direction to his devotion; instead
+of making compensation to those whom he had injured by his former acts
+of violence, he employed himself entirely in those exercises of piety
+which the monks represented as the most meritorious.  He built
+churches, he endowed monasteries, he enriched the ecclesiastics, and
+he bestowed revenues for the support of chantries at Assington and
+other places, where he appointed prayers to be said for the souls of
+those who had there fallen in battle against him.  He even undertook a
+pilgrimage to Rome, where he resided a considerable time; besides
+obtaining from the pope some privileges for the English school erected
+there, he engaged all the princes through whose dominions he was
+obliged to pass to desist from those heavy impositions and tolls which
+they were accustomed to exact from the English pilgrims.  By this
+spirit of devotion, no less than by his equitable and politic
+administration, he gained, in a good measure, the affections of his
+subjects.
+
+Canute, the greatest and most powerful monarch of his time, sovereign
+of Denmark and Norway, as well as of England, could not fail of
+meeting with adulation from his courtiers; a tribute which is
+liberally paid even to the meanest and weakest princes.  Some of his
+flatterers, breaking out one day in admiration of his grandeur,
+exclaimed, that every thing was possible for him; upon which the
+monarch, it is said, ordered his chair to be set on the sea-shore,
+while the tide was rising; and as the waters approached he commanded
+them to retire, and to obey the voice of him who was lord of the
+ocean.  He feigned to sit some time in expectation of their
+submission; but when the sea still advanced towards him, and began to
+wash him with its billows, he turned to his courtiers, and remarked to
+them, that every creature in the universe was feeble and impotent, and
+that power resided with one Being alone, in whose hands were all the
+elements of nature, who could say to the ocean, THUS FAR SHALT THOU
+GO, AND NO FARTHER; and who could level with his nod the most towering
+piles of human pride and ambition.
+
+[MN 1031.]  The only memorable action which Canute performed after his
+return from Rome was an expedition against Malcolm, King of Scotland.
+During the reign of Ethelred, a tax of a shilling a hide had been
+imposed on all the lands of England.  It was commonly called DANEGELT;
+because the revenue had been employed either in buying peace with the
+Danes, or in making preparations against the inroads of that hostile
+nation.  That monarch had required that the same tax should be paid by
+Cumberland, which was held by the Scots; but Malcolm, a warlike
+prince, told him, that, as he was always able to repulse the Danes by
+his own power, he would neither submit to buy peace of his enemies,
+nor pay others for resisting them.  Ethelred, offended  at this reply,
+which contained a secret reproach on his own conduct, undertook an
+expedition against Cumberland; but though he committed ravages upon
+the country, he could never bring Malcolm to a temper more humble or
+submissive.  Canute, after his accession, summoned the Scottish king
+to acknowledge himself a vassal for Cumberland to the crown of
+England; but Malcolm refused compliance, on pretence that he owed
+homage to those princes only who inherited that kingdom by right of
+blood.  Canute was not of a temper to bear this insult; and the King
+of Scotland soon found that the sceptre was in very different hands
+from those of the feeble and irresolute Ethelred.  Upon Canute’s
+appearing on the frontiers with a formidable army, Malcolm agreed that
+his grandson and heir, Duncan, whom he put in possession of
+Cumberland, should make the submissions required, and that the heirs
+of Scotland should always acknowledge themselves vassals to England
+for that province [w].
+[FN [w] W. Malmes p. 74.]
+
+Canute passed four years in peace after this enterprise, and he died
+at Shaftesbury [x]; leaving three sons, Sweyn, Harold, and
+Hardicanute.  Sweyn, whom he had by his first marriage with Alfwen,
+daughter of the Earl of Hampshire, was crowned in Norway: Hardicanute,
+whom Emma had borne him, was in possession of Denmark: Harold, who was
+of the same marriage with Sweyn, was at that time in England.
+[FN [x] Chron. Sax. p. 154.  W. Malmes. p. 76.]
+
+[MN Harold Harefoot. 1035.]
+Though Canute, in his treaty with Richard, Duke of Normandy, had
+stipulated that his children by Emma should succeed to the crown of
+England, he had either considered himself as released from that
+engagement by the death of Richard, or esteemed it dangerous to leave
+an unsettled and newly-conquered kingdom in the hands of so young a
+prince as Hardicanute; he therefore appointed by his will Harold
+successor to the crown.  This prince was, besides, present to maintain
+his claim; he was favoured by all the Danes, and he got immediately
+possession of his father’s treasures, which might be equally useful,
+whether he found it necessary to proceed by force or intrigue in
+insuring his succession.  On the other hand, Hardicanute had the
+suffrages of the English, who, on account of his being born among them
+of Queen Emma, regarded him as their countryman; he was favoured by
+the articles of treaty with the Duke of Normandy; and, above all, his
+party was espoused by Earl Godwin, the most powerful nobleman in the
+kingdom, especially in the province of Wessex, the chief seat of the
+ancient English.  Affairs were likely to terminate in a civil war;
+when, by the interposition of the nobility of both parties, a
+compromise was made, and it was agreed that Harold should enjoy,
+together with London, all the provinces north of the Thames, while the
+possession of the south should remain to Hardicanute; and till that
+prince should appear and take possession of his dominions, Emma fixed
+her residence at Winchester, and established her authority over her
+son’s share of the partition.
+
+Meanwhile, Robert, Duke of Normandy, died in a pilgrimage to the Holy
+Land, and being succeeded by a son, yet a minor, the two English
+princes, Alfred and Edward, who found no longer any countenance or
+protection in that country, gladly embraced the opportunity of paying
+a visit, with a numerous retinue, to their mother Emma, who seemed to
+be placed in a state of so much power and splendour at Winchester.
+But the face of affairs soon wore a melancholy aspect.  Earl Godwin
+had been gained by the arts of Harold, who promised to espouse the
+daughter of that nobleman, and while the treaty was yet a secret,
+these two tyrants laid a plan for the destruction of the English
+princes.  Alfred was invited to London by Harold with many professions
+of friendship; but when he had reached Guilford, he was set upon by
+Godwin’s vassals, about six hundred of his train were murdered in the
+most cruel manner, he himself was taken prisoner, his eyes were put
+out, and he was conducted to the monastery of Ely, where he died soon
+after [y].  Edward and Emma, apprized of the fate which was awaiting
+them, fled beyond sea, the former into Normandy, the latter into
+Flanders.  While Harold, triumphing in his bloody  policy, took
+possession, without resistance, of all the dominions assigned to his
+brother.
+[FN [y] H. Hunt. p. 365.  Ypod. Neustr. p. 434.  Hoveden, p. 438.
+Chron. Mailr. p. 156.  Higden, p. 277.  Chron. St. Petri de Burgo, p.
+39.  Sim. Dun. p. 179.  Abbas Rieval. p. 366, 374.  Brompton, p. 935.
+Gul. Gem. lib. 7, cap. 11.  Matth. West. p. 209.  Flor. Wigorn. p.
+622.  Alur. Beverl. p. 118.]
+
+This is the only memorable action performed during a reign of four
+years, by this prince, who gave so bad a specimen of his character,
+and whose bodily accomplishments alone are known to us by his
+appellation of HAREFOOT, which he acquired from his agility in running
+and walking.  He died on the 14th of April, 1039; little regretted or
+esteemed by his subjects, and left the succession open to his brother,
+Hardicanute.
+
+[MN Hardicanute. 1039.]
+Hardicanute, or Canute the Hardy, that is, the robust, (for he too is
+chiefly known by his bodily accomplishments,) though, by remaining so
+long in Denmark, he had been deprived of his share in the partition of
+the kingdom, had not abandoned his pretensions; and he had determined,
+before Harold’s death, to recover by arms what he had lost, either by
+his own negligence, or by the necessity of his affairs.  On pretence
+of paying a visit to the queen-dowager in Flanders, he had assembled a
+fleet of sixty sail, and was preparing to make a descent on England,
+when intelligence of his brother’s death induced him to sail
+immediately to London, where he was received in triumph, and
+acknowledged king without opposition.
+
+The first act of Hardicanute’s government afforded his subjects a bad
+prognostic of his future conduct.  He was so enraged at Harold for
+depriving him of his share of the kingdom, and for the cruel treatment
+of his brother Alfred, that, in an impotent desire of revenge against
+the dead, he ordered his body to be dug up, and to be thrown into the
+Thames; and, when it was found by some fishermen, and buried in
+London, he ordered it again to be dug up, and to be thrown again into
+the river; but it was fished up a second time, and then interred with
+great secrecy.  Godwin, equally servile and insolent, submitted to be
+his instrument in this unnatural and brutal action.
+
+That nobleman knew that he was universally believed to have been an
+accomplice in the barbarity exercised on Alfred, and that he was on
+that account obnoxious to Hardicanute; and perhaps he hoped, by
+displaying this rage against Harold’s memory, to justify  himself from
+having had any participation in his counsels.  But Prince Edward,
+being invited over by the king, immediately on his appearance
+preferred an accusation against Godwin for the murder of Alfred, and
+demanded justice for that crime.  Godwin, in order to appease the
+king, made him a magnificent present of a galley with a gilt stern,
+rowed by fourscore men, who bore each of them a gold bracelet on his
+arm, weighing sixteen ounces, and were armed and clothed in the most
+sumptuous manner.  Hardicanute, pleased with the splendour of this
+spectacle, quickly forgot his brother’s murder; and on Godwin’s
+swearing that he was innocent of the crime, he allowed him to be
+acquitted.
+
+Though Hardicanute, before his accession, had been called over by the
+vows of the English, he soon lost the affections of the nation by his
+misconduct; but nothing appeared more grievous to them, than his
+renewing the imposition of Danegelt, and obliging the nation to pay a
+great sum of money to the fleet which brought him from Denmark.  The
+discontents ran high in many places; in Worcester the populace rose,
+and put to death two of the collectors.  The king, enraged at this
+opposition, swore vengeance against the city, and ordered three
+noblemen, Godwin, Duke of Wessex, Siward, Duke of Northumberland, and
+Leofric, Duke of Mercia, to execute his menaces with the utmost
+rigour.  They were obliged to set fire to the city, and deliver it up
+to be plundered by their soldiers; but they saved the lives of the
+inhabitants, whom they confined in a small island of the Severn,
+called Bevery, till, by their intercession, they were able to appease
+the king, and obtain the pardon of the supplicants.
+
+This violent government was of short duration.  Hardicanute died in
+two years after his accession, at the nuptials of a Danish lord, which
+he had honoured with his presence.  His usual habits of intemperance
+were so well known, that, notwithstanding his robust constitution, his
+sudden death gave as little surprise as it did sorrow to his subjects.
+
+[MN Edward the Confessor. 1041.]
+The English, on the death of Hardicanute, saw a favourable opportunity
+for recovering their liberty, and for shaking off the Danish yoke,
+under which they  had so long laboured.  Sweyn, King of Norway, the
+eldest son of Canute, was absent; and as the two last kings had died
+without issue, none of that race presented himself, nor any whom the
+Danes could support as successor to the throne.  Prince Edward was
+fortunately at court on his brother’s demise; and though the
+descendants of Edmund Ironside were the true heirs of the Saxon
+family, yet their absence in so remote a country as Hungary, appeared
+a sufficient reason for their exclusion, to a people like the English,
+so little accustomed to observe a regular order in the succession of
+their monarchs.  All delays might be dangerous; and the present
+occasion must hastily be embraced; while the Danes, without concert,
+without a leader, astonished at the present incident, and anxious only
+for their personal safety, durst not oppose the united voice of the
+nation.
+
+But this concurrence of circumstances in favour of Edward might have
+failed of its effect, had his succession been opposed by Godwin, whose
+power, alliances, and abilities gave him a great influence at all
+times, especially amidst those sudden opportunities which always
+attend a revolution of government, and which, either seized or
+neglected, commonly prove decisive.  There were opposite reasons which
+divided men’s hopes and fears with regard to Godwin’s conduct.  On the
+one hand, the credit of that nobleman lay chiefly in Wessex, which was
+almost entirely inhabited by English: it was therefore presumed that
+he would second the wishes of that people, in restoring the Saxon line
+and in humbling the Danes, from whom he, as well as they, had reason
+to dread, as they had already felt the most grievous oppressions.  On
+the other hand, there subsisted a declared animosity between Edward
+and Godwin, on account of Alfred’s murder, of which the latter had
+publicly been accused by the prince, and which he might believe so
+deep an offence, as could never, on account of any subsequent merits,
+be sincerely pardoned.  But their common friends here interposed; and,
+representing the necessity of their good correspondence, obliged them
+to lay aside all jealousy and rancour, and concur in restoring liberty
+to their  native country.  Godwin only stipulated, that Edward, as a
+pledge of his sincere reconciliation, should promise to marry his
+daughter Editha; and having fortified himself by this alliance, he
+summoned a general council at Gillingham, and prepared every measure
+for securing the succession to Edward.  The English were unanimous and
+zealous in their resolutions; the Danes were divided and dispirited:
+any small opposition which appeared in the assembly was browbeaten and
+suppressed; and Edward was crowned king, with every demonstration of
+duty and affection.
+
+The triumph of the English, upon this signal and decisive advantage,
+was at first attended with some assault and violence against the
+Danes; but the king, by the mildness of his character, soon reconciled
+the latter to his administration, and the distinction between the two
+nations gradually disappeared.  The Danes were interspersed with the
+English in most of the provinces; they spoke nearly the same language;
+they differed little in their manners and laws; domestic dissensions
+in Denmark prevented, for some years, any powerful invasion from
+thence, which might awaken past animosities; and as the Norman
+Conquest, which ensued soon after, reduced both nations to equal
+subjection, there is no further mention in history of any difference
+between them.  The joy, however, of their present deliverance made
+such impression on the minds of the English, that they instituted an
+annual festival for celebrating that great event; and it was observed
+in some counties even to the time of Spellman [z].
+[FN [z] Spellm. Glossary, in verbo HOCDAY.]
+
+The popularity which Edward enjoyed on his accession was not destroyed
+by the first act of his administration, his resuming all the grants of
+his immediate predecessors; an attempt which is commonly attended with
+the most dangerous consequences.  The poverty of the crown convinced
+the nation that this act of violence was become absolutely necessary;
+and as the loss fell chiefly on the Danes, who had obtained large
+grants from the late kings, their countrymen, on account of their
+services in subduing the kingdom, the English were rather pleased to
+see them reduced to their primitive poverty.  The king’s severity also
+towards his mother, the queen-dowager, though exposed to some more
+censure, met not with very general disapprobation.  He had hitherto
+lived on indifferent terms with the princess; he accused her of
+neglecting him and his brother during their adverse fortune [a]; he
+remarked that as the superior qualities of Canute, and his better
+treatment of her, had made her entirely indifferent to the memory of
+Ethelred, she also gave the preference to her children of the second
+bed, and always regarded Hardicanute as her favourite.  The same
+reasons had probably made her unpopular in England; and though her
+benefactions to the monks obtained her the favour of that order, the
+nation was not, in general, displeased to see her stripped by Edward
+of immense treasure which she had amassed.  He confined her, during
+the remainder of her life, in a monastery at Winchester, but carried
+his rigour against her no farther.  The stories of his accusing her of
+a participation in her son Alfred’s murder, and of a criminal
+correspondence with the Bishop of Winchester, and also of her
+justifying herself by treading barefoot, without receiving any hurt,
+over nine burning ploughshares, were the inventions of the monkish
+historians, and were propagated and believed from the silly wonder of
+posterity [b].
+[FN [a] Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 237.  [b] Higden, p. 277.]
+
+The English flattered themselves that, by the accession of Edward,
+they were delivered for ever from the dominion of foreigners; but they
+soon found that this evil was not yet entirely removed.  The king had
+been educated in Normandy; and had contracted many intimacies with the
+natives of that country, as well as an affection for their manners
+[c].  The court of England was soon filled with Normans, who, being
+distinguished both by the favour of Edward, and by a degree of
+cultivation superior to that which was attained by the English in
+those ages, soon rendered their language, customs, and laws,
+fashionable in the kingdom.  The study of the French tongue became
+general among the people.  The courtiers affected to imitate that
+nation in their dress, equipage, and entertainments: even the lawyers
+employed a foreign language in their deeds and papers [d].  But, above
+all, the church felt the influence and dominion of those strangers:
+Ulf and William, two Normans, who had formerly been the king’s
+chaplains, were created Bishops of Dorchester and London.  Robert, a
+Norman also, was promoted to the see of Canterbury [e], and always
+enjoyed the highest favour of his master, of which his abilities
+rendered him not unworthy.  And though the king’s prudence, or his
+want of authority, made him confer almost all the civil and military
+employments on the natives, the ecclesiastical preferments fell often
+to the share of the Normans; and as the latter possessed Edward’s
+confidence, they had secretly a great influence on public affairs, and
+excited the jealousy of the English, particularly of Earl Godwin [f].
+[FN [c] Ingulph. p. 62.  [d] Ingulph. p. 62.  [e] Chron. Sax. p. 161.
+[f] W. Malm. p. 80.]
+
+This powerful nobleman, besides being Duke or Earl of Wessex, had the
+counties of Kent and Sussex annexed to his government.  His eldest
+son, Sweyn, possessed the same authority in the counties of Oxford,
+Berks, Gloucester, and Hereford; and Harold, his second son, was Duke
+of East Anglia, and at the same time governor of Essex.  The great
+authority of this family was supported by immense possessions and
+powerful alliances; and the abilities, as well as ambition of Godwin
+himself, contributed to render it still more dangerous.  A prince of
+greater capacity and vigour than Edward would have found it difficult
+to support the dignity of the crown under such circumstances; and as
+the haughty temper of Godwin made him often forget the respect due to
+his prince, Edward’s animosity against him was grounded on personal as
+well as political considerations, on recent as well as more ancient
+injuries.  The king, in pursuance of his engagements, had indeed
+married Editha, the daughter of Godwin [g]; but this alliance became a
+fresh source of enmity between them.  Edward’s hatred of the father
+was transferred to that princess; and Editha, though possessed of many
+amiable accomplishments, could never acquire the confidence and
+affection of her husband.  It is even pretended that, during the whole
+course of her life, he abstained from all commerce of love with her;
+and such was the absurd admiration paid to an inviolable chastity
+during those ages, that his conduct in this particular is highly
+celebrated by the monkish historians, and greatly contributed to his
+acquiring the title of Saint and Confessor [h].  [MN 1048]
+[FN [g] Chron. Sax. p. 157.  [h] Wm. Malm. p. 80  Higden, p. 277.
+Abbas Rieval. p. 366, 377.  Matth. West. p. 221.  Chron. Thom. Wykes,
+p. 21.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 241.]
+
+The most popular pretence on which Godwin could ground his
+disaffection to the king and his administration was to complain of the
+influence of the Normans in the government; and a declared opposition
+had thence arisen between him and these favourites.  It was not long
+before this animosity broke into action.  Eustace, Count of Boulogne,
+having paid a visit to the king, passed by Dover in his return; one of
+his train, being refused entrance to a lodging which had been assigned
+him, attempted to make his way by force, and in the contest he wounded
+the master of the house.  The inhabitants revenged this insult by the
+death of the stranger; the count and his train took arms, and murdered
+the wounded townsman; a tumult ensued; near twenty persons were killed
+on each side; and Eustace, being overpowered by numbers, was obliged
+to save his life by flight from the fury of the populace.  He hurried
+immediately to court and complained of the usage he had met with: the
+king entered zealously into the quarrel, and was highly displeased
+that a stranger of such distinction, whom he had invited over to his
+court, should, without any just cause, as he believed, have felt so
+sensibly the insolence and animosity of his people.  He gave orders to
+Godwin, in whose government Dover lay, to repair immediately to the
+place, and to punish the inhabitants for the crime: but Godwin, who
+desired rather to encourage than repress the popular discontents
+against foreigners, refused obedience, and endeavoured to throw the
+whole blame of the riot on the Count of Boulogne and his retinue [i].
+Edward, touched in so sensible a point, saw the necessity of exerting
+the royal authority; and he threatened Godwin, if he persisted in his
+disobedience, to make him feel the utmost effects of his resentment.
+[FN [i] Chron. Sax. p. 163.  W. Malm. p. 81.  Higden, p. 279.]
+
+The earl, perceiving a rupture to be unavoidable, and pleased to
+embark in a cause where it was likely he should be supported by his
+countrymen, made preparations for his own defence, or rather for an
+attack on Edward.  Under pretence of repressing some disorders on the
+Welsh frontier, he secretly assembled a great army, and was
+approaching the king, who resided, without any military force, and
+without suspicion, at Gloucester [k].  Edward applied for protection
+to Siward, Duke of Northumberland, and Leofric, Duke of Mercia, two
+powerful noblemen, whose jealousy of Godwin’s greatness, as well as
+their duty to the crown, engaged them to defend the king in this
+extremity.  They hastened to him with such of their followers as they
+could assemble on a sudden; and finding the danger much greater than
+they had at first apprehended, they issued orders for mustering all
+the forces within their respective governments, and for marching them
+without delay to the defence of the king’s person and authority.
+Edward, meanwhile, endeavoured to gain time by negotiation; while
+Godwin, who thought the king entirely in his power, and who was
+willing to save appearances, fell into the snare; and, not sensible
+that he ought to have no farther reserve after he had proceeded so
+far, he lost the favourable opportunity of rendering himself master of
+the government.
+[FN [k] Chron. Sax. p. 163.  W. Malm. p. 81.]
+
+The English, though they had no high idea of Edward’s vigour and
+capacity, bore him great affection, on account of his humanity,
+justice, and piety, as well as the long race of their native kings
+from whom he was descended; and they hastened from all quarters to
+defend him from the present danger.  His army was now so considerable,
+that he ventured to take the field, and marching to London, he
+summoned a great council to judge of the rebellion of Godwin and his
+sons.  These noblemen pretended at first that they were willing to
+stand their trial; but having in vain endeavoured to make their
+adherents persist in rebellion, they offered to come to London,
+provided they might receive hostages for their safety: this proposal
+being rejected, they were obliged to disband the remains of their
+forces, and have recourse to flight.  Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, gave
+protection to Godwin and his three sons, Gurth, Sweyn, and Tosti; the
+latter of whom had married the daughter of that prince.  Harold and
+Leofwin, two other of his sons, took shelter in Ireland.  The estates
+of the father and sons were confiscated: their governments were given
+to others: Queen Editha was confined in a monastery at Warewel: and
+the greatness of this family, once so formidable, seemed now to be
+totally supplanted and overthrown.
+
+But Godwin had fixed his authority on too firm a basis, and he was too
+strongly supported by alliances, both foreign and domestic, not to
+occasion farther disturbances and make new efforts for his
+re-establishment.  [MN 1052.]  The Earl of Flanders permitted him to
+purchase and hire ships within his harbours; and Godwin, having manned
+them with his followers, and with freebooters of all nations, put to
+sea, and attempted to make a descent at Sandwich.  The king, informed
+of his preparations, had equipped a considerable fleet, much superior
+to that of the enemy; and the earl, hastily, before their appearance,
+made his retreat into the Flemish harbours [l].  The English court,
+allured by the present security, and destitute of all vigorous
+counsels, allowed the seamen to disband, and the fleet to go to decay
+[m], while Godwin, expecting the event, kept his men in readiness for
+action.  He put to sea immediately, and sailed to the Isle of Wight,
+where he was joined by Harold, with a squadron which the nobleman had
+collected in Ireland.  He was now master of the sea; and entering
+every harbour in the southern coast, he seized all the ships [n], and
+summoned his followers in those counties, which had so long been
+subject to his government, to assist him in procuring justice to
+himself, his family, and his country, against the tyranny of
+foreigners.  Reinforced by great numbers from all quarters, he entered
+the Thames; and appearing before London, threw every thing into
+confusion.  The king alone seemed resolute to defend himself to the
+last extremity; but the interposition of the English nobility, many of
+whom favoured Godwin’s pretensions, made Edward hearken to terms of
+accommodation; and the feigned humility of the earl, who disclaimed
+all intentions of offering violence to his sovereign, and desired only
+to justify himself by a fair and open trial, paved the way  for his
+more easy admission.  It was stipulated that he should give hostages
+for his good behaviour, and that the primate and all the foreigners
+should be banished: by this treaty, the present danger of a civil war
+was obviated, but the authority of the crown was considerably
+impaired, or rather entirely annihilated.  Edward, sensible that he
+had not power sufficient to secure Godwin’s hostages in England, sent
+them over to his kinsman, the young Duke of Normandy.
+[FN [1] Sim. Dun. p. 186.  [m] Chron. Sax. p. 166.  [n] Ibid.]
+
+Godwin’s death, which happened soon after, while he was sitting at
+table with the king, prevented him from farther establishing the
+authority which he had acquired, and from reducing Edward to still
+greater subjection [o].  He was succeeded in the government of Wessex,
+Sussex, Kent, and Essex, and in the office of steward of the
+household, a place of great power, by his son Harold, who was actuated
+by an ambition equal to that of his father, and was superior to him in
+address, in insinuation, and in virtue.  By a modest and gentle
+demeanour, he acquired the good-will of Edward; at least softened that
+hatred which the prince had so long borne his family [p]; and gaining
+every day new partisans by his bounty and affability, he proceeded in
+a more silent and therefore a more dangerous manner, to the increase
+of his authority.  The king, who had not sufficient vigour directly to
+oppose his progress, knew of no other expedient than that hazardous
+one, of raising him a rival in the family of Leofric, Duke of Mercia,
+whose son Algar was invested with the government of East Anglia,
+which, before the banishment of Harold, had belonged to the latter
+nobleman.  But this policy, of balancing opposite parties, required a
+more steady hand to manage it than that of Edward, and naturally
+produced faction, and even civil broils, among nobles of such mighty
+and independent authority.  Algar was soon after expelled his
+government by the intrigues and power of Harold; but being protected
+by Griffith, Prince of Wales, who had married his daughter, as well as
+by the power of his father, Leofric, he obliged Harold to submit to an
+accommodation, and was reinstated in the government of East Anglia.
+This peace was not of long duration: Harold, taking advantage of
+Leofric’s death, which happened soon after, expelled Algar anew, and
+banished him the kingdom; and though that nobleman made a fresh
+irruption into East Anglia with an army of Norwegians, and overran the
+country, his death soon freed Harold from the pretensions of so
+dangerous a rival.  Edward, the eldest son of Algar, was indeed
+advanced to the government of Mercia; but the balance which the king
+desired to establish between those potent families was wholly lost,
+and the influence of Harold greatly preponderated.
+[FN [o] See note [D] at the end of the volume.  [p] Brompton, p. 948.]
+
+[MN 1055.]  The death of Siward, Duke of Northumberland, made the way
+still more open to the ambition of that nobleman.  Siward, besides his
+other merits, had acquired honour to England by his successful conduct
+in the only foreign enterprise undertaken during the reign of Edward.
+Duncan, King of Scotland, was a prince of a gentle disposition, but
+possessed not the genius requisite for governing a country so
+turbulent, and so much infested by the intrigues and animosities of
+the great Macbeth, a powerful nobleman, and nearly allied to the
+crown, not content with curbing the king’s authority, carried still
+farther his pestilent ambition; he put his sovereign to death; chased
+Malcolm Kenmore, his son and heir, into England; and usurped the
+crown.  Siward, whose daughter was married to Duncan, embraced, by
+Edward’s orders, the protection of this distressed family: he marched
+an army into Scotland; and having defeated and killed Macbeth in
+battle, he restored Malcolm to the throne of his ancestors [q].  This
+service, added to his former connexions with the royal family of
+Scotland, brought a great accession to the authority of Siward in the
+north; but as he had lost his eldest son, Osberne, in the action with
+Macbeth, it proved in the issue fatal to his family.  His second son,
+Walthoef, appeared, on his father’s death, too young to be intrusted
+with the government of Northumberland; and Harold’s influence obtained
+that dukedom for his own brother Tosti.
+[FN [q] W. Malm. p. 79.  Hoveden, p. 443.  Chron. Mailr. p. 158.
+Buchanan, p. 115. edit. 1715.]
+
+There are two circumstances related of Siward, which discover his high
+sense of honour, and his martial disposition.  When intelligence was
+brought him of his son Osberne’s death, he was inconsolable till he
+heard that the wound was received in the breast, and that he had
+behaved with great gallantry in the action.  When he found his own
+death approaching, he ordered his servants to clothe him in a complete
+suit of armour; and sitting erect on the couch, with a spear in his
+hand, declared that in that posture, the only one worthy of a warrior,
+he would patiently await the fatal moment.
+
+The king, now worn out with cares and infirmities, felt himself far
+advanced in the decline of life; and having no issue himself, began to
+think of appointing a successor to the kingdom.  He sent a deputation
+to Hungary, to invite over his nephew, Edward, son of his elder
+brother, and the only remaining heir of the Saxon line.  That prince,
+whose succession to the crown would have been easy and undisputed,
+came to England with his children, Edgar, surnamed Atheling, Margaret,
+and Christina; but his death, which happened a few days after his
+arrival, threw the king into new difficulties.  He saw, that the great
+power and ambition of Harold had tempted him to think of obtaining
+possession of the throne on the first vacancy, and that Edgar, on
+account of his youth and inexperience, was very unfit to oppose the
+pretensions of so popular and enterprising a rival.  The animosity
+which he had long borne to Earl Godwin, made him averse to the
+succession of his son, and he could not, without extreme reluctance,
+think of an increase of grandeur to a family which had risen on the
+ruins of royal authority, and which, by the murder of Alfred his
+brother, had contributed so much to the weakening of the Saxon line.
+In this uncertainty, he secretly cast his eye towards his kinsman,
+William, Duke of Normandy, as the only person whose power, and
+reputation, and capacity, could support any destination which he might
+make in his favour, to the exclusion of Harold and his family [r].
+[FN [r] Ingulph. p. 68.]
+
+This famous prince was natural son of Robert, Duke of Normandy, by
+Harlotta, daughter of a tanner in Falaise [s], and was very early
+established in that grandeur from which his birth seemed to have set
+him at so  great a distance.  While he was but nine years of age, his
+father had resolved to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; a
+fashionable act of devotion, which had taken the place of pilgrimages
+to Rome, and which, as it was attended with more difficulty and
+danger, and carried those religious adventurers to the first sources
+of Christianity, appeared to them more meritorious.  Before his
+departure, he assembled the states of the duchy; and informing them of
+his design, he engaged them to swear allegiance to his natural son,
+William, whom, as he had no legitimate issue, he intended, in case he
+should die in the pilgrimage, to leave successor to his dominions [t].
+As he was a prudent prince, he could not but foresee the great
+inconveniences which must attend this journey, and this settlement of
+his succession, arising from the turbulency of the great, the claims
+of other branches of the ducal family, and the power of the French
+monarch; but all these considerations were surmounted by the
+prevailing zeal for pilgrimages [u]; and probably the more important
+they were, the more would Robert exult in sacrificing them to what he
+imagined to be his religious duty.
+[FN [s] Brompton, p. 910.  [t] W. Malm. p. 95.  [u] Ypod. Neust. p.
+452.]
+
+This prince, as he had apprehended, died in his pilgrimage; and the
+minority of his son was attended with all those disorders which were
+almost unavoidable in that situation.  The licentious nobles, freed
+from the awe of sovereign authority, broke out into personal
+animosities against each other, and made the whole country a scene of
+war and devastation [w].  Roger, Count of Toni, and Alain, Count of
+Britany, advanced claims to the dominion of the state; and Henry I.,
+King of France, thought the opportunity favourable for reducing the
+power of a vassal, who had originally acquired his settlement in so
+violent and invidious a manner, and who had long appeared formidable
+to his sovereign [x].  The regency established by Robert encountered
+great difficulties in supporting the government under this
+complication of dangers; and the young prince, when he came to
+maturity, found himself reduced to a very low condition.  But the
+great qualities which he soon displayed in the field and in the
+cabinet gave encouragement to his friends, and struck a terror into
+his enemies.  He opposed himself on all sides against his rebellious
+subjects, and against foreign invaders; and by his valour and conduct
+prevailed in every action.  He obliged the French king to grant him
+peace on reasonable terms; he expelled all pretenders to the
+sovereignty; and he reduced his turbulent barons to pay submission to
+his authority, and to suspend their mutual animosities.  The natural
+severity of his temper appeared in a rigorous administration of
+justice; and having found the happy effects of this plan of
+government, without which the laws in those ages became totally
+impotent, he regarded it as a fixed maxim, that an inflexible conduct
+was the first duty of a sovereign.
+[FN [w] W. Malm. p. 95.  Gul. Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 1.  [x] W. Malm. p.
+97.]
+
+The tranquillity which he had established in his dominions had given
+William leisure to pay a visit to the King of England during the time
+of Godwin’s banishment; and he was received in a manner suitable to
+the great reputation which he had acquired, to the relation by which
+he was connected with Edward, and to the obligations which that prince
+owed to his family [y].  On the return of Godwin, and the expulsion of
+the Norman favourites, Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury, had, before
+his departure, persuaded Edward to think of adopting William as his
+successor; a counsel which was favoured by the king’s aversion to
+Godwin, his prepossessions for the Normans, and his esteem of the
+duke.  That prelate, therefore, received a commission to inform
+William of the king’s intentions in his favour; and he was the first
+person that opened the mind of the prince to entertain those ambitious
+hopes [z].  But Edward, irresolute and feeble in his purpose, finding
+that the English would more easily acquiesce in the restoration of the
+Saxon line, had, in the mean time, invited his brother’s descendants
+from Hungary, with a view of having them recognised heirs to the
+crown.  The death of his nephew, and the inexperience and unpromising
+qualities of young Edgar, made him resume his former intentions in
+favour of the Duke of Normandy; though his aversion to hazardous
+enterprises engaged him to postpone the execution, and even to keep
+his purpose secret from all his ministers.
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 442.  Ingulph. p. 65.  Chron. Mailr. p. 157.
+Higden, p. 279.  [z] Ingulph. p. 68.  Gul. Gemet lib. 7. cap. 31.
+Order. Vitalis, p. 492.]
+
+Harold, meanwhile, proceeded after a more open manner in increasing
+his popularity, in establishing his power, and in preparing the way
+for his advancement on the first vacancy; an event which, from the age
+and infirmities of the king, appeared not very distant.  But there was
+still an obstacle, which it was requisite for him previously to
+overcome.  Earl Godwin, when restored to his power and fortune, had
+given hostages for his good behaviour, and, among the rest, one son
+and one grandson, whom Edward, for greater security, as has been
+related, had consigned to the custody of the Duke of Normandy.
+Harold, though not aware of the duke’s being his competitor, was
+uneasy that such near relations should be detained prisoners in a
+foreign country; and he was afraid lest William should, in favour of
+Edgar, retain those pledges as a check on the ambition of any other
+pretender.  He represented, therefore, to the king, his unfeigned
+submission to royal authority, his steady duty to his prince, and the
+little necessity there was, after such a uniform trial of his
+obedience, to detain any longer those hostages who had been required
+on the first composing of civil discords.  By these topics, enforced
+by his great power, he extorted the king’s consent to release them;
+and in order to effect his purpose, he immediately proceeded, with a
+numerous retinue, on his journey to Normandy.  A tempest drove him on
+the territory of Guy, Count of Ponthieu, who, being informed of his
+quality, immediately detained him prisoner, and demanded an exorbitant
+sum for his ransom.  Harold found means to convey intelligence of his
+situation to the Duke of Normandy; and represented, that while he was
+proceeding to HIS court, in execution of a commission from the King of
+England, he had met with this harsh treatment from the mercenary
+disposition of the Count of Ponthieu.
+
+William was immediately sensible of the importance of the incident.
+He foresaw, that if he could once gain Harold, either by favours or
+menaces, his way to the throne of England would be open, and Edward
+would meet with no farther obstacle in executing the favourable
+intentions which he had entertained in his behalf.  He sent,
+therefore, a messenger to Guy, in order to demand the liberty of his
+prisoner; and that nobleman, not daring to refuse so great a prince,
+put Harold into the hands of the Norman, who conducted him to Rouen.
+William received him with every demonstration of respect and
+friendship; and after showing himself disposed to comply with his
+desire, in delivering up the hostages, he took an opportunity of
+disclosing to him the great secret of his pretensions to the crown of
+England, and of the will which Edward intended to make in his favour.
+He desired the assistance of Harold in perfecting that design; he made
+professions of the utmost gratitude in return for so great an
+obligation; he promised that the present grandeur of Harold’s family,
+which supported itself with difficulty under the jealousy and hatred
+of Edward, should receive new increase from a successor, who would be
+so greatly beholden to him for his advancement.  Harold was surprised
+at this declaration of the duke; but being sensible that he should
+never recover his own liberty, much less that of his brother and
+nephew, if he refused the demand, he feigned a compliance with
+William, renounced all hopes of the crown for himself, and professed
+his sincere intention of supporting the will of Edward, and seconding
+the pretensions of the Duke of Normandy.  William, to bind him faster
+to his interests, besides offering him one of his daughters in
+marriage, required him to take an oath that he would fulfil his
+promises; and in order to render the oath more obligatory, he employed
+an artifice well suited to the ignorance and superstition of the age.
+He secretly conveyed under the altar, on which Harold agreed to swear,
+the relics of some of the most revered martyrs; and when Harold had
+taken the oath, he showed him the relics, and admonished him to
+observe religiously an engagement which had been ratified by so
+tremendous a sanction [a].  The English nobleman was astonished; but
+dissembling his concern, he renewed the same professions, and was
+dismissed with all the marks of mutual confidence by the Duke of
+Normandy.
+[FN [a] Wace, p. 459, 460.  MS. penes Carte, p. 354.  W. Malm. p. 93.
+H. Hunt p. 366.  Hoveden, p. 449.  Brompton, p. 947.]
+
+When Harold found himself at liberty, his ambition suggested casuistry
+sufficient to justify to him the violation of an oath, which had been
+extorted from him by fear, and which, if fulfilled, might be attended
+with the subjection of his native country to a foreign power.  He
+continued still to practise every art of popularity; to increase the
+number of his partisans; to reconcile the minds of the English to the
+idea of his succession; to revive their hatred of the Normans; and by
+an ostentation of his power and influence, to deter the timorous
+Edward from executing his intended destination in favour of William.
+Fortune, about this time, threw two incidents in his way, by which he
+was enabled to acquire general favour, and to increase the character,
+which he had already attained, of virtue and abilities.
+
+The Welsh, though a less formidable enemy than the Danes, had long
+been accustomed to infest the western borders; and after committing
+spoil on the low countries, they usually made a hasty retreat into
+their mountains, where they were sheltered from the pursuit of their
+enemies, and were ready to seize the first favourable opportunity of
+renewing their depredations.  Griffith, the reigning prince, had
+greatly distinguished himself in those incursions; and his name had
+become so terrible to the English, that Harold found he could do
+nothing more acceptable to the public, and more honourable for
+himself, than the suppressing of so dangerous an enemy.  He formed the
+plan of an expedition against Wales; and having prepared some light-
+armed foot to pursue the natives into their fastnesses, some cavalry
+to scour the open country, and a squadron of ships to attack the
+seacoast, he employed at once all these forces against the Welsh,
+prosecuted his advantages with vigour, made no intermission in his
+assaults, and at last reduced the enemy to such distress, that, in
+order to prevent their total destruction, they made a sacrifice of
+their prince, whose head they cut off and sent to Harold; and they
+were content to receive as their sovereigns two Welsh noblemen
+appointed by Edward to rule over them.  The other incident was no less
+honourable to Harold.
+
+Tosti, brother of this nobleman, who had been created Duke of
+Northumberland, being of a violent tyrannical temper, had acted with
+such cruelty and injustice, that the inhabitants rose in rebellion,
+and chased him from his government.  Morcar and Edwin, two brothers,
+who possessed great power in those parts, and who were grandsons of
+the great Duke Leofric, concurred in the insurrection; and the former,
+being elected duke, advanced with an army to oppose Harold, who was
+commissioned by the king to reduce and chastise the Northumbrians.
+Before the armies came to action, Morcar, well acquainted with the
+generous disposition of the English commander, endeavoured to justify
+his own conduct.  He represented to Harold, that Tosti had behaved in
+a manner unworthy of the station to which he was advanced, and no one,
+not even a brother, could support such tyranny without participating,
+in some degree, of the infamy attending it; that the Northumbrians,
+accustomed to a legal administration, and regarding it as their birth-
+right, were willing to submit to the king, but required a governor who
+would pay regard to their rights and privileges; that they had been
+taught by their ancestors, that death was preferable to servitude, and
+had taken the field, determined to perish rather than suffer a renewal
+of those indignities to which they had so long been exposed; and they
+trusted that Harold, on reflection, would not defend in another that
+violent conduct, from which he himself, in his own government, had
+always kept at so great a distance.  This vigorous remonstrance was
+accompanied with such a detail of facts, so well supported, that
+Harold found it prudent to abandon his brother’s cause; and returning
+to Edward, he persuaded him to pardon the Northumbrians, and to
+confirm Morcar in the government.  He even married the sister of that
+nobleman [b]; and by his interest procured Edwin, the younger brother,
+to be elected into the government of Mercia.  Tosti in rage departed
+the kingdom, and took shelter in Flanders with Earl Baldwin, his
+father-in-law.
+[FN [b] Order Vitalis, p. 492.]
+
+By this marriage Harold broke all measures with the Duke of Normandy;
+and William clearly perceived that he could no longer rely on the
+oaths and promises which he had extorted from him.  But the English
+nobleman was now in such a situation, that he deemed it no longer
+necessary to dissemble.  He had in his conduct towards the
+Northumbrians, given such a specimen of his moderation as had gained
+him the affections of his countrymen.  He saw that almost all England
+was engaged in his interests; while he himself possessed the
+government of Wessex, Morcar that of Northumberland, and Edward that
+of Mercia.  He now openly aspired to the succession; and insisted,
+that since it was necessary, by the confession of all, to set aside
+the royal family, on account of the imbecility of Edgar, the sole
+surviving heir, there was no one as capable of filling the throne as a
+nobleman of great power, of mature age, of long experience, of
+approved courage and abilities, who, being a native of the kingdom,
+would effectually secure it against the dominion and tyranny of
+foreigners.  Edward, broken with age and infirmities, saw the
+difficulties too great for him to encounter; and though his inveterate
+prepossession kept him from seconding the pretensions of Harold, he
+took but feeble and irresolute steps for securing the succession to
+the Duke of Normandy [c].  While he continued in this uncertainty he
+was surprised by sickness, which brought him to his grave, on the
+fifth of January 1066, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and twenty-
+fifth of his reign.
+[FN [c] See note [F] at the end of the volume.]
+
+This prince, to whom the monks gave the title of Saint and Confessor,
+was the last of the Saxon line that ruled in England.  Though his
+reign was peaceable and fortunate, he owed his prosperity less to his
+own abilities than to the conjunctures of the times.  The Danes,
+employed in other enterprises, attempted not those incursions which
+had been so troublesome to all his predecessors, and fatal to some of
+them.  The facility of his disposition made him acquiesce under the
+government of Godwin and his son Harold; and the abilities, as well as
+the power, of these noblemen enabled them, while they were entrusted
+with authority, to preserve domestic peace and tranquillity.  The most
+commendable circumstance of Edward’s government was his attention to
+the administration of justice, and his compiling, for that purpose, a
+body of laws, which he collected from the laws of Ethelbert, Ina, and
+Alfred.  This compilation, though now lost, (for the laws that pass
+under Edward’s name were composed afterwards [d],) was long the object
+of affection to the English nation.
+[FN [d] Spellm. in verbo BELLIVA.]
+
+Edward the Confessor was the first that touched for the king’s evil:
+the opinion of his sanctity procured belief to this cure among the
+people: his successors regarded it as a part of their state and
+grandeur to uphold the same opinion.  It has been continued down to
+our time; and the practice was first dropped by the present royal
+family, who observed that it could no longer give amazement even to
+the populace, and was attended with ridicule in the eyes of all men of
+understanding.
+
+[MN Harold. 1066. January.]
+Harold had so well prepared matters before the death of Edward, that
+he immediately stepped into the vacant throne; and his accession was
+attended with as little opposition and disturbance, as if he had
+succeeded by the most undoubted hereditary title.  The citizens of
+London were his zealous partisans: the bishops and clergy had adopted
+his cause; and all the powerful nobility, connected with him by
+alliance or friendship, willingly seconded his pretensions.  The title
+of Edgar Atheling was scarcely mentioned; much less the claim of the
+Duke of Normandy: and Harold, assembling his partisans, received the
+crown from their hands, without waiting for the free deliberation of
+the states, or regularly submitting the question to their
+determination [e].  If any were averse to this measure, they were
+obliged to conceal their sentiments; and the new prince, taking a
+general silence for consent, and founding his title on the supposed
+suffrages of the people, which appeared unanimous, was, on the day
+immediately succeeding Edward’s death, crowned and anointed king, by
+Aldred, Archbishop of York.  The whole nation seemed joyful to
+acquiesce in his elevation.
+[FN [e] G. Pict. p. 196.  Ypod. Neust. p. 436.  Order. Vitalis, p.
+492.  M. West. p. 221  W. Malm. p. 93.  Ingulph. p. 68.  Brompton, p.
+957.  Knyghton, p. 2339.  H. Hunt. p. 210.  Many of the historians
+say, that Harold was regularly elected by the states: some, that
+Edward left him his successor by will.]
+
+The first symptoms of danger which the king discovered came from
+abroad, and from his own brother Tosti, who had submitted to a
+voluntary banishment in Flanders.  Enraged at the successful ambition
+of Harold, to which he himself had fallen a victim, he filled the
+court of Baldwin with complaints of the injustice which he had
+suffered; he engaged the interest of that family against his brother:
+he endeavoured to form intrigues with some of the discontented nobles
+in England: he sent his emissaries to Norway, in order to rouse to
+arms the freebooters of that kingdom, and to excite the hopes of
+reaping advantage from the unsettled state of affairs on the
+usurpation of the new king: and that he might render the combination
+more formidable, he made a journey to Normandy, in expectation that
+the duke, who had married Matilda, another daughter of Baldwin, would,
+in revenge of his own wrongs, as well as those of Tosti, second, by
+his counsels and forces, the projected invasion of England [f].
+[FN [f] Order. Vitalis, p. 492.]
+
+The Duke of Normandy, when he first received intelligence of Harold’s
+intrigues and accession, had been moved to the highest pitch of
+indignation; but that he might give the better colour to his
+pretensions, he sent an embassy to England, upbraiding that prince
+with his breach of faith, and summoning him to resign immediately
+possession of the kingdom.  Harold replied to the Norman ambassadors,
+that the oath with which he was reproached had been extorted by the
+well-grounded fear of violence, and could never, for that reason, be
+regarded as obligatory: that he had had no commission either from the
+late king, or the states of England, who alone could dispose of the
+crown, to make any tender of the succession to the Duke of Normandy;
+and if he, a private person, had assumed so much authority, and had
+even voluntarily sworn to support the duke’s pretensions, the oath was
+unlawful, and it was his duty to  seize the first opportunity of
+breaking it: that he had obtained the crown by the unanimous suffrages
+of the people; and should prove himself totally unworthy of their
+favour, did he not strenuously maintain those national liberties, with
+whose protection they had entrusted him: and that the duke, if he made
+any attempt by force of arms, should experience the power of an united
+nation, conducted by a prince, who, sensible of the obligations
+imposed on him by his royal dignity, was determined that the same
+moment should put a period to his life and to his government [g].
+[FN [g] W. Malm. p. 99.  Higden, p. 285.  Matth. West. p. 222.  De
+Gest. Angl. ancento auctore, p. 331.]
+
+This answer was no other than William expected; and he had previously
+fixed his resolution of making an attempt upon England.  Consulting
+only his courage, his resentment, and his ambition, he overlooked all
+the difficulties inseparable from an attack on a great kingdom by such
+inferior force, and he saw only the circumstances which would
+facilitate his enterprise.  He considered that England, ever since the
+accession of Canute, had enjoyed profound tranquillity during a period
+of over fifty years; and it would require time for its soldiers,
+enervated by long peace, to learn discipline, and its generals
+experience.  He knew that it was entirely unprovided with fortified
+towns, by which it could prolong the war; but must venture its whole
+fortune in one decisive action against a veteran enemy, who, being
+once master of the field, would be in a condition to overrun the
+kingdom.  He saw that Harold, though he had given proofs of vigour and
+bravery, had newly mounted a throne, which he had acquired by faction,
+from which he had excluded a very ancient royal family, and which was
+likely to totter under him by its own instability, much more if shaken
+by any violent external impulse; and he hoped, that the very
+circumstance of his crossing the sea, quitting his own country, and
+leaving himself no hopes of retreat, as it would astonish the enemy by
+the boldness of the enterprise, would inspirit his soldiers by
+despair, and rouse them to sustain the reputation of the Norman arms.
+
+The Normans, as they had long been distinguished by valour among all
+the European nations, had at this time attained to the highest pitch
+of military glory.  Besides acquiring by arms such a noble territory
+in France, besides defending it against continual attempts of the
+French monarch and all his neighbours, besides exerting many acts of
+vigour under their present sovereign; they had, about this very time,
+revived their ancient fame, by the most hazardous exploits, and the
+most wonderful successes in the other extremity of Europe.  A few
+Norman adventurers in Italy had acquired such an ascendant, not only
+over the Italians and Greeks, but the Germans and Saracens, that
+they expelled those foreigners, procured to themselves ample
+establishments, and laid the foundation of the opulent kingdom of
+Naples and Sicily [h].  These enterprises of men, who were all of them
+vassals in Normandy, many of them banished for faction and rebellion,
+excited the ambition of the haughty William, who disdained, after such
+examples of fortune and valour, to be deterred from making an attack
+on a neighbouring country, where he could be supported by the whole
+force of his principality.
+[FN [h] Gul. Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 30.]
+
+The situation also of Europe inspired William with hopes that, besides
+his brave Normans he might employ against England the flower of the
+military force which was dispersed in all the neighbouring states.
+France, Germany, and the Low Countries, by the progress of the feudal
+institutions, were divided and subdivided into many principalities and
+baronies; and the possessors, enjoying the civil jurisdiction within
+themselves, as well as the right of arms, acted, in many respects, as
+independent sovereigns, and maintained their properties and
+privileges, less by the authority of laws than by their own force and
+valour.  A military spirit had universally diffused itself throughout
+Europe; and the several leaders, whose minds were elevated by their
+princely situation, greedily embraced the most hazardous enterprises;
+and being accustomed to nothing from their infancy but recitals of the
+success attending wars and battles, they were prompted by a natural
+ambition to imitate those adventurers, which they heard so much
+celebrated, and which were so much exaggerated by the credulity of the
+age.  United, however loosely, by their duty to one superior lord, and
+by their connexions with the great body of the community to which they
+belonged, they desired to spread their fame each beyond his own
+district; and in all assemblies, whether instituted for civil
+deliberations, for military expeditions, or merely for show and
+entertainment, to outshine each other by the reputation of strength
+and prowess.  Hence their genius for chivalry; hence their impatience
+of peace and tranquillity; and hence their readiness to embark in any
+dangerous enterprise, how little soever interested in its failure or
+success.
+
+William, by his power, his courage, and his abilities, had long
+maintained a pre-eminence among those haughty chieftains; and every
+one who desired to signalize himself by his address in military
+exercises, or in valour in action, had been ambitious of acquiring a
+reputation in the court and in the armies of Normandy.  Entertained
+with that hospitality and courtesy which distinguished the age, they
+had formed attachments with the prince, and greedily attended to the
+prospects of the signal glory and elevation which he promised them in
+return for their concurrence in an expedition against England.  The
+more grandeur there appeared in the attempt, the more it suited their
+romantic spirit; the fame of the intended invasion was already
+diffused every where; multitudes crowded to tender to the Duke their
+service, with that of their vassals and retainers [i]; and William
+found less difficulty in completing his levies than in choosing the
+most veteran forces, and in rejecting the offers of those who were
+impatient to acquire fame under so renowned a leader.
+[FN [i] Gul. Pictavensis, p. 198.]
+
+Besides these advantages, which William owed to his personal valour
+and good conduct, he was indebted to fortune for procuring him some
+assistance, and also for removing many obstacles which it was natural
+for him to expect in an undertaking, in which all his neighbours were
+so deeply interested.  Conan, Count of Britany, was his mortal enemy;
+in order to throw a damp upon the duke’s enterprise, he chose this
+conjuncture for reviving his claim to Normandy itself; and he required
+that, in case of William’s success against England the possession of
+that duchy should devolve to him [k].  But Conan died suddenly after
+making this demand; and Hoel, his successor, instead of adopting the
+malignity, or, more properly speaking, the prudence of his
+predecessor, zealously seconded the duke’s views and sent his eldest
+son, Alain Fergant, to serve under him with a body of five thousand
+Bretons.  The counts of Anjou and of Flanders encouraged their
+subjects to engage in the expedition; and even the court of France,
+though it might justly fear the aggrandizement of so dangerous a
+vassal, pursued not its interests on this occasion with sufficient
+vigour and resolution.  Philip I., the reigning monarch, was a minor;
+and William, having communicated his project to the council, having
+desired assistance, and offered to do homage, in case of his success,
+for the crown of England, was indeed openly ordered to lay aside all
+thoughts of the enterprise; but the Earl of Flanders, his father-in-
+law, being at the head of the regency, favoured underhand his levies,
+and secretly encouraged the adventurous nobility to enlist under the
+standard of the Duke of Normandy.
+[FN [k] Gul Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 33.]
+
+The Emperor, Henry IV., besides openly giving all his vassals
+permission to embark in this expedition, which so much engaged the
+attention of Europe, promised his protection to the duchy of Normandy
+during the absence of the prince, and thereby enabled him to employ
+his whole force in the invasion of England [l].  But the most
+important ally whom William gained by his negotiations was the pope,
+who had a mighty influence over the ancient barons, no less devout in
+their religious principles, than valorous in their military
+enterprises.  The Roman pontiff, after an insensible progress, during
+several ages of darkness and ignorance, began now to lift his head
+openly above all the princes of Europe; to assume the office of a
+mediator, or even an arbiter, in the quarrels of the greatest
+monarchs; to interpose in all secular affairs; and to obtrude his
+dictates as sovereign laws on his obsequious disciples. It was a
+sufficient motive to Alexander II., the reigning pope, for embracing
+William’s quarrel, that he alone had made an appeal to his tribunal,
+and rendered him umpire of the dispute between him and Harold; but
+there were other advantages which that pontiff foresaw must result
+from the conquest of England by the Norman arms.  That kingdom, though
+at first converted by Romish missionaries, though it had afterwards
+advanced some farther steps towards subjection to Rome, maintained
+still a considerable independence in its ecclesiastical
+administration; and forming a world within itself, entirely separated
+from the rest of Europe, it had hitherto proved inaccessible to those
+exorbitant claims which supported the grandeur of the papacy.
+Alexander therefore hoped, that the French and Norman barons, if
+successful in their enterprise, might import into that country a more
+devoted reverence to the holy see, and bring the English churches to a
+nearer conformity with those of the continent.  He declared
+immediately in favour of William’s claim; pronounced Harold a perjured
+usurper; denounced excommunication against him and his adherents; and
+the more to encourage the Duke of Normandy in his enterprise, he sent
+him a consecrated banner, and a ring with one of St. Peter’s hairs in
+it [m].  Thus were al1 the ambition and violence of that invasion
+covered over safely with the broad mantle of religion.
+[FN [l] Gul. Pict. p. 198.  [m] Baker, p. 22. edit. 1684.]
+
+The greatest difficulty which William had to encounter in his
+preparations, arose from his own subjects in Normandy.  The states of
+the duchy were assembled at Lislebonne; and supplies being demanded
+for the intended enterprise, which promised so much glory and
+advantage to their country, there appeared a reluctance in many
+members, both to grant sums so much beyond the common measure of taxes
+in that age, and to set a precedent of performing their military
+service at a distance from their own country.  The duke, finding it
+dangerous to solicit them in a body, conferred separately with the
+richest individuals in the province; and beginning with those on whose
+affections he most relied, he gradually engaged all of them to advance
+the sums demanded.  The Count of Longueville seconded him in his
+negotiation; as did the Count of Mortaigne, Odo, Bishop of Baieux, and
+especially William Fitz-Osborne, Count of Breteuil, and constable of
+the duchy.  Every person, when he himself was once engaged,
+endeavoured to bring over others; and at last the states themselves,
+after stipulating that this concession should be no precedent, voted
+that they would assist their prince to the utmost in his intended
+enterprise [n].
+[FN [n] Camden. Introd. ad Britan. p. 212. 2nd edit.  Gibs. Verstegan,
+p. 173.]
+
+William had now assembled a fleet of three thousand vessels, great and
+small [o], and had selected an army of sixty thousand men from among
+those numerous supplies which from every quarter solicited to be
+received into his service.  The camp bore a splendid yet a martial
+appearance, from the discipline of the men, the beauty and vigour of
+the horse, the lustre of the arms, and the accoutrements of both; but
+above all, from the high names of nobility who engaged under the
+banners of the Duke of Normandy.  The most celebrated were Eustace,
+Count of Boulogne, Aimeri de Thouars, Hugh d’Estaples, William
+d’Evreux, Geoffrey de Routrou, Roger de Beaumont, William de Warenne,
+Roger de Montgomery, Hugh de Grantmesnil, Charles Martel, and Geoffrey
+Giffard [p].  To these bold chieftains William held up the spoils of
+England as the prize of their valour; and pointing to the opposite
+shore, called to them, that THERE was the field on which they must
+erect trophies to their name, and fix their establishments.
+[FN [o] Gul. Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 34.  [p] Order. Vitalis, p. 501.]
+
+While he was making these mighty preparations, the  duke, that he
+might increase the number of Harold's enemies, excited the inveterate
+rancour of Tosti, and encouraged him, in concert with Harold Halfagar,
+King of Norway, to infest the coasts of England.  Tosti, having
+collected about sixty vessels in the ports of Flanders, put to sea;
+and after committing some depredations on the south and east coasts,
+he sailed to Northumberland, and was there joined by Halfagar, who
+came over with a great armament of three hundred sail.  The combined
+fleets entered the Humber, and disembarked the troops, who began to
+extend their depredations on all sides; when Morcar, Earl of
+Northumberland, and Edwin, Earl of Mercia, the king’s brother-in-law,
+having hastily collected some forces, ventured to give them battle.
+The action ended in the defeat and flight of these two noble men.
+
+Harold, informed of this defeat, hastened with an army to the
+protection of his people; and expressed the utmost ardour to show
+himself worthy of the crown which had been conferred upon him.  This
+prince, though he was not sensible of the full extent of his danger,
+from the great combination against him, had employed every art of
+popularity to acquire the affections of the public; and he gave so
+many proofs of an equitable and prudent administration that the
+English found no reason to repent the choice which they had made of a
+sovereign.  They flocked from all quarters to join his standard; and
+as soon as he reached the enemy at Standford, he found himself in a
+condition to give them battle.  [MN Sept. 25.]  The action was bloody;
+but the victory was decisive on the side of Harold, and ended in the
+total rout of the Norwegians, together with the death of Tosti and
+Halfagar.  Even the Norwegian fleet fell into the hands of Harold; who
+had the generosity to give Prince Olave, the son of Halfagar, his
+liberty, and allow him to depart with twenty vessels.  But he had
+scarcely time to rejoice for his victory, when he received
+intelligence that the Duke of Normandy was landed with a great army in
+the south of England.
+
+The Norman fleet and army had been assembled early in the summer, at
+the mouth of the small river Dive, and all the troops had been
+instantly embarked; but the winds proved long contrary, and detained
+them in that harbour.  The authority, however, of the duke, the good
+discipline maintained among the seamen and soldiers, and the great
+care in supplying them with provisions, had prevented any disorder;
+when at last the wind became favourable, and enabled them to sail
+along the coast, till they reached St. Valori.  There were, however,
+several vessels lost in this short passage; and as the wind again
+proved contrary, the army began to imagine that heaven had declared
+against them, and that, notwithstanding the pope's benediction, they
+were destined to certain destruction.  These bold warriors, who
+despised real dangers, were very subject to the dread of imaginary
+ones; and many of them began to mutiny, some of them even to desert
+their colours; when the duke, in order to support their drooping
+hopes, ordered a procession to be made with the relics of St. Valori
+[q], and prayers to be said for more favourable weather.  The wind
+instantly changed; and as this incident happened on the eve of the
+feast of St. Michael, the tutelar saint of Normandy, the soldiers,
+fancying they saw the hand of Heaven in all these concurring
+circumstances, set out with the greatest alacrity: they met with no
+opposition on their passage: a great fleet, which Harold has
+assembled, and which had cruized all summer off the Isle of Wight, had
+been dismissed, on his receiving false intelligence that William,
+discouraged by contrary winds and other accidents, had laid aside his
+preparations.  The Norman armament, proceeding in great order, arrived
+without any material loss, at Pevensey, in Sussex; and the army
+quietly disembarked.  The duke himself, as he leaped on shore,
+happened to stumble and fall; but had the presence of mind, it is
+said, to turn the omen to his advantage, by calling aloud that he had
+taken possession of the country.  And a soldier, running to a
+neighbouring cottage, plucked some thatch, which, as if giving seisin
+of the kingdom, he presented to his general.  The joy and alacrity of
+William and his whole army were so great, that they were nowise
+discouraged, even when they heard of Harold’s great victory over the
+Norwegians; they seemed rather to wait with impatience for the arrival
+of the enemy.
+[FN [q] Higden, p. 285.  Order. Vitalis, p. 500.  Matth. Paris, edit.
+Paris., anno 1644, p. 2.]
+
+The victory of Harold, though great and honourable, had proved in the
+main prejudicial to his interests, and may be regarded as the
+immediate cause of his ruin.  He lost many of his bravest officers and
+soldiers in the action: and he disgusted the rest by refusing to
+distribute the Norwegian spoils among them: a conduct which was little
+agreeable to his usual generosity of temper; but which his desire of
+sparing the people, in the war that impended over him from the Duke of
+Normandy, had probably occasioned.  He hastened, by quick marches, to
+reach this new invader; but though he was reinforced at London and
+other places with fresh troops, he found  himself also weakened by the
+desertion of his old soldiers, who, from fatigue and discontent,
+secretly withdrew from their colours.  His brother Gurth, a man of
+bravery and conduct, began to entertain apprehensions of the event;
+and remonstrated with the king, that it would be better policy to
+prolong the war; at least, to spare his own person in the action.  He
+urged to him, that the desperate situation of the Duke of Normandy
+made it requisite for that prince to bring matters to a speedy
+decision, and put his whole fortune on the issue of a battle; but that
+the King of England, in his own country, beloved by his subjects,
+provided with every supply, had more certain and less dangerous means
+of ensuring to himself the victory; that the Norman troops, elated on
+the one hand with the highest hopes, and seeing, on the other, no
+resource in case of a discomfiture, would fight to the last extremity;
+and being the flower of all the warriors of the continent, must be
+regarded as formidable to the English: that if their first fire, which
+is always the most dangerous, were allowed to languish for want of
+action; if they were harassed with small skirmishes, straitened in
+provisions, and fatigued with the bad weather and deep roads during
+the winter season which was approaching, they must fall an easy and a
+bloodless prey to their enemy: that if a general action were delayed,
+the English, sensible of the imminent danger to which their
+properties, as well as liberties, were exposed from those rapacious
+invaders, would hasten from all quarters to his assistance, and would
+render his army invincible: that at least, if he thought it necessary
+to hazard a battle, he ought not to expose his own person, but
+reserve, in case of disastrous accidents, some resource to the liberty
+and independence of the kingdom: and that having once been so
+unfortunate as to be constrained to swear, and that upon the holy
+relics, to support the pretensions of the Duke of Normandy, it were
+better that the command of the army should be intrusted to another,
+who not being bound by those sacred ties, might give the soldiers more
+assured hopes of a prosperous issue to the combat.
+
+Harold was deaf to all these remonstrances: elated with his past
+prosperity, as well as stimulated by his native courage, he resolved
+to give battle in person; and  for that purpose he drew near to the
+Normans, who had removed their camp and fleet to Hastings, where they
+fixed their quarters.  He was so confident of success, that he sent a
+message to the duke, promising him a sum of money if he would depart
+the kingdom without effusion of blood: but his offer was rejected with
+disdain; and William, not to be behind with his enemy in vaunting,
+sent him a message by some monks, requiring him either to resign the
+kingdom, or to hold it of him in fealty, or to submit their cause to
+the arbitration of the pope, or to fight him in single combat.  Harold
+replied, that the God of battles would soon be the arbiter of all
+their .differences [r].
+[FN [r] Higden, p. 286.]
+
+[MN 14th October.]  The English and Normans now prepared themselves
+for this important decision; but the aspect of things on the night
+before the battle was very different in the two camps.  The English
+spent the night in riot, and jollity, and disorder; the Normans in
+silence, and in prayer, and in the other functions of their religion
+[s].  On the morning, the duke called together the most considerable
+of his commanders, and made them a speech suitable to the occasion.
+He represented to them, that the event which they and he had long
+wished for was approaching; the whole fortune of the war now depended
+on their swords, and would be decided in a single action: that never
+army had greater motives for exerting a vigorous courage, whether they
+considered the prize which would attend their victory, or the
+inevitable destruction which must ensue upon their discomfiture: that
+if their martial and veteran bands could once break those raw
+soldiers, who had rashly dared to approach them, they conquered a
+kingdom at one blow, and were justly entitled to all its possessions
+as the reward of their prosperous valour: that, on the contrary, if
+they remitted in the least their wonted prowess, an enraged enemy hung
+upon their rear, the sea met them in their retreat, and an ignominious
+death was the certain punishment of their imprudent cowardice: that by
+collecting so numerous and brave a host, he had ensured every human
+means of conquest; and the commander of the enemy, by his criminal
+conduct, had given him just cause to hope for the favour of the
+Almighty, in whose hands alone lay the event of wars and battles: and
+that a perjured usurper, anathematized by the sovereign pontiff, and
+conscious of his own breach of faith, would be struck with terror on
+their appearance, and would prognosticate to himself that fate which
+his multiplied crimes had so justly merited [t].  The duke next
+divided his army into three lines: the first, led by Montgomery,
+consisted of archers and light-armed infantry: the second, commanded
+by Martel, was composed of his bravest battalions, heavy armed, and
+ranged in close order: his cavalry, at whose head he placed himself,
+formed the third line; and were so disposed, that they stretched
+beyond the infantry, and flanked each wing of the army [u].  He
+ordered the signal of battle to be given; and the whole army, moving
+at once, and singing the hymn or song of Roland, the famous peer of
+Charlemagne [w], advanced, in order, and with alacrity, towards the
+enemy.
+[FN [s] W. Malm. p. 101.  De Gest. Angl. p. 332.  [t] H. Hunt. p. 368.
+Brompton p. 959.  Gul. Pict. p. 201.  [u] Gul. Pict. p. 201.  Order.
+Vital. p. 501.  [w] W. Malm. p. 101.  Higden, p. 286.  Matth. West. p.
+223.  Du Cange’s Glossary, in verbo CANTILENA ROLANDI.]
+
+Harold had seized the advantage of a rising ground, and having
+likewise drawn some trenches to secure his flanks, he resolved to
+stand upon the defensive, and to avoid all action with the cavalry, in
+which he was inferior.  The Kentish men were placed in the van, a post
+which they had always claimed as their due: the Londoners guarded the
+standard: and the king himself, accompanied by his two valiant
+brothers, Gurth and Leofwin, dismounting, placed himself at the head
+of his infantry, and expressed his resolution to conquer or to perish
+in the action.  The first attack of the Normans was desperate, but was
+received with equal valour by the English; and after a furious combat,
+which remained long undecided, the former, overcome by the difficulty
+of the ground, and hard pressed by the enemy, began first to relax
+their vigour, then to retreat; and confusion was spreading among the
+ranks, when William, who found himself on the brink of destruction,
+hastened with a select band to the relief of his dismayed forces.  His
+presence restored the action; the English were obliged to retire with
+loss; and the duke, ordering his second line to advance, renewed the
+attack with fresh forces, and with redoubled courage.  Finding that
+the enemy, aided by the advantage of ground, and animated by the
+example of their prince, still made a vigorous resistance, he tried a
+stratagem, which was very delicate in its management, but which seemed
+advisable in his desperate situation, where, if he gained not a
+decisive victory, he was totally undone: he commanded his troops to
+make a hasty retreat, and to allure the enemy from their ground by the
+appearance of flight.  The artifice succeeded against those
+inexperienced soldiers, who, heated by the action, and sanguine in
+their hopes, precipitately followed the Normans into the plain.
+William gave orders, that at once the infantry should face about upon
+their pursuers, and the cavalry make an assault upon their wings, and
+both of them pursue the advantage which the surprise and terror of the
+enemy must give them in that critical and decisive moment.  The
+English were repulsed with great slaughter, and driven back to the
+hill; where, being rallied by the bravery of Harold, they were able,
+notwithstanding their loss, to maintain their post, and continue the
+combat.  The duke tried the same stratagem a second time with the same
+success; but even after this double advantage, he still found a great
+body of the English, who, maintaining themselves in firm array, seemed
+determined to dispute the victory to the last extremity.  He ordered
+his heavy-armed infantry to make an assault upon them; while his
+archers placed behind, should gall the enemy, who were exposed by the
+situation of the ground, and who were intent on defending themselves
+against the swords and spears of the assailants.  By this disposition
+he at last prevailed: Harold was slain by an arrow while he was
+combating with great bravery at the head of his men: his two brothers
+shared the same fate: and the English, discouraged by the fall of
+those princes, gave ground on all sides, and were pursued with great
+slaughter by the victorious Normans.  A few troops, however, of the
+vanquished had still the courage to turn upon their pursuers; and
+attacking them in deep and miry ground, obtained some revenge for the
+slaughter and dishonour of the day.  But the appearance of the duke
+obliged them to seek their safety by flight; and darkness saved them
+from any farther pursuit by the enemy.
+
+Thus was gained by William, Duke of Normandy, the great and decisive
+victory of Hastings, after a battle which was fought from morning till
+sunset, and which seemed worthy, by the heroic valour displayed by
+both armies, and by both commanders, to decide the fate of a mighty
+kingdom.  William had three horses killed under him; and there fell
+near fifteen thousand men on the side of the Normans: the loss was
+still more considerable on that of the vanquished; besides the death
+of the king and his two brothers.  The dead body of Harold was brought
+to William, and was generously restored without ransom to his mother.
+The Norman army left not the field of battle without giving thanks to
+Heaven in the most solemn manner for their victory; and the prince,
+having refreshed his troops, prepared to push to the utmost his
+advantage against the divided, dismayed, and discomfited English.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX I.
+
+THE ANGLO-SAXON GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
+
+FIRST SAXON GOVERNMENT.--SUCCESSION OF THE KINGS.--THE WITTENAGEMOT.--
+THE ARISTOCRACY.--THE SEVERAL ORDERS OF MEN.—COURTS OF JUSTICE.--
+CRIMINAL LAW.--RULES OF PROOF.--MILITARY FORCE.--PUBLIC REVENUE.--
+VALUE OF MONEY.--MANNERS.
+
+
+
+The government of the Germans, and that of all the northern nations,
+who established themselves on the ruins of Rome, was always extremely
+free; and those fierce people, accustomed to independence and inured
+to arms, were more guided by persuasion than authority, in the
+submission which they paid to their princes.  The military despotism,
+which had taken place in the Roman empire, and which, previously to
+the irruption of those conquerors, had sunk the genius of men, and
+destroyed every noble principle of science and virtue, was unable to
+resist the vigorous efforts of a free people; and Europe, as from a
+new epoch, rekindled her ancient spirit, and shook off the base
+servitude to arbitrary will and authority under which she had so long
+laboured.  The free constitutions then established, however impaired
+by the encroachments of succeeding princes, still preserve an air of
+independence and legal administration, which distinguish the European
+nations; and if that part of the globe maintain sentiments of liberty,
+honour, equity and valour, superior to the rest of mankind, it owes
+these advantages chiefly to the seeds implanted by those generous
+barbarians.
+
+[MN First Saxon government.]
+The Saxons, who subdued Britain, as they enjoyed great liberty in
+their own country, obstinately retained that invaluable possession in
+their new settlement; and they imported into this island the same
+principles of independence which they had inherited from their
+ancestors.  The chieftains (for such they were, more properly than
+kings or princes) who commanded them in those military expeditions,
+still possessed a very limited authority; and as the Saxons
+exterminated, rather than subdued, the ancient inhabitants, they were
+indeed transplanted into a new territory, but preserved unaltered all
+their civil and military institutions.  The language was pure Saxon;
+even the names of places, which often remain while the tongue entirely
+changes, were almost all affixed by the conquerors; the manners and
+customs were wholly German; and the same picture of a fierce and bold
+liberty, which is drawn by the masterly pencil of Tacitus, will suit
+those founders of the English government.  The king, so far from being
+invested with arbitrary power, was only considered as the first among
+the citizens; his authority depended more on his personal qualities
+than on his station; he was even so far on a level with the people,
+that a stated price was fixed for his head, and a legal fine was
+levied upon his murderer, which, though proportionate to his station,
+and superior to that paid for the life of a subject, was a sensible
+mark of his subordination to the community.
+
+[MN Succession of the kings.]
+It is easy to imagine, that an independent people, so little
+restrained by law and cultivated by science, would not be very strict
+in maintaining a regular succession of their princes.  Though they
+paid great regard to the royal family, and ascribed to it an
+undisputed superiority, they either had no rule, or none that was
+steadily observed, in filling the vacant throne; and present
+convenience, in that emergency, was more attended to than general
+principles.  We are not, however, to suppose that the crown was
+considered as altogether elective; and that a regular plan was traced
+by the constitution for supplying, by the suffrages of the people,
+every vacancy made by the demise of the first magistrate.  If any king
+left a son of an age and capacity fit for government, the young prince
+naturally stepped into the throne: if he was a minor, his uncle, or
+the next prince of the blood, was promoted to the government, and left
+the sceptre to his posterity: any sovereign, by taking previous
+measures with the leading men, had it greatly in his power to appoint
+his successor: all these changes, and indeed the ordinary
+administration of government, required the express concurrence, or at
+least the tacit acquiescence, of the people; but possession, however
+obtained, was extremely apt to secure their obedience, and the idea of
+any right, which was once excluded, was but feeble and imperfect.
+This is so much the case in all barbarous monarchies, and occurs so
+often in the history of the Anglo-Saxons, that we cannot consistently
+entertain any other notion of their government.  The idea of an
+hereditary succession in authority is so natural to men, and is so
+much fortified by the usual rule in transmitting private possessions,
+that it must retain a great influence on every society, which does not
+exclude it by the refinements of a republican constitution.  But as
+there is a material difference between government and private
+possessions, and every man is not as much qualified for exercising the
+one, as for enjoying the other, a people, who are not sensible of the
+general advantages attending a fixed rule, and apt to make great leaps
+in the succession, and frequently to pass over the person, who, had he
+possessed the requisite years and abilities, would have been thought
+entitled to the sovereignty.  Thus, these monarchies are not, strictly
+speaking, either elective or hereditary; and though the destination of
+a prince may often be followed in appointing his successor, they can
+as little be regarded as wholly testamentary.  The states by their
+suffrage may sometimes establish a sovereign; but they more frequently
+recognize the person whom they find established: a few great men take
+the lead; the people, overawed and influenced, acquiesce in the
+government; and the reigning prince, provided he be of the royal
+family, passes undisputedly for the legal sovereign.
+
+[MN The Wittenagemot.]
+It is confessed, that our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon history and
+antiquities is too imperfect to afford us means of determining, with
+certainty, all the prerogatives of the crown and privileges of the
+people, or of giving an exact delineation of that government.  It is
+probable, also, that the constitution might be somewhat different in
+the different kingdoms of the Heptarchy, and that it changed
+considerably during the course of six centuries, which elapsed from
+the first invasion of the Saxons till the Norman conquest [a].  But
+most of these differences and changes, with their causes and effects,
+are unknown to us.  It only appears, that at all times, and in all the
+kingdoms, there was a national council, called a Wittenagemot, or
+assembly of the wise men, (for that is the import of the term,) whose
+consent was requisite for enacting laws, and for ratifying the chief
+acts of public administration.  The preambles to all the laws of
+Ethelbert, Ina, Alfred, Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edmond, Edgar,
+Ethelred, and Edward the Confessor; even those to the laws of Canute,
+though a kind of conqueror, put this matter beyond controversy, and
+carry proofs everywhere of a limited and legal government.  But who
+were the constituent members of this Wittenagemot has not been
+determined with certainty by antiquaries.  It is agreed, that the
+bishops and abbots [b] were an essential part; and it is also evident,
+from the tenour of those ancient laws, that the Wittenagemot enacted
+statutes which regulated the ecclesiastical as well as civil
+government, and that those dangerous principles, by which the church
+is totally severed from the state, were hitherto unknown to the
+Anglo-Saxons [c].  It also appears, that the aldermen, or governors of
+counties, who, after the Danish times, were often called earls [d],
+were admitted into this council, and gave their consent to the public
+statutes.  But besides the prelates and aldermen, there is also
+mention of the Wites, or Wise-men, as a component part of the
+Wittenagemot; but who THESE were, is not so clearly ascertained by the
+laws or the history of that period.  The matter would probably be of
+difficult discussion, even were it examined impartially; but as our
+modern parties have chosen to divide on this point, the question has
+been disputed with the greater obstinacy, and the arguments on both
+sides have become, on that account, the more captious and deceitful.
+Our monarchical faction maintain, that these WITES, or SAPIENTES, were
+the judges, or men learned in the law; the popular faction assert them
+to be representatives of the boroughs, or what we now call the
+Commons.
+[FN [a] We know of one change, not inconsiderable, in the Saxon
+constitution.  The Saxon Annals, p. 49, inform us, that it was in
+early times the prerogative of the king to name the dukes, earls,
+aldermen, and sheriffs of the counties.  Asser, a contemporary writer,
+informs us, that Alfred deposed all the ignorant aldermen, and
+appointed men of more capacity in their place.  Yet the laws of Edward
+the Confessor, Sec. 35, say expressly, that the Heretoghs or dukes,
+and the sheriffs, were chosen by the freeholders in the folkmote, a
+county court, which was assembled once a year, and where all the
+freeholders swore allegiance to the king.  [b] Sometimes abbesses were
+admitted; at least, they often sign the king’s charters or grants.
+Spellm. Gloss. in verbo PARLIAMENTUM.  [c] Wilkins, passim.  [d] See
+note [G] at the end of the volume.]
+
+The expressions employed by all ancient historians, in mentioning the
+Wittenagemot, seem to contradict the latter supposition.  The members
+are almost always called the PRINCIPES, SATRAPAE, OPTIMATES, MAGNATES,
+PROCERES; terms which seem to suppose an aristocracy, and to exclude
+the Commons.  The boroughs also, from the low state of commerce, were
+so small and so poor, and the inhabitants lived in such dependence on
+the great men [e], that it seemed nowise probable they would be
+admitted as a part of the national councils.  The Commons are well
+known to have had no share in the governments established by the
+Franks, Burgundians, and other northern nations; and we may conclude
+that the Saxons, who remained longer barbarous and uncivilized than
+those tribes, would never think of conferring such an extraordinary
+privilege on trade and industry.  The military profession alone was
+honourable among all those conquerors; the warriors subsisted by their
+possessions in land; they became considerable by their influence over
+their vassals, retainers, tenants, and slaves; and it requires strong
+proof to convince us that they would admit any of a rank so much
+inferior as the burgesses, to share with them in the legislative
+authority.  Tacitus indeed affirms, that among the ancient Germans,
+the consent of all the members of the community was required in every
+important deliberation; but he speaks not of representatives; and this
+ancient practice, mentioned by the Roman historian, could only have
+place in small tribes, where every citizen might, without
+inconvenience, be assembled upon any extraordinary emergency.  After
+principalities became extensive; after the difference of property had
+formed distinctions more important than those which arose from
+personal strength and valour, we may conclude, that the national
+assemblies must have been more limited in their number, and composed
+only of the more considerable citizens.
+[FN [e] Brady’s Treatise of English Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, &c.]
+
+But though we must exclude the burgesses, or Commons from the Saxon
+Wittenagemot, there is some necessity for supposing that this assembly
+consisted of other members than the prelates, abbots, aldermen, and
+the judges or privy council.  For as all these, excepting some of the
+ecclesiastics [f], were anciently appointed by the king, had there
+been no other legislative authority, the royal power had been in a
+great measure absolute, contrary to the tenour of all the historians,
+and to the practice of all the northern nations.  We may therefore
+conclude, that the more considerable proprietors of land were, without
+any election, constituent members of the national assembly; there is
+reason to think that forty hides, or between four and five thousand
+acres, was the estate requisite for entitling the possessor to this
+honourable privilege.  We find a passage in an ancient author [g], by
+which it appears, that a person of very noble birth, even one allied
+to the crown, was not esteemed a PRINCEPS (the term usually employed
+by ancient historians, when the Wittenagemot is mentioned) till he had
+acquired a fortune of that amount.  Nor need we imagine that the
+public council would become disorderly or confused by admitting so
+great a multitude.  The landed property of England was probably in few
+hands during the Saxon times; at least during the latter part of that
+period; and as men had hardly any ambition to attend those public
+councils, there was no danger of the assembly’s becoming too numerous
+for the despatch of the little business which was brought before them.
+[FN [f] There is some reason to think, that the bishops were sometimes
+chosen by the Wittenagemot, and confirmed by the king.  Eddius, cap.
+2.  The abbots in the monasteries of royal foundation were anciently
+named by the king; though Edgar gave the monks the election, and only
+reserved to himself the ratification.  This destination was afterwards
+frequently violated; and the abbots, as well as bishops were
+afterwards all appointed by the king; as we learn from Ingulph, a
+writer contemporary with the conquest.  [g] Hist. Eliensis, lib. 2
+cap. 40.]
+
+It is certain, that, whatever we may determine concerning the
+constituent members of the Wittenagemot, in whom, with the king, the
+legislature resided, the Anglo-Saxon government, in the period
+preceding the Norman conquest, was become extremely aristocratical;
+the royal authority was very limited; the people, even if admitted to
+that assembly, were of little or no weight and consideration.  We have
+hints given us in historians, of the great power and riches of
+particular noblemen: and it could not but happen, after the abolition
+of the Heptarchy, when the king lived at a distance from the
+provinces, that those great proprietors, who resided on their estates,
+would much augment their authority over their vassals and retainers,
+and over all the inhabitants of the neighbourhood.  Hence the
+immeasurable power assumed by Harold, Godwin, Leofric, Siward, Morcar,
+Edwin, Edric, and Alfric, who controlled the authority of the kings,
+and rendered themselves quite necessary in the government.  The two
+latter, though detested by the people, on account of their joining a
+foreign enemy, still preserved their power and influence; and we may
+therefore conclude, that their authority was founded, not on
+popularity, but on family rights and possessions.  There is one
+Athelstan, mentioned in the reign of the king of that name, who is
+called Alderman of all England, and is said to be half-king; though
+the monarch himself was a prince of valour and abilities [h].  And we
+find, that in the latter Saxon times, and in these alone, the great
+office went from father to son, and became in a manner hereditary in
+the families [i].
+[FN [h] Hist. Rames. Sec. 3, p. 387.  [i] Roger Hoveden, giving the
+reason why William the Conqueror made Cospatric Earl of
+Northumberland, says, NAM EX MATERNO SANGUINE ATTINEBAT AD EUM HONOR
+ILLIUS COMITATUS.  ERAT ENIM EX MATRE ALGITHA, FILIA UTHREDI COMITIS.
+See also Sim. Dun. p. 205.  We see in those instances the same
+tendency towards rendering offices hereditary, which took place,
+during a more early period, on the continent, and which had already
+produced there its full effect.]
+
+The circumstances attending the invasions of the Danes would also
+serve much to increase the power of the principal nobility.  Those
+freebooters made unexpected inroads on all quarters; and there was a
+necessity that each county should resist them by its own force, and
+under the conduct of its own nobility and its own magistrates.  For
+the same reason that a general war, managed by the united efforts of
+the state, commonly augments the power of the crown; those private
+wars and inroads turned to the advantage of the aldermen and nobles.
+
+Among that military and turbulent people, so averse to commerce and
+the arts, and so little inured to industry, justice was commonly very
+ill administered, and great oppression and violence seem to have
+prevailed.  These disorders would be increased by the exorbitant power
+of the aristocracy; and would, in their turn, contribute to increase
+it.  Men, not daring to rely on the guardianship of the laws, were
+obliged to devote themselves to the service of some chieftain, whose
+orders they followed, even to the disturbance of the government, or
+the injury of their fellow-citizens, and who afforded them, in return,
+protection from any insult or injustice by strangers.  Hence, we find
+by the extracts which Dr. Brady has given us from Domesday, that
+almost all the inhabitants, even of towns, had placed themselves under
+the clientship of some particular nobleman, whose patronage they
+purchased by annual payments, and whom they were obliged to consider
+as their sovereign, more than the king himself, or even the
+legislature [k].  A client, though a freeman, was supposed so much to
+belong to his patron, that his murderer was obliged by law to pay a
+fine to the latter, as a compensation for his loss; in like manner as
+he paid a fine to the master for the murder of his slave [l].  Men who
+were of a more considerable rank, but not powerful enough each to
+support himself by his own independent authority, entered into formal
+confederacies with each other, and composed a kind of separate
+community, which rendered itself formidable to all aggressors.  Dr.
+Hickes has preserved a curious Saxon bond of this kind, which he calls
+a SODALITIUM, and which contains many particulars characteristical of
+the manners and customs of the times [m].  All the associates are
+there said to be gentlemen of Cambridgeshire, and they swear before
+the holy relics to observe their confederacy, and to be faithful to
+each other: they promise to bury any of the associates who dies, in
+whatever place he had appointed; to contribute to his funeral charges,
+and to attend at his interment; and whoever is wanting in this last
+duty, binds himself to pay a measure of honey.  When any of the
+associates is in danger, and calls for the assistance of his fellows,
+they promise, besides flying to his succour, to give information to
+the sheriff; and if he be negligent in protecting the person exposed
+to danger, they engage to levy a fine of one pound upon him: if the
+president of the society himself be wanting in this particular, he
+binds himself to pay one pound; unless he has the reasonable excuse of
+sickness, or of duty to his superior.  When any of the associates is
+murdered, they are to exact eight pounds from the murderer; and if he
+refuse to pay it, they are to prosecute him for the sum at their joint
+expense.  If any of the associates who happens to be poor kill a man,
+the society are to contribute, by a certain proportion, to pay his
+fine: a mark a-piece if the fine be seven hundred shillings; less if
+the person killed be a clown or ceorle; the half of that sum, again,
+if he be a Welshman.  But where any of the associates kills a man,
+wilfully and without provocation, he must himself pay the fine.  If
+any of the associates kill any of his fellows in a like criminal
+manner, besides paying the usual fine to the relations of the
+deceased, he must pay eight pounds to the society, or renounce the
+benefit of it; in which case, they bind themselves, under the penalty
+of one pound, never to eat or drink with him, except in the presence
+of the king, bishop, or alderman.  There are other regulations to
+protect themselves and their servants from all injuries, to revenge
+such as are committed, and to prevent their giving abusive language to
+each other; and the fine, which they engage to pay for this last
+offence, is a measure of honey.
+[FN [k] Brady’s Treatise of Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, &c.  The case was
+the same with the freemen in the country.  See Pref. to his Hist. p.
+8, 9, 10, &c.  [1] LL. Edw. Conf. Sec. 8. apud Ingulph.  [m] Dissert.
+Epist. p. 21.]
+
+It is not to be doubted but a confederacy of this kind must have been
+a great source of friendship and attachment; when men lived in
+perpetual danger from enemies, robbers, and oppressors, and received
+protection chiefly from their personal valour, and from the assistance
+of their friends or patrons.  As animosities were then more violent,
+connexions were also more intimate, whether voluntary or derived from
+blood: the most remote degree of propinquity was regarded: an
+indelible memory of benefits was preserved: severe vengeance was taken
+for injuries, both from a point of honour, and as the best means of
+future security: and the civil union being weak, many private
+engagements were contracted in order to supply its place, and to
+procure men that safety which the laws and their own innocence were
+not alone able to insure to them.
+
+On the whole, notwithstanding the seeming liberty, or rather
+licentiousness, of the Anglo-Saxons, the great body even of the free
+citizens, in those ages, really enjoyed much less true liberty, than
+where the execution of the laws is the most severe, and where subjects
+are reduced to the strictest subordination and dependence on the civil
+magistrate.  The reason is derived from the excess itself of that
+liberty.  Men must guard themselves at any price against insults and
+injuries; and where they receive not protection from the laws and
+magistrate, they will seek it by submission to superiors, and by
+herding in some private confederacy which acts under the direction of
+a powerful leader.  And thus all anarchy is the immediate cause of
+tyranny, if not over the state, at least over many of the individuals.
+Security was provided by the Saxon laws to all members of the
+Wittenagemot, both in going and returning, EXCEPT THEY WERE NOTORIOUS
+THIEVES AND ROBBERS.
+
+[MN The several orders of men.]
+The German Saxons, as the other nations of that continent, were
+divided into three ranks of men, the noble, the free, and the slaves
+[n].  This distinction they brought over with them into Britain.
+[FN [n] Nithard. Hist. lib. 4.]
+
+The nobles were called thanes; and were of two kinds, the king’s
+thanes and lesser thanes.  The latter seem to have been dependent on
+the former; and to have received lands, for which they paid rent,
+services, or attendance in peace and war [o].  We know of no title
+which raised any one to the rank of thane, except noble birth and the
+possession of land.  The former was always much regarded by all the
+German nations, even in their most barbarous state; and as the Saxon
+nobility, having little credit, could scarcely burthen their estates
+with much debt, and as the Commons had little trade or industry by
+which they could accumulate riches, these two ranks of men, even
+though they were not separated by positive laws, might remain long
+distinct, and the noble families continue many ages in opulence and
+splendour.  There were no middle ranks of men that could gradually mix
+with their superiors, and insensibly procure to themselves honour and
+distinction.  If by any extraordinary accident a mean person acquired
+riches, a circumstance so singular made him be known and remarked; he
+became the object of envy, as well as of indignation, to all the
+nobles; he would have great difficulty to defend what he had acquired;
+and he would find it impossible to protect himself from oppression,
+except by courting the patronage of some great chieftain, and paying a
+large price for his safety.
+[FN [o] Spellm. Feuds and Tenures, p. 40.]
+
+There are two statutes among the Saxon laws which seem calculated to
+confound those different ranks of men; that of Athelstan, by which a
+merchant, who had made three long sea voyages on his own account, was
+entitled to the quality of thane [p]; and that of the same prince, by
+which a ceorle or husbandman, who had been able to purchase five hides
+of land, and had a chapel, a kitchen, a hall, and a bell, was raised
+to the same distinction [q].  But the opportunities were so few, by
+which a merchant or ceorle could thus exalt himself above his rank,
+that the law could never overcome the reigning prejudices; the
+distinction between noble and base blood would still be indelible; and
+the well-born thanes would entertain the highest contempt for those
+legal and factitious ones.  Though we are not informed of any of these
+circumstances by ancient historians, they are so much founded on the
+nature of things, that we may admit them as a necessary and infallible
+consequence of the situation of the kingdom during those ages.
+[FN [p] Wilkins, p. 71.  [q] Selden, Titles of Honour, p. 515.
+Wilkins, p. 70.]
+
+The cities appear by Domesday-book to have been at the Conquest little
+better than villages [r].  York itself, though it was always the
+second, at least the third [s], city in England, and was the capital
+of a great province, which never was thoroughly united with the rest,
+contained but one thousand four hundred and eighteen families [t].
+Malmsbury tells us [u], that the great distinction between the
+Anglo-Saxon nobility, and the French or Norman was, that the latter
+built magnificent and stately castles; whereas the former consumed
+their immense fortunes in riot and, hospitality, and in mean houses.
+We may thence infer, that the arts in general were much less advanced
+in England than in France; a greater number of idle servants and
+retainers lived about the great families; and as these, even in
+France, were powerful enough to disturb the execution of the laws, we
+may judge of the authority acquired by the aristocracy in England.
+When Earl Godwin besieged the Confessor in London, he summoned from
+all parts his huscarles or houseceorles and retainers, and thereby
+constrained his sovereign to accept of the conditions which he was
+pleased to impose upon him.
+[FN [r] Winchester, being the capital of the West Saxon monarchy, was
+anciently a considerable city.  Gul. Pict. p. 210.  [s] Norwich
+contained 738 houses, Exeter 315, Ipswich 538, Northampton 60,
+Hereford 146, Canterbury 262, Bath 64, Southampton 84, Warwick 225.
+See Brady of Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, 6, &c.  These are the most
+considerable he mentions.  The account of them is extracted from
+Domesday-book.  [t] Brady’s Treatise of Boroughs, p. 10.  There were
+six wards, besides the archbishop’s palace; and five of these wards
+contained the number of families here mentioned, which, at the rate of
+five persons to a family, makes about 7000 souls.  The sixth ward was
+laid waste.  [u] p. 102.  See also, De Gest. Angl. p. 333.]
+
+The lower rank of freemen were denominated ceorles among the
+Anglo-Saxons; and, where they were industrious, they were chiefly
+employed in husbandry: whence a ceorle and a husbandman became in a
+manner synonymous terms.  They cultivated the farms of the nobility or
+thanes, for which they paid rent; and they seem to have been
+removeable at pleasure.  For there is little mention of leases among
+the Anglo-Saxons; the pride of the nobility, together with the general
+ignorance of writing, must have rendered these contracts very rare,
+and must have kept the husbandmen in a dependent condition.  The rents
+of farms were then chiefly paid in kind [w].
+[FN [w] LL. Inae, Sec. 70.  These laws fixed the rents for a hide; but
+it is difficult to convert it into modern measures.]
+
+But the most numerous rank by far in the community seems to have been
+the slaves or villains, who were the property of their lords, and were
+consequently incapable themselves of possessing any property.  Dr.
+Brady assures us, from a survey of Domesday-book [x], that in all the
+counties of England, the far greater part of the land was occupied by
+them, and that the husbandmen, and still more the socmen, who were
+tenants that could not be removed at pleasure, were very few in
+comparison.  This was not the case with the German nations, as far as
+we can collect from the account given us by Tacitus.  The perpetual
+wars in the Heptarchy, and the depredations of the Danes, seem to have
+been the cause of this great alteration with the Anglo-Saxons.
+Prisoners taken in battle, or carried off in the frequent inroads,
+were then reduced to slavery; and became, by right of war [y],
+entirely at the disposal of their lords.  Great property in the
+nobles, especially if joined to an irregular administration of
+justice, naturally favours the power of the aristocracy; but still
+more so if the practice of slavery be admitted, and has become very
+common.  The nobility not only possess the influence which always
+attends riches, but also the power which the laws give them over their
+slaves and villains.  It then becomes difficult, and almost
+impossible, for a private man to remain altogether free and
+independent.
+[FN [x] General Preface to his Hist. p. 7, 8, 9 &c.  [y] LL. Edg. Sec.
+14 apud Spellm. Conc. vol. 1. p. 471.]
+
+There were two kinds of slaves among the Anglo-Saxons; household
+slaves, after the manner of the ancients, and praedial, or rustic,
+after the manner of’ the Germans [z].  These latter resembled the
+serfs, which are at present to be met with in Poland, Denmark, and
+some parts of Germany.  The power of a master over his slaves was not
+unlimited among the Anglo-Saxons, as it was among their ancestors.  If
+a man beat out his slave’s eye or teeth, the slave recovered his
+liberty [a]: if he killed him, he paid a fine to the king, provided
+the slave died within a day after the wound or blow; otherwise it
+passed unpunished [b].  The selling of themselves or children to
+slavery was always the practice among the German nations [c], and was
+continued by the Anglo-Saxons [d].
+[FN [z] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. SERRUS  [a] LL. Aelf. Sec. 20.  [b]
+Ibid 17.  [c] Tacit. de Morib. Germ.  [d] LL. Inae, Sec. 11  LL. Aelf.
+Sec. 12.]
+
+The great lords and abbots among the Anglo-Saxons possessed a criminal
+jurisdiction within their territories, and could punish without
+appeal, any thieves or robbers  whom they caught there [e].  This
+institution must have had a very contrary effect to that which was
+intended, and must have procured robbers a sure protection on the
+lands of such noblemen as did not sincerely mean to discourage crimes
+and violence.
+[FN [e] Higden, lib. 1. cap. 50.  LL. Edw. Conf. Sec. 26.  Spellm.
+Conc. vol. i. p. 415.  Gloss. in verb. HALIGEMOT ET INFANGENTHEFE.]
+
+[MN Courts of justice.]
+But though the general strain of the Anglo-Saxon government seems to
+have become aristocratical, there were still considerable remains of
+the ancient democracy, which were not indeed sufficient to protect the
+lowest of the people, without the patronage of some great lord, but
+might give security, and even some degree of dignity, to the gentry,
+or inferior nobility.  The administration of justice, in particular,
+by the courts of the decennary, the hundred, and the county, was well
+calculated to defend general liberty, and to restrain the power of the
+nobles.  In the county courts, or shiremotes, all the freeholders were
+assembled twice a year, and received appeals from the inferior courts.
+They there decided all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil; and
+the bishop, together with the alderman or earl, presided over them
+[f].  The affair was determined in a summary manner, without much
+pleading, formality, or delay, by a majority of voices; and the bishop
+and alderman had no farther authority than to keep order among the
+freeholders, and interpose with their opinion [g].  Where justice was
+denied during three sessions by the hundred, and then by the county
+court, there lay an appeal to the king’s court [h]; but this was not
+practised on slight occasions.  The alderman received a third of the
+fines levied in those courts [i]; and as most of the punishments were
+then pecuniary, this perquisite formed a considerable part of the
+profits belonging to his office.  The two-thirds also which went to
+the king, made no contemptible part of the public revenue.  Any
+freeholder was fined who absented himself thrice from these courts
+[k].
+[FN [f] LL. Edg. Sec. 5.  Wilkins, p. 78.  LL. Canut. Sec. 17.
+Wilkins, p. 136.  [g] Hickes, Dissert. Epist. p. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
+[h] LL. Edg Sec. 2.  Wilkins, p. 77.  LL. Canut. Sec. 18. apud
+Wilkins, p. 136.  [i] LL. Edw. Conf. Sec. 31.  [k] LL. Ethelst. Sec.
+20.]
+
+As the extreme ignorance of the age made deeds and writings very rare,
+the county or hundred court was the place where the most remarkable
+civil transactions were finished, in order to preserve the memory of
+them, and prevent all future disputes.  Here testaments were
+promulgated, slaves manumitted, bargains of sale concluded; and
+sometimes, for greater security, the most considerable of these deeds
+were inserted in the blank leaves of the parish bible, which thus
+became a kind of register too sacred to be falsified.  It was not
+unusual to add to the deed an imprecation on all such as should be
+guilty of that crime [l].
+[FN [1] Hickes, Dissert. Epist.]
+
+Among a people, who lived in so simple a manner as the Anglo-Saxons,
+the judicial power is always of greater importance than the
+legislative.  There were few or no taxes imposed by the states; there
+were few statutes enacted; and the nation was less governed by laws
+than by customs, which admitted a great latitude of interpretation.
+Though it should therefore be allowed that the Wittenagemot was
+altogether composed of the principal nobility, the county courts,
+where all the freeholders were admitted, and which regulated all the
+daily occurrences of life, formed a wide basis for the government, and
+were no contemptible checks on the aristocracy.  But there is another
+power still more important than either the judicial or legislative; to
+wit, the power of injuring or serving by immediate force and violence,
+for which it is difficult to obtain redress in courts of justice.  In
+all extensive governments, where the execution of the laws is feeble,
+this power naturally falls into the hands of the principal nobility;
+and the degree of it which prevails cannot be determined so much by
+the public statutes, as by small incidents in history, by particular
+customs, and sometimes by the reason and nature of things.  The
+Highlands of Scotland have long been entitled by law to every
+privilege of British subjects; but it was not till very lately that
+the common people could in fact enjoy these privileges.
+
+The powers of all the members of the Anglo-Saxon government are
+disputed among historians and antiquaries; the extreme obscurity of
+the subject, even though faction had never entered into the question,
+would naturally have begotten those controversies.  But the great
+influence of the lords over their slaves and tenants, the clientship
+of the burghers, the total want of a middling rank of men, the extent
+of the monarchy, the loose execution of the laws, the continued
+disorders and convulsions of the state; all these circumstances evince
+that the Anglo-Saxon government became at last extremely
+aristocratical; and the events, during the period immediately
+preceding the conquest, confirm this inference or conjecture.
+
+[MN Criminal law.]
+Both the punishments inflicted by the Anglo-Saxon courts of
+judicature, and the methods of proof employed in all causes, appear
+somewhat singular, and are very different from those which prevail at
+present among all civilized nations.
+
+We must conceive that the ancient Germans were little removed from the
+original state of nature: the social confederacy among them was more
+martial than civil: they had chiefly in view the means of attack or
+defence against public enemies, not those of protection against their
+fellow-citizens: their possessions were so slender and so equal, that
+they were not exposed to great danger; and the natural bravery of the
+people made every man trust to himself, and to his particular friends,
+for his defence or vengeance.  This defect in the political union drew
+much closer the knot of particular confederacies; an insult upon any
+man was regarded by all his relations and associates as a common
+injury; they were bound by honour, as well as by a sense of common
+interest, to revenge his death, or any violence which he had suffered:
+they retaliated on the aggressor by like acts of violence; and if he
+were protected, as was natural and usual, by his own clan, the quarrel
+was spread still wider, and bred endless disorders in the nation.
+
+The Frisians, a tribe of the Germans, had never advanced beyond this
+wild and imperfect state of society; and the right of private revenge
+still remained among them unlimited and uncontrolled [m].  But the
+other German nations, in the age of Tacitus, had made one step farther
+towards completing the political or civil union.  Though it still
+continued to be an indispensable point of honour for every clan to
+revenge the death or injury of a member, the magistrate had acquired a
+right of interposing in the quarrel, and of accommodating the
+difference.  He obliged the person maimed or injured, and the
+relations of one killed, to accept of a present from the aggressor and
+his relations [n], as a compensation for the injury [o], and to drop
+all farther prosecution of revenge.  That the accommodation of one
+quarrel might not be the source of more, this present was fixed and
+certain, according to the rank of the person killed, or injured, and
+was commonly paid in cattle, the chief property of those rude and
+uncultivated nations.  A present of this kind gratified the revenge of
+the injured family, by the loss which the aggressor suffered; it
+satisfied their pride, by the submission which it expressed; it
+diminished their regret for the loss or injury of a kinsman, by their
+acquisition of new property; and thus general peace was for a moment
+restored to the society [p].
+[FN [m] LL. Fris. tit. 2. apud. Lindenbrog. p. 491.  [n] LL. Aethelb.
+Sec. 23. LL. Aelf. Sec. 27.  [o] Called by the Saxons MOEGBOTA.  [p]
+Tacit. de Morib. Germ.  The author says, that the price of the
+composition was fixed; which must have been by the laws and the
+interposition of the magistrates.]
+
+But when the German nations had been settled some time in the
+provinces of the Roman empire, they made still another step towards a
+more cultivated life, and their criminal justice gradually improved
+and refined itself.  The magistrate, whose office it was to guard
+public peace, and to suppress private animosities, conceived himself
+to be injured by every injury done to any of his people; and besides
+the compensation to the person who suffered, or to his family, he
+thought himself entitled to exact a fine called the Fridwit as an
+atonement for the breach of peace, and as a reward for the pains which
+he had taken in accommodating the quarrel.  When this idea, which is
+so natural, was once suggested, it was willingly received both by
+sovereign and people.  The numerous fines which were levied augmented
+the revenue of the king; and the people were sensible that he would be
+more vigilant in interposing with his good offices, when he reaped
+such immediate advantage from them; and that injuries would be less
+frequent, when, besides compensation to the person injured, they were
+exposed to this additional penalty [q].
+[FN [q] Besides paying money to the relations of the deceased, and to
+the king, the murderer was also obliged to pay the master of a slave
+or vassal a sum as a compensation for his loss.  This was called the
+MANBOTE.  See Spell. Gloss. in verb. FREDUM, MANBOT.]
+
+This short abstract contains the history of the criminal jurisprudence
+of the northern nations for several centuries.  The state of England
+in this particular, during the period of the Anglo-Saxons, may be
+judged of by the collection of ancient laws, published by Lambard and
+Wilkins.  The chief purport of these laws is not to prevent or
+entirely suppress private quarrels, which the legislature knew to be
+impossible, but only to regulate and moderate them.  The laws of
+Alfred enjoin, that if any one know that his enemy or aggressor, after
+doing him an injury, resolves to keep within his own house, AND HIS
+OWN LANDS [r], he shall not fight him till he require compensation for
+the injury.  If he be strong enough to besiege him in his house, he
+may do it for seven days without attacking him; and if the aggressor
+be willing, during that time, to surrender himself and his arms, his
+adversary may detain him thirty days; but is afterwards obliged to
+restore him safe to his kindred, AND BE CONTENT WITH THE COMPENSATION.
+If the criminal fly to the temple, that sanctuary must not be
+violated.  Where the assailant has not force sufficient to besiege the
+criminal in his house, he must apply to the alderman for assistance;
+and if the alderman refuse aid, the assailant must have recourse to
+the king; and he is not allowed to assault the house till after this
+supreme magistrate has refused assistance.  If any one meet with his
+enemy, and be ignorant that he was resolved to keep within his own
+lands, he must, before he attack him, require him to surrender himself
+prisoner, and deliver up his arms; in which case he may detain him
+thirty days: but if he refuse to deliver up his arms, it is then
+lawful to fight him.  A slave may fight in his master's quarrel: a
+father may fight in his son's with any one, except with his master
+[s].
+[FN [r] The addition of these last words in Italics appears necessary
+from what follows in the same law.  [s] LL. Aelfr. Sec. 28  Wilkins,
+p. 43.]
+
+It was enacted by King Ina, that no man should take revenge for an
+injury till he had first demanded compensation, and had been refused
+it [t].
+[FN [t] LL. Inae, Sec. 9.]
+
+King Edmond, in the preamble to his laws, mentions the general misery
+occasioned by the multiplicity of private feuds and battles; and he
+establishes several expedients for remedying this grievance.  He
+ordained that if any one commit murder, be may, with the assistance of
+his kindred, pay within a twelvemonth the fine of his crime; and if
+they abandon him, he shall alone sustain the deadly feud or quarrel
+with the kindred of the murdered person: his own kindred are free from
+the feud, but on condition that they neither converse with the
+criminal, nor supply him with meat or OTHER NECESSARIES: if any of
+them, after renouncing him, receive him into their house, OR GIVE HIM
+ASSISTANCE, they are finable to the king, and are involved in the
+feud.  If the kindred of the murdered person take revenge on any but
+the criminal himself, AFTER HE IS ABANDONED BY HIS KINDRED, all their
+property is forfeited, and they are declared to be enemies to the king
+and all his friends [u].  It is also ordained, that the fine for
+murder shall never be remitted by the king [w]; and that no criminal
+shall be killed who flies to the church, or any of the king’s towns
+[x]; and the king himself declares, that his house shall give no
+protection to murderers, till they have satisfied the church by their
+penance, and the kindred of the deceased, by making compensation [y].
+The method appointed for transacting this composition is found in the
+same law [z].
+[FN [u] LL. Edm. Sec. 1.  Wilkins, p. 73.  [w] LL. Edm. Sec. 3.  [x]
+Ibid. Sec. 2.  [y] Ibid. Sec. 4.  [z] Ibid Sec. 7.]
+
+These attempts of Edmond, to contract and diminish the feuds, were
+contrary to the ancient spirit of the northern barbarians, and were a
+step towards a more regular administration of justice.  By the Salic
+law, any man might, by a public declaration, exempt himself from his
+family quarrels: but then he was considered by the law as no longer
+belonging to the family; and he was deprived of all right of
+succession, as the punishment of his cowardice [a].
+[FN [a] Tit. 63.]
+
+The price of the king's head, or his weregild, as it was then called,
+was by law thirty thousand thrimsas, near thirteen hundred pounds of
+present money.  The price of the prince's head was fifteen thousand
+thrimsas; that of a bishop's or alderman's, eight thousand; a
+sheriff’s four thousand; a thane's or clergyman's, two thousand; a
+ceorle's, two hundred and sixty-six.  These prices were fixed by the
+laws of the Angles.  By the Mercian law, the price of a ceorle's head
+was two hundred shillings; that of a thane's six times as much; that
+of a king's six times more [b].  By the laws of Kent, the price of the
+archbishop's head was higher than that of the king’s [c].  Such
+respect was then paid to the ecclesiastics!  It must be understood,
+that where a person was unable or unwilling to pay the fine, he was
+put out of the protection of law, and the kindred of the deceased had
+liberty to punish him as they thought proper.
+[FN [b] Wilkins, p. 71, 72.  [c] LL. Elthredi, apud Wilkins, p. 110.]
+
+Some antiquarians [d] have thought, that these compensations were only
+given for manslaughter, not for wilful murder: but no such distinction
+appears in the laws; and it is contradicted by the practice of all the
+other barbarous nations [e], by that of the ancient Germans [f], and
+by that curious monument above mentioned, a Saxon antiquity, preserved
+by Hickes.  There is indeed a law of Alfred's, which makes wilful
+murder capital [g]; but this seems only to have been an attempt of
+that great legislator towards establishing a better police in the
+kingdom, and it probably remained without execution.  By the laws of
+the same prince, a conspiracy against the life of the king might be
+redeemed by a fine [h].
+[FN [d] Tyrrel, Introduction, vol. i. p.126.  Carte, vol. i. p. 366.
+[e] Lindenbrogius, passim.  [f] Tac. de Mor. Germ.  [g] LL. Aelf. Sec.
+12.  Wilkins, p. 29.  It is probable that by wilful murder Alfred
+means a treacherous murder, committed by one who had no declared feud
+with another.  [h] LL. Aelf. Sec. 4  Wilkins, p. 35.]
+
+The price of all kinds of wounds was likewise fixed by the Saxon laws:
+a wound of an inch long under the hair, was paid with one shilling;
+one of a like size in the face, two shillings: thirty shillings for
+the loss of an ear, and so forth [i].  There seems not to have been
+any difference made, according to the dignity of the person.  By the
+laws of Ethelbert, any one who committed adultery with his neighbour's
+wife, was obliged to pay him a fine, and buy him another wife [k].
+[FN [i] LL. Elf. Sec. 40.  See also, LL. Ethelb. Sec. 34, &c.  [k] LL.
+Ethelb. Sec. 32.]
+
+These institutions are not peculiar to the ancient Germans.  They seem
+to be the necessary progress of criminal jurisprudence among every
+free people, where the will of the sovereign is not implicitly obeyed.
+We find them among the ancient Greeks during the time of the Trojan
+war.  Compositions for murder are mentioned in Nestor's speech to
+Achilles in the ninth Iliad and are called APOINAI.  The Irish, who
+never had any connexions with the German nations, adopted the same
+practice till very lately; and the price of a man's head was called
+among them his ERIC; as we learn from Sir John Davis.  The same custom
+seems also to have prevailed among the Jews [l].
+[FN [l] Exod. cap. xxi. 29, 30.]
+
+Theft and robbery were frequent among the Anglo-Saxons.  In order to
+impose some check upon these crimes, it was ordained, that no man
+should sell or buy any thing above twenty-pence value, except in open
+market [m]; and every bargain of sale must be executed before
+witnesses [n].  Gangs of robbers much disturbed the peace of the
+country; and the law determined, that a tribe of banditti, consisting
+of between seven and thirty-five persons, was to be called a TURMA, or
+troop: any greater company was denominated an army [o].  The
+punishments for this crime were various, but none of them capital [p].
+If any man could track his stolen cattle into another's ground, the
+latter was obliged to show the tracks out of it, or pay their value
+[q].
+[FN [m] LL. Aethelst. Sec. 12.  [n] Ibid. Sec. 10, 12.  LL. Edg. apud
+Wilkins, p. 80.  LL. Ethelredi, Sec. 4 apud Wilkins, p. 103.  Hloth.
+and Eadm. Sec. 16.  LL. Canut. Sec. 22.  [o] LL. Inae, Sec. 12.  [p]
+LL. Inae, Sec. 37.  [q] LL. Aethelst. Sec. 2. Wilkins, p. 63.]
+
+Rebellion, to whatever excess it was carried, was not capital, but
+might be redeemed by a sum of money [r].  The legislators, knowing it
+impossible to prevent all disorders, only imposed a higher fine on
+breaches of the peace committed in the king's court, or before an
+alderman or bishop.  An alehouse too seems to have been considered as
+a privileged place; and any quarrels that arose there were more
+severely punished than elsewhere [s].
+[FN [r] LL. Ethelredi, apud Wilkins, p. 110.  LL. Aelf. Sec. 4.
+Wilkins, p. 35.  [s] LL. Hloth. and Eadm. Sec. 12, 13.  LL. Ethelr.
+apud Wilkins, p. 117.]
+
+[MN Rules of proof.]
+If the manner of punishing crimes among the Anglo-Saxons appear
+singular, the proofs were not less so; and were also the natural
+result of the situation of the people.  Whatever we may imagine
+concerning the usual truth and sincerity of men who live in a rude and
+barbarous state, there is much more falsehood, and even perjury among
+them, than among civilized nations; virtue which is nothing but a more
+enlarged and more cultivated reason, never flourishes to any degree,
+nor is founded on steady principles of honour, except where a good
+education becomes general; and where men are taught the pernicious
+consequences of vice, treachery, and immorality.  Even superstition,
+though more prevalent among ignorant nations, is but a poor supply for
+the defects in knowledge and education: our European ancestors, who
+employed every moment the expedient of swearing on extraordinary
+crosses and relics, were less honourable in all engagements than their
+posterity, who, from experience, have omitted those ineffectual
+securities.  This general proneness to perjury was much increased by
+the usual want of discernment in judges, who could not discuss an
+intricate evidence, and were obliged to number, not weigh, the
+testimony of the witnesses [t].  Hence the ridiculous practice of
+obliging men to bring compurgators, who, as they did not pretend to
+know any thing of the fact, expressed upon oath, that they believed
+the person spoke true; and these compurgators were in some cases
+multiplied to the number of three hundred [u].  The practice also of
+single combat was employed by most nations on the continent as a
+remedy against false evidence [w]; and though it was frequently
+dropped, from the opposition of the clergy, it was continually revived
+from experience of the falsehood attending the testimony of witnesses
+[x].  It became at last a species of jurisprudence: the cases were
+determined by law, in which the party might challenge his adversary,
+or the witnesses, or the judge himself [y]: and though these customs
+were absurd, they were rather an improvement on the methods of trial
+which had formerly been practised among those barbarous nations, and
+which still prevailed among the Anglo-Saxons.
+[FN [t] Sometimes the laws fixed easy general rules for weighing the
+credibility of witnesses.  A man whose life was estimated at 120
+shillings, counterbalanced six ceorles, each of whose lives was only
+valued at 20 shillings, and his oath was deemed equivalent to that of
+all the six.  See Wilkins, p. 72.  [u] Praef. Nicol. ad Wilkins, p 11.
+[w] LL. Burgund. cap. 45.  LL. Lomb. lib. 2. tit. 55, cap. 34.  [x]
+LL. Longob. lib. 2. tit. 55. cap. 23. apud Landenb. p. 661.  [y] See
+Desfontaines and Beaumanoir.]
+
+When any controversy about a fact became too intricate for those
+ignorant judges to unravel, they had recourse to what they called the
+judgment of God; that is, to fortune: their methods of consulting this
+oracle were various.  One of them was the decision of the CROSS: it
+was practised in this manner: when a person was accused of any crime,
+he first cleared himself by oath, and he was attended by eleven
+compurgators.  He next took two pieces of wood, one of which was
+marked with the sign of the cross, and wrapping both up in wool, he
+placed them on the altar, or on some celebrated relic.  After solemn
+prayers for the success of the experiment, a priest, or, in his stead,
+some unexperienced youth, took up one of the pieces of wood, and if he
+happened upon that which was marked with the figure of the cross, the
+person was pronounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty [z].  This
+practice, as it arose from superstition, was abolished by it in
+France.  The emperor, Lewis the Debonnaire, prohibited that method of
+trial, not because it was uncertain, but lest that sacred figure, says
+he, of the cross should be prostituted in common disputes and
+controversies [a].
+[FN [z] LL. Frison. tit. 14. apud Lindenbrogium, p. 496.  [a] Du
+Cange, in verb. CRUX.]
+
+The ordeal was another established method of trial among the Anglo-
+Saxons.  It was practised either by boiling water or red-hot iron.
+The former was appropriated to the common people; the latter to the
+nobility.  The water or iron was consecrated by many prayers, masses,
+fastings, and exorcisms [b]; after which the person accused either
+took up a stone sunk in the water [c] to a certain depth, or carried
+the iron to a certain distance; and his hand being wrapped up, and the
+covering sealed for three days, if there appeared, on examining it, no
+marks of burning, he was pronounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty
+[d].  The trial by cold water was different: the person was thrown
+into consecrated water; if he swam, he was guilty; if he sunk,
+innocent [e].  It is difficult for us to conceive how any innocent
+person could ever escape by the one trial, or any criminal be
+convicted by the other.  But there was another usage admirably
+calculated for allowing every criminal to escape who had confidence
+enough to try it.  A consecrated cake, called a corsned, was produced;
+which if the person could swallow and digest he was pronounced
+innocent [f].
+[FN [b] Spellm. in verb. ORDEAL.  Parker, p. 155.  Lindenbrog. p 1299.
+[c] LL. Inae, Sec. 77.  [d] Sometimes the person accused walked
+barefoot over red-hot iron.  [e] Spellm. in verb. ORDEALIUM.  [f]
+Spellm. in verb. CORSNED  Parker, p. 156.  Text. Roffens. p. 33.]
+
+[MN Military force.]
+The feudal law, if it had place at all among the Anglo-Saxons, which
+is doubtful, was not certainly extended over all the landed property,
+and was not attended with those consequences of homage, reliefs [g],
+wardship, marriage, and other burdens, which were inseparable from it
+in the kingdoms of the continent.  As the Saxons expelled, or almost
+entirely destroyed, the ancient Britons, they planted themselves in
+this island on the same footing with their ancestors in Germany, and
+found no occasion for the feudal institutions [h], which were
+calculated to maintain a kind of standing army, always in readiness to
+suppress any insurrection among the conquered people.  The trouble and
+expense of defending the state in England lay equally upon all the
+land; and it was usual for every five hides to equip a man for the
+service.  The TRINODA NECESSITAS, as it was called, or the burden of
+military expeditions, of repairing highways, and of building and
+supporting bridges, was inseparable from landed property, even though
+it belonged to the church or monasteries, unless exempted by a
+particular charter [i].  The ceorles or husbandmen were provided with
+arms, and were obliged to take their turn in military duty [k].  There
+were computed to be two hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred
+hides in England [l]; consequently, the ordinary military force of the
+kingdom consisted of forty-eight thousand seven hundred and twenty
+men; though, no doubt, on extraordinary occasions, a greater number
+might be assembled.  The king and nobility had some military tenants,
+who were called Sithcun-men [m].  And there were some lands annexed to
+the office of alderman, and to other offices; but these probably were
+not of great extent, and were possessed only during pleasure, as in
+the commencement of the feudal law in other countries of Europe.
+[FN [g] On the death of an alderman, a greater or lesser thane, there
+was a payment made to the king of his best arms; and this was called
+his heriot: but this was not of the nature of a relief.  See Spellm.
+of Tenures, p. 2.  The value of this heriot fixed by Canute's laws,
+Sec. 69.  [h] Bracton de Acqu. rer. domin. lib. 2. cap. 16.  See more
+fully Spellman of Feuds and Tenures, and Craigius de jure feud. lib.
+1. dieg. 7.  [i] Spellm. Conc. vol. i. p. 256.  [k] Inae, Sec. 51.
+[l] Spellm. of Feuds and Tenures, p. 17.  [m] Spellm. Conc. vol. i. p.
+195.]
+
+[MN Public revenue.]
+The revenue of the king seems to have consisted chiefly in his
+demesnes, which were large; and in the tolls and imposts which he
+probably levied at discretion on the boroughs and seaports that lay
+within his demesnes.  He could not alienate any part of the crown
+lands, even to religious uses, without the consent of the states [n].
+Danegelt was a land-tax of a shilling a hide, imposed by the states
+[o], either for payment of the sums exacted by the Danes, or for
+putting the kingdom in a posture of defence against those invaders
+[p].
+[FN [n] Spellm. Conc. vol. i. p. 340.  [o] Chron. Sax p. 128.  [p] LL.
+Edw. Con. Sec. 12.]
+
+[MN Value of money.]
+The Saxon pound, as likewise that which was coined for some centuries
+after the Conquest, was near three times the weight of our present
+money: there were forty-eight shillings in the pound, and five pence
+in a shilling [q]; consequently, a Saxon shilling was near a fifth
+heavier than ours, and a Saxon penny near three times as heavy [r].
+As to the value of money in those times, compared to commodities,
+there are some, though not very certain, means of computation.  A
+sheep, by the laws of Athelstan, was estimated at a shilling; that is,
+fifteen pence of our money.  The fleece was two fifths of the value of
+the whole sheep [s]; much above its present estimation; and the reason
+probably was, that the Saxons, like the ancients, were little
+acquainted with any clothing but what was made of wool.  Silk and
+cotton were quite unknown: linen was not much used.  An ox was
+computed at six times the value of a sheep; a cow at four [t].  If we
+suppose that the cattle in that age, from the defects in husbandry,
+were not so large as they are at present in England, we may compute
+that money was then near ten times of greater value.  A horse was
+valued at about thirty-six shillings of our money, or thirty Saxon
+shillings [u]; a mare a third less  A man at three pounds [w].  The
+board wages of a child the first year was eight shillings, together
+with a cow's pasture in summer, and an ox's in winter [x].  William of
+Malmesbury mentions it as a remarkably high price, that William Rufus
+gave fifteen marks for a horse, or about thirty pounds of our present
+money [y].  Between the years 900 and 1000, Ednoth bought a hide of
+land for about a hundred and eighteen shillings of our present money
+[z].  This was little more than a shilling an acre, which indeed
+appears to have been the usual price, as we may learn from other
+accounts [a].  A palfrey was sold for twelve shillings about the year
+966 [b].  The value of an ox in King Ethelred's time was between seven
+and eight shillings; a cow about six shillings [c].  Gervas of Tilbury
+says, that in Henry I.'s time, bread which would suffice a hundred men
+for a day was rated at three shillings, or a shilling of that age; for
+it is thought that, soon after the Conquest, a pound sterling was
+divided into twenty shillings: a sheep was rated at a shilling; and so
+of other things in proportion.  In Athelstan's time a ram was valued
+at a shilling, or four pence Saxon [d].  The tenants of Shireburn were
+obliged, at their choice, to pay either sixpence or four hens [e].
+About 1232, the Abbot of St. Alban's going on a journey, hired seven
+handsome stout horses; and agreed, if any of them died on the road, to
+pay the owner thirty shillings a-piece of our present money [f].  It
+is to be remarked, that in all ancient times the raising of corn,
+especially wheat, being a species of manufactory, that commodity
+always bore a higher price, compared to cattle, than it does in our
+times [g].  The Saxon Chronicle tells us [h], that in the reign of
+Edward the Confessor, there was the most terrible famine ever known;
+insomuch that a quarter of wheat rose to sixty pennies, or fifteen
+shillings of our present money.  Consequently it was as dear as if it
+now cost seven pounds ten shillings.  This much exceeds the great
+famine in the end of Queen Elizabeth, when a quarter of wheat was sold
+for four pounds.  Money in this last period was nearly of the same
+value as in our time.  These severe famines are a certain proof of bad
+husbandry.
+[FN [q] LL. Aelf. Sec. 40.  [r] Fleetwood’s Chron. Pretiosum, p. 27,
+28, &c.  [s] LL. Inae, Sec. 69.  [t] Wilkins, p 66.  [u] Ibid. p. 126.
+[w] Ibid.  [x] LL. Inae, Sec. 38.  [y] p. 121.  [z] Hist. Rames, p.
+415.  [a] Hist. Eliens. p. 473.  [b] Ibid. p. 471.  [c] Wilkins, p.
+126.  [d] Ibid. p. 56.  [e] Monast. Anglic. vol. ii. p. 528.  [f] Mat.
+Paris.  [g] Fleetwood, p. 83, 94, 96, 98.  [h] p. 157.]
+
+On the whole, there are three things to be considered, wherever a sum
+of money is mentioned in ancient times.  First, the change of
+denomination, by which a pound has been reduced to the third part of
+its ancient weight in silver.  Secondly, the change in value by the
+greater plenty of money, which has reduced the same weight of silver
+to ten times less value compared to commodities; and consequently a
+pound sterling to the thirtieth part of the ancient value.  Thirdly,
+the fewer people and less industry, which were then to be found in
+every European kingdom.  This circumstance made even the thirtieth
+part of the sum more difficult to levy, and caused any sum to have
+more than thirty times greater weight and influence, both abroad and
+at home, than in our times; in the same manner that a sum, a hundred
+thousand pounds, for instance, is at present more difficult to levy in
+a small state, such as Bavaria, and can produce greater effects on
+such a small community, than on England.  This last difference is not
+easy to be calculated: but allowing that England has now six times
+more industry, and three times more people than it had at the
+Conquest, and for some reigns after that period, we are upon that
+supposition to conceive, taking all circumstances together, every sum
+of money mentioned by historians, as if it were multiplied more than a
+hundredfold above a sum of the same denomination at present.
+
+In the Saxon times, land was divided equally among all the male
+children of the deceased, according to the custom of Gavelkind.  The
+practice of entails is to be found in those times [i].  Land was
+chiefly of two kinds, bockland, or land held by book or charter, which
+was regarded as full property, and descended to the heirs of the
+possessor; and folkland, or the land held by the ceorles and common
+people, who were removable at pleasure, and were indeed only tenants
+during the will of their lords.
+[FN [i] LL Aelf. Sec. 37, apud Wilkins, p. 43.]
+
+The first attempt which we find in England to separate the
+ecclesiastical from the civil jurisdiction, was that law of Edgar, by
+which all disputes among the clergy were ordered to be carried before
+the bishop [k].  The penances were then very severe; but as a man
+could buy them off with money, or might substitute others to perform
+them, they lay easy upon the rich [l].
+[FN [k] Wilkins, p. 83.  [l] Wilkins, p. 96, 97.  Spellm. Conc. p.
+473.]
+
+[MN Manners.]
+With regard to the manners of the Anglo-Saxons we can say little, but
+that they were in general a rude uncultivated people, ignorant of
+letters, unskilled in the mechanical arts, untamed to submission under
+law and government, addicted to intemperance, riot, and disorder.
+Their best quality was their military courage, which yet was not
+supported by discipline or conduct.  Their want of fidelity to the
+prince, or to any trust reposed in them, appears strongly in the
+history of their later period; and their want of humanity in all their
+history.  Even the Norman historians, notwithstanding the low state of
+the arts in their own country, speak of them as barbarians, when they
+mention the invasion made upon them by the Duke of Normandy [m].  The
+Conquest put the people in a situation of receiving slowly, from
+abroad, the rudiments of science and cultivation, and of correcting
+their rough and licentious manners.
+[FN [m] Gul. Pict. p. 202.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CONSEQUENCES OF THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS.--SUBMISSION OF THE ENGLISH.--
+SETTLEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT.--KING'S RETURN TO NORMANDY.--DISCONTENTS
+OF THE ENGLISH.--THEIR INSURRECTIONS.--RIGOURS OF THE NORMAN
+GOVERNMENT.--NEW INSURRECTIONS.--NEW RIGOURS OF THE GOVERNMENT.--
+INTRODUCTION OF THE FEUDAL LAW.--INNOVATION IN ECCLESIASTICAL
+GOVERNMENT.--INSURRECTION OF THE NORMAN BARONS.--DISPUTE ABOUT
+INVESTITURES.--REVOLT OF PRINCE ROBERT.--DOMESDAY-BOOK.--THE NEW
+FOREST.--WAR WITH FRANCE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF WILLIAM THE
+CONQUEROR.
+
+
+
+[MN 1066.  Consequences of the battle of Hastings.]
+Nothing could exceed the consternation which seized the English, when
+they received intelligence of the unfortunate battle of Hastings, the
+death of their king, the slaughter of their principal nobility and of
+their bravest warriors, and the rout and dispersion of the remainder.
+But though the loss which they had sustained in that fatal action was
+considerable, it might have been repaired by a great nation; where the
+people were generally armed, and where there resided so many powerful
+noblemen in every province, who could have assembled their retainers,
+and have obliged the Duke of Normandy to divide his army, and probably
+to waste it in a variety of actions and rencounters.  It was thus that
+the kingdom had formerly resisted, for many years, its invaders, and
+had been gradually subdued, by the continued efforts of the Romans,
+Saxons, and Danes; and equal difficulties might have been apprehended
+by William in this bold and hazardous enterprise.  But there were
+several vices in the Anglo-Saxon constitution, which rendered it
+difficult for the English to defend their liberties in so critical an
+emergency.  The people had in a great measure lost all national pride
+and spirit, by their recent and long subjection to the Danes; and as
+Canute had, in the course of his administration, much abated the
+rigours of conquest, and had governed them equitably by their own
+laws, they regarded with the less terror the ignominy of a foreign
+yoke, and deemed the inconveniences of submission less formidable than
+those of bloodshed, war, and resistance.  Their attachment also to the
+ancient royal family had been much weakened by their habits of
+submission to the Danish princes, and by their late election of
+Harold, or their acquiescence in his usurpation.  And as they had long
+been accustomed to regard Edgar Atheling, the only heir of the Saxon
+line, as unfit to govern them even in times of order and tranquillity,
+they could entertain small hopes of his being able to repair such
+great losses as they had sustained, or to withstand the victorious
+arms of the Duke of Normandy.
+
+That they might not, however, be altogether wanting to themselves in
+this extreme necessity, the English took some steps towards adjusting
+their disjointed government, and uniting themselves against the common
+enemy.  The two potent earls, Edwin and Morcar, who had fled to London
+with the remains of the broken army, took the lead on this occasion:
+in concert with Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, a man possessed of
+great authority and of ample revenues, they proclaimed Edgar, and
+endeavoured to put the people in a posture of defence, and encouraged
+them to resist the Normans [a].  But the terror of the late defeat,
+and the near neighbourhood of the invaders, increased the confusion
+inseparable from great revolutions: and every resolution proposed was
+hasty, fluctuating, tumultuary; disconcerted by fear or faction,
+ill-planned, and worse executed.
+[FN [a] Gul. Pictav. p. 205.  Order. Vitalis, p. 502.  Hoveden, p.
+449.  Knyghton, p. 2343.]
+
+William, that his enemies might have no leisure to recover from their
+consternation, or unite their councils, immediately put himself in
+motion after his victory, and resolved to prosecute an enterprise
+which nothing but celerity and vigour could render finally successful.
+His first attempt was against Romney, whose inhabitants he severely
+punished, on account of their cruel treatment of some Norman seamen
+and soldiers, who had been carried thither by stress of weather, or by
+a mistake in their course [b]; and foreseeing that his conquest of
+England might still be attended with many difficulties and with much
+opposition, he deemed it necessary, before he should advance farther
+into the country, to make himself master of Dover, which would both
+secure him a retreat in case of adverse fortune, and afford him a safe
+landing-place for such supplies as might be requisite for pushing his
+advantages.  The terror diffused by his victory at Hastings was so
+great, that the garrison of Dover, though numerous and well provided,
+immediately capitulated; and as the Normans, rushing in to take
+possession of the town, hastily set fire to some of the houses,
+William, desirous to conciliate the minds of the English by an
+appearance of lenity and justice, made compensation to the inhabitants
+for their losses [c].
+[FN [b] Gul. Pictav. p. 204.  [c] Gul. Pictav. p. 204.]
+
+The Norman army, being much distressed with a dysentery, was obliged
+to remain here eight days, but the duke, on their recovery, advanced
+with quick marches towards London, and by his approach increased the
+confusions which were already so prevalent in the English councils.
+The ecclesiastics in particular, whose influence was great over the
+people, began to declare in his favour; and as most of the bishops and
+dignified clergymen were even then Frenchmen or Normans, the pope’s
+bull, by which his enterprise was avowed and hallowed, was now openly
+insisted on as a reason for general submission.  The superior learning
+of those prelates, which, during the Confessor's reign, had raised
+them above the ignorant Saxons, made their opinions be received with
+implicit faith; and a young prince, like Edgar, whose capacity was
+deemed so mean, was but ill qualified to resist the impression which
+they made on the minds of the people.  A repulse which a body of
+Londoners received from five hundred Norman horse, renewed in the city
+the terror of the great defeat at Hastings; the easy submission of all
+the inhabitants of Kent was an additional discouragement to them; the
+burning of Southwark before their eyes made them dread a like fate to
+their own city; and no man any longer entertained thoughts but of
+immediate safety and of self-preservation.  Even the Earls Edwin and
+Morcar, in despair of making effectual resistance, retired with their
+troops to their own provinces; and the people thenceforth disposed
+themselves unanimously to yield to the  victor.  As soon as he passed
+the Thames at Wallingford, and reached Berkhamstead, Stigand, the
+primate, made submissions to him: before he came within sight of the
+city, all the chief nobility, and Edgar Atheling himself, the new-
+elected king, came into his camp, and declared their intention of
+yielding to his authority [d].  They requested him to mount their
+throne, which they now considered as vacant; and declared to him, that
+as they had always been ruled by regal power, they desired to follow,
+in this particular, the example of their ancestors, and knew of no one
+more worthy than himself to hold the reins of government [e].
+[FN [d] Hoveden, p. 450.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 634.  [e] Gul. Pict. p.
+205.  Ord. Vital. p. 503.]
+
+Though this was the great object to which the duke's enterprise
+tended, he feigned to deliberate on the offer; and being desirous at
+first of preserving the appearance of a legal administration, he
+wished to obtain a more explicit and formal consent of the English
+nation [f]: but Almar, of Aquitain, a man equally respected for valour
+in the field and for prudence in council, remonstrating with him on
+the danger of delay in so critical a conjuncture, he laid aside all
+farther scruples, and accepted of the crown which was tendered him.
+Orders were immediately issued to prepare every thing for the ceremony
+of his coronation; but as he was yet afraid to place entire confidence
+in the Londoners, who were numerous and warlike, he meanwhile
+commanded fortresses to be erected, in order to curb the inhabitants,
+and to secure his person and government [g].
+[FN [f] Gul. Pictav. p. 205.  [g] Ibid.]
+
+Stigand was not much in the duke’s favour, both because he had
+intruded into the see on the expulsion of Robert the Norman, and
+because he possessed such influence and authority over the English
+[h], as might be dangerous to a new-established monarch.  William,
+therefore, pretending that the primate had obtained his pall in an
+irregular manner from Pope Benedict IX., who was himself an usurper,
+refused to be consecrated by him, and conferred this honour on Aldred,
+Archbishop of York.  Westminster Abbey was the place appointed for
+that magnificent ceremony; the most considerable of the nobility, both
+English and Norman, attended the duke on this occasion: [MN 1066.
+Dec.] Aldred, in a short speech, asked the former whether they agreed
+to accept of William as their king: the Bishop of Coutance put the
+same question to the latter; and both being answered with acclamations
+[i], Aldred administered to the duke the usual coronation oath, by
+which he bound himself to protect the church, to administer justice,
+and to repress violence: he then anointed him, and put the crown upon
+his head [k].  There appeared nothing but joy in the countenances of
+the spectators: but in that very moment there burst forth the
+strongest symptoms of the jealousy and animosity which prevailed
+between the nations, and which continually increased during the reign
+of this prince.  The Norman soldiers, who were placed without, in
+order to guard the church, hearing the shouts within, fancied that the
+English were offering violence to their duke; and they immediately
+assaulted the populace, and set fire to the neighbouring houses.  The
+alarm was conveyed to the nobility who surrounded the prince; both
+English and Normans, full of apprehensions, rushed out to secure
+themselves from the present danger; and it was with difficulty that
+William himself was able to appease the tumult [l].
+[FN [h] Eadmer, p. 6.  [i] Order. Vital. p. 503.  [k] Malmesbury, p.
+271, says, that he also promised to govern the Normans and English by
+equal laws; and this addition to the usual oath seems not improbable,
+considering the circumstances of the times.  [l] Gul. Pict. p. 206.
+Order. Vitalis, p. 503.]
+
+[MN 1067.  Settlement of the government.]
+The king, thus possessed of the throne by a pretended destination of
+King Edward, and by an irregular election of the people, but still
+more by force of arms, retired from London to Berking, in Essex, and
+there received the submissions of all the nobility who had not
+attended his coronation.  Edric, surnamed the Forester, grand-nephew
+to that Edric, so noted for his repeated acts of perfidy during the
+reigns of Ethelred and Edmond; Earl Coxo, a man famous for bravery;
+even Edwin and Morcar, Earls of Mercia and Northumberland, with the
+other principal noblemen of England, came and swore fealty to him;
+were received into favour, and were confirmed in the possession of
+their estates and dignities [m].  Every thing bore the appearance of
+peace and tranquillity; and William had no other occupation than to
+give contentment to the foreigners who had assisted him to mount the
+throne, and to his new subjects, who had so readily submitted to him.
+[FN [m] Gul. Pict. p. 208.  Order. Vitalis, p. 506.]
+
+He had got possession of the treasure of Harold, which was
+considerable; and being also supplied with rich presents from the
+opulent men in all parts of England, who were solicitous to gain the
+favour of their new sovereign, he distributed great sums among his
+troops, and by this liberality gave them hopes of obtaining at length
+those more durable establishments which they had expected from his
+enterprise [n].  The ecclesiastics, both at home and abroad, had much
+forwarded his success, and he failed not, in return, to express his
+gratitude and devotion in the manner which was most acceptable to
+them: he sent Harold's standard to the pope, accompanied with many
+valuable presents: all the considerable monasteries and churches in
+France, where prayers had been put up for his success, now tasted of
+his bounty [o]: the English monks found him well disposed to favour
+their order; and be built a new convent near Hastings, which he called
+BATTLE ABBEY, and which, on pretence of supporting monks to pray for
+his own soul, and for that of Harold, served as a lasting memorial of
+his victory [p].
+[FN [n] Gul. Pict. p. 206.  [o] Ibid.  [p] Gul. Gemet. p. 288.  Chron.
+Sax. p. 189.  M. West. p. 226.  M. Paris p. 9.  Diceto, p. 482.  This
+convent was freed by him from all episcopal jurisdiction.  Monast.
+Ang. tom. i. p. 311, 312.]
+
+He introduced into England that strict execution of justice for which
+his administration had been much celebrated in Normandy; and even
+during this violent revolution, every disorder or oppression met with
+rigorous punishment [q].  His army, in particular, was governed with
+severe discipline; and, notwithstanding the insolence of victory, care
+was taken to give as little offence as possible to the jealousy of the
+vanquished.  The king appeared solicitous to unite, in an amicable
+manner, the Normans and the English, by intermarriages and alliances,
+and all his new subjects who approached his person were received with
+affability and regard.  No signs of suspicion appeared, not even
+towards Edgar Atheling, the heir of the ancient royal family, whom
+William confirmed in the honours of Earl of Oxford, conferred on him
+by Harold, and whom he affected to treat with the highest kindness, as
+nephew to the Confessor, his great friend and benefactor.  Though he
+confiscated the estates of Harold, and of those who had fought in the
+battle of Hastings on the side of that prince, whom he represented as
+an usurper, he seemed willing to admit of every plausible excuse for
+past opposition to his pretensions, and he received many into favour
+who had carried arms against him.  He confirmed the liberties and
+immunities of London and the other cities of England, and appeared
+desirous of replacing every thing on ancient establishments.  In his
+whole administration he bore the semblance of the lawful prince, not
+of the conqueror; and the English began to flatter themselves that
+they had changed, not the form of their government, but the succession
+only of their sovereigns, a matter which gave them small concern.  The
+better to reconcile his new subjects to his authority, William made a
+progress through some parts of England; and besides a splendid court
+and majestic presence, which overawed the people, already struck with
+his military fame, the appearance of his clemency and justice gained
+the approbation of the wise, attentive to the first steps of their new
+sovereign.
+[FN [q] Gul. Pict. p. 208.  Order. Vital. p. 506.]
+
+But amidst this confidence and friendship which he expressed for the
+English, the king took care to place all real power in the hands of
+his Normans, and still to keep possession of the sword, to which he
+was sensible he had owed his advancement to sovereign authority.  He
+disarmed the city of London and other places, which appeared most
+warlike and populous; and building citadels in that capital, as well
+as in Winchester, Hereford, and the cities best situated for
+commanding the kingdom, he quartered Norman soldiers in all of them,
+and left no where any power able to resist or oppose him.  He bestowed
+the forfeited estates on the most eminent of his captains, and
+established funds for the payment of his soldiers.  And thus, while
+his civil administration carried the face of a legal magistrate, his
+military institutions were those of a master and tyrant; at least of
+one who reserved to himself; whenever he pleased, the power of
+assuming that character.
+
+[MN 1067.  King’s return to Normandy.]
+By this mixture, however, of vigour and lenity, he had so soothed the
+minds of the English, that he thought he might safely revisit his
+native country, and enjoy the triumph and congratulation of his
+ancient subjects.  He left the administration in the hands of his
+uterine brother, Odo, Bishop of Baieux, and of William Fitz-Osberne.
+[MN March.]  That their authority might be exposed to less danger, he
+carried over with him all the most considerable nobility of England,
+who, while they served to grace his court by their presence and
+magnificent retinues, were in reality hostages for the fidelity of the
+nation.  Among these were Edgar Atheling, Stigand the Primate, the
+Earls Edwin and Morcar, Waltheof, the son of the brave Earl Siward,
+with others eminent for the greatness of their fortunes and families,
+or for their ecclesiastical and civil dignities.  He was visited at
+the abbey of Fescamp, where he resided, during some time, by Rodulph,
+uncle to the King of France, and by many powerful princes and nobles,
+who, having contributed to his enterprise, were desirous of
+participating in the joy and advantages of its success.  His English
+courtiers, willing to ingratiate themselves with their new sovereign,
+outvied each other in equipages and entertainments; and made a display
+of riches which struck the foreigners with astonishment.  William of
+Poictiers, a Norman historian [r], who was present, speaks with
+admiration of the beauty of their persons, the size and workmanship of
+their silver plate, the costliness of their embroideries, an art in
+which the English then excelled; and he expresses himself in such
+terms as tend much to exalt our idea of the opulence and cultivation
+of the people [s].  But though every thing bore the face of joy and
+festivity, and William himself treated his new courtiers with great
+appearance of kindness, it was impossible altogether to prevent the
+insolence of the Normans; and the English nobles derived little
+satisfaction from those entertainments, where they considered
+themselves as led in triumph by their ostentatious conqueror.
+[FN [r] P. 211, 212.  [s] As the historian chiefly insists on the
+silver plate, his panegyric on the English magnificence shows only how
+incompetent a judge he was of the matter.  Silver was then of ten
+times the value, and was more than twenty times more rare than at
+present; and consequently, of all species of luxury, plate must have
+been the rarest.]
+
+[MN 1067.  Discontents of the English.]
+In England affairs took still a worse turn during the absence of the
+sovereign.  Discontents and complaints multiplied every where; secret
+conspiracies were entered into against the government; hostilities
+were already begun in many places; and every thing seemed to menace a
+revolution, as rapid as that which had placed William on the throne.
+The historian above-mentioned, who is a panegyrist of his master,
+throws the blame entirely on the fickle and mutinous disposition of
+the English, and highly celebrates the justice and lenity of Odo's and
+Fitz-Osberne's administration [t].  But other historians, with more
+probability, impute the cause chiefly to the Normans, who, despising a
+people that had so easily submitted to the yoke, envying their riches,
+and grudging the restraints imposed upon their own rapine, were
+desirous of provoking them to a rebellion, by which they expected to
+acquire new confiscations and forfeitures, and to gratify those
+unbounded hopes which they had formed in entering on this enterprise
+[u].
+[FN [t] P. 212.  [u] Order. Vital. p. 507.]
+
+It is evident that the chief reason of this alteration in the
+sentiments of the English must be ascribed to the departure of
+William, who was alone able to curb the violence of his captains and
+to overawe the mutinies of the people.  Nothing indeed appears more
+strange, than that this prince, in less than three months after the
+conquest of a great, warlike, and turbulent nation, should absent
+himself in order to revisit his own country, which remained in
+profound tranquillity, and was not menaced by any of its neighbours;
+and should so long leave his jealous subjects at the mercy of an
+insolent and licentious army.  Were we not assured of the solidity of
+his genius, and the good sense displayed in all other circumstances of
+his conduct, we might ascribe this measure to a vain ostentation,
+which rendered him impatient to display his pomp and magnificence
+among his ancient subjects.  It is therefore more natural to believe,
+that in so extraordinary a step he was guided by a concealed policy,
+and that, though he had thought proper at first to allure the people
+to submission by the semblance of a legal administration, he found
+that he could neither satisfy his rapacious captains, nor secure his
+unstable government without farther exerting the rights of conquest,
+and seizing the possessions of the English.  In order to have a
+pretext for this violence, he endeavoured, without discovering his
+intentions, to provoke and allure them into insurrections, which, he
+thought, could never prove dangerous, while he detained all the
+principal nobility in Normandy, while a great and victorious army was
+quartered in England, and while he himself was so near to suppress any
+tumult or rebellion.  But as no ancient writer has ascribed this
+tyrannical purpose to William, it scarcely seems allowable, from
+conjecture alone, to throw such an imputation upon him.
+
+[MN Their insurrections.]
+But whether we are to account for that measure from the king's vanity
+or from his policy, it was the immediate cause of all the calamities
+which the English endured during this and the subsequent reigns, and
+gave rise to those mutual jealousies and animosities between them and
+the Normans, which were never appeased till a long tract of time had
+gradually united the two nations, and made them one people.  The
+inhabitants of Kent, who had first submitted to the conqueror, were
+the first that attempted to throw off the yoke; and in confederacy
+with Eustace, Count of Boulogne, who had also been disgusted by the
+Normans, they made an attempt, though without success, on the garrison
+of Dover [w].  Edric the Forester, whose possessions lay on the banks
+of the Severn, being provoked at the depredations of some Norman
+captains in his neighbourhood, formed an alliance with Blethyn and
+Rowallan, two Welsh princes; and endeavoured, with their assistance,
+to repel force by force [x].  But though these open hostilities were
+not very considerable, the disaffection was general among the English,
+who had become sensible, though too late, of their defenceless
+condition, and began already to experience those insults and injuries
+which a nation must always expect, that allows itself to be reduced to
+that abject situation.  A secret conspiracy was entered into to
+perpetrate, in one day, a general massacre of the Normans, like that
+which had formerly been executed upon the Danes; and the quarrel was
+become so general and national, that the vassals of Earl Coxo, having
+desired him to head them in an insurrection, and finding him resolute
+in maintaining his fidelity to William, put him to death as a traitor
+to his country.
+[FN [w] Gul. Gemet. p. 289.  Order. Vital. p. 508.  Anglia Sacra, vol.
+i. p. 245.  [x] Hoveden, p. 450.  M. West. p. 226.  Sim. Dunelm. p.
+197.]
+
+[MN Dec. 6.]
+The king, informed of these dangerous discontents, hastened over to
+England; and by his presence, and the vigorous measures which he
+pursued, disconcerted all the schemes of the conspirators.  Such of
+them as had been more violent in their mutiny, betrayed their guilt by
+flying or concealing themselves; and the confiscation of their
+estates, while it increased the number of malecontents, both enabled
+William to gratify farther the rapacity of his Norman captains, and
+gave them the prospect of new forfeitures and attainders.  The king
+began to regard all his English subjects as inveterate and
+irreclaimable enemies; and thenceforth either embraced, or was more
+fully confirmed in the resolution of seizing their possessions, and of
+reducing them to the most abject slavery.  Though the natural violence
+and severity of his temper made him incapable of feeling any remorse
+in the execution of this tyrannical purpose, he had art enough to
+conceal his intention, and to preserve still some appearance of
+justice in his oppressions.  He ordered all the English, who had been
+arbitrarily expelled by the Normans during his absence, to be restored
+to their estates [y]: but at the same time he imposed a general tax on
+the people, that of Danegelt, which had been abolished by the
+Confessor, and which had always been extremely odious to the nation
+[z].
+[FN [y] Chron. Sax. p. 173.  This fact is a full proof that the
+Normans had committed great injustice, and were the real cause of the
+insurrections of the English.  [z] Hoveden, p. 450.  Sim. Dunelm. p
+197.  Alur. Beverl. p. 127.]
+
+[MN 1068.]  As the vigilance of William overawed the malecontents,
+their insurrections were more the result of an impatient humour in the
+people, than of any regular conspiracy which could give them a
+rational hope of success against the established power of the Normans.
+The inhabitants of Exeter, instigated by Githa, mother to King Harold,
+refused to admit a Norman garrison, and betaking themselves to arms,
+were strengthened by the accession of the neighbouring inhabitants of
+Devonshire and Cornwall [a].  The king hastened with his forces to
+chastise this revolt; and on his approach, the wiser and more
+considerable citizens, sensible of the unequal contest, persuaded the
+people to submit, and to deliver hostages for their obedience.  A
+sudden mutiny of the populace broke this agreement; and William,
+appearing before the walls, ordered the eyes of one of the hostages to
+be put out, as an earnest of that severity which the rebels must
+expect if they persevered in their revolt [b].  The inhabitants were
+anew seized with terror, and surrendering at discretion, threw
+themselves at the king's feet, and supplicated his clemency and
+forgiveness.  William was not destitute of generosity, when his temper
+was not hardened either by policy or passion: he was prevailed on to
+pardon the rebels, and he set guards on all the gates, in order to
+prevent the rapacity and insolence of his soldiery [c].  Githa escaped
+with her treasures to Flanders.  The malecontents of Cornwall imitated
+the example of Exeter, and met with like treatment: and the king,
+having built a citadel in that city, which he put under the command of
+Baldwin, son of Earl Gilbert, returned to Winchester, and dispersed
+his army into their quarters.  He was here joined by his wife Matilda,
+who had not before visited England, and whom he now ordered to be
+crowned by Archbishop Aldred.  Soon after she brought him an accession
+to his family by the birth of a fourth son, whom he named Henry.  His
+three elder sons, Robert, Richard, and William, still resided in
+Normandy.
+[FN [a] Order. Vital. p. 510.  [b] Ibid.  [c] Ibid.]
+
+But though the king appeared thus fortunate, both in public and
+domestic life, the discontents of his English subjects augmented
+daily; and the injuries committed and suffered on both sides rendered
+the quarrel between them and the Normans absolutely incurable.  The
+insolence of victorious masters, dispersed throughout the kingdom,
+seemed intolerable to the natives; and wherever they found the
+Normans, separate or assembled in small bodies, they secretly set upon
+them, and gratified their vengeance by the slaughter of their enemies.
+But an insurrection in the north drew thither the general attention,
+and seemed to threaten more important consequences.  Edwin and Morcar
+appeared at the head of this rebellion; and these potent noblemen,
+before they took arms, stipulated for foreign succours from their
+nephew Blethyn, Prince of North Wales, from Malcolm, King of Scotland,
+and from Sweyn, King of Denmark.  Besides the general discontent which
+had seized the English, the two earls were incited to this revolt by
+private injuries.  William, in order to ensure them to his interests,
+had, on his accession, promised his daughter in marriage to Edwin; but
+either he had never seriously intended to perform this engagement, or,
+having changed his plan of administration in England from clemency to
+rigour, he thought it was to little purpose, if he gained one family,
+while he enraged the whole nation.  When Edwin, therefore, renewed his
+applications, be gave him an absolute denial [d]; and this
+disappointment, added to so many other reasons of disgust, induced
+that nobleman and his brother to concur with their incensed
+countrymen, and to make one general effort for the recovery of their
+ancient liberties.  William knew the importance of celerity in
+quelling an insurrection, supported by such powerful leaders, and so
+agreeable to the wishes of the people, and having his troops always in
+readiness, he advanced by great journeys to the north.  On his march
+he gave orders to fortify the castle of Warwick, of which he left
+Henry de Beaumont governor, and that of Nottingham, which he committed
+to the custody of William Peverell, another Norman captain [e].  He
+reached York before the rebels were in any condition for resistance,
+or were joined by any of the foreign succours which they expected,
+except a small reinforcement from Wales [f]; and the two earls found
+no means of safety, but having recourse to the clemency of the victor.
+Archil, a potent nobleman in those parts, imitated their example and
+delivered his son as a hostage for his fidelity [g]; nor were the
+people, thus deserted by their leaders, able to make any farther
+resistance.  But the treatment which William gave the chiefs was very
+different from that which fell to the share of their followers.  He
+observed religiously the terms which he had granted to the former, and
+allowed them for the present to keep possession of their estates; but
+he extended the rigours of his confiscations over the latter, and gave
+away their lands to his foreign adventurers.  These, planted
+throughout the whole country, and in possession of the military power,
+left Edwin and Morcar, whom he pretended to spare, destitute of all
+support, and ready to fall, whenever he should think proper to command
+their ruin.  A peace which he made with Malcolm, who did him homage
+for Cumberland, seemed at the same time to deprive them of all
+prospect of foreign assistance [h].
+[FN [d] Order. Vital. p. 511.  [e] Ibid.  [f] Ibid.  [g] Ibid.  [h]
+Order. Vital. p. 511.]
+
+[MN Rigours of the Norman government.]
+The English were now sensible that their final destruction was
+intended; and that instead of a sovereign, whom they had hoped to gain
+by their submission, they had tamely surrendered themselves, without
+resistance, to a tyrant and a conqueror.  Though the early
+confiscation of Harold's followers might seem iniquitous, being
+inflicted on men who had never sworn fealty to the Duke of Normandy,
+who were ignorant of his pretensions, and who only fought in defence
+of the government which they themselves had established in their own
+country; yet were these rigours, however contrary to the ancient Saxon
+laws, excused on account of the urgent necessities of the prince; and
+those who were not involved in the present ruin hoped that they should
+thenceforth enjoy, without molestation, their possessions and their
+dignities.  But the successive destruction of so many other families
+convinced them that the king intended to rely entirely on the support
+and affections of foreigners; and they foresaw new forfeitures,
+attainders, and acts of violence as the necessary result of this
+destructive plan of administration.  They observed that no Englishman
+possessed his confidence, or was intrusted with any command or
+authority; and that the strangers, whom a rigorous discipline could
+have but ill restrained, were encouraged in their insolence and
+tyranny against them.  The easy submission of the kingdom on its first
+invasion had exposed the natives to contempt; the subsequent proofs of
+their animosity and resentment had made them the object of hatred; and
+they were now deprived of every expedient by which they could hope to
+make themselves either regarded or beloved by their sovereign.
+Impressed with the sense of this dismal situation, many Englishmen
+fled into foreign countries with an intention of passing their lives
+abroad free from oppression, or of returning on a favourable
+opportunity to assist their friends in the recovery of their native
+liberties [i].  Edgar Atheling himself, dreading the insidious
+caresses of William, was persuaded by Cospatric, a powerful
+Northumbrian, to escape with him into Scotland; and he carried thither
+his two sisters, Margaret and Christina.  They were well received by
+Malcolm, who soon after espoused Margaret, the elder sister; and
+partly with a view of strengthening his kingdom by the accession of so
+many strangers, partly in hopes of employing them against the growing
+power of William, he gave great countenance to all the English exiles.
+Many of them settled there; and laid the foundation of families which
+afterwards made a figure in that country.
+[FN [i] Order. Vital. p. 508.  M. West. p. 225.  M. Paris, p. 4.  Sim.
+Dun. p. 197.]
+
+While the English suffered under these oppressions, even the
+foreigners were not much at their ease; but finding themselves
+surrounded on all hands by enraged enemies, who took every advantage
+against them, and menaced them with still more bloody effects of the
+public resentment, they began to wish again for the tranquillity and
+security of their native country.  Hugh de Grentmesnil, and Humphry de
+Teliol, though intrusted with great commands, desired to be dismissed
+the service; and some others imitated their example: a desertion which
+was highly resented by the king, and which he punished by the
+confiscation of all their possessions in England [k].  But William's
+bounty to his followers could not fail of alluring many new
+adventurers into his service; and the rage of the vanquished English
+served only to excite the attention of the king and those warlike
+chiefs, and keep them in readiness to suppress every commencement of
+domestic rebellion or foreign invasion.
+[FN [k] Order. Vitalis, p. 512.]
+
+[MN 1069.  New insurrections.]
+It was not long before they found occupation for their prowess and
+military conduct.  Godwin, Edmond, and Magnus, three sons of Harold,
+had, immediately after the defeat at Hastings, sought a retreat in
+Ireland; where, having met with a kind reception from Dermot and other
+princes of that country, they projected an invasion on England, and
+they hoped that all the exiles from Denmark, Scotland, and Wales,
+assisted by forces from these several countries, would at once
+commence hostilities, and rouse the indignation of the English against
+their haughty conquerors.  They landed in Devonshire; but found Brian,
+son of the Count of Britany, at the head of some foreign troops, ready
+to oppose them; and being defeated in several actions, they were
+obliged to retreat to their ships, and to return with great loss to
+Ireland [l].  The efforts of the Normans were now directed to the
+north, where affairs had fallen into the utmost confusion.  The more
+impatient of the Northumbrians had attacked Robert de Comyn, who was
+appointed governor of Durham; and gaining the advantage over him from
+his negligence, they put him to death in that city, with seven hundred
+of his followers [m].  This success animated the inhabitants of York,
+who, rising in arms, slew Robert Fitz-Richard, their governor [n]; and
+besieged in the castle William Mallet, on whom the command now
+devolved.  A little after, the Danish troops landed from three hundred
+vessels; Osberne, brother to King Sweyn, was intrusted with the
+command of these forces, and he was accompanied by Harold and Canute,
+two sons of that monarch.  Edgar Atheling appeared from Scotland, and
+brought along with him Cospatric, Waltheof, Siward, Bearne,
+Merleswain, Adelin, and other leaders, who, partly from the hopes
+which they gave of Scottish succours, partly from their authority in
+those parts, easily persuaded the warlike and discontented
+Northumbrians to join the insurrection.  Mallet, that he might better
+provide for the defence of the citadel of York, set fire to some
+houses which lay contiguous; but this expedient proved the immediate
+cause of his destruction.  The flames, spreading into the neighbouring
+streets, reduced the whole city to ashes: the enraged inhabitants,
+aided by the Danes, took advantage of the confusion to attack the
+castle, which they carried by assault; and the garrison, to the number
+of three thousand men, was put to the sword without mercy [o].
+[FN [l] Gul. Gemet. p. 290.  Order. Vital. p. 513.  Anglia Sacra, vol.
+i. p. 246.  [m] Order. Vital. p. 512.  Chron. de Mailr. p. 116.
+Hoveden, p. 450.  M. Paris, p. 5.  Sim. Dun. p. 198.  [n] Order.
+Vital. p. 512.  [o] Order. Vital. p. 513.  Hoveden, p. 451.]
+
+This success proved a signal to many other parts of England, and gave
+the people an opportunity of showing their malevolence to the Normans.
+Hereward, a nobleman in East Anglia celebrated for valour, assembled
+his followers, and taking shelter in the Isle of Ely, made inroads on
+all the neighbouring country [p].  The English in the counties of
+Somerset and Dorset rose in arms, and assaulted Montacute, the Norman
+governor; while the inhabitants of Cornwall and Devon invested Exeter,
+which, from the memory of William's clemency, still remained faithful
+to him.  Edric the Forester, calling in the assistance of the Welsh,
+laid siege to Shrewsbury, and made head against Earl Brient and
+Fitz-Osberne, who commanded in those quarters [q].  The English, every
+where, repenting their former easy submission, seemed determined to
+make by concert one great effort for the recovery of their liberties,
+and for the expulsion of their oppressors.
+[FN [p] Ingulph. p. 71.  Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 47.  [q]
+Order. Vital. p. 514.]
+
+William, undismayed amidst this scene of confusion, assembled his
+forces, and animating them with the prospect of new confiscations and
+forfeitures, he marched against the rebels in the north, whom he
+regarded as the most formidable, and whose defeat he knew would strike
+a terror into all the other malecontents.  Joining policy to force, he
+tried before his approach to weaken the enemy, by detaching the Danes
+from them; and he engaged Osberne, by large presents, and by offering
+him the liberty of plundering the sea-coast, to retire, without
+committing farther hostilities, into Denmark [r].  Cospatric, also, in
+despair of success, made his peace with the king, and paying a sum of
+money as an atonement for his insurrection, was received into favour,
+and even invested with the earldom of Northumberland.  Waltheof, who
+long defended York with great courage, was allured with this
+appearance of clemency; and as William knew how to esteem valour, even
+in an enemy, that nobleman had no reason to repent of his confidences
+[s].  Even Edric, compelled by necessity, submitted to the conqueror,
+and received forgiveness, which was soon after followed by some degree
+of trust and favour.  Malcolm, coming too late to support his
+confederates, was constrained to retire; and all the English rebels in
+other parts, except Hereward, who still kept in his fastnesses,
+dispersed themselves, and left the Normans undisputed masters of the
+kingdom.  Edgar Atheling, with his followers, sought again a retreat
+in Scotland from the pursuit of his enemies.
+[FN [r] Hoveden, p. 451.  Chron Abb. St Petri de Burgo, p. 47.  Sim.
+Dun. p. 199.  [s] Malmes. p. 104.  H. Hunt. p. 369.]
+
+[MN 1070.  New rigours of the government.]
+But the seeming clemency of William towards the English leaders
+proceeded only from artifice, or from his esteem of individuals: his
+heart was hardened against all compassion towards the people; and he
+scrupled no measure, however violent or severe, which seemed requisite
+to support his plan of tyrannical administration.  Sensible of the
+restless disposition of the Northumbrians, he determined to
+incapacitate them ever after from giving him disturbance, and he
+issued orders for laying entirely waste that fertile country which,
+for the extent of sixty miles, lies between the Humber and the Tees
+[t].  The houses were reduced to ashes by the merciless Normans; the
+cattle seized and driven away; the instruments of husbandry destroyed;
+and the inhabitants compelled either to seek for a subsistence in the
+southern parts of Scotland, or if they lingered in England, from a
+reluctance to abandon their ancient habitations, they perished
+miserably in the woods from cold and hunger.  The lives of a hundred
+thousand persons are computed to have been sacrificed to this stroke
+of barbarous policy [u], which, by seeking a remedy for a temporary
+evil, thus inflicted a lasting wound on the power and populousness of
+the nation.
+[FN [t] Chron. Sax. p. 174.  Ingulph. p. 79.  Malmes. p. 103.
+Hoveden, p. 451.  Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 47.  M. Paris, p.
+5.  Sim. Dun. p. 199.  Brompton, p. 966.  Knyghton, p. 2344.  Anglia
+Sacra, vol. i. p. 702.  [u] Order. Vital. p. 515.]
+
+But William finding himself entirely master of a people who had given
+him such sensible proofs of their impotent rage and animosity, now
+resolved to proceed to extremities against all the natives of England,
+and to reduce them to a condition in which they should no longer be
+formidable to his government.  The insurrections and conspiracies in
+so many parts of the kingdom had involved the bulk of the landed
+proprietors, more or less, in the guilt of treason; and the king took
+advantage of executing against them, with the utmost rigour, the laws
+of forfeiture and attainder.  Their lives were indeed commonly spared;
+but their estates were confiscated, and either annexed to the royal
+demesnes, or conferred with the most profuse bounty on the Normans and
+other foreigners [w].  While the king's declared intention was to
+depress, or rather entirely extirpate the English gentry [x], it is
+easy to believe that scarcely the form of justice would be observed in
+those violent proceedings [y]; and that any suspicions served as the
+most undoubted proofs of guilt against a people thus devoted to
+destruction.  It was crime sufficient in an Englishman to be opulent,
+or noble, or powerful; and the policy of the king, concurring with the
+rapacity of foreign adventurers, produced almost a total revolution in
+the landed property of the kingdom.  Ancient and honourable families
+were reduced to beggary; the nobles themselves were every where
+treated with ignominy and contempt; they had the mortification of
+seeing their castles and manors possessed by Normans of the meanest
+birth and lowest stations [z]; and they found themselves carefully
+excluded from every road which led either to riches or preferment [a].
+[FN [w] W. Malmes. p. 104.  [x] H. Hunt p. 370.  [y] See note [H], at
+the end of the volume.  [z] Order. Vitalis, p. 521.  M. West. p. 229.
+[a] See note [I], at the end of the volume.]
+
+[MN Introduction of the feudal law.]
+As power naturally follows property, this revolution alone gave great
+security to the foreigners; but William, by the new institutions which
+he established, took also care to retain for ever the military
+authority in those hands which had enabled him to subdue the kingdom.
+He introduced into England the feudal law, which he found established
+in France and Normandy, and which, during that age, was the foundation
+both of the stability and of the disorders in most of the monarchical
+governments of Europe.  He divided all the lands of England, with very
+few exceptions, beside the royal demesnes, into baronies, and he
+conferred these, with the reservation of stated services and payments,
+on the most considerable of his adventurers.  These great barons, who
+held immediately of the crown, shared out a great part of their lands
+to other foreigners, who were denominated knights or vassals, and who
+paid their lord the same duty and submission in peace and war, which
+he himself owed to his sovereign.  The whole kingdom contained about
+seven hundred chief tenants, and sixty thousand two hundred and
+fifteen knights-fees [b]; and as none of the native English were
+admitted into the first rank, the few who retained their landed
+property were glad to be received into the second, and under the
+protection of some powerful Norman, to load themselves and their
+posterity with this grievous burden, for estates which they had
+received free from their ancestors [c].  The small mixture of English
+which entered into this civil or military fabric (for it partook of
+both species) was so restrained by subordination under the foreigners,
+that the Norman dominion seemed now to be fixed on the most durable
+basis, and to defy all the efforts of its enemies.
+[FN [b] Order. Vital. p. 523.  Secretum Abbatis, apud Selden, Titles
+of Honour, p. 573.  Spellm. Gloss. in verbo FEODUM.  Sir Robert
+Cotton.  [c] M. West. p. 225.  M. Paris, p. 4.  Bracton, lib. 1. cap.
+II. num. 1.  Fleta, lib i. cap. 8. n. 2.]
+
+The better to unite the parts of the government, and to bind them into
+one system, which might serve both for defence against foreigners, and
+for the support of domestic tranquillity, William reduced the
+ecclesiastical revenues under the same feudal law; and though he had
+courted the church on his invasion and accession, he now subjected it
+to services which the clergy regarded as a grievous slavery, and as
+totally unbefitting their profession.  The bishops and abbots were
+obliged, when required, to furnish to the king, during war, a number
+of knights, or military tenants, proportioned to the extent of
+property possessed by each see or abbey; and they were liable, in case
+of failure, to the same penalties which were exacted from the laity
+[d]  The pope and the ecclesiastics exclaimed against this tyranny, as
+they called it; but the king's authority was so well established over
+the army, who held every thing from his bounty, that superstition
+itself, even in that age, when it was most prevalent, was constrained
+to bend under his superior influence.
+[FN [d] M. Paris, p. 5.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 248.]
+
+But as the great body of the clergy were still natives, the king had
+much reason to dread the effects of their resentment; he therefore
+used the precaution of expelling the English from all the considerable
+dignities, and of advancing foreigners in their place.  The partiality
+of the Confessor towards the Normans had been so great, that, aided by
+their superior learning, it had promoted them to many of the sees in
+England; and even before the period of the Conquest, scarcely more
+than six or seven of the prelates were natives of the country.  But
+among these was Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury; a man who, by his
+address and vigour, by the greatness of his family and alliances, by
+the extent of his possessions, as well as by the dignity of his
+office, and his authority among the English, gave jealousy to the king
+[e].  Though William had, on his accession, affronted this prelate by
+employing the Archbishop of York to officiate at his consecration, he
+was careful on other occasions to load hint with honours and caresses,
+and to avoid giving him farther offence till the opportunity should
+offer of effecting his final destruction [f].  The suppression of the
+late rebellions, and the total subjection of the English, made him
+hope that an attempt against Stigand, however violent, would be
+covered by his great successes, and be overlooked amidst the other
+important revolutions which affected so deeply the property and
+liberty of the kingdom.  Yet, notwithstanding these great advantages,
+he did not think it safe to violate the reverence usually paid to the
+primate; but under cover of a new superstition, which he was the great
+instrument of introducing into England.
+[FN [e] Parker, p. 161.  [f] Ibid. p. 164.]
+
+[MN Innovation in ecclesiastical government.]
+The doctrine which exalted the papacy above all human power had
+gradually diffused itself from the city and court of Rome; and was,
+during that age, much more prevalent in the southern than in the
+northern kingdoms of Europe.  Pope Alexander, who had assisted William
+in his conquests, naturally expected that the French and Normans would
+import into England the same reverence for his sacred character with
+which they were impressed in their own country; and would break the
+spiritual as well as civil independency of the Saxons, who had
+hitherto conducted their ecclesiastical government, with an
+acknowledgment indeed of primacy in the see of Rome, but without much
+idea of its title to dominion or authority.  As soon, therefore, as
+the Norman prince seemed fully established on the throne, the pope
+despatched Ermenfroy, Bishop of Sion, as his legate into England; and
+this prelate was the first that had ever appeared with that character
+in any part of the British islands.  The king, though he was probably
+led by principle to pay this submission to Rome, determined, as is
+usual, to employ the incident as a means of serving his political
+purposes, and of degrading those English prelates who were become
+obnoxious to him.  The legate submitted to become the instrument of
+his tyranny; and thought, that the more violent the exertion of power,
+the more certainly did it confirm the authority of that court from
+which he derived his commission.  He summoned, therefore, a council of
+the prelates and abbots at Winchester; and being assisted by two
+cardinals, Peter and John, he cited before him Stigand, Archbishop of
+Canterbury, to answer for his conduct.  The primate was accused of
+three crimes: the holding of the see of Winchester, together with that
+of Canterbury; the officiating in the pall of Robert his predecessor;
+and the having received his own pall from Benedict IX., who was
+afterwards deposed for simony, and for intrusion into the papacy [g].
+These crimes of Stigand were mere pretences; since the first had been
+a practice not unusual in England, and was never any where subjected
+to a higher penalty than a resignation of one of the sees; the second
+was a pure ceremonial; and as Benedict was the only pope who then
+officiated, and his acts were never repealed, all the prelates of the
+church, especially those who lay at a distance, were excusable for
+making their applications to him.  Stigand's ruin, however, was
+resolved on, and was prosecuted with great severity.  The legate
+degraded him from  his dignity: the king confiscated his estate, and
+cast him into prison, where he continued, in poverty and want, during
+the remainder of his life.  Like rigour was exercised against the
+other English prelates: Agelric, Bishop of Selesey and Agelmare, of
+Elmham, were deposed by the legate, and imprisoned by the king.  Many
+considerable abbots shared the same fate: Egelwin, Bishop of Durham,
+fled the kingdom: Wulstan, of Worcester, a man of an inoffensive
+character, was the only English prelate that escaped this general
+proscription [h], and remained in possession of his dignity.  Aldred,
+Archbishop of York, who had set the crown on William's head, had died
+a little before of grief and vexation, and had left his malediction to
+that prince on account of the breach of his coronation oath, and of
+the extreme tyranny with which he saw he was determined to treat his
+English subjects [i].
+[FN [g] Hoveden, p. 453.  Diceto, p. 482.  Knyghton, p. 2345.  Anglia
+Sacra, vol. i. p. 5, 6.  Ypod. Neust. p. 438.  [h] Brompton relates,
+that Wulstan was also deprived by the synod; but refusing to deliver
+his pastoral staff and ring to any but the person from whom he first
+received it, he went immediately to King Edward's tomb, and struck the
+staff so deeply into the stone, that none but himself was able to pull
+it out: upon which he was allowed to keep his bishopric.  This
+instance may serve, instead of many, as a specimen of the monkish
+miracles.  See also the annals of Burton, p. 284.  [i] Malmes. de
+Gest. Pont. p. 154.]
+
+It was a fixed maxim in this reign, as well as in some of the
+subsequent, that no native of the island should ever be advanced to
+any dignity, ecclesiastical, civil, or military [k]  The king,
+therefore, upon Stigand's deposition, promoted Lanfranc, a Milanese
+monk, celebrated for his learning and piety, to the vacant see.  This
+prelate was rigid in defending the prerogatives of his station; and
+after a long process before the pope, he obliged Thomas, a Norman
+monk, who had been appointed to the see of York, to acknowledge the
+primacy of the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Where ambition can be so
+happy as to cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under
+the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible
+of all human passions.  Hence Lanfranc's zeal in promoting the
+interests of the papacy, by which he himself augmented his own
+authority, was indefatigable; and met with proportionable success.
+The devoted attachment to Rome continually increased in England; and
+being favoured by the sentiments of the conquerors, as well as by the
+monastic establishments formerly introduced by Edred and by Edgar, it
+soon reached the same height at which it had, during some time, stood
+in France and Italy [l].  [MN 1070.]  It afterwards went much farther;
+being favoured by that very remote situation which had at first
+obstructed its progress; and being less checked by knowledge and a
+liberal education, which were still somewhat more common in the
+southern countries.
+[FN [k] Ingulph. p. 70, 71.  [l] M. West. p. 228.  Lanfranc wrote in
+defence of the real presence against Berengarius; and in those ages of
+stupidity and ignorance, he was greatly applauded for that
+performance.]
+
+The prevalence of this superstitious spirit became dangerous to some
+of William's successors, and incommodious to most of them; but the
+arbitrary sway of this king over the English, and his extensive
+authority over the foreigners, kept him from feeling any immediate
+inconveniences from it.  He retained the church in great subjection,
+as well as his lay subjects; and would allow none, of whatever
+character, to dispute his sovereign will and pleasure.  He prohibited
+his subjects from acknowledging any one for pope whom he himself had
+not previously received: he required that all the ecclesiastical
+canons, voted in any synod, should first be laid before him, and be
+ratified by his authority: even bulls or letters from Rome could not
+legally be produced, till they received the same sanction: and none of
+his ministers or barons, whatever offences they were guilty of, could
+be subjected to spiritual censures till he himself had given his
+consent to their excommunication [m].  These regulations were worthy
+of a sovereign, and kept united the civil and ecclesiastical powers,
+which the principles introduced by this prince himself had an
+immediate tendency to separate.
+[FN [m] Eadmer, p. 6.]
+
+But the English had the cruel mortification to find that their king's
+authority, however acquired or however extended, was all employed in
+their oppression; and that the scheme of their subjection, attended
+with every circumstance of insult and indignity [n], was deliberately
+formed by the prince, and wantonly prosecuted by his followers [o].
+William had even entertained the difficult project of totally
+abolishing the English language; and, for that purpose, he ordered,
+that in  all schools throughout the kingdom, the youth should be
+instructed in the French tongue; a practice which was continued from
+custom till after the reign of Edward III., and was never indeed
+totally discontinued in England.  The pleadings in the supreme courts
+of judicature were in French [p]: the deeds were often drawn in the
+same language: the laws were composed in that idiom [q]: no other
+tongue was used at court: it became the language of all fashionable
+company; and the English themselves, ashamed of their own country,
+affected to excel in that foreign dialect.  From this attention of
+William, and from the extensive foreign dominions long annexed to the
+crown of England, proceeded that mixture of French which is at present
+to be found in the English tongue, and which composes the greatest and
+best part of our language.  But amidst those endeavours to depress the
+English nation, the king, moved by the remonstrances of some of his
+prelates, and by the earnest desires of the people, restored a few of
+the laws of King Edward [r]; which, though seemingly of no great
+importance towards the protection of general liberty, gave them
+extreme satisfaction, as a memorial of their ancient government, and
+an unusual mark of complaisance in their imperious conquerors [s].
+[FN [n] Order. Vital. p. 523.  H. Hunt. p. 370.  [o] Ingulph. p. 71.
+[p] 36 Edw. III. cap. 15.  Selden Spicileg. ad Eadmer, p. 189.
+Fortescue de laud leg. Angl. cap. 48.  [q] Chron. Rothom. A. D. 1066.
+[r] Ingulph. p. 88.  Brompton, p. 982.  Knyghton, p. 2355.  Hoveden,
+p. 600.  [s] See note [K], at the end of the volume.]
+
+[MN 1071.]  The situation of the two great earls, Morcar and Edwin,
+became now very disagreeable.  Though they had retained their
+allegiance during this general insurrection of their countrymen, they
+had not gained the king's confidence, and they found themselves
+exposed to the malignity of the courtiers, who envied them on account
+of their opulence and greatness, and at the same time involved them in
+that general contempt which they entertained for the English.
+Sensible that they had entirely lost their dignity, and could not even
+hope to remain long in safety; they determined, though too late, to
+share the same fate with their countrymen.  While Edwin retired to his
+estate in the north, with a view of commencing an insurrection, Morcar
+took shelter in the Isle of Ely with the brave Hereward, who, secured
+by the inaccessible situation of the place, still defended himself
+against the Normans.  But this attempt served only to accelerate the
+ruin of the few English who had hitherto been able to preserve their
+rank or fortune during the past convulsions.  William employed all his
+endeavours to subdue the Isle of Ely; and having surrounded it with
+flat-bottomed boats, and made a causeway through the morasses to the
+extent of two miles, he obliged the rebels to surrender at discretion.
+Hereward alone forced his way, sword in hand, through the enemy; and
+still continued his hostilities by sea against the Normans, till at
+last William, charmed with his bravery, received him into favour, and
+restored him to his estate.  Earl Morcar, and Egelwin, Bishop of
+Durham, who had joined the malecontents, were thrown into prison, and
+the latter soon after died in confinement.  Edwin, attempting to make
+his escape into Scotland, was betrayed by some of his followers, and
+was killed by a party of Normans, to the great affliction of the
+English, and even to that of William, who paid a tribute of generous
+tears to the memory of this gallant and beautiful youth.  The King of
+Scotland, in hopes of profiting by these convulsions, had fallen upon
+the northern counties; but on the approach of William, he retired; and
+when the king entered his country, he was glad to make peace, and to
+pay the usual homage to the English crown.  To complete the king's
+prosperity, Edgar Atheling himself, despairing of success, and weary
+of a fugitive life, submitted to his enemy; and receiving a decent
+pension for his subsistence, was permitted to live in England
+unmolested.  But these acts of generosity towards the leaders were
+disgraced, as usual, by William's rigour against the inferior
+malecontents.  He ordered the hands to be lopt off; and the eyes to be
+put out, of many of the prisoners whom he had taken in the Isle of
+Ely; and he dispersed them in that miserable condition throughout the
+country, as monuments of his severity.
+
+[MN 1073.]  The province of Maine, in France, had, by the will of
+Herbert, the last count, fallen under the dominion of William some
+years before his conquest of England; but the inhabitants,
+dissatisfied with the Norman government, and instigated by Fulk, Count
+of Anjou, who had some pretensions to the succession, now rose in
+rebellion, and expelled the magistrates whom the king had placed over
+them.  The full settlement of England afforded him leisure to punish
+this insult on his authority; but being unwilling to remove his Norman
+forces from this island, he carried over a considerable army, composed
+almost entirely of English; and joining them to some troops levied in
+Normandy, he entered the revolted province.  The English appeared
+ambitious of distinguishing themselves on this occasion, and of
+retrieving that character of valour which had long been national among
+them; but which their late easy subjection under the Normans had
+somewhat degraded and obscured.  Perhaps too they hoped that, by their
+zeal and activity, they might recover the confidence of their
+sovereign, as their ancestors had formerly, by like means, gained the
+affections of Canute; and might conquer his inveterate prejudices in
+favour of his own countrymen.  The king's military conduct, seconded
+by these brave troops, soon overcame all opposition in Maine: the
+inhabitants were obliged to submit, and the Count of Anjou
+relinquished his pretensions.
+
+[MN 1074.  Insurrection of the Norman barons.]
+But during these transactions the government of England was greatly
+disturbed; and that too by those very foreigners who owed every thing
+to the king’s bounty, and who were the sole object of his friendship
+and regard.  The Norman barons, who had engaged with their duke in the
+conquest of England, were men of the most independent spirit; and
+though they obeyed their leader in the field, they would have regarded
+with disdain the richest acquisitions, had they been required in
+return to submit, in their civil government, to the arbitrary will of
+one man.  But the imperious character of William, encouraged by his
+absolute dominion over the English, and often impelled by the
+necessity of his affairs, had prompted him to stretch his authority
+over the Normans themselves beyond what the free genius of that
+victorious people could easily bear.  The discontents were become
+general among those haughty nobles; and even Roger, Earl of Hereford,
+son and heir of Fitz-Osberne, the king's chief favourite, was strongly
+infected with them.  This nobleman, intending to marry his sister to
+Ralph de Guader, Earl of Norfolk, had thought it his duty to inform
+the king of his purpose, and to desire the royal consent; but meeting
+with a refusal, he proceeded nevertheless to complete the nuptials,
+and assembled all his friends, and those of Guader, to attend the
+solemnity.  The two earls, disgusted by the denial of their request,
+and dreading William's resentment for their disobedience, here
+prepared measures for a revolt; and during the gaiety of the festival,
+while the company was heated with wine, they opened the design to
+their guests.  They inveighed against the arbitrary conduct of the
+king; his tyranny over the English, whom they affected on this
+occasion to commiserate; his imperious behaviour to his barons of the
+noblest birth; and his apparent intention of reducing the victors and
+the vanquished to a like ignominious servitude.  Amidst their
+complaints, the indignity of submitting to a bastard [t] was not
+forgotten; the certain prospect of success in a revolt, by the
+assistance of the Danes and the discontented English, was insisted on;
+and the whole company, inflamed with the same sentiments, and warmed
+by the jollity of the entertainment, entered, by a solemn engagement,
+into the design of shaking off the royal authority.  Even Earl
+Waltheof; who was present, inconsiderately expressed his approbation
+of the conspiracy, and promised his concurrence towards its success.
+[FN [t] William was so little ashamed of his birth, that be assumed
+the appellation of bastard in some of his letters and charters.
+Spellm. Gloss. in verb. BASTARDUS.  Camden in RICHMONDSHIRE.]
+
+This nobleman, the last of the English who, for some generations,
+possessed any power or authority, had, after his capitulation at York,
+been received into favour by the Conqueror; had even married Judith,
+niece to that prince; and had been promoted to the earldoms of
+Huntingdon and Northampton [u].  Cospatric, Earl of Northumberland,
+having, on some new disgust from William, retired into Scotland, where
+he received the earldom of Dunbar from the bounty of Malcolm; Waltheof
+was appointed his successor in that important command, and seemed
+still to possess the confidence and friendship of his sovereign [w].
+But as he was a man of generous principles, and loved his country, it
+is probable that the tyranny exercised over the English lay heavy upon
+his mind, and destroyed all the satisfaction which he could reap from
+his own grandeur and advancement.  When a prospect, therefore, was
+opened of retrieving their liberty, he hastily embraced it; while the
+fumes of the liquor, and the ardour of the company, prevented him from
+reflecting on the consequences of that rash attempt.  But after his
+cool judgment returned, he foresaw that the conspiracy of those
+discontented barons was not likely to prove successful against the
+established power of William; or if it did, that the slavery of the
+English, instead of being alleviated by that event, would become more
+grievous, under a multitude of foreign leaders, factious and
+ambitious, whose union and whose discord would be equally oppressive
+to the people.  Tormented with these reflections, he opened his mind
+to his wife Judith, of whose fidelity he entertained no suspicion, but
+who, having secretly fixed her affections on another, took this
+opportunity of ruining her easy and credulous husband.  She conveyed
+intelligence of the conspiracy to the king, and aggravated every
+circumstance, which, she believed, would tend to incense him against
+Waltheof, and render him absolutely implacable [x].  Meanwhile the
+earl, still dubious with regard to the part which he should act,
+discovered the secret in confession to Lanfranc, on whose probity and
+judgment he had a great reliance: he was persuaded by the prelate,
+that he owed no fidelity to those rebellious barons, who had by
+surprise gained his consent to a crime; that his first duty was to his
+sovereign and benefactor; his next to himself and his family; and
+that, if he seized not the opportunity of making atonement for his
+guilt by revealing it, the temerity of the conspirators was so great,
+that they would give some other person the means of acquiring the
+merit of the discovery.  Waltheof, convinced by these arguments, went
+over to Normandy; but though he was well received by the king, and
+thanked for his fidelity, the account previously transmitted by Judith
+had sunk deep into William's mind, and had destroyed all the merit of
+her husband's repentance.
+[FN [u] Order. Vital. p. 522.  Hoveden, p. 454.  [w] Sim. Dun. p. 205.
+[x] Order. Vital. p. 536.]
+
+The conspirators, hearing of Waltheof's departure, immediately
+concluded their design to be betrayed; and they flew to arms before
+their schemes were ripe for execution, and before the arrival of the
+Danes, in whose aid they placed their chief confidence.  The Earl of
+Hereford was checked by Walter de Lacy, a great baron in those parts,
+who, supported by the Bishop of Worcester and the Abbot of Evesham,
+raised some forces, and prevented the earl from passing the Severn, or
+advancing into the heart of the kingdom.  The Earl of Norfolk was
+defeated at Fagadun, near Cambridge, by Odo, the regent, assisted by
+Richard de Bienfaite and William de Warenne, the two justiciaries.
+The prisoners taken in this action had their right foot cut off, as a
+punishment of their treason: the earl himself escaped to Norwich,
+thence to Denmark; where the Danish fleet, which had made an
+unsuccessful attempt upon the coast of England [y], soon after
+arrived, and brought him intelligence, that all his confederates were
+suppressed, and were either killed, banished, or taken prisoners [z].
+Ralph retired in despair to Britany, where he possessed a large estate
+and extensive jurisdictions.
+[FN [y] Chron. Sax. p. 183.  M. Paris, p. 7.  [z] Many of the
+fugitive Normans are supposed to have fled into Scotland; where they
+were protected, as well as the fugitive English, by Malcolm.  Whence
+come the many French and Norman families, which are found at present
+in that country.]
+
+The king, who hastened over to England in order to suppress the
+insurrection, found that nothing remained but the punishment of the
+criminals, which he executed with great severity.  Many of the rebels
+were hanged; some had their eyes put out; others their hands cut off.
+But William, agreeably to his usual maxims, showed more lenity to
+their leader, the Earl of Hereford, who was only condemned to a
+forfeiture of his estate, and to imprisonment during pleasure.  The
+king seemed even disposed to remit this last part of the punishment,
+had not Roger, by a fresh insolence, provoked him to render his
+confinement perpetual.  [MN 1075.]  But Waltheof, being an Englishman,
+was not treated with so much humanity; though his guilt, always much
+inferior to that of the other  conspirators, was atoned for by an
+early repentance and return to his duty.  William, instigated by his
+niece, as well as by his rapacious courtiers, who longed for so rich a
+forfeiture, ordered him to be tried, condemned, and executed.  [MN
+29th April 1075.]  The English, who considered this nobleman as the
+last resource of their nation, grievously lamented his fate, and
+fancied that miracles were wrought by his relics, as a testimony of
+his innocence and sanctity.  The infamous Judith, falling soon after
+under the king's displeasure, was abandoned by all the world, and
+passed the rest of her life in contempt, remorse, and misery.
+
+Nothing remained to complete William's satisfaction but the punishment
+of Ralph de Guader; and he hastened over to Normandy in order to
+gratify his vengeance on that criminal.  But though the contest seemed
+very unequal between a private nobleman and the King of England, Ralph
+was so well supported both by the Earl of Britany and the King of
+France, that William, after besieging him for some time in Dol, was
+obliged to abandon the enterprise, and make with those powerful
+princes a peace, in which Ralph himself was included.  England, during
+his absence, remained in tranquillity, and nothing remarkable
+occurred, except two ecclesiastical synods which were summoned, one at
+London, another at Winchester.  In the former the precedency among the
+episcopal sees was settled, and the seat of some of them was removed
+from small villages to the most considerable town within the diocese.
+In the second was transacted a business of more importance.
+
+[MN 1076.  Dispute about investitures]
+The industry and perseverance are surprising, with which the popes had
+been treasuring up powers and pretensions during so many ages of
+ignorance; while each pontiff employed every fraud for advancing
+purposes of imaginary piety, and cherished all claims which might turn
+to the advantage of his successors, though he himself could not expect
+ever to reap any benefit from them.  All this immense store of
+spiritual and civil authority was now devolved on Gregory VII. of the
+name of Hildebrand, the most enterprising pontiff that had ever filled
+that chair, and the least restrained by fear, decency, or moderation.
+Not content with shaking off the yoke of the emperors, who had
+hitherto exercised the power of appointing the pope on every vacancy,
+or at least of ratifying his election; he undertook the arduous task
+of entirely disjoining the ecclesiastical from the civil power, and of
+excluding profane laymen from the right which they had assumed of
+filling the vacancies of bishoprics, abbeys, and other spiritual
+dignities [a].  The sovereigns who had long exercised this power, and
+who had acquired it not by encroachments on the church, but on the
+people, to whom it originally belonged [b], made great opposition to
+this claim of the court of Rome; and Henry IV., the reigning emperor,
+defended this prerogative of his crown with a vigour and resolution
+suitable to its importance.  The few offices, either civil or
+military, which the feudal institutions left the sovereign the power
+of bestowing, made the prerogative of conferring the pastoral ring and
+staff the most valuable jewel of the royal diadem; especially as the
+general ignorance of the age bestowed a consequence on the
+ecclesiastical offices, even beyond the great extent of power and
+property which belonged to them.  Superstition, the child of
+ignorance, invested the clergy with an authority almost sacred; and as
+they engrossed the little learning of the age, their interposition
+became requisite in all civil business, and a real usefulness in
+common life was thus superadded to the spiritual sanctity of their
+character.
+[FN [a] L'Abbé Conc. tom. x. p. 371, 372. com. 2.  [b] Padre Paolo
+sopra benef. eccles. p. 30.]
+
+When the usurpations, therefore, of the church had come to such
+maturity as to embolden her to attempt extorting the right of
+investitures from the temporal power, Europe, especially Italy and
+Germany, was thrown into the most violent convulsions, and the pope
+and the emperor waged implacable war on each other.  Gregory dared to
+fulminate the sentence of excommunication against Henry and his
+adherents, to pronounce him rightfully deposed, to free his subjects
+from their oaths of allegiance; and instead of shocking mankind by
+this gross encroachment on the civil authority, he found the stupid
+people ready to second his most exorbitant pretensions.  Every
+minister, servant, or vassal of the emperor, who received any disgust,
+covered his rebellion under the pretence of principle; and even the
+mother of this  monarch, forgetting all the ties of nature, was
+seduced to countenance the insolence of his enemies.  Princes
+themselves, not attentive to the pernicious consequences of those
+papal claims, employed them for their present purposes; and the
+controversy, spreading into every city of Italy, engendered the
+parties of Guelf and Ghibbelin; the most durable and most inveterate
+factions that ever arose from the mixture of ambition and religious
+zeal.  Besides numberless assassinations, tumults, and convulsions to
+which they gave rise, it is computed that the quarrel occasioned no
+less than sixty battles in the reign of Henry IV., and eighteen in
+that of his successor, Henry V., when the claims of the sovereign
+pontiff finally prevailed [c].
+[FN [c] Padre Paolo sopra benef. eccles. p. 113.]
+
+But the bold spirit of Gregory, not dismayed with the vigorous
+opposition which he met with from the emperor, extended his
+usurpations all over Europe; and well knowing the nature of mankind,
+whose blind astonishment ever inclines them to yield to the most
+impudent pretensions, he seemed determined to set no bounds to the
+spiritual, or rather temporal monarchy, which he had undertaken to
+erect.  He pronounced the sentence of excommunication against
+Nicephorus, Emperor of the East: Robert Guiscard, the adventurous
+Norman, who had acquired the dominion of Naples, was attacked by the
+same dangerous weapon: he degraded Boleslas, King of Poland, from the
+rank of king; and even deprived Poland of the title of a kingdom: he
+attempted to treat Philip, King of France, with the same rigour which
+he had employed against the emperor [d]: he pretended to the entire
+property and dominion of Spain; and he parcelled it out amongst
+adventurers, who undertook to conquer it from the Saracens, and to
+hold it in vassalage under the see of Rome [e]: even the Christian
+bishops, on whose aid he relied for subduing the temporal princes, saw
+that he was determined to reduce them to servitude; and by assuming
+the whole legislative and judicial power of the church, to centre all
+authority in the sovereign pontiff [f].
+[FN [d] Epist. Greg. VII. epist. 32, 35. lib. 2. epist. 5.  [e] Epist.
+Greg. VII. lib. 1. epist. 7.  [f] Greg. epist. lib. 2. epist. 55.]
+
+William the Conqueror, the most potent, the most haughty, and the most
+vigorous prince in Europe, was not, amidst all his splendid successes,
+secure from the attacks of this enterprising pontiff.  Gregory wrote
+him a letter, requiring him to fulfil his promise in doing homage for
+the kingdom of England to the see of Rome, and to send him over that
+tribute, which all his predecessors had been accustomed to pay to the
+vicar of Christ.  By the tribute he meant Peter's pence; which, though
+at first a charitable donation of the Saxon princes, was interpreted,
+according to the usual practice of the Romish court, to be a badge of
+subjection acknowledged by the kingdom.  William replied, that the
+money should be remitted as usual; but that neither had he promised to
+do homage to Rome, nor was it in the least his purpose to impose that
+servitude on his state [g].  And the better to show Gregory his
+independence, he ventured, notwithstanding the frequent complaints of
+the pope, to refuse to the English bishops the liberty of attending a
+general council which that pontiff had summoned against his enemies.
+[FN [g] Spicileg. Seldeni ad Eadmer, p. 4.]
+
+But though the king displayed this vigour in supporting the royal
+dignity, he was infected with the general superstition of the age, and
+he did not perceive the ambitious scope of those institutions, which,
+under colour of strictness in religion, were introduced or promoted by
+the court of Rome.  Gregory, while he was throwing all Europe into
+combustion by his violence and impostures, affected an anxious care
+for the purity of manners; and even the chaste pleasures of the
+marriage-bed were inconsistent, in his opinion, with the sanctity of
+the sacerdotal character.  He had issued a decree prohibiting the
+marriage of priests, excommunicating all clergymen who retained their
+wives, declaring such unlawful commerce to be fornication, and
+rendering it criminal in the laity to attend divine worship, when such
+profane priests officiated at the altar [h].  This point was a great
+object in the politics of the Roman pontiffs; and it cost them
+infinitely more pains to establish it, than the propagation of any
+speculative absurdity which they had ever attempted to introduce.
+Many synods were summoned in different parts of Europe before it was
+finally settled; and it was there constantly remarked, that the
+younger clergymen complied cheerfully with the pope's decrees in this
+particular, and that the chief reluctance appeared in those who were
+more advanced in years: an event so little consonant to men's natural
+expectations, that it could not fail to be glossed on, even in that
+blind and superstitious age.  William allowed the pope's legate to
+assemble, in his absence, a synod at Winchester, in order to establish
+the celibacy of the clergy; but the church of England could not yet be
+carried the whole length expected.  The synod was content with
+decreeing, that the bishops should not thenceforth ordain any priests
+or deacons without exacting from them a promise of celibacy; but they
+enacted, that none, except those who belonged to collegiate or
+cathedral churches, should be obliged to separate from their wives.
+[FN [h] Hoveden, p. 455, 457.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 638.  Spellm. Concil.
+fol. 13 A. D. 1076.]
+
+[MN Revolt of Prince Robert.]
+The king passed some years in Normandy; but his long residence there
+was not entirely owing to his declared preference of that duchy: his
+presence was also necessary for composing those disturbances which had
+arisen in that favourite territory, and which had even originally
+proceeded from his own family.  Robert, his eldest son, surnamed
+Gambaron or Curthose, from his short legs, was a prince who inherited
+all the bravery of his family and nation; but without that policy and
+dissimulation, by which his father was so much distinguished, and
+which, no less than his military valour, had contributed to his great
+successes.  Greedy of fame, impatient of contradiction, without
+reserve in his friendships, declared in his enmities, this prince
+could endure no control even from his imperious father, and openly
+aspired to that independence, to which his temper, as well as some
+circumstances in his situation, strongly invited him [i].  When
+William first received the submissions of the province of Maine, he
+had promised the inhabitants that Robert should be their prince; and
+before he undertook the expedition against England, he had, on the
+application of the French court, declared him his successor in
+Normandy, and had obliged the barons of that duchy to do him homage as
+their future sovereign.  By this artifice, he had endeavoured to
+appease the jealousy of his neighbours, as affording them a prospect
+of separating England from his dominions on the continent; but when
+Robert demanded of him the execution of those engagements, he gave him
+an absolute refusal, and told him, according to the homely saying,
+that he never intended to throw off his clothes till he went to bed
+[k].  Robert openly declared his discontent; and was suspected of
+secretly instigating the King of France and the Earl of Britany to the
+opposition which they made to William, and which had formerly
+frustrated his attempts upon the town of Dol.  And as the quarrel
+still augmented, Robert proceeded to entertain a strong jealousy of
+his two surviving brothers, William and Henry, (for Richard was killed
+in hunting by a stag,) who, by greater submission and complaisance,
+had acquired the affections of their father.  In this disposition on
+both sides, the greatest trifle sufficed to produce a rupture between
+them.
+[FN [i] Order. Vital. p. 545.  Hoveden, p. 457.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 639.
+[k] Chron. de Mailr. p. 160.]
+
+The three princes, residing with their father in the castle of L'Aigle
+in Normandy, were one day engaged in sport together; and after some
+mirth and jollity, the two younger took a fancy of throwing over some
+water on Robert as he passed through the court on leaving their
+apartment [l]; a frolic, which he would naturally have regarded as
+innocent, had it not been for the suggestions of Alberic de
+Grentmesnil, son of that Hugh de Grentmesnil whom William had formerly
+deprived of his fortunes, when that baron deserted him during his
+greatest difficulties in England.  The young man, mindful of the
+injury, persuaded the prince that this action was meant as a public
+affront, which it behoved him in honour to resent; and the choleric
+Robert, drawing his sword, ran upstairs, with an intention of taking
+revenge on his brothers [m].  The whole castle was filled with tumult,
+which the king himself, who hastened from his apartment, found some
+difficulty to appease.  But he could by no means appease the
+resentment of his eldest son, who, complaining of his partiality, and
+fancying that no proper atonement had been made him for the insult,
+left the court that very evening, and hastened to Rouen, with an
+intention of seizing the citadel of that place [n].  But being
+disappointed in this view by the precaution and vigilance of Roger de
+Ivery, the governor, he fled to Hugh de Neufchatel, a powerful Norman
+baron, who gave him protection in his castles; and he openly levied
+war against his father [o].  The popular character of the prince, and
+a similarity of manners, engaged all the young nobility of Normandy
+and Maine, as well as of Anjou and Britany, to take part with him; and
+it was suspected, that Matilda, his mother, whose favourite he was,
+supported him in his rebellion by secret remittances of money, and by
+the encouragement which she gave his partisans.
+[FN [l] Order. Vital. p. 545.  [m] Ibid.  [n] Order. Vital. p. 545.
+[o] Ibid.  Hoveden, p. 457.  Sim. Dun. p. 210.  Diceto, p. 487.]
+
+[MN 1079.]  All the hereditary provinces of William, as well as his
+family, were, during several years, thrown into convulsions by this
+war; and he was at last obliged to have recourse to England, where
+that species of military government which he had established gave him
+greater authority than the ancient feudal institutions permitted him
+to exercise in Normandy.  He called over an army of English under his
+ancient captains, who soon expelled Robert and his adherents from
+their retreats, and restored the authority of the sovereign in all his
+dominions.  The young prince was obliged to take shelter in the castle
+of Gerberoy in the Beauvoisis, which the King of France, who secretly
+fomented all these dissensions, had provided for him.  In this
+fortress he was closely besieged by his father, against whom, having a
+strong garrison, he made an obstinate defence.  There passed under the
+walls of this place many rencounters, which resembled more the single
+combats of chivalry than the military actions of armies; but one of
+them was remarkable for its circumstances and its event.  Robert
+happened to engage the king, who was concealed by his helmet; and both
+of them being valiant, a fierce combat ensued, till at last the young
+prince wounded his father in the arm, and unhorsed him.  On his
+calling out for assistance, his voice discovered him to his son, who,
+struck with remorse for his past guilt, and astonished with the
+apprehensions of one much greater, which he had so nearly incurred,
+instantly threw himself at his father's feet, craved pardon for his
+offences, and offered to purchase forgiveness by any atonement [p].
+The resentment harboured by William was so implacable, that he did not
+immediately correspond to this dutiful submission of his son with like
+tenderness; but giving him his malediction, departed for his own camp,
+on Robert's horse, which that prince had assisted him to mount.  He
+soon after raised the siege, and marched with his army to Normandy;
+where the interposition of the queen, and other common friends,
+brought about a reconcilement, which was probably not a little
+forwarded by the generosity of the son's behaviour in this action, and
+by the returning sense of his past misconduct.  The king seemed so
+fully appeased, that he even took Robert with him into England; where
+he intrusted him with the command of an army, in order to repel an
+inroad of Malcolm, King of Scotland, and to retaliate by a like inroad
+into that country.  The Welsh, unable to resist William's power, were,
+about the same time, necessitated to pay a compensation for their
+incursions; and every thing was reduced to full tranquillity in this
+island.
+[FN [p] Malmes. p. 106.  H. Hunt. p. 369.  Hoveden, p. 457.  Flor.
+Wig. p. 639.  Sim. Dun. p. 210.  Diceto, p. 287.  Knyghton, p. 2351.
+Alur. Beverl. p. 135.]
+
+[MN 1081.  Doomsday-book.]
+The state of affairs gave William leisure to begin and finish an
+undertaking, which proves his extensive genius, and does honour to his
+memory: it was a general survey of all the lands in the kingdom, their
+extent in each district, their proprietors, tenures, value; the
+quantity of meadow, pasture, wood, and arable land, which they
+contained; and in some counties the number of tenants, cottagers, and
+slaves of all denominations, who lived upon them.  He appointed
+commissioners for this purpose, who entered every particular in their
+register by the verdict of juries; and after a labour of six years
+(for the work was so long in finishing) brought him an exact account
+of all the landed property of his kingdom [q].  This monument, called
+Doomsday-book, the most valuable piece of antiquity possessed by any
+nation, is still preserved in the Exchequer; and though only some
+extracts of it have hitherto been published, it serves to illustrate
+to us, in many particulars, the ancient state of England.  The great
+Alfred had finished a like survey of the kingdom in his time, which
+was long kept at Winchester, and which probably served as a model to
+William in this undertaking [r].
+[FN [q] Chron. Sax. p. 190.  Ingulph, p. 79.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 23.
+H. Hunt. p. 370.  Hoveden, p. 460.  M. West. p. 229.  Flor. Wigorn. p.
+641.  Chron. Abb. de Petri de Burgo, p. 51.  M. Paris, p. 8.  The more
+northern counties were not comprehended in this survey; I suppose
+because of their wild, uncultivated state.  [r] Ingulph, p. 8.]
+
+The king was naturally a great economist; and though no prince had
+ever been more bountiful to his officers and servants, it was merely
+because he had rendered himself universal proprietor of England, and
+had a whole kingdom to bestow.  He reserved an ample revenue for the
+crown; and in the general distribution of land among his followers, he
+kept possession of no less than one thousand four hundred and twenty-
+two manors in different parts of England [s], which paid him rent,
+either in money, or in corn, cattle, and the usual produce of the
+soil.  An ancient historian computes, that his annual fixed income,
+besides escheats, fines, reliefs, and other casual profits to a great
+value, amounted to near four hundred thousand pounds a year [t]; a sum
+which, if all circumstances be attended to, will appear wholly
+incredible.  A pound in that age, as we have already observed,
+contained three times the weight of silver that it does at present;
+and the same weight of silver, by the most probable computation, would
+purchase near ten times more of the necessaries of life, though not in
+the same proportion of the finer manufactures.  This revenue,
+therefore, of William, would be equal to at least nine or ten millions
+at present; and as that prince had neither fleet nor army to support,
+the former being only an occasional expense, and the latter being
+maintained without any charge to him by his military vassals, we must
+thence conclude, that no emperor or prince, in any age or nation, can
+be compared to the Conqueror for opulence and riches.  This leads us
+to suspect a great mistake in the computation of the historian:
+though, if we consider that avarice is always imputed to William, as
+one of his vices, and that having by the sword rendered himself master
+of all the lands in the kingdom, he would certainly in the partition
+retain a great proportion for his own share; we can scarcely be guilty
+of any error in asserting, that perhaps no king of England was ever
+more opulent, was more able to support by his revenue the splendour
+and magnificence of a court, or could bestow more on his pleasures, or
+in liberalities to his servants and favourites [u].
+[FN [s] West's inquiry into the manner of creating peers, p. 24.  [t]
+Order. Vital. p. 523.  He says one thousand and sixty pounds and some
+odd shillings and pence a day.  [u] Fortescue, de Dom. reg. et
+politic. cap. 111.]
+
+[MN The new forest.]
+There was one pleasure to which William, as well as all the Normans
+and ancient Saxons, was extremely addicted, and that was hunting; but
+this pleasure he indulged more at the expense of his unhappy subjects,
+whose interests he always disregarded, than to the loss or diminution
+of his own revenue.  Not content with those large forests which former
+kings possessed in all parts of England, he resolved to make a new
+forest near Winchester, the usual place of his residence; and for that
+purpose he laid waste the country in Hampshire for an extent of thirty
+miles, expelled the inhabitants from their houses, seized their
+property, even demolished churches and convents, and made the
+sufferers no compensation for the injury [w].  At the same time, he
+enacted new laws, by which he prohibited all his subjects from hunting
+in any of his forests, and rendered the penalties more severe than
+ever had been inflicted for such offences.  The killing of a deer or
+boar, or even a hare, was punished with the loss of the delinquent's
+eyes; and that at a time, when the killing of a man could be atoned
+for by paying a moderate fine or composition.
+[FN [w] Malmes. p. 3.  H. Hunt. p. 731.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p.
+258.]
+
+The transactions recorded during the remainder of this reign may be
+considered more as domestic occurrences which concern the prince, than
+as national events which regard England.  Odo, Bishop of Baieux, the
+king's uterine brother, whom he had created Earl of Kent, and
+intrusted with a great share of power during his whole reign, had
+amassed immense riches; and agreeably to the usual progress of human
+wishes, he began to regard his present acquisitions but as a step to
+farther grandeur.  He had formed the chimerical project of buying the
+papacy; and though Gregory, the reigning pope, was not of advanced
+years, the prelate had confided so much in the predictions of an
+astrologer, that he reckoned upon the pontiff’s death, and upon
+attaining, by his own intrigues and money, that envied state of
+greatness.  Resolving, therefore, to remit all his riches to Italy, he
+had persuaded many considerable barons, and among the rest, Hugh, Earl
+of Chester, to take the same course; in hopes that, when he should
+mount the papal throne, he would bestow on them more considerable
+establishments in that country.  [MN 1082.]  The king, from whom all
+these projects had been carefully concealed, at last got intelligence
+of the design, and ordered Odo to be arrested.  His officers, from
+respect to the immunities which the ecclesiastics now assumed,
+scrupled to execute the command, till the king himself was obliged in
+person to seize him; and when Odo insisted that he was a prelate, and
+exempt from all temporal jurisdiction, William replied, that he
+arrested him not as Bishop of Baieux, but as Earl of Kent.  He was
+sent prisoner to Normandy; and, notwithstanding the remonstrances and
+menaces of Gregory, was detained in custody during the remainder of
+this reign.
+
+[MN 1083.]  Another domestic event gave the king much more concern: it
+was the death of Matilda, his consort, whom he tenderly loved, and for
+whom he had ever preserved the most sincere friendship.  Three years
+afterwards he passed into Normandy, and carried with him Edgar
+Atheling, to whom he willingly granted permission to make a pilgrimage
+to the Holy Land.  [MN 1087.  War with France.]  He was detained on
+the continent by a misunderstanding, which broke out between him and
+the King of France, and which was occasioned by inroads made into
+Normandy by some French barons on the frontiers.  It was little in the
+power of princes at that time to restrain their licentious nobility;
+but William suspected, that these barons durst not have provoked his
+indignation, had they not been assured of the countenance and
+protection of Philip.  His displeasure was increased by the account he
+received of some railleries which that monarch had thrown out against
+him.  William, who was become corpulent, had been detained in bed some
+time by sickness; upon which Philip expressed his surprise that his
+brother of England should be so long in being delivered of his big
+belly.  The king sent him word, that, as soon as he was up, he would
+present so many lights at Notre-dame, as would perhaps give little
+pleasure to the King of France; alluding to the usual practice at that
+time of women after childbirth.  Immediately on his recovery, he led
+an army into L'Isle de France, and laid every thing waste with fire
+and sword.  He took the town of Mante, which he reduced to ashes.  But
+the progress of these hostilities was stopped by an accident which
+soon after put an end to William's life.  His horse starting aside of
+a sudden, he bruised his belly on the pommel of the saddle; and being
+in a bad habit of body, as well as somewhat advanced in years, he
+began to apprehend the consequences, and ordered himself to be carried
+in a litter to the monastery of St. Gervas.  Finding his illness
+increase, and being sensible of the approach of death, he discovered
+at last the vanity of all human grandeur, and was struck with remorse
+for those horrible cruelties and acts of violence, which, in the
+attainment and defence of it, he had committed during the course of
+his reign over England.  He endeavoured to make atonement by presents
+to churches and monasteries; and he issued orders, that Earl Morcar,
+Siward, Bearne, and other English prisoners, should be set at liberty.
+He was even prevailed on, though not without reluctance, to consent,
+with his dying breath, to release his brother Odo, against whom he was
+extremely incensed.  He left Normandy and Maine to his eldest son
+Robert: he wrote to Lanfranc, desiring him to crown William King of
+England: he bequeathed to Henry nothing but the possessions of his
+mother Matilda; but foretold that he would one day surpass both his
+brothers in power and opulence.  He expired in the sixty-third year of
+his age, in the twenty-first year of his reign over England, and in
+the fifty-fourth of that over Normandy.
+
+[MN 9th Sept.  Death and character of William the Conqueror.]
+Few princes have been more fortunate than this great monarch, or were
+better entitled to grandeur and prosperity, from the abilities and the
+vigour of mind which he displayed in all his conduct.  His spirit was
+bold and enterprising, yet guided by prudence: his ambition, which was
+exorbitant, and lay little under the restraints of justice, still less
+under those of humanity, ever submitted to the dictates of sound
+policy.  Born in an age when the minds of men were intractable and
+unacquainted with submission, he was yet able to direct them to his
+purposes; and partly from the ascendant of his vehement character,
+partly from art and dissimulation, to establish an unlimited
+authority.  Though not insensible to generosity, he was hardened
+against compassion; and he seemed equally ostentatious and equally
+ambitious of show and parade in his clemency and in his severity.  The
+maxims of his administration were austere; but might have been useful,
+had they been solely employed to preserve order in an established
+government [x]; they were ill calculated for softening the rigours
+which, under the most gentle management, are inseparable from
+conquest.  His attempt against England was the last great enterprise
+of the kind which, during the course of seven hundred years, has fully
+succeeded in Europe; and the force of his genius broke through those
+limits, which first the feudal institutions, then the refined policy
+of princes, have fixed to the several states of Christendom.  Though
+he rendered himself infinitely odious to his English subjects, he
+transmitted his power to his posterity, and the throne is still filled
+by his descendants: a proof, that the foundations which he laid were
+firm and solid, and that, amidst all his violence, while he seemed
+only to gratify the present passion, he had still an eye towards
+futurity.
+[FN [x] M. West. p. 230.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 258.]
+
+Some writers have been desirous of refusing to this prince the title
+of Conqueror, in the sense which that term commonly bears; and, on
+pretence that the word is sometimes in old books applied to such as
+make an acquisition of territory by any means, they are willing to
+reject William's title, by right of war, to the crown of England.  It
+is needless to enter into a controversy, which, by the terms of it,
+must necessarily degenerate into a dispute of words.  It suffices to
+say, that the Duke of Normandy's first invasion of the island was
+hostile; that his subsequent administration was entirely supported by
+arms; that in the very frame of his laws, he made a distinction
+between the Normans and English, to the advantage of the former [y];
+that he acted in every thing as absolute master over the natives,
+whose interest and affections he totally disregarded; and that if
+there was an interval when he assumed the appearance of a legal
+sovereign, the period was very short, and was nothing but a temporary
+sacrifice, which he, as has been the case with most conquerors, was
+obliged to make of his inclination to his present policy.  Scarce any
+of those revolutions, which both in history and in common language,
+have always been denominated conquests, appear equally violent, or
+were attended with so sudden an alteration both of power and property.
+The Roman state, which spread its dominion over Europe, left the
+rights of individuals in a great measure untouched; and those
+civilized conquerors, while they made their own country the seat of
+empire, found that they could draw most advantage from the subjected
+provinces, by securing to the natives the free enjoyment of their own
+laws and of their private possessions.  The barbarians who subdued the
+Roman empire, though they settled in the conquered countries, yet
+being accustomed to a rude uncultivated life, found a part only of the
+land sufficient to supply all their wants; and they were not tempted
+to seize extensive possessions, which they knew neither how to
+cultivate nor enjoy.  But the Normans and other foreigners, who
+followed the standard of William, while they made the vanquished
+kingdom the seat of government, were yet so far advanced in arts as to
+be acquainted with the advantages of a large property; and having
+totally subdued the natives, they pushed the rights of conquest (very
+extensive in the eyes of avarice and ambition, however narrow in those
+of reason) to the utmost extremity against them.  Except the former
+conquest of England by the Saxons themselves, who were induced, by
+peculiar circumstances, to proceed even to the extermination of the
+natives, it would be difficult to find in all history a revolution
+more destructive, or attended with a more complete subjection of the
+ancient inhabitants.  Contumely seems even to have been wantonly added
+to oppression [z]; and the natives were universally reduced to such a
+state of meanness and poverty, that the English name became a term of
+reproach; and several generations elapsed before one family of Saxon
+pedigree was raised to any considerable honours; or could so much as
+attain the rank of baron of the realm [a].  These facts are so
+apparent from the whole tenour of the English history, that none would
+have been tempted to deny or elude them, were they not heated by the
+controversies of faction; while one party was ABSURDLY afraid of those
+ABSURD consequences, which they saw the other party inclined to draw
+from this event.  But it is evident that the present rights and
+privileges of the people, who are a mixture of English and Normans,
+can never be affected by a transaction, which passed seven hundred
+years ago; and as all ancient authors [b] who lived nearest the time,
+and best knew the state of the country, unanimously speak of the
+Norman dominion as a conquest by war and arms, no reasonable man, from
+the fear of imaginary consequences, will ever be tempted to reject
+their concurring and undoubted testimony.
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 600.  [z] H. Hunt. p. 370.  Brompton, p. 980.  [a]
+So late as the reign of King Stephen, the Earl of Albemarle, before
+the battle of the Standard, addressed the officers of his army in
+these terms, PROCERES ANGLIAE CLARISSIMI ET GENERE NORMANNI, &c.
+Brompton, p. 1026.  See farther Abbas Rieval, p. 339, &c.  All the
+barons and military men of England still called themselves Normans.
+[b] See note [L], at the end of the volume.]
+
+King William had issue, besides his three sons who survived him, five
+daughters, to wit, (1.) Cicely, a nun in the monastery of Feschamp,
+afterwards abbess in the Holy Trinity at Caen, where she died in 1127.
+(2.) Constantia, married to Alan Fergent, Earl of Britany.  She died
+without issue.  (3.) Alice, contracted to Harold.  (4.) Adela, married
+to Stephen, Earl of Blois, by whom she had four sons, William,
+Theobald, Henry, and Stephen; of whom the elder was neglected on
+account of the imbecility of his understanding.  (5.) Agatha, who died
+a virgin, but was betrothed to the King of Gallicia.  She died on her
+journey thither, before she joined her bridegroom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+WILLIAM RUFUS.
+
+ACCESSION OF WILLIAM RUFUS.--CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE KING.—INVASION OF
+NORMANDY.--THE CRUSADES.--ACQUISITION OF NORMANDY.—QUARREL WITH
+ANSELM, THE PRIMATE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF WILLIAM RUFUS
+
+
+
+[MN 1087.  Accession of William Rufus.]
+William, surnamed RUFUS, or the RED, from the colour of his hair, had
+no sooner procured his father's recommendatory letter to Lanfranc, the
+primate, than he hastened to take measures for securing to himself the
+government of England.  Sensible that a deed so unformal, and so
+little prepared, which violated Robert's right of primogeniture, might
+meet with great opposition, he trusted entirely for success to his own
+celerity; and having left St. Gervas, while William was breathing his
+last, he arrived in England before intelligence of his father's death
+had reached that kingdom [a].  Pretending orders from the king, he
+secured the fortresses of Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings, whose
+situation rendered them of the greatest importance; and he got
+possession of the royal treasure at Winchester, amounting to the sum
+of sixty thousand pounds, by which he hoped to encourage and increase
+his partisans [b].  The primate, whose rank and reputation in the
+kingdom gave him great authority, had been intrusted with the care of
+his education, and had conferred on him the honour of knighthood [c];
+and being connected with him by these ties, and probably deeming his
+pretensions just, declared that he would pay a willing obedience to
+the last will of the Conqueror, his friend and benefactor.  Having
+assembled some bishops, and some of the principal nobility, he
+instantly proceeded to the ceremony of crowning the new king [d]; and
+by this despatch endeavoured to prevent all faction and resistance.
+At the same time Robert, who had been already  acknowledged successor
+to Normandy, took peaceable possession of that duchy.
+[FN [a] W. Malmes, p. 120.  M. Paris, p. 10.  [b] Chron. Sax. p. 192.
+Brompton, p. 983.  [c] W. Malmes. p. 120.  M. Paris, p. 10. Thom.
+Rudborne, p. 263.  [d] Hoveden, p. 461.]
+
+[MN 1087.  Conspiracy against the king.]
+But though this partition appeared to have been made without any
+violence or opposition, there remained in England many causes of
+discontent, which seemed to menace that kingdom with a sudden
+revolution.  The barons, who generally possessed large estates both in
+England and in Normandy, were uneasy at the separation of those
+territories; and foresaw, that as it would be impossible for them to
+preserve long their allegiance to two masters, they must necessarily
+resign either their ancient patrimony or their new acquisitions [e].
+Robert’s title to the duchy they esteemed incontestable; his claim to
+the kingdom plausible; and they all desired that this prince, who
+alone had any pretensions to unite these states, should be put in
+possession of both.  A comparison also of the personal qualities of
+the two brothers led them to give the preference to the elder.  The
+duke was brave, open, sincere, generous: even his predominant faults,
+his extreme indolence and facility, were not disagreeable to those
+haughty barons, who affected independence, and submitted with
+reluctance to a vigorous administration in their sovereign.  The king,
+though equally brave, was violent, haughty, tyrannical, and seemed
+disposed to govern more by the fear than by the love of his subjects.
+Odo, Bishop of Baieux, and Robert, Earl of Mortaigne, maternal
+brothers of the Conqueror, envying the great credit of Lanfranc, which
+was increased by his late services, enforced all these motives with
+their partisans, and engaged them in a formal conspiracy to dethrone
+the king.  They communicated their design to Eustace, Count of
+Boulogne; Roger, Earl of Shrewsbury and Arundel; Robert de Belesme,
+his eldest son; William, Bishop of Durham; Robert de Moubray; Roger
+Bigod; Hugh de Grentmesnil; and they easily procured the assent of
+these potent noblemen.  The conspirators, retiring to their castles,
+hastened to put themselves in a military posture; and expecting to be
+soon supported by a powerful army from Normandy, they had already
+begun hostilities in many places.
+[FN [e] Order. Vital. p. 666.]
+
+The king, sensible of his perilous situation, endeavoured to engage
+the affections of the native English.  As that people were now so
+thoroughly subdued that they no longer aspired to the recovery of
+their ancient liberties, and were content with the prospect of some
+mitigation in the tyranny of the Norman princes, they zealously
+embraced William's cause, upon receiving general promises of good
+treatment, and of enjoying the license of hunting in the royal
+forests.  The king was soon in a situation to take the field; and as
+he knew the danger of delay, he suddenly marched into Kent; where his
+uncles had already seized the fortresses of Pevensey and Rochester.
+These places he successively reduced by famine; and though he was
+prevailed on by the Earl of Chester, William de Warenne, and Robert
+Fitz-Hammon, who had embraced his cause, to spare the lives of the
+rebels, he confiscated all their estates, and banished them the
+kingdom [f].  This success gave authority to his negotiations with
+Roger, Earl of Shrewsbury, whom he detached from the confederates; and
+as his powerful fleet, joined to the indolent conduct of Robert,
+prevented the arrival of the Norman succours, all the other rebels
+found no resource but in flight or submission.  Some of them received
+a pardon; but the greater part were attainted; and the king bestowed
+their estates on the Norman barons, who had remained faithful to him.
+[FN [f] Chron. Sax. p. 195.  Order. Vital. p. 668.]
+
+[MN 1089.]  William, freed from the danger of these insurrections,
+took little care of fulfilling his promises to the English, who still
+found themselves exposed to the same oppresions which they had
+undergone during the reign of the Conqueror, and which were rather
+augmented by the insolent impetuous temper of the present monarch.
+The death of Lanfranc, who retained great influence over him, gave
+soon after a full career to his tyranny; and all orders of men found
+reason to complain of an arbitrary and illegal administration.  Even
+the privileges of the church, held sacred in those days, were a feeble
+rampart against his usurpations.  He seized the temporalities of all
+the vacant bishoprics and abbeys; he delayed the appointment of
+successors to those dignities, that he might the longer enjoy the
+profits of their revenue; he bestowed some of the church lands in
+property on his captains and favourites; and he openly set to sale
+such sees and abbeys as he thought proper to dispose of.  Though the
+murmurs of the ecclesiastics; which were quickly propagated to the
+nation, rose high against this grievance, the terror of William's
+authority, confirmed by the suppression of the late insurrections,
+retained every one in subjection, and preserved general tranquillity
+in England.
+
+[MN 1090.  Invasion of Normandy.]
+The king even thought himself enabled to disturb his brother in the
+possession of Normandy.  The loose and negligent administration of
+that prince had emboldened the Norman barons to affect a great
+independency; and their mutual quarrels and devastations had rendered
+the whole territory a scene of violence and outrage.  Two of them,
+Walter and Odo, were bribed by William to deliver the fortresses of
+St. Valori and Albemarle into his hands: others soon after imitated
+the example of revolt; while Philip, King of France who ought to have
+protected his vassal in the possession of his fief, was, after making
+some efforts in his favour, engaged by large presents to remain
+neuter.  The duke had also reason to apprehend danger from the
+intrigues of his brother Henry.  This young prince, who had inherited
+nothing of his father's great possessions, but some of his money, had
+furnished Robert, while he was making his preparations against
+England, with the sum of three thousand marks; and in return for so
+slender a supply, had been put in possession of the Cotentin, which
+comprehended near a third of the duchy of Normandy.  Robert
+afterwards, upon some suspicion, threw him into prison; but finding
+himself exposed to invasion from the King of England, and dreading the
+conjunction of the two brothers against him, he now gave Henry his
+liberty, and even made use of his assistance in suppressing the
+insurrections of his rebellious subjects.  Conan, a rich burgess of
+Rouen, had entered into a conspiracy to deliver that city to William;
+but Henry, on the detection of his guilt, carried the traitor up to a
+high tower, and with his own hands flung him from the battlements.
+
+The king appeared in Normandy at the head of an army; and affairs
+seemed to have come to extremity between the brothers; when the
+nobility on both sides, strongly connected by interest and alliances,
+interposed and mediated an accommodation.  The chief advantage of this
+treaty accrued to William, who obtained possession of the territory of
+Eu, the towns of Aumale, Fescamp, and other places; but in return, he
+promised that he would assist his brother in subduing Maine, which had
+rebelled; and that the Norman barons, attainted in Robert's cause,
+should be restored to their estates in England.  The two brothers also
+stipulated, that on the demise of either without issue, the survivor
+should inherit all his dominions; and twelve of the most powerful
+barons on each side swore, that they would employ their power to
+ensure the effectual execution of the whole treaty [g]: a strong proof
+of the great independence and authority of the nobles in those ages!
+[FN [g] Chron. Sax. p. 197.  W. Malmes. p. 121.  Hoveden, p. 462.  M.
+Paris, p. 11.  Annal. Waverl. p. 137.  W. Heming. p. 463.  Sim.
+Dunelm. p. 216.  Brompton, p. 986.]
+
+Prince Henry, disgusted that so little care had been taken of his
+interests in this accommodation, retired to St. Michael's Mount, a
+strong fortress on the coast of Normandy, and infested the
+neighbourhood with his incursions.  Robert and William, with their
+joint forces, besieged him in this place, and had nearly reduced him
+by the scarcity of water; when the elder, hearing of his distress,
+granted him permission to supply himself, and also sent him some pipes
+of wine for his own table.  Being reproved by William for this
+ill-timed generosity, he replied, WHAT, SHALL I SUFFER MY BROTHER TO
+DIE OF THIRST?  WHERE SHALL WE FIND ANOTHER WHEN HE IS GONE?  The king
+also, during this siege, performed an act of generosity which was less
+suitable to his character.  Riding out one day alone, to take a survey
+of the fortress, he was attacked by two soldiers and dismounted.  One
+of them drew his sword in order to despatch him; when the king
+exclaimed, HOLD, KNAVE!  I AM THE KING OF ENGLAND.  The soldier
+suspended his blow; and raising the king from the ground, with
+expressions of respect, received a handsome reward, and was taken into
+his service.  Prince Henry was soon  after obliged to capitulate; and
+being despoiled of all his patrimony, wandered about for some time
+with very few attendants, and often in great poverty.
+
+[MN 1091.]  The continued intestine discord among the barons was alone
+in that age destructive; the public wars were commonly short and
+feeble, produced little bloodshed, and were attended with no memorable
+event.  To this Norman war, which was so soon concluded, there
+succeeded hostilities with Scotland, which were not of longer
+duration.  Robert here commanded his brother's army, and obliged
+Malcolm to accept of peace, and do homage to the crown of England.
+This peace was not more durable.  [MN 1093.]  Malcolm, two years
+after, levying an army, invaded England; and after ravaging
+Northumberland, he laid siege to Alnwick, where a party of Earl
+Moubray's troops falling upon him by surprise, a sharp action ensued,
+in which Malcolm was slain.  This incident interrupted for some years
+the regular succession to the Scottish crown.  Though Malcolm left
+legitimate sons, his brother, Donald, on account of the youth of these
+princes, was advanced to the throne; but kept not long possession of
+it.  Duncan, natural son of Malcolm, formed a conspiracy against him;
+and being assisted by William with a small force, made himself master
+of the kingdom.  New broils ensued with Normandy.  The frank, open,
+remiss temper of Robert was ill fitted to withstand the interested,
+rapacious character of William, who, supported by greater power, was
+still encroaching on his brother's possessions, and instigating his
+turbulent barons to rebellion against him.  [MN 1094.]  The king,
+having gone over to Normandy to support his partisans, ordered an army
+of twenty thousand men to be levied in England and to be conducted to
+the sea-coast, as if they were instantly to be embarked.  Here Ralph
+Flambard, the king's minister, and the chief instrument of his
+extortions, exacted ten shillings a-piece from them, in lieu of their
+service, and then dismissed them into their several counties.  This
+money was so skilfully employed by William that it rendered him better
+service than he could have expected from the army.  He engaged the
+French king by new presents to depart from the protection of Robert,
+and he daily bribed the Norman barons to desert his service; but was
+prevented from pushing his advantages by an incursion of the Welsh,
+which obliged him to return to England.  He found no difficulty in
+repelling the enemy; but was not able to make any considerable
+impression on a country guarded by its mountainous situation.  [MN
+1095.]  A conspiracy of his own barons, which was detected at this
+time, appeared a more serious concern, and engrossed all his
+attention.   Robert Moubray, Earl of Northumberland, was at the head
+of this combination; and he engaged in it the Count d'Eu, Richard de
+Tunbridge, Roger de Lacy, and many others.  The purpose of the
+conspirators was to dethrone the king, and to advance in his stead
+Stephen, Count of Aumale, nephew to the Conqueror.  William's despatch
+prevented the design from taking effect, and disconcerted the
+conspirators.  Moubray made some resistance, but being taken prisoner,
+was attainted, and thrown into confinement, where he died about thirty
+years after.  [MN 1096.]  The Count d'Eu denied his concurrence in the
+plot; and to justify himself, fought, in the presence of the court at
+Windsor, a duel with Geoffrey Bainard, who accused him.  But being
+worsted in the combat, he was condemned to be castrated, and to have
+his eyes put out.  William de Alderi, another conspirator, was
+supposed to be treated with more rigour, when he was sentenced to be
+hanged.
+
+[MN The Crusades.]
+But the noise of these petty wars and commotions was quite sunk in the
+tumult of the crusades, which now engrossed the attention of Europe,
+and have ever since engaged the curiosity of mankind, as the most
+signal and most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared
+in any age or nation.  After Mahomet had, by means of his pretended
+revelations, united the dispersed Arabians under one head, they issued
+forth from their deserts in great multitudes; and being animated with
+zeal for their new religion, and supported by the vigour of their new
+government, they made deep impression on the eastern empire, which was
+far in the decline, with regard both to military discipline and to
+civil policy.  Jerusalem, by its situation, became one of their most
+early conquests; and the Christians had the mortification to see the
+holy sepulchre, and the other places, consecrated by the presence of
+their religious founder, fallen into the possession of infidels.  But
+the Arabians or Saracens were so employed in military enterprises, by
+which they spread their empire, in a few years, from the banks of the
+Ganges to the Straits of Gibraltar, that they had no leisure for
+theological controversy; and though the Alcoran, the original monument
+of their faith, seems to contain some violent precepts, they were much
+less infected with the spirit of bigotry and persecution than the
+indolent and speculative Greeks, who were continually refining on the
+several articles of their religious system.  They gave little
+disturbance to those zealous pilgrims who daily flocked to Jerusalem;
+and they allowed every man, after paying a moderate tribute, to visit
+the holy sepulchre, to perform his religious duties, and to return in
+peace.  But the Turcomans or Turks, a tribe of Tartars, who had
+embraced Mahometanism, having wrested Syria from the Saracens, and
+having, in the year 1065, made themselves masters of Jerusalem,
+rendered the pilgrimage much more difficult and dangerous to the
+Christians.  The barbarity of their manners, and the confusions
+attending their unsettled government, exposed the pilgrims to many
+insults, robberies, and extortions; and these zealots, returning from
+their meritorious fatigues and sufferings, filled all Christendom with
+indignation against the infidels, who profaned the holy city by their
+presence, and derided the sacred mysteries in the very place of their
+completion.  Gregory VII., among the other vast ideas which he
+entertained, had formed the design of uniting all the western
+Christians against the Mahometans; but the egregious and violent
+invasions of that pontiff on the civil power of princes had created
+him so many enemies, and had rendered his schemes so suspicious, that
+he was not able to make great progress in this undertaking.  The work
+was reserved for a meaner instrument, whose low condition in life
+exposed him to no jealousy, and whose folly was well calculated to
+coincide with the prevailing principles of the times.
+
+Peter, commonly called the Hermit, a native of Amiens in Picardy, had
+made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  Being deeply affected with the
+dangers to which that act of piety now exposed the pilgrims, as well
+as with the instances of oppression under which the eastern Christians
+laboured, he entertained the bold, and in all appearance
+impracticable, project of leading into Asia, from the farthest
+extremities of the West, armies sufficient to subdue those potent and
+warlike nations which now held the holy city in subjection [h].  He
+proposed his views to Martin II., who filled the papal chair, and who,
+though sensible of the advantages which the head of the Christian
+religion must reap from a religious war, and though he esteemed the
+blind zeal of Peter a proper means for effecting the purpose [i],
+resolved not to interpose his authority, till he saw a greater
+probability of success.  He summoned a council at Placentia, which
+consisted of four thousand ecclesiastics, and thirty thousand
+seculars; and which was so numerous that no hall could contain the
+multitude, and it was necessary to hold the assembly in a plain.  The
+harangues of the pope, and of Peter himself, representing the dismal
+situation of their brethren in the East, and the indignity suffered by
+the Christian name, in allowing the holy city to remain in the hands
+of infidels, here found the minds of men so well prepared, that the
+whole multitude, suddenly and violently, declared for the war, and
+solemnly devoted themselves to perform this service, so meritorious,
+as they believed it, to God and religion.
+[FN [h] Gul. Tyrius, lib. 1. cap. 11.  M. Paris, p. 17.  [i] Gul.
+Tyrius, lib. 1. cap. 13.]
+
+But though Italy seemed thus to have zealously embraced the
+enterprise, Martin knew that, in order to ensure success, it was
+necessary to enlist the greater and more warlike nations in the same
+engagement; and having previously exhorted Peter to visit the chief
+cities and sovereigns of Christendom, he summoned another council at
+Clermont in Auvergne [k].  The fame of this great and pious design
+being now universally diffused, procured the attendance of the
+greatest prelates, nobles, and princes; and when the pope and the
+Hermit renewed their pathetic exhortations, the whole assembly, as if
+impelled by an immediate inspiration, not moved by their preceding
+impressions, exclaimed with one voice, IT IS THE WILL OF GOD!  IT IS
+THE WILL OF GOD!  Words deemed so memorable, and so much the result of
+a divine influence, that they were employed as the signal of
+rendezvous and battle in all the future exploits of those adventurers
+[l].  Men of all ranks flew to arms with the utmost ardour; and an
+exterior symbol too, a circumstance of chief moment, was here chosen
+by the devoted combatants.  The sign of the cross, which had been
+hitherto so much revered among Christians, and which, the more it was
+an object of reproach among the pagan world, was the more passionately
+cherished by them, became the badge of union, and was affixed to the
+right shoulder, by all who enlisted themselves in this sacred warfare
+[m].
+[FN [k] Concil. tom. x.  Concil. Clarom.  Matth. Paris, p. 16.  M.
+West. p. 233.  [l] Historia Bell. Sacri, tom. i.  Musaei Ital.  [m]
+Hist. Bell. Sacri, tom. i.  Mus. Ital.  Order. Vital. p. 721.]
+
+Europe was at this time sunk into profound ignorance and superstition:
+the ecclesiastics had acquired the greatest ascendant over the human
+mind: the people, who, being little restrained by honour, and less by
+law, abandoned themselves to the worst crimes and disorders, knew of
+no other expiation than the observances imposed on them by their
+spiritual pastors; and it was easy to represent the holy war as an
+equivalent for all penances [n], and an atonement for every violation
+of justice and humanity.  But, amidst the abject superstition which
+now prevailed, the military spirit also had universally diffused
+itself; and though not supported by art or discipline, was become the
+general passion of the nations governed by the feudal law.  All the
+great lords possessed the right of peace and war: they were engaged in
+perpetual hostilities with each other: the open country was become a
+scene of outrage and disorder: the cities, still mean and poor, were
+neither guarded by walls, nor protected by privileges, and were
+exposed to every insult: individuals were obliged to depend for safety
+on their own force, or their private alliances: and valour was the
+only excellence which was held in esteem, or gave one man the
+pre-eminence above another.  When all the particular superstitions,
+therefore, were here united in one great object, the ardour for
+military enterprises took the same direction; and Europe, impelled by
+its two ruling passions, was loosened, as it  were, from its
+foundations, and seemed to precipitate itself in one united body upon
+the East.
+[FN [n] Order. Vital. p. 720.]
+
+All orders of men, deeming the crusades the only road to Heaven,
+enlisted themselves under these sacred banners, and were impatient to
+open the way with their sword to the holy city.  Nobles, artisans,
+peasants, even priests [o], enrolled their names; and to decline this
+meritorious service, was branded with the reproach of impiety, or what
+perhaps was esteemed still more disgraceful, of cowardice and
+pusillanimity [p].  The infirm and aged contributed to the expedition
+by presents and money; and many of them, not satisfied with the merit
+of this atonement, attended it in person, and were determined, if
+possible, to breathe their last in sight of that city where their
+Saviour had died for them.  Women themselves, concealing their sex
+under the disguise of armour, attended the camp; and commonly forgot
+still more the duty of their sex, by prostituting themselves, without
+reserve, to the army [q].  The greatest criminals were forward in a
+service which they regarded as a propitiation for all crimes; and the
+most enormous disorders were, during the course of those expeditions,
+committed by men inured to wickedness, encouraged by example, and
+impelled by necessity.  The multitude of the adventurers soon became
+so great, that their more sagacious leaders, Hugh, Count of
+Vermandois, brother to the French king, Raymond, Count of Toulouse,
+Godfrey of Bouillon, Prince of Brabant, and Stephen, Count of Blois,
+became apprehensive lest the greatness itself of the armament should
+disappoint its purpose; and they permitted an undisciplined multitude,
+computed at three hundred thousand men, to go before them, under the
+command of Peter the Hermit, and Walter the Moneyless [s].  These men
+took the road towards Constantinople through Hungary and Bulgaria; and
+trusting that Heaven, by supernatural assistance, would supply all
+their necessities, they made no provision for subsistence on their
+march.  They soon found themselves obliged to obtain by plunder what
+they had vainly expected from miracles; and the enraged inhabitants of
+the countries through which they passed, gathering together in arms,
+attacked the disorderly multitude, and put them to slaughter without
+resistance.  The more disciplined armies followed after; and passing
+the straits at Constantinople, they were mustered in the plains of
+Asia, and amounted in the whole to the number of seven hundred
+thousand combatants [t].
+[FN [o] Order. Vital. p. 720.  [p] W. Malm. p. 133.  [q] Vertot, Hist.
+de Chev. de Malte, vol. i. p. 46.  [r] Sim. Dunelm. p. 222.  [s]
+Matth. Paris, p. 17.  [t] Matth. Paris, p. 20, 21.]
+
+Amidst this universal frenzy, which spread itself by contagion
+throughout Europe, especially in France and Germany, men were not
+entirely forgetful of their present interests; and both those who went
+on this expedition, and those who stayed behind, entertained schemes
+of gratifying, by its means, their avarice or their ambition.  The
+nobles who enlisted themselves were moved, from the romantic spirit of
+the age, to hope for opulent establishments in the East, the chief
+seat of arts and commerce during those ages; and in pursuit of these
+chimerical projects, they sold at the lowest price their ancient
+castles and inheritances, which had now lost all value in their eyes.
+The greater princes, who remained at home, besides establishing peace
+in their dominions by giving occupation abroad to the inquietude and
+martial disposition of their subjects, took the opportunity of
+annexing to their crown many considerable fiefs, either by purchase,
+or by the extinction of heirs.  The pope frequently turned the zeal of
+the crusaders from the infidels against his own enemies, whom he
+represented as equally criminal with the enemies of Christ.  The
+convents and other religious societies bought the possessions of the
+adventurers, and as the contributions of the faithful were commonly
+intrusted to their management, they often diverted to this purpose
+what was intended to be employed against the infidels [u].  But no one
+was a more immediate gainer by this epidemic fury than the King of
+England, who kept aloof from all connexions with those fanatical and
+romantic warriors.
+[FN [u] Padre Paolo Hist. delle benef. ecclesiast. p. 128.]
+
+[MN Acquisition of Normandy.]
+Robert, Duke of Normandy, impelled by the bravery and mistaken
+generosity of his spirit, had early enlisted himself in the crusade;
+but being always unprovided with money, he found that it would be
+impracticable for him to appear in a manner suitable to his rank and
+station, at the head of his numerous vassals and subjects, who,
+transported with the general rage, were determined to follow him into
+Asia.  He resolved, therefore, to mortgage, or rather to sell his
+dominion; which he had not talents to govern; and he offered them to
+his brother William for the very unequal sum of ten thousand marks
+[w].  The bargain was soon concluded: the king raised the money by
+violent extortions on his subjects of all ranks, even on the convents,
+who were obliged to melt their plate in order to furnish the quota
+demanded of them [x]: he was put in possession of Normandy and Maine,
+and Robert, providing himself with a magnificent train, set out for
+the Holy Land, in pursuit of glory, and in full confidence of securing
+his eternal salvation.
+[FN [w] W. Malm. p. 123.  Chron. T. Wykes. p. 24.  Annal. Waverl. p.
+139.  W. Heming. p. 467.  Flor. Wig. p. 648.  Sim. Dunelm. p. 222.
+Knyghton, p. 2564.  [x] Eadmer, p. 35.  W. Malm. p. 123.  W. Heming.
+p. 467.]
+
+The smallness of this sum, with the difficulties which William found
+in raising it, suffices alone to refute the account which is
+heedlessly adopted by historians, of the enormous revenue of the
+Conqueror.  Is it credible that Robert would consign to the rapacious
+hands of his brother such considerable dominion, for a sum, which,
+according to that account, made not a week's income of his father's
+English revenue alone?  Or that the King of England could not on
+demand, without oppressing his subjects, have been able to pay him the
+money?  The Conqueror, it is agreed, was frugal as well as rapacious;
+yet his treasure, at his death, exceeded not sixty thousand pounds,
+which hardly amounted to his income for two months: another certain
+refutation of that exaggerated account.
+
+The fury of the crusades, during this age, less infected England than
+the neighbouring kingdoms; probably because the Norman conquerors,
+finding their settlement in that kingdom still somewhat precarious,
+durst not abandon their homes in quest of distant adventures.  The
+selfish interested spirit also of the king, which kept him from
+kindling in the general flame, checked its progress among his
+subjects: and as he is accused of open profaneness [y], and was endued
+with a sharp wit [z], it is likely that he made the romantic chivalry
+of the crusaders the object of his perpetual raillery.  As an instance
+of his irreligion, we are told, that he once accepted of sixty marks
+from a Jew, whose son had been converted to Christianity, and who
+engaged him by that present to assist him in bringing back the youth
+to Judaism.  William employed both menaces and persuasion for that
+purpose; but finding the convert obstinate in his new faith, he sent
+for the father and told him, that as he had not succeeded, it was not
+just that he should keep the present; but as he had done his utmost,
+it was but equitable that he should be paid for his pains; and he
+would therefore retain only thirty marks of the money [a].  At another
+time, it is said, he sent for some learned Christian theologians and
+some rabbies, and bade them fairly dispute the question of their
+religion in his presence: he was perfectly indifferent between them;
+had his ears open to reason and conviction; and would embrace that
+doctrine which upon comparison should be found supported by the most
+solid arguments [b].  If this story be true, it is probable that he
+meant only to amuse himself by turning both into ridicule: but we must
+be cautious of admitting every thing related by the monkish historians
+to the disadvantage of this prince: he had the misfortune to be
+engaged in quarrels with the ecclesiastics, particularly with Anselm,
+commonly called St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury; and it is no
+wonder his memory should be blackened by the historians of that order.
+[FN [y] G. Newbr. p. 358.  W. Gemet. p. 292.  [z] W. Malm. p. 122.
+[a] Eadmer, p. 47.  [b] W. Malm. p. 123.]
+
+[MN Quarrel the Anselm, the primate.]
+After the death of Lanfranc, the king, for several years, retained in
+his own hands the revenues of Canterbury, as he did those of many
+other vacant bishoprics; but falling into a dangerous sickness, he was
+seized with remorse, and the clergy represented to him, that he was in
+danger of eternal perdition, if before his death he did not make
+atonement for those multiplied impieties and sacrileges of which he
+had been guilty [c].  He resolved therefore to supply instantly the
+vacancy of Canterbury; and for that purpose he sent for Anselm, a
+Piedmontese by birth, Abbot of Bec in Normandy, who was much
+celebrated for his learning and piety.  The abbot earnestly refused
+the dignity, fell on his knees, wept, and entreated the king to change
+his purpose [d]; and when he found the prince obstinate in forcing the
+pastoral staff upon him, he kept his fist so fast clenched, that it
+required the utmost violence of the bystanders to open it, and force
+him to receive that ensign of spiritual dignity [e].  William soon
+after recovered; and his passions regaining their wonted vigour, he
+returned to his former violence and rapine.  He detained in prison
+several persons whom he had ordered to be freed during the time of his
+penitence; he still preyed upon the ecclesiastical benefices; the sale
+of spiritual dignities continued as open as ever; and he kept
+possession of a considerable part of the revenues belonging to the see
+of Canterbury [f].  But he found in Anselm that persevering opposition
+which he had reason to expect from the ostentatious humility which
+that prelate had displayed in refusing his promotion.
+[FN [c] Eadmer, p. 16.  Chron. Sax. p. 198.  [d] Eadmer, p. 17.
+Diceto, p. 494.  [e] Eadmer, p. 18.  [f] Eadmer, p. 19, 43.  Chron.
+Sax. p. 119.]
+
+The opposition made by Anselm was the more dangerous on account of the
+character of piety which he soon acquired in England by his great zeal
+against all abuses, particularly those in dress and ornament.  There
+was a mode, which, in that age, prevailed throughout Europe, both
+among men and women, to give an enormous length to their shoes, to
+draw the toe to a sharp point, and to affix to it the figure of a
+bird's bill, or some such ornament, which was turned upwards, and
+which was often sustained by gold or silver chains tied to the knee
+[g].  The ecclesiastics took exception at this ornament, which they
+said was an attempt to belie the scripture, where it is affirmed, that
+no man can add a cubit to his stature; and they declaimed against it
+with great vehemence, nay, assembled some synods, who absolutely
+condemned it.  But, such are the strange contradictions in human
+nature! though the clergy, at that time, could overturn thrones, and
+had authority sufficient to send above a million of men on THEIR
+errand to the deserts of Asia, they could never prevail against these
+long pointed shoes: on the contrary, that caprice, contrary to all
+other modes, maintained its ground during several centuries; and if
+the clergy had not at last desisted from their persecution of it, it
+might still have been the prevailing fashion in Europe.
+[FN [g] Order. Vital. p. 682.  W. Malmes. p. 123.  Knyghton, p. 2369.]
+
+But Anselm was more fortunate in decrying the particular mode which
+was the object of his aversion, and which probably had not taken such
+fast hold of the affections of the people.  He preached zealously
+against the long hair and curled locks which were then fashionable
+among the courtiers; he refused the ashes on Ash-Wednesday to those
+who were so accoutred; and his authority and eloquence had such
+influence, that the young men universally abandoned that ornament, and
+appeared in the cropped hair, which was recommended to them by the
+sermons of the primate.  The noted historian of Anselm, who was also
+his companion and secretary, celebrates highly this effort of his zeal
+and piety [h].
+[FN [h] Eadmer, p. 23.]
+
+When William's profaneness therefore returned to him with his health,
+he was soon engaged in controversies with this austere prelate.  There
+was at that time a schism in the church between Urban and Clement, who
+both pretended to the papacy [i]; and Anselm, who, as Abbot of Bec,
+had already acknowledged the former, was determined, without the
+king's consent, to introduce his authority into England [k].  William,
+who, imitating his father's example, had prohibited his subjects from
+recognizing any pope whom he had not previously received, was enraged
+at this attempt; and summoned a synod at Rockingham, with an intention
+of deposing Anselm: but the prelate's suffragans declared, that
+without the papal authority, they knew of no expedient for inflicting
+that punishment on their primate [l].  The king was at last engaged by
+other motives to give the preference to Urban's title: Anselm received
+the pall from that pontiff; and matters seemed to be accommodated
+between the king and the primate [m], when the quarrel broke out
+afresh from a new cause.  William had undertaken an expedition against
+Wales, and required the archbishop to furnish his quota of soldiers
+for that service; but Anselm, who regarded the demand as an oppression
+on the church, and yet durst not refuse compliance, sent them so
+miserably accoutred, that the king was extremely displeased, and
+threatened him with a prosecution [n].  Anselm, on the other hand,
+demanded positively that all the revenues of his see should be
+restored to him; appealed to Rome against the king's injustice [o];
+and affairs came to such extremities, that the primate, finding it
+dangerous to remain in the kingdom, desired and obtained the king's
+permission to retire beyond sea.  All his temporalities were seized
+[p]; but he was received with great respect by Urban, who considered
+him as a martyr in the cause of religion, and even menaced the king on
+account of his proceedings against the primate and the church, with
+the sentence of excommunication.  Anselm assisted at the council of
+Bari, where, besides fixing the controversy between the Greek and
+Latin churches, concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost [q], the
+right of election to church preferments was declared to belong to the
+clergy alone, and spiritual censures were denounced against all
+ecclesiastics, who did homage to laymen for their sees or benefices,
+and against all laymen who exacted it [r].  The right of homage, by
+the feudal customs, was, that the vassal should throw himself on his
+knees, should put his joined hands between those of his superior, and
+should in that posture swear fealty to him [s].  But the council
+declared it execrable, that pure hands, which could create God, and
+could offer him up as a sacrifice for the salvation of mankind, should
+be put, after this humiliating manner, between profane hands, which,
+besides being inured to rapine and bloodshed, were employed day and
+night in impure purposes, and obscene contacts [t].  Such were the
+reasonings prevalent in that age; reasonings which, though they cannot
+be passed over in silence, without omitting the most curious, and
+perhaps not the least instructive part of history, can scarcely be
+delivered with the requisite decency and gravity.
+[FN [i] Hoveden, p. 463.  [k] Eadmer, p. 25.  M. Paris, p. 13.
+Diceto, p. 494.  Spellm. Conc. vol ii. p. 16.  [l] Eadmer, p. 30.  [m]
+Diceto, p. 495.  [n] Eadmer, p. 37, 43.  [o] Ibid. p. 40.  [p] M.
+Paris, p. 13.  Parker, p. 178.  [q] Eadmer, p. 49.  M. Paris, p. 13.
+Sim. Dun. p. 224.  [r] M. Paris, p. 14.  [s] Spellman, Du Cange, in
+verb. HOMINIUM.  [t] W. Heming. p. 467.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 649.  Sim.
+Dunelm. p. 224.  Brompton, p. 994.]
+
+[MN 1097.]  The cession of Normandy and Maine by Duke Robert increased
+the king's territories; but brought him no great increase of power,
+because of the unsettled state of those countries, the mutinous
+disposition of the barons, and the vicinity of the French king, who
+supported them in all their insurrections.  Even Helie, Lord of La
+Fleche, a small town in Anjou, was able to give him inquietude; and
+this great monarch was obliged to make several expeditions abroad,
+without being able to prevail over so petty a baron, who had acquired
+the confidence and affections of the inhabitants of Maine.  He was,
+however, so fortunate as at last to take him prisoner in a rencounter;
+but having released him at the intercession of the French king and the
+Count of Anjou, he found the province of Maine still exposed to his
+intrigues and incursions.  Helie, being introduced by the citizens
+into the town of Mans, besieged the garrison in the citadel: [MN
+1099.] William, who was hunting in the new forest when he received
+intelligence of this hostile attempt, was so provoked, that he
+immediately turned his horse, and galloped to the sea-shore at
+Dartmouth; declaring, that he would not stop a moment till he had
+taken vengeance for the offence.  He found the weather so cloudy and
+tempestuous, that the mariners thought it dangerous to put to sea: but
+the king hurried on board, and ordered them to set sail instantly;
+telling them, that they never yet heard of a king that was drowned
+[u].  By this vigour and celerity, he delivered the citadel of Mans
+from its present danger: and pursuing Helie into his own territories,
+he laid siege to Majol, a small castle in those parts: [MN 1100.] but
+a wound, which he received before this place, obliged him to raise the
+siege; and he returned to England.
+[FN [u] W. Malm. p. 124.  H. Hunt. p. 378.  M. Paris, p. 36.  Ypod.
+Neust p. 442.]
+
+The weakness of the greatest monarchs, during this age, in their
+military expeditions against their nearest neighbours, appears the
+more surprising, when we consider the prodigious numbers which even
+petty princes, seconding the enthusiastic rage of the people, were
+able to assemble, and to conduct in dangerous enterprises to the
+remote provinces of Asia.  William, Earl of Poitiers and Duke of
+Guienne, inflamed with the glory, and not discouraged by the
+misfortunes, which had attended the former adventurers in the
+crusades, had put himself at the head of an immense multitude,
+computed by some historians to amount to sixty thousand horse, and a
+much greater number of foot [w], and he purposed to lead them into the
+Holy Land against the infidels.  He wanted money to forward the
+preparations requisite for this expedition, and he offered to mortgage
+all his dominions to William, without entertaining any scruple on
+account of that rapacious and iniquitous hand to which he resolved to
+consign them [x].  The king accepted the offer, and had prepared a
+fleet and an army, in order to escort the money, and take possession
+of the rich provinces of Guienne and Poictou; [MN 2d August.] when an
+accident put an end to his life, and to all his ambitious projects.
+He was engaged in hunting, the sole amusement, and indeed the chief
+occupation of princes in those rude times, when society was little
+cultivated, and the arts afforded few objects worthy of attention.
+Walter Tyrrel, a French gentleman, remarkable for his address in
+archery, attended him in this recreation, of which the new forest was
+the scene; and as William had dismounted after a chase, Tyrrel,
+impatient to show his dexterity, let fly an arrow at a stag, which
+suddenly started before him.  The arrow, glancing from a tree, struck
+the king in the breast, and instantly slew him [y]; while Tyrrel,
+without informing any one of the accident, put spurs to his horse,
+hastened to the sea-shore, embarked for France, and joined the crusade
+in an expedition to Jerusalem; a penance which he imposed on himself
+for this involuntary crime.  The body of William was found in the
+forest by the country people, and was buried without any pomp or
+ceremony at Winchester.  His courtiers were negligent in performing
+the last duties to a master who was so little beloved; and every one
+was too much occupied in the interesting object of fixing his
+successor, to attend the funeral of a dead sovereign.
+[FN [w] W. Malm. p. 149.  The whole is said by Order. Vital., p. 789,
+to amount to three hundred thousand men.  [x] W. Malmes. p. 127.  [y]
+Ibid. p. 126.  H. Hunt. p. 378.  M. Paris, p. 37.  Petr. Blois, p.
+110.]
+
+[MN Death and character of William Rufus.]
+The memory of this monarch is transmitted to us with little advantage
+by the churchmen, whom he had offended; and though we may suspect, in
+general, that their account of his vices is somewhat exaggerated, his
+conduct affords little reason for contradicting the character which
+they have assigned him, or for attributing to him any very estimable
+qualities.  He seems to have been a violent and tyrannical prince; a
+perfidious, encroaching, and dangerous neighbour; an unkind and
+ungenerous relation.  He was equally prodigal and rapacious in the
+management of his treasury; and if he possessed abilities, he lay so
+much under the government of impetuous passions, that he made little
+use of them in his administration; and he indulged, without reserve,
+that domineering policy, which suited his temper, and which, if
+supported, as it was in him, with courage and vigour, proves often
+more successful in disorderly times, than the deepest foresight and
+most refined artifice.
+
+The monuments which remain of this prince in England, are the Tower,
+Westminster-hall, and London-bridge, which he built.  The most
+laudable foreign enterprise which he undertook, was the sending of
+Edgar Atheling, three years before his death, into Scotland with a
+small army, to restore Prince Edgar, the true heir of that kingdom,
+son of Malcolm, and of Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling; and the
+enterprise proved successful.  It was remarked in that age, that
+Richard, an elder brother of William's, perished by an accident in the
+new forest; Richard, his nephew, natural son of Duke Robert, lost his
+life in the same place, after the same manner; and all men, upon the
+king's fate, exclaimed, that, as the Conqueror had been guilty of
+extreme violence, in expelling all the inhabitants of that large
+district to make room for his game, the just vengeance of Heaven was
+signalized, in the same place, by the slaughter of his posterity.
+William was killed in the thirteenth year of his reign, and about the
+fortieth of his age.  As he was never married, he left no legitimate
+issue.
+
+In the eleventh year of this reign, Magnus, King of Norway, made a
+descent on the Isle of Anglesea, but was repulsed by Hugh, Earl of
+Shrewsbury.  This is the last attempt made by the northern nations
+upon England.  That restless people seem about this time to have
+learnt the practice of tillage, which thenceforth kept them at home,
+and freed the other nations of Europe from the devastations spread
+over them by those piratical invaders.  This proved one great cause of
+the subsequent settlement and improvement of the southern nations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+HENRY I.
+
+THE CRUSADES.--ACCESSION OF HENRY.--MARRIAGE OF THE KING.--INVASION BY
+DUKE ROBERT.--ACCOMMODATION WITH ROBERT.—ATTACK OF NORMANDY.--CONQUEST
+OF NORMANDY.--CONTINUATION OF THE QUARREL WITH ANSELM, THE PRIMATE.--
+COMPROMISE WITH HIM.—WARS ABROAD.--DEATH OF PRINCE WILLIAM.--KING'S
+SECOND MARRIAGE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF HENRY
+
+
+
+[MN 1100.  The Crusades.]
+After the adventurers in the holy war were assembled on the banks of
+the Bosphorus, opposite to Constantinople, they proceeded on their
+enterprise; but immediately experienced those difficulties which their
+zeal had hitherto concealed from them, and for which, even if they had
+foreseen them, it would have been almost impossible to provide a
+remedy.  The Greek emperor, Alexius Comnenus, who had applied to the
+western Christians for succour against the Turks, entertained hopes,
+and those but feeble ones, of obtaining such a moderate supply, as,
+acting under his command, might enable him to repulse the enemy: but
+he was extremely astonished to see his dominions overwhelmed, on a
+sudden, by such an inundation of licentious barbarians, who, though
+they pretended friendship, despised his subjects as unwarlike, and
+detested them as heretical.  By all the arts of policy, in which he
+excelled, he endeavoured to divert the torrent; but while he employed
+professions, caresses, civilities, and seeming services towards the
+leaders of the crusade, he secretly regarded those imperious allies as
+more dangerous than the open enemies by whom his empire had been
+formerly invaded.  Having effected that difficult point of
+disembarking them safely in Asia, he entered into a private
+correspondence with Soliman, Emperor of the Turks; and practised every
+insidious art, which his genius, his power, or his situation enabled
+him to employ, for disappointing the enterprise, and discouraging the
+Latins from making thenceforward any such prodigious migrations.  His
+dangerous policy was seconded by the disorders inseparable from so
+vast a multitude, who were not united under one head, and were
+conducted by leaders of the most independent, intractable spirit,
+unacquainted with military discipline, and determined enemies to civil
+authority and submission.  The scarcity of provisions, the excess of
+fatigue, the influence of unknown climates, joined to the want of
+concert in their operations, and to the sword of a warlike enemy,
+destroyed the adventurers by thousands, and would have abated the
+ardour of men impelled to war by less powerful motives.  Their zeal,
+however, their bravery, and their irresistible force, still carried
+them forward, and continually advanced them to the great end of their
+enterprise.  After an obstinate siege they took Nice, the seat of the
+Turkish empire; they defeated Soliman in two great battles; they made
+themselves masters of Antioch; and entirely broke the force of the
+Turks, who had so long retained those countries in subjection: the
+Soldan of Egypt, whose alliance they had hitherto courted, recovered,
+on the fall of the Turkish power, his former authority in Jerusalem;
+and he informed them by his ambassadors, that if they came disarmed to
+that city, they might now perform their religious vows, and that all
+Christian pilgrims, who should thenceforth visit the holy sepulchre,
+might expect the same good treatment which they had ever received from
+his predecessors.  The offer was rejected; the soldan was required to
+yield up the city to the Christians; and on his refusal, the champions
+of the Cross advanced to the siege of Jerusalem, which they regarded
+as the consummation of their labours.  By the detachments which they
+had made, and the disasters which they had undergone, they were
+diminished to the number of twenty thousand foot and fifteen hundred
+horse; but these were still formidable, from their valour, their
+experience, and the obedience which, from past calamities, they had
+learned to pay to their leaders.  After a siege of five weeks, they
+took Jerusalem by assault; and, impelled by a mixture of military and
+religious rage, they put the numerous garrison and inhabitants to the
+sword without distinction.  Neither arms defended the valiant, nor
+submission the timorous: no age or sex was spared: infants on the
+breast were pierced by the same blow with their mothers, who implored
+for mercy: even a multitude, to the number of ten thousand persons,
+who had surrendered themselves prisoners, and were promised quarter,
+were butchered in cool blood by those ferocious conquerors [a].  The
+streets of Jerusalem were covered with dead bodies [b]; and the
+triumphant warriors, after every enemy was subdued and slaughtered,
+immediately turned themselves, with the sentiments of humiliation and
+contrition, towards the holy sepulchre.  They threw aside their arms,
+still streaming with blood: they advanced with reclined bodies, and
+naked feet and heads, to the sacred monument: they sung anthems to
+their Saviour who had there purchased their salvation by his death and
+agony: and their devotion, enlivened by the presence of the place
+where he had suffered, so overcame their fury, that they dissolved in
+tears, and bore the appearance of every soft and tender sentiment.  So
+inconsistent is human nature with itself! and so easily does the most
+effeminate superstition ally, both with the most heroic courage and
+with the fiercest barbarity!
+[FN [a] Vertot, vol. i. p. 57.  [b] M. Paris, p. 34.  Order. Vital. p.
+756.  Diceto, p. 498.]
+
+This great event happened on the 5th of July, in the last year of the
+eleventh century.  The Christian princes and nobles, after choosing
+Godfrey of Bouillon King of Jerusalem, began to settle themselves in
+their new conquests; while some of them returned to Europe, in order
+to enjoy at home that glory which their valour had acquired them in
+this popular and meritorious enterprise.  Among these was Robert, Duke
+of Normandy, who, as he had relinquished the greatest dominions of any
+prince that attended the crusade, had all along distinguished himself
+by the most intrepid courage, as well as by that affable disposition
+and unbounded generosity which gain the hearts of soldiers, and
+qualify a prince to shine in a military life.  In passing through
+Italy, he became acquainted with Sibylla, daughter of the Count of
+Conversana, a young lady of great beauty and merit, whom he espoused:
+indulging himself in this new passion, as well as fond of enjoying
+ease and pleasure after the fatigues of so many rough campaigns, he
+lingered a twelvemonth in that delicious climate; and though his
+friends in the north looked every moment for his arrival, none of them
+knew when they could with certainty expect it.  By this delay he lost
+the kingdom of England, which the great fame he had acquired during
+the crusades, as well as his undoubted title, both by birth, and by
+the preceding agreement with his deceased brother, would, had he been
+present, have infallibly secured to him.
+
+[MN Accession of Henry.]
+Prince Henry was hunting with Rufus in the new forest, when
+intelligence of that monarch's death was brought him; and being
+sensible of the advantage attending the conjuncture, he hurried to
+Winchester, in order to secure the royal treasure, which he knew to be
+a necessary implement for facilitating his designs on the crown.  He
+had scarcely reached the place when William of Breteuil, keeper of the
+treasure, arrived, and opposed himself to Henry's pretensions.  This
+nobleman, who had been engaged in the same party of hunting, had no
+sooner heard of his master's death, than he hastened to take care of
+his charge; and he told the prince that this treasure, as well as the
+crown, belonged to his elder brother, who was now his sovereign; and
+that he himself, for his part, was determined, in spite of all other
+pretensions, to maintain his allegiance to him.  But Henry, drawing
+his sword, threatened him with instant death if he dared to disobey
+him; and as others of the late king's retinue, who came every moment
+to Winchester, joined the prince's party, Breteuil was obliged to
+withdraw his opposition, and to acquiesce in this insolence [c].
+[FN [c] Order. Vital. p. 782.]
+
+Henry, without losing a moment, hastened with the money to London; and
+having assembled some noblemen and prelates, whom his address, or
+abilities, or presents, gained to his side, he was suddenly elected,
+or rather saluted, king, and immediately proceeded to the exercise of
+royal authority.  In less than three days after his brother's death,
+the ceremony of his coronation was performed by Maurice, Bishop of
+London, who was persuaded to officiate on that occasion [d]; and thus
+by his courage and celerity, he intruded himself into the vacant
+throne.  No one had sufficient spirit or sense of duty to appear in
+defence of the absent prince: all men were seduced or intimidated:
+present possession supplied the apparent defects in Henry's title,
+which was indeed founded on plain usurpation: and the barons, as well
+as the people, acquiesced in a claim which, though it could neither be
+justified nor comprehended, could now, they found, be opposed through
+the perils alone of civil war and rebellion.
+[FN [d] Chron. Sax. p. 208.  Order. Vital. p. 783.]
+
+But as Henry foresaw that a crown, usurped against all rules of
+justice, would sit unsteady on his head, he resolved, by fair
+professions at least, to gain the affections of all his subjects.
+Besides taking the usual coronation oath to maintain the laws and
+execute justice, he passed a charter, which was calculated to remedy
+many of the grievous oppressions which had been complained of during
+the reigns of his father and brother [e].  He there promised, that, at
+the death of any bishop or abbot, he never would seize the revenues of
+the see or abbey during the vacancy, but would leave the whole to be
+reaped by the successor; and that he would never let to farm any
+ecclesiastical benefice, nor dispose of it for money.  After this
+concession to the church, whose favour was of so great importance, he
+proceeded to enumerate the civil grievances which he purposed to
+redress.  He promised, that, upon the death of any earl, baron, or
+military tenant, his heir should be admitted to the possession of his
+estate, on paying a just and lawful relief; without being exposed to
+such violent exactions as had been usual during the late reigns: he
+remitted the wardship of minors, and allowed guardians to be
+appointed, who should be answerable for the trust: he promised not to
+dispose of any heiress in marriage but by the advice of all the
+barons; and if any baron intended to give his daughter, sister, niece,
+or kinswoman in marriage, it should only be necessary for him to
+consult the king, who promised to take no money for his consent, nor
+ever to refuse permission, unless the  person to whom it was purposed
+to many her should happen to be his enemy: he granted his barons and
+military tenants the power of bequeathing, by will, their money or
+personal estates; and if they neglected to make a will, he promised
+that their heirs should succeed to them: he renounced the right of
+imposing money-age, and of levying taxes at pleasure on the farms
+which the barons retained in their own hands [f]: he made some general
+professions of moderating fines: he offered a pardon for all offences;
+and he remitted all debts due to the crown: he required that the
+vassals of the barons should enjoy the same privileges which he
+granted to his own barons: and he promised a general confirmation and
+observance of the laws of King Edward.  This is the substance of the
+chief articles contained in that famous charter [g].
+[FN [e] Chron. Sax. p. 208.  Sim. Dunelm. p. 225.  [f] See Appendix
+II.  [g] M. Paris, p. 38.  Hoveden, p. 468.  Brompton, p. 1021.
+Hagulstadt, p. 310.]
+
+To give greater authenticity to these concessions, Henry lodged a copy
+of his charter in some abbey of each county, as if desirous that it
+should be exposed to the view of all his subjects, and remain a
+perpetual rule for the limitation and direction of his government: yet
+it is certain, that, after the present purpose was served, he never
+once thought, during his reign, of observing one single article of it;
+and the whole fell so much into neglect and oblivion, that in the
+following century, when the barons, who had heard an obscure tradition
+of it, desired to make it the model of the great charter which they
+exacted from King John, they could with difficulty find a copy of it
+in the kingdom.  But as to the grievances here meant to be redressed,
+they were still continued in their full extent; and the royal
+authority, in all those particulars, lay under no manner of
+restriction.  Reliefs of heirs, so capital an article, were never
+effectually fixed till the time of Magna Charta [h]; and it is evident
+that the general promise here given, of accepting a just and lawful
+relief, ought to have been reduced to more precision, in order to give
+security to the subject.  The oppression of wardship and marriage was
+perpetuated even till the reign of Charles II.  And it appears from
+Glanville [i], the famous justiciary of Henry II., that in his time,
+where any man died intestate, an accident which must have been very
+frequent when the art of writing was so little known, the king, or the
+lord of the fief, pretended to seize all the movables, and to exclude
+every heir, even the children of the deceased: a sure mark of a
+tyrannical and arbitrary government.
+[FN [h] Glanv. lib. 2. cap. 36.  What is called a relief in the
+Conqueror's laws, preserved by Ingulph, seems to have been the heriot;
+since reliefs, as well as the other burdens of the feudal law, were
+unknown in the age of the Confessor, whose laws these originally were.
+[i] Lib. 7. cap. 16.  This practice was contrary to the laws of King
+Edward ratified by the Conqueror, as we learn from Ingulph, p. 91.
+But laws had at this time very little influence: power and violence
+governed every thing.]
+
+The Normans, indeed, who domineered in England, were, during this age,
+so licentious a people, that they may be pronounced incapable of any
+true or regular liberty; which requires such improvement in knowledge
+and morals as can only be the result of reflection and experience, and
+must grow to perfection during several ages of settled and established
+government.  A people so insensible to the rights of their sovereign
+as to disjoint, without necessity, the hereditary succession, and
+permit a younger brother to intrude himself into the place of the
+elder, whom they esteemed, and who was guilty of no crime, but being
+absent, could not expect that that prince would pay any greater regard
+to their privileges, or allow his engagements to fetter his power and
+debar him from any considerable interest or convenience.  They had,
+indeed, arms in their hands, which prevented the establishment of a
+total despotism, and left their posterity sufficient power, whenever
+they should attain a sufficient degree of reason, to assure true
+liberty: but their turbulent disposition frequently prompted them to
+make such use of their arms, that they were more fitted to obstruct
+the execution of justice, than to stop the career of violence and
+oppresion.  The prince, finding that greater opposition was often made
+to him when he enforced the laws than when he violated them, was apt
+to render his own will and pleasure the sole rule of government; and,
+at every emergence, to consider more the power of the persons whom he
+might offend, than the rights of those whom he might injure.  The very
+form of this charter of Henry proves that the Norman barons (for they,
+rather than the people of England, were chiefly concerned in it) were
+totally ignorant of the nature of united monarchy, and were ill
+qualified to conduct, in conjunction with their sovereign, the machine
+of government.  It is an act of his sole power, is the result of his
+free grace, contains some articles which bind others as well as
+himself, and is therefore unfit to be the deed of any one who
+possesses not the whole legislative power, and who may not at pleasure
+revoke all his concessions.
+
+Henry, farther to increase his popularity, degraded and committed to
+prison Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, who had been the chief
+instrument of oppresion under his brother [k]: but this act was
+followed by another, which was a direct violation of his own charter,
+and was a bad prognostic of his sincere intentions to observe it: he
+kept the see of Durham vacant for five years, and during that time
+retained possession of all its revenues.  Sensible of the great
+authority which Anselm had acquired by his character of piety, and by
+the persecutions which he had undergone from William, he sent repeated
+messages to him at Lyons, where he resided, and invited him to return
+and take possession of his dignities [l].  On the arrival of the
+prelate, he proposed to him the renewal of that homage which he had
+done his brother, and which he had never been refused by any English
+bishop: but Anslem  had acquired other sentiments by his journey to
+Rome, and gave the king an absolute refusal.  He objected to the
+decrees of the council of Bari, at which he himself had assisted; and
+he declared, that so far from doing homage for his spiritual dignity,
+he would not so much as communicate with any ecclesiastic who paid
+that submission, or who accepted of investitures from laymen.  Henry;
+who expected, in his present delicate situation, to reap great
+advantages from the authority and popularity of Anselm, durst not
+insist on his demand [m]: he only desired that the controversy might
+be suspended: and that messengers might be sent to Rome, in order to
+accommodate matters with the pope, and obtain his confirmation of the
+laws and customs of England.
+[FN [k] Chron. Sax. p. 208.  W. Malm. p. 156.  Matth. Paris, p. 39.
+Alur. Beverl. p. 144.  [l] Chron. Sax. p. 208.  Order. Vital. p. 783.
+Matth. Paris, p. 39.  T. Rudborne, p. 273.  [m] W. Malm. p. 225.]
+
+[MN 1100.  Marriage of the king.]
+There immediately occurred an important affair, in which the king was
+obliged to have recourse to the authority of Anselm.  Matilda,
+daughter of Malcolm III., King of Scotland, and niece to Edgar
+Atheling, had, on her father's death, and the subsequent revolutions
+in the Scottish government, been brought to England, and educated
+under her aunt Christina, in the nunnery of Rumsey.  This princess
+Henry purposed to marry; but as she had worn the veil, though never
+taken the vows, doubts might arise concerning the lawfulness of the
+act; and it behoved him to be very careful not to shock, in any
+particular, the religious prejudices of his subjects.  The affair was
+examined by Anselm in a council of the prelates and nobles, which was
+summoned at Lambeth; Matilda there proved that she had put on the
+veil, not with the view of entering into a religious life, but merely
+in consequence of a custom familiar to the English ladies, who
+protected their chastity from the brutal violence of the Normans by
+taking shelter under that habit [n], which, amidst the horrible
+licentiousness of the times, was yet generally revered.  The council,
+sensible that even a princess had otherwise no security for her
+honour, admitted this reason as valid; they pronounced that Matilda
+was still free to marry [o] and her espousals with Henry were
+celebrated by Anselm with great pomp and solemnity [p].  No act of the
+king's reign rendered him equally popular with his English subjects,
+and tended more to establish him on the throne.  Though Matilda,
+during the life of her uncle and brothers, was not heir of the Saxon
+line, she was become very dear to the English on account of her
+connexions with it: and that people, who, before the Conquest, had
+fallen into a kind of indifference towards their ancient royal family,
+had felt so severely the tyranny of the Normans, that they reflected
+with extreme regret on their former liberty, and hoped for more equal
+and mild administration, when the blood of their native princes should
+be mingled with that of their new sovereigns [q].
+[FN [n] Eadmer, p. 57.  [o] Ibid.  [p] Hoveden, p. 468.  [q] M. Paris,
+p. 40.]
+
+[MN 1100.  Invasion by Duke Robert.]
+But the policy and prudence of Henry, which, if time had been allowed
+for these virtues to produce their full effect, would have secured him
+possession of the crown, ran great hazard of being frustrated by the
+sudden appearance of Robert, who returned to Normandy about a month
+after the death of his brother William.  [MN 1101.]  He took
+possession, without opposition, of that duchy; and immediately made
+preparations for recovering England, of which, during his absence, he
+had, by Henry's intrigues, been so unjustly defrauded.  The great fame
+which he had acquired in the East forwarded his pretensions; and the
+Norman barons, sensible of the consequences, expressed the same
+discontent at the separation of the duchy and kingdom, which had
+appeared on the accession of William.  Robert de Belesme, Earl of
+Shrewsbury and Arundel, William de la Warenne, Earl of Surrey, Arnulf
+de Montgomery, Walter Giffard, Robert de Pontefract, Robert de Mallet,
+Yvo de Grentmesnil, and many others of the principal nobility [r],
+invited Robert to make an attempt upon England, and promised, on his
+landing, to join him with all their forces.  Even the seamen were
+affected with the general popularity of his name, and they carried
+over to him the greater part of a fleet which had been equipped to
+oppose his passage.  Henry, in this extremity, began to be
+apprehensive for his life, as well as for his crown, and had recourse
+to the superstition of the people, in order to oppose their sentiment
+of justice.  He paid diligent court to Anselm, whose sanctity and
+wisdom he pretended to revere.  He consulted him in all difficult
+emergencies; seemed to be governed by him in every measure; promised a
+strict regard to ecclesiastical privileges; professed a great
+attachment to Rome, and a resolution of persevering in an implicit
+obedience to the decrees of councils, and to the will of the sovereign
+pontiff.  By these caresses and declarations, he entirely gained the
+confidence of the primate, whose influence over the people, and
+authority with the barons, were of the utmost service to him in his
+present situation.  Anselm scrupled not to assure the nobles of the
+king's sincerity in those professions which he made of avoiding the
+tyrannical and oppressive government of his father and brother: he
+even rode through the ranks of the army, recommended to the soldiers
+the defence of their prince, represented the duty of keeping their
+oaths of allegiance, and prognosticated to them the greatest happiness
+from the government of so wise and just a sovereign.  By this
+expedient, joined to the influence of the Earls of Warwick and
+Mellent, of Roger Bigod, Richard de Redvers, and Robert Fitz-Hamon,
+powerful barons, who still adhered to the present government, the army
+was retained in the king's interest, and marched, with seeming union
+and firmness, to oppose Robert, who had landed with his forces at
+Portsmouth.
+[FN [r] Order. Vital. p. 785.]
+
+[MN Accommodation with Robert.]
+The two armies lay in sight of each other for some days without coming
+to action; and both princes, being apprehensive of the event, which
+would probably be decisive, hearkened the more willingly to the
+counsels of Anselm and the other great men, who mediated an
+accommodation between them.  After employing some negotiation, it was
+agreed that Robert should resign his pretensions to England, and
+receive in lieu of them an annual pension of three thousand marks;
+that, if either of the princes died without issue, the other should
+succeed to his dominions; that the adherents of each should be
+pardoned and restored to all their possessions either in Normandy or
+England; and that neither Robert nor Henry should thenceforth
+encourage, receive, or protect the enemies of the other [s].
+[FN [s] Chron. Sax. p. 209.  W. Malmes. p. 156.]
+
+[MN 1102.]  This treaty, though calculated so much for Henry’s
+advantage, he was the first to violate.  He restored, indeed, the
+estates of all Robert's adherents; but was secretly determined, that
+noblemen so powerful and so ill-affected, who had both inclination and
+ability to disturb his government, should not long remain unmolested
+in their present opulence and grandeur.  He began with the Earl of
+Shrewsbury, who was watched for some time by spies, and then indicted
+on a charge, consisting of forty-five articles.  This turbulent
+nobleman, knowing his own guilt, as well as the prejudices of his
+judges and the power of his prosecutor, had recourse to arms for
+defence; but, being soon suppressed by the activity and address of
+Henry, he was banished the kingdom, and his great estate was
+confiscated.  His ruin involved that of his two brothers, Arnulf de
+Montgomery, and Roger Earl of Lancaster.  Soon after followed the
+prosecution and condemnation of Robert de Pontefract, and Robert de
+Mallet, who had distinguished themselves among Robert's adherents.
+[MN 1103.]  William de Warenne was the next victim: even William Earl
+of Cornwall, son of the Earl of Mortaigne, the king's uncle, having
+given matter of suspicion against him, lost all the vast acquisitions
+of his family in England.  Though the usual violence and tyranny of
+the Norman barons afforded a plausible pretence for those
+prosecutions, and it is probable that none of the sentences pronounced
+against these noblemen was wholly iniquitous, men easily saw or
+conjectured, that the chief part of their guilt was not the injustice
+or illegality of their conduct.  Robert, enraged at the fate of his
+friends, imprudently ventured to come into England; and he
+remonstrated with his brother, in severe terms, against this breach of
+treaty; but met with so bad a reception, that he began to apprehend
+danger to his own liberty, and was glad to purchase an escape by
+resigning his pension.
+
+The indiscretion of Robert soon exposed him to more fatal injuries.
+This prince, whose bravery and candour procured him respect while at a
+distance, had no sooner attained the possession of power and enjoyment
+of peace, than all the vigour of his mind relaxed, and he fell into
+contempt among those who approached his person, or were subjected to
+his authority.  Alternately abandoned to dissolute pleasures and to
+womanish superstition, he was so remiss, both in the care of his
+treasure and the exercise of his government, that his servants
+pillaged his money with impunity, stole from him his very clothes, and
+proceeded thence to practise every species of extortion on his
+defenceless subjects.  The barons, whom a severe administration alone
+could have restrained, gave reins to their unbounded rapine upon their
+vassals, and inveterate animosities against each other; and all
+Normandy, during the reign of this benign prince, was become a scene
+of violence and depredation.  [MN 1103.  Attack of Normandy.]  The
+Normans, at last, observing the regular government which Henry,
+notwithstanding his usurped title, had been able to establish in
+England, applied to him, that he might use his authority for the
+suppression of these disorders, and they thereby afforded him a
+pretence for interposing in the affairs of Normandy.  Instead of
+employing his mediation to render his brother's government
+respectable, or to redress the grievances of the Normans, he was only
+attentive to support his own partisans, and to increase their number
+by every art of bribery, intrigue, and insinuation.  Having found, in
+a visit which he made to that duchy, that the nobility were more
+disposed to pay submission to him than to their legal sovereign, he
+collected, by arbitrary extortions on England, a great army and
+treasure [MN 1105.], and returned next year to Normandy, in a
+situation to obtain, either by violence or corruption, the dominion of
+that province.  He took Bayeux by storm, after an obstinate siege: he
+made himself master of Caen by the voluntary submission of the
+inhabitants; but, being repulsed at Falaise, and obliged by the winter
+season to raise the siege, he returned into England, after giving
+assurance to his adherents, that he would persevere in supporting and
+protecting them.
+
+[MN 1106.  Conquest of Normandy.]
+Next year he opened the campaign with the siege of Tenchebray; and it
+became evident, from his preparations and progress, that he intended
+to usurp the entire possession of Normandy.  Robert was at last roused
+from his lethargy; and being supported by the Earl of Mortaigne and
+Robert de Bellesme, the king's inveterate enemies, he raised a
+considerable army, and approached his brother's camp, with a view of
+finishing, in one decisive battle, the quarrel between them.  He was
+now entered on that scene of action in which alone he was qualified to
+excel; and he so animated his troops by his example, that they threw
+the English into disorder, and had nearly obtained the victory [t];
+when the flight of Bellesme spread a panic among the Normans, and
+occasioned their total defeat.  Henry, besides doing great execution
+on the enemy, made near ten thousand prisoners, among whom was Duke
+Robert himself, and all the most considerable barons who adhered to
+his interests [u].  This victory was followed by the final reduction
+of Normandy: Rouen immediately submitted to the conqueror: Falaise,
+after some negotiation, opened its gates; and by this acquisition,
+besides rendering himself master of an important fortress, he got into
+his hands Prince William, the only son of Robert: he assembled the
+states of Normandy; and having received the homage of all the vassals
+of the duchy, having settled the government, revoked his brother's
+donations, and dismantled the castles lately built, he returned into
+England, and carried along with him the duke as prisoner.  That
+unfortunate prince was detained in custody during the remainder of his
+life, which was no less than twenty-eight years, and he died in the
+castle of Cardiff, in Glamorganshire, happy if, without losing his
+liberty, he could have relinquished that power which he was not
+qualified either to hold or exercise.  Prince William was committed to
+the care of Helie de St. Saen, who had married Robert's natural
+daughter, and who, being a man of probity and honour beyond what was
+usual in those ages, executed the trust with great affection and
+fidelity.  Edgar Atheling, who had followed Robert in the expedition
+to Jerusalem, and who had lived with him ever since in Normandy, was
+another illustrious prisoner taken in the battle of Tenchebray [w].
+Henry gave him his liberty, and settled a small pension on him, with
+which he retired; and he lived to a good old age in England, totally
+neglected and forgotten.  This prince was distinguished by personal
+bravery: but nothing can be a stronger proof of his mean talents in
+every other respect, than that, notwithstanding he possessed the
+affections of the English, and enjoyed the only legal title to the
+throne, he was allowed, during the reigns of so many violent and
+jealous usurpers, to live unmolested, and go to his grave in peace.
+[FN [t] H. Hunt. p. 379.  M. Paris, p .43.  Brompton, p. 1002.  [u]
+Eadmer, p. 90.  Chron. Sax. p. 214.  Order. Vital. p. 821.  [w] Chron.
+Sax. p. 214.  Ann. Waverl. n. 144.]
+
+[MN 1107.  Continuation of the quarrel with Anselm, the primate.]
+A little after Henry had completed the conquest of Normandy, and
+settled the government of that province, he finished a controversy,
+which had been long depending between him and the pope, with regard to
+the investitures in ecclesiastical benefices; and though he was here
+obliged to relinquish sonic of the ancient rights of the crown, he
+extricated himself from the difficulty on easier terms than most
+princes who, in that age, were so unhappy as to be engaged in disputes
+with the apostolic see.  The king's situation, in the beginning of his
+reign, obliged him to pay great court to Anselm: the advantages which
+he had reaped from the zealous friendship of that prelate had made him
+sensible how prone the minds of his people were to superstition, and
+what an ascendant the ecclesiastics had been able to assume over them.
+He had seen, on the accession of his brother Rufus, that, though the
+rights of primogeniture were then violated, and the inclinations of
+almost all the barons thwarted, yet the authority of Lanfranc, the
+primate, had prevailed over all other considerations: his own case,
+which was still more unfavourable, afforded an instance in which the
+clergy had more evidently shown their influence and authority.  These
+recent examples, while they made him cautious not to offend that
+powerful body, convinced him, at the same time, that it was extremely
+his interest to retain the former prerogative of the crown in filling
+offices of such vast importance, and to check the ecclesiastics in
+that independence to which they visibly aspired.  The choice, which
+his brother, in a fit of penitence, had made of Anselm, was so far
+unfortunate to the king's pretensions, that this prelate was
+celebrated for his piety and zeal, and austerity of manners; and
+though his monkish devotion and narrow principles prognosticated no
+great knowledge of the world or depth of policy, he was, on that very
+account, a more dangerous instrument in the hands of politicians, and
+retained a greater ascendant over the bigoted populace.  The prudence
+and temper of the king appeared in nothing more conspicuous than in
+the management of this delicate affair; where he was always sensible
+that it had become necessary for him to risk his whole crown in order
+to preserve the most invaluable jewel of it [x].
+[FN [x] Eadmer, p. 56.]
+
+Anselm had no sooner returned from banishment, than his refusal to do
+homage to the king raised a dispute, which Henry evaded at that
+critical juncture, by promising to send a messenger, in order to
+compound the matter with Pascal II., who then filled the papal throne.
+The messenger, as was probably foreseen, returned with an absolute
+refusal of the king's demands [y]; and that fortified by many reasons,
+which were well qualified to operate on the understandings of men in
+those ages.  Pascal quoted the Scriptures to prove that Christ was the
+door; and he thence inferred, that all ecclesiastics must enter into
+the church through Christ alone, not through the civil magistrate, or
+any profane laymen [z].  "It is monstrous," added the pontiff, "that a
+son should pretend to beget his father, or a man to create his God:
+priests are called gods in Scripture, as being the vicars of God: and
+will you, by your abominable pretensions to grant them their
+investiture, assume the right of creating them [a]?"
+[FN [y] W. Malm. p. 225.  [z] Eadmer, p. 60.  This topic is farther
+enforced in p. 73, 74.  See also W. Malm. p. 163.  [a] Eadmer, p. 61.
+I much suspect that this text of Scripture is a forgery of his
+holiness; for I have not been able to find it.  Yet it passed current
+in those ages, and was often quoted by the clergy as the foundation of
+their power.  See St. Thom. p. 169.]
+
+But how convincing soever these arguments, they could not persuade
+Henry to resign so important a prerogative; and perhaps, as he was
+possessed of great reflection and learning, he thought that the
+absurdity of a man's creating his God, even allowing priests to be
+gods, was not urged with the best grace by the Roman pontiff.  But as
+he desired still to avoid, at least to delay, the coming to any
+dangerous extremity with the church, he persuaded Anselm, that he
+should be able, by farther negotiation, to obtain some composition
+with Pascal; and for that purpose he despatched three bishops to Rome,
+while Anselm sent two messengers of his own to be more fully assured
+of the pope's intentions [b].  Pascal wrote back letters equally
+positive and arrogant, both to the king and primate; urging to the
+former, that, by assuming the right of investitures, he committed a
+kind of spiritual adultery with the church, who was the spouse of
+Christ, and who must not admit of such a commerce with any other
+person [c]; and insisting with the latter, that the pretension of
+kings to confer benefices was the source of all simony: a topic which
+had but too much foundation in those ages [d].
+[FN [b] Eadmer, p. 62.  W. Malm. p. 225.  [c] Eadmer, p. 63.  [d]
+Eadmer, p. 64, 66.]
+
+Henry had now no other expedient than to suppress the letter addressed
+to himself, and to persuade the three bishops to prevaricate, and
+assert, upon their episcopal faith, that Pascal had assured them in
+private of his good intentions towards Henry, and of his resolution
+not to resent any future exertion of his prerogative in granting
+investitures; though he himself scrupled to give this assurance under
+his hand, lest other princes should copy the example, and assume a
+like privilege [e].  Anselm's two messengers, who were monks, affirmed
+to him that it was impossible this story could have any foundation:
+but their word was not deemed equal to that of three bishops; and the
+king, as if he had finally gained his cause, proceeded to fill the
+sees of Hereford and Salisbury, and to invest the new bishops in the
+usual manner [f].  But Anselm, who, as he had good reason, gave no
+credit to the asseveration of the king's messengers, refused not only
+to consecrate them, but even to communicate with them, and the bishops
+themselves, finding how odious they were become, returned to Henry the
+ensigns of their dignity.  The quarrel every day increased between the
+king and the primate: the former, notwithstanding the prudence and
+moderation of his temper, threw out menaces against such as should
+pretend to oppose him in exerting the ancient prerogatives of his
+crown; and Anselm, sensible of his own dangerous situation, desired
+leave to make a journey to Rome, in order to lay the case before the
+sovereign pontiff.  Henry, well pleased to rid himself, without
+violence, of so inflexible an antagonist, readily granted him
+permission.  The prelate was attended to the shore by infinite
+multitudes, not only of monks and clergymen, but people of all ranks,
+who scrupled not in this manner to declare for their primate against
+their sovereign, and who regarded his departure as the final abolition
+of religion and true piety in the kingdom [g].  The king, however,
+seized all the revenues of his see; and sent William de Warelwast to
+negotiate with Pascal, and to find some means of accommodation in this
+delicate affair.
+[FN [e] Ibid. p. 65.  W. Malm. p. 225.  [f] Eadmer, p. 66.  W. Malm.
+p. 225.  Hoveden, p. 469.  Sim. Dunelm. p. 228.  [f] Eadmer, p. 71.]
+
+The English minister told Pascal, that his master would rather lose
+his crown than part with the right of granting investitures.  "And I,"
+replied Pascal, "would rather lose my head than allow him to retain it
+[h]."  Henry secretly prohibited Anselm from returning, unless he
+resolved to conform himself to the laws and usages of the kingdom; and
+the primate took up his residence at Lyons, in expectation that the
+king would at last be obliged to yield the point which was the present
+object of controversy between them.  Soon after he was permitted to
+return to his monastery at Bec in Normandy; and Henry, besides
+restoring to him the revenues of his see, treated him with the
+greatest respect, and held several conferences with him, in order to
+soften his opposition, and bend him to submission [i].  The people of
+England, who thought all differences now accommodated, were inclined
+to blame their primate for absenting himself so long from his charge;
+and he daily received letters from his partizans, representing the
+necessity of his speedy return.  The total extinction, they told him,
+of religion and Christianity were likely to ensue from the want of his
+fatherly care: the most shocking customs prevail in England; and the
+dread of his severity being now removed, sodomy, and the practice of
+wearing long hair, gain ground among all ranks of men, and these
+enormities openly appear every where without sense of shame or fear of
+punishment [k].
+[FN [h] Eadmer, p. 73.  W. Malm. p. 226.  M. Paris, p. 40.  [i]
+Hoveden, p. 471.  [k] Eadmer, p. 81.]
+
+The policy of the court of Rome has commonly been much admired; and
+men, judging by success, have bestowed the highest eulogies on that
+prudence by which a power from such slender beginnings, could advance,
+without force of arms, to establish an universal and almost absolute
+monarchy in Europe.  But the wisdom of so long a succession of men who
+filled the papal throne, and who were of such different ages, tempers,
+and interests, is not intelligible, and could never have place in
+nature.  The instrument, indeed, with which they wrought, the
+ignorance and superstition of the people, is so gross an engine, of
+such universal prevalence, and so little liable to accident or
+disorder, that it may be successful even in the most unskilful hands;
+and scarce any indiscretion can frustrate its operations.  While the
+court of Rome was openly abandoned to the most flagrant disorders,
+even while it was torn with schisms and factions, the power of the
+church daily made a sensible progress in Europe; and the temerity of
+Gregory and caution of Pascal were equally fortunate in promoting it.
+The clergy, feeling the necessity which they lay under of being
+protected against the violence of princes or rigour of the laws, were
+well pleased to adhere to a foreign head, who, being removed from the
+fear of the civil authority, could freely employ the power of the
+whole church, in defending her ancient or usurped properties and
+privileges, when invaded in any particular country: the monks,
+desirous of an independence of their diocesans, professed a still more
+devoted attachment to the triple crown; and the stupid people
+possessed no science or reason, which they could oppose to the most
+exorbitant pretensions.  Nonsense passed for demonstration: the most
+criminal means were sanctified by the piety of the end: treaties were
+not supposed to be binding, where the interests of God were concerned:
+the ancient laws and customs of states had no authority against a
+divine right: impudent forgeries were received as authentic monuments
+of antiquity: and the champions of holy church, if successful, were
+celebrated as heroes; if unfortunate, were worshipped as martyrs; and
+all events thus turned out equally to the advantage of clerical
+usurpations.  Pascal himself, the reigning pope, was, in the course of
+this very controversy concerning investitures, involved in
+circumstances and necessitated to follow a conduct, which would have
+drawn disgrace and ruin on any temporal prince that had been so
+unfortunate as to fall into a like situation.  His person was seized
+by the Emperor, Henry V., and he was obliged, by a formal treaty, to
+resign to that monarch the right of granting investitures, for which
+they had so long contended [l].  In order to add greater solemnity to
+this agreement, the emperor and pope communicated together on the same
+host, one half of which was given to the prince, the other taken by
+the pontiff: the most tremendous imprecations were publicly denounced
+on either of them who should violate the treaty: yet no sooner did
+Pascal recover his liberty, than he revoked all his concessions, and
+pronounced the sentence of excommunication against the emperor, who,
+in the end, was obliged to submit to the terms required of him, and to
+yield up all his pretensions, which he never could resume [m].
+[FN [l] W. Malm. p. 167.  [m] Padre Paolo sopra benef. eccles. p. 112.
+W. Malmes. p. 170.  Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 63.  Sim.
+Dunelm. p. 233.]
+
+The King of England had very nearly fallen into the same dangerous
+situation: Pascal had already excommunicated the Earl of Mellent, and
+the other ministers of Henry, who were instrumental in supporting his
+pretensions [n]: he daily menaced the king himself with a like
+sentence; and he suspended the blow only to give him leisure to
+prevent it by a timely submission.  The malecontents waited
+impatiently for the opportunity of disturbing his government by
+conspiracies and insurrections [o]: the king's best friends were
+anxious at the prospect of an incident which would set their religious
+and civil duties at variance; and the Countess of Blois, his sister, a
+princess of piety, who had great influence over him, was affrightened
+with the danger of her brother's eternal damnation [p].  Henry, on the
+other hand, seemed determined to run all hazards, rather than resign a
+prerogative of such importance, which had been enjoyed by all his
+predecessors; and it seemed probable, from his great prudence and
+abilities, that he might be able to sustain his rights, and finally
+prevail in the contest.  While Pascal and Henry thus stood mutually in
+awe of each other, it was the more easy to bring about an
+accommodation between them, and to find a medium in which they might
+agree.
+[FN [n] Eadmer, p. 79.  [o] Ibid. p. 80.  [p] Ibid. p. 79.]
+
+[MN Compromise with Anselm.]
+Before bishops took possession of their dignities, they had formerly
+been accustomed to pass through two ceremonies: they received from the
+hands of the sovereign a ring and crosier, as symbols of their office;
+and this was called their INVESTITURE: they also made those
+submissions to the prince which were required of vassals by the rights
+of the feudal law, and which received the name of HOMAGE.  And as the
+king might refuse both to grant the INVESTITURE and to receive the
+HOMAGE, though the chapter had, by some canons of the middle age, been
+endowed with the right of election, the sovereign had in reality the
+sole power of appointing prelates.  Urban II. had equally deprived
+laymen of the rights of granting investiture and of receiving homage
+[q]: the emperors never were able, by all their wars and negotiations,
+to make any distinction be admitted between them: the interposition of
+profane laymen, in any particular, was still represented as impious
+and abominable; and the church openly aspired to a total independence
+on the state.  But Henry had put England as well as Normandy in such a
+situation as gave greater weight to his negotiations; and Pascal was
+for the present satisfied with his resigning the right of granting
+investitures, by which the spiritual dignity was supposed to be
+conferred; and he allowed the bishops to do homage for their temporal
+properties and privileges [r].  The pontiff was well pleased to have
+made this acquisition, which, he hoped, would in time involve the
+whole; and the king, anxious to procure an escape from a very
+dangerous situation, was content to retain some, though a more
+precarious authority, in the election of prelates.
+[FN [q] Eadmer, p. 91.  W. Malm. p. 163.  Sim. Dunelm. p. 230.  [r]
+Eadmer, p. 91.  W. Malm. p. 164, 227.  Hoveden, p. 471.  M. Paris, p.
+43.  T. Rudb. p. 274.  Brompton, p. 1000.  Wilkins, p. 303.  Chron.
+Dunst. p. 21.]
+
+After the principal controversy was accommodated, it was not difficult
+to adjust the other differences.  The pope allowed Anselm to
+communicate with the prelates who had already received investitures
+from the crown; and he only required of them some submissions for
+their past misconduct [s].  He also granted Anselm a plenary power of
+remedying every other disorder, which, he said, might arise from the
+barbarousness of the country [t].  Such was the idea which the popes
+then entertained of the English; and nothing can be a stronger proof
+of the miserable ignorance in which that people were then plunged,
+than that a man who sat on the papal throne, and who subsisted by
+absurdities and nonsense, should think himself entitled to treat them
+as barbarians.
+[FN [s] Eadmer p. 87.  [t] Ibid. p. 91.]
+
+During the course of these controversies, a synod was held at
+Westminster, where the king, intent only on the main dispute, allowed
+some canons of less importance to be enacted, which tended to promote
+the usurpations of the clergy.  The celibacy of priests was enjoined,
+a point which it was still found very difficult to carry into
+execution; and even laymen were not allowed to marry within the
+seventh degree of affinity [u].  By this contrivance the pope
+augmented the profits which he reaped from granting dispensations, and
+likewise those from divorces.  For as the art of writing was then
+rare, and parish registers were not regularly kept, it was not easy to
+ascertain the degrees of affinity even among people of rank; and any
+man who had money sufficient to pay for it, might obtain a divorce, on
+pretence that his wife was more nearly related to him than was
+permitted by the canons.  The synod also passed a vote, prohibiting
+the laity from wearing long hair [w].  The aversion of the clergy to
+this mode was not confined to England.  When the king went to
+Normandy, before he had conquered that province, the Bishop of Seez,
+in a formal harangue, earnestly exhorted him to redress the manifold
+disorders under which the government laboured, and to oblige the
+people to poll their hair in a decent form.  Henry, though he would
+not resign his prerogatives to the church, willingly parted with his
+hair: he cut it in the form which they required of him, and obliged
+all the courtiers to imitate his example [x].
+[FN [u] Eadmer, p. 67, 68.  Spellm. Conc. vol. ii. p. 22.  [w] Eadmer,
+p. 68.  [x] Order. Vital. p. 816.]
+
+[MN Wars abroad.]
+The acquisition of Normandy was a great point of Henry's ambition;
+being the ancient patrimony of his family, and the only territory,
+which, while in his possession, gave him any weight or consideration
+on the continent: but the injustice of his usurpation was the source
+of great inquietude, involved him in frequent wars, and obliged him to
+impose on his English subjects those many heavy and arbitrary taxes,
+of which all the historians of  that age unanimously complain [y].
+His nephew, William, was but six years of age when he committed him to
+the care of Helie de St. Saen; and it is probable, that his reason for
+intrusting that important charge to a man of so unblemished a
+character was to prevent all malignant suspicions, in case any
+accident should befall the life of the young prince.  [MN 1110.]  He
+soon repented of his choice, but when he desired to recover possession
+of William’s person, Helie withdrew his pupil, and carried him to the
+court of Fulk, Count of Anjou, who gave him protection [z].  In
+proportion as the prince grew up to man's estate, he discovered
+virtues becoming his birth; and wandering through different courts of
+Europe, he excited the friendly compassion of many princes, and raised
+a general indignation against his uncle, who had so unjustly bereaved
+him of his inheritance.  Lewis the Gross, son of Philip, was at this
+time King of France, a brave and generous prince, who having been
+obliged, during the lifetime of his father, to fly into England, in
+order to escape the persecutions of his step-mother, Bertrude, had
+been protected by Henry, and had thence conceived a personal
+friendship for him.  But these ties were soon dissolved after the
+accession of Lewis, who found his interests to be in so many
+particulars opposite to those of the English monarch, and who became
+sensible of the danger attending the annexation of Normandy to
+England.  He joined, therefore, the Counts of Anjou and Flanders in
+giving disquiet to Henry's government; and this monarch, in order to
+defend his foreign dominions, found himself obliged to go over to
+Normandy, where he resided two years.  The war which ensued amongst
+those princes was attended with no memorable event, and produced only
+slight skirmishes on the frontiers, agreeable to the weak condition of
+the sovereigns in that age whenever their subjects were not roused by
+some great and urgent occasion.  Henry, by contracting his eldest son,
+William, to the daughter of Fulk, detached the prince from the
+alliance, and obliged the others to come to an accommodation with him.
+This peace was not of  long duration.  His nephew, William, retired to
+the court of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, who espoused his cause; and
+the King of France having soon after, for other reasons, joined the
+party, a new war was kindled in Normandy, which produced no event more
+memorable than had attended the former.  [MN 1113.]  At last the death
+of Baldwin, who was slain in an action near Eu, gave some respite to
+Henry, and enabled him to carry on war with more advantage against his
+enemies.
+[FN [y] Eadmer, p. 83.  Chron. Sax. p. 211, 212, 213, 219, 220, 228.
+H. Hunt p. 380.  Hoveden, p. 470.  Ann. Waverl. p. 143.  [z] Order
+Vital. p. 837.]
+
+Lewis, finding himself unable to wrest Normandy from the king by force
+of arms, had recourse to the dangerous expedient of applying to the
+spiritual power, and of affording the ecclesiastics a pretence to
+interpose in the temporal concerns of princes.  He carried young
+William to a general council, which was assembled at Rheims by Pope
+Calixtus II., presented the Norman prince to them, complained of the
+manifest usurpation and injustice of Henry, craved the assistance of
+the church for reinstating the true heir in his dominions, and
+represented the enormity of detaining in captivity so brave a prince
+as Robert, one of the most eminent champions of the cross, and who, by
+that very quality, was placed under the immediate protection of the
+holy see.  Henry knew how to defend the rights of his crown with
+vigour, and yet with dexterity.  He had sent over the English bishops
+to this synod; but at the same time had warned them, that if any
+farther claims were started by the pope or the ecclesiastics, he was
+determined to adhere to the laws and customs of England, and maintain
+the prerogatives transmitted to him by his predecessors.  "Go," said
+he to them, "salute the pope in my name; hear his apostolical
+precepts; but take care to bring none of his new inventions into my
+kingdom."  Finding, however, that it would be easier for him to elude
+than oppose the efforts of Calixtus, he gave his ambassadors orders to
+gain the pope and his favourites by liberal presents and promises.
+[MN 1119.]  The complaints of the Norman prince were thenceforth heard
+with great coldness by the council; and Calixtus confessed, after a
+conference which he had the same summer with Henry, and when that
+prince probably renewed his presents, that, of all men whom he had
+ever yet been acquainted with, he was, beyond comparison, the most
+eloquent and persuasive.
+
+The warlike measures of Lewis proved as ineffectual as his intrigues.
+He had laid a scheme for surprising Noyon; but Henry having received
+intelligence of the design, marched to the relief of the place, and
+suddenly attacked the French at Brenneville, as they were advancing
+towards it.  A sharp conflict ensued, where Prince William behaved
+with great bravery, and the king himself was in the most imminent
+danger.  He was wounded in the head by Crispin, a gallant Norman
+officer, who had followed the fortunes of William [a]; but, being
+rather animated than terrified by the blow, he immediately beat his
+antagonist to the ground, and so encouraged his troops by the example,
+that they put the French to total rout, and had very nearly taken
+their king prisoner.  The dignity of the persons engaged in this
+skirmish rendered it the most memorable action of the war; for, in
+other respects, it was not of great importance.  There were nine
+hundred horsemen, who fought on both sides; yet were there only two
+persons slain.  The rest were defended by that heavy armour worn by
+the cavalry in those times [b].  An accommodation soon after ensued
+between the Kings of France and England; and the interests of young
+William were entirely neglected in it.
+[FN [a] H. Hunt. p. 381.  M. Paris, p. 47.  Diceto, p. 503.  [b]
+Order. Vital. p. 854.]
+
+[MN 1120.  Death of Prince William.]
+But this public prosperity of Henry was much overbalanced by a
+domestic calamity which befel him.  His only son, William, had now
+reached his eighteenth year, and the king, from the facility with
+which he himself had usurped the crown, dreading that a like
+revolution might subvert his family, had taken care to have him
+recognized successor by the states of the kingdom, and had carried him
+over to Normandy, that he might receive the homage of the barons of
+that duchy.  The king, on his return, set sail from Barfleur, and was
+soon carried by a fair wind out of sight of land.  The prince was
+detained by some accident; and his sailors, as well as their captain,
+Thomas Fitz-Stephens, having spent the interval in drinking, were so
+flustered, that being in  a hurry to follow the king, they heedlessly
+carried the ship on a rock, where she immediately foundered.  William
+was put into the long boat, and had got clear of the ship, when,
+hearing the cries of his natural sister, the Countess of Perche, he
+ordered the seamen to row back in hopes of saving her; but the numbers
+who then crowded in soon sunk the boat; and the prince, with all his
+retinue, perished.  Above a hundred and forty young noblemen, of the
+principal families of England and Normandy, were lost on this
+occasion.  A butcher of Rouen was the only person on board who escaped
+[c].  He clung to the mast, and was taken up next morning by
+fishermen.  Fitz-Stephens also took hold of the mast, but being
+informed by the butcher that Prince William had perished, he said that
+he would not survive the disaster; and he threw himself headlong into
+the sea [d].  Henry entertained hopes for three days, that his son had
+put into some distant port of England; but when certain intelligence
+of the calamity was brought him, he fainted away; and it was remarked,
+that he never after was seen to smile, nor ever recovered his wonted
+cheerfulness [e].
+[FN [c] Sim. Dunelm. p. 242.  Alured Beverl. p. 148.  [d] Order.
+Vital. p. 868.  [e] Hoveden, p. 476.  Order. Vital. p. 869.]
+
+The death of William may be regarded, in one respect, as a misfortune
+to the English; because it was the immediate source of those civil
+wars, which, after the demise of the king, caused such confusion in
+the kingdom; but it is remarkable, that the young prince had
+entertained a violent aversion to the natives; and had been heard to
+threaten, that when he should be king, he would make them draw the
+plough, and would turn them into beasts of burden.  These
+prepossessions he inherited from his father, who, though he was wont,
+when it might serve his purpose, to value himself on his birth, as a
+native of England [f], showed, in the course of his government, an
+extreme prejudice against that people.  All hopes of preferment, to
+ecclesiastical as well as civil dignities, were denied them during
+this whole reign; and any foreigner, however ignorant or worthless,
+was sure to have the preference in every competition [g].  As the
+English had given no disturbance to the government during the course
+of fifty years, this inveterate antipathy in a prince of so much
+temper as well as penetration, forms a presumption that the English of
+that age were still a rude and barbarous people, even compared to the
+Normans, and impresses us with no very favourable idea of the Anglo-
+Saxon manners.
+[FN [f] Gu1. Neub. lib. 1. cap. 3.  [g] Eadmer, p. 110.]
+
+Prince William left no children; and the king had not now any
+legitimate issue, except one daughter, Matilda, whom, in 1110, he had
+betrothed, though only eight years of age [h], to the Emperor Henry
+V., and whom he had then sent over to be educated in Germany [i].  But
+as her absence from the kingdom, and her marriage into a foreign
+family, might endanger the succession, Henry, who was now a widower,
+was induced to marry, in hopes of having male heirs; [MN King’s second
+marriage.  1121.] and he made his addresses to Adelais, daughter of
+Godfrey, Duke of Lovaine, and niece of Pope Calixtus, a young princess
+of an amiable person [k].  But Adelais brought him no children; and
+the prince who was most likely to dispute the succession, and even the
+immediate possession of the crown, recovered hopes of subverting his
+rival, who had successively seized all his patrimonial dominions.
+William, the son of Duke Robert, was still protected in the French
+court; and as Henry's connexions with the Count of Anjou were broken
+off by the death of his son, Fulk joined the party of the unfortunate
+prince, gave him his daughter in marriage, and aided him in raising
+disturbances in Normandy.  But Henry found the means of drawing off
+the Count of Anjou, by forming anew with him a nearer connexion than
+the former, and one more material to the interests of that count's
+family.  [MN 1127.]  The emperor, his son-in-law, dying without issue,
+he bestowed his daughter on Geoffrey, the eldest son of Fulk, and
+endeavoured to ensure her succession by having her recognized heir to
+all his dominions, and obliging the barons, both of Normandy and
+England to swear fealty to her.  [MN 1128.]  He hoped that the choice
+of this husband would be more agreeable to all his subjects than that
+of the emperor; as securing them from the danger of falling under the
+dominion of a great and distant potentate, who might bring them into
+subjection, and reduce their country to the rank of a province: but
+the barons were displeased that a step so material to national
+interests had been taken without consulting them [l]; and Henry had
+too sensibly experienced the turbulence of their disposition, not to
+dread the effects of their resentment.  It seemed probable, that his
+nephew's party might gain force from the increase of the malecontents:
+an accession of power which that prince acquired a little after,
+tended to render his pretensions still more dangerous.  Charles, Earl
+of Flanders, being assassinated during the celebration of divine
+service, King Lewis immediately put the young prince in possession of
+that country, to which he had pretensions in the right of his
+grandmother Matilda, wife to the Conqueror.  But William survived a
+very little time this piece of good fortune, which seemed to open the
+way to still farther prosperity.  He was killed in a skirmish with the
+Landgrave of Alsace, his competitor for Flanders; and his death put an
+end, for the present, to the jealousy and inquietude of Henry.
+[FN [h] Chron. Sax. p. 215.  W. Malm. p. 166.  Order. Vital. p. 83.
+[i] See note [M], at the end of the volume.  [k] Chron. Sax. p. 223.
+W. Malm. p. 165.  [l] W. Malm. p. 175.  The annals of Waverly, p. 150,
+say, that the king asked and obtained the consent of all the barons.]
+
+The chief merit of this monarch's government consists in the profound
+tranquillity which he established and maintained throughout all his
+dominions during the greater part of his reign.  The mutinous barons
+were retained in subjection; and his neighbours, in every attempt
+which they made upon him, found him so well prepared, that they were
+discouraged from continung or renewing their enterprises.  In order to
+repress the incursions of the Welsh, he brought over some Flemings, in
+the year 1111, and settled them in Pembrokeshire, where they long
+maintained a different language, and customs, and manners, from their
+neighbours.  Though his government seems to have been arbitrary in
+England, it was judicious and prudent; and was as little oppressive as
+the necessity of his affairs would permit.  He wanted not attention to
+the redress of grievances; and historians mention in particular the
+levying of purveyance, which he endeavoured to moderate and restrain.
+The tenants in the king's demesne lands were at that time obliged to
+supply, GRATIS, the court with provisions, and to furnish carriages on
+the same hard terms, when the king made a progress, as he did
+frequently, into any of the counties.  These exactions were so
+grievous, and levied in so licentious a manner, that the farmers, when
+they heard of the approach of the court, often deserted their houses
+as if an enemy had invaded the country [m], and sheltered their
+persons and families in the woods from the insults of the king's
+retinue.  Henry prohibited those enormities, and punished the persons
+guilty of them by cutting off their hands, legs, or other members [n].
+But the prerogative was perpetual; the remedy applied by Henry was
+temporary; and the violence itself of this remedy, so far from giving
+security to the people, was only a proof of the ferocity of the
+government, and threatened a quick return of like abuses.
+[FN [m] Eadmer, p. 94.  Chron. Sax. p. 212.  [n] Eadmer, p. 94.]
+
+One great and difficult object of the king's prudence was, the
+guarding against the encroachments of the court of Rome, and
+protecting the liberties of the church of England.  The pope, in the
+year 1101, had sent Guy, Archbishop of Vienne, as legate into Britain;
+and though he was the first that for many years had appeared there in
+that character, and his commission gave general surprise [o], the
+king, who was then in the commencement of his reign, and was involved
+in many difficulties, was obliged to submit to this encroachment on
+his authority.  But in the year 1116, Anselm, Abbot of St. Sabas, who
+was coming over with a like legatine commission, was prohibited from
+entering the kingdom [p]; and Pope Calixtus who, in his turn, was then
+labouring under many difficulties, by reason of the pretensions of
+Gregory, an anti-pope, was obliged to promise that he never would for
+the future, except when solicited by the king himself, send any legate
+into England [q].  Notwithstanding this engagement, the pope, as soon
+as he had suppressed his antagonist, granted the Cardinal de Crema a
+legatine commission over that kingdom; and the king, who, by reason of
+his nephew's intrigues and invasions, found himself at that time in a
+dangerous situation, was obliged  to submit to the exercise of this
+commission [r].  A synod was called by the legate at London; where,
+among other canons, a vote passed, enacting severe penalties on the
+marriages of the clergy [s].  The cardinal, in a public harangue,
+declared it to be an unpardonable enormity, that a priest should dare
+to consecrate and touch the body of Christ immediately after he had
+risen from the side of a strumpet; for that was the decent appellation
+which he gave to the wives of the clergy.  But it happened that, the
+very next night, the officers of justice, breaking into a disorderly
+house, found the cardinal in bed with a courtezan [t]; an incident
+which threw such ridicule upon him, that he immediately stole out of
+the kingdom: the synod broke up; and the canons against the marriage
+of clergymen were worse executed than ever [u].
+[FN [o] Ibid. p. 58.  [p] Hoveden, p. 474.  [q] Eadmer, p. 125, 137,
+138.  [r] Chron. Sax. p. 229.  [s] Spellm. Conc. vol. ii. p. 34.  [t]
+Hoveden, p. 478.  M. Paris, p. 48.  Matth. West. ad. ann. 1125.  H.
+Huntingdon, p. 382.  It is remarkable that this last writer, who was a
+clergyman as well as the others, makes an apology for using such
+freedom with the fathers of the church; but says, that the fact was
+notorious, and ought not to be concealed.  [u] Chron. Sax. p. 234.]
+
+Henry, in order to prevent this alternate revolution of concessions
+and encroachments, sent William, then Archbishop of Canterbury, to
+remonstrate with the court of Rome against those abuses, and to assert
+the liberties of the English church.  It was a usual maxim with every
+pope, when he found that he could not prevail in any pretension, to
+grant princes or states a power which they had always exercised, to
+resume, at a proper juncture, the claim which seemed to be resigned,
+and to pretend that the civil magistrate had possessed the authority
+only from a special indulgence of the Roman pontiff.  After this
+manner, the pope, finding that the French nation would not admit his
+claim of granting investitures, had passed a bull, giving the king
+that authority; and he now practised a like invention to elude the
+complaints of the King of England.  He made the Archbishop of
+Canterbury his legate, renewed his commission from time to time, and
+still pretended that the rights which that prelate had ever exercised
+as metropolitan were entirely derived from the indulgence of the
+apostolic see.  The English princes, and Henry in particular, who were
+glad to avoid any immediate contest of so dangerous a nature, commonly
+acquiesced by their silence in these pretensions of the court of Rome
+[w].
+[FN [w] See note [N], at the end of the volume.]
+
+As every thing in England remained in tranquillity, Henry took the
+opportunity of paying a visit to Normandy, to which he was invited, as
+well by his affection for that country, as by his tenderness for his
+daughter, the Empress Matilda, who was always his favourite.  [MN
+1132.]  Some time after, that princess was delivered of a son, who
+received the name of Henry; and the king, farther to ensure her
+succession, made all the nobility of England and Normandy renew the
+oath of fealty, which they had already sworn to her [x].  The joy of
+this event, and the satisfaction which he reaped from his daughter's
+company, who bore successively two other sons, made his residence in
+Normandy very agreeable to him [y]; [MN 1135.] and he seemed
+determined to pass the remainder of his days in that country; when an
+incursion of the Welsh obliged him to think of returning into England.
+He was preparing for the journey, but was seized with a sudden illness
+at St. Dennis le Forment [MN 1st. Dec.], from eating too plentifully
+of lampreys, a food which always agreed better with his palate than
+his constitution [z].  [MN Death, and character of Henry.]  He died in
+the sixty-seventh year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his reign;
+leaving by will his daughter, Matilda, heir of all his dominions,
+without making any mention of her husband Geoffrey, who had given him
+several causes of displeasure [a].
+[FN [x] W. Malm. p. 177.  [y] H. Hunt. p. 385.  [z] Ibid. p. 385.  M.
+Paris, p. 50.  [a] W. Malm. p. 178.]
+
+This prince was one of the most accomplished that has filled the
+English throne, and possessed all the great qualities both of body and
+mind, natural and acquired which could fit him for the high station to
+which he attained.  His person was manly, his countenance engaging,
+his eyes clear, serene, and penetrating.  The affability of his
+address encouraged those who might be overawed by the sense of his
+dignity or of his wisdom; and though he often indulged his facetious
+humour, he knew how to temper it with discretion, and ever kept at a
+distance from all indecent familiarities with his courtiers.  His
+superior eloquence and judgment would have given him an ascendant,
+even had he been born in a private station; and his personal bravery
+would have procured him respect, though it had been less supported by
+art and policy.  By his great progress in literature, he acquired the
+name of BEAUCLERK, or the Scholar: but his application to those
+sedentary pursuits abated nothing of the activity and vigilance of his
+government; and though the learning of that age was better fitted to
+corrupt than improve the understanding, his natural good sense
+preserved itself untainted both from the pedantry and superstition
+which were then so prevalent among men of letters.  His temper was
+susceptible of the sentiments as well of friendship as of resentment
+[b]; and his ambition though high, might be deemed moderate and
+reasonable, had not his conduct towards his brother and nephew showed
+that he was too much disposed to sacrifice to it all the maxims of
+justice and equity.  But the total incapacity of Robert for government
+afforded his younger brother a reason or pretence for seizing the
+sceptre both of England and Normandy; and when violence and usurpation
+are once begun, necessity obliges a prince to continue in the same
+criminal course, and engages him in measures which his better judgment
+and sounder principles would otherwise have induced him to reject with
+warmth and indignation.
+[FN [b] Order. Vital. p. 805.]
+
+King Henry was much addicted to women; and historians mention no less
+than seven illegitimate sons and six daughters born to him [c].
+Hunting was also one of his favourite amusements; and he exercised
+great rigour against those who encroached on the royal forests, which
+were augmented during his reign [d], though their number and extent
+were already too great.  To kill a stag was as criminal as to murder a
+man: he made all the dogs be mutilated which were kept on the borders
+of his forests; and he sometimes deprived his subjects of the liberty
+of hunting on their own lands, or even cutting their own woods.  In
+other respects, he executed justice, and that with rigour; the best
+maxim which a prince in that age could follow.  Stealing was first
+made capital in this reign [e]; false coining, which was then a very
+common crime, and by which the money had been extremely debased, was
+severely punished by Henry [f].  Near fifty criminals of this kind
+were at one time hanged or mutilated; and though these punishments
+seem to have been exercised in a manner somewhat arbitrary, they were
+grateful to the people, more attentive to present advantages than
+jealous of general laws.  There is a code which passes under the name
+of Henry I., but the best antiquaries have agreed to think it
+spurious.  It is however a very ancient compilation, and may be useful
+to instruct us in the manners and customs of the times.  We learn from
+it, that a great distinction was then made between the English and
+Normans, much to the advantage of the latter [g].  The deadly feuds,
+and the liberty of private revenge, which had been avowed by the Saxon
+laws, were still continued, and were not yet wholly illegal [h].
+[FN [c] Gul. Gemet. lib. 8. cap. 29.  [d] W. Malm. p. 179.  [e] Sim.
+Dunelm p. 231.  Brompton, p. 1000.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 653.  Hoveden, p.
+471.  [f] Sim. Dunelm. p. 231.  Brompton, p. 1000.  Hoveden, p. 471.
+Annal. Waverl. p. 149.  [g] LL. Hen. I. Sec, 18, 75.  [h] Ibid. Sec.
+82.]
+
+Among the laws granted on the king's accession, it is remarkable that
+the reunion of the civil and ecclesiastical courts, as in the Saxon
+times, was enacted [i].  But this law, like the articles of his
+charter, remained without effect, probably from the opposition of
+Archbishop Anselm.
+[FN [i] Spellm. p. 305.  Blackstone, vol. iii. p. 63.  Coke, 2 Inst.
+70.]
+
+Henry, on his accession, granted a charter to London, which seems to
+have been the first step towards rendering that city a corporation.
+By this charter, the city was empowered to keep the farm of Middlesex
+at three hundred pounds a year, to elect its own sheriff and
+justiciary, and to hold pleas of the crown: and it was exempted from
+scot, Danegelt, trials by combat, and lodging the king's retinue.
+These, with a confirmation of the privileges of their court of
+hustings, wardmotes, and common halls, and their liberty of hunting in
+Middlesex and Surrey, are the chief articles of this charter [k].
+[FN [k] Lambardi Archaionomia ex edit. Twisden.  Wilkins, p. 235.]
+
+It is said [l], that this prince, from indulgence to his tenants,
+changed the rents of his demesnes, which were formerly paid in kind,
+into money, which was more easily  remitted to the exchequer.  But the
+great scarcity of coin would render that commutation difficult to be
+executed, while at the same time provisions could not be sent to a
+distant quarter of the kingdom.  This affords a probable reason why
+the ancient kings of England so frequently changed their place of
+abode: they carried their court from one place to another, that they
+might consume upon the spot the revenue of their several demesnes.
+[FN [l] Dial. de Scaccario, lib. 1. cap. 7.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+STEPHEN.
+
+ACCESSION OF STEPHEN--WAR WITH SCOTLAND.--INSURRECTION IN FAVOUR OF
+MATILDA.--STEPHEN TAKEN PRISONER.--MATILDA CROWNED.—STEPHEN RELEASED.
+--RESTORED TO THE CROWN.--CONTINUATION OF THE CIVIL WARS.--COMPROMISE
+BETWEEN THE KING AND PRINCE HENRY.—DEATH OF THE KING.
+
+
+
+[MN 1135.]  In the progress and settlement of the feudal law, the male
+succession to fiefs had taken place some time before the female was
+admitted; and estates being considered as military benefices, not as
+property, were transmitted to such only as could serve in the armies,
+and perform in person the conditions upon which they were originally
+granted.  But when the continuance of rights, during some generations,
+in the same family, had in a great measure, obliterated the primitive
+idea, the females were gradually admitted to the possession of feudal
+property; and the same revolution of principles which procured them
+the inheritance of private estates naturally introduced their
+succession to government and authority.  The failure, therefore, of
+male heirs to the kingdom of England and duchy of Normandy seemed to
+leave the succession open, without a rival, to the Empress Matilda;
+and as Henry had made all his vassals, in both states, swear fealty to
+her, he presumed that they would not easily be induced to depart at
+once from her hereditary right, and from their own reiterated oaths
+and engagements.  But the irregular manner in which he himself had
+acquired the crown might have instructed him, that neither his Norman
+nor English subjects were as yet capable of adhering to a strict rule
+of government; and as every precedent of this kind seems to give
+authority to new usurpations, he had reason to dread, even from his
+own family, some invasion of his daughter's title which he had taken
+such pains to establish.
+
+Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, had been married to Stephen,
+Count of Blois, and had brought him several sons, among whom Stephen
+and Henry, the two youngest, had been invited over to England by the
+late king, and had received great honours, riches, and preferment,
+from the zealous friendship which that prince bore to every one that
+had been so fortunate as to acquire his favour and good opinion.
+Henry, who had betaken himself to the ecclesiastical profession, was
+created Abbot of Glastonbury and Bishop of Winchester; and though
+these dignities were considerable, Stephen had, from his uncle's
+liberality, attained establishments still more solid and durable [a].
+The king had married him to Matilda, who was daughter and heir of
+Eustace Count of Boulogne, and who brought him, besides that feudal
+sovereignty in France, an immense property in England, which, in the
+distribution of lands, had been conferred by the Conqueror on the
+family of Boulogne.  Stephen also by this marriage acquired a new
+connexion with the royal family of England; as Mary, his wife's
+mother, was sister to David the reigning King of Scotland, and to
+Matilda, the first wife of Henry, and mother of the empress.  The
+king, still imagining that he strengthened the interests of his family
+by the aggrandizement of Stephen, took pleasure in enriching him by
+the grant of new possessions; and he conferred on him the great estate
+forfeited by Robert Mallet in England, and that forfeited by the Earl
+of Mortaigne in Normandy.  Stephen, in return, professed great
+attachment to his uncle; and appeared so zealous for the succession of
+Matilda, that when the barons swore fealty to that princess, he
+contended with Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the king's natural son, who
+should first be admitted to give her this testimony of devoted zeal
+and fidelity [b].  Meanwhile he continued to cultivate, by every art
+of popularity, the friendship of the English nation; and many virtues,
+with which he seemed to be endowed, favoured the success of his
+intentions.  By his bravery, activity, and vigour, he acquired the
+esteem of the barons: by his generosity, and by an affable and
+familiar address, unusual in that age among men of his high quality,
+he obtained the affections of the people, particularly of the
+Londoners [c].  And though he dared not to take any steps towards his
+farther grandeur, lest he should expose himself to the jealousy of so
+penetrating a prince as Henry; he still hoped that, by accumulating
+riches and power, and by acquiring popularity, he might in time be
+able to open his way to the throne.
+[FN [a] Gul. Neubr. p. 360.  Brompton, p. 1023.  [b] W. Malm. p. 192.]
+
+No sooner had Henry breathed his last, than Stephen, insensible to all
+the ties of gratitude and fidelity, and blind to danger, gave full
+reins to his criminal ambition, and trusted that, even without any
+previous intrigue, the celerity of his enterprise, and the boldness of
+his attempt, might overcome the weak attachment which the English and
+Normans in that age bore to the law and to the rights of their
+sovereign.  He hastened over to England; and though the citizens of
+Dover, and those of Canterbury, apprized of his purpose, shut their
+gates against him, he stopped not till he arrived at London, where
+some of the lower rank, instigated by his emissaries, as well as moved
+by his general popularity, immediately saluted him king.  His next
+point was to acquire the good will of the clergy; and by performing
+the ceremony of his coronation, to put himself in possession of the
+throne, from which he was confident it would not be easy afterwards to
+expel him.  His brother, the Bishop of Winchester, was useful to him
+in these capital articles: having gained Roger, Bishop of Salisbury,
+who, though he owed a great fortune and advancement to the favour of
+the late king, preserved no sense of gratitude to that prince's
+family, he applied, in conjunction with that prelate, to William,
+Archbishop of Canterbury, and required him, in virtue of his office,
+to give the royal unction to Stephen.  The primate, who, as all the
+others, had shown fealty to Matilda, refused to perform this ceremony;
+but his opposition was overcome by an expedient equally dishonourable
+with the other steps by which this revolution was effected.  Hugh
+Bigod, steward of the household, made oath before the primate, that
+the late king, on his deathbed, had shown a dissatisfaction with his
+daughter Matilda, and had expressed his intention of leaving the Count
+of Boulogne heir to all his dominions [d].  [MN 1135. 22d. Dec.]
+William, either believing, of feigning to believe, Bigod's testimony,
+anointed Stephen, and put the crown upon his head; and from this
+religious ceremony that prince, without any shadow either of
+hereditary title, or consent of the nobility or people, was allowed to
+proceed to the exercise of sovereign authority.  Very few barons
+attended his coronation [e]; but none opposed his usurpation, however
+unjust or flagrant.  The sentiment of religion, which, if corrupted
+into superstition, has often little efficacy in fortifying the duties
+of civil society, was not affected by the multiplied oaths taken in
+favour of Matilda, and only rendered the people obedient to a prince,
+who was countenanced by the clergy, and who had received from the
+primate the rite of royal unction and consecration [f].
+[FN [c] W. Malm. p. 179.  Gest. Steph. p. 928.  [d] Matt. Paris, p.
+51.  Diceto, p. 505.  Chron. Dunst. p. 23.  [e] Brompton, p. 1023.
+[f] Such stress was formerly laid on the rite of coronation, that the
+monkish writers never give any prince the title of king till he is
+crowned; though he had for some time been in possession of the crown,
+and exercised all the powers of sovereignty.]
+
+Stephen, that he might farther secure his tottering throne, passed a
+charter, in which he made liberal promises to all orders of men: to
+the clergy, that he would speedily fill all vacant benefices, and
+would never levy the rents of any of them during the vacancy; to the
+nobility, that he would reduce the royal forests to their ancient
+boundaries, and correct all encroachments; and to the people, that he
+would remit the tax of Danegelt, and restore the laws of King Edward
+[g].  The late king had a great treasure at Winchester, amounting to a
+hundred thousand pounds; and Stephen, by seizing this money,
+immediately turned against Henry's family the precaution, which that
+prince had employed for their grandeur and security: an event which
+naturally attends the policy of amassing treasures.  By means of this
+money, the usurper ensured the compliance, though not the attachment,
+of the principal clergy and nobility; but not trusting to this frail
+security, he invited over from the continent, particularly from
+Britany and Flanders, great numbers of these bravoes or disorderly
+soldiers, with whom every country in Europe, by reason of the general
+ill police and turbulent government, extremely abounded [h].  These
+mercenary troops guarded his throne by the terrors of the sword; and
+Stephen, that he might also overawe all malecontents by new and
+additional terrors of religion, procured a bull from Rome, which
+ratified his title, and which the pope, seeing this prince in
+possession of the throne, and pleased with an appeal to his authority
+in secular controversies, very readily granted him [i].
+[FN [g] W. Malmes. p. 179.  Hoveden, p. 482.  [h] W. Malm. p. 179.
+[i] Hagulstadt, p. 259, 313.]
+
+[MN 1136.]  Matilda, and her husband Geoffrey, were as unfortunate in
+Normandy as they had been in England.  The Norman nobility, moved by
+an hereditary animosity against the Angevins, first applied to
+Theobald, Count of Blois, Stephen's elder brother, for protection and
+assistance; but hearing afterwards that Stephen had got possession of
+the English crown, and having many of them the same reasons as
+formerly for desiring a continuance of their union with that kingdom,
+they transferred their allegiance to Stephen, and put him in
+possession of their government.  Lewis the younger, the reigning King
+of France, accepted the homage of Eustace, Stephen's eldest son, for
+the duchy; and the more to corroborate his connexions with that
+family, he betrothed his sister, Constantia, to the young prince.  The
+Count of Blois resigned all his pretensions, and received, in lieu of
+them, an annual pension of two thousand marks; and Geoffrey himself
+was obliged to conclude a truce for two years with Stephen, on
+condition of the king's paying him, during that time, a pension of
+five thousand [k].  Stephen, who had taken a journey to Normandy,
+finished all these transactions in person, and soon after returned to
+England.
+[FN [k] M. Paris, p. 52.]
+
+Robert, Earl of Gloucester, natural son of the late king, was a man of
+honour and abilities; and as he was much attached to the interests of
+his sister, Matilda, and zealous for the lineal succession, it was
+chiefly from his intrigues and resistance that the king had reason to
+dread a new revolution of government.  This nobleman, who was in
+Normandy when he received intelligence of Stephen's accession, found
+himself much embarrassed concerning the measures which he should
+pursue in that difficult emergency.  To swear allegiance to the
+usurper appeared to him dishonourable, and a breach of his oath to
+Matilda: to refuse giving this pledge of his fidelity, was to banish
+himself from England, and be totally incapacitated from serving the
+royal family, or contributing to their restoration [l].  He offered
+Stephen to do him homage, and to take the oath of fealty; but with an
+express condition, that the king should maintain all his stipulations,
+and should never invade any of Robert's rights or dignities: and
+Stephen, though sensible that this reserve, so unusual in itself, and
+so unbefitting the duty of a subject, was meant only to afford Robert
+a pretence for a revolt on the first favourable opportunity, was
+obliged, by the numerous friends and retainers of that nobleman, to
+receive him on those terms [m].  The clergy, who could scarcely, at
+this time, be deemed subjects to the crown, imitated that dangerous
+example: they annexed to their oaths of allegiance this condition,
+that they were only bound so long as the king defended the
+ecclesiastical liberties, and supported the discipline of the church
+[n].  The barons, in return for their submission, exacted terms still
+more destructive of public peace, as well as of royal authority: many
+of them required the right of fortifying their castles, and of putting
+themselves in a posture of defence; and the king found himself totally
+unable to refuse his consent to this exorbitant demand [o].  All
+England was immediately filled with those fortresses, which the
+noblemen garrisoned either with their vassals, or with licentious
+soldiers, who flocked to them from all quarters.  Unbounded rapine was
+exercised upon the people for the maintenance of these troops; and
+private animosities, which had with difficulty been restrained by law,
+now breaking out without control, rendered England a scene of
+uninterrupted violence and devastation.  Wars between the nobles were
+carried on with the utmost fury in every quarter; the barons even
+assumed the right of coining money, and of exercising, without appeal,
+every act of jurisdiction [p]; and the inferior gentry, as well as the
+people, finding no defence from the laws during this total dissolution
+of sovereign authority, were obliged for their immediate safety, to
+pay court to some neighbouring chieftain, and to purchase his
+protection, both by submitting to his exactions, and by assisting him
+in his rapine upon others.  The erection of one castle proved the
+immediate cause of building many others; and even those who obtained
+not the king's permission, thought that they were entitled, by the
+great principle of self-preservation, to put themselves on an equal
+footing with their neighbours, who commonly were also their enemies
+and rivals.  The aristocratical power, which is usually so oppressive
+in the feudal governments, had now risen to its utmost height, during
+the reign of a prince, who, though endowed with vigour and abilities,
+had usurped the throne without the pretence of a title, and who was
+necessitated to tolerate in others the same violence, to which he
+himself had been beholden for his sovereignty.
+[FN [l] W Malmes. p. 179.  [m] Ibid.  M. Paris, p. 51.  [n] W. Malm,
+p. 179.  [o] Ibid. p. 180.  [p] Trivet, p. 19  Gill. Neub. p. 372.
+Chron. Heming. p. 487.  Brompton, p. 1035.]
+
+But Stephen was not of a disposition to submit long to these
+usurpations, without making some effort for the recovery of royal
+authority.  Finding that the legal prerogatives of the crown were
+resisted and abridged, he was also tempted to make his power the sole
+measure of his conduct; and to violate all those concessions which he
+himself had made on his accession [q], as well as the ancient
+privileges of his subjects.  The mercenary soldiers, who chiefly
+supported his authority, having exhausted the royal treasure,
+subsisted by depredations; and every place was filled with the best
+grounded complaints against the government.  [MN 1137.]  The Earl of
+Gloucester, having now settled with his friends the plan of an
+insurrection, retired beyond sea, sent the king a defiance, solemnly
+renounced his allegiance, and upbraided him with the breach of those
+conditions which had been annexed to the oath of fealty sworn by that
+nobleman [r]. [MN 1138.  War with Scotland.]  David, King of Scotland,
+appeared at the head of an army in defence of his niece's title, and
+penetrating into Yorkshire, committed the most barbarous devastations
+on that country.  The fury of his massacres and ravages enraged the
+northern nobility, who might otherwise  have been inclined to join
+him; and William, Earl of Albemarle, Robert de Ferrers, William
+Piercy, Robert de Brus, Roger Moubray, Ilbert Lacey, Walter l'Espec,
+powerful barons in those parts, assembled an army with which they
+encamped at North-Allerton, and awaited the arrival of the enemy.  [MN
+22d. Aug.]  A great battle was here fought, called the battle of the
+STANDARD, from a high crucifix, erected by the English on a waggon,
+and carried along with the army as a military ensign.  The King of
+Scots was defeated, and he himself, as well as his son Henry, narrowly
+escaped falling into the hands of the English.  This success overawed
+the malecontents in England, and might have given some stability to
+Stephen's throne, had he not been so elated with prosperity as to
+engage in a controversy with the clergy, who were at that time an
+overmatch for any monarch.
+[FN [q] W. Malm. p. 180.  M. Paris, p. 51.  [r] W. Malm. p. 180.]
+
+Though the great power of the church, in ancient times, weakened the
+authority of the crown, and interrupted the course of the laws, it may
+be doubted, whether, in ages of such violence and outrage, it was not
+rather advantageous that some limits were set to the power of the
+sword, both in the hands of the prince and nobles, and that men were
+taught to pay regard to some principles and privileges.  The chief
+misfortune was, that the prelates on some occasions acted entirely as
+barons, employed military power against their sovereign or their
+neighbours, and thereby often increased those disorders which it was
+their duty to repress.  The Bishop of Salisbury, in imitation of the
+nobility, had built two strong castles, one at Sherborne, another at
+Devizes, and had laid the foundations of a third at Malmesbury: his
+nephew, Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, had erected a fortress at
+Newark: and Stephen, who was now sensible from experience of the
+mischiefs attending these multiplied citadels, resolved to begin with
+destroying those of the clergy, who, by their function, seemed less
+entitled than the barons to such military securities [s].  [MN 1139.]
+Making pretence of a fray which had arisen in court between the
+retinue of the Bishop of Salisbury and that of the Earl of Britany, he
+seized both that prelate and the Bishop of Lincoln, threw them into
+prison, and obliged them by menaces to deliver up those places of
+strength which they had lately erected [t].
+[FN [s] Gul. Neubr. p. 362.  [t] Chron. Sax. p. 238.  W. Malmes. p.
+181.]
+
+Henry, Bishop of Winchester, the king's brother, being armed with a
+legatine commission, now conceived himself to be an ecclesiastical
+sovereign, no less powerful than the civil; and, forgetting the ties
+of blood which connected him with the king, he resolved to vindicate
+the clerical privileges, which, he pretended, were here openly
+violated.  [MN 30th Aug.]  He assembled a synod at Westminster, and
+there complained of the impiety of Stephen's measures, who had
+employed violence against the dignitaries of the church, and had not
+awaited the sentence of a spiritual court, by which alone, he
+affirmed, they could lawfully be tried and condemned, if their conduct
+had anywise merited censure or punishment. [u].  The synod ventured to
+send a summons to the king charging him to appear before them, and to
+justify his measures [w]; and Stephen, instead of resenting this
+indignity, sent Aubrey de Vere to plead his cause before that
+assembly.  De Vere accused the two prelates of treason and sedition;
+but the synod refused to try the cause, or examine their conduct, till
+those castles, of which they had been dispossessed, were previously
+restored to them [x].  The Bishop of Salisbury declared that he would
+appeal to the pope; and had not Stephen and his partisans employed
+menaces, and even shown a disposition of executing violence by the
+hands of the soldiery, affairs had instantly come to extremity between
+the crown and the mitre [y].
+[FN [u] W. Malm. p. 182.  [w] Ibid.  M Paris, p. 53.  [x] W. Malm. p.
+183.  [y] Ibid.]
+
+While this quarrel, joined to so many other grievances, increased the
+discontents among the people, the empress, invited by the opportunity,
+and secretly encouraged by the legate himself, landed in England with
+Robert Earl of Gloucester, and a retinue of a hundred and forty
+knights.  She fixed her residence at Arundel Castle, whose gates were
+opened to her by Adelais, the queen-dowager, now married to William de
+Albini, Earl of Sussex; and she excited, by messengers, her partisans
+to take arms in every county of England.  [MN 1139.  22d Sept.
+Insurrection in favour of Matilda.]  Adelais, who had expected that
+her daughter-in-law would have invaded the kingdom with a much greater
+force, became apprehensive of danger; and Matilda, to ease her of her
+fears, removed, first to Bristol, which belonged to her brother
+Robert, thence to Gloucester, where she remained under the protection
+of Milo, a gallant nobleman in those parts, who had embraced her
+cause.  Soon after Geoffrey Talbot, William Mohun, Ralph Lovel,
+William Fitz-John, William Fitz-Alan, Paganell, and many other barons,
+declared for her; and her party, which was generally favoured in the
+kingdom, seemed every day to gain ground upon that of her antagonist.
+
+Were we to relate all the military events transmitted to us by
+contemporary and authentic historians, it would be easy to swell our
+accounts of this reign into a large volume: but those incidents, so
+little memorable in themselves, and so confused both in time and
+place, could afford neither instruction nor entertainment to the
+reader.  It suffices to say, that the war was spread into every
+quarter, and that those turbulent barons, who had already shaken off,
+in a great measure, the restraint of government, having now obtained
+the pretence of a public cause, carried on their devastations with
+redoubled fury, exercised implacable vengeance on each other, and set
+no bounds to their oppressions over the people.  The castles of the
+nobility were become receptacles of licensed robbers; who, sallying
+forth day and night, committed spoil on the open country, on the
+villages, and even on the cities, put the captives to torture, in
+order to make them reveal their treasures; sold their persons to
+slavery; and set fire to their houses, after they had pillaged them of
+every thing valuable.  The fierceness of their disposition, leading
+them to commit wanton destruction, frustrated their rapacity of its
+purpose; and the property and persons even of the ecclesiastics,
+generally so much revered, were at last, from necessity, exposed to
+the same outrage which had laid waste the rest of the kingdom.  The
+land was left untilled; the instruments of husbandry were destroyed or
+abandoned; and a grievous famine, the natural result of those
+disorders, affected equally both parties, and reduced the spoilers as
+well as the defenceless people to the most extreme want and indigence
+[z].
+[FN [z] Chron. Sax. p. 238.  W. Malmes. p. 185.  Gest. Steph p. 961.]
+
+[MN 1140.]  After several fruitless negotiations and treaties of
+peace, which never interrupted these destructive hostilities, there
+happened at last an event, which seemed to promise some end of the
+public calamities.  Ralph, Earl of Chester, and his half-brother,
+William de Roumara, partisans of Matilda, had surprised the castle of
+Lincoln; but the citizens, who were better affected to Stephen, having
+invited him to their aid, that prince laid close siege to the castle,
+in hopes of soon rendering himself master of the place, either by
+assault or by famine.  The Earl of Gloucester hastened with an army to
+the relief of his friends; and Stephen, informed of his approach, took
+the field with a resolution of giving him battle.  [MN 1141.  2d Feb.]
+After a violent shock, the two wings of the royalists were put to
+flight; and Stephen himself, surrounded by the enemy, was at last,
+after exerting great efforts of valour, borne down by numbers, and
+taken prisoner.  [MN Stephen taken prisoner.]  He was conducted to
+Gloucester; and though at first treated with humanity was soon after,
+on some suspicion, thrown into prison and loaded with irons.
+
+Stephen's party was entirely broken by the captivity of their leader,
+and the barons came in daily from all quarters, and did homage to
+Matilda.  The princess, however, amidst all her prosperity, knew that
+she was not secure of success unless she could gain the confidence of
+the clergy; and as the conduct of the legate had been of late very
+ambiguous, and shown his intentions to have rather aimed at humbling
+his brother than totally ruining him, she employed every endeavour to
+fix him in her interests.  [MN 2d March.]  She held a conference with
+him in an open plain near Winchester, where she promised, upon oath,
+that if he would acknowledge her for sovereign, would recognize her
+title as the sole descendant of the late king, and would again submit
+to the allegiance which he, as well as the rest of the kingdom, had
+sworn to her, he should in return be entire master of the
+administration, and, in particular, should, at his pleasure, dispose
+of all vacant bishoprics and abbeys.  Earl Robert, her brother, Brian
+Fitz-Count, Milo of Gloucester, and other great men, became guarantees
+for her observing these engagements [a]; and the prelate was at last
+induced to promise her allegiance, but that still burdened with the
+express condition, that she should, on her part, fulfil her promises.
+He then conducted her to Winchester, led her in procession to the
+cathedral, and with great solemnity, in the presence of many bishops
+and abbots, denounced curses against all those who cursed her, poured
+out blessings on those who blessed her, granted absolution to such as
+were obedient to her, and excommunicated such as were rebellious [b].
+Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, soon after came also to court, and
+swore allegiance to the empress [c].
+[FN [a] W. Malm. p. 187.  [b] Chron. Sax. p. 242.  Contin. Flor. Wig.
+p. 676.  [c] W. Malmes p. 187.]
+
+[MN Matilda crowned.]  Matilda, that she might farther ensure the
+attachment of the clergy, was willing to receive the crown from their
+hands; and instead of assembling the states of the kingdom, the
+measure which the constitution, had it been either fixed or regarded,
+seemed necessarily to require, she was content that the legate should
+assemble an ecclesiastical synod, and that her title to the throne
+should there be acknowledged.  The legate, addressing himself to the
+assembly, told them, that in the absence of the empress, Stephen, his
+brother, had been permitted to reign, and, previously to his ascending
+the throne, had induced them by many fair promises, of honouring and
+exalting the church, of maintaining the laws, and of reforming all
+abuses: that it grieved him to observe how much that prince had, in
+every particular, been wanting to his engagements; public peace was
+interrupted, crimes were daily committed with impunity, bishops were
+thrown into prison and forced to surrender their possessions, abbeys
+were put to sale, churches were pillaged, and the most enormous
+disorders prevailed in the administration: that he himself, in order
+to procure a redress of these grievances, had formerly summoned the
+king before a council of bishops; but, instead of inducing him to
+amend his conduct, had rather offended him by that expedient: that,
+how much soever misguided, that prince was still his brother, and the
+object of his aflections; but his interests, however, must be regarded
+as subordinate to those of their heavenly Father, who had now rejected
+him, and thrown him into the hands of his enemies: that it principally
+belonged to the clergy to elect and ordain kings; he had summoned them
+together for that purpose and having invoked the divine assistance; he
+now pronounced Matilda, the only descendant of Henry, the late
+sovereign, Queen of England.  The whole assembly by their acclamations
+or silence, gave, or seemed to give, their assent to this declaration
+[d].
+[FN [d] W. Malmes. p. 188.  This author, a judicious man, was present,
+and says, that he was very attentive to what passed.  This speech,
+therefore, may he regarded as entirely genuine.]
+
+The only laymen summoned to this council, which decided the fate of
+the crown, were the Londoners; and even these were required not to
+give their opinion but to submit to the decrees of the synod.  The
+deputies of London, however, were not so passive: they insisted that
+their king should be delivered from prison; but were told by the
+legate, that it became not the Londoners, who were regarded as
+noblemen in England, to take part with those barons, who had basely
+forsaken their lord in battle, and who had treated the holy church
+with contumely [e]: it is with reason that the citizens of London
+assumed so much authority, if it be true, what is related by
+Fitz-Stephen, a contemporary author, that that city could at this time
+bring into the field no less than eighty thousand combatants [f].
+[FN [e] W. Malmes. p. 188.  [f] P. 4. Were this account to be depended
+on, London must at that time have contained near four hundred thousand
+inhabitants, which is above double the number it contained at the
+death of Queen Elizabeth.  But these loose calculations, or rather
+guesses, deserve very little credit.  Peter of Blois, a contemporary
+writer, and a man of sense, says there were then only forty thousand
+inhabitants in London, which is much more likely.  See Epist. 151.
+What Fitz-Stephen says of the prodigious riches, splendour, and
+commerce of London, proves only the great poverty of the other towns
+of the kingdom, and indeed of all the northern parts of Europe.]
+
+London, notwithstanding its great power, and its attachment to
+Stephen, was at length obliged to submit to Matilda; and her
+authority, by the prudent conduct of Earl Robert, seemed to be
+established over the whole kingdom: but affairs remained not long in
+this situation.  That princess, besides the disadvantages of her sex,
+which weakened her influence over a turbulent and martial people, was
+of a passionate, imperious spirit, and knew not how to temper with
+affability the harshness of a refusal.  Stephen's queen, seconded by
+many of the nobility, petitioned for the liberty of her husband; and
+offered that, on this condition, he should renounce the crown and
+retire into a convent.  The legate desired that Prince Eustace, his
+nephew, might inherit Boulogne and the other patrimonial estates of
+his father [g]: the Londoners applied for the establishment of King
+Edward's laws, instead of those of King Henry, which, they said, were
+grievous and oppressive [h].  All these petitions were rejected in the
+most haughty and peremptory manner.
+[FN [g] Brompton, p. 1031.  [h] Contin. Flor. Wig. p. 577.  Gervase,
+p. 1355.]
+
+The legate, who had probably never been sincere in his compliance with
+Matilda's government, availed himself of the ill-humour excited by
+this imperious conduct, and secretly instigated the Londoners to a
+revolt.  A conspiracy was entered into to seize the person of the
+empress; and she saved herself from the danger by a precipitate
+retreat.  She fled to Oxford: soon after she went to Winchester;
+whither the legate, desirous to save appearances, and watching the
+opportunity to ruin her cause, had retired.  But having assembled all
+his retainers, he openly joined his force to that of the Londoners,
+and to Stephen's mercenary troops, who had not yet evacuated the
+kingdom; and he besieged Matilda in Winchester.  The princess, being
+hard pressed by famine, made her escape; but in the flight, Earl
+Robert, her brother, fell into the hands of the enemy.  This nobleman,
+though a subject, was as much the life and soul of his own party, as
+Stephen was of the other; [MN Stephen released.] and the empress,
+sensible of his merit and importance, consented to exchange the
+prisoners on equal terms.  The civil war was again kindled with
+greater fury than ever.
+
+[MN 1142.]  Earl Robert, finding the successes on both sides nearly
+balanced, went over to Normandy, which, during Stephen's captivity,
+had submitted to the Earl of Anjou; and he persuaded Geoffrey to allow
+his eldest son, Henry, a young prince of great hopes, to take a
+journey into England, and appear at the head of his partisans.  This
+expedient, however, produced nothing decisive.  Stephen took Oxford
+after a long siege [MN 1143.]: he was defeated by Earl Robert at
+Wilton: and the empress, though of a masculine spirit, yet being
+harassed with a variety of good and bad fortune, and alarmed with
+continual dangers to her person and family, at last retired into
+Normandy, whither she had sent her son some time before.  [MN 1146.
+Continuation of the civil wars.]  The death of her brother, which
+happened nearly about the same time, would have proved fatal to her
+interests, had not some incidents occurred which checked the course of
+Stephen's prosperity.  This prince, finding that the castles built by
+the noblemen of his own party encouraged the spirit of independence,
+and were little less dangerous than those which remained in the hands
+of the enemy, endeavoured to extort from them a surrender of those
+fortresses; and he alienated the affections of many of them by this
+equitable demand.  The artillery also of the church, which his brother
+had brought over to his side, had, after some interval, joined the
+other party.  Eugenius III. had mounted the papal throne; the Bishop
+of Winchester was deprived of the legatine commission, which was
+conferred on Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, the enemy and rival
+of the former legate.  That pontiff also, having summoned a general
+council at Rheims, in Champaigne, instead of allowing the church of
+England, as had been usual, to elect its own deputies, nominated five
+English bishops to represent that church, and required their
+attendance in the council.  Stephen, who, notwithstanding his present
+difficulties, was jealous of the rights of his crown, refused them
+permission to attend [i]; and the pope, sensible of his advantage in
+contending with a prince who reigned by a disputed title, took revenge
+by laying all Stephen's party under an interdict [k].  [MN 1147.]  The
+discontents of the royalists, at being thrown into this situation,
+were augmented by a comparison with Matilda's party, who enjoyed all
+the benefits of the sacred ordinances; and Stephen was at last
+obliged, by making proper submissions to the see of Rome, to remove
+the reproach from his party [l].
+[FN [i] Epist. St. Thom. p. 225.  [k] Chron. W. Thorn. p. 1807.  [l]
+Epist St. Thom. p. 226.]
+
+[MN 1148.]  The weakness of both sides, rather than any decrease of
+mutual animosity, having produced a tacit cessation of arms in
+England, many of the nobility, Roger de Moubray, William de Warenne,
+and others, finding no opportunity to exert their military ardour at
+home, enlisted themselves in a new crusade, which, with surprising
+success, after former disappointments and misfortunes, was now
+preached by St. Bernard [m].  But an event soon after happened which
+threatened a revival of hostilities in England.  Prince Henry, who had
+reached his sixteenth year, was desirous of receiving the honour of
+knighthood; a ceremony which every gentleman in that age passed
+through before he was admitted to the use of arms, and which was even
+deemed requisite for the greatest princes.  He intended to receive his
+admission from his great-uncle, David, King of Scotland; and for that
+purpose he passed through England with a great retinue, and was
+attended by the most considerable of his partisans.  He remained some
+time with the King of Scotland; made incursions into England; and by
+his dexterity and vigour in all manly exercises, by his valour in war,
+and his prudent conduct in every occurrence, he roused the hopes of
+his party, and gave symptoms of those great qualities which he
+afterwards displayed when he mounted the throne of England.  [MN
+1150.]  Soon after his return to Normandy, he was, by Matilda's
+consent, invested in that duchy; and upon the death of his father,
+Geoffrey, which happened in the subsequent year, he took possession
+both of Anjou and Maine, and concluded a marriage, which brought him a
+great accession of power, and rendered him extremely formidable to his
+rival.  Eleanor, the daughter and heir of William, Duke of Guienne and
+Earl of Poictou, had been married sixteen years to Lewis VII. King of
+France, [MN 1152.] and had attended him in a crusade, which that
+monarch conducted against the infidels; but having there lost the
+affections of her husband, and even fallen under some suspicion of
+gallantry with a handsome Saracen, Lewis, more delicate than politic,
+procured a divorce from her, and restored her those rich provinces,
+which by her marriage she had annexed to the crown of France.  Young
+Henry, neither discouraged by the inequality of years, nor by the
+reports of Eleanor's gallantries, made successful courtship to that
+princess, and, espousing her six weeks after her divorce, got
+possession of all her dominions as her dowry.  The lustre which he
+received from this acquisition, and the prospect of his rising
+fortune, had such an effect in England, that, when Stephen, desirous
+to ensure the crown to his son Eustace, required the Archbishop of
+Canterbury to anoint that prince as his successor, the primate refused
+compliance, and made his escape beyond sea, to avoid the violence and
+resentment of Stephen.
+[FN [m] Hagulst. p. 275, 276.]
+
+[MN 1153.]  Henry, informed of these dispositions in the people, made
+an invasion on England.  Having gained some advantage over Stephen at
+Malmesbury, and having taken that place, he proceeded thence to throw
+succours into Wallingford, which the king had advanced with a superior
+army to besiege.  A decisive action was every day expected; when the
+great men of both sides, terrified at the prospect of farther
+bloodshed and confusion, interposed with their good offices, and set
+on foot a negotiation between the rival princes.  The death of
+Eustace, during the course of the treaty, facilitated its conclusion;
+[MN Compromise between the king and Prince Henry.] an accommodation
+was settled, by which it was agreed, that Stephen should possess the
+crown during his lifetime, that justice should be administered in his
+name, even in the provinces which had submitted to Henry, and that
+this latter prince should, on Stephen's demise, succeed to the
+kingdom, and William, Stephen's son, to Boulogne and his patrimonial
+estate.  After all the barons had sworn to the observance of this
+treaty, and done homage to Henry, as to the heir of the crown, that
+prince evacuated the kingdom; [MN Death of the king, Oct. 25, 1154.]
+and the death of Stephen, which happened the next year, after a short
+illness, prevented all those quarrels and jealousies which were likely
+to have ensued in so delicate a situation.
+
+England suffered great miseries during the reign of this prince: but
+his personal character, allowing for the temerity and injustice of his
+usurpation, appears not liable to any great exception; and he seems to
+have been well qualified, had he succeeded by a just title, to have
+promoted the happiness and prosperity of his subjects [n].  He was
+possessed of industry, activity, and courage, to a great degree;
+though not endowed with a sound judgment, he was not deficient in
+abilities; he had the talent of gaining men's affections; and
+notwithstanding his precarious situation, he never indulged himself in
+the exercise of any cruelty or revenge [o].  His advancement to the
+throne procured him neither tranquillity nor happiness; and though the
+situation of England prevented the neighbouring states from taking any
+durable advantage of her confusions, her intestine disorders were to
+the last degree ruinous and destructive.  The court of Rome was also
+permitted, during those civil wars, to make farther advances in her
+usurpations; and appeals to the pope, which had always been strictly
+prohibited by the English laws, became now common in every
+ecclesiastical controversy [p].
+[FN [n] W. Malm. p. 180.  [o] M. Paris, p. 51.  Hagul. p. 312.  [p] H.
+Hunt. p. 395.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HENRY II.
+
+STATE OF EUROPE--OF FRANCE.--FIRST ACTS OF HENRY'S GOVERNMENT--
+DISPUTES BETWEEN THE CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POWERS.—THOMAS À BECKET,
+ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.--QUARREL BETWEEN THE KING AND BECKET.--
+CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON.--BANISHMENT OF BECKET.--COMPROMISE WITH
+HIM.--HIS RETURN FROM BANISHMENT.--HIS MURDER--GRIEF AND SUBMISSION OF
+THE KING.
+
+
+
+[MN 1154.  State of Europe]
+The extensive confederacies by which the European potentates are now
+at once united and set in opposition to each other, and which, though
+they are apt to diffuse the least spark of dissension throughout the
+whole, are at least attended with this advantage, that they prevent
+any violent revolutions or conquests in particular states, were
+totally unknown in ancient ages; and the theory of foreign politics,
+in each kingdom, formed a speculation much less complicated and
+involved than at present.  Commerce had not yet bound together the
+most distant nations in so close a chain: wars, finished in one
+campaign, and often in one battle, were little affected by the
+movements of remote states: the imperfect communication among the
+kingdoms, and their ignorance of each other's situation, made it
+impracticable for a great number of them to combine in one project or
+effort: and above all, the turbulent spirit and independent situation
+of the barons or great vassals in each state gave so much occupation
+to the sovereign, that he was obliged to confine his attention chiefly
+to his own state and his own system of government, and was more
+indifferent about what passed among his neighbours.  Religion alone,
+not politics, carried abroad the views of princes; while it either
+fixed their thoughts on the Holy Land, whose conquest and defence was
+deemed a point of common honour and interest, or engaged them in
+intrigues with the Roman pontiff, to whom they had yielded the
+direction of ecclesiastical affairs, and who was every day assuming
+more authority than they were willing to allow him.
+
+Before the conquest of England by the Duke of Normandy, this island
+was as much separated from the rest of the world in politics as in
+situation; and except from the inroads of the Danish pirates, the
+English, happily confined at home, had neither enemies nor allies on
+the continent.  The foreign dominions of William connected them with
+the king and great vassals of France; and while the opposite
+pretensions of the pope and emperor in Italy produced a continual
+intercourse between Germany and that country, the two great monarchs
+of France and England formed, in another part of Europe, a separate
+system; and carried on their wars and negotiations, without meeting
+either with opposition or support from the others.
+
+[MN State of France.]
+On the decline of the Carlovingian race, the nobles in every province
+of France, taking advantage of the weakness of the sovereign, and
+obliged to provide, each for his own defence, against the ravages of
+the Norman freebooters, had assumed, both in civil and military
+affairs, an authority almost independent, and had reduced within very
+narrow limits the prerogative of their princes.  The accession of Hugh
+Capet, by annexing a great fief to the crown, had brought some
+addition to the royal dignity; but this fief, though considerable for
+a subject, appeared a narrow basis of power for a prince who was
+placed at the head of so great a community.  The royal demesnes
+consisted only of Paris, Orleans, Estampes, Compeigne, and a few
+places scattered over the northern provinces: in the rest of the
+kingdom, the prince's authority was rather nominal than real: the
+vassals were accustomed, nay entitled, to make war, without his
+permission, on each other: they were even entitled, if they conceived
+themselves injured, to turn their arms against their sovereign: they
+exercised all civil jurisdiction, without appeal, over their tenants
+and inferior vassals: their common jealousy of the crown easily united
+them against any attempt on their exorbitant privileges; and as some
+of them had attained the power and authority of great princes, even
+the smallest baron was sure of immediate and effectual protection.
+Besides six ecclesiastical peerages, which, with the other immunities
+of the church, cramped extremely the general execution of justice,
+there were six lay peerages, Burgundy, Normandy, Guienne, Flanders,
+Toulouse, and Champaigne, which formed very extensive and puissant
+sovereignties.  And though the combination all those princes and
+barons could, on urgent occasions, muster a mighty power; yet it was
+very difficult to set that great machine in movement; it was almost
+impossible to preserve harmony in its parts; a sense of common
+interest alone could, for a time, unite them under their sovereign
+against a common enemy; but if the king attempted to turn the force of
+the community against any mutinous vassal, the same sense of common
+interest made the others oppose themselves to the success of his
+pretensions.  Lewis the Gross, the last sovereign, marched at one time
+to his frontiers against the Germans at the head of an army of two
+hundred thousand men; but a petty lord of Corbeil, of Puiset, of
+Couci, was able, at another period, to set that prince at defiance,
+and to maintain open war against him.
+
+The authority of the English monarch was much more extensive within
+his kingdom, and the disproportion much greater between him and the
+most powerful of his vassals.  His demesnes and revenue were large,
+compared to the greatness of his state: he was accustomed to levy
+arbitrary exactions on his subjects; his courts of judicature extended
+their jurisdiction into every part of the kingdom: he could crush by
+his power, or by a judicial sentence, well or ill founded, any
+obnoxious baron: and though the feudal institutions which prevailed in
+his kingdom had the same tendency as in other states to exalt the
+aristocracy and depress the monarchy, it required, in England,
+according to its present constitution, a great combination of the
+vassals to oppose their sovereign lord, and there had not hitherto
+arisen any baron so powerful, as of himself to levy war against the
+prince, and to afford protection to the inferior barons.
+
+While such were the different situations of France and England, and
+the latter enjoyed so many advantages above the former, the accession
+of Henry II., a prince of great abilities, possessed of so many rich
+provinces on the continent, might appear an event dangerous, if not
+fatal, to the French monarchy, and sufficient to break entirely the
+balance between the states.  He was master, in the right of his
+father, of Anjou and Touraine; in that of his mother, of Normandy and
+Maine; in that of his wife, of Guienne, Poictou, Xaintogne, Auvergne,
+Perigord, Angoumois, the Limousin.  He soon after annexed Britany to
+his other states, and was already possessed of the superiority over
+that province, which, on the first cession of Normandy to Rollo, the
+Dane, had been granted by Charles the Simple, in vassalage to that
+formidable ravager.  These provinces composed above a third of the
+whole French monarchy, and were much superior, in extent and opulence,
+to those territories which were subjected to the immediate
+jurisdiction and government of the king.  The vassal was here more
+powerful than his liege lord: the situation which had enabled Hugh
+Capet to depose the Carlovingian princes seemed to be renewed, and
+that with much greater advantages on the side of the vassal; and when
+England was added to so many provinces, the French king had reason to
+apprehend, from this conjuncture, some great disaster to himself and
+to his family: but in reality, it was this circumstance, which
+appeared so formidable, that saved the Capetian race, and, by its
+consequences, exalted them to that pitch of grandeur which they at
+present enjoy.
+
+The limited authority of the prince in the feudal constitutions
+prevented the King of England from employing with advantage the force
+of so many states, which were subjected to his government; and these
+different members, disjoined in situation, and disagreeing in laws,
+language, and manners, were never thoroughly cemented into one
+monarchy.  He soon became, both from his distant place of residence,
+and from the incompatibility of interests, a kind of foreigner to his
+French dominions; and his subjects on the continent considered their
+allegiance as more naturally due to their superior lord, who lived in
+their neighbourhood, and who was acknowledged to be the supreme head
+of their nation.  He was always at hand to invade them; their
+immediate lord was often at too great a distance to protect them; and
+any disorder in any part of his dispersed dominions gave advantages
+against him.  The other powerful vassals of the French crown were
+rather pleased to see the expulsion of the English, and were not
+affected with that jealousy, which  would have arisen from the
+oppression of a co-vassal, who was of the same rank with themselves.
+By this means, the King of France found it more easy to conquer those
+numerous provinces from England, than to subdue a Duke of Normandy or
+Guienne, a Count of Anjou, Maine, or Poictou.  And after reducing such
+extensive territories, which immediately incorporated with the body of
+the monarchy, he found greater facility in uniting to the crown the
+other great fiefs which still remained separate and independent.
+
+But as these important consequences could not be foreseen by human
+wisdom, the King of France remarked with terror the rising grandeur of
+the house of Anjou, or Plantagenet; and, in order to retard its
+progress, he had ever maintained a strict union with Stephen, and had
+endeavoured to support the tottering fortunes of that bold usurper.
+But after this prince's death it was too late to think of opposing the
+succession of Henry, or preventing the performance of those
+stipulations which, with the unanimous consent of the nation, he had
+made with his predecessor.  The English, harassed with civil wars, and
+disgusted with the bloodshed and depredations which, during the course
+of so many years, had attended them, were little disposed to violate
+their oaths, by excluding the lawful heir from the succession of their
+monarchy [a].  Many of the most considerable fortresses were in the
+hands of his partisans; the whole nation had had occasion to see the
+noble qualities with which he was endowed [b], and to compare them
+with the mean talents of William the son of Stephen; and as they were
+acquainted with his great power, and were rather pleased to see the
+accession of so many foreign dominions to the crown of England, they
+never entertained the least thoughts of resisting them.  Henry
+himself, sensible of the advantages attending his present situation,
+was in no hurry to arrive in England; and being engaged in the siege
+of a castle on the frontiers of Normandy, when he received
+intelligence of Stephen's death, [MN Dec.] he made it a point of
+honour not to depart from his enterprise till he had brought it to an
+issue.  He then set out on his journey and was received in England
+with the acclamations of all orders of men, who swore with pleasure
+the oath of fealty and allegiance to him.
+[FN [a] Matt. Paris, p. 65.  [b] Gul. Neubr. p. 381.]
+
+[MN 1155.  First acts of Henry’s government.]
+The first acts of Henry's government corresponded to the high idea
+entertained of his abilities, and prognosticated the re-establishment
+of justice and tranquillity, of which the kingdom had so long been
+bereaved.  He immediately dismissed all those mercenary soldiers who
+had committed great disorders in the nation; and he sent them abroad,
+together with William of Ypres, their leader, the friend and confidant
+of Stephen [c].  He revoked all the grants made by his predecessor
+[d], even those which necessity had extorted from the Empress Matilda;
+and that princess, who had resigned her rights in favour of Henry,
+made no opposition to a measure so necessary for supporting the
+dignity of the crown.  He repaired the coin, which had been extremely
+debased during the reign of his predecessor; and he took proper
+measures against the return of a like abuse [e].  He was vigorous in
+the execution of justice, and in the suppression of robbery and
+violence; and that he might restore authority to the laws, he caused
+all the new erected castles to be demolished, which had proved so many
+sanctuaries to freebooters and rebels [f].  The Earl of Albemarle,
+Hugh Mortimer, and Roger the son of Milo of Gloucester, were inclined
+to make some resistance to this salutary measure; but the approach of
+the king with his forces soon obliged them to submit.
+[FN [c] Fitz-Steph. p. 13.  M. Paris, p. 65.  Neubr. p. 381.  Chron.
+T. Wykes, p. 30.  [d] Neub. p. 382.  [e] Hoveden, p. 491.  [f]
+Hoveden, p. 491.  Fitz-Steph. p. 13.  M. Paris, p. 65.  Neubr. p. 381.
+Brompton, p. 1043.]
+
+[MN 1156.]  Every thing being restored to full tranquillity in
+England, Henry went abroad in order to oppose the attempts of his
+brother Geoffrey, who, during his absence, had made an incursion into
+Anjou and Maine, had advanced some pretensions to those provinces, and
+had got possession of a considerable part of them [g].  On the king’s
+appearance, the people returned to their allegiance; and Geoffrey,
+resigning his claim for an annual pension of a thousand pounds,
+departed and took possession of the county of Nantz, which the
+inhabitants, who had expelled Count Hoel, their prince, had put into
+his hands.  [MN 1157.]  Henry returned to England the following year:
+the incursions of the Welsh then provoked him to make an invasion upon
+them; where the natural fastnesses of the country occasioned him great
+difficulties, and even brought him into danger.  His vanguard, being
+engaged in a narrow pass, was put to rout.  Henry de Essex, the
+hereditary standard-bearer, seized with a panic, threw down the
+standard, took to flight and exclaimed, that the king. was slain: and
+had not the prince immediately appeared in person, and led on his
+troops with great gallantry, the consequences might have proved fatal
+to the whole army [h].  For this misbehaviour, Essex was afterwards
+accused of felony by Robert de Montfort; was vanquished in single
+combat; his estate was confiscated; and he himself was thrust into a
+convent [i].  The submissions of the Welsh procured them an
+accommodation with England.
+[FN [g] See note [O], at the end of the volume.  [h] Neubr. p. 383.
+Chron. W. Heming. p. 492.  [i] M. Paris, p. 70  Neubr. p. 383.]
+
+[MN 1158.]  The martial disposition of the princes in that age engaged
+them to head their own armies in every enterprise, even the most
+frivolous; and their feeble authority made it commonly impracticable
+for them to delegate, on occasion, the command to their generals.
+Geoffrey, the king's brother, died soon after he had acquired
+possession of Nantz: though he had no other title to that county than
+the voluntary submission or election of the inhabitants two years
+before, Henry laid claim to the territory as devolved to him by
+hereditary right, and he went over to support his pretensions by force
+of arms.  Conan, Duke or Earl of Britany, (for these titles are given
+indifferently by historians to those princes,) pretended that Nantz
+had been lately separated by rebellion from his principality, to which
+of right it belonged; and immediately on Geoffrey's death he took
+possession of the disputed territory.  Lest Lewis, the French king,
+should interpose in the controversy, Henry paid him a visit; and so
+allured him by caresses and civilities, that an alliance was
+contracted between them; and they agreed that young Henry, heir to the
+English monarchy, should be affianced to Margaret of France though the
+former was only five years of age, and the latter was still in her
+cradle.  Henry, now secure of meeting with no interruption on this
+side, advanced with his army into Britany; and Conan, in despair of
+being able to make resistance, delivered up the county of Nantz to
+him.  The able conduct of the king procured him farther and more
+important advantages from this incident.  Conan, harassed with the
+turbulent disposition of his subjects, was desirous of procuring to
+himself the support of so great a monarch; and he betrothed his
+daughter and only child, yet an infant, to Geoffrey, the king's third
+son, who was of the same tender years.  The Duke of Britany died about
+seven years after; and Henry being MESNE lord, and also natural
+guardian to his son and daughter-in-law, put himself in possession of
+that principality, and annexed it for the present to his other great
+dominions.
+
+[MN 1159.]  The king had a prospect of making still farther
+acquisitions; and the activity of his temper suffered no opportunity
+of that kind to escape him.  Philippa, Duchess of Guienne, mother of
+Queen Eleanor, was the only issue of William IV., Count of Toulouse;
+and would have inherited his dominions, had not that prince, desirous
+of preserving the succession in the male line, conveyed the
+principality to his brother, Raymond de St. Gilles, by a contract of
+sale which was in that age regarded as fictitious and illusory.  By
+this means the title to the county of Toulouse came to be disputed
+between the male and female heirs; and the one or the other, as
+opportunities favoured them, had obtained possession.  Raymond,
+grandson of Raymond de St. Gilles, was the reigning sovereign; and on
+Henry’s reviving his wife’s claim, this prince had recourse for
+protection to the King of France, who was so much concerned in policy
+to prevent the farther aggrandizement of the English monarch.  Lewis
+himself, when married to Eleanor, had asserted the justice of her
+claim, and had demanded possession of Toulouse [k]; but his sentiments
+changing with his interest, he now determined to defend, by his power
+and authority, the title of Raymond.  Henry found that it would be
+requisite to support his pretensions against potent antagonists; and
+that nothing but a formidable army could maintain a claim which he had
+in vain asserted by arguments and manifestoes.
+[FN [k] Neubr. p. 387.  Chron. W. Heming. p. 494.]
+
+An army, composed of feudal vassals, was commonly very intractable and
+undisciplined, both because of the independent spirit of the persons
+who served in it, and because the commands were not given, either by
+the choice of the sovereign, or from the military capacity and
+experience of the officers.  Each baron conducted his own vassals: his
+rank was greater or less, proportioned to the extent of his property:
+even the supreme command under the prince was often attached to birth;
+and as the military vassals were obliged to serve only forty days at
+their own charge; though if the expedition were distant, they were put
+to great expense; the prince reaped little benefit from their
+attendance.  Henry, sensible of these inconveniences, levied upon his
+vassals in Normandy, and other provinces which were remote from
+Toulouse, a sum of money in lieu of their service; and this
+commutation, by reason of the great distance, was still more
+advantageous to his English vassals.  He imposed, therefore, a scutage
+of one hundred and eighty thousand pounds on the knight’s fees, a
+commutation to which, though it was unusual, and the first perhaps to
+be met with in history [l], the military tenants willingly submitted;
+and with this money he levied an army which was more under his
+command, and whose service was more durable and constant.  Assisted by
+Berenger, Count of Barcelona, and Trincaval, Count of Nismes, whom he
+had gained to his party, he invaded the county of Toulouse; and after
+taking Verdun, Castlenau, and other places, he besieged the capital of
+the province, and was likely to prevail in the enterprise: when Lewis,
+advancing before the arrival of his main body, threw himself into the
+place with a small reinforcement.  [MN 1160.]  Henry was urged by some
+of his ministers to prosecute the siege, to take Lewis prisoner, and
+to impose his own terms in the pacification; but he either thought it
+so much his interest to maintain the feudal principles, by which his
+foreign dominions were secured, or bore so much respect to his
+superior lord, that he declared he would  not attack a place defended
+by him in person; and he immediately raised the siege [m].  He marched
+into Normandy, to protect that province against an incursion which the
+Count of Dreux, instigated by King Lewis, his brother, had made upon
+it.  War was now openly carried on between the two monarchs, but
+produced no memorable event: it soon ended in a cessation of arms, and
+that followed by a peace, which was not, however, attended with any
+confidence or good correspondence between those rival princes.  The
+fortress of Gisors, being part of the dowry stipulated to Margaret of
+France, had been consigned by agreement to the Knights Templars, on
+condition that it should be delivered into Henry's hands after the
+celebration of the nuptials.  The king, that he might have a pretence
+for immediately demanding the place, ordered the marriage to be
+solemnized between the prince and princess, though both infants [n];
+and he engaged the Grand Master of the Templars, by large presents, as
+was generally suspected, to put him in possession of Gisors [o].  [MN
+1161.]  Lewis, resenting this fraudulent conduct, banished the
+Templars, and would have made war upon the King of England, had it not
+been for the mediation and authority of Pope Alexander III., who had
+been chased from Rome by the anti-pope, Victor IV., and resided at
+that time in France.  That we may form an idea of the authority
+possessed by the Roman pontiff during those ages, it may be proper to
+observe, that the two kings had, the year before, met the pope at the
+castle of Torci, on the Loire; and they gave him such marks of
+respect, that both dismounted to receive him, and holding each of them
+one of the reins of his bridle, walked on foot by his side, and
+conducted him in that submissive manner into the castle [p].  A
+SPECTACLE, cries Baronius in an ecstasy, TO GOD, ANGELS AND MEN; AND
+SUCH AS HAD NEVER BEFORE BEEN EXHIBITED TO THE WORLD!
+[FN [l] Madox, p. 435.  Gervase, p. 1381.  See Note [P], at the end of
+the volume.  [m] Fitz-Steph. p. 22.  Diceto, p. 531.  [n] Hoveden, p.
+492.  Neubr. p. 400.  Diceto, p. 532.  Brompton, p. 1450.  [o] Since
+the first publication of this history, Lord Lyttelton has published a
+copy of the treaty between Henry and Lewis, by which it appears, if
+there was no secret article, that Henry was not guilty of any fraud in
+this transaction.  [p] Trivet, p. 48.]
+
+[MN 1162.]  Henry, soon after he had accommodated his differences with
+Lewis, by the pope's mediation, returned to England; where he
+commenced an enterprise which, though required by sound policy, and
+even conducted in the main with prudence, bred him great disquietude,
+involved him in danger, and was not concluded without some loss and
+dishonour.
+
+[MN Disputes between the civil and ecclesiastical powers.]
+The usurpations of the clergy, which had at first been gradual, were
+now become so rapid, and had mounted to such a height, that the
+contest between the regale and pontificale was really arrived at a
+crisis in England, and it became necessary to determine whether the
+king or the priests, particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury, should
+be sovereign of the kingdom [q].  The aspiring spirit of Henry, which
+gave inquietude to all his neighbours, was not likely long to pay a
+tame submission to the encroachments of subjects; and as nothing
+opened the eyes of men so readily as their interests, he was in no
+danger of falling, in this respect, into that abject superstition
+which retained his people in subjection.  From the commencement of his
+reign, in the government of his foreign dominions, as well as of
+England, he had shown a fixed purpose to repress clerical usurpations,
+and to maintain those prerogatives which had been transmitted to him
+by his predecessors.  During the schism of the papacy between
+Alexander and Victor, he had determined, for some time, to remain
+neuter: and when informed that the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop
+of Mans had, from their own authority, acknowledged Alexander as
+legitimate pope, he was so enraged, that, though he spared the
+archbishop on account of his great age, he immediately issued orders
+for overthrowing the houses of the Bishop of Mans and Archdeacon of
+Rouen [r]; and it was not till he had deliberately examined the
+matter, by those views which usually enter into the councils of
+princes, that he allowed that pontiff to exercise authority over any
+of his dominions.  In England, the mild character and advanced years
+of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, together with his merits in
+refusing to put the crown on the head of Eustace, son of Stephen,
+prevented Henry, during the lifetime of that primate, from taking  any
+measures against the multiplied encroachments of the clergy; but after
+his death, the king resolved to exert himself with more activity, and
+that he might be secure against any opposition, he advanced to that
+dignity Becket, his chancellor, on whose compliance he thought he
+could entirely depend.
+[FN [q] Fitz-Stephen, p. 27.  [r] See note [Q], at the end of the
+volume.]
+
+[MN June 3.  Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.]
+Thomas à Becket, the first man of English descent who, since the
+Norman conquest, had, during the course of a whole century, risen to
+any considerable station, was born of reputable parents in the city of
+London; and being endowed both with industry and capacity, he early
+insinuated himself into the favour of Archbishop Theobald, and
+obtained from that prelate some preferments and offices.  By their
+means he was enabled to travel for improvement to Italy, where he
+studied the civil and canon law at Bologna; and on his return, he
+appeared to have made such proficiency in knowledge, that he was
+prompted by his patron to the Archdeaconry of Canterbury, an office of
+considerable trust and profit.  He was afterwards employed with
+success by Theobald, in transacting business at Rome; and, on Henry's
+accession, he was recommended to that monarch as worthy of farther
+preferment.  Henry. who knew that Becket had been instrumental in
+supporting that resolution of the archbishop, which had tended so much
+to facilitate his own advancement to the throne, was already pre-
+possessed in his favour; and finding, on farther acquaintance, that
+his spirit and abilities entitled him to any trust, he soon promoted
+him to the dignity of chancellor, one of the first civil offices in
+the kingdom.  The chancellor, in that age, besides the custody of the
+great seal, had possession of all vacant prelacies and abbeys; he was
+the guardian of all such minors and pupils as were the king's tenants;
+all baronies which escheated to the crown were under his
+administration; he was entitled to a place in council, even though he
+were not particularly summoned; and as he exercised also the office of
+secretary of state, and it belonged to him to countersign all
+commissions, writs, and letters patent, he was a kind of prime
+minister, and was concerned in the despatch of every business of
+importance [s].  Besides exercising this high office, Becket, by the
+favour of the king or archbishop, was made Provost of Beverley, Dean
+of Hastings, and Constable of the Tower: he was put in possession of
+the honours of Eye and Berkham, large baronies that had escheated to
+the crown: and, to complete his grandeur, he was intrusted with the
+education of Prince Henry, the king’s eldest son, and heir of the
+monarchy [t].  The pomp of his retinue, the sumptuousness of his
+furniture, the luxury of his table, the munificence of his presents,
+corresponded to these great preferments; or rather exceeded any thing
+that England had ever before seen in any subject.  His historian and
+secretary, Fitz-Stephens [u], mentions, among other particulars, that
+his apartments were every day in winter covered with clean straw or
+hay, and in summer with green rushes or boughs; lest the gentlemen who
+paid court to him, and who could not, by reason of their great number,
+find a place at table, should soil their fine clothes by sitting on a
+dirty floor [w].  A great number of knights were retained in his
+service; the greatest barons were proud of being received at his
+table; his house was a place of education for the sons of the chief
+nobility; and the king himself frequently vouchsafed to partake of his
+entertainments.  As his way of life was splendid and opulent, his
+amusements and occupations were gay, and partook of the cavalier
+spirit, which, as he had only taken deacon's orders, he did not think
+unbefitting his character.  He employed himself at leisure hours in
+hunting, hawking, gaming, and horsemanship; he exposed his person in
+several military actions [x]; he carried over, at his own charge,
+seven hundred knights to attend the king in his wars at Toulouse; in
+the subsequent wars on the frontiers of Normandy he maintained, during
+forty days, twelve hundred knights, and four thousand of their train
+[y]; and in an embassy to France, with which he was intrusted, he
+astonished that court with the number and magnificence of his retinue.
+[FN [s] Fitz-Steph. p. 13.  [t] Fitz-Steph. p. 15.  Hist. Quad. p. 9,
+14.  [u] P. 15.  [w] John Baldwin held the manor of Oterarsfee, in
+Aylesbury, of the king by soccage, by the service of finding litter
+for the king's bed, viz. in summer, grass or herbs, and two grey
+geese; and in winter, straw, and three eels, thrice in the year if the
+king should come thrice in the year to Aylesbury.  Madox, Bar.
+Anglica, p. 247.  [x] Fitz-Steph. p. 23.  Hist. Quad. p. 9.  [y] Fitz-
+Steph. p. 19, 20, 22, 23.]
+
+Henry, besides committing all his more important business to Becket's
+management, honoured him with his friendship and intimacy; and
+whenever he was disposed to relax himself by sports of any kind, he
+admitted his chancellor to the party [z]  An instance of their
+familiarity is mentioned by Fitz-Stephens, which, as it shows the
+manners of the age, it may not be improper to relate.  One day, as the
+king and the chancellor were riding together in the streets of London,
+they observed a beggar, who was shivering with cold.  Would it not be
+very praiseworthy, said the king, to give that poor man a warm coat in
+this severe season?  It would, surely, replied the chancellor; and you
+do well, sir, in thinking of such good actions.  Then he shall have
+one presently, cried the king; and seizing the skirt of the
+chancellor's coat, which was scarlet, and lined with ermine, began to
+pull it violently.  The chancellor defended himself for some time; and
+they had both of them liked to have tumbled off their horses in the
+street, when Becket, after a vehement struggle, let go his coat; which
+the king bestowed on the beggar, who, being ignorant of the quality of
+the persons, was not a little surprised at the present [a].
+[FN [z] Fitz-Steph. p. 16.  Hist. Quad. p. 8.  [a] Fitz-Steph. p. 16.]
+
+Becket, who, by his complaisance and good humour, had rendered himself
+agreeable, and by his industry and abilities useful, to his master,
+appeared to him the fittest person for supplying the vacancy made by
+the death of Theobald.  As he was well acquainted with the king's
+intentions [b] of retrenching, or rather confining within the ancient
+bounds, all ecclesiastical privileges, and always showed a ready
+disposition to comply with them [c], Henry, who never expected any
+resistance from that quarter, immediately issued orders for electing
+him Archbishop of Canterbury.  But this resolution, which was taken
+contrary to the opinion of Matilda, and many of the ministers [d],
+drew after it very unhappy consequences; and never prince of so great
+penetration appeared, in the issue, to have so little understood the
+genius and character of his minister.
+[FN [b] Ibid. p. 17.  [c] Ibid p. 23.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 232.  [d]
+Epist. St. Thom. p. 167.]
+
+No sooner was Becket installed in this high dignity, which rendered
+him for life the second person in the kingdom, with some pretensions
+of aspiring to be the first, than he totally altered his demeanour and
+conduct, and endeavoured to acquire the character of sanctity, of
+which his former busy and ostentatious course of life might, in the
+eyes of the people, have naturally bereaved him.  Without consulting
+the king, he immediately returned into his hands the commission of
+chancellor; pretending that he must thenceforth detach himself from
+secular affairs, and be solely employed in the exercise of his
+spiritual function; but in reality, that he might break off all
+connexions with Henry, and apprize him, that Becket, as Primate of
+England, was now become entirely a new personage.  He maintained in
+his retinue and attendants alone his ancient pomp and lustre, which
+was useful to strike the vulgar: in his own person he affected the
+greatest austerity and most rigid mortification, which, he was
+sensible, would have an equal or a greater tendency to the same end.
+He wore sackcloth next his skin, which, by his affected care to
+conceal it, was necessarily the more remarked by all the world: he
+changed it so seldom, that it was filled with dirt and vermin: his
+usual diet was bread; his drink water, which he even rendered farther
+unpalatable by the mixture of unsavoury herbs: he tore his back with
+the frequent discipline which he inflicted on it: he daily on his
+knees washed, in imitation of Christ, the feet of thirteen beggars,
+whom he afterwards dismissed with presents [e]: he gained the
+affections of the monks by his frequent charities to the convents and
+hospitals: every one who made profession of sanctity was admitted to
+his conversation, and returned full of panegyrics on the humility as
+well as on the piety and mortification of the holy primate: he seemed
+to be perpetually employed in reciting prayers and pious lectures, or
+in perusing religious discourses: his aspect wore the appearance of
+seriousness and  mental recollection, and secret devotion: and all men
+of penetration plainly saw that he was meditating some great design
+and that the ambition and ostentation of his character had turned
+itself towards a new and more dangerous object.
+[FN [e] Fitz-Steph. p. 25.  Hist. Quad. p. 19.]
+
+[MN 1163.  Quarrel between the king and Becket.]
+Becket waited not till Henry should commence those projects against
+the ecclesiastical power, which, he knew, had been formed by that
+prince: he was himself the aggressor; and endeavoured to overawe the
+king by the intrepidity and boldness of his enterprises.  He summoned
+the Earl of Clare to surrender the barony of Tunbridge, which, ever
+since the Conquest, had remained in the family of that nobleman, but
+which, as it had formerly belonged to the see of Canterbury, Becket
+pretended his predecessors were prohibited by the canons to alienate.
+The Earl of Clare, besides the lustre which he derived from the
+greatness of his own birth, and the extent of his possessions, was
+allied to all the principal families in the kingdom; his sister, who
+was a celebrated beauty, had farther extended his credit among the
+nobility, and was even supposed to have gained the king's affections;
+and Becket could not better discover, than by attacking so powerful an
+interest, his resolution of maintaining with vigour the rights, real
+or pretended, of his see [f].
+[FN [f] Fitz-Steph. p. 28  Gervase, p. 1384.]
+
+William de Eynsford, a military tenant of the crown, was patron of a
+living which belonged to a manor that held of the Archbishop of
+Canterbury: but Becket, without regard to William's right, presented,
+on a new and illegal pretext, one Laurence to that living, who was
+violently expelled by Eynsford.  The primate, making himself, as was
+usual in spiritual courts, both judge and party, issued, in a summary
+manner, the sentence of excommunication against Eynsford, who
+complained to the king, that he who held IN CAPITE of the crown
+should, contrary to the practice established by the Conqueror, and
+maintained ever since by his successors, be subjected to that terrible
+sentence, without the previous consent of the sovereign [g].  Henry,
+who had now broken off all personal intercourse with Becket, sent him,
+by a messenger, his orders to absolve Eynsford; but received for
+answer, that it belonged not to the king to inform him whom he should
+absolve and whom excommunicate [h]: and it was not till after many
+remonstrances and menaces, that Becket, though with the worst grace
+imaginable, was induced to comply with the royal mandate.
+[FN [g] M. Paris, p. 7.  Diceto, p. 536.  [h] Fitz-Steph. p. 28.]
+
+Henry, though he found himself thus grievously mistaken in the
+character of the person whom he had promoted to the primacy,
+determined not to desist from his former intention of retrenching
+clerical usurpations.  He was entirely master of his extensive
+dominions: the prudence and vigour of his administration, attended
+with perpetual success, had raised his character above that of any of
+his predecessors [i]: the papacy seemed to be weakened by a schism
+which divided all Europe: and he rightly judged, that if the present
+favourable opportunity were neglected, the crown must, from the
+prevalent superstition of the people, be in danger of falling into an
+entire subordination under the mitre.
+[FN [i] Epist. St. Thom. p. 130.]
+
+The union of the civil and ecclesiastic power serves extremely, in
+every civilized government, to the maintenance of peace and order; and
+prevents those mutual encroachments which, as there can be no ultimate
+judge between them, are often attended with the most dangerous
+consequences.  Whether the supreme magistrate, who unites these
+powers, receives the appellation of prince or prelate, is not
+material: the superior weight which temporal interests commonly bear
+in the apprehensions of men above spiritual, renders the civil part of
+his character most prevalent; and in time prevents those gross
+impostures and bigoted persecutions, which, in all false religions,
+are the chief foundation of clerical authority.  But during the
+progress of ecclesiastical usurpations, the state, by the resistance
+of the civil magistrate, is naturally thrown into convulsions; and it
+behoves the prince, both for his own interest and for that of the
+public, to provide, in time, sufficient barriers against so dangerous
+and insidious a rival.  This precaution had hitherto been much
+neglected in England, as well as in other Catholic countries; and
+affairs at last seemed to have come to a dangerous crisis: a sovereign
+of the greatest abilities was now on the throne: a prelate of the most
+inflexible and intrepid character was possessed of the primacy: the
+contending powers appeared to be armed with their full force, and it
+was natural to expect some extraordinary event to result from their
+conflict.
+
+Among their other inventions to obtain money, the clergy had
+inculcated the necessity of penance as an atonement for sin; and
+having again introduced the practice of paying them large sums as a
+commutation, or species of atonement, for the remission of those
+penances, the sins of the people, by these means, had become a revenue
+to the priests; and the king computed that, by this invention alone,
+they levied more money upon his subjects than flowed, by all the funds
+and taxes, into the royal exchequer [k]  That he might ease the people
+of so heavy and arbitrary an imposition, Henry required that a civil
+officer of his appointment should be present in all ecclesiastical
+courts, and should, for the future, give his consent to every
+composition which was made with sinners for their spiritual offences.
+[FN [k] Fitz-Steph. p. 32.]
+
+The ecclesiastics, in that age, had renounced all immediate
+subordination to the magistrate: they openly pretended to an
+exemption, in criminal accusations, from a trial before courts of
+justice; and were gradually introducing a like exemption in civil
+causes: spiritual penalties alone could be inflicted on their
+offences; and as the clergy had extremely multiplied in England, and
+many of them were consequently of very low characters, crimes of the
+deepest dye, murders, robberies, adulteries, rapes, were daily
+committed with impunity by the ecclesiastics.  It had been found, for
+instance, on inquiry, that no less than a hundred murders had, since
+the king's accession, been perpetrated by men of that profession, who
+had never been called to account for these offences [l]; and holy
+orders were become a full protection for all enormities.  A clerk in
+Worcestershire, having debauched a gentleman's daughter, had, at this
+time, proceeded to murder the father: and the general indignation
+against this crime moved the king to attempt the remedy of an abuse
+which was become so palpable, and to require that the clerk should be
+delivered up, and receive condign punishment from the magistrate [m].
+Becket insisted on the privileges of the church; confined the criminal
+in the bishop's prison, lest he should be seized by the king's
+officers; maintained that no greater punishment could be inflicted on
+him than degradation; and when the king demanded, that, immediately
+after he was degraded, he should be tried by the civil power, the
+primate asserted, that it was iniquitous to try a man twice upon the
+same accusation, and for the same offence [n].
+[FN [l] Neubr. p. 394.  [m] Fitz-Steph. p. 33.  Hist. Quad. p. 32.
+[n] Fitz-Steph. p. 29.  Hist. Quad. p. 33, 45.  Hoveden, p. 492.  M.
+Paris, p. 72.  Diceto, p. 536, 537.  Brompton, p. 1058.  Gervase, p.
+1384.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 208, 209.]
+
+Henry, laying hold of so plausible a pretence, resolved to push the
+clergy with regard to all their privileges, which they had raised to
+an enormous height, and to determine at once those controversies,
+which daily multiplied between the civil and the ecclesiastical
+jurisdictions.  He summoned an assembly of all the prelates of
+England; and he put to them this concise and decisive question,
+Whether or not they were willing to submit to the ancient laws and
+customs of the kingdom?  The bishops unanimously replied, that they
+were willing, SAVING THEIR OWN ORDER [o]: a device by which they
+thought to elude the present urgency of the king's demand, yet reserve
+to themselves, on a favourable opportunity, the power of resuming all
+their pretensions.  The king was sensible of the artifice, and was
+provoked to the highest indignation.  He left the assembly, with
+visible marks of his displeasure: he required the primate instantly to
+surrender the honours and castles of Eye and Berkham: the bishops were
+terrified, and expected still farther effects of his resentment.
+Becket alone was inflexible; and nothing but the interposition of the
+pope's legate and almoner, Philip, who dreaded a breach with so
+powerful a prince at so unseasonable a juncture, could have prevailed
+on him to retract the saving clause, and give a general and absolute
+promise of observing the ancient customs [p].
+[FN [o] Fitz-Steph. p. 31.  Hist. Quad. p. 34.  Hoveden, p. 492.  [p]
+Hist. Quad. p. 37.  Hoveden, p. 493.  Gervase, p. 1385.]
+
+But Henry was not content with a declaration in these general terms:
+he resolved, ere it was too late, to define expressly those customs
+with which he required compliance, and to put a stop to clerical
+usurpations before they were fully consolidated, and could plead
+antiquity, as they already did a sacred authority, in their favour.
+The claims of the church were open and visible.  After a gradual and
+insensible progress during many centuries, the mask had at last been
+taken off; and several ecclesiastical councils, by their canons which
+were pretended to be irrevocable and infallible, had positively
+defined those privileges and immunities which gave such general
+offence, and appeared so dangerous to the civil magistrate.  Henry,
+therefore, deemed it necessary to define with the same precision the
+limits of the civil power; to oppose his legal customs to their divine
+ordinances; to determine the exact boundaries of the rival
+jurisdictions; and for this purpose he summoned a general council of
+the nobility and prelates at Clarendon, to whom he submitted this
+great and important question.
+
+[MN 1164.  15th Jan.  Constitutions of Clarendon.]
+The barons were all gained to the king's party, either by the reasons
+which he urged, or by his superior authority: the bishops were
+overawed by the general combination against them: and the following
+laws, commonly called the CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON, were voted
+without opposition by this assembly [q].  It was enacted, that all
+suits concerning the advowson and presentation of churches should be
+determined in the civil courts: that the churches belonging to the
+king's see should not be granted in perpetuity without his consent:
+that clerks, accused of any crime, should be tried in the civil
+courts: that no person, particularly no clergyman of any rank, should
+depart the kingdom without the king's licence: that excommunicated
+persons should not be bound to give security for continuing in their
+present place of abode: that laics should not be accused in spiritual
+courts, except by legal and reputable promoters and witnesses: that no
+chief tenant of the crown should be excommunicated, nor his lands be
+put under an interdict, except with the king's consent: that all
+appeals in spiritual causes should be carried from the archdeacon to
+the bishop, from the bishop to the primate, from him to the king; and
+should be carried no farther without the king's consent: that if any
+lawsuit arose between a layman and a clergyman concerning a tenant,
+and it be disputed whether the land be a lay or an ecclesiastical fee,
+it should first be determined by the verdict of twelve lawful men to
+what class it belonged; and if it be found to be a lay-fee, the cause
+should finally be determined in the civil courts: that no inhabitant
+in demesne should be excommunicated for non-appearance in a spiritual
+court, till the chief officer of the place where he resides be
+consulted, that he may compel him by the civil authority to give
+satisfaction to the church: that the archbishops, bishops, and other
+spiritual dignitaries, should be regarded as barons of the realm;
+should possess the privileges and be subjected to the burdens
+belonging to that rank; and should be bound to attend the king in his
+great councils, and assist at all trials, till the sentence, either of
+death or loss of members, be given against the criminal: that the
+revenue of vacant sees should belong to the king; the chapter, or such
+of them as he pleases to summon, should sit in the king's chapel till
+they made the new election with his consent, and that the bishop-elect
+should do homage to the crown: that if any baron or tenant IN CAPITE
+should refuse to submit to the spiritual courts, the king should
+employ his authority in obliging him to make such submissions; if any
+of them throw off his allegiance to the king, the prelates should
+assist the king with their censures in reducing him: that goods
+forfeited to the king should not be protected in churches or
+churchyards: that the clergy should no longer pretend to the right of
+enforcing payment of debts contracted by oath or promise; but should
+leave these lawsuits, equally with others, to the determination of the
+civil courts: and that the sons of villains should not be ordained
+clerks, without the consent of their lord [r].
+[FN [q] Fitz-Steph. p. 33.  [r] Hist. Quad. p. 163.  M. Paris, p. 70,
+71.  Spellm. Conc. vol. ii. p. 63.  Gervase, p. 1386, 1387.  Wilkins,
+p. 321.]
+
+These articles, to the number of sixteen, were calculated to prevent
+the chief abuses which had prevailed in ecclesiastical affairs, and to
+put an effectual stop to the usurpations of the church, which,
+gradually stealing on, had threatened the total destruction of the
+civil power.  Henry, therefore, by reducing those ancient customs of
+the realm to writing, and by collecting them in a body, endeavoured to
+prevent all future dispute with regard to them; and by passing so many
+ecclesiastical ordinances in a national and civil assembly, he fully
+established the superiority of the legislature above all papal decrees
+or spiritual canons, and gained a signal victory over the
+ecclesiastics.  But as he knew that the bishops, though overawed by
+the present combination of the crown and the barons, would take the
+first favourable opportunity of denying the authority which had
+enacted these constitutions, he resolved that they should all set
+their seal to them, and give a promise to observe them.  None of the
+prelates dared to oppose his will, except Becket, who, though urged by
+the Earls of Cornwall and Leicester, the barons of principal authority
+in the kingdom, obstinately withheld his assent.  At last, Richard de
+Hastings, Grand Prior of the Templars in England, threw himself on his
+knees before him; and with many tears entreated him, if he paid any
+regard, either to his own safety or that of the church, not to
+provoke, by a fruitless opposition, the indignation of a great
+monarch, who was resolutely bent on his purpose, and who was
+determined to take full revenge on every one that should dare to
+oppose him [s].  Becket, finding himself deserted by all the world,
+even by his own brethren, was at last obliged to comply; and he
+promised, LEGALLY, WITH GOOD FAITH, AND WITHOUT FRAUD OR RESERVE [t],
+to observe the constitutions; and he took an oath to that purpose [u].
+The king, thinking that he had now finally prevailed in this great
+enterprise, sent the constitutions to Pope Alexander, who then resided
+in France; and he required that pontiff's ratification of them: but
+Alexander, who, though he had owed the most important obligations to
+the king, plainly saw that these laws were calculated to establish the
+independency of England on the papacy, and of the royal power on the
+clergy, condemned them in the strongest terms; abrogated, annulled,
+and rejected them.  There were only six articles, the least important,
+which, for the sake of peace, he was willing to ratify.
+[FN [s] Hist. Quad. p. 38.  Hoveden, p. 493.  [t] Fitz-Steph. p. 35.
+Epist. St. Thom. p. 25.  [u] Fitz-Steph. p. 45.  Hist. Quad. p. 39.
+Gervase, p. 1386.]
+
+Becket, when he observed that he might hope for support in an
+opposition, expressed the deepest sorrow for his compliance; and
+endeavoured to engage all the other bishops in a confederacy to adhere
+to their common rights, and to the ecclesiastical privileges, in which
+he represented the interest and honour of God to be so deeply
+concerned.  He redoubled his austerities, in order to punish himself
+for his criminal assent to the constitutions of Clarendon: he
+proportioned his discipline to the enormity of his supposed offence;
+and he refused to exercise any part of his archiepiscopal function,
+till he should receive absolution from the pope; which was readily
+granted him.  Henry, informed of his present dispositions, resolved to
+take vengeance for this refractory behaviour; and he attempted to
+crush him, by means of that very power which Becket made such merit in
+supporting.  He applied to the pope, that he should grant the
+commission of legate in his dominions to the Archbishop of York; but
+Alexander, as politic as he, though he granted the commission, annexed
+a clause, that it should not empower the legate to execute any act of
+prejudice of the Archbishop of Canterbury [w]; and the king, finding
+how fruitless such an authority would prove, sent back the commission
+by the same messenger that brought it [x].
+[FN [w] Epist. St. Thom. p. 13, 14.  [x] Hoveden, p.493.  Gervase, p.
+1388.]
+
+The primate, however, who found himself still exposed to the king's
+indignation, endeavoured twice to escape secretly from the kingdom,
+but was as often detained by contrary winds; and Henry hastened to
+make him feel the effects of an obstinacy which he deemed so criminal.
+He instigated John, mareschal of the exchequer, to sue Becket in the
+archiepiscopal court for some lands, part of the manor of Pageham; and
+to appeal thence to the king's court for justice [y].  On the day
+appointed for trying the cause, the primate sent four knights to
+represent certain irregularities in John's appeal; and at the same
+time to excuse himself, on account of sickness, for not appearing
+personally that day in the court.  This slight offence (if it even
+deserve the name) was represented as a grievous contempt; the four
+knights were menaced and with difficulty escaped being sent to prison,
+as offering falsehoods to the court [z].  And Henry, being determined
+to prosecute Becket to the utmost, summoned, at Northampton, a great
+council, which he purposed to make the instrument of his vengeance
+against the inflexible prelate.
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 494.  M. Paris, p. 72.  Diceto, p. 537.  [z] See
+note [R], at the end of the volume.]
+
+The king had raised Becket from a low station to the highest offices,
+had honoured him with his countenance and friendship, had trusted to
+his assistance in forwarding his favourite project against the clergy;
+and when he found him become of a sudden his most rigid opponent,
+while every one beside complied with his will, rage at the
+disappointment, and indignation against such signal ingratitude,
+transported him beyond all bounds of moderation; and there seems to
+have entered more of passion than of justice, or even of policy, in
+this violent prosecution [a].  The barons, notwithstanding, in the
+great council, voted whatever sentence he was pleased to dictate to
+them; and the bishops themselves, who undoubtedly bore a secret favour
+to Becket, and regarded him as the champion of their privileges,
+concurred with the rest in the design of oppressing their primate.  In
+vain did Becket urge that his court was proceeding with the utmost
+regularity and justice in trying the maresehal's cause; which,
+however, he said, would appear, from the sheriff's testimony, to be
+entirely unjust and iniquitous: that he himself had discovered no
+contempt of the king's court; but, on the contrary, by sending four
+knights to excuse his absence, had virtually acknowledged its
+authority: that he also, in consequence of the king's summons,
+personally appeared at present in the great council, ready to justify
+his cause against the mareschal, and to submit his conduct to their
+inquiry and jurisdiction: that even should it be found that he had
+been guilty of non-appearance, the laws had affixed a very slight
+penalty to that offence: and that, as he was an inhabitant of Kent,
+where his archiepiscopal palace was seated, he was by law entitled to
+some greater indulgence than usual in the rate of his fine [b].
+Notwithstanding these pleas, he was condemned as guilty of a contempt
+of the king's court, and as wanting in the fealty which he had sworn
+to his sovereign; all his goods and chattels were confiscated [c]; and
+that this triumph over the church might be carried to the utmost,
+Henry, Bishop of Winchester, the prelate who had been so powerful in
+the former reign, was, in spite of his remonstrances, obliged, by
+order of the court, to pronounce the sentence against him [d].  The
+primate submitted to the decree; and all the prelates, except Folliot,
+Bishop of London, who paid court to the king by this singularity,
+became sureties for him [e].  It is remarkable that seven Norman
+barons voted in this council; and we may conclude, with some
+probability, that a like practice had prevailed in many of the great
+councils summoned since the Conquest.  For the contemporary historian,
+who has given us a full account of these transactions, does not
+mention this circumstance as anywise singular [f]; and Becket, in all
+his subsequent remonstrances with regard to the severe treatment which
+he had met with, never founds any objection on an irregularity which
+to us appears very palpable and flagrant.  So little precision was
+there at that time in the government and constitution!
+[FN [a] Neubr. p. 394.  [b] Fitz-Steph. p. 37, 42.  [c] Hist. Quad. p.
+47  Hoveden, p. 494.  Gervase, p. 1389.  [d] Fitz-Steph. p. 37.  [e]
+Ibid.  [f] Ibid. p. 36.]
+
+The king was not content with this sentence, however violent and
+oppressive.  Next day, he demanded of Becket the sum of three hundred
+pounds, which the primate had levied upon the honours of Eye and
+Berkham, while in his possession.  Becket, after premising that he was
+not obliged to answer to this suit, because it was not contained in
+his summons; after remarking that he had expended more than that sum
+in the repair of those castles, and of the royal palace at London;
+expressed however his resolution, that money should not be any ground
+of quarrel between him and his sovereign; he agreed to pay the sum;
+and immediately gave surety for it [g].  In the subsequent meeting,
+the king demanded five hundred marks, which, he affirmed, he had lent
+Becket during the war at Toulouse [h]; and another sum in the same
+amount for which that prince had been surety for him to a Jew.
+Immediately after these two claims, he preferred a third of still
+greater importance: he required him to give in the accounts of his
+administration while chancellor, and to pay the balance due from the
+revenues of all the prelacies, abbeys, and baronies, which had, during
+that time, been subjected to his management [i].  Becket observed,
+that, as this demand was totally unexpected, he had not come prepared
+to answer it; but he required a delay, and promised in that case to
+give satisfaction.  The king insisted upon sureties; and Becket
+desired leave to consult his suffragans in a case of such importance
+[k].
+[FN [g] Ibid. p. 38.  [h] Hist. Quad. p. 47.  [i] Hoveden, p. 494.
+Diceto, p. 537.  [k] Fitz-Steph. p. 38.]
+
+It is apparent, from the known character of Henry, and from the usual
+vigilance of his government, that, when he promoted Becket to the see
+of Canterbury, he was on good grounds, well pleased with his
+administration in the former high office with which he had entrusted
+him; and that, even if that prelate had dissipated money beyond the
+income of his place, the king was satisfied that his expenses were not
+blameable, and had in the main been calculated for his service [l].
+Two years had since elapsed; no demand had, during that time, been
+made upon him; it was not till the quarrel arose concerning
+ecclesiastical privileges that the claim was started, and the primate
+was, of a sudden, required to produce accounts of such intricacy and
+extent before a tribunal which had showed a determined resolution to
+ruin and oppress him.  To find sureties that he should answer so
+boundless and uncertain a claim, which in the king's estimation
+amounted to forty-four thousand marks [m], was impracticable; and
+Becket's suffragans were extremely at a loss what counsel to give him
+in such a critical emergency.  By the advice of the Bishop of
+Winchester, he offered two thousand marks as a general satisfaction
+for all demands: but this offer was rejected by the king [n].  Some
+prelates exhorted him to resign his see, on condition of receiving an
+acquittal: others were of opinion that he ought to submit himself
+entirely to the king’s mercy [o]: but the primate, thus pushed to the
+utmost, had too much courage to sink under oppression: he determined
+to brave all his enemies, to trust to the sacredness of his character
+for protection, to involve his cause with that of God and religion,
+and to stand the utmost efforts of royal indignation.
+[FN [l] Hoveden, p. 495.  [m] Epist. St. Thom. p. 315.
+[n] Fitz-Steph. p. 38.  [o] Ibid. p. 39.  Gervase, p. 1390.]
+
+After a few days spent in deliberation, Becket went to church and said
+mass, where he had previously ordered that the introit to the
+communion service should begin with these words, PRINCES SAT, AND
+SPAKE AGAINST ME; the passage appointed for the martyrdom of St.
+Stephen, whom the primate thereby tacitly pretended to resemble, in
+his sufferings for the sake of righteousness.  He went thence to
+court, arrayed in his sacred vestments: as soon as he arrived within
+the palace gate, he took the cross into his own hands, bore it aloft
+as his protection, and marched, in that posture, into the royal
+apartments [p].  The king, who was in an inner room, was astonished at
+this parade, by which the primate seemed to menace him and his court
+with the sentence of excommunication; and he sent some of the prelates
+to remonstrate with him on account of such audacious behaviour.  These
+prelates complained to Becket, that, by subscribing himself to the
+constitutions of Clarendon, he had seduced them to imitate his
+example; and that now, when it was too late, he pretended to shake off
+all subordination to the civil power, and appeared desirous of
+involving them in the guilt which must attend any violation of those
+laws, established by their consent, and ratified by their
+subscriptions [q].  Becket replied, that he had indeed subscribed the
+constitutions of Clarendon, LEGALLY, WITH GOOD FAITH, AND WITHOUT
+FRAUD OR RESERVE; but in these words was virtually implied a salvo for
+the rights of their order, which, being connected with the cause of
+God and his church, could never be relinquished by their oaths and
+engagements: that if he and they had erred in resigning the
+ecclesiastical privileges, the best atonement they could now make was
+to retract their consent, which, in such a case, could never be
+obligatory, and to follow the pope's authority, who had solemnly
+annulled the constitutions of Clarendon, and had absolved them from
+all oaths which they had taken to observe them: that a  determined
+resolution was evidently embraced to oppress the church; the storm had
+first broken upon him; for a slight offence, and which too was falsely
+imputed to him, he had been tyrannically condemned to a grievous
+penalty; a new and unheard-of claim was since started, in which he
+could expect no justice; and he plainly saw, that he was the destined
+victim, who, by his ruin, must prepare the way for the abrogation of
+all spiritual immunities; that he strictly inhibited them who were his
+suffragans from assisting at any such trial, or giving their sanction
+to any sentence against him; he put himself and his see under the
+protection of the supreme pontiff; and appealed to him against any
+penalty which his iniquitous judges might think proper to inflict upon
+him: and that, however terrible the indignation of so great a monarch
+as Henry, his sword could only kill the body; while that of the
+church, intrusted into the hands of the primate, could kill the soul,
+and throw the disobedient into infinite and eternal perdition [r].
+[FN [p] Fitz-Steph. p. 40.  Hist. Quad. p. 53.  Hoveden, p. 404.
+Neubr. p. 394.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 43.  [q] Fitz-Steph. p. 35.  [r]
+Fitz-Steph. p. 42, 44, 45, 46.  Hist. Quad. p. 57.  Hoveden, p. 495.
+M. Paris, p. 72.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 45, 195.]
+
+Appeals to the pope, even in ecclesiastical causes, had been abolished
+by the constitutions of Clarendon, and were become criminal by law;
+but an appeal in a civil cause, such as the king's demand upon Becket,
+was a practice altogether new and unprecedented; it tended directly to
+the subversion of the government, and could receive no colour of
+excuse, except from the determined resolution, which was but too
+apparent, in Henry and the great council, to effectuate, without
+justice, but under colour of law, the total ruin of the inflexible
+primate.  The king, having now obtained a pretext so much more
+plausible for his violence, would probably have pushed the affair to
+the utmost extremity against him; but Becket gave him no leisure to
+conduct the prosecution.  He refused so much as to hear the sentence,
+which the barons, sitting apart from the bishops, and joined to some
+sheriffs and barons of the second rank [s], had given upon the king's
+claim: he departed from the palace; [MN Banishment of Becket.] asked
+Henry's immediate permission to leave Northampton, and upon meeting
+with a refusal, he withdrew secretly, wandered about in disguise for
+some time; and at last took shipping, and arrived safely at
+Gravelines.
+[FN [s] Fitz-Steph. p. 46.  This historian is supposed to mean the
+more considerable vassals of the chief barons: these had no title to
+sit in the great council, and the giving them a place there was a
+palpable irregularity; which, however, is not insisted on in any of
+Becket's remonstrances.  A farther proof how little fixed the
+constitution was at that time.]
+
+The violent and unjust prosecution of Becket had a natural tendency to
+turn the public favour on his side and to make men overlook his former
+ingratitude toward the king, and his departure from all oaths and
+engagements, as well as the enormity of those ecclesiastical
+privileges, of which he affected to be the champion.  There were many
+other reasons which procured his countenance and protection in foreign
+countries.  Philip, Earl of Flanders [t], and Lewis, King of France
+[u], jealous of the rising greatness of Henry, were well pleased to
+give him disturbance in his government; and, forgetting that this was
+the common cause of princes, they affected to pity extremely the
+condition of the exiled primate; and the latter even honoured him with
+a visit at Soissons, in which city he had invited him to fix his
+residence [w].  The pope, whose interests were more immediately
+concerned in supporting him, gave a cold reception to a magnificent
+embassy which Henry sent to accuse him; while Becket himself, who had
+come to Sens in order to justify his cause before the sovereign
+pontiff, was received with the greatest marks of distinction.  The
+king, in revenge, sequestered the revenues of Canterbury; and, by a
+conduct which might be esteemed arbitrary, had there been at that time
+any regular check on royal authority, he banished all the primate's
+relations and domestics, to the number of four hundred, whom he
+obliged to swear, before their departure, that they would instantly
+join their patron.  But this policy, by which Henry endeavoured to
+reduce Becket sooner to necessity, lost its effect: the pope, when
+they arrived beyond sea, absolved them from their oath, and
+distributed them among the convents in France and Flanders: a
+residence was assigned to Becket himself in the convent of Pontigny,
+where he lived for some years in great magnificence, partly from a
+pension granted him on the revenues of the abbey, partly from
+remittances made him by the French monarch.
+[FN [t] Epist. St. Thom. p. 35.  [u] Ibid. p. 36, 37.  [w] Hist. Quad.
+p. 76.]
+
+[MN 1165.]  The more to ingratiate himself with the pope, Becket
+resigned into his hands the see of Canterbury, to which, he affirmed,
+he had been uncanonically elected by the authority of the royal
+mandate; and Alexander, in his turn, besides investing him anew with
+that dignity, pretended to abrogate, by a bull, the sentence which the
+great council of England had passed against him.  Henry, after
+attempting in vain to procure a conference with the pope, who departed
+soon after for Rome, whither the prosperous state of his affairs now
+invited him, made provisions against the consequences of that breach
+which impended between his kingdom and the apostolic see.  He issued
+orders to his justiciaries, inhibiting, under severe penalties, all
+appeals to the pope or archbishop; forbidding any one to receive any
+mandates from them, or apply in any case to their authority; declaring
+it treasonable to bring from either of them an interdict upon the
+kingdom, and punishable in secular clergymen by the loss of their eyes
+and by castration, in regulars by amputation of their feet, and in
+laics with death; and menacing, with sequestration and banishment, the
+persons themselves, as well as their kindred, who should pay obedience
+to any such interdict: and he farther obliged all his subjects to
+swear to the observance of those orders [x].  These were edicts of the
+utmost importance, affected the lives and properties of all the
+subjects, and even changed, for the time, the national religion, by
+breaking off all communication with Rome: yet were they enacted by the
+sole authority of the king, and were derived entirely from his will
+and pleasure.
+[FN [x] Hist. Quad. p. 88, 167.  Hoveden, p. 496.  M. Paris, p. 73.]
+
+The spiritual powers, which, in the primitive church, were, in a great
+measure, dependent on the civil, had, by a gradual progress, reached
+an equality and independence; and though the limits of the two
+jurisdictions were difficult to ascertain or define, it was not
+impossible, but, by moderation on both sides, government might still
+have been conducted in that imperfect and irregular manner which
+attends all human  institutions.  But as the ignorance of the age
+encouraged the ecclesiastics daily to extend their privileges, and
+even to advance maxims totally incompatible with civil government [y],
+Henry had thought it high time to put an end to their pretensions, and
+formally, in a public council, to fix those powers which belonged to
+the magistrate, and which he was for the future determined to
+maintain.  In this attempt, he was led to re-establish customs, which,
+though ancient, were beginning to be abolished by a contrary practice,
+and which were still more strongly opposed by the prevailing opinions
+and sentiments of the age.  Principle, therefore, stood on the one
+side; power on the other; and if the English had been actuated by
+conscience more than by present interest, the controversy must soon,
+by the general defection of Henry's subjects, have been decided
+against him.  Becket, in order to forward this event, filled all
+places with exclamations against the violence which he had suffered.
+He compared himself to Christ, who had been condemned by a lay
+tribunal [z], and who was crucified anew in the present oppressions
+under which his church laboured: he took it for granted, as a point
+incontestable, that his cause was the cause of God [a]: he assumed the
+character of champion for the patrimony of the Divinity: he pretended
+to be the spiritual father of the king and all the people of England
+[b]: he even told Henry that kings reigned solely by the authority of
+the church [c]: and though he had thus torn off the veil more openly
+on the one side than that prince had on the other, he seemed still,
+from the general favour borne him by the ecclesiastics, to have all
+the advantage in the argument.  The king, that he might employ the
+weapons of temporal power remaining in his hands, suspended the
+payment of Peter's pence; he made advances towards an alliance with
+the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, who was at that time engaged in
+violent wars with Pope Alexander; he discovered some intentions of
+acknowledging Pascal III., the present anti-pope, who was protected by
+that emperor; and by these expedients he endeavoured to terrify the
+enterprising though prudent pontiff from proceeding to extremities
+against him.
+[FN [y] QUIS DUBITET, says Becket to the king, SACERDOTES CHRISTI
+REGUM ET PRINCIPUM OMNIUMQUE FIDELIIUM PATRES ET MAGISTROS CENSERI,
+Epist St. Thom. p. 97, 148.  [z] Epist. St. Thom. p. 63, 105, 194.
+[a] Ibid. p. 29, 30, 31, 226.  [b] Fitz-Steph. p. 46.  Epist. St Thom.
+p. 52, 148.  [c] Brady's Append. No. 36.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 94, 95,
+97, 99, 197.  Hoveden, p. 497.]
+
+[MN 1166.]  But the violence of Becket, still more than the nature of
+the controversy, kept affairs from remaining long in suspense between
+the parties.  That prelate, instigated by revenge, and animated by the
+present glory attending his situation, pushed matters to a decision,
+and issued a censure, excommunicating the king's chief ministers by
+name, and comprehending in general all those who favoured or obeyed
+the constitutions of Clarendon: these constitutions he abrogated and
+annulled; he absolved all men from the oaths which they had taken to
+observe them; and he suspended the spiritual thunder over Henry
+himself, only that the prince might avoid the blow by a timely
+repentance [d].
+[FN [d] Fitz-Steph. p. 56.  Hist. Quad. p. 93.  M. Paris, p. 74.
+Beaulieu, Vie de St. Thom. p. 213.  Epist. St. Thom. p 149, 229.
+Hoveden, p. 499.]
+
+The situation of Henry was so unhappy, that he could employ no
+expedient for saving his ministers from this terrible censure, but by
+appealing to the pope himself, and having recourse to a tribunal whose
+authority he had himself attempted to abridge in this very article of
+appeals, and which, he knew, was so deeply engaged on the side of his
+adversary.  But even this expedient was not likely to be long
+effectual.  Becket had obtained from the pope a legatine commission
+over England; and in virtue of that authority, which admitted of no
+appeal, he summoned the Bishops of London, Salisbury, and others, to
+attend him, and ordered, under pain of excommunication, the
+ecclesiastics, sequestered on his account, to be restored in two
+months to all their benefices.  But John of Oxford, the king's agent
+with the pope, had the address to procure orders for suspending this
+sentence: and he gave the pontiff such hopes of a speedy reconcilement
+between the king and Becket, that two legates, William of Pavia and
+Otho, were sent to Normandy, where the king then resided, and they
+endeavoured to find expedients for that purpose.  But the pretensions
+of the parties were, as yet, too opposite to admit of an
+accommodation: the king required, that all the constitutions of
+Clarendon should be ratified: Becket, that previously to any
+agreement, he and his adherents should be restored to their
+possessions: and as the legates had no power to pronounce a definitive
+sentence on either side, the negotiation soon after came to nothing.
+The Cardinal of Pavia also, being much attached to Henry, took care to
+protract the negotiation; to mitigate the pope, by the accounts which
+he sent of that prince's conduct; and to procure him every possible
+indulgence from the see of Rome.  About this time, the king had also
+the address to obtain a dispensation for the marriage of his third
+son, Geoffrey, with the heiress of Britany; a concession which,
+considering Henry's demerits towards the church, gave great scandal
+both to Becket, and to his zealous patron, the King of France.
+
+[MN 1167.]  The intricacies of the feudal law had, in that age,
+rendered the boundaries of power between the prince and his vassals,
+and between one prince and another, as uncertain as those between the
+crown and the mitre; and all wars took their origin from disputes,
+which, had there been any tribunal possessed of power to enforce their
+decrees, ought to have been decided only before a court of judicature.
+Henry, in prosecution of some controversies, in which he was involved
+with the Count of Auvergne, a vassal of the duchy of Guienne, had
+invaded the territories of that nobleman, who had recourse to the King
+of France, his superior lord, for protection, and thereby kindled a
+war between the two monarchs.  But this war was, as usual, no less
+feeble in its operations than it was frivolous in its cause and
+object; and after occasioning some mutual depredations [e], and some
+insurrections among the barons of Poictou and Guienne, was terminated
+by a peace.  The terms of this peace were rather disadvantageous to
+Henry, and prove that that prince had, by reason of his contest with
+the church, lost the  superiority which he had hitherto maintained
+over the crown of France: an additional motive to him for
+accommodating those differences.
+[FN [e] Hoveden, p. 517.  M. Paris, p. 75.  Diceto, p. 547.  Gervase,
+p. 1402, 1403.  Robert de Monte.]
+
+The pope and the king began at last to perceive, that, in the present
+situation of affairs, neither of them could expect a final and
+decisive victory over the other, and that they had more to fear than
+to hope from the duration of the controversy.  Though the vigour of
+Henry's government had confirmed his authority in all his dominions,
+his throne might be shaken by a sentence of excommunication; and if
+England itself could, by its situation, be more easily guarded against
+the contagion of superstitious prejudices, his French provinces at
+least, whose communication was open with the neighbouring states,
+would be much exposed, on that account, to some great revolution or
+convulsion [f].  He could not, therefore, reasonably imagine that the
+pope, while he retained such a check upon him, would formally
+recognize the constitutions of Clarendon, which both put an end to
+papal pretensions in England, and would give an example to other
+states of asserting a like independency [g].  [MN 1168.]  Pope
+Alexander, on the other hand, being still engaged in dangerous wars
+with the Emperor Frederic, might justly apprehend that Henry, rather
+than relinquish claims of such importance, would join the party of his
+enemy; and as the trials hitherto made of the spiritual weapons by
+Becket had not succeeded to his expectation, and every thing had
+remained quiet in all the king's dominions, nothing seemed impossible
+to the capacity and vigilance of so great a monarch. The disposition
+of minds on both sides, resulting from these circumstances, produced
+frequent attempts towards an accommodation; but as both parties knew
+that the essential articles of the dispute could not then be
+terminated, they entertained a perpetual jealousy of each other, and
+were anxious not to lose the least advantage in the negotiation.  The
+nuncios, Gratian and Vivian, having received a commission to endeavour
+a reconciliation, met with the king in Normandy; and after all
+differences seemed to be adjusted, Henry offered to sign the treaty,
+with a salvo to his royal dignity; which gave such umbrage to Becket,
+that the negotiation, in the end, became fruitless, and the
+excommuications were renewed against the king's ministers.  Another
+negotiation was conducted at Montmirail, in presence of the King of
+France, and the French prelates; where Becket also offered to make his
+submissions, with a salvo to the honour of God and the liberties of
+the church; which, for the like reason, was extremely offensive to the
+king, and rendered the treaty abortive.  [MN 1169.]  A third
+conference, under the same mediation, was broken off, by Becket's
+insisting on a like reserve in his submissions; and even in a fourth
+treaty, when all the terms were adjusted, and when the primate
+expected to be introduced to the king, and to receive the kiss of
+peace, which it was usual for princes to grant in those times, and
+which was regarded as a sure pledge of forgiveness, Henry refused him
+that honour; under pretence that, during his anger, he had made a rash
+vow to that purpose.  This formality served, among such jealous
+spirits, to prevent the conclusion of the treaty; and though the
+difficulty was attempted to be overcome by a dispensation which the
+pope granted to Henry from his vow, that prince could not be prevailed
+on to depart from the resolution which he had taken.
+[FN [f] Epist. St. Thom. p. 230.  [g] Ibid. p. 276.]
+
+In one of these conferences, at which the French king was present,
+Henry said to that monarch: "There have been many kings of England,
+some of greater, some of less authority than myself; there have also
+been many Archbishops of Canterbury, holy and good men, and entitled
+to every kind of respect: let Becket but act towards me with the same
+submission which the greatest of his predecessors have paid to the
+least of mine, and there shall be no controversy between us."  Lewis
+was so struck with this state of the case, and with an offer which
+Henry made to submit his cause to the French clergy, that he could not
+forbear condemning the primate, and withdrawing his friendship from
+him during some time: but the bigotry of that prince, and their common
+animosity against Henry, soon produced a renewal of their former good
+correspondence.
+
+[MN 1170.  22d July.]  All difficulties were at last adjusted between
+the parties; and the king allowed Becket to return, on conditions
+which may be esteemed both honourable and advantageous to that
+prelate.  [MN Compromise with Becket.]  He was not required to give up
+any rights of the church, or resign any of those pretensions which had
+been the original ground of the controversy.  It was agreed that all
+these questions should be buried in oblivion; but that Becket and his
+adherents should, without making farther submission, be restored to
+all their livings, and that even the possessors of such benefices as
+depended on the see of Canterbury, and had been filled during the
+primate's absence, should be expelled, and Becket have liberty to
+supply the vacancies [h].  In return for concessions which intrenched
+so deeply on the honour and dignity of the crown, Henry reaped only
+the advantage of seeing his ministers absolved from the sentence of
+excommunication pronounced against them, and of preventing the
+interdict, which, if these hard conditions had not been complied with,
+was ready to be laid on all his dominions [i].  It was easy to see how
+much he dreaded that event, when a prince of so high a spirit could
+submit to terms so dishonourable in order to prevent it.  So anxious
+was Henry to accommodate all differences, and to reconcile himself
+fully with Becket, that he took the most extraordinary steps to
+flatter his vanity, and even, on one occasion, humiliated himself so
+far as to hold the stirrup of that haughty prelate while he mounted
+[k].
+[FN [h] Fitz-Steph. p. 68, 69.  Hoveden, p. 520.  [i] Hist. Quad. p.
+104.  Brompton, p. 1062.  Gervase, p. 1408.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 704,
+705, 706, 707, 792, 793, 794.  Benedict. Abbas, p. 70.  [k] Epist. 45.
+lib. 5.]
+
+But the king attained not even that temporary tranquillity which he
+had hoped to reap from these expedients.  During the heat of his
+quarrel with Becket, while he was every day expecting an interdict to
+be laid on his kingdom, and a sentence of excommunication to be
+fulminated against his person, he had thought it prudent to have his
+son, Prince Henry, associated with him in the royalty, and to make him
+be crowned king by the hands of Roger, Archbishop of York.  By this
+precaution he both insured the succession of that prince, which,
+considering the many past irregularities in that point, could not but
+be esteemed somewhat precarious; and he preserved at least his family
+on the throne, if the sentence of excommunication should have the
+effect which he dreaded, and should make his subjects renounce their
+allegiance to him.  Though this design was conducted with expedition
+and secrecy, Becket, before it was carried into execution, had got
+intelligence of it; and being desirous of obstructing all Henry's
+measures, as well as anxious to prevent this affront to himself, who
+pretended to the sole right, as Archbishop of Canterbury, to officiate
+in the coronation, he had inhibited all the prelates of England from
+assisting at this ceremony, had procured from the pope a mandate to
+the same purpose [l], and had incited the King of France to protest
+against the coronation of young Henry, unless the princess, daughter
+of that monarch, should at the same time receive the royal unction.
+There prevailed in that age an opinion, which was akin to its other
+superstitions, that the royal unction was essential to the exercise of
+royal power [m]: it was therefore natural both for the King of France,
+careful of his daughter's establishment, and for Becket, jealous of
+his own dignity, to demand, in the treaty with Henry, some
+satisfaction in this essential point.  Henry, after apologizing to
+Lewis for the omission with regard to Margaret, and excusing it on
+account of the secrecy and despatch requisite for conducting that
+measure, promised that the ceremony should be renewed in the persons
+both of the prince and princess: and he assured Becket that, besides
+receiving the acknowledgments of Roger and the other bishops for the
+seeming affront put on the see of Canterbury, the primate should, as a
+farther satisfaction, recover his rights by officiating in this
+coronation.  But the violent spirit of Becket, elated by the power of
+the church, and by the victory which he had already obtained over his
+sovereign, was not content with this voluntary compensation, but
+resolved to make the injury which he pretended to have suffered a
+handle for taking revenge on all his enemies.  [MN Becket’s return
+from banishment.]  On his arrival in England, he met the Archbishop of
+York, and the Bishops of London and Salisbury, who were on their
+journey to the king in Normandy: he notified to the archbishop the
+sentence of suspension, and to the two bishops that of
+excommunication, which, at his solicitation, the pope had pronounced
+against them.  Reginald de Warenne, and Gervase de Cornhill, two of
+the king's ministers who were employed on their duty in Kent, asked
+him, on hearing of this bold attempt, whether he meant to bring fire
+and sword into the kingdom?  But the primate, heedless of the reproof,
+proceeded, in the most ostentatious manner, to take possession of his
+diocese.  In Rochester, and all the towns through which he passed, he
+was received with the shouts and acclamations of the populace.  As he
+approached Southwark, the clergy, the laity, men of all ranks and
+ages, came forth to meet him, and celebrated with hymns of joy his
+triumphant entrance.  And though he was obliged, by order of the young
+prince, who resided at Woodstoke, to return to his diocese, he found
+that he was not mistaken when he reckoned upon the highest veneration
+of the public towards his person and his dignity.  He proceeded,
+therefore, with the more courage, to dart his spiritual thunders: he
+issued the sentence of excommunication against Robert de Brock, and
+Nigel de Sackville, with many others, who either had assisted at the
+coronation of the prince, or been active in the late persecution of
+the exiled clergy.  This violent measure, by which he in effect
+denounced war against the king himself, is commonly ascribed to the
+vindictive disposition and imperious character of Becket; but as this
+prelate was also a man of acknowledged abilities, we are not, in his
+passions alone, to look for the cause of his conduct, when he
+proceeded to these extremities against his enemies.  His sagacity had
+led him to discover all Henry's intentions; and he proposed, by this
+bold and unexpected assault, to prevent the execution of them.
+[FN [l] Hist. Quad. p. 103.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 682.  Gervase, p.
+1412.  [m] Epist. St. Thom. p. 708.]
+
+The king, from his experience of the dispositions of the people, was
+become sensible that his enterprise had been too bold in establishing
+the constitutions of Clarendon, in defining all the branches of royal
+power, and in endeavouring to extort from the Church of England, as
+well as from the pope, an express avowal of these disputed
+prerogatives.  Conscious also of his own violence in attempting to
+break or subdue the inflexible primate, he was not displeased to undo
+that measure which had given his enemies such advantage against him;
+and he was contented that the controversy should terminate in that
+ambiguous manner, which was the utmost that princes, in those ages,
+could hope to attain in their disputes with the see of Rome.  Though
+he dropped, for the present, the prosecution of Becket, he still
+reserved to himself the right of maintaining that the constitutions of
+Clarendon, the original ground of the quarrel, were both the ancient
+customs and the present law of the realm: and though he knew that the
+papal clergy asserted them to be impious in themselves, as well as
+abrogated by the sentence of the sovereign pontiff, he intended, in
+spite of their clamours, steadily to put those laws in execution [n],
+and to trust to his own abilities, and to the course of events, for
+success in that perilous enterprise.  He hoped that Becket's
+experience of a six years' exile would, after his pride was fully
+gratified by his restoration, be sufficient to teach him more reserve
+in his opposition; or, if any controversy arose, he expected
+thenceforth to engage in a more favourable cause, and to maintain with
+advantage, while the primate was now in his power [o], the ancient and
+undoubted customs of the kingdom against the usurpations of the
+clergy.  But Becket determined not to betray the ecclesiastical
+privileges by his connivance [p], and apprehensive lest a prince of
+such profound policy, if allowed to proceed in his own way, might
+probably in the end prevail, he resolved to take all the advantage
+which his present victory gave him, and to disconcert the cautious
+measures of the king, by the vehemence and vigour of his own conduct
+[q].  Assured of support from Rome, he was little intimidated by
+dangers which his courage taught him to despise, and which, even if
+attended with the most fatal consequences, would serve only to gratify
+his ambition and thirst of glory [r].
+[FN [n]  Epist. St. Thom. p. 837, 839.  [o] Fitz-Steph. p. 65.  [p]
+Epist. St. Thom. p. 345.  [q] Fitz-Steph. p. 74.  [r] Epist. St. Thom.
+p. 818, 848.]
+
+When the suspended and excommunicated prelates arrived at Baieux,
+where the king then resided, and complained to him of the violent
+proceedings of Becket, he instantly perceived the consequences; was
+sensible that his whole plan of operations was overthrown; foresaw
+that the dangerous contest between the civil and spiritual powers, a
+contest which he himself had first aroused, but which he had
+endeavoured, by all his late negotiations and concessions, to appease,
+must come to an immediate and decisive issue; and he was thence thrown
+into the most violent commotion.  The Archbishop of York remarked to
+him, that, so long as Becket lived, he could never expect to enjoy
+peace or tranquillity: the king himself being vehemently agitated,
+burst forth into an exclamation against his servants, whose want of
+zeal, he said, had so long left him exposed to the enterprises of that
+ungrateful and imperious prelate [s].  Four gentlemen of his
+household, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de Traci, Hugh de Moreville,
+and Richard Brito, taking these passionate expressions to be a hint
+for Becket's death, immediately communicated their thoughts to each
+other; and swearing to revenge their prince's quarrel, secretly
+withdrew from court [t].  Some menacing expressions which they had
+dropped gave a suspicion of their design; and the king despatched a
+messenger after them, charging them to attempt nothing against the
+person of the primate [u]: but these orders arrived too late to
+prevent their fatal purpose.  The four assassins, though they took
+different roads to England, arrived nearly about the same time at
+Saltwoode, near Canterbury; and being there joined by some assistants,
+they proceeded in great haste to the archiepiscopal palace.  They
+found the primate, who trusted entirely to the sacredness of his
+character, very slenderly attended; and though they threw out many
+menaces and reproaches against him, he was so incapable of fear, that,
+without using any precautions against their violence, he immediately
+went to St. Benedict’s church to hear vespers.  They followed him
+thither, attacked him before the altar, and having cloven his head
+with many blows, retired without meeting any opposition.  [MN 1170.
+Dec. 29.  Murder of Thomas à Becket.]  This was the tragical end of
+Thomas à Becket, a prelate of the most lofty, intrepid, and inflexible
+spirit, who was able to cover to the world, and probably to himself,
+the enterprises of pride and ambition under the disguise of sanctity
+and of zeal for the interests of religion: an extraordinary personage,
+surely had he been allowed to remain in his first station, and had
+directed the vehemence of his character to the support of law and
+justice; instead of being engaged, by the prejudices of the times, to
+sacrifice all private duties and public connexions to ties which he
+imagined or represented as superior to every civil and political
+consideration.  But no man who enters into the genius of that age can
+reasonably doubt of this prelate's sincerity.  The spirit of
+superstition was so prevalent, that it infallibly caught every
+careless reasoner, much more every one whose interest, and honour, and
+ambition were engaged to support it.  All the wretched literature of
+the times was enlisted on that side: some faint glimmerings of common
+sense might sometimes pierce through the thick cloud of ignorance, or
+what was worse, the illusions of perverted science, which had blotted
+out the sun, and enveloped the face of nature: but those who preserved
+themselves untainted by the general contagion proceeded on no
+principles which they could pretend to justify: they were more
+indebted to their total want of instruction than to their knowledge,
+if they still retained some share of understanding: folly was
+possessed of all the schools as well as all the churches; and her
+votaries assumed the garb of philosophers, together with the ensigns
+of spiritual dignities.  Throughout that large collection of letters,
+which bears the name of St. Thomas, we find, in all the retainers of
+the aspiring prelate, no less than in himself, a most entire and
+absolute conviction of the reason and piety of their own party, and a
+disdain of their antagonists: nor is there less cant and grimace in
+their style, when they address each other, than when they compose
+manifestos for the perusal of the public.  The spirit of revenge,
+violence, and ambition, which accompanied their conduct, instead of
+forming a presumption of hypocrisy, are the surest pledges of their
+sincere attachment to a cause, which so much flattered these
+domineering passions.
+[FN [s] Gervase, p. 1414.  Parker, p. 207.  [t] M. Paris, p. 86.
+Brompton, p. 1065.  Benedict. Abbas, p. 10.  [u] Hist. Quad. p. 144.
+Trivet, p. 55.]
+
+[MN Grief,]  Henry, on the first report of Becket's violent measures,
+had purposed to have him arrested, and had already taken some steps
+towards the execution of that design: but the intelligence of his
+murder threw the prince into great consternation; and he was
+immediately sensible of the dangerous consequences which he had reason
+to apprehend from so unexpected an event.  An archbishop of reputed
+sanctity, assassinated before the altar, in the exercise of his
+functions, and on account of his zeal in maintaining ecclesiastical
+privileges, must attain the highest honours of martyrdom; while his
+murderer would be ranked among the most bloody tyrants that ever were
+exposed to the hatred and detestation of mankind.  Interdicts and
+excommunications, weapons in themselves so terrible, would, he
+foresaw, be armed with double force when employed in a cause so much
+calculated to work on the human passions, and so peculiarly adapted to
+the eloquence of popular preachers and declaimers.  In vain would he
+plead his own innocence, and even his total ignorance of the fact: he
+was sufficiently guilty, if the church thought proper to esteem him
+such; and his concurrence in Becket's martyrdom, becoming a religious
+opinion, would be received with all the implicit credit which belonged
+to the most established articles of faith.  These considerations gave
+the king the most unaffected concern; and as it was extremely his
+interest to clear himself from all suspicion, he took no care to
+conceal the depth of his affliction [w].  He shut himself up from the
+light of day, and from all commerce with his servants: he even
+refused, during three days, all food and sustenance [x]: the
+courtiers, apprehending dangerous effects from his despair, were at
+last obliged to break in upon his solitude; and they employed every
+topic of consolation, induced him to accept of nourishment, and
+occupied his leisure in taking precautions against the consequences
+which he so justly apprehended from the murder of the primate.
+[FN [w] Ypod. Neust. p. 447.  M. Paris, p. 87.  Diceto, p. 556.
+Gervase, p. 1419.  [x] Hist. Quad. p. 143.]
+
+[MN 1171.  and submission of the king.]  The point of chief importance
+to Henry was to convince the pope of his innocence; or rather, to
+persuade him that he would reap greater advantages from the
+submissions of England, than from proceeding to extremities against
+that kingdom.  The Archbishop of Rouen, the Bishops of Worcester and
+Evreux, with five persons of inferior quality, were immediately
+despatched to Rome [y], and orders were given them to perform their
+journey with the utmost expedition.  Though the name and authority of
+the court of Rome were so terrible in the remote countries of Europe,
+which were sunk in profound ignorance, and were entirely unacquainted
+with its character and conduct; the pope was so little revered at
+home, that his inveterate enemies surrounded the gates of Rome itself,
+and even controlled his government in that city; and the ambassadors,
+who, from a distant extremity of Europe, carried to him the humble or
+rather abject submissions of the greatest potentate of the age, found
+the utmost difficulty to make their way to him, and to throw
+themselves at his feet.  It was at length agreed, that Richard Barre,
+one of their number, should leave the rest behind, and run all the
+hazards of the passage [z]; in order to prevent the fatal consequences
+which might ensue from any delay in giving satisfaction to his
+holiness.  He found, on his arrival, that Alexander was already
+wrought up to the greatest rage against the king; that Becket's
+partisans were daily stimulating him to revenge; that the king of
+France had exhorted him to fulminate the most dreadful sentence
+against England; and that the very mention of Henry's name before the
+sacred college was received with every expression of horror and
+execration.  The Thursday before Easter was now approaching, when it
+is customary for the pope to denounce annual curses against all his
+enemies; and it was expected that Henry should, with all the
+preparations peculiar to the discharge of that sacred artillery, be
+solemnly comprehended in the number.  But Barre found means to appease
+the pontiff, and to deter him from a measure, which, if it failed of
+success, could not afterwards be easily recalled: the anathemas were
+only levelled in general against all the actors, accomplices, and
+abettors of Becket's murder.  The Abbot of Valasse, and the
+Archdeacons of Salisbury and Lisieux, with others of Henry's
+ministers, who soon after arrived, besides asserting their prince's
+innocence, made oath before the whole consistory that he would stand
+to the pope's judgment in the affair, and make every submission that
+should be required of him.  The terrible blow was thus artfully
+eluded; the Cardinals Albert and Theodin were appointed legates to
+examine the cause, and were ordered to proceed to Normandy for that
+purpose; and though Henry's foreign dominions were already laid under
+an interdict by the Archbishop of Sens, Becket's great partisan, and
+the pope's legate in France, the general expectation that the monarch
+would easily exculpate himself from any concurrence in the guilt, kept
+every one in suspense, and prevented all the bad consequences which
+might be dreaded from that sentence.
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 526.  M. Paris, p. 87.  [z] Hoveden, p. 26.
+Epist. St. Thom. p. 863.]
+
+The clergy, meanwhile, though their rage was happily diverted from
+falling on the king, were not idle in magnifying the sanctity of
+Becket; in extolling the merits of his martyrdom; and in exalting him
+above all that devoted tribe, who in several ages had, by their blood,
+cemented the fabric of the temple.  Other saints had only borne
+testimony by their sufferings to the general doctrines of
+Christianity; but Becket had sacrificed his life to the power and
+privileges of the clergy; and this peculiar merit challenged, and not
+in vain, a suitable acknowledgment to his memory.  Endless were the
+panegyrics on his virtues; and the miracles wrought by his relics were
+more numerous, more nonsensical, and more impudently attested, than
+those which ever filled the legend of any confessor or martyr.  Two
+years after his death he was canonized by Pope Alexander; a solemn
+jubilee was established for celebrating his merits; his body was
+removed to a magnificent shrine, enriched with presents from all parts
+of Christendom; pilgrimages were performed to obtain his intercession
+with Heaven; and it was computed, that in one year above a hundred
+thousand  pilgrims arrived in Canterbury, and paid their devotions at
+his tomb.  It is indeed a mortifying reflection to those who are
+actuated by the love of fame, so justly denominated the last infirmity
+of noble minds, that the wisest legislator, and most exalted genius
+that ever reformed or enlightened the world, can never expect such
+tributes of praise as are lavished on the memory of pretended saints,
+whose whole conduct was probably to the last degree odious or
+contemptible, and whose industry was entirely directed to the pursuit
+of objects pernicious to mankind.  It is only a conqueror, a personage
+no less entitled to our hatred, who can pretend to the attainment of
+equal renown and glory.
+
+It may not be amiss to remark, before we conclude the subject of
+Thomas à Becket, that the king, during his controversy with that
+prelate, was on every occasion more anxious than usual to express his
+zeal for religion, and to avoid all appearance of a profane negligence
+on that head.  He gave his consent to the imposing of a tax on all his
+dominions for the delivery of the Holy Land, now threatened by the
+famous Saladine: this tax amounted to two-pence a pound for one year,
+and a penny a pound for the four subsequent [a].  Almost all the
+princes of Europe laid a like imposition on their subjects, which
+received the name of Saladine's tax.  During this period, there came
+over from Germany about thirty heretics of both sexes, under the
+direction of one Gerard; simple ignorant people, who could give no
+account of their faith, but declared themselves ready to suffer for
+the tenets of their master.  They made only one convert in England, a
+woman as ignorant as themselves; yet they gave such umbrage to the
+clergy, that they were delivered over to the secular arm, and were
+punished by being burned on the forehead, and then whipped through the
+streets.  They seemed to exult in their sufferings, and, as they went
+along, sung the beatitude, BLESSED ARE YE, WHEN MEN HATE YOU AND
+PERSECUTE YOU [b].  After they were whipped, they were thrust out
+almost naked in the midst of winter and perished through cold and
+hunger; no one daring or being willing, to give them the least relief.
+We are ignorant of the particular tenets of these people; for it would
+be imprudent to rely on the representations left of them by the
+clergy, who affirmed that they denied the efficacy of the sacraments,
+and the unity of the church.  It is probable that their departure from
+the standard of orthodoxy was still more subtle and minute.  They seem
+to have been the first that ever suffered for heresy in England.
+[FN [a] Chron. Gervase, p. 1399.  M. Paris, p. 74.  [b] Neubr. p. 391.
+M. Paris, p. 74.  Heming. p. 494.]
+
+As soon as Henry found that he was in no immediate danger from the
+thunders of the Vatican, he undertook an expedition against Ireland; a
+design which he had long projected, and by which he hoped to recover
+his credit, somewhat impaired by his late transactions with the
+hierarchy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+STATE OF IRELAND.--CONQUEST OF THAT ISLAND.--THE KING’S ACCOMMODATION
+WITH THE COURT OF ROME.--REVOLT OF YOUNG HENRY AND HIS BROTHERS.--WARS
+AND INSURRECTIONS.--WAR WITH SCOTLAND.--PENANCE OF HENRY FOR BECKET'S
+MURDER.--WILLIAM, KING OF SCOTLAND, DEFEATED AND TAKEN PRISONER.--THE
+KING'S ACCOMMODATION WITH HIS SONS.--THE KING'S EQUITABLE
+ADMINISTRATION.--CRUSADES.--REVOLT OF PRINCE RICHARD.--DEATH AND
+CHARACTER OF HENRY.--MISCELLANEOUS TRANSACTIONS OF HIS REIGN.
+
+
+
+[MN 1172.  State of Ireland.]
+As Britain was first peopled from Gaul, so was Ireland probably from
+Britain; and the inhabitants of all these countries seem to have been
+so many tribes of the Celtae, who derive their origin from an
+antiquity that lies far beyond the records of any history or
+tradition.  The Irish, from the beginning of time, had been buried in
+the most profound barbarism and ignorance; and as they were never
+conquered, or even invaded by the Romans, from whom all the western
+world derived its civility, they continued still in the most rude
+state of society, and were distinguished by those vices alone, to
+which human nature, not tamed by education, or restrained by laws, is
+for ever subject.  The small principalities into which they were
+divided exercised perpetual rapine and violence against each other;
+the uncertain succession of their princes was a continual source of
+domestic convulsions; the usual title of each petty sovereign was the
+murder of his predecessor; courage and force, though exercised in the
+commission of crimes, were more honoured than any pacific virtues; and
+the most simple arts of life, even tillage and agriculture, were
+almost wholly unknown among them.  They had felt the invasions of the
+Danes and the other northern tribes; but these inroads, which had
+spread barbarism in other parts of Europe, tended rather to improve
+the Irish; and the only towns which were to be found in the island had
+been planted along the coast by the freebooters of Norway and Denmark.
+The other inhabitants exercised pasturage in the open country; sought
+protection from any danger in their forests and morasses; and being
+divided by the fiercest animosities against each other, were still
+more intent on the means of mutual injury, than on the expedients for
+common or even for private interest.
+
+Besides many small tribes, there were in the age of Henry II. five
+principal sovereignties in the island, Munster, Leinster, Meath,
+Ulster, and Connaught; and as it had been usual for the one or the
+other of these to take the lead in their wars, there was commonly some
+prince, who seemed, for the time, to act as monarch of Ireland.
+Roderic O'Connor, King of Connaught, was then advanced to this dignity
+[a]; but his government, ill obeyed even within his own territory,
+could not unite the people in any measures either for the
+establishment of order, or for defence against foreigners.  The
+ambition of Henry had, very early in his reign, been moved by the
+prospect of these advantages to attempt the subjecting of Ireland; and
+a pretence was only wanting to invade a people who, being always
+confined to their own island, had never given any reason of complaint
+to any of their neighbours.  For this purpose, he had recourse to
+Rome, which assumed a right to dispose of kingdoms and empires; and,
+not foreseeing the dangerous disputes which he was one day to maintain
+with that see, he helped, for present, or rather for an imaginary,
+convenience, to give sanction to claims which were now become
+dangerous to all sovereigns.  Adrian III., who then filled the papal
+chair, was by birth an Englishman; and being, on that account, the
+more disposed to oblige Henry, he was easily persuaded to act as
+master of the world, and to make, without any hazard or expense, the
+acquisition of a great island to his spiritual jurisdiction. The Irish
+had, by precedent missions from the Britons, been imperfectly
+converted to Christianity; and, what the pope regarded as the surest
+mark of their imperfect conversion, they followed the doctrines of
+their first teachers, and had never acknowledged any subjection to the
+see of Rome.  Adrian, therefore, in the year 1156, issued a bull in
+favour of Henry; in which, after premising that this prince had ever
+shown an anxious care to enlarge the church of God on earth, and to
+increase the number of his saints and elect in heaven; he represents
+his design of subduing Ireland as derived from the same pious motives:
+he considers his care of previously applying for the apostolic
+sanction as a sure earnest of success and victory; and having
+established it as a point incontestable, that all Christian kingdoms
+belong to the patrimony of St. Peter, he acknowledges it to be his own
+duty to sow among them the seeds of the gospel, which might in the
+last day fructify to their eternal salvation: he exhorts the king to
+invade Ireland, in order to extirpate the vice and wickedness of the
+natives, and oblige them to pay yearly, from every house, a penny to
+the see of Rome: he gives him entire right and authority over the
+island, commands all the inhabitants to obey him as their sovereign,
+and invests with full power all such godly instruments as he should
+think proper to employ in an enterprise thus calculated for the glory
+of God and the salvation of the souls of men [b].  Henry, though armed
+with this authority, did not immediately put his design in execution;
+but being detained by more interesting business on the continent,
+waited for a favourable opportunity of invading Ireland.
+[FN [a] Hoveden, p. 527.  [b] M. Paris, p. 67.  Girald. Cambr. Spellm.
+Concil. vol. ii. p. 51.  Rymer, vol. i. p. 15.]
+
+Dermot Macmorrogh, King of Leinster, had, by his licentious tyranny,
+rendered himself odious to his subjects, who seized with alacrity the
+first occasion that offered of throwing off the yoke, which was become
+grievous and oppressive to them.  This prince had formed a design on
+Dovergilda, wife of Ororic, Prince of Breffny; and taking advantage of
+her husband's absence, who, being obliged to visit a distant part of
+his territory, had left his wife secure, as he thought, in an island
+surrounded by a bog, he suddenly invaded the place and carried off the
+princess [c].  This exploit, though usual among the Irish, and rather
+deemed a proof of gallantry and spirit [d], provoked the resentment of
+the husband; who, having collected forces, and being strengthened by
+the alliance of Roderic, King of Connaught, invaded the dominions  of
+Dermot, and expelled him his kingdom.  The exiled prince had recourse
+to Henry, who was at this time in Guienne, craved his assistance in
+restoring him to his sovereignty, and offered, on that event, to hold
+his kingdom in vassalage under the crown of England.  Henry, whose
+views were already turned towards making acquisitions in Ireland,
+readily accepted the offer; but being at that time embarrassed by the
+rebellions of his French subjects, as well as by his disputes with the
+see of Rome, he declined for the present embarking in the enterprise,
+and gave Dermot no farther assistance than letters patent, by which he
+empowered all his subjects to aid the Irish prince in the recovery of
+his dominions [e].  Dermot, supported by this authority, came to
+Bristol; and after endeavouring, though for some time in vain, to
+engage adventurers in the enterprise, he at last formed a treaty with
+Richard, surnamed Strongbow, Earl of Strigul.  This nobleman, who was
+of the illustrious house of Clare, had impaired his fortune by
+expensive pleasures; and being ready for any desperate undertaking, he
+promised assistance to Dermot, on condition that he should espouse
+Eva, daughter of that prince, and be declared heir to all his
+dominions [f].  While Richard was assembling his succours, Dermot went
+into Wales; and meeting with Robert Fitz-Stephens, Constable of
+Abertivi, and Maurice Fitz-Gerald, he also engaged them in his
+service, and obtained their promise of invading Ireland.  Being now
+assured of succour, he returned privately to his own state; and
+lurking in the monastery of Fernes, which he had founded, (for this
+ruffian was also a founder of monasteries,) he prepared every thing
+for the reception of his English allies [g].
+[FN [c] Girald. Cambr. p. 760.  [d] Spencer, vol. vi.  [e] Girald.
+Cambr. p. 760.  [f] Ibid. p. 761.  [g] Ibid.]
+
+[MN Conquest of that island.]
+The troops of Fitz-Stephens were first ready.  That gentleman landed
+in Ireland with thirty knights, sixty esquires, and three hundred
+archers; but this small body, being brave men, not unacquainted with
+discipline, and completely armed, a thing almost unknown in Ireland,
+struck a great terror into the barbarous inhabitants, and seemed to
+menace them with some signal revolution.  The conjunction of Maurice
+de Pendergast, who, about the same time, brought over ten knights and
+sixty archers, enabled Fitz-Stephens to attempt the siege of Wexford,
+a town inhabited by the Danes; and after gaining an advantage, he made
+himself master of the place [h].  Soon after, Fitz-Gerald arrived with
+ten knights, thirty esquires, and a hundred archers [i]; and being
+joined by the former adventurers, composed a force which nothing in
+Ireland was able to withstand.  Roderic, the chief monarch of the
+island, was foiled in different actions; the Prince of Ossory was
+obliged to submit, and give hostages for his peaceable behaviour; and
+Dermot, not content with being restored to his kingdom of Leinster,
+projected the dethroning of Roderic, and aspired to the sole dominion
+over the Irish.
+[FN [h] Girald. Cambr. p. 761, 762.  [i] Ibid. p. 766.]
+
+In prosecution of these views, he sent over a messenger to the Earl of
+Strigul, challenging the performance of his promise, and displaying
+the mighty advantages which might now be reaped by a reinforcement of
+warlike troops from England.  Richard, not satisfied with the general
+allowance given by Henry to all his subjects, went to that prince,
+then in Normandy; and having obtained a cold or ambiguous permission,
+prepared himself for the execution of his designs.  He first sent over
+Raymond, one of his retinue, with ten knights and seventy archers,
+who, landing near Waterford, defeated a body of three thousand Irish,
+that had ventured to attack him [k]; and as Richard himself, who
+brought over two hundred horse, and a body of archers, joined, a few
+days after, the victorious English, they made themselves masters of
+Waterford, and proceeded to Dublin, which was taken by assault.
+Roderic, in revenge, cut off the head of Dermot's natural son, who had
+been left as a hostage in his hands; and Richard, marrying Eva, became
+soon after, by the death of Dermot, master of the kingdom of Leinster,
+and prepared to extend his authority over all Ireland.  Roderic, and
+the other Irish princes, were alarmed at the danger; and, combining
+together, besieged Dublin with an army of thirty thousand men; but
+Earl Richard making a sudden sally at the head of ninety knights, with
+their followers, put this numerous army to rout, chased them off the
+field, and pursued  them with great slaughter.  None in Ireland now
+dared to oppose themselves to the English [l].
+[FN [k] Ibid. p. 767.  [l] Girald. Cambr. p. 773.]
+
+Henry, jealous of the progress made by his own subjects, sent orders
+to recall all the English, and he made preparations to attack Ireland
+in person [m]: but Richard, and the other adventurers, found means to
+appease him by making him the most humble submissions, and offering to
+hold all their acquisitions in vassalage to his crown [n].  That
+monarch landed in Ireland at the head of five hundred knights, besides
+other soldiers: he found the Irish so dispirited by their late
+misfortunes, that, in a progress which he made through the island, he
+had no other occupation than to receive the homage of his new
+subjects.  He left most of the Irish chieftains or princes in
+possession of their ancient territories; bestowed some lands on the
+English adventurers; gave Earl Richard the commission of Seneschal of
+Ireland; and after a stay of a few months, returned in triumph to
+England.  By these trivial exploits, scarcely worth relating, except
+for the importance of the consequences, was Ireland subdued, and
+annexed to the English crown.
+[FN [m] Ibid. p. 770.  [n] Ibid. p. 775.]
+
+The low state of commerce and industry, during those ages, made it
+impracticable for princes to support regular armies, which might
+retain a conquered country in subjection; and the extreme barbarism
+and poverty of Ireland could still less afford means of bearing the
+expense.  The only expedient, by which a durable conquest could then
+be made or maintained, was by pouring in a multitude of new
+inhabitants, dividing among them the lands of the vanquished,
+establishing them in all offices of trust and authority, and thereby
+transforming the ancient inhabitants into a new people.  By this
+policy, the northern invaders of old, and of late the Duke of
+Normandy, had been able to fix their dominions, and to erect kingdoms,
+which remained stable on their foundations, and were transmitted to
+the posterity of the first conquerors.  But the state of Ireland
+rendered that island so little inviting to the English, that only a
+few of desperate fortunes could be persuaded, from time to time, to
+transport themselves thither [o]; and instead of reclaiming the
+natives from their uncultivated manners, they were gradually
+assimilated to the ancient inhabitants, and degenerated from the
+customs of their own nation.  It was also found requisite to bestow
+great military and arbitrary powers on the leaders, who commanded a
+handful of men amidst such hostile multitudes; and law and equity, in
+a little time, became as much unknown in the English settlements as
+they had ever been among the Irish tribes.  Palatinates were erected
+in favour of the new adventurers; independent authority conferred; the
+natives, never fully subdued, still retained their animosity against
+the conquerors; their hatred was retaliated by like injuries; and from
+these causes, the Irish, during the course of four centuries, remained
+still savage and untractable: it was not till the latter end of
+Elizabeth’s reign that the island was fully subdued; nor till that of
+her successor that it gave hopes of becoming a useful conquest to the
+English nation.
+[FN [o] Brompton, p. 1069.  Neubrig. p. 403.]
+
+Besides that the easy and peaceable submission of the Irish left Henry
+no farther occupation in that island, he was recalled from it by
+another incident, which was of the last importance to his interest and
+safety.  The two legates, Albert and Theodin, to whom was committed
+the trial of his conduct in the murder of Archbishop Becket, were
+arrived in Normandy; and being impatient of delay, sent him frequent
+letters, full of menaces, if he protracted any longer making his
+appearance before them [p].  He hastened therefore to Normandy, and
+had a conference with them at Savigny, where their demands were so
+exorbitant, that he broke off the negotiation, threatened to return to
+Ireland, and bade them do their worst against him.  They perceived
+that the season was now past for taking advantage of that tragical
+incident; which, had it been hotly pursued by interdicts and
+excommunications, was capable of throwing the whole kingdom into
+combustion.  But the time which Henry had happily gained had
+contributed to appease the minds of men: the event could not now have
+the same influence as when it was recent; and as the clergy every day
+looked for an accommodation with the king, they had not opposed the
+pretensions of his partisans, who had been very industrious in
+representing to the people his entire innocence in the murder of the
+primate, and his ignorance of the designs formed by the assassins.
+The legates, therefore, found themselves obliged to lower their terms;
+and Henry was so fortunate as to conclude an accommodation with them.
+He declared upon oath, before the relics of the saints, that, so far
+from commanding or desiring the death of the archbishop, he was
+extremely grieved when he received intelligence of it: but as the
+passion which he had expressed on account of that prelate's conduct
+had probably been the occasion of his murder, he stipulated the
+following conditions, as an atonement for the offence.  [MN The king’s
+accommodation with the court of Rome.]  He promised, that he should
+pardon all such as had been banished for adhering to Becket, and
+should restore them to their livings; that the see of Canterbury
+should be reinstated in all its ancient possessions; that he should
+pay the Templars a sum of money for the subsistence of two hundred
+knights during a year in the Holy Land; that he should himself take
+the cross at the Christmas following, and, if the pope required it,
+serve three years against the infidels either in Spain or Palestine;
+that he should not insist on the observance of such customs,
+derogatory to ecclesiastical privileges, as had been introduced in his
+own time; and that he should not obstruct appeals to the pope in
+ecclesiastical causes, but should content himself with exacting
+sufficient security from such clergymen as left his dominions to
+prosecute an appeal, that they should attempt nothing against the
+rights of his crown [q].  Upon signing these concessions, Henry
+received absolution from the legates, and was confirmed in the grant
+of Ireland made by Pope Adrian [r]; and nothing proves more strongly
+the great abilities of this monarch, than his extricating himself on
+such easy terms from so difficult a situation.  He had always insisted
+that the laws established at Clarendon contained not any new claims,
+but the ancient customs of the kingdom; and he was still at liberty,
+notwithstanding the articles of this agreement, to maintain his
+pretensions.  Appeals to the pope were indeed permitted by that
+treaty; but as the king was also permitted to exact reasonable
+securities from the parties, and might stretch his demands on this
+head as far as he pleased, he had it virtually in his power to prevent
+the pope from reaping any advantage by this seeming concession.  And
+on the whole, the constitutions of Clarendon remained still the law of
+the realm; though the pope and his legates seem so little to have
+conceived the king's power to lie under any legal limitations, that
+they were satisfied with his departing, by treaty, from one of the
+most momentous articles of these constitutions, without requiring any
+repeal by the states of the kingdom.
+[FN [p] Girald. Cambr. p. 778.  [q] M. Paris, p. 88.  Benedict. Abb.
+p. 34.  Hoveden, p. 529.  Diceto, p 560.  Chron. Gerv. p. 1422.  [r]
+Brompton, p. 1071  Liber Nig. Scac. p. 47.]
+
+Henry, freed from this dangerous controversy with the ecclesiastics
+and with the see of Rome, seemed now to have reached the pinnacle of
+human grandeur and felicity, and to be equally happy in his domestic
+situation and in his political government.  A numerous progeny of sons
+and daughters gave both lustre and authority to his crown, prevented
+the dangers of a disputed succession, and repressed all pretensions of
+the ambitious barons.  The king's precaution, also, in establishing
+the several branches of his family, seemed well calculated to prevent
+all jealousy among the brothers, and to perpetuate the greatness of
+his family.  He had appointed Henry, his eldest son, to be his
+successor in the kingdom of England, the duchy of Normandy, and the
+counties of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine; territories which lay
+contiguous, and which, by that means, might easily lend to each other
+mutual assistance, both against intestine commotions and foreign
+invasions.  Richard, his second son, was invested in the duchy of
+Guienne and county of Poictou; Geoffrey, his third son, inherited, in
+right of his wife, the duchy of Britany; and the new conquest of
+Ireland was destined for the appanage of John, his fourth son.  He had
+also negotiated, in favour of this last prince, a marriage with
+Adelais, the only daughter of Humbert, Count of Savoy and Maurienne;
+and was to receive as her dowry considerable demesnes in Piedmont,
+Savoy, Bresse, and  Dauphiny [s].  But this exaltation of his family
+excited the jealousy of all his neighbours, who made those very sons,
+whose fortunes he had so anxiously established, the means of
+embittering his future life, and disturbing his government.
+[FN [s] Ypod. Neust. p. 448.  Bened. Abb. p. 38.  Hoveden, p. 532.
+Diceto, p. 562.  Brompton, p. 1081.  Rymer, vol. i. p. 33.]
+
+Young Henry, who was rising to man's estate, began to display his
+character, and aspire to independence: brave, ambitious, liberal,
+munificent, affable; he discovered qualities which give great lustre
+to youth; prognosticate a shining fortune; but unless tempered in
+mature age with discretion, are the forerunners of the greatest
+calamities [t].  It is said, that at the time when this prince
+received the royal unction, his father, in order to give greater
+dignity to the ceremony, officiated at table as one of the retinue;
+and observed to his son, that never king was more royally served.  IT
+IS NOTHING EXTRAORDINARY, said young Henry to one of his courtiers, IF
+THE SON OF A COUNT SHOULD SERVE THE SON OF A KING.  This saying, which
+might pass only for an innocent pleasantry, or even for an oblique
+compliment to his father, was however regarded as a symptom of his
+aspiring temper; and his conduct soon after justified the conjecture.
+[FN [t] Chron. Gerv. p. 1463.]
+
+Henry, agreeably to the promise which he had given both to the pope
+and French king, permitted his son to be crowned anew by the hands of
+the Archbishop of Rouen, and associated the Princess Margaret, spouse
+to young Henry, in the ceremony [u]  [MN 1173.]  He afterwards allowed
+him to pay a visit to his father-in-law at Paris, who took the
+opportunity of instilling into the young prince those ambitious
+sentiments, to which he was naturally but too much inclined [w].  [MN
+Revolt of young Henry and his brothers.]  Though it had been the
+constant practice of France, ever since the accession of the Capetian
+line, to crown the son during the lifetime of the father, without
+conferring on him any present participation of royalty, Lewis
+persuaded his son-in-law, that, by this ceremony, which in those ages
+was deemed so important, he had acquired a title to sovereignty, and
+that the king could not, without injustice, exclude him from immediate
+possession of the whole or at least a part of his dominions.  In
+consequence of these extravagant ideas, young Henry, on his return,
+desired the king to resign to him either the crown of England, or the
+duchy of Normandy; discovered great discontent on the refusal; spake
+in the most undutiful terms of his father; and soon after, in concert
+with Lewis, made his escape to Paris, where he was protected and
+supported by that monarch.
+[FN [u] Hoveden, p. 529.  Diceto, p. 560.  Brompton, p. 1080.  Chron.
+Gerv. p. 1421.  Trivet, p. 58.  It appears from Madox's History of the
+Exchequer, that silk garments were then known in England, and that the
+coronation robes of the young king and queen cost eighty-seven pounds
+ten shillings and four pence, money of that age.  [w] Girald. Camb. p.
+782.]
+
+While Henry was alarmed at this incident, and had the prospect of
+dangerous intrigues, or even of a war, which, whether successful or
+not, must be extremely calamitous and disagreeable to him, he received
+intelligence of new misfortunes, which must have affected him in the
+most sensible manner.  Queen Eleanor, who had disgusted her first
+husband by her gallantries, was no less offensive to her second by her
+jealousy; and after this manner carried to extremity, in the different
+periods of her life, every circumstance of female weakness.  She
+communicated her discontents against Henry to her two younger sons,
+Geoffrey and Richard; persuaded them that they were also entitled to
+present possession of the territories assigned to them; engaged them
+to fly secretly to the court of France; and was meditating, herself,
+an escape to the same court, and had even put on man's apparel for
+that purpose; when she was seized by orders from her husband, and
+thrown into confinement.  Thus, Europe saw with astonishment the best
+and most indulgent of parents at war with his whole family; three
+boys, scarcely arrived at the age of puberty, required a great
+monarch, in the full vigour of his age and height of his reputation,
+to dethrone himself in their favour; and several princes not ashamed
+to support them in these unnatural and absurd pretensions.
+
+Henry, reduced to this perilous and disagreeable situation, had
+recourse to the court of Rome: though sensible of the danger attending
+the interposition of ecclesiastical authority in temporal disputes, he
+applied to the pope, as his superior lord, to excommunicate his
+enemies, and by these censures to reduce to obedience his undutiful
+children, whom he found such reluctance to punish by the sword of the
+magistrate [x].  Alexander, well pleased to exert his power in so
+justifiable a cause, issued the bulls required of him; but it was soon
+found that these spiritual weapons had not the same force as when
+employed in a spiritual controversy; and that the clergy were very
+negligent in supporting a sentence which was nowise calculated to
+promote the immediate interests of their order.  The king, after
+taking in vain this humiliating step, was obliged to have recourse to
+arms, and to enlist such auxiliaries as are the usual resource of
+tyrants, and have seldom been employed by so wise and just a monarch.
+[FN [x] Epist. Petri Bles. epist. 136. in Biblioth. Patr. tom. xxiv.
+p. 1048.  His words are, VESTRAE JURISDICTIONIS EST REGNUM ANGLIAE, ET
+QUANTUM AD FEUDATORII JURIS OBLIGATIONEM, VOBIS DUNTAXAT OBNOXIUS
+TENEOR.  The same strange paper is in Rymer, vol. i. p. 35, and
+Trivet, vol. i. p. 62.]
+
+The loose government which prevailed in all the states of Europe, the
+many private wars carried on among the neighbouring nobles, and the
+impossibility of enforcing any general execution of the laws, had
+encouraged a tribe of banditti to disturb every where the public
+peace, to infest the highways, to pillage the open country, and to
+brave all the efforts of the civil magistrate, and even the
+excommunications of the church, which were fulminated against them
+[y].  Troops of them were sometimes enlisted in the service of one
+prince or baron, sometimes in that of another: they often acted in an
+independent manner, under leaders of their own: the peaceable and
+industrious inhabitants, reduced to poverty by their ravages, were
+frequently obliged, for subsistence, to betake themselves to a like
+disorderly course of life; and a continual intestine war, pernicious
+to industry, as well as to the execution of justice, was thus carried
+on in the bowels of every kingdom [z].  Those desperate ruffians
+received the name sometimes of Brabancons, sometimes of Routiers or
+Cottereaux; but for what reason is not agreed by historians; and they
+formed a kind of society or government among themselves, which set at
+defiance the rest of mankind.  The greatest monarchs were not ashamed,
+on occasion, to have recourse to their assistance; and as their habits
+of war and depredation had given them experience, hardiness, and
+courage, they generally composed the most formidable part of those
+armies which decided the political quarrels of princes.  Several of
+them were enlisted among the forces levied by Henry's enemies [a]; but
+the great treasures amassed by that prince enabled him to engage more
+numerous troops of them in his service; and the situation of his
+affairs rendered even such banditti the only forces on whose fidelity
+he could repose any confidence.  His licentious barons, disgusted with
+a vigilant government, were more desirous of being ruled by young
+princes, ignorant of public affairs, remiss in their conduct, and
+profuse in their grants [b]; and as the king had ensured to his sons
+the succession to every particular province of his dominions, the
+nobles dreaded no danger in adhering to those who, they knew, must
+some time become their sovereigns.  Prompted by these motives, many of
+the Norman nobility had deserted to his son Henry; the Breton and
+Gascon barons seemed equally disposed to embrace the quarrel of
+Geoffrey and Richard.  Disaffection had crept in among the English;
+and the Earls of Leicester and Chester in particular had openly
+declared against the king.  Twenty thousand Brabancons, therefore,
+joined to some troops which he brought over from Ireland, and a few
+barons of approved fidelity, formed the sole force with which he
+intended to resist his enemies.
+[FN [y] Neubrig. p 413.  [z] Chron. Gerv. p. 1461.  [a] Petr. Bles.
+epist. 47.  [b] Diceto, p. 570.]
+
+Lewis, in order to bind the confederates in a close union, summoned at
+Paris an assembly of the chief vassals of the crown, received their
+approbation of his measures, and engaged them by oath to adhere to the
+cause of young Henry.  This prince, in return, bound himself by a like
+tie never to desert his French allies; and having made a new great
+seal, he lavishly distributed among them many considerable parts of
+those territories which he purposed to conquer from his father.  The
+Counts of Flanders, Boulogne, Blois, and Eu, partly moved by the
+general jealousy arising from Henry's power and ambition, partly
+allured by the prospect of reaping advantage from the inconsiderate
+temper and the necessities of the young prince, declared openly in
+favour of the latter.  William, King of Scotland, had also entered
+into this great confederacy; and a plan was concerted for a general
+invasion on different parts of the king's extensive and factious
+dominions.
+
+Hostilities were first commenced by the Counts of Flanders and
+Boulogne on the frontiers of Normandy.  Those princes laid siege to
+Aumale, which was delivered into their hands by the treachery of the
+count of that name: this nobleman surrendered himself prisoner; and,
+on pretence of thereby paying his ransom, opened the gates of all his
+other fortresses.  The two counts next besieged and made themselves
+masters of Drincourt; but the Count of Boulogne was here mortally
+wounded in the assault; and this incident put some stop to the
+progress of the Flemish arms.
+
+[MN Wars and insurrections.]
+In another quarter, the King of France, being strongly assisted by his
+vassals, assembled a great army of seven thousand knights and their
+followers on horseback, and a proportionable number of infantry:
+carrying young Henry along with him, he laid siege to Verneuil, which
+was vigorously defended by Hugh de Lacy and Hugh de Beauchamp, the
+governors.  After he had lain a month before the place, the garrison,
+being straitened for provisions, were obliged to capitulate; and they
+engaged, if not relieved within three days, to surrender the town, and
+to retire into the citadel.  On the last of these days, Henry appeared
+with his army upon the heights above Verneuil.  Lewis, dreading an
+attack, sent the Archbiship of Sens and the Count of Blois to the
+English camp, and desired that next day should be appointed for a
+conference, in order to establish a general peace, and terminate the
+difference between Henry and his sons.  The king, who passionately
+desired this accommodation, and suspected no fraud, gave his consent;
+but Lewis, that morning, obliging the garrison to surrender, according
+to the capitulation, set fire to the place, and began to retire with
+his army.  Henry, provoked at this artifice, attacked the rear with
+vigour, put them to rout, did some execution, and took  several
+prisoners.  The French army, as their time of service was now expired,
+immediately dispersed themselves into their several provinces; and
+left Henry free to prosecute his advantages against his other enemies.
+
+The nobles of Britany, instigated by the Earl of Chester and Ralph de
+Fougeres, were all in arms; but their progress was checked by a body
+of Brabancons which the king, after Lewis's retreat, had sent against
+them.  The two armies came to an action near Dol, where the rebels
+were defeated, fifteen hundred killed on the spot, and the leaders,
+the Earls of Chester and Fougeres, obliged to take shelter in the town
+of Dol.  Henry hastened to form the siege of that place, and carried
+on the attack with such ardour, that he obliged the governor and
+garrison to surrender themselves prisoners.  By these vigorous
+measures and happy successes the insurrections were entirely quelled
+in Britany; and the king, thus fortunate in all quarters, willingly
+agreed to a conference with Lewis, in hopes that his enemies, finding
+all their mighty efforts entirely frustrated, would terminate
+hostilities on some moderate and reasonable conditions.
+
+The two monarchs met between Trie and Gisors; and Henry had here the
+mortification to see his three sons in the retinue of his mortal
+enemy.  As Lewis had no other pretence for war than supporting the
+claims of the young princes, the king made them such offers as
+children might be ashamed to insist on, and could be extorted from him
+by nothing but his parental affection, or by the present necessity of
+his affairs [c].  He insisted only on retaining the sovereign
+authority in all his dominions; but offered young Henry half the
+revenues of England, with some places of surety in that kingdom; or,
+if he rather chose to reside in Normandy, half the revenues of that
+duchy, with all those of Anjou.  He made a like offer to Richard in
+Guienne: he promised to resign Britany to Geoffrey; and if these
+concessions were not deemed sufficient, he agreed to add to them
+whatever the pope's legates, who were present, should require of him
+[d].  The Earl of Leicester was also present at the negotiation; and
+either from the impetuosity of his temper, or from a view of abruptly
+breaking off a conference which must cover the allies with confusion,
+he gave vent to the most violent reproaches against Henry, and he even
+put his hand to his sword, as if he meant to attempt some violence
+against him.  This furious action threw the whole company into
+confusion, and put an end to the treaty [e].
+[FN [c] Hoveden, p. 538.  [d] Ibid. p. 536.  Brompton, p. 1088.  [e]
+Hoveden, p. 536.]
+
+The chief hopes of Henry's enemies seemed now to depend on the state
+of affairs in England, where his authority was exposed to the most
+imminent danger.  One article of Prince Henry's agreement with his
+foreign confederates was, that he should resign Kent, with Dover, and
+all its other fortresses, into the hands of the Earl of Flanders [f]:
+yet so little national or public spirit prevailed among the
+independent English nobility, so wholly bent were they on the
+aggrandizement each of himself and his own family, that
+notwithstanding this pernicious concession, which must have produced
+the ruin of the kingdom, the greater part of them had conspired to
+make an insurrection, and to support the prince's pretensions.  The
+king's principal resource lay in the church and the bishops, with whom
+he was now in perfect agreement; whether that the decency of their
+character made them ashamed of supporting so unnatural a rebellion, or
+that they were entirely satisfied with Henry's atonement for the
+murder of Becket, and for his former invasion of ecclesiastical
+immunities.  That prince, however, had resigned none of the essential
+rights of his crown in the accommodation; he maintained still the same
+prudent jealousy of the court of Rome; admitted no legate into
+England, without his swearing to attempt nothing against the royal
+prerogatives; and he had even obliged the monks of Canterbury, who
+pretended to a free election on the vacancy made by the death of
+Becket, to choose Roger, prior of Dover, in the place of that
+turbulent prelate [g].
+[FN [f] Ibid. p. 533.  Brompton, p. 1084.  Neubr. p. 508.  [g]
+Hoveden, p. 537.]
+
+[MN War with Scotland.]
+The King of Scotland made an irruption into Northumberland, and
+committed great devastations; but being opposed by Richard de Lucy,
+whom Henry had left guardian of the realm, he retreated into his own
+country, and agreed to a cessation of arms.  This truce enabled the
+guardian to march southward with his army, in order to oppose an
+invasion, which the Earl of Leicester, at the head of a great body of
+Flemings, had made upon Suffolk.  The Flemings had been joined by Hugh
+Bigod, who made them masters of his castle of Framlingham; and
+marching into the heart of the kingdom, where they hoped to be
+supported by Leicester's vassals, they were met by Lucy, who, assisted
+by Humphrey Bohun, the constable, and the Earls of Arundel,
+Gloucester, and Cornwall, had advanced to Farnham, with a less
+numerous but braver army to oppose them.  The Flemings, who were
+mostly weavers and artificers, (for manufactures were now beginning to
+be established in Flanders,) were broken in an instant, ten thousand
+of them were put to the sword, the Earl of Leicester was taken
+prisoner, and the remains of the invaders were glad to compound for a
+safe retreat into their own country.
+
+[MN 1174.]  This great defeat did not dishearten the malecontents;
+who, being supported by the alliance of so many foreign princes, and
+encouraged by the king's own sons, determined to persevere in their
+enterprise.  The Earl of Ferrars, Roger de Mowbray, Architel de
+Mallory, Richard de Morreville, Hamo de Mascie, together with many
+friends of the Earls of Leicester and Chester, rose in arms: the
+fidelity of the Earls of Clare and Gloucester was suspected; and the
+guardian, though vigorously supported by Geoffrey, Bishop of Lincoln,
+the king's natural son by the fair Rosamond, found it difficult to
+defend himself on all quarters from so many open and concealed
+enemies.  The more to augment the confusion, the King of Scotland, on
+the expiration of the truce, broke into the northern provinces with a
+great army [h] of eighty thousand men; which, though undisciplined and
+disorderly, and better fitted for committing devastation than for
+executing any military enterprise, was become dangerous from the
+present factious and turbulent spirit of the kingdom.  Henry, who had
+baffled all his enemies in France, and had put his frontiers in a
+posture of defence, now found England the seat of danger; and he
+determined by his presence to overawe the malecontents, or by his
+conduct and courage to subdue them. [MN 8th July.  Penance of Henry
+for Becket’s murder.]  He landed at Southampton; and knowing the
+influence of superstition over the minds of the people, he hastened to
+Canterbury, in order to make atonement to the ashes of Thomas à
+Becket, and tender his submissions to a dead enemy.  As soon as he
+came within sight of the church of Canterbury, he dismounted, walked
+barefoot towards it, prostrated himself before the shrine of the
+saint, remained in fasting and prayer during a whole day, and watched
+all night the holy relics.  Not content with this hypocritical
+devotion towards a man whose violence and ingratitude had so long
+disquieted his government, and had been the object of his most
+inveterate animosity, he submitted to a penance still more singular
+and humiliating.  He assembled a chapter of the monks, disrobed
+himself before them, put a scourge of discipline into the hands of
+each, and presented his bare shoulders to the lashes which these
+ecclesiastics successively inflicted upon him.  Next day he received
+absolution; and departing for London, got soon after the agreeable
+intelligence of a great victory which his generals had obtained over
+the Scots, and which being gained, as was reported, on the very day of
+his absolution, was regarded as the earnest of his final
+reconciliation with Heaven and with Thomas à Becket.
+[FN [h] Heming, p. 501.]
+
+William, King of Scots, though repulsed before the castle of Prudhow,
+and other fortified places, had committed the most horrible
+depredations upon the northern provinces: but on the approach of Ralph
+de Glanville, the famous justiciary, seconded by Bernard de Baliol,
+Robert de Stuteville, Odonel de Umfreville, William de Vesci, and
+other northern barons, together with the gallant Bishop of Lincoln, he
+thought proper to retreat nearer his own country, and he fixed his
+camp at Alnwick.  He had here weakened his army extremely, by sending
+out numerous detachments in order to extend his ravages; and he lay
+absolutely safe, as he imagined, from any attack of the enemy.  But
+Glanville, informed of his situation, made a hasty and fatiguing march
+to Newcastle; and, allowing his soldiers only a small interval for
+refreshment, he immediately set out towards evening for Alnwick.  [MN
+13th July.]  He marched that night above thirty miles; arrived in the
+morning, under cover of a mist, near the Scottish camp; and regardless
+of the great numbers of the enemy, he began the attack with his small
+but determined body of cavalry.  William was living in such supine
+security that he took the English, at first, for a body of his own
+ravagers, who were returning to the camp; but the sight of their
+banners convincing him of his mistake, he entered on the action with
+no greater body than a hundred horse in confidence that the numerous
+army which surrounded him would soon hasten to his relief.  [MN
+William, King of Scotlamd, defeated and taken prisoner.]  He was
+dismounted on the first shock, and taken prisoner; while his troops,
+hearing of this disaster, fled on all sides with the utmost
+precipitation.  The dispersed ravagers made the best of their way to
+their own country; and discord arising among them, they proceeded even
+to mutual hostilities, and suffered more from each other's sword than
+from that of the enemy.
+
+This great and important victory proved at last decisive in favour of
+Henry, and entirely broke the spirit of the English rebels.  The
+Bishop of Durham, who was preparing to revolt, made his submissions;
+Hugh Bigod, though he had received a strong reinforcement of Flemings,
+was obliged to surrender all his castles, and throw himself on the
+king's mercy; no better resource was left to the Earl of Ferrars and
+Roger de Mowbray; the inferior rebels imitating the example, all
+England was restored to tranquillity in a few weeks; and as the king
+appeared to lie under the immediate protection of Heaven, it was
+deemed impious any longer to resist him.  The clergy exalted anew the
+merits and powerful intercession of Becket; and Henry, instead of
+opposing this superstition, plumed himself on the new friendship of
+the saint, and propagated an opinion which was so favourable to his
+interests [i].
+[FN [i] Hoveden, p. 539.]
+
+Prince Henry, who was ready to embark at Gravelines, with the Earl of
+Flanders and a great army, hearing that his partisans in England were
+suppressed, abandoned all thoughts of the enterprise, and joined the
+camp of Lewis, who, during the absence of the king, had made an
+irruption into Normandy, and had laid siege to Rouen [k].  The place
+was defended with great vigour by the inhabitants [l]; and Lewis,
+despairing of success by open force, tried to gain the town by a
+stratagem, which, in that superstitious age, was deemed not very
+honourable.  He proclaimed in his own camp a cessation of arms, on
+pretence of celebrating the festival of St. Laurence; and when the
+citizens, supposing themselves in safety, were so imprudent as to
+remit their guard, he proposed to take advantage of their security.
+Happily, some priests had, from mere curiosity, mounted a steeple
+where the alarm-bell hung; and, observing the French camp in motion,
+they immediately rang the bell, and gave warning to the inhabitants,
+who ran to their several stations.  The French who, on hearing the
+alarm, hurried to the assault, had already mounted the walls in
+several places; but being repulsed by the enraged citizens, were
+obliged to retreat with considerable loss [m].  Next day, Henry, who
+had hastened to the defence of his Norman dominions, passed over the
+bridge in triumph, and entered Rouen in sight of the French army.  The
+city was now in absolute safety; and the king, in order to brave the
+French monarch, commanded the gates, which had been walled up, to be
+opened; and he prepared to push his advantages against the enemy.
+Lewis saved himself from this perilous situation by a new piece of
+deceit, not so justifiable.  He proposed a conference for adjusting
+the terms of a general peace, which he knew would be greedily embraced
+by Henry; and while the king of England trusted to the execution of
+his promise, he made a retreat with his army into France.
+[FN [k] Brompton, p. 1096.  [l] Diceto, p. 578.  [m] Brompton, p.
+1096.  Neubrig. p. 411.  Heming, p. 503.]
+
+There was, however, a necessity on both sides for an accommodation.
+Henry could no longer bear to see his three sons in the hands of his
+enemy; and Lewis dreaded lest this great monarch, victorious in all
+quarters, crowned with glory, and absolute master of his dominions
+might take revenge for the many dangers and disquietudes which the
+arms, and still more the intrigues of France had, in his disputes both
+with Becket and his sons, found means to raise him.  After making a
+cessation of arms, a conference was agreed on near Tours; where Henry
+granted his sons much less advantageous terms than he had formerly
+offered, and he received their submissions.  [MN The king's
+accommodation with his sons.]  The most material of his concessions
+were some pensions which he stipulated to pay them, and some castles
+which he granted them for the place of their residence; together with
+an indemnity for all their adherents, who were restored to their
+estates and honours [n].
+[FN [n] Rymer, vol. i. p. 35.  Bened. Abb. p. 88.  Hoveden, p. 540.
+Diceto, p. 584.  Brompton, p. 1098.  Heming. p. 505.  Chron. Dunst. p.
+36.]
+
+Of all those who had embraced the cause of the young princes, William,
+King of Scotland, was the only considerable loser by that invidious
+and unjust enterprise.  Henry delivered from confinement, without
+exacting any ransom, about nine hundred knights whom he had taken
+prisoners; but it cost William the ancient independency of his crown
+as the price of his liberty.  He stipulated to do homage to Henry for
+Scotland, and all his other possessions; he engaged that all the
+barons and nobility of his kingdom should also do homage; that the
+bishops should take an oath of fealty; that both should swear to
+adhere to the King of England against their native prince, if the
+latter should break his engagements; and that the fortresses of
+Edinburgh, Stirling, Berwick, Roxburgh, and Jedburgh, should be
+delivered into Henry's hands, till the performance of articles [o].
+[MN 1175.  10th Aug.]  This severe and humiliating treaty was excuted
+in its full rigour.  William, being released, brought up all his
+barons, prelates, and abbots; and they did homage to Henry in the
+cathedral of York, and acknowledged him and his successors for their
+superior lord [p].  The English monarch stretched still farther the
+rigour of the conditions which he exacted.  He engaged the king and
+states of Scotland to make a perpetual cession of the fortresses of
+Berwick and Roxburgh, and to allow the castle of Edinburgh to remain
+in his hands for a limited time.  This was the first great ascendancy
+which England obtained over Scotland; and indeed the first important
+transaction which had passed between the kingdoms.  Few princes have
+been so fortunate as to gain considerable advantages over their weaker
+neighbours with less violence and injustice than was practised by
+Henry against the King of Scots, whom he had taken prisoner in battle,
+and who had wantonly engaged in a war, in which all the neighbours of
+that prince, and even his own family, were, without provocation,
+combined against him [q].
+[FN [o] M. Paris, p. 91.  Chron. Dunst. p. 36.  Hoveden, p. 545.  M.
+West. p. 251.  Diceto, p. 584.  Brompton, p. 1103.  Rymer, vol. i. p.
+39.  Liber Niger Scaccarii, p. 36.  [p] Bened. Abb. p. 113.  [q] Some
+Scotch historians pretend that William paid, besides, 100,000 pounds
+of ransom, which is quite incredible.  The ransom of Richard I., who,
+besides England, possessed so many rich territories in France, was
+only 150,000 marks, and yet was levied with great difficulty.  Indeed,
+two-thirds of it only could he paid before his deliverance.]
+
+[MN 1175.  King’s equitable administration.]
+Henry having thus, contrary to expectation, extricated himself with
+honour from a situation in which his throne was exposed to great
+danger, was employed for several years in the administration of
+justice, in the execution of the laws, and in guarding against those
+inconveniences, which either the past convulsions of his state, or the
+political institutions of that age, unavoidably occasioned.  The
+provisions which he made show such largeness of thought as qualified
+him for being a legislator; and they were commonly calculated as well
+for the future as the present happiness of his kingdom.
+
+[MN 1176.]  He enacted severe penalties against robbery, murder, false
+coining, arson; and ordained that these crimes should be punished by
+the amputation of the right hand and right foot [r].  The pecuniary
+commutation for crimes which has a false appearance of lenity, had
+been gradually disused, and seems to have been entirely abolished by
+the rigour of these statutes.  The superstitious trial by water
+ordeal, though condemned by the church [s], still subsisted; but Henry
+ordained, that any man accused of murder, or any heinous felony, by
+the oath of the legal knights of the county, should, even though
+acquitted by the ordeal, be obliged to abjure the realm [t].
+[FN [r] Bened. Abb. p. 132.  Hoveden, p. 549.  [s] Seld. Spicileg. ad
+Eadm. p. 204.  [t] Bened. Abb. p. 132.]
+
+All advances towards reason and good sense are slow and gradual.
+Henry, though sensible of the great absurdity attending the trial by
+duel or battle, did not venture to abolish it: he only admitted either
+of the parties to challenge a trial by an assize or jury of twelve
+freeholders [u].  This latter method of trial seems to have been very
+ancient in England, and was fixed by the laws of King Alfred: but the
+barbarous and violent genius of the age had of late given more credit
+to the trial by battle, which had become the general method of
+deciding all important controversies.  It was never abolished by law
+in England; and there is an instance of it so late as the reign of
+Elizabeth; but the institution revived by this king, being found more
+reasonable and more suitable to a civilized people, gradually
+prevailed over it.
+[FN [u] Glanv. lib. 2. cap. 7.]
+
+The partition of England into four divisions, and the appointment of
+itinerant justices to go the circuit in each division, and to decide
+the causes in the counties, was another important ordinance of this
+prince, which had a direct tendency to curb the oppressive barons, and
+to protect the inferior gentry and common people in their property
+[w].  Those justices were either prelates or considerable noblemen;
+who, besides carrying the authority of the king's commission, were
+able, by the dignity of their own character, to give weight and credit
+to the laws.
+[FN [w] Hoveden, p. 590.]
+
+That there might be fewer obstacles to the execution of justice, the
+king was vigilant in demolishing all the new-erected castles of the
+nobility, in England as well as in his foreign dominions; and he
+permitted no fortress to remain in the custody of those whom he found
+reason to suspect [x].
+[FN [x] Benedict. Abbas, p. 202.  Diceto, p. 585.]
+
+But lest the kingdom should be weakened by this demolition of the
+fortresses, the king fixed an assize of arms, by which all his
+subjects were obliged to put themselves in a situation for defending
+themselves and the realm.  Every man possessed of a knight's fee was
+ordained to have for each fee a coat of mail, a helmet, a shield, and
+a lance; every free layman, possessed of goods to the value of sixteen
+marks, was to be armed in like manner; every one that possessed ten
+marks was obliged to have an iron gorget, a cap of iron, and a lance;
+all burgesses were to have a cap of iron, a lance, and a wambais; that
+is, a coat quilted with wool, tow, or such like materials [y].  It
+appears that archery, for which the English were afterwards so
+renowned, had not, at this time, become very common among them.  The
+spear was the chief weapon employed in battle.
+[FN [y] Bened. Abb. p. 305  Annal. Waverl. p. 161.]
+
+The clergy and the laity were, during that age, in a strange situation
+with regard to each other, and such as may seem totally incompatible
+with a civilized, and, indeed, with any species of government.  If a
+clergyman were guilty of murder, he could be punished by degradation
+only: if he were murdered, the murderer was exposed to nothing but
+excommunication and ecclesiastical censures; and the crime was atoned
+for by penances and submission [z].  Hence the assassins of Thomas à
+Becket himself, though guilty of the most atrocious wickedness, and
+the most repugnant to the sentiments of that age, lived securely in
+their own houses, without being called to account by Henry himself,
+who was so much concerned, both in honour and interest, to punish that
+crime, and who professed, or affected on all occasions, the most
+extreme abhorrence of it.  It was not till they found their presence
+shunned by every one as excommunicated persons that they were induced
+to take a journey to Rome, to throw themselves at the feet of the
+pontiff, and to submit to the penances imposed upon them: after which
+they continued to possess, without molestation, their honours and
+fortunes, and seemed even to have recovered the countenance and good
+opinion of the public.  But as the king, by the constitutions of
+Clarendon, which he endeavoured still to maintain [a], had subjected
+the clergy to a trial by the civil magistrate, it seemed but just to
+give them the protection of that power to which they owed obedience;
+it was enacted, that the murderers of clergymen should be tried before
+the justiciary, in the presence of the bishop or his official; and
+besides the usual punishment for murder, should be subjected to a
+forfeiture of their estates, and a confiscation of their goods and
+chattels [b].
+[FN [z] Petri Blessen. epist. 73. apud Bibl. Patr. tom. xxiv. p. 992.
+[a] Chron. Gervase, p. 1433.  [b] Diceto, p. 592.  Chron. Gervase,
+1433.]
+
+The king passed an equitable law, that the goods of a vassal should
+not be seized for the debt of his lord, unless the vassal be surety
+for the debt; and that the rents of vassals should be paid to the
+creditors of the lord, not to the lord himself.  It is remarkable that
+this law was enacted by the king in a council which he held at
+Verneuil, and which consisted of some prelates and barons of England,
+as well as some of Normandy, Poictou, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and
+Britany; and the statute took place in all these last-mentioned
+territories [c], though totally unconnected with each other [d]; a
+certain proof how irregular the ancient feudal government was, and how
+near the sovereigns, in some instances, approached to despotism,
+though in others they seemed scarcely to possess any authority.  If a
+prince, much dreaded and revered, like Henry, obtained but the
+appearance of general consent to an ordinance which was equitable and
+just, it became immediately an established law, and all his subjects
+acquiesced in it.  If the prince was hated or despised; if the nobles
+who supported him had small influence; if the humours of the times
+disposed the people to question the justice of his ordinance; the
+fullest and most authentic assembly had no authority.  Thus all was
+confusion and disorder; no regular idea of a constitution; force and
+violence decided every thing.
+[FN [c] Bened. Abb. p. 248. It was usual for the kings of England,
+after the conquest of Ireland, to summon barons and members of that
+country to the English Parliament.  Mollineux's case of Ireland, p.
+64, 65, 66.  [d] Spellman even doubts whether the law were not also
+extended to England.  If it were not, it could only be because Henry
+did not choose it; for his authority was greater in that kingdom than
+in his transmarine dominions.]
+
+The success which had attended Henry in his wars did not much
+encourage his neighbours to form any attempt against him; and his
+transactions with them during several years, contain little memorable.
+Scotland remained in that state of feudal subjection to which he had
+reduced it, and gave him no farther inquietude.  He sent over his
+fourth son, John, into Ireland, with a view of making a more complete
+conquest of the island; but the petulance and incapacity of this
+prince, by which he enraged the Irish chieftains, obliged the king
+soon after to recall him [e].  The King of France had fallen into an
+abject superstition; and was induced, by a devotion more sincere than
+that of Henry, to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Becket, in order to
+obtain his intercession for the cure of Philip, his eldest son.  He
+probably thought himself well entitled to the favour of that saint on
+account of their ancient intimacy; and hoped that Becket, whom he had
+protected while on earth, would not now, when he was so highly exalted
+in heaven, forgot his old friend and benefactor.  The monks, sensible
+that their saint's honour was concerned in the case, failed not to
+publish that Lewis's prayers were answered, and that the young prince
+was restored to health by Becket's intercession.  That king himself
+was soon after struck with an apoplexy, which deprived him of his
+understanding: Philip, though a youth of fifteen, took on him the
+administration, till his father's death, which happened soon after,
+opened his way to the throne; and he proved the ablest and greatest
+monarch that had governed that kingdom since the age of Charlemagne.
+The superior years, however, and experience of Henry, while they
+moderated his ambition, gave him such an ascendant over this prince,
+that no dangerous rivalship, for a long time, arose between them.  [MN
+1180.]  The English monarch, instead of taking advantage of his own
+situation, rather employed his good offices in composing the quarrels
+which arose in the royal family of France; and he was successful in
+mediating a reconciliation between Philip and his mother and uncles.
+These services were but ill requited by Philip, who, when he came to
+man's estate, fomented all the domestic discords in the royal family
+of England, and encouraged Henry's sons in their ungrateful and
+undutiful behaviour towards him.
+[FN [e] Bened. Abb. p. 437, &c.]
+
+Prince Henry, equally impatient of obtaining power, and incapable of
+using it, renewed to the king the demand of his resigning Normandy;
+and on meeting with a refusal, he fled with his consort to the court
+of France: but not finding Philip at that time disposed to enter into
+war for his sake, he accepted of his father's offers of
+reconciliation, and made him submissions.  It was a cruel circumstance
+in the king's fortune, that he could hope for no tranquillity from the
+criminal enterprises of his sons but by their mutual discord and
+animosities, which disturbed his family, and threw his state into
+convulsions.  Richard, whom he had made master of Guienne, and who had
+displayed his valour and military genius by suppressing the revolts of
+his mutinous barons, refused to obey Henry's orders, in doing homage
+to his elder brother for that duchy, and he defended himself against
+young Henry and Geoffrey, who, uniting their  arms, carried war into
+his territories [f].  The king, with some difficulty, composed this
+difference; but immediately found his eldest son engaged in
+conspiracies, and ready to take arms against himself.  While the young
+prince was conducting these criminal intrigues, he was seized with a
+fever at Martel, [MN 1183.] a castle near Turenne, to which he had
+retired in discontent; and seeing the approaches of death, he was at
+last struck with remorse for his undutiful behaviour towards his
+father.  He sent a message to the king, who was not far distant;
+expressed his contrition for his faults; and entreated the favour of a
+visit, that he might at least die with the satisfaction of having
+obtained his forgiveness.  Henry, who had so often experienced the
+prince's ingratitude and violence, apprehended that his sickness was
+entirely feigned, and he durst not intrust himself into his son's
+hands: but when he soon after received intelligence of young Henry's
+death, [MN 11th June.  Death of young Henry.] and the proofs of his
+sincere repentance, this good prince was affected with the deepest
+sorrow; he thrice fainted away; he accused his own hard-heartedness in
+refusing the dying request of his son; and he lamented that he had
+deprived that prince of the last opportunity of making atonement for
+his offences, and of pouring out his soul in the bosom of his
+reconciled father [s].  This prince died in the twenty-eighth year of
+his age.
+[FN [f] Ypod. Neust. p. 451.  Bened. Abb. p. 383.  Diceto, p. 617.
+[g] Bened. Abb. p. 393.  Hoveden, p. 621.  Trivet, vol. i. p. 84.]
+
+The behaviour of his surviving children did not tend to give the king
+any consolation for the loss.  As Prince Henry had left no posterity,
+Richard was become heir to all his dominions; and the king intended
+that John, his third surviving son and favourite, should inherit
+Guienne as his appanage; but Richard refused his consent, fled into
+that duchy, and even made preparations for carrying on war, as well
+against his father as against his brother Geoffrey, who was now put in
+possession of Britany.  Henry sent for Eleanor his queen, the heiress
+of Guienne, and required Richard to deliver up to her the dominion of
+these territories; which the prince, either dreading an insurrection
+of the Gascons in her favour, or retaining some sense of duty towards
+her, readily performed; and he peaceably returned to his father's
+court.  No sooner was this quarrel accommodated, than Geoffrey, the
+most vicious perhaps of all Henry's unhappy family, broke out into
+violence; demanded Anjou to be annexed to his dominions of Britany;
+and on meeting with a refusal, fled to the court of France, and levied
+forces against his father [h].  [MN 1185.]  Henry was freed from this
+danger by his son's death, who was killed in a tournament at Paris
+[i].  The widow of Geoffrey, soon after his decease, was delivered of
+a son, who received the name of Arthur, and was invested in the duchy
+of Britany, under the guardianship of his grandfather, who, as Duke of
+Normandy, was also superior lord of that territory.  Philip, as lord
+paramount, disputed some time his title to this wardship; but was
+obliged to yield to the inclinations of the Bretons, who preferred the
+government of Henry.
+[FN [h] Neubrig. p. 422.  [i] Bened. Abb. p. 451  Chron. Gervase, p.
+1480.]
+
+[MN Crusades.]
+But the rivalship between these potent princes, and all their inferior
+interests, seemed now to have given place to the general passion for
+the relief of the Holy Land, and the expulsion of the Saracens.  Those
+infidels, though obliged to yield to the immense inundation of
+Christians in the first crusade, had recovered courage after the
+torrent was past; and attacking on all quarters the settlements of the
+Europeans, had reduced these adventurers to great difficulties, and
+obliged them to apply again for succours from the West.  A second
+crusade, under the Emperor Conrade and Lewis VII., King of France, in
+which there perished above two hundred thousand men, brought them but
+a temporary relief; and those princes, after losing such immense
+armies, and seeing the flower of their nobility fall by their side,
+returned with little honour into Europe.  But these repeated
+misfortunes, which drained the western world of its people and
+treasure, were not yet sufficient to cure men of their passion for
+those spiritual adventures; and a new incident rekindled with fresh
+fury the zeal of the ecclesiastics and military adventurers among the
+Latin Christians.  Saladin, a prince of great generosity, bravery, and
+conduct, having fixed himself on the throne of Egypt, began to extend
+his conquests over the East; and finding the settlement of the
+Christians in Palestine an invincible obstacle to the progress of his
+arms, he bent the whole force of his policy and valour to subdue that
+small and barren, but important territory.  Taking advantage of
+dissensions which prevailed among the champions of the cross, and
+having secretly gained the Count of Tripoli, who commanded their
+armies, he invaded the frontiers with a mighty power; and, aided by
+the treachery of that count, gained over them at Tiberiade a complete
+victory, which utterly annihilated the force of the already
+languishing kingdom of Jerusalem.  The holy city itself fell into his
+hands, after a feeble resistance; the kingdom of Antioch was almost
+entirely subdued; and except some maritime towns, nothing considerable
+remained of those boasted conquests, which, near a century before, it
+had cost the efforts of all Europe to acquire [k].
+[FN [k] M. Paris, p. 100.]
+
+[MN 1187.]  The western Christians were astonished on receiving this
+dismal intelligence.  Pope Urban III, it is pretended, died of grief,
+and his successor, Gregory VIII., employed the whole time of his short
+pontificate in rousing to arms all the Christians who acknowledged his
+authority.  The general cry was, that they were unworthy of enjoying
+any inheritance in heaven, who did not vindicate from the dominion of
+the infidel the inheritance of God on earth, and deliver from slavery
+that country which had been consecrated by the footsteps of their
+Redeemer.  [MN 1188.  21st Jan.]  William, Archbishop of Tyre, having
+procured a conference between Henry and Philip near Gisors, enforced
+all these topics; gave a pathetic description of the miserable state
+of the eastern Christians, and employed every argument to excite the
+ruling passions of the age, superstition and jealousy of military
+honour [l].  The two monarchs immediately took the cross; many of
+their most considerable vassals imitated the example [m]; and as the
+Emperor Frederick I. entered into the same confederacy, some
+well-grounded hopes of success were entertained; and men flattered
+themselves that an enterprise which had failed under the conduct of
+many independent leaders, or of impruddent princes, might, at last, by
+the efforts of such potent and able monarchs, be brought to a happy
+issue.
+[FN [l] Bened. Abb. p. 531.  [m] Neubrig. p. 435.  Heming, p. 512.]
+
+The kings of France and England imposed a tax, amounting to the tenth
+of all moveable goods on such as remained at home [n]; but as they
+exempted from this burden most of the regular clergy, the secular
+aspired to the same immunity; pretended that their duty obliged them
+to assist the crusade with their prayers alone; and it was with some
+difficulty they were constrained to desist from an opposition, which
+in them who had been the chief promoters of those pious enterprises,
+appeared with the worst grace imaginable [o].  This backwardness of
+the clergy is perhaps a symptom, that the enthusiastic ardour which
+had at first seized the people for crusades, was now by time and ill
+success considerably abated; and that the frenzy was chiefly supported
+by the military genius and love of glory in the monarchs.
+[FN [n] Bened. Abb. p. 498.  [o] Petri Blessen. epist. 112.]
+
+But before this great machine could be put in motion, there were still
+many obstacles to surmount.  Philip, jealous of Henry's power, entered
+into a private confederacy with young Richard; and, working on his
+ambitious and impatient temper, persuaded him, instead of supporting
+and aggrandizing that monarchy which he was one day to inherit, to
+seek present power and independence by disturbing and dismembering it.
+[MN 1189.  Revolt of Prince Richard.]  In order to give a pretence for
+hostilities between the two kings, Richard broke into the territories
+of Raymond, Count of Toulouse, who immediately carried complaints of
+this violence before the King of France as his superior lord.  Philip
+remonstrated with Henry; but received for answer, that Richard had
+confessed to the Archbishop of Dublin, that his enterprise against
+Raymond had been undertaken by the approbation of Philip himself, and
+was conducted by his authority.  The King of France, who might have
+been covered with shame and confusion by this detection, still
+prosecuted his design, and invaded the provinces of Berri and
+Auvergne, under colour of revenging the quarrel of the Count of
+Toulouse [p].  Henry retaliated by making inroads upon the frontiers
+of France, and burning Dreux.  As this war, which destroyed all hopes
+of success in the projected crusade, gave great scandal, the two kings
+held a conference at the accustomed place between Gisors and Trie, in
+order to find means of accommodating their differences: they separated
+on worse terms than before; and Philip, to show his disgust, ordered a
+great elm, under which the conferences had been usually held, to be
+cut down [q]; as if he had renounced all desire of accommodation, and
+was determined to carry the war to extremities against the King of
+England.  But his own vassals refused to serve under him in so
+invidious a cause [r]; and he was obliged to come anew to a conference
+with Henry, and to offer terms of peace.  These terms were such as
+entirely opened the eyes of the King of England, and fully convinced
+him of the perfidy of his son, and his secret alliance with Philip, of
+which he had before only entertained some suspicion.  The King of
+France required that Richard should be crowned King of England in the
+lifetime of his father, should be invested in all his transmarine
+dominions, and should immediately espouse Alice, Philip's sister, to
+whom he had formerly been affianced, and who had already been
+conducted into England [s].  Henry had experienced such fatal effects
+both from the crowning of his eldest son, and from that prince's
+alliance with the royal family of France, that he rejected these
+terms; and Richard, in consequence of his secret agreement with
+Philip, immediately revolted from him [t], did homage to the King of
+France for all the dominions which Henry held of that crown, and
+received the investitures as if he had already been the lawful
+possessor.  Several historians assert, that Henry himself had become
+enamoured of young Alice and mention this as an additional reason for
+his refusing these conditions: but he had so many other just and
+equitable motives for his conduct, that it is superfluous to assign a
+cause, which the great prudence and advanced age of that monarch
+rendered somewhat improbable.
+[FN [p] Bened. Abb. p. 508.  [q] Bened. Abb. p. 517, 532.  [r] Ibid.
+p. 519.  [s] Ibid. p. 521.  Hoveden, p. 652.  [t] Brompton, p. 114.
+Neubrig. p. 437.]
+
+Cardinal Albano, the pope's legate, displeased with these increasing
+obstacles to the crusade, excommunicated Richard, as the chief spring
+of discord: but the sentence of excommunication, which, when it was
+properly prepared, and was zealously supported by the clergy, had
+often great influence in that age, proved entirely ineffectual in the
+present case.  The chief barons of Poictou, Guienne, Normandy, and
+Anjou, being attached to the young prince, and finding that he had now
+received the investiture from their superior lord, declared for him,
+and made inroads into the territories of such as still adhered to the
+king.  Henry, disquieted by the daily revolts of his mutinous
+subjects, and dreading still worse effects from their turbulent
+disposition, had again recourse to papal authority; and engaged the
+Cardinal Anagni, who had succeeded Albano in the legateship, to
+threaten Philip with laying an interdict on all his dominions.  But
+Philip, who was a prince of great vigour and capacity, despised the
+menace, and told Anagni, that it belonged not to the pope to interpose
+in the temporal disputes of princes, much less in those between him
+and his rebellious vassal.  He even proceeded so far as to reproach
+him with partiality, and with receiving bribes from the king of
+England [u]; while Richard, still more outrageous, offered to draw his
+sword against the legate, and was hindered by the interposition alone
+of the company from committing violence upon him [w].
+[FN [u] M. Paris, p. 104.  Bened. Abb. p. 542.  Hoveden, p. 652.  [w]
+M. Paris, p. 104.]
+
+The King of England was now obliged to defend his dominions by arms,
+and to engage in a war with France, and with his eldest son, a prince
+of great valour, on such disadvantageous terms.  Ferté-Barnard fell
+first into the hands of the enemy: Mans was next taken by assault; and
+Henry, who had thrown himself into that place, escaped with some
+difficulty [x]: Amboise, Chaumont, and Chateau de Loire, opened their
+gates on the appearance of Philip and Richard: Tours was menaced; and
+the king, who had retired to Saumur, and had daily instances of the
+cowardice or infidelity of his governors, expected the most dismal
+issue to all his enterprises.  While he was in this state of
+despondency, the Duke of Burgundy, the Earl of Flanders, and the
+Archbishop of Rheims, interposed with their good offices; and the
+intelligence which he received of the taking of Tours, and which made
+him fully sensible of the desperate situation of his affairs, so
+subdued his spirit that he submitted to all the rigorous terms which
+were imposed upon him.  He agreed that Richard should marry the
+Princess Alice; that that prince should receive the homage and oath of
+fealty of all his subjects both in England and his transmarine
+dominions; that he himself should pay twenty thousand marks to the
+King of France as a compensation for the charges of the war; that his
+own barons should engage to make him observe this treaty by force, and
+in case of his violating it, should promise to join Philip and Richard
+against him; and that all his vassals who had entered into confederacy
+with Richard, should receive an indemnity for the offence [y].
+[FN [x] Ibid. p. 105.  Bened. Abb. p. 543.  Hoveden, p. 653.  [y] M.
+Paris, p. 106.  Bened. Abb. p. 545.  Hoveden, p. 653.]
+
+But the mortification which Henry, who had been accustomed to give the
+law in most treaties, received from these disadvantageous terms, was
+the least that he met with on this occasion.  When he demanded a list
+of those barons, to whom he was bound to grant a pardon for their
+connexions with Richard, he was astonished to find at the head of them
+the name of his second son John [z]; who had always been his
+favourite, whose interests he had ever anxiously at heart, and who had
+even, on account of his ascendant over him, often excited the jealousy
+of Richard [a].  The unhappy father, already overloaded with cares and
+sorrows, finding this last disappointment in his domestic tenderness,
+broke out into expressions of the utmost despair, cursed the day in
+which he received his miserable being, and bestowed on his ungrateful
+and undutiful children a malediction which he never could be prevailed
+on to retract [b].  The more his heart was disposed to friendship and
+affection, the more he resented the barbarous return which his four
+sons had successively made to his parental care; and this finishing
+blow, by depriving him of every comfort in life, quite broke his
+spirit and threw him into a lingering fever, of which he expired at
+the Castle of Chinon, near Saumur.  [MN 1189.  6th July.  Death,]  His
+natural son Geoffrey, who alone had behaved dutifully towards him,
+attended his corpse to the nunnery of Fontevrault; where it lay in
+state in the abbey church.  Next day Richard, who came to visit the
+dead body of his father, and who, notwithstanding his criminal
+conduct, was not wholly destitute of generosity, was struck with
+horror and remorse at the sight; and as the attendants observed, that,
+at that very instant, blood gushed from the mouth and nostrils of the
+corpse [c], he exclaimed, agreeably to a vulgar superstition, that he
+was his father's murderer; and he expressed a deep sense, though too
+late, of that undutiful behaviour which had brought his parent to an
+untimely grave [d].
+[FN [z] Hoveden. p. 654.  [a] Bened. Abb. p. 541.  [b] Hoveden, p.
+654.  [c] Bened. Abb. p. 547.  Brompton, p. 1151.  [d] M. Paris, p.
+107.]
+
+[MN and character of Henry.]  Thus died, in the fifty-eighth year of
+his age, and thirty-fifth of his reign, the greatest prince of his
+time, for wisdom, virtue, and abilities, and the most powerful in
+extent of dominion of all those that had ever filled the throne of
+England.  His character, in private as well as in public life, is
+almost without a blemish; and he seems to have possessed every
+accomplishment, both of body and mind, which makes a man either
+estimable or amiable.  He was of a middle stature, strong and well
+proportioned; his countenance was lively and engaging; his
+conversation affable and entertaining; his elocution easy, persuasive,
+and ever at command.  He loved peace, but possessed both bravery and
+conduct in war; was provident without timidity; severe in the
+execution of justice without rigour; and temperate without austerity.
+He preserved health, and kept himself from corpulency, to which he was
+somewhat inclined, by an abstemious diet and by frequent exercise,
+particularly hunting.  When he could enjoy leisure, he recreated
+himself either in learned conversation or in reading; and he
+cultivated his natural talents by study, above any prince of his time.
+His affections, as well as his enmities, were warm and durable; and
+his long experience of the ingratitude and infidelity of men never
+destroyed the natural sensibility of his temper, which disposed him to
+friendship and society.  His character has been transmitted to us by
+several writers who were his contemporaries [e]; and it extremely
+resembles, in its most remarkable features, that of his maternal
+grandfather Henry I.: excepting only that ambition, which was a ruling
+passion in both, found not in the first Henry such unexceptionable
+means of exerting itself, and pushed that prince into measures which
+were both criminal in themselves, and were the cause of farther
+crimes, from which his grandson’s conduct was happily exempted.
+[FN [e] Petri Bles. epist. 46, 47. in Bibliotheca Patrum, vol. xxiv.
+p. 985, 986, &c.  Girald. Camb. p. 783, &c.]
+
+[MN Miscellaneous transactions of this reign.]
+This prince, like most of his predecessors of the Norman line, except
+Stephen, passed more of his time on the continent than in this island:
+he was surrounded with the English gentry and nobility, when abroad:
+the French gentry and nobility attended him when he resided in
+England: both nations acted in the government as if they were the same
+people: and, on many occasions, the legislatures seem not to have been
+distinguished.  As the king and all the English barons were of French
+extraction, the manners of that people acquired the ascendant, and
+were regarded as the models of imitation.  All foreign improvements,
+therefore, such as they were, in literature and politeness, in laws
+and arts, seem now to have been, in a good measure, transplanted into
+England; and that kingdom was become little inferior, in all the
+fashionable accomplishments, to any of its neighbours on the
+continent.  The more homely but more sensible manners and principles
+of the Saxons were exchanged for the affectations of chivalry, and the
+subtleties of school philosophy: the feudal ideas of civil government,
+the Romish sentiments in religion, had taken entire possession of the
+people: by the former, the sense of submission towards princes was
+somewhat diminished in the barons; by the latter the devoted
+attachment to papal authority was much augmented among the clergy.
+The Norman and other foreign families established in England had now
+struck deep root; and being entirely incorporated with the people,
+whom at first they oppressed and despised, they no longer thought that
+they needed  protection of the crown for the enjoyment of their
+possessions, or considered their tenure as precarious.  They aspired
+to the same liberty and independence which they saw enjoyed by their
+brethren on the continent, and desired to restrain those exorbitant
+prerogatives and arbitrary practices, which the necessities of war and
+the violence of conquest had at first obliged them to indulge in their
+monarch.  That memory also of a more equal government under the Saxon
+princes, which remained with the English, diffused still farther the
+spirit of liberty, and made the barons both desirous of more
+independence to themselves, and willing to indulge it to the people.
+And it was not long ere this secret revolution in the sentiments of
+men produced, first violent convulsions in the state, then an evident
+alteration in the maxims of government.
+
+The history of all the preceding Kings of England since the Conquest
+gives evident proofs of the disorders attending the feudal
+institutions; the licentiousness of the barons, their spirit of
+rebellion against the prince and laws, and of animosity against each
+other: the conduct of the barons in the transmarine dominions of those
+monarchs afforded perhaps still more flagrant instances of these
+convulsions; and the history of France, during several ages, consists
+almost entirely of narrations of this nature.  The cities, during the
+continuance of this violent government, could neither be very numerous
+nor populous; and there occur instances which seem to evince, that
+though these are always the first seat of law and liberty, their
+police was in general loose and irregular, and exposed to the same
+disorders with those by which the country was generally infested.  It
+was a custom in London for great numbers, to the amount of a hundred
+or more, the sons and relations of considerable citizens, to form
+themselves into a licentious confederacy, to break into rich houses
+and plunder them, to rob and murder the passengers, and to commit with
+impunity all sorts of disorder.  By these crimes, it had become so
+dangerous to walk the streets by night, that the citizens durst no
+more venture abroad after sunset than if they had been exposed to the
+incursions of a public enemy.  The brother of the Earl of Ferrars had
+been murdered by some of those nocturnal rioters; and the death of so
+eminent a person, which was much more regarded than that of many
+thousands of an inferior station, so provoked the king, that he swore
+vengeance against the criminals and became thenceforth more rigorous
+in the execution of the laws [f].
+[FN [f] Bened. Abb. p. 196.]
+
+There is another instance given by historians, which proves to what a
+height such riots had proceeded, and how open these criminals were in
+committing their robberies.  A band of them had attacked the house of
+a rich citizen, with an intention of plundering it; had broken through
+a stone wall with hammers and wedges; and had already entered the
+house sword in hand; when the citizen armed cap-a-pie, and supported
+by his faithful servants, appeared in the passage to oppose them; he
+cut off the right hand of the first robber that entered; and made such
+stout resistance, that his neighbours had leisure to assemble, and
+come to his relief.  The man who lost his hand was taken; and was
+tempted by the promise of pardon to reveal his confederates; among
+whom was one John Senex, esteemed among the richest and best-born
+citizens in London.  He was convicted by the ordeal; and though he
+offered five hundred marks for his life, the king refused the money,
+and ordered him to be hanged [g].  It appears from a statute of Edward
+I. that these disorders were not remedied even in that reign.  It was
+then made penal to go out at night after the hour of the curfew, to
+carry a weapon, or to walk without a light or lantern [h].  It is said
+in the preamble to this law, that, both by night and by day, there
+were continual frays in the streets of London.
+[FN [g] Ibid. p. 197, 198.  [h] Observations on the ancient Statutes,
+p. 216.]
+
+Henry's care in administering justice had gained him so great a
+reputation, that even foreign and distant princes made him arbiter,
+and submitted their differences to his judgment.  Sanchez, King of
+Navarre, having some controversies with Alphonso, King of Castile, was
+contented, though Alphonso had married the daughter of Henry, to
+choose this prince for a referee; and they agreed each of them to
+consign three castles into neutral hands as a pledge of their not
+departing from his award.  Henry  made the cause be examined before
+his great council, and gave a sentence, which was submitted to by both
+parties.  These two Spanish kings sent each a stout champion to the
+court of England, in order to defend his cause by arms, in case the
+way of duel had been chosen by Henry [i].
+[FN [i] Rymer, vol. iv. p. 43.  Bened. Abb. p. 172.  Diceto, p. 597.
+Brompton, p. 1120.]
+
+Henry so far abolished the barbarous and absurd practice of
+confiscating ships which had been wrecked on the coast, that he
+ordained, if one man or animal were alive in the ship, that the vessel
+and goods should be restored to the owners [k].
+[FN [k] Rymer, vol. i. p. 36.]
+
+The reign of Henry was remarkable also for an innovation which was
+afterwards carried farther by his successors, and was attended with
+the most important consequences.  This prince was disgusted with the
+species of military force which was established by the feudal
+institutions, and which, though it was extremely burdensome to the
+subject, yet rendered very little service to the sovereign.  The
+barons, or military tenants, came late into the field; they were
+obliged to serve only forty days; they were unskilful and disorderly
+in all their operations; and they were apt to carry into the camp the
+same refractory and independent spirit, to which they were accustomed
+in their civil government.  Henry, therefore, introduced the practice
+of making a commutation of their military service for money; and he
+levied scutages from his baronies and knights' fees, instead of
+requiring the personal attendance of his vassals.  There is mention
+made, in the History of the Exchequer, of these scutages in his
+second, fifth, and eighteenth year [l]; and other writers give us an
+account of three more of them [m].  When the prince had thus obtained
+money, he made a contract with some of those adventurers in which
+Europe at that time abounded: they found him soldiers of the same
+character with themselves, who were bound to serve for a stipulated
+time: the armies were less numerous, but more useful, than when
+composed of all the military vassals of the crown: the feudal
+institutions began to relax: the kings became rapacious for money, on
+which all their power depended: the barons, seeing no end of
+exactions, sought to defend their property: and as the same causes had
+nearly the same effects in the different countries of Europe, the
+several crowns either lost or acquired authority, according to their
+different success in the contest.
+[FN [l] Madox, p. 435, 436, 437, 438.  [m] Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 466,
+from the records.]
+
+This prince was also the first that levied a tax on the moveables or
+personal estates of his subjects, nobles as well as commons.  Their
+zeal for the holy wars made them submit to this innovation; and a
+precedent being once obtained, this taxation became, in following
+reigns, the usual method of supplying the necessities of the crown.
+The tax of Danegelt, so generally odious to the nation, was remitted
+in this reign.
+
+It was a usual practice of the Kings of England to repeat the ceremony
+of their coronation thrice every year, on assembling the states at the
+three great festivals.  Henry, after the first years of his reign,
+never renewed this ceremony, which was found to be very expensive and
+very useless.  None of his successors revived it.  It is considered as
+a great act of grace in this prince, that he mitigated the rigour of
+the forest laws, and punished any transgressions of them, not
+capitally, but by fines, imprisonments, and other more moderate
+penalties.
+
+Since we are here collecting some detached incidents which show the
+genius of the age, and which could not so well enter into the body of
+our history, it may not be improper to mention the quarrel between
+Roger, Archbishop of York, and Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury.  We
+may judge of the violence of military men and laymen, when
+ecclesiastics could proceed to such extremities.  Cardinal Haguezun
+being sent, in 1176, as legate into Britain, summoned an assembly of
+the clergy at London; and as both the archbishops pretended to sit on
+his right hand, this question of precedency begat a controversy
+between them.  The monks and retainers of Archbishop Richard fell upon
+Roger, in the presence of the cardinal and of the synod, threw him to
+the ground, trampled him under foot, and so bruised him with blows
+that he was taken up half dead, and his life was with difficulty saved
+from their violence.  The Archbishop of Canterbury was obliged to pay
+a large sum of money to the legate, in order to suppress all
+complaints with regard to this enormity [n].
+[FN [n] Bened. Abb. p. 138, 139.  Brompton, p. 1109.  Chron Gerv. p.
+1433.  Neubrig. p. 413.]
+
+We are told by Giraldus Cambrensis, that the monks and prior of St.
+Swithun threw themselves one day prostrate on the ground and in the
+mire before Henry, complaining, with many tears and much doleful
+lamentation, that the Bishop of Winchester, who was also their abbot,
+had cut off three dishes from their table.  How many has he left you?
+said the king.  Ten only, replied the disconsolate monks.  I myself,
+exclaimed the king, never have more than three; and I enjoin your
+bishop to reduce you to the same number [o].
+[FN [o] Gir. Camb. cap. 5. in Anglia Sacra, vol. ii.]
+
+This king left only two legitimate sons, Richard who succeeded him,
+and John who inherited no territory, though his father had often
+intended to leave him a part of his extensive dominions.  He was
+thence commonly denominated LACKLAND.  Henry left three legitimate
+daughters: Maud, born in 1156, and married to Henry, Duke of Saxony;
+Eleanor, born in 1162, and married to Alphonso, King of Castile; Joan,
+born in 1165, and married to William, King of Sicily [p].
+[FN [p] Diceto, p. 616.]
+
+Henry is said by ancient historians to have been of a very amorous
+disposition: they mention two of his natural sons by Rosamond,
+daughter of Lord Clifford; namely, Richard Longespee, or Longsword,
+(so called from the sword he usually wore,) who was afterwards married
+to Ela, the daughter and heir of the Earl of Salisbury; and Geoffrey,
+first Bishop of Lincoln, then Archbishop of York.  All the other
+circumstances of the story, commonly told of that lady, seem to be
+fabulous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+RICHARD I.
+
+THE KING'S PREPARATIONS FOR THE CRUSADE.--SETS OUT ON THE CRUSADE.--
+TRANSACTIONS IN SICILY.--KING'S ARRIVAL IN PALESTINE.--STATE OF
+PALESTINE.--DISORDERS IN ENGLAND.--THE KING'S HEROIC ACTIONS IN
+PALESTINE.--HIS RETURN FROM PALESTINE.--CAPTIVITY IN GERMANY.--WAR
+WITH FRANCE.--THE KING'S DELIVERY.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--WAR WITH
+FRANCE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF THE KING.--MISCELLANEOUS TRANSACTIONS
+OF THIS REIGN.
+
+
+
+[MN 1189.]  The compunction of Richard for his undutiful behaviour
+towards his father was durable, and influenced him in the choice of
+his ministers and servants after his accession.  Those who had
+seconded and favoured his rebellion, instead of meeting with that
+trust and honour which they expected, were surprised to find that they
+lay under disgrace with the new king, and were on all occasions hated
+and despised by him.  The faithful ministers of Henry, who had
+vigorously opposed all the enterprises of his sons, were received with
+open arms, and were continued in those offices which they had
+honourably discharged to their former master [a].  This prudent
+conduct might be the result of reflection; but in a prince like
+Richard, so much guided by passion, and so little by policy, it was
+commonly ascribed to a principle still more virtuous and more
+honourable.
+[FN [a] Hoveden, p. 655.  Bened. Abb. p. 547.  M. Paris, p. 107.]
+
+Richard, that he might make atonement to one parent for his breach of
+duty to the other, immediately sent orders for releasing the queen-
+dowager from the confinement in which she had long been detained; and
+he intrusted her with the government of England till his arrival in
+that kingdom.  His bounty to his brother John was rather profuse and
+imprudent.  Besides bestowing on him the county of Mortaigne, in
+Normandy, granting him a pension of four thousand marks a year, and
+marrying him to Avisa, the daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, by whom
+he inherited all the possessions of that opulent family, he increased
+his appanage, which the late king had destined him, by other extensive
+grants and concessions.  He conferred on him the whole estate of
+William Peverell, which had escheated to the crown: he put him in
+possession of eight castles, with all the forests and honours annexed
+to them: he delivered over to him no less than six earldoms, Cornwall,
+Devon, Somerset, Nottingham, Dorset, Lancaster, and Derby.  And
+endeavouring by favours, to fix that vicious prince in his duty, he
+put it too much in his power, whenever he pleased, to depart from it.
+
+[MN The king’s preparations for the crusade.]
+The king, impelled more by the love of military glory than by
+superstition, acted from the beginning of his reign, as if the sole
+purpose of his government had been the relief of the Holy Land, and
+the recovery of Jerusalem from the Saracens.  This zeal against
+infidels, being communicated to his subjects, broke out in London on
+the day of his coronation, and made them find a crusade less
+dangerous, and attended with more immediate profit.  The prejudices of
+the age had made the lending of money on interest pass by the
+invidious name of usury; yet the necessity of the practice had still
+continued it, and the greater part of that kind of dealing fell
+everywhere into the hands of the Jews; who being already infamous on
+account of their religion, had no honour to lose, and were apt to
+exercise a profession, odious in itself, by every kind of rigour, and
+even sometimes by rapine and extortion.  The industry and frugality of
+this people had put them in possession of all the ready money, which
+the idleness and profusion, common to the English with other European
+nations, enabled them to lend at exorbitant and unequal interest.  The
+monkish writers represent it as a great stain on the wise and
+equitable government of Henry, that he had carefully protected this
+infidel race from all injures and insults; but the zeal of Richard
+afforded the populace a pretence for venting their animosity against
+them.  The king had issued an edict prohibiting their appearance at
+his coronation; but some of them, bringing him large presents from
+their nation, presumed, in confidence of that merit, to approach the
+hall in which he dined: being discovered, they were exposed to the
+insults of the bystanders; they took to flight; the people pursued
+them; the rumour was spread that the king had issued orders to
+massacre all the Jews; a command so agreeable was executed in an
+instant on such as fell into the hands of the populace; those who had
+kept at home were exposed to equal danger; the people, moved by
+rapacity and zeal, broke into their houses, which they plundered,
+after having murdered the owners; where the Jews barricaded their
+doors, and defended themselves with vigour, the rabble set fire to the
+houses, and made way through the flames to exercise their pillage and
+violence; the usual licentiousness of London, which the sovereign
+power with difficulty restrained, broke out with fury, and continued
+these outrages; the houses of the richest citizens, though Christians,
+were next attacked and plundered; and weariness and satiety at last
+put an end to the disorder: yet, when the king empowered Glanville,
+the justiciary, to inquire into the authors of these crimes, the guilt
+was found to involve so many of the most considerable citizens, that
+it was deemed more prudent to drop the prosecution; and very few
+suffered the punishment due to this enormity.  But the disorder
+stopped not at London.  The inhabitants of the other cities of
+England, hearing of this slaughter of the Jews, imitated the example:
+in York, five hundred of that nation, who had retired into the castle
+for safety, and found themselves unable to defend the place, murdered
+their own wives and children, threw the dead bodies over the walls
+upon the populace, and then setting fire to the houses perished in the
+flames.  The gentry of the neighbourhood, who were all indebted to the
+Jews, ran to the cathedral, where their bonds were kept, and made a
+solemn bonfire of the papers before the altar.  The compiler of the
+Annals of Waverley, in relating these events, blesses the Almighty for
+thus delivering over this impious race to destruction [b].
+[FN [b] Gale's Collect. vol. iii. p. 165.]
+
+The ancient situation of England, when the people possessed little
+riches and the public no credit, made it impossible for sovereigns to
+bear the expense of a steady or durable war, even on their frontiers;
+much less could they find regular means for the support of distant
+expeditions like those into Palestine, which were more the result of
+popular frenzy than of sober reason or deliberate policy.  Richard,
+therefore, knew that he must carry with him all the treasure necessary
+for his enterprise, and that both the remoteness of his own country
+and its poverty made it unable to furnish him with those continued
+supplies, which the exigencies of so perilous a war must necessarily
+require.  His father had left him a treasure of above a hundred
+thousand marks; and the king, negligent of every consideration but his
+present object, endeavoured to augment this sum by all expedients, how
+pernicious soever to the public, or dangerous to royal authority.  He
+put to sale the revenues and manors of the crown; the offices of
+greatest trust and power, even those of forester and sheriff, which
+anciently were so important [c], became venal; the dignity of chief
+justiciary, in whose hands was lodged the whole execution of the laws,
+was sold to Hugh de Puzas, Bishop of Durham, for a thousand marks; the
+same prelate bought the earldom of Northumberland for life [d]; many
+of the champions of the cross, who had repented of the vow, purchased
+the liberty of violating it; and Richard, who stood less in need of
+men than of money, dispensed, on these conditions, with their
+attendance.  Elated with the hopes of fame, which, in that age,
+attended no wars but those against the infidels, he was blind to every
+other consideration; and when some of his wiser ministers objected to
+this dissipation of the revenue and power of the crown, he replied
+that he would sell London itself, could he find a purchaser [e].
+Nothing, indeed, could be a stronger proof how negligent he was of all
+future interests in comparison of the crusade, than his selling, for
+so small a sum as ten thousand marks, the vassalage of Scotland,
+together with the fortresses of Roxburgh and Berwick, the greatest
+acquisition that had been made by his father during the course of his
+victorious reign; and his accepting the homage of William in the usual
+terms, merely for the territories which that prince held in England
+[f].  The English of all ranks and stations were oppressed by numerous
+exactions; menaces were employed, both against the innocent and the
+guilty, in order to extort money from them; and where a pretence was
+wanting against the rich, the king obliged them, by the fear of his
+displeasure, to lend him sums which, he knew, it would never be in his
+power to repay.
+[FN [c] The sheriff had anciently both the administration of justice
+and the management of the king's revenue committed to him in the
+county. See HALE, OF SHERIFF’S ACCOUNTS.  [d] M. Paris, p. 109.  [e]
+W. Heming. p. 519.  Knyghton, p. 2402.  [f] Hoveden, p. 662.  Rymer,
+vol. i. p. 64.  M. West. p. 257.]
+
+But Richard, though he sacrificed every interest and consideration to
+the success of this pious enterprise, carried so little the appearance
+of sanctity in his conduct, that Fulk, curate of Neuilly, a zealous
+preacher of the crusade, who, from that merit, had acquired the
+privilege of speaking the boldest truths, advised him to rid himself
+of his notorious vices, particularly his pride, avarice, and
+voluptuousness, which he called the king's three favourite daughters.
+YOU COUNSEL WELL, replied Richard, and I HEREBY DISPOSE OF THE FIRST
+TO THE TEMPLARS, OF THE SECOND TO THE BENEDICTINES, AND OF THE THIRD
+TO MY PRELATES.
+
+Richard, jealous of attempts which might be made on England during his
+absence, laid Prince John, as well as his natural brother, Geoffrey,
+Archbishop of York, under engagements, confirmed by their oaths, that
+neither of them should enter the kingdom till his return; though he
+thought proper, before his departure, to withdraw this prohibition.
+The administration was left in the hands of Hugh, Bishop of Durham,
+and of Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, whom he appointed justiciaries and
+guardians of the realm.  The latter was a Frenchman, of mean birth,
+and of a violent character; who, by art and address, had insinuated
+himself into favour, whom Richard had created chancellor, and whom he
+had engaged the pope also to invest with the legatine authority, that,
+by centering every kind of power in his person, he might the better
+ensure the public tranquillity.  All the military and turbulent
+spirits flocked about the person of the king, and were impatient to
+distinguish themselves against the infidels in Asia; whither his
+inclinations, his engagements, led him, and whither he was impelled by
+messages from the King of France, ready to embark in this enterprise.
+
+The Emperor Frederic, a prince of great spirit and conduct, had
+already taken the road to Palestine, at the head of one hundred and
+fifty thousand men, collected from Germany and all the northern
+states.  Having surmounted every obstacle thrown in his way by the
+artifices of the Greeks and the power of the infidels, he had
+penetrated to the borders of Syria; when, bathing in the cold river
+Cydnus during the greatest heat of the summer season, he was seized
+with a mortal distemper, which put an end to his life and his rash
+enterprise [g].  His army, under the command of his son, Conrade,
+reached Palestine; but was so diminished by fatigue, famine, maladies,
+and the sword, that it scarcely amounted to eight thousand men; and
+was unable to make any progress against the great power, valour, and
+conduct of Saladin.  These reiterated calamities attending the
+crusades had taught the Kings of France and England the necessity of
+trying another road to the Holy Land; and they determined to conduct
+their armies thither by sea, to carry provisions along with them, and,
+by means of their naval power, to maintain an open communication with
+their own states, and with the western parts of Europe.  The place of
+rendezvous was appointed in the plains of Vezelay, on the borders of
+Burgundy [h]: [MN 1190.  29th June.] Philip and Richard, on their
+arrival there, found their combined army amount to one hundred
+thousand men [i]; a mighty force, animated with glory and religion,
+conducted by two warlike monarchs, provided with every thing which
+their several dominions could supply, and not to be overcome but by
+their own misconduct, or by the unsurmountable obstacles of nature.
+[FN [g] Bened. Abb. p. 556.  [h] Hoveden, p. 660.  [i] Vinisauf, p.
+305.]
+
+[MN King sets out on the crusade.]
+The French prince and the English here reiterated their promises of
+cordial friendship, pledged their faith not to invade each other's
+dominions during the crusade, mutually exchanged the oaths of all
+their barons and prelates to the same effect, and subjected themselves
+to the penalty of interdicts and excommunications, if they should ever
+violate this public and solemn engagement.  They then separated;
+Philip took the road to Genoa, Richard that to Marseilles, with a view
+of meeting their fleets, which were severally appointed to rendezvous
+in these harbours.  [MN 14th Sept.]  They put to sea; and, nearly
+about the same time, were obliged, by stress of weather, to take
+shelter in Messina, where they were detained during the whole winter.
+This incident laid the foundation of animosities which proved fatal to
+their enterprise.
+
+Richard and Philip were, by the situation and extent of their
+dominions, rivals in power; by their age and inclinations, competitors
+for glory; and these causes of emulation which, had the princes been
+employed in the field against the common enemy, might have stimulated
+them to martial enterprises, soon excited, during the present leisure
+and repose, quarrels between monarchs of such a fiery character.
+Equally haughty, ambitious, intrepid, and inflexible, they were
+irritated with the least appearance of injury, and were incapable, by
+mutual condescensions, to efface those causes of complaint, which
+unavoidably arose between them.  Richard, candid, sincere,
+undesigning, impolitic, violent, laid himself open, on every occasion,
+to the designs of his antagonist; who, provident, interested,
+intriguing, failed not to take all advantages against him: and thus,
+both the circumstances of their disposition in which they were
+similar, and those in which they differed, rendered it impossible for
+them to persevere in that harmony which was so necessary to the
+success of their undertaking.
+
+[MN Transactions in Sicily.]
+The last King of Sicily and Naples was William II., who had married
+Joan, sister to Richard, and who, dying without issue, had bequeathed
+his dominions to his paternal aunt, Constantia, the only legitimate
+descendant surviving of Roger, the first sovereign of those states who
+had been honoured with the royal title.  This princess had, in
+expectation of that rich inheritance, been married to Henry VI., the
+reigning emperor [k]; but Tancred, her natural brother, had fixed such
+an interest among the barons, that, taking advantage of Henry's
+absence, he had acquired possession of the throne, and maintained his
+claim, by force of arms, against all the efforts of the Germans [l].
+The approach of the crusaders naturally gave him apprehensions for his
+unstable government; and he was uncertain, whether he had most reason
+to dread the presence of the French or of the English monarch.  Philip
+was engaged in a strict alliance with the emperor his competitor;
+Richard was disgusted by his rigours towards the queen-dowager, whom
+the Sicilian prince had confined in Palermo, because she had opposed
+with all her interest his succession to the crown.  Tancred,
+therefore, sensible of the present necessity, resolved to pay court to
+both these formidable princes; and he was not unsuccessful in his
+endeavours.  He persuaded Philip that it was highly improper for him
+to interrupt his enterprise against the infidels, by any attempt
+against a Christian state: he restored Queen Joan to her liberty; and
+even found means to make an alliance with Richard, who stipulated by
+treaty to marry his nephew, Arthur, the young Duke of Britany, to one
+of the daughters of Tancred [m].  But before these terms of friendship
+were settled, Richard, jealous both of Tancred and of the inhabitants
+of Messina, had taken up his quarters in the suburbs, and had
+possessed himself of a small fort, which commanded the harbour; and he
+kept himself extremely on his guard against their enterprises.  [MN 3d
+Oct.]  The citizens took umbrage.  Mutual insults and attacks passed
+between them and the English: Philip, who had quartered his troops in
+the town, endeavoured to accommodate the quarrel, and held a
+conference with Richard for that purpose.  While the two kings,
+meeting in the open fields, were engaged in discourse on this subject,
+a body of those Sicilians seemed to be drawing towards them; and
+Richard pushed forwards, in order to inquire into the reason of this
+extraordinary movement [n].  The English, insolent from their power,
+and inflamed with former animosities, wanted but a pretence for
+attacking the Messinese: they soon chased them off the field, drove
+them into the town, and entered with them at the gates.  The king
+employed his authority to restrain them from pillaging and massacring
+the defenceless inhabitants; but he gave orders, in token of his
+victory, that the standard of England should be erected on the walls.
+Philip, who considered that place as his quarters, exclaimed against
+the insult, and ordered some of his troops to pull down the standard:
+but Richard informed him by a messenger, that, though he himself would
+willingly remove that ground of offence, he would not permit it to be
+done by others; and if the French king attempted such an insult upon
+him, he should not succeed but by the utmost effusion of blood.
+Philip, content with this species of haughty submission, recalled his
+orders [o]; the difference was seemingly accommodated; but still left
+the remains of rancour and jealousy in the breasts of the two
+monarchs.
+[FN [k] Bened. Abb. p. 580.  [1] Hoveden, p. 663.  [m] Hoveden, p.
+676, 677.  Bened Abb. p. 615.  [n] Bened. Abb. p. 608.  [o] Hoveden,
+p. 674.]
+
+Tancred, who, for his own security, desired to inflame their mutual
+hatred, employed an artifice which might have been attended with
+consequences still more fatal.  [MN 1191.]  He showed Richard a
+letter, signed by the French king, and delivered to him, as he
+pretended, by the Duke of Burgundy; in which that monarch desired
+Tancred to fall upon the quarters of the English, and promised to
+assist him in putting them to the sword, as common enemies.  The
+unwary Richard gave credit to the information; but was too candid not
+to betray his discontent to Philip, who absolutely denied the letter,
+and charged the Sicilian prince with forgery and falsehood.  Richard
+either was, or pretended to be, entirely satisfied [p].
+[FN [p] Ibid. p. 688.  Bened. Abb. p. 642, 643.  Brompton, p. 1195.]
+
+Lest these jealousies and complaints should multiply between them, it
+was proposed, that they should, by a solemn treaty, obviate all future
+differences, and adjust every point that could possibly hereafter
+become a controversy between them.  But this expedient started a new
+dispute, which might have proved more dangerous than any of the
+foregoing, and which deeply concerned the honour of Philip's family.
+When Richard, in every treaty with the late king, insisted so
+strenuously on being allowed to marry Alice of France, he had only
+sought a pretence for quarrelling; and never meant to take to his bed
+a princess suspected of a criminal amour with his own father.  After
+he became master, he no longer spake of that alliance: he even took
+measures for espousing Berengaria, daughter of Sanchez, King of
+Navarre, with whom he had become enamoured during his abode in Guienne
+[q]; Queen Eleanor was daily expected with that princess at Messina
+[r] and when Philip renewed to him his applications for espousing his
+sister Alice, Richard was obliged to give him an absolute refusal.  It
+is pretended by Hoveden and other historians [s], that he was able to
+produce such convincing proofs of Alice's infidelity, and even of her
+having borne a child to Henry, that her brother desisted from his
+applications, and chose to wrap up the dishonour of his family in
+silence and oblivion.  It is certain, from the treaty itself, which
+remains [t], that whatever were his motives, he permitted Richard to
+give his hand to Berengaria; and having settled all other
+controversies with that prince, he immediately set sail for the Holy
+Land.  Richard awaited some time the arrival of his mother and bride;
+and when they joined him, he separated his fleet into two squadrons,
+and set forward on his enterprise.  Queen Eleanor returned to England,
+but Berengaria and the queen-dowager of Sicily, his sister, attended
+him on the expedition [u].
+[FN [q] Vinisauf, p. 316.  [r] M. Paris, p. 112.  Trivet, p. 102.  W.
+Heming, p. 519.  [s] Hoveden, p. 688.  [t] Rymer, vol. i. p. 69.
+Chron. de Dunst, p. 44.  [u] Bened. Abb. p. 644.]
+
+The English fleet, on leaving the port of Messina, met with a furious
+tempest, and the squadron on which the two princesses were embarked
+was driven on the coast of Cyprus, and some of the vessels were
+wrecked near Limisso in that island.  [MN 12th April.]  Isaac, Prince
+of Cyprus, who assumed the magnificent title of Emperor, pillaged the
+ships that were stranded, threw the seamen and passengers into prison,
+and even refused to the princesses liberty, in their dangerous
+situation, of entering the harbour of Limisso.  But Richard, who
+arrived soon after, took ample vengeance on him for the injury.  He
+disembarked his troops; defeated the tyrant, who opposed his landing;
+entered Limisso by storm; gained next day a second victory; obliged
+Isaac to surrender at discretion; and established governors over the
+island.  The Greek prince, being thrown into prison and loaded with
+irons, complained of the little regard with which he was treated: upon
+which, Richard ordered silver fetters to be made for him; and this
+emperor, pleased with the distinction, expressed a sense of the
+generosity of his conqueror [w].  [MN 1191.  12th May.]  The king here
+espoused Berengaria, who, immediately embarking, carried along with
+her to Palestine the daughter of the Cypriot prince; a dangerous
+rival, who was believed to have seduced the affections of her husband.
+Such were the libertine character and conduct of the heroes engaged in
+this pious enterprise!
+[FN [w] Bened. Abb. p. 650.  Ann. Waverl. p. 164.  Vinisauf, p. 328.
+W. Heming. p. 523.]
+
+[MN The king’s arrival in Palestine.]
+The English army arrived in time to partake in the glory of the siege
+of Acre or Ptolemais, which had been attacked for above two years by
+the united forces of all the Christians in Palestine, and had been
+defended by the utmost efforts of Saladin and the Saracens.  The
+remains of the German army, conducted by the Emperor Frederic, and the
+separate bodies of adventurers who continually poured in from the
+West, had enabled the King of Jerusalem to form this important
+enterprise [x]: but Saladin, having thrown a strong garrison into the
+place under the command of Caracos, his own master in the art of war,
+and molesting the besiegers with continual attacks and sallies, had
+protracted the success of the enterprise, and wasted the force of his
+enemies.  The arrival of Philip and Richard inspired new life into the
+Christians; and these princes, acting by concert, and sharing the
+honour and danger of every action, gave hopes of a final victory over
+the infidels.  They agreed on this plan of operations: when the French
+monarch attacked the town, the English guarded the trenches: next day,
+when the English prince conducted the assault, the French succeeded
+him in providing for the safety of the assailants.  The emulation
+between those rival kings and rival nations produced extraordinary
+acts of valour: Richard in particular, animated with a more
+precipitate courage than Philip, and more agreeable to the romantic
+spirit of that age, drew to himself the general attention, and
+acquired a great and splendid reputation.  But this harmony was of
+short duration; and occasions of discord soon arose between these
+jealous and haughty princes.
+[FN [x] Vinisauf, p. 269, 271, 279.]
+
+[MN 1191.  State of Palestine.]
+The family of Bouillon, which had first been placed on the throne of
+Jerusalem, ending in a female, Fulk, Count of Anjou, grandfather to
+Henry II. of England, married the heiress of that kingdom, and
+transmitted his title to the younger branches of his family.  The
+Anjevin race ending also in a female, Guy de Lusignan, by espousing
+Sibylla, the heiress, had succeeded to the title; and though he lost
+his kingdom by the invasion of Saladin, he was still acknowledged by
+all the Christians for king of Jerusalem [y].  But as Sibylla died
+without issue, during the siege of Acre, Isabella, her younger sister,
+put in her claim to that titular kingdom, and required Lusignan to
+resign his pretensions to her husband, Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat.
+Lusignan maintaining that the royal title was unalienable and
+indefeasible, had recourse to the protection of Richard, attended on
+him before he left Cyprus, and engaged him to embrace his cause [z].
+There needed no other reason for throwing Philip into the party of
+Conrade; and the opposite views of these great monarchs brought
+faction and dissension into the Christian army, and retarded all its
+operations.  The Templars, the Genoese, and the Germans declared for
+Philip and Conrade; the Flemings, the Pisans, the Knights of the
+Hospital of St. John, adhered to Richard and Lusignan.  But
+notwithstanding these disputes, as the length of the siege had reduced
+the Saracen garrison to the last extremity, [MN 12th July.] they
+surrendered themselves prisoners; stipulated, in return for their
+lives, other advantages to the Christians, such as the restoring of
+the Christian prisoners, and the delivery of the wood of the true
+cross [a]; and this great enterprise, which had long engaged the
+attention of all Europe and Asia, was, at last, after the loss of
+three hundred thousand men, brought to a happy period.
+[FN [y] Vinisauf, p. 281.  [z] Trivet, p. 134.  Vinisauf, p. 342.  W.
+Heming. p. 524.  [a] This true cross was lost in the battle of
+Tiberiade, to which it had been carried by the crusaders for their
+protection.  Rigord, an author of that age, says, that after this
+dismal event, all the children who were born throughout all
+Christendom had only twenty or twenty-two teeth, instead of thirty or
+thirty-two, which was their former complement, p. 14.]
+
+But Philip, instead of pursuing the hopes of farther conquest, and of
+redeeming the holy city from slavery, being disgusted with the
+ascendant assumed and acquired by Richard, and having views of many
+advantages, which he might reap by his presence in Europe, declared
+his resolution of returning to France; and he pleaded his bad state of
+health as an excuse for his desertion of the common cause.  He left,
+however, to Richard ten thousand of his troops, under the command of
+the Duke of Burgundy; and he renewed his oath never to commence
+hostilities against that prince’s dominions during his absence.  But
+he had no sooner reached Italy than he applied, it is pretended, to
+Pope Celestine III. for a dispensation from his vow; and when denied
+that request, he still proceeded, though after a covert manner, in a
+project, which the present situation of England rendered inviting, and
+which gratified, in an eminent degree, both his resentment and his
+ambition.
+
+[MN Disorders in England.]
+Immediately after Richard had left England, and begun his march to the
+Holy Land, the two prelates, whom he had appointed guardians of the
+realm, broke out into animosities against each other, and threw the
+kingdom into combustion.  Longchamp, presumptuous in his nature,
+elated by the favour which he enjoyed with his master, and armed with
+the legatine commission, could not submit to an equality with the
+Bishop of Durham: he even went so far as to arrest his colleague, and
+to extort from him a resignation of the earldom of Northumberland, and
+of his other dignities, as the price of his liberty [b].  The king,
+informed of these dissensions, ordered, by letters from Marseilles,
+that the bishop should be reinstated in his offices; but Longchamp had
+still the boldness to refuse compliance, on pretence that he himself
+was better acquainted with the king’s secret intentions [c].  He
+proceeded to govern the kingdom by his sole authority; to treat all
+the nobility with arrogance; and to display his power and riches with
+an invidious ostentation.  He never travelled without a strong guard
+of fifteen hundred foreign soldiers, collected from that licentious
+tribe with which the age was generally infested: nobles and knights
+were proud of being admitted into his train: his retinue wore the
+aspect of royal magnificence: and when, in his progress through the
+kingdom, he lodged in any monastery, his attendants, it is said, were
+sufficient to devour, in one night, the revenue of several years [d].
+The king, who was detained in Europe longer than the haughty prelate
+expected, hearing of this ostentation, which exceeded even what the
+habits of that age indulged in ecclesiastics; being also informed of
+the insolent, tyrannical conduct of his minister, thought proper to
+restrain his power: he sent new orders, appointing Walter Archbishop
+of Rouen, William Mareschal Earl of Strigul, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter,
+William Briewere, and Hugh Bardolf, counsellors to Longchamp, and
+commanding him to take no measure of importance without their
+concurrence and approbation.  But such general terror had this man
+impressed by his violent conduct, that even the Archbishop of Rouen
+and the Earl of Strigul durst not produce this mandate of the king's;
+and Longchamp still maintained an uncontrolled authority over the
+nation.  But when he proceeded so far as to throw into prison
+Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, who had opposed his measures, this
+breach of ecclesiastical privileges excited such an universal ferment,
+that Prince John, disgusted with the small share he possessed in the
+government, and personally disobliged by Longchamp, ventured to
+summon, at Reading, a general council of the nobility and prelates,
+and cite him to appear before them.  Longchamp thought it dangerous to
+intrust his person in their hands, and he shut himself up in the Tower
+of London; but being soon obliged to surrender that fortress, he fled
+beyond sea, concealed under a female habit, and was deprived of his
+offices of chancellor and chief justiciary; the last of which was
+conferred on the Archbishop of Rouen, a prelate of prudence and
+moderation.  The commission of legate, however, which had been renewed
+to Longchamp by Pope Celestine, still gave him, notwithstanding his
+absence, great authority in the kingdom, enabled him to disturb the
+government, and forwarded the views of Philip, who watched every
+opportunity of annoying Richard's dominions.  [MN 1192.]  That monarch
+first attempted to carry open war into Normandy; but as the French
+nobility refused to follow him in an invasion of a state which they
+had sworn to protect, and as the pope, who was the general guardian of
+all princes that had taken the cross, threatened him with
+ecclesiastical censures, he desisted from his enterprise, and employed
+against England the expedient of secret policy and intrigue.  He
+debauched Prince John from his allegiance; promised him his sister
+Alice in marriage; offered to give him possession of all Richard's
+transmarine dominions; and had not the authority of Queen Eleanor, and
+the menaces of the English council, prevailed over the inclinations of
+that turbulent prince, he was ready to have crossed the seas, and to
+have put in execution his criminal enterprises.
+[FN [b] Hoveden, p. 665.  Knyghton, p. 2403.  [c] W. Heming. p. 528.
+[d] Hoveden, p. 680.  Bened. Abb. p. 626, 700.  Brompton, p. 1193.]
+
+[MN The king’s heroic actions in Palestine.]
+The jealousy of Philip was every moment excited by the glory which the
+great actions of Richard were gaining him in the East, and which,
+being compared to his own desertion of that popular cause, threw a
+double lustre on his rival.  His envy, therefore, prompted him to
+obscure that fame which he had not equalled; and he embraced every
+pretence of throwing the most violent and most improbable calumnies on
+the King of England.  There was a petty prince in Asia, commonly
+called THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, who had acquired such an ascendant
+over his fanatical subjects, that they paid the most implicit
+deference to his commands; esteemed assassination meritorious when
+sanctified by his mandate; courted danger, and even certain death, in
+the execution of his orders; and fancied, that when they sacrificed
+their lives for his sake, the highest joys of paradise were the
+infallible reward of their devoted obedience [e].  It was the custom
+of this prince, when he imagined himself injured, to despatch secretly
+some of his subjects against the aggressor, to charge them with the
+execution of his revenge, to instruct them in every art of disguising
+their purpose; and no precaution was sufficient to guard any man,
+however powerful, against the attempts of these subtle and determined
+ruffians.  The greatest monarchs stood in awe of this Prince of the
+Assassins, (for that was the name of his people; whence the word has
+passed into most European languages,) and it was the highest
+indiscretion in Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat, to offend and affront
+him.  The inhabitants of Tyre, who were governed by that nobleman, had
+put to death some of this dangerous people: the prince demanded
+satisfaction; for, as he piqued himself on never beginning any offence
+[f], he had his regular and established formalities in requiring
+atonement: Conrade treated his messengers with disdain: the prince
+issued the fatal order: two of his subjects, who had insinuated
+themselves in disguise among Conrade's guards, openly, in the streets
+of Sidon, wounded him mortally; and when they were seized and put to
+the most cruel tortures, they triumphed amidst their agonies, and
+rejoiced that they had been destined by heaven to suffer in so just
+and meritorious a cause.
+[FN [e] W. Heming. p. 532.  Brompton, p. 1243.  [f] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+71.]
+
+Every one in Palestine knew from what hand the blow came.  Richard was
+entirely free from suspicion.  Though that monarch had formerly
+maintained the cause of Lusignan against Conrade, he had become
+sensible of the bad effects attending those dissensions, and had
+voluntarily conferred on the former the kingdom of Cyprus, on
+condition that he should resign to his rival all pretensions to the
+crown of Jerusalem [g].  Conrade himself, with his dying breath, had
+recommended his widow to the protection of Richard [h]; the Prince of
+the Assassins avowed the action in a formal narrative which he sent to
+Europe [i]; yet, on this foundation, the King of France thought fit to
+build the most egregious calumnies, and to impute to Richard the
+murder of the Marquis of Montferrat, whose elevation he had once
+openly opposed.  He filled all Europe with exclamations against the
+crime; appointed a guard for his own person, in order to defend
+himself against a like attempt [k]; and endeavoured, by these shallow
+artifices, to cover the infamy of attacking the dominions of a prince
+whom he himself had deserted, and who was engaged with so much glory
+in a war, universally acknowledged to be the common cause of
+Christendom.
+[FN [g] Vinisauf, p. 391.  [h] Brompton, p. 1243.  [i] Rymer, vol. i.
+p. 71.  Trivet, p. 124.  W. Heming. p. 544.  Diceto, p. 680.  [k] W
+Heming. p. 532.  Brompton, p. 1245.]
+
+But Richard's heroic actions in Palestine were the best apology for
+his conduct.  The Christian adventurers under his command determined,
+on opening the campaign, to attempt the siege of Ascalon, in order to
+prepare the way for that of Jerusalem; and they marched along the sea-
+coast with that intention.  Saladin purposed to intercept their
+passage; and he placed himself on the road with an army, amounting to
+three hundred thousand combatants.  On this occasion was fought one of
+the greatest battles of that age; and the most celebrated, for the
+military genius of the commanders, for the number and valour of the
+troops, and for the great variety of events which attended it.  Both
+the right wing of the Christians, commanded by d'Avesnes, and the
+left, conducted by the Duke of Burgundy, were, in the beginning of the
+day, broken and defeated; when Richard, who led on the main body,
+restored the battle; attacked the enemy with intrepidity and presence
+of mind; performed the part both of a consummate general and gallant
+soldier; and not only gave his two wings leisure to recover from their
+confusion, but obtained a complete victory over the Saracens, of whom
+forty thousand are said to have perished in the field [l].  Ascalon
+soon after fell into the hands of the Christians: other sieges were
+carried on with equal success: Richard was even able to advance within
+sight of Jerusalem, the object of his enterprise, when he had the
+mortification to find that he must abandon all hopes of immediate
+success, and must put a stop to his career of victory.  The crusaders,
+animated with an enthusiastic ardour for the holy wars, broke at first
+through all regards to safety or interest in the prosecution of their
+purpose; and trusting to the immediate assistance of Heaven, set
+nothing before their eyes but fame and victory in this world, and a
+crown of glory in the next.  But long absence from home, fatigue,
+disease, want, and the variety of incidents which naturally attend
+war, had gradually abated that fury, which nothing was able directly
+to withstand; and every one, except the King of England, expressed a
+desire of speedily returning into Europe.  The Germans and the
+Italians declared their resolution of desisting from the enterprise:
+the French were still more obstinate in this purpose: the Duke of
+Burgundy, in order to pay court to Philip, took all opportunities of
+mortifying and opposing Richard [m]: and there appeared an absolute
+necessity of abandoning for the present all hopes of farther conquest,
+and of securing the acquisitions of the Christians by an accommodation
+with Saladin.  Richard, therefore, concluded a truce with that
+monarch; and stipulated that Acre, Joppa, and other sea-port towns of
+Palestine, should remain in the hands of the Christians, and that
+every one of that religion should have liberty to perform his
+pilgrimage to Jerusalem unmolested.  This truce was concluded for
+three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours; a
+magical number, which had probably been devised by the Europeans, and
+which was suggested by a superstition well suited to the object of the
+war.
+[FN [l] Hoveden, p. 698.  Bened. Abb. p. 677.  Diceto, p. 662.
+Brompton, p. 1214.  [m] Vinisauf, p. 380.]
+
+The liberty, in which Saladin indulged the Christians, to perform
+their pilgrimages to Jerusalem, was an easy sacrifice on his part; and
+the furious wars which he waged in defence of the barren territory of
+Judea were not with him, as with the European adventurers, the result
+of superstition, but of policy.  The advantage indeed of science,
+moderation, humanity, was at that time entirely on the side of the
+Saracens; and this gallant emperor, in particular, displayed, during
+the course of the war, a spirit and generosity, which even his bigoted
+enemies were obliged to acknowledge and admire.  Richard, equally
+martial and brave, carried with him more of the barbarian character,
+and was guilty of acts of ferocity, which threw a stain on his
+celebrated victories.  When Saladin refused to ratify the capitulation
+of Acre, the king of England ordered all his prisoners, to the number
+of five thousand, to be butchered; and the Saracens found themselves
+obliged to retaliate upon the Christians by a like cruelty [n].
+Saladin died at Damascus soon after concluding this truce with the
+princes of the crusade: it is memorable that, before he expired, he
+ordered his winding-sheet to be carried as a standard through every
+street of the city; while a crier went before, and proclaimed with a
+loud voice, THIS IS ALL THAT REMAINS TO THE MIGHTY SALADIN, THE
+CONQUEROR OF THE EAST.  By his last will he ordered charities to be
+distributed to the poor without distinction of Jew, Christian, or
+Mahometan.
+[FN [n] Hoveden, p. 697.  Bened. Abb. p. 673.  M. Paris, p. 115.
+Vinisauf, p. 346.  W. Heming. p. 531.]
+
+[MN 1192.  The king’s return from Palestine.]
+There remained, after the truce, no business of importance to detain
+Richard in Palestine; and the intelligence which he received,
+concerning the intrigues of his brother John, and those of the King of
+France, made him sensible that his presence was necessary in Europe.
+As he dared not to pass through France, be sailed to the Adriatic; and
+being shipwrecked near Aquileia, he put on the disguise of a pilgrim,
+with a purpose of taking his journey secretly through Germany.
+Pursued by the governor of Istria, he was forced out of the direct
+road to England, and was obliged to pass by Vienna, [MN 20th Dec.]
+where his expenses and liberalities betrayed the monarch in the habit
+of the pilgrim; and he was arrested by orders of Leopold, Duke of
+Austria.  This prince had served under Richard at the siege of Acre;
+but being disgusted by some insult of that haughty monarch, he was so
+ungenerous as to seize the present opportunity of gratifying at once
+his avarice and revenge; and he threw the king into prison.  [MN
+1193.]  The emperor, Henry VI., who also considered Richard as an
+enemy, on account of the alliance contracted by him with Tancred, King
+of Sicily, despatched messengers to the Duke of Austria, required the
+royal captive to be delivered to him, and stipulated a large sum of
+money as a reward for this service.  [MN Captivity in Germany.]  Thus,
+the King of England, who had filled the whole world with his renown,
+found himself, during the most critical state of his affairs, confined
+in a dungeon, and loaded with irons, in the heart of Germany [o], and
+entirely at the mercy of his enemies, the basest and most sordid of
+mankind.
+[FN [o] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 35.]
+
+The English council was astonished on receiving this fatal
+intelligence; and foresaw all the dangerous consequences which might
+naturally arise from that event.  The queen-dowager wrote reiterated
+letters to Pope Celestine, exclaiming against the injury which her son
+had sustained; representing the impiety of detaining in prison the
+most illustrious prince that had yet carried the banners of Christ
+into the Holy Land; claiming the protection of the apostolic see,
+which was due even to the meanest of those adventurers; and upbraiding
+the pope, that in a cause where justice, religion, and the dignity of
+the church, were so much concerned, a cause which it might well befit
+his holiness himself to support, by taking in person a journey to
+Germany, the spiritual thunders should so long be suspended over those
+sacrilegious offenders [p].  The zeal of Celestine corresponded not to
+the impatience of the queen-mother; and the regency of England were,
+for a long time, left to struggle alone with all their domestic and
+foreign enemies.
+[FN [p] Rymer, vol. i. p. 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, &c.]
+
+[MN War with France.]
+The King of France, quickly informed of Richard's confinement by a
+message from the emperor [q], prepared himself to take advantage of
+the incident; and he employed every means of force and intrigue, of
+war and negotiation, against the dominions and the person of his
+unfortunate rival.  He revived the calumny of Richard's assassinating
+the Marquis of Montferrat; and by that absurd pretence he induced his
+barons to violate their oaths, by which they had engaged that, during
+the crusade, they never would, on any account, attack the dominions of
+the King of England.  He made the emperor the largest offers, if he
+would deliver into his hands the royal prisoner, or at least detain
+him in perpetual captivity: he even formed an alliance by marriage
+with the King of Denmark, desired that the ancient Danish claim to the
+crown of England should be transferred to him, and solicited a supply
+of shipping to maintain it.  But the most successful of Philip's
+negotiations was with Prince John, who, forgetting every tie to his
+brother, his sovereign, and his benefactor, thought of nothing but how
+to make his own advantage of the public calamities.  That traitor, on
+the first invitation from the court of France, suddenly went abroad,
+had a conference with Philip, and made a treaty, of which the object
+was the perpetual ruin of his unhappy brother.  He stipulated to
+deliver into Philip's hands a great part of Normandy [r]; he received,
+in return, the investiture of all Richard's transmarine dominions; and
+it is reported by several historians, that he even did homage to the
+French king for the crown of England.
+[FN [q] Ibid. p. 70.  [r] Rymer, vol. i. p. 85.]
+
+In consequence of this treaty, Philip invaded Normandy; and by the
+treachery of John's emissaries, made himself master, without
+opposition, of many fortresses, Neuf-chatel, Neaufle, Gisors, Pacey,
+Ivree: he subdued the counties of Eu and Aumale; and advancing to form
+the siege of Rouen, he threatened to put all the inhabitants to the
+sword if they dared to make resistance.  Happily, Robert, Earl of
+Leicester, appeared in that critical moment; a gallant nobleman, who
+had acquired great honour during the crusade, and who, being more
+fortunate than his master in finding his passage homewards, took on
+him the command in Rouen, and exerted himself, by his exhortations and
+example, to infuse courage into the dismayed Normans.  Philip was
+repulsed in every attack; the time of service from his vassals
+expired; and he consented to a truce with the English regency,
+received in return the promise of twenty thousand marks, and had four
+castles put into his hands, as security for the payment [s].
+[FN [s] Hoveden, p.730, 731.  Rymer, vol. i. p. 81.]
+
+Prince John, who, with a view of increasing the general confusion,
+went over to England, was still less successful in his enterprises.
+He was only able to make himself master of the castles of Windsor and
+Wallingford; but when he arrived in London, and claimed the kingdom as
+heir to his brother, of whose death he pretended to have received
+certain intelligence, he was rejected by all the barons, and measures
+were taken to oppose and subdue him [t].  The justiciaries, supported
+by the general affection of the people, provided so well for the
+defence of the kingdom, that John was obliged, after some fruitless
+efforts, to conclude a truce with them; and before its expiration, he
+thought it prudent to return to France, where he openly avowed his
+alliance with Philip [u].
+[FN [t] Hoveden, p. 724.  [u] W. Heming. p. 536.]
+
+Meanwhile the high spirit of Richard suffered in Germany every kind of
+insult and indignity.  The French ambassadors, in their master's name,
+renounced him as a vassal to the crown of France, and declared  all
+his fiefs to be forfeited to his liege lord.  The emperor, that he
+might render him more impatient for the recovery of his liberty, and
+make him submit to the payment of a larger ransom, treated him with
+the greatest severity, and reduced him to a condition worse than that
+of the meanest malefactor.  He was even produced before the diet of
+the empire at Worms, and accused by Henry of many crimes and
+misdemeanours; of making an alliance with Tancred, the usurper of
+Sicily; of turning the arms of the crusade against a Christian prince,
+and subduing Cyprus; of affronting the Duke of Austria before Acre; of
+obstructing the progress of the Christian arms by his quarrels with
+the King of France; of assassinating Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat;
+and of concluding a truce with Saladin, and leaving Jerusalem in the
+hands of the Saracen emperor [w].  Richard, whose spirit was not
+broken by his misfortunes, and whose genius was rather roused by these
+frivolous or scandalous imputations; after premising, that his dignity
+exempted him from answering before any jurisdiction, except that of
+Heaven; yet condescended, for the sake of his reputation, to justify
+his conduct before that great assembly.  He observed, that he had no
+hand in Tancred's elevation, and only concluded a treaty with a prince
+whom he found in possession of the throne; that the king, or rather
+tyrant of Cyprus, had provoked his indignation by the most ungenerous
+and unjust proceedings; and though he chastised this aggressor, he had
+not retarded a moment the progress of his chief enterprise: that if he
+had at any time been wanting in civility to the Duke of Austria, he
+had already been sufficiently punished for that sally of passion; and
+it better became men, embarked together in so holy a cause, to forgive
+each other's infirmities, than to pursue a slight offence with such
+unrelenting vengeance: that it had sufficiently appeared by the event,
+whether the King of France or he were most zealous for the conquest of
+the Holy Land, and were most likely to sacrifice private passions and
+animosities to that great object: that if the whole tenour of his life
+had not shown him incapable of a base assassination, and justified him
+from that imputation in the eyes of his very enemies, it was in vain
+for him, at present, to make his apology, or plead the many
+irrefragable arguments which he could produce in his own favour: and
+that, however he might regret the necessity, he was so far from being
+ashamed of his truce with Saladin, that he rather gloried in that
+event; and thought it extremely honourable, that, though abandoned by
+all the world, supported only by his own courage, and by the small
+remains of his national troops, he could yet obtain such conditions
+from the most powerful and most warlike emperor that the East had ever
+yet produced.  Richard, after thus deigning to apologize for his
+conduct, burst out into indignation at the cruel treatment which he
+had met with; that he, the champion of the cross, still wearing that
+honourable badge, should, after expending the blood and treasure of
+his subjects in the common cause of Christendom, be intercepted by
+Christian princes in his return to his own country, be thrown into a
+dungeon, be loaded with irons, be obliged to plead his cause, as if he
+were a subject and a malefactor; and what he still more regretted, be
+thereby prevented from making preparations for a new crusade, which he
+had projected, after the expiration of the truce, and from redeeming
+the sepulchre of Christ, which had so long been profaned by the
+dominion of infidels.  The spirit and eloquence of Richard made such
+impression on the German princes, that they exclaimed loudly against
+the conduct of the emperor; the pope threatened him with
+excommunication; and Henry, who had hearkened to the proposals of the
+King of France and Prince John, found that it would be impracticable
+for him to execute his and their base purposes, or to detain the King
+of England any longer in captivity.  [MN The king’s delivery.]  He
+therefore concluded with him a treaty for his ransom, and agreed to
+restore him to his freedom for the sum of a hundred and fifty thousand
+marks, about three hundred thousand pounds of our present money; of
+which a hundred thousand marks were to be paid before he received his
+liberty, and sixty-seven hostages delivered for the remainder [x].
+The emperor, as if to gloss over the infamy of this transaction, made
+at the same time a present to Richard of the kingdom of Arles,
+comprehending Provence, Dauphiny, Narbonne, and other states, over
+which the empire had some antiquated claims; a present which the king
+very wisely neglected.
+[FN [w] M Paris, p. 121.  W. Heming. p. 536.  [x] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+84.]
+
+The captivity of the superior lord was one of the cases provided for
+by the feudal tenures; and all the vassals were in that event obliged
+to give an aid for his ransom.  Twenty shillings were therefore levied
+on each knight's fee in England; but as this money came in slowly, and
+was not sufficient for the intended purpose, the voluntary zeal of the
+people readily supplied the deficiency.  The churches and monasteries
+melted down their plate, to the amount of thirty thousand marks; the
+bishops, abbots, and nobles, paid a fourth of their yearly rent; the
+parochial clergy contributed a tenth of their tithes; [MN 1194.  4th
+Feb.] and the requisite sum being thus collected, Queen Eleanor, and
+Walter, Archbishop of Rouen, set out with it for Germany; paid the
+money to the emperor and the Duke of Austria at Mentz; delivered them
+hostages for the remainder; and freed Richard from captivity.  His
+escape was very critical.  Henry had been detected in the
+assassination of the Bishop of Liege, and in an attempt of a like
+nature on the Duke of Louvaine; and finding himself extremely
+obnoxious to the German princes on account of these odious practices,
+he had determined to seek support from an alliance with the King of
+France; to detain Richard, the enemy of that prince, in perpetual
+captivity; to keep in his hands the money which he had already
+received for his ransom; and to extort fresh sums from Philip and
+Prince John, who were very liberal in their offers to him.  He
+therefore gave orders that Richard should be pursued and arrested; but
+the king, making all imaginable haste, had already embarked at the
+mouth of the Schelde, and was out of sight of land, when the
+messengers of the emperor reached Antwerp.
+
+[MN King’s return to England, 20th March.]
+The joy of the English was extreme on the appearance of their monarch,
+who had suffered so many calamities, who had acquired so much glory,
+and who had spread the reputation of their name into the farthest
+East, whither their fame had never before been able to extend.  He
+gave them, soon after his arrival, an opportunity of publicly
+displaying their exultation, by ordering himself to be crowned anew at
+Winchester; as if he intended, by that ceremony, to reinstate himself
+in his throne, and to wipe off the ignominy of his captivity.  Their
+satisfaction was not damped, even when he declared his purpose of
+resuming all those exorbitant grants, which he had been necessitated
+to make before his departure for the Holy Land.  The barons, also, in
+a great council, confiscated, on account of his treason, all Prince
+John's possessions in England; and they assisted the king in reducing
+the fortresses which still remained in the hands of his brother's
+adherents [y].  Richard, having settled every thing in England, passed
+over with an army into Normandy; being impatient to make war on
+Philip, and to revenge himself for the many injuries which he had
+received from that monarch [z].  As soon as Philip heard of the king's
+deliverance from captivity, he wrote to his confederate John in these
+terms: TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF: THE DEVIL IS BROKEN LOOSE [a].
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 737.  Ann. Waverl. p. 165.  W. Heming, p. 540.
+[z] Hoveden, p. 740.  [a] Ibid. p. 739.]
+
+[MN War with France.]
+When we consider such powerful and martial monarchs inflamed with
+personal animosity against each other, enraged by mutual injuries,
+excited by rivalship, impelled by opposite interests, and instigated
+by the pride and violence of their own temper; our curiosity is
+naturally raised, and we expect an obstinate and furious war,
+distinguished by the greatest events, and concluded by some remarkable
+catastrophe.  Yet are the incidents which attend those hostilities so
+frivolous that scarce any historian can entertain such a passion for
+military descriptions as to venture on a detail of them: a certain
+proof of the extreme weakness of princes in those ages, and of the
+little authority they possessed over their refractory vassals!  The
+whole amount of the exploits on both sides is, the taking of a castle,
+the surprise of a straggling party, a rencounter of horse, which
+resembles more a rout than a battle.  Richard obliged Philip to raise
+the siege of Verneuil; he took Loches, a small town in Anjou: he made
+himself master of Beaumont, and some other places of little
+consequence; and after these trivial exploits, the two kings began
+already to hold conferences for an accommodation.  Philip insisted
+that, if a general peace were concluded, the barons on each side
+should, for the future, be prohibited from carrying on private wars
+against each other: but Richard replied, that this was a right claimed
+by his vassals, and he could not debar them from it.  After this
+fruitless negotiation, there ensued an action between the French and
+English cavalry at Fretteval, in which the former were routed, and the
+King of France's cartulary and records, which commonly at that time
+attended his person, were taken.  But this victory leading to no
+important advantages, a truce for a year was at last, from mutual
+weakness, concluded between the two monarchs.
+
+During this war, Prince John deserted from Philip, threw himself at
+his brother's feet, craved pardon for his offences, and by the
+intercession of Queen Eleanor was received into favour.  I FORGIVE
+HIM, said the king, AND HOPE I SHALL AS EASILY FORGET HIS INJURIES AS
+HE WILL MY PARDON.  John was incapable even of returning to his duty,
+without committing a baseness.  Before he left Philip's party, he
+invited to dinner all the officers of the garrison, which that prince
+had placed in the citadel of Evreux: he massacred them during the
+entertainment: fell, with the assistance of the townsmen, on the
+garrison, whom he put to the sword; and then delivered up the place to
+his brother.
+
+The King of France was the great object of Richard's resentment and
+animosity: the conduct of John, as well as that of the emperor and
+Duke of Austria, had been so base, and was exposed to such general
+odium and reproach, that the king deemed himself sufficiently revenged
+for their injuries; and he seems never to have entertained any project
+of vengeance against any of them.  The Duke of Austria, about this
+time, having crushed his leg by the fall of his horse at a tournament,
+was thrown into a fever; and being struck, on the approaches of death,
+with remorse for his injustice to  Richard, he ordered, by will, all
+the English hostages in his hands to be set at liberty, and the
+remainder of the debt due to him to be remitted: his son, who seemed
+inclined to disobey these orders, was constrained by his ecclesiastics
+to execute them [b].  [MN 1195.]  The emperor also made advances for
+Richard's friendship, and offered to give him a discharge of all the
+debt not yet paid to him provided he would enter into an offensive
+alliance against the King of France; a proposal which was very
+acceptable to Richard, and was greedily embraced by him.  The treaty
+with the emperor took no effect; but it served to rekindle the war
+between France and England before the expiration of the truce.  This
+war was not distinguished by any more remarkable instances than the
+foregoing.  After mutually ravaging the open country, and taking a few
+insignificant castles, the two kings concluded a peace at Louviers,
+and made an exchange of some territories with each other [c].  [MN
+1196.]  Their inability to wage war occasioned the peace: their mutual
+antipathy engaged them again in war before two months expired.
+Richard imagined that he had now found an opportunity of gaining great
+advantages over his rival, by forming an alliance with the Counts of
+Flanders, Toulouse, Boulogne, Champagne, and other considerable
+vassals of the crown of France [d].  But he soon experienced the
+insincerity of those princes, and was not able to make any impression
+on that kingdom, while governed by a monarch of so much vigour and
+activity as Philip.  The most remarkable incident of this war was the
+taking prisoner in battle the Bishop of Beauvais, a martial prelate,
+who was of the family of Dreux, and a near relation of the French
+king's.  Richard, who hated that bishop, threw him into prison and
+loaded him with irons; and when the pope demanded his liberty, and
+claimed him as his son, the king sent to his holiness the coat of mail
+which the prelate had worn in battle, and which was all besmeared with
+blood; and he replied to him, in the terms employed by Jacob's sons to
+that patriarch, THIS HAVE WE FOUND: KNOW NOW WHETHER IT BE THY SON'S
+COAT OR NO [e].  This  new war between England and France, though
+carried out with such animosity that both kings frequently put out the
+eyes of their prisoners, was soon finished by a truce of five years;
+and immediately after signing this treaty, the kings were ready, on
+some new offence, to break out again into hostilities; when the
+mediation of the Cardinal of St. Mary, the pope's legate, accommodated
+the difference [f].  This prelate even engaged the princes to commence
+a treaty for a more durable peace; but the death of Richard put an end
+to the negotiation.
+[FN [b] Rymer, vol i. p. 88, 102.  [c] Ibid. p. 91.  [d] W. Heming, p.
+549.  Brompton, p. 1273.  Rymer, vol. i. p. 94.  [e] Genesis, chap.
+xxxvii. ver. 32.  M. Paris, p. 128.  Brompton, p. 1273.  [f] Rymer,
+vol. i. p. 109, 110.]
+
+[MN 1199.]  Vidomar, Viscount of Limoges, a vassal of the king's, had
+found a treasure, of which he sent part to that prince as a present.
+Richard, as superior lord, claimed the whole; and at the head of some
+Brabancons, besieged the viscount in the castle of Chalons, near
+Limoges, in order to make him comply with his demand [g].  The
+garrison offered to surrender; but the king replied, that, since he
+had taken the pains to come thither and besiege the place in person,
+he would take it by force, and would hang every one of them.  The same
+day, Richard, accompanied by Marcadee, leader of his Brabancons,
+approached the castle in order to survey it; when one Bertrand de
+Gourdon, an archer, took aim at him, and pierced his shoulder with an
+arrow.  [MN 28th March.]  The king, however, gave orders for the
+assault, took the place, and hanged all the garrison, except Gourdon,
+who had wounded him, and whom he reserved for a more deliberate and
+more cruel execution [h].
+[FN [g] Hoveden, p. 791.  Knyghton, p. 2413.  [h] Ibid.]
+
+The wound was not in itself dangerous; but the unskilfulness of the
+surgeon made it mortal: he so rankled Richard's shoulder in pulling
+out the arrow, that a gangrene ensued; and that prince was now
+sensible that his life was drawing towards a period.  He sent for
+Gourdon, and asked him, WRETCH, WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE TO YOU, TO
+OBLIGE YOU TO SEEK MY LIFE?--WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME? replied coolly
+the prisoner: YOU KILLED WITH YOUR OWN HANDS MY FATHER AND MY TWO
+BROTHERS; AND YOU INTENDED TO HAVE HANGED MYSELF: I AM NOW IN YOUR
+POWER, AND YOU MAY TAKE REVENGE, BY INFLICTING ON ME THE MOST SEVERE
+TORMENTS: BUT I SHALL ENDURE THEM ALL WITH PLEASURE, PROVIDED I CAN
+THINK THAT I HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY AS TO RID THE WORLD OF SUCH A NUISANCE
+[i].  Richard, struck with the reasonableness of this reply, and
+humbled by the near approach of death, ordered Gourdon to be set at
+liberty, and a sum of money to be given him: but Marcadee, unknown to
+him, seized the unhappy man, flayed him alive, and then hanged him.
+[MN 6th April.  Death,]  Richard died in the tenth year of his reign,
+and the forty-second of his age; and he left no issue behind him.
+[FN [i] Hoveden, p. 791.  Brompton, p. 1277.  Knyghton, p. 2413.]
+
+[MN and character of the king.]
+The most shining parts of this prince's character are his military
+talents.  No man, even in that romantic age, carried personal courage
+and intrepidity to a greater height; and this quality gained him the
+appellation of the lion-hearted, COEUR DE LION.  He passionately loved
+glory, chiefly military glory; and as his conduct in the field was not
+inferior to his valour, he seems to have possessed every talent
+necessary for acquiring it.  His resentments also were high; his pride
+unconquerable; and his subjects, as well as his neighbours, had
+therefore reason to apprehend, from the continuance of his reign, a
+perpetual scene of blood and violence.  Of an impetuous and vehement
+spirit, he was distinguished by all the good as well as the bad
+qualities incident to that character: he was open, frank, generous,
+sincere, and brave; he was revengeful, domineering, ambitious,
+haughty, and cruel; and was thus better calculated to dazzle men by
+the splendour of his enterprises, than either to promote their
+happiness or his own grandeur by a sound and well-regulated policy.
+As military talents made great impression on the people, he seems to
+have been much beloved by his English subjects; and he is remarked to
+have been the first prince of the Norman line that bore any sincere
+regard to them.  He passed however only four months of his reign in
+that kingdom: the crusade employed him near three years; he was
+detained about fourteen months in captivity; the rest of his reign was
+spent either in war, or preparations for war, against France; and he
+was so pleased with the fame which he had acquired in the East, that
+he determined, notwithstanding his past misfortunes, to have farther
+exhausted his kingdom, and to have exposed himself to new hazards, by
+conducting another expedition against the infidels.
+
+[MN Miscellaneous transactions of this reign.]
+Though the English pleased themselves with the glory which the king's
+martial genius procured them, his reign was very oppressive and
+somewhat arbitrary, by the high taxes which he levied on them, and
+often without consent of the states or great council.  In the ninth
+year of his reign, he levied five shillings on each hide of land; and
+because the clergy refused to contribute their share, he put them out
+of the protection of law, and ordered the civil courts to give them no
+sentence for any debts which they might claim [k].  Twice in his reign
+he ordered all his charters to be sealed anew, and the parties to pay
+fees for the renewal [l].  It is said that Hubert, his justiciary,
+sent him over to France, in the space of two years, no less a sum than
+one million one hundred thousand marks, besides bearing all the
+charges of the government in England.  But this account is quite
+incredible, unless we suppose that Richard made a thorough
+dilapidation of the demesnes of the crown, which it is not likely he
+could do with any advantage after his former resumption of all grants.
+A king who possessed such a revenue could never have endured fourteen
+months' captivity for not paying a hundred and fifty thousand marks to
+the emperor, and be obliged at last to leave hostages for a third of
+the sum.  The prices of commodities in this reign are also a certain
+proof that no such enormous sum could be levied on the people.  A hide
+of land, or about a hundred and twenty acres, was commonly let at
+twenty shillings a year, money of that time.  As there were two
+hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred hides in England, it is
+easy to compute the amount of all the landed rents of the kingdom.
+The general and stated price of an ox was four shillings; of a
+labouring horse the same; of a sow, one shilling; of a sheep with fine
+wool, tenpence; with coarse wool, sixpence [m].  These commodities
+seem not to have advanced in their prices since the conquest [n], and
+to have still been ten times cheaper than at present.
+[FN [k] Hoveden, p. 743.  Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 563.  [l] Prynne's
+Chronol. Vindic. tom. i. p. 1133.  [m] Hoveden, p. 745.  [n] See note
+[S], at the end of the volume.]
+
+Richard renewed the severe laws against transgressors in his forests,
+whom he punished by castration and putting out their eyes, as in the
+reign of his great-grandfather.  He established by law one weight and
+measure throughout his kingdom [o]: a useful institution, which the
+mercenary disposition and necessities of his successor engaged him to
+dispense with for money.
+[FN [o] M. Paris, p. 109, 134.  Trivet, p. 127.  Ann. Waverl. p. 165.
+Hoveden, p. 774.]
+
+The disorders in London, derived from its bad police, had risen to a
+great height during this reign; and in the year 1196, there seemed to
+be formed so regular a conspiracy among the numerous malefactors, as
+threatened the city with destruction.  There was one William
+Fitz-Osbert, commonly called LONGBEARD, a lawyer, who had rendered
+himself extremely popular among the lower rank of citizens; and, by
+defending them on all occasions, had acquired the appellation of the
+advocate or saviour of the poor.  He exerted his authority, by
+injuring and insulting the more substantial citizens, with whom he
+lived in a state of hostility, and who were every moment exposed to
+the most outrageous violences from him and his licentious emissaries.
+Murders were daily committed in the streets; houses were broken open
+and pillaged in daylight; and it is pretended that no less than fifty-
+two thousand persons had entered into an association, by which they
+bound themselves to obey all the orders of this dangerous ruffian.
+Archbishop Hubert, who was then chief justiciary, summoned him before
+the council to answer for his conduct; but he came so well attended,
+that no one durst accuse him, or give evidence against him; and the
+primate, finding the impotence of law, contented himself with exacting
+from the citizens hostages for their good behaviour.  He kept,
+however, a watchful eye on Fitz-Osbert; and seizing a favourable
+opportunity, attempted to commit him to custody; but the criminal,
+murdering one of the public officers, escaped with his concubine to
+the church of St. Mary le Bow, where he defended himself by force of
+arms.  He was at last forced from his retreat, condemned, and
+executed, amidst the regrets of the populace, who were so devoted to
+his memory, that they stole his gibbet, paid the same veneration to it
+as to the cross, and were equally zealous in propagating and attesting
+reports of the miracles wrought by it [p].  But though the sectaries
+of this superstition were punished by the justiciary [q], it received
+so little encouragement from the established clergy, whose property
+was endangered by such seditious practices, that it suddenly sunk and
+vanished.
+[FN [p] Hoveden, p 765.  Diceto, p. 691.  Neubrig. p. 492, 493.  [q]
+Gervase, p. 1551.]
+
+It was during the crusades that the custom of using coats of arms was
+first introduced into Europe.  The knights, cased up in armour, had no
+way to make themselves be known and distinguished in battle but by the
+devices on their shields; and these were gradually adopted by their
+posterity and families, who were proud of the pious and military
+enterprises of their ancestors.
+
+King Richard was a passionate lover of poetry; there even remain some
+poetical works of his composition; and he bears a rank among the
+Provencal poets or TROBADORES, who were the first of the modern
+Europeans that distinguished themselves by attempts of that nature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+JOHN.
+
+ACCESSION OF THE KING.--HIS MARRIAGE.--WAR WITH FRANCE.—MURDER OF
+ARTHUR, DUKE OF BRITANY.--THE KING EXPELLED THE FRENCH PROVINCES.--THE
+KING'S QUARREL WITH THE COURT OF ROME.—CARDINAL LANGTON APPOINTED
+ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.--INTERDICT OF THE KINGDOM.--EXCOMMUNICATION
+OF THE KING.--THE KING'S SUBMISSION TO THE POPE.--DISCONTENTS OF THE
+BARONS.--INSURRECTION OF THE BARONS.--MAGNA CHARTA.--RENEWAL OF THE
+CIVIL WARS.—PRINCE LEWIS CALLED OVER.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF THE
+KING.
+
+
+
+[MN 1199.  Accession of the king.]
+The noble and free genius of the ancients, which made the government
+of a single person be always regarded as a species of tyranny and
+usurpation, and kept them from forming any conception of a legal and
+regular monarchy, had rendered them entirely ignorant both of the
+rights of PRIMOGENITURE, and a REPRESENTATION in succession;
+inventions so necessary for preserving order in the lines of princes,
+for obviating the evils of civil discord and of usurpation, and for
+begetting moderation in that species of government, by giving security
+to the ruling sovereign.  These innovations arose from the feudal law,
+which, first introducing the right of primogeniture, made such a
+distinction between the families of the elder and younger brothers,
+that the son of the former was thought entitled to succeed to his
+grandfather, preferably to his uncles, though nearer allied to the
+deceased monarch.  But though this progress of ideas was natural, it
+was gradual.  In the age of which we treat, the practice of
+representation was indeed introduced, but not thoroughly established;
+and the minds of men fluctuated between opposite principles.  Richard,
+when he entered on the holy war, declared his nephew, Arthur, Duke of
+Britany, his successor; and by a formal deed he set aside, in his
+favour, the title of his brother John, who was younger than Geoffrey,
+the father of that prince [a].  But John so little acquiesced in that
+destination, that when he gained the ascendant in the English
+ministry, by expelling Longchamp, the chancellor and great justiciary,
+he engaged all the English barons to swear that they would maintain
+his right of succession; and Richard, on his return, took no steps
+towards restoring or securing the order which he had at first
+established.  He was even careful, by his last will, to declare his
+brother John heir to all his dominions [b]; whether that he now
+thought Arthur, who was only twelve years of age, incapable of
+asserting his claim against John's faction, or was influenced by
+Eleanor, the queen-mother, who hated Constantia, mother of the young
+duke, and who dreaded the credit which that princess would naturally
+acquire if her son should mount the throne.  The authority of a
+testament was great in that age, even where the succession of a
+kingdom was concerned; and John had reason to hope that this title,
+joined to his plausible right in other respects, would ensure him the
+succession. But the idea of representation seems to have made, at this
+time, greater progress in France than in England: the barons of the
+transmarine provinces, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, immediately
+declared in favour of Arthur's title, and applied for assistance to
+the French monarch as their superior lord.  Philip, who desired only
+an occasion to embarrass John, and dismember his dominions, embraced
+the cause of the young Duke of Britany, took him under his protection,
+and sent him to Paris to be educated, along with his own son Lewis
+[c].  In this emergence, John hastened to establish his authority in
+the chief members of the monarchy; and after sending Eleanor into
+Poictou and Guienne, where her right was incontestable, and was
+readily acknowledged, he hurried to Rouen, and having secured the
+duchy of Normandy, he passed over, without loss of time, to England.
+Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, William Mareschal, Earl of Strigul,
+who also passes by the name of Earl of Pembroke, and Geoffrey
+Fitz-Peter, the justiciary, the three most favoured ministers of the
+late king, were already engaged on his side [d]; and the submission or
+acquiescence of all the other barons put him, without opposition, in
+possession of the throne.
+[FN [a] Hoveden, p. 677.  M Paris, p. 112.  Chron. de Dunst. p. 43.
+Rymer, vol i p. 66, 68.  Bened. Abb. p. 619.  [b] Hoveden, p. 791.
+Trivet, p. 138.  [c] Hoveden, p. 792.  M. Paris, p. 137.  M. West. p.
+263.  Knyghton, p. 2414.  [d] Hoveden, p. 793.  M. Paris, p. 137.]
+
+The king soon returned to France, in order to conduct the war against
+Philip, and to recover the revolted provinces from his nephew Arthur.
+The alliances which Richard had formed with the Earl of Flanders [e],
+and other potent French princes, though they had not been very
+effectual, still subsisted, and enabled John to defend himself against
+all the efforts of his enemy.  In an action between the French and
+Flemings, the elect Bishop of Cambray was taken prisoner by the
+former; and when the Cardinal of Capua claimed his liberty, Philip,
+instead of complying, reproached him with the weak efforts which he
+had employed in favour of the Bishop of Beauvais, who was in a like
+condition.  The legate, to show his impartiality, laid, at the same
+time, the kingdom of France and the duchy of Normandy under an
+interdict; and the two kings found themselves obliged to make an
+exchange of these military prelates.
+[FN [e] Rymer, vol. i. p. 114.  Hoveden, p. 794.  M. Paris, p. 138.]
+
+[MN 1200.]  Nothing enabled the king to bring this war to a happy
+issue so much as the selfish intriguing character of Philip, who acted
+in the provinces that had declared for Arthur, without any regard to
+the interests of that prince.  Constantia, seized with a violent
+jealousy that he intended to usurp the entire dominion of them [f],
+found means to carry off her son secretly from Paris: she put him into
+the hands of his uncle; restored the provinces which had adhered to
+the young prince; and made him do homage for the duchy of Britany,
+which was regarded as a rerefief of Normandy.  From this incident,
+Philip saw that he could not hope to make any progress against John;
+and being threatened with an interdict on account of his irregular
+divorce from Ingelburga, the Danish princess whom he had espoused, he
+became desirous of concluding a peace with England.  After some
+fruitless conferences, the terms were at last adjusted; and the two
+monarchs seemed in this treaty to have an intention, besides ending
+the present quarrel, of preventing all future causes of discord, and
+of obviating every controversy which could thereafter arise between
+them.  They adjusted the limits of all their territories, mutually
+secured the interests of their vassals; and, to render the union more
+durable, John gave his niece, Blanche of Castile, in marriage to
+Prince Lewis, Philip's eldest son, and with her the baronies of
+Issoudun and Gracai, and other fiefs in Berri.  Nine barons of the
+King of England, and as many of the King of France, were guarantees of
+this treaty; and all of them swore that if their sovereign violated
+any article of it, they would declare themselves against him, and
+embrace the cause of the injured monarch [g].
+[FN [f] Hoveden, p.795.  [g] Norman Duchesnii, p. 1055.  Rymer, vol.
+i. p. 117, 118, 119.  Hoveden, p. 814.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 47.]
+
+John, now secure, as he imagined, on the side of France, indulged his
+passion for Isabella, the daughter and heir of Aymar Tailleffer, Count
+of Angouleme, a lady with whom he had become much enamoured.  His
+queen, the heiress of the family of Gloucester, was still alive:
+Isabella was married to the Count de la Marche, and was already
+consigned to the care of that nobleman; though, by reason of her
+tender years, the marriage had not been consummated.  The passion of
+John made him overlook all these obstacles: he persuaded the Count of
+Angouleme to carry off his daughter from her husband; and having, on
+some pretence or other, procured a divorce from his own wife, he
+espoused Isabella; [MN The king’s marriage.] regardless both of the
+menaces of the pope, who exclaimed against these irregular
+proceedings, and of the resentment of the injured count, who soon
+found means of punishing his powerful and insolent rival.
+
+[MN 1201.]  John had not the art of attaching his barons either by
+affection or by fear.  The Count de la Marche, and his brother, the
+Count d'Eu, taking advantage of the general discontent against him,
+excited commotions in Poictou and Normandy, and obliged the king to
+have recourse to arms, in order to suppress the insurrection of his
+vassals.  He summoned together the barons of England, and required
+them to pass the sea under his standard, and to quell the rebels: he
+found that he possessed as little authority in that kingdom as in his
+transmarine provinces.  The English barons unanimously replied, that
+they would not attend him on this expedition, unless he would promise
+to restore and preserve their privileges [h]: the first symptom of a
+regular association and plan of liberty among those noblemen! but
+affairs were not yet fully ripe for the revolution projected.  John,
+by menacing the barons, broke the concert; and both engaged many of
+them to follow him into Normandy, and obliged the rest who stayed
+behind to pay him a scutage of two marks on each knight's fee, as the
+price of their exemption from the service.
+[FN [h] Annal. Burton, p. 262.]
+
+The force which John carried abroad with him, and that which joined
+him in Normandy, rendered him much superior to his malecontent barons;
+and so much the more as Philip did not publicly give them any
+countenance, and seemed as yet determined to persevere steadily in the
+alliance which he had contracted with England.  But the king, elated
+with his superiority, advanced claims which gave an universal alarm to
+his vassals, and diffused still wider the general discontent.  As the
+jurisprudence of those times required that the causes in the lords'
+court should chiefly be decided by duel, he carried along with him
+certain bravos, whom he retained as champions, and whom he destined to
+fight with his barons, in order to determine any controversy which he
+might raise against them [i].  The Count de la Marche, and other
+noblemen, regarded this proceeding as an affront, as well as an
+injury; and declared that they would never draw their swords against
+men of such inferior quality.  The king menaced them with vengeance;
+but he had not vigour to employ against them the force in his hands,
+or to prosecute the injustice, by crushing entirely the nobles who
+opposed it.
+[FN [i] Ibid.]
+
+[MN War with France.]
+This government, equally feeble and violent, gave the injured barons
+courage, as well as inclination, to carry farther their opposition;
+they appealed to the King of France; complained of the denial of
+justice in John’s court; demanded redress from him as their superior
+lord; and entreated him to employ his authority, and prevent their
+final ruin and oppression.  [MN 1202.]  Philip perceived his
+advantage, opened his mind to great projects, interposed in behalf of
+the French barons, and began to talk in a high and menacing style to
+the King of England.  John, who could not disavow Philip's authority,
+replied, that it belonged to himself first to grant them a trial by
+their peers in his own court; it was not till he failed in this duty
+that he was answerable to his peers in the supreme court of the French
+king [k]; and he promised, by a fair and equitable judicature, to give
+satisfaction to his barons.  When the nobles, in consequence of this
+engagement, demanded a safe conduct, that they might attend his court,
+he at first refused it; upon the renewal of Philip's menaces, he
+promised to grant their demand; he violated this promise; fresh
+menaces extorted from him a promise to surrender to Philip the
+fortresses of Tillieres and Boutavant, as a security for performance;
+he again violated his engagement; his enemies, sensible both of his
+weakness and want of faith, combined still closer in the resolution of
+pushing him to extremities; and a new and powerful ally soon appeared
+to encourage them in their invasion of this odious and despicable
+government.
+[FN [k] Philipp. lib. vi.]
+
+[MN 1203.]  The young Duke of Britany, who was now rising to man’s
+estate, sensible of the dangerous character of his uncle, determined
+to seek both his security and elevation by a union with Philip and the
+malecontent barons.  He joined the French army, which had begun
+hostilities against the King of England: he was received with great
+marks of distinction by Philip; was knighted by him; espoused his
+daughter Mary; and was invested not only in the duchy of Britany, but
+in the counties of Anjou and Maine, which he had formerly resigned to
+his uncle [l].  Every attempt succeeded with the allies.  Tillieres
+and Boutavant were taken by Philip, after making a feeble defence:
+Mortimar and Lyons fell into his hands almost without resistance.
+That prince next invested Gournai; and opening the sluices of a lake
+which lay in the neighbourhood, poured such a torrent of water into
+the place, that the garrison deserted it, and the French monarch,
+without striking a blow, made himself master of that important
+fortress.  The progress of the French arms was rapid, and promised
+more considerable success than usually in that age attended military
+enterprises.  In answer to every advance which the king made towards
+peace, Philip still insisted that he should resign all his transmarine
+dominions to his nephew, and rest contented with the kingdom of
+England; when an event happened which seemed to turn the scales in
+favour of John, and to give him a decisive superiority over his
+enemies.
+[FN [l] Trivet, p. 142.]
+
+Young Arthur, fond of military renown, had broken into Poictou at the
+head of a small army; and passing near Mirebeau, he heard that his
+grandmother, Queen Eleanor, who had always opposed his interests, was
+lodged in that place, and was protected by a weak garrison and ruinous
+fortifications [m].  He immediately determined to lay siege to the
+fortress, and make himself master of her person: but John, roused from
+his indolence by so pressing an occasion, collected an army of English
+and Brabancons, and advanced from Normandy with hasty marches to the
+relief of the queen-mother.  He fell on Arthur's camp before that
+prince was aware of the danger; dispersed his army; took him prisoner,
+together with the Count de la Marche, Geoffrey de Lusignan, and the
+most considerable of the revolted barons; and returned in triumph to
+Normandy [n].  [MN 1st Aug.]  Philip, who was lying before Arques in
+that duchy, raised the siege, and retired upon his approach [o].  The
+greater part of the prisoners were sent over to England; but Arthur
+was shut up in the castle of Falaise.
+[FN [m] Ann. Waverl. p. 167.  M. West. p. 264.  [n] Ann. Marg. p. 213.
+M. West. p. 264.  [o] M. West. p. 264.]
+
+The king had here a conference with his nephew; represented to him the
+folly of his pretensions; and required him to renounce the French
+alliance, which had encouraged him to live in a state of enmity with
+all his family: but the brave, though imprudent youth, rendered more
+haughty from misfortunes, maintained the justice of his cause;
+asserted his claim not only to the French provinces, but to the crown
+of England; and in his turn, required the king to restore the son of
+his elder brother to the possession of his inheritance [p].  John,
+sensible from these symptoms of spirit that the young prince, though
+now a prisoner, might hereafter prove a dangerous enemy, determined to
+prevent all future peril by despatching his nephew; and Arthur was
+never more heard of.  [MN 1203.  Murder of Arthur, Duke of Britany.]
+The circumstances which attended this deed of darkness were, no doubt,
+carefully concealed by the actors, and are variously related by
+historians: but the most probable account is as follows: the king, it
+is said, first proposed to William de la Bray, one of his servants, to
+despatch Arthur; but William replied that he was a gentleman, not a
+hangman; and he positively refused compliance.  Another instrument of
+murder was found, and was despatched with proper orders to Falaise;
+but Hubert de Bourg, chamberlain to the king, and constable of the
+castle, feigning that he himself would execute the king's mandate,
+sent back the assassin, spread the report that the young prince was
+dead, and publicly performed all the ceremonies of his interment; but
+finding that the Bretons vowed revenge for the murder, and that all
+the revolted barons persevered more obstinately in their rebellion, he
+thought it prudent to reveal the secret, and to inform the world that
+the Duke of Britany was still alive, and in his custody.  This
+discovery proved fatal to the young prince: John first removed him to
+the castle of Rouen; and coming in a boat, during the night-time, to
+that place, commanded Arthur to be brought forth to him.  The young
+prince, aware of his danger, and now more subdued by the continuance
+of his misfortunes, and by the approach of death, threw himself on his
+knees before his uncle, and begged for mercy: but the barbarous
+tyrant, making no reply, stabbed him with his own hands; and fastening
+a stone to the dead body, threw it into the Seine.
+[FN [p] Ibid. p. 264.]
+
+All men were struck with horror at this inhuman deed; and from that
+moment the king, detested by his subjects, retained a very precarious
+authority over both the people and the barons in his dominions.  The
+Bretons, enraged at this disappointment in their fond hopes, waged
+implacable war against him; and fixing the succession of their
+government, put themselves in a posture to revenge the murder of their
+sovereign.  John had got into his power his niece, Eleanor, sister to
+Arthur, commonly called THE DAMSEL OF BRITANY; and carrying her over
+to England, detained her ever after in captivity [q]; but the Bretons,
+in despair of recovering this princess, chose Alice for their
+sovereign; a younger daughter of Constantia, by her second marriage
+with Guy de Thouars; and they intrusted the government of the duchy to
+that nobleman.  The states of Britany, meanwhile, carried their
+complaints before Philip, as their liege lord, and demanded justice
+for the violence committed by John on the person of Arthur, so near a
+relation, who, notwithstanding the homage which he did to Normandy,
+was always regarded as one of the chief vassals of the crown.  Philip
+received their application with pleasure; summoned John to stand a
+trial before him, and on his non-appearance passed sentence, with the
+concurrence of the peers, upon that prince; declared him guilty of
+felony and parricide; and adjudged him to forfeit to his superior lord
+all his seignories and fiefs in France [r].
+[FN [q] Trivet, p. 145.  T. Wykes, p. 36.  Ypod. Neust. p. 459.  [r]
+W. Heming, p. 455.  M. West. p. 264.  Knyghton, p. 2420.]
+
+[MN The King expelled from the French provinces.]
+The King of France, whose ambitious and active spirit had been
+hitherto confined, either by the sound policy of Henry, or the martial
+genius of Richard, seeing now the opportunity favourable against this
+base and odious prince, embraced the project of expelling the English,
+or rather the English king, from France, and of annexing to the crown
+so many considerable fiefs, which, during several ages, had been
+dismembered from it.  Many of the other great vassals, whose jealousy
+might have interposed, and have obstructed the execution of this
+project, were not at present in a situation to oppose it; and the rest
+either looked on with indifference, or gave their assistance to this
+dangerous aggrandizement of their superior lord.  The Earls of
+Flanders and Blois were engaged in the holy war: the Count of
+Champagne was an infant, and under the guardianship of Philip: the
+duchy of Britany, enraged at the murder of their prince, vigorously
+promoted all his measures: and the general defection of John's vassals
+made every enterprise easy and successful against him.  Philip, after
+taking several castles and fortresses beyond the Loire, which he
+either garrisoned or dismantled, received the submissions of the Count
+of Alencon, who deserted John, and delivered up all the places under
+his command to the French: upon which Philip broke up his camp, in
+order to give the troops some repose after the fatigues of the
+campaign.  John, suddenly recollecting some forces, laid siege to
+Alencon; and Philip, whose dispersed army could not be brought
+together in time to succour it, saw himself exposed to the disgrace of
+suffering the oppression of his friend and confederate.  But his
+active and fertile genius found an expedient against this evil.  There
+was held at that very time a tournament at Moret, in the Gatinois;
+whither all the chief nobility of France and the neighbouring
+countries had resorted, in order to signalize their prowess and
+address.  Philip presented himself before them; craved their
+assistance in his distress; and pointed out the plains of Alencon, as
+the most honourable field in which they could display their generosity
+and martial spirit.  Those valorous knights vowed that they would take
+vengeance on the base parricide, the stain of arms and of chivalry;
+and putting themselves, with all their retinue, under the command of
+Philip, instantly marched to raise the siege of Alencon.  John,
+hearing of their approach, fled from before the place; and, in the
+hurry, abandoned all his tents, machines, and baggage, to the enemy.
+
+This feeble effort was the last exploit of that slothful and cowardly
+prince for the defence of his dominions.  He thenceforth remained in
+total inactivity at Rouen; passing all his time with his young wife in
+pastimes and amusements, as if his state had been in the most profound
+tranquillity, or his affairs in the most prosperous condition.  If he
+ever mentioned war, it was only to give himself vaunting airs, which,
+in the eyes of all men, rendered him still more despicable and
+ridiculous.  LET THE FRENCH GO ON, said he, I WILL RETAKE IN A DAY
+WHAT IT HAS COST THEM YEARS TO ACQUIRE [s].  His stupidity and
+indolence appeared so extraordinary, that the people endeavoured to
+account for the infatuation by sorcery, and believed that he was
+thrown into this lethargy by some magic or witchcraft.  The English
+barons, finding that their time was wasted to no purpose, and that
+they must suffer the disgrace of seeing, without resistance, the
+progress of the French arms, withdrew from their colours, and secretly
+returned to their own country [t].  No one thought of defending a man
+who seemed to have deserted himself; and his subjects regarded his
+fate with the same indifference to which in this pressing exigency
+they saw him totally abandoned.
+[FN [s] M. Paris, p. 146.  M. West. p. 266.  [t] M. Paris, p. 146.  M.
+West. p. 264.]
+
+John, while he neglected all domestic resources, had the meanness to
+betake himself to a foreign power, whose protection he claimed: he
+applied to the pope, Innocent III., and entreated him to interpose his
+authority between him and the French monarch.  Innocent, pleased with
+any occasion of exerting his superiority, sent Philip orders to stop
+the progress of his arms, and to make peace with the King of England.
+But the French barons received the message with indignation;
+disclaimed the temporal authority assumed by the pontiff; and vowed
+that they would, to the uttermost, assist their prince against all his
+enemies; Philip, seconding their ardour, proceeded, instead of obeying
+the pope's envoys, to lay siege to Chateau Gaillard, the most
+considerable fortress which remained to guard the frontiers of
+Normandy.
+
+[MN 1204.]  Chateau Gaillard was situated partly on an island in the
+river Seine, partly on a rock opposite to it; and was secured by every
+advantage which either art or nature could bestow upon it.  The late
+king, having cast his eye on this favourable situation, had spared no
+labour or expense in fortifying it; and it was defended by Roger de
+Laci, Constable of Chester, a determined officer, at the head of a
+numerous garrison.  Philip, who despaired of taking the place by
+force, purposed to reduce it by famine; and, that he might cut off its
+communication with the neighbouring country, he threw a bridge across
+the Seine, while he himself, with his army, blockaded it by land.  The
+Earl of Pembroke, the man of greatest vigour and capacity in the
+English court, formed a plan for breaking through the French
+intrenchments, and throwing relief into the place.  He carried with
+him an army of four thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, and
+suddenly attacked, with great success, Philip's camp in the
+night-time; having left orders that a fleet of seventy flat-bottomed
+vessels should sail up the Seine, and fall at the same instant on the
+bridge.  But the wind and the current of the river, by retarding the
+vessels, disconcerted this plan of operations; and it was morning
+before the fleet appeared; when Pembroke, though successful in the
+beginning of the action, was already repulsed with considerable loss,
+and the King of France had leisure to defend himself against these new
+assailants, who also met with a repulse.  After this misfortune, John
+made no farther efforts for the relief of Chateau Gaillard; and Philip
+had all the leisure requisite for conducting and finishing the siege.
+Roger de Laci defended himself for a twelvemonth with great obstinacy;
+and having bravely repelled every attack, and patiently borne all the
+hardships of famine, he was at last overpowered by a sudden assault in
+the night-time, and made prisoner of war, with his garrison [u].
+Philip, who knew how to respect valour even in an enemy, treated him
+with civility, and gave him the whole city of Paris for the place of
+his confinement.
+[FN [u] Trivet, p. 144.  Gul. Britto, lib. 7.  Ann. Waverl. p. 168.]
+
+When this bulwark of Normandy was once subdued, all the province lay
+open to the inroads of Philip; and the King of England despaired of
+being any longer able to defend it.  He secretly prepared vessels for
+a scandalous flight, and that the Normans might no longer doubt of his
+resolution to abandon them, he ordered the fortifications of Pont de
+l'Arche, Molineaux, and Montfort l'Amauri, to be demolished.  Not
+daring to repose confidence in any of his barons, whom he believed to
+be universally engaged in a conspiracy against him, he intrusted the
+government of the province to Archas Martin and Lupicaire, two
+mercenary Brabancons, whom he had retained in his service.  Philip,
+now secure of his prey, pushed his conquests with vigour and success
+against the dismayed Normans.  Falaise was first besieged; and
+Lupicaire, who commanded in this impregnable fortress, after
+surrendering the place, enlisted himself with his troops in the
+service of Philip, and carried on hostilities against his ancient
+master.  Caen, Coutance, Seez, Evreux, Baieux, soon fell into the
+hands of the French monarch, and all the Lower Normandy was reduced
+under his dominion.  To forward his enterprises on the other division
+of the province, Gui de Thouars, at the head of the Bretons, broke
+into the territory, and took Mount St. Michael, Avranches, and all the
+other fortresses in that neighbourhood.  The Normans, who abhorred the
+French yoke, and who would have defended themselves to the last
+extremity if their prince had appeared to conduct them, found no
+resource but in submission; and every city opened its gates as soon as
+Philip appeared before it.  [MN 1205.]  Rouen alone, Arques, and
+Verneuil, determined to maintain their liberties, and formed a
+confederacy for mutual defence.  Philip began with the siege of Rouen:
+the inhabitants were so inflamed with hatred to France, that, on the
+appearance of his army, they fell on all the natives of that country
+whom they found within their walls, and put them to death.  But after
+the French king had begun his operations with success, and had taken
+some of their outworks, the citizens, seeing no resource, offered to
+capitulate; and demanded only thirty days to advertise their prince of
+their danger, and to require succours against the enemy.  [MN 1st
+June.]  Upon the expiration of the term, as no supply had arrived,
+they opened their gates to Philip [w]; and the whole province soon
+after imitated the example, and submitted to the victor.  Thus was
+this important territory re-united to the crown of France, about three
+centuries after the cession of it by Charles the Simple to Rollo, the
+first duke: and the Normans, sensible that this conquest was probably
+final, demanded the privilege of being governed by French laws; which
+Philip, making a few alterations on the ancient Norman customs,
+readily granted them.  But the French monarch had too much ambition
+and genius to stop in his present career of success.  He carried his
+victorious army into the western provinces; soon reduced Anjou, Maine,
+Touraine, and part of Poictou [x]; and in this manner the French
+crown, during the reign of one able and active prince, received such
+an accession of power and grandeur, as in the  ordinary course of
+things, it would have required several ages to attain.
+[FN [w] Trivet. p. 147.  Ypod. Neust. p. 459.  [x] Trivet, p. 149.]
+
+John, on his arrival in England, that he might cover the disgrace of
+his own conduct, exclaimed loudly against his barons, who, he
+pretended, had deserted his standard in Normandy; and he arbitrarily
+extorted from them a seventh of all their moveables, as a punishment
+for the offence [y].  Soon after he forced them to grant him a scutage
+of two marks and a half on each knight's fee for an expedition into
+Normandy; but he did not attempt to execute the service for which he
+pretended to exact it.  Next year he summoned all the barons of his
+realm to attend him on this foreign expedition, and collected ships
+from all the sea-ports; but meeting with opposition from some of his
+ministers, and abandoning his design, he dismissed both fleet and
+army, and then renewed his exclamations against the barons for
+deserting him.  He next put to sea with a small army, and his subjects
+believed that he was resolved to expose himself to the utmost hazard
+for the defence and recovery of his dominions: but they were
+surprised, after a few days, to see him return again into harbour,
+without attempting any thing.  [MN 1206.]  In the subsequent season,
+he had the courage to carry his hostile measures a step farther.  Gui
+de Thouars, who governed Britany, jealous of the rapid progress made
+by his ally, the French king, promised to join the King of England
+with all his forces; and John ventured abroad with a considerable
+army, and landed at Rochelle.  He marched to Angers, which he took and
+reduced to ashes.  But the approach of Philip with an army threw him
+into a panic; and he immediately made proposals for peace, and fixed a
+place of interview with his enemy: but instead of keeping his
+engagement, he stole off with his army, embarked at Rochelle, and
+returned, loaded with new shame and disgrace, into England.  The
+mediation of the pope, procured him at last a truce for two years with
+the French monarch [z]; almost all the transmarine provinces were
+ravished from him; and his English barons, though harassed with
+arbitrary taxes and fruitless expeditions, saw themselves and their
+country baffled and affronted in every enterprise.
+[FN [y] M. Paris, p. 146.  M. West. p. 265.  [z] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+141.]
+
+In an age when personal valour was regarded as the chief
+accomplishment, such conduct as that of John, always disgraceful, must
+be exposed to peculiar contempt; and he must thenceforth have expected
+to rule his turbulent vassals with a very doubtful authority.  But the
+government exercised by the Norman princes had wound up the royal
+power to so high a pitch, and so much beyond the usual tenour of the
+feudal constitutions, that it still behoved him to be debased by new
+affronts and disgraces, ere his barons could entertain the view of
+conspiring against him, in order to retrench his prerogatives.  The
+church, which at that time declined not a contest with the most
+powerful and vigorous monarchs, took first advantage of John's
+imbecility; and, with the most aggravating circumstances of insolence
+and scorn, fixed her yoke upon him.
+
+[MN 1207.  The king’s quarrel with the court of Rome.]
+The papal chair was then filled by Innocent III., who, having attained
+that dignity at the age of thirty-seven years, and being endowed with
+a lofty and enterprising genius, gave full scope to his ambition, and
+attempted, perhaps more openly than any of his predecessors, to
+convert that superiority which was yielded him by all the European
+princes into a real dominion over them.  The hierarchy, protected by
+the Roman pontiff, had already carried to an enormous height its
+usurpations upon the civil power; but in order to extend them farther,
+and render them useful to the court of Rome, it was necessary to
+reduce the ecclesiastics themselves under an absolute monarchy, and to
+make them entirely dependent on their spiritual leader.  For this
+purpose, Innocent first attempted to impose taxes at pleasure upon the
+clergy; and in the first year of this century, taking advantage of the
+popular frenzy for crusades, he sent collectors over all Europe, who
+levied, by his authority, the fortieth of all ecclesiastical revenues
+for the relief of the Holy Land, and received the voluntary
+contributions of the laity to a like amount [a].  The same year
+Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, attempted another innovation,
+favourable to ecclesiastical and papal power: in the king's absence,
+he summoned, by his legatine authority, a synod of all the English
+clergy, contrary to the inhibition of Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, the chief
+justiciary; and no proper censure was ever passed on this
+encroachment, the first of the kind, upon the royal power.  But a
+favourable incident soon after happened, which enabled so aspiring a
+pontiff as Innocent to extend still farther his usurpations on so
+contemptible a prince as John.
+[FN [a] Rymer, vol. i. p. 119.]
+
+Hubert the primate died in 1205; and as the monks or canons of Christ-
+Church, Canterbury, possessed a right of voting in the election of
+their archbishop, some of the juniors of the order, who lay in wait
+for that event, met clandestinely the very night of Hubert's death,
+and, without any congé d'élire from the king, chose Reginald, their
+sub-prior, for the successor; installed him in the archiepiscopal
+throne before midnight; and, having enjoined him the strictest
+secrecy, sent him immediately to Rome, in order to solicit the
+confirmation of his election [b].  The vanity of Reginald prevailed
+over his prudence; and he no sooner arrived in Flanders, than he
+revealed to every one the purpose of his journey, which was
+immediately known in England [c].  The king was enraged at the novelty
+and temerity of the attempt, in filling so important an office without
+his knowledge or consent: the suffragan bishops of Canterbury, who
+were accustomed to concur in the choice of their primate, were no less
+displeased at the exclusion given them in this election: the senior
+monks of Christ-Church were injured by the irregular proceedings of
+their juniors: the juniors themselves, ashamed of their conduct, and
+disgusted with the levity of Reginald, who had broken his engagements
+with them, were willing to set aside his election [d]: and all men
+concurred in the design of remedying the false measures which had been
+taken.  But as John knew that this affair would be canvassed before a
+superior tribunal, where the interposition of royal authority in
+bestowing ecclesiastical benefices was very invidious; where even the
+cause of suffragan bishops was not so favourable as that of monks; he
+determined to make the new election entirely unexceptionable: he
+submitted the affair wholly to the canons of Christ-Church, and,
+departing from the right claimed by his predecessors, ventured no
+farther than to inform them privately, that they would do him an
+acceptable service if they chose John de Gray, Bishop of Norwich, for
+their primate [e].  The election of that prelate was accordingly made
+without a contradictory vote; and the king, to obviate all contests,
+endeavoured to persuade the suffragan bishops not to insist on their
+claim of concurring in the election; but those prelates, persevering
+in their pretensions, sent an agent to maintain their cause before
+Innocent; while the king and the convent of Christ-Church, despatched
+twelve monks of that order to support, before the same tribunal, the
+election of the Bishop of Norwich.
+[FN [b] M. Paris, p. 148.  M. West. p. 266.  [c] Ibid.  [d] M. West.
+p. 266.  [e] M. Paris, p. 149.  M. West. p. 266.]
+
+Thus there lay three different claims before the pope, whom all
+parties allowed to be the supreme arbiter in the contest.  The claim
+of the suffragans, being so opposite to the usual maxims of the papal
+court, was soon set aside: the election of Reginald was so obviously
+fraudulent and irregular, that there was no possibility of defending
+it; but Innocent maintained that, though this election was null and
+invalid, it ought previously to have been declared such by the
+sovereign pontiff, before the monks could proceed to a new election;
+and that the choice of the Bishop of Norwich was of course as
+uncanonical as that of his competitor [f].  Advantage was therefore
+taken of this subtlety for introducing a precedent, by which the see
+of Canterbury, the most important dignity in the church after the
+papal throne, should ever after be at the disposal of the court of
+Rome.
+[FN [f] M. Paris, p. 155.  Chron. de Mailr. p. 182.]
+
+While the pope maintained so many fierce contests, in order to wrest
+from princes the right of granting investitures, and to exclude laymen
+from all authority in conferring ecclesiastical benefices, he was
+supported by the united influence of the clergy, who, aspiring to
+independence, fought with all the ardour of ambition, and all the zeal
+of superstition, under his sacred banners.  But no sooner was this
+point, after a great effusion of blood, and the convulsions of many
+states, established in some tolerable degree, than the victorious
+leader, as is usual, turned his arms against his own community, and
+aspired to centre all power in his person.  By the invention of
+reserves, provisions, commendants, and other devices, the pope
+gradually assumed the right of filling vacant benefices; and the
+plenitude of his apostolic power, which was not subject to any
+limitations, supplied all defects of title in the person on whom he
+bestowed preferment.  The canons which regulated elections were
+purposely rendered intricate and involved: frequent disputes arose
+among candidates: appeals were every day carried to Rome: the
+apostolic see, besides reaping pecuniary advantages from these
+contests, often exercised the power of setting aside both the
+litigants, and, on pretence of appeasing faction, nominated a third
+person, who might be more acceptable to the contending parties.
+
+The present controversy about the election to the see of Canterbury
+afforded Innocent an opportunity of claiming this right; and he failed
+not to perceive and avail himself of the advantage.  He sent for the
+twelve monks deputed by the convent to maintain the cause of the
+Bishop of Norwich; and commanded them, under the penalty of
+excommunication, to choose for their primate Cardinal Langton, an
+Englishman by birth, but educated in France, and connected, by his
+interest and attachments, with the see of Rome [g].  [MN Cardinal
+Langton appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.]  In vain did the monks
+represent, that they had received from their convent no authority for
+this purpose; that an election, without a previous writ from the king,
+would be deemed highly irregular; and that they were merely agents for
+another person, whose right they had no power or pretence to abandon.
+None of them had the courage to persevere in this opposition, except
+one, Elias de Brantefield: all the rest, overcome by the menaces and
+authority of the pope, complied with his orders, and made the election
+required of them.
+[FN [g] M. Paris, p. 155.  Ann. Waverl. p. 169.  W. Heming. p. 553.
+Knyghton, p. 2415.]
+
+Innocent, sensible that this flagrant usurpation would be highly
+resented by the court of England, wrote John a mollifying letter; sent
+him four golden rings set with precious stones; and endeavoured to
+enhance the value of the present by informing him of the many
+mysteries implied in it.  He begged him to consider seriously the FORM
+of the rings, their NUMBER, their MATTER, and their COLOUR.  Their
+form, he said, being round, shadowed out eternity, which had neither
+beginning nor end; and he ought thence to learn his duty of aspiring
+from earthly objects to heavenly, from things temporal to things
+eternal.  The number four, being a square, denoted steadiness of mind,
+not to be subverted either by adversity or prosperity, fixed for ever
+on the firm basis of the four cardinal virtues.  Gold, which is the
+matter, being the most precious of metals, signified wisdom, which is
+the most valuable of all accomplishments, and justly preferred by
+Solomon to riches, power, and all exterior attainments.  The blue
+colour of the sapphire represented faith; the verdure of the emerald,
+hope; the redness of the ruby, charity; and the splendour of the
+topaz, good works [h].  By these conceits Innocent endeavoured to
+repay John for one of the most important prerogatives of his crown,
+which he had ravished from him; conceits probably admired by Innocent
+himself: for it is easily possible for a man, especially in a
+barbarous age, to unite strong talents for business with an absurd
+taste for literature and the arts.
+[FN [h] Rymer, vol. i. p. 139.  M. Paris, p. 155.]
+
+John was inflamed with the utmost rage when he heard of this attempt
+of the court of Rome [i]; and he immediately vented his passion on the
+monks of Christ-Church, whom he found inclined to support the election
+made by their fellows at Rome.  He sent Fulke de Cantelupe, and Henry
+de Cornhulle, two knights of his retinue, men of violent tempers and
+rude manners, to expel them the convent, and take possession of their
+revenues.  These knights entered the monastery with drawn swords,
+commanded the prior and the monks to depart the kingdom, and menaced
+them, that, in case of disobedience, they would instantly burn them
+with the convent [k].  Innocent, prognosticating, from the violence
+and imprudence of these measures, that John would finally sink in the
+contest, persevered the more vigorously in his pretensions, and
+exhorted the king not to oppose God and the church any longer, nor to
+prosecute that cause for which the holy martyr, St. Thomas, had
+sacrificed his life, and which had exalted him equal to the highest
+saints in heaven [l]: a clear hint to John to profit by the example of
+his father; and to remember the prejudices and established principles
+of his subjects, who bore a profound veneration to that martyr, and
+regarded his merits as the subject of their chief glory and
+exultation.
+[FN [i] Rymer, vol. i. p. 143.  [k] M. Paris, p. 156.  Trivet, p. 151.
+Ann. Waverl. p. 169.  [l] M. Paris, p. 157.]
+
+Innocent, finding that John was not sufficiently tamed to submission,
+sent three prelates, the Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, to
+intimate, that if he persevered in his disobedience, the sovereign
+pontiff would be obliged to lay the kingdom under an interdict [m].
+All the other prelates threw themselves on their knees before him, and
+entreated him, with tears in their eyes, to prevent the scandal of
+this sentence, by making a speedy submission to his spiritual father,
+by receiving from his hands the new-elected primate, and by restoring
+the monks of Christ-Church to all their rights and possessions.  He
+burst out into the most indecent invectives against the prelates;
+swore by God's teeth, (his usual oath,) that if the pope presumed to
+lay his kingdom under an interdict, he would send to him all the
+bishops and clergy of England, and would confiscate all their estates;
+and threatened that, if thenceforth he caught any Romans in his
+dominions, he would put out their eyes and cut off their noses, in
+order to set a mark upon them which might distinguish them from all
+other nations [n].  Amidst all this idle violence, John stood on such
+bad terms with his nobility, that he never dared to assemble the
+states of the kingdom, who, in so just a cause, would probably have
+adhered to any other monarch, and have defended with vigour the
+liberties of the nation against these palpable usurpations of the
+court of Rome.  [MN Interdict of the kingdom.]  Innocent, therefore,
+perceiving the king's weakness, fulminated at last the sentence of
+interdict, which he had for some time held suspended over him [o].
+[FN [m] Ibid.  [n] Ibid.  [o] M. Paris, p. 157.  Trivet, p. 152.  Ann.
+Waverl. p. 170.  M. West. p. 268.]
+
+The sentence of interdict was at that time the great instrument of
+vengeance and policy employed by the court of Rome; was denounced
+against sovereigns for the lightest offences; and made the guilt of
+one person involve the ruin of millions, even in their spiritual and
+eternal welfare.  The execution of it was calculated to strike the
+senses in the highest degree, and to operate with irresistible force
+on the superstitious minds of the people.  The nation was of a sudden
+deprived of all exterior exercise of its religion: the altars were
+despoiled of their ornaments: the crosses, the relics, the images, the
+statues of the saints, were laid on the ground; and, as if the air
+itself were profaned, and might pollute them by its contact, the
+priests carefully covered them up, even from their own approach and
+veneration.  The use of bells entirely ceased in all the churches: the
+bells themselves were removed from the steeples, and laid on the
+ground with the other sacred utensils.  Mass was celebrated with shut
+doors, and none but the priests were admitted to that holy
+institution.  The laity partook of no religious rite, except baptism
+to new-born infants, and the communion to the dying: the dead were not
+interred in consecrated ground: they were thrown into ditches, or
+buried in common fields; and their obsequies were not attended with
+prayers or any hallowed ceremony.  Marriage was celebrated in the
+church-yard [p]; and that every action in life might bear the marks of
+this dreadful situation, the people were prohibited the use of meat,
+as in Lent, or times of the highest penance; were debarred from all
+pleasures and entertainments; and were forbidden even to salute each
+other, or so much as to shave their beards, and give any decent
+attention to their person and apparel.  Every circumstance carried
+symptoms of the deepest distress, and of the most immediate
+apprehension of divine vengeance and indignation.
+[FN [p] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 51.]
+
+The king, that he might oppose HIS temporal to THEIR spiritual
+terrors, immediately, from his own authority, confiscated the estates
+of all the clergy who obeyed the interdict [q]; banished the prelates,
+confined the monks in their convent, and gave them only such a small
+allowance from their own estates as would suffice to provide them with
+food and raiment.  He treated with the utmost rigour all Langton's
+adherents, and every one that showed any disposition to obey the
+commands of Rome; and in order to distress the clergy in the tenderest
+point, and at the same time expose them to reproach and ridicule, he
+threw into prison all their concubines, and required high fines as the
+price of their liberty [r].
+[FN [q] Ann. Waverl. p. 170.  [r] M. Paris, p. 158.  Ann. Waverl. p.
+170.]
+
+After the canons which established the celibacy of the clergy were, by
+the zealous endeavours of Archbishop Anselm, more rigorously executed
+in England, the ecclesiastics gave, almost universally, and avowedly,
+in to the use of concubinage; and the court of Rome, which had no
+interest in prohibiting this practice, made very slight opposition to
+it.  The custom was become so prevalent, that, in some cantons of
+Switzerland, before the reformation, the laws not only permitted, but,
+to avoid scandal, enjoined the use of concubines to the younger clergy
+[s]; and it was usual every where for priests to apply to the
+ordinary, and obtain from him a formal liberty for this indulgence.
+The bishop commonly took care to prevent the practice from
+degenerating into licentiousness: he confined the priest to the use of
+one woman, required him to be constant to her bed, obliged him to
+provide for her subsistence and that of her children; and though the
+offspring was, in the eye of the law, deemed illegitimate, this
+commerce was really a kind of inferior marriage, such as is still
+practised in Germany among the nobles; and may be regarded by the
+candid as an appeal from the tyranny of civil and ecclesiastical
+institutions, to the more virtuous and more unerring laws of nature.
+[FN [s] Padre Paolo, Hist. Conc. Trid. lib. I.]
+
+The quarrel between the king and the see of Rome continued for some
+years; and though many of the clergy, from the fear of punishment,
+obeyed the orders of John, and celebrated divine service, they
+complied with the utmost reluctance, and were regarded, both by
+themselves and the people, as men who betrayed their principles, and
+sacrificed their conscience to temporal regards and interests.  During
+this violent situation, the king, in order to give a lustre to his
+government, attempted military expeditions against Scotland, against
+Ireland, against the Welsh [t]; and he commonly prevailed, more from
+the weakness of his enemies, than from his own vigour or abilities.
+Meanwhile, the danger to which his government stood continually
+exposed from the discontents of the ecclesiastics increased his
+natural propension to tyranny; and he seems to have even wantonly
+disgusted all orders of men, especially his nobles, from whom alone he
+could reasonably expect support and assistance.  He dishonoured their
+families by his licentious amours; he published edicts, prohibiting
+them from hunting feathered game, and thereby restrained them from
+their favourite occupation and amusement [u]; he ordered all the
+hedges and fences near his forests to be levelled, that his deer might
+have more ready access into the fields for pasture; and he continually
+loaded the nation with arbitrary impositions.  [MN 1208.]  Conscious
+of the general hatred which he had incurred, he required his nobility
+to give him hostages for security of their allegiance; and they were
+obliged to put into his hands their sons, nephews, or near relations.
+When his messengers came with like orders to the castle of William de
+Braouse, a baron of great note, the lady of that nobleman replied,
+that she would never intrust her son into the hands of one who had
+murdered his own nephew while in his custody.  Her husband reproved
+her for the severity of this speech; but, sensible of his danger, he
+immediately fled with his wife and son into Ireland, where he
+endeavoured to conceal himself.  The king discovered the unhappy
+family in their retreat; seized the wife and son, whom he starved to
+death in prison; and the baron himself narrowly escaped, by flying
+into France.
+[FN [t] W. Heming. p. 556.  Ypod. Neust, p. 460.  Knyghton, p. 2420.
+[u] M. West. p. 268.]
+
+[MN 1209.]  The court of Rome had artfully contrived a gradation of
+sentences, by which it kept offenders in awe; still affording them an
+opportunity of preventing the next anathema by submission; and in case
+of their obstinacy, was able to refresh the horror of the people
+against them by new denunciations of the wrath and vengeance of
+Heaven.  As the sentence of interdict had not produced the desired
+effect on John, and as his people, though extremely discontented, had
+hitherto been restrained from rising in open rebellion against him, he
+was soon to look for the sentence of excommunication; and he had
+reason to apprehend, that, notwithstanding all his precautions, the
+most dangerous consequences might ensue from it.  He was witness of
+the other scenes, which, at that very time, were acting in Europe, and
+which displayed the unbounded and uncontrolled power of the papacy.
+Innocent, far from being dismayed at his contests with the King of
+England, had excommunicated the Emperor Otho, John's nephew [w]; and
+soon brought that powerful and haughty prince to submit to his
+authority.  He published a crusade against the Abigenses, a species of
+enthusiasts in the south of France, whom he denominated heretics,
+because, like other enthusiasts, they neglected the rites of the
+church, and opposed the power and influence of the clergy: the people
+from all parts of Europe, moved by their superstition and their
+passion for wars and adventures, flocked to his standard: Simon de
+Montfort, the general of the crusade, acquired to himself a
+sovereignty in these provinces: the Count of Toulouse, who protected,
+or perhaps only tolerated the Albigenses, was stripped of his
+dominions: and these sectaries themselves, though the most innocent
+and inoffensive of mankind, were exterminated with all the
+circumstances of extreme violence and barbarity.  Here were therefore
+both an army and a general, dangerous from their zeal and valour, who
+might be directed to act against John; and Innocent, after keeping the
+thunder long suspended, gave, at last, authority to the Bishops of
+London, Ely, and Worcester, to fulminate the sentence of
+excommunication against him [x].  [MN Excommunication of the king.]
+These prelates obeyed; though their brethren were deterred from
+publishing, as the pope required of them, the sentence in the several
+churches of their dioceses.
+[FN [w] M. Paris, p. 160.  Trivet, p. 154.  M. West. p. 269.  [x] M.
+Paris, p. 159.  M. West. p. 270.]
+
+No sooner was the excommunication known, than the effects of it
+appeared.  Geoffrey, Archdeacon of Norwich, who was intrusted with a
+considerable office in the court of exchequer, being informed of it
+while sitting on the bench, observed to his colleagues the danger of
+serving under an excommunicated king; and he immediately left his
+chair, and departed the court.  John gave orders to seize him, to
+throw him into prison, to cover his head with a great leaden cope;
+and, by this and other severe usage, he soon put an end to his life
+[y]: nor was there any thing wanting to Geoffrey, except the dignity
+and rank of Becket, to exalt him to an equal station in heaven with
+that great and celebrated martyr.  Hugh de Wells, the chancellor,
+being elected by the king's appointment Bishop of Lincoln, upon a
+vacancy in that see, desired leave to go abroad, in order to receive
+consecration from the Archbishop of Rouen; but he no sooner reached
+France than he hastened to Pontigny, where Langton then resided, and
+paid submissions to him as his primate.  The bishops, finding
+themselves exposed either to the jealousy of the king or hatred of the
+people, gradually stole out of the kingdom; and, at last, there
+remained only three prelates to perform the functions of the episcopal
+office [z].  Many of the nobility, terrified by John’s tyranny, and
+obnoxious to him on different accounts, imitated the example of the
+bishops; and most of the others who remained were, with reason,
+suspected of having secretly entered into a confederacy against him
+[a].  John was alarmed at his dangerous situation; a situation which
+prudence, vigour, and popularity might formerly have prevented, but
+which no virtues or abilities were now sufficient to retrieve.  He
+desired a conference with Langton at Dover; offered to acknowledge him
+as primate, to submit to the pope, to restore the exiled clergy, even
+to pay them a limited sum as a compensation for the rents of their
+confiscated estates.  But Langton, perceiving his advantage, was not
+satisfied with these concessions: he demanded that full restitution
+and reparation should be made to all the clergy; a condition so
+exorbitant, that the king, who probably had not the power of
+fulfilling it, and who foresaw that this estimation of damages might
+amount to an immense sum, finally broke off the conference [b].
+[FN [y] M. Paris, p. 159.  [z] Ann. Waverl. p. 170.  Ann. Marg. p. 14.
+[a] M. Paris, p. 162.  M. West. p. 270, 271.  [b] Ann. Waverl. p.
+171.]
+
+[MN 1212.]  The next gradation of papal sentences was to absolve
+John's subjects from their oaths of fidelity and allegiance, and to
+declare every one excommunicated who had any commerce with him in
+public or in private; at his table, in his council, or even in private
+conversation [c]; and this sentence was accordingly, with all
+imaginable solemnity, pronounced against him.  But as John still
+persevered in his contumacy, there remained nothing but the sentence
+of deposition; which, though intimately connected with the former, had
+been distinguished from it by the artifice of the court of Rome; and
+Innocent determined to dart this last thunderbolt against the
+refractory monarch.  But as a sentence of this kind required an armed
+force to execute it, the pontiff, casting his eyes around, fixed at
+last on Philip, King of France, as the person into whose powerful hand
+he could most properly intrust that weapon, the ultimate resource of
+his ghostly authority.  And he offered the monarch, besides the
+remission of all his sins and endless spiritual benefits, the property
+and possession of the kingdom of England, as the reward of his labour
+[d].
+[FN [c] M. Paris, p. 161.  M. West. p. 270.  [d] M. Paris, p. 162.  M.
+West. p. 271.]
+
+[MN 1213.]  It was the common concern of all princes to oppose these
+exorbitant pretensions of the Roman pontiff, by which they themselves
+were rendered vassals, and vassals totally dependent, of the papal
+crown: yet even Philip, the most able monarch of the age, was seduced
+by present interest, and by the prospect of so tempting a prize, to
+accept this liberal offer of the pontiff, and thereby to ratify that
+authority which, if he ever opposed its boundless usurpations, might,
+next day, tumble him from the throne.  He levied a great army;
+summoned all the vassals of the crown to attend him at Rouen;
+collected a fleet of seventeen hundred vessels, great and small, in
+the sea-ports of Normandy and Picardy; and partly from the zealous
+spirit of the age, partly from the personal regard universally paid
+him, prepared a force, which seemed equal to the greatness of his
+enterprise.  The king, on the other hand, issued out writs, requiring
+the attendance of all his military tenants at Dover, and even of all
+able-bodied men, to defend the kingdom in this dangerous extremity.  A
+great number appeared; and he selected an army of sixty thousand men;
+a power invincible, had they been united in affection to their prince,
+and animated with a becoming zeal for the defence of their native
+country [e].  But the people were swayed by superstition, and regarded
+their king with horror, as anathematized by papal censures: the
+barons, besides lying under the same prejudices, were all disgusted by
+his tyranny, and were, many of them, suspected of holding a secret
+correspondence with the enemy; and the incapacity and cowardice of the
+king himself, ill fitted to contend with those mighty difficulties,
+made men prognosticate the most fatal effects from the French
+invasion.
+[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 163.  M. West. p. 271.]
+
+Pandolf, whom the pope had chosen for his legate, and appointed to
+head this important expedition, had, before he left Rome, applied for
+a secret conference with his master, and had asked him, whether, if
+the King of England, in this desperate situation, were willing to
+submit to the apostolic see, the church should, without the consent of
+Philip, grant him any terms of accommodation [f]!  Innocent, expecting
+from his agreement with a prince so abject both in character and
+fortune, more advantages than from his alliance with a great and
+victorious monarch, who, after such mighty acquisitions, might become
+too haughty to be bound by spiritual chains, explained to Pandolf the
+conditions on which he was willing to be reconciled to the King of
+England.  The legate, therefore, as soon as he arrived in the north of
+France, sent over two Knights Templars to desire an interview with
+John at Dover, which was readily granted: he there represented to him,
+in such strong and probably in such true colours, his lost condition,
+the disaffection of his subjects, the secret combination of his
+vassals against him, the mighty armament of France, that John yielded
+at discretion [g], and subscribed to all the conditions which Pandolf
+was pleased to impose upon him.  [MN 13th May.  The king’s submission
+to the pope.]  He promised, among other articles, that he would submit
+himself entirely to the judgment of the pope; that he would
+acknowledge Langton for primate; that he would restore all the exiled
+clergy and laity, who had been banished on account of the contest;
+that he would make them full restitution of their goods, and
+compensation for all damages, and instantly consign eight thousand
+pounds in part of payment; and that every one outlawed or imprisoned
+for his adherence to the pope should immediately be received into
+grace and favour [h].  Four barons swore, along with the king, to the
+observance of this ignominious treaty [i].
+[FN [f] M. Paris, p. 162.  [g] M. West. p. 271.  [h] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+166.  M. Paris, p. 163.  Annal. Burt. p. 268.  [i] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+170.  M. Paris, p. 163.]
+
+But the ignominy of the king was not yet carried to its full height.
+Pandolf required him, as the first trial of obedience, to resign his
+kingdom to the church; and he persuaded him, that he could nowise so
+effectually disappoint the French invasion as by thus putting himself
+under the immediate protection of the apostolic see.  John, lying
+under the agonies of present terror, made no scruple of submitting to
+this condition.  He passed a charter, in which he said, that, not
+constrained by fear, but of his own free will, and by the common
+advice and consent of his barons, he had, for remission of his own
+sins, and those of his family, resigned England and Ireland, to God,
+to St. Peter and St. Paul, and to Pope Innocent and his successors in
+the apostolic chair: he agreed to hold these dominions as feudatory of
+the church of Rome, by the annual payment of a thousand marks; seven
+hundred for England, three hundred for Ireland: and he stipulated that
+if he or his successors should ever presume to revoke or infringe this
+charter, they should instantly, except upon admonition they repented
+of their offence, forfeit all right to their dominions [k].
+[FN [k] Rymer, vol. i. p. 176.  M. Paris, p. 165.]
+
+[MN 15th May.]  In consequence of this agreement, John did homage to
+Pandolf, as the pope's legate, with all the submissive rites which the
+feudal law required of vassals before their liege lord and superior.
+He came disarmed into the legate's presence, who was seated on a
+throne; he flung himself on his knees before him; he lifted up his
+joined hands, and put them within those of Pandolf; he swore fealty to
+the pope; and he paid part of the tribute which he owed for his
+kingdom as the patrimony of St. Peter.  The legate, elated by this
+supreme triumph of sacerdotal power, could not forbear discovering
+extravagant symptoms of joy and exultation: he trampled on the money,
+which was laid at his feet as an earnest of the subjection of the
+kingdom; an insolence of which, however offensive to all the English,
+no one present, except the Archbishop of Dublin, dared to take any
+notice.  But though Pandolf had brought the king to submit to these
+base conditions, he still refused to free him from the excommunication
+and interdict, till an estimation should be taken of the losses of the
+ecclesiastics, and full compensation and restitution should be made
+them.
+
+John, reduced to this abject situation under a foreign power, still
+showed the same disposition to tyrannize over his subjects, which had
+been the chief cause of all his misfortunes.  One Peter of Pomfret, a
+hermit, had foretold that the king, this very year, should lose his
+crown; and for that rash prophecy he had been thrown into prison in
+Corfe-castle.  John now determined to bring him to punishment as an
+impostor; and though the man pleaded that his prophecy was fulfilled,
+and that the king had lost the royal and independent crown which he
+formerly wore, the defence was supposed to aggravate his guilt: he was
+dragged at horses' tails to the town of Warham, and there hanged on a
+gibbet with his son [l].
+[FN [l] M. Paris, p. 165.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 56.]
+
+When Pandolf, after receiving the homage of John, returned to France,
+he congratulated Philip on the success of his pious enterprise; and
+informed him that John, moved by the terror of the French arms, had
+now come to a just sense of his guilt; had returned to obedience under
+the apostolic see, and even consented to do homage to the pope for his
+dominions; and having thus made his kingdom a part of St. Peter's
+patrimony, had rendered it impossible for any Christian prince,
+without the most manifest and most flagrant impiety, to attack him
+[m].  Philip was enraged on receiving this intelligence: he exclaimed
+that having, at the pope’s instigation, undertaken an expedition,
+which had cost him above sixty thousand pounds sterling, he was
+frustrated of his purpose, at the time when its success was become
+infallible: he complained that all the expense had fallen upon him;
+all the advantages had accrued to Innocent: he threatened to be no
+longer the dupe of these hypocritical pretences; and, assembling his
+vassals, he laid before them the ill-treatment which he had received,
+exposed the interested and fraudulent conduct of the pope, and
+required their assistance to execute his enterprise against England,
+in which he told them, that, notwithstanding the inhibitions and
+menaces of the legate, he was determined to persevere.  The French
+barons were, in that age, little less ignorant and superstitious than
+the English: yet, so much does the influence of those religious
+principles depend on the present dispositions of men, they all vowed
+to follow their prince on his intended expedition, and were resolute
+not to be disappointed of that glory and those riches which they had
+long expected from this enterprise.  The Earl of Flanders alone, who
+had previously formed a secret treaty with John, declaring against the
+injustice and impiety of the undertaking, retired with his forces [n];
+and Philip, that he might not leave so dangerous an enemy behind him,
+first turned his arms against the dominions of that prince.
+Meanwhile, the English fleet was assembled under the Earl of
+Salisbury, the king's natural brother; and though inferior in number,
+received orders to attack the French in their harbours.  Salisbury
+performed this service with so much success, that he took three
+hundred ships; destroyed a hundred more [o]; and Philip, finding it
+impossible to prevent the rest from falling into the hands of the
+enemy, set fire to them himself, and thereby rendered it impossible
+for him to proceed any farther in his enterprise.
+[FN [m] Trivet, p. 160.  [n] M. Paris, p. 166.  [o] Ibid. p. 166.
+Chron. Dunst, vol. i. p. 59.  Trivet, p. 157.]
+
+John, exulting in his present security, insensible to his past
+disgrace, was so elated with this success, that he thought of no less
+than invading France in his turn, and recovering all those provinces
+which the prosperous arms of Philip had formerly ravished from him.
+He proposed this expedition to the barons, who were already assembled
+for the defence of the kingdom.  But the English nobles both hated and
+despised their prince: they prognosticated no success to any
+enterprise conducted by such a leader; and pretending that their time
+of service was elapsed, and all their provisions exhausted, they
+refused to second his undertaking [p].  The king, however, resolute in
+his purpose, embarked with a few followers, and sailed to Jersey, in
+the foolish expectation that the barons would at last be ashamed to
+stay behind [q].  But finding himself disappointed, he returned to
+England; and, raising some troops, threatened to take vengeance on all
+his nobles for their desertion and disobedience.  The Archbishop of
+Canterbury, who was in a confederacy with the barons, here interposed;
+strictly inhibited the king from thinking of such an attempt; and
+threatened him with a renewal of the sentence of excommunication, if
+he pretended to levy war upon any of his subjects, before the kingdom
+were freed from the sentence of interdict [r].
+[FN [p] M. Paris, p. 166.  [q] M. Paris, p. 166.  [r] Ibid. p. 167.]
+
+The church had recalled the several anathemas pronounced against John,
+by the same gradual progress with which she had at first issued them.
+By receiving his homage, and admitting him to the rank of a vassal,
+his deposition had been virtually annulled, and his subjects were
+again bound by their oaths of allegiance.  The exiled prelates had
+then returned in great triumph, with Langton at their head; and the
+king, hearing of their approach, went forth to meet them, and throwing
+himself on the ground before them, he entreated them, with tears, to
+have compassion on him and the kingdom of England [s].  [MN July.]
+The primate, seeing these marks of sincere penitence, led him to the
+chapter-house of Winchester, and there administered an oath to him, by
+which he again swore fealty and obedience to Pope Innocent and his
+successors; promised to love, maintain, and defend holy church and the
+clergy; engaged that he would re-establish the good laws of his
+predecessors, particularly those of St. Edward, and would abolish the
+wicked ones; and expressed his resolution of maintaining justice and
+right in all his dominions [t].  The primate next gave him absolution
+in the requisite forms, and admitted him to dine with him, to the
+great joy of all the people.  The sentence of interdict, however, was
+still upheld against the kingdom.  A new legate, Nicholas, Bishop of
+Frescati, came into England in the room of Pandolf; and he declared it
+to be the pope's intentions never to loosen that sentence till full
+restitution were made to the clergy of every thing taken from them,
+and ample reparation for all damages which they had sustained.  He
+only permitted mass to be said with a low voice in the churches, till
+those losses and damages could be estimated to the satisfaction of the
+parties.  Certain barons were appointed to take an account of the
+claims; and John was astonished at the greatness of the sums to which
+the clergy made their losses to amount.  No less than twenty thousand
+marks were demanded by the monks of Canterbury alone; twenty-three
+thousand for the see of Lincoln; and the king, finding these
+pretensions to be exorbitant and endless, offered the clergy the sum
+of a hundred thousand marks for a final acquittal.  The clergy
+rejected the offer with disdain; but the pope, willing to favour his
+new vassal, whom he found zealous in his declarations of fealty, and
+regular in paying the stipulated tribute to Rome, directed his legate
+to accept of forty thousand.  The issue of the whole was, that the
+bishops and considerable abbots got reparation beyond what they had
+any title to demand; the inferior clergy were obliged to sit down
+contented with their losses; and the king, after the interdict was
+taken off, renewed, in the most solemn manner, and by a new charter,
+sealed with gold, his professions of homage and obedience to the see
+of Rome.
+[FN [s] Ibid. p. 166.  Ann. Waverl. p. 178.  [t] M. Paris, p. 166.]
+
+[MN 1214.]  When this vexatious affair was at last brought to a
+conclusion, the king, as if he had nothing farther to attend to but
+triumphs and victories, went over to Poictou, which still acknowledged
+his authority [u]; and he carried war into Philip's dominions.  He
+besieged a castle near Angiers; but the approach of Prince Lewis,
+Philip's son, obliged him to raise the siege with such precipitation,
+that he left his tents, machines, and baggage behind him; and he
+returned to England with disgrace.  About the same time he heard of
+the great and decisive victory gained by the King of France at Bovines
+over the Emperor Otho, who had entered France at the head of a hundred
+and fifty thousand Germans; a victory which established for ever the
+glory of Philip, and gave full security to all his dominions.  John
+could, therefore, think henceforth of nothing farther than of ruling
+peaceably his own kingdom; and his close connexions with the pope,
+which he was determined at any price to maintain, ensured him, as he
+imagined, the certain attainment of that object.  But the last and
+most grievous scene of this prince’s misfortunes still awaited him;
+and he was destined to pass through a series of more humiliating
+circumstances than had ever yet fallen to the lot of any other
+monarch.
+[FN [u] Queen Eleanor died in 1203 or 1204.]
+
+[MN Discontents of the barons.]
+The introduction of the feudal law into England by William the
+Conqueror had much infringed the liberties, however imperfect, enjoyed
+by the Anglo-Saxons in their ancient government, and had reduced the
+whole people to a state of vassalage under the king or barons, and
+even the greater part of them to a state of real slavery.  The
+necessity also of intrusting great power in the hands of a prince, who
+was to maintain military dominion over a vanquished nation, had
+engaged the Norman barons to submit to a more severe and absolute
+prerogative than that to which men of their rank, in other feudal
+governments, were commonly subjected.  The power of the crown, once
+raised to a high pitch, was not easily reduced; and the nation, during
+the course of a hundred and fifty years, was governed by an authority
+unknown, in the same degree, to all the kingdoms founded by the
+northern conquerors.  Henry I., that he might allure the people to
+give an exclusion to his elder brother Robert, had granted them a
+charter, favourable in many particulars to their liberties; Stephen
+had renewed the grant; Henry II. had confirmed it: but the concessions
+of all these princes had still remained without effect; and the same
+unlimited, at least irregular authority, continued to be exercised
+both by them and their successors.  The only happiness was, that arms
+were never yet ravished from the hands of the barons and people: the
+nation, by a great confederacy, might still vindicate its liberties;
+and nothing was more likely than the character, conduct, and fortunes
+of the reigning prince to produce such a general combination against
+him.  Equally odious and contemptible, both in public and private
+life, he affronted the barons by his insolence, dishonoured their
+families by his gallantries, enraged them by his tyranny,  and gave
+discontent to all ranks of men by his endless exactions and
+impositions [w].  The effect of these lawless practices had already
+appeared in the general demand made by the barons of a restoration of
+their privileges; and after he had reconciled himself to the pope, by
+abandoning the independence of the kingdom, he appeared to all his
+subjects in so mean a light, that they universally thought they might
+with safety and honour insist upon their pretensions.
+[FN [w] Chron Mailr. p. 188.  T. Wykes, p. 36.  Ann. Waverl. p. 181.
+W. Heming. p. 557.]
+
+But nothing forwarded this confederacy so much as the concurrence of
+Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury; a man whose memory, though he was
+obtruded on the nation by a palpable encroachment of the see of Rome,
+ought always to be respected by the English.  This prelate, whether he
+was moved by the generosity of his nature and his affection to public
+good; or had entertained an animosity against John on account of the
+long opposition made by that prince to his election; or thought that
+an acquisition of liberty to the people would serve to increase and
+secure the privileges of the church; had formed the plan of reforming
+the government, and had prepared the way for that great innovation, by
+inserting those singular clauses above-mentioned in the oath which he
+administered to the king, before he would absolve him from the
+sentence of excommunication.  Soon after, in a private meeting of some
+principal barons at London, he showed them a copy of Henry I.'s
+charter, which, he said, he had happily found in a monastery; and he
+exhorted them to insist on the renewal and observance of it: the
+barons swore, that they would sooner lose their lives than depart from
+so reasonable a demand [x].  The confederacy began now to spread
+wider, and to comprehend almost all the barons in England; and a new
+and more numerous meeting was summoned by Langton at St. Edmondsbury,
+under colour of devotion.  [MN Nov. 1.]  He again produced to the
+assembly the old charter of Henry; renewed his exhortations of
+unanimity and vigour in the prosecution of their purpose; and
+represented in the strongest colours the tyranny to which they had so
+long been subjected, and from which it now behoved them to free
+themselves and their posterity [y].  The barons, inflamed by his
+eloquence, incited by the sense of their own wrongs, and encouraged by
+the appearance of their power and numbers, solemnly took an oath,
+before the high altar, to adhere to each other, to insist on their
+demands, and to make endless war on the king, till he should submit to
+grant them [z].  They agreed that, after the festival of Christmas,
+they would prefer in a body their common petition; and, in the mean
+time, they separated, after mutually engaging that they would put
+themselves in a posture of defence, would enlist men and purchase
+arms, and would supply their castles with the necessary provisions.
+[FN [x] M. Paris, p. 167.  [y] M. Paris, p. 175.  [z] Ibid. p. 176.]
+
+[MN 1215.  6th Jan.]
+The barons appeared in London on the day appointed, and demanded of
+the king, that, in consequence of his own oath before the primate, as
+well as in deference to their just rights, he should grant them a
+renewal of Henry's charter, and a confirmation of the laws of St.
+Edward.  The king, alarmed with their zeal and unanimity, as well as
+with their power, required a delay; promised that, at the festival of
+Easter, he would give them a positive answer to their petition; and
+offered them the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Ely, and the
+Earl of Pembroke, the mareschal, as sureties for his fulfilling this
+engagement [a].  The barons accepted of the terms, and peaceably
+returned to their castles.
+[FN [a] Ibid. p. 176.  M. West. p. 273.]
+
+[MN 15th Jan.]  During this interval, John, in order to break or
+subdue the league of his barons, endeavoured to avail himself of the
+ecclesiastical power, of whose influence he had, from his own recent
+misfortunes, had such fatal experience.  He granted to the clergy a
+charter, relinquishing for ever that important prerogative, for which
+his father and all his ancestors had zealously contended; yielding to
+them the free election on all vacancies; reserving only the power to
+issue a congé d'élire, and to subjoin a confirmation of the election;
+and declaring that, if either of these were withheld, the choice
+should nevertheless be deemed just and valid [b].  He made a vow to
+lead an army into Palestine against the infidels, and he took on him
+the cross; in hopes that he should receive from the church that
+protection which she tendered to every one that had entered into this
+sacred and meritorious engagement [c].  And he sent to Rome his agent,
+William de Mauclerc, in order to appeal to the pope against the
+violence of his barons, and procure him a favourable sentence from
+that powerful tribunal [d].  The barons also were not negligent on
+their part in endeavouring to engage the pope in their interests: they
+despatched Eustace de Vescie to Rome; laid their case before Innocent
+as their feudal lord: and petitioned him to interpose his authority
+with the king, and oblige him to restore and confirm all their just
+and undoubted privileges [e].
+[FN [b] Rymer, vol. i. p. 197.  [c] Rymer, vol. i. p. 200.  Trivet, p.
+162.  T. Wykes, p. 37.  M. West. p. 273.  [d] Rymer, vol. i. p. 184.
+[e] Ibid.]
+
+Innocent beheld with regret the disturbances which had arisen in
+England, and was much inclined to favour John in his pretensions.  He
+had no hopes of retaining and extending his newly-acquired superiority
+over that kingdom, but by supporting so base and degenerate a prince,
+who was willing to sacrifice every consideration to his present
+safety: and he foresaw that, if the administration should fall into
+the hands of those gallant and high-spirited barons, they would
+vindicate the honour, liberty, and independence of the nation, with
+the same ardour which they now exerted in defence of their own.  He
+wrote letters therefore to the prelates, to the nobility, and to the
+king himself.  He exhorted the first to employ their good offices in
+conciliating peace between the contending parties, and putting an end
+to civil discord: to the second he expressed his disapprobation of
+their conduct in employing force to extort concessions from their
+reluctant sovereign: the last he advised to treat his nobles with
+grace and indulgence, and to grant them such of their demands as
+should appear just and reasonable [f].
+[FN [f] Ibid. p. 196, 197.]
+
+The barons easily saw, from the tenour of these letters, that they
+must reckon on having the pope, as well as the king, for their
+adversary; but they had already advanced too far to recede from their
+pretensions, and their passions were so deeply engaged, that it
+exceeded even the power of superstition itself any longer to control
+them.  They also foresaw, that the thunders of Rome, when not seconded
+by the efforts of the English ecclesiastics, would be of small avail
+against them; and they perceived that the most considerable of the
+prelates, as well as all the inferior clergy, professed the highest
+approbation of their cause.  Besides that these men were seized with
+the national passion for laws and liberty, blessings of which they
+themselves expected to partake, there concurred very powerful causes
+to loosen their devoted attachment to the apostolic see.  It appeared
+from the late usurpations of the Roman pontiff, that he pretended to
+reap alone all the advantages accruing from that victory which, under
+his banners, though at their own peril, they had every where obtained
+over the civil magistrate.  The pope assumed a despotic power over all
+the churches: their particular customs, privileges, and immunities,
+were treated with disdain: even the canons of general councils were
+set aside by his dispensing power: the whole administration of the
+church was centered in the court of Rome: all preferments ran of
+course in the same channel: and the provincial clergy saw, at least
+felt, that there was a necessity for limiting these pretensions.  The
+legate, Nicholas, in filling those numerous vacancies which had fallen
+in England during an interdict of six years, had proceeded in the most
+arbitrary manner; and had paid no regard, in conferring dignities, to
+personal merit, to rank, to the inclination of the electors, or to the
+customs of the country.  The English church was universally disgusted;
+and Langton himself, though he owed his elevation to an encroachment
+of the Romish see, was no sooner established in his high office than
+he became jealous of the privileges annexed to it, and formed
+attachments with the country subjected to his jurisdiction.  These
+causes, though they opened slowly the eyes of men, failed not to
+produce their effect: they set bounds to the usurpations of the
+papacy: the tide first stopped, and then turned against the sovereign
+pontiff: and it is otherwise inconceivable how that age, so prone to
+superstition, and so sunk in ignorance, or rather so devoted to a
+spurious erudition, could have escaped falling into an absolute and
+total slavery under the court of Rome.
+
+[MN 1215.  Insurrection of the barons.]
+About the time that the pope's letters arrived in England, the
+malecontent barons, on the approach of the festival of Easter, when
+they were to expect the king's answer to their petition, met by
+agreement at Stamford; and they assembled a force, consisting of above
+two thousand knights, besides their retainers and inferior persons
+without number.  [MN 27th April.]  Elated with their power, they
+advanced in a body to Brackley, within fifteen miles of Oxford, the
+place where the court then resided; and they there received a message
+from the king, by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl of
+Pembroke, desiring to know what those liberties were which they so
+zealously challenged from their sovereign.  They delivered to these
+messengers a schedule containing the chief articles of their demands;
+which was no sooner shown to the king than he burst into a furious
+passion, and asked why the barons did not also demand of him his
+kingdom? swearing that he would never grant them such liberties as
+must reduce himself to slavery [g].
+[FN [g] M. Paris, p. 176.]
+
+No sooner were the confederated nobles informed of John's reply than
+they chose Robert Fitz-Walter their general, whom they called THE
+MARESCHAL OF THE ARMY OF GOD AND OF HOLY CHURCH; and they proceeded
+without farther ceremony to levy war upon the king.  They besieged the
+castle of Northampton during fifteen days, though without success [h]:
+the gates of Bedford castle were willingly opened to them by William
+Beauchamp, its owner: [MN 24th May.] they advanced to Ware in their
+way to London, where they held a correspondence with the principal
+citizens: they were received without opposition into that capital: and
+finding now the great superiority of their force, they issued
+proclamations, requiring the other barons to join them; and menacing
+them, in case of refusal or delay, with committing devastation on
+their houses and estates [i].  In order to show what might be expected
+from their prosperous arms, they made incursions from London, and laid
+waste the king's parks and palaces; and all the barons, who had
+hitherto carried the semblance of supporting the royal party, were
+glad of this pretence for openly joining a cause which they always had
+secretly favoured.  The king was left at Odiham in Hampshire, with a
+poor retinue of only seven knights; and after trying several
+expedients to elude the blow, after offering to refer all differences
+to the pope alone, or to eight barons, four to be chosen by himself,
+and four by the confederates [k], he found himself at last obliged to
+submit at discretion.
+[FN [h] Ibid. p. 177.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 71.  [i] M. Paris, p.
+177.  [k] Rymer, vol. i. p. 200.]
+
+[MN 15th June.  Magna Charta.]
+A conference between the king and the barons was appointed at
+Runnemede, between Windsor and Staines; a place which has ever since
+been extremely celebrated on account of this great event.  The two
+parties encamped apart, like open enemies; and after a debate of a few
+days, the king, with a facility somewhat suspicious, signed and sealed
+the charter which was required of him.  [MN 19th June.]  This famous
+deed, commonly called the GREAT CHARTER, either granted or secured
+very important liberties and privileges to every order of men in the
+kingdom; to the clergy, to the barons, and to the people.
+
+The freedom of elections was secured to the clergy; the former charter
+of the king was confirmed, by which the necessity of a royal congé'
+d'élire and confirmation was superseded: all check upon appeals to
+Rome was removed, by the allowance granted every man to depart the
+kingdom at pleasure: and the fines to be imposed on the clergy for any
+offence were ordained to be proportional to their lay estates, not to
+their ecclesiastical benefices.
+
+The privileges granted to the barons were either abatements in the
+rigour of the feudal law, or determinations in points which had been
+left by that law, or had become, by practice, arbitrary and ambiguous.
+The reliefs of heirs succeeding to a military fee were ascertained; an
+earl's and baron's at a hundred marks, a knight's at a hundred
+shillings.  It was ordained by the charter, that, if the heir be a
+minor, he shall immediately, upon his majority, enter upon his estate,
+without paying any relief: the king shall not sell his  wardship: he
+shall levy only reasonable profits upon the estate, without committing
+waste, or hurting the property: he shall uphold the castles, houses,
+mills, parks, and ponds: and if he commit the guardianship of the
+estate to the sheriff or any other, he shall previously oblige them to
+find surety to the same purpose.  During the minority of a baron,
+while his lands are in wardship, and are not in his own possession, no
+debt which he owes to the Jews shall bear any interest.  Heirs shall
+be married without disparagement; and before the marriage be
+contracted, the nearest relations of the person shall be informed of
+it.  A widow, without paying any relief, shall enter upon her dower,
+the third part of her husband's rents: she shall not be compelled to
+marry, so long as she chooses to continue single; she shall only give
+security never to marry without her lord's consent.  The king shall
+not claim the wardship of any minor who hold lands by military tenure
+of a baron, on pretence that he also holds lands of the crown by
+soccage or any other tenure.  Scutages shall be estimated at the same
+rate as in the time of Henry I.; and no scutage or aid, except in the
+three general feudal cases, the king's captivity, the knighting of his
+eldest son, and the marrying of his eldest daughter, shall be imposed
+but by the great council of the kingdom: the prelates, earls, and
+great barons, shall be called to this great council, each by a
+particular writ; the lesser barons by a general summons of the
+sheriff.  The king shall not seize any baron's land for a debt to the
+crown, if the baron possesses as many goods and chattels as are
+sufficient to discharge the debt.  No man shall be obliged to perform
+more service for his fee than he is bound to by his tenure.  No
+governor or constable of a castle shall oblige any knight to give
+money for castle-guard, if the knight be willing to perform the
+service in person, or by another able-bodied man; and if the knight be
+in the field himself, by the king's command, he shall be exempted from
+all other service of this nature.  No vassal shall be allowed to sell
+so much of his land as to incapacitate himself from performing his
+service to his lord.
+
+These were the principal articles calculated for the interest of the
+barons; and had the charter contained nothing farther, national
+happiness and liberty had been very little promoted by it, as it would
+only have tended to increase the power and independence of an order of
+men who were already too powerful, and whose yoke might have become
+more heavy on the people than even that of an absolute monarch.  But
+the barons, who alone drew and imposed on the prince this memorable
+charter, were necessitated to insert in it other clauses of a more
+extensive and more beneficent nature: they could not expect the
+concurrence of the people without comprehending, together with their
+own, the interests of inferior ranks of men; and all provisions which
+the barons, for their own sake, were obliged to make, in order to
+ensure the free and equitable administration of justice, tended
+directly to the benefit of the whole community.  The following were
+the principal clauses of this nature.
+
+It was ordained, that all the privileges and immunities above-
+mentioned, granted to the barons against the king, should be extended
+by the barons to their inferior vassals.  The king bound himself not
+to grant any writ, empowering a baron to levy aids from his vassals,
+except in the three feudal cases.  One weight and one measure shall be
+established throughout the kingdom.  Merchants shall be allowed to
+transact all business, without being exposed to any arbitrary tolls
+and impositions; they and all freemen shall be allowed to go out of
+the kingdom and return to it at pleasure: London, and all cities and
+burghs, shall preserve their ancient liberties, immunities, and free
+customs: aids shall not be required of them but by the consent of the
+great council: no towns or individuals shall be obliged to make or
+support bridges but by ancient custom: the goods of every freeman
+shall be disposed of according to his will: if he die intestate, his
+heirs shall succeed to them.  No officer of the crown shall take any
+horses, carts, or wood, without the consent of the owner.  The king's
+courts of justice shall be stationary, and shall no longer follow his
+person: they shall be open to every one; and justice shall no longer
+be sold, refused, or delayed by them.  Circuits shall be regularly
+held every year: the inferior tribunals of justice, the county court,
+sheriff's turn, and court leet, shall meet at their appointed time and
+place: the sheriffs shall be incapacitated to hold pleas of the crown,
+and shall not put any person upon his trial from rumour or suspicion
+alone, but upon the evidence of lawful witnesses.  No freeman shall be
+taken or imprisoned, or dispossessed of his free tenement and
+liberties, or outlawed, or banished, or anywise hurt or injured,
+unless by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land;
+and all who suffered otherwise, in this or the two former reigns,
+shall be restored to their rights and possessions.  Every freeman
+shall be fined in proportion to his fault; and no fine shall be levied
+on him to his utter ruin: even a villain or rustic shall not, by any
+fine, be bereaved of his carts, ploughs, and implements of husbandry.
+This was the only article calculated for the interests of this body of
+men, probably at that time the most numerous in the kingdom.
+
+It must be confessed, that the former articles of the great charter
+contain such mitigations and explanations of the feudal law as are
+reasonable and equitable; and that the latter involve all the chief
+outlines of a legal government, and provide for the equal distribution
+of justice and free enjoyment of property; the great objects for which
+political society was at first founded by men, which the people have a
+perpetual and unalienable right to recall, and which no time, nor
+precedent, nor statute, nor positive institution, ought to deter them
+from keeping ever uppermost in their thoughts and attention.  Though
+the provisions made by this charter might, conformably to the genius
+of the age, be esteemed too concise, and too bare of circumstances, to
+maintain the execution of its articles, in opposition to the chicanery
+of lawyers, supported by the violence of power; time gradually
+ascertained the sense of all the ambiguous expressions; and those
+generous barons who first extorted this concession still held their
+swords in their hands, and could turn them against those who dared, on
+any pretence, to depart from the original spirit and meaning of the
+grant.  We may now, from the tenour of this charter, conjecture what
+those laws were of King Edward, which the English nation, during so
+many generations, still desired, with such an obstinate perseverance,
+to have recalled and established.  They were chiefly these latter
+articles of MAGNA CHARTA; and the barons who, at the beginning of
+these commotions, demanded the revival of the Saxon laws, undoubtedly
+thought that they had sufficiently satisfied the people, by procuring
+them this concession, which comprehended the principal objects to
+which they had so long aspired.  But what we are most to admire is,
+the prudence and moderation of those haughty nobles themselves, who
+were enraged by injuries, inflamed by opposition, and elated by a
+total victory over their sovereign.  They were content, even in this
+plenitude of power, to depart from some articles of Henry I.’s
+charter, which they made the foundation of their demands, particularly
+from the abolition of wardships, a matter of the greatest importance;
+and they seem to have been sufficiently careful not to diminish too
+far the power and revenue of the crown.  If they appear, therefore, to
+have carried other demands to too great a height, it can be ascribed
+only to the faithless and tyrannical character of the king himself, of
+which they had long had experience, and which, they foresaw, would, if
+they provided no farther security, lead him soon to infringe their new
+liberties, and revoke his own concessions.  This alone gave birth to
+those other articles, seemingly exorbitant, which were added as a
+rampart for the safeguard of the great charter.
+
+The barons obliged the king to agree that London should remain in
+their hands, and the Tower be consigned to the custody of the primate,
+till the fifteenth of August ensuing, or till the execution of the
+several articles of the great charter [l].  The better to ensure the
+same end, he allowed them to choose five-and-twenty members from their
+own body, as conservators of the public liberties; and no bounds were
+set to the authority of these men either in extent or duration.  If
+any complaint were made of a violation of the charter, whether
+attempted by the king, justiciaries, sheriffs, or foresters, any four
+of these barons might admonish the  king to redress the grievance: if
+satisfaction were not obtained, they could assemble the whole council
+of twenty-five, who, in conjunction with the great council, were
+empowered to compel him to observe the charter, and, in case of
+resistance, might levy war against him, attack his castles, and employ
+every kind of violence, except against his royal person, and that of
+his queen and children.  All men throughout the kingdom were bound,
+under the penalty of confiscation, to swear obedience to the twenty-
+five barons; and the freeholders of each county were to choose twelve
+knights, who were to make report of such evil customs as required
+redress, conformably to the tenour of the great charter [m].  The
+names of those conservators were, the Earls of Clare, Albemarle,
+Gloucester, Winchester, Hereford, Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, Robert
+de Vere, Earl of Oxford, William Mareschal the younger, Robert
+Fitz-Walter, Gilbert de Clare, Eustace de Vescey, Gilbert Delaval,
+William de Mowbray, Geoffrey de Say, Roger de Mombezon, William de
+Huntingfield, Robert de Ros, the constable of Chester, William de
+Aubenie, Richard de Perci, William Malet, John Fitz-Robert, William de
+Lanvalay, Hugh de Bigod, and Roger de Montfichet [n].  These men were,
+by this convention, really invested with the sovereignty of the
+kingdom: they were rendered co-ordinate with the king, or rather
+superior to him, in the exercise of the executive power: and as there
+was no circumstance of government which, either directly or
+indirectly, might not bear a relation to the security or observance of
+the great charter, there could scarcely occur any incident in which
+they might not lawfully interpose their authority.
+[FN [l] Rymer, vol. i. p. 201.  Chron. Dunst vol. i. p. 73.  [m] This
+seems a very strong proof that the House of Commons was not then in
+being; otherwise the knights and burgesses from the several counties
+could have given in to the Lords a list of grievances, without so
+unusual an election.  [n] M. Paris, p. 181.]
+
+John seemed to submit passively to all these regulations, however
+injurious to majesty: he sent writs to all the sheriffs, ordering them
+to constrain every one to swear obedience to the twenty-five barons
+[o]: he dismissed all his foreign forces: he pretended that his
+government was thenceforth to run in a new tenour, and be more
+indulgent to the liberty and independence of his people.  But he only
+dissembled, till he should find a favourable opportunity for annulling
+all his concessions.  The injuries and indignities which he had
+formerly suffered from the pope and the King of France, as they came
+from equals or superiors, seemed to make but small impression on him:
+but the sense of this perpetual and total subjection under his own
+rebellious vassals sunk deep in his mind, and he was determined, at
+all hazards, to throw off so ignominious a slavery [p].  He grew
+sullen, silent, and reserved: he shunned the society of his courtiers
+and nobles: he retired into the Isle of Wight, as if desirous of
+hiding his shame and confusion; but in this retreat he meditated the
+most fatal vengeance against all his enemies [q].  He secretly sent
+abroad his emissaries to enlist foreign soldiers, and to invite the
+rapacious Brabancons into his service, by the prospect of sharing the
+spoils of England, and reaping the forfeitures of so many opulent
+barons, who had incurred the guilt of rebellion by rising in arms
+against him [r]: and he despatched a messenger to Rome, in order to
+lay before the pope the great charter, which he had been compelled to
+sign, and to complain, before that tribunal, of the violence which had
+been imposed upon him [s].
+[FN [o] Ibid. p. 182.  [p] M. Paris, p. 183.  [q] Ibid.  [r] Ibid.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p.72.  Chron. Malr. p. 188.  [s] M. Paris, p.
+183.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 73.]
+
+Innocent, considering himself as feudal lord of the kingdom, was
+incensed at the temerity of the barons, who, though they pretended to
+appeal to his authority, had dared, without waiting for his consent,
+to impose such terms on a prince, who, by resigning to the Roman
+pontiff his crown and independence, had placed himself immediately
+under the papal protection.  He issued, therefore, a bull, in which,
+from the plenitude of his apostolic power, and from the authority
+which God had committed to him, to build and destroy kingdoms, to
+plant and overthrow, he annulled and abrogated the whole charter, as
+unjust in itself, as obtained by compulsion, and as derogatory to the
+dignity of the apostolic see.  He prohibited the barons from exacting
+the observance of it: he even prohibited the king himself from paying
+any regard to it: he absolved him and his  subjects from all oaths
+which they had been constrained to take to that purpose: and he
+pronounced a general sentence of excommunication against every one who
+should persevere in maintaining such treasonable and iniquitous
+pretensions [t].
+[FN [t] Rymer, vol. i. p. 203, 204, 205, 208.  M. Paris, p. 184, 185,
+187.]
+
+[MN Renewal of the civil wars.]
+The king, as his foreign forces arrived along with this bull, now
+ventured to take off the mask; and, under sanction of the pope's
+decree, recalled all the liberties which he had granted to his
+subjects, and which he had solemnly sworn to observe.  But the
+spiritual weapon was found, upon trial, to carry less force with it
+than he had reason from his own experience to apprehend.  The primate
+refused to obey the pope in publishing the sentence of excommunication
+against the barons: and though he was cited to Rome, that he might
+attend a general council there assembled, and was suspended, on
+account of his disobedience to the pope, and his secret correspondence
+with the king’s enemies [u]; though a new and particular sentence of
+excommunication was pronounced by name against the principal barons
+[w]; John still found, that his nobility and people, and even his
+clergy, adhered to the defence of their liberties, and to their
+combination against him: the sword of his foreign mercenaries was all
+he had to trust to for restoring his authority.
+[FN [u] M. Paris, p. 189.  [w] Rymer, vol. i. p. 211.  M. Paris, p.
+192.]
+
+The barons, after obtaining the great charter, seem to have been
+lulled into a fatal security, and to have taken no rational measures,
+in case of the introduction of a foreign force, for reassembling their
+armies.  The king was, from the first, master of the field; and
+immediately laid siege to the castle of Rochester, which was
+obstinately defended by William de Aubenie, at the head of a hundred
+and forty knights with their retainers, but was at last reduced by
+famine.  [MN 30th Nov.]  John, irritated with the resistance, intended
+to have hanged the governor and all the garrison; but, on the
+representation of William de Mauleon, who suggested to him the danger
+of reprisals, he was content to sacrifice, in this barbarous manner,
+the inferior prisoners only [x].  The captivity of William de Aubenie,
+the best officer among the confederated barons, was an irreparable
+loss to their cause; and no regular opposition was thenceforth made to
+the progress of the royal arms.  The ravenous and barbarous
+mercenaries, incited by a cruel and enraged prince, were let loose
+against the estates, tenants, manors, houses, parks of the barons, and
+spread devastation over the face of the kingdom.  Nothing was to be
+seen but the flames of villages and castles reduced to ashes, the
+consternation and misery of the inhabitants, tortures exercised by the
+soldiery to make them reveal their concealed treasures, and reprisals
+no less barbarous committed by the barons and their partisans on the
+royal demesnes, and on the estates of such as still adhered to the
+crown.  The king, marching through the whole extent of England, from
+Dover to Berwick, laid the provinces waste on each side of him; and
+considered every estate, which was not his immediate property, as
+entirely hostile, and the object of military execution.  The nobility
+of the north, in particular, who had shown the greatest violence in
+the recovery of their liberties, and who, acting in a separate body,
+had expressed their discontent even at the concessions made by the
+great charter, as they could expect no mercy, fled before him with
+their wives and families, and purchased the friendship of Alexander,
+the young King of Scots, by doing homage to him.
+[FN [x] M. Paris, p. 187.]
+
+[MN Prince Lewis called over.]
+The barons, reduced to this desperate extremity, and menaced with the
+total loss of their liberties, their properties, and their lives,
+employed a remedy no less desperate; and making applications to the
+court of France, they offered to acknowledge Lewis, the eldest son of
+Philip, for their sovereign, on condition that he would afford them
+protection from the violence of their enraged prince.  Though the
+sense of the common rights of mankind, the only rights that are
+entirely indefeasible, might have justified them in the deposition of
+their king; they declined insisting, before Philip, on a pretension
+which is commonly so disagreeable to sovereigns, and which sounds
+harshly in the royal ears.  They affirmed, that John was incapable of
+succeeding to the crown, by reason of the attainder passed upon him
+during his brother's reign; though that attainder had been reversed,
+and Richard. had even, by his last will, declared him his  successor.
+They pretended that he was already legally deposed by sentence of the
+Peers of France, on account of the murder of his nephew; though that
+sentence could not possibly regard any thing but his transmarine
+dominions, which alone he held in vassalage to that crown.  On more
+plausible grounds they affirmed, that he had already deposed himself
+by doing homage to the pope, changing the nature of his sovereignty,
+and resigning an independent crown for a fee under a foreign power.
+And as Blanche of Castile, the wife of Lewis, was descended by her
+mother from Henry II., they maintained, though many other princes
+stood before her in the order of succession, that they had not shaken
+off the royal family, in choosing her husband for their sovereign.
+
+Philip was strongly tempted to lay hold on the rich prize which was
+offered to him.  The legate menaced interdicts and excommunications,
+if he invaded the patrimony of St. Peter, or attacked a prince who was
+under the immediate protection of the holy see [y]: but as Philip was
+assured of the obedience of his own vassals, his principles were
+changed with the times, and he now undervalued as much all papal
+censures, as he formerly pretended to pay respect to them.  His chief
+scruple was with regard to the fidelity which he might expect from the
+English barons in their new engagements, and the danger of intrusting
+his son and heir into the hands of men, who might, on any caprice or
+necessity, make peace with their native sovereign, by sacrificing a
+pledge of so much value.  He therefore exacted from the barons twenty-
+five hostages of the most noble birth in the kingdom [z]; and having
+obtained this security, he sent over first a small army to the relief
+of the confederates; then more numerous forces, which arrived with
+Lewis himself at their head.
+[FN [y] M. Paris, p. 194.  M. West. p. 275.  [z] M. Paris, p. 193.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 74.]
+
+The first effect of the young prince's appearance in England was the
+desertion of John's foreign troops, who, being mostly levied in
+Flanders, and other provinces of France, refused to serve against the
+heir of their monarchy [a].  The Gascons and Poictevins alone, who
+were still John's subjects, adhered to his cause; but they were too
+weak to maintain that superiority in the field which they had hitherto
+supported against the confederated barons.  Many considerable noblemen
+deserted John’s party, the Earls of Salisbury, Arundel, Warrenne,
+Oxford, Albemarle, and William Mareschal the younger: his castles fell
+daily into the hands of the enemy; Dover was the only place which,
+from the valour and fidelity of Hubert de Burgh, the governor, made
+resistance to the progress of Lewis [b]: and the barons had the
+melancholy prospect of finally succeeding in their purpose, and of
+escaping the tyranny of their own king, by imposing on themselves and
+the nation a foreign yoke.  But this union was of short duration
+between the French and English nobles: and the imprudence of Lewis,
+who, on every occasion, showed too visible a preference to the former,
+increased that jealousy which it was so natural for the latter to
+entertain in their present situation [c].  The Viscount of Melun, too,
+it is said, one of his courtiers, fell sick at London, and finding the
+approaches of death, he sent for some of his friends among the English
+barons, and warning them of their danger, revealed Lewis’s secret
+intentions of exterminating them and their families as traitors to
+their prince, and of bestowing their estates and dignities on his
+native subjects, in whose fidelity he could more reasonably place
+confidence [d]: this story, whether true or false, was universally
+reported and believed; and concurring with other circumstances which
+rendered it credible, did great prejudice to the cause of Lewis.  The
+Earl of Salisbury, and other noblemen, deserted again to John's party
+[e]; and as men easily change sides in a civil war, especially where
+their power is founded on an hereditary and independent authority, and
+is not derived from the opinion and favour of the people, the French
+prince had reason to dread a sudden reverse of fortune.  The king was
+assembling a considerable army, with a view of fighting one great
+battle for his crown; but passing from Lynn to Lincolnshire, his road
+lay along the sea-shore, which was overflowed at high water; and not
+choosing the proper time for his journey, he lost in the inundation
+all his carriages, treasure,  baggage, and regalia.  The affliction
+for this disaster, and vexation from the distracted state of his
+affairs, increased the sickness under which he then laboured; and
+though he reached the castle of Newark, he was obliged to halt there,
+[MN 17th Oct.  Death,] and his distemper soon after put an end to his
+life, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and eighteenth of his reign;
+and freed the nation from the dangers to which it was equally exposed
+by his success or by his misfortunes.
+[FN [a] M. Paris, p. 195.  [b] M. Paris, p. 198.  Chron. Dunst. vol.
+i. p. 75, 76.  [c] W. Heming. p. 559.  [d] M. Paris, p. 199.  M. West.
+p. 277.  [e] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 76.]
+
+[MN and character of the king.]  The character of this prince is
+nothing but a complication of vices, equally mean and odious; ruinous
+to himself, and destructive to his people.  Cowardice, inactivity,
+folly, levity, licentiousness, ingratitude, treachery, tyranny, and
+cruelty; all these qualities appear too evidently in the several
+incidents of his life, to give us room to suspect that the
+disagreeable picture has been anywise overcharged by the prejudices of
+the ancient historians.  It is hard to say whether his conduct to his
+father, his brother, his nephew, or his subjects, was most culpable;
+or whether his crimes, in these respects, were not even exceeded by
+the baseness which appeared in his transactions with the King of
+France, the pope, and the barons.  His European dominions, when they
+devolved to him by the death of his brother, were more extensive than
+have ever, since his time, been ruled by an English monarch; but he
+first lost, by his misconduct, the flourishing provinces in France,
+the ancient patrimony of his family: he subjected his kingdom to a
+shameful vassalage under the see of Rome: he saw the prerogatives of
+his crown diminished by law, and still more reduced by faction: and he
+died at last, when in danger of being totally expelled by a foreign
+power, and of either ending his life miserably in prison, or seeking
+shelter, as a fugitive, from the pursuit of his enemies.
+
+The prejudices against this prince were so violent, that he was
+believed to have sent an embassy to the Miramoulin, or Emperor of
+Morocco, and to have offered to change his religion and become
+Mahometan, in order to purchase the protection of that monarch.  But
+though this story is told us, on plausible authority, by Matthew Paris
+[f], it is in itself utterly improbable; except that there is nothing
+so incredible but may be believed to proceed from the folly and
+wickedness of John.
+[FN [f] P. 169.]
+
+The monks throw great reproaches on this prince for his impiety and
+even infidelity; and as an instance of it, they tell us, that having
+one day caught a very fat stag, he exclaimed, HOW PLUMP AND WELL FED
+IS THIS ANIMAL! AND YET, I DARE SWEAR, HE NEVER HEARD MASS [g].  This
+sally of wit upon the usual corpulency of the priests, more than all
+his enormous crimes and iniquities, made him pass with them for an
+atheist.
+
+John left two legitimate sons behind him; Henry, born on the first of
+October, 1207, and now nine years of age; and Richard, born on the
+sixth of January, 1209; and three daughters; Jane, afterwards married
+to Alexander King of Scots; Eleanor, married first to William
+Mareschal the younger, Earl of Pembroke, and then to Simon Mountfort,
+Earl of Leicester; and Isabella, married to the Emperor Frederic II.
+All these children were born to him by Isabella of Angoulesme, his
+second wife.  His illegitimate children were numerous, but none of
+them were anywise distinguished.
+
+It was this king who, in the ninth year of his reign, first gave by
+charter, to the city of London, the right of electing, annually, a
+mayor out of its own body, an office which was till now held for life.
+He gave the city also power to elect and remove its sheriffs at
+pleasure, and its common-councilmen annually.  London-bridge was
+finished in this reign.  The former bridge was of wood.  Maud, the
+empress, was the first that built a stone bridge in England.
+[FN [g] M. Paris, p. 170.]
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX II.
+
+THE FEUDAL AND ANGLO-NORMAN GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
+
+ORIGIN OF THE FEUDAL LAW.--ITS PROGRESS.--FEUDAL GOVERNMENT OF
+ENGLAND.--THE FEUDAL PARLIAMENT.--THE COMMONS.--JUDICAL POWER.--
+REVENUE OF THE CROWN.--COMMERCE.--THE CHURCH.--CIVIL LAWS.--MANNERS.
+
+
+
+The feudal law is the chief foundation, both of the political
+government and of the jurisprudence established by the Normans in
+England.  Our subject therefore requires, that we should form a just
+idea of this law, in order to explain the state, as well of that
+kingdom, as of all other kingdoms of Europe, which, during those ages,
+were governed by similar institutions.  And though I am sensible, that
+I must here repeat many observations and reflections which have been
+communicated by others [a]; yet, as every book, agreeably to the
+observation of a great historian [b], should be as complete as
+possible within itself, and should never refer, for any thing
+material, to other books, it will be necessary, in this place, to
+deliver a short plan of that prodigious fabric, which, for several
+centuries, preserved such a mixture of liberty and oppression, order
+and anarchy, stability and revolution, as was never experienced in any
+other age, or any other part of the world.
+[FN [a] L'Esprit des Loix.  Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland.  [b]
+Padre Paolo, Hist. Conc. Trid.]
+
+[MN Origin of the feudal law.]
+After the northern nations had subdued the provinces of the Roman
+empire, they were obliged to establish a system of government which
+might secure their conquests, as well against the revolt of their
+numerous subjects, who remained in the provinces, as from the inroads
+of other tribes, who might be tempted to ravish from them their new
+acquisitions.  The great change of circumstances made them here depart
+from those institutions which prevailed among them while they remained
+in the forests  of Germany; yet it was still natural for them to
+retain, in their present settlement, as much of their ancient customs
+as was compatible with their new situation.
+
+The German governments, being more a confederacy of independent
+warriors than a civil subjection, derived their principal force from
+many inferior and voluntary associations, which individuals formed
+under a particular head or chieftain, and which it became the highest
+point of honour to maintain with inviolable fidelity.  The glory of
+the chief consisted in the number, the bravery, and the zealous
+attachment of his retainers: the duty of the retainers required, that
+they should accompany their chief in all wars and dangers, that they
+should fight and perish by his side, and that they should esteem his
+renown or his favour a sufficient recompense for all their services
+[c].  The prince himself was nothing but a great chieftain, who was
+chosen from among the rest on account of his superior valour or
+nobility; and who derived his power from the voluntary association or
+attachment of the other chieftains.
+[FN [c] Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]
+
+When a tribe, governed by these ideas, and actuated by these
+principles, subdued a large territory, they found, that though it was
+necessary to keep themselves in a military posture, they could neither
+remain united in a body, nor take up their quarters in several
+garrisons, and that their manners and institutions debarred them from
+using these expedients; the obvious ones, which, in a like situation,
+would have been employed by a more civilized nation.  Their ignorance
+in the art of finances, and perhaps the devastations inseparable from
+such violent conquests, rendered it impracticable for them to levy
+taxes sufficient for the pay of numerous armies; and their repugnance
+to subordination, with their attachment to rural pleasures, made the
+life of the camp or garrison, if perpetuated during peaceful times,
+extremely odious and disgustful to them.  They seized, therefore, such
+a portion of the conquered lands as appeared necessary; they assigned
+a share for supporting the dignity of their prince and government;
+they distributed other parts, under the title of fiefs, to the chiefs;
+these made a new partition among their retainers: the express
+condition  of all these grants was, that they might be resumed at
+pleasure, and that the possessor, so long as he enjoyed them, should
+still remain in readiness to take the field for the defence of the
+nation.  And though the conquerors immediately separated, in order to
+enjoy their new acquisitions, their martial disposition made them
+readily fulfil the terms of their engagement: they assembled on the
+first alarm; their habitual attachment to the chieftain made them
+willingly submit to his command; and thus a regular military force,
+though concealed, was always ready to defend, on any emergence, the
+interest and honour of the community.
+
+We are not to imagine that all the conquered lands were seized by the
+northern conquerors; or that the whole of the land thus seized was
+subjected to those military services.  This supposition is confuted by
+the history of all the nations on the continent.  Even the idea given
+us of the German manners by the Roman historian may convince us, that
+that bold people would never have been content with so precarious a
+subsistence, or have fought to procure establishments which were only
+to continue during the good pleasure of their sovereign.  Though the
+northern chieftains accepted of lands, which, being considered as a
+kind of military pay, might be resumed at the will of the king or
+general; they also took possession of estates, which being hereditary
+and independent, enabled them to maintain their native liberty, and
+support, without court favour, the honour of their rank and family.
+
+[MN Progress of the feudal law.]
+But there is a great difference, in the consequences, between the
+distribution of a pecuniary subsistence, and the assignment of lands
+burdened with the condition of military service.  The delivery of the
+former, at the weekly, monthly, or annual terms of payment, still
+recalls the idea of a voluntary gratuity from the prince, and reminds
+the soldier of the precarious tenure by which he holds his commission.
+But the attachment naturally formed with a fixed portion of land
+gradually begets the idea of something like property, and makes the
+possessor forget his dependent situation, and the condition which was
+at first annexed to the grant.  It seemed equitable that one who had
+cultivated and sowed a field should reap the harvest: hence fiefs,
+which were at first entirely precarious, were soon made annual.  A man
+who had employed his money in building, planting, or other
+improvements, expected to reap the fruits of his labour or expense:
+hence they were next granted during a term of years.  It would be
+thought hard to expel a man from his possessions, who had always done
+his duty, and performed the conditions on which he originally received
+them: hence the chieftains, in a subsequent period, thought themselves
+entitled to demand the enjoyment of their feudal lands during life.
+It was found that a man would more willingly expose himself in battle,
+if assured that his family should inherit his possessions, and should
+not be left by his death in want and poverty: hence fiefs were made
+hereditary in families, and descended, during one age, to the son,
+then to the grandson, next to the brothers, and afterwards to more
+distant relations [d].  The idea of property stole in gradually upon
+that of military pay; and each century made some sensible addition to
+the stability of fiefs and tenures.
+[FN [d] Lib. Feud. lib. I. tit. 1.]
+
+In all these successive acquisitions, the chief was supported by his
+vassals; who, having originally a strong connexion with him, augmented
+by the constant intercourse of good offices, and by the friendship
+arising from vicinity and dependence, were inclined to follow their
+leader against all his enemies, and voluntarily, in his private
+quarrels, paid him the same obedience, to which, by their tenure, they
+were bound in foreign wars.  While he daily advanced new pretensions
+to secure the possession of his superior fief, they expected to find
+the same advantage, in acquiring stability to their subordinate ones;
+and they zealously opposed the intrusion of a new lord, who would be
+inclined, as he was fully entitled, to bestow the possession of their
+lands on his own favourites and retainers.  Thus the authority of the
+sovereign gradually decayed; and each noble, fortified in his own
+territory by the attachment of his vassals, became too powerful to be
+expelled by an order from the throne; and he secured by law what he
+had at first acquired by usurpation.
+
+During this precarious state of the supreme power, a difference would
+immediately be experienced between those portions of territory which
+were subjected to the feudal tenures, and those which were possessed
+by an allodial or free title.  Though the latter possessions had at
+first been esteemed much preferable, they were soon found, by the
+progressive changes introduced into public and private law, to be of
+an inferior condition to the former.  The possessors of a feudal
+territory, united by a regular subordination under one chief, and by
+the mutual attachments of the vassals, had the same advantages over
+the proprietors of the other, that a disciplined army enjoys over a
+dispersed multitude; and were enabled to commit with impunity all
+injuries on their defenceless neighbours.  Every one, therefore,
+hastened to seek that protection which he found so necessary; and each
+allodial proprietor, resigning his possessions into the hands of the
+king, or of some nobleman respected for power or valour, received them
+back with the condition of feudal services [e], which, though a burden
+somewhat grievous, brought him ample compensation, by connecting him
+with the neighbouring proprietors, and placing him under the
+guardianship of a potent chieftain.  The decay of the political
+government thus necessarily occasioned the extension of the feudal:
+the kingdoms of Europe were universally divided into baronies, and
+these into inferior fiefs: and the attachment of vassals to their
+chief, which was at first an essential part of the German manners, was
+still supported by the same causes from which it at first arose; the
+necessity of mutual protection, and the continued intercourse between
+the head and the members, of benefits and services.
+[FN [e] Marculf. Form. 47. apud Lindenbr. p. 1238.]
+
+But there was another circumstance which corroborated these feudal
+dependencies, and tended to connect the vassals with their superior
+lord by an indissoluble bond of union.  The northern conquerors, as
+well as the more early Greeks and Romans, embraced a policy which is
+unavoidable to all nations that have made slender advances in
+refinement: they every where united the civil jurisdiction with the
+military power.  Law, in its commencement, was not an intricate
+science, and was  more governed by maxims of equity, which seem
+obvious to common sense, than by numerous and subtle principles,
+applied to a variety of cases by profound reasonings from analogy.  An
+officer, though he had passed his life in the field, was able to
+determine all legal controversies which could occur within the
+district committed to his charge; and his decisions were the most
+likely to meet with a prompt and ready obedience, from men who
+respected his person, and were accustomed to act under his command.
+The profit arising from punishments, which were then chiefly
+pecuniary, was another reason for his desiring to retain the judicial
+power; and when his fief became hereditary, this authority, which was
+essential to it, was also transmitted to his posterity.  The counts
+and other magistrates, whose power was merely official, were tempted,
+in imitation of the feudal lords, whom they resembled in so many
+particulars, to render their dignity perpetual and hereditary; and in
+the decline of the regal power, they found no difficulty in making
+good their pretensions.  After this manner, the vast fabric of feudal
+subordination became quite solid and comprehensive; it formed every
+where an essential part of the political constitution; and the Norman
+and other barons, who followed the fortunes of William, were so
+accustomed to it that they could scarcely form an idea of any other
+species of civil government [f].
+[FN [f] The ideas of the feudal government were so rooted, that even
+lawyers, in those ages, could not form a notion of any other
+Constitution  REGNUM (says Bracton, lib. 2. cap. 34.) QUOD EX
+COMITATIBUS ET BARONIBUS DICITUR ESSE CONSTITUTUM.]
+
+The Saxons who conquered England, as they exterminated the ancient
+inhabitants, and thought themselves secured by the sea against new
+invaders, found it less requisite to maintain themselves in a military
+posture: the quantity of land which they annexed to offices seems to
+have been of small value; and for that reason continued the longer in
+its original situation, and was always possessed during pleasure by
+those who were intrusted with the command.  These conditions were too
+precarious to satisfy the Norman barons, who enjoyed more independent
+possessions and jurisdictions in their own country; and William was
+obliged, in the new distribution of land, to copy the tenures which
+were now become universal on the continent.  England of a sudden
+became a feudal kingdom [g]; and received all the advantages, and was
+exposed to all the inconveniences, incident to that species of civil
+polity.
+[FN [g] Coke, Comm. on Lit. p. 1, 2. ad sect. 1.]
+
+[MN The feudal government of England.]
+According to the principles of the feudal law, the king was the
+supreme lord of the landed property: all possessors, who enjoyed the
+fruits or revenue of any part of it, held those privileges, either
+mediately or immediately, of him; and their property was conceived to
+be in some degree conditional [h].  The land was still apprehended to
+be a species of BENEFICE, which was the original conception of a
+feudal property; and the vassal owed, in return for it, stated
+services to his baron, as the baron himself did for his land to the
+crown.  The vassal was obliged to defend his baron in war; and the
+baron, at the head of his vassals, was bound to fight in defence of
+the king and kingdom.  But besides these military services, which were
+casual, there were others imposed of a civil nature, which were more
+constant and durable.
+[FN [h] Somner of Gavelk. p. 109.  Smith de Rep. lib. 3. cap. 10.]
+
+The northern nations had no idea that any man, trained up to honour,
+and inured to arms, was ever to be governed, without his own consent,
+by the absolute will of another; or that the administration of justice
+was ever to be exercised by the private opinion of any one magistrate,
+without the concurrence of some other persons, whose interest might
+induce them to check his arbitrary and iniquitous decisions.  The
+king, therefore, when he found it necessary to demand any service of
+his barons or chief tenants, beyond what was due by their tenures, was
+obliged to assemble them in order to obtain their CONSENT: and when it
+was necessary to determine any controversy which might arise among the
+barons themselves, the question must be discussed in their presence,
+and be decided according to their opinion or ADVICE.  In these two
+circumstances of consent and advice consisted chiefly the civil
+services of the ancient barons; and these implied all the considerable
+incidents of government.  In one view, the barons regarded this
+attendance as their principal PRIVILEGE; in another, as a grievous
+BURDEN.  That no momentous affairs could be transacted without their
+consent and advice was in GENERAL esteemed the great security of their
+possessions and dignities: but as they reaped no immediate profit from
+their attendance at court, and were exposed to great inconvenience and
+charge by an absence from their own estates, every one was glad to
+exempt himself from each PARTICULAR exertion of this power; and was
+pleased both that the call for that duty should seldom return upon
+him, and that others should undergo the burden in his stead.  The
+king, on the other hand, was usually anxious, for several reasons,
+that the assembly of the barons should be full at every stated or
+casual meeting: this attendance was the chief badge of their
+subordination to his crown, and drew them from that independence which
+they were apt to affect in their own castles and manors; and where the
+meeting was thin or ill attended, its determinations had less
+authority, and commanded not so ready an obedience from the whole
+community.
+
+The case was the same with the barons in their courts, as with the
+king in the supreme council of the nation.  It was requisite to
+assemble the vassals, in order to determine by their vote any question
+which regarded the barony; and they sat along with the chief in all
+trials, whether civil or criminal, which occurred within the limits of
+their jurisdiction.  They were bound to pay suit and service at the
+court of their baron: and as their tenure was military, and
+consequently honourable, they were admitted into his society, and
+partook of his friendship.  Thus, a kingdom was considered only as a
+great barony, and a barony as a small kingdom.  The barons were peers
+to each other in the national council, and, in some degree, companions
+to the king: the vassals were peers to each other in the court of
+barony, and companions to their baron [i].
+[FN [i] Du Cange, Gloss. in verb. PAR  Cujac. Commun. in Lib. Feud.
+lib. I. tit. p. 18.  Spellm. Gloss. in verb.]
+
+But though this resemblance so far took place, the vassals, by the
+natural course of things, universally, in the feudal constitutions,
+fell into a greater subordination under the baron, than the baron
+himself under his  sovereign; and these governments had a necessary
+and infallible tendency to augment the power of the nobles.  The great
+chief, residing in his country-seat, which he was commonly allowed to
+fortify, lost, in a great measure, his connexion or acquaintance with
+the prince; and added every day new force to his authority over the
+vassals of the barony.  They received from him education in all
+military exercises: his hospitality invited them to live and enjoy
+society in his hall: their leisure, which was great, made them
+perpetual retainers on his person, and partakers of his country sports
+and amusements: they had no means of gratifying their ambition but by
+making a figure in his train: his favour and countenance was their
+greatest honour: his displeasure exposed them to contempt and
+ignominy: and they felt every moment the necessity of his protection,
+both in the controversies which occurred with other vassals, and, what
+was more material, in the daily inroads and injuries which were
+committed by the neighbouring barons.  During the time of general war,
+the sovereign, who marched at the head of his armies, and was the
+great protector of the state, always acquired some accession to his
+authority, which he lost during the intervals of peace and
+tranquillity: but the loose police, incident to the feudal
+constitutions, maintained a perpetual, though secret hostility,
+between the several members of the state; and the vassals found no
+means of securing themselves against the injuries to which they were
+continually exposed, but by closely adhering to their chief, and
+falling into a submissive dependence upon him.
+
+If the feudal government was so little favourable to the true liberty
+even of the military vassal, it was still more destructive of the
+independence and security of the other members of the state, or what,
+in a proper sense, we call the people.  A great part of them were
+SERFS, and lived in a state of absolute slavery or villanage: the
+other inhabitants of the country paid their rents in services, which
+were in a great measure arbitrary; and they could expect no redress of
+injuries, in a court of barony, from men who thought they had a right
+to oppress and tyrannize over them.  The towns were situated either
+within the demesnes of the king, or the lands of the great barons, and
+were almost entirely subjected to the absolute will of their master.
+The languishing state of commerce kept the inhabitants poor and
+contemptible; and the political institutions were calculated to render
+that poverty perpetual.  The barons and gentry, living in rustic
+plenty and hospitality, gave no encouragement to the arts, and had no
+demand for any of the more elaborate manufactures: every profession
+was held in contempt but that of arms: and if any merchant or
+manufacturer rose by industry and frugality to a degree of opulence,
+he found himself but the more exposed to injuries, from the envy and
+avidity of the military nobles.
+
+These concurring causes gave the feudal governments so strong a bias
+towards aristocracy, that the royal authority was extremely eclipsed
+in all the European states; and, instead of dreading the growth of
+monarchical power, we might rather expect, that the community would
+every where crumble into so many independent baronies, and lose the
+political union by which they were cemented.  In elective monarchies,
+the event was commonly answerable to this expectation; and the barons,
+gaining ground on every vacancy of the throne, raised themselves
+almost to a state of sovereignty, and sacrificed to their power both
+the rights of the crown and the liberties of the people.  But
+hereditary monarchies had a principle of authority which was not so
+easily subverted; and there were several causes which still maintained
+a degree of influence in the hands of the sovereign.
+
+The greatest baron could never lose view entirely of those principles
+of the feudal constitution which bound him, as a vassal, to submission
+and fealty towards his prince; because he was every moment obliged to
+have recourse to those principles, in exacting fealty and submission
+from his own vassals.  The lesser barons, finding that the
+annihilation of royal authority left them exposed, without protection,
+to the insults and injuries of more potent neighbours, naturally
+adhered to the crown, and promoted the execution of general and equal
+laws.  The people had still a stronger interest to desire the grandeur
+of the sovereign; and the king, being the legal magistrate, who
+suffered by every internal convulsion or oppression, and who regarded
+the great nobles as his immediate rivals, assumed the salutary office
+of general guardian or protector of the Commons.  Besides the
+prerogatives with which the law invested him, his large demesnes and
+numerous retainers rendered him, in one sense, the greatest baron in
+his kingdom; and where he was possessed of personal vigour and
+abilities, (for his situation required these advantages,) he was
+commonly able to preserve his authority, and maintain his station as
+head of the community, and the chief fountain of law and justice.
+
+The first kings of the Norman race were favoured by another
+circumstance, which preserved them from the encroachments of their
+barons.  They were generals of a conquering army, which was obliged to
+continue in a military posture, and to maintain great subordination
+under their leader, in order to secure themselves from the revolt of
+the numerous natives, whom they had bereaved of all their properties
+and privileges.  But though this circumstance supported the authority
+of William and his immediate successors, and rendered them extremely
+absolute, it was lost as soon as the Norman barons began to
+incorporate with the nation, to acquire a security in their
+possessions, and to fix their influence over their vassals, tenants,
+and slaves: and the immense fortunes which the Conqueror had bestowed
+on his chief captains served to support their independence, and make
+them formidable to their sovereign.
+
+He gave, for instance, to Hugh de Abrincis, his sister's son, the
+whole county of Chester, which he erected into a palatinate, and
+rendered by his grant almost independent of the crown [k].  Robert,
+Earl of Mortaigne, had 973 manors and lordships: Allan, Earl of
+Britany and Richmond, 442: Odo, Bishop of Baieux, 439 [l]: Geoffrey,
+Bishop of Coutance, 280 [m]: Walter Giffard, Earl of Buckingham, 107:
+William, Earl Warrenne, 298, besides 28 towns or hamlets in Yorkshire:
+Todenei, 81: Roger Bigod, 123: Robert, Earl of Eu, 119: Roger
+Mortimer, 132, besides several hamlets: Robert de Stafford, 130:
+Walter de Eurus, Earl of Salisbury, 46: Geoffrey de Mandeville, 118:
+Richard de Clare, 171: Hugh de Beauchamp, 47: Baldwin de Ridvers, 164:
+Henry de Ferrars, 222: William de Percy, 119 [n]: Norman d'Arcy, 33
+[o].  Sir Henry Spellman computes, that, in the large county of
+Norfolk, there were not, in the Conqueror's time, above sixty-six
+proprietors of land [p].  Men, possessed of such princely revenues and
+jurisdictions, could not long be retained in the rank of subjects.
+The great Earl Warrenne, in a subsequent reign, when he was questioned
+concerning his right to the lands which he possessed, drew his sword,
+which he produced as his title; adding, that William the Bastard did
+not conquer the kingdom himself; but that the barons, and his ancestor
+among the rest, were joint adventurers in the enterprise [q].
+[FN [k] Camd. in Chesh.  Spellm. Gloss. in verb. COMES PALATINUS.  [l]
+Brady's Hist. p. 198, 200.  [m] Order. Vital.  [n] Dugdale's Baronage,
+from Doomsday Book, vol. i. p. 60, 74; iii. 112, 132, 136, 138, 156,
+174, 200, 207, 223, 254, 257, 269.  [o] Ibid. p. 369.  It is
+remarkable, that this family of d'Arcy seems to be the only male
+descendants of any of the Conqueror's barons now remaining among the
+Peers.  Lord Holdernesse is the heir of that family.  [p] Spellm.
+Gloss. in verb. DOMESDAY.  [q] Dugd. Bar. vol. i. p. 79.  Ibid.
+Origines Juridicales, p. 13.]
+
+[MN The feudal Parliament.]
+The supreme legislative power of England was lodged in the king and
+great council, or what was afterwards called the Parliament.  It is
+not doubted but the archbishops, bishops, and most considerable
+abbots, were constituent members of this council.  They sat by a
+double title: by prescription, as having always possessed that
+privilege, through the whole Saxon period, from the first
+establishment of Christianity; and by their right of baronage, as
+holding of the king IN CAPITE, by military service.  These two titles
+of the prelates were never accurately distinguished.  When the
+usurpations of the church had risen to such a height as to make the
+bishops affect a separate dominion, and regard their seat in
+Parliament as a degradation of their episcopal dignity; the king
+insisted, that they were barons, and, on that account, obliged, by the
+general principles of the feudal law, to attend on him in his great
+councils [r].  Yet there still remained some practices, which
+supposed their title to be derived merely from ancient possession.
+When a bishop was elected, he sat in Parliament before the king had
+made him restitution of his temporalities; and during the vacancy of a
+see, the guardian of the spiritualities was summoned to attend along
+with the bishops.
+[FN [r] Spellm. Gloss. In verb. BARO.]
+
+The barons were another constituent part of the great council of the
+nation.  These held immediately of the crown by a military tenure:
+they were the most honourable members of the state, and had a RIGHT to
+be consulted in all public deliberations: they were the immediate
+vassals of the crown, and owed as a SERVICE their attendance in the
+court of their supreme lord.  A resolution taken without their consent
+was likely to be but ill executed; and no determination of any cause
+or controversy among them had any validity, where the vote and advice
+of the body did not concur.  The dignity of earl or count was official
+and territorial, as well as hereditary; and as all the earls were also
+barons, they were considered as military vassals of the crown, were
+admitted in that capacity into the general council, and formed the
+most honourable and powerful branch of it.
+
+But there was another class of the immediate military tenants of the
+crown, no less, or probably more numerous than the barons, the tenants
+IN CAPITE by knights' service; and these, however inferior in power or
+property, held by a tenure which was equally honourable with that of
+the others.  A barony was commonly composed of several knights' fees;
+and though the number seems not to have been exactly defined, seldom
+consisted of less than fifty hides of land [s]: but where a man held
+of the king only one or two knights' fees, he was still an immediate
+vassal of the crown, and as such had a title to have a seat in the
+general councils.  But as this attendance was usually esteemed a
+burden, and one too great for a man of slender fortune to bear
+constantly, it is probable that, though he had a title, if he pleased,
+to be admitted, he was not obliged, by any penalty, like the barons,
+to pay a regular attendance.  All the immediate military tenants of
+the crown amounted not fully to 700, when Doomsday Book was framed;
+and as the members were well pleased, on any pretext, to excuse
+themselves from attendance, the assembly was never likely to become
+too numerous for the despatch of public business.
+[FN [s] Four hides made one knight's fee: the relief of a barony was
+twelve times greater than that of a knight's fee; whence we may
+conjecture its usual value.  Spellm. Gloss. in verb. FEODUM.  There
+were 243,600 hides in England, and 60,215 knights' fees; whence it is
+evident, that there were a little more than four hides in each
+knight's fee.]
+
+[MN The Commons.]
+So far the nature of a general council, or ancient Parliament, is
+determined, without any doubt or controversy.  The only question seems
+to be with regard to the Commons, or the representatives of counties
+and boroughs, whether they were also, in more early times, constituent
+parts of Parliament?  This question was once disputed in England with
+great acrimony; but such is the force of time and evidence, that they
+can sometimes prevail, even over faction; and the question seems by
+general consent, and even by their own, to be at last determined
+against the ruling party.  It is agreed, that the Commons were no part
+of the great council, till some ages after the Conquest; and that the
+military tenants alone of the crown composed that supreme and
+legislative assembly.
+
+The vassals of a baron were, by their tenure, immediately dependent on
+him, owed attendance at his court, and paid all their duty to the
+king, through that dependence which their lord was obliged by HIS
+tenure to acknowledge to his sovereign and superior.  Their land,
+comprehended in the barony, was represented in Parliament by the baron
+himself, who was supposed, according to the fictions of the feudal
+law, to possess the direct property of it; and it would have been
+deemed incongruous to give it any other representation.  They stood in
+the same capacity to him, that he and the other barons did to the
+king.  The former were peers of the barony; the latter were peers of
+the realm.  The vassals possessed a subordinate rank within their
+district; the baron enjoyed a superior dignity in the great assembly:
+they were in some degree his companions at home; he the king's
+companion at court: and nothing can be more evidently repugnant to all
+feudal ideas, and to that gradual subordination which was essential to
+those ancient institutions, than to imagine that the king would apply
+either for the advice or consent of men, who were of a rank so much
+inferior, and whose duty was immediately paid to the MESNE lord that
+was interposed between them and the throne [t].
+[FN [t] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. BARO.]
+
+If it be unreasonable to think that the vassals of a barony, though
+their tenure was military, and noble, and honourable, were ever
+summoned to give their opinion in national councils, much less can it
+be supposed, that the tradesmen or inhabitants of boroughs, whose
+condition was so much inferior, would be admitted to that privilege.
+It appears from Doomsday, that the greatest boroughs were, at the time
+of the Conquest, scarcely more than country villages; and that the
+inhabitants lived in entire dependence on the king or great lords, and
+were of a station little better than servile [u].  They were not then
+so much as incorporated; they formed no community; were not regarded
+as a body politic; and being really nothing but a number of low
+dependent tradesmen, living, without any particular civil tie, in
+neighbourhood together, they were incapable of being represented in
+the states of the kingdom.  Even in France, a country which made more
+early advances in arts and civility than England, the first
+corporation is sixty years posterior to the Conquest under the Duke of
+Normandy; and the erecting of these communities was an invention of
+Lewis the Gross, in order to free the people from slavery under the
+lords, and to give them protection, by means of certain privileges and
+a separate jurisdiction [w].  An ancient French writer calls them a
+new and wicked device, to procure liberty to slaves, and encourage
+them in shaking off the dominion of their masters [x].  The famous
+charter, as it is called, of the Conqueror to the city of London,
+though granted at a time when he assumed the appearance of gentleness
+and lenity, is nothing but a letter of protection, and a declaration
+that the citizens should not be treated as slaves [y].  By the English
+feudal law, the superior lord was prohibited from marrying his female
+ward to a burgess or a villain [z]; so near were these two ranks
+esteemed to each other, and so much inferior to the nobility and
+gentry.  Besides possessing the advantages of birth, riches, civil
+powers, and privileges, the nobles and gentlemen alone were armed; a
+circumstance which gave them a mighty superiority, in an age when
+nothing but the military profession was honourable, and when the loose
+execution of laws gave so much encouragement to open violence, and
+rendered it so decisive in all disputes and controversies [a].
+[FN [u]  LIBER HOMO anciently signified a gentleman; for scarce any
+one beside was entirely free.  Spellm. Gloss. in verbo.  [w] Du
+Cange’s Gloss in verb. COMMUNE, COMMUNITAS.  [x] Guibertus, de vita
+sua, lib. 2. cap. 7.  [y] Stat. of Merton, 1235. cap. 6.  [z]
+Hollingshed, vol. iii. p. 15.  [a] Madox's Baron. Angl. p. 19.]
+
+The great similarity among the feudal governments of Europe is well
+known to every man that has any acquaintance with ancient history; and
+the antiquaries of all foreign countries, where the question was never
+embarrassed by party disputes, have allowed, that the Commons came
+very late to be admitted to a share in the legislative power.  In
+Normandy particularly, whose constitution was most likely to be
+William's model in raising his new fabric of English government, the
+states were entirely composed of the clergy and nobility; and the
+first incorporated boroughs or communities of that duchy were Rouen
+and Falaise, which enjoyed their privileges by a grant of Philip
+Augustus in the year 1207 [b].  All the ancient English historians,
+when they mention the great council of the nation, call it an assembly
+of the baronage, nobility, or great men; and none of their
+expressions, though several hundred passages might be produced, can,
+without the utmost violence, be tortured to a meaning, which will
+admit the Commons to be constituent members of that body [c].  If in
+the long period of two hundred years, which elapsed between the
+Conquest and the latter end of Henry III., and which abounded in
+factions, revolutions, and convulsions of all kinds, the House of
+Commons never performed one single legislative act, so considerable as
+to be once mentioned by any of the numerous historians of that age,
+they must have been totally insignificant: and, in that case, what
+reason can be assigned for their ever being assembled?  Can it be
+supposed that men of so little weight or importance possessed a
+negative voice against the king and the barons?  Every page of the
+subsequent histories discovers their existence; though these histories
+are not written with greater accuracy than the preceding ones, and
+indeed scarcely equal them in that particular.  The MAGNA CHARTA of
+King John provides, that no scutage or aid should be imposed, either
+on the land or towns, but by consent of the great council; and for
+more security, it enumerates the persons entitled to a seat in that
+assembly, the prelates and immediate tenants of the crown, without any
+mention of the Commons: an authority so full, certain, and explicit,
+that nothing but the zeal of party could ever have procured credit to
+any contrary hypothesis.
+[FN [b] Norman. Du Chesnii, p. 1066.  Du Cange, Gloss, in verb.
+COMMUNE.  [c] Sometimes the historians mention the people, POPULUS, as
+part of the Parliament; but they always mean the laity, in opposition
+to the clergy.  Sometimes the word COMMUNITAS is found; but it always
+means COMMUNITAS BARONAGII.  These points are clearly proved by Dr.
+Brady.  There is also mention sometimes made of a crowd or multitude
+that thronged into the great council on particular interesting
+occasions; but as deputies from boroughs are never once spoken of, the
+proof that they had not then any existence becomes the more certain
+and undeniable.  These never could make a crowd, as they must have had
+a regular place assigned them, if they had made a regular part of the
+legislative body.  There were only one hundred and thirty boroughs who
+received writs of summons from Edward I.  It is expressly said in
+Gesta. Reg. Steph. p. 932, that it was usual for the populace, VULGUS,
+to crowd into the great councils; where they were plainly mere
+spectators, and could only gratify their curiosity.]
+
+It was probably the example of the French barons which first
+emboldened the English to require greater independence from their
+sovereign: it is also probable, that the boroughs and corporations of
+England were established in imitation of those of France.  It may,
+therefore, be proposed as no unlikely conjecture, that both the chief
+privileges of the Peers in England and the liberty of the Commons were
+originally the growth of that foreign country.
+
+In ancient times, men were little solicitous to obtain a place in the
+legislative assemblies; and rather regarded their attendance as a
+burden, which was not compensated by any return of profit or honour
+proportionate to the trouble and expense.  The only reason for
+instituting those public councils was, on the part of the subject,
+that they desired some security from the attempts of arbitrary power;
+and on the part of the sovereign, that he despaired of governing men
+of such independent spirits without their own consent and concurrence.
+But the Commons, or the inhabitants of boroughs, had not as yet
+reached such a degree of consideration as to desire SECURITY against
+their prince, or to imagine that, even if they were assembled in a
+representative body, they had power or rank sufficient to enforce it.
+The only protection which they aspired to, was against the immediate
+violence and injustice of their fellow-citizens; and this advantage
+each of them looked for, from the courts of justice, or from the
+authority of some great lord, to whom, by law or his own choice, he
+was attached.  On the other hand, the sovereign was sufficiently
+assured of obedience in the whole community, if he procured the
+concurrence of the nobles; nor had he reason to apprehend, that any
+order of the state could resist his and their united authority.  The
+military sub-vassals could entertain no idea of opposing both their
+prince and their superiors: the burgesses and tradesmen could much
+less aspire to such a thought: and thus, even if history were silent
+on the head, we have reason to conclude, from the known situation of
+society during those ages, that the Commons were never admitted as
+members of the legislative body.
+
+The EXECUTIVE power of the Anglo-Norman government was lodged in the
+king.  Besides the stated meetings of the national council at the
+three great festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide [d], he
+was accustomed, on any sudden exigence, to summon them together.  He
+could at his pleasure command the attendance of his barons and their
+vassals, in which consisted the military force of the kingdom; and
+could employ them, during forty days, either in resisting a foreign
+enemy, or reducing his rebellious subjects.  And what was of great
+importance, the whole JUDICIAL power was ultimately in his hands, and
+was exercised by officers and ministers of his appointment.
+[FN [d] Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 15.  Spellm. Gloss. In verbo
+PARLIAMENTUM.]
+
+[MN Judicial power.]
+The general plan of the Anglo-Norman government was, that the court of
+barony was appointed to decide  such controversies as arose between
+the several vassals or subjects of the same barony; the hundred court
+and county court, which were still continued as during the Saxon times
+[e], to judge between the subjects of different baronies [f]; and the
+CURIA REGIS, or king's court, to give sentence among the barons
+themselves [g].  But this plan, though simple, was attended with some
+circumstances which, being derived from a very extensive authority
+assumed by the Conqueror, contributed to increase the royal
+prerogative: and, as long as the state was not disturbed by arms,
+reduced every order of the community to some degree of dependence and
+subordination.
+[FN [e] Ang. Sacra, vol. i. p. 334, &c.  Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 27, 29.
+Madox, Hist. of Exch. p. 75, 76.  Spellm. Gloss. in verbo HUNDRED.
+[f] None of the feudal governments in Europe had such institutions as
+the county courts, which the great authority of the Conqueror still
+retained from the Saxon customs.  All the freeholders of the county,
+even the greatest barons, were obliged to attend the sheriffs in these
+courts, and to assist them in the administration of justice.  By these
+means they received frequent and sensible admonitions of their
+dependence on the king or supreme magistrate: they formed a kind of
+community with their fellow barons and freeholders: they were often
+drawn from their individual and independent state, peculiar to the
+feudal system, and were made members of a political body: and,
+perhaps, this institution of county courts in England has had greater
+effects on the government than has yet been distinctly pointed out by
+historians, or traced by antiquaries.  The barons were never able to
+free themselves from this attendance on the sheriffs and itinerant
+justices till the reign of Henry III.  [g] Brady, Pref. p. 143.]
+
+The king himself often sat in his court, which always attended his
+person [h]: he there heard causes and pronounced judgment [i]; and
+though he was assisted by the advice of the other members, it is not
+to be imagined that a decision could easily be obtained contrary to
+his inclination or opinion.  In his absence the chief justiciary
+presided, who was the first magistrate in the state, and a kind of
+viceroy, on whom depended all the civil affairs of the kingdom [k]
+The other chief officers of the crown, the constable, mareschal,
+seneschal, chamberlain, treasurer, and chancellor [l], were members,
+together with such feudal barons as thought proper to attend, and the
+barons of the exchequer, who at first were also feudal barons,
+appointed by the king [m].  This court, which was sometimes called the
+king's court, sometimes the court of exchequer, judged in all causes,
+civil and criminal, and comprehended the whole business which is now
+shared out among four courts, the chancery, the king's-bench, the
+common-pleas, and the exchequer [n].
+[FN [h] Madox, Hist. of Exch. p. 103.  [i] Bracton, lib. 3. cap. 9.
+Sec. 1. cap. 10. Sec. 1.  [k] Spellm. Gloss. in verbo JUSTICIARII.
+[l] Madox, Hist. Exch. p. 27, 29, 33, 38, 41, 54.  The Normans
+introduced the practice of sealing charters; and the chancellor's
+office was to keep the great seal.  Ingulph. Dugd. p. 33, 34.  [m]
+Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 134, 135.  Gerv. Dorob. p. 1387.  [n]
+Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 56, 70.]
+
+Such an accumulation of powers was itself a great source of authority,
+and rendered the jurisdiction of the court formidable to all the
+subjects; but the turn which judicial trials took soon after the
+Conquest served still more to increase its authority, and to augment
+the royal prerogatives.  William, among the other violent changes
+which he attempted and effected, had introduced the Norman law into
+England [o], had ordered all the pleadings to be in that tongue, and
+had interwoven, with the English jurisprudence, all the maxims and
+principles, which the Normans, more advanced in cultivation, and
+naturally litigious, were accustomed to observe in the distribution of
+justice.  Law now became a science, which at first fell entirely into
+the hands of the Normans; and which, even after it was communicated to
+the English, required so much study and application, that the laity,
+in those ignorant ages, were incapable of attaining it, and it was a
+mystery almost solely confined to the clergy, and chiefly to the monks
+[p]. The great officers of the crown, and the feudal barons, who were
+military men, found themselves unfit to penetrate into those
+obscurities; and though they were entitled to a seat in the supreme
+judicature, the business of the court was wholly managed by the chief
+justiciary and the law barons, who were men appointed by the king and
+entirely at his disposal [q].  This natural course of things was
+forwarded by the multiplicity of business which flowed into that
+court, and which daily augmented by the appeals from all the
+subordinate judicatures of the kingdom.
+[FN [o] Dial. de Scac. p. 30. apud Madox, Hist. of the Exchequer.  [p]
+Malmes. lib. 4. p. 123.  [q] Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 25.]
+
+In the Saxon times, no appeal was received in the king's court, except
+upon the denial or delay of justice by the inferior courts; and the
+same practice was still observed in most of the feudal kingdoms of
+Europe.  But the great power of the Conqueror established, at first,
+in England, an authority, which the monarchs in France were not able
+to attain till the reign of St. Lewis, who lived near two centuries
+after: he empowered his court to receive appeals both from the courts
+of barony and the county courts, and by that means brought the
+administration of justice ultimately into the hands of the sovereign
+[r].  And lest the expense or trouble of a journey to courts should
+discourage suitors, and make them acquiesce in the decision of the
+inferior judicatures, itinerant judges were afterwards established,
+who made their circuits throughout the kingdom, and tried all causes
+that were brought before them [s].  By this expedient the courts of
+barony were kept in awe; and if they still preserved some influence,
+it was only from the apprehensions which the vassals might entertain
+of disobliging their superior, by appealing from his jurisdiction.
+But the county courts were much discredited; and as the freeholders
+were found ignorant of the intricate principles and forms of the new
+law, the lawyers gradually brought all business before the king's
+judges, and abandoned the ancient simple and popular judicature.
+After this manner, the formalities of justice, which, though they
+appear tedious and cumbersome, are found requisite to the support of
+liberty in all monarchical governments, proved at first, by a
+combination of causes, very advantageous to royal authority in
+England.
+[FN [r] Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 65.   Glanv. lib. 12. cap. 1. 7.
+LL. Hen. I. Sec. 31, apud Wilkins, p. 248.  Fitz-Stephens, p. 36.
+Coke's Comment. on the statute of Marlbridge, cap. 20.  [s] Madox,
+Hist. of the Exch. p. 83, 84, 100.  Gerv. Dorob. p. 1410.  What made
+the Anglo-Norman barons more readily submit to appeals from their
+court to the king's court of exchequer, was their being accustomed to
+like appeals in Normandy to the ducal court of exchequer.  See
+Gilbert's History of the Exchequer, p. 1, 2; though the author thinks
+it doubtful, whether the Norman court was not rather copied from the
+English, p. 6.]
+
+[MN Revenue of the crown.]
+The power of the Norman kings was also much supported by a great
+revenue; and by a revenue that was fixed, perpetual, and independent
+of the subject.  The people, without betaking themselves to arms, had
+no check upon the king, and no regular security for the due
+administration of justice.  In those days of violence, many instances
+of oppression passed unheeded; and soon after were openly pleaded as
+precedents, which it was unlawful to dispute or control.  Princes and
+ministers were too ignorant to be themselves sensible of the
+advantages attending an equitable administration; and there was no
+established council or assembly which could protect the people, and,
+by withdrawing supplies, regularly and peaceably admonish the king of
+his duty, and ensure the execution of the laws.
+
+The first branch of the king's stated revenue was the royal demesnes
+or crown lands, which were very extensive, and comprehended, besides a
+great number of manors, most of the chief cities of the kingdom.  It
+was established by law, that the king could alienate no part of his
+demesne, and that he himself, or his successor, could at any time
+resume such donations [t]: but this law was never regularly observed;
+which happily rendered in time the crown somewhat more dependent.  The
+rent of the crown lands, considered merely as so much riches, was a
+source of power: the influence of the king over his tenants and the
+inhabitants of his towns increased this power: but the other numerous
+branches of his revenue, besides supplying his treasury, gave, by
+their very nature, a great latitude to arbitrary authority, and were a
+support of the prerogative; as will appear from an enumeration of
+them.
+[FN [t] Fleta, lib. 1. cap. 8. Sec. 17. lib. 3. cap. 6. Sec. 3.
+Bracton, lib. 2. cap. 5.]
+
+The king was never content with the stated rents, but levied heavy
+talliages at pleasure on the inhabitants both of town and country, who
+lived within his demesne.  All bargains of sale, in order to prevent
+theft, being prohibited, except in boroughs and public markets [u], he
+pretended to exact tolls, on all goods which were there sold [w].  He
+seized two hogsheads, one before and one behind the mast, from every
+vessel that imported wine.  All goods paid to his customs a
+proportionable part of their value [x]: passage over bridges and on
+rivers was loaded with tolls at pleasure [y]: and though the boroughs
+by degrees bought the liberty of farming these impositions, yet the
+revenue profited by these bargains: new sums were often exacted for
+the renewal and confirmation of their charters [z] and the people were
+thus held in perpetual dependence.
+[FN [u] LL. Will. I. cap. 61.  [w] Madox, p. 530.  [x] Ibid. p. 529.
+This author says a fifteenth.  But it is not easy to reconcile this
+account to other authorities.  [y] Madox, p. 529.  [z] Madox's Hist.
+of the Exch. p. 275, 276, 277, &c.]
+
+Such was the situation of the inhabitants within the royal demesnes.
+But the possessors of land, or the military tenants, though they were
+better protected both by law, and by the great privilege of carrying
+arms, were, from the nature of their tenures, much exposed to the
+inroads of power, and possessed not what we should esteem, in our age,
+a very durable security.  The Conqueror ordained, that the barons
+should be obliged to pay nothing beyond their stated services [a],
+except a reasonable aid to ransom his person if he were taken in war,
+to make his eldest son a knight, and to marry his eldest daughter.
+What should, on these occasions, be deemed a reasonable aid, was not
+determined; and the demands of the crown were so far discretionary.
+[FN [a] LL. Will. Conq. Sec. 55.]
+
+The king could require in war the personal attendance of his vassals,
+that is, of almost all the landed proprietors; and if they declined
+the service, they were obliged to pay him a composition in money,
+which was called a scutage.  The sum was, during some reigns,
+precarious and uncertain; it was sometimes levied without allowing the
+vassal the liberty of personal service [b]; and it was an usual
+artifice of the king, to pretend an expedition, that he might be
+entitled to levy the scutage from his military tenants.  Danegelt was
+another species of land-tax levied by the early Norman kings,
+arbitrarily, and contrary to the laws of the Conqueror [c].  Moneyage
+was also a general land-tax of the same nature, levied by the two
+first Norman kings, and abolished by the charter of Henry I. [d].  It
+was a shilling paid every three years by each hearth, to induce the
+king not to use his prerogative in debasing the coin.  Indeed it
+appears from that charter, that though the Conqueror had granted his
+military tenants an immunity from all taxes and talliages, he and his
+son William had never thought themselves bound to observe that rule,
+but had levied impositions at pleasure on all the landed estates of
+the kingdom.  The utmost that Henry grants, is, that the land
+cultivated by the military tenant himself shall not be so burdened;
+but he reserves the power of taxing the farmers; and as it is known
+that Henry's charter was never observed in any one article, we may be
+assured that this prince and his successors retracted even this small
+indulgence, and levied arbitrary impositions on all the lands of all
+their subjects.  These taxes were sometimes very heavy; since
+Malmesbury tells us, that in the reign of William Rufus, the farmers,
+on account of them, abandoned tillage, and a famine ensued [e].
+[FN [b] Gervase de Tilbury, p. 25.  [c] Madox's Hist of the Exch. p.
+475.  [d] Matth. Paris, p. 38.  [e] So also Chron. Abb. St. Petri de
+Burgo, p. 55.  Knyghton, p. 2366.]
+
+The escheats were a great branch both of power and of revenue,
+especially during the first reigns after the Conquest.  In default of
+posterity from the first baron, his land reverted to the crown, and
+continually augmented the king's possessions.  The prince had indeed
+by law a power of alienating these escheats; but by this means he had
+an opportunity of establishing the fortunes of his friends and
+servants, and thereby enlarging his authority.  Sometimes he retained
+them in his own hands; and they were gradually confounded with the
+royal demesnes, and became difficult to be distinguished from them.
+This confusion is probably the reason why the king acquired the right
+of alienating his demesnes.
+
+But besides escheats from default of heirs, those which ensued from
+crimes, or breach of duty towards the superior lord, were frequent in
+ancient times.  If the vassal, being thrice summoned to attend his
+superior’s court, and do fealty, neglected or refused obedience, he
+forfeited all title to his land [f].  If he denied his tenure, or
+refused his service, he was exposed to the same penalty [g].  If he
+sold his estate without licence from his lord [h], or if he sold it
+upon any other tenure or title than that by which he himself held it
+[i], he lost all right to it.  The adhering to his lord's enemies [k],
+deserting him in war [l], betraying his secrets [m], debauching his
+wife, or his near relations [n], or even using indecent freedoms with
+them [o], might be punished by forfeiture.  The higher crimes, rapes,
+robbery, murder, arson, &c., were called felony; and being interpreted
+want of fidelity to his lord, made him lose his fief [p].  Even where
+the felon was vassal to a baron, though his immediate lord enjoyed the
+forfeiture, the king might retain possession of his estate during a
+twelvemonth, and had the right of spoiling and destroying it, unless
+the baron paid him a reasonable composition [q].  We have not here
+enumerated all the species of felonies, or of crimes by which
+forfeiture was incurred: we have said enough to prove, that the
+possession of feudal property was anciently somewhat precarious, and
+that the primary idea was never lost, of its being a kind of FEE or
+BENEFICE.
+[FN [f] Hottom. de Feud. Disp. cap. 38. col. 886.  [g] Lib. Feud. lib.
+3. tit. 1; lib. 4. tit. 21, 39.  [h] Id. lib. 1. tit. 21.  [i] Id.
+lib. 4. tit. 44.  [k] Id. lib. 3. tit. 1.  [l] Id. lib. 4. tit. 14,
+21.  [m] Id. lib. 4. tit. 14.  [n] Id. lib. 1. tit. 14, 23.  [o] Id.
+lib. 1. tit. 1.  [p] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. FELONIA.  [q] Ibid.
+Glanville, lib. 7 cap. 17.]
+
+When a baron died, the king immediately took possession of the estate;
+and the heir, before he recovered his right, was obliged to make
+application to the crown, and desire that he might be admitted to do
+homage for his land, and pay a composition to the king.  This
+composition was not at first fixed by law, at least by practice: the
+king was often exorbitant in his demands, and kept possession of the
+land till they were complied with.
+
+If the heir were a minor, the king retained the whole profit of the
+estate till his majority; and might grant what sum he thought proper
+for the education and maintenance of the young baron.  This practice
+was also founded on the notion, that a fief was a benefice, and that
+while the heir could not perform his military services, the revenue
+devolved to the superior, who employed another in his stead.  It is
+obvious, that a great proportion of the landed property must, by means
+of this device, be continually in the hands of the prince, and that
+all the noble families were thereby held in perpetual dependence.
+When the king granted the wardship of a rich heir to any one, he had
+the opportunity of enriching a favourite or minister: if he sold it,
+he thereby levied a considerable sum of money.  Simon de Mountfort
+paid Henry III. ten thousand marks, an immense sum in those days, for
+the wardship of Gilbert de Umfreville [r].  Geoffrey de Mandeville
+paid to the same prince the sum of twenty thousand marks, that he
+might marry Isabel, Countess of Gloucester, and possess all her lands
+and knights' fees.  This sum would be equivalent to three hundred
+thousand, perhaps four hundred thousand pounds in our time [s].
+[FN [r] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 223.  [s] Madox’s Hist. of the
+Exch. p. 322.]
+
+If the heir were a female, the king was entitled to offer her any
+husband of her rank he thought proper; and if she refused him, she
+forfeited her land.  Even a male heir could not marry without the
+royal consent; and it was usual for men to pay large sums for the
+liberty of making their own choice in marriage [t].  No man could
+dispose of his land, either by sale or will, without the consent of
+his superior.  The possessor was never considered as full proprietor:
+he was still a kind of beneficiary; and could not oblige his superior
+to accept of any vassal that was not agreeable to him.
+[FN [t] Ibid. p. 320.]
+
+Fines, amerciaments, and oblatas, as they were called, were another
+considerable branch of the royal power and revenue.  The ancient
+records of the exchequer, which are still preserved, give surprising
+accounts of the numerous fines and amerciaments levied in those days
+[u] and of the strange inventions fallen upon to exact money from the
+subject.  It appears that the ancient kings of England put themselves
+entirely on the footing of the barbarous eastern princes, whom no man
+must approach without a present, who sell all their good offices, and
+who intrude themselves into every business that they may have a
+pretence for extorting money.  Even justice was avowedly bought and
+sold; the king's court itself, though the supreme judicature of the
+kingdom, was open to none that brought not presents to the king; the
+bribes given for the expedition, delay [w], suspension, and, doubtless
+for the perversion of justice, were entered in the public registers of
+the royal revenue, and remain as monuments of the perpetual iniquity
+and tyranny of the times.  The barons of the exchequer, for instance,
+the first nobility of the kingdom, were not ashamed to insert, as an
+article in their records, that the county of Norfolk paid a sum that
+they might be fairly dealt with [x]; the borough of Yarmouth, that the
+king's charters, which they have for their liberties, might not be
+violated [y]; Richard, son of Gilbert, for the king's helping him to
+recover his debt from the Jews [z]; Serlo, son of Terlavaston, that he
+might be permitted to make his defence in case he were accused of a
+certain homicide [a]; Walter de Burton, for free law, if accused of
+wounding another [b]; Robert de Essart, for having an inquest to find
+whether Roger the Butcher, and Wace and Humphrey, accused him of
+robbery and theft out of envy and ill-will or not [c]; William
+Buhurst, for having an inquest to find whether he were accused of the
+death of one Godwin out of ill-will, or for just cause [d].  I have
+selected these few instances from a great number of a like kind, which
+Madox had selected from a still greater number, preserved in the
+ancient rolls of the exchequer [e].
+[FN [u] Id. p. 272.  [w] Id. p. 274, 309.  [x] Id. p. 295.  [y] Id.
+ibid.  [z] Madox’s Hist. of the Exch. p. 296.  He paid two hundred
+marks, great sum in those days.  [a] Id. p. 296.  [b] Id. ibid.  [c]
+Id. p. 298.  [d] Id. p. 302.  [e] Id. chap. 12.]
+
+Sometimes the party litigant offered the king a certain portion, a
+half, a third, a fourth, payable out of the debts, which he, as the
+executor of justice, should assist him in recovering [f].  Theophania
+de Westland agreed to pay the half of two hundred and twelve marks,
+that she might recover that sum against James de Fughleston [g];
+Solomon, the Jew, engaged to pay one mark out of every seven that he
+should recover against Hugh de la Hose [h]; Nicholas Morrel promised
+to pay sixty pounds, that the Earl of Flanders might be distrained to
+pay him three hundred and forty-three pounds, which the earl had taken
+from him; and these sixty pounds were to be paid out of the first
+money that Nicholas should recover from the earl [i].
+[FN [f] Id. p. 311.  [g] Id. ibid.  [h] Id. p. 79, 312.  [i] Id. p.
+312.]
+
+As the king assumed the entire power over trade, he was to be paid for
+a permission to exercise commerce or industry of any kind [k].  Hugh
+Oisel paid four hundred marks for liberty to trade in England [l];
+Nigel de Havene gave fifty marks for the partnership in merchandize
+which he had with Gervase de Hanton [m]; the men of Worcester paid one
+hundred shillings, that they might have the liberty of selling and
+buying dyed cloth as formerly [n]; several other towns paid for a like
+liberty [o].  The commerce indeed of the kingdom was so much  under
+the control of the king, that he erected guilds, corporations, and
+monopolies, wherever he pleased; and levied sums for these exclusive
+privileges [p].
+[FN [k] Id. p. 323.  [l] Id. ibid.  [m] Id. ibid.  [n] Id. p. 324.
+[o] Id. ibid.  [p] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 232, 233, &c.]
+
+There were no profits so small as to be below the king's attention.
+Henry, son of Arthur, gave ten dogs to have a recognition against the
+Countess of Copland for one knight's fee [q].  Roger, son of Nicholas,
+gave twenty lampreys and twenty shads for an inquest to find, whether
+Gilbert, son of Alured, gave to Roger two hundred muttons to obtain
+his confirmation for certain lands, or whether Roger took them from
+him by violence [r]; Geoffrey Fitz-Pierre, the chief justiciary, gave
+two good Norway hawks, that Walter le Madine might have leave to
+export a hundred weight of cheese out of the king's dominions [s].
+[FN [q] Id. p. 298.  [r] Id. p. 305.  [s] Id. p. 325.]
+
+It is really amusing to remark the strange business in which the king
+sometimes interfered, and never without a present.  The wife of Hugh
+de Neville gave the king two hundred hens, that she might lie with her
+husband one night [t]; and she brought with her two sureties, who
+answered each for a hundred hens.  It is probable that her husband was
+a prisoner, which debarred her from having access to him.  The Abbot
+of Rucford paid ten marks for leave to erect houses and place men upon
+his land near Welhang, in order to secure his wood there from being
+stolen [u].  Hugh, Archdeacon of Wells, gave one tun of wine for leave
+to carry six hundred sums of corn whither he would [w]; Peter de
+Peraris gave twenty marks for leave to salt fishes, as Peter Chevalier
+used to do [x].
+[FN [t] Id. p. 320.  [u] Id. p. 326.  [w] Id. p. 320.  [x] Id. p.
+326.]
+
+It was usual to pay high fines, in order to gain the king's good-will,
+or mitigate his anger.  In the reign of Henry II., Gilbert, the son of
+Fergus, fines in nine hundred and nineteen pounds, nine shillings, to
+obtain that prince's favour; William de Chataignes, a thousand marks,
+that he would remit his displeasure.  In the reign of Henry III., the
+city of London fines in no less a sum than twenty thousand pounds on
+the same account [y].
+[FN [y] Id. p. 327, 329.]
+
+The king's protection and good offices of every kind were bought and
+sold.  Robert Grislet paid twenty marks of silver, that the king would
+help him against the Earl of Mortaigne, in a certain plea [z]: Robert
+de Cundet gave thirty marks of silver, that the king would bring him
+to an accord with the Bishop of Lincoln [a]: Ralph de Breckham gave a
+hawk, that the king would protect him [b]; and this is a very frequent
+reason for payments: John, son of Ordgar, gave a Norway hawk, to have
+the king's request to the king of Norway to let him have his brother
+Godard's chattels [c]: Richard de Neville gave twenty palfreys to
+obtain the king's request to Isolda Bisset, that she should take him
+for a husband [d]: Roger Fitz-Walter gave three good palfreys to have
+the king's letter to Roger Bertram's mother, that she should marry him
+[e]: Eling, the dean, paid one hundred marks, that his whore and his
+children might be let out upon bail [f]: the Bishop of Winchester gave
+one tun of good wine for his not putting the king in mind to give a
+girdle to the Countess of Albemarle [g]: Robert de Veaux gave five of
+the best palfreys, that the king would hold his tongue about Henry
+Pinel's wife [h].  There are in the records of exchequer, many other
+singular instances of a like nature [i].  It will, however, be just to
+remark, that the same  ridiculous practices and dangerous abuses
+prevailed in Normandy, and probably in all the other states of Europe
+[k]: England was not, in this respect, more barbarous than its
+neighbours.
+[FN [z] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 329.  [a] Id. p. 330.  [b] Id.
+p. 332.  [c] Id. ibid.  [d] Id. p. 333.  [e] Id. ibid.  [f] Id. p.
+342.  PRO HABENDA AMICA SUA ET FILIIS, &c.  [g] Id. p. 352.  [h] Id.
+ibid.  UT REX TACERET DE UXORE HENRICI PINEL.  [i] WE SHALL GRATIFY
+THE READER'S CURIOSITY BY SUBJOINING A FEW MORE INSTANCES FROM MADOX,
+p. 332.  Hugh Oisel was to give the king two robes of a good green
+colour, to have the king's letters patent to the merchants of
+Flanders, with a request to render him one thousand marks, which he
+lost in Flanders.  The Abbot of Hyde paid thirty marks, to have the
+king's letters of request to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to remove
+certain monks that were against the abbot.  Roger de Trihanton paid
+twenty marks and a palfrey, to have the king's request to Richard de
+Umfreville to give him his sister to wife, and to the sister, that she
+would accept him for a husband.  William de Cheveringworth paid five
+marks, to have the king's letter to the Abbot of Perfore, to let him
+enjoy peaceably his tithes as formerly.  Matthew de Hereford, clerk,
+paid ten marks for a letter of request to the Bishop of Llandaff, to
+let him enjoy peaceably his church of Schenfrith.  Andrew Neulun gave
+three Flemish caps for the king's request to the Prior of Chikesand,
+for performance of an agreement made between them.  Henry de Fontibus
+gave a Lombardy horse of value, to have the king's request to Henry
+Fitz-Hervey, that he would grant him his daughter to wife.  Roger, son
+of Nicholas, promised all the lampreys he could get, to have the
+king's request to Earl William Marshall, that he would grant him the
+manor of Langeford at Firm.  The burgesses of Gloucester promised
+three hundred lampreys, that they might not be distrained to find the
+prisoners of Poictou with necessaries, unless they pleased.  Id. p.
+352.  Jordan, son of Reginald, paid twenty marks, to have the king's
+request to William Paniel, that he would grant him the land of Mill
+Nieresult, and the custody of his heirs: and if Jordan obtained the
+same, he was pay the twenty marks, otherwise not.  Id. p. 333.  [k]
+Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 359.]
+
+These iniquitous practices of the Norman kings were so well known,
+that on the death of Hugh Bigod, in the reign of Henry II., the best
+and most just of these princes, the eldest son and the widow of this
+nobleman came to court, and strove, by offering large presents to the
+king, each of them to acquire possession of that rich inheritance.
+The king was so equitable as to order the cause to be tried by the
+great council!  But, in the mean time, he seized all the money and
+treasure of the deceased [l].  Peter of Blois, a judicious, and even
+an elegant writer for that age, gives a pathetic description of the
+venality of justice, and the oppressions of the poor, under the reign
+of Henry; and he scruples not to complain to the king himself of these
+abuses [m].  We may judge what the case would be under the government
+of worst princes.  The articles of inquiry concerning the conduct of
+sheriffs, which Henry promulgated in 1170, show the great power, as
+well as the licentiousness of these officers [n].
+[FN [l] Bened. Abb. p. 180, 181.  [m] Petri Bles. Epist. 95. apud
+Bibl. Patrum, tom. p. xxiv. 2014.  [n] Hoveden, Chron. Gerv. p. 1410.]
+
+Amerciaments, or fines for crimes and trespasses, were another
+considerable branch of the royal revenue [o].  Most crimes were atoned
+for by money; the fines imposed were not limited by any rule or
+statute; and frequently occasioned the total ruin of the person, even
+for the slightest trespasses.  The forest-laws, particularly, were a
+great source of oppression.  The king possessed sixty-eight forests,
+thirteen chases, and seven hundred and eighty-one parks, in different
+parts of England [p]; and considering the extreme passion of the
+English and Normans for hunting, these were so many snares laid for
+the people, by which they were allured into trespasses, and brought
+within the reach of arbitrary and rigorous laws, which the king had
+thought proper to enact by his own authority.
+[FN [o] Madox, chap. 14.  [p] Spellm. Gloss. in verbo FORESTA.]
+
+But the most barefaced acts of tyranny and oppression were practised
+against the Jews, who were entirely out of the protection of law, were
+extremely odious from the bigotry of the people, and were abandoned to
+the immeasurable rapacity of the king and his ministers.  Besides many
+other indignities to which they were continually exposed, it appears
+that they were once all thrown into prison, and the sum of sixty-six
+thousand marks exacted for their liberty [q]: at another time, Isaac
+the Jew paid alone five thousand one hundred marks [r]; Brun, three
+thousand marks [s]; Jurnet, two thousand; Bennet, five hundred: at
+another, Licorica, widow of David, the Jew of Oxford, was required to
+pay six thousand marks; and she was delivered over to six of the
+richest and discreetest Jews in England, who were to answer for the
+sum [t].  Henry III. borrowed five thousand marks from the Earl of
+Cornwall; and for his repayment, consigned over to him all the Jews in
+England [u].  The revenue arising from exactions upon this nation was
+so considerable, that there was a particular court of exchequer set
+apart for managing it [w].
+[FN [q] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 151.  This happened in the reign
+of King John.  [r] Id. p. 151.  [s] Id. p. 153.  [t] Id. p. 168.  [u]
+Id. p. 156.  [w] Id. chap. 7.]
+
+[MN Commerce.]
+We may judge concerning the low state of commerce among the English,
+when the Jews, notwithstanding these oppressions, could still find
+their account in trading among them, and lending them money.  And as
+the improvements of agriculture were also much checked by the immense
+possessions of the nobility, by the disorders of the times, and by the
+precarious state of feudal property, it appears that industry of no
+kind could then have place in the kingdom [x].
+[FN [x] We learn from the extracts given us of Doomsday by Brady, in
+his Treatise of Boroughs, that almost all the boroughs of England had
+suffered in the shock of the Conquest, and had extremely decayed
+between the death of the Confessor, and the time when Doomsday was
+framed.]
+
+It is asserted by Sir Henry Spellman [y], as an undoubted truth, that,
+during the reigns of the first Norman princes, every edict of the
+king, issued with the consent of his privy council, had the full force
+of law.  But the barons, surely, were not so passive as to intrust a
+power, entirely arbitrary and despotic, into the hands of the
+sovereign.  It only appears, that the constitution had not fixed any
+precise boundaries to the royal power; that the right of issuing
+proclamations on any emergence, and of exacting obedience to them, a
+right which was always supposed inherent in the crown, is very
+difficult to be distinguished from a legislative authority; that the
+extreme imperfection of the ancient laws, and the sudden exigencies
+which often occurred in such turbulent governments, obliged the prince
+to exert frequently the latent powers of his prerogative; that he
+naturally proceeded, from the acquiescence of the people, to assume,
+in many particulars of moment, an authority from which he had excluded
+himself by express statutes, charters, or concessions, and which was,
+in the main, repugnant to the general genius of the constitution; and
+that the lives, the personal liberty, and the properties of all his
+subjects, were less secured by law against the exertion of his
+arbitrary authority, than by the independent power and private
+connexions of each individual.  It appears from the great charter
+itself, that not only John, a tyrannical prince, and Richard, a
+violent one, but their father, Henry, under whose reign the prevalence
+of gross abuses is the least to be suspected, were accustomed, from
+their sole authority, without process of law, to imprison, banish, and
+attaint the freemen of their kingdom.
+[FN [y] Gloss. in verb. JUDICIUM DEI.  The author of the MIROIR DES
+JUSTICES complains, that ordinances are only made by the king and his
+clerks, and by aliens and others, who dare not contradict the king,
+but study to please him.  Whence, he concludes, laws are oftener
+dictated by will, than founded on right.]
+
+A great baron, in ancient times, considered himself as a kind of
+sovereign within his territory; and was attended by courtiers and
+dependents more zealously attached to him than the ministers of state
+and the great officers were commonly to THEIR sovereign.  He often
+maintained in his court the parade of royalty, by establishing a
+justiciary, constable, mareschal, chamberlain, seneschal, and
+chancellor, and assigning to each of these officers a separate
+province and command.  He was usually very assiduous in exercising his
+jurisdiction; and took such delight in that image of sovereignty, that
+it was found necessary to restrain his activity, and prohibit him by
+law from holding courts too frequently [z].  It is not to be doubted,
+but the example, set him by the prince of a  mercenary and sordid
+extortion, would be faithfully copied, and that all his good and bad
+offices, his justice and injustice, were equally put to sale.  He had
+the power, with the king's consent, to exact talliages even from the
+free citizens who lived within his barony; and as his necessities made
+him rapacious, his authority was usually found to be more oppressive
+and tyrannical than that of the sovereign [a].  He was ever engaged in
+hereditary or personal animosities or confederacies with his
+neighbours, and often gave protection to all desperate adventurers and
+criminals, who could be useful in serving his violent purposes.  He
+was able alone, in times of tranquillity, to obstruct the execution of
+justice within his territories; and by combining with a few
+malecontent barons of high rank and power, he could throw the state
+into convulsions.  And, on the whole, though the royal authority was
+confined within bounds, and often within very narrow ones, yet the
+check was irregular, and frequently the source of great disorders; nor
+was it derived from the liberty of the people, but from the military
+power of many petty tyrants, who were equally dangerous to the prince
+and oppressive to the subject.
+[FN [z] Dugd. Jurid. Orig. p. 26.  [a] Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p.
+520.]
+
+[MN The Church.]
+The power of the church was another rampart against royal authority;
+but this defence was also the cause of many mischiefs and
+inconveniences.  The dignified clergy, perhaps, were not so prone to
+immediate violence as the barons; but as they pretended to a total
+independence on the state, and could always cover themselves with the
+appearances of religion, they proved, in one respect, an obstruction
+to the settlement of the kingdom, and to the regular execution of the
+laws.  The policy of the Conqueror was in this particular liable to
+some exception.  He augmented the superstitious veneration for Rome,
+to which that age was so much inclined; and he broke those bands of
+connexion, which, in the Saxon times, had preserved an union between
+the lay and the clerical orders.  He prohibited the bishops from
+sitting in the county courts; he allowed ecclesiastical causes to be
+tried in spiritual courts only [b]; and he so much exalted the power
+of the clergy, that of sixty thousand two hundred and fifteen knights'
+fees, into which he divided England, he placed no less than twenty-
+eight thousand and fifteen under the church [c].
+[FN [b] Char. Will. apud Wilkins, p. 230.  Spellm. Conc. vol. ii. p.
+14.  [c] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. MANUS MORTUA.  We are not to imagine,
+as some have done, that the church possessed lands in this proportion,
+but only that they and their vassals enjoyed such a proportionable
+part of the landed property.]
+
+[MN Civil laws.]
+The right of primogeniture was introduced with the feudal law: an
+institution which is hurtful, by producing and maintaining an unequal
+division of private property; but is advantageous, in another respect,
+by accustoming the people to a preference in favour of the eldest son,
+and thereby preventing a partition or disputed succession in the
+monarchy.  The Normans introduced the use of surnames, which tend to
+preserve the knowledge of families and pedigrees.  They abolished none
+of the old absurd methods of trial by the cross or ordeal; and they
+added a new absurdity, the trial by single combat [d], which became a
+regular part of jurisprudence, and was conducted with all the order,
+method, devotion, and solemnity imaginable [e].  The ideas of chivalry
+also seem to have been imported by the Normans: no traces of those
+fantastic notions are to be found among the plain and rustic Saxons.
+[FN [d] LL. Will. cap. 68.  [e] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. CAMPUS.  The
+last instance of these duels was in the 15th of Eliz.  So long did
+that absurdity remain.]
+
+[MN Manners.]
+The feudal institutions, by raising the military tenants to a kind of
+sovereign dignity, by rendering personal strength and valour
+requisite, and by making every knight and baron his own protector and
+avenger, begat that martial pride and sense of honour, which, being
+cultivated and embellished by the poets and romance-writers of the
+age, ended in chivalry.  The virtuous knight fought not only in his
+own quarrel, but in that of the innocent, of the helpless, and, above
+all, of the fair, whom he supposed to be for ever under the
+guardianship of his valiant arm.  The uncourteous knight who, from his
+castle, exercised robbery on travellers, and committed violence on
+virgins, was the object of his perpetual indignation; and he put him
+to death, without scruple, or trial, or appeal, whenever he met with
+him.  The great independence of men made personal honour and fidelity
+the chief tie among them; and rendered it the capital virtue of every
+true knight, or genuine professor of chivalry.  The solemnities of
+single combat, as established by law, banished the notion of every
+thing unfair or unequal in rencounters; and maintained an appearance
+of courtesy between the combatants till the moment of their
+engagement.  The credulity of the age grafted on this stock the notion
+of giants, enchanters, dragons, spells [f], and a thousand wonders,
+which still multiplied during the time of the crusades; when men,
+returning from so great a distance, used the liberty of imposing every
+fiction on their believing audience.  These ideas of chivalry infected
+the writings, conversation, and behaviour of men, during some ages;
+and even after they were, in a great measure, banished by the revival
+of learning, they left modern GALLANTRY and the POINT OF HONOUR, which
+still maintain their influence, and are the genuine offspring of those
+ancient affectations.
+[FN [f] In all legal single combats, it was part of the champion's
+oath, that he carried not about him any herb, spell, or enchantment,
+by which he might procure victory.  Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 82.]
+
+The concession of the great charter, or rather its full establishment,
+(for there was a considerable interval of time between the one and the
+other,) gave rise, by degrees, to a new species of government, and
+introduced some order and justice into the administration.  The
+ensuing scenes of our history are therefore somewhat different from
+the preceding.  Yet the great charter contained no establishment of
+new courts, magistrates, or senates, nor abolition of the old.  It
+introduced no new distribution of the powers of the commonwealth, and
+no innovation in the political or public law of the kingdom.  It only
+guarded, and that merely by verbal clauses, against such tyrannical
+practices as are incompatible with civilized government, and, if they
+become very frequent, are incompatible with all government.  The
+barbarous license of the kings, and perhaps of the nobles, was
+thenceforth somewhat more restrained: men acquired some more security
+for their properties and their liberties: and government approached a
+little nearer to that end for which it was originally instituted, the
+distribution of justice, and the equal protection of the citizens.
+Acts of violence and iniquity in the crown, which before were only
+deemed injurious to individuals, and were hazardous chiefly in
+proportion to the number, power, and dignity of the persons affected
+by them, were now regarded, in some degree, as public injuries, and as
+infringements of a charter calculated for general security.  And thus
+the establishment of the great charter, without seeming anywise to
+innovate in the distribution of political power, became a kind of
+epoch in the constitution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+HENRY III.
+
+SETTLEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT.--GENERAL PACIFICATION.--DEATH OF THE
+PROTECTOR.--SOME COMMOTIONS.--HUBERT DE BURGH DISPLACED.--THE BISHOP
+OF WINCHESTER MINISTER.--KING’S PARTIALITY TO FOREIGNERS.--
+GRIEVANCES.--ECCLESIASTICAL GRIEVANCES.--EARL OF CORNWALL ELECTED KING
+OF THE ROMANS.--DISCONTENT OF THE BARONS.--SIMON DE MOUNTFORT, EARL OF
+LEICESTER.--PROVISIONS OF OXFORD.—USURPATION OF THE BARONS.--PRINCE
+EDWARD.--CIVIL WARS OF THE BARONS.--REFERENCE TO THE KING OF FRANCE.--
+RENEWAL OF THE CIVIL WARS.--BATTLE OF LEWES.--HOUSE OF COMMONS.--
+BATTLE OF EVESHAM AND DEATH OF LEICESTER.--SETTLEMENT OF THE
+GOVERNMENT.--DEATH--AND CHARACTER OF THE KING.--MISCELLANEOUS
+TRANSACTIONS OF THIS REIGN.
+
+
+
+[MN 1216.]  Most sciences, in proportion as they increase and improve,
+invent methods by which they facilitate their reasonings; and,
+employing general theorems, are enabled to comprehend, in a few
+propositions, a great number of inferences and conclusions.  History
+also, being a collection of facts which are multiplying without end,
+is obliged to adopt such arts of abridgment, to retain the more
+material events, and to drop all the minute circumstances, which are
+only interesting during the time, or to the persons engaged in the
+transactions.  This truth is no where more evident than with regard to
+the reign upon which we are going to enter.  What mortal could have
+the patience to write or read a long detail of such frivolous events
+as those with which it is filled, or attend to a tedious narrative
+which would follow, through a series of fifty-six years, the caprices
+and weaknesses of so mean a prince as Henry?  The chief reason why
+Protestant writers have been so anxious to spread out the incidents of
+this reign is, in order to expose the rapacity, ambition, and
+artifices of the court of Rome; and to prove that the great
+dignitaries of the Catholic church, while they pretended to have
+nothing in view but the salvation of souls, had bent all their
+attention to the acquisition of riches, and were restrained by no
+sense of justice or of honour in the pursuit of that great object [a].
+But this conclusion would readily be allowed them, though it were not
+illustrated by such a detail of uninteresting incidents; and follows,
+indeed, by an evident necessity, from the very situation in which that
+church was placed with regard to the rest of Europe.  For, besides
+that ecclesiastical power, as it can always cover its operations under
+a cloak of sanctity, and attacks men on the side where they dare not
+employ their reason, lies less under control than civil government;
+besides this general cause, I say, the pope and his courtiers were
+foreigners to most of the churches which they governed; they could not
+possibly have any other object than to pillage the provinces for
+present gain; and as they lived at a distance, they would be little
+awed by shame or remorse, in employing every lucrative expedient which
+was suggested to them.  England being one of the most remote provinces
+attached to the Romish hierarchy, as well as the most prone to
+superstition, felt severely during this reign, while its patience was
+not yet fully exhausted, the influence of these causes; and we shall
+often have occasion to touch cursorily upon such incidents.  But we
+shall not attempt to comprehend every transaction transmitted to us;
+and, till the end of the reign, when the events become more memorable,
+we shall not always observe an exact chronological order in our
+narration.
+[FN [a] M. Paris, p. 623.]
+
+[MN Settlement of the government.]
+The Earl of Pembroke, who, at the time of John's death, was Mareschal
+of England, was, by his office, at the head of the armies, and
+consequently, during a state of civil wars and convulsions, at the
+head of the government; and it happened fortunately for the young
+monarch and for the nation, that the power could not have been
+intrusted into more able and more faithful hands.  This nobleman, who
+had maintained his loyalty unshaken to John, during the lowest fortune
+of that monarch, determined to support the authority of the infant
+prince; nor was he dismayed at the number and violence of his enemies.
+Sensible that Henry, agreeably to the prejudices of the times, would
+not be deemed a sovereign till crowned and anointed by a churchman, he
+immediately carried the young prince to Gloucester, [MN 1216.  28th
+Oct.] where the ceremony of coronation was performed, in the presence
+of Gualo, the legate, and of a few noblemen, by the Bishops of
+Winchester and Bath [b].  As the concurrence of the papal authority
+was requisite to support the tottering throne, Henry was obliged to
+swear fealty to the pope, and renew that homage to which his father
+had already subjected the kingdom [c]; and in order to enlarge the
+authority of Pembroke, and to give him a more regular and legal title
+to it, a general council of the barons was soon after summoned at
+Bristol, [MN 11th Nov.] where that nobleman was chosen protector of
+the realm.
+[FN [b] M. Paris, p. 200.  Hist. Croyl. cont. p. 474.  W. Heming. p.
+562  Trivet, p. 168.  [c] M. Paris, p. 200.]
+
+Pembroke, that he might reconcile all men to the government of his
+pupil, made him grant a new charter of liberties, which, though mostly
+copied from the former concessions extorted from John, contains some
+alterations which may be deemed remarkable [d].  The full privilege of
+elections in the clergy, granted by the late king, was not confirmed,
+nor the liberty of going out of the kingdom, without the royal
+consent: whence we may conclude, that Pembroke and the barons, jealous
+of the ecclesiastical power, both were desirous of renewing the king's
+claim to issue a congé d'élire to the monks and chapters, and thought
+it requisite to put some check to the frequent appeals to Rome.  But
+what may chiefly surprise us, is, that the obligation to which John
+had subjected himself, of obtaining the consent of the great council
+before he levied any aids or scutages upon the nation, was omitted;
+and this article was even declared hard and severe, and was expressly
+left to future deliberation.  But we must consider, that, though this
+limitation may perhaps appear to us the most momentous in the whole
+charter of John, it was not regarded in that light by the ancient
+barons, who were more jealous in guarding against particular acts of
+violence in the crown, than against such general impositions, which,
+unless they were evidently reasonable and necessary, could scarcely,
+without general consent, be levied upon men who had arms in their
+hands, and who could repel any act of oppression by which they were
+all immediately affected.  We accordingly find, that Henry, in the
+course of his reign, while he gave frequent occasions for complaint,
+with regard to his violations of the great charter, never attempted,
+by his mere will, to levy any aids or scutages; though he was often
+reduced to great necessities, and was refused supply by his people.
+So much easier was it for him to transgress the law, when individuals
+alone were affected, than even to exert his acknowledged prerogatives,
+where the interest of the whole body was concerned.
+[FN [d] Rymer, vol. i. p. 215.]
+
+This charter was again confirmed by the king in the ensuing year, with
+the addition of some articles, to prevent the oppressions by sheriffs;
+and also with an additional charter of forests, a circumstance of
+great moment in those ages, when hunting was so much the occupation of
+the nobility, and when the king comprehended so considerable a part of
+the kingdom within his forests, which he governed by peculiar and
+arbitrary laws.  All the forests which had been enclosed since the
+reign of Henry II. were disafforested; and new perambulations were
+appointed for that purpose: offences in the forests were declared to
+be no longer capital; but punishable by fine, imprisonment, and more
+gentle penalties: and all the proprietors of land recovered the power
+of cutting and using their own wood at their pleasure.
+
+Thus these famous charters were brought nearly to the shape in which
+they have ever since stood; and they were, during many generations,
+the peculiar favourites of the English nation, and esteemed the most
+sacred rampart to national liberty and independence.  As they secured
+the rights of all orders of men, they were anxiously defended by all,
+and became the basis, in a manner, of the English monarchy, and a kind
+of original contract, which both limited the authority of the king,
+and ensured the conditional allegiance of his subjects.  Though often
+violated, they were still claimed by the nobility and people; and as
+no precedents were supposed valid that infringed them, they rather
+acquired than lost authority, from the frequent attempts made against
+them, in several ages, by regal and arbitrary power.
+
+While Pembroke, by renewing and confirming the great charter, gave so
+much satisfaction and security to the nation in general, he also
+applied himself successfully to individuals.  He wrote letters, in the
+king's name, to all the malecontent barons; in which he represented to
+them, that, whatever jealousy and animosity they might have
+entertained against the late king, a young prince, the lineal heir of
+their ancient monarchs, had now succeeded to the throne, without
+succeeding either to the resentments or principles of his predecessor:
+that the desperate expedient, which they had employed of calling in a
+foreign potentate, had, happily for them, as well as for the nation,
+failed of entire success; and it was still in their power, by a speedy
+return to their duty, to restore the independence of the kingdom, and
+to secure that liberty for which they so zealously contended: that as
+all past offences of the barons were now buried in oblivion, they
+ought, on their part, to forget their complaints against their late
+sovereign, who, if he had been anywise blameable in his conduct, had
+left to his son the salutary warning, to avoid the paths which had led
+to such fatal extremities; and that, having now obtained a charter for
+their liberties, it was their interest to show, by their conduct, that
+this acquisition was not incompatible with their allegiance, and that
+the rights of king and people, so far from being hostile and opposite,
+might mutually support and sustain each other [e].
+[FN [e] Rymer, vol i. p. 25.  Brady's App. No. 143.]
+
+These considerations, enforced by the character of honour and
+constancy which Pembroke had ever maintained, had a mighty influence
+on the barons; and most of them began secretly to negotiate with him,
+and many of them openly returned to their duty.  The diffidence which
+Lewis discovered of their fidelity forwarded this general propension
+towards the king; and when the French prince refused the government of
+the castle of Hertford to Robert Fitz-Walter, who had been so active
+against the late king, and who claimed that fortress as his property,
+they plainly saw that the English were excluded from every trust, and
+that foreigners had engrossed all the confidence and affection of
+their new sovereign [f].  The excommunication, too, denounced by the
+legate against all the adherents of Lewis, failed not, in the turn
+which men's dispositions had taken, to produce a mighty effect upon
+them; and they were easily persuaded to consider a cause as impious,
+for which they had already entertained an unsurmountable aversion [g].
+Though Lewis made a journey to France, and brought over succours from
+that kingdom [h], he found, on his return, that his party was still
+more weakened by the desertion of his English confederates, and that
+the death of John had, contrary to his expectations, given an
+incurable wound to his cause.  The Earls of Salisbury, Arundel, and
+Warrenne, together with William Mareschal, eldest son of the
+protector, had embraced Henry's party, and every English nobleman was
+plainly watching for an opportunity of returning to his allegiance.
+Pembroke was so much strengthened by these accessions that he ventured
+to invest Mountsorel; though, upon the approach of the Count de Perche
+with the French army, he desisted from his enterprise, and raised the
+siege [i].  The count, elated with this success, marched to Lincoln;
+and being admitted into the town, he began to attack the castle, which
+he soon reduced to extremity.  The protector summoned all his forces
+from every quarter, in order to relieve a place of such importance;
+and he appeared so much superior to the French, that they shut
+themselves up within the city, and resolved to act upon the defensive
+[k].  But the garrison of the castle having received a strong
+reinforcement, made a vigorous sally upon the besiegers; while the
+English army, by concert, assaulted them in the same instant from
+without, mounted the walls by scalade, and bearing down all
+resistance, entered the city sword in hand.  Lincoln was delivered
+over to be pillaged; the French army was totally routed; the Count de
+Perche, with only two persons more, was killed; but many of the chief
+commanders, and about four hundred knights, were made prisoners by the
+English [l].  So little blood was shed in this important action, which
+decided the fate of one of the most powerful kingdoms in Europe; and
+such wretched soldiers were those ancient barons, who yet were
+unacquainted with every thing but arms!
+[FN [f] M. Paris, p. 200, 202.  [g] Ibid. p. 200.  M. West. p. 277.
+[h] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 79.  M. West. p. 277.  [i] M. Paris, p.
+203.  [k] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 81.  [l] M. Paris, p.204, 205.
+Chron. de Mailr. p. 195.]
+
+Prince Lewis was informed of this fatal event while employed in the
+siege of Dover, which was still valiantly defended against him by
+Hubert de Burgh.  He immediately retreated to London, the centre and
+life of his party; and he there received intelligence of a new
+disaster, which put an end to all his hopes.  A French fleet, bringing
+over a strong reinforcement, had appeared on the coast of Kent, where
+they were attacked by the English, under the command of Philip
+d'Albiney, and were routed with considerable loss.  D'Albiney employed
+a stratagem against them, which is said to have contributed to the
+victory.  Having gained the wind of the French, he came down upon them
+with violence; and throwing in their faces a great quantity of
+quicklime, which he purposely carried on board, he so blinded them,
+that they were disabled from defending themselves [m].
+[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 206.  Ann. Waverl. p. 183.  W. Heming. p. 563.
+Trivet, p. 169.  M. West. p. 277.  Knyghton, p. 2428.]
+
+After this second misfortune of the French, the English barons
+hastened every where to make peace with the protector, and, by an easy
+submission, to prevent those attainders to which they were exposed on
+account of their rebellion.  Lewis, whose cause was now totally
+desperate, began to be anxious for the safety of his person, and was
+glad, on any honourable conditions, to make his escape from a country
+where he found every thing was now become hostile to him.  He
+concluded a peace with Pembroke, promised to evacuate the kingdom, and
+only stipulated, in return, an indemnity to his adherents, and a
+restitution of their honours and fortunes, together with the free and
+equal enjoyment of those liberties which had been granted to the rest
+of the nation [n].  Thus was happily ended a civil war, which  seemed
+to be founded on the most incurable hatred and jealousy, and had
+threatened the kingdom with the most fatal consequences.
+[FN [n] Rymer, vol. i. p. 221.  M. Paris, p. 207.  Chron. Dunst. vol.
+i. p. 83.  M. West. p. 278.  Knyghton, p. 2429.]
+
+[MN 1216.  General pacification.]
+The precautions which the King of France used in the conduct of this
+whole affair are remarkable.  He pretended that his son had accepted
+of the offer from the English barons without his advice, and contrary
+to his inclination: the armies sent to England were levied in Lewis's
+name.  When that prince came over to France for aid, his father
+publicly refused to grant him any assistance, and would not so much as
+admit him to his presence.  Even after Henry's party acquired the
+ascendant, and Lewis was in danger of falling into the hands of his
+enemies, it was Blanche of Castile, his wife, not the king, his
+father, who raised armies, and equipped fleets for his succour [o].
+All these artifices were employed, not to satisfy the pope, for he had
+too much penetration to be so easily imposed on; nor yet to deceive
+the people, for they were too gross even for that purpose.  They only
+served for a colouring to Philip's cause; and, in public affairs, men
+are often better pleased that the truth, though known to every body,
+should be wrapped up under a decent cover, than if it were exposed in
+open daylight to the eyes of all the world.
+[FN [o] M. Paris, p. 256.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 82.]
+
+After the expulsion of the French, the prudence and equity of the
+protector's subsequent conduct contributed to cure entirely those
+wounds which had been made by intestine discord.  He received the
+rebellious barons into favour; observed strictly the terms of peace
+which he had granted them; restored them to their possessions; and
+endeavoured, by an equal behaviour, to bury all past animosities in
+perpetual oblivion.  The clergy alone, who had adhered to Lewis, were
+sufferers in this revolution.  As they had rebelled against their
+spiritual sovereign, by disregarding the interdict and
+excommunication, it was not in Pembroke's power to make any
+stipulations in their favour; and Gualo, the legate, prepared to take
+vengeance on them for their disobedience [p].  Many of them were
+deposed; many suspended; some banished; and all who escaped punishment
+made atonement for their offence by paying large sums to the legate,
+who amassed an immense treasure by this expedient.
+[FN [p] Brady's App. No. 144  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 83.]
+
+[MN Death of the protector.]
+The Earl of Pembroke did not long survive the pacification, which had
+been chiefly owing to his wisdom and valour [q]; and he was succeeded
+in the government by Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, and
+Hubert de Burgh, the justiciary.  The councils of the latter were
+chiefly followed; and had he possessed equal authority in the kingdom
+with Pembroke, he seemed to be every way worthy of filling the place
+of that virtuous nobleman.  [MN Some commotions.]  But the licentious
+and powerful barons, who had once broken the reins of subjection to
+their prince, and had obtained, by violence, an enlargement of their
+liberties and independence, could ill be restrained by laws under a
+minority; and the people, no less than the king, suffered from their
+outrages and disorders.  They retained by force the royal castles,
+which they had seized during the past convulsions, or which had been
+committed to their custody by the protector [r]: they usurped the
+king's demesnes [s]: they oppressed their vassals: they infested their
+weaker neighbours: they invited all disorderly people to enter in
+their retinue, and to live upon their lands: and they gave them
+protection in all their robberies and extortions.
+[FN [q] M. Paris, p. 210.  [r] Trivet p. 174.  [s] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+276.]
+
+No one was more infamous for these violent and illegal practices than
+the Earl of Albemarle; who, though he had early returned to his duty,
+and had been serviceable in expelling the French, augmented to the
+utmost the general disorder, and committed outrages in all the
+counties of the north.  In order to reduce him to obedience, Hubert
+seized an opportunity of getting possession of Rockingham Castle,
+which Albemarle had garrisoned with his licentious retinue: but this
+nobleman, instead of submitting, entered into a secret confederacy
+with Fawkes de Breauté, Peter de Mauleon, and other barons, and both
+fortified the castle of Biham for his defence, and made himself
+master, by surprise, of that of Fotheringay.  Pandolf, who was
+restored to his legateship, was active in suppressing this rebellion;
+and, with the concurrence of eleven bishops, he pronounced the
+sentence of excommunication against Albemarle and his adherents [t]:
+an army was levied: a scutage of ten shillings a knight's fee was
+imposed on all the military tenants: Albemarle's associates gradually
+deserted him: and he himself was obliged at last to sue for mercy.  He
+received a pardon, and was restored to his whole estate.
+[FN [t] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 102.]
+
+This impolitic lenity, too frequent in those times, was probably the
+result of a secret combination among the barons, who never could
+endure to see the total ruin of one of their own order: but it
+encouraged Fawkes de Breauté, a man whom King John had raised from a
+low origin, to persevere in the course of violence to which he had
+owed his fortune, and to set at nought all law and justice.  When
+thirty-five verdicts were at one time found against him, on account of
+his violent expulsion of so many freeholders from their possessions,
+he came to the court of justice with an armed force, seized the judge
+who had pronounced the verdicts, and imprisoned him in Bedford castle.
+He then levied open war against the king; but being subdued and taken
+prisoner, his life was granted him; but his estate was confiscated,
+and he was banished the kingdom [u].
+[FN [u] Rymer, vol. i. p. 198.  M. Paris, p. 221, 224.  Ann. Waverl.
+p. 188.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 141, 146.  M. West. p. 283.]
+
+[MN 1222.]  Justice was executed with greater severity against
+disorders less premeditated, which broke out in London.  A frivolous
+emulation in a match of wrestling, between the Londoners on the one
+hand, and the inhabitants of Westminster and those of the neighbouring
+villages on the other, occasioned this commotion.  The former rose in
+a body, and pulled down some houses belonging to the Abbot of
+Westminster: but this riot, which, considering the tumultuous
+disposition familiar to that capital, would have been little regarded,
+seemed to become more serious by the symptoms which then appeared of
+the former attachment of the citizens to the French interest.  The
+populace, in the tumult, made use of the cry of war commonly employed
+by the French troops: MOUNTJOY, MOUNTJOY, GOD HELP US AND OUR LORD
+LEWIS!  The justiciary made inquiry into the disorder; and finding one
+Constantine Fitz-Arnulf to have been the ringleader, an insolent man,
+who justified his crime in Hubert's presence, he proceeded against him
+by martial law, and ordered him immediately to be hanged, without
+trial or form of process.  He also cut off the feet of some of
+Constantine's accomplices [w].
+[FN [w] M. Paris, p. 217, 218, 259.  Ann. Waverl. p. 187.  Chron.
+Dunst. vol. i. p. 129.]
+
+This act of power was complained of as an infringement of the great
+charter: yet the justiciary, in a Parliament summoned at Oxford, (for
+the great councils about this time began to receive that appellation,)
+made no scruple to grant, in the king's name, a renewal and
+confirmation of that charter.  When the assembly made application to
+the crown for this favour, as a law in those times seemed to lose its
+validity if not frequently renewed, William de Briewere, one of the
+council of regency, was so bold as to say openly, that those liberties
+were extorted by force, and ought not to be observed: but he was
+reprimanded by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and was not countenanced
+by the king or his chief ministers [x].  A new confirmation was
+demanded and granted two years after; and an aid, amounting to a
+fifteenth of all moveables, was given by the Parliament, in return for
+this indulgence.  The king issued writs anew to the sheriffs,
+enjoining the observance of the charter; but he inserted a remarkable
+clause in the writs, that those who paid not the fifteenth should not
+for the future be entitled to the benefit of those liberties [y].
+[FN [x] M. West. p. 282.  [y] Clause 9. H. 3. m. 9. and m. 6. d.]
+
+The low state into which the crown was fallen made it requisite for a
+good minister to be attentive to the preservation of the royal
+prerogatives, as well as to the security of public liberty.  Hubert
+applied to the pope, who had always great authority in the kingdom,
+and was now considered as its superior lord, and desired him to issue
+a bull declaring the king to be of full age, and entitled to exercise
+in person all the acts of royalty [z].  In consequence of this
+declaration, the justiciary resigned into Henry's hands the two
+important fortresses of the Tower and Dover Castle, which had been
+intrusted to his custody; and he required the other barons to imitate
+his example.  They refused compliance: the Earls of Chester and
+Albemarle, John Constable of Chester, John de Lacy, Brian de l'Isle,
+and William de Cantel, with some others, even formed a conspiracy to
+surprise London, and met in arms at Waltham with that intention: but
+finding the king prepared for defence, they desisted from their
+enterprise.  When summoned to court in order to answer for their
+conduct, they scrupled not to appear, and to confess the design: but
+they told the king, that they had no bad intentions against his
+person, but only against Hubert de Burgh, whom they were determined to
+remove from his office [a].  They appeared too formidable to be
+chastised; and they were so little discouraged by the failure of their
+first enterprise, that they again met in arms at Leicester, in order
+to seize the king, who then resided at Northampton: but Henry,
+informed of their purpose, took care to be so well armed and attended
+that the barons found it dangerous to make the attempt; and they sat
+down and kept Christmas in his neighbourhood [b].  The archbishop and
+the prelates, finding every thing tending towards a civil war,
+interposed with their authority, and threatened the barons with the
+sentence of excommunication, if they persisted in detaining the king's
+castles.  This menace at last prevailed: most of the fortresses were
+surrendered; though the barons complained that Hubert's castles were
+soon after restored to him, while the king still kept theirs in his
+own custody.  There are said to have been eleven hundred and fifteen
+castles at that time in England [c].
+[FN [z] M. Paris, p. 220.  [a] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 137.  [b] M.
+Paris, p. 221.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 138.  [c] Coke's Comment. on
+Magna Charta, chap. 17.]
+
+It must be acknowledged that the influence of the prelates and the
+clergy was often of great service to the public.  Though the religion
+of that age can merit no better name than that of superstition, it
+served to unite together a body of men who had great sway over the
+people, and who kept the community from falling to pieces, by the
+factions and independent power of the nobles; and what was of great
+importance, it threw a mighty authority into the hands of men, who, by
+their profession, were averse to arms and violence; who tempered by
+their mediation the general disposition towards  military enterprises;
+and who still maintained, even amidst the shock of arms, those secret
+links, without which it is impossible for human society to subsist.
+
+Notwithstanding these intestine commotions in England, and the
+precarious authority of the crown, Henry was obliged to carry on war
+in France; and he employed to that purpose the fifteenth which had
+been granted him by Parliament.  Lewis VIII., who had succeeded his
+father Philip, instead of complying with Henry's claim, who demanded
+the restitution of Normandy, and the other provinces wrested from
+England, made an irruption into Poictou, took Rochelle [d], after a
+long siege, and seemed determined to expel the English from the few
+provinces which still remained to them.  Henry sent over his uncle,
+the Earl of Salisbury, together with his brother, Prince Richard, to
+whom he had granted the earldom of Cornwall, which had escheated to
+the crown.  Salisbury stopped the progress of Lewis's arms, and
+retained the Poictevin and Gascon vassals in their allegiance: but no
+military action of any moment was performed on either side.  The Earl
+of Cornwall, after two years' stay in Guienne, returned to England.
+[FN [d] Rymer, vol. i. p. 269.  Trivet, p. 179.]
+
+[MN 1227.]  This prince was nowise turbulent or factious in his
+disposition: his ruling passion was to amass money, in which he
+succeeded so well as to become the richest subject in Christendom: yet
+his attention to gain threw him sometimes into acts of violence; and
+gave disturbance to the government.  There was a manor which had
+formerly belonged to the earldom of Cornwall, but had been granted to
+Waleran de Ties, before Richard had been invested with that dignity,
+and while the earldom remained in the crown.  Richard claimed this
+manor, and expelled the proprietor by force: Waleran complained: the
+king ordered his brother to do justice to the man, and restore him to
+his rights: the earl said, that he would not submit to these orders,
+till the cause should be decided against him by the judgment of his
+peers: Henry replied, that it was first necessary to reinstate Waleran
+in possession, before the cause could be tried; and he reiterated his
+orders to the earl [e].  We may judge of the state of the government,
+when this  affair had nearly produced a civil war.  The Earl of
+Cornwall, finding Henry peremptory in his commands, associated himself
+with the young Earl of Pembroke, who had married his sister, and who
+was displeased on account of the king's requiring him to deliver up
+some royal castles which were in his custody.  These two malecontents
+took into the confederacy the Earls of Chester, Warrenne, Gloucester,
+Hereford, Warwick, and Ferrers, who were all disgusted on a like
+account [f].  They assembled an army; which the king had not the power
+or courage to resist; and he was obliged to give his brother
+satisfaction, by grants of much greater importance than the manor
+which had been the first ground of the quarrel [g].
+[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 233.  [f] M. Paris, p. 233.  [g] Ibid.]
+
+The character of the king, as he grew to man's estate, became every
+day better known; and he was found in every respect unqualified for
+maintaining a proper sway among those turbulent barons, whom the
+feudal constitution subjected to his authority.  Gentle, humane, and
+merciful even to a fault, he seems to have been steady in no other
+circumstance of his character; but to have received every impression
+from those who surrounded him, and whom he loved, for the time, with
+the most imprudent and most unreserved affection.  Without activity or
+vigour, he was unfit to conduct war: without policy or art, he was ill
+fitted to maintain peace: his resentments, though hasty and violent,
+were not dreaded, while he was found to drop them with such facility;
+his friendships were little valued, because they were neither derived
+from choice, nor maintained with constancy.  A proper pageant of state
+in a regular monarchy, where his ministers could have conducted all
+affairs in his name and by his authority; but too feeble in those
+disorderly times to sway a sceptre, whose weight depended entirely on
+the firmness and dexterity of the hand which held it.
+
+[MN Hugh de Burgh displaced.]
+The ablest and most virtuous minister that Henry ever possessed was
+Hubert de Burgh [h]; a man who had been steady to the crown in the
+most difficult and dangerous times, and who yet showed no disposition,
+in the height of his power, to enslave or oppress the people.  The
+only exceptionable part of his conduct is that which is mentioned by
+Matthew Paris [i], if the fact be really true; and proceeded from
+Hubert's advice, namely, the recalling publicly and the annulling of
+the charter of forests, a concession so reasonable in itself, and so
+passionately claimed both by the nobility and people: but it must be
+confessed that this measure is so unlikely, both from the
+circumstances of the times and character of the minister, that there
+is reason to doubt of its reality, especially as it is mentioned by no
+other historian.  Hubert, while he enjoyed his authority, had an
+entire ascendant over Henry, and was loaded with honours and favours
+beyond any other subject.  Besides acquiring the property of many
+castles and manors, he married the eldest sister of the King of Scots,
+was created Earl of Kent, and, by an unusual concession, was made
+chief justiciary of England for life: [MN 1231.] yet Henry, in a
+sudden caprice, threw off this faithful minister, and exposed him to
+the violent persecutions of his enemies.  Among other frivolous crimes
+objected to him, he was accused of gaining the king's affections by
+enchantment, and of purloining from the royal treasury a gem, which
+had the virtue to render the wearer invulnerable, and of sending this
+valuable curiosity to the Prince of Wales [k].  The nobility, who
+hated Hubert on account of his zeal in resuming the rights and
+possessions of the crown, no sooner saw the opportunity favourable,
+than they inflamed the king's animosity against him, and pushed him to
+seek the total ruin of his minister.  Hubert took sanctuary in a
+church: the king ordered him to be dragged from thence: he recalled
+those orders: he afterwards renewed them: he was obliged by the clergy
+to restore him to the sanctuary: he constrained him soon after to
+surrender himself prisoner, and he confined him in the castle of
+Devizes.  Hubert made his escape, was expelled the kingdom, was again
+received into favour, recovered a great share of the king's
+confidence, but never showed any inclination to reinstate himself in
+power and authority [l].
+[FN [h] Ypod. Neustriae, p. 464.  [i] P. 232.  M. West. p. 216,
+ascribes this counsel to Peter, Bishop of Winchester.  [k] M. Paris,
+p. 259.  [l] Ibid. p. 259, 260, 261, 266.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 41, 42.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 220, 221.  M. West. p. 291, 301.]
+
+[MN Bishop of Winchester minister.]
+The man who succeeded him in the government of the king and kingdom
+was Peter, Bishop of Winchester, a Poictevin by birth, who had been
+raised by the late king, and who was no less distinguished by his
+arbitrary principles and violent conduct, than by his courage and
+abilities.  This prelate had been left by King John justiciary and
+regent of the kingdom during an expedition which that prince made into
+France; and his illegal administration was one chief cause of that
+great combination among the barons which finally extorted from the
+crown the charter of liberties, and laid the foundations of the
+English constitution.  Henry, though incapable, from his character, of
+pursuing the same violent maxims which had governed his father, had
+imbibed the same arbitrary principles; and, in prosecution of Peter's
+advice, he invited over a great number of Poictevins, and other
+foreigners, who, he believed, could more safely be trusted than the
+English, and who seemed useful to counterbalance the great and
+independent power of the nobility [m].  Every office and command was
+bestowed on these strangers: they exhausted the revenues of the crown,
+already too much impoverished [n]; they invaded the rights of the
+people; and their insolence, still more provoking than their power,
+drew on them the hatred and envy of all orders of men in the kingdom
+[o].
+[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 263.  [n] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 151.  [o] M.
+Paris, p. 268.]
+
+[MN 1233.]  The barons formed a combination against this odious
+ministry, and withdrew from Parliament, on pretence of the danger to
+which they were exposed from the machinations of the Poictevins.  When
+again summoned to attend, they gave for answer, that the king should
+dismiss his foreigners, otherwise they would drive both him and them
+out of the kingdom, and put the crown on another head more worthy to
+wear it [p]: such was the style they used to their sovereign!  They at
+last came to Parliament, but so well attended, that they seemed in a
+condition to prescribe laws to the king and ministry.  Peter des
+Roches, however, had in the interval found means of sowing dissension
+among them, and of bringing over to his party the Earl of Cornwall, as
+well as the Earls of Lincoln and Chester.  The confederates were
+disconcerted in their measures: Richard, Earl Mareschal, who had
+succeeded to that dignity on the death of his brother William, was
+chased into Wales; he thence withdrew into Ireland, where he was
+treacherously murdered by the contrivance of the Bishop of Winchester
+[q].  The estates of the more obnoxious barons were confiscated,
+without legal sentence or trial by their peers [r], and were bestowed
+with a profuse liberality on the Poictevins.  Peter even carried his
+insolence so far as to declare publicly, that the barons of England
+must not pretend to put themselves on the same footing with those of
+France; or assume the same liberties and privileges: the monarch in
+the former country had a more absolute power than in the latter.  It
+had been more justifiable for him to have said, that men, so unwilling
+to submit to the authority of laws, could with the worst grace claim
+any shelter or protection from them.
+[FN [p] Ibid. p. 265.  [q] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 219.  [r] M.
+Paris, p. 265.]
+
+When the king at any time was checked in his illegal practices, and
+when the authority of the great charter was objected to him, he was
+wont to reply, "Why should I observe this charter, which is neglected
+by all my grandees, both prelates and nobility?"  It was very
+reasonably said to him, "You ought, sir, to set them the example [s]."
+[FN [s] Ibid. p. 609.]
+
+So violent a ministry as that of the Bishop of Winchester could not be
+of long duration; but its fall proceeded at last from the influence of
+the church, not from the efforts of the nobles.  Edmond, the primate,
+came to court, attended by many of the other prelates, and represented
+to the king the pernicious measures embraced by Peter des Roches, the
+discontents of his people, the ruin of his affairs; and, after
+requiring the dismission of the minister and his associates,
+threatened him with excommunication in case of his refusal.  Henry,
+who knew that an excommunication so agreeable to the sense of the
+people could not fail of producing the most dangerous effects, was
+obliged to submit: foreigners were banished: the natives were restored
+to their place in council [t]: the primate, who was a man of prudence,
+and who took care to execute the laws, and observe the charter of
+liberties, bore the chief sway in the government.
+[FN [t] Ibid. p. 271, 272.]
+
+[MN 1236.  Jan.]  But the English in vain flattered themselves that
+they should be long free from the dominion of foreigners.  [MN King's
+partiality to foreigners.]  The king having married Eleanor, daughter
+of the Count of Provence [u], was surrounded by a great number of
+strangers from that country, whom he caressed with the fondest
+affection, and enriched by an imprudent generosity [w].  The Bishop of
+Valence, a prelate of the house of Savoy, and maternal uncle to the
+queen, was his chief minister, and employed every art to amass wealth
+for himself and his relations.  Peter of Savoy, a brother of the same
+family, was invested in the honour of Richmond, and received the rich
+wardship of Earl Warrenne: Boniface of Savoy was promoted to the see
+of Canterbury.  Many young ladies were invited over from Provence, and
+married to the chief noblemen in England, who were the king's wards
+[x].  And as the source of Henry's bounty began to fail, his Savoyard
+ministry applied to Rome, and obtained a bull, permitting him to
+resume all past grants; absolving him from the oath which he had taken
+to maintain them; even enjoining him to make such a resumption, and
+representing those grants as invalid, on account of the prejudice
+which ensued from them to the Roman pontiff, in whom the superiority
+of the kingdom was vested [y].  The opposition made to the intended
+resumption prevented it from taking place; but the nation saw the
+indignities to which the king was willing to submit, in order to
+gratify the avidity of his foreign favourites.  About the same time he
+published in England the sentence of excommunication pronounced
+against the Emperor Frederic, his brother-in-law [z]; and said, in
+excuse, that, being the pope's vassal, he was obliged by his
+allegiance to obey all the commands of his holiness.  In this weak
+reign, when any neighbouring potentate insulted the king's dominions,
+instead of taking revenge for the injury, he complained to the pope as
+his superior lord, and begged him to give protection to his vassal
+[a].
+[FN [u] Rymer, vol. i. p. 448.  M. Paris, p. 286.  [w] M. Paris, p.
+236, 301, 305, 316, 541.  M. West. p. 302, 304.  [x] M. Paris, p. 484.
+M. West. p. 338.  [y] M. Paris, p. 295, 301.  [z] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+383.  [a] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 150.]
+
+[MN 1236.  Grievances.]
+The resentment of the English barons rose high at the preference given
+to foreigners; but no remonstrance or complaint could ever prevail on
+the king to abandon them, or even to moderate his attachment towards
+them.  After the Provencals and Savoyards might have been supposed
+pretty well satiated with the dignities and riches which they had
+acquired, a new set of hungry foreigners were invited over, and shared
+among them those favours, which the king ought in policy to have
+conferred on the English nobility, by whom his government could have
+been supported and defended.  His mother, Isabella, who had been
+unjustly taken by the late king from the Count de la Marche, to whom
+she was betrothed, was no sooner mistress of herself, by the death of
+her husband, than she married that nobleman [b]; [MN 1247.] and she
+had borne him four sons, Guy, William, Geoffrey, and Aymer, whom she
+sent over to England, in order to pay a visit to their brother.  The
+good-natured and affectionate disposition of Henry was moved at the
+sight of such near relations; and he considered neither his own
+circumstances, nor the inclinations of his people, in the honours and
+riches which he conferred upon them [c].  Complaints rose as high
+against the credit of the Gascon, as ever they had done against that
+of the Poictevin and of the Savoyard favourites; and to a nation
+prejudiced against them, all their measures appeared exceptionable and
+criminal.  Violations of the great charter were frequently mentioned;
+and it is indeed more than probable that foreigners, ignorant of the
+laws, and relying on the boundless affections of a weak prince, would,
+in an age when a regular administration was not any where known, pay
+more attention to their present interest than to the liberties of the
+people.  It is reported that the Poictevins and other strangers, when
+the laws were at any time appealed to, in opposition to their
+oppressions, scrupled not to reply, WHAT DID THE ENGLISH LAWS SIGNIFY
+TO THEM?  THEY MINDED THEM NOT.  And as words are often more offensive
+than actions, this open contempt of the English tended much to
+aggravate the general discontent, and made every act of violence
+committed by the foreigners appear not only an injury but an affront
+to them [d].
+[FN [b] Trivet, p. 174.  [c] M. Paris, p. 491.  M. West. p. 338.
+Knyghton, p. 2436.  [d] M. Paris, p. 566, 666.  Ann. Waverl. p. 214.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 335.]
+
+I reckon not among the violations of the great charter some arbitrary
+exertions of prerogative, to which Henry's necessities pushed him, and
+which, without producing any discontent, were uniformly continued by
+all his successors till the last century.  As the Parliament often
+refused him supplies, and that in a manner somewhat rude and indecent
+[e], he obliged his opulent subjects, particularly the citizens of
+London, to grant him loans of money; and it is natural to imagine,
+that the same want of economy which reduced him to the necessity of
+borrowing, would prevent him from being very punctual in the repayment
+[f].  He demanded benevolences, or pretended voluntary contributions,
+from his nobility and prelates [g].  He was the first king of England
+since the Conquest that could fairly be said to lie under the
+restraint of law; and he was also the first that practised the
+dispensing power, and employed the clause of NON OBSTANTE in his
+grants and patents.  When objections were made to this novelty, he
+replied, that the pope exercised that authority; and why might not he
+imitate the example?  But the abuse which the pope made of his
+dispensing power, in violating the canons of general councils, in
+invading the privileges and customs of all particular churches, and in
+usurping on the rights of patrons, was more likely to excite the
+jealousy of the people, than to reconcile them to a similar practice
+in their civil government.  Roger de Thurkesby, one of the king's
+justices, was so displeased with the precedent, that he exclaimed,
+ALAS!  WHAT TIMES ARE WE FALLEN INTO!  BEHOLD, THE CIVIL COURT IS
+CORRUPTED IN IMITATION OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL, AND THE RIVER IS
+POISONED FROM THE FOUNTAIN.
+[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 301.  [f] Ibid. p. 406.  [g] Ibid. p. 507.]
+
+The king's partiality and profuse bounty to his foreign relations, and
+to their friends and favourites, would have appeared more tolerable to
+the English, had any thing been done meanwhile for the honour of the
+nation; or had Henry's enterprises in foreign countries been attended
+with any success or glory to himself or to the public: at least, such
+military talents in the king would have served to keep his barons in
+awe, and have given weight and authority to his government.  But
+though he declared war against Lewis IX. in 1242, and made an
+expedition into Guienne, upon the invitation of his father-in-law, the
+Count de la Marche, who promised to join him with all his forces, he
+was unsuccessful in his attempts against that great monarch, was
+worsted at Taillebourg, was deserted by his allies, lost what remained
+to him of Poictou, and was obliged to return, with loss of honour,
+into England [h].  The Gascon nobility were attached to the English
+government, because the distance of their sovereign allowed them to
+remain in a state of almost total independence; [MN 1253.] and they
+claimed, some time after, Henry's protection against an invasion,
+which the King of Castile made upon that territory.  Henry returned
+into Guienne, and was more successful in this expedition; but he
+thereby involved himself and his nobility in an enormous debt, which
+both increased their discontents, and exposed him to greater danger
+from their enterprises [i].
+[FN [h] M. Paris, p. 393, 394, 398, 399, 405.  W. Heming. p. 574.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 153.  [i] M. Paris, p. 614.]
+
+Want of economy, and an ill-judged liberality, were Henry's great
+defects; and his debts, even before this expedition, had become so
+troublesome, that he sold all his plate and jewels, in order to
+discharge them.  When this expedient was first proposed to him, he
+asked where he should find purchasers?  It was replied, the citizens
+of London.  ON MY WORD, said he, IF THE TREASURY OF AUGUSTUS WERE
+BROUGHT FOR SALE, THE CITIZENS ARE ABLE TO BE THE PURCHASERS: THESE
+CLOWNS, WHO ASSUME TO THEMSELVES THE NAME OF BARONS, ABOUND IN EVERY
+THING, WHILE WE ARE REDUCED TO NECESSITIES [k].  And he was
+thenceforth observed to be more forward and greedy in his exactions
+upon the citizens [l].
+[FN [k] Ibid. p. 501.  [l] Ibid. p. 501, 507, 518, 578, 606, 625,
+648.]
+
+[MN Ecclesiastical grievances.]
+But the grievances, which the English during this reign had reason to
+complain of in the civil government, seem to have been still less
+burdensome than those which they suffered from the usurpations and
+exactions of the court of Rome.  [MN 1253.]  On the death of Langton
+in 1228, the monks of Christ-church elected Walter de Hemesham, one of
+their own body, for his successor: but as Henry refused to confirm the
+election, the pope, at his desire, annulled it [m]; and immediately
+appointed Richard, Chancellor of Lincoln, for archbishop, without
+waiting for a new election.  On the death of Richard in 1231, the
+monks elected Ralph de Neville, Bishop of Chichester; and though Henry
+was much pleased with the election, the pope, who thought that prelate
+too much attached to the crown, assumed the power of annulling his
+election [n].  He rejected two clergymen more, whom the monks had
+successively chosen; and he at last told them, that, if they would
+elect Edmond, treasurer of the church of Salisbury, he would confirm
+their choice; and his nomination was complied with.  The pope had the
+prudence to appoint both times very worthy primates; but men could not
+forbear observing his intention of thus drawing gradually to himself
+the right of bestowing that important dignity.
+[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 224.  [n] Ibid. p. 254.]
+
+The avarice, however, more than the ambition, of the see of Rome,
+seems to have been in this age the ground of general complaint.  The
+papal ministers, finding a vast stock of power amassed by their
+predecessors, were desirous of turning it to immediate profit which
+they enjoyed at home, rather than of enlarging their authority in
+distant countries, where they never intended to reside.  Every thing
+was become venal in the Romish tribunals; simony was openly practised;
+no favours, and even no justice, could be obtained without a bribe;
+the highest bidder was sure to have the preference, without regard
+either to the merits of the person or of the cause; and besides the
+usual perversions of right in the decision of controversies, the pope
+openly assumed an absolute and uncontrolled authority of setting
+aside, by the plenitude of his apostolic power, all particular rules,
+and all privileges of patrons, churches, and convents.  On pretence of
+remedying these abuses, Pope Honorius, in 1226, complaining of the
+poverty of his see as the source of all grievances, demanded from
+every cathedral two of the best prebends, and from every convent two
+monks' portions, to be set apart as a perpetual and settled revenue of
+the papal crown: but all men being sensible that the revenue would
+continue for ever, the abuses immediately return, his demand was
+unanimously rejected.  About three years after, the pope demanded and
+obtained the tenth of all ecclesiastical revenues, which he levied in
+a very oppressive manner; requiring payment before the clergy had
+drawn their rents or tithes, and sending about usurers, who advanced
+them the money at exorbitant interest.  In the year 1240, Otho, the
+legate, having in vain attempted the clergy in a body, obtained
+separately, by intrigues and menaces, large sums from the prelates and
+convents, and on his departure is said to have carried more money out
+of the kingdom than he left in it.  This experiment was renewed four
+years after with success by Martin the nuncio, who brought from Rome
+powers of suspending and excommunicating all clergymen that refused to
+comply with his demands.  The king, who relied on the pope for the
+support of his tottering authority, never failed to countenance those
+exactions.
+
+Meanwhile, all the chief benefices of the kingdom were conferred on
+Italians; great numbers of that nation were sent over at one time to
+be provided for; non-residence and pluralities were carried to an
+enormous height; Mansel, the king's chaplain, is computed to have held
+at once seven hundred ecclesiastical livings; and the abuses became so
+evident as to be palpable to the blindness of superstition itself.
+The people, entering into associations, rose against the Italian
+clergy; pillaged their barns; wasted their lands; insulted the persons
+of such of them as they found in the kingdom [o]; and when the
+justices made inquiry into the authors of this disorder, the guilt was
+found to involve so many, and those of such high rank, that it passed
+unpunished.  At last, when Innocent IV., in 1245, called a general
+council at Lyons, in order to excommunicate the Emperor Frederic, the
+king and nobility sent over agents to complain before the council of
+the rapacity of the Romish church.  They represented, among many other
+grievances, that the benefices of the Italian clergy in England had
+been estimated, and were found to amount to sixty thousand marks [p] a
+year, a sum which exceeded the annual revenue of the crown [q].  They
+obtained only an evasive answer from the pope; but as mention had been
+made before the council of the feudal subjection of England to the see
+of Rome, the English agents, at whose head was Roger Bigod, Earl of
+Norfolk, exclaimed against the pretension, and insisted that King John
+had no right, without the consent of his barons, to subject the
+kingdom to so ignominious a servitude [r].  The popes, indeed, afraid
+of carrying matters too far against England, seem thenceforth to have
+little insisted on that pretension.
+[FN [o] Rymer, vol. i. p. 323.  M. Paris, p. 255, 257.  [p] Innocent's
+bull in Rymer, vol. i. p. 471, says only fifty thousand marks a year.
+[q] M. Paris, p. 451.  The customs were part of Henry's revenue, and
+amounted to six thousand pounds a year: they were at first small sums
+paid by the merchants for the use of the king's warehouses, measures,
+weights, &c.  See Gilbert's History of the Exch. p. 214.  [r] M.
+Paris, p. 460.]
+
+This check, received at the council of Lyons, was not able to stop the
+court of Rome in its rapacity; Innocent exacted the revenues of all
+vacant benefices, the twentieth of all ecclesiastical revenues without
+exception; the third of such as exceeded a hundred marks a year, and
+the half of such as were possessed by non-residents [s].  He claimed
+the goods of all intestate clergymen [t]; he pretended a title to
+inherit all money gotten by usury; he levied benevolences upon the
+people; and when the king, contrary to his usual practice, prohibited
+these exactions, he threatened to pronounce against him the same
+censures which he had emitted against the Emperor Frederic [u].
+[FN [s] Ibid. p. 480.  Ann. Burt. p. 305, 373.  [t] M. Paris, p. 474.
+[u] Ibid. p. 476.]
+
+[MN 1255.]  But the most oppressive expedient employed by the pope was
+the embarking of Henry in a project for the conquest of Naples or
+Sicily on this side the Fare, as it was called; an enterprise, which
+threw much dishonour on the king, and involved him, during some years,
+in great trouble and expense.  The Romish church, taking advantage of
+favourable incidents, had reduced the kingdom of Sicily to the same
+state of feudal vassalage which she pretended to extend over England,
+and which, by reason of the distance, as well as high spirit of this
+latter kingdom, she was not able to maintain.  After the death of the
+Emperor Frederic II., the succession of Sicily devolved to Conradine,
+grandson of that monarch; and Mainfroy, his natural son, under
+pretence of governing the kingdom during the minority of the prince,
+had formed a scheme of establishing his own authority.  Pope Innocent,
+who had carried on violent war against the Emperor Frederic, and had
+endeavoured to dispossess him of his Italian dominions, still
+continued hostilities against his grandson; but being disappointed in
+all his schemes by the activity and artifices of Mainfroy, he found
+that his own force alone was not sufficient to bring to a happy issue
+so great an enterprise.  He pretended to dispose of the Sicilian
+crown, both as superior lord of that particular kingdom, and as vicar
+of Christ, to whom all kingdoms of the earth were subjected; and he
+made a tender of it to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, whose immense
+riches, he flattered himself, would be able to support the military
+operations against Mainfroy.  As Richard had the prudence to refuse
+the present [w], he applied to the king, whose levity and thoughtless
+disposition gave Innocent more hopes of success; and he offered him
+the crown of Sicily for his second son, Edmond [x].  Henry, allured by
+so magnificent a present, without reflecting on the consequences,
+without consulting either with his brother or the Parliament, accepted
+of the insidious proposal; and gave the pope unlimited credit to
+expend whatever sums he thought necessary for completing the conquest
+of Sicily.  Innocent, who was engaged by his own interests to wage war
+with Mainfroy, was glad to carry on his enterprises at the expense of
+his ally: Alexander IV., who succeeded him in the papal throne,
+continued the same policy; and Henry was surprised to find himself on
+a sudden involved in an immense debt, which he had never been
+consulted in contracting.  The sum already amounted to one hundred and
+thirty-five thousand five hundred and forty-one marks, besides
+interest [y]; and he  had the prospect, if he answered this demand, of
+being soon loaded with more exorbitant expenses; if he refused it, of
+both incurring the pope's displeasure, and losing the crown of Sicily,
+which he hoped soon to have the glory of fixing on the head of his
+son.
+[FN [w] M. Paris, p. 650.  [x] Rymer, vol. i. p. 502, 512, 530.  M.
+Paris, p. 599, 613.  [y] Rymer, vol. i. p. 587.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i.
+p. 319.]
+
+He applied to the Parliament for supplies; and that he might be sure
+not to meet with opposition, he sent no writs to the more refractory
+barons; but even those who were summoned, sensible of the ridiculous
+cheat imposed by the pope, determined not to lavish their money on
+such chimerical projects; and making a pretext of the absence of their
+brethren, they refused to take the king's demands into consideration
+[z].  In this extremity the clergy were his only resource; and as both
+their temporal and spiritual sovereign concurred in loading them, they
+were ill able to defend themselves against this united authority.
+[FN [z] M. Paris, p. 614.]
+
+The pope published a crusade for the conquest of Sicily; and required
+every one, who had taken the cross against the infidels, or had vowed
+to advance money for that service, to support the war against
+Mainfroy, a more terrible enemy, as he pretended, to the Christian
+faith than any Saracen [a].  He levied a tenth on all ecclesiastical
+benefices in England for three years; and gave orders to excommunicate
+all bishops who made not punctual payment.  He granted to the king the
+goods of intestate clergymen; the revenues of vacant benefices; the
+revenues of all non-residents [b].  But these taxations, being levied
+by some rule, were deemed less grievous than another imposition, which
+arose from the suggestion of the Bishop of Hereford, and which might
+have opened the door to endless and intolerable abuses.
+[FN [a] Rymer, vol. i. p. 547, 548, &c.  [b] Ibid. vol. i. p. 597,
+598.]
+
+This prelate, who resided at the court of Rome, by a deputation from
+the English church, drew bills of different values, but amounting on
+the whole to one hundred and fifty thousand five hundred and forty
+marks, on all the bishops and abbots of the kingdom; and granted these
+bills to Italian merchants, who, it was pretended, had advanced money
+for the service of the war against Mainfroy [c].  As there was no
+likelihood of the English prelates submitting, without compulsion, to
+such an extraordinary demand, Rustand, the legate, was charged with
+the commission of employing authority to that purpose; and he summoned
+an assembly of the bishops and abbots, whom he acquainted with the
+pleasure of the pope and of the king.  Great were the surprise and
+indignation of the assembly.  The Bishop of Worcester exclaimed, that
+he would lose his life rather than comply: the Bishop of London said,
+that the pope and king were more powerful than he; but if his mitre
+were taken off his head, he would clap on a helmet in its place [d].
+The legate was no less violent on the other hand; and he told the
+assembly, in plain terms, that all ecclesiastical benefices were the
+property of the pope, and he might dispose of them, either in whole or
+in part, as he saw proper [e].  In the end, the bishops and abbots,
+being threatened with excommunication, which made all the revenues
+fall into the king's hands, were obliged to submit to the exaction;
+and the only mitigation which the legate allowed them was, that the
+tenths, already granted, should be accepted as a partial payment of
+the bills.  But the money was still insufficient for the pope's
+purpose: the conquest of Sicily was as remote as ever: the demands
+which came from Rome were endless: Pope Alexander became so urgent a
+creditor, that he sent over a legate to England, threatening the
+kingdom with an interdict, and the king with excommunication, if the
+arrears, which he pretended to be due to him, were not instantly
+remitted [f].  And at last Henry, sensible of the cheat, began to
+think of breaking off the agreement, and of resigning into the pope's
+hands that crown, which it was not intended by Alexander, that he or
+his family should ever enjoy [g].
+[FN [c] M. Paris, p. 612, 628.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 54.  [d] M. Paris,
+p. 614.  [e] Ibid. p. 619.  [f] Rymer, vol. i. p. 624.  M. Paris, p.
+648.  [g] Rymer, vol. i. p. 630.]
+
+[MN Earl of Cornwall elected King of the Romans.]
+The Earl of Cornwall had now reason to value himself on his foresight,
+in refusing the fraudulent bargain with Rome, and in preferring the
+solid honours of an opulent and powerful prince of the blood of
+England, to the empty and precarious glory of a foreign dignity.  But
+he had not always firmness sufficient to adhere to this resolution:
+his vanity and ambition prevailed at last over his prudence and his
+avarice; and he was engaged in an enterprise no less extensive and
+vexatious than that of his brother, and not attended with much greater
+probability of success.  The immense opulence of Richard having made
+the German princes cast their eye on him as a candidate for the
+empire, he was tempted to expend vast sums of money on his election;
+and he succeeded so far as to be chosen King of the Romans, which
+seemed to render his succession infallible to the imperial throne.  He
+went over to Germany, and carried out of the kingdom no less a sum
+than seven hundred thousand marks, if we may credit the account given
+by some ancient authors [h], which is probably much exaggerated [i].
+His money, while it lasted, procured him friends and partisans; but it
+was soon drained from him by the avidity of the German princes; and
+having no personal or family connexions in that country, and no solid
+foundation of power, he found at last that he had lavished away the
+frugality of a whole life in order to procure a splendid title; and
+that his absence from England, joined to the weakness of his brother's
+government, gave reins to the factious and turbulent dispositions of
+the English barons, and involved his own country and family in great
+calamities.
+[FN [h] M. Paris, p. 638.  The same author, a few pages before, makes
+Richard's treasures amount to little more than half the sum, p. 634.
+The king's dissipations and expenses, throughout his whole reign,
+according to the same author, had amounted only to about nine hundred
+and forty thousand marks, p. 638.  [i] The sums mentioned by ancient
+authors, who were almost all monks, are often improbable, and never
+consistent.  But we know, from an infallible authority, the public
+remonstrance to the council of Lyons, that the king's revenues were
+below sixty thousand marks a year: his brother, therefore, could never
+have been master of seven hundred thousand marks; especially as he did
+not sell his estates in England, as we learn from the same author: and
+we hear afterwards of his ordering all his woods to be cut, in order
+to satisfy the rapacity of the German princes.  His son succeeded to
+the earldom of Cornwall, and his other revenues.]
+
+[MN Discontents of the barons.]
+The successful revolt of the nobility from King John, and their
+imposing on him and his successors limitations of their royal power,
+had made them feel their own weight and importance, had set a
+dangerous precedent of resistance, and being followed by a long
+minority, had impoverished as well as weakened that crown, which they
+were at last induced, from the fear of worse consequences, to replace
+on the head of young Henry.  In the king's situation, either great
+abilities and vigour were requisite to overawe the barons, or great
+caution and reserve to give them no pretence for complaints; and it
+must be confessed that this prince was possessed of neither of these
+talents.  He had not prudence to choose right measures; he wanted even
+that constancy, which sometimes gives weight to wrong ones; he was
+entirely devoted to his favourites, who were always foreigners; he
+lavished on them, without discretion, his diminished revenue; and
+finding that his barons indulged their disposition towards tyranny,
+and observed not to their own vassals the same rules which they had
+imposed on the crown, he was apt, in his administration, to neglect
+all the salutary articles of the great charter, which he remarked to
+be so little regarded by his nobility.  This conduct had extremely
+lessened his authority in the kingdom; had multiplied complaints
+against him; and had frequently exposed him to affronts, and even to
+dangerous attempts upon his prerogative.  In the year 1244, when he
+desired a supply from Parliament, the barons, complaining of the
+frequent breaches of the great charter, and of the many fruitless
+applications which they had formerly made for the redress of this and
+other grievances, demanded, in return, that he should give them the
+nomination of the great justiciary and of the chancellor, to whose
+hands chiefly the administration of justice was committed; and if we
+may credit the historian [k], they had formed the plan of other
+limitations, as well as of associations to maintain them, which would
+have reduced the king to be an absolute cipher; and have held the
+crown in perpetual pupilage and dependence.  The king, to satisfy
+them, would agree to nothing but a renewal of the charter, and a
+general permission to excommunicate all the violaters of it; and he
+received no supply, except a scutage of twenty shillings on each
+knight's fee, for the marriage of his eldest daughter to the King of
+Scotland; a burden which was expressly annexed to their feudal
+tenures.
+[FN [k] M. Paris, p. 432.]
+
+Four years after, in a full Parliament, when Henry demanded a new
+supply, he was openly reproached with a breach of his word, and the
+frequent violations of the charter.  He was asked, whether he did not
+blush to desire any aid from his people, whom he professedly hated and
+despised, to whom, on all occasions, he preferred aliens and
+foreigners, and who groaned under the oppressions which he either
+permitted or exercised over them.  He was told that, besides
+disparaging his nobility, by forcing them to contract unequal and mean
+marriages with strangers, no rank of men was so low as to escape
+vexatious from him or his ministers; that even the victuals consumed
+in his household, the clothes which himself and his servants wore,
+still more the wine which they used, were all taken by violence from
+the lawful owners, and no compensation was ever made them for the
+injury; that foreign merchants, to the great prejudice and infamy of
+the kingdom, shunned the English harbours, as if they were possessed
+by pirates, and the commerce with all nations was thus cut off by
+these acts of violence; that loss was added to loss, and injury to
+injury, while the merchants, who had been despoiled of their goods,
+were also obliged to carry them at their own charge to whatever place
+the king was pleased to appoint them; that even the poor fishermen on
+the coast could not escape his oppressions and those of his courtiers;
+and finding that they had not full liberty to dispose of their
+commodities in the English market, were frequently constrained to
+carry them to foreign ports, and to hazard all the perils of the
+ocean, rather than those which awaited them from his oppressive
+emissaries; and that his very religion was a ground of complaint to
+his subjects, while they observed, that the waxen tapers and splendid
+silks, employed in so many useless processions, were the spoils which
+he had forcibly ravished from the true owners [l].  Throughout this
+remonstrance, in which the complaints, derived from an abuse of the
+ancient right of purveyance, may be supposed to be somewhat
+exaggerated, there appears a strange mixture of regal tyranny in the
+practices which gave rise to it, and of aristocratical liberty, or
+rather licentiousness, in the expressions employed by the Parliament.
+But a mixture of this kind is observable in all the ancient feudal
+governments; and both of them proved equally hurtful to the people.
+[FN [l] M. Paris, p. 498.  See farther, p. 578.  M. West. p. 348.]
+
+As the king, in answer to their remonstrance, gave the Parliament only
+good words and fair promises, attended with the most humble
+submissions, which they had often found deceitful, he obtained at that
+time no supply; and therefore, in the year 1253, when he found himself
+again under the necessity of applying to Parliament, he had provided a
+new pretence, which he deemed infallible, and taking the vow of a
+crusade, he demanded their assistance in that pious enterprise [m].
+The Parliament, however, for some time hesitated to comply; and the
+ecclesiastical order sent a deputation, consisting of four prelates,
+the primate, and the Bishops of Winchester, Salisbury, and Carlisle,
+in order to remonstrate with him on his frequent violations of their
+privileges, the oppressions with which he had loaded them and all his
+subjects [n], and the uncanonical and forced elections which were made
+to vacant dignities.  "It is true," replied the king, "I have been
+somewhat faulty in this particular: I obtruded you, my Lord of
+Canterbury, upon your see: I was obliged to employ both entreaties and
+menaces, my Lord of Winchester, to have you elected: my proceedings, I
+confess, were very irregular, my Lords of Salisbury and Carlisle, when
+I raised you from the lowest stations to your present dignities: I am
+determined henceforth to correct these abuses; and it will also become
+you, in order to make a thorough reformation, to resign your present
+benefices, and try to enter again in a more regular and canonical
+manner [o]."  The bishops, surprised at these unexpected sarcasms,
+replied, that the question was not at present how to correct past
+errors, but to avoid them for the future.  The king promised redress
+both of ecclesiastical and civil grievances; and the Parliament in
+return agreed to grant him a supply, a tenth of the ecclesiastical
+benefices, and a scutage of three marks on each knight's fee: but as
+they had experienced his frequent breach of promise, they required
+that he should ratify the great charter in a manner still more
+authentic and more solemn than any which he had hitherto employed.
+All the prelates and abbots were assembled: they held burning tapers
+in their hands: the great charter was read before them: they denounced
+the sentence of excommunication against every one who should
+thenceforth violate that fundamental law: they threw their tapers on
+the ground, and exclaimed, MAY THE SOUL OF EVERY ONE WHO INCURS THIS
+SENTENCE SO STINK AND CORRUPT IN HELL!  The king bore a part in this
+ceremony, and subjoined, "So help me God, I will keep all these
+articles inviolate, as I am a man, as I am a Christian, as I am a
+knight, and as I am a king crowned and anointed [p]."  Yet was the
+tremendous ceremony no sooner finished, than his favourites, abusing
+his weakness, made him return to the same arbitrary and irregular
+administration; and the reasonable expectations of his people were
+thus perpetually eluded and disappointed [q].
+[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 518, 558, 568.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 293.
+[n] M. Paris, p. 568.  [o] Ibid. p. 579.  [p] M. Paris, p. 580.  Ann.
+Burt. p. 323.  Ann. Waverl. p. 210.  W. Heming. p. 571.  M. West. p.
+353.  [q] M. Paris, p. 597, 608.]
+
+[MN 1258.  Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester.]
+All these imprudent and illegal measures afforded a pretence to Simon
+de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, to attempt an innovation in the
+government, and to wrest the sceptre from the feeble and irresolute
+hand which held it.  This nobleman was a younger son of that Simon de
+Montfort, who had conducted, with such valour and renown, the crusade
+against the Albigenses, and who, though he tarnished his famous
+exploits by cruelty and ambition, had left a name very precious to all
+the bigots of that age, particularly to the ecclesiastics.  A large
+inheritance in England fell by succession to this family; but as the
+elder brother enjoyed still more opulent possessions in France, and
+could not perform fealty to two masters, he transferred his right to
+Simon, his younger brother, who came over to England, did homage for
+his lands, and was raised to the dignity of Earl of Leicester.  In the
+year 1238, he espoused Eleanor, dowager of William, Earl of Pembroke,
+and sister to the king [r]; but the marriage of this princess with a
+subject and a foreigner, though contracted with Henry's consent, was
+loudly complained of by the Earl of Cornwall and all the barons of
+England; and Leicester was supported against their violence by the
+king's favour and authority alone [s].  But he had no sooner
+established himself in his possessions and dignities, than he
+acquired, by insinuation and address, a strong interest with the
+nation, and gained equally the affections of all orders of men.  He
+lost, however, the friendship of Henry, from the usual levity and
+fickleness of that prince; he was banished the court; he was recalled;
+he was intrusted with the command of Guienne [t], where he did good
+service and acquired honour; he was again disgraced by the king, and
+his banishment from court seemed now final and irrevocable.  Henry
+called him traitor to his face: Leicester gave him the lie, and told
+him, that if he were not his sovereign, he would soon make him repent
+of that insult.  Yet was this quarrel accommodated, either from the
+good nature or timidity of the king; and Leicester was again admitted
+into some degree of favour and authority.  But as this nobleman was
+become too great to preserve an entire complaisance to Henry's
+humours, and to act in subserviency to his other minions, he found
+more advantage in cultivating his interest with the public, and in
+inflaming the general discontents which prevailed against the
+administration.  He filled every place with complaints against the
+infringement of the great charter, the acts of violence committed on
+the people, the combination between the pope and the king in their
+tyranny and extortions, Henry's neglect of his native subjects and
+barons; and though he himself a foreigner, he was more loud than any
+in representing the indignity of submitting to the dominion of
+foreigners.  By his hypocritical pretensions to devotion, he gained
+the favour of the zealots and clergy: by his seeming concern for
+public good, he acquired the affections of the public: and besides the
+private friendships which he had cultivated with the barons, his
+animosity against the favourites created an union of interests between
+him and that powerful order.
+[FN [r] Ibid. p. 314.  [s] M. Paris, p. 315.  [t] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+459, 513.]
+
+A recent quarrel, which broke out between Leicester and William de
+Valence, Henry's half-brother, and chief favourite, brought matters to
+extremity [u], and determined the former to give full scope to his
+bold and unbounded ambition, which the laws and the king's authority
+had hitherto with difficulty restrained.  He secretly called a meeting
+of the most considerable barons, particularly Humphrey de Bohun, high
+constable, Roger Bigod, earl mareschal, and the Earls of Warwick and
+Gloucester; men who by their family and possessions stood in the first
+rank of the English nobility.  He represented to this company the
+necessity of reforming the state, and of putting the execution of the
+laws into other hands than those which had hitherto appeared, from
+repeated experience, so unfit for the charge with which they were
+intrusted.  He exaggerated the oppressions exercised against the lower
+orders of the state, the violations of the barons' privileges, the
+continued depredations made on the clergy; and in order to aggravate
+the enormity of his conduct, he appealed to the great charter, which
+Henry had so often ratified, and which was calculated to prevent for
+ever the return of those intolerable grievances.  He magnified the
+generosity of their ancestors, who, at a great expense of blood, had
+extorted that famous concession from the crown; but lamented their own
+degeneracy, who allowed so important an advantage, once obtained, to
+be wrested from them by a weak prince and by insolent strangers.  And
+he insisted, that the king's word, after so many submissions and
+fruitless promises on his part, could no longer be relied on; and that
+nothing but his absolute inability to violate national privileges
+could henceforth ensure the regular observance of them.
+[FN [u] M. Paris, p. 649.]
+
+These topics, which were founded in truth, and suited so well to the
+sentiments of the company, had the desired effect; and the barons
+embraced a resolution of redressing the public grievances, by taking
+into their own hands the administration of government.  Henry having
+summoned a Parliament, in expectation of receiving supplies for his
+Sicilian project, the barons appeared in the hall, clad in complete
+armour, and with their swords by their side: the king on his entry,
+struck with the unusual appearance, asked them what was their purpose,
+and whether they intended to make him their prisoner [w]: Roger Bigod
+replied, in the name of the rest, that he was not their prisoner, but
+their sovereign; that they even intended to grant him large supplies,
+in order to fix his son on the throne of Sicily; that they only
+expected some return for this expense and service; and that, as he had
+frequently made submissions to the Parliament, had acknowledged his
+past errors, and had still allowed himself to be carried into the same
+path, which gave them such just reason of complaint, he must now yield
+to more strict regulations, and confer authority on those who were
+able and willing to redress the national grievances.  Henry, partly
+allured by the hopes of supply, partly intimidated by the union and
+martial appearance of the barons, agreed to their demand: and promised
+to summon another Parliament at Oxford, in order to digest the new
+plan of government, and to elect the persons who were to be intrusted
+with the chief authority.
+[FN [w] Annal. Theokesbury.]
+
+[MN 11th June.  Provisions of Oxford.]
+This Parliament, which the royalists, and even the nation, from
+experience of the confusions that attended its measures, afterwards
+denominated the MAD PARLIAMENT, met on the day appointed; and as all
+the barons brought along with them their military vassals, and
+appeared with an armed force, the king, who had taken no precautions
+against them, was in reality a prisoner in their hands, and was
+obliged to submit to all the terms which they were pleased to impose
+upon him.  Twelve barons were selected from among the king's
+ministers; twelve more were chosen by Parliament: to these twenty-
+four, unlimited authority was granted to reform the state; and the
+king himself took an oath, that he would maintain whatever ordinances
+they should think proper to enact for that purpose [x].  Leicester was
+at the head of the supreme council, to which the legislative power was
+thus in reality transferred; and all their measures were taken by his
+secret influence and direction.  Their first step bore a specious
+appearance, and seemed well calculated for the end which they
+professed to be the object of all these innovations: they ordered that
+four knights should be chosen by each county; that they should make
+inquiry into the grievances of which their neighbourhood had reason to
+complain, and should attend the ensuing Parliament, in order to give
+information to that assembly of the state of their particular counties
+[y]: a nearer approach to our present constitution than had been made
+by the barons in the reign of King John, when the knights were only
+appointed to meet in their several counties, and there to draw up a
+detail of their grievances.  Meanwhile the twenty-four barons
+proceeded to enact some regulations as a redress of such grievances as
+were supposed to be sufficiently notorious.  They ordered that three
+sessions of Parliament should be regularly held every year in the
+months of February, June, and October; that a new sheriff should be
+annually elected by the votes of the freeholders in each county [z];
+that the sheriffs should have no power of fining the barons who did
+not attend their courts, or the circuits of the justiciaries; that no
+heirs should be committed to the wardship of foreigners, and no
+castles intrusted to their custody; and that no new warrens or forests
+should be created, nor the revenues of any counties or hundreds be let
+to farm.  Such were the regulations which the twenty-four barons
+established at Oxford, for the redress of public grievances.
+[FN [x] Rymer, vol. i. p. 655.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 334.
+Knyghton, p. 2445.  [y] M. Paris, p. 657.  Addit. p. 140.  Ann. Burt.
+p. 412.  [z] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 336.]
+
+But the Earl of Leicester and his associates, having advanced so far
+to satisfy the nation, instead of continuing in this popular course,
+or granting the king that supply which they had promised him,
+immediately provided for the extension and continuance of their own
+authority.  They roused anew the popular clamour which had long
+prevailed against foreigners; and they fell with the utmost violence
+on the king's half-brothers, who were supposed to be the authors of
+all national grievances, and whom Henry had no longer any power to
+protect.  The four brothers, sensible of their danger, took to flight,
+with an intention of making their escape out of the kingdom; they were
+eagerly pursued by the barons; Aymer, one of the brothers, who had
+been elected to the see of Winchester, took shelter in his episcopal
+palace, and carried the others along with him; they were surrounded in
+that place, and threatened to be dragged out by force, and to be
+punished for their crimes and misdemeanors; and the king, pleading the
+sacredness of an ecclesiastical sanctuary, was glad to extricate them
+from this danger by banishing them the kingdom.  In this act of
+violence, as well as in the former usurpations of the barons, the
+queen and her uncles were thought to have secretly concurred; being
+jealous of the credit acquired by the brothers, which they found had
+eclipsed and annihilated their own.
+
+[MN Usurpations of the barons.]
+But the subsequent proceedings of the twenty-four barons were
+sufficient to open the eyes of the nation, and to prove their
+intention of reducing for ever both the king and the people under the
+arbitrary power of a very narrow aristocracy, which must at last have
+terminated either in anarchy, or in a violent usurpation and tyranny.
+They pretended that they had not yet digested all the regulations
+necessary for the reformation of the state and for the redress of
+grievances; and they must still retain their power, till that great
+purpose were thoroughly effected: in other words, that they must be
+perpetual governors, and must continue to reform, till they were
+pleased to abdicate their authority.  They formed an association among
+themselves, and swore that they would stand by each other with their
+lives and fortunes; they displaced all the chief officers of the
+crown, the justiciary, the chancellor, the treasurer; and advanced
+either themselves or their own creatures in their place: even the
+officers of the king's household were disposed of at their pleasure:
+the government of all the castles was put into hands in whom they
+found reason to confide: and the whole power of the state being thus
+transferred to them, they ventured to impose an oath, by which all the
+subjects were obliged to swear, under the penalty of being declared
+public enemies, that they would obey and execute all the regulations,
+both known and unknown, of the twenty-four barons; and all this for
+the greater glory of God, the honour of the church, the service of the
+king, and the advantage of the kingdom [a].  No one dared to withstand
+this tyrannical authority.  Prince Edward himself, the king's eldest
+son, a youth of eighteen, who began to give indications of that great
+and manly spirit which appeared throughout the whole course of his
+life, was, after making some opposition, constrained to take that oath
+which really deposed his father and his family from sovereign
+authority [b].  Earl Warrenne was the last person in the kingdom that
+could be brought to give the confederated barons this mark of
+submission.
+[FN [a] Chron T. Wykes, p. 52.  [b] Ann. Burt. p. 411.]
+
+But the twenty-four barons, not content with the usurpation of the
+royal power, introduced an innovation in the constitution of
+Parliament, which was of the utmost importance.  They ordained that
+this assembly should choose a committee of twelve persons, who should,
+in the intervals of the sessions, possess the authority of the whole
+Parliament, and should attend, on a summons, the person of the king in
+all his motions.  But so powerful were these barons, that this
+regulation was also submitted to; the whole government was overthrown,
+or fixed on new foundations; and the monarchy was totally subverted,
+without its being possible for the king to strike a single stroke in
+defence of the constitution against the newly-elected oligarchy.
+
+[MN 1259.]  The report that the King of the Romans intended to pay a
+visit to England gave alarm to the ruling barons, who dreaded lest the
+extensive influence and established authority of that prince would be
+employed to restore the prerogatives of his family, and overturn their
+plan of government [c].  They sent over the Bishop of Worcester, who
+met him at St. Omars; asked him, in the name of the barons, the reason
+of his journey, and how long he intended to stay in England; and
+insisted that, before he entered the kingdom, he should swear to
+observe the regulations established at Oxford.  On Richard's refusal
+to take this oath, they prepared to resist him as a public enemy; they
+fitted out a fleet, assembled an army, and exciting the inveterate
+prejudices of the people against foreigners, from whom they had
+suffered so many oppressions, spread the report that Richard, attended
+by a number of strangers, meant to restore by force the authority of
+his exiled brothers, and to violate all the securities provided for
+public liberty.  The King of the Romans was at last obliged to submit
+to the terms required of him [d].
+[FN [c] M. Paris, p. 661.  [d] Ibid. p. 661, 662.  Chron. T. Wykes, p.
+53.]
+
+But the barons, in proportion to their continuance in power, began
+gradually to lose that popularity which had assisted them in obtaining
+it; and men repined that regulations, which were occasionally
+established for the reformation of the state, were likely to become
+perpetual, and to subvert entirely the ancient constitution.  They
+were apprehensive lest the power of the nobles, always oppressive,
+should now exert itself without control, by removing the counterpoise
+of the crown; and their fears were increased by some new edicts of the
+barons, which were plainly calculated to procure to themselves an
+impunity in all their violences.  They appointed that the circuits of
+the itinerant justices, the sole check on their arbitrary conduct,
+should be held only once in seven years; and men easily saw that a
+remedy, which returned after such long intervals against an oppressive
+power, which was perpetual, would prove totally insignificant and
+useless [e].  The cry became loud in the nation, that the barons
+should finish their intended regulations.  The knights of the shires,
+who seem now to have been pretty regularly assembled, and sometimes in
+a separate house, made remonstrances against the slowness of their
+proceedings.  They represented that, though the king had performed all
+the conditions required of him, the barons had hitherto done nothing
+for the public good, and had only been careful to promote their own
+private advantage, and to make inroads on the royal authority; and
+they even appealed to Prince Edward, and claimed his interposition for
+the interests of the nation and the reformation of the government [f].
+The prince replied, that though it was from constraint, and contrary
+to his private sentiments, he had sworn to maintain the provisions of
+Oxford, he was determined to observe his oath: but he sent a message
+to the barons, requiring them to bring their undertaking to a speedy
+conclusion, and fulfil their engagements to the public: otherwise he
+menaced them, that, at the expense of his life, he would oblige them
+to do their duty, and would shed the last drop of his blood in
+promoting the interests, and satisfying the just wishes of the nation
+[g].
+[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 667.  Trivet, p. 209.  [f] Annal. Burt. p. 427.
+[g] Id. ibid.]
+
+The barons, urged by so pressing a necessity, published at last a new
+code of ordinances for the reformation of the state [h]; but the
+expectations of the people were extremely disappointed, when they
+found that these consisted only of some trivial alterations in the
+municipal law, and still more, when the barons pretended that the task
+was not yet finished, and that they must farther prolong their
+authority, in order to bring the work of reformation to the desired
+period.  The current of popularity was now much turned to the side of
+the crown; and the barons had little to rely on for their support,
+besides the private influence and power of their families, which,
+though exorbitant, was likely to prove inferior to the combination of
+king and people.  Even this basis of power was daily weakened by their
+intestine jealousies and animosities; their ancient and inveterate
+quarrels broke out when they came to share the spoils of the crown;
+and the rivalship between the Earls of Leicester and Gloucester, the
+chief leaders among them, began to disjoint the whole confederacy.
+The latter, more moderate in his pretensions, was desirous of stopping
+or retarding the career of the barons' usurpations; but the former,
+enraged at the opposition which he met with in his own party,
+pretended to throw up all concern in English affairs, and he retired
+into France [i].
+[FN [h] Ann. Burt. p. 428, 439.  [i] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 348.]
+
+The kingdom of France, the only state with which England had any
+considerable intercourse, was at this time governed by Lewis IX., a
+prince of the most singular character that is to be met with in all
+the records of history.  This monarch united, to the mean and abject
+superstition of a monk, all the courage and magnanimity of the
+greatest hero; and, what may be deemed more extraordinary, the justice
+and integrity of a disinterested patriot, the mildness and humanity of
+an accomplished philosopher.  So far from taking advantage of the
+divisions among the English, or attempting to expel those dangerous
+rivals from the provinces which they still possessed in France, he had
+entertained many scruples with regard to the sentence of attainder
+pronounced against the king's father, had even expressed some
+intention of restoring the other provinces, and was only prevented
+from taking that imprudent resolution by the united remonstrances of
+his own barons, who represented the extreme danger of such a measure
+[k], and, what had a greater influence on Lewis, the justice of
+punishing, by a legal sentence, the barbarity and felony of John.
+Whenever this prince interposed in English affairs, it was always with
+an intention of composing the differences between the king and his
+nobility; he recommended to both parties every peaceable and
+reconciling measure; and he used all his authority with the Earl of
+Leicester, his native subject, to bend him to compliance with Henry.
+[MN 20th May.]  He made a treaty with England, at a time when the
+distractions of that kingdom were at the greatest height, and when the
+king's authority was totally annihilated; and the terms which he
+granted might, even in a more prosperous state of their affairs, be
+deemed reasonable and advantageous to the English.  He yielded up some
+territories which had been conquered from Poictou and Guienne; he
+ensured the peaceable possession of the latter province to Henry; he
+agreed to pay that prince a large sum of money; and he only required
+that the king should, in return, make a final cession of Normandy and
+the other provinces, which he could never entertain any hopes of
+recovering by force of arms [l].  This cession was ratified by Henry,
+by his two sons, and two daughters, and by the King of the Romans and
+his three sons: Leicester alone, either moved by a vain arrogance, or
+desirous to ingratiate himself with the English populace, protested
+against the deed, and insisted on the right, however distant, which
+might accrue to his consort [m].  Lewis saw, in his obstinacy, the
+unbounded ambition of the man; and as the barons insisted that the
+money due by treaty should be at their disposal, not at Henry's, he
+also saw, and probably with regret, the low condition to which this
+monarch, who had more erred from weakness than from any bad intention,
+was reduced by the turbulence of his own subjects.
+[FN [k] M. Paris, p. 604.  [l] Rymer, vol. i. p. 675.  M. Paris, p.
+566.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 53.  Trivet, p. 208.  M. West. p. 371.  [m]
+Chron. T. Wykes, p. 53.]
+
+[MN 1261.]  But the situation of Henry soon after wore a more
+favourable aspect.  The twenty-four barons had now enjoyed the
+sovereign power near three years; and had visibly employed it, not for
+the reformation of the state, which was their first pretence, but for
+the aggrandizement of themselves and of their families.  The breach of
+trust was apparent to all the world: every order of men felt it, and
+murmured against it: the dissensions among the barons themselves,
+which increased the evil, made also the remedy more obvious and easy;
+and the secret desertion, in particular, of the Earl of Gloucester to
+the crown, seemed to promise Henry certain success in any attempt to
+resume his authority.  Yet durst he not take that step, so
+reconcilable both to justice and policy, without making a previous
+application to Rome, and desiring an absolution from his oaths and
+engagements [n].
+[FN [n] Ann. Burt. p. 389.]
+
+The pope was at this time much dissatisfied with the conduct of the
+barons, who, in order to gain the favour of the people and clergy of
+England, had expelled all the Italian ecclesiastics, had confiscated
+their benefices, and seemed determined to maintain the liberties and
+privileges of the English church, in which the rights of patronage,
+belonging to their own families, were included.  The extreme animosity
+of the English clergy against the Italians was also a source of his
+disgust to this order; and an attempt, which had been made by them for
+farther liberty and greater independence on the civil power, was
+therefore less acceptable to the court of Rome [o].  About the same
+time that the barons at Oxford had annihilated the prerogatives of the
+monarchy, the clergy met in a synod at Merton, and passed several
+ordinances, which were no less calculated to promote their own
+grandeur at the expense of the crown.  They decreed, that it was
+unlawful to try ecclesiastics by secular judges; that the clergy were
+not to regard any prohibitions from civil courts; that lay patrons had
+no right to confer spiritual benefices; that the magistrate was
+obliged, without farther inquiry, to imprison all excommunicated
+persons; and that ancient usage, without any particular grant or
+charter, was a sufficient authority for any clerical possessions or
+privileges [p].  About a century before, these claims would have been
+supported by the court of Rome beyond the most fundamental articles of
+faith: they were the chief points maintained by the great martyr,
+Becket; and his resolution in defending them had exalted him to the
+high station which he held in the catalogue of Romish saints.  But
+principles were changed with the times: the pope was become somewhat
+jealous of the great independence of the English clergy, which made
+them stand less in need of his protection, and even imboldened them to
+resist his authority, and to complain of the preference given to the
+Italian courtiers, whose interests, it is natural to imagine, were the
+chief object of his concern.  He was ready, therefore, on the king's
+application, to annul these new constitutions of the church of England
+[q].  And, at the same time, he absolved the king, and all his
+subjects, from the oath which they had taken to observe the provisions
+of Oxford [r].
+[FN [o] Rymer, vol. i. p. 755.  [p] Ann. Burt. p. 389.  [q] Rymer,
+vol. i. p. 755.  [r] Ibid. p. 722.  M. Paris, p. 666.  W. Heming. p.
+580.  Ypod. Neust. p. 463.  Knyghton, p. 2446.]
+
+[MN Prince Edward.]
+Prince Edward, whose liberal mind, though in such early youth, had
+taught him the great prejudice which his father had incurred, by his
+levity, inconstancy, and frequent breach of promise, refused for a
+long time to take advantage of this absolution; and declared, that the
+provisions of Oxford, how unreasonable soever in themselves, and how
+much soever abused by the barons, ought still to be adhered to by
+those who had sworn to observe them [s]: he himself had been
+constrained by violence to take that oath; yet he was determined to
+keep it.  By this scrupulous fidelity, the prince acquired the
+confidence of all parties, and was afterwards enabled to recover fully
+the royal authority, and to perform such great actions, both during
+his own reign and that of his father.
+[FN [s] M. Paris, p. 667.]
+
+The situation of England, during this period, as well as that of most
+European kingdoms, was somewhat peculiar.  There was no regular
+military force maintained in the nation: the sword, however, was not,
+properly speaking, in the hands of the people: the barons were alone
+intrusted with the defence of the community; and after any effort
+which they made, either against their own prince or against
+foreigners, as the military retainers departed home, the armies were
+disbanded, and could not speedily be re-assembled at pleasure.  It was
+easy, therefore, for a few barons, by a combination, to get the start
+of the other party, to collect suddenly their troops, and to appear
+unexpectedly in the field with an army, which their antagonists,
+though equal, or even superior in power and interest, would not dare
+to encounter.  Hence the sudden revolutions which often took place in
+those governments: hence the frequent victories obtained, without a
+blow, by one faction over the other: and hence it happened, that the
+seeming prevalence of a party was seldom a prognostic of its long
+continuance in power and authority.
+
+[MN 1262.]  The king, as soon as he received the pope's absolution
+from his oath, accompanied with menaces of excommunication against all
+opponents, trusting to the countenance of the church, to the support
+promised him by many considerable barons, and to the returning favour
+of the people, immediately took off the mask.  After justifying his
+conduct by a proclamation, in which he set forth the private ambition,
+and the breach of trust, conspicuous in Leicester and his associates,
+he declared, that he had resumed the government, and was determined
+thenceforth to exert the royal authority for the protection of his
+subjects.  He removed Hugh le Despenser and Nicholas de Ely, the
+justiciary and chancellor appointed by the barons; and put Philip
+Basset and Walter de Merton in their place.  He substituted new
+sheriffs in all the counties, men of character and honour: he placed
+new governors in most of the castles: he changed all the officers of
+his household: [MN 23d April.] he summoned a Parliament, in which the
+resumption of his authority was ratified, with only five dissenting
+voices: and the barons, after making one fruitless effort to take the
+king by surprise at Winchester, were obliged to acquiesce in those new
+regulations [t].
+[FN [t] M. Paris, p. 668.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 55.]
+
+The king, in order to cut off every objection to his conduct, offered
+to refer all the differences between  him and the Earl of Leicester,
+to Margaret, Queen of France [u].  The celebrated integrity of Lewis
+gave a mighty influence to any decision which issued from his court;
+and Henry probably hoped, that the gallantry, on which all barons, as
+true knights, valued themselves, would make them ashamed not to submit
+to the award of that princess.  Lewis merited the confidence reposed
+in him.  By an admirable conduct, probably as political as just, he
+continually interposed his good offices to allay the civil discords of
+the English: he forwarded all healing measures, which might give
+security to both parties: and he still endeavoured, though in vain, to
+soothe, by persuasion, the fierce ambition of the Earl of Leicester,
+and to convince him how much it was his duty to submit peaceably to
+the authority of his sovereign.
+[FN [u] Rymer, vol. i. p. 724.]
+
+[MN 1263.]  That bold and artful conspirator was nowise discouraged by
+the bad success of his past enterprises.  The death of Richard, Earl
+of Gloucester, who was his chief rival in power, and who, before his
+decease, had joined the royal party, seemed to open a new field to his
+violence, and to expose the throne to fresh insults and injuries.  It
+was in vain that the king professed his intentions of observing
+strictly the great charter, even of maintaining all the regulations
+made by the reforming barons at Oxford or afterwards, except those
+which entirely annihilated the royal authority: these powerful
+chieftains, now obnoxious to the court, could not peaceably resign the
+hopes of entire independence and uncontrolled power, with which they
+had flattered themselves, and which they had so long enjoyed.  [MN
+Civil wars of the barons.]  Many of them engaged in Leicester's views;
+and among the rest, Gilbert, the young Earl of Gloucester, who brought
+him a mighty accession of power, from the extensive authority
+possessed by that opulent family.  Even Henry, son of the King of the
+Romans, commonly called Henry d'Allmaine, though a prince of the
+blood, joined the party of the barons against the king, the head of
+his own family.  Leicester himself, who still resided in France,
+secretly formed the links of this great conspiracy, and planned the
+whole scheme of operations.
+
+The princes of Wales, notwithstanding the great power of the monarchs,
+both of the Saxon and Norman line, still preserved authority in their
+own country.  Though they had often been constrained to pay tribute to
+the crown of England, they were with difficulty retained in
+subordination, or even in peace; and almost through every reign since
+the Conquest, they had infested the English frontiers with such petty
+incursions and sudden inroads, as seldom merit to have place in a
+general history.  The English, still content with repelling their
+invasions, and chasing them back into their mountains, had never
+pursued the advantages obtained over them, nor been able, even under
+their greatest and most active princes, to fix a total, or so much as
+a feudal subjection on the country.  This advantage was reserved to
+the present king, the weakest and most indolent.  In the year 1237,
+Lewellyn, Prince of Wales, declining in years, and broken with
+infirmities, but still more harassed with the rebellion and undutiful
+behaviour of his youngest son, Griffin, had recourse to the protection
+of Henry; and consenting to subject his principality, which had so
+long maintained, or soon recovered, its independence, to vassalage
+under the crown of England, had purchased security and tranquillity on
+these dishonourable terms.  His eldest son and heir, David, renewed
+the homage to England; and having taken his brother prisoner,
+delivered him into Henry's hands, who committed him to custody in the
+Tower.  That prince, endeavouring to make his escape, lost his life in
+the attempt; and the Prince of Wales, freed from the apprehensions of
+so dangerous a rival, paid thenceforth less regard to the English
+monarch, and even renewed those incursions, by which the Welsh, during
+so many ages, had been accustomed to infest the English borders.
+Lewellyn, however, the son of Griffin, who succeeded to his uncle, had
+been obliged to renew the homage, which was now claimed by England as
+an established right; but he was well pleased to inflame those civil
+discords, on which he rested his present security, and founded his
+hopes of future independence.  He entered into a confederacy with the
+Earl of Leicester, and collecting all the force of his principality,
+invaded England with an army of thirty thousand men.  He ravaged the
+lands of Roger de Mortimer, and of all the barons who adhered to the
+crown [w]; he marched into Cheshire, and committed like depredations
+on Prince Edward's territories; every place where his disorderly
+troops appeared was laid waste with fire and sword; and though
+Mortimer, a gallant and expert soldier, made stout resistance, it was
+found necessary that the prince himself should head the army against
+this invader.  Edward repulsed Prince Lewellyn, and obliged him to
+take shelter in the mountains of North Wales: but he was prevented
+from making farther progress against the enemy, by the disorders which
+soon after broke out in England.
+[FN [w] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 354.]
+
+The Welsh invasion was the appointed signal for the malecontent barons
+to rise in arms, and Leicester, coming over secretly from France,
+collected all the forces of his party, and commenced an open
+rebellion.  He seized the person of the Bishop of Hereford; a prelate
+obnoxious to all the inferior clergy, on account of his devoted
+attachment to the court of Rome [x].  Simon, Bishop of Norwich, and
+John Mansel, because they had published the pope's bull, absolving the
+king and kingdom from their oaths to observe the provisions of Oxford,
+were made prisoners, and exposed to the rage of the party.  The king's
+demesnes were ravaged with unbounded fury [y]: and as it was
+Leicester's interest to allure to his side, by the hopes of plunder,
+all the disorderly ruffians in England, he gave them a general licence
+to pillage the barons of the opposite party, and even all neutral
+persons.  But one of the principal resources of his faction was the
+populace of the cities, particularly of London; and as he had, by his
+hypocritical pretensions to sanctity, and his zeal against Rome,
+engaged the monks and lower ecclesiastics in his party, his dominion
+over the inferior ranks of men became uncontrollable.  Thomas
+Fitz-Richard, Mayor of London, a furious and licentious man, gave the
+countenance of authority to these disorders in the capital; and having
+declared war against the substantial citizens, he loosened all the
+bands of government, by which that turbulent city was commonly but ill
+restrained.  On the approach of Easter, the zeal of superstition, the
+appetite for plunder, or what is often as prevalent with the populace
+as either of these motives, the pleasure of committing havoc and
+destruction, prompted them to attack the unhappy Jews, who were first
+pillaged without resistance, then massacred to the number of five
+hundred persons [z].  The Lombard bankers wore next exposed to the
+rage of the people; and though, by taking sanctuary in the churches,
+they escaped with their lives, all their money and goods became a prey
+to the licentious multitude.  Even the houses of the rich citizens,
+though English, were attacked by night; and way was made by sword and
+by fire to the pillage of their goods, and often to the destruction of
+their persons.  The queen, who, though defended by the Tower, was
+terrified by the neighbourhood of such dangerous commotions, resolved
+to go by water to the castle of Windsor; but as she approached the
+bridge, the populace assembled against her: the cry ran, DROWN THE
+WITCH; and besides abusing her with the most opprobrious language, and
+pelting her with rotten eggs and dirt, they had prepared large stones
+to sink her barge, when she should attempt to shoot the bridge; and
+she was so frightened, that she returned to the Tower [a].
+[FN [x] Trivet, p. 211.  M. West. p. 382, 392.  [y] Trivet, p. 211.
+M. West. p. 382.  [z] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 59.  [a] Ibid. p. 57.]
+
+The violence and fury of Leicester's faction had risen to such a
+height in all parts of England, that the king, unable to resist their
+power, was obliged to set on foot a treaty of peace; and to make an
+accommodation with the barons on the most disadvantageous terms [b].
+[MN July.]  He agreed to confirm anew the provisions of Oxford, even
+those which entirely annihilated the royal authority; and the barons
+were again reinstated in the sovereignty of the kingdom.  They
+restored Hugh le Despenser to the office of chief justiciary; they
+appointed their own creatures sheriffs in every county in England;
+they took possession of all the royal castles and fortresses; they
+even named all the officers of the king's household; and they summoned
+a Parliament to meet at Westminster, in order to settle more fully
+their plan of government.  [MN 1263.  14th Oct.]  They here produced a
+new list of twenty-four barons, to whom they proposed that the
+administration should be entirely committed; and they insisted that
+the authority of this junto should continue, not only during the reign
+of the king, but also during that of Prince Edward.
+[FN [b] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 358.  Trivet, p. 211.]
+
+This prince, the life and soul of the royal party, had unhappily,
+before the king's accommodation with the barons, been taken prisoner
+by Leicester in a parley at Windsor [c]; and that misfortune, more
+than any other incident, had determined Henry to submit to the
+ignominious conditions imposed upon him.  But Edward, having recovered
+his liberty by the treaty, employed his activity in defending the
+prerogatives of his family; and he gained a great party even among
+those who had at first adhered to the cause of the barons.  His cousin
+Henry d'Allmaine, Roger Bigod, earl marshal, Earl Warrenne, Humphrey
+Bohun, Eaff of Hereford, John Lord Basset, Ralph Basset, Hammond
+l'Estrange, Roger Mortimer, Henry de Piercy, Robert do Brus, Roger de
+Leybourne, with almost all the lords marchers, as they were called, on
+the borders of Wales and of Scotland, the most warlike parts of the
+kingdom, declared in favour of the royal cause; and hostilities, which
+were scarcely well composed, were again renewed in every part of
+England.  But the near balance of the parties, joined to the universal
+clamour of the people, obliged the king and barons to open anew the
+negotiations for peace; and it was agreed, by both sides, to submit
+their differences to the arbitration of the King of France [d].
+[FN [c] M. Paris, p. 669.  Trivet, p. 213.  [d] M. Paris, p. 668.
+Chron. T. Wykes, p. 58.  W. Heming, p. 580.  Chron Dunst. vol. i. p.
+363.]
+
+[MN Reference to the King of France.]
+This virtuous prince, the only man who, in like circumstances, could
+safely have been intrusted with such an authority by a neighbouring
+nation, had never ceased to interpose his good offices between the
+English factions; and had even, during the short interval of peace,
+invited over to Paris both the king and the Earl of Leicester, in
+order to accommodate the differences between them; but found, that the
+fears and animosities on both sides, as well as the ambition of
+Leicester, were so violent, as to render all his endeavours
+ineffectual.  But when this solemn appeal, ratified by the oaths and
+subscriptions of the leaders in both factions, was made to his
+judgment, he was not discouraged from pursuing his honourable purpose:
+[MN 1264.] he summoned the states of France at Amiens; and there, in
+the presence of that assembly, as well as in that of the King of
+England, and Peter de Montfort, Leicester's son, he brought this great
+cause to a trial and examination.  It appeared to him, that the
+provisions of Oxford, even had they not been extorted by force, had
+they not been so exorbitant in their nature, and subversive of the
+ancient constitution, were expressly established as a temporary
+expedient, and could not, without breach of trust, be rendered
+perpetual by the barons.  [MN 23d Jan.]  He therefore annulled these
+provisions; restored to the king the possession of his castles, and
+the power of nomination to the great offices; allowed him to retain
+what foreigners he pleased in his kingdom, and even to confer on them
+places of trust and dignity; and, in a word, re-established the royal
+power in the same condition on which it stood before the meeting of
+the Parliament at Oxford.  But while he thus suppressed dangerous
+innovations, and preserved unimpaired the prerogatives of the English
+crown, he was not negligent of the rights of the people; and besides
+ordering that a general amnesty should be granted for all past
+offences, he declared that his award was not anywise meant to derogate
+from the privileges and liberties which the nation enjoyed by any
+former concessions or charters of the crown [e].
+[FN [e] Rymer, vol. i. p. 776, 777, &c.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 58.
+Knyghton, p. 2446.]
+
+This equitable sentence was no sooner known in England, than Leicester
+and his confederates determined to reject it, and to have recourse to
+arms, in order to procure to themselves more safe and advantageous
+conditions [f].  [MN Renewal of the civil wars.]  Without regard to
+his oaths and subscriptions, that enterprising conspirator directed
+his two sons, Richard and Peter de Montfort, in conjunction with
+Robert de Ferrars, Earl of Derby, to attack the city of Worcester;
+while Henry and Simon de Montfort, two others of his sons, assisted by
+the Prince of Wales, were ordered to lay  waste the estate of Roger de
+Mortimer.  He himself resided at London; and employing, as his
+instrument, Fitz-Richard, the seditious mayor, who had violently and
+illegally prolonged his authority, he wrought up that city to the
+highest ferment and agitation.  The populace formed themselves into
+bands and companies; chose leaders; practised all military exercises;
+committed violence on the royalists; and to give them greater
+countenance in their disorders, an association was entered into
+between the city and eighteen great barons, never to make peace with
+the king but by common consent and approbation.  At the head of those
+who swore to maintain this association were the Earls of Leicester,
+Gloucester, and Derby, with le Despenser, the chief justiciary; men
+who had all previously sworn to submit to the award of the French
+monarch.  Their only pretence for this breach of faith was, that the
+latter part of Lewis's sentence was, as they affirmed, a contradiction
+to the former: he ratified the charter of liberties, yet annulled the
+provisions of Oxford; which were only calculated, as they maintained,
+to preserve that charter; and without which, in their estimation, they
+had no security for its observance.
+[FN [f] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 363.]
+
+The king and prince finding a civil war inevitable, prepared
+themselves for defence; and summoning the military vassals from all
+quarters, and being reinforced by Baliol, Lord of Galloway, Brus, Lord
+of Annandale, Henry Piercy, John Comyn [g], and other barons of the
+north, they composed an army, formidable, as well from its numbers as
+its military prowess and experience.  The first enterprise of the
+royalists was the attack of Northampton, which was defended by Simon
+de Montfort, with many of the principal barons of that party; and a
+breach being made in the walls by Philip Basset, the place was carried
+by assault, and both the governor and the garrison were made
+prisoners.  [MN 5th April.]  The royalists marched thence to Leicester
+and Nottingham; both which places having opened their gates to them,
+Prince Edward proceeded with a detachment into the county of Derby, in
+order to ravage with fire and sword the lands of the earl of that
+name, and take revenge on him for his disloyalty.  Like maxims of war
+prevailed with both parties throughout England; and the kingdom was
+thus exposed in a moment to greater devastation, from the animosities
+of the rival barons, than it would have suffered from many years of
+foreign or even domestic hostilities, conducted by more humane and
+more generous principles.
+[FN [g] Rymer, vol. i. p 772.  M. West. p. 385.  Ypod. Neust. p. 469.]
+
+The Earl of Leicester, master of London, and of the counties in the
+south-east of England, formed the siege of Rochester, which alone
+declared for the king in those parts, and which, besides Earl
+Warrenne, the governor, was garrisoned by many noble and powerful
+barons of the royal party.  The king and prince hastened from
+Nottingham, where they were then quartered, to the relief of the
+place; and on their approach, Leicester raised the siege, and
+retreated to London, which, being the centre of his power, he was
+afraid might, in his absence, fall into the king's hands, either by
+force, or by a correspondence with the principal citizens, who were
+all secretly inclined to the royal cause.  Reinforced by a great body
+of Londoners, and having summoned his partisans from all quarters, he
+thought himself strong enough to hazard a general battle with the
+royalists, and to determine the fate of the nation in one great
+engagement; which, if it proved successful, must be decisive against
+the king, who had no retreat for his broken troops in those parts;
+while Leicester himself, in case of any sinister accident, could
+easily take shelter in the city.  To give the better colouring to his
+cause, he previously sent a message with conditions of peace to Henry,
+submissive in the language, but exorbitant in the demands [h]; and
+when the messenger returned with the lie and defiance from the king,
+the prince, and the King of the Romans, he sent a new message,
+renouncing in the name of himself and of the associated barons, all
+fealty and allegiance to Henry.  He then marched out of the city, with
+his army divided into four bodies: the first commanded by his two
+sons, Henry and Guy de Montfort, together with Humphrey de Bohun, Earl
+of Hereford, who had deserted to the barons; the second led by the
+Earl of Gloucester, with William de Montchesney and John Fitz-John;
+the third, composed of Londoners, under the command of Nicholas de
+Segrave; the fourth headed by himself in person.  The Bishop of
+Chichester gave a general absolution to the army, accompanied with
+assurances that, if any of them fell in the ensuing action, they would
+infallibly be received into heaven, as the reward of their suffering
+in so meritorious a cause.
+[FN [h] M. Paris, p. 669.  W. Heming. p. 583.]
+
+[MN Battle of Lewes.  14th May.]
+Leicester, who possessed great talents for war, conducted his march
+with such skill and secrecy, that he had well nigh surprised the
+royalists in their quarters at Lewes in Sussex: but the vigilance and
+activity of Prince Edward soon repaired this negligence; and he led
+out the king's army to the field in three bodies.  He himself
+conducted the van, attended by Earl Warrenne and William de Valence:
+the main body was commanded by the King of the Romans and his son
+Henry: the king himself was placed in the rear at the head of his
+principal nobility.  Prince Edward rushed upon the Londoners, who had
+demanded the post of honour in leading the rebel army, but who, from
+their ignorance of discipline and want of experience, were ill fitted
+to resist the gentry and military men, of whom the prince's body was
+composed.  They were broken in an instant; were chased off the field;
+and Edward, transported by his martial ardour, and eager to revenge
+the insolence of the Londoners against his mother [i], put them to the
+sword for the length of four miles, without giving them any quarter,
+and without reflecting on the fate which in the mean time attended the
+rest of the army.  The Earl of Leicester, seeing the royalists thrown
+into confusion by their eagerness in the pursuit, led on his remaining
+troops against the bodies commanded by the two royal brothers: he
+defeated, with great slaughter, the forces headed by the King of the
+Romans; and that prince was obliged to yield himself prisoner to the
+Earl of Gloucester; he penetrated to the body where the king himself
+was placed, threw it into disorder, pursued his advantage, chased it
+into the town of Lewes, and obliged Henry to surrender himself
+prisoner [k].
+[FN [i] M. Paris, p. 670.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 62.  W. Heming. p. 583.
+M. West. p. 387.  Ypod. Neust. p. 469.  H. Knyghton, p. 2450.  [k] M.
+Paris, p. 670.  M. West. p. 387.]
+
+Prince Edward, returning to the field of battle from his precipitate
+pursuit of the Londoners, was astonished to find it covered with the
+dead bodies of his friends and still more to hear, that his father and
+uncle were defeated and taken prisoners, and that Arundel, Comyn Brus,
+Hamond L'Estrange, Roger Leybourne, and many considerable barons of
+his party, were in the hands of the victorious enemy.  Earl Warrenne,
+Hugh Bigod, and William de Valence, struck with despair at this event,
+immediately took to flight, hurried to Pevensey, and made their escape
+beyond sea [l]: but the prince, intrepid amidst the greatest
+disasters, exhorted his troops to revenge the death of their friends,
+to relieve the royal captives, and to snatch an easy conquest from an
+enemy disordered by their own victory [m].  He found his followers
+intimidated by their situation; while Leicester, afraid of a sudden
+and violent blow from the prince, amused him by a feigned negotiation,
+till he was able to recall his troops from the pursuit, and to bring
+them into order [n].  There now appeared no farther resource to the
+royal party, surrounded by the armies and garrisons of the enemy,
+destitute of forage and provisions, and deprived of their sovereign,
+as well as of their principal leaders, who could alone inspirit them
+to an obstinate resistance.  The prince, therefore, was obliged to
+submit to Leicester's terms, which were short and severe, agreeably to
+the suddenness and necessity of the situation: he stipulated, that he
+and Henry d'Allmaine should surrender themselves prisoners as pledges
+in lieu of the two kings; that all other prisoners on both sides
+should be released [o]; and that, in order to settle fully the terms
+of agreement, application should be made to the King of France, that
+he should name six Frenchmen, three prelates, and three noblemen:
+these six to choose two others of their own country; and these two to
+choose one Englishman, who, in conjunction with themselves, were to be
+invested by both parties with full powers to make what regulations
+they thought proper for the settlement of the kingdom.  The prince and
+young Henry accordingly delivered themselves into Leicester's hands,
+who sent them under a guard to Dover castle.  Such are the terms of
+agreement commonly called the MISE of Lewes, from an obsolete French
+term of that meaning: for it appears, that all the gentry and nobility
+of England, who valued themselves on their Norman extraction, and who
+disdained the language of their native country, made familiar use of
+the French tongue till this period, and for some time after.
+[FN [l] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 63.  [m] W. Heming. p. 584.  [n] Ibid.
+[o] M. Paris, p. 671  Knyghton, p. 2451.]
+
+Leicester had no sooner obtained this great advantage, and gotten the
+whole royal family in his power, than he openly violated every article
+of the treaty, and acted as sole master, and even tyrant of the
+kingdom.  He still detained the king in effect a prisoner, and made
+use of that prince's authority to purposes the most prejudicial to his
+interests, and the most oppressive of his people [p].  He every where
+disarmed the royalists, and kept all his own partisans in a military
+posture [q]: he observed the same partial conduct in the deliverance
+of the captives, and even threw many of the royalists into prison,
+besides those who were taken in the battle of Lewes: he carried the
+king from place to place, and obliged all the royal castles, on
+pretence of Henry's commands, to receive a governor and garrison of
+his own appointment: all the officers of the crown and of the
+household were named by him; and the whole authority, as well as arms
+of the state, was lodged in his hands: he instituted in the counties a
+new kind of magistracy, endowed with new and arbitrary powers, that of
+conservators of the peace [r]: his avarice appeared bare-faced, and
+might induce us to question the greatness of his ambition, at least
+the largeness of his mind, if we had not reason to think, that he
+intended to employ his acquisitions as the instruments for attaining
+farther power and grandeur.  He seized the estates of no less than
+eighteen barons, as his share of the spoil gained in the battle of
+Lewes: he engrossed to himself the ransom of all the prisoners; and
+told his barons, with a wanton insolence, that it was sufficient for
+them that he had saved them, by that victory, from the forfeitures
+and attainders which hung over them [s]: he even treated the Earl of
+Gloucester in the same injurious manner, and applied to his own use
+the ransom of the King of the Romans, who, in the field of battle, had
+yielded himself prisoner to that nobleman.  Henry, his eldest son,
+made a monopoly of all the wool in the kingdom, the only valuable
+commodity for foreign markets which it at that time produced [t].  The
+inhabitants of the cinque-ports, during the present dissolution of
+government, betook themselves to the most licentious piracy, preyed on
+the ships of all nations, threw the mariners into the sea, and, by
+these practices, soon banished all merchants from the English coasts
+and harbours.  Every foreign commodity rose to an exorbitant price;
+and woollen cloth, which the English had not then the art of dyeing,
+was worn by them white, and without receiving the last hand of the
+manufacturer.  In answer to the complaints which arose on this
+occasion, Leicester replied, that the kingdom could well enough
+subsist within itself, and needed no intercourse with foreigners; and
+it was found that he even combined with the pirates of the
+cinque-ports, and received as his share the third of their prizes [u].
+[FN [p] Rymer, vol. i. p. 790, 791, &c.  [q] Ibid. p. 795.  Brady's
+Appeals, No. 211, 212.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 63.  [r] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+792.  [s] Knyghton, p. 2451.  [t] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 65.  [u] Ibid.]
+
+No farther mention was made of the reference to the King of France, so
+essential an article in the agreement of Lewes; and Leicester summoned
+a Parliament, composed altogether of his own partisans, in order to
+rivet, by their authority, that power which he had acquired by so much
+violence, and which he used with so much tyranny and injustice.  An
+ordinance was there passed, to which the king's consent had been
+previously extorted, that every act of royal power should be exercised
+by a council of nine persons, who were to be chosen and removed by the
+majority of three, Leicester himself, the Earl of Gloucester, and the
+Bishop of Chichester [w].  By this intricate plan of government, the
+sceptre was really put into Leicester's hands; as he had the entire
+direction of the Bishop of Chichester, and thereby commanded all the
+resolutions of the council of three, who could  appoint or discard at
+pleasure every member of the supreme council.
+[FN [w] Rymer, vol. i. p. 793.  Brady's App. No. 213.]
+
+But it was impossible that things could long remain in this strange
+situation.  It behoved Leicester either to descend with some peril
+into the rank of a subject or to mount up with no less into that of a
+sovereign; and his ambition, unrestrained either by fear or by
+principle, gave too much reason to suspect him of the latter
+intention.  Meanwhile he was exposed to anxiety from every quarter;
+and felt that the smallest incident was capable of overturning that
+immense and ill-cemented fabric which he had reared.  The queen, whom
+her husband had left abroad, had collected in foreign parts an army of
+desperate adventurers, and had assembled a great number of ships, with
+a view of invading the kingdom, and of bringing relief to her
+unfortunate family.  Lewis, detesting Leicester's usurpations and
+perjuries, and disgusted at the English barons, who had refused to
+submit to his award, secretly favoured all her enterprises, and was
+generally believed to be making preparations for the same purpose.  An
+English army, by the pretended authority of the captive king, was
+assembled on the seacoast to oppose this projected invasion [x]; but
+Leicester owed his safety more to cross winds, which long detained and
+at last dispersed and ruined the queen's fleet, than to any resistance
+which, in their present situation, could have been expected from the
+English.
+[FN [x] Brady's App. No. 216, 217.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 373.  M.
+West. p. 385.]
+
+Leicester found himself better able to resist the spiritual thunders
+which were levelled against him.  The pope, still adhering to the
+king's cause, against the barons, despatched Cardinal Guido as his
+legate into England, with orders to excommunicate, by name, the three
+earls, Leicester, Gloucester, and Norfolk, and all others, in general,
+who concurred in the oppression and captivity of their sovereign [y].
+Leicester menaced the legate with death, if he set foot within the
+kingdom; but Guido, meeting in France the Bishops of Winchester,
+London, and Worcester, who had been sent thither on a negotiation,
+commanded them, under the penalty of ecclesiastical censures, to carry
+his bull into England, and to publish it against the barons.  When the
+prelates arrived off the coast, they were boarded by the piratical
+mariners of the cinque-ports, to whom probably they gave a hint of the
+cargo which they brought along with them: the bull was torn and thrown
+into the sea; which furnished the artful prelates with a plausible
+excuse for not obeying the orders of the legate.  Leicester appealed
+from Guido to the pope in person; but before the ambassadors,
+appointed to defend his cause, could reach Rome, the pope was dead;
+and they found the legate himself, from whom they had appealed, seated
+on the papal throne, by the name of Urban IV.  That daring leader was
+nowise dismayed with this incident; and as he found that a great part
+of his popularity in England was founded on his opposition to the
+court of Rome, which was now become odious, he persisted with the more
+obstinacy in the prosecution of his measures.
+[FN [y] Rymer, vol. i. p. 798.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 373.]
+
+[MN 1265.  20th Jan.]  That he might both increase and turn to
+advantage his popularity, Leicester summoned a new Parliament in
+London, where he knew his power was uncontrollable; and he fixed this
+assembly on a more democratical basis than any which had ever been
+summoned since the foundation of the monarchy.  Besides the barons of
+his own party, and several ecclesiastics who were not immediate
+tenants of the crown, he ordered returns to be made of two knights
+from each shire, and what is more remarkable, of deputies from the
+boroughs, an order of men which, in former ages, had always been
+regarded as too mean to enjoy a place in the national councils [z].
+[MN House of Commons.]  This period is commonly esteemed the epoch of
+the House of Commons in England; and it is certainly the first time
+that historians speak of any representatives sent to Parliament by the
+boroughs.  In all the general accounts given in preceding times of
+those assemblies, the prelates and barons only are mentioned as the
+constituent members; and even in the most particular narratives
+delivered of parliamentary transactions, as in the trial of Thomas à
+Becket, where the events of each day, and almost of each hour, are
+carefully recorded by contemporary authors [a], there is not,
+throughout the whole, the least appearance of a House of Commons.  But
+though that House derived  its existence from so precarious and even
+so invidious an origin as Leicester's usurpation, it soon proved, when
+summoned by the legal princes, one of the most useful, and, in process
+of time, one of the most powerful members of the national
+constitution; and gradually rescued the kingdom from aristocratical as
+well as from regal tyranny.  But Leicester's policy, if we must
+ascribe to him so great a blessing, only forwarded by some years an
+institution, for which the general state of things had already
+prepared the nation; and it is otherwise inconceivable, that a plant
+set by so inauspicious a hand could have attained to so vigorous a
+growth, and have flourished in the midst of such tempests and
+convulsions.  The feudal system, with which the liberty, much more the
+power of the Commons, was totally incompatible, began gradually to
+decline; and both the king and the commonalty, who felt its
+inconveniences, contributed to favour this new power, which was more
+submissive than the barons to the regular authority of the crown, and
+at the same time afforded protection to the inferior orders of the
+state.
+[FN [z] Rymer, vol. i. p. 802.  [a] Fitz-Stephen, Hist. Quadrip.
+Hoveden, &c.]
+
+Leicester having thus assembled a Parliament of his own model, and
+trusting to the attachment of the populace of London, seized the
+opportunity of crushing his rivals among the powerful barons.  Robert
+de Ferrars, Earl of Derby, was accused in the king's name, seized, and
+committed to custody without being brought to any legal trial [b].
+John Gifford, menaced with the same fate, fled from London, and took
+shelter in the borders of Wales.  Even the Earl of Gloucester, whose
+power and influence had so much contributed to the success of the
+barons, but who of late was extremely disgusted with Leicester's
+arbitrary conduct, found himself in danger from the prevailing
+authority of his ancient confederate; and he retired from Parliament
+[c].  This known dissension gave courage to all Leicester's enemies
+and to the king's friends, who were now sure of protection from so
+potent a leader.  Though Roger Mortimer, Hamond L'Estrange, and other
+powerful marchers of Wales, had been obliged to leave the kingdom,
+their authority still remained over the territories subjected to their
+jurisdiction; and there were many others who were disposed to give
+disturbance to the new government.  The animosities, inseparable from
+the feudal aristocracy, broke out with fresh violence, and threatened
+the kingdom with new convulsions and disorders.
+[FN [b] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 66.  Ann. Waverl. p. 216.  [c] M. Paris,
+p. 671.  Ann. Waverl. p. 216.]
+
+The Earl of Leicester, surrounded with these difficulties, embraced a
+measure from which he hoped to reap some present advantages, but which
+proved in the end the source of all his future calamities.  The active
+and intrepid Prince Edward had languished in prison ever since the
+fatal battle of Lewes; and as he was extremely popular in the kingdom,
+there arose a general desire of seeing him again restored to liberty
+[d].  Leicester, finding that he could with difficulty oppose the
+concurring wishes of the nation, stipulated with the prince, that, in
+return, he should order his adherents to deliver up to the barons all
+their castles, particularly those on the borders of Wales; and should
+swear neither to depart the kingdom during three years, nor introduce
+into it any foreign forces [e].  The king took an oath to the same
+effect, and he also passed a charter, in which he confirmed the
+agreement or MISE of Lewes; and even permitted his subjects to rise in
+arms against him if he should ever attempt to infringe it [f].  So
+little care did Leicester take, though he constantly made use of the
+authority of this captive prince, to preserve to him any appearance of
+royalty or kingly prerogatives!
+[FN [d] Knyghton, p. 2451.  [e] Ann. Waverl. p. 216.  [f] Blackstone's
+Mag. Charta.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 378.]
+
+[MN 11th Mar.]  In consequence of this treaty, Prince Edward was
+brought into Westminster-hall, and was declared free by the barons:
+but instead of really recovering his liberty, as he had vainly
+expected, he found that the whole transaction was a fraud on the part
+of Leicester; that he himself still continued a prisoner at large, and
+was guarded by the emissaries of that nobleman; and that, while the
+faction reaped all the benefit from the performance of his part of the
+treaty, care was taken that he should enjoy no advantage by it.  As
+Gloucester, on his rupture with the barons, had retired for safety to
+his estates on the borders of Wales, Leicester followed him with an
+army to Hereford [g]; continued still to menace and negotiate; and
+that he might add authority to his cause, he carried both the king and
+prince along with him.  The Earl of Gloucester here concerted with
+young Edward the manner of that prince's escape.  He found means to
+convey to him a horse of extraordinary swiftness; and appointed Roger
+Mortimer, who had returned into the kingdom, to be ready at hand with
+a small party to receive the prince, and to guard him to a place of
+safety.  Edward pretended to take the air with some of Leicester's
+retinue, who were his guards; and making matches between their horses,
+after he thought he had tired and blown them sufficiently, he suddenly
+mounted Gloucester's horse and called to his attendants, that he had
+long enough enjoyed the pleasure of their company, and now bid them
+adieu.  They followed him for some time, without being able to
+overtake him; and the appearance of Mortimer with his company put an
+end to their pursuit.
+[FN [g] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 67.  Ann. Waverl. p. 218.  W. Heming. p.
+585.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 383, 384.]
+
+The royalists, secretly prepared for this event, immediately flew to
+arms; and the joy of this gallant prince's deliverance, the
+oppressions under which the nation laboured, the expectation of a new
+scene of affairs, and the countenance of the Earl of Gloucester,
+procured Edward an army which Leicester was utterly unable to
+withstand.  This nobleman found himself in a remote quarter of the
+kingdom, surrounded by his enemies, barred from all communication with
+his friends by the Severn, whose bridges Edward had broken down, and
+obliged to fight the cause of his party under these multiplied
+disadvantages.  In this extremity he wrote to his son, Simon de
+Montfort, to hasten from London with an army for his relief; and Simon
+had advanced to Kenilworth with that view, where, fancying that all
+Edward's force and attention were directed against his father, he lay
+secure and unguarded.  But the prince, making a sudden and forced
+march, surprised him in his camp, dispersed his army, and took the
+Earl of Oxford and many other noblemen prisoners, almost without
+resistance.  Leicester, ignorant of his son 's fate, passed the Severn
+in boats during Edward's absence, and lay at Evesham, in expectation
+of being every hour joined by his friends from London; when the
+prince, who availed himself of every favourable moment, appeared in
+the field before him.  [MN Battle of Evesham and death of Leicester.
+4th Aug.]  Edward made a body of his troops advance from the road
+which led to Kenilworth, and ordered them to carry the banners taken
+from Simon's army; while he himself, making a circuit with the rest of
+his forces, purposed to attack the enemy on the other quarter.
+Leicester was long deceived by this stratagem, and took one division
+of Edward's army for his friends; but at last, perceiving his mistake,
+and observing the great superiority and excellent disposition of the
+royalists, he exclaimed that they had learned from him the art of war,
+adding, "The Lord have mercy on our souls, for I see our bodies are
+the prince's!"  The battle immediately began, though on very unequal
+terms.  Leicester's army, by living on the mountains of Wales without
+bread, which was not then much used among the inhabitants, had been
+extremely weakened by sickness and desertion, and was soon broken by
+the victorious royalists; while his Welsh allies, accustomed only to a
+desultory kind of war, immediately took to flight, and were pursued
+with great slaughter.  Leicester himself; asking for quarter, was
+slain in the heat of the action, with his eldest son Henry, Hugh le
+Despenser, and about one hundred and sixty knights, and many other
+gentlemen of his party.  The old king had been purposely placed by the
+rebels in the front of the battle; and being clad in armour, and
+thereby not known by his friends, he received a wound, and was in
+danger of his life; but crying out, I AM HENRY OF WINCHESTER, YOUR
+KING, he was saved, and put in a place of safety by his son, who flew
+to his rescue.
+
+The violence, ingratitude, tyranny, rapacity, and treachery of the
+Earl of Leicester, give a very bad idea of his moral character, and
+make us regard his death as the most fortunate event which, in this
+conjuncture, could have happened to the English nation; yet must we
+allow the man to have possessed great abilities, and the appearance of
+great virtues, who, though a stranger, could at a time when strangers
+were the most odious, and the most universally decried, have acquired
+so extensive an interest in the kingdom, and have so nearly paved his
+way to the throne itself.  His military capacity and his political
+craft were equally eminent: he possessed the talents both of governing
+men and conducting business: and though his ambition was boundless, it
+seems neither to have exceeded his courage nor his genius; and he had
+the happiness of making the low populace, as well as the haughty
+barons, co-operate towards the success of his selfish and dangerous
+purposes.  A prince of greater abilities and vigour than Henry, might
+have directed the talents of this nobleman either to the exaltation of
+his throne, or to the good of his people: but the advantages given to
+Leicester by the weak and variable administration of the king, brought
+on the ruin of royal authority, and produced great confusions in the
+kingdom, which however, in the end, preserved and extremely improved
+national liberty and the constitution.  His popularity, even after his
+death, continued so great, that though he was excommunicated by Rome,
+the people believed him to be a saint; and many miracles were said to
+be wrought upon his tomb [h].
+[FN [h] Chron. de Mailr. p. 232.]
+
+[MN Settlement of the government.]
+The victory of Evesham, with the death of Leicester, proved decisive
+in favour of the royalists, and made an equal, though an opposite,
+impression on friends and enemies in every part of England.  The King
+of the Romans recovered his liberty: the other prisoners of the royal
+party were not only freed, but courted by their keepers: Fitz-Richard,
+the seditious Mayor of London, who had marked out forty of the most
+wealthy citizens for slaughter, immediately stopped his hand on
+receiving intelligence of this great event: and almost all the
+castles, garrisoned by the barons, hastened to make their submissions,
+and to open their gates to the king.  The isle of Axholme alone, and
+that of Ely, trusting to the strength of their situation, ventured to
+make resistance; but were at last reduced, as well as the castle of
+Dover, by the valour and activity of Prince Edward [i].  [MN 1266.]
+Adam de Gourdon, a courageous baron, maintained himself during some
+time in the forests of Hampshire, committed depredations in the
+neighbourhood, and obliged the prince to lead a body of troops into
+that county against him.  Edward attacked the camp of the rebels; and
+being transported by the ardour of battle, leaped over the trench with
+a few followers, and encountered Gourdon in single combat.  The
+victory was long disputed between these valiant combatants; but ended
+at last in the prince's favour, who wounded his antagonist, threw him
+from his horse, and took him prisoner.  He not only gave him his life,
+but introduced him that very night to the queen at Guildford, procured
+him his pardon, restored him to his estate, received him into favour,
+and was ever after faithfully served by him [k].
+[FN [i] M. Paris, p. 676.  W. Heming, p. 588.  [k] M. Paris, p. 675.]
+
+A total victory of the sovereign over so extensive a rebellion
+commonly produces a revolution of government, and strengthens as well
+as enlarges, for some time, the prerogatives of the crown: yet no
+sacrifices of national liberty were made on this occasion; the great
+charter remained still inviolate; and the king, sensible that his own
+barons, by whose assistance alone he had prevailed, were no less
+jealous of their independence than the other party, seems thenceforth
+to have more carefully abstained from all those exertions of power
+which had afforded so plausible a pretence to the rebels.  The
+clemency of this victory is also remarkable: no blood was shed on the
+scaffold: no attainders, except of the Montfort family, were carried
+into execution: and though a Parliament, assembled at Winchester,
+attainted all those who had borne arms against the king, easy
+compositions were made with them for their lands [1]; and the highest
+sum levied on the most obnoxious offenders exceeded not five years'
+rent of their estate.  Even the Earl of Derby, who again rebelled,
+after having been pardoned and restored to his fortune, was obliged to
+pay only seven years' rent, and was a second time restored.  The mild
+disposition of the king, and the prudence of the prince, tempered the
+insolence of victory, and gradually restored order to the several
+members of the state, disjointed by so long a continuance of civil
+wars and commotions.
+[FN [l] Id. ibid.]
+
+The city of London, which had carried farthest the rage and animosity
+against the king, and which seemed determined to stand upon its
+defence after almost all the kingdom had submitted, was, after some
+interval, restored to most of its liberties and privileges; and
+Fitz-Richard the mayor, who had been guilty of so much illegal
+violence, was only punished by fine and imprisonment.  The Countess of
+Leicester, the king's sister, who had been extremely forward in all
+attacks on the royal family, was dismissed the kingdom with her two
+sons, Simon and Guy, who proved very ungrateful for this lenity.  Five
+years afterwards, they assassinated, at Viterbo in Italy, their cousin
+Henry d'Allmaine, who at that very time was endeavouring to make their
+peace with the king; and by taking sanctuary in the church of the
+Franciscans, they escaped the punishment due to so great an enormity
+[m].
+[FN [m] Rymer, vol. i. p. 879. vol. ii. p. 4, 5.  Chron. T. Wykes, p.
+94.  W. Heming. p. 589.  Trivet, p. 240.]
+
+[MN 1267.]  The merits of the Earl of Gloucester, after he returned to
+his allegiance, had been so great in restoring the prince to his
+liberty, and assisting him in his victories against the rebellious
+barons, that it was almost impossible to content him in his demands;
+and his youth and temerity, as well as his great power, tempted him,
+on some new disgust, to raise again the flames of rebellion in the
+kingdom.  The mutinous populace of London, at his instigation, took to
+arms; and the prince was obliged to levy an army of thirty thousand
+men in order to suppress them.  Even this second rebellion did not
+provoke the king to any act of cruelty; and the Earl of Gloucester
+himself escaped with total impunity.  He was only obliged to enter
+into a bond of twenty thousand marks, that he should never again be
+guilty of rebellion: a strange method of enforcing the laws, and a
+proof of the dangerous independence of the barons in those ages!
+These potent nobles were, from the danger of the precedent, averse to
+the execution of the laws of forfeiture and felony against any of
+their fellows; though they could not, with a good grace, refuse to
+concur in obliging them to fulfil any voluntary contract and
+engagement into which they had entered.
+
+[MN 1270.]  The prince, finding the state of the kingdom tolerably
+composed, was seduced, by his avidity for glory and by the prejudices
+of the age, as well as by the earnest solicitations of the King of
+France, to undertake an expedition against the infidels in the Holy
+Land [n]; and he endeavoured previously to settle the state in such a
+manner as to dread no bad effects from his absence.  As the formidable
+power and turbulent disposition of the Earl of Gloucester gave him
+apprehensions, he insisted on carrying him along with him, in
+consequence of a vow which that nobleman had made to undertake the
+same voyage: in the mean time, he obliged him to resign some of his
+castles, and to enter into a new bond not to disturb the peace of the
+kingdom [o].  He sailed from England with an army, and arrived in
+Lewis's camp before Tunis in Africa, where he found that monarch
+already dead from the intemperance of the climate and the fatigues of
+his enterprise.  The great, if not only, weakness of this prince in
+his government, was the imprudent passion for crusades; but it was his
+zeal chiefly that procured him from the clergy the title of St. Lewis,
+by which he is known in the French history; and if that appellation
+had not been so extremely prostituted, as to become rather a term of
+reproach, he seems by his uniform probity and goodness, as well as his
+piety, to have fully merited the title.  He was succeeded by his son
+Philip, denominated the Hardy; a prince of some merit, though much
+inferior to that of his father.
+[FN [n] M. Paris, p. 677.  [o] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 90.]
+
+[MN 1271.]  Prince Edward, not discouraged by this event, continued
+his voyage to the Holy Land, where he signalized himself by acts of
+valour; revived the glory of the English name in those parts; and
+struck such terror into the Saracens, that they employed an assassin
+to murder him, who wounded him in the arm, but perished in the attempt
+[p].  Meanwhile, his absence from England was attended with many of
+those pernicious consequences  which had been dreaded from it.  The
+laws were not executed: the barons oppressed the common people with
+impunity [q]: they gave shelter on their estates to bands of robbers,
+whom they employed in committing ravages on the estates of their
+enemies: the populace of London returned to their usual
+licentiousness: and the old king, unequal to the burden of public
+affairs, called aloud for his gallant son to return [r], and to assist
+him in swaying that sceptre which was ready to drop from his feeble
+and irresolute hands.  [MN 1272.  16th Nov.  Death,]  At last,
+overcome by the cares of government and the infirmities of age, he
+visibly declined, and he expired at St. Edmondsbury, in the
+sixty-fourth year of his age, and fifty-sixth of his reign; the
+longest reign that is to be met with in the English annals.  His
+brother, the King of the Romans, (for he never attained the title of
+Emperor,) died about seven months before him.
+[FN [p] M. Paris, p. 678, 679.  W. Heming. p. 520.  [q] Chron. Dunst.
+vol. i. p. 404.  [r] Rymer, vol. i. p. 869.  M. Paris, p. 678.]
+
+[MN and character of the king.]  The most obvious circumstance of
+Henry's character is his incapacity for government, which rendered him
+as much a prisoner in the hands of his own ministers and favourites,
+and as little at his own disposal, as when detained a captive in the
+hands of his enemies.  From this source, rather than from insincerity
+or treachery, arose his negligence in observing his promises; and he
+was too easily induced, for the sake of present convenience, to
+sacrifice the lasting advantages arising from the trust and confidence
+of his people.  Hence too were derived his profusion to favourites,
+his attachment to strangers, the variableness of his conduct, his
+hasty resentments, and his sudden forgiveness and return of affection.
+Instead of reducing the dangerous power of his nobles, by obliging
+them to observe the laws towards their inferiors, and setting them the
+salutary example in his own government, he was seduced to imitate
+their conduct, and to make his arbitrary will, or rather that of his
+ministers, the rule of his actions.  Instead of accommodating himself,
+by a strict frugality, to the embarrassed situation in which his
+revenue had been left by the military expeditions of his uncle, the
+dissipations of his father, and the usurpations of the barons; he was
+tempted to levy money by irregular exactions, which, without enriching
+himself, impoverished, at least disgusted, his people.  Of all men,
+nature seemed least to have fitted him for being a tyrant; yet there
+are instances of oppression in his reign, which, though derived from
+the precedents left him by his predecessors, had been carefully
+guarded against by the great charter, and are inconsistent with all
+rules of good government.  And on the whole, we may say, that greater
+abilities, with his good dispositions, would have prevented him from
+falling into his faults; or, with worse dispositions, would have
+enabled him to maintain and defend them.
+
+This prince was noted for his piety and devotion, and his regular
+attendance on public worship; and a saying of his on that head is much
+celebrated by ancient writers.  He was engaged in a dispute with Lewis
+IX. of France, concerning the preference between sermons and masses:
+he maintained the superiority of the latter, and affirmed that he
+would rather have one hour's conversation with a friend, than hear
+twenty of the most elaborate discourses pronounced in his praise [s].
+[FN [s] Walsing. Edw. I. p. 43.]
+
+Henry left two sons, Edward, his successor, and Edmond, Earl of
+Lancaster; and two daughters, Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and
+Beatrix, Duchess of Britany.  He had five other children, who died in
+their infancy.
+
+[MN Miscellaneous transactions of the reign.]
+The following are the most remarkable laws enacted during this reign.
+There had been great disputes between the civil and ecclesiastical
+courts concerning bastardy.  The common law had deemed all those to be
+bastards who were born before wedlock; by the canon law they were
+legitimate: and when any dispute of inheritance arose, it had formerly
+been usual for the civil courts to issue writs to the spiritual,
+directing them to inquire into the legitimacy of the person.  The
+bishop always returned an answer agreeable to the canon law, though
+contrary to the municipal law of the kingdom.  For this reason the
+civil courts had changed the terms of their writ; and instead of
+requiring the spiritual courts to make inquisition concerning the
+legitimacy of the person, they only proposed the simple question of
+fact, whether he were born, before or after wedlock?  The prelates
+complained of this practice to the Parliament assembled at Merton in
+the twentieth of this king, and desired that the municipal law might
+be rendered conformable to the canon; but received from all the
+nobility the memorable reply, NOLUMUS LEGES ANGLIAE MUTARE!  We will
+not change the laws of England [t].
+[FN [t] Statute of Merton, chap. 9.]
+
+After the civil wars, the Parliament, summoned at Marlebridge, gave
+their approbation to most of the ordinances which had been established
+by the reforming barons, and which, though advantageous to the
+security of the people, had not received the sanction of a legal
+authority.  Among other laws, it was there enacted, that all appeals
+from the courts of inferior lords should be carried directly to the
+king's courts without passing through the courts of the lords
+immediately superior [u].  It was ordained that money should bear no
+interest during the minority of the debtor [w].  This law was
+reasonable, as the estates of minors were always in the hands of their
+lords, and the debtors could not pay interest where they had no
+revenue.  The charter of King John had granted this indulgence: it was
+omitted in that of Henry III., for what reason is not known; but it
+was renewed by the statute of Marlebridge.  Most of the other articles
+of this statute are calculated to restrain the oppressions of
+sheriffs, and the violence and iniquities committed in distraining
+cattle and other goods.  Cattle and the instruments of husbandry
+formed at that time the chief riches of the people.
+[FN [u] Statute of Marleb. chap. 20.  [w] Ibid. chap. 16.]
+
+In the thirty-fifth year of this king an assize was fixed of bread,
+the price of which was settled, according to the different prices of
+corn, from one shilling a quarter to seven shillings and sixpence [x],
+money of that age.  These great variations are alone a proof of bad
+tillage [y]: yet did the prices often rise much higher than any taken
+notice of by the statute.  The Chronicle of Dunstable tells us, that,
+in this reign, wheat was once sold for a mark, nay, for a pound, a
+quarter, that is, three pounds of our present money [z].  The same law
+affords us a proof of the little communication between the parts of
+the kingdom, from the very different prices which the same commodity
+bore at the same time.  A brewer, says the statute, may sell two
+gallons of ale for a penny in cities, and three or four gallons for
+the same price in the country.  At present, such commodities, by the
+great consumption of the people, and the great stocks of the brewers,
+are rather cheapest in cities.  The Chronicle above mentioned
+observes, that wheat one year was sold in many places for eight
+shillings a quarter, but never rose in Dunstable above a crown.
+[FN [x] Statutes at Large, p. 6.  [y] We learn from Cicero's Orations
+against Verres, lib. 3, cap. 84, 92, that the price of corn in Sicily
+was, during the praetorship of Sacerdos, five Denarii a Modius; during
+that of Verres, which immediately succeeded, only two Sesterces; that
+is, ten times lower; a presumption, or rather a proof, of the very bad
+state of tillage in ancient times.  [z]  Knyghton, p. 2444.]
+
+Though commerce was still very low, it seems rather to have increased
+since the Conquest; at least if we may judge of the increase of money
+by the price of corn.  The medium between the highest and lowest
+prices of wheat, assigned by the statute, is four shillings and three
+pence a quarter, that is, twelve shillings and nine pence of our
+present money.  This is near half of the middling price in our time.
+Yet the middling price of cattle, so late as the reign of King
+Richard, we find to be above eight, near ten times lower than the
+present.  Is not this the true inference, from comparing these facts,
+that, in all uncivilized nations, cattle, which propagate of
+themselves, bear always a lower price than corn, which requires more
+art and stock to render it plentiful than those nations are possessed
+of?  It is to be remarked that Henry's assize of corn was copied from
+a preceding assize established by King John; consequently, the prices
+which we have here compared of corn and cattle may be looked on as
+contemporary; and they were drawn, not from one particular year, but
+from an estimation of the middling prices for a series of years.  It
+is true, the prices assigned by the assize of Richard were meant as a
+standard for the accompts of sheriffs and escheators; and as
+considerable profits were allowed to these ministers, we may naturally
+suppose, that the common value of cattle was somewhat higher: yet
+still, so great a difference between the prices of corn and cattle as
+that of four to one, compared to the present rates, affords important
+reflections concerning the very different state of industry and
+tillage in the two periods.
+
+Interest had in that age amounted to an enormous height, as might be
+expected from the barbarism of the times and men's ignorance of
+commerce.  Instances occur of fifty per cent paid for money [a].
+There is an edict of Philip Augustus near this period, limiting the
+Jews in France to forty-eight per cent [b].  Such profits tempted the
+Jews to remain in the kingdom, notwithstanding the grievous
+oppressions to which, from the prevalent bigotry and rapine of the
+age, they were continually exposed.  It is easy to imagine how
+precarious their state must have been under an indigent prince,
+somewhat restrained in his tyranny over his native subjects, but who
+possessed an unlimited authority over the Jews, the sole proprietors
+of money in the kingdom, and hated, on account of their riches, their
+religion, and their usury: yet will our ideas scarcely come up to the
+extortions which, in fact, we find to have been practised upon them.
+In the year 1241, twenty thousand marks were exacted from them [c]:
+two years after money was again extorted; and one Jew alone, Aaron of
+York, was obliged to pay above four thousand marks [d].  In 1250,
+Henry renewed his oppressions; and the same Aaron was condemned to pay
+him thirty thousand marks upon an accusation of forgery [e]: the high
+penalty imposed upon him, and which, it seems, he was thought able to
+pay, is rather a presumption of his innocence than of his guilt.  In
+1255, the king demanded eight thousand marks from the Jews, and
+threatened to hang them if they refused compliance.  They now lost all
+patience, and desired leave to retire with their effects out of the
+kingdom.  But the king replied: "How can I remedy the oppressions you
+complain of?  I am myself a beggar.  I am spoiled, I am stripped of
+all my revenues: I owe above two hundred thousand marks; and if I had
+said three hundred thousand, I should not exceed the truth: I am
+obliged to pay my son, Prince Edward, fifteen thousand marks a year: I
+have not a farthing; and I must have money, from any hand, from any
+quarter, or by any means."  He then delivered over the Jews to the
+Earl of Cornwall, that those whom the one brother had flayed, the
+other might embowel, to make use of the words of the historian [f].
+King John, his father, once demanded ten thousand marks from a Jew of
+Bristol; and on his refusal, ordered one of his teeth to be drawn
+every day till he should comply.  The Jew lost seven teeth, and then
+paid the sum required of him [g].  One talliage paid upon the Jews in
+1243 amounted to sixty thousand marks [h]; a sum equal to the whole
+yearly revenue of the crown.
+[FN [a] M. Paris, p. 586.  [b] Brussel, Traité des Fiefs, vol. i. p.
+576  [c] M. Paris, p. 372.  [d] Ibid. p. 410.  [e] Ibid. p. 525.  [f]
+M. Paris, p. 606.  [g] Ibid. p. 160.  [h] Madox, p. 152.]
+
+To give a better pretence for extortions, the improbable and absurd
+accusation, which has been at different times advanced against that
+nation, was revived in England, that they had crucified a child in
+derision of the sufferings of Christ.  Eighteen of them were hanged at
+once for this crime [i]: though it is nowise credible, that even the
+antipathy borne them by the Christians, and the oppressions under
+which they laboured, would ever have pushed them to be guilty of that
+dangerous enormity.  But it is natural to imagine, that a race,
+exposed to such insults and indignities, both from king and people,
+and who had so uncertain an enjoyment of their riches, would carry
+usury to the utmost extremity, and by their great profits make
+themselves some compensation for their continual perils.
+[FN [i] M. Paris, p. 613.]
+
+Though these acts of violence against the Jews proceeded much from
+bigotry, they were still more derived from avidity and rapine.  So far
+from desiring in that age to convert them, it was enacted by law in
+France, that if any Jew embraced Christianity, he forfeited all his
+goods, without exception, to the king, or his superior lord.  These
+plunderers were careful, lest the profits, accruing from their
+dominion over that unhappy race, should be diminished by their
+conversion [k].
+[FN [k] Brussel, vol. i. p. 622.  Du Cange, verbo JUDAEI.]
+
+Commerce must be in a wretched condition, where interest was so high,
+and where the sole proprietors of money employed it in usury only, and
+were exposed to such extortion and injustice.  But the bad police of
+the country was another obstacle to improvements; and rendered all
+communication dangerous, and all property precarious.  The Chronicle
+of Dunstable says [l], that men were never secure in the houses, and
+that whole villages were often plundered by bands of robbers, though
+no civil wars at that time prevailed in the kingdom.  In 1249, some
+years before the insurrection of the barons, two merchants of Brabant
+came to the king at Winchester, and told him that they had been
+spoiled of all their goods by certain robbers, whom they knew, because
+they saw their faces every day in his court; that like practices
+prevailed all over England, and travellers were continually exposed to
+the danger of being robbed, bound, wounded, and murdered; that these
+crimes escaped with impunity, because the ministers of justice
+themselves were in a confederacy was the robbers; and that they, for
+their part, instead of bringing matters to a fruitless trial by law,
+were willing, though merchants, to decide their cause with the robbers
+by arms and a duel.  The king, provoked at these abuses, ordered a
+jury to be enclosed, and to try the robbers: the jury, though
+consisting of twelve men of property in Hampshire, were found to be
+also in a confederacy with the felons, and acquitted them.  Henry, in
+a rage, committed the jury to prison, threatened them with a severe
+punishment, and ordered a new jury to be enclosed, who, dreading the
+fate of their fellows, at last found a verdict against the criminals.
+Many of the king's own household were discovered to have participated
+in the guilt; and they said for their excuse, that they received no
+wages from him, and were obliged to rob for a maintenance [m].
+KNIGHTS AND ESQUIRES, says the Dictum of Kenilworth, WHO WERE ROBBERS,
+IF THEY HAVE NO LAND, SHALL PAY THE HALF OF THEIR GOODS, AND FIND
+SUFFICIENT SECURITY TO KEEP HENCEFORTH THE PEACE OF THE KINGDOM.  Such
+were the matters of the times!
+[FN [1] Vol. i. p. 155.  [m] M. Paris, p. 509.]
+
+One can the less repine, during the prevalence of such manners, at the
+frauds and forgeries of the clergy; as it gives less disturbance to
+society, to take men's money from them with their own consent, though
+by deceits and lies, than to ravish it by open force and violence.
+During this reign the papal power was at its summit, and was even
+beginning insensibly to decline, by reason of the immeasurable avarice
+and extortions of the court of Rome, which disgusted the clergy as
+well as laity, in  every kingdom of Europe.  England itself, though
+sunk in the deepest abyss of ignorance and superstition, had seriously
+entertained thoughts of shaking off the papal yoke [n]; and the Roman
+pontiff was obliged to think of new expedients for riveting it faster
+upon the Christian world.  For this purpose, Gregory IX. published his
+decretals [o], which are a collection of forgeries, favourable to the
+court of Rome, and consist of the supposed decrees of popes in the
+first centuries.  But these forgeries are so gross, and confound so
+palpably all language, history, chronology, and antiquities, matters
+more stubborn than any speculative truths whatsoever, that even that
+church, which is not startled at the most monstrous contradictions and
+absurdities, has been obliged to abandon them to the critics.  But in
+the dark period of the thirteenth century they passed for undisputed
+and authentic; and men, entangled in the mazes of this false
+literature, joined to the philosophy, equally false, of the times, had
+nothing wherewithal to defend themselves, but some small remains of
+common sense, which passed for profaneness and impiety, and the
+indelible regard to self-interest, which, as it was the sole motive in
+the priests for framing these impostures, served also, in some degree,
+to protect the laity against them.
+[FN [n] M. Paris, p. 421.  [o] Trivet, p. 191.]
+
+Another expedient, devised by the church of Rome, in this period, for
+securing her power, was the institution of new religious orders,
+chiefly the Dominicans and Franciscans, who proceeded with all the
+zeal and success that attend novelties; were better qualified to gain
+the populace than the old orders, now become rich and indolent;
+maintained a perpetual rivalship with each other in promoting their
+gainful superstitions; and acquired a great dominion over the minds,
+and, consequently, over the purses of men, by pretending a desire of
+poverty and a contempt for riches.  The quarrels which arose between
+these orders, lying still under the control of the sovereign pontiff,
+never disturbed the peace of the church, and served only as a spur to
+their industry in promoting the common cause; and though the
+Dominicans lost some popularity by their denial of the immaculate
+conception, a point in which they unwarily engaged too far to be able
+to recede with honour, they counterbalanced this disadvantage, by
+acquiring more solid establishments, by gaining the confidence of
+kings and princes, and by exercising the jurisdiction assigned them,
+of ultimate judges and punishers of heresy.  Thus, the several orders
+of monks became a kind of regular troops or garrisons of the Romish
+church; and though the temporal interests of society, still more the
+cause of true piety, were hurt, by their various devices to captivate
+the populace, they proved the chief supports of that mighty fabric of
+superstition, and till the revival of true learning, secured it from
+any dangerous invasion.
+
+The trial by ordeal was abolished in this reign by order of council: a
+faint mark of improvement in the age [p].
+[FN [p] Rymer, vol. i. p. 228.  Spellman, p. 326.]
+
+Henry granted a charter to the town of Newcastle, in which he gave the
+inhabitants a licence to dig coal.  This is the first mention of coal
+in England.
+
+We learn from Madox [q], that this king gave, at one time, one hundred
+shillings to master Henry, his poet: also the same year he orders this
+poet ten pounds.
+[FN [q] Page 268.]
+
+It appears from Selden, that, in the forty-seventh of his reign, a
+hundred and fifty temporal, and fifty spiritual barons were summoned
+to perform the service due by their tenures [r].  In the thirty-fifth
+of the subsequent reign, eighty-six temporal barons, twenty bishops,
+and forty-eight abbots, were summoned to a Parliament convened at
+Carlisle [s].
+[FN [r] Titles of Honour, part ii. Chap. 3.  [s] Parl. Hist. vol. i.
+p. 151.]
+
+
+
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+
+NOTE [A]
+
+This question has been disputed with as great zeal and even acrimony,
+between the Scotch and Irish antiquaries, as if the honour of their
+respective countries were the most deeply concerned in the decision.
+We shall not enter into any detail on so uninteresting a subject, but
+shall propose our opinion in a few words.  It appears more than
+probable, from the similitude of language and manners, that Britain
+either was originally peopled, or was subdued, by the migration of
+inhabitants from Gaul, and Ireland from Britain: the position of the
+several countries is an additional reason that favours this
+conclusion.  It appears also probable, that the migration of that
+colony of Gauls or Celts, who peopled or subdued Ireland, was
+originally made from the north-west parts of Britain; and this
+conjecture (if it do not merit a higher name) is founded both on the
+Irish language, which is a very different dialect from the Welsh, and
+from the language anciently spoken in South Britain; and on the
+vicinity of Lancashire, Cumberland, Galloway, and Argyleshire, to that
+island.  These events, as they passed long before the age of history
+and records, must be known by reasoning alone, which in this case
+seems to be pretty satisfactory: Caesar and Tacitus, not to mention a
+multitude of other Greek and Roman authors, were guided by like
+inferences.  But besides these primitive facts, which lie in a very
+remote antiquity, it is a matter of positive and undoubted testimony,
+that the Roman province of Britain, during the time of the lower
+empire, was much infested by bands of robbers or pirates, whom the
+provincial Britons called Scots or Scuits; a name which was probably
+used as a term of reproach, and which these banditti themselves did
+not acknowledge or assume.  We may infer from two passages in
+Claudian, and from one in Orosius, and another in Isidore, that the
+chief seat of these Scots was in Ireland.  That some part of the Irish
+freebooters migrated back to the north-west parts of Britain, whence
+their ancestors had probably been derived in a more remote age, is
+positively asserted by Bede, and implied in Gildas.  I grant that
+neither Bede nor Gildas are Caesars or Tacituses; but such as they
+are, they remain the sole testimony on the subject, and therefore must
+be relied on for want of better: happily, the frivolousness of the
+question corresponds to the weakness of the authorities.  Not to
+mention, that if any part of the traditional history of a barbarous
+people can be relied on, it is the genealogy of nations, and even
+sometimes that of families.  It is in vain to argue against these
+facts from the supposed warlike disposition of the Highlanders, and
+unwarlike of the ancient Irish.  Those arguments are still much weaker
+than the authorities.  Nations change very quickly in these
+particulars.  The Britons were unable to resist the Picts and Scots,
+and invited over the Saxons for their defence, who repelled those
+invaders: yet the same Britons valiantly resisted for one hundred and
+fifty years, not only this victorious band of Saxons, but infinite
+numbers more, who poured in upon them from all quarters.  Robert
+Bruce, in 1322, made a peace, in which England, after many defeats,
+was constrained to acknowledge the independence of his country: yet in
+no more distant period than ten years after, Scotland was totally
+subdued by a small handful of English, led by a few private noblemen.
+All history is full of such events.  The Irish Scots, in the course of
+two or three centuries, might find time and opportunities sufficient
+to settle in North Britain, though we can neither assign the period
+nor causes of that revolution.  Their barbarous manner of life
+rendered them much fitter than the Romans for subduing these
+mountaineers.  And, in a word, it is clear from the language of the
+two countries, that the Highlanders and the Irish are the same people,
+and that the one are a colony from the other.  We have positive
+evidence which, though from neutral persons, is not perhaps the best
+that may be wished for, that the former, in the third or fourth
+century, sprang from the latter: we have no evidence at all that the
+latter sprang from the former.  I shall add, that the name of Erse or
+Irish given by the low-country Scotch to the language of the Scotch
+Highlanders, is a certain proof of the traditional opinion delivered
+from father to son, that the latter people came originally from
+Ireland.
+
+
+NOTE [B]
+
+There is a seeming contradiction in ancient historians with regard to
+some circumstances in the story of Edwy and Elgiva.  It is agreed that
+this prince had a violent passion for his second or third cousin,
+Elgiva, whom he married, though within the degrees prohibited by the
+canons.  It is also agreed, that he was dragged from a lady on the day
+of his coronation, and that the lady was afterwards treated with the
+singular barbarity above mentioned.  The only difference is, that
+Osberne and some others call her his strumpet, not his wife, as she is
+said to be by Malmesbury.  But this difference is easily reconciled;
+for if Edwy married her contrary to the canons, the monks would be
+sure to deny her to be his wife, and would insist that she could be
+nothing but his strumpet; to that, on the whole, we may esteem this
+representation of the matter as certain, at least, as by far the most
+probable.  If Edwy had only kept a mistress, it is well known that
+there are methods of accommodation with the church, which would have
+prevented the clergy from proceeding to such extremities against him:
+but his marriage contrary to the canons, was an insult on their
+authority, and called for their highest resentment.
+
+
+NOTE [C]
+
+Many of the English historians make Edgar's ships amount to an
+extravagant number, to three thousand, or three thousand six hundred:
+see Hoveden, p. 426.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 607.  Abbas Rieval. p. 360.
+Brompton, p. 869, says, that Edgar had four thousand vessels.  How can
+these accounts be reconciled to probability, and to the state of the
+navy in the time of Alfred?  W. Thorne makes the whole number amount
+only to three hundred, which is more probable.  The fleet of Ethelred,
+Edgar's son, must have been short of one thousand ships; yet the Saxon
+Chronicle, p. 137, says, it was the greatest navy that ever had been
+seen in England.
+
+
+NOTE [D]
+
+Almost all the ancient historians speak of this massacre of the Danes
+as if it had been universal, and as if every individual of that nation
+throughout England had been put to death.  But the Danes were almost
+the sole inhabitants in the kingdoms of Northumberland and East-
+Anglia, and were very numerous in Mercia.  This representation,
+therefore, of the matter is absolutely impossible.  Great resistance
+must have been made, and violent wars ensued; which was not the case.
+This account given by Wallingford, though he stands single, must he
+admitted as the only true one.  We are told that the name LURDANE,
+LORD DANE, for an idle lazy fellow, who lives at other people's
+expense, came from the conduct of the Danes, who were put to death.
+But the English princes had been entirely masters for several
+generations; and only supported a military corps of that nation.  It
+seems probable, therefore, that it was these Danes only that were put
+to death.
+
+
+NOTE [E]
+
+The ingenious author of the article GODWIN, in the Biographia
+Britannica, has endeavoured to clear the memory of that nobleman, upon
+the supposition, that all the English annals had been falsified by the
+Norman historians after the Conquest.  But that this supposition has
+not much foundation, appears hence, that almost all these historians
+have given a very good character to his son Harold, whom it was much
+more the interest of the Norman cause to blacken.
+
+
+NOTE [F]
+
+The whole story of the transactions between Edward, Harold, and the
+Duke of Normandy, is told so differently by the ancient writers, that
+there are few important passages of the English history liable to so
+great uncertainty.  I have followed the account which appeared to me
+the most consistent and probable.  It does not seem likely, that
+Edward ever executed a will in the duke's favour, much less that he
+got it ratified by the states of the kingdom, as is affirmed by some.
+The will would have been known to all, and would have been produced by
+the Conqueror, to whom it gave so plausible, and really so just a
+title; but the doubtful and ambiguous manner in which he seems always
+to have mentioned it, proves that he could only plead the known
+intentions of that monarch in his favour, which he was desirous to
+call a will.  There is indeed a charter of the Conqueror preserved by
+Dr. Hickes, vol. i., where he calls himself REX HEREDITARIUS, meaning
+heir by will; but a prince possessed of so much power, and attended
+with so much success, may employ what pretence he pleases: it is
+sufficient to refute his pretences, to observe that there is a great
+difference and variation among historians, with regard to a point
+which, had it been real, must have been agreed upon by all of them.
+
+Again, some historians, particularly Malmesbury and Matthew of
+Westminster, affirm that Harold had no intention of going over to
+Normandy, but, that taking the air in a pleasure boat on the coast, he
+was driven over, by stress of weather, to the territories of Guy,
+Count of Ponthieu: but besides that this story is not probable in
+itself, and is contradicted by most of the ancient historians, it is
+contradicted by a very curious and authentic monument lately
+discovered.  It is a tapestry, preserved in the ducal palace of Rouen,
+and supposed to have been wrought by orders of Matilda, wife to the
+emperor: at least it is of very great antiquity.  Harold is there
+represented as taking his departure from King Edward in execution of
+some commission, and mounting his vessel with a great train.  The
+design of redeeming his brother and nephew, who were hostages, is the
+most likely cause that can be assigned; and is accordingly mentioned
+by Eadmer, Hoveden, Brompton, and Simeon of Durham.  For a farther
+account of this piece of tapestry, see Histoire de l'Academie de
+Littérature, tom. ix. p. 535.
+
+
+NOTE [G]
+
+It appears from the ancient translations of the Saxon annals and laws,
+and from King Alfred's translation of Bede, as well as from all the
+ancient historians, that COMES in Latin, ALDERMAN in Saxon, and EARL
+in Dano-Saxon, were quite synonymous.  There is only a clause in a law
+of King Athelstan's (see Spellm. Conc. p. 406) which has stumbled some
+antiquaries, and has made them imagine that an earl was superior to an
+alderman.  The weregild, or the price of an earl's blood, is there
+fixed at fifteen thousand thrimsas, equal to that of an archbishop;
+whereas that of a bishop and alderman is only eight thousand thrimsas.
+To solve this difficulty we must have recourse to Selden's conjecture,
+(see his Titles of Honour, chap. v. p. 603, 604,) that the term of
+earl was in the age of Athelstan just beginning to be in use in
+England, and stood at that time for the atheling or prince of the
+blood, heir to the crown.  This he confirms by a law of Canute, Sec.
+55, where an atheling and an archbishop are put upon the same footing.
+In another law of the same Athelstan, the weregild of the prince, or
+atheling, is said to be fifteen thousand thrimsas.  See Wilkins, p.
+71.  He is therefore the same who is called earl in the former law.
+
+
+NOTE [H]
+
+There is a paper or record of the family of Sharneborn, which
+pretends, that that family, which was Saxon, was restored upon proving
+their innocence, as well as other Saxon families which were in the
+same situation.  Though this paper was able to impose on such great
+antiquaries as Spellman (see Gloss. in verbo DRENGES) and Dugdale,
+(see Baron. vol. i. p. 118,) it is proved by Dr. Brady (see Answ. to
+Petyt, p. 11, 12) to have been a forgery; and is allowed as such by
+Tyrrel, though a pertinacious defender of his party notions (see his
+Hist. vol. ii. introd. p. 51, 73).  Ingulf, p. 70, tells us, that very
+early, Hereward, though absent during the time of the Conquest, was
+turned out of all his estate, and could not obtain redress.  William
+even plundered the monasteries.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 636.  Chron. Abb.
+St. Petri de Burgo, p. 48.  M. Paris, p. 5.  Sim. Dun. p. 200.
+Diceto, p. 482.  Brompton, p. 967.  Knyghton, p. 2344.  Alur. Beverl.
+p. 130.  We are told by Ingulf, that Ivo de Taillebois plundered the
+monastery of Croyland of a great part of its land, and no redress
+could be obtained.
+
+
+NOTE [I]
+
+The obliging of all the inhabitants to put out their fires and lights
+at certain hours, upon the sounding of a bell called the COURFEU, is
+represented by Polydore Vergil, lib. 9, as a mark of the servitude of
+the English.  But this was a law of police, which William had
+previously established in Normandy.  See Du Moulin, Hist. de
+Normandie, p. 160.  The same law had place in Scotland.  LL. Burgor
+cap. 86.
+
+
+NOTE [K]
+
+What these laws were of Edward the Confessor, which the English, every
+reign during a century and a half, desire so passionately to have
+restored, is much disputed by antiquaries, and our ignorance of them
+seems one of the greatest defects in the ancient English history.  The
+collection of laws in Wilkins, which pass under the name of Edward,
+are plainly a posterior and an ignorant compilation.  Those to be
+found in Ingulf are genuine; but so imperfect, and contain so few
+clauses favourable to the subject, that we see no great reason for
+their contending for them so vehemently.  It is probable, that the
+English meant the COMMON LAW, as it prevailed during the reign of
+Edward; which we may conjecture to have been more indulgent to liberty
+than the Norman institutions.  The most material articles of it were
+afterwards comprehended in Magna Charta.
+
+
+NOTE [L]
+
+Ingulf, p. 70.  H. Hunt. p. 370, 372.  M. West. p. 225.  Gul. Neub. p.
+357.  Alured. Beverl. p. 124.  De Gest. Angl. p. 333.  M. Paris, p. 4.
+Sim. Dun. p. 206.  Brompton, p. 962, 980, 1161.  Gervase Tilb. lib. i.
+cap. 16.  Textus Roffensis apud Seld. Spicileg. ad Eadm. p. 179.  Gul.
+Pict. p. 206.  Ordericus Vitalis, p. 621, 666, 853.  Epist. St. Thom.
+p. 801.  Gul. Malmes. p. 52, 57.  Knyghton, p. 2354.  Eadmer. p. 110.
+Thom. Rudborne in Ang. Sacra, vol. i. p. 248.  Monach. Roff. in Ang
+Sacra, vol. ii. p. 276.  Girald. Camb. in eadem, vol. ii. p. 413.
+Hist Elyensis, p. 516.  The words of this last historian, who is very
+ancient, are remarkable and worth transcribing: "REX ITAQUE FACTUS
+WILLIELMUS, QUID IN PRINCIPES ANGLORUM, QUI TANTAE CLADI SUPERESSE
+POTERANT, FECERIT, DICERE, CUM NIHIL PROSIT, OMITTO.  QUID ENIM
+PRODESSET, SI NEC UNUM IN TOTO REGNO DE ILLIS DICEREM PRISTINA
+POTESTATE UTI PERMISSUM, SED OMNES AUT IN GRAVEM PAUPERTATIS AERUMNAM
+DETRUSOS, AUT EXHAEREDATOS, PATRIA PULSOS, AUT EFFOSSIS OCULIS, VEL
+CAETERIS AMPUTATIS MEMBRIS OPPROBRIUM HOMINUM FACTOS, AUT CERTE
+MISERRIME AFFLICTOS, VITA PRIVATOS?  SIMILI MODO UTILITATE CARERE
+EXISTIMO DICERE QUID IN MINOREM POPULUM, NON SOLUM AB EO, SED A SUIS
+ACTUM SIT, CUM ID DICTU SCIAMUS DIFFICILE, ET OB IMMANEM CRUDELITATEM,
+FORTASSIS INCREDIBILE."
+
+
+NOTE [M]
+
+Henry, by the feudal customs, was entitled to levy a tax for the
+marrying of his eldest daughter, and he exacted three shillings a hide
+on all England.  H. Hunt. p. 379.  Some historians (Brady, p. 270, and
+Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 182) heedlessly make this sum amount to above
+eight hundred thousand pounds of our present money: but it could not
+exceed one hundred and thirty-five thousand.  Five hides, sometimes
+less, made a knight's fee, of which there were about sixty thousand in
+England, consequently near three hundred thousand hides; and at the
+rate of three shillings a hide, the sum would amount to forty-five
+thousand pounds, or one hundred and thirty-five thousand of our
+present money.  See Rudborne, p. 257.  In the Saxon times, there were
+only computed two hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred hides
+in England.
+
+
+NOTE [N]
+
+The legates À LATERE, as they were called, were a kind of delegates
+who possessed the full power of the pope in all the provinces
+committed to their charge, and were very busy in extending as well as
+exercising it.  They nominated to all vacant benefices, assembled
+synods, and were anxious to maintain ecclesiastical privileges, which
+never could be fully protected without encroachments on the civil
+power.  If there were the least concurrence or opposition, it was
+always supposed that the civil power was to give way: every deed which
+had the least pretence of holding of any thing spiritual, as
+marriages, testaments, promissory oaths, were brought into the
+spiritual court, and could not be canvassed before a civil magistrate.
+These were the established laws of the church; and where a legate was
+sent immediately from Rome, he was sure to maintain the papal claims
+with the utmost rigour: but it was an advantage to the king to have
+the Archbishop of Canterbury appointed legate, because the connexions
+of that prelate with the kingdom tended to moderate his measures.
+
+
+NOTE [O]
+
+William of Newbridge, p. 383, (who is copied by later historians,)
+asserts, that Geoffrey had some title to the counties of Maine and
+Anjou.  He pretends that Count Geoffrey, his father, had left him
+these dominions by a secret will, and had ordered that his body should
+not be buried, till Henry should swear to the observance of it, which
+he, ignorant of the contents, was induced to do.  But besides that
+this story is not very likely in itself, and savours of monkish
+fiction, it is found in no other ancient writer, and is contradicted
+by some of them, particularly the monk of Marmoutier, who had better
+opportunities than Newbridge of knowing the truth.  See Vita Gauf.
+Duc. Norman. p. 103.
+
+
+NOTE [P]
+
+The sum scarcely appears credible, as it would amount to much above
+half the rent of the whole land.  Gervase is indeed a contemporary
+author; but churchmen are often guilty of strange mistakes of that
+nature, and are commonly but little acquainted with the public
+revenues.  This sum would make five hundred and forty thousand pounds
+of our present money.  The Norman Chronicle, p. 995, says that Henry
+raised only sixty Angevin shillings on each knight's fee in his
+foreign dominions: this is only a fourth of the sum which Gervase says
+he levied on England; an inequality nowise probable.  A nation may, by
+degrees, be brought to bear a tax of fifteen shillings in the pound,
+but a sudden and precarious tax can never be imposed to that amount,
+without a very visible necessity, especially in an age so little
+accustomed to taxes.  In the succeeding reign the rent of a knight's
+fee was computed at four pounds a year.  There were sixty thousand
+knights' fees in England.
+
+
+NOTE [Q]
+
+Fitz-Stephens, p. 18.  This conduct appears violent and arbitrary, but
+was suitable to the strain of administration in those days.  His
+father Geoffrey, though represented as a mild prince, set him an
+example of much greater violence.  When Geoffrey was master of
+Normandy, the chapter of sees presumed, without his consent, to
+proceed to the election of a bishop; upon which be ordered all of
+them, with the bishop elect, to be castrated, and made all their
+testicles be brought him in a platter.  Fitz-Steph. p. 44.  In the war
+of Toulouse, Henry laid a heavy and an arbitrary tax on all the
+churches within his dominions.  See Epist. St. Thom. p. 232.
+
+
+NOTE [R]
+
+I follow here the narrative of Fitz-Stephens, who was secretary to
+Becket; though, no doubt, he may be suspected of partiality towards
+his patron.  Lord Lyttleton chooses to follow the authority of a
+manuscript letter, or rather manifesto, of Folliot, Bishop of London,
+which is addressed to Becket himself, at the time when the bishop
+appealed to the pope from the excommunication pronounced against him
+by his primate.  My reasons, why I give the preference to
+Fitz-Stephens, are, (1.) If the friendship of Fitz-Stephens might
+render him partial to Becket, even after the death of that prelate,
+the declared enmity of the bishop must, during his lifetime, have
+rendered him more partial on the other side.  (2.) The bishop was
+moved by interest, as well as enmity, to calumniate Becket.  He had
+himself to defend against the sentence of excommunication, dreadful to
+all, especially to a prelate: and no more effectual means than to
+throw all the blame on his adversary.  (3.) He has actually been
+guilty of palpable calumnies in that letter.  Among these, I reckon
+the following:--He affirms that, when Becket subscribed the
+Constitutions of Clarendon, he said plainly to all the bishops of
+England, "It is my master's pleasure that I should forswear myself,
+and at present I submit to it, and do resolve to incur a perjury, and
+repent afterwards as I may."  However barbarous the times, and however
+negligent zealous churchmen were then of morality, these are not words
+which a primate of great sense, and of much seeming sanctity, would
+employ in an assembly of his suffragans: he might act upon these
+principles, but never surely would publicly avow them.  Folliot also
+says, that all the bishops were resolved obstinately to oppose the
+Constitutions of Clarendon, but the primate himself betrayed them from
+timidity, and led the way to their subscribing.  This is contrary to
+the testimony of all the historians, and directly contrary to Becket's
+character, who surely was not destitute either of courage or of zeal
+for ecclesiastical immunities.  (4.) The violence and injustice of
+Henry, ascribed to him by Fitz-Stephens, is of a piece with the rest
+of the prosecution.  Nothing could be more iniquitous, than, after two
+years' silence, to make a sudden and unprepared demand upon Becket to
+the amount of forty-four thousand marks, (equal to a sum of near a
+million in our time,) and not allow him the least interval to bring in
+his accounts.  If the king was so palpably oppressive in one article,
+he may he presumed to be equally so in the rest.  (5.) Though
+Folliot's letter, or rather manifesto, be addressed to Becket himself,
+it does not acquire more authority on that account.  We know not what
+answer was made by Becket: the collection of letters cannot he
+supposed quite complete.  But that the collection was not made by one
+(whoever he were) very partial to that primate, appears from the tenor
+of them, where there are many passages very little favourable to him:
+insomuch that the editor of them at Brussels, a jesuit, thought proper
+to publish them with great omissions, particularly of this letter of
+Folliot's.  Perhaps Becket made no answer at all, as not deigning to
+write to an excommunicated person, whose very commerce would
+contaminate him; and the bishop, trusting to this arrogance of his
+primate, might calumniate him the more freely.  (6.) Though the
+sentence pronounced on Becket by the great council implies that he had
+refused to make any answer to the king's court, this does not fortify
+the narrative of Folliot.  For if his excuse was rejected as false and
+frivolous, it would he treated as no answer.  Becket submitted so far
+to the sentence of confiscation of goods and chattels, that he gave
+surety, which is a proof that he meant not at that time to question
+the authority of the king's courts.  (7.) It may be worth observing,
+that both the author of Historia quadripartita, and Gervase,
+contemporary writers, agree with Fitz-Stephens; and the latter is not
+usually very partial to Becket.  All the ancient historians give the
+same account.
+
+
+NOTE [S]
+
+Madox, in his Baronia Anglica, cap. 14, tells us, that in the
+thirtieth of Henry II. thirty-three cows and two bulls cost but eight
+pounds seven shillings, money of that age; five hundred sheep, twenty-
+two pounds ten shillings, or about ten pence three farthings per
+sheep; sixty-six oxen, eighteen pounds three shillings; fifteen
+breeding mares, two pounds twelve shillings and sixpence; and
+twenty-two hogs, one pound two shillings.  Commodities seem then to
+have been about ten times cheaper than at present; all except the
+sheep, probably on account of the value of the fleece.  The same
+author, in his Formulare Anglicanum, p. 17, says, "that in the tenth
+year of Richard I. mention is made of ten per cent. paid for money:
+but the Jews frequently exacted much higher interest."
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, VOLUME I***
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The History of England, Volume I, by David
+Hume
+
+
+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: The History of England, Volume I
+
+Author: David Hume
+
+Release Date: January 2, 2004  [eBook #10574]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, VOLUME I***
+
+
+E-text prepared by David J. Cole
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+     Like much 18th and 19th century publishing, the edition of
+     David Hume's "History of England" from which this text was
+     prepared makes extensive use of both footnotes and marginal
+     notes.  Since this e-text format does not allow use of the
+     original superscripts to denote the lettered footnotes, they
+     are indicated by the relevant letter within brackets, thus
+     "[a]", and the footnotes themselves are reproduced within
+     brackets and preceded by "FN" at the end of the PARAGRAPH to
+     which they relate; since some of Hume's paragraphs are
+     considerably longer than is normal in 21st century American or
+     British writing, you may have to scroll some distance to find
+     the text of the footnote.  All footnotes are reproduced
+     exactly as in the printed text.
+
+     More discretion has been exercised regarding marginal notes.
+     Those which simply repeat chapter numbers and dates already
+     given in the text are omitted as non-essential clutter.  The
+     remainder are reproduced within brackets and preceded by "MN".
+     Those marginal notes which appear to correspond to sub-chapter
+     headings are reproduced as the first line of the paragraph to
+     which they relate.  Other marginal notes are reproduced within
+     the text of the paragraph.  Some apparently incomplete
+     marginal notes ending or beginning with ellipses are due to
+     cases where what is logically a single marginal note has been
+     broken into two or more pieces separated by a considerable
+     vertical distance.
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, VOLUME I
+
+From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688
+
+by
+
+DAVID HUME, ESQ.
+
+With the Author's Last Corrections and Improvements, to which is
+prefixed a Short Account of His Life Written by Himself
+
+
+
+COMPLETE IN SIX VOLUMES
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MY OWN LIFE.
+
+It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity;
+therefore I shall be short.  It may be thought an instance of vanity
+that I pretend at all to write my life; but this narrative shall
+contain little more than the history of my writings; as, indeed,
+almost all my life has been spent in literary pursuits and
+occupations.  The first success of most of my writings was not such as
+to be an object of vanity.
+
+I was born the 26th of April, 1711, old style, at Edinburgh.  I was of
+a good family, both by father and mother: my father's family is a
+branch of the Earl of Home's, or Hume's; and my ancestors had been
+proprietors of the estate which my brother possesses, for several
+generations.  My mother was daughter of Sir David Falconer, President
+of the College of Justice: the title of Lord Halkerton came by
+succession to her brother.
+
+My family, however, was not rich; and being myself a younger brother,
+my patrimony, according to the mode of my country, was of course very
+slender.  My father, who passed for a man of parts, died when I was an
+infant, leaving me, with an elder brother and a sister, under the care
+of our mother, a woman of singular merit, who, though young and
+handsome, devoted herself entirely to the rearing and educating of her
+children.  I passed through the ordinary course of education with
+success, and was seized very early with a passion for literature,
+which has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of
+my enjoyments.  My studious disposition, my sobriety, and my industry,
+gave my family a notion that the law was a proper profession for me;
+but I found an unsurmountable aversion to every thing but the pursuits
+of philosophy and general learning; and while they fancied I was
+poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which
+I was secretly devouring.
+
+My very slender fortune, however, being unsuitable to this plan of
+life, and my health being a little broken by my ardent application, I
+was tempted, or rather forced, to make a very feeble trial for
+entering into a more active scene of life.  In 1734 I went to Bristol,
+with some recommendations to several merchants; but in a few months
+found that scene totally unsuitable to me.  I went over to France with
+a view of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat; and I there
+laid that plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued.
+I resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of
+fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every
+object as contemptible, except the improvement of my talents in
+literature.
+
+During my retreat in France, first at Rheims but chiefly at La Fleche,
+in Anjou, I composed my Treatise of Human Nature.  After passing three
+years very agreeably in that country, I came over to London in  1737.
+In the end of 1738 I published my Treatise, and immediately went down
+to my mother and my brother, who lived at his country-house, and
+employed himself very judiciously and successfully in the improvement
+of his fortune.
+
+Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human
+Nature.  It fell DEAD-BORN FROM THE PRESS, without reaching such
+distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots.  But being
+naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I very soon recovered the
+blow, and prosecuted with great ardour my studies in the country.  In
+1742 I printed at Edinburgh the first part of my Essays: the work was
+favourably received, and soon made me entirely forget my former
+disappointment.  I continued with my mother and brother in the
+country, and in that time recovered the knowledge of the Greek
+language, which I had too much neglected in my early youth.
+
+In 1745 I received a letter from the Marquis of Annandale, inviting me
+to come and live with him in England; I found, also, that the friends
+and family of that young nobleman were desirous of putting him under
+my care and direction, for the state of his mind and health required
+it.--I lived with him a twelve-month.  My appointments during that
+time made a considerable accession to my small fortune.  I then
+received an invitation from General St. Clair to attend him as a
+secretary to his expedition, which was at first meant against Canada,
+but ended in an incursion on the coast of France.  Next year, to wit,
+1747, I received an invitation from the general to attend him in the
+same station in his military embassy to the courts of Vienna and
+Turin.  I then wore the uniform of an  officer, and was introduced at
+these courts as aide-de-camp to the general, along with Sir Harry
+Erskine and Captain Grant, now General Grant.  These two years were
+almost the only interruptions which my studies have received during
+the course of my life: I passed them agreeably and in good company;
+and my appointments, with my frugality, had made me reach a fortune
+which I called independent, though most of my friends were inclined to
+smile when I said so: in short, I was now master of near a thousand
+pounds.
+
+I had always entertained a notion, that my want of success in
+publishing the Treatise of Human Nature, had proceeded more from the
+manner than the matter, and that I had been guilty of a very usual
+indiscretion, in going to the press too early.  I therefore cast the
+first part of that work anew in the Enquiry concerning Human
+Understanding, which was published while I was at Turin.  But this
+piece was at first little more successful than the Treatise of Human
+Nature.  On my return from Italy, I had the mortification to find all
+England in a ferment, on account of Dr. Middleton's Free Enquiry,
+while my performance was entirely over-looked and neglected.  A new
+edition which had been published in London, of my Essays, moral and
+political, met not with a much better reception.
+
+Such is the force of natural temper, that these disappointments made
+little or no impression on me.  I went down in 1749, and lived two
+years with my brother at his country-house, for my mother was now
+dead.  I there composed the second part of my Essay, which I called
+Political Discourses, and also my Enquiry concerning the Principles of
+Morals, which is another part of my treatise that I cast anew.
+Meanwhile my bookseller, A. Miller, informed me that my former
+publications (all but the unfortunate Treatise) were beginning to be
+the subject of conversation; that the sale of them was gradually
+increasing; and that new editions were demanded.  Answers by Reverends
+and Right Reverends came out two or three in a year; and I found, by
+Dr. Warburton's railing, that the books were beginning to be esteemed
+in good company.  However, I had a fixed resolution, which I
+inflexibly maintained, never to reply to any body; and not being very
+irascible in my temper, I have easily kept myself clear of all
+literary squabbles.  These symptoms of a rising reputation gave me
+encouragement, as I was ever more disposed to see the favourable than
+the unfavourable side of things; a turn of mind which it is more happy
+to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year.
+
+In 1751 I removed from the country to the town, the true scene for a
+man of letters.  In 1752 were published at Edinburgh, where I then
+lived, my Political Discourses, the only work of mine that was
+successful on the first publication.  It was well received at home and
+abroad.  In the same year was published, in London, my Enquiry
+concerning the Principles of Morals; which, in my own opinion, (who
+ought not to judge on that subject,) is of all my writings,
+historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best.  It
+came unnoticed and unobserved into the world.
+
+In 1752 the Faculty of Advocates chose me their librarian; an office
+from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the
+command of a large library.  I then formed the plan of writing the
+History of England; but being frightened with the notion of continuing
+a narrative through a period of one thousand seven hundred years, I
+commenced with the accession of the house of Stuart, an epoch when, I
+thought, the misrepresentations of faction began chiefly to take
+place.  I was, I own, sanguine in my expectations of the success of
+this work.  I thought that I was the only historian that had at once
+neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of
+popular prejudices; and as the subject was suited to every capacity,
+I expected proportional applause.  But miserable was my
+disappointment: I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation,
+and even detestation; English, Scotch, and Irish, whig and tory,
+churchman and sectary, freethinker and religionist, patriot and
+courtier, united in their rage against the man who had presumed to
+shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of
+Strafford; and after the first ebullitions of their fury were over,
+what was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink into oblivion.
+Mr. Miller told me, that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five
+copies of it.  I scarcely, indeed, heard of one man in the three
+kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the
+book.  I must only except the primate of England, Dr. Herring, and the
+primate of Ireland, Dr. Stone, which seem two odd exceptions.  These
+dignified prelates separately sent me a message not to be discouraged.
+
+I was, however, I confess, discouraged; and had not the war at that
+time been breaking out between France and England, I had certainly
+retired to some provincial town of the former kingdom, have changed my
+name, and never more have returned to my native country. But as this
+scheme was not now practicable, and the  subsequent volume was
+considerably advanced, I resolved to pick up courage and to persevere.
+
+In this interval I published at London my Natural History of Religion,
+along with some other small pieces: its public entry was rather
+obscure, except only that Dr. Hurd wrote a pamphlet against it, with
+all the illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility, which
+distinguish the Warburtonian school.  This pamphlet gave me some
+consolation for the otherwise indifferent reception of my performance.
+
+In 1756, two years after the fall of the first volume, was published
+the second volume of my History, containing the period from the death
+of Charles I. till the Revolution.  This performance happened to give
+less displeasure to the whigs, and was better received.  It not only
+rose itself, but helped to buoy up its unfortunate brother.
+
+But though I had been taught by experience, that the whig party were
+in possession of bestowing all places, both in the state and in
+literature, I was so little inclined to yield to their senseless
+clamour, that in above a hundred alterations, which farther study,
+reading, or reflection, engaged me to make in the reigns of the two
+first Stuarts, I have made all of them invariably to the tory side.
+It is ridiculous to consider the English constitution before that
+period as a regular plan of liberty.
+
+In 1759 I published my History of the House of Tudor.  The clamour
+against this performance was almost equal to that against the History
+of the two first Stuarts.  The reign of Elizabeth was particularly
+obnoxious.  But I was now callous against the impressions of public
+folly, and continued very peaceably and contentedly in my retreat in
+Edinburgh, to finish, in two volumes, the more early part of the
+English History, which I gave to the public in 1761, with tolerable,
+and but tolerable, success.
+
+But notwithstanding this variety of winds and seasons to which my
+writings have been exposed, they had still been making such advances,
+that the copy-money given me by the booksellers much exceeded any
+thing formerly known in England: I retired to my native country of
+Scotland, determined never more to set my foot out of it; and
+retaining the satisfaction of never having preferred a request to one
+great man, or even making advances of friendship to any of them.  As I
+was now turned of fifty, I thought of passing all the rest of my life
+in this philosophical manner, when I received, in 1763, an invitation
+from the Earl of Hertford, with whom I was not in the least
+acquainted, to attend him on his embassy to Paris, with a near
+prospect of being appointed secretary to the embassy; and, in the
+meanwhile, of performing the functions of that office.  This offer,
+however inviting, I at first declined, both because I was reluctant to
+begin connexions with the great, and because I was afraid that the
+civilities and gay company of Paris would prove disagreeable to a
+person of my age and humour: but on his lordship's repeating the
+invitation, I accepted of it.  I have every reason, both of pleasure
+and interest, to think myself happy in my connexions with that
+nobleman, as well as afterwards with his brother General Conway.
+
+Those who have not seen the strange effects of modes will never
+imagine the reception I met with at Paris, from men and women of all
+ranks and stations.  The more I resiled from their excessive
+civilities, the more I was loaded with them.  There is, however, a
+real satisfaction in living at Paris, from the great number of
+sensible, knowing, and polite company with which that city abounds
+above all places in the universe.  I thought once of settling there
+for life.
+
+I was appointed secretary to the embassy; and in summer, 1765, Lord
+Hertford left me, being appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.  I was
+charge d'affaires till the arrival of the Duke of Richmond, towards
+the end of the year.  In the beginning of 1766 I left Paris, and next
+summer went to Edinburgh, with the same view as formerly of burying
+myself in a philosophical retreat. I returned to that place, not
+richer, but with much more money, and a much larger income, by means
+of Lord Hertford's friendship, than I left it; and I was desirous of
+trying what superfluity could produce, as I had formerly made an
+experiment of a competency.  But in 1767 I received from Mr. Conway an
+invitation to be under-secretary; and this invitation, both the
+character of the person, and my connexions with Lord Hertford,
+prevented me from declining.  I returned to Edinburgh in 1769, very
+opulent, (for I possessed a revenue of 1000L. a year,) healthy, and,
+though somewhat stricken in years, with the prospect of enjoying long
+my ease, and of seeing the increase of my reputation.
+
+In spring, 1775, I was struck with a disorder in my bowels, which at
+first gave me no alarm, but has since, as I apprehend it, become
+mortal and incurable.  I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution.  I have
+suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange
+have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a
+moment's abatement of my spirits, inasmuch that were I to name a
+period of my life which I should most choose to pass over again, I
+might be tempted to point to this later period.  I possess the same
+ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company.  I consider,
+besides, that a man of sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few years
+of infirmities; and though I see many symptoms of my literary
+reputation's breaking out at last with additional lustre, I know that
+I could have but few years to enjoy it.  It is difficult to be more
+detached from life than I am at present.
+
+To conclude historically with my own character.  I am, or rather was,
+(for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which
+emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments)--I was, I say, a man of
+mild disposition, of command of temper, of an open, social, and
+cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of
+enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions.  Even my love of
+literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper,
+notwithstanding my frequent disappointments.  My company was not
+unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and
+literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest
+women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with
+from them.  In a word, though most men, anywise eminent, have found
+reason to complain of calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked
+by her baleful tooth; and though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage
+of both civil and religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my
+behalf of their wonted fury.  My friends never had occasion to
+vindicate any one circumstance of my  character and conduct: not but
+that the zealots, we may well suppose, would have been glad to invent
+and propagate any story to my disadvantage, but they could never find
+any which they thought would wear the face of probability.  I cannot
+say there is no vanity in making this funeral oration of myself; but I
+hope it is not a misplaced one; and this is a matter of fact which is
+easily cleared and ascertained.
+
+
+April 18, 1776.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER
+
+FROM
+
+ADAM SMITH. LL. D.
+
+To
+
+WILLIAM STRAHAN, ESQ.
+
+
+Kirkaldy, Fifeshire, Nov. 9, 1776
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+It is with a real, though a very melancholy pleasure, that I sit down
+to give you some account of the behaviour of our late excellent
+friend, Mr. Hume, during his last illness.
+
+Though in his own judgment his disease was mortal and incurable, yet
+he allowed himself to be prevailed upon, by the entreaty of his
+friends, to try what might be the effects of a long journey.  A few
+days before he set out, he wrote that account of his own life, which,
+together with his other papers, he has left to your care. My account,
+therefore, shall begin where his ends.
+
+He set out for London towards the end of April, and at Morpeth met
+with Mr. John Home, and myself, who had both come down from London on
+purpose to see him, expecting to have found him at Edinburgh.  Mr.
+Home returned with him, and attended him, during the whole of his stay
+in England, with that care and attention which might be expected from
+a temper so perfectly friendly and affectionate.  As I had written to
+my mother that she might expect me in Scotland, I was under the
+necessity of continuing my journey.  His disease seemed to yield to
+exercise and change of air, and when he arrived in London, he was
+apparently in much better health  than when he left Edinburgh.  He was
+advised to go to Bath to drink the waters, which appeared for some
+time to have so good an effect upon him, that even he himself began to
+entertain, what he was not apt to do, a better opinion of his own
+health.  His symptoms, however, soon returned with their usual
+violence, and from that moment he gave up all thoughts of recovery,
+but submitted with the utmost cheerfulness, and the most perfect
+complacency and resignation.  Upon his return to Edinburgh, though he
+found himself much weaker, yet his cheerfulness never abated, and he
+continued to divert himself, as usual, with correcting his own works
+for a new edition, with reading books of amusement, with the
+conversation of his friends, and sometimes in the evening with a party
+at his favourite game of whist.  His cheerfulness was so great, and
+his conversation and amusements ran so much in their usual strain,
+that, notwithstanding all bad symptoms, many people could not believe
+he was dying.  "I shall tell your friend, Colonel Edmonstone," said
+Doctor Dundas to him one day, "that I left you much better, and in a
+fair way of recovery." "Doctor," said he, "as I believe you would not
+choose to tell any thing but the truth, you had better tell him, that
+I am dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as
+easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire."  Colonel
+Edmonstone soon afterwards came to see him, and take leave of him; and
+on his way home he could not forbear writing him a letter, bidding him
+once more an eternal adieu, and applying to him, as to a dying man,
+the beautiful French verses in which the Abbe Chaulieu, in expectation
+of his own death, laments his approaching separation from his friend
+the Marquis de la Fare.  Mr. Hume's magnanimity and firmness were
+such, that his most affectionate friends knew that they hazarded
+nothing in talking or writing to him as to a dying man, and that, so
+far from being hurt by this frankness, he was rather pleased and
+flattered by it.  I happened to come into his room while he was
+reading this letter, which he had just received, and which he
+immediately showed me.  I told him, that though I was sensible how
+very much he was weakened, and that appearances were in many respects
+very bad, yet his cheerfulness was still so great, the spirit of life
+seemed still to be so very strong in him,  that I could not help
+entertaining some faint hopes.  He answered, "Your hopes are
+groundless.  An habitual diarrhoea of more than a year's standing
+would be a very bad disease at any age: at my age it is a mortal one.
+When I lie down in the evening I feel myself weaker than when I rose
+in the morning, and when I rise in the morning weaker than when I lay
+down in the evening.  I am sensible, besides, that some of my vital
+parts are affected, so that I must soon die." "Well," said I, "if it
+must be so, you have at least the satisfaction of leaving all your
+friends, your brother's family in particular, in great prosperity."
+He said that he felt that satisfaction so sensibly, that when he was
+reading, a few days before, Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead, among all
+the excuses which are alleged to Charon for not entering readily into
+his boat, he could not find one that fitted him; he had no house to
+finish, he had no daughter to provide for, he had no enemies upon whom
+he wished to revenge himself.  "I could not well imagine," said he,
+"what excuse I could make to Charon in order to  obtain a little
+delay.  I have done every thing of consequence which I ever meant to
+do, and I could at no time expect to leave my relations and friends in
+a better situation than that in which I am now likely to leave them: I
+therefore have all reason to die contented."  He then diverted himself
+with inventing several jocular excuses, which he supposed he might
+make to Charon, and with imagining the very surly answers which it
+might suit the character of Charon to return to them.  "Upon further
+consideration," said he, "I thought I might say to him, 'Good Charon,
+I have been correcting my works for a new edition.  Allow me a little
+time, that I may see how the public receives the alterations.'  But
+Charon would answer, 'When you have seen the effect of these, you will
+be for making other alterations.  There will be no end of such
+excuses; so, honest friend, please step into the boat.'  But I might
+still urge, 'Have a little patience, good Charon, I have been
+endeavouring to open the eyes of the public.  If I live a few years
+longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of
+the prevailing systems of superstition.'  But Charon would then lose
+all temper and decency--'You loitering rogue, that will not happen
+these many hundred years.  Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for
+so long a term?  Get into the boat this instant, you lazy, loitering
+rogue.'"
+
+But though Mr. Hume always talked of his approaching dissolution with
+great cheerfulness, he never affected to make any parade of his
+magnanimity.  He never mentioned the subject, but when the
+conversation naturally led to it, and never dwelt longer upon it than
+the course of the conversation happened to require.  It was a subject,
+indeed, which occurred pretty frequently, in consequence of the
+inquiries which his friends, who came to see him, naturally made
+concerning the state of his health.  The conversation which I
+mentioned above, and which passed on Thursday the 8th of August, was
+the last, except one, that I ever had with him.  He had now become so
+very weak, that the company of his most intimate friends fatigued him;
+for his cheerfulness was still so great, his complaisance and social
+disposition were still so entire, that when any friend was with him,
+he could not help talking more, and with greater exertion, than suited
+the weakness of his body.  At his own desire, therefore, I agreed to
+leave Edinburgh, where I was staying partly upon his account, and
+returned to my mother's house here, at Kirkaldy, upon condition that
+he would send for me whenever he wished to see me; the physician who
+saw him most frequently, Dr. Black, undertaking in the mean time to
+write me occasionally an account of the state of his health.
+
+On the 22d of August, the doctor wrote me the following letter:
+
+"Since my last, Mr. Hume has passed his time pretty easily, but is
+much weaker.  He sits up, goes down stairs once a day, and amuses
+himself with reading, but seldom sees any body.  He finds, that the
+conversation of his most intimate friends fatigues and oppresses him;
+and it is happy that he does not need it, for he is quite free from
+anxiety, impatience, or low spirits, and passes his time very well
+with the assistance of amusing books."
+
+I received the day after a letter from Mr. Hume himself, of which the
+following is an extract:
+
+"Edinburgh, Aug. 23, 1776
+
+"MY DEAREST FRIEND,
+
+"I am obliged to make use of my nephew's hand in writing to you, as I
+do not rise to-day. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
+
+"I go very fast to decline, and last night had a small fever, which I
+hoped might put a quicker period to this tedious illness; but,
+unluckily, it has in a great measure gone off.  I cannot submit to
+your coming over here on my account, as it is possible for me to see
+you so small a part of the day; but Dr. Black can better inform you
+concerning the degree of strength which may from time to time remain
+with me.
+
+"Adieu, &c."
+
+Three days after, I received the following letter from Dr. Black:
+
+"Edinburgh, Monday, Aug. 26, 1776.
+
+"DEAR SIR,
+
+"Yesterday, about four o'clock, afternoon, Mr. Hume expired.  The near
+approach of his death became evident in the night between Thursday and
+Friday, when his disease became excessive, and soon weakened him so
+much, that he could no longer rise out of his bed.  He continued to
+the last perfectly sensible, and free from much pain or feelings of
+distress.  He never dropped the smallest expression of impatience; but
+when he had occasion to speak to the people about him, always did it
+with affection and tenderness.  I thought it improper to write to
+bring you over, especially as I heard that he had dictated a letter to
+you, desiring you not to come.  When he became very weak, it cost him
+an effort to speak, and he died in such a happy composure of mind that
+nothing could exceed it."
+
+Thus died our most excellent and never to be forgotten friend;
+concerning whose philosophical opinions men will no doubt judge
+variously, every one approving or condemning them, according as they
+happen to coincide or disagree with his own; but concerning whose
+character and conduct there can scarce be a difference of opinion.
+His temper, indeed, seemed to be more happily balanced, if I may be
+allowed such an expression, than that perhaps of any other man I have
+ever known.  Even in the lowest state of his fortune, his great and
+necessary frugality never hindered him from exercising, upon proper
+occasions, acts both of charity and generosity.  It was a frugality
+founded not upon avarice, but upon the love of independency.  The
+extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either the firmness of
+his mind, or the steadiness of his resolutions.  His constant
+pleasantry was the genuine effusion of good-nature and good-humour,
+tempered with delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest
+tincture of malignity, so frequently the disagreeable source of what
+is called wit in other men.  It never was the meaning of his raillery
+to mortify; and therefore, far from offending, it seldom failed to
+please and delight even those who were the objects of it.  To his
+friends, who were frequently the objects of it, there was not perhaps
+one of all his great and amiable qualities which contributed more to
+endear his conversation.  And that gaiety of temper, so agreeable in
+society, but which is so often accompanied with frivolous and
+superficial qualities, was in him certainly attended with the most
+severe application, the most extensive learning, the greatest depth of
+thought, and a capacity in every respect the most comprehensive.  Upon
+the whole, I have always considered him, both in his lifetime and
+since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly
+wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will
+permit.
+
+I ever am, dear Sir,
+
+Most affectionately yours,
+
+ADAM SMITH.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME I
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+The Britons.--Romans.--Saxons.--The Heptarchy.--The Kingdom of Kent--
+of Northumberland--of East Anglia--of Mercia--of Essex--of Sussex--of
+Wessex
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Egbert.--Ethelwolf.--Ethelbald and Ethelbert.--Ethered.--Alfred the
+Great.--Edward the Elder.--Athelstan.--Edmund.-Edred.--Edwy.--Edgar.--
+Edward the Martyr
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Ethelred.--Settlement of the Normans.--Edmund Ironside.--Canute.--
+Harold Harefoot.--Hardicanute.--Edward the Confessor.--Harold
+
+
+APPENDIX I.
+
+THE ANGLO-SAXON GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
+
+First Saxon Government.--Succession of the Kings.--The Wittenagemot.--
+The Aristocracy.--The several Orders of Men.--Courts of Justice.--
+Criminal Law.--Rules of Proof.-Military Force.--Public Revenue.--Value
+of Money.--Manners
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR
+
+Consequences of the Battle of Hastings.--Submission of the English.--
+Settlement of the Government.--King's Return to Normandy.--Discontents
+of the English.--Their Insurrections.--Rigours of the Norman
+Government.--New Insurrections.-New Rigours of the Government.--
+Introduction of the Feudal Law.--Innovation in Ecclesiastical
+Government.--Insurrection of the Norman Barons.--Dispute about
+Investitures.--Revolt of Prince Robert.--Domesday-Book.--The New
+Forest.--War with France.--Death and Character of William the
+Conqueror
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WILLIAM RUFUS
+
+Accession of William Rufus.--Conspiracy against the King.--Invasion of
+Normandy.--The Crusades.--Acquisition of Normandy.--Quarrel with
+Anselm, the Primate.--Death and Character of William Rufus
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+HENRY I.
+
+The Crusades.--Accession of Henry.--Marriage of the King.--Invasion by
+Duke Robert.--Accommodation with Robert.--Attack of Normandy.--
+Conquest of Normandy.--Continuation of the Quarrel with Anselm, the
+Primate.--Compromise with him.--Wars abroad.--Death of Prince
+William.--King's second Marriage.--Death and Character of Henry
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+STEPHEN
+
+Accession of Stephen.--War with Scotland.--Insurrection in favour of
+Matilda.--Stephen taken Prisoner.--Matilda crowned.--Stephen
+released.--Restored to the Crown.--Continuation of the Civil Wars.--
+Compromise between the King and Prince Henry.--Death of the King
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HENRY II.
+
+State of Europe--of France.--First Acts of Henry's Government.--
+Disputes between the Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers.-Thomas a Becket,
+Archbishop of Canterbury.--Quarrel between the King and Becket.--
+Constitutions of Clarendon.--Banishment of Becket.--Compromise with
+him.--His return from Banishment.-His Murder.--Grief and Submission of
+the King
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+State of Ireland.--Conquest of that Island.--The King's Accommodation
+with the Court of Rome.--Revolt of young Henry and  his brothers.--
+Wars and Insurrections.--War with Scotland.--Penance of Henry for
+Becket's Murder.--William, King of Scotland, defeated and taken
+Prisoner.--The King's Accommodation with his Sons.--The King's
+equitable Administration.--Crusades.--Revolt of Prince Richard.--Death
+and Character of Henry.--Miscellaneous Transactions of his Reign
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+RICHARD I.
+
+The King's Preparations for the Crusade.--Sets out on the Crusade.--
+Transactions in Sicily.--King's Arrival in Palestine.--State of
+Palestine.--Disorders in England.--The King's Heroic Actions in
+Palestine.--His Return from Palestine.--Captivity in Germany.--War
+with France.--The King's Delivery.--Return to England.--War with
+France.--Death and Character of the King.--Miscellaneous Transactions
+of this Reign
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+JOHN
+
+Accession of the King.--His Marriage.--War with France.--Murder of
+Arthur, Duke of Britany.--The King expelled the French Provinces.--The
+King's Quarrel with the Court of Rome.--Cardinal Langton appointed
+Archbishop of Canterbury.--Interdict of the Kingdom.--Excommunication
+of the King.-The King's Submission to the Pope.--Discontents of the
+Barons.--Insurrection of the Barons.--Magna Carta.--Renewal of the
+Civil Wars.--Prince Lewis called over.--Death and Character of the
+King
+
+
+APPENDIX II.
+
+THE FEUDAL AND ANGLO-NORMAN GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
+
+Origin of the Feudal Law.--Its Progress.--Feudal Government of
+England.--The Feudal Parliament.--The Commons.-Judicial Power.--
+Revenue of the Crown.--Commerce.--The Church.--Civil Laws.--Manners
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+HENRY III.
+
+Settlement of the Government.--General Pacification.--Death of the
+Protector.--Some Commotions.--Hubert de Burgh displaced.--The Bishop
+of Winchester Minister.--King's Partiality to Foreigners.--
+Grievances.--Ecclesiastical Grievances.--Earl of Cornwall elected King
+of the Romans.--Discontent of the Barons--Simon de Mountfort, Earl of
+Leicester.--Provisions of Oxford.--Usurpation of the Barons.--Prince
+Edward.--Civil Wars of the Barons.--Reference to the King of France.--
+Renewal of the Civil Wars.--Battle of Lewes.--House of Commons.--
+Battle of Evesham and death of Leicester.--Settlement of the
+Government.--Death and Character of the King.--Miscellaneous
+Transactions of this Reign
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE BRITONS.--ROMANS.--SAXONS.--THE HEPTARCHY.--THE KINGDOM OF KENT--
+OF NORTHUMBERLAND--OF EAST ANGLIA--OF MERCIA--OF ESSEX--OF SUSSEX--OF
+WESSEX
+
+
+
+[MN The Britons.]
+The curiosity, entertained by all civilized nations, of inquiring into
+the exploits and adventures of their ancestors, commonly excites a
+regret that the history of remote ages should always be so much
+involved in obscurity, uncertainty, and contradiction.  Ingenious men,
+possessed of leisure, are apt to push their researches beyond the
+period in which literary monuments are framed or preserved; without
+reflecting that the history of past events is immediately lost or
+disfigured when intrusted to memory or oral tradition; and that the
+adventures of barbarous nations, even if they were recorded, could
+afford little or no entertainment to men born in a more cultivated
+age.  The convulsions of a civilized state usually compose the most
+instructive and most interesting part of its history; but the sudden,
+violent, and unprepared revolutions incident to barbarians are so much
+guided by caprice, and terminate so often in cruelty, that they
+disgust us by the uniformity of their appearance; and it is rather
+fortunate for letters that they are buried in silence and oblivion.
+The only certain means by which nations can indulge their curiosity in
+researches concerning their  remote origin, is to consider the
+language, manners, and customs of their ancestors, and to compare them
+with those of the neighbouring nations.  The fables which are commonly
+employed to supply the place of true history ought entirely to be
+disregarded; or if any exception be admitted to this general rule, it
+can only be in favour of the ancient Grecian fictions, which are so
+celebrated and so agreeable, that they will ever be the objects of the
+attention of mankind.  Neglecting, therefore, all traditions, or
+rather tales, concerning the more early history of Britain, we shall
+only consider the state of the inhabitants as it appeared to the
+Romans on their invasion of this country: we shall briefly run over
+the events which attended the conquest made by that empire, as
+belonging more to Roman than British story: we shall hasten through
+the obscure and uninteresting period of Saxon annals: and shall
+reserve a more full narration for those times when the truth is both
+so well ascertained and so complete as to promise entertainment and
+instruction to the reader.
+
+All ancient writers agree in representing the first inhabitants of
+Britain as a tribe of the Gauls or Celtae, who peopled that island
+from the neighbouring continent.  Their language was the same; their
+manners, their government, their superstition, varied only by those
+small differences which time or communication with the bordering
+nations must necessarily introduce.  The inhabitants of Gaul,
+especially in those parts which lie contiguous to Italy, had acquired,
+from a commerce with their southern neighbours, some refinement in the
+arts, which gradually diffused themselves northwards, and spread but a
+very faint light over this island.  The Greek and Roman navigators or
+merchants (for there were scarcely any other travellers in those ages)
+brought back the most shocking accounts of the ferocity of the people,
+which they magnified, as usual, in order to excite the admiration of
+their countrymen.  The south-east parts, however, of Britain had
+already, before the age of Caesar, made the first, and most requisite
+step towards a civil settlement; and the Britons, by tillage and
+agriculture, had there increased to a great multitude [a].  The other
+inhabitants of the island still maintained themselves by pasture:
+they were clothed with skins of beasts. They dwelt in huts, which they
+reared in the forests and marshes, with which the country was covered:
+they shifted easily their habitation, when actuated either by the
+hopes of plunder, or the fear of an enemy: the convenience of feeding
+their cattle was even a sufficient motive for removing their seats:
+and as they were ignorant of all the refinements of life, their wants
+and their possessions were equally scanty and limited.
+[FN [a] Caesar. lib. 4.]
+
+The Britons were divided into many small nations or tribes; and being
+a military people, whose sole property was their arms and their
+cattle, it was impossible, after they had acquired a relish for
+liberty, for their princes or chieftains to establish any despotic
+authority over them.  Their governments, though monarchical [b], were
+free, as well as those of all the Celtic nations; and the common
+people seem even to have enjoyed more liberty among them [c] than
+among the nations of Gaul [d], from which they were descended.  Each
+state was divided into factions within itself [e]: it was agitated
+with jealousy or animosity against the neighbouring states: and while
+the arts of peace were yet unknown, wars were the chief occupation,
+and formed the chief object of ambition among the people.
+[FN [b] Diod. Sic. lib. 4.  Mela, lib. 3. cap. 6.  Strabo, lib. 4.
+[c] Dion. Cassius, lib. 75  [d] Caesar. lib. 6.  [e] Tacit. Agr.]
+
+The religion of the Britons was one of the most considerable parts of
+their government; and the Druids, who were their priests, possessed
+great authority among them.  Besides ministering at the altar, and
+directing all religious duties, they presided over the education of
+youth; they enjoyed an immunity from wars and taxes; they possessed
+both the civil and criminal jurisdiction; they decided all
+controversies among states as well as among private persons, and
+whoever refused to submit to their decree was exposed to the most
+severe penalties.  The sentence of excommunication was pronounced
+against him: he was forbidden access to the sacrifices or public
+worship: he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow-citizens,
+even in the common affairs of life: his company was universally
+shunned, as profane and dangerous.  He was refused the protection of
+law [f]; and death itself became an acceptable relief from the misery
+and infamy to which he was exposed.  Thus, the bands of government,
+which were naturally loose among that rude and turbulent people, were
+happily corroborated by the terrors of their superstition.
+[FN [f] Caesar, lib. 6.  Strabo, lib. 4.]
+
+No species of superstition was ever more terrible than that of the
+Druids.  Besides the severe penalties, which it was in the power of
+the ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the
+eternal transmigration of souls; and thereby extended their authority
+as far as the fears of their timorous votaries.  They practised their
+rites in dark groves or other secret recesses [g]; and in order to
+throw a greater mystery over their religion, they communicated their
+doctrines only to the initiated, and strictly forbad the committing of
+them to writing, lest they should at any time be exposed to the
+examination of the profane vulgar.  Human sacrifices were practised
+among them: the spoils of war were often devoted to their divinities;
+and they punished with the severest tortures whoever dared to secrete
+any part of the consecrated offering; these treasures they kept in
+woods and forests, secured by no other guard than the terrors of their
+religion [h]; and this steady conquest over human avidity may be
+regarded as more signal than their prompting men to the most
+extraordinary and most violent efforts.  No idolatrous worship ever
+attained such an ascendant over mankind as that of the ancient Gauls
+and Britons; and the Romans, after their conquest, finding it
+impossible to reconcile those nations to the law and institutions of
+their masters, while it maintained its authority, were at last obliged
+to abolish it by penal statutes; a violence which had never, in any
+other instance, been practised by those tolerating conquerors [i].
+[FN [g] Plin. lib. 12. cap. 1.  [h] Caesar, lib. 6.  [i] Sueton. in
+vita Claudii.]
+
+[MN The Romans.]
+The Britons had long remained in this rude but independent state, when
+Caesar, having overrun all Gaul by his victories, first cast his eye
+on their island.  He was not allured either by its riches or its
+renown; but being ambitious of carrying the Roman arms into a new
+world, then mostly unknown, he took advantage of a short interval in
+his Gaulic wars, and made an invasion on Britain.  The natives,
+informed of his intention, were sensible of the unequal contest, and
+endeavoured to appease him by submissions, which, however, retarded
+not the execution of his design.  After some resistance, he landed, as
+is supposed, at Deal; [MN Anno Ante C. 55.] and having obtained
+several advantages over the Britons, and obliged them to promise
+hostages for their future obedience, he was constrained, by the
+necessity of his affairs, and the approach of winter, to withdraw his
+forces into Gaul.  The Britons, relieved from the terror of his arms,
+neglected the performance of their stipulations; and that haughty
+conqueror resolved next summer to chastise them for this breach of
+treaty.  He landed with a greater force; and though he found a more
+regular resistance from the Britons, who had united under
+Cassivelaunus, one of their petty princes, he discomfited them in
+every action.  He advanced into the country; passed the Thames in the
+face of the enemy; took and burned the capital of Cassivelaunus;
+established his ally, Mandubratius, in the sovereignty of the
+Trinobantes; and having obliged the inhabitants to make him new
+submissions, he again returned with his army into Gaul, and left the
+authority of the Romans more nominal than real in this island.
+
+The civil wars which ensued, and which prepared the way for the
+establishment of monarchy in Rome, saved the Britons from that yoke
+which was ready to be imposed upon them.  Augustus, the successor of
+Caesar, content with the victory obtained over the liberties of his
+own country, was little ambitious of acquiring fame by foreign wars;
+and being apprehensive lest the same unlimited extent of dominion,
+which had subverted the republic, might also overwhelm the empire, he
+recommended it to his successors never to enlarge the territories of
+the Romans.  Tiberius, jealous of the fame which might be acquired by
+his generals, made this advice of Augustus a pretence for his
+inactivity [k].  The mad sallies of Caligula, in which he menaced
+Britain with an invasion, served only to expose himself and the empire
+to ridicule: and the Britons had now, during almost a century, enjoyed
+their liberty unmolested; when the Romans, in the reign of Claudius
+began to think seriously of reducing them under their dominion.
+Without seeking any more justifiable reasons of hostility than were
+employed by the late Europeans in subjugating the Africans and
+Americans, [MN A.D. 43.] they sent over an army under the command of
+Plautius, an able general, who gained some victories, and made a
+considerable progress in subduing the inhabitants.  Claudius himself,
+finding matters sufficiently prepared for his reception, made a
+journey into Britain, and received the submission of several British
+states, the Cantii, Atrebates, Regni, and Trinobantes, who inhabited
+the south-east part of the island, and whom their possessions and more
+cultivated manner of life rendered willing to purchase peace at the
+expense of their liberty.  The other Britons, under the command of
+Caractacus, still maintained an obstinate resistance, and the Romans
+made little progress against them, till Ostorius Scapula was sent over
+to command their armies.  This general advanced the Roman conquests
+over the Britons; [MN A.D. 50.] pierced into the country of the
+Silures, a warlike nation who inhabited the banks of the Severn;
+defeated Caractacus in a great battle; took him prisoner, and sent him
+to Rome, where his magnanimous behaviour procured him better treatment
+than those conquerors usually bestowed on captive princes [l].
+[FN [k] Tacit. Agr.  [l] Tacit. Ann. lib. 12.]
+
+Notwithstanding these misfortunes, the Britons were not subdued; and
+this island was regarded by the ambitious Romans as a field in which
+military honour might still be acquired.  [MN A.D. 59.]  Under the
+reign of Nero, Suetonius Paulinus was invested with the command, and
+prepared to signalize his name by victories over those barbarians.
+Finding that the island of Mona, now Anglesey, was the chief seat of
+the Druids, he resolved to attack it, and to subject a place which was
+the centre of their superstition, and which afforded protection to all
+their baffled forces.  The Britons endeavoured to obstruct his landing
+on this sacred island, both by the force of their arms and the terrors
+of their religion.  The women and priests were intermingled with the
+soldiers upon the shore; and running about with flaming torches in
+their hands, and tossing their dishevelled hair, they struck greater
+terror into the astonished Romans by their howlings, cries, and
+execrations, than the real danger from the armed forces was able to
+inspire.  But Suetonius, exhorting his troops to despise the menaces
+of a superstition which they despised, impelled them to the attack,
+drove the Britons off the field, burned the Druids in the same fires
+which those priests had prepared for their captive enemies, destroyed
+all the consecrated groves and altars; and, having thus triumphed over
+the religion of the Britons, he thought his future progress would be
+easy in reducing the people to subjection.  But he was disappointed in
+his expectations.  The Britons, taking advantage of his absence, were
+all in arms; and headed by Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, who had been
+treated in the most ignominious manner by the Roman tribunes, had
+already attacked with success several settlements of their insulting
+conquerors.  Suetonius hastened to the protection of London, which was
+already a flourishing Roman colony; but he found, on his arrival, that
+it would be requisite for the general safety to abandon that place to
+the merciless fury of the enemy.  London was reduced to ashes; such of
+the inhabitants as remained in it were cruelly massacred; the Romans
+and all strangers, to the number of 70,000, were every where put to
+the sword without distinction; and the Britons, by rendering the war
+thus bloody, seemed determined to cut off all hopes of peace or com-
+position with the enemy.  But this cruelty was revenged by Suetonius
+in a great and decisive battle, where 80,000 of the Britons are said
+to have .perished; and Boadicea herself; rather than fall into the
+hands of the enraged victor, put an end to her own life by poison [m].
+Nero soon after recalled Suetonius from a government, where, by
+suffering and inflicting so many severities, he was judged improper
+for composing the angry and alarmed minds of the inhabitants.  After
+some interval, Cerealis received the command from Vespasian, and by
+his bravery propagated the terror of the Roman arms.  Julius Frontinus
+succeeded Cerealis both in authority and in reputation: but the
+general who finally established the dominion of the Romans in this
+island was Julius Agricola, who governed it in the reigns of
+Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, and distinguished himself in that
+scene of action.
+[FN [m] Tacit. Ann. lib. 14]
+
+This great commander formed a regular plan for subduing Britain, and
+rendering the acquisition useful to the conquerors.  He carried his
+victorious arms northwards, defeated the Britons in every encounter,
+pierced into the inaccessible forests and mountains of Caledonia,
+reduced every state to subjection in the southern part of the island,
+and chased before him all the men of fiercer and more intractable
+spirits, who deemed war and death itself less intolerable than
+servitude under the victors.  He even defeated them in a decisive
+action, which they fought under Galgacus, their leader; and having
+fixed a chain of garrisons between the firths of Clyde and Forth, he
+thereby cut off the ruder and more barren parts of the island, and
+secured the Roman province from the incursions of the barbarous
+inhabitants [n].
+[FN [n] Tacit Agr.]
+
+During these military enterprises, he neglected not the arts of peace.
+He introduced laws and civility among the Britons, taught them to
+desire and raise all the conveniences of life, reconciled them to the
+Roman language and manners, instructed them in letters and science,
+and employed every expedient to render those chains which he had
+forged both easy and agreeable to them [o].  The inhabitants, having
+experienced how unequal their own force was to resist that of the
+Romans, acquiesced in the dominion of their masters, and were
+gradually incorporated as a part of that mighty empire.
+[FN [o] Ibid.]
+
+This was the last durable conquest made by the Romans; and Britain,
+once subdued, gave no farther inquietude to the victor.  Caledonia
+alone, defended by its barren mountains, and by the contempt which the
+Romans entertained for it, sometimes infested the more cultivated
+parts of the island by the incursions of its inhabitants.  The better
+to secure the frontiers of the empire, Adrian, who visited this
+island, built a rampart between the river Tyne and the firth of
+Solway: Lollius Urbicus, under Antoninus Pius, erected one in the
+place where Agricola had formerly established his garrisons: Severus,
+who made an expedition into Britain, and carried his arms to the more
+northern extremity of it, added new fortifications to the walls of
+Adrian; and, during the reigns of all the Roman emperors, such a
+profound tranquillity prevailed in Britain, that little mention is
+made of the affairs of that island by any historian.  The only
+incidents which occur are some seditions or rebellions of the Roman
+legions quartered there, and some usurpations of the Imperial dignity
+by the Roman governors.  The natives, disarmed, dispirited, and
+submissive, had lost all desire, and even idea of their former liberty
+and independence.
+
+But the period was now come when that enormous fabric of the Roman
+empire, which had diffused slavery and oppression, together with peace
+and civility, over so considerable a part of the globe, was
+approaching towards it final dissolution.  Italy and the centre of the
+empire, removed, during so many ages, from all concern in the wars,
+had entirely lost the military spirit, and were peopled by an
+enervated race, equally disposed to submit to a foreign yoke, or to
+the tyranny of their own rulers.  The emperors found themselves
+obliged to recruit their legions from the frontier provinces, where
+the genius of war, though languishing, was not totally extinct; and
+these mercenary forces, careless of laws, and civil institutions,
+established a military government, no less dangerous to the sovereign
+than to the people.  The further progress of the same disorders
+introduced the bordering barbarians into the service of the Romans;
+and those fierce nations, having now added discipline to their native
+bravery, could no longer be restrained by the impotent policy of the
+emperors, who were accustomed to employ one in the destruction of the
+others.  Sensible of their own force, and allured by the prospect of
+so rich a prize, the northern barbarians, in the reign of Arcadius and
+Honorius, assailed at once all the frontiers of the Roman empire; and
+having first satiated their avidity by plunder, began to think of
+fixing a settlement in the wasted provinces.  The more distant
+barbarians, who occupied the deserted habitations of the former,
+advanced in their acquisitions, and pressed with their incumbent
+weight the Roman state, already unequal to the load which it
+sustained.  Instead of arming the people in their own defence, the
+emperors recalled all the distant legions, in whom alone they could
+repose confidence; and collected the whole military force for the
+defence of the capital and centre of the empire.  The necessity of
+self-preservation had superseded the ambition of power; and the
+ancient point of honour never to contract the limits of the empire
+could no longer be attended to in this desperate extremity.
+
+Britain by its situation was removed from the fury of these barbarous
+incursions; and being also a remote province, not much valued by the
+Romans, the legions which defended it were carried over to the
+protection of Italy and Gaul.  But that province, though secured by
+the sea against the inroads of the greater tribes of barbarians, found
+enemies on its frontiers, who took advantage of its present
+defenceless situation.  The Picts and Scots, who dwelt in the northern
+parts, beyond the wall of Antoninus, made incursions upon their
+peaceable and effeminate neighbours; and besides the temporary
+depredations which they committed, these combined nations threatened
+the whole province with subjection, or what the inhabitants more
+dreaded, with plunder and devastation.  The Picts seem to have been a
+tribe of the native British race, who, having been chased into the
+northern parts by the conquest of Agricola, had there intermingled
+with the ancient inhabitants: the Scots were derived from the same
+Celtic origin, had first been established in Ireland, had migrated to
+the north-west coasts of this island, and had long been accustomed, as
+well from their old as their new seats, to infest the Roman province
+by piracy and rapine [p].  These tribes, finding their more opulent
+neighbours exposed to invasion, soon broke over the Roman wall, no
+longer defended by the Roman arms; and, though a contemptible enemy in
+themselves, met with no resistance from the unwarlike inhabitants.
+The Britons, accustomed to have recourse to the emperors for defence
+as well as government, made supplications to Rome; and one legion was
+sent over for their protection.  This force was an overmatch for the
+barbarians, repelled their invasion, routed them in every engagement,
+and having chased them into their ancient limits, returned in triumph
+to the defence of the southern provinces of the empire [q].  Their
+retreat brought on a new invasion of the enemy.  The Britons made
+again an application to Rome, and again obtained the assistance of a
+legion, which proved effectual for their relief: but the Romans,
+reduced to extremities at home, and fatigued with those distant
+expeditions, informed the Britons that they must no longer look to
+them for succour, exhorted them to arm in their own defence, and urged
+that, as they were now their own masters, it became them to protect by
+their valour that independence which their ancient lords had conferred
+upon them [r].  That they might leave the island with the better
+grace, the Romans assisted them in erecting anew the wall of Severus,
+which was built entirely of stone, and which the Britons had not at
+that time artificers skilful enough to repair [s].  And having done
+this last good office to the inhabitants, they bid a final adieu to
+Britain, about the year 448; after being masters of the more
+considerable part of it during the course of near four centuries.
+[FN [p] See note [A] at the end of the volume.  [q] Gildas.  Bede,
+lib. 1. cap. 12.  Paul. Diacon.  [r] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 12  [s] Ibid.]
+
+[MN The Britons.]
+The abject Britons. regarded this present of liberty as  fatal to
+them; and were in no condition to put in practice the prudent counsel
+given them by the Romans to arm in their own defence.  Unaccustomed
+both to the perils of war and to the cares of civil government, they
+found themselves incapable of forming or executing any measures for
+resisting the incursions of the barbarians.  Gratian also and
+Constantine, two Romans who had a little before assumed the purple in
+Britain, had carried over to the continent the flower of the British
+youth; and having perished in their unsuccessful attempts on the
+imperial throne, had despoiled the island of those who, in this
+desperate extremity, were best able to defend it.  The Picts and
+Scots, finding that the Romans had finally relinquished Britain, now
+regarded the whole as their prey, and attacked the northern wall with
+redoubled forces.  The Britons already subdued by their own fears,
+found the ramparts but a weak defence for them; and deserting their
+station, left the country entirely open to the inroads of the
+barbarous enemy.  The invaders carried devastation and ruin along with
+them; and exerted to the utmost their native ferocity, which was not
+mitigated by the helpless condition and submissive behaviour of the
+inhabitants [t].  The unhappy Britons had a third time recourse to
+Rome, which had declared its resolution for ever to abandon them.
+Aetius, the patrician, sustained at that time, by his valour and
+magnanimity, the tottering ruins of the empire, and revived for a
+moment, among the degenerate Romans, the spirit as well as discipline
+of their ancestors.  The British ambassador carried to him the letter
+of their countrymen, which was inscribed, THE GROANS OF THE BRITONS.
+The tenor of the epistle was suitable to its superscription.  THE
+BARBARIANS, say they, ON THE ONE HAND, CHASE US INTO THE SEA; THE SEA,
+ON THE OTHER, THROWS US BACK UPON THE BARBARIANS; AND WE HAVE ONLY THE
+HARD CHOICE LEFT US, OF PERISHING BY THE SWORD OR BY THE WAVES [u].
+But Aetius, pressed by the arms of Attila, the most terrible enemy
+that ever assailed the empire, had no leisure to attend to the
+complaints of allies, whom generosity alone could induce him to assist
+[v].  The Britons thus rejected were reduced to despair, deserted
+their habitations, abandoned tillage, and flying for protection to the
+forests and mountains, suffered equally from hunger and from the
+enemy.  The barbarians themselves began to feel the pressure of famine
+in a country which they had ravaged; and being harassed by the
+dispersed Britons, who had not dared to resist them in a body, they
+retreated with their spoils into their own country [w].
+[FN [t] Gildas.  Bede, lib. 1.  Ann. Beverl. p. 45.  [u] Gildas.
+Bede, lib. 1. cap. 13.  Malmesbury, lib. 1. cap. 1.  Ann. Beverl. p.
+45.  [v] Chron. Sax. p. 11 edit. 1692.  [w] Ann. Beverl. p. 45.]
+
+The Britons, taking advantage of this interval, returned to their
+usual occupations; and the favourable seasons which succeeded seconded
+their industry, made them soon forget their past miseries, and
+restored to them great plenty of all the necessaries of life.  No more
+can be imagined to have been possessed by a people so rude, who had
+not, without the assistance of the Romans, art of masonry sufficient
+to raise a stone rampart for their own defence; yet the Monkish
+historians [x], who treat of those events, complain of the luxury of
+the Britons during this period, and ascribe to that vice, not to their
+cowardice or improvident counsels, all their subsequent calamities.
+[FN [x] Gildas.  Bede, lib. 1. cap. 14.]
+
+The Britons, entirely occupied in the enjoyment of the present
+interval of peace, made no provision for resisting the enemy, who,
+invited by their former timid behaviour, soon threatened them with a
+new invasion.  We are not exactly informed what species of civil
+government the Romans on their departure had left among the Britons;
+but it appears probable, that the great men in, the different
+districts assumed a kind of regal though precarious authority; and
+lived in a great measure independent of each other [y].  To this
+disunion of counsels were also added the disputes of theology; and the
+disciples of Pelagius, who was himself a native of Britain, having
+increased to a great multitude, gave alarm to the clergy, who seem to
+have been more intent on suppressing them, than on opposing the public
+enemy [z].  Labouring under these domestic evils, and menaced with a
+foreign invasion, the Britons attended only to the suggestions of
+their present fears; and following the counsels of Vortigern, Prince
+of Dumnonium, who, though stained with every vice, possessed the chief
+authority among them [a], they sent into Germany a deputation to
+invite over the Saxons for their protection and assistance.
+[FN [y] Gildas.  Usher, Ant. Brit. p. 248, 347.  [z] Gildas.  Bede,
+lib. 1. cap. 17.  Constant. in vita Germ.  [a] Gildas.  Gul. Malm. p
+8.]
+
+[MN The Saxons.]
+Of all the barbarous nations, known either in ancient or modern times,
+the Germans seem to have been the most distinguished both by their
+manners and political institutions, and to have carried to the highest
+pitch the virtues of valour and love of liberty; the only virtues
+which can have place among an uncivilized people, where justice and
+humanity are commonly neglected.  Kingly government, even when
+established among the Germans, (for it was not universal,) possessed a
+very limited authority; and though the sovereign was usually chosen
+from among the royal family, he was directed in every measure by the
+common consent of the nation over whom he presided.  When any
+important affairs were transacted, all the warriors met in arms; the
+men of greatest authority employed persuasion to engage their consent;
+the people expressed their approbation by rattling their armour, or
+their dissent by murmurs; there was no necessity for a nice scrutiny
+of votes among a multitude, who were usually carried with a strong
+current to one side or the other; and the measure thus suddenly chosen
+by general agreement, was executed with alacrity and prosecuted with
+vigour.  Even in war, the princes governed more by example than by
+authority; but in peace the civil union was in a great measure
+dissolved, and the inferior leaders administered justice after an
+independent manner, each in his particular district.  These were
+elected by the votes of the people in their great councils; and though
+regard was paid to nobility in the choice, their personal qualities,
+chiefly their valour, procured them, from the suffrages of their
+fellow-citizens, that honourable but dangerous distinction.  The
+warriors of each tribe attached themselves to their leader with the
+most devoted affection and most unshaken constancy.  They attended him
+as his ornament in peace, as his defence in war, as his council in the
+administration of justice.  Their constant emulation in military
+renown dissolved not that inviolable friendship which they professed
+to their chieftain and to each other: to die for the honour of their
+band was their chief ambition: to survive its disgrace, or the death
+of their leader, was infamous.  They even carried into the field their
+women and children, who adopted all the martial sentiments of the men:
+and being thus impelled by every human motive, they were invincible;
+where they were not opposed either by the similar manners and
+institutions of the neighbouring Germans, or by the superior
+discipline, arms, and numbers of the Romans [b].
+[FN [b] Caesar, lib. 6.  Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]
+
+The leaders and their military companions were maintained by the
+labour of their slaves, or by that of the weaker and less warlike part
+of the community, whom they defended.  The contributions which they
+levied went not beyond a bare subsistence; and the honours, acquired
+by a superior rank, were the only reward of their superior dangers and
+fatigues.  All the refined arts of life were unknown among the
+Germans: tillage itself was almost wholly neglected: they even seem to
+have been anxious to prevent any improvements of that nature; and the
+leaders, by annually distributing anew all the land among the
+inhabitants of each village, kept them from attaching themselves to
+particular possessions, or making such progress in agriculture as
+might divert their attention from military expeditions, the chief
+occupation of the community [c].
+[FN [c] Caesar, lib. 6.  Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]
+
+The Saxons had been for some time regarded as one of the most warlike
+tribes of this fierce people, and had become the terror of the
+neighbouring nations [d].  They had diffused themselves from the
+northern parts of Germany and the Cimbrian Chersonesus, and had taken
+possession of all the sea-coast from the mouth of the Rhine to
+Jutland; whence they had long infested by their piracies all the
+eastern and southern parts of Britain, and the northern of Gaul [e].
+In order to oppose their inroads, the Romans had established an
+officer, whom they called COUNT OF THE SAXON SHORE; and as the naval
+arts can flourish among a civilized people alone, they seem to have
+been more successful in repelling the Saxons, than any of the other
+barbarians by whom they were invaded.  The dissolution of the Roman
+power invited them to renew their inroads; and it was an acceptable
+circumstance, that the deputies of the Britons appeared among them,
+and prompted them to undertake an enterprise, to which they were of
+themselves sufficiently inclined [f].
+[FN d Amm. Marcell. lib. 28.  Orosius.  [e] Marcell. lib. 27. cap. 7.
+lib. 28. cap. 7.  [f] Will. Malm. p. 8.]
+
+Hengist and Horsa, two brothers, possessed great credit among the
+Saxons, and were much celebrated both for their valour and nobility.
+They were reputed, as most of the Saxon princes, to be sprung from
+Woden, who was worshipped as a god among those nations, and they are
+said to be his great grandsons [g]; a circumstance which added much to
+their authority.  We shall not attempt to trace any higher the origin
+of those princes and nations.  It is evident what fruitless labour it
+must be to search, in those barbarous and illiterate ages, for the
+annals of a people, when their first leaders, known in any true
+history, were believed by them to be the fourth in descent from a
+fabulous deity, or from a man exalted by ignorance into that
+character.  The dark industry of antiquaries, led by imaginary
+analogies of names, or by uncertain traditions, would in vain attempt
+to pierce into that deep obscurity which covers the remote history of
+those nations.
+[FN [g] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15.  Saxon Chron. p. 13.  Nennius, cap.
+28.]
+
+These two brothers, observing the other provinces of Germany to be
+occupied by a warlike and necessitous people, and the rich provinces
+of Gaul already conquered or overrun by other German tribes, found it
+easy to persuade their countrymen to embrace the sole enterprise which
+promised a favourable opportunity of displaying their valour and
+gratifying their avidity.  They embarked their troops in three
+vessels, and about the year 449 or 450 [h], carried over 1600 men, who
+landed in the Isle of Thanet, and immediately marched to the defence
+of the Britons against the northern invaders.  The Scots and Picts
+were unable to resist the valour of these auxiliaries; and the
+Britons, applauding their own wisdom in calling over the Saxons, hoped
+thenceforth to enjoy peace and security under the powerful protection
+of that warlike people.
+[FN [h] Saxon Chronicle, p. 12.  Gul. Malm. p. 11.  Huntington, lib.
+2. p. 309.  Ethelwerd.  Brompton, p. 728.]
+
+But Hengist and Horsa perceiving, from their easy victory over the
+Scots and Picts, with what facility they might subdue the Britons
+themselves, who had not been able to resist those feeble invaders,
+were determined to conquer and fight for their own grandeur, not for
+the defence of their degenerate allies.  They sent intelligence to
+Saxony of the fertility and riches of Britain; and represented as
+certain the subjection of a people so long disused to arms, who, being
+now cut off from the Roman empire, of which they had been a province
+during so many ages, had not yet acquired any union among themselves,
+and were destitute of all affection to their new liberties and of all
+national attachments and regards [i].  The vices and pusillanimity of
+Vortigern, the British leader, were a new ground of hope; and the
+Saxons in Germany, following such agreeable prospects, soon reinforced
+Hengist and Horsa with 5000 men, who came over in seventeen vessels.
+The Britons now began to entertain apprehensions of their allies,
+whose numbers they found continually augmenting; but thought of no
+remedy, except a passive submission and connivance.  This weak
+expedient soon  failed them.  The Saxons sought a quarrel, by
+complaining that their subsidies were ill paid, and their provisions
+withdrawn [k]; and immediately taking off the mask, they formed an
+alliance with the Picts and Scots, and proceeded to open hostility
+against the Britons.
+[FN [i] Chron. Sax. p. 12.  Ann. Beverl. p. 42.  [k] Bede, lib. 1.
+cap. 15.  Nennius, cap. 35.  Gildas, Sec. 23.]
+
+The Britons, impelled by these violent extremities, and roused to
+indignation against their treacherous auxiliaries, were necessitated
+to take arms; and having deposed Vortigern, who had become odious from
+his vices, and from the bad event of his rash counsels, they put
+themselves under the command of his son, Vortimer.  They fought many
+battles with their enemies; and though the victories in these actions
+be disputed between the British and Saxon annalists, the progress
+still made by the Saxons proves that the advantage was commonly on
+their side.  In one battle, however, fought at Eaglesford, now
+Ailsford, Horsa, the Saxon general, was slain, and left the sole
+command over his countrymen in the hands of Hengist.  This active
+general, continually reinforced by fresh numbers from Germany, carried
+devastation into the most remote corners of Britain; and being chiefly
+anxious to spread the terror of his arms, he spared neither age, nor
+sex, nor condition, wherever he marched with his victorious forces.
+The private and public edifices of the Britons were reduced to ashes:
+the priests were slaughtered on the altars by those idolatrous
+ravagers: the bishops and nobility shared the fate of the vulgar: the
+people, flying to the mountains and deserts, were intercepted and
+butchered in heaps: some were glad to accept of life and servitude
+under their victors: others, deserting their native country, took
+shelter in the province of Armorica; where, being charitably received
+by a people of the same language and manners, they settled in great
+numbers, and gave the country the name of Britany [l].
+[FN [l] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15.  Usher, p.226.  Gildas, Sec. 24.]
+
+The British writers assign one cause which facilitated the entrance of
+the Saxons into this island; the love with which Vortigern was at
+first seized for Rovena, the daughter of Hengist, and which that
+artful warrior made use of to blind the eyes of the imprudent monarch
+[m].  The same historians add, that Vortimer died; and that Vortigern,
+being restored to the throne, accepted of a banquet from Hengist, at
+Stonehenge, where 300 of his nobility were treacherously slaughtered,
+and himself detained captive [n].  But these stories seem to have been
+invented by the Welsh authors, in order to palliate the weak
+resistance made at first by their countrymen, anal to account for the
+rapid progress and licentious devastations of the Saxons [o].
+[FN [m] Nennius, Galfr. lib. 6. cap. 12.  [n] Nennius, cap. 47.
+Galfr.  [o] Stillingfleet's Orig. Brit. p. 324, 325.]
+
+After the death of Vortimer, Ambrosius, a Briton, though of Roman
+descent, invested with the command over his countrymen, and
+endeavoured, not without success, to unite them in their resistance
+against the Saxons. Those contests increased the animosity between the
+two nations, and roused the military spirit of the ancient
+inhabitants, which had before been sunk into a fatal lethargy.
+Hengist, however, notwithstanding their opposition, still maintained
+his ground in Britain; and in order to divide the forces and attention
+of the natives, he called over a new tribe of Saxons, under the
+command of his brother Octa, and of Ebissa, the son of Octa; and he
+settled them in Northumberland.  He himself remained in the southern
+parts of the island, and laid the foundation of the kingdom of Kent,
+comprehending the county of that name, Middlesex, Essex, and part of
+Surrey.  He fixed his royal seat at Canterbury; where he governed
+about forty years, and he died in or near the year 488; leaving his
+new-acquired dominions to his posterity.
+
+The success of Hengist excited the avidity of the other northern
+Germans; and at different times, and under different leaders, they
+flocked over in multitudes to the invasion of this island.  These
+conquerors were chiefly composed of three tribes, the Saxons, Angles,
+and Jutes [p], who all passed under the common appellation, sometimes
+of Saxons, sometimes of Angles; and speaking the same language, and
+being governed by the same institutions, they were naturally led, from
+these causes, as well as from their common interest, to unite
+themselves against the ancient inhabitants.  The resistance, however,
+though unequal, was still maintained by the Britons; but became every
+day more feeble; and their calamities admitted of few intervals, till
+they were driven into Cornwall and Wales, and received protection from
+the remote situation or inaccessible mountains of those countries.
+[FN [p] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15.  Ethelwerd, p. 833. edit. Camdeni.
+Chron. Sax. p. 12.  Ann. Beverl. p. 78.  The inhabitants of Kent, and
+the Isle of Wight were Jutes.  Essex, Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex, and
+all the southern counties to Cornwall, were peopled by Saxons: Mercia,
+and other parts of the kingdom, were inhabited by Angles.]
+
+The first Saxon state, after that of Kent, which was established in
+Britain, was the kingdom of South Saxony.  In the year 477 [q], Aella,
+a Saxon chief, brought over an army from Germany; and landing on the
+southern coast, proceeded to take possession of the neighbouring
+territory.  The Britons, now armed, did not tamely abandon their
+possessions; nor were they expelled, till defeated in many battles by
+their warlike invaders.  The most memorable action, mentioned by
+historians, is that of Meacredes Burn [r]; where, though the Saxons
+seem to have obtained the victory, they suffered so considerable a
+loss, as somewhat retarded the progress of their conquests.  But
+Aella, reinforced by fresh numbers of his countrymen, again took the
+field against the Britons, and laid siege to Andred-Ceaster, which was
+defended by the garrison and inhabitants with desperate valour [s].
+The Saxons, enraged by this resistance, and by the fatigues and
+dangers which they had sustained, redoubled their efforts against the
+place, and when masters of it, put all their enemies to the sword
+without distinction.  This decisive advantage secured the conquests of
+Aella, who assumed the name of king, and extended his dominion over
+Sussex and a great part of Surrey.  He was stopped in his progress to
+the east by the kingdom of Kent: in that to the west by another tribe
+of Saxons, who had taken possession of that territory.
+[FN [q] Chron. Sax. p.14.  Ann. Beverl. p. 81.  [r] Saxon Chron. A.D.
+485.  Flor. Wigorn.  [s] Hen. Hunting. lib. 2.]
+
+These Saxons, from the situation of the country in which they settled,
+were called the West Saxons, and landed in the year 495, under the
+command of Cerdic, and of his son Kenric [t].  The Britons were, by
+past experience, so much on their guard, and so well prepared to
+receive the enemy, that they gave battle to Cerdic the very day of his
+landing; and though vanquished, still defended, for some time, their
+liberties against the invaders.  None of the other tribes of Saxons
+met with such vigorous resistance, or exerted such valour and
+perseverance in pushing their conquests.  Cerdic was even obliged to
+call for the assistance of his countrymen from the kingdoms of Kent
+and Sussex, as well as from Germany, and he was thence joined by a
+fresh army under the command of Porte, and of his sons Bleda, and
+Megla [u].  Strengthened by these succours, he fought in the year 508,
+a desperate battle with the Britons, commanded by Nazan-Leod, who was
+victorious in the beginning of the action, and routed the wing in
+which Cerdic himself commanded; but Kenric, who had prevailed in the
+other wing, brought timely assistance to his father, and restored the
+battle, which ended in a complete victory gained by the Saxons [w].
+Nazan-Leod perished with 5000 of his army; but left the Britons more
+weakened than discouraged by his death.  The war still continued,
+though the success was commonly on the side of the Saxons, whose short
+swords, and close manner of fighting, gave them great advantage over
+the missile weapons of the Britons.  Cerdic was not wanting to his
+good fortune; and in order to extend his conquests, he laid siege to
+Mount Badon or Banesdowne, near Bath, whither the most obstinate of
+the discomfited Britons had retired.  The southern Britons, in this
+extremity, applied for assistance to Arthur, Prince of the Silures,
+whose heroic valour now sustained the declining fate of his country
+[x].  This is that Arthur so much celebrated in the songs of
+Thaliessin, and the other British bards, and whose military
+achievements have been blended with so many fables, as even to give
+occasion for entertaining a doubt of his real existence. But poets,
+though they disfigure the most certain history by their fictions, and
+use strange liberties with truth where they are the sole historians,
+as among the Britons, have commonly some foundation for their wildest
+exaggerations.  Certain it is, that the siege of Badon was raised by
+the Britons in the year 520; and the Saxons were there discomfited in
+a great battle [y].  This misfortune stopped the progress of Cerdic;
+but was not sufficient to wrest from him the conquests which he had
+already made.  He and his son Kenric, who succeeded him, established
+the kingdom of the West Saxons, or of Wessex, over the counties of
+Hants, Dorset, Wilts, Berks, and the Isle of Wight, and left their
+new-acquired dominions to their posterity.  Cerdic died in 534, Kenric
+in 560.
+[FN [t] Will. Malm. lib. 1. cap. 1. p.12.  Chron. Sax. p. 15.  [u]
+Chron. Sax. p. 17.  [w] H. Hunting. lib. 2.  Ethelwerd, lib. 1. Chron.
+Sax. p. 17.  [x] Hunting. lib. 2.  [y] Gildas, Saxon Chron.  H.
+Hunting. lib. 2]
+
+While the Saxons made this progress in the south, their countrymen
+were not less active in other quarters.  In the year 527, a great
+tribe of adventurers, under several leaders, landed on the east coast
+of Britain; and after fighting many battles, of which history has
+preserved no particular account, they established three new kingdoms
+in this island.  Uffa assumed the title of King of the East Angles in
+575; Crida that of Mercia in 585 [z] and Erkenwin that of East Saxony,
+or Essex, nearly about the same time, but the year is uncertain.  This
+latter kingdom was dismembered from that of Kent, and comprehended
+Essex, Middlesex, and part of Hertfordshire.  That of the East Angles,
+the counties of Cambridge, Suffolk, and Norfolk; Mercia was extended
+over all the middle counties, from the banks of the Severn to the
+frontiers of these two kingdoms.
+[FN [z] Math. West. Huntington, lib. 2.]
+
+The Saxons, soon after the landing of Hengist, had been planted in
+Northumberland; but, as they met with an obstinate resistance, and
+made but small progress in subduing the inhabitants, their affairs
+were in so unsettled a condition, that none of their princes for a
+long time assumed the appellation of king.  At last, in 547 [a], Ida,
+a Saxon prince of great valour [b], who claimed a descent, as did the
+other princes of that nation, from Woden, brought over a reinforcement
+from Germany, and enabled the Northumbrians to carry on their
+conquests over the Britons.  He entirely subdued the county now called
+Northumberland, the bishopric of Durham, as well as some of the south-
+east counties of Scotland; and he assumed the crown under the title of
+King of Bernicia.  Nearly about the same time, Aella, another Saxon
+prince, having conquered Lancashire, and the greater part of
+Yorkshire, received the appellation of  King of Deiri [c].  These two
+kingdoms were united in the person of Ethilfrid, grandson of Ida, who
+married Acca, the daughter of Aella; and expelling her brother Edwin,
+established one of the most powerful of the Saxon kingdoms, by the
+title of Northumberland.  How far his dominions extended into the
+country now called Scotland, is uncertain; but it cannot be doubted,
+that all the lowlands, especially the east coast of that country, were
+peopled in a great measure from Germany; though the expeditions made
+by the several Saxon adventurers have escaped the records of history.
+The language spoken in those countries, which is purely Saxon, is a
+stronger proof of this event than can be opposed by the imperfect, or
+rather fabulous, annals which are obtruded on us by the Scottish
+historians.
+[FN [a] Chron. Sax. p 19.  [b] Will. Malmes. p. 19.  [c] Ann. Beverl.
+p. 78.]
+
+[MN The Heptarcy.]
+Thus was established, after a violent contest of near a hundred and
+fifty years, the Heptarchy, or seven Saxon kingdoms in Britain; and
+the whole southern part of the island, except Wales and Cornwall, had
+totally changed its inhabitants, language, customs, and political
+institutions.  The Britons, under the Roman dominion, had made such
+advances towards arts and civil manners, that they had built twenty-
+eight considerable cities within their province, besides a great
+number of villages and country seats [d].  But the fierce conquerors,
+by whom they were now subdued, threw every thing back into ancient
+barbarity, and those few natives who were not either massacred or
+expelled their habitations, were reduced to the most abject slavery.
+None of the other northern conquerors, the Franks, Goths, Vandals, or
+Burgundians, though they overran the southern provinces of the empire
+like a mighty torrent, made such devastations in the conquered
+territories, or were inflamed into so violent an animosity against the
+ancient inhabitants.  As the Saxons came over at intervals in separate
+bodies, the Britons, however at first unwarlike, were tempted to make
+resistance; and hostilities being thereby prolonged, proved more
+destructive to both parties, especially to the vanquished.  The first
+invaders from Germany, instead of excluding other adventurers  who
+must share with them the spoils of the ancient inhabitants, were
+obliged to solicit fresh supplies from their own country; and a total
+extermination of the Britons became the sole expedient for providing a
+settlement and subsistence to the new planters.  Hence there have been
+found in history few conquests more ruinous than that of the Saxons;
+and few revolutions more violent than that which they introduced.
+[FN  [d] Gildas. Bede. lib. 1.]
+
+So long as the contest was maintained with the natives, the several
+Saxon princes preserved a union of counsels and interests; but after
+the Britons were shut up in the barren counties of Cornwall and Wales,
+and gave no farther disturbance to the conquerors, the band of
+alliance was in a great measure dissolved among the princes of the
+Heptarchy.  Though one prince seems still to have been allowed, or to
+have assumed, an ascendant over the whole, his authority, if it ought
+ever to be deemed regular or legal, was extremely limited; and each
+state acted as if it had been independent, and wholly separate from
+the rest.  Wars therefore, and revolutions and dissensions, were
+unavoidable among a turbulent and military people; and these events,
+however intricate or confused, ought now to become the objects of our
+attention.  But, added to the difficulty of carrying on at once the
+history of seven independent kingdoms, there is great discouragement
+to a writer, arising from the uncertainty, at least barrenness, of the
+accounts transmitted to us.  The monks, who were the only annalists
+during those ages, lived remote from public affairs, considered the
+civil transactions as entirely subordinate to the ecclesiastical, and,
+besides partaking of the ignorance and barbarity which were then
+universal, were strongly infected with credulity, with the love of
+wonder, and with a propensity to imposture; vices almost inseparable
+from their profession and manner of life.  The history of that period
+abounds in names, but is extremely barren of events; or the events are
+related so much without circumstances and causes, that the most
+profound or most eloquent writer must despair of rendering them either
+instructive or entertaining to the reader.  Even the great learning
+and vigorous imagination of Milton sunk under the weight; and this
+author scruples not to declare, that the skirmishes of kites or crows
+as much merited a particular narrative, as the confused transactions
+and battles of the Saxon Heptarchy [e].  In order, however, to connect
+the events in some tolerable measure, we shall give a succinct account
+of the succession of kings, and of the more remarkable revolutions in
+each particular kingdom; beginning with that of Kent, which was the
+first established.
+[FN [e] Milton in Kennet, p. 50.]
+
+[MN The Kingdom of Kent.]
+Escus succeeded his father Hengist in the kingdom of Kent; but seems
+not to have possessed the military genius of that conqueror, who first
+made way for the entrance of the Saxon arms into Britain.  All the
+Saxons who sought either the fame of valour, or new establishments by
+arms, flocked to the standard of Aella, King of Sussex, who was
+carrying on successful war against the Britons, and laying the
+foundations of a new kingdom.  Escus was content to possess in
+tranquillity the kingdom of Kent, which he left in 512 to his son
+Octa, in whose time the East Saxons established their monarchy, and
+dismembered the provinces of Essex and Middlesex from that of Kent.
+His death, after a reign of twenty-two years, made room for his son
+Hermenric in 534, who performed nothing memorable during a reign of
+thirty-two years, except associating with him his son Ethelbert in the
+government, that he might secure the succession in his family, and
+prevent such revolutions as are incident to a turbulent and barbarous
+monarchy.
+
+Ethelbert revived the reputation of his family, which had languished
+for some generations.  The inactivity of his predecessors, and the
+situation of his country, secured from all hostility with the Britons,
+seem to have much enfeebled the warlike genius of the Kentish Saxons;
+and Ethelbert, in his first attempt to aggrandize his country, and
+distinguish his own name, was unsuccessful [f].  He was twice
+discomfited in battle by Ceaulin, King of Wessex; and obliged to yield
+the superiority in the Heptarchy to that ambitious monarch, who
+preserved no moderation in his victory, and by reducing the kingdom of
+Sussex to subjection, excited jealousy in all the other princes.  An
+association was formed against him; and Ethelbert, intrusted with the
+command of the allies  gave him battle, and obtained a decisive
+victory [g ].  Ceaulin died soon after; and Ethelbert succeeded as
+well to his ascendant among the Saxon states, as to his other
+ambitious projects.  He reduced all the princes, except the King of
+Northumberland, to a strict dependence upon him; and even established
+himself by force on the throne of Mercia, the most extensive of the
+Saxon kingdoms.  Apprehensive, however, of a dangerous league against
+him, like that by which he himself had been enabled to overthrow
+Ceaulin, he had the prudence to resign the kingdom of Mercia to Webba,
+the rightful heir, the son of Crida, who had first founded that
+monarchy.  But governed still by ambition more than by justice, he
+gave Webba possession of the crown on such conditions as rendered him
+little better than a tributary prince under his artful benefactor.
+[FN [f] Chron. Sax. p. 21.  [g] H. Hunting. lib. 2.]
+
+But the most memorable event which distinguished the reign of this
+great prince, was the introduction of the Christian religion among the
+English Saxons.  The superstition of the Germans, particularly that of
+the Saxons, was of the grossest and most barbarous kind; and being
+founded on traditional tales received from their ancestors, not
+reduced to any system, nor supported by political institutions, like
+that of the Druids, it seems to have made little impression on its
+votaries, and to have easily resigned its place to the new doctrine
+promulgated to them.  Woden, whom they deemed the ancestor of all
+their princes, was regarded as the god of war, and, by a natural
+consequence, became their supreme deity, and the chief object of their
+religious worship.  They believed that, if they obtained the favour of
+this divinity by their valour, (for they made less account of the
+other virtues,) they should be admitted after their death into his
+hall; and, reposing on couches, should satiate themselves with ale
+from the skulls of their enemies whom they had slain in battle.
+Incited by this idea of paradise, which gratified at once the passion
+of revenge and that of intemperance, the ruling inclinations of
+barbarians, they despised the dangers of war, and increased their
+native ferocity against the vanquished by their religious prejudices.
+We know little of the other theological tenets of the Saxons: we only
+learn that they were polytheists; that they worshipped the sun and
+moon; that they adored the god of thunder under the name of Thor; that
+they had images in their temples; that they practised sacrifices;
+believed firmly in spells and enchantments; and admitted in general a
+system of doctrines which they held as sacred, but which, like all
+other superstitions, must carry the air of the wildest extravagance,
+if propounded to those who are not familiarized to it from their
+earliest infancy.
+
+The constant hostilities which the Saxons maintained against the
+Britons, would naturally indispose them for receiving the Christian
+faith, when preached to them by such inveterate enemies; and perhaps
+the Britons, as is objected to them by Gildas and Bede, were not over
+fond of communicating to their cruel invaders the doctrine of eternal
+life and salvation.  But as a civilized people, however subdued by
+arms, still maintain a sensible superiority over barbarous and
+ignorant nations, all the other northern conquerors of Europe had been
+already induced to embrace the Christian faith, which they found
+established in the empire; and it was impossible but the Saxons,
+informed of this event, must have regarded with some degree of
+veneration a doctrine which had acquired the ascendant over all their
+brethren.  However limited in their views, they could not but have
+perceived a degree of cultivation in the southern countries beyond
+what they themselves possessed; and it was natural for them to yield
+to that superior knowledge as well as zeal, by which the inhabitants
+of the Christian kingdoms were even at that time distinguished.
+
+But these causes might long have failed of producing any considerable
+effect, had not a favourable incident prepared the means of
+introducing Christianity into Kent.  Ethelbert, in his father's
+lifetime, had married Bertha, the only daughter of Caribert, King of
+Paris [h], one of the descendants of Clovis, the conqueror of Gaul;
+but before he was admitted to this alliance, he was obliged to
+stipulate, that the princess should enjoy the free exercise of her
+religion; a concession not difficult to be obtained from the
+idolatrous Saxons [i].  Bertha brought over a  French bishop to the
+court of Canterbury; and being zealous for the propagation of her
+religion, she had been very assiduous in her devotional exercises, had
+supported the credit of her faith by an irreproachable conduct, and
+had employed every art of insinuation and address to reconcile her
+husband to her religious principles.  Her popularity in the court, and
+her influence over Ethelbert, had so well paved the way for the
+reception of the Christian doctrine, that Gregory, surnamed the Great,
+then Roman pontiff, began to entertain hopes of effecting a project,
+which he himself, before he mounted the papal throne, had once
+embraced, of converting the British Saxons.
+[FN [h] Greg. of Tours, lib. 9. cap. 26.  H. Hunting. lib. 2.  [i]
+Bede, lib. 1. cap. 25.  Brompton, p. 729.]
+
+It happened that this prelate, at that time in a private station, had
+observed in the market-place of Rome some Saxon youth exposed to sale,
+whom the Roman merchants, in their trading voyages to Britain, had
+bought of their mercenary parents.  Struck with the beauty of their
+fair complexions and blooming countenances, Gregory asked to what
+country they belonged; and being told they were ANGLES, he replied
+that they ought more properly to be denominated ANGELS: it were a pity
+that the prince of darkness should enjoy so fair a prey, and that so
+beautiful a frontispiece should cover a mind destitute of internal
+grace and righteousness.  Inquiring farther concerning the name of
+their province, he was informed that it was Deiri, a district of
+Northumberland: DEIRI, replied he, THAT IS GOOD!  THEY ARE CALLED TO
+THE MERCY OF GOD FROM HIS ANGER, De ira.  BUT WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE
+KING OF THAT PROVINCE?  He was told it was Aella or Alla: ALLELUIAH,
+cried he: WE MUST ENDEAVOUR THAT THE PRAISES OF GOD BE SUNG IN THAT
+COUNTRY.  Moved by these allusions, which appeared to him so happy, he
+determined to undertake himself a mission into Britain; and having
+obtained the pope's approbation, he prepared for that perilous
+journey: but his popularity at home was so great, that the Romans,
+unwilling to expose him to such dangers, opposed his design; and he
+was obliged, for the present, to lay aside all farther thoughts of
+executing that pious purpose [k].
+[FN [k] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 1.  Spell. Conc. p. 91.]
+
+The controversy between the Pagans and the Christians was not entirely
+cooled in that age; and no pontiff before Gregory, had ever carried to
+greater excess an intemperate zeal against the former religion.  He
+had waged war with all the precious monuments of the ancients, and
+even with their writings, which, as appears from the strain of his own
+wit, as well as from the style of his compositions, he had not taste
+or genius sufficient to comprehend.  Ambitious to distinguish his
+pontificate by the conversion of the British Saxons, he pitched on
+Augustine, a Roman monk, and sent him with forty associates to preach
+the gospel in this island.  These missionaries, terrified with the
+dangers which might attend their proposing a new doctrine to so fierce
+a people, of whose language they were ignorant, stopped some time in
+France, and sent back Augustine to lay the hazards and difficulties
+before the pope, and crave his permission to desist from the
+undertaking.  But Gregory exhorted them to persevere in their purpose,
+advised them to choose some interpreters from among the Franks, who
+still spoke the same language with the Saxons [l]; and recommended
+them to the good offices of Queen Brunehaut, who had at this time
+usurped the sovereign power in France.  This princess, though stained
+with every vice of treachery and cruelty, either possessed or
+pretended great zeal for the cause; and Gregory acknowledged that to
+her friendly assistance was, in a great measure, owing the success of
+that undertaking [m].
+[FN [1] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 23.  [m] Greg. Epist. lib. 9. epist. 56.
+Spell. Conc. p. 82]
+
+Augustine, on his arrival in Kent, in the year 597 [n] found the
+danger much less than he had apprehended.  Ethelbert, already well
+disposed towards the Christian faith, assigned him a habitation in the
+Isle of Thanet, and soon after admitted him to a conference.
+Apprehensive, however, lest spells or enchantments might be employed
+against him by priests, who brought an unknown worship from a distant
+country, he had the precaution to receive them in the open air, where
+he believed the force of their magic would be more easily dissipated
+[o].  Here Augustine, by means of his interpreters, delivered to him
+the tenets of the Christian faith, and promised him eternal joys
+above, and a kingdom in  heaven, without end, if he would be persuaded
+to receive that salutary doctrine [p].  "Your words and promises,"
+replied Ethelbert, "are fair; but because they are new and uncertain,
+I cannot entirely yield to them, and relinquish the principles which I
+and my ancestors have so long maintained.  You are welcome, however,
+to remain here in peace; and as you have undertaken so long a journey,
+solely, as it appears, for what you believe to be for our advantage, I
+will supply you with all necessaries, and permit you to deliver your
+doctrine to my subjects [q]"
+[FN [n] Higden. Polychron. lib. 5.  Chron. Sax. p. 23.  [o] Bede, lib.
+I. cap. 2  Hunting. lib. 3.  Brompton, p. 729  Parker Antiq. Brit.
+Eccl. p. 61. [p] Bede, lib. 1. cap 25.  Chron. W. Thorn. p. 1759.  [q]
+Bede, lib. 1. cap 25.  H. Hunting. lib. 3.  Brompton, p. 729]
+
+Augustine, encouraged by this favourable reception, and seeing now a
+prospect of success, proceeded with redoubled zeal to preach the
+gospel to the Kentish Saxons.  He attracted their attention by the
+austerity of his manners, by the severe penances to which he subjected
+himself, by the abstinence and self-denial which he practised: and
+having excited their wonder by a course of life which appeared so
+contrary to nature, he procured more easily their belief of miracles,
+which, it was pretended, he wrought for their conversion [r].
+Influenced by these motives, and by the declared favour of the court,
+numbers of the Kentish men were baptized; and the king himself was
+persuaded to submit to that rite of Christianity.  His example had
+great influence with his subjects; but he employed no force to bring
+them over to the new doctrine.  Augustine thought proper, in the
+commencement of his mission, to assume the appearance of the greatest
+lenity.  He told Ethelbert that the service of Christ must be entirely
+voluntary, and that no violence ought ever to be used in propagating
+so salutary a doctrine [s].
+[FN [r] Bede, lib. 1. cap 26.  [s] Ibid. lib. 1. cap 26.  H. Hunting.
+lib. 3.]
+
+The intelligence received of these spiritual conquests afforded great
+joy to the Romans; who now exulted as much in those peaceful trophies,
+as their ancestors had ever done in their most sanguinary triumphs,
+and most splendid victories.  Gregory wrote a letter to Ethelbert, in
+which, after informing him that the end of the world was approaching,
+he exhorted him to display his zeal in the conversion of his subjects,
+to exert rigour against the worship of idols, and to build up the good
+work of holiness by every expedient of exhortation, terror,
+blandishment, or correction [t]: a doctrine more suitable to that age,
+and to the usual papal maxims, than the tolerating principles which
+Augustine had thought it prudent to inculcate.  The pontiff also
+answered some questions which the missionary had put concerning the
+government of the new church of Kent.  Besides other queries which it
+is not material here to relate, Augustine asked, WHETHER COUSIN-
+GERMANS MIGHT BE ALLOWED TO MARRY? Gregory answered, that that liberty
+had indeed been formerly granted by the Roman law; but that experience
+had shown, that no issue could ever come from such marriages; and he
+therefore prohibited them.  Augustine, WHETHER A WOMAN PREGNANT MIGHT
+BE BAPTIZED?  Gregory answered that he saw no objection.  HOW SOON
+AFTER THE BIRTH THE CHILD MIGHT RECEIVE BAPTISM?  It was answered,
+Immediately, if necessary.  HOW SOON A HUSBAND MIGHT HAVE COMMERCE
+WITH HIS WIFE AFTER HER DELIVERY?  Not till she had given suck to her
+child: a practice to which Gregory exhorts all women.  HOW SOON A MAN
+MIGHT ENTER THE CHURCH, OR RECEIVE THE SACRAMENT, AFTER HAVING HAD
+COMMERCE WITH HIS WIFE?  It was replied, that unless he had approached
+her without desire, merely for the sake of propagating his species, he
+was not without sin: but in all cases it was requisite for him, before
+he entered the church, or communicated, to purge himself by prayer and
+ablution; and he ought not, even after using these precautions, to
+participate immediately of the sacred duties [u].  There are some
+other questions and replies still more indecent and more ridiculous
+[w].  And on the whole, it appears that Gregory and his missionary, if
+sympathy of manners have any influence, were better calculated than
+men of more refined understanding for making a progress with the
+ignorant and barbarous Saxons.
+[FN [t] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 32.  Brompton, p. 732.  Spell. Conc. p. 86.
+[u] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 27.  Spell. Conc. p. 97, 98, 99, &c.  [w]
+Augustine asks, Si mulier menstrua consuetudine tenetur, an ecclesiam
+intrare ei licet, aut sacrae communionis sacramenta percipere?
+Gregory answers, Sanctae communionis mysterium in eisdem diebus
+percipere non debit prohiberi.  Si autem ex veneratione magna
+precipere non praesumitur, laudanda est.  Augustine asks, Si post
+illusionem, quae per somnum solet accidere, vel corpus Domine quilibet
+accipere valeat; vel, si sacerdos sit, sacra mysteria celebrare.
+Gregory answers this learned question by many learned distinctions.]
+
+The more to facilitate the reception of Christianity Gregory enjoined
+Augustine to remove the idols from the heathen altars, but not to
+destroy the altars themselves; because the people, he said, would be
+allured to frequent the Christian worship, when they found it
+celebrated in a place which they were accustomed to revere.  And as
+the Pagans practised sacrifices, and feasted with the priests on their
+offerings, he also exhorted the missionary to persuade them, on
+Christian festivals, to kill their cattle in the neighbourhood of the
+church, and to indulge themselves in those cheerful entertainments, to
+which they had been habituated [x].  These political compliances show,
+that notwithstanding his ignorance and prejudices, he was not
+unacquainted with the arts of governing mankind.  Augustine was
+consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, was endowed by Gregory with
+authority over all the British churches, and received the pall, a
+badge of ecclesiastical honour, from Rome [y].  Gregory also advised
+him not to be too much elated with his gift of working miracles [z];
+and as Augustine, proud of the success of his mission, seemed to think
+himself entitled to extend his authority over the bishops of Gaul, the
+pope informed him, that they lay entirely without the bounds of his
+jurisdiction [a].
+[FN [x] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 30.  Spell. Conc. p.89.  Greg. Epist. lib.
+9. Epist. 71.  [y] Chron. Sax. p. 23, 24.  [z] H. Hunting. lib. 3.
+Spell. Conc. p. 83.  Bede, lib. 1.  Greg. Epist. lib. 9. Epist. 60.
+[a] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 27.]
+
+The marriage of Ethelbert with Bertha, and much more his embracing
+Christianity, begat a connexion of his subjects with the French,
+Italians, and other nations on the continent, and tended to reclaim
+them from that gross ignorance and barbarity in which all the Saxon
+tribes had been hitherto involved [b].  Ethelbert also enacted [c],
+with the consent of the states of his kingdom, a body of laws, the
+first written laws promulgated by any of the northern conquerors; and
+his reign was in every respect glorious to himself, and beneficial to
+his people.  He governed the kingdom of Kent fifty years, and dying in
+616, left the succession to his son, Eadbald.  This prince, seduced by
+a passion for his mother-in-law, deserted for some time the Christian
+faith, which permitted not these incestuous marriages: his whole
+people immediately returned with him to idolatry.  Laurentius, the
+successor of Augustine, found the Christian worship wholly abandoned,
+and was prepared to return to France, in order to escape the
+mortification of preaching the gospel without fruit to the infidels.
+Melitus and Justus, who had been consecrated Bishops of London and
+Rochester, had already departed the kingdom [d], when, Laurentius,
+before he should entirely abandon his dignity, made one effort to
+reclaim the king.  He appeared before that prince, and, throwing off
+his vestments, showed his body all torn with bruises and stripes,
+which he had received.  Eadbald, wondering that any man should have
+dared to treat in that manner a person of his rank, was told by
+Laurentius, that he had received this chastisement from St. Peter, the
+prince of the Apostles, who had appeared to him in a vision, and,
+severely reproving him for his intention to desert his charge, had
+inflicted on him these visible marks of his displeasure [e].  Whether
+Eadbald was struck with the miracle, or influenced by some other
+motive, he divorced himself from his mother-in-law, and returned to
+the profession of Christianity [f]: his whole people returned with
+him.  Eadbald reached not the fame or authority of his father, and
+died in 640, after a reign of twenty-five years, leaving two sons,
+Erminfred and Ercombert.
+[FN [b] Will. Malm. p.10.  [c] Wilkins Leges Sax. p. 13.  [d] Bede,
+lib. 2. cap. 5.  [e] Ibid. lib. 2. cap. 6.  Chron. Sax. p. 26.
+Higden, lib. 5.  [f] Brompton, p. 739.]
+
+Ercombert, though the younger son, by Emma, a French princess, found
+means to mount the throne.  He is celebrated by Bede for two exploits;
+for establishing the fast of Lent in his kingdom, and for utterly
+extirpating idolatry, which, notwithstanding the prevalence of
+Christianity, had hitherto been tolerated by the two preceding
+monarchs.  He reigned twenty-four years, and left the crown to Egbert,
+his son, who reigned nine years.  This prince is renowned for his
+encouragement of learning, but infamous for putting to death his two
+cousin germans, sons of Erminfred, his uncle.  The ecclesiastical
+writers praise him for bestowing on his sister, Domnona, some lands in
+the Isle of Thanet, where she founded a monastery.
+
+The bloody precaution of Egbert could not fix the crown on the head of
+his son, Edric.  Lothaire, brother  of the deceased prince, took
+possession of the kingdom, and, in order to secure the power in his
+family, he associated with him Richard, his son, in the administration
+of the government.  Edric, the dispossessed prince, had recourse to
+Edilwach, King of Sussex, for assistance, and being supported by that
+prince, fought a battle with his uncle, who was defeated and slain.
+Richard fled into Germany, and afterwards died in Lucca, a city of
+Tuscany.  William of Malmesbury ascribes Lothaire's bad fortune to two
+crimes; his concurrence in the murder of his cousins, and his contempt
+for relics [g].
+[FN [g] Will. Malm. p. 11.]
+
+Lothaire reigned eleven years; Edric, his successor, only two.  Upon
+the death of the latter, which happened in 686, Widred, his brother,
+obtained possession of the crown.  But as the succession had been of
+late so much disjointed by revolutions and usurpations, faction began
+to prevail among the nobility, which invited Ceodwalla, King of
+Wessex, with his brother, Mollo, to attack the kingdom.  These
+invaders committed great devastations in Kent; but the death of Mollo,
+who was slain in a skirmish [h], gave a short breathing-time to that
+kingdom.  Widred restored the affairs of Kent, and, after a reign of
+thirty-two years [i], left the crown to his posterity.  Eadbert,
+Ethelbert, and Alric, his descendants, successively mounted the
+throne.  After the death of the last, which happened in 794, the royal
+family of Kent was extinguished, and every factious leader who could
+entertain hopes of ascending the throne, threw the state into
+confusion [k].  Egbert, who first succeeded, reigned but two years;
+Cuthred, brother to the King of Mercia, six years; Baldred, an
+illegitimate branch of the royal family, eighteen; and, after a
+troublesome and precarious reign, he was, in the year 827, expelled by
+Egbert, King of Wessex, who dissolved the Saxon Heptarchy, and united
+the several kingdoms under his dominion.
+[FN [h] Higden, lib. 5.  [i] Chron. Sax. p. 52  [k] Will. Malmes. lib.
+1. cap. 1. p. 11.]
+
+[MN The kingdom of Northumberland.]
+Adelfrid, King of Bernicia, having married Acca, the daughter of
+Aella, King of Deiri, and expelled her infant brother, Edwin, had
+united all the countries north of Humber into one monarchy, and
+acquired a great ascendant in the Heptarchy.  He also spread the
+terror of the Saxon arms to the neighbouring people, and by his
+victories over the Scots and Picts, as well as Welsh, extended on all
+sides the bounds of his dominions.  Having laid siege to Chester, the
+Britons marched out with all their forces to engage him, and they were
+attended by a body of 1250 monks from the monastery of Bangor, who
+stood at a small distance from the field of battle, in order to
+encourage the combatants by their presence and exhortations.
+Adelfrid, inquiring the purpose of this unusual appearance, was told,
+that these priests had come to pray against him: THEN ARE THEY AS MUCH
+OUR ENEMIES, said he, AS THOSE WHO INTEND TO FIGHT AGAINST US [l]: and
+he immediately sent a detachment, who fell upon them, and did such
+execution, that only fifty escaped with their lives [m].  The Britons,
+astonished at this event, received a total defeat; Chester was obliged
+to surrender; and Adelfrid, pursuing his victory, made himself master
+of Bangor, and entirely demolished the monastery, a building so
+extensive that there was a mile's distance from one gate of it to
+another, and it contained two thousand one hundred monks, who are said
+to have been there maintained by their own labour [n].
+[FN [l] Brompton, p. 779.  [m] Trivet, apud Spell. Conc. p. 111.  [n]
+Bede, lib. 2. cap. 2.  W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 3.]
+
+Notwithstanding Adelfrid's success in war, he lived in inquietude on
+account of young Edwin, whom he had unjustly dispossessed of the crown
+of Deiri.  This prince, now grown to man's estate, wandered from place
+to place in continual danger from the attempts of Adelfrid, and
+received at last protection in the court of Redwald, King of the East
+Angles, where his engaging and gallant deportment procured him general
+esteem and affection.  Redwald, however, was strongly solicited by the
+King of Northumberland to kill or deliver up his guest; rich presents
+were promised him if he would comply, and war denounced against him in
+case of his refusal.  After rejecting several messages of this kind,
+his generosity began to yield to the motives of interest; and he
+retained the last ambassador till he should come to a resolution in a
+case of such importance.  Edwin, informed of his friend's perplexity,
+was yet determined at all hazards to remain in East Anglia, and
+thought that if the protection of that  court failed him, it were
+better to die, than prolong a life so much exposed to the persecutions
+of his powerful rival.  This confidence in Redwald's honour and
+friendship, with his other accomplishments, engaged the queen on his
+side, and she effectually represented to her husband the infamy of
+delivering up to certain destruction their royal guest, who had fled
+to them for protection against his cruel and jealous enemies [o].
+Redwald, embracing more generous resolutions, thought it safest to
+prevent Adelfrid, before that prince was aware of his intention, and
+to attack him while he was yet unprepared for defence.  He marched
+suddenly with an army into the kingdom of Northumberland, and fought a
+battle with Adelfrid, in which that monarch was defeated and killed,
+after avenging himself by the death of Regner, son of Redwald [p]: his
+own sons, Eanfrid, Oswald, and Oswy, yet infants, were carried into
+Scotland, and Edwin obtained possession of the crown of
+Northumberland.
+[FN [o] W.. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 3.  H. Hunting. lib. 3  Bede  [p]
+Bede, lib. 2. cap. 12.  Brompton, p. 781.]
+
+Edwin was the greatest prince of the Heptarchy in that age, and
+distinguished himself, both by his influence over the other kingdoms
+[q], and by the strict execution of justice in his own dominions.  He
+reclaimed his subjects from the licentious life to which they had been
+accustomed; and it was a common saying, that during his reign a woman
+or child might openly carry every where a purse of gold, without any
+danger of violence or robbery.  There is a remarkable instance,
+transmitted to us, of the affection borne him by his servants.
+Cuichelme, King of Wessex, was his enemy, but finding himself unable
+to maintain open war against so gallant and powerful a prince, he
+determined to use treachery against him, and he employed one Eumer for
+that criminal purpose.  The assassin, having obtained admittance by
+pretending to deliver a message from Cuichelme, drew his dagger and
+rushed upon the king.  Lilla, an officer of his army, seeing his
+master's danger, and having no other means of defence, interposed with
+his own body between the king and Eumer's dagger, which was pushed
+with such violence, that after piercing Lilla, it even wounded Edwin;
+but before the assassin  could renew his blow, he was despatched by
+the king's attendants.
+[FN [q] Chron. Sax. p. 27.]
+
+The East Angles conspired against Redwald, their king, and having put
+him to death, they offered their crown to Edwin, of whose valour and
+capacity they had had experience, while he resided among them.  But
+Edwin, from a sense of gratitude towards his benefactor, obliged them
+to submit to Earpwold, the son of Redwald; and that prince preserved
+his authority, though on a precarious footing, under the protection of
+the Northumbrian monarch [r].
+[FN [r] Gul. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 3.]
+
+Edwin, after his accession to the crown, married Ethelburga, the
+daughter of Ethelbert, King of Kent.  This princess, emulating the
+glory of her mother, Bertha, who had been the instrument for
+converting her husband and his people to Christianity, carried
+Paullinus, a learned bishop, along with her [s]; and besides
+stipulating a toleration for the exercise of her own religion, which
+was readily granted her, she used every reason to persuade the king to
+embrace it.  Edwin, like a prudent prince, hesitated on the proposal,
+but promised to examine the foundations of that doctrine, and declared
+that, if he found them satisfactory, he was willing to be converted
+[t].  Accordingly, he held several conferences with Paullinus;
+canvassed the arguments propounded with the wisest of his counsellors;
+retired frequently from company, in order to revolve alone that
+important question; and after a serious and long inquiry, declared in
+favour of the Christian religion [u]: the people soon after imitated
+his example.  Besides the authority and influence of the king, they
+were moved by another striking example.  Coifi, the high priest, being
+converted after a public conference with Paullinus, led the way in
+destroying the images which he had so long worshipped, and was forward
+in making this atonement for his past idolatry [w].
+[FN [s] H. Hunting. lib. 3.  [t] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 9.  [u] Ibid.  W.
+Malmes. lib 1. cap. 3.  [w] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 13.  Brompton, Higden,
+lib. 5.]
+
+This able prince perished with his son, Osfrid, in a great battle
+which he fought against Penda, King of Mercia, and Caedwalla, King of
+the Britons [x].  That event, which happened in the forty-eighth year
+of Edwin's age, and seventeenth of his reign [y], divided the monarchy
+of Northumberland, which that prince had united in his person.
+Eanfrid, the son of Adelfrid, returned with his brothers, Oswald and
+Oswy, from Scotland, and took possession of Bernicia, his paternal
+kingdom: Osric, Edwin's cousin-german, established himself at Deiri,
+the inheritance of his family, but to which the sons of Edwin had a
+preferable title.  Eanfrid, the elder surviving son, fled to Penda, by
+whom he was treacherously slain.  The younger son, Vuscfraea, with
+Yffi, the grandson of Edwin, by Osfrid, sought protection in Kent, and
+not finding themselves in safety there, retired into France to King
+Dagobert, where they died [z].
+[FN [x] Matth. West. p. 114  Chron. Sax. p. 29.  [y] W. Malmes. lib 1.
+cap. 3.  [z] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 20.]
+
+Osric, King of Deiri, and Eanfrid, of Bernicia, returned to paganism,
+and the whole people seem to have returned with them; since Paullinus,
+who was the first Archbishop of York, and who had converted them,
+thought proper to retire with Ethelburga, the queen dowager, into
+Kent.  Both these Northumbrian kings perished soon after, the first in
+battle against Caedwalla, the Briton; the second by the treachery of
+that prince.  Oswald, the brother of Eanfrid, of the race of Bernicia,
+united again the kingdom of Northumberland in the year 634, and
+restored the Christian religion in his dominions.  He gained a bloody
+and well-disputed battle against Caedwalla; the last vigorous effort
+which the Britons made against the Saxons.  Oswald is much celebrated
+for his sanctity and charity by the monkish historians, and they
+pretend that his relics wrought miracles, particularly the curing of a
+sick horse, which had approached the place of his interment [a].
+[FN [a] Ibid. lib. 3. cap. 9.]
+
+He died in battle against Penda, King of Mercia, and was succeeded by
+his brother Oswy, who established himself in the government of the
+whole Northumbrian kingdom, by putting to death Oswin, the son of
+Osric, the last king of the race of Deiri.  His son Egfrid succeeded
+him; who perishing in battle against the Picts, without leaving any
+children, because Adelthrid, his wife, refused to violate her vow of
+chastity, Alfred, his natural brother, acquired possession of the
+kingdom, which he governed for nineteen years, and he left it to
+Osred, his son, a boy of eight years of age.  This prince, after a
+reign of eleven years, was murdered by Kenred, his kinsman, who, after
+enjoying the crown only a year, perished by a like fate.  Osric, and
+after him Celwulph, the son of Kenred, next mounted the throne, which
+the latter relinquished in the year 735, in favour of Eadbert, his
+cousin-german, who, imitating his predecessor, abdicated the crown,
+and retired into a monastery.  Oswolf, son of Eadbert, was slain in a
+sedition, a year after his accession to the crown; and Mollo, who was
+not of the royal family, seized the crown.  He perished by the
+treachery of Ailred, a prince of the blood; and Ailred, having
+succeeded in his design upon the throne, was soon after expelled by
+his subjects.  Ethelred, his successor, the son of Mollo, underwent a
+like fate.  Celwold, the next king, the brother of Ailred, was deposed
+and slain by the people, and his place was filled by Osred, his
+nephew, who, after a short reign of a year, made way for Ethelbert,
+another son of Mollo, whose death was equally tragical with that of
+almost all his predecessors.  After Ethelbert's death an universal
+anarchy prevailed in Northumberland, and the people having, by so many
+fatal revolutions, lost all attachment to their government and
+princes, were well prepared for subjection to a foreign yoke, which
+Egbert, King of Wessex, finally imposed upon them.
+
+[MN The kingdom of East Anglia.]
+The history of this kingdom contains nothing memorable except the
+conversion of Earpwold, the fourth king, and great-grandson of Uffa,
+the founder of the monarchy.  The authority of Edwin, King of
+Northumberland, on whom that prince entirely depended, engaged him to
+take this step; but soon after, his wife, who was an idolatress,
+brought him back to her religion, and he was found unable to resist
+those allurements which had seduced the wisest of mankind.  After his
+death, which was violent, like that of most of the Saxon princes that
+did not early retire into monasteries, Sigebert, his successor and
+half brother, who had been educated in France, restored Christianity,
+and introduced learning among the East Angles.  Some pretend that he
+founded the university of Cambridge, or rather some schools in that
+place.  It is almost impossible,  and quite needless, to be more
+particular in relating the transactions of the East Angles.  What
+instruction or entertainment can it give the reader, to hear a long
+bead-roll of barbarous names, Egric, Annas, Ethelbert, Ethelwald,
+Aldulf; Elfwald, Beorne, Ethelred, Ethelbert, who successively
+murdered, expelled, or inherited from each other, and obscurely filled
+the throne of that kingdom?  Ethelbert, the last of these princes, was
+treacherously murdered by Offa, King of Mercia, in the year 792, and
+his state was thenceforth united with that of Offa, as we shall relate
+presently.
+
+[MN The kingdom of Mercia.]
+Mercia, the largest if not the most powerful kingdom of the Heptarchy,
+comprehended all the middle counties of England, and as its frontiers
+extended to those of all the other six kingdoms, as well as to Wales,
+it received its name from that circumstance.  Wibba, the son of Crida,
+founder of the monarchy, being placed on the throne, by Ethelbert,
+King of Kent, governed his paternal dominions by a precarious
+authority, and after his death, Ceorl, his kinsman, was, by the
+influence of the Kentish monarch, preferred to his son Penda, whose
+turbulent character appeared dangerous to that prince.  Penda was thus
+fifty years of age before he mounted the throne, and his temerity and
+restless disposition were found nowise abated by time, experience, or
+reflection.  He engaged in continual hostilities against all the
+neighbouring states, and by his injustice and violence rendered
+himself equally odious to his own subjects and to strangers.
+Sigebert, Egric, and Annas, three kings of East Anglia, perished
+successively in battle against him, as did also Edwin and Oswald, the
+two greatest princes that had reigned over Northumberland.  At last
+Oswy, brother to Oswald, having defeated and slain him in a decisive
+battle, freed the world from this sanguinary tyrant.  Peada, his son,
+mounted the throne of Mercia in 655, and lived under the protection of
+Oswy, whose daughter he had espoused.  This princess was educated in
+the Christian faith, and she employed her influence with success, in
+converting her husband and his subjects to that religion.  Thus the
+fair sex have had the merit of introducing the Christian doctrine into
+all the most considerable  kingdoms of the Saxon Heptarchy.  Peada
+died a violent death [b].  His son, Wolfhere, succeeded to the
+government, and, after having reduced to dependence the kingdoms of
+Essex and East Anglia, he, left the crown to his brother Ethelred,
+who, though a lover of peace, showed himself not unfit for military
+enterprises.  Besides making a successful expedition into Kent, he
+repulsed Egfrid, King of Northumberland, who had invaded his
+dominions; and he slew in battle Elfwin, the brother of that prince.
+Desirous, however, of composing all animosities with Egfrid, he paid
+him a sum of money as a compensation for the loss of his brother.
+After a prosperous reign of thirty years, he resigned the crown to
+Kendred, son of Wolfhere, and retired into the monastery of Bardney
+[c].  Kendred returned the present of the crown to Ceolred, the son of
+Ethelred, and making a pilgrimage to Rome, passed his life there in
+penance and devotion.  The place of Ceolred was supplied by Ethelbald,
+great-grand-nephew to Penda, by Alwy, his brother; and this prince,
+being slain in a mutiny, was succeeded by Offa, who was a degree more
+remote from Penda, by Eawa, another brother.
+[FN [b] Hugo Candidus, p. 4, says, that he was treacherously murdered
+by his queen, by whose persuasion he had embraced Christianity; but
+this account of the matter is found in that historian alone.  [c]
+Bede, lib. 5.]
+
+This prince, who mounted the throne in 775 [d], had some great
+qualities, and was successful in his warlike enterprises against
+Lothaire, King of Kent, and Kenwulph, King of Wessex.  He defeated the
+former in a bloody battle at Otford upon the Darent, and reduced his
+kingdom to a state of dependence: he gained a victory over the latter
+at Bensington in Oxfordshire; and conquering that county, together
+with that of Gloucester, annexed both to his dominions.  But all these
+successes were stained by his treacherous murder of Ethelbert, King of
+the East Angles, and his violent seizing of that kingdom.  This young
+prince, who is said to have possessed great merit, had paid his
+addresses to Elfrida, the daughter of Offa, and was invited with all
+his retinue to Hereford, in order to solemnize the nuptials.  Amidst
+the joy and festivity of these entertainments, he was seized by Offa,
+and secretly beheaded; and though Elfrida, who abhorred her father's
+treachery, had time to give warning to the East Anglian nobility, who
+escaped into their own country, Offa, having extinguished the royal
+family, succeeded in his design of subduing that kingdom [e].  The
+perfidious prince, desirous of re-establishing his character in the
+world, and perhaps of appeasing the remorses of his own conscience,
+paid great court to the clergy, and practised all the monkish devotion
+so much esteemed in that ignorant and superstitious age.  He gave the
+tenth of his goods to the church [f]; bestowed rich donations on the
+cathedral of Hereford, and even made a pilgrimage to Rome, where his
+great power and riches could not fail of procuring him the papal
+absolution.  The better to ingratiate himself with the sovereign
+pontiff, he engaged to pay him a yearly donation for the support of an
+English college at Rome [g]; and, in order to raise the sum, he
+imposed the tax of a penny on each house possessed of thirty pence a
+year.  This imposition being afterwards levied on all England, was
+commonly denominated Peter's Pence [h]: and though conferred at first
+as a gift, was afterwards claimed as a tribute by the Roman pontiff.
+Carrying his hypocrisy still farther, Offa, feigning to be directed by
+a vision from heaven, discovered at Verulam the relics of St. Alban,
+the martyr, and endowed a magnificent monastery in that place [i].
+Moved by all these acts of piety, Malmesbury, one of the best of the
+old English historians, declares himself at a loss to determine [k]
+whether the merits or crimes of this prince preponderated.  Offa died
+after a reign of thirty-nine years, in 794 [l].
+[FN [d] Chron. Sax. p. 59.  [e] Brompton, p. 750, 751, 752.  [f] Spell.
+Conc. p. 308.  Brompton, p. 776.  [g] Spell. Conc. p. 230, 310, 312.
+[h] Higden, lib. 5.  [i] Ingulph. p. 5.  W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 4.
+[k] Lib. 1. cap. 4.]
+
+This prince was become so considerable in the Heptarchy, that the
+Emperor Charlemagne entered into an alliance and friendship with him;
+a circumstance which did honour to Offa, as distant princes at that
+time had usually little communication with each other.  That emperor
+being a great lover of learning and learned men, in an age very barren
+of that ornament, Offa, at his desire, sent him over Alcuin, a
+clergyman, much celebrated for his knowledge, who received great
+honours from Charlemagne, and even became his preceptor in the
+sciences.  The chief reason why he had at first desired the company of
+Alcuin, was, that he might oppose his learning to the heresy of Felix,
+Bishop of Urgel, in Catalonia, who maintained that Jesus Christ,
+considered in his human nature, could more properly be denominated the
+adoptive, than the natural son of God [m].  This heresy was condemned
+in the council of Francfort, held in 794, and consisting of 300
+bishops.  Such were the questions which were agitated in that age, and
+which employed the attention not only of cloistered scholars, but of
+the wisest and greatest princes [n].
+[FN [l] Chron. Sax. p. 65  [m] Dupin, cent. 8. chap. 4.  [n] Offa, in
+order to protect his country from Wales; drew a rampart or ditch of a
+hundred miles in length, from Basinwerke in Flintshire, to the south-
+sea near Bristol.  See SPEED'S DESCRIPTION OF WALES.]
+
+Egfrith succeeded to his father Offa, but survived him only five
+months [o], when he made way for Kenulph, a descendant of the royal
+family.  This prince waged war against Kent, and taking Egbert the
+king prisoner, he cut off his hands, and put out his eyes, leaving
+Cuthred, his own brother, in possession of the crown of that kingdom.
+Kenulph was killed in an insurrection of the East Anglians, whose
+crown his predecessor, Offa, had usurped.  He left his son, Kenelm, a
+minor, who was murdered the same year by his sister, Quendrade, who
+had entertained the ambitious views of assuming the government [p].
+But she was supplanted by her uncle Ceolulf; who, two years after, was
+dethroned by Beornulf.  The reign of this usurper, who was not of the
+royal family, was short and unfortunate: he was defeated by the West
+Saxons, and killed by his own subjects, the East Angles [q].  Ludican,
+his successor, underwent the same fate [r]; and Wiglaff, who mounted
+this unstable throne, and found every thing in the utmost confusion,
+could not withstand the fortune of Egbert, who united all the Saxon
+kingdoms into one great monarchy.
+[FN [o] Ingulph. p. 6.  [p] Ibid. p. 7.  Brompton, p. 776  [q]
+Ingulph. p. 7.  [r] Ann. Beverl. p. 87.]
+
+[MN The kingdom of Essex.]
+This kingdom made no great figure in the Heptarchy, and the history of
+it is very imperfect.  Sleda succeeded to his father, Erkinwin, the
+founder of' the monarchy, and made way for his son, Sebert, who, being
+nephew to Ethelbert, King of Kent, was persuaded by that prince to
+embrace the Christian faith [s].  His sons and conjunct successors,
+Sexted and Seward, relapsed into idolatry, and were soon after slain
+in a battle against the West Saxons.  To show the rude manner of
+living in that age, Bede tells us [t], that these two kings expressed
+great desire to eat the white bread, distributed by Mellitus, the
+bishop, at the [u] communion.  But on his refusing them, unless they
+would submit to be baptized, they expelled him their dominions.  The
+names of the other princes who reigned successively in Essex, are
+Sigebert the Little, Sigebert the Good who restored Christianity,
+Swithelm, Sigheri, Offa.  This last prince, having made a vow of
+chastity, notwithstanding his marriage with Keneswitha, a Mercian
+princess, daughter to Penda, went in pilgrimage to Rome, and shut
+himself up during the rest of his life in a cloister.  Selred, his
+successor, reigned thirty-eight years, and was the last of the royal
+line; the failure of which threw the kingdom into great confusion, and
+reduced it to dependence under Mercia [w].  Switherd first acquired
+the crown, by the concession of the Mercian princes, and his death
+made way for Sigeric, who ended his life in a pilgrimage to Rome.  His
+successor, Sigered, unable to defend his kingdom, submitted to the
+victorious arms of Egbert.
+[FN [s] Chron. Sax. p. 24.  [t] Lib. 2. cap. 5.  [u] H. Hunting. lib.
+3.  Brompton, p. 738, 743.  Bede.  [w] Malmes lib. 1. cap. 6.]
+
+[MN The kingdom of Sussex.]
+The history of this kingdom, the smallest in the Heptarchy, is still
+more imperfect than that of Essex.  Aella, the founder of the
+monarchy, left the crown to his son Cissa, who is chiefly remarkable
+for his long reign of seventy-six years.  During his time, the South
+Saxons fell almost into a total dependence on the kingdom of Wessex,
+and we scarcely know the names of the princes who were possessed of
+this titular sovereignty.  Adelwalch, the last of them, was subdued in
+battle by Ceodwalla, King of Wessex, and was slain in the action,
+leaving two infant sons, who, falling into the hand of the conqueror,
+were murdered by him.  The Abbot of Retford opposed the order for this
+execution, but could only prevail on Ceodwalla to suspend it till they
+should be baptized.  Bercthun and Audhun, two noblemen of character,
+resisted some time the violence of the West Saxons, but their
+opposition served only to prolong the miseries of their country, and
+the subduing of this kingdom was the first step which the West Saxons
+made towards acquiring the sole monarchy of England [x].
+[FN [x] Brompton, p. 800.]
+
+[MN The Kingdom of Wessex.]
+The kingdom of Wessex, which finally swallowed up all the other Saxon
+states, met with great resistance on its first establishment: and the
+Britons, who were now inured to arms, yielded not tamely their
+possessions to those invaders.  Cerdic, the founder of the monarchy,
+and his son, Kenric, fought many successful, and some unsuccessful,
+battles against the natives; and the martial spirit, common to all the
+Saxons, was, by means of these hostilities, carried to the greatest
+height, among this tribe.  Ceaulin, who was the son and successor of
+Kenric, and who began his reign in 560, was still more ambitious and
+enterprising than his predecessors, and by waging continual war
+against the Britons, he added a great part of the counties of Devon
+and Somerset to his other dominions.  Carried along by the tide of
+success, he invaded the other Saxon states in his neighbourhood, and
+becoming terrible to all, he provoked a general confederacy against
+him.  This alliance proved successful under the conduct of Ethelbert,
+King of Kent; and Ceaulin, who had lost the affections of his own
+subjects by his violent disposition, and had now fallen into contempt
+from his misfortunes, was expelled the throne [y], and died in exile
+and misery.  Cuichelme and Cuthwin, his sons, governed jointly the
+kingdom, till the expulsion of the latter in 591, and the death of the
+former in 593, made way for Cealric, to whom succeeded Ceobald in 593,
+by whose death, which happened in 611, Kynegils inherited the crown.
+This prince embraced Christianity [z], through the persuasion of
+Oswald, King of Northumberland, who had married his daughter, and who
+had attained a great ascendant in the Heptarchy.  Kenwalch next
+succeeded to the monarchy, and dying in 672, left the succession so
+much disputed, that Sexburga, his widow, a woman of spirit [a], kept
+possession of the government till her death, which happened two years
+after.  Escwin then peaceably acquired the crown, and after a short
+reign of two years made way for Kentwin, who governed nine years.
+Ceodwalla, his successor, mounted not the throne without opposition,
+but proved a great prince according to the ideas of those times; that
+is, he was enterprising, warlike, and successful.  He entirely subdued
+the kingdom of Sussex, and annexed it to his own dominions.  He made
+inroads into Kent, but met with resistance from Widred, the king, who
+proved successful against Mollo, brother to Ceodwalla, and slew him in
+a skirmish.  Ceodwalla, at last, tired with wars and bloodshed, was
+seized with a fit of devotion; bestowed several endowments on the
+church; and made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he received baptism, and
+died in 689.  Ina, his successor, inherited the military virtues of
+Ceodwalla, and added to them the more valuable ones of justice,
+policy, and prudence.  He made war upon the Britons in Somerset, and
+having finally subdued that province, he treated the vanquished with a
+humanity hitherto unknown to the Saxon conquerors.  He allowed the
+proprietors to retain possession of their lands, encouraged marriages
+and alliances between them and his ancient subjects, and gave them the
+privilege of being governed by the same laws.  These laws he augmented
+and ascertained, and though he was disturbed by some insurrections at
+home, his long reign of thirty-seven years may be regarded as one of
+the most glorious and most prosperous of the Heptarchy.  In the
+decline of his age he made a pilgrimage to Rome, and after his return,
+shut himself up in a cloister, where he died.
+[FN [y] Chron. Sax. p. 22.  [z] Higden, lib. 5.  Chron. Sax. p. 15.
+Ann. Beverl. p. 93.  [a] Bede, lib 4 cap 12.  Chron. Sax. p. 41.]
+
+Though the kings of Wessex had always been princes of the blood,
+descended from Cerdic, the founder of the monarchy, the order of
+succession had been far from exact, and a more remote prince had often
+found means to mount the throne in preference to one descended from a
+nearer branch of the royal family.  Ina, therefore, having no children
+of his own, and lying much under the influence of Ethelburga, his
+queen, left by will the succession to Adelard, her brother, who was
+his remote kinsman; but this destination did not take place without
+some difficulty.  Oswald, a prince more nearly allied to the crown,
+took arms against Adelard; but he being suppressed, and dying soon
+after, the title of Adelard was not any farther disputed, and, in the
+year 741, he was succeeded by his cousin, Cudred.  The reign of this
+prince was distinguished by a great victory, which he obtained by
+means of Edelhun, his general, over Ethelbald, King of Mercia.  His
+death made way for Sigebert, his kinsman, who governed so ill, that
+his people rose in an insurrection and dethroned him, crowning Cenulph
+in his stead.  The exiled prince found a refuge with Duke Cumbran,
+governor of Hampshire, who, that he might add new obligations to
+Sigebert, gave him many salutary counsels for his future conduct,
+accompanied with some reprehensions for the past.  But these were so
+much resented by the ungrateful prince, that he conspired against the
+life of his protector, and treacherously murdered him.  After this
+infamous action, he was forsaken by all the world, and skulking about
+in the wilds and forests, was at last discovered by a servant of
+Cumbran's, who instantly took revenge upon him for the murder of his
+master [b].
+[FN [b] Higden, lib. 5.  W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 2.]
+
+Cenulph, who had obtained the crown on the expulsion of Sigebert, was
+fortunate in many expeditions against the Britons of Cornwall, but
+afterwards lost some reputation by his ill success against Offa, King
+of Mercia [c].  Kynehard also, brother to the deposed Sigebert, gave
+him disturbance, and though expelled the kingdom, he hovered on the
+frontiers, and watched an opportunity for attacking his rival.  The
+king had an intrigue with a young woman who lived at Merton in Surrey,
+whither having secretly retired, he was on a sudden environed, in the
+night time, by Kynehard and his followers, and, after making a
+vigorous resistance, was murdered with all his attendants.  The
+nobility and people of the neighbourhood, rising next day in arms,
+took revenge on Kynehard for the slaughter of their king, and put
+every one to the sword who had been engaged in that criminal
+enterprise.  This event happened in 784.
+[FN [c] W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap 3.]
+
+Brithric next obtained possession of the government, though remotely
+descended from the royal family, but he enjoyed not that dignity
+without inquietude.  Eoppa, nephew to King Ina, by his brother Ingild,
+who died before that prince, had begot Eta, father to Alchmond, from
+whom sprung Egbert [d], a young man of the most promising hopes, who
+gave great jealousy to Brithric, the reigning prince, both because he
+seemed by his birth better entitled to the crown, and because he had
+acquired, to an eminent degree, the affections of the people.  Egbert,
+sensible of his danger from the suspicions of Brithric, secretly
+withdrew into France [e], where he was well received by Charlemagne.
+By living in the court, and serving in the armies of that prince, the
+most able and most generous that had appeared in Europe during several
+ages, he acquired those accomplishments which afterwards enabled him
+to make such a shining figure on the throne; and familiarizing himself
+to the manners of the French, who, as Malmesbury observes [f], were
+eminent both for valour and civility above all the western nations, he
+learned to polish the rudeness and barbarity of the Saxon character:
+his early misfortunes thus proved of singular advantage to him.
+[FN [d] Chron. Sax. p. 16.  [e] H. Hunting. lib. 4.  [f] Lib. 2 cap.
+11.]
+
+It was not long ere Egbert had opportunities of displaying his natural
+and acquired talents.  Brithric, King of Wessex, had married Eadburga,
+natural daughter of Offa, King of Mercia, a profligate woman, equally
+infamous for cruelty and for incontinence.  Having great influence
+over her husband, she often instigated him to destroy such of the
+nobility as were obnoxious to her; and where this expedient failed,
+she scrupled not being herself active in traitorous attempts against
+them.  She had mixed a cup of poison for a young nobleman who had
+acquired her husband's friendship, and had on that account become the
+object of her jealousy; but, unfortunately, the king drank of the
+fatal cup along with his favourite, and soon after expired [g].  This
+tragical incident, joined to her other crimes, rendered Eadburga so
+odious, that she was obliged to fly into France, whence Egbert was at
+the same time recalled by the nobility, in order to ascent the throne
+of his ancestors [h].  He attained that dignity in the last year of
+the eighth century.
+[FN [g] Higden, lib. 5.  M. West. p. 152.  Asser. in vita Alfredi, p.
+3. ex edit. Camdeni.  [h] Chron. Sax. A. D. 800.  Brompton, p. 801.]
+
+In the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, an exact rule of succession was
+either unknown or not strictly observed, and thence the reigning
+prince was continually agitated with jealousy against all the princes
+of the blood, whom  he still considered as rivals, and whose death
+alone could give him entire security in his possession of the throne.
+From this fatal cause, together with the admiration of the monastic
+life, and the opinion of merit attending the preservation of chastity
+even in a married state, the royal families had been entirely
+extinguished in all the kingdoms except that of Wessex, and the
+emulations, suspicions, and conspiracies, which had formerly been
+confined to the princes of the blood alone, were now diffused among
+all the nobility in the several Saxon states.  Egbert was the sole
+descendant of those first conquerors who subdued Britain, and who
+enhanced their authority by claiming a pedigree from Woden, the
+supreme divinity of their ancestors.  But that prince, though invited
+by this favourable circumstance to make attempts on the neighbouring
+Saxons, gave them for some time no disturbance, and rather chose to
+turn his arms against the Britons in Cornwall, whom he defeated in
+several [i] battles.  He was recalled from the conquest of that
+country by an invasion made upon his dominions by Bernulf, King of
+Mercia.
+[FN [i] Chron. Sax. p. 69.]
+
+The Mercians, before the accession of Egbert, had very nearly attained
+the absolute sovereignty in the Heptarchy; they had reduced the East
+Angles under subjection, and established tributary princes in the
+kingdoms of Kent and Essex.  Northumberland was involved in anarchy;
+and no state of any consequence remained but that of Wessex, which,
+much inferior in extent to Mercia, was supported solely by the great
+qualities of its sovereign.  Egbert led his army against the invaders,
+and encountering them at Ellandun, in Wiltshire, obtained a complete
+victory, and by the great slaughter which he made of them in their
+flight, gave a mortal blow to the power of the Mercians.  Whilst he
+himself, in prosecution of his victory, entered their country on the
+side of Oxfordshire, and threatened the heart of their dominions, he
+sent an army into Kent, commanded by Ethelwolf, his eldest son [k],
+and expelling Baldred, the tributary king, soon made himself master of
+that country.  The kingdom of Essex was conquered with equal facility,
+and the East Angles, from their hatred to the Mercian government,
+which had been established over them by treachery and violence, and
+probably exercised with tyranny, immediately rose in arms, and craved
+the protection of Egbert [l].  Bernulf, the Mercian king, who marched
+against them, was defeated and slain; and two years after, Ludican,
+his successor, met with the same fate.  These insurrections and
+calamities facilitated the enterprises of Egbert, who advanced into
+the centre of the Mercian territories, and made easy conquests over a
+dispirited and divided people.  In order to engage them more easily to
+submission, he allowed Wiglef, their countryman, to retain the title
+of king, while he himself exercised the real powers of sovereignty
+[m].  The anarchy which prevailed in Northumberland, tempted him to
+carry still farther his victorious arms; and the inhabitants, unable
+to resist his power, and desirous of possessing some established form
+of government, were forward, on his first appearance, to send
+deputies, who submitted to his authority, and swore allegiance to him
+as their sovereign.  Egbert, however, still allowed to Northumberland,
+as he had done to Mercia and East Anglia, the power of electing a
+king, who paid him tribute, and was dependent on him.
+[FN [k] Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 2.  [1] Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 3.
+[m] Ingulph. p. 7, 8, 10]
+
+Thus were united all the kingdoms of the Heptarchy in one great state,
+near four hundred years after the first arrival of the Saxons in
+Britain, and the fortunate arms and prudent policy of Egbert at last
+effected what had been so often attempted in vain by so many princes
+[n].  Kent, Northumberland, and Mercia, which had successively aspired
+to general dominion, were now incorporated in his empire, and the
+other subordinate kingdoms seemed willingly to share the same fate.
+His territories were nearly of the same extent with what is now
+properly called England; and a favourable prospect was afforded to the
+Anglo-Saxons, of establishing a civilized monarchy, possessed of
+tranquillity within itself, and secure against foreign invasion.  This
+great event happened in the year 827 [o].
+[FN [n] Chron. Sax. p. 71.  [o] Ibid.]
+
+The Saxons, though they had been so long settled in the island, seem
+not as yet to have been much improved beyond their German ancestors,
+either in arts, civility, knowledge, humanity, justice, or obedience
+to the laws.  Even Christianity, though it opened the way to
+connexions between them and the more polished states of Europe, had
+not hitherto been very effectual in banishing their ignorance, or
+softening their barbarous manners.  As they received that doctrine
+through the corrupted channels of Rome, it carried along with it a
+great mixture of credulity and superstition, equally destructive to
+the understanding and to morals.  The reverence towards saints and
+relics seems to have almost supplanted the adoration of the Supreme
+Being.  Monastic observances were esteemed more meritorious than the
+active virtues; the knowledge of natural causes were neglected from
+the universal belief of miraculous interpositions and judgments;
+bounty to the church atoned for every violence against society; and
+the remorses for cruelty, murder, treachery, assassination, and the
+more robust vices, were appeased, not by amendment of life, but by
+penances, servility to the monks, and an abject and illiberal devotion
+[p].  The reverence for the clergy had been carried to such a height,
+that, wherever a person appeared in a sacerdotal habit, though on the
+high way, the people flocked around him, and, showing him all marks of
+profound respect, received every word he uttered as the most sacred
+oracle [q].  Even the military virtues, so inherent in all the Saxon
+tribes, began to be neglected; and the nobility, preferring the
+security and sloth of the cloister to the tumults and glory of war,
+valued themselves chiefly on endowing monasteries, of which they
+assumed the government [r].  The several kings, too, being extremely
+impoverished by continual benefactions to the church to which the
+states of their kingdoms had weakly assented, could bestow no rewards
+on valour or military services, and retained not even sufficient
+influence to support their government [s].
+[FN [p] These abuses were common to all the European churches, but the
+priests in Italy, Spain, and Gaul made some atonement for them, by
+other advantages which they rendered society.  For several ages, they
+were almost all Romans, or, in other words, the ancient natives, and
+they preserved the Roman language and laws, with some remains of the
+former civility.  But the priests in the Heptarchy, after the first
+missionaries, were wholly Saxons, and almost as ignorant and barbarous
+as the laity.  They contributed, therefore, little to the improvement
+of society in knowledge or the arts.  [q] Bede, lib 3. cap. 26.  [r]
+Ibid. lib. 5. cap. 23.  Epistola Bedae ad Egbert.  [s] Bedae Epist. ad
+Egbert.]
+
+Another inconvenience which attended this corrupt species of
+Christianity, was the superstitious attachment to Rome, and the
+gradual subjection of the kingdom to a foreign jurisdiction.  The
+Britons, having never acknowledged any subordination to the Roman
+pontiff, had conducted all ecclesiastical government by their domestic
+synods and councils [t]; but the Saxons, receiving their religion from
+Roman monks, were taught at the same time a profound reverence for
+that see, and were naturally led to regard it as the capital of their
+religion.  Pilgrimages to Rome were represented as the most
+meritorious acts of devotion.  Not only noblemen and ladies of rank
+undertook this tedious journey [u], but kings themselves, abdicating
+their crowns, sought for a secure passport to heaven at the feet of
+the Roman pontiff; new relics, perpetually sent from that endless mint
+of superstition, and magnified by lying miracles, invented in
+convents, operated on the astonished minds of the multitude; and every
+prince has attained the eulogies of the monks, the only historians of
+those ages, not in proportion to his civil and military virtues, but
+to his devoted attachment towards their order, and his superstitious
+reverence for Rome.
+[FN [t] Append. to Bede, numb. 10. ex edit, 1722.  Spellm. Conc. p.
+108, 109.  [u] Bede, lib. 5. c. 7.]
+
+The sovereign pontiff, encouraged by this blindness and submissive
+disposition of the people, advanced every day in his encroachments on
+the independence of the English churches.  Wilfrid, Bishop of
+Lindisferne, the sole prelate of the Northumbrian kingdom, increased
+this subjection in the eighth century, by his making an appeal to Rome
+against the decisions of an English synod, which had abridged his
+diocese by the erection of some new bishoprics [w].  Agatho, the pope,
+readily embraced this precedent of an appeal to his court; and
+Wilfrid, though the haughtiest and most luxurious prelate of his age
+[x], having obtained with the people the character of sanctity, was
+thus able to lay the foundation of this papal pretension.
+[FN [w] See Appendix to Bede, numb. 19.  Higden, lib. 5.  [x] Eddius,
+vita Vilfr. sec. 24, 60]
+
+The great topic by which Wilfrid confounded the imaginations of men
+was, that St. Peter, to whose custody the keys of heaven were
+intrusted, would certainly refuse admittance to every one who should
+be wanting in respect to his successor.  This conceit, well suited to
+vulgar conceptions, made great impression on the people during several
+ages, and has not even at present lost all influence in the catholic
+countries.
+
+Had this abject superstition produced general peace and tranquillity,
+it had made some atonement for the ill attending it; but besides the
+usual avidity of men for power and riches, frivolous controversies in
+theology were engendered by it, which were so much the more fatal, as
+they admitted not, like the others, of any final determination from
+established possession.  The disputes excited in Britain were of the
+most ridiculous kind, and entirely worthy of those ignorant and
+barbarous ages.  There were some intricacies, observed by all the
+Christian churches, in adjusting the day of keeping Easter, which
+depended on a complicated consideration of the course of the sun and
+moon: and it happened that the missionaries, who had converted the
+Scots and Britons, had followed a different calendar from that which
+was observed at Rome in the age when Augustine converted the Saxons.
+The priests also of all the Christian churches were accustomed to
+shave part of their head; but the form given to this tonsure was
+different in the former from what was practised in the latter.  The
+Scots and Britons pleaded the antiquity of THEIR usages; the Romans,
+and their disciples, the Saxons, insisted on the universality of
+THEIRS.  That Easter must necessarily be kept by a rule, which
+comprehended both the day of the year and age of the moon, was agreed
+by all; that the tonsure of a priest could not be omitted without the
+utmost impiety, was a point undisputed; but the Romans and Saxons
+called their antagonists schismatics, because they celebrated Easter
+on the very day of the full moon in March, if that day fell on a
+Sunday, instead of waiting till the Sunday following; and because they
+shaved the forepart of their head from ear to ear, instead of making
+that tonsure on the crown of the head, and in a circular form.  In
+order to render their antagonists odious, they affirmed, that once in
+seven years, they concurred with the Jews in the time of celebrating
+that festival [y]; and that they might recommend their own form of
+tonsure, they maintained that it imitated symbolically the crown of
+thorns worn by Christ in his passion, whereas the other form was
+invented by Simon Magus, without any regard to that representation
+[z].  These controversies had, from the beginning, excited such
+animosity between the British and Romish priests, that, instead of
+concurring in their endeavours to convert the idolatrous Saxons, they
+refused all communion together, and each regarded his opponent as no
+better than a pagan [a].  The dispute lasted more than a century, and
+was at last finished, not by men's discovering the folly of it, which
+would have been too great an effort for human reason to accomplish,
+but by the entire prevalence of the Romish ritual over the Scotch and
+British [b].  Wilfrid, Bishop of Lindisferne, acquired great merit,
+both with the court of Rome and with all the Southern Saxons, by
+expelling the quartodeciman schism, as it was called, from the
+Northumbrian kingdom, into which the neighbourhood of the Scots had
+formerly introduced it [c].
+[FN [y] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 19.  [z] Ibid. lib. 5. cap. 21.  Eddius,
+Sec. 24.  [a] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 2. 4. 20.  Eddius, Sec. 12.  [b]
+Bede, lib. 5. cap. 16, 22.  [c] Bede, lib. 3. cap. 25.  Eddius, Sec.
+12]
+
+Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, called, in the year 680, a synod
+at Hatfield, consisting of all the bishops in Britain [d], where was
+accepted and ratified the decree of the Lateran council, summoned by
+Martin, against the heresy of the Monothelites.  The council and synod
+maintained, in opposition to these heretics, that though the divine
+and human nature in Christ made but one person, yet they had different
+inclinations, wills, acts, and sentiments, and that the unity of the
+person implied not unity in the consciousness [e].  This opinion it
+seems somewhat difficult to comprehend; and no one, unacquainted with
+the ecclesiastical history of those ages, could imagine the height of
+zeal and violence with which it was then inculcated.  The decree of
+the Lateran council calls the Monothelites impious, execrable, wicked,
+abominable, and even diabolical; and curses and anathematizes them to
+all eternity [f].
+[FN [d] Spell. Conc. vol. 1. p. 168.  [e] Spell. Conc. vol. 1. p. 171.
+[f] Ibid. p. 172, 173, 174.]
+
+The Saxons, from the first introduction of Christianity among them,
+had admitted the use of images; and perhaps, that religion, without
+some of those exterior ornaments, had not made so quick a progress
+with these idolaters: but they had not paid any species of worship or
+address to images; and this abuse never prevailed among Christians,
+till it received the sanction of the second council of Nice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+EGBERT.--ETHELWOLF.--ETHELBALD AND ETHELBERT.--ETHERED.--ALFRED THE
+GREAT.--EDWARD THE ELDER.--ATHELSTAN.--EDMUND.---EDRED--EDWY.--EDGAR.--
+EDWARD THE MARTYR.
+
+
+
+[MN Egbert 827.]
+The kingdoms of the Heptarchy, though united by so recent a conquest,
+seemed to be firmly cemented into one state under Egbert; and the
+inhabitants of the several provinces had lost all desire of revolting
+from that monarch, or of restoring their former independent
+governments.  Their language was every where nearly the same, their
+customs, laws, institutions, civil and religious; and as the race of
+the ancient kings was totally extinct in all the subjected states, the
+people readily transferred their allegiance to a prince who seemed to
+merit it by the splendour of his victories, the vigour of his
+administration, and the superior nobility of his birth.  A union also
+in government opened to them the agreeable prospect of future
+tranquillity; and it appeared more probable that they would henceforth
+become formidable to their neighbours, than be exposed to their
+inroads and devastations.  But these flattering views were soon
+overcast by the appearance of the Danes, who, during some centuries,
+kept the Anglo-Saxons in perpetual inquietude, committed the most
+barbarous ravages upon them, and at last reduced them to grievous
+servitude.
+
+The Emperor Charlemagne, though naturally generous and humane, had
+been induced by bigotry to exercise great severities upon the pagan
+Saxons in Germany, whom he subdued; and besides often ravaging their
+country with fire and sword, he had in cool blood decimated all the
+inhabitants for their revolts, and had obliged them, by the most
+rigorous edicts, to make a seeming compliance with the Christian
+doctrine.  That religion, which had easily made its way among the
+British Saxons by insinuation and address, appeared shocking to their
+German brethren, when imposed on them by the violence of Charlemagne,
+and the more generous and warlike of these pagans had fled northward
+into Jutland, in order to escape the fury of his persecutions.
+Meeting there with a people of similar manners, they were readily
+received among them; and they soon stimulated the natives to concur in
+enterprises, which both promised revenge on the haughty conqueror, and
+afforded subsistence to those numerous inhabitants with which the
+northern countries were now overburdened [g].  They invaded the
+provinces of France, which were exposed by the degeneracy and
+dissensions of Charlemagne's posterity; and being there known under
+the general name of Normans, which they received from their northern
+situation, they became the terror of all the maritime and even of the
+inland countries.  They were also tempted to visit England in their
+frequent excursions; and being able, by sudden inroads, to make great
+progress over a people who were not defended by any naval force, who
+had relaxed their military institutions, and who were sunk into a
+superstition which had become odious to the Danes and ancient Saxons,
+they made no distinction in their hostilities between the French and
+English kingdoms.  Their first appearance in this island was in the
+year 787 [h], when Brithric reigned in Wessex.  A small body of them
+landed in that kingdom, with a view of learning the state of the
+country; and when the magistrate of the place questioned them
+concerning their enterprise, and summoned them to appear before the
+king, and account for their intentions, they killed him, and, flying
+to their ships, escaped into their own country.  The next alarm was
+given to Northumberland in the year 794 [i], when a body of these
+pirates pillaged a monastery: but their ships being much damaged by a
+storm, and their leader slain in a skirmish, they were at last
+defeated by the inhabitants, and the remainder of them put to the
+sword.  Five years after Egbert had established his monarchy over
+England, the Danes landed in the Isle of Shepey, and having pillaged
+it, escaped with impunity [k].  They were not so fortunate in their
+next year's enterprise, when they disembarked from thirty-five ships,
+and were encountered by Egbert, at Charmouth, in Dorsetshire.  The
+battle was bloody; but though the Danes lost great numbers, they
+maintained the post they had taken, and thence made good their retreat
+to their ships [l].  Having learned by experience, that they must
+expect a vigorous resistance from this warlike prince, they entered
+into an alliance with the Britons of Cornwall, and landing two years
+after in that country, made an inroad with their confederates into the
+county of Devon, but were met at Hengesdown by Egbert, and totally
+defeated [m].  While England remained in this state of anxiety, and
+defended itself more by temporary expedients than by any regular plan
+of administration, Egbert, who alone was able to provide effectually
+against this new evil, unfortunately died [MN 838.], and left the
+government to his son Ethelwolf.
+[FN [g] Ypod. Neustria, p. 414.  [h] Chron. Sax. p. 64.  [i] Chron.
+Sax. p 64.  Alur. Beverl. p. 108.  [k] Chron. Sax. p. 72.  [l] Chron.
+Sax. p. 72.  Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 2.  [m] Chron. Sax. p. 72.]
+
+[MN Ethelwolf.]
+This prince had neither the abilities nor the vigour of his father;
+and was better qualified for governing a convent than a kingdom [n].
+He began his reign with making a partition of his dominions, and
+delivering over to his eldest son, Athelstan, the new-conquered
+provinces of Essex, Kent, and Sussex.  But no inconveniences seem to
+have risen from this partition, as the continual terror of the Danish
+invasions prevented all domestic dissension.  A fleet of these
+ravagers, consisting of thirty-three sail, appeared at Southampton,
+but were repulsed with loss by Wolfhere, governor of the neighbouring
+county [o].  The same year, Aethelhelm, governor of Dorsetshire,
+routed another band which had disembarked at Portsmouth, but he
+obtained the victory after a furious engagement, and he bought it with
+the loss of his life [p].  Next year the Danes made several inroads
+into England, and fought battles, or rather skirmishes, in East Anglia
+and Lindesey and Kent, where, though they were sometimes repulsed and
+defeated, they always obtained their end of committing spoil upon the
+country, and carrying off their booty.  They avoided coming to a
+general engagement, which was not suited to their plan of operations.
+Their vessels were small, and ran easily up the creeks and rivers,
+where they drew them ashore, and having formed an entrenchment round
+them, which they guarded with part of their number, the remainder
+scattered themselves every where, and carrying off the inhabitants and
+cattle and goods, they hastened to their ships and quickly
+disappeared.  If the military force of the county were assembled, (for
+there was no time for troops to march from a distance,) the Danes
+either were able to repulse them, and to continue their ravages with
+impunity, or they betook themselves to their vessels, and setting
+sail, suddenly invaded some distant quarter, which was not prepared
+for their reception.  Every part of England was held in continual
+alarm, and the inhabitants of one county durst not give assistance to
+those of another, lest their own families and property should in the
+mean time be exposed by their absence to the fury of these barbarous
+ravagers [q].  All orders of men were involved in this calamity, and
+the priests and monks, who had been commonly spared in the domestic
+quarrels of the Heptarchy, were the chief objects on which the Danish
+idolators exercised their rage and animosity.  Every season of the
+year was dangerous, and the absence of the enemy was no reason why any
+man could esteem himself a moment in safety.
+[FN [n] Wm. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 2.  [o] Chron. Sax. p. 73.
+Ethelward, lib. 3.  [p] Chron. Sax. p. 73.  H. Hunting. lib. 5.  [q]
+Alured. Beverl. p. 108.]
+
+[MN 851.]
+These incursions had now become almost annual, when the Danes,
+encouraged by their successes against France as well as England, (for
+both kingdoms were alike exposed to this dreadful calamity,) invaded
+the last in so numerous a body, as seemed to threaten it with
+universal subjection.  But the English, more military than the
+Britons, whom a few centuries before they had treated with like
+violence, roused themselves with a vigour proportioned to the
+exigency.  Ceorle, governor of Devonshire, fought a battle with one
+body of the Danes at Wiganburgh [r], and put them to rout with great
+slaughter.  King Athelstan attacked another at sea near Sandwich, sunk
+nine of their ships, and put the rest to flight [s].  A body of them,
+however, ventured, for the first time, to take up winter quarters in
+England; and receiving in the spring a strong reinforcement of their
+countrymen in 350 vessels, they advanced from the Isle of Thanet,
+where they had stationed themselves, burnt the cities of London and
+Canterbury, and having put to flight Brichtric, who now governed
+Mercia under the title of king, they marched into the heart of Surrey,
+and laid every place waste around them.  Ethelwolf, impelled by the
+urgency of the danger, marched against them at the head of the West
+Saxons, and carrying with him his second son, Ethelbald, gave them
+battle at Okely, and gained a bloody victory over them.  This
+advantage procured but a short respite to the English.  The Danes
+still maintained their settlement in the Isle of Thanet, and being
+attacked by Ealher and Huda, governors of Kent and Surrey, though
+defeated in the beginning of the action, they finally repulsed the
+assailants [MN 853.], and killed both the governors.  They removed
+thence to the Isle of Shepey; where they took up their winter
+quarters, that they might farther extend their devastation and
+ravages.
+[FN [r] H. Hunt. lib. 5  Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 3.  Simeon Dunelm. p.
+120.  [s] Chron. Sax. p. 74.  Asserius, p. 2.]
+
+This unsettled state of England hindered not Ethelwolf from making a
+pilgrimage to Rome, whither he carried his fourth and favourite son,
+Alfred, then only six years of age [t].  He passed there a twelvemonth
+in exercises of devotion, and failed not in that most essential part
+of devotion, liberality to the church of Rome.  Besides giving
+presents to the more distinguished ecclesiastics, he made a perpetual
+grant of three hundred mancuses [u] a year to that see; one-third to
+support the lamps of St. Peter's, another those of St. Paul's, a third
+to the pope himself [w].  In his return home he married Judith,
+daughter of the emperor, Charles the Bald, but on his landing in
+England, he met with an opposition which he little looked for.
+[FN [t] Asserius, p. 2.  Chron. Sax. 76.  Hunt. lib. 5.  [u] A mancus
+was about the weight of our present half-crown: see Spellman's
+Glossary, IN VERBO Mancus.  [w] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap 2.]
+
+His eldest son, Athelstan, being dead, Ethelbald, his second, who had
+assumed the government, formed, in concert with many of the nobles,
+the project of excluding his father from a throne, which his weakness
+and superstition seemed to have rendered him so ill-qualified to fill.
+The people were divided between the two princes, and a bloody civil
+war, joined to all the other calamities under which the English
+laboured, appeared inevitable, when Ethelwolf had the facility to
+yield to the greater part of his son's pretensions.  He made with him
+a partition of the kingdom, and taking to himself the eastern part,
+which was always at that time esteemed the least considerable, as well
+as the most exposed [x], he delivered over to Ethelbald the
+sovereignty of the western.  Immediately after, he summoned the states
+of the whole kingdom, and with the same facility conferred a perpetual
+and important donation on the church.
+[FN [x] Asserius, p. 3.  W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 2.  Matth. West. p.
+1, 8.]
+
+The ecclesiastics, in those days of ignorance, made rapid advances in
+the acquisition of power and grandeur; and inculcating the most absurd
+and most interested doctrines, though they sometimes met, from the
+contrary interests of the laity, with an opposition which it required
+time and address to overcome, they found no obstacle in their reason
+or understanding.  Not content with the donations of land made them by
+the Saxon princes and nobles, and with temporary oblations, from the
+devotion of the people, they had cast a wishful eye on a vast revenue,
+which they claimed as belonging to them by a sacred and indefeasible
+title.  However little versed in the Scriptures, they had been able to
+discover that, under the Jewish law, a tenth of all the produce of
+land was conferred on the priesthood; and forgetting, what they
+themselves taught, that the moral part only of that law was obligatory
+on Christians, they insisted that this donation conveyed a perpetual
+property, inherent by divine right in those who officiated at the
+altar.  During some centuries, the whole scope of sermons and homilies
+was directed to this purpose, and one would have imagined, from the
+general tenor of these discourses, that all the practical parts of
+Christianity were comprised in the exact and faithful payment of
+tithes to the clergy [y].  Encouraged by their success in inculcating
+these doctrines, they ventured farther than they were warranted even
+by the Levitical law, and pretended to draw the tenth of all industry,
+merchandise, wages of labourers, and pay of soldiers [z]; nay, some
+canonists went so far as to affirm, that the clergy were entitled to
+the tithe of the profits made by courtesans in the exercise of their
+profession [a].  Though parishes had been instituted in England by
+Honorius, Archbishop of Canterbury, near two centuries before [b], the
+ecclesiastics had never yet been able to get possession of the tithes;
+they therefore seized the present favourable opportunity of making
+that acquisition, when a weak, superstitious prince filled the throne,
+and when the people, discouraged by their losses from the Danes, and
+terrified with the fear of future invasions, were susceptible of any
+impression which bore the appearance of religion [c].  So meritorious
+was this concession deemed by the English, that trusting entirely to
+supernatural assistance, they neglected the ordinary means of safety,
+and agreed, even in the present desperate extremity, that the revenues
+of the church should be exempted from all burthens, though imposed for
+national defence and security [d].
+[FN [y] Padre Paolo, sopra beneficii ecclesiastici, p. 51, 52. edit.
+Colon. 1675  [z] Spell. Conc. vol. i. p. 268.  [a] Padre Paolo, p.
+132.  [b] Parker, p. 77.  [c] lngulph. p. 862.  Selden's Hist. of
+Tithes, c. 8.  [d] Asserius, p. 2.  Chron. Sax. p. 76.  W. Malmes.
+lib. 2. cap. 2.  Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 3.  M. West. p. 158.
+Ingulph. p. 17.  Alur. Beverl. p. 95]
+
+[MN Ethelbald and Ethelbert. 857.]
+Ethelwolf lived only two years after making this grant, and by his
+will he shared England between his two eldest sons, Ethelbald and
+Ethelbert; the west being assigned to the former, the east to the
+latter.  Ethelbald was a profligate prince, and marrying Judith, his
+mother-in-law, gave great offence to the people; but, moved by the
+remonstrances of Swithin, Bishop of Winchester, he was at last
+prevailed on to divorce her.  His reign was short; and Ethelbert, his
+brother, succeeding to the government [MN 860.], behaved himself,
+during a reign of five years, in a manner more worthy of his birth and
+station.  The kingdom, however, was still infested by the Danes, who
+made an inroad and sacked Winchester, but were there defeated.  A body
+also of these pirates, who were quartered in the Isle of Thanet,
+having deceived the English by a treaty, unexpectedly broke into Kent,
+and committed great outrages.
+
+[MN Ethered 866.]
+Ethelbert was succeeded by his brother Ethered, who, though he
+defended himself with bravery, enjoyed, during his whole reign, no
+tranquillity from those Danish irruptions.  His younger brother,
+Alfred, seconded him in all his enterprises, and generously sacrificed
+to the public good all resentment which he might entertain on account
+of his being excluded by Ethered from a large patrimony which had been
+left him by his father.
+
+The first landing of the Danes in the reign of Ethered was among the
+East Angles, who, more anxious for their present safety than for the
+common interest, entered into a separate treaty with the enemy, and
+furnished them with horses, which enabled them to make an irruption by
+land into the kingdom of Northumberland.  They there seized the city
+of York, and defended it against Osbricht and Aella, two Northumbrian
+princes, who perished in the assault [f].  Encouraged by these
+successes, and by the superiority which they had acquired in arms,
+they now ventured, under the command of Hinguar and Hubba, to leave
+the sea-coast, and penetrating into Mercia, they took up their winter
+quarters at Nottingham, where they threatened the kingdom with a final
+subjection.  The Mercians, in this extremity, applied to Ethered for
+succour, and that prince, with his brother Alfred, conducting a great
+army to Nottingham, obliged the enemy to dislodge [MN 870.], and to
+retreat into Northumberland.  Their restless disposition, and their
+avidity for plunder, allowed them not to remain long in those
+quarters; they broke into East Anglia, defeated and took prisoner
+Edmund, the king of that country, whom they afterwards murdered in
+cool blood, and committing the most barbarous ravages on the people,
+particularly on the monasteries, they gave the East Angles cause to
+regret the temporary relief which they had obtained by assisting the
+common enemy.
+[FN [f] Asser. p. 6.  Chron Sax. p. 79.]
+
+[MN 871.] The next station of the Danes was at Reading, whence they
+infested the neighbouring country by their incursions.  The Mercians,
+desirous of shaking off their dependence on Ethered, refused to join
+him with their forces; and that prince, attended by Alfred, was
+obliged to march against the enemy with the West Saxons alone, his
+hereditary subjects.  The Danes, being defeated in an action, shut
+themselves up in their garrison; but quickly making thence an
+irruption, they routed the West Saxons, and obliged them to raise the
+siege.  An action soon after ensued at Aston, in Berkshire, where the
+English, in the beginning of the day, were in danger of a total
+defeat.  Alfred, advancing with one division of the army, was
+surrounded by the enemy in disadvantageous ground; and Ethered, who
+was at that time hearing mass, refused to march to his assistance till
+prayers should be finished [g]: but as he afterwards obtained the
+victory, this success, not the danger of Alfred, was ascribed by the
+monks to the piety of that monarch.  This battle of Aston did not
+terminate the war: another battle was a little after fought at Basing,
+where the Danes were more successful; and being reinforced by a new
+army from their own country, they became every day more terrible to
+the English.  Amidst these confusions, Ethered died of a wound which
+he had received in an action with the Danes; and left the inheritance
+of his cares and misfortunes, rather than of his grandeur, to his
+brother, Alfred, who was now twenty-two years of age.
+[FN [g] Asser. p. 7.  W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 3.  Simeon Dunelm. p. 125.
+Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 205.]
+
+[MN Alfred 871.]
+This prince gave very early marks of those great virtues and shining
+talents, by which, during the most difficult times, he saved his
+country from utter ruin and subversion.  Ethelwolf, his father, the
+year after his return with Alfred from Rome, had again sent the young
+prince thither with a numerous retinue; and a report being spread of
+the king's death, the pope, Leo III., gave Alfred the royal unction
+[h]; whether prognosticating his future greatness from the appearances
+of his pregnant genius, or willing to pretend, even in that age, to
+the right of conferring kingdoms.  Alfred, on his return home, became
+every day more the object of his father's affections; but being
+indulged in all youthful pleasures, he was much neglected in his
+education; and he had already reached his twelfth year, when he was
+yet totally ignorant of the lowest elements of literature.  His genius
+was first roused by the recital of Saxon poems, in which the queen
+took delight; and this species of erudition, which is sometimes able
+to make a considerable progress even among barbarians, expanded those
+noble and elevated sentiments which he had received from nature [i].
+Encouraged by the queen, and stimulated by his own ardent inclination,
+he soon learned to read those compositions; and proceeded thence to
+acquire the knowledge of the Latin tongue, in which he met with
+authors that better prompted his heroic spirit, and directed his
+generous views.  Absorbed in these elegant pursuits, he regarded his
+accession to royalty rather as an object of regret than of triumph
+[k]; but being called to the throne, in preference to his brother's
+children, as well by the will of his father, a circumstance which had
+great authority with the Anglo-Saxons [l], as by the vows of the whole
+nation, and the urgency of public affairs, he shook off his literary
+indolence, and exerted himself in the defence of his people.  He had
+scarcely buried his brother, when he was obliged to take the field in
+order to oppose the Danes, who had seized Wilton, and were exercising
+their usual ravages on the countries around.  He marched against them
+with the few troops which he could assemble on a sudden; and giving
+them battle, gained at first an advantage, but by his pursuing the
+victory too far, the superiority of the enemy's numbers prevailed, and
+recovered them the day.  Their loss, however, in the action, was so
+considerable, that, fearing Alfred would receive daily reinforcement
+from his subjects, they were content to stipulate for a safe retreat,
+and promised to depart the kingdom.  For that purpose they were
+conducted to London, and allowed to take up winter quarters there;
+but, careless of their engagements, they immediately set themselves to
+the committing of spoil on the neighbouring country.  Burrhed, King of
+Mercia, in whose territories London was situated, made a new
+stipulation with them, and engaged them, by presents of money, to
+remove to Lindesey, in Lincolnshire, a country which they had already
+reduced to ruin and desolation.  Finding therefore no object in that
+place, either for their rapine or violence, they suddenly turned back
+upon Mercia, in a quarter where they expected to find it without
+defence; and fixing their station at Repton in Derbyshire, they laid
+the whole country desolate with fire and sword.  Burrhed, despairing
+of success against an enemy whom no force could resist, and no
+treaties bind, abandoned his kingdom, and flying to Rome, took shelter
+in a cloister [m].  He was brother-in-law to Alfred, and the last who
+bore the title of king in Mercia.
+[FN [h] Asser. p. 2.  W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 2.  Ingulph. p. 869.
+Simeon Dunelm. p. 120, 139.  [i] Asser. p. 5.  M. West. p. 167.  [k]
+Asser. p. 7.  [1] Ibid. p. 22.  Simeon Dunelm. p. 121.  [m] Asser. p.
+8.  Chron. Sax. p. 82.  Ethelward, lib. 4. cap. 4.]
+
+The West Saxons were now the only remaining power in England; and
+though supported by the vigour and abilities of Alfred, they were
+unable to sustain the efforts of those ravagers, who from all quarters
+invaded them. A new swarm of Danes came over this year under three
+princes, Guthrum, Oscitel, and Amund; and having first joined their
+countrymen at Repton, they soon found the necessity of separating, in
+order to provide for their subsistence.  Part of them, under the
+command of Haldene, their chieftain [n], marched into Northumberland,
+where they fixed their quarters; part of them took quarters at
+Cambridge, whence they dislodged in the ensuing summer, and seized
+Wereham, in the county of Dorset, the very centre of Alfred's
+dominions.  That prince so straitened them in these quarters, that
+they were content to come to a treaty with him, and stipulated to
+depart his country.  Alfred, well acquainted with their usual perfidy,
+obliged them to swear upon the holy relics to the observance of the
+treaty [o]; not that he expected they would pay any veneration to the
+relics; but he hoped, that, if they now violated this oath, their
+impiety would infallibly draw down upon them the vengeance of Heaven.
+But the Danes, little apprehensive of the danger, suddenly, without
+seeking any pretence, fell upon Alfred's army; and having put it to
+rout, marched westward, and took possession of Exeter.  The prince
+collected new forces, and exerted such vigour, that he fought in one
+year eight battles with the enemy [p], and reduced them to the utmost
+extremity.  He hearkened however to new proposals of peace; and was
+satisfied to stipulate with them, that they would settle somewhere in
+England [q], and would not permit the entrance of more ravagers into
+the kingdom. But while he was expecting the execution of this treaty,
+which it seemed the interest of the Danes themselves to fulfil, he
+heard that another body had landed, and having collected all the
+scattered troops of their countrymen, had surprised Chippenham, then a
+considerable town, and were exercising their usual ravages all around
+them.
+[FN [n] Chron. Sax. p. 83.  [o] Asser. p. 8.  [p] Ibid.  The Saxon
+Chronicle. p. 82, says nine battles.  [q] Asser. p. 9.  Alur. Beverl.
+p. 104.]
+
+This last incident quite broke the spirit of the Saxons, and reduced
+them to despair.  Finding that, after all the miserable havoc which
+they had undergone in their persons and in their property; after all
+the vigorous actions which they had exerted in their own defence; a
+new band, equally greedy of spoil and slaughter, had disembarked among
+them; they believed themselves abandoned by Heaven to destruction, and
+delivered over to those swarms of robbers, which the fertile north
+thus incessantly poured forth against them.  Some left their country
+and retired into Wales, or fled beyond sea: others submitted to the
+conquerors, in hopes of appeasing their fury by a servile obedience
+[r].  And every man's attention being now engrossed in concern for his
+own preservation, no one would hearken to the exhortations of the
+king, who summoned them to make, under his conduct, one effort more in
+defence of their prince, their country, and their liberties.  Alfred
+himself was obliged to relinquish the ensigns of his dignity, to
+dismiss his servants, and to seek shelter, in the meanest disguises,
+from the pursuit and fury of his enemies.  He concealed himself under
+a peasant's habit, and lived some time in the house of a neat-herd,
+who had been intrusted with the care of some of his cows [s].  There
+passed here an incident, which has been recorded by all the
+historians, and was long preserved by popular tradition; though it
+contains nothing memorable in itself, except so far as every
+circumstance is interesting which attends so much virtue and dignity
+reduced to such distress.  The wife of the neat-herd was ignorant of
+the condition of her royal guest; and observing him one day busy by
+the fire-side in trimming his bows and arrows, she desired him to take
+care of some cakes which were toasting, while she was employed
+elsewhere in other domestic affairs.  But Alfred, whose thoughts were
+otherwise engaged, neglected this injunction; and the good woman, on
+her return, finding her cakes all burnt, rated the king very severely,
+and upbraided him, that he always seemed very well pleased to eat her
+warm cakes, though he was thus negligent in toasting them [t].
+[FN [r] Chron. Sax. p. 84.  Alured Bever. p. 105.  [s] Asser. p. 9.
+[t] Ibid  M. West, p. 170.]
+
+By degrees, Alfred, as he found the search of the enemy become more
+remiss, collected some of his retainers, and retired into the centre
+of a bog, formed by the stagnating waters of the Thone and Parret, in
+Somersetshire.  He here found two acres of firm ground; and building a
+habitation on them, rendered himself secure by its fortifications, and
+still more by the unknown and inaccessible roads which led to it, and
+by the forests and morasses with which it was every way environed.
+This place he called Aethelingay, or the Isle of Nobles [u]; and it
+now bears the name of Athelney.  He thence made frequent and
+unexpected sallies upon the Danes, who often felt the vigour of his
+arm, but knew not from what quarter the blow came.  He subsisted
+himself and his followers by the plunder which he acquired; he
+procured them consolation by revenge; and from small successes he
+opened their minds to hope, that, notwithstanding his present low
+condition, more important victories might at length attend his valour.
+[FN [u] Chron. Sax. p. 65.  W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 4  Ethelward, lib.
+4. cap. 4.  Ingulph. p. 26.]
+
+Alfred lay here concealed, but not inactive, during a twelvemonth,
+when the news of a prosperous event reached his ears, and called him
+to the field.  Hubba, the Dane, having spread devastation, fire, and
+slaughter over Wales, had landed in Devonshire from twenty-three
+vessels, and laid siege to the castle of Kenwith, a place situated
+near the mouth of the small river Tau.  Oddune, Earl of Devonshire,
+with his followers, had taken shelter there; and being ill supplied
+with provisions, and even with water, he determined, by some vigorous
+blow, to prevent the necessity of submitting to the barbarous enemy.
+He made a sudden sally on the Danes before sun-rising; and taking them
+unprepared, he put them to rout, pursued them with great slaughter,
+killed Hubba himself; and got possession of the famous REAFEN, or
+enchanted standard, in which the Danes put great confidence [w].  It
+contained the figure of a raven, which had been inwoven by the three
+sisters of Hinguar and Hubba, with many magical incantations, and
+which, by its different movements, prognosticated, as the Danes
+believed, the good or bad success of any enterprise [x].
+[FN [w] Asser. p. 10.  Chron. Sax. p. 84.  Abbas Rieval, p. 395
+Alured Beverl. p. 105.  [x] Asser. p. 10.]
+
+When Alfred observed this symptom of successful resistance in his
+subjects, he left his retreat; but before he would assemble them in
+arms, or urge them to any attempt, which, if unfortunate, might, in
+their present despondency, prove fatal, he resolved to inspect himself
+the situation of the enemy, and to judge of the probability of
+success.  For this purpose he entered their camp under the disguise of
+a harper, and passed unsuspected through every quarter.  He so
+entertained them with his music and facetious humours, that he met
+with a welcome reception; and was even introduced to the tent of
+Guthrum, their prince, where he remained some days [y].  He remarked
+the supine security of the Danes, their contempt of the English, their
+negligence in foraging and plundering, and their dissolute wasting of
+what they gained by rapine and violence.  Encouraged by these
+favourable appearances, he secretly sent emissaries to the most
+considerable of his subjects, and summoned them to a rendezvous,
+attended by their warlike followers, at Brixton, on the borders of
+Selwood forest [z].  The English, who had hoped to put an end to their
+calamities by servile submission, now found the insolence and rapine
+of the conqueror more intolerable than all past fatigues and dangers;
+and, at the appointed day, they joyfully resorted to their prince.  On
+his appearance, they received him with shouts of applause [a]; and
+could not satiate their eyes with the sight of this beloved monarch,
+whom they had long regarded as dead, and who now, with voice and looks
+expressing his confidence of success, called them to liberty and to
+vengeance.  He instantly conducted them to Eddington, where the Danes
+were encamped; and taking advantage of his previous knowledge of the
+place, he directed his attack against the most unguarded quarter of
+the enemy.  The Danes, surprised to see an army of English, whom they
+considered as totally subdued, and still more astonished to hear that
+Alfred was at their head, made but a faint resistance, notwithstanding
+their superiority of number, and were soon put to flight with great
+slaughter.  The remainder of the routed army, with their prince, was
+besieged by Alfred in a fortified camp to which they fled; but being
+reduced to extremity by want and hunger, they had recourse to the
+clemency of the victor, and offered to submit on any conditions.  The
+king, no less generous than brave, gave them their lives; and even
+formed a scheme for converting them from mortal enemies into faithful
+subjects and confederates.  He knew that the kingdoms of East Anglia
+and Northumberland were totally desolated by the frequent inroads of
+the Danes, and he now proposed to repeople them, by settling there
+Guthrum and his followers.  He hoped that the new planters would at
+last betake themselves to industry, when, by reason of his resistance,
+and the exhausted condition of the country, they could no longer
+subsist by plunder; and that they might serve him as a rampart against
+any future incursions of their countrymen.  But before he ratified
+these mild conditions with the Danes, he required that they should
+give him one pledge of their submission, and of their inclination to
+incorporate with the English, by declaring their conversion to
+Christianity [b].  Guthrum and his army had no aversion to the
+proposal; and without much instruction, or argument, or conference,
+they were all admitted to baptism.  The king answered for Guthrum at
+the font, gave him the name of Athelstan, and received him as his
+adopted son [c].
+[FN [y] W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 4.  [z] Chron. Sax. p. 85.  [a] Asser.
+p. 10.  Chron. Sax. p. 85.  Simeon Dunelm. p. 128.  Alured Beverl. p.
+105.  Abbas Rieval, p. 354.  [b] Chron. Sax. p. 85.  [c] Asser. p. 10.
+Chron. Sax. p. 90.]
+
+[MN 880.] The success of the expedient seemed to correspond to
+Alfred's hopes: the greater part of the Danes settled peaceably in
+their new quarters: some smaller bodies of the same nation, which were
+dispersed in Mercia, were distributed into the five cities of Derby,
+Leicester, Stamford, Lincoln, and Nottingham, and were thence called
+the Fif or Five-burghers.  The more turbulent and unquiet made an
+expedition into France, under the command of Hastings [d]; and, except
+by a short incursion of Danes, who sailed up the Thames, and landed at
+Fulham, but suddenly retreated to their ships on finding the country
+in a posture of defence, Alfred was not for some years infested by the
+inroads of those barbarians [e].
+[FN [d] W. Malm. lib. 2. c. 4.  Ingulph. p. 26.  [e] Asser. p. 11.]
+
+The king employed this interval of tranquillity in restoring order to
+the state, which had been shaken by so many violent convulsions; in
+establishing civil and military institutions; in composing the minds
+of men to industry and justice; and in providing against the return of
+like calamities.  He was, more properly than his grandfather, Egbert,
+the sole monarch of the English, (for so the Saxons were now
+universally called,) because the kingdom of Mercia was at last
+incorporated in his state, and was governed by Ethelbert, his brother-
+in-law, who bore the title of Earl: and though the Danes, who peopled
+East Anglia and Northumberland, were for some time ruled immediately
+by their own princes, they all acknowledged a subordination to Alfred,
+and submitted to his superior authority.  As equality among subjects
+is the great source of concord, Alfred gave the same laws to the Danes
+and English, and put them entirely on a like footing in the
+administration both of civil and criminal justice.  The fine for the
+murder of a Dane was the same with that for the murder of an
+Englishman; the great symbol of equality in those ages.
+
+The king, after rebuilding the ruined cities, particularly London [f],
+which had been destroyed by the Danes in the reign of Ethelwolf,
+established a regular militia for the defence of the kingdom.  He
+ordained that all his people should be armed and registered; he
+assigned them a regular rotation of duty; he distributed part into the
+castles and fortresses which he built at proper places [g]; he
+required another part to take the field on any alarm, and to assemble
+at stated places of rendezvous; and he left a sufficient number at
+home, who were employed in the cultivation of the land, and who
+afterwards took their turn in military service [h].  The whole kingdom
+was like one great garrison; and the Danes could no sooner appear in
+one place, than a sufficient number was assembled to oppose them,
+without leaving the other quarters defenceless or disarmed [i].
+[FN [f] Asser. p. 15.  Chron. Sax. p. 88.  M. West. p. 171.  Simeon
+Dunelm. p. 131.  Brompton, p. 812.  Alured Beverl. ex edit. Hearne, p.
+106.  [g] Asser. p. 18.  Ingulph. p. 27.  [h] Chron. Sax. p. 92, 93.
+[i] Spellman's Life of Alfred, p. 147. edit. 1709.]
+
+But Alfred, sensible that the proper method of opposing an enemy who
+made incursions by sea, was to meet them on their own element, took
+care to provide himself with a naval force [k], which though the most
+natural defence of an island, had hitherto been totally neglected by
+the English.  He increased the shipping of his kingdom both in number
+and strength, and trained his subjects in the practice, as well of
+sailing as of naval action.  He distributed his armed vessels in
+proper stations around the island, and was sure to meet the Danish
+ships either before or after they had landed their troops, and to
+pursue them in all their incursions.  Though the Danes might suddenly,
+by surprise, disembark on the coast, which was generally become
+desolate by their frequent ravages, they were encountered by the
+English fleet in their retreat; and escaped not, as formerly, by
+abandoning their booty, but paid, by their total destruction, the
+penalty of the disorders which they had committed.
+[FN [k] Asser. p. 9.  M. West. p. 179.]
+
+In this manner Alfred repelled several inroads of these piratical
+Danes, and maintained his kingdom, during some years, in safety and
+tranquillity.  A fleet of a hundred and twenty ships of war was
+stationed upon the coast; and being provided with warlike engines, as
+well as with expert seamen, both Frisians and English, (for Alfred
+supplied the defects of his own subjects by engaging able foreigners
+in his service,) maintained a superiority over these smaller bands
+with which England had so often been infested [l].  [MN 893.]  But at
+last Hastings, the famous Danish chief, having ravaged all the
+provinces of France, both along the seacoast and the Loire and Seine,
+and being obliged to quit that country, more by the desolation which
+he himself had occasioned, than by the resistance of the inhabitants,
+appeared off the coast of Kent with a fleet of 330 sail.  The greater
+part of the enemy disembarked in the Rother, and seized the fort of
+Apuldore.  Hastings himself, commanding a fleet of eighty sail,
+entered the Thames, and fortifying Milton in Kent, began to spread his
+forces over the country, and to commit the most destructive ravages.
+But Alfred, on the first alarm of this descent, flew to the defence of
+his people, at the head of a select band of soldiers, whom he always
+kept about his person [m]; and gathering to him the armed militia from
+all quarters, appeared in the field with a force superior to the
+enemy.  All straggling parties whom necessity, or love of plunder, had
+drawn to a distance from their chief encampment, were cut off by the
+English [n]; and these pirates, instead of increasing their spoil,
+found themselves cooped up in their fortifications, and obliged to
+subsist by the plunder which they had brought from France.  Tired of
+this situation, which must in the end prove ruinous to them, the Danes
+at Apuldore rose suddenly from their encampment, with an intention of
+marching towards the Thames, and passing over into Essex: but they
+escaped not the vigilance of Alfred, who encountered then at Farnham,
+put them to rout [o], seized all their horses and baggage, and chased
+the runaways on board their ships, which carried them up the Colne to
+Mersey, in Essex, where they intrenched themselves.  Hastings, at the
+same time, and probably by concert, made a like movement; and
+deserting Milton, took possession of Bamflete, near the Isle of
+Canvey, in the same county [p], where he hastily threw up
+fortifications for his defence against the power of Alfred.
+[FN [1] Asser. p. 11.  Chron. Sax. p. 86, 87.  M. West. p. 176.  [m]
+Asser. p.19.  [n] Chron. Sax. p. 92.  [o] Ibid. p. 93. Flor. Wigorn,
+p. 595.  [p] Chron. Sax. p. 93.]
+
+Unfortunately for the English, Guthrum, prince of the East Anglian
+Danes, was now dead; as was also Guthred, whom the king had appointed
+governor of the Northumbrians; and those restless tribes, being no
+longer restrained by the authority of their princes, and being
+encouraged by the appearance of so great a body of their countrymen,
+broke into rebellion, shook off the authority of Alfred, and yielding
+to their inveterate habits of war and depredation [q], embarked on
+board two hundred and forty vessels, and appeared before Exeter in the
+west of England.  Alfred lost not a moment in opposing this new enemy.
+Having left some forces at London to make head against Hastings and
+the other Danes, he marched suddenly to the west [r]; and falling on
+the rebels before they were aware, pursued them to their ships with
+great slaughter.  These ravagers, sailing next to Sussex, began to
+plunder the country near Chichester; but the order which Alfred had
+every where established, sufficed here, without his presence, for the
+defence of the place; and the rebels, meeting with a new repulse, in
+which many of them were killed, and some of their ships taken [s],
+were obliged to put again to sea, and were discouraged from attempting
+any other enterprise.
+[FN [q] Ibid. p. 92.  [r] Ibid. p. 93.  [s] Chron. Sax. p. 96.  Flor.
+Wigorn. p. 596.]
+
+Meanwhile, the Danish invaders in Essex, having united their force
+under the command of Hastings, advanced into the inland country, and
+made spoil of all around them; but soon had reason to repent of their
+temerity.  The English army left in London, assisted by a body of the
+citizens, attacked the enemy's intrenchments at Bamflete, overpowered
+the garrison, and having done great execution upon them, carried off
+the wife and two sons of Hastings [t].  Alfred generously spared these
+captives; and even restored them to Hastings [u], on condition that be
+should depart the kingdom.
+[FN [t] Chron. Sax. p. 94.  M. West. p. 178.  [u] M. West. p. 179.]
+
+But though the king had thus honourably rid himself of this dangerous
+enemy, he had not entirely subdued or expelled the invaders.  The
+piratical Danes willingly followed in an excursion any prosperous
+leader who gave them hopes of booty; but were not so easily induced to
+relinquish their enterprise, or submit to return, baffled and without
+plunder, into their native country.  Great numbers of them, after the
+departure of Hastings, seized and fortified Shobury, at the mouth of
+the Thames; and having left a garrison there, they marched along the
+River, till they came to Boddington, in the county of Gloucester;
+where, being reinforced by some Welsh, they threw up intrenchments,
+and prepared for their defence.  The king here surrounded them with
+the whole force of his dominions [w]; and as he had now a certain
+prospect of victory, he resolved to trust nothing to chance, but
+rather to master his enemies by famine than assault.  They were
+reduced to such extremities, that, having eaten their own horses, and
+having many of them perished with hunger [x], they made a desperate
+sally upon the English; and though the greater number fell in the
+action, a considerable body made their escape [y].  These roved about
+for some time in England, still pursued by the vigilance of Alfred;
+they attacked Leicester with success, defended themselves in Hartford,
+and then fled to Quatford, where they were finally broken and subdued.
+The small remains of them either dispersed themselves among their
+countrymen in Northumberland and East Anglia [z], or had recourse
+again to the sea, where they exercised piracy, under the command of
+Sigefert, a Northumbrian.  This freebooter, well acquainted with
+Alfred's naval preparations, had framed vessels of a new construction,
+higher, and longer, and swifter than those of the English; but the
+king soon discovered his superior skill, by building vessels still
+higher, and longer, and swifter than those of the Northumbrians; and
+falling upon them while they were exercising their ravages in the
+west, he took twenty of their ships, and having tried all the
+prisoners at Winchester, he hanged them as pirates, the common enemies
+of mankind.
+[FN [w] Chron. Sax. p. 94.  [x] Ibid.  M. West. p. 179.  Flor. Wigorn.
+p. 596.  [y] Chron. Sax. p. 95.  [z] Chron. Sax. p. 97.]
+
+The well-timed severity of this execution, together with the excellent
+posture of defence established every where, restored full tranquillity
+to England, and provided for the future security of the government.
+The East Anglian and Northumbrian Danes, on the first appearance of
+Alfred upon their frontiers, made anew the most humble submissions to
+him; and he thought it prudent to take them under his immediate
+government, without establishing over them a viceroy of their own
+nation [a].  The Welsh also acknowledged his authority; and this great
+prince had now, by prudence, and justice, and valour, established his
+sovereignty over all the southern parts of the island, from the
+English channel to the  frontiers of Scotland; when he died [MN 901.],
+in the vigour of his age and the full strength of his faculties,
+after a glorious reign of twenty-nine years and a half [b]; in which
+he deservedly attained the appellation of Alfred the Great, and the
+title of Founder of the English Monarchy.
+[FN [a] Flor. Wigorn. p. 598.  [b] Asser. p. 21.  Chron. Sax. p. 99.]
+
+The merit of this prince, both in private and public life, may with
+advantage be set in opposition to that of any monarch or citizen which
+the annals of any age or any nation can present to us.  He seems
+indeed to be the model of that perfect character, which, under the
+denomination of a sage or wise man, philosophers have been fond of
+delineating, rather as a fiction of their imagination, than in hopes
+of ever seeing it really existing: so happily were all his virtues
+tempered together; so justly were they blended; and so powerfully did
+each prevent the other from exceeding its proper boundaries.  He knew
+how to reconcile the most enterprising spirit with the coolest
+moderation; the most obstinate perseverance with the easiest
+flexibility; the most severe justice with the gentlest lenity; the
+greatest vigour in commanding with the most perfect affability of
+deportment [c]; the highest capacity and inclination for science, with
+the most shining talents for action.  His civil and his military
+virtues are almost equally the objects of our admiration; excepting
+only, that the former, being more rare among princes, as well as more
+useful, seem chiefly to challenge our applause.  Nature also, as if
+desirous that so bright a production of her skill should be set in the
+fairest light, had bestowed on him every bodily accomplishment, vigour
+of limbs, dignity of shape and air, with a pleasing, engaging, and
+open countenance [d].  Fortune alone, by throwing him into that
+barbarous age, deprived him of historians worthy to transmit his fame
+to posterity; and we wish to see him delineated in more lively
+colours, and with more particular strokes, that we may at least
+perceive some of those small specks and blemishes, from which, as a
+man, it is impossible he could be entirely exempted.
+[FN [c] Asser. p. 13.  [d] Ibid. p. 5.]
+
+But we should give but an imperfect idea of Alfred's merit, were we to
+confine our narration to his military exploits, and were not more
+particular in our account of his institutions for the execution of
+justice, and of his zeal for the encouragement of arts and sciences.
+
+After Alfred had subdued, and had settled or expelled the Danes, he
+found the kingdom in the most wretched condition; desolated by the
+ravages of those barbarians, and thrown into disorders, which were
+calculated to perpetuate its misery.  Though the great armies of the
+Danes were broken, the country was full of straggling troops of that
+nation, who, being accustomed to live by plunder, were become
+incapable of industry, and who, from the natural ferocity of their
+manners, indulged themselves in committing violence, even beyond what
+was requisite to supply their necessities.  The English themselves,
+reduced to the most extreme indigence by these continued depredations,
+had shaken off all bands of government; and those who had been
+plundered today, betook themselves next day to a like disorderly life,
+and, from despair, joined the robbers in pillaging and ruining their
+fellow-citizens.  These were the evils for which it was necessary that
+the vigilance and activity of Alfred should provide a remedy.
+
+That he might render the execution of justice strict and regular; he
+divided all England into counties; these counties he subdivided into
+hundreds; and, the hundreds into tithings.  Every householder was
+answerable for the behaviour of his family and slaves, and even of his
+guests, if they lived above three days in his house.  Ten neighbouring
+householders were formed into one corporation, who, under the name of
+a tithing, decennary, or fribourg, were answerable for each other's
+conduct, and over whom one person, called a tithingman, headbourg, or
+borsholder, was appointed to preside.  Every man was punished as an
+outlaw who did not register himself in some tithing.  And no man could
+change his habitation, without a warrant or certificate from the
+borsholder of the tithing to which he formerly belonged.
+
+When any person in any tithing or decennary was guilty of a crime, the
+borsholder was summoned to answer for him; and if he were not willing
+to be surety for his appearance, and his clearing himself, the
+criminal was committed to prison, and there detained till his trial.
+If he fled, either before or after finding sureties, the borsholder
+and decennary became liable to inquiry, and were exposed to the
+penalties of law.  Thirty-one days were allowed them for producing the
+criminal; and if that time elapsed without their being able to find
+him, the borsholder, with two other members of the decennary, was
+obliged to appear, and, together with three chief members of the three
+neighbouring decennaries, (making twelve in all,) to swear that his
+decennary was free from all privity both of the crime committed, and
+of the escape of the criminal.  If the borsholder could not find such
+a number to answer for their innocence, the decennary was compelled by
+fine to make satisfaction to the king, according to the degree of the
+offence [f].  By this institution, every man was obliged from his own
+interest to keep a watchful eye over the conduct of his neighbours;
+and was in a manner surety for the behaviour of those who were placed
+under the division to which he belonged: whence these decennaries
+received the name of frank-pledges.
+[FN [f] Leges St. Edw. cap. 20. apud Wilkins, p. 202.]
+
+Such a regular distribution of the people, with such a strict
+confinement in their habitation, may not be necessary in times when
+men are more inured to obedience and justice; and it might perhaps be
+regarded as destructive of liberty and commerce in a polished state;
+but it was well calculated to reduce that fierce and licentious people
+under the salutary restraint of law and government.  But Alfred took
+care to temper these rigours by other institutions favourable to the
+freedom of the citizens; and nothing could be more popular and liberal
+than his plan for the administration of justice.  The borsholder
+summoned together his whole decennary to assist him in deciding any
+lesser difference which occurred among the members of this small
+community.  In affairs of greater moment, in appeals from the
+decennary, or in controversies arising between members of different
+decennaries, the cause was brought before the hundred, which consisted
+of ten decennaries, or a hundred families of freemen, and which was
+regularly assembled once in four weeks for the deciding of causes [g].
+Their method of decision deserves to be noted, as being the origin of
+juries; an institution admirable in itself, and the best calculated
+for the preservation of liberty and the administration of justice that
+ever was devised by the wit of man.  Twelve freeholders were chosen,
+who, having sworn, together with the hundreder, or presiding
+magistrate of that division, to administer impartial justice [h],
+proceeded to the examination of that cause which was submitted to
+their jurisdiction.  And beside these monthly meetings of the hundred,
+there was an annual meeting, appointed for a more general inspection
+of the police of the district; for the inquiry into crimes, the
+correction of abuses in magistrates, and the obliging of every person
+to show the decennary in which he was registered.  The people, in
+imitation of their ancestors, the ancient Germans, assembled there in
+arms; whence a hundred was sometimes called a wapentake, and its court
+served both for the support of military discipline, and for the
+administration of civil justice [i].
+[FN [g] Leg. Edw. cap. 2.  [h] Foedus Alfred. and Gothurn. apud
+Wilkins, cap. 3. p. 47.  Leg. Ethelstani, cap. 2. apud Wilkins, p. 58.
+LL. Ethelr. sec. 4.  Wilkins, p. 117.  [i] Spellman, IN VOCE Wapentake.]
+
+The next superior court to that of the hundred was the county-court,
+which met twice a year, after Michaelmas and Easter, and consisted of
+the freeholders of the county, who possessed an equal vote in the
+decision of causes.  The bishop presided in this court, together with
+the alderman; and the proper object of the court was the receiving of
+appeals from the hundreds and decennaries, and the deciding of such
+controversies as arose between men of different hundreds.  Formerly,
+the alderman possessed both the civil and military authority; but
+Alfred, sensible that this conjunction of powers rendered the nobility
+dangerous and independent, appointed also a sheriff in each county,
+who enjoyed a co-ordinate authority with the former in the judicial
+function [k].  His office also empowered him to guard the rights of
+the crown in the county, and to levy the fines imposed; which in that
+age formed no contemptible part of the public revenue.
+[FN [k] Ingulph. p. 870.]
+
+There lay an appeal, in default of justice, from all these courts to
+the king himself in council; and as the people, sensible of the equity
+and great talents of Alfred, placed their chief confidence in him, he
+was soon overwhelmed with appeals from all parts of England.  He was
+indefatigable in the despatch of these causes [l]; but finding that
+his time must be entirely engrossed by this branch of duty, he
+resolved to obviate the inconvenience, by correcting the ignorance or
+corruption of the inferior magistrates, from which it arose [m].  He
+took care to have his nobility instructed in letters and the laws [n].
+He chose the earls and sheriffs from among the men most celebrated for
+probity and knowledge: he punished severely all malversation in office
+[o]: and he removed all the earls, whom he found unequal to the trust
+[p]; allowing only some of the more elderly to serve by a deputy, till
+their death should make room for more worthy successors.
+[FN [1] Asser. p. 20.  [m] Ibid. p. 18, 21.  Flor. Wigorn p. 594.
+Abbas Rieval, p. 355.  [n] Flor. Wigorn. p. 594.  Brompton. p. 811.
+[o] Le Miroir de Justice, chap. 2.  [p] Asser. p. 20.]
+
+The better to guide the magistrates in the administration of justice,
+Alfred framed a body of laws; which, though now lost, served long as
+the basis of English jurisprudence, and is generally deemed the origin
+of what is denominated the COMMON LAW.  He appointed regular meetings
+of the states of England twice a year in London [q]; a city which he
+himself had repaired and beautified, and which he thus rendered the
+capital of the kingdom.  The similarity of these institutions to the
+customs of the ancient Germans, to the practice of the other northern
+conquerors, and to the Saxon laws during the Heptarchy, prevents us
+from regarding Alfred as the sole author of this plan of government;
+and leads us rather to think, that, like a wise man, he contented
+himself with reforming, extending, and executing the institutions
+which he found previously established.  But, on the whole, such
+success attended his legislation, that every thing bore suddenly a new
+face in England: robberies and iniquities of all kinds were repressed
+by the punishment or reformation of the criminals [r]: and so exact
+was the general police, that Alfred, it is said, hung up, by way of
+bravado, golden bracelets near the highways; and no man dared to touch
+them [s].  Yet, amidst these rigours of justice, this great prince
+preserved the most sacred regard to the liberty of his people; and it
+is a memorable sentiment preserved in his will, That it was just the
+English should for ever remain as free as their own thoughts [t].
+[FN [q] Le Miroir de Justice.  [r] Ingulph. p. 27.  [s] W Malmes. lib.
+2. cap. 4.  [t] Asser. p. 24.]
+
+As good morals and knowledge are almost inseparable in every age,
+though not in every individual; the care of Alfred for the
+encouragement of learning among his subjects was another useful branch
+of his legislation, and tended to reclaim the English from their
+former dissolute and ferocious manners: but the king was guided in
+this pursuit, less by political views, than by his natural bent and
+propensity towards letters.  When he came to the throne, he found the
+nation sunk into the grossest ignorance and barbarism, proceeding from
+the continued disorders in the government, and from the ravages of the
+Danes: the monasteries were destroyed, the monks butchered or
+dispersed, their libraries burnt; and thus the only seats of erudition
+in those ages were totally subverted.  Alfred himself complains, that
+on his accession he knew not one person, south of the Thames, who
+could so much as interpret the Latin service; and very few in the
+northern parts, who had reached even that pitch of erudition.  But
+this prince invited over the most celebrated scholars from all parts
+of Europe; he established schools every where for the instruction of
+his people; he founded, at least repaired, the university of Oxford,
+and endowed it with many privileges, revenues, and immunities; he
+enjoined by law all freeholders possessed of two hides [u] of land or
+more, to send their children to school for their instruction; he gave
+preferment both in church and state to such only as had made some
+proficiency in knowledge: and by all these expedients he had the
+satisfaction, before his death, to see a great change in the face of
+affairs; and in a work of his, which is still extant, he congratulates
+himself on the progress which learning, under his patronage, had
+already made in England.
+[FN [u] A hide contained land sufficient to employ one plough.  See H.
+Hunt. lib. 6. in A. D. 1008.  Annal. Waverl. in A.D. 1083.  Gervase of
+Tilbury says, it commonly contained about 100 acres.]
+
+But the most effectual expedient, employed by Alfred, for the
+encouragement of learning, was his own example, and the constant
+assiduity with which, notwithstanding the multiplicity and urgency of
+his affairs, he employed himself in the pursuits of knowledge.  He
+usually divided his time into three equal portions: one was employed
+in sleep, and the refection of his body by diet and exercise; another
+in the despatch of business; a third in study and devotion; and that
+he might more exactly measure the hours, he made use of burning tapers
+of equal length, which he fixed in lanterns [w]; an expedient suited
+to that rude age, when the geometry of dialling, and the mechanism of
+clocks and watches, were totally unknown.  And by such a regular
+distribution of his time, though he often laboured under great bodily
+infirmities [x], this martial hero, who fought in person fifty-six
+battles by sea and land [y], was able, during a life of no
+extraordinary length, to acquire more knowledge, and even to compose
+more books, than most studious men, though blessed with the greatest
+leisure and application, have, in more fortunate ages, made the object
+of their uninterrupted industry.
+[FN [w] Asser. p. 20.  W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 4.  Ingulph. p. 870.  [x]
+Asser. p. 4, 12, 13, 17.  [y] W. Malm. lib. 4. cap. 4.]
+
+Sensible that the people, at all times, especially when their
+understandings are obstructed by ignorance and bad education, are not
+much susceptible of speculative instruction, Alfred endeavoured to
+convey his morality by apologues, parables, stories, apophthegms,
+couched in poetry; and besides propagating among his subjects former
+compositions of that kind, which he found in the Saxon tongue [z], he
+exercised his genius in inventing works of a like nature [a], as well
+as in translating from the Greek the elegant fables of Aesop.  He also
+gave Saxon translations of Orosius's and Bede's histories; and of
+Boethius concerning the consolation of philosophy [b].  And he deemed
+it nowise derogatory from his other great characters of sovereign,
+legislator, warrior, and politician, thus to lead the way to his
+people in the pursuits of literature.
+[FN [z] Asser. p. 13.  [a] Spellman, p. 124.  Abbas Rieval, p. 355.
+[b] W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 4.  Brompton, p. 814.]
+
+Meanwhile, this prince was not negligent in encouraging the vulgar and
+mechanical arts, which have a more sensible, though not a closer,
+connexion with the interests of society.  He invited, from all
+quarters, industrious foreigners to repeople his country, which had
+been desolated by the ravages of the Danes [c].  He introduced and
+encouraged manufactures of all kinds; and no inventor or improver of
+any ingenious art did he suffer to go unrewarded [d].  He prompted men
+of activity to betake themselves to navigation, to push commerce into
+the most remote countries, and to acquire riches by propagating
+industry among their fellow-citizens.  He set apart a seventh portion
+of his own revenue for maintaining a number of workmen, whom he
+constantly employed in rebuilding the ruined cities, castles, palaces,
+and monasteries [e].  Even the elegancies of life were brought to him
+from the Mediterranean and the Indies [f]; and his subjects, by seeing
+those productions of the peaceful arts, were taught to respect the
+virtues of justice and industry, from which alone they could arise.
+Both living and dead, Alfred was regarded by foreigners, no less than
+by his own subjects, as the greatest prince after Charlemagne that had
+appeared in Europe during several ages, and as one of the wisest and
+best that had ever adorned the annals of any nation.
+[FN [c] Asser. p. 13.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 588.  [d] Asser. p. 20.  [e]
+Asser. p. 20.  W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 4.  [f] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap.
+4.]
+
+Alfred had, by his wife, Ethelswitha, daughter of a Mercian earl,
+three sons and three daughters.  The eldest son, Edmund, died without
+issue, in his father's lifetime.  The third, Ethelward, inherited his
+father's passion for letters, and lived a private life.  The second,
+Edward, succeeded to his power; and passes by the appellation of
+Edward the Elder, being the first of that name who sat on the English
+throne.
+
+[MN Edward the Elder.  901.]
+This prince, who equalled his father in military talents, though
+inferior to him in knowledge and erudition [g], found, immediately on
+his accession, a specimen of that turbulent life to which all princes
+and even all individuals were exposed, in an age when men, less
+restrained by law or justice, and less occupied by industry, had no
+aliment for their inquietude, but wars, insurrections, convulsions,
+rapine, and depredation.  Ethelwald, his cousin-german, son of King
+Ethelbert, the elder brother of Alfred, insisted on his preferable
+title [h]; and arming his partisans, took possession of Winburne,
+where he seemed determined to defend himself to the last extremity,
+and to await the issue of his pretensions [i].  But when the king
+approached the town with a great army, Ethelwald, having the prospect
+of certain destruction, made his escape, and fled first into Normandy,
+thence into Northumberland; where he hoped that the people, who had
+been recently subdued by Alfred, and who were impatient of peace,
+would, on the intelligence of that great prince's death, seize the
+first pretence or opportunity of rebellion.  The event did not
+disappoint his expectations: the Northumbrians declared for him [k];
+and Ethelwald having thus connected his interests with the Danish
+tribes, went beyond sea, and collecting a body of these freebooters,
+he excited the hopes of all those who had been accustomed to subsist
+by rapine and violence [l].  The East Anglian Danes joined his party:
+the Five-burgers, who were seated in the heart of Mercia, began to put
+themselves in motion; and the English found that they were again
+menaced with those convulsions, from which the valour and policy of
+Alfred had so lately rescued them.  The rebels, headed by Ethelwald,
+made an incursion into the Counties of Gloucester, Oxford, and Wilts;
+and having exercised their ravages in these places, they retired with
+their booty, before the king, who had assembled an army, was able to
+approach them.  Edward, however, who was determined that his
+preparations should not be fruitless, conducted his forces into East
+Anglia, and retaliated the injuries which the inhabitants had
+committed, by spreading the like devastation among them.  Satiated
+with revenge, and loaded with booty, he gave orders to retire: but the
+authority of those ancient kings, which was feeble in peace, was not
+much better established in the field; and the Kentish men, greedy of
+more spoil, ventured, contrary to repeated orders, to stay behind him,
+and to take up their quarters in Bury. This disobedience proved in the
+issue fortunate to Edward.  The Danes assaulted the Kentish men; but
+met with so vigorous a resistance, that, though they gained the field
+of battle, they bought that advantage by the loss of their bravest
+leaders, and among the rest, by that of Ethelwald, who perished in the
+action [m]. The king, freed from the fear of so dangerous a
+competitor, made peace on advantageous terms with the East Angles [n].
+[FN [g] W. Malmes lib. 2. cap. 5  Hoveden, p. 421.  [h] Chron. Sax. p.
+99, 100.  [i] Ibid. p. 100.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 352.  [k] Chron.
+Sax. p. 100.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 352.  [l] Chron. Sax. p. 100.
+Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 24.  [m] Chron. Sax. p. 101.
+Brompton, p. 832.  [n] Chron. Sax. p. 102.  Brompton, p. 832.  Matth.
+West. p. 181.]
+
+In order to restore England to such a state of tranquillity as it was
+then capable of attaining, nought was wanting but the subjection of
+the Northumbrians, who, assisted by the scattered Danes in Mercia,
+continually infested the bowels of the kingdom.  Edward, in order to
+divert the force of these enemies, prepared a fleet to attack them by
+sea; hoping that, when his ships appeared on their coast, they must at
+least remain at home, and provide for their defence.  But the
+Northumbrians were less anxious to secure their own property, than
+greedy to commit spoil on their enemy; and concluding, that the chief
+strength of the English was embarked on board the fleet, they thought
+the opportunity favourable, and entered Edward's territories with all
+their forces.  The king, who was prepared against this event, attacked
+them on their return at Tetenhall, in the county of Stafford, put them
+to rout, recovered all the booty, and pursued them with great
+slaughter into their own country.
+
+All the rest of Edward's reign was a scene of continued and successful
+action against the Northumbrians, the East Angles, the Five-burgers,
+and the foreign Danes who invaded him from Normandy and Britany.  Nor
+was he less provident in putting his kingdom in a posture of defence,
+than vigorous in assaulting the enemy.  He fortified the towns of
+Chester, Eddesbury, Warwick, Cherbury, Buckingham, Towcester, Maldon,
+Huntingdon, and Colchester.  He fought two signal battles at Temsford
+and Maldon [o].  He vanquished Thurketill, a great Danish chief, and
+obliged him to retire with his followers into France, in quest of
+spoil and adventures.  He subdued the East Angles, and forced them to
+swear allegiance to him; he expelled the two rival princes of
+Northumberland, Reginald and Sidroc, and acquired, for the present,
+the dominion of that province: several tribes of the Britons were
+subjected by him; and even the Scots, who, during the reign of Egbert,
+had, under the conduct of Kenneth their king, increased their power by
+the final subjection of the Picts, were nevertheless obliged to give
+him marks of submission [p].  In all these fortunate achievements he
+was assisted by the activity and prudence of his sister, Ethelfleda,
+who was widow of Ethelbert, Earl of Mercia, and who, after her
+husband's death, retained the government of that province.  This
+princess, who had been reduced to extremity in childbed, refused
+afterwards all commerce with her husband; not from any weak
+superstition, as was common in that age, but because she deemed all
+domestic occupations unworthy of her masculine and ambitious spirit
+[q].  She died before her brother; and Edward, during the remainder of
+his reign, took upon himself the immediate government of Mercia, which
+before had been entrusted to the authority of a governor [r].  The
+Saxon Chronicle fixes the death of this prince in 925 [s]: his kingdom
+devolved to Athelstan, his natural son.
+[FN [o] Chron. Sax. p. 108.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 601.  [p] Chron. Sax. p.
+110.  Hoveden, p. 421.  [q] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 5.  M. West. p.
+182.  Ingulph. p. 28.  Higden, p. 261.  [r] Chron. Sax. p. 110.
+Brompton, p. 831.  [s] Page 110.]
+
+[MN Athelstan 925.]
+The stain in this prince's birth was not, in those times, deemed so
+considerable as to exclude him from the throne; and Athelstan, being
+of an age, as well as of a capacity fitted for government, obtained
+the preference to Edward's younger children, who, though legitimate,
+were of too tender years to rule a nation so much exposed both to
+foreign invasion and to domestic convulsions.  Some discontents,
+however, prevailed on his accession; and Alfred, a nobleman of
+considerable power, was thence encouraged to enter into a conspiracy
+against him.  This incident is related by historians with
+circumstances, which the reader, according to the degree of credit he
+is disposed to give them, may impute either to the invention of monks,
+who forged them, or to their artifice, who found means of making them
+real.  Alfred, it is said, being seized upon strong suspicions, but
+without any certain proof, firmly denied the .conspiracy imputed to
+him; and in order to justify himself, he offered to swear to his
+innocence before the pope, whose person, it was supposed, contained
+such superior sanctity, that no one could presume to give a false oath
+in his presence, and yet hope to escape the immediate vengeance of
+heaven.  The king accepted of the condition, and Alfred was conducted
+to Rome; where, either conscious of his innocence, or neglecting the
+superstition to which he appealed, he ventured to make the oath
+required of him before John, who then filled the papal chair.  But no
+sooner had he pronounced the fatal words, than he fell into
+convulsions, of which three days after he expired.  The king, as if
+the guilt of the conspirator were now fully ascertained, confiscated
+his estate, and made a present of it to the monastery of Malmesbury
+[t]; secure that no doubts would ever thenceforth be entertained
+concerning the justice of his proceedings.
+[FN [t] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 6.  Spell. Conc. p. 407.]
+
+The dominion of Athelstan was no sooner established over his English
+subjects, than he endeavoured to give security to the government, by
+providing against the insurrections of the Danes, which had created so
+much disturbance to his predecessors.  He marched into Northumberland;
+and finding that the inhabitants bore with impatience the English
+yoke, he thought it prudent to confer on Sithric, a Danish nobleman,
+the title of king, and to attach him to his interests, by giving him
+his sister, Editha, in marriage.  But this policy proved by accident
+the source of dangerous consequences.  Sithric died in a twelvemonth
+after; and his two sons by a former marriage, Anlaf and Godfrid,
+founding pretensions on their father's elevation, assumed the
+sovereignty without waiting for Athelstan's consent.  They were soon
+expelled by the power of that monarch; and the former took shelter in
+Ireland, as the latter did in Scotland; where he received, during some
+time, protection from Constantine, who then enjoyed the crown of that.
+kingdom.  The Scottish prince, however, continually solicited, and
+even menaced by Athelstan, at last promised to deliver up his guest;
+but secretly detesting this treachery, he gave Godfrid warning to make
+his escape [u]; and that fugitive, after subsisting by piracy for some
+years, freed the king by his death from any farther anxiety.
+Athelstan, resenting Constantine's behaviour, entered Scotland with an
+army; and ravaging the country with impunity [w], he reduced the Scots
+to such distress, that their king was content to preserve his crown,
+by making submissions to the enemy.  The English historians assert
+[x], that Constantine did homage to Athelstan for his kingdom; and
+they add, that the latter prince, being urged by his courtiers to push
+the present favourable opportunity, and entirely subdue Scotland,
+replied, that it was more glorious to confer than conquer kingdoms
+[y].  But those annals, so uncertain and imperfect in themselves, lose
+all credit when national prepossessions and animosities have place:
+and on that account, the Scotch historians, who, without having any
+more knowledge of the matter, strenuously deny the fact, seem more
+worthy of belief.
+[FN [u] W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 6.  [w] Chron. Sax. p. 111.  Hoveden, p.
+422.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 354.  [x] Hoveden, p. 422.  [y] Wm.
+Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 6.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 212.]
+
+Constantine, whether he owed the retaining of his crown to the
+moderation of Athelstan, who was unwilling to employ all his
+advantages against him, or to the policy of that prince, who esteemed
+the humiliation of an enemy a greater acquisition than the subjection
+of a discontented and mutinous people, thought the behaviour of the
+English monarch more an object of resentment than of gratitude.  He
+entered into a confederacy with Anlaf, who had collected a great body
+of Danish pirates, whom he found hovering in the Irish seas; and with
+some Welsh princes, who were terrified at the growing power of
+Athelstan: and all these allies made by concert an irruption with a
+great army into England.  Athelstan, collecting his forces, met the
+enemy near Brunsbury, in Northumberland, and defeated them in a
+general engagement.  This victory was chiefly ascribed to the valour
+of Turketul, the English chancellor: for in those turbulent ages no
+one was so much occupied in civil employments, as wholly to lay aside
+the military character [z].
+[FN [z] The office of chancellor among the Anglo-Saxons resembled more
+that of a secretary of state, than that of our present chancellor.
+See Spellman, in voce CHANCELLARIUS.]
+
+There is a circumstance not unworthy of notice, which historians
+relate, with regard to the transactions of this war.  Anlaf, on the
+approach of the English army, thought that he could not venture too
+much to ensure a fortunate event; and, employing the artifice formerly
+practised by Alfred against the Danes, he entered the enemy's camp in
+the habit of a minstrel.  The stratagem was for the present attended
+with like success.  He gave such satisfaction to the soldiers who
+flocked about him, that they introduced him to the king's tent; and
+Anlaf, having played before that prince and his nobles during their
+repast, was dismissed with a handsome reward.  His prudence kept him
+from refusing the present; but his pride determined him, on his
+departure, to bury it, while he fancied that he was unespied by all
+the world.  But a soldier in Athelstan's camp, who had formerly served
+under Anlaf, had been struck with some suspicion on the first
+appearance of the minstrel; and was engaged by curiosity to observe
+all his motions.  He regarded this last action as a full proof of
+Anlaf's disguise; and he immediately carried the intelligence to
+Athelstan, who blamed him for not sooner giving him information, that
+he might have seized his enemy.  But the soldier told him, that, as he
+had formerly sworn fealty to Anlaf, he could never have pardoned
+himself the treachery of betraying and ruining his ancient master; and
+that Athelstan himself, after such an instance of his criminal
+conduct, would have had equal reason to distrust his allegiance.
+Athelstan, having praised the generosity of the soldier's principles,
+reflected on the incident, which he foresaw might be attended with
+important consequences.  He removed his station in the camp; and as a
+bishop arrived that evening with a reinforcement of troops, (for the
+ecclesiastics were then no less warlike than the civil magistrates,)
+he occupied with his train that very place which had been left vacant
+by the king's removal.  The precaution of Athelstan was found prudent:
+for no sooner had darkness fallen, than Anlaf broke into the camp, and
+hastening directly to the place where he had left the king's tent, put
+the bishop to death before he had time to prepare for his defence [a].
+[FN [a] W. Malmes. lib. 2 cap. 6.  Higden, p. 263]
+
+There fell several Danish and Welsh princes in the action of Brunsbury
+[b]; and Constantine and Anlaf made their escape with difficulty,
+leaving the greater part of their army on the field of battle.  After
+this success, Athelstan enjoyed his crown in tranquillity; and he is
+regarded as one of the ablest and most active of those ancient
+princes.  He passed a remarkable law, which was calculated for the
+encouragement of commerce, and which it required some liberality of
+mind in that age to have devised: that a merchant, who had made three
+long sea-voyages on his own account, should be admitted to the rank of
+a Thane or Gentleman.  This prince died at Gloucester in the year 941
+[c], after a reign of sixteen years, and was succeeded by Edmund, his
+legitimate brother.
+[FN [b] Brompton, p. 839  Ingulph. p. 29  [c] Chron. Sax. p. 114.]
+
+[MN Edmund 941.]
+Edmund, on his accession, met with disturbance from the restless
+Northumbrians, who lay in wait for every opportunity of breaking into
+rebellion.  But marching suddenly with his forces into their country,
+he so overawed the rebels, that they endeavoured to appease him by the
+most humble submissions [d].  In order to give him a surer pledge of
+their obedience, they offered to embrace Christianity; a religion
+which the English Danes had frequently professed, when reduced to
+difficulties, but which, for that very reason, they regarded as a
+badge of servitude, and shook off as soon as a favourable opportunity
+offered.  Edmund, trusting little to their sincerity in this forced
+submission, used the precaution of removing the Five-burgers from the
+towns of Mercia, in which they had been allowed to settle; because it
+was always found, that they took advantage of every commotion, and
+introduced the rebellious, or foreign Danes, into the heart of the
+kingdom.  He also conquered Cumberland from the Britons; and conferred
+that territory on Malcolm, King of Scotland, on condition that he
+should do him homage for it, and protect the north from all future
+incursions of the Danes.
+[FN [d] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 7.  Brompton, p. 857]
+
+Edmund was young when he came to the crown; yet was his reign short,
+as his death was violent.  One day as he was solemnizing a festival in
+the county of Gloucester, he remarked, that Leolf, a notorious robber,
+whom he had sentenced to banishment, had yet the boldness to enter the
+hall where he himself dined, and to sit at table with his attendants.
+Enraged at this insolence, he ordered him to leave the room; but on
+his refusing to obey, the king, whose temper, naturally choleric, was
+inflamed by this additional insult, leaped on him himself, and seized
+him by the hair: but the ruffian, pushed to extremity, drew his
+dagger, and gave Edmund a wound, of which he immediately expired.
+This event happened in the year 946, and in the sixth year of the
+king's reign.  Edmund left male issue, but so young, that they were
+incapable of governing the kingdom; and his brother, Edred, was
+promoted to the throne.
+
+[MN Edred 946.]
+The reign of this prince, as those of his predecessors, was disturbed
+by the rebellions and incursions of the Northumbrian Danes, who,
+though frequently quelled, were never entirely subdued, nor had ever
+paid a sincere allegiance to the crown of England.  The accession of a
+new king seemed to them a favourable opportunity for shaking off the
+yoke; but on Edred's appearance with an army, they made him their
+wonted submissions; and the king having wasted the country with fire
+and sword, as a punishment for their rebellion, obliged them to renew
+their oaths of allegiance; and he straight retired with his forces.
+The obedience of the Danes lasted no longer than the present terror.
+Provoked at the devastations of Edred, and even reduced by necessity
+to subsist on plunder, they broke into a new rebellion, and were again
+subdued; but the king, now instructed by experience, took greater
+precautions against their future revolt.  He fixed English garrisons
+in their most considerable towns; and placed over them an English
+governor, who might watch all their motions, and suppress any
+insurrection on its first appearance.  He obliged also Malcolm, King
+of Scotland, to renew his homage for the lands which he held in
+England.
+
+Edred, though not unwarlike, nor unfit for active life, lay under the
+influence of the lowest superstition, and had blindly delivered over
+his conscience to the guidance of Dunstan, commonly called St.
+Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury, whom he advanced to the highest
+offices, and who covered, under the appearance of sanctity, the most
+violent and most insolent ambition.  Taking advantage of the implicit
+confidence reposed in him by the king, this churchman imported into
+England a new order of monks, who much changed the state of
+ecclesiastical affairs, and excited, on their first establishment, the
+most violent commotions.
+
+From the introduction of Christianity among the Saxons, there had been
+monasteries in England; and these establishments had extremely
+multiplied, by the donations of the princes and nobles; whose
+superstition, derived from their ignorance and precarious life, and
+increased by remorse for the crimes into which they were so frequently
+betrayed, knew no other expedient for appeasing the Deity than a
+profuse liberality towards the ecclesiastics.  But the monks had
+hitherto been a species of secular priests, who lived after the manner
+of the present canons or prebendaries, and were both intermingled, in
+some degree, with the world, and endeavoured to render themselves
+useful to it.  They were employed in the education of youth [e]: they
+had the disposal of their own time and industry: they were not
+subjected to the rigid rules of an order: they had made no vows of
+implicit obedience to their superiors [f]: and they still retained the
+choice, without quitting the convent, either of a married or a single
+life [g].  But a mistaken piety had produced in Italy a new species of
+monks called Benedictines; who, carrying farther the plausible
+principles of mortification, secluded themselves entirely from the
+world, renounced all claim to liberty, and made a merit of the most
+inviolable chastity.  These practices and principles, which
+superstition at first engendered, were greedily embraced and promoted
+by the policy of the court of Rome.  The Roman pontiff, who was making
+every day great advances towards an absolute sovereignty over the
+ecclesiastics, perceived that the celibacy of the clergy alone could
+break off entirely their connexion with the civil power, and depriving
+them of every other object of ambition, engage them to promote, with
+unceasing industry, the grandeur of their own order.  He was sensible,
+that so long as the monks were indulged in marriage, and were
+permitted to rear families, they never could be subjected to strict
+discipline, or reduced to that slavery under their superiors, which
+was requisite to procure to the mandates issued from Rome, a ready and
+zealous obedience.  Celibacy, therefore, began to be extolled, as the
+indispensable duty of priests; and the pope undertook to make all the
+clergy throughout the western world renounce at once the privilege of
+marriage: a fortunate policy; but at the same time an undertaking the
+most difficult of any, since he had the strongest propensities of
+human nature to encounter, and found, that the same connexions with
+the female sex, which generally encourage devotion, were here
+unfavourable to the success of his project.  It is no wonder
+therefore, that this master-stroke of art should have met with violent
+contradiction, and that the interests of the hierarchy, and the
+inclinations of the priests, being now placed in this singular
+opposition, should, notwithstanding the continued efforts of Rome,
+have retarded the execution of that bold scheme, during the course of
+near three centuries.
+[FN [e] Osberne in Anglia Sacra, tom. 2. p. 92.  [f] Osberne, p. 91.
+[g] See Wharton's notes to Anglia Sacra, tom. 2. p. 91.  Gervase, p.
+1645.  Chron Wint. MS. apud Spell. Conc. p. 434.]
+
+As the bishops and parochial clergy lived apart with their families,
+and were more connected with the world, the hopes of success with them
+were fainter; and the pretence for making them renounce marriage was
+much less plausible.  But the pope, having cast his eye on the monks
+as the basis of his authority, was determined to reduce them under
+strict rules of obedience, to procure them the credit of sanctity by
+an appearance of the most rigid mortification, and to break off all
+their other ties which might interfere with his spiritual policy.
+Under pretence, therefore, of reforming abuses, which were, in some
+degree, unavoidable in the ancient establishments, he had already
+spread over the southern countries of Europe the severe laws of the
+monastic life, and began to form attempts towards a like innovation in
+England.  The favourable opportunity offered itself, (and it was
+greedily seized,) arising from the weak, superstition of Edred, and
+the violent impetuous character of Dunstan.
+
+Dunstan was born of noble parents in the west of England; and being
+educated under his uncle Aldhelm, then Archbishop of Canterbury, had
+betaken himself to the ecclesiastical life, and had acquired some
+character in the court of Edmund.  He was, however, represented to
+that prince as a man of licentious manners [h]: and finding his
+fortune blasted by these suspicions, his ardent ambition prompted him
+to repair his indiscretions by running into an opposite extreme.  He
+secluded himself entirely from the world; he framed a cell so small,
+that he could neither stand erect in it nor stretch out his limbs
+during his repose; and he here employed himself perpetually either in
+devotion or in manual labour [i].  It is probable, that his brain
+became gradually crazed by these solitary occupations, and that his
+head was filled with chimeras, which, being believed by himself and
+his stupid votaries, procured him the general character of sanctity
+among the people.  He fancied that the devil, among the frequent
+visits which he paid him, was one day more earnest than usual in his
+temptations; till Dunstan, provoked at his importunity, seized him by
+the nose with a pair of red-hot pincers, as he put his head into the
+cell; and he held him there till that malignant spirit made the whole
+neighbourhood resound with his bellowings.  This notable exploit was
+seriously credited and extolled by the public: it is transmitted to
+posterity by one who, considering the age in which he lived, may pass
+for a writer of some eloquence [k]; and it ensured to Dunstan a
+reputation which no real piety, much less virtue, could, even in the
+most enlightened period, have ever procured him with the people.
+[FN [h] Osberne, p. 95  Matth West, p. 187.  [i] Osberne, p. 96.  [k]
+Osberne, p. 97.]
+
+Supported by the character obtained in his retreat, Dunstan appeared
+again in the world; and gained such an ascendant over Edred, who had
+succeeded to the crown, as made him not only the director of that
+prince's conscience, but his counsellor in the most momentous affairs
+of government.  He was placed at the head of the treasury [l], and
+being thus possessed both of power at court, and of credit with the
+populace, he was enabled to attempt with success the most arduous
+enterprises.  Finding that his advancement had been owing to the
+opinion of his austerity, he professed himself a partisan of the rigid
+monastic rules; and after introducing that reformation into the
+convents of Glastonbury and Abingdon, he endeavoured to render it
+universal in the kingdom.
+[FN [1] Ibid. p. 102.  Wallingford, p. 541.]
+
+The minds of men were already well prepared for this innovation.  The
+praises of an inviolable chastity had been carried to the highest
+extravagance by some of the first preachers of Christianity among the
+Saxons: the pleasures of love had been represented as incompatible
+with Christian perfection; and a total abstinence from all commerce
+with the sex was deemed such a meritorious penance, as was sufficient
+to atone for the greatest enormities.  The consequence seemed natural,
+that those, at least, who officiated at the altar should be clear of
+this pollution; and when the doctrine of transubstantiation, which was
+now creeping in [m], was once fully established, the reverence to the
+real body of Christ in the eucharist bestowed on this argument an
+additional force and influence.  The monks knew how to avail
+themselves of all these popular topics, and to set off their own
+character to the best advantage.  They affected the greatest austerity
+of life and manners: they indulged themselves in the highest strains
+of devotion: they inveighed bitterly against the vices and pretended
+luxury of the age: they were particularly vehement against the
+dissolute lives of the secular clergy, their rivals: every instance of
+libertinism in any individual of that order was represented as a
+general corruption: and where other topics of defamation were wanting,
+their marriage became a sure subject of invective, and their wives
+received the name of CONCUBINE, or other more opprobrious appellation.
+The secular clergy, on the other hand, who were numerous and rich, and
+possessed of the ecclesiastical dignities, defended themselves with
+vigour, and endeavoured to retaliate upon their adversaries.  The
+people were thrown into agitation; and few instances occur of more
+violent dissensions, excited by the most material differences in
+religion, or rather by the most frivolous: since it is a just remark,
+that the more affinity there is between theological parties, the
+greater commonly is their animosity.
+[FN [m] Spell. Conc. v. i. p. 452.]
+
+The progress of the monks, which was become considerable, was somewhat
+retarded by the death of Edred, their partisan, who expired after a
+reign of nine years [n].  He left children; but as they were infants,
+his nephew, Edwy, son of Edmund, was placed on the throne.
+[FN [n] Chron. Sax. p. 115.]
+
+[MN Edwy. 955.]
+Edwy, at the time of his accession, was not above sixteen or seventeen
+years of age, was possessed of the most amiable figure, and was even
+endowed, according to authentic accounts, with the most promising
+virtues [o].  He would have been the favourite of his people, had he
+not unhappily, at the commencement of his reign, been engaged in a
+controversy with the monks, whose rage, neither the graces of the body
+nor virtues of the mind could mitigate, and who have pursued his
+memory with the same unrelenting vengeance which they exercised
+against his person and dignity during his short and unfortunate reign.
+There was a beautiful princess of the royal blood, called Elgiva, who
+had made impression on the tender heart of Edwy; and as he was of an
+age when the force of the passions first begins to be felt, he had
+ventured, contrary to the advice of his gravest counsellors, and the
+remonstrances of the more dignified ecclesiastics [p], to espouse her;
+though she was within the degrees of affinity prohibited by the canon
+law [q].  As the austerity affected by the monks made them
+particularly violent on this occasion, Edwy entertained a strong
+prepossession against them; and seemed, on that account, determined
+not to second their project of expelling the seculars from all the
+convents, and of possessing themselves of those rich establishments.
+War was therefore declared between the king and the monks; and the
+former soon found reason to repent his provoking such dangerous
+enemies.  On the day of his coronation, his nobility were assembled in
+a great hall, and were indulging themselves in that riot and disorder,
+which, from the example of their German ancestors, had become habitual
+to the English [r]; when Edwy, attracted by softer pleasures, retired
+into the queen's apartment, and in that privacy gave reins to his
+fondness towards his wife, which was only moderately checked by the
+presence of her mother.  Dunstan conjectured the reason of the king's
+retreat; and carrying along with him Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury,
+over whom he had gained an absolute ascendant, he burst into the
+apartment, upbraided Edwy with his lasciviousness, probably bestowed
+on the queen the most opprobrious epithet that can be applied to her
+sex, and tearing him from her arms, pushed him back, in a disgraceful
+manner, into the banquet of the nobles [s].  Edwy, though young, and
+opposed by the prejudices of the people, found an opportunity of
+taking revenge for this public insult.  He questioned Dunstan
+concerning the administration of the treasury during the reign of his
+predecessor [t]; and when that minister refused to give any account of
+money expended, as he affirmed, by orders of the late king, he accused
+him of malversation in his office and banished him the kingdom.  But
+Dunstan's cabal was not inactive during his absence; they filled the
+public with high panegyrics on his sanctity; they exclaimed against
+the impiety of the king and queen; and having poisoned the minds of
+the people by these declamations, they proceeded to still more
+outrageous acts of violence against the royal authority.  Archbishop
+Odo sent into the palace a party of soldiers, who seized the queen,
+and, having burned her face with a red-hot iron, in order to destroy
+that fatal beauty which had seduced Edwy, they carried her by force
+into Ireland, there to remain in perpetual exile [u].  Edwy, finding
+it in vain to resist, was obliged to consent to his divorce, which was
+pronounced by Odo [w]; and catastrophe, still more dismal, awaited the
+unhappy Elgiva.  That amiable princess, being cured of her wounds, and
+having even obliterated the scars with which Odo had hoped to deface
+her beauty, returned into England, and was flying to the embraces of
+the king, whom she still regarded as her husband; when she fell into
+the hands of a party, whom the primate had sent to intercept her.
+Nothing but her death could now give security to Odo and the monks;
+and the most cruel death was requisite to satiate their vengeance.
+She was hamstringed; and expired a few days after at Gloucester, in
+the most acute torments [x].
+[FN [o] H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 356.  [p] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 7.
+[q] Ibid.  [r] Wallingford, p. 542.  [s] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 7.
+Osberne, p. 83, 105.  M. West. p. 195, 196.  [t] Wallingford, p. 542.
+Alur. Beverl. p. 112.  [u] Osberne, p. 84.  Gervase, p. 1644.  [w]
+Hoveden, p. 425.  [x] Osberne, p. 84.  Gervase, p. 1645, 1646.]
+
+The English, blinded with superstition, instead of being shocked with
+this inhumanity, exclaimed that the misfortunes of Edwy and his
+consort were a just judgment for their dissolute contempt of the
+ecclesiastical statutes.  They even proceeded to rebellion against
+their sovereign; and having placed Edgar at their head, the younger
+brother of Edwy, a boy of thirteen years of age, they soon put him in
+possession of Mercia, Northumberland, East Anglia; and chased Edwy
+into the southern counties.  That it might not be doubtful at whose
+instigation this revolt was undertaken, Dunstan returned into England,
+and took upon him the government of Edgar and his party.  He was first
+installed in the see of Worcester, then in that of London [y], and on
+Odo's death, and the violent expulsion of Brithelm, his successor, in
+that of Canterbury [z]; of all which he long kept possession.  Odo is
+transmitted to us by the monks under the character of a man of piety;
+Dunstan was even canonized: and is one of those numerous saints of the
+same stamp who disgrace the Romish calendar.  Meanwhile the unhappy
+Edwy was excommunicated [a], and pursued with unrelenting vengeance;
+but his death, which happened soon after, freed his enemies from all
+further inquietude, and gave Edgar peaceable possession of the
+government [b].
+[FN [y] Chron. Sax. p. 117.  Flor Wigorn. p. 605.  Wallingford, p. 544
+[z] Hoveden p. 425.  Osberne, p. 109.  [a] Brompton, p. 863.  [b] See
+note [B] at the end of the volume.]
+
+[MN Edgar.]
+This prince, who mounted the throne in such early youth, soon
+discovered an excellent capacity in the administration of affairs; and
+his reign is one of the most fortunate that we meet with in the
+ancient English history.  He showed no aversion to war, he made the
+wisest preparations against invaders; and by his vigour and foresight
+he was enabled, without any danger of suffering insults, to indulge
+his inclination towards peace, and to employ himself in supporting and
+improving the internal government of his kingdom.  He maintained a
+body of disciplined troops; which he quartered in the north, in order
+to keep the mutinous Northumbrians in subjection, and to repel the
+inroads of the Scots.  He built and supported a powerful navy [c]; and
+that he might retain the seamen in the practice of their duty, and
+always present a formidable armament to his enemies, he stationed
+three squadrons off the coast, and ordered them to make, from time to
+time, the circuit of his dominions [d].  The foreign Danes dared not
+to approach a country which appeared in such a posture of defence: the
+domestic Danes saw inevitable destruction to be the consequence of
+their tumults and insurrections: the neighbouring sovereigns, the King
+of Scotland, the Princes of Wales, of the Isle of Man, of the Orkneys,
+and even of Ireland [e], were reduced to pay submission to so
+formidable a monarch.  He carried his superiority to a great height,
+and might have excited an universal combination against him, had not
+his power been so well established as to deprive his enemies of all
+hope of shaking it.  It is said, that residing once at Chester, and
+having purposed to go by water to the abbey of St. John the Baptist,
+he obliged eight of his tributary princes to row him in a barge upon
+the Dee [f].  The English historians are fond of mentioning the name
+of Kenneth III, King of Scots, among the number: the Scottish
+historians either deny the fact, or assert that their king, if ever he
+acknowledged himself a vassal to Edgar, did him homage not for his
+crown, but for the dominions which he held in England.
+[FN [c] Higden, p. 265.  [d] See note [C] at the end of the volume.
+[e] Spell. Conc. p. 32.  [f] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Hoveden, p.
+406.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 356.]
+
+But the chief means by which Edgar maintained his authority, and
+preserved public peace, was the paying of court to Dunstan and the
+monks, who had at first placed him on the throne, and who, by their
+pretensions to superior sanctity and purity of manners, had acquired
+an ascendant over the people.  He favoured their scheme for
+dispossessing the secular canons of all the monasteries [g]; he
+bestowed preferment on none but their partisans; he allowed Dunstan to
+resign the see of Worcester into the hands of Oswald, one of his
+creatures [h]; and to place Ethelwold, another of them, in that of
+Winchester [i]; he consulted these prelates in the administration of
+all ecclesiastical, and even in that of many civil affairs; and though
+the vigour of his own genius prevented him from being implicitly
+guided by them, the king and the bishops found such advantages in
+their mutual agreement, that they always acted in concert, and united
+their influence in preserving the peace and tranquillity of the
+kingdom.
+[FN [g] Chron. Sax. p. 117, 118.  W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Hoveden,
+p. 425, 426  Osberne, p. 112.  [h] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.
+Hoveden, p. 425.]
+
+In order to complete the great work of placing the new order of monks
+in all the convents, Edgar summoned a general council of the prelates
+and the heads of the religious orders.  He here inveighed against the
+dissolute lives of the secular clergy; the smallness of their tonsure,
+which, it is probable, maintained no longer any resemblance to the
+crown of thorns; their negligence in attending the exercise of their
+function; their mixing with the laity in the pleasures of gaming,
+hunting, dancing, and singing; and their openly living with
+concubines, by which it is commonly supposed he meant their wives.  He
+then turned himself to Dunstan, the primate; and in the name of King
+Edred, whom he supposed to look down from heaven with indignation
+against all those enormities, he thus addressed him: "It is you,
+Dunstan, by whose advice I founded monasteries, built churches, and
+expended my treasure in the support of religion and religious houses.
+You were my counsellor and assistant in all my schemes: you were the
+director of my conscience: to you I was obedient in all things.  When
+did you call for supplies which I refused you?  Was my assistance ever
+wanting to the poor?  Did I deny support and establishments to the
+clergy and the convents?  Did I not hearken to your instructions, who
+told me that these charities were, of all others, the most grateful to
+my Maker, and fixed a perpetual fund for the support of religion?  And
+are all our pious endeavours now frustrated by the dissolute lives of
+the priests?  Not that I throw any blame on you; you have reasoned,
+besought, inculcated, inveighed; but it now behoves you to use sharper
+and more vigorous remedies; and conjoining your spiritual authority
+with the civil power, to purge effectually the temple of God from
+thieves and intruders [k]."  It is easy to imagine that this harangue
+had the desired effect; and that, when the king and prelates thus
+concurred with the popular prejudices, it was not long before the
+monks prevailed, and established their new discipline in almost all
+the convents.
+[FN [i] Gervase, p. 1646.  Brompton, p. 864.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 606.
+Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p 27, 28.  [k] Abbas Rieval. p. 360,
+361.  Spell. Conc. p. 476, 477, 478]
+
+We may remark, that the declamations against the secular clergy are,
+both here and in all the historians, conveyed in general terms; and as
+that order of men are commonly restrained by the decency of their
+character, it is difficult to believe that the complaints against
+their dissolute manners could be so universally just as is pretended.
+It is more probable that the monks paid court to the populace by an
+affected austerity of life; and representing the most innocent
+liberties, taken by the other clergy, as great and unpardonable
+enormities, thereby prepared the way for the increase of their own
+power and influence.  Edgar, however, like a true politician,
+concurred with the prevailing party; and he even indulged them in
+pretensions, which, though they might, when complied with, engage the
+monks to support royal authority during his own reign, proved
+afterwards dangerous to his successors, and gave disturbance to the
+whole civil power.  He seconded the policy of the court of Rome, in
+granting to some monasteries an exemption from episcopal jurisdiction;
+he allowed the convents, even those of royal foundation, to usurp the
+election of their own abbot: and he admitted their forgeries of
+ancient charters, by which, from the pretended grant of former kings,
+they assumed many privileges and immunities [l]
+[FN [l] Chron. Sax. p. 118.  W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Seldeni
+Spicileg. ad Eadm. p. 149, 157.]
+
+These merits of Edgar have procured him the highest panegyrics from
+the monks, and he is transmitted to us, not only under the character
+of a consummate statesman and an active prince, praises to which he
+seems to have been justly entitled, but under that of a of a great
+saint and a man of virtue.  But nothing could more betray both his
+hypocrisy in inveighing against the licentiousness of the secular
+clergy, and the interested spirit of his partisans, in bestowing such
+eulogies on his piety, than the usual tenour of his conduct, which was
+licentious to the highest degree, and violated every law, human and
+divine.  Yet those very monks who, as we are told by Ingulf, a very
+ancient historian, had no idea of any moral or religious merit, except
+chastity and obedience, not only connived at his enormities, but
+loaded him with the greatest praises.  History, however, has preserved
+some instances of his amours, from which, as from a specimen, we may
+form a conjecture of the rest.
+
+Edgar broke into a convent, carried off Editha, a nun, by force, and
+even committed violence on her person [m].  For this act of sacrilege
+he was reprimanded by Dunstan; and that he might reconcile himself to
+the church, he was obliged not to separate from his mistress, but to
+abstain from wearing his crown during seven years, and to deprive
+himself so long of that vain ornament [n]; punishment very unequal to
+that which had been inflicted on the unfortunate Edwy, who, for a
+marriage which, in the strictest sense, could only deserve the  name
+of irregular, was expelled his kingdom, saw his queen treated with
+singular barbarity, was loaded with calumnies, and has been
+represented to us under the most odious colours.  Such is the
+ascendant which may be attained, by hypocrisy and cabal, over mankind.
+[FN [m] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Osberne, p. 3.  Diceto p. 457.
+Higden, p. 265, 267, 266.  Spell. Conc. p. 481.  [n] Osberne, p. 111.]
+
+There was another mistress of Edgar, with whom he first formed a
+connexion by a kind of accident.  Passing one day by Andover, he
+lodged in the house of a nobleman, whose daughter, being endowed with
+all the graces of person and behaviour, inflamed him at first sight
+with the highest desire; and he resolved by any expedient to gratify
+it.  As he had not leisure to employ courtship or address for
+attaining his purpose, he went directly to her mother, declared the
+violence of his passion, and desired that the young lady might be
+allowed to pass that very night with him.  The mother was a woman of
+virtue, and determined not to dishonour her daughter and her family by
+compliance; but being well acquainted with the impetuosity of the
+king's temper, she thought it would be easier, as well as safer, to
+deceive than refuse him.  She feigned therefore a submission to his
+will; but secretly ordered a waiting maid, of no disagreeable figure,
+to steal into the king's bed, after all the company should be retired
+to rest.  In the morning before daybreak, the damsel, agreeably to the
+injunctions of her mistress, offered to retire; but Edgar, who had no
+reserve in his pleasures, and whose love to his bedfellow was rather
+inflamed by enjoyment, refused his consent, and employed force and
+entreaties to detain her.  Elfleda, (for that was the name of the
+maid,) trusting to her own charms, and to the love with which, she
+hoped, she had now inspired the king, made probably but a faint
+resistance; and the return of light discovered the deceit to Edgar.
+He had passed a night so much to his satisfaction, that he expressed
+no displeasure with the old lady on account of her fraud; his love was
+transferred to Elfleda; she became his favourite mistress; and
+maintained her ascendant over him till his marriage with Elfrida [o].
+[FN [o] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Higden, p. 268.]
+
+The circumstances of his marriage with this lady were more singular
+and more criminal.  Elfrida was daughter and heir of Olgar, Earl of
+Devonshire; and though she had been educated in the country, and had
+never appeared at court, she had filled all England with the
+reputation of her beauty.  Edgar himself, who was indifferent to no
+accounts of this nature, found his curiosity excited by the frequent
+panegyrics which he heard of Elfrida; and reflecting on her noble
+birth, he resolved, if he found her charms answerable to their fame,
+to obtain possession of her on honourable terms.  He communicated his
+intention to Earl Athelwold, his favourite; but used the precaution,
+before he made any advances to her parents, to order that nobleman, on
+some pretence, to pay them a visit, and to bring him a certain account
+of the beauty of their daughter.  Athelwold, when introduced to the
+young lady, found general report to have fallen short of the truth;
+and being actuated by the most vehement love, he determined to
+sacrifice to this new passion his fidelity to his master, and to the
+trust reposed in him.  He returned to Edgar and told him, that the
+riches alone, and high quality of Elfrida, had been the ground of the
+admiration paid her; and that her charms, far from being anywise
+extraordinary, would have been overlooked in a woman of inferior
+station.  When he had, by this deceit, diverted the king from his
+purpose, he took an opportunity, after some interval, of turning again
+the conversation on Elfrida; he remarked, that though the parentage
+and fortune of the lady had not produced on him, as on others, any
+illusion with regard to her beauty, he could not forbear reflecting,
+that she would, on the whole, be an advantageous match for him, and
+might, by her birth and riches, make him sufficient compensation for
+the homeliness of her person.  If the king, therefore, gave his
+approbation, he was determined to make proposals in his own behalf to
+the Earl of Devonshire, and doubted not to obtain his, as well as the
+young lady's consent to the marriage.  Edgar, pleased with an
+expedient for establishing his favourite's fortune, not only exhorted
+him to execute his purpose, but forwarded his success by his
+recommendations to the parents of Elfrida; and Athelwold was soon made
+happy in the possession of his mistress.  Dreading, however, the
+detection of the artifice, he employed every pretence for detaining
+Elfrida in the country, and for keeping her at a distance from Edgar.
+
+The violent passion of Athelwold had rendered him blind to the
+necessary consequences which must attend his conduct, and the
+advantages which the numerous enemies that always pursue a royal
+favourite would, by its means, be able to make against him.  Edgar was
+soon informed of the truth; but before he would execute vengeance on
+Athelwold's treachery, he resolved to satisfy himself with his own
+eyes of the certainty and full extent of his guilt.  He told him that
+he intended to pay him a visit in his castle, and be introduced to the
+acquaintance of his new married wife; and Athelwold, as he could not
+refuse the honour, only craved leave to go before him a few hours,
+that he might the better prepare every thing for his reception.  He
+then discovered the whole matter to Elfrida; and begged her, if she
+had any regard either to her own honour or his life, to conceal from
+Edgar, by every circumstance of dress and behaviour, that fatal
+beauty, which had seduced him from fidelity to his friend, and had
+betrayed him into so many falsehoods.  Elfrida promised compliance,
+though nothing was farther from her intentions.  She deemed herself
+little beholden to Athelwold for a passion which had deprived her of a
+crown; and knowing the force of her own charms, she did not despair
+even yet of reaching that dignity, of which her husband's artifice had
+bereaved her.  She appeared before the king with all the advantages
+which the richest attire and the most engaging airs could bestow upon
+her, and she excited at once in his bosom the highest love towards
+herself, and the most furious desire of revenge against her husband.
+He knew, however, how to dissemble these passions; and seducing
+Athelwold into a wood, on pretence of hunting, he stabbed him with his
+own hand, and soon after publicly espoused Elfrida [p].
+[FN [p] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.  Hoveden, p. 426.  Brompton, p.
+865, 866.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 606.  Higd. p. 268.]
+
+Before we conclude our account of this reign, we must mention two
+circumstances which are remarked  by historians.  The reputation of
+Edgar allured a great number of foreigners to visit his court; and he
+gave them encouragement to settle in England [q].  We are told that
+they imported all the vices of their respective countries, and
+contributed to corrupt the simple manners of the natives [r].  But as
+this simplicity of manners, so highly and often so injudiciously
+extolled, did not preserve them from barbarity and treachery, the
+greatest of all vices, and the most incident to a rude uncultivated
+people, we ought perhaps to deem their acquaintance with foreigners
+rather an advantage; as it tended to enlarge their views, and to cure
+them of those illiberal prejudices and rustic manners to which
+islanders are often subject.
+[FN [q] Chron. Sax. p. 116.  H. Hunting. lib 5. p. 356.  Brompton, p.
+865.  [r] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.]
+
+Another remarkable incident of this reign was the extirpation of
+wolves from England.  This advantage was attained by the industrious
+policy of Edgar.  He took great pains in hunting and pursuing those
+ravenous animals; and when he found that all that escaped him had
+taken shelter in the mountains and forests of Wales, he changed the
+tribute of money imposed on the Welsh princes by Athelstan, his
+predecessor [s], into an annual tribute of three hundred heads of
+wolves; which produced such diligence in hunting them, that the animal
+has been no more seen in this island.
+[FN [s] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 6.  Brompton, p. 838.]
+
+Edgar died after a reign of sixteen years, and in the thirty-third of
+his age.  He was succeeded by Edward, whom he had by his first
+marriage with the daughter of Earl Ordmer.
+
+[MN Edward the Martyr. 957.]
+The succession of this prince, who was only fifteen years of age at
+his father's death, did not take place without much difficulty and
+opposition.  Elfrida, his stepmother, had a son, Ethelred, seven years
+old, whom she attempted to raise to the throne: she affirmed that
+Edgar's marriage with the mother of Edward was exposed to insuperable
+objections; and as she had possessed great credit with her husband,
+she had found means to acquire partisans, who seconded all her
+pretensions.  But the title of Edward was supported by many
+advantages.  He was appointed successor by the will of his father [t]:
+he was approaching to man's estate, and might soon be able to take
+into his own hands the reins of government: the principal nobility,
+dreading the imperious temper of Elfrida, were averse to her son's
+government, which must enlarge her authority, and probably put her in
+possession of the regency: above all, Dunstan, whose character of
+sanctity had given him the highest credit with the people, had
+espoused the cause of Edward, over whom he had already acquired a
+great ascendant [u]; and he was determined to execute the will of
+Edgar in his favour.  To cut off all opposite pretensions, Dunstan
+resolutely anointed and crowned the young prince at Kingston; and the
+whole kingdom, without farther dispute, submitted to him [w].
+[FN [t] Hoveden, p. 427.  Eadmer, p. 3.  [u] Eadmer, ex. edit.
+Seldeni, p. 3.  [w] W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 9.  Hoveden, p. 427.
+Osberne, p. 113.]
+
+It was of great importance to Dunstan and the monks, to place on the
+throne a king favourable to their cause: the secular clergy had still
+partisans in England, who wished to support them in the possession of
+the convents, and of the ecclesiastical authority.  On the first
+intelligence of Edgar's death, Alfere, Duke of Mercia, expelled the
+new orders of monks from all the monasteries which lay within his
+jurisdiction [x]; but Elfwin, Duke of East Anglia, and Brithnot, Duke
+of the East Saxons, protected them within their territories, and
+insisted upon the execution of the late laws enacted in their favour.
+In order to settle this controversy, there were summoned several
+synods, which, according to the practice of those times, consisted
+partly of ecclesiastical members, partly of the lay nobility.  The
+monks were able to prevail in these assemblies; though, as it appears,
+contrary to the secret wishes, if not the declared inclination, of the
+leading men in the nation [y]: they had more invention in forging
+miracles to support their cause; or having been so fortunate as to
+obtain, by their pretended austerities, the character of piety, their
+miracles were more credited by the populace.
+[FN [x] Chron. Sax. p. 123.  W. Malmes. lib. 2, cap. 9.  Hoveden, p.
+427.  Brompton, p. 870.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 607.  [y] W. Malmes. lib. 2.
+cap. 9.]
+
+In one synod, Dunstan, finding the majority of votes against him, rose
+up and informed the audience, that he had that instant received an
+immediate revelation in  behalf of the monks: the assembly was so
+astonished at this intelligence, or probably so overawed by the
+populace, that they proceeded no farther in their deliberations.  In
+another synod, a voice issued from the crucifix, and informed the
+members that the establishment of the monks was founded on the will of
+Heaven, and could not be opposed without impiety [z].  But the miracle
+performed in the third synod was still more alarming: the floor of the
+hall in which the assembly met sunk of a sudden and a great number of
+the members were either bruised or killed by the fall.  It was
+remarked, that Dunstan had that day prevented the king from attending
+the synod, and that the beam, on which his own chair stood, was the
+only one that did not sink under the weight of the assembly [a].  But
+these circumstances, instead of begetting any suspicion of
+contrivance, were regarded as the surest proof of the immediate
+interposition of Providence in behalf of those favourites of Heaven.
+[FN [z] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 9.  Osberne, p. 112.  Gervase, p.
+1647.  Brompton, p. 870.  Higden, p. 269.  [a] Chron. Sax. p. 124.  W.
+Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 9.  Hoveden, p. 427.  H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 357.
+Gervase, p. 1647.  Brompton, p. 870.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 607.  Higden,
+p. 269.  Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 29.]
+
+Edward lived four years after his accession, and there passed nothing
+memorable during his reign.  His death alone was memorable and
+tragical [b]: this young prince was endowed with the most amiable
+innocence of manners; and as his own intentions were always pure, he
+was incapable of entertaining any suspicion against others.  Though
+his step-mother had opposed his succession, and had raised a party in
+favour of her own son, he always showed her marks of regard, and even
+expressed, on all occasions, the most tender affection towards his
+brother.  He was hunting one day in Dorsetshire; and being led by the
+chase near Corfe-castle, where Elfrida resided, he took the
+opportunity of paying her a visit, unattended by any of his retinue,
+and he thereby presented her with the opportunity which she had long
+wished for.  After he had mounted his horse, he desired some liquor to
+be brought him: while he was holding the cup to his head, a servant of
+Elfrida approached him, and gave him a stab behind.  The prince,
+finding himself wounded, put spurs to his horse; but becoming faint by
+loss of blood, he fell from the saddle, his foot stuck in the stirrup,
+and he was dragged along by his unruly horse till he expired.  Being
+tracked by the blood, his body was found, and was privately interred
+at Wareham by his servants.
+[FN [b] Chron. Sax. p. 124.]
+
+The youth and innocence of this prince, with his tragical death, begat
+such compassion among the people, that they believed miracles to be
+wrought at his tomb; and they give him the appellation of Martyr,
+though his murder had no connexion with any religious principle or
+opinion.  Elfrida built monasteries, and performed many penances, in
+order to atone for her guilt; but could never, by all her hypocrisy or
+remorses, recover the good opinion of the public, though so easily
+deluded in those ignorant ages.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ETHELRED.--SETTLEMENT OF THE NORMANS.--EDMUND IRONSIDE.--CANUTE.--
+HAROLD HAREFOOT.--HARDICANUTE.--EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.--HAROLD.
+
+
+
+[MN Ethelred. 978.]
+The freedom which England had so long enjoyed from the depredations of
+the Danes seems to have proceeded, partly from the establishments
+which that piratical nation had obtained in the north of France, and
+which employed all their superfluous hands to people and maintain
+them; partly from the vigour and warlike spirit of a long race of
+English princes, who preserved the kingdom in a posture of defence by
+sea and land, and either prevented or repelled every attempt of the
+invaders.  But a new generation of men being now sprung up in the
+northern regions who could no longer disburthen themselves on
+Normandy; the English had reason to dread that the Danes would again
+visit an island to which they were invited, both by the memory of
+their past successes, and by the expectation of assistance from their
+countrymen, who, though long established in the kingdom, were not yet
+thoroughly incorporated with the natives, nor had entirely forgotten
+their inveterate habits of war and depredation.  And as the reigning
+prince was a minor, and even when he attained to man's estate never
+discovered either courage or capacity sufficient to govern his own
+subjects, much less to repel a formidable enemy, the people might
+justly apprehend the worst calamities from so dangerous a crisis.
+
+The Danes, before they durst attempt any important enterprise against
+England, made an inconsiderable descent by way of trial; and having
+landed from seven vessels near Southampton, they ravaged the country,
+enriched themselves by spoil, and departed with impunity.  Six years
+after, they made a like attempt in the west, and met with like
+success.  The invaders having now found affairs in a very different
+situation from that in which they formerly appeared, encouraged their
+countrymen to assemble a greater force, and to hope for more
+considerable advantages.  [MN 991.]  They landed in Essex, under the
+command of two leaders; and having defeated and slain at Maldon,
+Brithnot, duke of that county, who ventured, with a small body, to
+attack them, they spread their devastations over all the neighbouring
+provinces.  In this extremity, Ethelred, to whom historians give the
+epithet of the UNREADY, instead of rousing his people to defend with
+courage their honour and their property, hearkened to the advice of
+Siricius, Archbishop of Canterbury, which was seconded by many of the
+degenerate nobility; and paying the enemy the sum of ten thousand
+pounds, he bribed them to depart the kingdom.  This shameful expedient
+was attended with the success which might be expected.  The Danes next
+year appeared off the eastern coast, in hopes of subduing a people who
+defended themselves by their money, which invited assailants, instead
+of their arms, which repelled them.  But the English, sensible of
+their folly, had, in the interval, assembled in a great council, and
+had determined to collect at London a fleet able to give battle to the
+enemy [a]; though that judicious measure failed of success, from the
+treachery of Alfric, Duke of Mercia, whose name is infamous in the
+annals of that age, by the calamities which his repeated perfidy
+brought upon his country.  This nobleman had, in 983, succeeded to his
+father Alfere in that extensive command; but being deprived of it two
+years after, and banished the kingdom, he was obliged to employ all
+his intrigue, and all his power, which was too great for a subject, to
+be restored to his country, and reinstated in his authority.  Having
+had experience of the credit and malevolence of his enemies, he
+thenceforth trusted for security, not to his services, or to the
+affections of his fellow-citizens, but to the influence which he had
+obtained over his vassals, and to the public calamities, which he
+thought must, in every revolution, render his assistance necessary.
+Having fixed this resolution, he determined to prevent all such
+successes as might establish the royal authority, or render his own
+situation dependent or precarious.  As the English had formed the plan
+of surrounding and destroying the Danish fleet in harbour, he
+privately informed the enemy of their danger; and when they put to
+sea, in consequence of this intelligence, he deserted to them, with
+the squadron under his command, the night before the engagement, and
+thereby disappointed all the efforts of his countrymen [b].  Ethelred,
+enraged at his perfidy, seized his son Alfgar, and ordered his eyes to
+be put out [c].  But such was the power of Alfric, that he again
+forced himself into authority; and though he had given this specimen
+of his character, and received this grievous provocation, it was found
+necessary to intrust him anew with the government of Mercia.  This
+conduct of the court, which in all its circumstances is so barbarous,
+weak, and imprudent, both merited and prognosticated the most grievous
+calamities.
+[FN [a] Chron. Sax. p. 126.  [b] Chron.. Sax. p. 127.  W. Malm. p. 62.
+Higden, p. 270.  [c] Chron. Sax. p.128.  W. Malm. p. 62.]
+
+[MN 993.]  The northern invaders, now well acquainted with the
+defenceless condition of England, made a powerful descent under the
+command of Sweyn, King of Denmark, and Olave, King of Norway; and
+sailing up the Humber, spread on all sides their destructive ravages.
+Lindesey was laid waste; Banbury was destroyed; and all the
+Northumbrians, though mostly of Danish descent, were constrained
+either to join the invaders, or to suffer under their depredations.  A
+powerful army was assembled to oppose the Danes, and a general action
+ensued; but the English were deserted in the battle, from the
+cowardice or treachery of their three leaders, all of them men of
+Danish race, Frena, Frithegist, and Godwin, who gave the example of a
+shameful flight to the troops under their command.
+
+Encouraged by this success, and still more by the contempt which it
+inspired for their enemy, the pirates ventured to attack the centre of
+the kingdom; and entering the Thames in ninety-four vessels, laid
+siege to London, and threatened it with total destruction.  But the
+citizens, alarmed at the danger, and firmly united among themselves,
+made a bolder defence than the cowardice of the nobility and gentry
+gave the invaders reason to apprehend; and the besiegers, after
+suffering the greatest hardships, were finally frustrated in their
+attempt.  In order to revenge themselves, they laid waste Essex,
+Sussex, and Hampshire; and having there procured horses, they were
+thereby enabled to spread through the more inland counties the fury of
+their depredations.  In this extremity, Ethelred and his nobles had
+recourse to the former expedient; and sending ambassadors to the two
+northern kings, they promised them subsistence and tribute, on
+condition they would, for the present, put an end to their ravages,
+and soon after depart the kingdom.  Sweyn and Olave agreed to the
+terms, and peaceably took up their quarters at Southampton, where the
+sum of sixteen thousand pounds was paid to them.  Olave even made a
+journey to Andover, where Ethelred resided, and he received the rite
+of confirmation from the English bishops, as well as many rich
+presents from the king.  He here promised that he would never more
+infest the English territories; and he faithfully fulfilled the
+engagement.  This prince receives the appellation of St. Olave from
+the church of Rome; and notwithstanding the general presumption which
+lies either against the understanding or morals of every one who in
+those ignorant ages was dignified with that title, he seems to have
+been a man of merit and of virtue.  Sweyn, though less scrupulous than
+Olave, was constrained, upon the departure of the Norwegian prince, to
+evacuate also the kingdom with all his followers.
+
+[MN 996.]  This composition brought only a short interval to the
+miseries of the English.  The Danish pirates appeared soon after in
+the Severn; and having committed spoil in Wales, as well as in
+Cornwall and Devonshire, they sailed round to the south coast, and
+entering the Tamar, completed the devastation of these two counties.
+They then returned to the Bristol Channel; and penetrating into the
+country by the Avon, spread themselves over all that neighbourhood,
+and carried fire and sword even into Dorsetshire.  [MN 998.]  They
+next changed the seat of war; and after ravaging the Isle of Wight,
+they entered the Thames and Medway, and laid siege to Rochester, where
+they defeated the Kentish men in a pitched battle.  After this
+victory, the whole province of Kent was made a scene of slaughter,
+fire, and devastation.  The extremity of these miseries forced the
+English into councils for common defence both by sea and land; but the
+weakness of the king, the divisions among the nobility, the treachery
+of some, the cowardice of others, the want of concert in all,
+frustrated every endeavour; their fleets and armies either came too
+late to attack the enemy, or were repulsed with dishonour; and the
+people were thus equally ruined by resistance or by submission.  The
+English, therefore, destitute both of prudence and unanimity in
+council, of courage and conduct in the field, had recourse to the same
+weak expedient which by experience they had already found so
+ineffectual: they offered the Danes to buy peace, by paying them a
+large sum of money.  These ravagers rose continually in their demands;
+and now required the payment of twenty-four thousand pounds, to which
+the English were so mean and imprudent as to submit [d].  The
+departure of the Danes procured them another short interval of repose,
+which they enjoyed as if it were to be perpetual, without making any
+effectual preparations for a more vigorous resistance upon the next
+return of the enemy.
+[FN [d] Hoveden, p. 429.  Chron. Mailr. p. 150.]
+
+Besides receiving this sum, the Danes were engaged by another motive
+to depart a kingdom which appeared so little in a situation to resist
+their efforts: they were invited over by their countrymen in Normandy,
+who at this time were hard pressed by the arms of Robert, King of
+France, and who found it difficult to defend the settlement, which,
+with so much advantage to themselves and glory to their nation, they
+had made in that country.  It is probable, also, that Ethelred,
+observing the close connexions thus maintained among all the Danes,
+however divided in government or situation, was desirous of forming an
+alliance with that formidable people: for this purpose, being now a
+widower, he made his addresses to Emma, sister to Richard II., Duke of
+Normandy, and he soon succeeded in his negotiation.  [MN 1001.]  The
+princess came over this year to England, and was married to Ethelred
+[e].
+[FN [e] H. Hunt. p. 359.  Higden, p. 271.]
+
+[MN Settlement of the Normans.]
+In the end of the ninth and beginning of the tenth century, when the
+north, not yet exhausted by that multitude of people, or rather
+nations, which she had successively emitted, sent forth a new race,
+not of conquerors, as before, but of pirates and ravagers, who
+infested the countries possessed by her once warlike sons, lived
+Rollo, a petty prince or chieftain of Denmark, whose valour and
+abilities soon engaged the attention of his countrymen.  He was
+exposed in his youth to the jealousy of the King of Denmark, who
+attacked his small but independent principality; and who, being foiled
+in every assault, had recourse at last to perfidy for effecting his
+purpose, which he had often attempted in vain by force of arms [f]: he
+lulled Rollo into security by an insidious peace; and falling suddenly
+upon him, murdered his brother and his bravest officers, and forced
+him to fly for safety into Scandinavia.  Here many of his ancient
+subjects, induced partly by affection to their prince, partly by the
+oppressions of the Danish monarch, ranged themselves under his
+standard, and offered to follow him in every enterprise.  Rollo,
+instead of attempting to recover his paternal dominions, where he must
+expect a vigorous resistance from the Danes, determined to pursue an
+easier, but more important undertaking, and to make his fortune, in
+imitation of his countrymen, by pillaging the richer and more southern
+coasts of Europe.  He collected a body of troops, which, like that of
+all those ravagers, was composed of Norwegians, Swedes, Frisians,
+Danes, and adventurers of all nations, who, being accustomed to a
+roving unsettled life, took delight in nothing but war and plunder.
+His reputation brought him associates from all quarters; and a vision,
+which he pretended to have appeared to him in his sleep, and which,
+according to his interpretation of it, prognosticated the greatest
+successes, proved also a powerful incentive with those ignorant and
+superstitious people [g].
+[FN [f] Dudo, ex edit. Duchesne, p. 70, 71.  Gul. Gemeticencis, lib.
+2. cap. 2, 3.  [g] Dudo, p.71.  Gul. Gem. in Epist. ad Gul. Conq.]
+
+The first attempt made by Rollo was on England, near the end of
+Alfred's reign; when that great monarch, having settled Gothrum and
+his followers in East Anglia, and others of those freebooters in
+Northumberland, and having restored peace to his harassed country, had
+established the most excellent military as well as civil institutions
+among the English.  The prudent Dane, finding that no advantages could
+be gained over such a people, governed by such a prince, soon turned
+his enterprises against France, which he found more exposed to his
+inroads [h]; and during the reigns of Eudes, an usurper, and of
+Charles the Simple, a weak prince, he committed the most destructive
+ravages both on the inland and maritime provinces of that kingdom.
+The French, having no means of defence against a leader who united all
+the valour of his countrymen with the policy of more civilized
+nations, were obliged to submit to the expedient practised by Alfred,
+and to offer the invaders a settlement in some of those provinces
+which they had depopulated by their
+arms [i].
+[FN [h] Gul. Gemet. lib. 2. cap. 6.  [i] Dudo, p. 82.]
+
+The reason why the Danes for many years pursued measures so different
+from those which had been embraced by the Goths, Vandals, Franks,
+Burgundians, Lombards, and other northern conquerors, was the great
+difference in the method of attack which was practised by these
+several nations, and to which the nature of their respective
+situations necessarily confined them.  The latter tribes, living in an
+inland country, made incursions by land upon the Roman empire; and
+when they entered far into the frontiers, they were obliged to carry
+along with them their wives and families, whom they had no hopes of
+soon revisiting, and who could not otherwise participate of their
+plunder.  This circumstance quickly made them think of forcing a
+settlement in the provinces which they had overrun; and these
+barbarians, spreading themselves over the country, found an interest
+in protecting the property and industry of the people whom they had
+subdued.  But the Danes and Norwegians, invited by their maritime
+situation, and obliged to maintain themselves in their uncultivated
+country by fishing, had acquired some experience of navigation, and in
+their military excursions pursued the method practised against the
+Roman empire by the more early Saxons: they made descents in small
+bodies from their ships, or rather boats, and ravaging the coasts,
+returned with their booty to their families, whom they could not
+conveniently carry along with them in those hazardous enterprises.
+But when they increased their armaments, made incursions into the
+inland countries, and found it safe to remain longer in the midst of
+the enfeebled enemy, they had been accustomed to crowd their vessels
+with their wives and children; and having no longer any temptation to
+return to their own country, they willingly embraced an opportunity of
+settling in the warm climates and cultivated fields of the south.
+
+Affairs were in this situation with Rollo and his followers, when
+Charles proposed to relinquish to them part of the province formerly
+called Neustria, and to purchase peace on these hard conditions.
+After all the terms were fully settled, there appeared only one
+circumstance shocking to the haughty Dane: he was required to do
+homage to Charles for this province, and to put himself in that
+humiliating posture imposed on vassals by the rites of the feudal law.
+He long refused to submit to this indignity; but being unwilling to
+lose such important advantages for a mere ceremony, he made a
+sacrifice of his pride to his interest, and acknowledged himself, in
+form, the vassal of the French monarch [k].  Charles gave him his
+daughter, Gisla, in marriage; and that he might bind him faster to his
+interests, made him a donation of a considerable territory, besides
+that which he was obliged to surrender to him by his stipulations.
+When some of the French nobles informed him, that in return for so
+generous a present it was expected that he should throw himself at the
+king's feet and make suitable acknowledgments for his bounty, Rollo
+replied, that he would rather decline the present; and it was with
+some difficulty they could persuade him to make that compliment by one
+of his captains.  The Dane commissioned for this purpose, full of
+indignation at the order, and despising so unwarlike a prince, caught
+Charles by the foot, and pretending to carry it to his mouth, that he
+might kiss it, overthrew him before all his courtiers.  The French,
+sensible of their present weakness, found it prudent to overlook this
+insult [l].
+[FN [k] Ypod. Neust. p. 417.  [1] Gul Gemet. lib. 2. cap. 17.]
+
+Rollo, who was now in the decline of life, and was tired of wars and
+depredations, applied himself, with mature counsels, to the settlement
+of his newly-acquired territory, which was thenceforth called
+Normandy; and he parcelled it out among his captains and followers.
+He followed, in this partition, the customs of the feudal law, which
+was then universally established in the southern countries of Europe,
+and which suited the peculiar circumstances of that age.  He treated
+the French subjects, who submitted to him, with mildness and justice;
+he reclaimed his ancient followers from their ferocious violence; he
+established law and order throughout his state; and after a life spent
+in tumult and ravages, he died peaceably in a good old age, and left
+his dominions to his posterity [m].
+[FN [m] Ibid. cap. 19, 20, 21.]
+
+William I. who succeeded him, governed the duchy twenty-five years;
+and, during that time, the Normans were thoroughly intermingled with
+the French, had acquired their language, had imitated their manners,
+and had made such progress towards cultivation, that on the death of
+William, his son Richard, though a minor [n], inherited his dominions:
+a sure proof that the Normans were already somewhat advanced in
+civility, and that their government could now rest secure on its laws
+and civil institutions, and was not wholly sustained by the abilities
+of the sovereign.  Richard, after a long reign of fifty-four years,
+was succeeded by his son of the same name in the year 996 [o]; which
+was eighty-five years after the first establishment of the Normans in
+France.  This was the duke who gave his sister Emma in marriage to
+Ethelred, King of England, and who thereby formed connexions with a
+country which his posterity was so soon after destined to subdue.
+[FN [n] Order. Vitalis, p. 459.  Gul. Gemet. lib. 4. cap. 1.  [o]
+Order. Vitalis, p. 459.]
+
+The Danes had been established during a longer period in England than
+in France; and though the similarity of their original language to
+that of the Saxons invited them to a more early coalition with the
+natives, they had hitherto found so little example of civilized
+manners among the English, that they retained all their ancient
+ferocity, and valued themselves only on their national character of
+military bravery.  The recent as well as more ancient achievements of
+their countrymen tended to support this idea; and the English princes,
+particularly Athelstan and Edgar, sensible of that superiority, had
+been accustomed to keep in pay bodies of Danish troops, who were
+quartered about the country, and committed many violences upon the
+inhabitants.  These mercenaries had attained to such a height of
+luxury, according to the old English writers [p], that they combed
+their hair once a day, bathed themselves once a week, changed their
+clothes frequently; and by all these arts of effeminacy, as well as by
+their military character, had rendered themselves so agreeable to the
+fair sex, that they debauched the wives and daughters of the English,
+and dishonoured many families.  But what most provoked the
+inhabitants, was, that instead of defending them against invaders,
+they were ever ready to betray them to the foreign Danes, and to
+associate themselves with all straggling parties of that nation.  The
+animosity between the inhabitants of English and Danish race had from
+these repeated injuries risen to a great height; when Ethelred, from a
+policy incident to weak princes, embraced the cruel resolution of
+massacring the latter throughout all his dominions [q].  [MN 1002.]
+Secret orders were despatched to commence the execution everywhere on
+the same day; and the festival of St. Brice [MN Nov. 13.], which fell
+on a Sunday, the day on which the Danes usually bathed themselves, was
+chosen for that purpose.  It is needless to repeat the accounts
+transmitted concerning the barbarity of this massacre: the rage of the
+populace, excited by so many injuries, sanctioned by authority, and
+stimulated by example, distinguished not between innocence and guilt,
+spared neither sex nor age, and was not satiated without the tortures
+as well as death of the unhappy victims.  Even Gunilda, sister to the
+King of Denmark, who had married Earl Paling, and had embraced
+Christianity, was, by the advice of Edric, Earl of Wilts, seized and
+condemned to death by Ethelred, after seeing her husband and children
+butchered before her face.  This unhappy princess foretold, in the
+agonies of despair, that her murder would soon be avenged by the total
+ruin of the English nation.
+[FN [p] Wallingford, p. 547.  [q] See note [D] at the end of the
+volume.]
+
+[MN 1003.]
+Never was prophecy better fulfilled; and never did barbarous policy
+prove more fatal to the authors.  Sweyn and his Danes, who wanted but
+a pretence for invading the English, appeared off the western coast,
+and threatened to take full revenge for the slaughter of their
+countrymen.  Exeter fell first into their hands, from the negligence
+or treachery of Earl Hugh, a Norman, who had been made governor by the
+interest of Queen Emma.  They began to spread their devastations over
+the country; when the English, sensible what outrages they must now
+expect from their barbarous and offended enemy, assembled more early,
+and in greater numbers than usual, and made an appearance of vigorous
+resistance.  But all these preparations were frustrated by the
+treachery of Duke Alfric, who was intrusted with the command, and who,
+feigning sickness, refused to lead the army against the Danes, till it
+was dispirited, and at last dissipated, by his fatal misconduct.
+Alfric soon after died; and Edric, a greater traitor than he, who had
+married the king's daughter, and had acquired a total ascendant over
+him, succeeded Alfric in the government of Mercia, and in the command
+of the English armies.  A great famine, proceeding partly from the bad
+seasons, partly from the decay of agriculture, added to all the other
+miseries of the inhabitants.  The country, wasted by the Danes,
+harassed by the fruitless expeditions of its own forces, was reduced
+to the utmost desolation; and at last [MN 1007.] submitted to the
+infamy of purchasing a precarious peace from the enemy, by the payment
+of thirty thousand pounds.
+
+The English endeavoured to employ this interval in making preparations
+against the return of the Danes, which they had reason soon to expect.
+A law was made, ordering the proprietors of eight hides of land to
+provide each a horseman and a complete suit of armour; and those of
+three hundred and ten hides to equip a ship for the defence of the
+coast.  When this navy was assembled, which must have consisted of
+near eight  hundred vessels [r], all hopes of its success were
+disappointed by the factions, animosities, and dissensions of the
+nobility  Edric had impelled his brother Brightric to prefer an
+accusation of treason against Wolfnoth, Governor of Sussex, the father
+of the famous Earl Godwin; and that nobleman, well acquainted with the
+malevolence, as well as power of his enemy, found no means of safety
+but in deserting with twenty ships to the Danes.  Brightric pursued
+him with a fleet of eighty sail; but his ships being shattered in a
+tempest, and stranded on the coast, he was suddenly attacked by
+Wolfnoth, and all his vessels were burnt or destroyed.  The imbecility
+of the king was little capable of repairing this misfortune: the
+treachery of Edric frustrated every plan for future defence; and the
+English navy, disconcerted, discouraged, and divided, was at last
+scattered into its several harbours.
+[FN [r] There were 243,600 hides in England.  Consequently the ships
+equipped must be 785.  The cavalry was 30,450 men.]
+
+It is almost impossible, or would be tedious, to relate particularly
+all the miseries to which the English were thenceforth exposed.  We
+hear of nothing but the sacking and burning of towns; the devastation
+of the open country; the appearance of the enemy in every quarter of
+the kingdom; their cruel diligence in discovering any corner which had
+not been ransacked by their former violence.  The broken and
+disjointed narration of the ancient historians is here well adapted to
+the nature of the war, which was conducted by such sudden inroads as
+would have been dangerous even to an united and well-governed kingdom,
+but proved fatal, where nothing but a general consternation and mutual
+diffidence and dissension prevailed.  The governors of one province
+refused to march to the assistance of another, and were at last
+terrified from assembling their forces for the defence of their own
+province.  General councils were summoned; but either no resolution
+was taken, or none was carried into execution.  And the only expedient
+in which the English agreed, was the base and imprudent one of buying
+a new peace from the Danes, by the payment of forty-eight thousand
+pounds.
+
+[MN 1011.]  This measure did not bring them even that short interval
+of repose which they had expected from it.  The Danes, disregarding
+all engagements, continued their devastations and hostilities; levied
+a new contribution of eight thousand pounds upon the county of Kent
+alone; murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had refused to
+countenance this exaction; and the English nobility found no other
+resource than that of submitting every where to the Danish monarch,
+swearing allegiance to him [MN 1013.], and delivering him hostages for
+their fidelity.  Ethelred, equally afraid of the violence of the enemy
+and the treachery of his own subjects, fled into Normandy, whither he
+had sent before him Queen Emma and her two sons, Alfred and Edward.
+Richard received his unhappy guests with a generosity that does honour
+to his memory.
+
+[MN 1014.]  The king had not been above six weeks in Normandy when he
+heard of the death of Sweyn, who expired at Gainsborough, before he
+had time to establish himself in his newly acquired dominions.  The
+English prelates and nobility, taking advantage of this event, sent
+over a deputation to Normandy, inviting Ethelred to return to them,
+expressing a desire of being again governed by their native prince,
+and intimating their hopes, that being now tutored by experience, he
+would avoid all those errors which had been attended with such
+misfortunes to himself and to his people.  But the misconduct of
+Ethelred was incurable; and on his resuming the government, he
+discovered the same incapacity, indolence, cowardice, and credulity,
+which had so often exposed him to the insults of his enemies.  His
+son-in-law, Edric, notwithstanding his repeated treasons, retained
+such influence at court as to instil into the king jealousies of
+Sigefert and Morcar, two of the chief nobles of Mercia: Edric allured
+them into his house, where he murdered them; while Ethelred
+participated in the infamy of the action, by confiscating their
+estates and thrusting into a convent the widow of Sigefert.  She was a
+woman of singular beauty and merit; and in a visit which was paid her,
+during her confinement, by Prince Edmond, the king's eldest son, she
+inspired him  with so violent an affection, that he released her from
+the convent, and soon after married her, without the consent of his
+father.
+
+Meanwhile the English found in Canute, the son and successor of Sweyn,
+an enemy no less terrible than the prince from whom death had so
+lately delivered them.  He ravaged the eastern coast with merciless
+fury, and put ashore all the English hostages at Sandwich, after
+having cut off their hands and noses.  He was obliged, by the
+necessity of his affairs, to make a voyage to Denmark; but returning
+soon after, he continued his depredations along the southern coast: he
+even broke into the counties of Dorset, Wilts, and Somerset; where an
+army was assembled against him, under the command of Prince Edmond and
+Duke Edric.  The latter still continued his perfidious machinations;
+and after endeavouring in vain to get the prince into his power, he
+found means to disperse the army; and he then openly deserted to
+Canute with forty vessels. [MN 1015.]
+
+Notwithstanding this misfortune, Edmond was not disconcerted; but,
+assembling all the force of England, was in a condition to give battle
+to the enemy.  The king had had such frequent experience of perfidy
+among his subjects, that he had lost all confidence in them: he
+remained at London, pretending sickness, but really from apprehensions
+that they intended to buy their peace, by delivering him into the
+hands of his enemies.  The army called aloud for their sovereign to
+march at their head against the Danes; and, on his refusal to take the
+field, they were so discouraged, that those vast preparations became
+ineffectual for the defence of the kingdom.  Edmond, deprived of all
+regular supplies to maintain his soldiers, was obliged to commit equal
+ravages with those which were practised by the Danes; and after making
+some fruitless expeditions into the north, which had submitted
+entirely to Canute's power, he retired to London, determined there to
+maintain, to the last extremity, the small remains of English liberty.
+[MN 1016.]  He here found every thing in confusion by the death of the
+king, who expired after an unhappy and inglorious reign of thirty-five
+years.  He left two sons by his first marriage, Edmond, who succeeded
+him, and Edwy, whom Canute afterwards murdered.  His two sons by the
+second marriage, Alfred and Edward, were immediately, upon Ethelred's
+death, conveyed into Normandy by Queen Emma.
+
+[MN Edmond Ironside.]
+This prince, who received the name of Ironside from his hardy valour,
+possessed courage and abilities sufficient to have prevented his
+country from sinking into those calamities, but not to raise it from
+that abyss of misery into which it had already fallen.  Among the
+other misfortunes of the English, treachery and disaffection had crept
+in among the nobility and prelates; and Edmond found no better
+expedient for stopping the farther progress of these fatal evils, than
+to lead his army instantly into the field, and to employ them against
+the common enemy.  After meeting with some success at Gillingham, he
+prepared himself to decide, in one general engagement, the fate of his
+crown; and at Scoerston, in the county of Gloucester, he offered
+battle to the enemy, who were commanded by Canute and Edric.  Fortune,
+in the beginning of the day, declared for him; but Edric, having cut
+off the head of one Osmer, whose countenance resembled that of Edmond,
+fixed it on a spear, carried it through the ranks in triumph, and
+called aloud to the English, that it was time to fly; for, behold! the
+head of their sovereign.  And though Edmond, observing the
+consternation of the troops, took off his helmet and showed himself to
+them, the utmost he could gain by his activity and valour was to leave
+the victory undecided.  Edric now took a surer method to ruin him, by
+pretending to desert to him, and as Edmond was well acquainted with
+his power, and probably knew no other of the chief nobility in whom he
+could repose more confidence, he was obliged, notwithstanding the
+repeated perfidy of the man, to give him a considerable command in the
+army.  A battle soon after ensued at Assington in Essex, where Edric,
+flying in the beginning of the day, occasioned the total defeat of the
+English, followed by a great slaughter of the nobility.  The
+indefatigable Edmond, however, had still resources; assembling a new
+army at Gloucester, he was again in a condition to dispute the field;
+when the Danish and English nobility, equally harassed  with those
+convulsions, obliged their kings to come to a compromise, and to
+divide the kingdom between them by treaty.  Canute reserved to himself
+the northern division, consisting of Mercia, East Anglia, and
+Northumberland, which he had entirely subdued; the southern parts were
+left to Edmond.  This prince survived the treaty about a month.  He
+was murdered at Oxford by two of his chamberlains, accomplices of
+Edric, who thereby made way for the succession of Canute the Dane to
+the crown of England.
+
+[MN Canute 1017.]
+The English, who had been unable to defend their country, and maintain
+their independency, under so active and brave a prince as Edmond,
+could, after his death, expect nothing but total subjection from
+Canute, who, active and brave himself, and at the head of a great
+force, was ready to take advantage of the minority of Edwin and
+Edward, the two sons of Edmond.  Yet this conqueror, who was commonly
+so little scrupulous, showed himself anxious to cover his injustice
+under plausible pretences; before he seized the dominions of the
+English princes, he summoned a general assembly of the states, in
+order to fix the succession of the kingdom.  He here suborned some
+nobles to depose that, in the treaty of Gloucester, it had been
+verbally agreed either to name Canute, in case of Edmond's death,
+successor to his dominions, or tutor to his children (for historians
+vary in this particular); and that evidence, supported by the great
+power of Canute, determined the states immediately to put the Danish
+monarch in possession of the government.  Canute, jealous of the two
+princes, but sensible that he should render himself extremely odious
+if he ordered them to be despatched in England, sent them abroad to
+his ally, the King of Sweden, whom he desired, as soon as they arrived
+at his court, to free him by their death from all farther anxiety.
+The Swedish monarch was too generous to comply with the request, but
+being afraid of drawing on himself a quarrel with Canute, by
+protecting the young princes, he sent them to Solomon, King of
+Hungary, to be educated in his court.  The elder, Edwin, was
+afterwards married to the sister of the King of Hungary, but the
+English prince dying without issue, Solomon gave his sister-in-law,
+Agatha, daughter of the Emperor Henry II., in marriage to Edward, the
+younger brother; and she bore him Edgar Atheling, Margaret, afterwards
+queen of Scotland, and Christiana, who retired into a convent.
+
+Canute, though he had reached the great point of his ambition, in
+obtaining possession of the English crown, was obliged at first to
+make great sacrifices to it; and to gratify the chief of the nobility,
+by bestowing on them the most extensive governments and jurisdictions.
+He created Thurkill Earl or Duke of East Anglia, (for these titles
+were then nearly of the same import,) Yric of Northumberland, and
+Edric of Mercia, reserving only to himself the administration of
+Wessex.  But seizing afterwards a favourable opportunity, he expelled
+Thurkill and Yric from their governments, and banished them the
+kingdom; he put to death many of the English nobility, on whose
+fidelity he could not rely, and whom he hated on account of their
+disloyalty to their native prince.  And even the traitor Edric, having
+had the assurance to reproach him with his services, was condemned to
+be executed, and his body to be thrown into the Thames; a suitable
+reward for his multiplied acts of perfidy and rebellion.
+
+Canute also found himself obliged, in the beginning of his reign, to
+load the people with heavy taxes, in order to reward his Danish
+followers: he exacted from them at one time the sum of seventy-two
+thousand pounds; besides eleven thousand pounds, which he levied on
+London alone.  He was probably willing, from political motives, to
+mulct severely that city, on account of the affection which it had
+borne to Edmond, and the resistance which it had made to the Danish
+power in two obstinate sieges [s].  But these rigours were imputed to
+necessity; and Canute, like a wise prince, was determined that the
+English, now deprived of all their dangerous leaders, should be
+reconciled to the Danish yoke by the justice and impartiality of his
+administration.  He sent back to Denmark as many of his followers as
+he could safely spare; he restored the Saxon customs in a general
+assembly of the states; he made no distinction between Danes and
+English in the distribution of justice; and he took care, by a strict
+execution of law, to protect the lives and properties of all his
+people.  The Danes were gradually incorporated with his new subjects;
+and both were glad to obtain a little respite from those multiplied
+calamities from which the one, no less than the other, had, in their
+fierce contest for power, experienced such fatal consequences.
+[FN [s] W. Malm. p. 72.  In one of these sieges, Canute diverted the
+course of the Thames, and by that means brought his ships above London
+bridge.]
+
+The removal of Edmond's children into so distant a country as Hungary,
+was, next to their death, regarded by Canute as the greatest security
+to his government: he had no farther anxiety, except with regard to
+Alfred and Edward, who were protected and supported by their uncle,
+Richard Duke of Normandy.  Richard even fitted out a great armament,
+in order to restore the English princes to the throne of their
+ancestors; and, though the navy was dispersed by a storm, Canute saw
+the danger to which he was exposed from the enmity of so warlike a
+people as the Normans.  In order to acquire the friendship of the
+duke, he paid his addresses to Queen Emma, sister of that prince; and
+promised that he would leave the children whom he should have by that
+marriage in possession of the crown of England.  Richard complied with
+his demand, and sent over Emma to England, where she was soon after
+married to Canute [t].  The English, though they disapproved of her
+espousing the mortal enemy of her former husband and his family, were
+pleased to find at court a sovereign to whom they were accustomed, and
+who had already formed connexions with them; and thus Canute, besides
+securing by this marriage the alliance of Normandy, gradually
+acquired, by the same means, the confidence of his own subjects [u].
+The Norman prince did not long survive the marriage of Emma; and he
+left the inheritance of the duchy to his eldest son of the same name;
+who dying a year after him without children, was succeeded by his
+brother Robert, a man of valour and abilities.
+[FN [t] Chron Sax. p. 151.  W. Malmes. p. 73.  [u] W. Malmes. p. 73.
+Higden, p. 275.]
+
+Canute, having settled his power in England beyond all danger of a
+revolution, made a voyage to Denmark, in order to resist the attacks
+of the King of Sweden; and he carried along with him a great body of
+the English, under the command of Earl Godwin.  This nobleman had here
+an opportunity of performing a service by which he both reconciled the
+king's mind to the English nation, and, gaining to himself the
+friendship of his sovereign, laid the foundation of that immense
+fortune which he acquired to his family.  He was stationed next the
+Swedish camp, and observing a favourable opportunity which he was
+obliged suddenly to seize, he attacked the enemy in the night, drove
+them from their trenches, threw them into disorder, pursued his
+advantage, and obtained a decisive victory over them.  Next morning,
+Canute seeing the English camp entirely abandoned, imagined that those
+disaffected troops had deserted to the enemy: he was agreeably
+surprised to find that they were at that time engaged in pursuit of
+the discomfited Swedes.  He was so pleased with this success, and with
+the manner of obtaining it, that he bestowed his daughter in marriage
+upon Godwin, and treated him ever after with entire confidence and
+regard.
+
+[MN 1028.]  In another voyage, which he made afterwards to Denmark,
+Canute attacked Norway, and expelling the just but unwarlike Olaus,
+kept possession of his kingdom till the death of that prince.  He had
+now, by his conquests and valour, attained the utmost height of
+grandeur; having leisure from wars and intrigues, he felt the
+unsatisfactory nature of all human enjoyments; and, equally weary of
+the glories and turmoils of this life, he began to cast his view
+towards that future existence, which it is so natural for the human
+mind, whether satiated by prosperity, or disgusted with adversity, to
+make the object of its attention.  Unfortunately, the spirit which
+prevailed in that age gave a wrong direction to his devotion; instead
+of making compensation to those whom he had injured by his former acts
+of violence, he employed himself entirely in those exercises of piety
+which the monks represented as the most meritorious.  He built
+churches, he endowed monasteries, he enriched the ecclesiastics, and
+he bestowed revenues for the support of chantries at Assington and
+other places, where he appointed prayers to be said for the souls of
+those who had there fallen in battle against him.  He even undertook a
+pilgrimage to Rome, where he resided a considerable time; besides
+obtaining from the pope some privileges for the English school erected
+there, he engaged all the princes through whose dominions he was
+obliged to pass to desist from those heavy impositions and tolls which
+they were accustomed to exact from the English pilgrims.  By this
+spirit of devotion, no less than by his equitable and politic
+administration, he gained, in a good measure, the affections of his
+subjects.
+
+Canute, the greatest and most powerful monarch of his time, sovereign
+of Denmark and Norway, as well as of England, could not fail of
+meeting with adulation from his courtiers; a tribute which is
+liberally paid even to the meanest and weakest princes.  Some of his
+flatterers, breaking out one day in admiration of his grandeur,
+exclaimed, that every thing was possible for him; upon which the
+monarch, it is said, ordered his chair to be set on the sea-shore,
+while the tide was rising; and as the waters approached he commanded
+them to retire, and to obey the voice of him who was lord of the
+ocean.  He feigned to sit some time in expectation of their
+submission; but when the sea still advanced towards him, and began to
+wash him with its billows, he turned to his courtiers, and remarked to
+them, that every creature in the universe was feeble and impotent, and
+that power resided with one Being alone, in whose hands were all the
+elements of nature, who could say to the ocean, THUS FAR SHALT THOU
+GO, AND NO FARTHER; and who could level with his nod the most towering
+piles of human pride and ambition.
+
+[MN 1031.]  The only memorable action which Canute performed after his
+return from Rome was an expedition against Malcolm, King of Scotland.
+During the reign of Ethelred, a tax of a shilling a hide had been
+imposed on all the lands of England.  It was commonly called DANEGELT;
+because the revenue had been employed either in buying peace with the
+Danes, or in making preparations against the inroads of that hostile
+nation.  That monarch had required that the same tax should be paid by
+Cumberland, which was held by the Scots; but Malcolm, a warlike
+prince, told him, that, as he was always able to repulse the Danes by
+his own power, he would neither submit to buy peace of his enemies,
+nor pay others for resisting them.  Ethelred, offended  at this reply,
+which contained a secret reproach on his own conduct, undertook an
+expedition against Cumberland; but though he committed ravages upon
+the country, he could never bring Malcolm to a temper more humble or
+submissive.  Canute, after his accession, summoned the Scottish king
+to acknowledge himself a vassal for Cumberland to the crown of
+England; but Malcolm refused compliance, on pretence that he owed
+homage to those princes only who inherited that kingdom by right of
+blood.  Canute was not of a temper to bear this insult; and the King
+of Scotland soon found that the sceptre was in very different hands
+from those of the feeble and irresolute Ethelred.  Upon Canute's
+appearing on the frontiers with a formidable army, Malcolm agreed that
+his grandson and heir, Duncan, whom he put in possession of
+Cumberland, should make the submissions required, and that the heirs
+of Scotland should always acknowledge themselves vassals to England
+for that province [w].
+[FN [w] W. Malmes p. 74.]
+
+Canute passed four years in peace after this enterprise, and he died
+at Shaftesbury [x]; leaving three sons, Sweyn, Harold, and
+Hardicanute.  Sweyn, whom he had by his first marriage with Alfwen,
+daughter of the Earl of Hampshire, was crowned in Norway: Hardicanute,
+whom Emma had borne him, was in possession of Denmark: Harold, who was
+of the same marriage with Sweyn, was at that time in England.
+[FN [x] Chron. Sax. p. 154.  W. Malmes. p. 76.]
+
+[MN Harold Harefoot. 1035.]
+Though Canute, in his treaty with Richard, Duke of Normandy, had
+stipulated that his children by Emma should succeed to the crown of
+England, he had either considered himself as released from that
+engagement by the death of Richard, or esteemed it dangerous to leave
+an unsettled and newly-conquered kingdom in the hands of so young a
+prince as Hardicanute; he therefore appointed by his will Harold
+successor to the crown.  This prince was, besides, present to maintain
+his claim; he was favoured by all the Danes, and he got immediately
+possession of his father's treasures, which might be equally useful,
+whether he found it necessary to proceed by force or intrigue in
+insuring his succession.  On the other hand, Hardicanute had the
+suffrages of the English, who, on account of his being born among them
+of Queen Emma, regarded him as their countryman; he was favoured by
+the articles of treaty with the Duke of Normandy; and, above all, his
+party was espoused by Earl Godwin, the most powerful nobleman in the
+kingdom, especially in the province of Wessex, the chief seat of the
+ancient English.  Affairs were likely to terminate in a civil war;
+when, by the interposition of the nobility of both parties, a
+compromise was made, and it was agreed that Harold should enjoy,
+together with London, all the provinces north of the Thames, while the
+possession of the south should remain to Hardicanute; and till that
+prince should appear and take possession of his dominions, Emma fixed
+her residence at Winchester, and established her authority over her
+son's share of the partition.
+
+Meanwhile, Robert, Duke of Normandy, died in a pilgrimage to the Holy
+Land, and being succeeded by a son, yet a minor, the two English
+princes, Alfred and Edward, who found no longer any countenance or
+protection in that country, gladly embraced the opportunity of paying
+a visit, with a numerous retinue, to their mother Emma, who seemed to
+be placed in a state of so much power and splendour at Winchester.
+But the face of affairs soon wore a melancholy aspect.  Earl Godwin
+had been gained by the arts of Harold, who promised to espouse the
+daughter of that nobleman, and while the treaty was yet a secret,
+these two tyrants laid a plan for the destruction of the English
+princes.  Alfred was invited to London by Harold with many professions
+of friendship; but when he had reached Guilford, he was set upon by
+Godwin's vassals, about six hundred of his train were murdered in the
+most cruel manner, he himself was taken prisoner, his eyes were put
+out, and he was conducted to the monastery of Ely, where he died soon
+after [y].  Edward and Emma, apprized of the fate which was awaiting
+them, fled beyond sea, the former into Normandy, the latter into
+Flanders.  While Harold, triumphing in his bloody  policy, took
+possession, without resistance, of all the dominions assigned to his
+brother.
+[FN [y] H. Hunt. p. 365.  Ypod. Neustr. p. 434.  Hoveden, p. 438.
+Chron. Mailr. p. 156.  Higden, p. 277.  Chron. St. Petri de Burgo, p.
+39.  Sim. Dun. p. 179.  Abbas Rieval. p. 366, 374.  Brompton, p. 935.
+Gul. Gem. lib. 7, cap. 11.  Matth. West. p. 209.  Flor. Wigorn. p.
+622.  Alur. Beverl. p. 118.]
+
+This is the only memorable action performed during a reign of four
+years, by this prince, who gave so bad a specimen of his character,
+and whose bodily accomplishments alone are known to us by his
+appellation of HAREFOOT, which he acquired from his agility in running
+and walking.  He died on the 14th of April, 1039; little regretted or
+esteemed by his subjects, and left the succession open to his brother,
+Hardicanute.
+
+[MN Hardicanute. 1039.]
+Hardicanute, or Canute the Hardy, that is, the robust, (for he too is
+chiefly known by his bodily accomplishments,) though, by remaining so
+long in Denmark, he had been deprived of his share in the partition of
+the kingdom, had not abandoned his pretensions; and he had determined,
+before Harold's death, to recover by arms what he had lost, either by
+his own negligence, or by the necessity of his affairs.  On pretence
+of paying a visit to the queen-dowager in Flanders, he had assembled a
+fleet of sixty sail, and was preparing to make a descent on England,
+when intelligence of his brother's death induced him to sail
+immediately to London, where he was received in triumph, and
+acknowledged king without opposition.
+
+The first act of Hardicanute's government afforded his subjects a bad
+prognostic of his future conduct.  He was so enraged at Harold for
+depriving him of his share of the kingdom, and for the cruel treatment
+of his brother Alfred, that, in an impotent desire of revenge against
+the dead, he ordered his body to be dug up, and to be thrown into the
+Thames; and, when it was found by some fishermen, and buried in
+London, he ordered it again to be dug up, and to be thrown again into
+the river; but it was fished up a second time, and then interred with
+great secrecy.  Godwin, equally servile and insolent, submitted to be
+his instrument in this unnatural and brutal action.
+
+That nobleman knew that he was universally believed to have been an
+accomplice in the barbarity exercised on Alfred, and that he was on
+that account obnoxious to Hardicanute; and perhaps he hoped, by
+displaying this rage against Harold's memory, to justify  himself from
+having had any participation in his counsels.  But Prince Edward,
+being invited over by the king, immediately on his appearance
+preferred an accusation against Godwin for the murder of Alfred, and
+demanded justice for that crime.  Godwin, in order to appease the
+king, made him a magnificent present of a galley with a gilt stern,
+rowed by fourscore men, who bore each of them a gold bracelet on his
+arm, weighing sixteen ounces, and were armed and clothed in the most
+sumptuous manner.  Hardicanute, pleased with the splendour of this
+spectacle, quickly forgot his brother's murder; and on Godwin's
+swearing that he was innocent of the crime, he allowed him to be
+acquitted.
+
+Though Hardicanute, before his accession, had been called over by the
+vows of the English, he soon lost the affections of the nation by his
+misconduct; but nothing appeared more grievous to them, than his
+renewing the imposition of Danegelt, and obliging the nation to pay a
+great sum of money to the fleet which brought him from Denmark.  The
+discontents ran high in many places; in Worcester the populace rose,
+and put to death two of the collectors.  The king, enraged at this
+opposition, swore vengeance against the city, and ordered three
+noblemen, Godwin, Duke of Wessex, Siward, Duke of Northumberland, and
+Leofric, Duke of Mercia, to execute his menaces with the utmost
+rigour.  They were obliged to set fire to the city, and deliver it up
+to be plundered by their soldiers; but they saved the lives of the
+inhabitants, whom they confined in a small island of the Severn,
+called Bevery, till, by their intercession, they were able to appease
+the king, and obtain the pardon of the supplicants.
+
+This violent government was of short duration.  Hardicanute died in
+two years after his accession, at the nuptials of a Danish lord, which
+he had honoured with his presence.  His usual habits of intemperance
+were so well known, that, notwithstanding his robust constitution, his
+sudden death gave as little surprise as it did sorrow to his subjects.
+
+[MN Edward the Confessor. 1041.]
+The English, on the death of Hardicanute, saw a favourable opportunity
+for recovering their liberty, and for shaking off the Danish yoke,
+under which they  had so long laboured.  Sweyn, King of Norway, the
+eldest son of Canute, was absent; and as the two last kings had died
+without issue, none of that race presented himself, nor any whom the
+Danes could support as successor to the throne.  Prince Edward was
+fortunately at court on his brother's demise; and though the
+descendants of Edmund Ironside were the true heirs of the Saxon
+family, yet their absence in so remote a country as Hungary, appeared
+a sufficient reason for their exclusion, to a people like the English,
+so little accustomed to observe a regular order in the succession of
+their monarchs.  All delays might be dangerous; and the present
+occasion must hastily be embraced; while the Danes, without concert,
+without a leader, astonished at the present incident, and anxious only
+for their personal safety, durst not oppose the united voice of the
+nation.
+
+But this concurrence of circumstances in favour of Edward might have
+failed of its effect, had his succession been opposed by Godwin, whose
+power, alliances, and abilities gave him a great influence at all
+times, especially amidst those sudden opportunities which always
+attend a revolution of government, and which, either seized or
+neglected, commonly prove decisive.  There were opposite reasons which
+divided men's hopes and fears with regard to Godwin's conduct.  On the
+one hand, the credit of that nobleman lay chiefly in Wessex, which was
+almost entirely inhabited by English: it was therefore presumed that
+he would second the wishes of that people, in restoring the Saxon line
+and in humbling the Danes, from whom he, as well as they, had reason
+to dread, as they had already felt the most grievous oppressions.  On
+the other hand, there subsisted a declared animosity between Edward
+and Godwin, on account of Alfred's murder, of which the latter had
+publicly been accused by the prince, and which he might believe so
+deep an offence, as could never, on account of any subsequent merits,
+be sincerely pardoned.  But their common friends here interposed; and,
+representing the necessity of their good correspondence, obliged them
+to lay aside all jealousy and rancour, and concur in restoring liberty
+to their  native country.  Godwin only stipulated, that Edward, as a
+pledge of his sincere reconciliation, should promise to marry his
+daughter Editha; and having fortified himself by this alliance, he
+summoned a general council at Gillingham, and prepared every measure
+for securing the succession to Edward.  The English were unanimous and
+zealous in their resolutions; the Danes were divided and dispirited:
+any small opposition which appeared in the assembly was browbeaten and
+suppressed; and Edward was crowned king, with every demonstration of
+duty and affection.
+
+The triumph of the English, upon this signal and decisive advantage,
+was at first attended with some assault and violence against the
+Danes; but the king, by the mildness of his character, soon reconciled
+the latter to his administration, and the distinction between the two
+nations gradually disappeared.  The Danes were interspersed with the
+English in most of the provinces; they spoke nearly the same language;
+they differed little in their manners and laws; domestic dissensions
+in Denmark prevented, for some years, any powerful invasion from
+thence, which might awaken past animosities; and as the Norman
+Conquest, which ensued soon after, reduced both nations to equal
+subjection, there is no further mention in history of any difference
+between them.  The joy, however, of their present deliverance made
+such impression on the minds of the English, that they instituted an
+annual festival for celebrating that great event; and it was observed
+in some counties even to the time of Spellman [z].
+[FN [z] Spellm. Glossary, in verbo HOCDAY.]
+
+The popularity which Edward enjoyed on his accession was not destroyed
+by the first act of his administration, his resuming all the grants of
+his immediate predecessors; an attempt which is commonly attended with
+the most dangerous consequences.  The poverty of the crown convinced
+the nation that this act of violence was become absolutely necessary;
+and as the loss fell chiefly on the Danes, who had obtained large
+grants from the late kings, their countrymen, on account of their
+services in subduing the kingdom, the English were rather pleased to
+see them reduced to their primitive poverty.  The king's severity also
+towards his mother, the queen-dowager, though exposed to some more
+censure, met not with very general disapprobation.  He had hitherto
+lived on indifferent terms with the princess; he accused her of
+neglecting him and his brother during their adverse fortune [a]; he
+remarked that as the superior qualities of Canute, and his better
+treatment of her, had made her entirely indifferent to the memory of
+Ethelred, she also gave the preference to her children of the second
+bed, and always regarded Hardicanute as her favourite.  The same
+reasons had probably made her unpopular in England; and though her
+benefactions to the monks obtained her the favour of that order, the
+nation was not, in general, displeased to see her stripped by Edward
+of immense treasure which she had amassed.  He confined her, during
+the remainder of her life, in a monastery at Winchester, but carried
+his rigour against her no farther.  The stories of his accusing her of
+a participation in her son Alfred's murder, and of a criminal
+correspondence with the Bishop of Winchester, and also of her
+justifying herself by treading barefoot, without receiving any hurt,
+over nine burning ploughshares, were the inventions of the monkish
+historians, and were propagated and believed from the silly wonder of
+posterity [b].
+[FN [a] Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 237.  [b] Higden, p. 277.]
+
+The English flattered themselves that, by the accession of Edward,
+they were delivered for ever from the dominion of foreigners; but they
+soon found that this evil was not yet entirely removed.  The king had
+been educated in Normandy; and had contracted many intimacies with the
+natives of that country, as well as an affection for their manners
+[c].  The court of England was soon filled with Normans, who, being
+distinguished both by the favour of Edward, and by a degree of
+cultivation superior to that which was attained by the English in
+those ages, soon rendered their language, customs, and laws,
+fashionable in the kingdom.  The study of the French tongue became
+general among the people.  The courtiers affected to imitate that
+nation in their dress, equipage, and entertainments: even the lawyers
+employed a foreign language in their deeds and papers [d].  But, above
+all, the church felt the influence and dominion of those strangers:
+Ulf and William, two Normans, who had formerly been the king's
+chaplains, were created Bishops of Dorchester and London.  Robert, a
+Norman also, was promoted to the see of Canterbury [e], and always
+enjoyed the highest favour of his master, of which his abilities
+rendered him not unworthy.  And though the king's prudence, or his
+want of authority, made him confer almost all the civil and military
+employments on the natives, the ecclesiastical preferments fell often
+to the share of the Normans; and as the latter possessed Edward's
+confidence, they had secretly a great influence on public affairs, and
+excited the jealousy of the English, particularly of Earl Godwin [f].
+[FN [c] Ingulph. p. 62.  [d] Ingulph. p. 62.  [e] Chron. Sax. p. 161.
+[f] W. Malm. p. 80.]
+
+This powerful nobleman, besides being Duke or Earl of Wessex, had the
+counties of Kent and Sussex annexed to his government.  His eldest
+son, Sweyn, possessed the same authority in the counties of Oxford,
+Berks, Gloucester, and Hereford; and Harold, his second son, was Duke
+of East Anglia, and at the same time governor of Essex.  The great
+authority of this family was supported by immense possessions and
+powerful alliances; and the abilities, as well as ambition of Godwin
+himself, contributed to render it still more dangerous.  A prince of
+greater capacity and vigour than Edward would have found it difficult
+to support the dignity of the crown under such circumstances; and as
+the haughty temper of Godwin made him often forget the respect due to
+his prince, Edward's animosity against him was grounded on personal as
+well as political considerations, on recent as well as more ancient
+injuries.  The king, in pursuance of his engagements, had indeed
+married Editha, the daughter of Godwin [g]; but this alliance became a
+fresh source of enmity between them.  Edward's hatred of the father
+was transferred to that princess; and Editha, though possessed of many
+amiable accomplishments, could never acquire the confidence and
+affection of her husband.  It is even pretended that, during the whole
+course of her life, he abstained from all commerce of love with her;
+and such was the absurd admiration paid to an inviolable chastity
+during those ages, that his conduct in this particular is highly
+celebrated by the monkish historians, and greatly contributed to his
+acquiring the title of Saint and Confessor [h].  [MN 1048]
+[FN [g] Chron. Sax. p. 157.  [h] Wm. Malm. p. 80  Higden, p. 277.
+Abbas Rieval. p. 366, 377.  Matth. West. p. 221.  Chron. Thom. Wykes,
+p. 21.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 241.]
+
+The most popular pretence on which Godwin could ground his
+disaffection to the king and his administration was to complain of the
+influence of the Normans in the government; and a declared opposition
+had thence arisen between him and these favourites.  It was not long
+before this animosity broke into action.  Eustace, Count of Boulogne,
+having paid a visit to the king, passed by Dover in his return; one of
+his train, being refused entrance to a lodging which had been assigned
+him, attempted to make his way by force, and in the contest he wounded
+the master of the house.  The inhabitants revenged this insult by the
+death of the stranger; the count and his train took arms, and murdered
+the wounded townsman; a tumult ensued; near twenty persons were killed
+on each side; and Eustace, being overpowered by numbers, was obliged
+to save his life by flight from the fury of the populace.  He hurried
+immediately to court and complained of the usage he had met with: the
+king entered zealously into the quarrel, and was highly displeased
+that a stranger of such distinction, whom he had invited over to his
+court, should, without any just cause, as he believed, have felt so
+sensibly the insolence and animosity of his people.  He gave orders to
+Godwin, in whose government Dover lay, to repair immediately to the
+place, and to punish the inhabitants for the crime: but Godwin, who
+desired rather to encourage than repress the popular discontents
+against foreigners, refused obedience, and endeavoured to throw the
+whole blame of the riot on the Count of Boulogne and his retinue [i].
+Edward, touched in so sensible a point, saw the necessity of exerting
+the royal authority; and he threatened Godwin, if he persisted in his
+disobedience, to make him feel the utmost effects of his resentment.
+[FN [i] Chron. Sax. p. 163.  W. Malm. p. 81.  Higden, p. 279.]
+
+The earl, perceiving a rupture to be unavoidable, and pleased to
+embark in a cause where it was likely he should be supported by his
+countrymen, made preparations for his own defence, or rather for an
+attack on Edward.  Under pretence of repressing some disorders on the
+Welsh frontier, he secretly assembled a great army, and was
+approaching the king, who resided, without any military force, and
+without suspicion, at Gloucester [k].  Edward applied for protection
+to Siward, Duke of Northumberland, and Leofric, Duke of Mercia, two
+powerful noblemen, whose jealousy of Godwin's greatness, as well as
+their duty to the crown, engaged them to defend the king in this
+extremity.  They hastened to him with such of their followers as they
+could assemble on a sudden; and finding the danger much greater than
+they had at first apprehended, they issued orders for mustering all
+the forces within their respective governments, and for marching them
+without delay to the defence of the king's person and authority.
+Edward, meanwhile, endeavoured to gain time by negotiation; while
+Godwin, who thought the king entirely in his power, and who was
+willing to save appearances, fell into the snare; and, not sensible
+that he ought to have no farther reserve after he had proceeded so
+far, he lost the favourable opportunity of rendering himself master of
+the government.
+[FN [k] Chron. Sax. p. 163.  W. Malm. p. 81.]
+
+The English, though they had no high idea of Edward's vigour and
+capacity, bore him great affection, on account of his humanity,
+justice, and piety, as well as the long race of their native kings
+from whom he was descended; and they hastened from all quarters to
+defend him from the present danger.  His army was now so considerable,
+that he ventured to take the field, and marching to London, he
+summoned a great council to judge of the rebellion of Godwin and his
+sons.  These noblemen pretended at first that they were willing to
+stand their trial; but having in vain endeavoured to make their
+adherents persist in rebellion, they offered to come to London,
+provided they might receive hostages for their safety: this proposal
+being rejected, they were obliged to disband the remains of their
+forces, and have recourse to flight.  Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, gave
+protection to Godwin and his three sons, Gurth, Sweyn, and Tosti; the
+latter of whom had married the daughter of that prince.  Harold and
+Leofwin, two other of his sons, took shelter in Ireland.  The estates
+of the father and sons were confiscated: their governments were given
+to others: Queen Editha was confined in a monastery at Warewel: and
+the greatness of this family, once so formidable, seemed now to be
+totally supplanted and overthrown.
+
+But Godwin had fixed his authority on too firm a basis, and he was too
+strongly supported by alliances, both foreign and domestic, not to
+occasion farther disturbances and make new efforts for his
+re-establishment.  [MN 1052.]  The Earl of Flanders permitted him to
+purchase and hire ships within his harbours; and Godwin, having manned
+them with his followers, and with freebooters of all nations, put to
+sea, and attempted to make a descent at Sandwich.  The king, informed
+of his preparations, had equipped a considerable fleet, much superior
+to that of the enemy; and the earl, hastily, before their appearance,
+made his retreat into the Flemish harbours [l].  The English court,
+allured by the present security, and destitute of all vigorous
+counsels, allowed the seamen to disband, and the fleet to go to decay
+[m], while Godwin, expecting the event, kept his men in readiness for
+action.  He put to sea immediately, and sailed to the Isle of Wight,
+where he was joined by Harold, with a squadron which the nobleman had
+collected in Ireland.  He was now master of the sea; and entering
+every harbour in the southern coast, he seized all the ships [n], and
+summoned his followers in those counties, which had so long been
+subject to his government, to assist him in procuring justice to
+himself, his family, and his country, against the tyranny of
+foreigners.  Reinforced by great numbers from all quarters, he entered
+the Thames; and appearing before London, threw every thing into
+confusion.  The king alone seemed resolute to defend himself to the
+last extremity; but the interposition of the English nobility, many of
+whom favoured Godwin's pretensions, made Edward hearken to terms of
+accommodation; and the feigned humility of the earl, who disclaimed
+all intentions of offering violence to his sovereign, and desired only
+to justify himself by a fair and open trial, paved the way  for his
+more easy admission.  It was stipulated that he should give hostages
+for his good behaviour, and that the primate and all the foreigners
+should be banished: by this treaty, the present danger of a civil war
+was obviated, but the authority of the crown was considerably
+impaired, or rather entirely annihilated.  Edward, sensible that he
+had not power sufficient to secure Godwin's hostages in England, sent
+them over to his kinsman, the young Duke of Normandy.
+[FN [1] Sim. Dun. p. 186.  [m] Chron. Sax. p. 166.  [n] Ibid.]
+
+Godwin's death, which happened soon after, while he was sitting at
+table with the king, prevented him from farther establishing the
+authority which he had acquired, and from reducing Edward to still
+greater subjection [o].  He was succeeded in the government of Wessex,
+Sussex, Kent, and Essex, and in the office of steward of the
+household, a place of great power, by his son Harold, who was actuated
+by an ambition equal to that of his father, and was superior to him in
+address, in insinuation, and in virtue.  By a modest and gentle
+demeanour, he acquired the good-will of Edward; at least softened that
+hatred which the prince had so long borne his family [p]; and gaining
+every day new partisans by his bounty and affability, he proceeded in
+a more silent and therefore a more dangerous manner, to the increase
+of his authority.  The king, who had not sufficient vigour directly to
+oppose his progress, knew of no other expedient than that hazardous
+one, of raising him a rival in the family of Leofric, Duke of Mercia,
+whose son Algar was invested with the government of East Anglia,
+which, before the banishment of Harold, had belonged to the latter
+nobleman.  But this policy, of balancing opposite parties, required a
+more steady hand to manage it than that of Edward, and naturally
+produced faction, and even civil broils, among nobles of such mighty
+and independent authority.  Algar was soon after expelled his
+government by the intrigues and power of Harold; but being protected
+by Griffith, Prince of Wales, who had married his daughter, as well as
+by the power of his father, Leofric, he obliged Harold to submit to an
+accommodation, and was reinstated in the government of East Anglia.
+This peace was not of long duration: Harold, taking advantage of
+Leofric's death, which happened soon after, expelled Algar anew, and
+banished him the kingdom; and though that nobleman made a fresh
+irruption into East Anglia with an army of Norwegians, and overran the
+country, his death soon freed Harold from the pretensions of so
+dangerous a rival.  Edward, the eldest son of Algar, was indeed
+advanced to the government of Mercia; but the balance which the king
+desired to establish between those potent families was wholly lost,
+and the influence of Harold greatly preponderated.
+[FN [o] See note [D] at the end of the volume.  [p] Brompton, p. 948.]
+
+[MN 1055.]  The death of Siward, Duke of Northumberland, made the way
+still more open to the ambition of that nobleman.  Siward, besides his
+other merits, had acquired honour to England by his successful conduct
+in the only foreign enterprise undertaken during the reign of Edward.
+Duncan, King of Scotland, was a prince of a gentle disposition, but
+possessed not the genius requisite for governing a country so
+turbulent, and so much infested by the intrigues and animosities of
+the great Macbeth, a powerful nobleman, and nearly allied to the
+crown, not content with curbing the king's authority, carried still
+farther his pestilent ambition; he put his sovereign to death; chased
+Malcolm Kenmore, his son and heir, into England; and usurped the
+crown.  Siward, whose daughter was married to Duncan, embraced, by
+Edward's orders, the protection of this distressed family: he marched
+an army into Scotland; and having defeated and killed Macbeth in
+battle, he restored Malcolm to the throne of his ancestors [q].  This
+service, added to his former connexions with the royal family of
+Scotland, brought a great accession to the authority of Siward in the
+north; but as he had lost his eldest son, Osberne, in the action with
+Macbeth, it proved in the issue fatal to his family.  His second son,
+Walthoef, appeared, on his father's death, too young to be intrusted
+with the government of Northumberland; and Harold's influence obtained
+that dukedom for his own brother Tosti.
+[FN [q] W. Malm. p. 79.  Hoveden, p. 443.  Chron. Mailr. p. 158.
+Buchanan, p. 115. edit. 1715.]
+
+There are two circumstances related of Siward, which discover his high
+sense of honour, and his martial disposition.  When intelligence was
+brought him of his son Osberne's death, he was inconsolable till he
+heard that the wound was received in the breast, and that he had
+behaved with great gallantry in the action.  When he found his own
+death approaching, he ordered his servants to clothe him in a complete
+suit of armour; and sitting erect on the couch, with a spear in his
+hand, declared that in that posture, the only one worthy of a warrior,
+he would patiently await the fatal moment.
+
+The king, now worn out with cares and infirmities, felt himself far
+advanced in the decline of life; and having no issue himself, began to
+think of appointing a successor to the kingdom.  He sent a deputation
+to Hungary, to invite over his nephew, Edward, son of his elder
+brother, and the only remaining heir of the Saxon line.  That prince,
+whose succession to the crown would have been easy and undisputed,
+came to England with his children, Edgar, surnamed Atheling, Margaret,
+and Christina; but his death, which happened a few days after his
+arrival, threw the king into new difficulties.  He saw, that the great
+power and ambition of Harold had tempted him to think of obtaining
+possession of the throne on the first vacancy, and that Edgar, on
+account of his youth and inexperience, was very unfit to oppose the
+pretensions of so popular and enterprising a rival.  The animosity
+which he had long borne to Earl Godwin, made him averse to the
+succession of his son, and he could not, without extreme reluctance,
+think of an increase of grandeur to a family which had risen on the
+ruins of royal authority, and which, by the murder of Alfred his
+brother, had contributed so much to the weakening of the Saxon line.
+In this uncertainty, he secretly cast his eye towards his kinsman,
+William, Duke of Normandy, as the only person whose power, and
+reputation, and capacity, could support any destination which he might
+make in his favour, to the exclusion of Harold and his family [r].
+[FN [r] Ingulph. p. 68.]
+
+This famous prince was natural son of Robert, Duke of Normandy, by
+Harlotta, daughter of a tanner in Falaise [s], and was very early
+established in that grandeur from which his birth seemed to have set
+him at so  great a distance.  While he was but nine years of age, his
+father had resolved to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; a
+fashionable act of devotion, which had taken the place of pilgrimages
+to Rome, and which, as it was attended with more difficulty and
+danger, and carried those religious adventurers to the first sources
+of Christianity, appeared to them more meritorious.  Before his
+departure, he assembled the states of the duchy; and informing them of
+his design, he engaged them to swear allegiance to his natural son,
+William, whom, as he had no legitimate issue, he intended, in case he
+should die in the pilgrimage, to leave successor to his dominions [t].
+As he was a prudent prince, he could not but foresee the great
+inconveniences which must attend this journey, and this settlement of
+his succession, arising from the turbulency of the great, the claims
+of other branches of the ducal family, and the power of the French
+monarch; but all these considerations were surmounted by the
+prevailing zeal for pilgrimages [u]; and probably the more important
+they were, the more would Robert exult in sacrificing them to what he
+imagined to be his religious duty.
+[FN [s] Brompton, p. 910.  [t] W. Malm. p. 95.  [u] Ypod. Neust. p.
+452.]
+
+This prince, as he had apprehended, died in his pilgrimage; and the
+minority of his son was attended with all those disorders which were
+almost unavoidable in that situation.  The licentious nobles, freed
+from the awe of sovereign authority, broke out into personal
+animosities against each other, and made the whole country a scene of
+war and devastation [w].  Roger, Count of Toni, and Alain, Count of
+Britany, advanced claims to the dominion of the state; and Henry I.,
+King of France, thought the opportunity favourable for reducing the
+power of a vassal, who had originally acquired his settlement in so
+violent and invidious a manner, and who had long appeared formidable
+to his sovereign [x].  The regency established by Robert encountered
+great difficulties in supporting the government under this
+complication of dangers; and the young prince, when he came to
+maturity, found himself reduced to a very low condition.  But the
+great qualities which he soon displayed in the field and in the
+cabinet gave encouragement to his friends, and struck a terror into
+his enemies.  He opposed himself on all sides against his rebellious
+subjects, and against foreign invaders; and by his valour and conduct
+prevailed in every action.  He obliged the French king to grant him
+peace on reasonable terms; he expelled all pretenders to the
+sovereignty; and he reduced his turbulent barons to pay submission to
+his authority, and to suspend their mutual animosities.  The natural
+severity of his temper appeared in a rigorous administration of
+justice; and having found the happy effects of this plan of
+government, without which the laws in those ages became totally
+impotent, he regarded it as a fixed maxim, that an inflexible conduct
+was the first duty of a sovereign.
+[FN [w] W. Malm. p. 95.  Gul. Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 1.  [x] W. Malm. p.
+97.]
+
+The tranquillity which he had established in his dominions had given
+William leisure to pay a visit to the King of England during the time
+of Godwin's banishment; and he was received in a manner suitable to
+the great reputation which he had acquired, to the relation by which
+he was connected with Edward, and to the obligations which that prince
+owed to his family [y].  On the return of Godwin, and the expulsion of
+the Norman favourites, Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury, had, before
+his departure, persuaded Edward to think of adopting William as his
+successor; a counsel which was favoured by the king's aversion to
+Godwin, his prepossessions for the Normans, and his esteem of the
+duke.  That prelate, therefore, received a commission to inform
+William of the king's intentions in his favour; and he was the first
+person that opened the mind of the prince to entertain those ambitious
+hopes [z].  But Edward, irresolute and feeble in his purpose, finding
+that the English would more easily acquiesce in the restoration of the
+Saxon line, had, in the mean time, invited his brother's descendants
+from Hungary, with a view of having them recognised heirs to the
+crown.  The death of his nephew, and the inexperience and unpromising
+qualities of young Edgar, made him resume his former intentions in
+favour of the Duke of Normandy; though his aversion to hazardous
+enterprises engaged him to postpone the execution, and even to keep
+his purpose secret from all his ministers.
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 442.  Ingulph. p. 65.  Chron. Mailr. p. 157.
+Higden, p. 279.  [z] Ingulph. p. 68.  Gul. Gemet lib. 7. cap. 31.
+Order. Vitalis, p. 492.]
+
+Harold, meanwhile, proceeded after a more open manner in increasing
+his popularity, in establishing his power, and in preparing the way
+for his advancement on the first vacancy; an event which, from the age
+and infirmities of the king, appeared not very distant.  But there was
+still an obstacle, which it was requisite for him previously to
+overcome.  Earl Godwin, when restored to his power and fortune, had
+given hostages for his good behaviour, and, among the rest, one son
+and one grandson, whom Edward, for greater security, as has been
+related, had consigned to the custody of the Duke of Normandy.
+Harold, though not aware of the duke's being his competitor, was
+uneasy that such near relations should be detained prisoners in a
+foreign country; and he was afraid lest William should, in favour of
+Edgar, retain those pledges as a check on the ambition of any other
+pretender.  He represented, therefore, to the king, his unfeigned
+submission to royal authority, his steady duty to his prince, and the
+little necessity there was, after such a uniform trial of his
+obedience, to detain any longer those hostages who had been required
+on the first composing of civil discords.  By these topics, enforced
+by his great power, he extorted the king's consent to release them;
+and in order to effect his purpose, he immediately proceeded, with a
+numerous retinue, on his journey to Normandy.  A tempest drove him on
+the territory of Guy, Count of Ponthieu, who, being informed of his
+quality, immediately detained him prisoner, and demanded an exorbitant
+sum for his ransom.  Harold found means to convey intelligence of his
+situation to the Duke of Normandy; and represented, that while he was
+proceeding to HIS court, in execution of a commission from the King of
+England, he had met with this harsh treatment from the mercenary
+disposition of the Count of Ponthieu.
+
+William was immediately sensible of the importance of the incident.
+He foresaw, that if he could once gain Harold, either by favours or
+menaces, his way to the throne of England would be open, and Edward
+would meet with no farther obstacle in executing the favourable
+intentions which he had entertained in his behalf.  He sent,
+therefore, a messenger to Guy, in order to demand the liberty of his
+prisoner; and that nobleman, not daring to refuse so great a prince,
+put Harold into the hands of the Norman, who conducted him to Rouen.
+William received him with every demonstration of respect and
+friendship; and after showing himself disposed to comply with his
+desire, in delivering up the hostages, he took an opportunity of
+disclosing to him the great secret of his pretensions to the crown of
+England, and of the will which Edward intended to make in his favour.
+He desired the assistance of Harold in perfecting that design; he made
+professions of the utmost gratitude in return for so great an
+obligation; he promised that the present grandeur of Harold's family,
+which supported itself with difficulty under the jealousy and hatred
+of Edward, should receive new increase from a successor, who would be
+so greatly beholden to him for his advancement.  Harold was surprised
+at this declaration of the duke; but being sensible that he should
+never recover his own liberty, much less that of his brother and
+nephew, if he refused the demand, he feigned a compliance with
+William, renounced all hopes of the crown for himself, and professed
+his sincere intention of supporting the will of Edward, and seconding
+the pretensions of the Duke of Normandy.  William, to bind him faster
+to his interests, besides offering him one of his daughters in
+marriage, required him to take an oath that he would fulfil his
+promises; and in order to render the oath more obligatory, he employed
+an artifice well suited to the ignorance and superstition of the age.
+He secretly conveyed under the altar, on which Harold agreed to swear,
+the relics of some of the most revered martyrs; and when Harold had
+taken the oath, he showed him the relics, and admonished him to
+observe religiously an engagement which had been ratified by so
+tremendous a sanction [a].  The English nobleman was astonished; but
+dissembling his concern, he renewed the same professions, and was
+dismissed with all the marks of mutual confidence by the Duke of
+Normandy.
+[FN [a] Wace, p. 459, 460.  MS. penes Carte, p. 354.  W. Malm. p. 93.
+H. Hunt p. 366.  Hoveden, p. 449.  Brompton, p. 947.]
+
+When Harold found himself at liberty, his ambition suggested casuistry
+sufficient to justify to him the violation of an oath, which had been
+extorted from him by fear, and which, if fulfilled, might be attended
+with the subjection of his native country to a foreign power.  He
+continued still to practise every art of popularity; to increase the
+number of his partisans; to reconcile the minds of the English to the
+idea of his succession; to revive their hatred of the Normans; and by
+an ostentation of his power and influence, to deter the timorous
+Edward from executing his intended destination in favour of William.
+Fortune, about this time, threw two incidents in his way, by which he
+was enabled to acquire general favour, and to increase the character,
+which he had already attained, of virtue and abilities.
+
+The Welsh, though a less formidable enemy than the Danes, had long
+been accustomed to infest the western borders; and after committing
+spoil on the low countries, they usually made a hasty retreat into
+their mountains, where they were sheltered from the pursuit of their
+enemies, and were ready to seize the first favourable opportunity of
+renewing their depredations.  Griffith, the reigning prince, had
+greatly distinguished himself in those incursions; and his name had
+become so terrible to the English, that Harold found he could do
+nothing more acceptable to the public, and more honourable for
+himself, than the suppressing of so dangerous an enemy.  He formed the
+plan of an expedition against Wales; and having prepared some light-
+armed foot to pursue the natives into their fastnesses, some cavalry
+to scour the open country, and a squadron of ships to attack the
+seacoast, he employed at once all these forces against the Welsh,
+prosecuted his advantages with vigour, made no intermission in his
+assaults, and at last reduced the enemy to such distress, that, in
+order to prevent their total destruction, they made a sacrifice of
+their prince, whose head they cut off and sent to Harold; and they
+were content to receive as their sovereigns two Welsh noblemen
+appointed by Edward to rule over them.  The other incident was no less
+honourable to Harold.
+
+Tosti, brother of this nobleman, who had been created Duke of
+Northumberland, being of a violent tyrannical temper, had acted with
+such cruelty and injustice, that the inhabitants rose in rebellion,
+and chased him from his government.  Morcar and Edwin, two brothers,
+who possessed great power in those parts, and who were grandsons of
+the great Duke Leofric, concurred in the insurrection; and the former,
+being elected duke, advanced with an army to oppose Harold, who was
+commissioned by the king to reduce and chastise the Northumbrians.
+Before the armies came to action, Morcar, well acquainted with the
+generous disposition of the English commander, endeavoured to justify
+his own conduct.  He represented to Harold, that Tosti had behaved in
+a manner unworthy of the station to which he was advanced, and no one,
+not even a brother, could support such tyranny without participating,
+in some degree, of the infamy attending it; that the Northumbrians,
+accustomed to a legal administration, and regarding it as their birth-
+right, were willing to submit to the king, but required a governor who
+would pay regard to their rights and privileges; that they had been
+taught by their ancestors, that death was preferable to servitude, and
+had taken the field, determined to perish rather than suffer a renewal
+of those indignities to which they had so long been exposed; and they
+trusted that Harold, on reflection, would not defend in another that
+violent conduct, from which he himself, in his own government, had
+always kept at so great a distance.  This vigorous remonstrance was
+accompanied with such a detail of facts, so well supported, that
+Harold found it prudent to abandon his brother's cause; and returning
+to Edward, he persuaded him to pardon the Northumbrians, and to
+confirm Morcar in the government.  He even married the sister of that
+nobleman [b]; and by his interest procured Edwin, the younger brother,
+to be elected into the government of Mercia.  Tosti in rage departed
+the kingdom, and took shelter in Flanders with Earl Baldwin, his
+father-in-law.
+[FN [b] Order Vitalis, p. 492.]
+
+By this marriage Harold broke all measures with the Duke of Normandy;
+and William clearly perceived that he could no longer rely on the
+oaths and promises which he had extorted from him.  But the English
+nobleman was now in such a situation, that he deemed it no longer
+necessary to dissemble.  He had in his conduct towards the
+Northumbrians, given such a specimen of his moderation as had gained
+him the affections of his countrymen.  He saw that almost all England
+was engaged in his interests; while he himself possessed the
+government of Wessex, Morcar that of Northumberland, and Edward that
+of Mercia.  He now openly aspired to the succession; and insisted,
+that since it was necessary, by the confession of all, to set aside
+the royal family, on account of the imbecility of Edgar, the sole
+surviving heir, there was no one as capable of filling the throne as a
+nobleman of great power, of mature age, of long experience, of
+approved courage and abilities, who, being a native of the kingdom,
+would effectually secure it against the dominion and tyranny of
+foreigners.  Edward, broken with age and infirmities, saw the
+difficulties too great for him to encounter; and though his inveterate
+prepossession kept him from seconding the pretensions of Harold, he
+took but feeble and irresolute steps for securing the succession to
+the Duke of Normandy [c].  While he continued in this uncertainty he
+was surprised by sickness, which brought him to his grave, on the
+fifth of January 1066, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and twenty-
+fifth of his reign.
+[FN [c] See note [F] at the end of the volume.]
+
+This prince, to whom the monks gave the title of Saint and Confessor,
+was the last of the Saxon line that ruled in England.  Though his
+reign was peaceable and fortunate, he owed his prosperity less to his
+own abilities than to the conjunctures of the times.  The Danes,
+employed in other enterprises, attempted not those incursions which
+had been so troublesome to all his predecessors, and fatal to some of
+them.  The facility of his disposition made him acquiesce under the
+government of Godwin and his son Harold; and the abilities, as well as
+the power, of these noblemen enabled them, while they were entrusted
+with authority, to preserve domestic peace and tranquillity.  The most
+commendable circumstance of Edward's government was his attention to
+the administration of justice, and his compiling, for that purpose, a
+body of laws, which he collected from the laws of Ethelbert, Ina, and
+Alfred.  This compilation, though now lost, (for the laws that pass
+under Edward's name were composed afterwards [d],) was long the object
+of affection to the English nation.
+[FN [d] Spellm. in verbo BELLIVA.]
+
+Edward the Confessor was the first that touched for the king's evil:
+the opinion of his sanctity procured belief to this cure among the
+people: his successors regarded it as a part of their state and
+grandeur to uphold the same opinion.  It has been continued down to
+our time; and the practice was first dropped by the present royal
+family, who observed that it could no longer give amazement even to
+the populace, and was attended with ridicule in the eyes of all men of
+understanding.
+
+[MN Harold. 1066. January.]
+Harold had so well prepared matters before the death of Edward, that
+he immediately stepped into the vacant throne; and his accession was
+attended with as little opposition and disturbance, as if he had
+succeeded by the most undoubted hereditary title.  The citizens of
+London were his zealous partisans: the bishops and clergy had adopted
+his cause; and all the powerful nobility, connected with him by
+alliance or friendship, willingly seconded his pretensions.  The title
+of Edgar Atheling was scarcely mentioned; much less the claim of the
+Duke of Normandy: and Harold, assembling his partisans, received the
+crown from their hands, without waiting for the free deliberation of
+the states, or regularly submitting the question to their
+determination [e].  If any were averse to this measure, they were
+obliged to conceal their sentiments; and the new prince, taking a
+general silence for consent, and founding his title on the supposed
+suffrages of the people, which appeared unanimous, was, on the day
+immediately succeeding Edward's death, crowned and anointed king, by
+Aldred, Archbishop of York.  The whole nation seemed joyful to
+acquiesce in his elevation.
+[FN [e] G. Pict. p. 196.  Ypod. Neust. p. 436.  Order. Vitalis, p.
+492.  M. West. p. 221  W. Malm. p. 93.  Ingulph. p. 68.  Brompton, p.
+957.  Knyghton, p. 2339.  H. Hunt. p. 210.  Many of the historians
+say, that Harold was regularly elected by the states: some, that
+Edward left him his successor by will.]
+
+The first symptoms of danger which the king discovered came from
+abroad, and from his own brother Tosti, who had submitted to a
+voluntary banishment in Flanders.  Enraged at the successful ambition
+of Harold, to which he himself had fallen a victim, he filled the
+court of Baldwin with complaints of the injustice which he had
+suffered; he engaged the interest of that family against his brother:
+he endeavoured to form intrigues with some of the discontented nobles
+in England: he sent his emissaries to Norway, in order to rouse to
+arms the freebooters of that kingdom, and to excite the hopes of
+reaping advantage from the unsettled state of affairs on the
+usurpation of the new king: and that he might render the combination
+more formidable, he made a journey to Normandy, in expectation that
+the duke, who had married Matilda, another daughter of Baldwin, would,
+in revenge of his own wrongs, as well as those of Tosti, second, by
+his counsels and forces, the projected invasion of England [f].
+[FN [f] Order. Vitalis, p. 492.]
+
+The Duke of Normandy, when he first received intelligence of Harold's
+intrigues and accession, had been moved to the highest pitch of
+indignation; but that he might give the better colour to his
+pretensions, he sent an embassy to England, upbraiding that prince
+with his breach of faith, and summoning him to resign immediately
+possession of the kingdom.  Harold replied to the Norman ambassadors,
+that the oath with which he was reproached had been extorted by the
+well-grounded fear of violence, and could never, for that reason, be
+regarded as obligatory: that he had had no commission either from the
+late king, or the states of England, who alone could dispose of the
+crown, to make any tender of the succession to the Duke of Normandy;
+and if he, a private person, had assumed so much authority, and had
+even voluntarily sworn to support the duke's pretensions, the oath was
+unlawful, and it was his duty to  seize the first opportunity of
+breaking it: that he had obtained the crown by the unanimous suffrages
+of the people; and should prove himself totally unworthy of their
+favour, did he not strenuously maintain those national liberties, with
+whose protection they had entrusted him: and that the duke, if he made
+any attempt by force of arms, should experience the power of an united
+nation, conducted by a prince, who, sensible of the obligations
+imposed on him by his royal dignity, was determined that the same
+moment should put a period to his life and to his government [g].
+[FN [g] W. Malm. p. 99.  Higden, p. 285.  Matth. West. p. 222.  De
+Gest. Angl. ancento auctore, p. 331.]
+
+This answer was no other than William expected; and he had previously
+fixed his resolution of making an attempt upon England.  Consulting
+only his courage, his resentment, and his ambition, he overlooked all
+the difficulties inseparable from an attack on a great kingdom by such
+inferior force, and he saw only the circumstances which would
+facilitate his enterprise.  He considered that England, ever since the
+accession of Canute, had enjoyed profound tranquillity during a period
+of over fifty years; and it would require time for its soldiers,
+enervated by long peace, to learn discipline, and its generals
+experience.  He knew that it was entirely unprovided with fortified
+towns, by which it could prolong the war; but must venture its whole
+fortune in one decisive action against a veteran enemy, who, being
+once master of the field, would be in a condition to overrun the
+kingdom.  He saw that Harold, though he had given proofs of vigour and
+bravery, had newly mounted a throne, which he had acquired by faction,
+from which he had excluded a very ancient royal family, and which was
+likely to totter under him by its own instability, much more if shaken
+by any violent external impulse; and he hoped, that the very
+circumstance of his crossing the sea, quitting his own country, and
+leaving himself no hopes of retreat, as it would astonish the enemy by
+the boldness of the enterprise, would inspirit his soldiers by
+despair, and rouse them to sustain the reputation of the Norman arms.
+
+The Normans, as they had long been distinguished by valour among all
+the European nations, had at this time attained to the highest pitch
+of military glory.  Besides acquiring by arms such a noble territory
+in France, besides defending it against continual attempts of the
+French monarch and all his neighbours, besides exerting many acts of
+vigour under their present sovereign; they had, about this very time,
+revived their ancient fame, by the most hazardous exploits, and the
+most wonderful successes in the other extremity of Europe.  A few
+Norman adventurers in Italy had acquired such an ascendant, not only
+over the Italians and Greeks, but the Germans and Saracens, that
+they expelled those foreigners, procured to themselves ample
+establishments, and laid the foundation of the opulent kingdom of
+Naples and Sicily [h].  These enterprises of men, who were all of them
+vassals in Normandy, many of them banished for faction and rebellion,
+excited the ambition of the haughty William, who disdained, after such
+examples of fortune and valour, to be deterred from making an attack
+on a neighbouring country, where he could be supported by the whole
+force of his principality.
+[FN [h] Gul. Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 30.]
+
+The situation also of Europe inspired William with hopes that, besides
+his brave Normans he might employ against England the flower of the
+military force which was dispersed in all the neighbouring states.
+France, Germany, and the Low Countries, by the progress of the feudal
+institutions, were divided and subdivided into many principalities and
+baronies; and the possessors, enjoying the civil jurisdiction within
+themselves, as well as the right of arms, acted, in many respects, as
+independent sovereigns, and maintained their properties and
+privileges, less by the authority of laws than by their own force and
+valour.  A military spirit had universally diffused itself throughout
+Europe; and the several leaders, whose minds were elevated by their
+princely situation, greedily embraced the most hazardous enterprises;
+and being accustomed to nothing from their infancy but recitals of the
+success attending wars and battles, they were prompted by a natural
+ambition to imitate those adventurers, which they heard so much
+celebrated, and which were so much exaggerated by the credulity of the
+age.  United, however loosely, by their duty to one superior lord, and
+by their connexions with the great body of the community to which they
+belonged, they desired to spread their fame each beyond his own
+district; and in all assemblies, whether instituted for civil
+deliberations, for military expeditions, or merely for show and
+entertainment, to outshine each other by the reputation of strength
+and prowess.  Hence their genius for chivalry; hence their impatience
+of peace and tranquillity; and hence their readiness to embark in any
+dangerous enterprise, how little soever interested in its failure or
+success.
+
+William, by his power, his courage, and his abilities, had long
+maintained a pre-eminence among those haughty chieftains; and every
+one who desired to signalize himself by his address in military
+exercises, or in valour in action, had been ambitious of acquiring a
+reputation in the court and in the armies of Normandy.  Entertained
+with that hospitality and courtesy which distinguished the age, they
+had formed attachments with the prince, and greedily attended to the
+prospects of the signal glory and elevation which he promised them in
+return for their concurrence in an expedition against England.  The
+more grandeur there appeared in the attempt, the more it suited their
+romantic spirit; the fame of the intended invasion was already
+diffused every where; multitudes crowded to tender to the Duke their
+service, with that of their vassals and retainers [i]; and William
+found less difficulty in completing his levies than in choosing the
+most veteran forces, and in rejecting the offers of those who were
+impatient to acquire fame under so renowned a leader.
+[FN [i] Gul. Pictavensis, p. 198.]
+
+Besides these advantages, which William owed to his personal valour
+and good conduct, he was indebted to fortune for procuring him some
+assistance, and also for removing many obstacles which it was natural
+for him to expect in an undertaking, in which all his neighbours were
+so deeply interested.  Conan, Count of Britany, was his mortal enemy;
+in order to throw a damp upon the duke's enterprise, he chose this
+conjuncture for reviving his claim to Normandy itself; and he required
+that, in case of William's success against England the possession of
+that duchy should devolve to him [k].  But Conan died suddenly after
+making this demand; and Hoel, his successor, instead of adopting the
+malignity, or, more properly speaking, the prudence of his
+predecessor, zealously seconded the duke's views and sent his eldest
+son, Alain Fergant, to serve under him with a body of five thousand
+Bretons.  The counts of Anjou and of Flanders encouraged their
+subjects to engage in the expedition; and even the court of France,
+though it might justly fear the aggrandizement of so dangerous a
+vassal, pursued not its interests on this occasion with sufficient
+vigour and resolution.  Philip I., the reigning monarch, was a minor;
+and William, having communicated his project to the council, having
+desired assistance, and offered to do homage, in case of his success,
+for the crown of England, was indeed openly ordered to lay aside all
+thoughts of the enterprise; but the Earl of Flanders, his father-in-
+law, being at the head of the regency, favoured underhand his levies,
+and secretly encouraged the adventurous nobility to enlist under the
+standard of the Duke of Normandy.
+[FN [k] Gul Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 33.]
+
+The Emperor, Henry IV., besides openly giving all his vassals
+permission to embark in this expedition, which so much engaged the
+attention of Europe, promised his protection to the duchy of Normandy
+during the absence of the prince, and thereby enabled him to employ
+his whole force in the invasion of England [l].  But the most
+important ally whom William gained by his negotiations was the pope,
+who had a mighty influence over the ancient barons, no less devout in
+their religious principles, than valorous in their military
+enterprises.  The Roman pontiff, after an insensible progress, during
+several ages of darkness and ignorance, began now to lift his head
+openly above all the princes of Europe; to assume the office of a
+mediator, or even an arbiter, in the quarrels of the greatest
+monarchs; to interpose in all secular affairs; and to obtrude his
+dictates as sovereign laws on his obsequious disciples. It was a
+sufficient motive to Alexander II., the reigning pope, for embracing
+William's quarrel, that he alone had made an appeal to his tribunal,
+and rendered him umpire of the dispute between him and Harold; but
+there were other advantages which that pontiff foresaw must result
+from the conquest of England by the Norman arms.  That kingdom, though
+at first converted by Romish missionaries, though it had afterwards
+advanced some farther steps towards subjection to Rome, maintained
+still a considerable independence in its ecclesiastical
+administration; and forming a world within itself, entirely separated
+from the rest of Europe, it had hitherto proved inaccessible to those
+exorbitant claims which supported the grandeur of the papacy.
+Alexander therefore hoped, that the French and Norman barons, if
+successful in their enterprise, might import into that country a more
+devoted reverence to the holy see, and bring the English churches to a
+nearer conformity with those of the continent.  He declared
+immediately in favour of William's claim; pronounced Harold a perjured
+usurper; denounced excommunication against him and his adherents; and
+the more to encourage the Duke of Normandy in his enterprise, he sent
+him a consecrated banner, and a ring with one of St. Peter's hairs in
+it [m].  Thus were al1 the ambition and violence of that invasion
+covered over safely with the broad mantle of religion.
+[FN [l] Gul. Pict. p. 198.  [m] Baker, p. 22. edit. 1684.]
+
+The greatest difficulty which William had to encounter in his
+preparations, arose from his own subjects in Normandy.  The states of
+the duchy were assembled at Lislebonne; and supplies being demanded
+for the intended enterprise, which promised so much glory and
+advantage to their country, there appeared a reluctance in many
+members, both to grant sums so much beyond the common measure of taxes
+in that age, and to set a precedent of performing their military
+service at a distance from their own country.  The duke, finding it
+dangerous to solicit them in a body, conferred separately with the
+richest individuals in the province; and beginning with those on whose
+affections he most relied, he gradually engaged all of them to advance
+the sums demanded.  The Count of Longueville seconded him in his
+negotiation; as did the Count of Mortaigne, Odo, Bishop of Baieux, and
+especially William Fitz-Osborne, Count of Breteuil, and constable of
+the duchy.  Every person, when he himself was once engaged,
+endeavoured to bring over others; and at last the states themselves,
+after stipulating that this concession should be no precedent, voted
+that they would assist their prince to the utmost in his intended
+enterprise [n].
+[FN [n] Camden. Introd. ad Britan. p. 212. 2nd edit.  Gibs. Verstegan,
+p. 173.]
+
+William had now assembled a fleet of three thousand vessels, great and
+small [o], and had selected an army of sixty thousand men from among
+those numerous supplies which from every quarter solicited to be
+received into his service.  The camp bore a splendid yet a martial
+appearance, from the discipline of the men, the beauty and vigour of
+the horse, the lustre of the arms, and the accoutrements of both; but
+above all, from the high names of nobility who engaged under the
+banners of the Duke of Normandy.  The most celebrated were Eustace,
+Count of Boulogne, Aimeri de Thouars, Hugh d'Estaples, William
+d'Evreux, Geoffrey de Routrou, Roger de Beaumont, William de Warenne,
+Roger de Montgomery, Hugh de Grantmesnil, Charles Martel, and Geoffrey
+Giffard [p].  To these bold chieftains William held up the spoils of
+England as the prize of their valour; and pointing to the opposite
+shore, called to them, that THERE was the field on which they must
+erect trophies to their name, and fix their establishments.
+[FN [o] Gul. Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 34.  [p] Order. Vitalis, p. 501.]
+
+While he was making these mighty preparations, the  duke, that he
+might increase the number of Harold's enemies, excited the inveterate
+rancour of Tosti, and encouraged him, in concert with Harold Halfagar,
+King of Norway, to infest the coasts of England.  Tosti, having
+collected about sixty vessels in the ports of Flanders, put to sea;
+and after committing some depredations on the south and east coasts,
+he sailed to Northumberland, and was there joined by Halfagar, who
+came over with a great armament of three hundred sail.  The combined
+fleets entered the Humber, and disembarked the troops, who began to
+extend their depredations on all sides; when Morcar, Earl of
+Northumberland, and Edwin, Earl of Mercia, the king's brother-in-law,
+having hastily collected some forces, ventured to give them battle.
+The action ended in the defeat and flight of these two noble men.
+
+Harold, informed of this defeat, hastened with an army to the
+protection of his people; and expressed the utmost ardour to show
+himself worthy of the crown which had been conferred upon him.  This
+prince, though he was not sensible of the full extent of his danger,
+from the great combination against him, had employed every art of
+popularity to acquire the affections of the public; and he gave so
+many proofs of an equitable and prudent administration that the
+English found no reason to repent the choice which they had made of a
+sovereign.  They flocked from all quarters to join his standard; and
+as soon as he reached the enemy at Standford, he found himself in a
+condition to give them battle.  [MN Sept. 25.]  The action was bloody;
+but the victory was decisive on the side of Harold, and ended in the
+total rout of the Norwegians, together with the death of Tosti and
+Halfagar.  Even the Norwegian fleet fell into the hands of Harold; who
+had the generosity to give Prince Olave, the son of Halfagar, his
+liberty, and allow him to depart with twenty vessels.  But he had
+scarcely time to rejoice for his victory, when he received
+intelligence that the Duke of Normandy was landed with a great army in
+the south of England.
+
+The Norman fleet and army had been assembled early in the summer, at
+the mouth of the small river Dive, and all the troops had been
+instantly embarked; but the winds proved long contrary, and detained
+them in that harbour.  The authority, however, of the duke, the good
+discipline maintained among the seamen and soldiers, and the great
+care in supplying them with provisions, had prevented any disorder;
+when at last the wind became favourable, and enabled them to sail
+along the coast, till they reached St. Valori.  There were, however,
+several vessels lost in this short passage; and as the wind again
+proved contrary, the army began to imagine that heaven had declared
+against them, and that, notwithstanding the pope's benediction, they
+were destined to certain destruction.  These bold warriors, who
+despised real dangers, were very subject to the dread of imaginary
+ones; and many of them began to mutiny, some of them even to desert
+their colours; when the duke, in order to support their drooping
+hopes, ordered a procession to be made with the relics of St. Valori
+[q], and prayers to be said for more favourable weather.  The wind
+instantly changed; and as this incident happened on the eve of the
+feast of St. Michael, the tutelar saint of Normandy, the soldiers,
+fancying they saw the hand of Heaven in all these concurring
+circumstances, set out with the greatest alacrity: they met with no
+opposition on their passage: a great fleet, which Harold has
+assembled, and which had cruized all summer off the Isle of Wight, had
+been dismissed, on his receiving false intelligence that William,
+discouraged by contrary winds and other accidents, had laid aside his
+preparations.  The Norman armament, proceeding in great order, arrived
+without any material loss, at Pevensey, in Sussex; and the army
+quietly disembarked.  The duke himself, as he leaped on shore,
+happened to stumble and fall; but had the presence of mind, it is
+said, to turn the omen to his advantage, by calling aloud that he had
+taken possession of the country.  And a soldier, running to a
+neighbouring cottage, plucked some thatch, which, as if giving seisin
+of the kingdom, he presented to his general.  The joy and alacrity of
+William and his whole army were so great, that they were nowise
+discouraged, even when they heard of Harold's great victory over the
+Norwegians; they seemed rather to wait with impatience for the arrival
+of the enemy.
+[FN [q] Higden, p. 285.  Order. Vitalis, p. 500.  Matth. Paris, edit.
+Paris., anno 1644, p. 2.]
+
+The victory of Harold, though great and honourable, had proved in the
+main prejudicial to his interests, and may be regarded as the
+immediate cause of his ruin.  He lost many of his bravest officers and
+soldiers in the action: and he disgusted the rest by refusing to
+distribute the Norwegian spoils among them: a conduct which was little
+agreeable to his usual generosity of temper; but which his desire of
+sparing the people, in the war that impended over him from the Duke of
+Normandy, had probably occasioned.  He hastened, by quick marches, to
+reach this new invader; but though he was reinforced at London and
+other places with fresh troops, he found  himself also weakened by the
+desertion of his old soldiers, who, from fatigue and discontent,
+secretly withdrew from their colours.  His brother Gurth, a man of
+bravery and conduct, began to entertain apprehensions of the event;
+and remonstrated with the king, that it would be better policy to
+prolong the war; at least, to spare his own person in the action.  He
+urged to him, that the desperate situation of the Duke of Normandy
+made it requisite for that prince to bring matters to a speedy
+decision, and put his whole fortune on the issue of a battle; but that
+the King of England, in his own country, beloved by his subjects,
+provided with every supply, had more certain and less dangerous means
+of ensuring to himself the victory; that the Norman troops, elated on
+the one hand with the highest hopes, and seeing, on the other, no
+resource in case of a discomfiture, would fight to the last extremity;
+and being the flower of all the warriors of the continent, must be
+regarded as formidable to the English: that if their first fire, which
+is always the most dangerous, were allowed to languish for want of
+action; if they were harassed with small skirmishes, straitened in
+provisions, and fatigued with the bad weather and deep roads during
+the winter season which was approaching, they must fall an easy and a
+bloodless prey to their enemy: that if a general action were delayed,
+the English, sensible of the imminent danger to which their
+properties, as well as liberties, were exposed from those rapacious
+invaders, would hasten from all quarters to his assistance, and would
+render his army invincible: that at least, if he thought it necessary
+to hazard a battle, he ought not to expose his own person, but
+reserve, in case of disastrous accidents, some resource to the liberty
+and independence of the kingdom: and that having once been so
+unfortunate as to be constrained to swear, and that upon the holy
+relics, to support the pretensions of the Duke of Normandy, it were
+better that the command of the army should be intrusted to another,
+who not being bound by those sacred ties, might give the soldiers more
+assured hopes of a prosperous issue to the combat.
+
+Harold was deaf to all these remonstrances: elated with his past
+prosperity, as well as stimulated by his native courage, he resolved
+to give battle in person; and  for that purpose he drew near to the
+Normans, who had removed their camp and fleet to Hastings, where they
+fixed their quarters.  He was so confident of success, that he sent a
+message to the duke, promising him a sum of money if he would depart
+the kingdom without effusion of blood: but his offer was rejected with
+disdain; and William, not to be behind with his enemy in vaunting,
+sent him a message by some monks, requiring him either to resign the
+kingdom, or to hold it of him in fealty, or to submit their cause to
+the arbitration of the pope, or to fight him in single combat.  Harold
+replied, that the God of battles would soon be the arbiter of all
+their .differences [r].
+[FN [r] Higden, p. 286.]
+
+[MN 14th October.]  The English and Normans now prepared themselves
+for this important decision; but the aspect of things on the night
+before the battle was very different in the two camps.  The English
+spent the night in riot, and jollity, and disorder; the Normans in
+silence, and in prayer, and in the other functions of their religion
+[s].  On the morning, the duke called together the most considerable
+of his commanders, and made them a speech suitable to the occasion.
+He represented to them, that the event which they and he had long
+wished for was approaching; the whole fortune of the war now depended
+on their swords, and would be decided in a single action: that never
+army had greater motives for exerting a vigorous courage, whether they
+considered the prize which would attend their victory, or the
+inevitable destruction which must ensue upon their discomfiture: that
+if their martial and veteran bands could once break those raw
+soldiers, who had rashly dared to approach them, they conquered a
+kingdom at one blow, and were justly entitled to all its possessions
+as the reward of their prosperous valour: that, on the contrary, if
+they remitted in the least their wonted prowess, an enraged enemy hung
+upon their rear, the sea met them in their retreat, and an ignominious
+death was the certain punishment of their imprudent cowardice: that by
+collecting so numerous and brave a host, he had ensured every human
+means of conquest; and the commander of the enemy, by his criminal
+conduct, had given him just cause to hope for the favour of the
+Almighty, in whose hands alone lay the event of wars and battles: and
+that a perjured usurper, anathematized by the sovereign pontiff, and
+conscious of his own breach of faith, would be struck with terror on
+their appearance, and would prognosticate to himself that fate which
+his multiplied crimes had so justly merited [t].  The duke next
+divided his army into three lines: the first, led by Montgomery,
+consisted of archers and light-armed infantry: the second, commanded
+by Martel, was composed of his bravest battalions, heavy armed, and
+ranged in close order: his cavalry, at whose head he placed himself,
+formed the third line; and were so disposed, that they stretched
+beyond the infantry, and flanked each wing of the army [u].  He
+ordered the signal of battle to be given; and the whole army, moving
+at once, and singing the hymn or song of Roland, the famous peer of
+Charlemagne [w], advanced, in order, and with alacrity, towards the
+enemy.
+[FN [s] W. Malm. p. 101.  De Gest. Angl. p. 332.  [t] H. Hunt. p. 368.
+Brompton p. 959.  Gul. Pict. p. 201.  [u] Gul. Pict. p. 201.  Order.
+Vital. p. 501.  [w] W. Malm. p. 101.  Higden, p. 286.  Matth. West. p.
+223.  Du Cange's Glossary, in verbo CANTILENA ROLANDI.]
+
+Harold had seized the advantage of a rising ground, and having
+likewise drawn some trenches to secure his flanks, he resolved to
+stand upon the defensive, and to avoid all action with the cavalry, in
+which he was inferior.  The Kentish men were placed in the van, a post
+which they had always claimed as their due: the Londoners guarded the
+standard: and the king himself, accompanied by his two valiant
+brothers, Gurth and Leofwin, dismounting, placed himself at the head
+of his infantry, and expressed his resolution to conquer or to perish
+in the action.  The first attack of the Normans was desperate, but was
+received with equal valour by the English; and after a furious combat,
+which remained long undecided, the former, overcome by the difficulty
+of the ground, and hard pressed by the enemy, began first to relax
+their vigour, then to retreat; and confusion was spreading among the
+ranks, when William, who found himself on the brink of destruction,
+hastened with a select band to the relief of his dismayed forces.  His
+presence restored the action; the English were obliged to retire with
+loss; and the duke, ordering his second line to advance, renewed the
+attack with fresh forces, and with redoubled courage.  Finding that
+the enemy, aided by the advantage of ground, and animated by the
+example of their prince, still made a vigorous resistance, he tried a
+stratagem, which was very delicate in its management, but which seemed
+advisable in his desperate situation, where, if he gained not a
+decisive victory, he was totally undone: he commanded his troops to
+make a hasty retreat, and to allure the enemy from their ground by the
+appearance of flight.  The artifice succeeded against those
+inexperienced soldiers, who, heated by the action, and sanguine in
+their hopes, precipitately followed the Normans into the plain.
+William gave orders, that at once the infantry should face about upon
+their pursuers, and the cavalry make an assault upon their wings, and
+both of them pursue the advantage which the surprise and terror of the
+enemy must give them in that critical and decisive moment.  The
+English were repulsed with great slaughter, and driven back to the
+hill; where, being rallied by the bravery of Harold, they were able,
+notwithstanding their loss, to maintain their post, and continue the
+combat.  The duke tried the same stratagem a second time with the same
+success; but even after this double advantage, he still found a great
+body of the English, who, maintaining themselves in firm array, seemed
+determined to dispute the victory to the last extremity.  He ordered
+his heavy-armed infantry to make an assault upon them; while his
+archers placed behind, should gall the enemy, who were exposed by the
+situation of the ground, and who were intent on defending themselves
+against the swords and spears of the assailants.  By this disposition
+he at last prevailed: Harold was slain by an arrow while he was
+combating with great bravery at the head of his men: his two brothers
+shared the same fate: and the English, discouraged by the fall of
+those princes, gave ground on all sides, and were pursued with great
+slaughter by the victorious Normans.  A few troops, however, of the
+vanquished had still the courage to turn upon their pursuers; and
+attacking them in deep and miry ground, obtained some revenge for the
+slaughter and dishonour of the day.  But the appearance of the duke
+obliged them to seek their safety by flight; and darkness saved them
+from any farther pursuit by the enemy.
+
+Thus was gained by William, Duke of Normandy, the great and decisive
+victory of Hastings, after a battle which was fought from morning till
+sunset, and which seemed worthy, by the heroic valour displayed by
+both armies, and by both commanders, to decide the fate of a mighty
+kingdom.  William had three horses killed under him; and there fell
+near fifteen thousand men on the side of the Normans: the loss was
+still more considerable on that of the vanquished; besides the death
+of the king and his two brothers.  The dead body of Harold was brought
+to William, and was generously restored without ransom to his mother.
+The Norman army left not the field of battle without giving thanks to
+Heaven in the most solemn manner for their victory; and the prince,
+having refreshed his troops, prepared to push to the utmost his
+advantage against the divided, dismayed, and discomfited English.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX I.
+
+THE ANGLO-SAXON GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
+
+FIRST SAXON GOVERNMENT.--SUCCESSION OF THE KINGS.--THE WITTENAGEMOT.--
+THE ARISTOCRACY.--THE SEVERAL ORDERS OF MEN.--COURTS OF JUSTICE.--
+CRIMINAL LAW.--RULES OF PROOF.--MILITARY FORCE.--PUBLIC REVENUE.--
+VALUE OF MONEY.--MANNERS.
+
+
+
+The government of the Germans, and that of all the northern nations,
+who established themselves on the ruins of Rome, was always extremely
+free; and those fierce people, accustomed to independence and inured
+to arms, were more guided by persuasion than authority, in the
+submission which they paid to their princes.  The military despotism,
+which had taken place in the Roman empire, and which, previously to
+the irruption of those conquerors, had sunk the genius of men, and
+destroyed every noble principle of science and virtue, was unable to
+resist the vigorous efforts of a free people; and Europe, as from a
+new epoch, rekindled her ancient spirit, and shook off the base
+servitude to arbitrary will and authority under which she had so long
+laboured.  The free constitutions then established, however impaired
+by the encroachments of succeeding princes, still preserve an air of
+independence and legal administration, which distinguish the European
+nations; and if that part of the globe maintain sentiments of liberty,
+honour, equity and valour, superior to the rest of mankind, it owes
+these advantages chiefly to the seeds implanted by those generous
+barbarians.
+
+[MN First Saxon government.]
+The Saxons, who subdued Britain, as they enjoyed great liberty in
+their own country, obstinately retained that invaluable possession in
+their new settlement; and they imported into this island the same
+principles of independence which they had inherited from their
+ancestors.  The chieftains (for such they were, more properly than
+kings or princes) who commanded them in those military expeditions,
+still possessed a very limited authority; and as the Saxons
+exterminated, rather than subdued, the ancient inhabitants, they were
+indeed transplanted into a new territory, but preserved unaltered all
+their civil and military institutions.  The language was pure Saxon;
+even the names of places, which often remain while the tongue entirely
+changes, were almost all affixed by the conquerors; the manners and
+customs were wholly German; and the same picture of a fierce and bold
+liberty, which is drawn by the masterly pencil of Tacitus, will suit
+those founders of the English government.  The king, so far from being
+invested with arbitrary power, was only considered as the first among
+the citizens; his authority depended more on his personal qualities
+than on his station; he was even so far on a level with the people,
+that a stated price was fixed for his head, and a legal fine was
+levied upon his murderer, which, though proportionate to his station,
+and superior to that paid for the life of a subject, was a sensible
+mark of his subordination to the community.
+
+[MN Succession of the kings.]
+It is easy to imagine, that an independent people, so little
+restrained by law and cultivated by science, would not be very strict
+in maintaining a regular succession of their princes.  Though they
+paid great regard to the royal family, and ascribed to it an
+undisputed superiority, they either had no rule, or none that was
+steadily observed, in filling the vacant throne; and present
+convenience, in that emergency, was more attended to than general
+principles.  We are not, however, to suppose that the crown was
+considered as altogether elective; and that a regular plan was traced
+by the constitution for supplying, by the suffrages of the people,
+every vacancy made by the demise of the first magistrate.  If any king
+left a son of an age and capacity fit for government, the young prince
+naturally stepped into the throne: if he was a minor, his uncle, or
+the next prince of the blood, was promoted to the government, and left
+the sceptre to his posterity: any sovereign, by taking previous
+measures with the leading men, had it greatly in his power to appoint
+his successor: all these changes, and indeed the ordinary
+administration of government, required the express concurrence, or at
+least the tacit acquiescence, of the people; but possession, however
+obtained, was extremely apt to secure their obedience, and the idea of
+any right, which was once excluded, was but feeble and imperfect.
+This is so much the case in all barbarous monarchies, and occurs so
+often in the history of the Anglo-Saxons, that we cannot consistently
+entertain any other notion of their government.  The idea of an
+hereditary succession in authority is so natural to men, and is so
+much fortified by the usual rule in transmitting private possessions,
+that it must retain a great influence on every society, which does not
+exclude it by the refinements of a republican constitution.  But as
+there is a material difference between government and private
+possessions, and every man is not as much qualified for exercising the
+one, as for enjoying the other, a people, who are not sensible of the
+general advantages attending a fixed rule, and apt to make great leaps
+in the succession, and frequently to pass over the person, who, had he
+possessed the requisite years and abilities, would have been thought
+entitled to the sovereignty.  Thus, these monarchies are not, strictly
+speaking, either elective or hereditary; and though the destination of
+a prince may often be followed in appointing his successor, they can
+as little be regarded as wholly testamentary.  The states by their
+suffrage may sometimes establish a sovereign; but they more frequently
+recognize the person whom they find established: a few great men take
+the lead; the people, overawed and influenced, acquiesce in the
+government; and the reigning prince, provided he be of the royal
+family, passes undisputedly for the legal sovereign.
+
+[MN The Wittenagemot.]
+It is confessed, that our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon history and
+antiquities is too imperfect to afford us means of determining, with
+certainty, all the prerogatives of the crown and privileges of the
+people, or of giving an exact delineation of that government.  It is
+probable, also, that the constitution might be somewhat different in
+the different kingdoms of the Heptarchy, and that it changed
+considerably during the course of six centuries, which elapsed from
+the first invasion of the Saxons till the Norman conquest [a].  But
+most of these differences and changes, with their causes and effects,
+are unknown to us.  It only appears, that at all times, and in all the
+kingdoms, there was a national council, called a Wittenagemot, or
+assembly of the wise men, (for that is the import of the term,) whose
+consent was requisite for enacting laws, and for ratifying the chief
+acts of public administration.  The preambles to all the laws of
+Ethelbert, Ina, Alfred, Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edmond, Edgar,
+Ethelred, and Edward the Confessor; even those to the laws of Canute,
+though a kind of conqueror, put this matter beyond controversy, and
+carry proofs everywhere of a limited and legal government.  But who
+were the constituent members of this Wittenagemot has not been
+determined with certainty by antiquaries.  It is agreed, that the
+bishops and abbots [b] were an essential part; and it is also evident,
+from the tenour of those ancient laws, that the Wittenagemot enacted
+statutes which regulated the ecclesiastical as well as civil
+government, and that those dangerous principles, by which the church
+is totally severed from the state, were hitherto unknown to the
+Anglo-Saxons [c].  It also appears, that the aldermen, or governors of
+counties, who, after the Danish times, were often called earls [d],
+were admitted into this council, and gave their consent to the public
+statutes.  But besides the prelates and aldermen, there is also
+mention of the Wites, or Wise-men, as a component part of the
+Wittenagemot; but who THESE were, is not so clearly ascertained by the
+laws or the history of that period.  The matter would probably be of
+difficult discussion, even were it examined impartially; but as our
+modern parties have chosen to divide on this point, the question has
+been disputed with the greater obstinacy, and the arguments on both
+sides have become, on that account, the more captious and deceitful.
+Our monarchical faction maintain, that these WITES, or SAPIENTES, were
+the judges, or men learned in the law; the popular faction assert them
+to be representatives of the boroughs, or what we now call the
+Commons.
+[FN [a] We know of one change, not inconsiderable, in the Saxon
+constitution.  The Saxon Annals, p. 49, inform us, that it was in
+early times the prerogative of the king to name the dukes, earls,
+aldermen, and sheriffs of the counties.  Asser, a contemporary writer,
+informs us, that Alfred deposed all the ignorant aldermen, and
+appointed men of more capacity in their place.  Yet the laws of Edward
+the Confessor, Sec. 35, say expressly, that the Heretoghs or dukes,
+and the sheriffs, were chosen by the freeholders in the folkmote, a
+county court, which was assembled once a year, and where all the
+freeholders swore allegiance to the king.  [b] Sometimes abbesses were
+admitted; at least, they often sign the king's charters or grants.
+Spellm. Gloss. in verbo PARLIAMENTUM.  [c] Wilkins, passim.  [d] See
+note [G] at the end of the volume.]
+
+The expressions employed by all ancient historians, in mentioning the
+Wittenagemot, seem to contradict the latter supposition.  The members
+are almost always called the PRINCIPES, SATRAPAE, OPTIMATES, MAGNATES,
+PROCERES; terms which seem to suppose an aristocracy, and to exclude
+the Commons.  The boroughs also, from the low state of commerce, were
+so small and so poor, and the inhabitants lived in such dependence on
+the great men [e], that it seemed nowise probable they would be
+admitted as a part of the national councils.  The Commons are well
+known to have had no share in the governments established by the
+Franks, Burgundians, and other northern nations; and we may conclude
+that the Saxons, who remained longer barbarous and uncivilized than
+those tribes, would never think of conferring such an extraordinary
+privilege on trade and industry.  The military profession alone was
+honourable among all those conquerors; the warriors subsisted by their
+possessions in land; they became considerable by their influence over
+their vassals, retainers, tenants, and slaves; and it requires strong
+proof to convince us that they would admit any of a rank so much
+inferior as the burgesses, to share with them in the legislative
+authority.  Tacitus indeed affirms, that among the ancient Germans,
+the consent of all the members of the community was required in every
+important deliberation; but he speaks not of representatives; and this
+ancient practice, mentioned by the Roman historian, could only have
+place in small tribes, where every citizen might, without
+inconvenience, be assembled upon any extraordinary emergency.  After
+principalities became extensive; after the difference of property had
+formed distinctions more important than those which arose from
+personal strength and valour, we may conclude, that the national
+assemblies must have been more limited in their number, and composed
+only of the more considerable citizens.
+[FN [e] Brady's Treatise of English Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, &c.]
+
+But though we must exclude the burgesses, or Commons from the Saxon
+Wittenagemot, there is some necessity for supposing that this assembly
+consisted of other members than the prelates, abbots, aldermen, and
+the judges or privy council.  For as all these, excepting some of the
+ecclesiastics [f], were anciently appointed by the king, had there
+been no other legislative authority, the royal power had been in a
+great measure absolute, contrary to the tenour of all the historians,
+and to the practice of all the northern nations.  We may therefore
+conclude, that the more considerable proprietors of land were, without
+any election, constituent members of the national assembly; there is
+reason to think that forty hides, or between four and five thousand
+acres, was the estate requisite for entitling the possessor to this
+honourable privilege.  We find a passage in an ancient author [g], by
+which it appears, that a person of very noble birth, even one allied
+to the crown, was not esteemed a PRINCEPS (the term usually employed
+by ancient historians, when the Wittenagemot is mentioned) till he had
+acquired a fortune of that amount.  Nor need we imagine that the
+public council would become disorderly or confused by admitting so
+great a multitude.  The landed property of England was probably in few
+hands during the Saxon times; at least during the latter part of that
+period; and as men had hardly any ambition to attend those public
+councils, there was no danger of the assembly's becoming too numerous
+for the despatch of the little business which was brought before them.
+[FN [f] There is some reason to think, that the bishops were sometimes
+chosen by the Wittenagemot, and confirmed by the king.  Eddius, cap.
+2.  The abbots in the monasteries of royal foundation were anciently
+named by the king; though Edgar gave the monks the election, and only
+reserved to himself the ratification.  This destination was afterwards
+frequently violated; and the abbots, as well as bishops were
+afterwards all appointed by the king; as we learn from Ingulph, a
+writer contemporary with the conquest.  [g] Hist. Eliensis, lib. 2
+cap. 40.]
+
+It is certain, that, whatever we may determine concerning the
+constituent members of the Wittenagemot, in whom, with the king, the
+legislature resided, the Anglo-Saxon government, in the period
+preceding the Norman conquest, was become extremely aristocratical;
+the royal authority was very limited; the people, even if admitted to
+that assembly, were of little or no weight and consideration.  We have
+hints given us in historians, of the great power and riches of
+particular noblemen: and it could not but happen, after the abolition
+of the Heptarchy, when the king lived at a distance from the
+provinces, that those great proprietors, who resided on their estates,
+would much augment their authority over their vassals and retainers,
+and over all the inhabitants of the neighbourhood.  Hence the
+immeasurable power assumed by Harold, Godwin, Leofric, Siward, Morcar,
+Edwin, Edric, and Alfric, who controlled the authority of the kings,
+and rendered themselves quite necessary in the government.  The two
+latter, though detested by the people, on account of their joining a
+foreign enemy, still preserved their power and influence; and we may
+therefore conclude, that their authority was founded, not on
+popularity, but on family rights and possessions.  There is one
+Athelstan, mentioned in the reign of the king of that name, who is
+called Alderman of all England, and is said to be half-king; though
+the monarch himself was a prince of valour and abilities [h].  And we
+find, that in the latter Saxon times, and in these alone, the great
+office went from father to son, and became in a manner hereditary in
+the families [i].
+[FN [h] Hist. Rames. Sec. 3, p. 387.  [i] Roger Hoveden, giving the
+reason why William the Conqueror made Cospatric Earl of
+Northumberland, says, NAM EX MATERNO SANGUINE ATTINEBAT AD EUM HONOR
+ILLIUS COMITATUS.  ERAT ENIM EX MATRE ALGITHA, FILIA UTHREDI COMITIS.
+See also Sim. Dun. p. 205.  We see in those instances the same
+tendency towards rendering offices hereditary, which took place,
+during a more early period, on the continent, and which had already
+produced there its full effect.]
+
+The circumstances attending the invasions of the Danes would also
+serve much to increase the power of the principal nobility.  Those
+freebooters made unexpected inroads on all quarters; and there was a
+necessity that each county should resist them by its own force, and
+under the conduct of its own nobility and its own magistrates.  For
+the same reason that a general war, managed by the united efforts of
+the state, commonly augments the power of the crown; those private
+wars and inroads turned to the advantage of the aldermen and nobles.
+
+Among that military and turbulent people, so averse to commerce and
+the arts, and so little inured to industry, justice was commonly very
+ill administered, and great oppression and violence seem to have
+prevailed.  These disorders would be increased by the exorbitant power
+of the aristocracy; and would, in their turn, contribute to increase
+it.  Men, not daring to rely on the guardianship of the laws, were
+obliged to devote themselves to the service of some chieftain, whose
+orders they followed, even to the disturbance of the government, or
+the injury of their fellow-citizens, and who afforded them, in return,
+protection from any insult or injustice by strangers.  Hence, we find
+by the extracts which Dr. Brady has given us from Domesday, that
+almost all the inhabitants, even of towns, had placed themselves under
+the clientship of some particular nobleman, whose patronage they
+purchased by annual payments, and whom they were obliged to consider
+as their sovereign, more than the king himself, or even the
+legislature [k].  A client, though a freeman, was supposed so much to
+belong to his patron, that his murderer was obliged by law to pay a
+fine to the latter, as a compensation for his loss; in like manner as
+he paid a fine to the master for the murder of his slave [l].  Men who
+were of a more considerable rank, but not powerful enough each to
+support himself by his own independent authority, entered into formal
+confederacies with each other, and composed a kind of separate
+community, which rendered itself formidable to all aggressors.  Dr.
+Hickes has preserved a curious Saxon bond of this kind, which he calls
+a SODALITIUM, and which contains many particulars characteristical of
+the manners and customs of the times [m].  All the associates are
+there said to be gentlemen of Cambridgeshire, and they swear before
+the holy relics to observe their confederacy, and to be faithful to
+each other: they promise to bury any of the associates who dies, in
+whatever place he had appointed; to contribute to his funeral charges,
+and to attend at his interment; and whoever is wanting in this last
+duty, binds himself to pay a measure of honey.  When any of the
+associates is in danger, and calls for the assistance of his fellows,
+they promise, besides flying to his succour, to give information to
+the sheriff; and if he be negligent in protecting the person exposed
+to danger, they engage to levy a fine of one pound upon him: if the
+president of the society himself be wanting in this particular, he
+binds himself to pay one pound; unless he has the reasonable excuse of
+sickness, or of duty to his superior.  When any of the associates is
+murdered, they are to exact eight pounds from the murderer; and if he
+refuse to pay it, they are to prosecute him for the sum at their joint
+expense.  If any of the associates who happens to be poor kill a man,
+the society are to contribute, by a certain proportion, to pay his
+fine: a mark a-piece if the fine be seven hundred shillings; less if
+the person killed be a clown or ceorle; the half of that sum, again,
+if he be a Welshman.  But where any of the associates kills a man,
+wilfully and without provocation, he must himself pay the fine.  If
+any of the associates kill any of his fellows in a like criminal
+manner, besides paying the usual fine to the relations of the
+deceased, he must pay eight pounds to the society, or renounce the
+benefit of it; in which case, they bind themselves, under the penalty
+of one pound, never to eat or drink with him, except in the presence
+of the king, bishop, or alderman.  There are other regulations to
+protect themselves and their servants from all injuries, to revenge
+such as are committed, and to prevent their giving abusive language to
+each other; and the fine, which they engage to pay for this last
+offence, is a measure of honey.
+[FN [k] Brady's Treatise of Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, &c.  The case was
+the same with the freemen in the country.  See Pref. to his Hist. p.
+8, 9, 10, &c.  [1] LL. Edw. Conf. Sec. 8. apud Ingulph.  [m] Dissert.
+Epist. p. 21.]
+
+It is not to be doubted but a confederacy of this kind must have been
+a great source of friendship and attachment; when men lived in
+perpetual danger from enemies, robbers, and oppressors, and received
+protection chiefly from their personal valour, and from the assistance
+of their friends or patrons.  As animosities were then more violent,
+connexions were also more intimate, whether voluntary or derived from
+blood: the most remote degree of propinquity was regarded: an
+indelible memory of benefits was preserved: severe vengeance was taken
+for injuries, both from a point of honour, and as the best means of
+future security: and the civil union being weak, many private
+engagements were contracted in order to supply its place, and to
+procure men that safety which the laws and their own innocence were
+not alone able to insure to them.
+
+On the whole, notwithstanding the seeming liberty, or rather
+licentiousness, of the Anglo-Saxons, the great body even of the free
+citizens, in those ages, really enjoyed much less true liberty, than
+where the execution of the laws is the most severe, and where subjects
+are reduced to the strictest subordination and dependence on the civil
+magistrate.  The reason is derived from the excess itself of that
+liberty.  Men must guard themselves at any price against insults and
+injuries; and where they receive not protection from the laws and
+magistrate, they will seek it by submission to superiors, and by
+herding in some private confederacy which acts under the direction of
+a powerful leader.  And thus all anarchy is the immediate cause of
+tyranny, if not over the state, at least over many of the individuals.
+Security was provided by the Saxon laws to all members of the
+Wittenagemot, both in going and returning, EXCEPT THEY WERE NOTORIOUS
+THIEVES AND ROBBERS.
+
+[MN The several orders of men.]
+The German Saxons, as the other nations of that continent, were
+divided into three ranks of men, the noble, the free, and the slaves
+[n].  This distinction they brought over with them into Britain.
+[FN [n] Nithard. Hist. lib. 4.]
+
+The nobles were called thanes; and were of two kinds, the king's
+thanes and lesser thanes.  The latter seem to have been dependent on
+the former; and to have received lands, for which they paid rent,
+services, or attendance in peace and war [o].  We know of no title
+which raised any one to the rank of thane, except noble birth and the
+possession of land.  The former was always much regarded by all the
+German nations, even in their most barbarous state; and as the Saxon
+nobility, having little credit, could scarcely burthen their estates
+with much debt, and as the Commons had little trade or industry by
+which they could accumulate riches, these two ranks of men, even
+though they were not separated by positive laws, might remain long
+distinct, and the noble families continue many ages in opulence and
+splendour.  There were no middle ranks of men that could gradually mix
+with their superiors, and insensibly procure to themselves honour and
+distinction.  If by any extraordinary accident a mean person acquired
+riches, a circumstance so singular made him be known and remarked; he
+became the object of envy, as well as of indignation, to all the
+nobles; he would have great difficulty to defend what he had acquired;
+and he would find it impossible to protect himself from oppression,
+except by courting the patronage of some great chieftain, and paying a
+large price for his safety.
+[FN [o] Spellm. Feuds and Tenures, p. 40.]
+
+There are two statutes among the Saxon laws which seem calculated to
+confound those different ranks of men; that of Athelstan, by which a
+merchant, who had made three long sea voyages on his own account, was
+entitled to the quality of thane [p]; and that of the same prince, by
+which a ceorle or husbandman, who had been able to purchase five hides
+of land, and had a chapel, a kitchen, a hall, and a bell, was raised
+to the same distinction [q].  But the opportunities were so few, by
+which a merchant or ceorle could thus exalt himself above his rank,
+that the law could never overcome the reigning prejudices; the
+distinction between noble and base blood would still be indelible; and
+the well-born thanes would entertain the highest contempt for those
+legal and factitious ones.  Though we are not informed of any of these
+circumstances by ancient historians, they are so much founded on the
+nature of things, that we may admit them as a necessary and infallible
+consequence of the situation of the kingdom during those ages.
+[FN [p] Wilkins, p. 71.  [q] Selden, Titles of Honour, p. 515.
+Wilkins, p. 70.]
+
+The cities appear by Domesday-book to have been at the Conquest little
+better than villages [r].  York itself, though it was always the
+second, at least the third [s], city in England, and was the capital
+of a great province, which never was thoroughly united with the rest,
+contained but one thousand four hundred and eighteen families [t].
+Malmsbury tells us [u], that the great distinction between the
+Anglo-Saxon nobility, and the French or Norman was, that the latter
+built magnificent and stately castles; whereas the former consumed
+their immense fortunes in riot and, hospitality, and in mean houses.
+We may thence infer, that the arts in general were much less advanced
+in England than in France; a greater number of idle servants and
+retainers lived about the great families; and as these, even in
+France, were powerful enough to disturb the execution of the laws, we
+may judge of the authority acquired by the aristocracy in England.
+When Earl Godwin besieged the Confessor in London, he summoned from
+all parts his huscarles or houseceorles and retainers, and thereby
+constrained his sovereign to accept of the conditions which he was
+pleased to impose upon him.
+[FN [r] Winchester, being the capital of the West Saxon monarchy, was
+anciently a considerable city.  Gul. Pict. p. 210.  [s] Norwich
+contained 738 houses, Exeter 315, Ipswich 538, Northampton 60,
+Hereford 146, Canterbury 262, Bath 64, Southampton 84, Warwick 225.
+See Brady of Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, 6, &c.  These are the most
+considerable he mentions.  The account of them is extracted from
+Domesday-book.  [t] Brady's Treatise of Boroughs, p. 10.  There were
+six wards, besides the archbishop's palace; and five of these wards
+contained the number of families here mentioned, which, at the rate of
+five persons to a family, makes about 7000 souls.  The sixth ward was
+laid waste.  [u] p. 102.  See also, De Gest. Angl. p. 333.]
+
+The lower rank of freemen were denominated ceorles among the
+Anglo-Saxons; and, where they were industrious, they were chiefly
+employed in husbandry: whence a ceorle and a husbandman became in a
+manner synonymous terms.  They cultivated the farms of the nobility or
+thanes, for which they paid rent; and they seem to have been
+removeable at pleasure.  For there is little mention of leases among
+the Anglo-Saxons; the pride of the nobility, together with the general
+ignorance of writing, must have rendered these contracts very rare,
+and must have kept the husbandmen in a dependent condition.  The rents
+of farms were then chiefly paid in kind [w].
+[FN [w] LL. Inae, Sec. 70.  These laws fixed the rents for a hide; but
+it is difficult to convert it into modern measures.]
+
+But the most numerous rank by far in the community seems to have been
+the slaves or villains, who were the property of their lords, and were
+consequently incapable themselves of possessing any property.  Dr.
+Brady assures us, from a survey of Domesday-book [x], that in all the
+counties of England, the far greater part of the land was occupied by
+them, and that the husbandmen, and still more the socmen, who were
+tenants that could not be removed at pleasure, were very few in
+comparison.  This was not the case with the German nations, as far as
+we can collect from the account given us by Tacitus.  The perpetual
+wars in the Heptarchy, and the depredations of the Danes, seem to have
+been the cause of this great alteration with the Anglo-Saxons.
+Prisoners taken in battle, or carried off in the frequent inroads,
+were then reduced to slavery; and became, by right of war [y],
+entirely at the disposal of their lords.  Great property in the
+nobles, especially if joined to an irregular administration of
+justice, naturally favours the power of the aristocracy; but still
+more so if the practice of slavery be admitted, and has become very
+common.  The nobility not only possess the influence which always
+attends riches, but also the power which the laws give them over their
+slaves and villains.  It then becomes difficult, and almost
+impossible, for a private man to remain altogether free and
+independent.
+[FN [x] General Preface to his Hist. p. 7, 8, 9 &c.  [y] LL. Edg. Sec.
+14 apud Spellm. Conc. vol. 1. p. 471.]
+
+There were two kinds of slaves among the Anglo-Saxons; household
+slaves, after the manner of the ancients, and praedial, or rustic,
+after the manner of' the Germans [z].  These latter resembled the
+serfs, which are at present to be met with in Poland, Denmark, and
+some parts of Germany.  The power of a master over his slaves was not
+unlimited among the Anglo-Saxons, as it was among their ancestors.  If
+a man beat out his slave's eye or teeth, the slave recovered his
+liberty [a]: if he killed him, he paid a fine to the king, provided
+the slave died within a day after the wound or blow; otherwise it
+passed unpunished [b].  The selling of themselves or children to
+slavery was always the practice among the German nations [c], and was
+continued by the Anglo-Saxons [d].
+[FN [z] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. SERRUS  [a] LL. Aelf. Sec. 20.  [b]
+Ibid 17.  [c] Tacit. de Morib. Germ.  [d] LL. Inae, Sec. 11  LL. Aelf.
+Sec. 12.]
+
+The great lords and abbots among the Anglo-Saxons possessed a criminal
+jurisdiction within their territories, and could punish without
+appeal, any thieves or robbers  whom they caught there [e].  This
+institution must have had a very contrary effect to that which was
+intended, and must have procured robbers a sure protection on the
+lands of such noblemen as did not sincerely mean to discourage crimes
+and violence.
+[FN [e] Higden, lib. 1. cap. 50.  LL. Edw. Conf. Sec. 26.  Spellm.
+Conc. vol. i. p. 415.  Gloss. in verb. HALIGEMOT ET INFANGENTHEFE.]
+
+[MN Courts of justice.]
+But though the general strain of the Anglo-Saxon government seems to
+have become aristocratical, there were still considerable remains of
+the ancient democracy, which were not indeed sufficient to protect the
+lowest of the people, without the patronage of some great lord, but
+might give security, and even some degree of dignity, to the gentry,
+or inferior nobility.  The administration of justice, in particular,
+by the courts of the decennary, the hundred, and the county, was well
+calculated to defend general liberty, and to restrain the power of the
+nobles.  In the county courts, or shiremotes, all the freeholders were
+assembled twice a year, and received appeals from the inferior courts.
+They there decided all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil; and
+the bishop, together with the alderman or earl, presided over them
+[f].  The affair was determined in a summary manner, without much
+pleading, formality, or delay, by a majority of voices; and the bishop
+and alderman had no farther authority than to keep order among the
+freeholders, and interpose with their opinion [g].  Where justice was
+denied during three sessions by the hundred, and then by the county
+court, there lay an appeal to the king's court [h]; but this was not
+practised on slight occasions.  The alderman received a third of the
+fines levied in those courts [i]; and as most of the punishments were
+then pecuniary, this perquisite formed a considerable part of the
+profits belonging to his office.  The two-thirds also which went to
+the king, made no contemptible part of the public revenue.  Any
+freeholder was fined who absented himself thrice from these courts
+[k].
+[FN [f] LL. Edg. Sec. 5.  Wilkins, p. 78.  LL. Canut. Sec. 17.
+Wilkins, p. 136.  [g] Hickes, Dissert. Epist. p. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
+[h] LL. Edg Sec. 2.  Wilkins, p. 77.  LL. Canut. Sec. 18. apud
+Wilkins, p. 136.  [i] LL. Edw. Conf. Sec. 31.  [k] LL. Ethelst. Sec.
+20.]
+
+As the extreme ignorance of the age made deeds and writings very rare,
+the county or hundred court was the place where the most remarkable
+civil transactions were finished, in order to preserve the memory of
+them, and prevent all future disputes.  Here testaments were
+promulgated, slaves manumitted, bargains of sale concluded; and
+sometimes, for greater security, the most considerable of these deeds
+were inserted in the blank leaves of the parish bible, which thus
+became a kind of register too sacred to be falsified.  It was not
+unusual to add to the deed an imprecation on all such as should be
+guilty of that crime [l].
+[FN [1] Hickes, Dissert. Epist.]
+
+Among a people, who lived in so simple a manner as the Anglo-Saxons,
+the judicial power is always of greater importance than the
+legislative.  There were few or no taxes imposed by the states; there
+were few statutes enacted; and the nation was less governed by laws
+than by customs, which admitted a great latitude of interpretation.
+Though it should therefore be allowed that the Wittenagemot was
+altogether composed of the principal nobility, the county courts,
+where all the freeholders were admitted, and which regulated all the
+daily occurrences of life, formed a wide basis for the government, and
+were no contemptible checks on the aristocracy.  But there is another
+power still more important than either the judicial or legislative; to
+wit, the power of injuring or serving by immediate force and violence,
+for which it is difficult to obtain redress in courts of justice.  In
+all extensive governments, where the execution of the laws is feeble,
+this power naturally falls into the hands of the principal nobility;
+and the degree of it which prevails cannot be determined so much by
+the public statutes, as by small incidents in history, by particular
+customs, and sometimes by the reason and nature of things.  The
+Highlands of Scotland have long been entitled by law to every
+privilege of British subjects; but it was not till very lately that
+the common people could in fact enjoy these privileges.
+
+The powers of all the members of the Anglo-Saxon government are
+disputed among historians and antiquaries; the extreme obscurity of
+the subject, even though faction had never entered into the question,
+would naturally have begotten those controversies.  But the great
+influence of the lords over their slaves and tenants, the clientship
+of the burghers, the total want of a middling rank of men, the extent
+of the monarchy, the loose execution of the laws, the continued
+disorders and convulsions of the state; all these circumstances evince
+that the Anglo-Saxon government became at last extremely
+aristocratical; and the events, during the period immediately
+preceding the conquest, confirm this inference or conjecture.
+
+[MN Criminal law.]
+Both the punishments inflicted by the Anglo-Saxon courts of
+judicature, and the methods of proof employed in all causes, appear
+somewhat singular, and are very different from those which prevail at
+present among all civilized nations.
+
+We must conceive that the ancient Germans were little removed from the
+original state of nature: the social confederacy among them was more
+martial than civil: they had chiefly in view the means of attack or
+defence against public enemies, not those of protection against their
+fellow-citizens: their possessions were so slender and so equal, that
+they were not exposed to great danger; and the natural bravery of the
+people made every man trust to himself, and to his particular friends,
+for his defence or vengeance.  This defect in the political union drew
+much closer the knot of particular confederacies; an insult upon any
+man was regarded by all his relations and associates as a common
+injury; they were bound by honour, as well as by a sense of common
+interest, to revenge his death, or any violence which he had suffered:
+they retaliated on the aggressor by like acts of violence; and if he
+were protected, as was natural and usual, by his own clan, the quarrel
+was spread still wider, and bred endless disorders in the nation.
+
+The Frisians, a tribe of the Germans, had never advanced beyond this
+wild and imperfect state of society; and the right of private revenge
+still remained among them unlimited and uncontrolled [m].  But the
+other German nations, in the age of Tacitus, had made one step farther
+towards completing the political or civil union.  Though it still
+continued to be an indispensable point of honour for every clan to
+revenge the death or injury of a member, the magistrate had acquired a
+right of interposing in the quarrel, and of accommodating the
+difference.  He obliged the person maimed or injured, and the
+relations of one killed, to accept of a present from the aggressor and
+his relations [n], as a compensation for the injury [o], and to drop
+all farther prosecution of revenge.  That the accommodation of one
+quarrel might not be the source of more, this present was fixed and
+certain, according to the rank of the person killed, or injured, and
+was commonly paid in cattle, the chief property of those rude and
+uncultivated nations.  A present of this kind gratified the revenge of
+the injured family, by the loss which the aggressor suffered; it
+satisfied their pride, by the submission which it expressed; it
+diminished their regret for the loss or injury of a kinsman, by their
+acquisition of new property; and thus general peace was for a moment
+restored to the society [p].
+[FN [m] LL. Fris. tit. 2. apud. Lindenbrog. p. 491.  [n] LL. Aethelb.
+Sec. 23. LL. Aelf. Sec. 27.  [o] Called by the Saxons MOEGBOTA.  [p]
+Tacit. de Morib. Germ.  The author says, that the price of the
+composition was fixed; which must have been by the laws and the
+interposition of the magistrates.]
+
+But when the German nations had been settled some time in the
+provinces of the Roman empire, they made still another step towards a
+more cultivated life, and their criminal justice gradually improved
+and refined itself.  The magistrate, whose office it was to guard
+public peace, and to suppress private animosities, conceived himself
+to be injured by every injury done to any of his people; and besides
+the compensation to the person who suffered, or to his family, he
+thought himself entitled to exact a fine called the Fridwit as an
+atonement for the breach of peace, and as a reward for the pains which
+he had taken in accommodating the quarrel.  When this idea, which is
+so natural, was once suggested, it was willingly received both by
+sovereign and people.  The numerous fines which were levied augmented
+the revenue of the king; and the people were sensible that he would be
+more vigilant in interposing with his good offices, when he reaped
+such immediate advantage from them; and that injuries would be less
+frequent, when, besides compensation to the person injured, they were
+exposed to this additional penalty [q].
+[FN [q] Besides paying money to the relations of the deceased, and to
+the king, the murderer was also obliged to pay the master of a slave
+or vassal a sum as a compensation for his loss.  This was called the
+MANBOTE.  See Spell. Gloss. in verb. FREDUM, MANBOT.]
+
+This short abstract contains the history of the criminal jurisprudence
+of the northern nations for several centuries.  The state of England
+in this particular, during the period of the Anglo-Saxons, may be
+judged of by the collection of ancient laws, published by Lambard and
+Wilkins.  The chief purport of these laws is not to prevent or
+entirely suppress private quarrels, which the legislature knew to be
+impossible, but only to regulate and moderate them.  The laws of
+Alfred enjoin, that if any one know that his enemy or aggressor, after
+doing him an injury, resolves to keep within his own house, AND HIS
+OWN LANDS [r], he shall not fight him till he require compensation for
+the injury.  If he be strong enough to besiege him in his house, he
+may do it for seven days without attacking him; and if the aggressor
+be willing, during that time, to surrender himself and his arms, his
+adversary may detain him thirty days; but is afterwards obliged to
+restore him safe to his kindred, AND BE CONTENT WITH THE COMPENSATION.
+If the criminal fly to the temple, that sanctuary must not be
+violated.  Where the assailant has not force sufficient to besiege the
+criminal in his house, he must apply to the alderman for assistance;
+and if the alderman refuse aid, the assailant must have recourse to
+the king; and he is not allowed to assault the house till after this
+supreme magistrate has refused assistance.  If any one meet with his
+enemy, and be ignorant that he was resolved to keep within his own
+lands, he must, before he attack him, require him to surrender himself
+prisoner, and deliver up his arms; in which case he may detain him
+thirty days: but if he refuse to deliver up his arms, it is then
+lawful to fight him.  A slave may fight in his master's quarrel: a
+father may fight in his son's with any one, except with his master
+[s].
+[FN [r] The addition of these last words in Italics appears necessary
+from what follows in the same law.  [s] LL. Aelfr. Sec. 28  Wilkins,
+p. 43.]
+
+It was enacted by King Ina, that no man should take revenge for an
+injury till he had first demanded compensation, and had been refused
+it [t].
+[FN [t] LL. Inae, Sec. 9.]
+
+King Edmond, in the preamble to his laws, mentions the general misery
+occasioned by the multiplicity of private feuds and battles; and he
+establishes several expedients for remedying this grievance.  He
+ordained that if any one commit murder, be may, with the assistance of
+his kindred, pay within a twelvemonth the fine of his crime; and if
+they abandon him, he shall alone sustain the deadly feud or quarrel
+with the kindred of the murdered person: his own kindred are free from
+the feud, but on condition that they neither converse with the
+criminal, nor supply him with meat or OTHER NECESSARIES: if any of
+them, after renouncing him, receive him into their house, OR GIVE HIM
+ASSISTANCE, they are finable to the king, and are involved in the
+feud.  If the kindred of the murdered person take revenge on any but
+the criminal himself, AFTER HE IS ABANDONED BY HIS KINDRED, all their
+property is forfeited, and they are declared to be enemies to the king
+and all his friends [u].  It is also ordained, that the fine for
+murder shall never be remitted by the king [w]; and that no criminal
+shall be killed who flies to the church, or any of the king's towns
+[x]; and the king himself declares, that his house shall give no
+protection to murderers, till they have satisfied the church by their
+penance, and the kindred of the deceased, by making compensation [y].
+The method appointed for transacting this composition is found in the
+same law [z].
+[FN [u] LL. Edm. Sec. 1.  Wilkins, p. 73.  [w] LL. Edm. Sec. 3.  [x]
+Ibid. Sec. 2.  [y] Ibid. Sec. 4.  [z] Ibid Sec. 7.]
+
+These attempts of Edmond, to contract and diminish the feuds, were
+contrary to the ancient spirit of the northern barbarians, and were a
+step towards a more regular administration of justice.  By the Salic
+law, any man might, by a public declaration, exempt himself from his
+family quarrels: but then he was considered by the law as no longer
+belonging to the family; and he was deprived of all right of
+succession, as the punishment of his cowardice [a].
+[FN [a] Tit. 63.]
+
+The price of the king's head, or his weregild, as it was then called,
+was by law thirty thousand thrimsas, near thirteen hundred pounds of
+present money.  The price of the prince's head was fifteen thousand
+thrimsas; that of a bishop's or alderman's, eight thousand; a
+sheriff's four thousand; a thane's or clergyman's, two thousand; a
+ceorle's, two hundred and sixty-six.  These prices were fixed by the
+laws of the Angles.  By the Mercian law, the price of a ceorle's head
+was two hundred shillings; that of a thane's six times as much; that
+of a king's six times more [b].  By the laws of Kent, the price of the
+archbishop's head was higher than that of the king's [c].  Such
+respect was then paid to the ecclesiastics!  It must be understood,
+that where a person was unable or unwilling to pay the fine, he was
+put out of the protection of law, and the kindred of the deceased had
+liberty to punish him as they thought proper.
+[FN [b] Wilkins, p. 71, 72.  [c] LL. Elthredi, apud Wilkins, p. 110.]
+
+Some antiquarians [d] have thought, that these compensations were only
+given for manslaughter, not for wilful murder: but no such distinction
+appears in the laws; and it is contradicted by the practice of all the
+other barbarous nations [e], by that of the ancient Germans [f], and
+by that curious monument above mentioned, a Saxon antiquity, preserved
+by Hickes.  There is indeed a law of Alfred's, which makes wilful
+murder capital [g]; but this seems only to have been an attempt of
+that great legislator towards establishing a better police in the
+kingdom, and it probably remained without execution.  By the laws of
+the same prince, a conspiracy against the life of the king might be
+redeemed by a fine [h].
+[FN [d] Tyrrel, Introduction, vol. i. p.126.  Carte, vol. i. p. 366.
+[e] Lindenbrogius, passim.  [f] Tac. de Mor. Germ.  [g] LL. Aelf. Sec.
+12.  Wilkins, p. 29.  It is probable that by wilful murder Alfred
+means a treacherous murder, committed by one who had no declared feud
+with another.  [h] LL. Aelf. Sec. 4  Wilkins, p. 35.]
+
+The price of all kinds of wounds was likewise fixed by the Saxon laws:
+a wound of an inch long under the hair, was paid with one shilling;
+one of a like size in the face, two shillings: thirty shillings for
+the loss of an ear, and so forth [i].  There seems not to have been
+any difference made, according to the dignity of the person.  By the
+laws of Ethelbert, any one who committed adultery with his neighbour's
+wife, was obliged to pay him a fine, and buy him another wife [k].
+[FN [i] LL. Elf. Sec. 40.  See also, LL. Ethelb. Sec. 34, &c.  [k] LL.
+Ethelb. Sec. 32.]
+
+These institutions are not peculiar to the ancient Germans.  They seem
+to be the necessary progress of criminal jurisprudence among every
+free people, where the will of the sovereign is not implicitly obeyed.
+We find them among the ancient Greeks during the time of the Trojan
+war.  Compositions for murder are mentioned in Nestor's speech to
+Achilles in the ninth Iliad and are called APOINAI.  The Irish, who
+never had any connexions with the German nations, adopted the same
+practice till very lately; and the price of a man's head was called
+among them his ERIC; as we learn from Sir John Davis.  The same custom
+seems also to have prevailed among the Jews [l].
+[FN [l] Exod. cap. xxi. 29, 30.]
+
+Theft and robbery were frequent among the Anglo-Saxons.  In order to
+impose some check upon these crimes, it was ordained, that no man
+should sell or buy any thing above twenty-pence value, except in open
+market [m]; and every bargain of sale must be executed before
+witnesses [n].  Gangs of robbers much disturbed the peace of the
+country; and the law determined, that a tribe of banditti, consisting
+of between seven and thirty-five persons, was to be called a TURMA, or
+troop: any greater company was denominated an army [o].  The
+punishments for this crime were various, but none of them capital [p].
+If any man could track his stolen cattle into another's ground, the
+latter was obliged to show the tracks out of it, or pay their value
+[q].
+[FN [m] LL. Aethelst. Sec. 12.  [n] Ibid. Sec. 10, 12.  LL. Edg. apud
+Wilkins, p. 80.  LL. Ethelredi, Sec. 4 apud Wilkins, p. 103.  Hloth.
+and Eadm. Sec. 16.  LL. Canut. Sec. 22.  [o] LL. Inae, Sec. 12.  [p]
+LL. Inae, Sec. 37.  [q] LL. Aethelst. Sec. 2. Wilkins, p. 63.]
+
+Rebellion, to whatever excess it was carried, was not capital, but
+might be redeemed by a sum of money [r].  The legislators, knowing it
+impossible to prevent all disorders, only imposed a higher fine on
+breaches of the peace committed in the king's court, or before an
+alderman or bishop.  An alehouse too seems to have been considered as
+a privileged place; and any quarrels that arose there were more
+severely punished than elsewhere [s].
+[FN [r] LL. Ethelredi, apud Wilkins, p. 110.  LL. Aelf. Sec. 4.
+Wilkins, p. 35.  [s] LL. Hloth. and Eadm. Sec. 12, 13.  LL. Ethelr.
+apud Wilkins, p. 117.]
+
+[MN Rules of proof.]
+If the manner of punishing crimes among the Anglo-Saxons appear
+singular, the proofs were not less so; and were also the natural
+result of the situation of the people.  Whatever we may imagine
+concerning the usual truth and sincerity of men who live in a rude and
+barbarous state, there is much more falsehood, and even perjury among
+them, than among civilized nations; virtue which is nothing but a more
+enlarged and more cultivated reason, never flourishes to any degree,
+nor is founded on steady principles of honour, except where a good
+education becomes general; and where men are taught the pernicious
+consequences of vice, treachery, and immorality.  Even superstition,
+though more prevalent among ignorant nations, is but a poor supply for
+the defects in knowledge and education: our European ancestors, who
+employed every moment the expedient of swearing on extraordinary
+crosses and relics, were less honourable in all engagements than their
+posterity, who, from experience, have omitted those ineffectual
+securities.  This general proneness to perjury was much increased by
+the usual want of discernment in judges, who could not discuss an
+intricate evidence, and were obliged to number, not weigh, the
+testimony of the witnesses [t].  Hence the ridiculous practice of
+obliging men to bring compurgators, who, as they did not pretend to
+know any thing of the fact, expressed upon oath, that they believed
+the person spoke true; and these compurgators were in some cases
+multiplied to the number of three hundred [u].  The practice also of
+single combat was employed by most nations on the continent as a
+remedy against false evidence [w]; and though it was frequently
+dropped, from the opposition of the clergy, it was continually revived
+from experience of the falsehood attending the testimony of witnesses
+[x].  It became at last a species of jurisprudence: the cases were
+determined by law, in which the party might challenge his adversary,
+or the witnesses, or the judge himself [y]: and though these customs
+were absurd, they were rather an improvement on the methods of trial
+which had formerly been practised among those barbarous nations, and
+which still prevailed among the Anglo-Saxons.
+[FN [t] Sometimes the laws fixed easy general rules for weighing the
+credibility of witnesses.  A man whose life was estimated at 120
+shillings, counterbalanced six ceorles, each of whose lives was only
+valued at 20 shillings, and his oath was deemed equivalent to that of
+all the six.  See Wilkins, p. 72.  [u] Praef. Nicol. ad Wilkins, p 11.
+[w] LL. Burgund. cap. 45.  LL. Lomb. lib. 2. tit. 55, cap. 34.  [x]
+LL. Longob. lib. 2. tit. 55. cap. 23. apud Landenb. p. 661.  [y] See
+Desfontaines and Beaumanoir.]
+
+When any controversy about a fact became too intricate for those
+ignorant judges to unravel, they had recourse to what they called the
+judgment of God; that is, to fortune: their methods of consulting this
+oracle were various.  One of them was the decision of the CROSS: it
+was practised in this manner: when a person was accused of any crime,
+he first cleared himself by oath, and he was attended by eleven
+compurgators.  He next took two pieces of wood, one of which was
+marked with the sign of the cross, and wrapping both up in wool, he
+placed them on the altar, or on some celebrated relic.  After solemn
+prayers for the success of the experiment, a priest, or, in his stead,
+some unexperienced youth, took up one of the pieces of wood, and if he
+happened upon that which was marked with the figure of the cross, the
+person was pronounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty [z].  This
+practice, as it arose from superstition, was abolished by it in
+France.  The emperor, Lewis the Debonnaire, prohibited that method of
+trial, not because it was uncertain, but lest that sacred figure, says
+he, of the cross should be prostituted in common disputes and
+controversies [a].
+[FN [z] LL. Frison. tit. 14. apud Lindenbrogium, p. 496.  [a] Du
+Cange, in verb. CRUX.]
+
+The ordeal was another established method of trial among the Anglo-
+Saxons.  It was practised either by boiling water or red-hot iron.
+The former was appropriated to the common people; the latter to the
+nobility.  The water or iron was consecrated by many prayers, masses,
+fastings, and exorcisms [b]; after which the person accused either
+took up a stone sunk in the water [c] to a certain depth, or carried
+the iron to a certain distance; and his hand being wrapped up, and the
+covering sealed for three days, if there appeared, on examining it, no
+marks of burning, he was pronounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty
+[d].  The trial by cold water was different: the person was thrown
+into consecrated water; if he swam, he was guilty; if he sunk,
+innocent [e].  It is difficult for us to conceive how any innocent
+person could ever escape by the one trial, or any criminal be
+convicted by the other.  But there was another usage admirably
+calculated for allowing every criminal to escape who had confidence
+enough to try it.  A consecrated cake, called a corsned, was produced;
+which if the person could swallow and digest he was pronounced
+innocent [f].
+[FN [b] Spellm. in verb. ORDEAL.  Parker, p. 155.  Lindenbrog. p 1299.
+[c] LL. Inae, Sec. 77.  [d] Sometimes the person accused walked
+barefoot over red-hot iron.  [e] Spellm. in verb. ORDEALIUM.  [f]
+Spellm. in verb. CORSNED  Parker, p. 156.  Text. Roffens. p. 33.]
+
+[MN Military force.]
+The feudal law, if it had place at all among the Anglo-Saxons, which
+is doubtful, was not certainly extended over all the landed property,
+and was not attended with those consequences of homage, reliefs [g],
+wardship, marriage, and other burdens, which were inseparable from it
+in the kingdoms of the continent.  As the Saxons expelled, or almost
+entirely destroyed, the ancient Britons, they planted themselves in
+this island on the same footing with their ancestors in Germany, and
+found no occasion for the feudal institutions [h], which were
+calculated to maintain a kind of standing army, always in readiness to
+suppress any insurrection among the conquered people.  The trouble and
+expense of defending the state in England lay equally upon all the
+land; and it was usual for every five hides to equip a man for the
+service.  The TRINODA NECESSITAS, as it was called, or the burden of
+military expeditions, of repairing highways, and of building and
+supporting bridges, was inseparable from landed property, even though
+it belonged to the church or monasteries, unless exempted by a
+particular charter [i].  The ceorles or husbandmen were provided with
+arms, and were obliged to take their turn in military duty [k].  There
+were computed to be two hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred
+hides in England [l]; consequently, the ordinary military force of the
+kingdom consisted of forty-eight thousand seven hundred and twenty
+men; though, no doubt, on extraordinary occasions, a greater number
+might be assembled.  The king and nobility had some military tenants,
+who were called Sithcun-men [m].  And there were some lands annexed to
+the office of alderman, and to other offices; but these probably were
+not of great extent, and were possessed only during pleasure, as in
+the commencement of the feudal law in other countries of Europe.
+[FN [g] On the death of an alderman, a greater or lesser thane, there
+was a payment made to the king of his best arms; and this was called
+his heriot: but this was not of the nature of a relief.  See Spellm.
+of Tenures, p. 2.  The value of this heriot fixed by Canute's laws,
+Sec. 69.  [h] Bracton de Acqu. rer. domin. lib. 2. cap. 16.  See more
+fully Spellman of Feuds and Tenures, and Craigius de jure feud. lib.
+1. dieg. 7.  [i] Spellm. Conc. vol. i. p. 256.  [k] Inae, Sec. 51.
+[l] Spellm. of Feuds and Tenures, p. 17.  [m] Spellm. Conc. vol. i. p.
+195.]
+
+[MN Public revenue.]
+The revenue of the king seems to have consisted chiefly in his
+demesnes, which were large; and in the tolls and imposts which he
+probably levied at discretion on the boroughs and seaports that lay
+within his demesnes.  He could not alienate any part of the crown
+lands, even to religious uses, without the consent of the states [n].
+Danegelt was a land-tax of a shilling a hide, imposed by the states
+[o], either for payment of the sums exacted by the Danes, or for
+putting the kingdom in a posture of defence against those invaders
+[p].
+[FN [n] Spellm. Conc. vol. i. p. 340.  [o] Chron. Sax p. 128.  [p] LL.
+Edw. Con. Sec. 12.]
+
+[MN Value of money.]
+The Saxon pound, as likewise that which was coined for some centuries
+after the Conquest, was near three times the weight of our present
+money: there were forty-eight shillings in the pound, and five pence
+in a shilling [q]; consequently, a Saxon shilling was near a fifth
+heavier than ours, and a Saxon penny near three times as heavy [r].
+As to the value of money in those times, compared to commodities,
+there are some, though not very certain, means of computation.  A
+sheep, by the laws of Athelstan, was estimated at a shilling; that is,
+fifteen pence of our money.  The fleece was two fifths of the value of
+the whole sheep [s]; much above its present estimation; and the reason
+probably was, that the Saxons, like the ancients, were little
+acquainted with any clothing but what was made of wool.  Silk and
+cotton were quite unknown: linen was not much used.  An ox was
+computed at six times the value of a sheep; a cow at four [t].  If we
+suppose that the cattle in that age, from the defects in husbandry,
+were not so large as they are at present in England, we may compute
+that money was then near ten times of greater value.  A horse was
+valued at about thirty-six shillings of our money, or thirty Saxon
+shillings [u]; a mare a third less  A man at three pounds [w].  The
+board wages of a child the first year was eight shillings, together
+with a cow's pasture in summer, and an ox's in winter [x].  William of
+Malmesbury mentions it as a remarkably high price, that William Rufus
+gave fifteen marks for a horse, or about thirty pounds of our present
+money [y].  Between the years 900 and 1000, Ednoth bought a hide of
+land for about a hundred and eighteen shillings of our present money
+[z].  This was little more than a shilling an acre, which indeed
+appears to have been the usual price, as we may learn from other
+accounts [a].  A palfrey was sold for twelve shillings about the year
+966 [b].  The value of an ox in King Ethelred's time was between seven
+and eight shillings; a cow about six shillings [c].  Gervas of Tilbury
+says, that in Henry I.'s time, bread which would suffice a hundred men
+for a day was rated at three shillings, or a shilling of that age; for
+it is thought that, soon after the Conquest, a pound sterling was
+divided into twenty shillings: a sheep was rated at a shilling; and so
+of other things in proportion.  In Athelstan's time a ram was valued
+at a shilling, or four pence Saxon [d].  The tenants of Shireburn were
+obliged, at their choice, to pay either sixpence or four hens [e].
+About 1232, the Abbot of St. Alban's going on a journey, hired seven
+handsome stout horses; and agreed, if any of them died on the road, to
+pay the owner thirty shillings a-piece of our present money [f].  It
+is to be remarked, that in all ancient times the raising of corn,
+especially wheat, being a species of manufactory, that commodity
+always bore a higher price, compared to cattle, than it does in our
+times [g].  The Saxon Chronicle tells us [h], that in the reign of
+Edward the Confessor, there was the most terrible famine ever known;
+insomuch that a quarter of wheat rose to sixty pennies, or fifteen
+shillings of our present money.  Consequently it was as dear as if it
+now cost seven pounds ten shillings.  This much exceeds the great
+famine in the end of Queen Elizabeth, when a quarter of wheat was sold
+for four pounds.  Money in this last period was nearly of the same
+value as in our time.  These severe famines are a certain proof of bad
+husbandry.
+[FN [q] LL. Aelf. Sec. 40.  [r] Fleetwood's Chron. Pretiosum, p. 27,
+28, &c.  [s] LL. Inae, Sec. 69.  [t] Wilkins, p 66.  [u] Ibid. p. 126.
+[w] Ibid.  [x] LL. Inae, Sec. 38.  [y] p. 121.  [z] Hist. Rames, p.
+415.  [a] Hist. Eliens. p. 473.  [b] Ibid. p. 471.  [c] Wilkins, p.
+126.  [d] Ibid. p. 56.  [e] Monast. Anglic. vol. ii. p. 528.  [f] Mat.
+Paris.  [g] Fleetwood, p. 83, 94, 96, 98.  [h] p. 157.]
+
+On the whole, there are three things to be considered, wherever a sum
+of money is mentioned in ancient times.  First, the change of
+denomination, by which a pound has been reduced to the third part of
+its ancient weight in silver.  Secondly, the change in value by the
+greater plenty of money, which has reduced the same weight of silver
+to ten times less value compared to commodities; and consequently a
+pound sterling to the thirtieth part of the ancient value.  Thirdly,
+the fewer people and less industry, which were then to be found in
+every European kingdom.  This circumstance made even the thirtieth
+part of the sum more difficult to levy, and caused any sum to have
+more than thirty times greater weight and influence, both abroad and
+at home, than in our times; in the same manner that a sum, a hundred
+thousand pounds, for instance, is at present more difficult to levy in
+a small state, such as Bavaria, and can produce greater effects on
+such a small community, than on England.  This last difference is not
+easy to be calculated: but allowing that England has now six times
+more industry, and three times more people than it had at the
+Conquest, and for some reigns after that period, we are upon that
+supposition to conceive, taking all circumstances together, every sum
+of money mentioned by historians, as if it were multiplied more than a
+hundredfold above a sum of the same denomination at present.
+
+In the Saxon times, land was divided equally among all the male
+children of the deceased, according to the custom of Gavelkind.  The
+practice of entails is to be found in those times [i].  Land was
+chiefly of two kinds, bockland, or land held by book or charter, which
+was regarded as full property, and descended to the heirs of the
+possessor; and folkland, or the land held by the ceorles and common
+people, who were removable at pleasure, and were indeed only tenants
+during the will of their lords.
+[FN [i] LL Aelf. Sec. 37, apud Wilkins, p. 43.]
+
+The first attempt which we find in England to separate the
+ecclesiastical from the civil jurisdiction, was that law of Edgar, by
+which all disputes among the clergy were ordered to be carried before
+the bishop [k].  The penances were then very severe; but as a man
+could buy them off with money, or might substitute others to perform
+them, they lay easy upon the rich [l].
+[FN [k] Wilkins, p. 83.  [l] Wilkins, p. 96, 97.  Spellm. Conc. p.
+473.]
+
+[MN Manners.]
+With regard to the manners of the Anglo-Saxons we can say little, but
+that they were in general a rude uncultivated people, ignorant of
+letters, unskilled in the mechanical arts, untamed to submission under
+law and government, addicted to intemperance, riot, and disorder.
+Their best quality was their military courage, which yet was not
+supported by discipline or conduct.  Their want of fidelity to the
+prince, or to any trust reposed in them, appears strongly in the
+history of their later period; and their want of humanity in all their
+history.  Even the Norman historians, notwithstanding the low state of
+the arts in their own country, speak of them as barbarians, when they
+mention the invasion made upon them by the Duke of Normandy [m].  The
+Conquest put the people in a situation of receiving slowly, from
+abroad, the rudiments of science and cultivation, and of correcting
+their rough and licentious manners.
+[FN [m] Gul. Pict. p. 202.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CONSEQUENCES OF THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS.--SUBMISSION OF THE ENGLISH.--
+SETTLEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT.--KING'S RETURN TO NORMANDY.--DISCONTENTS
+OF THE ENGLISH.--THEIR INSURRECTIONS.--RIGOURS OF THE NORMAN
+GOVERNMENT.--NEW INSURRECTIONS.--NEW RIGOURS OF THE GOVERNMENT.--
+INTRODUCTION OF THE FEUDAL LAW.--INNOVATION IN ECCLESIASTICAL
+GOVERNMENT.--INSURRECTION OF THE NORMAN BARONS.--DISPUTE ABOUT
+INVESTITURES.--REVOLT OF PRINCE ROBERT.--DOMESDAY-BOOK.--THE NEW
+FOREST.--WAR WITH FRANCE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF WILLIAM THE
+CONQUEROR.
+
+
+
+[MN 1066.  Consequences of the battle of Hastings.]
+Nothing could exceed the consternation which seized the English, when
+they received intelligence of the unfortunate battle of Hastings, the
+death of their king, the slaughter of their principal nobility and of
+their bravest warriors, and the rout and dispersion of the remainder.
+But though the loss which they had sustained in that fatal action was
+considerable, it might have been repaired by a great nation; where the
+people were generally armed, and where there resided so many powerful
+noblemen in every province, who could have assembled their retainers,
+and have obliged the Duke of Normandy to divide his army, and probably
+to waste it in a variety of actions and rencounters.  It was thus that
+the kingdom had formerly resisted, for many years, its invaders, and
+had been gradually subdued, by the continued efforts of the Romans,
+Saxons, and Danes; and equal difficulties might have been apprehended
+by William in this bold and hazardous enterprise.  But there were
+several vices in the Anglo-Saxon constitution, which rendered it
+difficult for the English to defend their liberties in so critical an
+emergency.  The people had in a great measure lost all national pride
+and spirit, by their recent and long subjection to the Danes; and as
+Canute had, in the course of his administration, much abated the
+rigours of conquest, and had governed them equitably by their own
+laws, they regarded with the less terror the ignominy of a foreign
+yoke, and deemed the inconveniences of submission less formidable than
+those of bloodshed, war, and resistance.  Their attachment also to the
+ancient royal family had been much weakened by their habits of
+submission to the Danish princes, and by their late election of
+Harold, or their acquiescence in his usurpation.  And as they had long
+been accustomed to regard Edgar Atheling, the only heir of the Saxon
+line, as unfit to govern them even in times of order and tranquillity,
+they could entertain small hopes of his being able to repair such
+great losses as they had sustained, or to withstand the victorious
+arms of the Duke of Normandy.
+
+That they might not, however, be altogether wanting to themselves in
+this extreme necessity, the English took some steps towards adjusting
+their disjointed government, and uniting themselves against the common
+enemy.  The two potent earls, Edwin and Morcar, who had fled to London
+with the remains of the broken army, took the lead on this occasion:
+in concert with Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, a man possessed of
+great authority and of ample revenues, they proclaimed Edgar, and
+endeavoured to put the people in a posture of defence, and encouraged
+them to resist the Normans [a].  But the terror of the late defeat,
+and the near neighbourhood of the invaders, increased the confusion
+inseparable from great revolutions: and every resolution proposed was
+hasty, fluctuating, tumultuary; disconcerted by fear or faction,
+ill-planned, and worse executed.
+[FN [a] Gul. Pictav. p. 205.  Order. Vitalis, p. 502.  Hoveden, p.
+449.  Knyghton, p. 2343.]
+
+William, that his enemies might have no leisure to recover from their
+consternation, or unite their councils, immediately put himself in
+motion after his victory, and resolved to prosecute an enterprise
+which nothing but celerity and vigour could render finally successful.
+His first attempt was against Romney, whose inhabitants he severely
+punished, on account of their cruel treatment of some Norman seamen
+and soldiers, who had been carried thither by stress of weather, or by
+a mistake in their course [b]; and foreseeing that his conquest of
+England might still be attended with many difficulties and with much
+opposition, he deemed it necessary, before he should advance farther
+into the country, to make himself master of Dover, which would both
+secure him a retreat in case of adverse fortune, and afford him a safe
+landing-place for such supplies as might be requisite for pushing his
+advantages.  The terror diffused by his victory at Hastings was so
+great, that the garrison of Dover, though numerous and well provided,
+immediately capitulated; and as the Normans, rushing in to take
+possession of the town, hastily set fire to some of the houses,
+William, desirous to conciliate the minds of the English by an
+appearance of lenity and justice, made compensation to the inhabitants
+for their losses [c].
+[FN [b] Gul. Pictav. p. 204.  [c] Gul. Pictav. p. 204.]
+
+The Norman army, being much distressed with a dysentery, was obliged
+to remain here eight days, but the duke, on their recovery, advanced
+with quick marches towards London, and by his approach increased the
+confusions which were already so prevalent in the English councils.
+The ecclesiastics in particular, whose influence was great over the
+people, began to declare in his favour; and as most of the bishops and
+dignified clergymen were even then Frenchmen or Normans, the pope's
+bull, by which his enterprise was avowed and hallowed, was now openly
+insisted on as a reason for general submission.  The superior learning
+of those prelates, which, during the Confessor's reign, had raised
+them above the ignorant Saxons, made their opinions be received with
+implicit faith; and a young prince, like Edgar, whose capacity was
+deemed so mean, was but ill qualified to resist the impression which
+they made on the minds of the people.  A repulse which a body of
+Londoners received from five hundred Norman horse, renewed in the city
+the terror of the great defeat at Hastings; the easy submission of all
+the inhabitants of Kent was an additional discouragement to them; the
+burning of Southwark before their eyes made them dread a like fate to
+their own city; and no man any longer entertained thoughts but of
+immediate safety and of self-preservation.  Even the Earls Edwin and
+Morcar, in despair of making effectual resistance, retired with their
+troops to their own provinces; and the people thenceforth disposed
+themselves unanimously to yield to the  victor.  As soon as he passed
+the Thames at Wallingford, and reached Berkhamstead, Stigand, the
+primate, made submissions to him: before he came within sight of the
+city, all the chief nobility, and Edgar Atheling himself, the new-
+elected king, came into his camp, and declared their intention of
+yielding to his authority [d].  They requested him to mount their
+throne, which they now considered as vacant; and declared to him, that
+as they had always been ruled by regal power, they desired to follow,
+in this particular, the example of their ancestors, and knew of no one
+more worthy than himself to hold the reins of government [e].
+[FN [d] Hoveden, p. 450.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 634.  [e] Gul. Pict. p.
+205.  Ord. Vital. p. 503.]
+
+Though this was the great object to which the duke's enterprise
+tended, he feigned to deliberate on the offer; and being desirous at
+first of preserving the appearance of a legal administration, he
+wished to obtain a more explicit and formal consent of the English
+nation [f]: but Almar, of Aquitain, a man equally respected for valour
+in the field and for prudence in council, remonstrating with him on
+the danger of delay in so critical a conjuncture, he laid aside all
+farther scruples, and accepted of the crown which was tendered him.
+Orders were immediately issued to prepare every thing for the ceremony
+of his coronation; but as he was yet afraid to place entire confidence
+in the Londoners, who were numerous and warlike, he meanwhile
+commanded fortresses to be erected, in order to curb the inhabitants,
+and to secure his person and government [g].
+[FN [f] Gul. Pictav. p. 205.  [g] Ibid.]
+
+Stigand was not much in the duke's favour, both because he had
+intruded into the see on the expulsion of Robert the Norman, and
+because he possessed such influence and authority over the English
+[h], as might be dangerous to a new-established monarch.  William,
+therefore, pretending that the primate had obtained his pall in an
+irregular manner from Pope Benedict IX., who was himself an usurper,
+refused to be consecrated by him, and conferred this honour on Aldred,
+Archbishop of York.  Westminster Abbey was the place appointed for
+that magnificent ceremony; the most considerable of the nobility, both
+English and Norman, attended the duke on this occasion: [MN 1066.
+Dec.] Aldred, in a short speech, asked the former whether they agreed
+to accept of William as their king: the Bishop of Coutance put the
+same question to the latter; and both being answered with acclamations
+[i], Aldred administered to the duke the usual coronation oath, by
+which he bound himself to protect the church, to administer justice,
+and to repress violence: he then anointed him, and put the crown upon
+his head [k].  There appeared nothing but joy in the countenances of
+the spectators: but in that very moment there burst forth the
+strongest symptoms of the jealousy and animosity which prevailed
+between the nations, and which continually increased during the reign
+of this prince.  The Norman soldiers, who were placed without, in
+order to guard the church, hearing the shouts within, fancied that the
+English were offering violence to their duke; and they immediately
+assaulted the populace, and set fire to the neighbouring houses.  The
+alarm was conveyed to the nobility who surrounded the prince; both
+English and Normans, full of apprehensions, rushed out to secure
+themselves from the present danger; and it was with difficulty that
+William himself was able to appease the tumult [l].
+[FN [h] Eadmer, p. 6.  [i] Order. Vital. p. 503.  [k] Malmesbury, p.
+271, says, that he also promised to govern the Normans and English by
+equal laws; and this addition to the usual oath seems not improbable,
+considering the circumstances of the times.  [l] Gul. Pict. p. 206.
+Order. Vitalis, p. 503.]
+
+[MN 1067.  Settlement of the government.]
+The king, thus possessed of the throne by a pretended destination of
+King Edward, and by an irregular election of the people, but still
+more by force of arms, retired from London to Berking, in Essex, and
+there received the submissions of all the nobility who had not
+attended his coronation.  Edric, surnamed the Forester, grand-nephew
+to that Edric, so noted for his repeated acts of perfidy during the
+reigns of Ethelred and Edmond; Earl Coxo, a man famous for bravery;
+even Edwin and Morcar, Earls of Mercia and Northumberland, with the
+other principal noblemen of England, came and swore fealty to him;
+were received into favour, and were confirmed in the possession of
+their estates and dignities [m].  Every thing bore the appearance of
+peace and tranquillity; and William had no other occupation than to
+give contentment to the foreigners who had assisted him to mount the
+throne, and to his new subjects, who had so readily submitted to him.
+[FN [m] Gul. Pict. p. 208.  Order. Vitalis, p. 506.]
+
+He had got possession of the treasure of Harold, which was
+considerable; and being also supplied with rich presents from the
+opulent men in all parts of England, who were solicitous to gain the
+favour of their new sovereign, he distributed great sums among his
+troops, and by this liberality gave them hopes of obtaining at length
+those more durable establishments which they had expected from his
+enterprise [n].  The ecclesiastics, both at home and abroad, had much
+forwarded his success, and he failed not, in return, to express his
+gratitude and devotion in the manner which was most acceptable to
+them: he sent Harold's standard to the pope, accompanied with many
+valuable presents: all the considerable monasteries and churches in
+France, where prayers had been put up for his success, now tasted of
+his bounty [o]: the English monks found him well disposed to favour
+their order; and be built a new convent near Hastings, which he called
+BATTLE ABBEY, and which, on pretence of supporting monks to pray for
+his own soul, and for that of Harold, served as a lasting memorial of
+his victory [p].
+[FN [n] Gul. Pict. p. 206.  [o] Ibid.  [p] Gul. Gemet. p. 288.  Chron.
+Sax. p. 189.  M. West. p. 226.  M. Paris p. 9.  Diceto, p. 482.  This
+convent was freed by him from all episcopal jurisdiction.  Monast.
+Ang. tom. i. p. 311, 312.]
+
+He introduced into England that strict execution of justice for which
+his administration had been much celebrated in Normandy; and even
+during this violent revolution, every disorder or oppression met with
+rigorous punishment [q].  His army, in particular, was governed with
+severe discipline; and, notwithstanding the insolence of victory, care
+was taken to give as little offence as possible to the jealousy of the
+vanquished.  The king appeared solicitous to unite, in an amicable
+manner, the Normans and the English, by intermarriages and alliances,
+and all his new subjects who approached his person were received with
+affability and regard.  No signs of suspicion appeared, not even
+towards Edgar Atheling, the heir of the ancient royal family, whom
+William confirmed in the honours of Earl of Oxford, conferred on him
+by Harold, and whom he affected to treat with the highest kindness, as
+nephew to the Confessor, his great friend and benefactor.  Though he
+confiscated the estates of Harold, and of those who had fought in the
+battle of Hastings on the side of that prince, whom he represented as
+an usurper, he seemed willing to admit of every plausible excuse for
+past opposition to his pretensions, and he received many into favour
+who had carried arms against him.  He confirmed the liberties and
+immunities of London and the other cities of England, and appeared
+desirous of replacing every thing on ancient establishments.  In his
+whole administration he bore the semblance of the lawful prince, not
+of the conqueror; and the English began to flatter themselves that
+they had changed, not the form of their government, but the succession
+only of their sovereigns, a matter which gave them small concern.  The
+better to reconcile his new subjects to his authority, William made a
+progress through some parts of England; and besides a splendid court
+and majestic presence, which overawed the people, already struck with
+his military fame, the appearance of his clemency and justice gained
+the approbation of the wise, attentive to the first steps of their new
+sovereign.
+[FN [q] Gul. Pict. p. 208.  Order. Vital. p. 506.]
+
+But amidst this confidence and friendship which he expressed for the
+English, the king took care to place all real power in the hands of
+his Normans, and still to keep possession of the sword, to which he
+was sensible he had owed his advancement to sovereign authority.  He
+disarmed the city of London and other places, which appeared most
+warlike and populous; and building citadels in that capital, as well
+as in Winchester, Hereford, and the cities best situated for
+commanding the kingdom, he quartered Norman soldiers in all of them,
+and left no where any power able to resist or oppose him.  He bestowed
+the forfeited estates on the most eminent of his captains, and
+established funds for the payment of his soldiers.  And thus, while
+his civil administration carried the face of a legal magistrate, his
+military institutions were those of a master and tyrant; at least of
+one who reserved to himself; whenever he pleased, the power of
+assuming that character.
+
+[MN 1067.  King's return to Normandy.]
+By this mixture, however, of vigour and lenity, he had so soothed the
+minds of the English, that he thought he might safely revisit his
+native country, and enjoy the triumph and congratulation of his
+ancient subjects.  He left the administration in the hands of his
+uterine brother, Odo, Bishop of Baieux, and of William Fitz-Osberne.
+[MN March.]  That their authority might be exposed to less danger, he
+carried over with him all the most considerable nobility of England,
+who, while they served to grace his court by their presence and
+magnificent retinues, were in reality hostages for the fidelity of the
+nation.  Among these were Edgar Atheling, Stigand the Primate, the
+Earls Edwin and Morcar, Waltheof, the son of the brave Earl Siward,
+with others eminent for the greatness of their fortunes and families,
+or for their ecclesiastical and civil dignities.  He was visited at
+the abbey of Fescamp, where he resided, during some time, by Rodulph,
+uncle to the King of France, and by many powerful princes and nobles,
+who, having contributed to his enterprise, were desirous of
+participating in the joy and advantages of its success.  His English
+courtiers, willing to ingratiate themselves with their new sovereign,
+outvied each other in equipages and entertainments; and made a display
+of riches which struck the foreigners with astonishment.  William of
+Poictiers, a Norman historian [r], who was present, speaks with
+admiration of the beauty of their persons, the size and workmanship of
+their silver plate, the costliness of their embroideries, an art in
+which the English then excelled; and he expresses himself in such
+terms as tend much to exalt our idea of the opulence and cultivation
+of the people [s].  But though every thing bore the face of joy and
+festivity, and William himself treated his new courtiers with great
+appearance of kindness, it was impossible altogether to prevent the
+insolence of the Normans; and the English nobles derived little
+satisfaction from those entertainments, where they considered
+themselves as led in triumph by their ostentatious conqueror.
+[FN [r] P. 211, 212.  [s] As the historian chiefly insists on the
+silver plate, his panegyric on the English magnificence shows only how
+incompetent a judge he was of the matter.  Silver was then of ten
+times the value, and was more than twenty times more rare than at
+present; and consequently, of all species of luxury, plate must have
+been the rarest.]
+
+[MN 1067.  Discontents of the English.]
+In England affairs took still a worse turn during the absence of the
+sovereign.  Discontents and complaints multiplied every where; secret
+conspiracies were entered into against the government; hostilities
+were already begun in many places; and every thing seemed to menace a
+revolution, as rapid as that which had placed William on the throne.
+The historian above-mentioned, who is a panegyrist of his master,
+throws the blame entirely on the fickle and mutinous disposition of
+the English, and highly celebrates the justice and lenity of Odo's and
+Fitz-Osberne's administration [t].  But other historians, with more
+probability, impute the cause chiefly to the Normans, who, despising a
+people that had so easily submitted to the yoke, envying their riches,
+and grudging the restraints imposed upon their own rapine, were
+desirous of provoking them to a rebellion, by which they expected to
+acquire new confiscations and forfeitures, and to gratify those
+unbounded hopes which they had formed in entering on this enterprise
+[u].
+[FN [t] P. 212.  [u] Order. Vital. p. 507.]
+
+It is evident that the chief reason of this alteration in the
+sentiments of the English must be ascribed to the departure of
+William, who was alone able to curb the violence of his captains and
+to overawe the mutinies of the people.  Nothing indeed appears more
+strange, than that this prince, in less than three months after the
+conquest of a great, warlike, and turbulent nation, should absent
+himself in order to revisit his own country, which remained in
+profound tranquillity, and was not menaced by any of its neighbours;
+and should so long leave his jealous subjects at the mercy of an
+insolent and licentious army.  Were we not assured of the solidity of
+his genius, and the good sense displayed in all other circumstances of
+his conduct, we might ascribe this measure to a vain ostentation,
+which rendered him impatient to display his pomp and magnificence
+among his ancient subjects.  It is therefore more natural to believe,
+that in so extraordinary a step he was guided by a concealed policy,
+and that, though he had thought proper at first to allure the people
+to submission by the semblance of a legal administration, he found
+that he could neither satisfy his rapacious captains, nor secure his
+unstable government without farther exerting the rights of conquest,
+and seizing the possessions of the English.  In order to have a
+pretext for this violence, he endeavoured, without discovering his
+intentions, to provoke and allure them into insurrections, which, he
+thought, could never prove dangerous, while he detained all the
+principal nobility in Normandy, while a great and victorious army was
+quartered in England, and while he himself was so near to suppress any
+tumult or rebellion.  But as no ancient writer has ascribed this
+tyrannical purpose to William, it scarcely seems allowable, from
+conjecture alone, to throw such an imputation upon him.
+
+[MN Their insurrections.]
+But whether we are to account for that measure from the king's vanity
+or from his policy, it was the immediate cause of all the calamities
+which the English endured during this and the subsequent reigns, and
+gave rise to those mutual jealousies and animosities between them and
+the Normans, which were never appeased till a long tract of time had
+gradually united the two nations, and made them one people.  The
+inhabitants of Kent, who had first submitted to the conqueror, were
+the first that attempted to throw off the yoke; and in confederacy
+with Eustace, Count of Boulogne, who had also been disgusted by the
+Normans, they made an attempt, though without success, on the garrison
+of Dover [w].  Edric the Forester, whose possessions lay on the banks
+of the Severn, being provoked at the depredations of some Norman
+captains in his neighbourhood, formed an alliance with Blethyn and
+Rowallan, two Welsh princes; and endeavoured, with their assistance,
+to repel force by force [x].  But though these open hostilities were
+not very considerable, the disaffection was general among the English,
+who had become sensible, though too late, of their defenceless
+condition, and began already to experience those insults and injuries
+which a nation must always expect, that allows itself to be reduced to
+that abject situation.  A secret conspiracy was entered into to
+perpetrate, in one day, a general massacre of the Normans, like that
+which had formerly been executed upon the Danes; and the quarrel was
+become so general and national, that the vassals of Earl Coxo, having
+desired him to head them in an insurrection, and finding him resolute
+in maintaining his fidelity to William, put him to death as a traitor
+to his country.
+[FN [w] Gul. Gemet. p. 289.  Order. Vital. p. 508.  Anglia Sacra, vol.
+i. p. 245.  [x] Hoveden, p. 450.  M. West. p. 226.  Sim. Dunelm. p.
+197.]
+
+[MN Dec. 6.]
+The king, informed of these dangerous discontents, hastened over to
+England; and by his presence, and the vigorous measures which he
+pursued, disconcerted all the schemes of the conspirators.  Such of
+them as had been more violent in their mutiny, betrayed their guilt by
+flying or concealing themselves; and the confiscation of their
+estates, while it increased the number of malecontents, both enabled
+William to gratify farther the rapacity of his Norman captains, and
+gave them the prospect of new forfeitures and attainders.  The king
+began to regard all his English subjects as inveterate and
+irreclaimable enemies; and thenceforth either embraced, or was more
+fully confirmed in the resolution of seizing their possessions, and of
+reducing them to the most abject slavery.  Though the natural violence
+and severity of his temper made him incapable of feeling any remorse
+in the execution of this tyrannical purpose, he had art enough to
+conceal his intention, and to preserve still some appearance of
+justice in his oppressions.  He ordered all the English, who had been
+arbitrarily expelled by the Normans during his absence, to be restored
+to their estates [y]: but at the same time he imposed a general tax on
+the people, that of Danegelt, which had been abolished by the
+Confessor, and which had always been extremely odious to the nation
+[z].
+[FN [y] Chron. Sax. p. 173.  This fact is a full proof that the
+Normans had committed great injustice, and were the real cause of the
+insurrections of the English.  [z] Hoveden, p. 450.  Sim. Dunelm. p
+197.  Alur. Beverl. p. 127.]
+
+[MN 1068.]  As the vigilance of William overawed the malecontents,
+their insurrections were more the result of an impatient humour in the
+people, than of any regular conspiracy which could give them a
+rational hope of success against the established power of the Normans.
+The inhabitants of Exeter, instigated by Githa, mother to King Harold,
+refused to admit a Norman garrison, and betaking themselves to arms,
+were strengthened by the accession of the neighbouring inhabitants of
+Devonshire and Cornwall [a].  The king hastened with his forces to
+chastise this revolt; and on his approach, the wiser and more
+considerable citizens, sensible of the unequal contest, persuaded the
+people to submit, and to deliver hostages for their obedience.  A
+sudden mutiny of the populace broke this agreement; and William,
+appearing before the walls, ordered the eyes of one of the hostages to
+be put out, as an earnest of that severity which the rebels must
+expect if they persevered in their revolt [b].  The inhabitants were
+anew seized with terror, and surrendering at discretion, threw
+themselves at the king's feet, and supplicated his clemency and
+forgiveness.  William was not destitute of generosity, when his temper
+was not hardened either by policy or passion: he was prevailed on to
+pardon the rebels, and he set guards on all the gates, in order to
+prevent the rapacity and insolence of his soldiery [c].  Githa escaped
+with her treasures to Flanders.  The malecontents of Cornwall imitated
+the example of Exeter, and met with like treatment: and the king,
+having built a citadel in that city, which he put under the command of
+Baldwin, son of Earl Gilbert, returned to Winchester, and dispersed
+his army into their quarters.  He was here joined by his wife Matilda,
+who had not before visited England, and whom he now ordered to be
+crowned by Archbishop Aldred.  Soon after she brought him an accession
+to his family by the birth of a fourth son, whom he named Henry.  His
+three elder sons, Robert, Richard, and William, still resided in
+Normandy.
+[FN [a] Order. Vital. p. 510.  [b] Ibid.  [c] Ibid.]
+
+But though the king appeared thus fortunate, both in public and
+domestic life, the discontents of his English subjects augmented
+daily; and the injuries committed and suffered on both sides rendered
+the quarrel between them and the Normans absolutely incurable.  The
+insolence of victorious masters, dispersed throughout the kingdom,
+seemed intolerable to the natives; and wherever they found the
+Normans, separate or assembled in small bodies, they secretly set upon
+them, and gratified their vengeance by the slaughter of their enemies.
+But an insurrection in the north drew thither the general attention,
+and seemed to threaten more important consequences.  Edwin and Morcar
+appeared at the head of this rebellion; and these potent noblemen,
+before they took arms, stipulated for foreign succours from their
+nephew Blethyn, Prince of North Wales, from Malcolm, King of Scotland,
+and from Sweyn, King of Denmark.  Besides the general discontent which
+had seized the English, the two earls were incited to this revolt by
+private injuries.  William, in order to ensure them to his interests,
+had, on his accession, promised his daughter in marriage to Edwin; but
+either he had never seriously intended to perform this engagement, or,
+having changed his plan of administration in England from clemency to
+rigour, he thought it was to little purpose, if he gained one family,
+while he enraged the whole nation.  When Edwin, therefore, renewed his
+applications, be gave him an absolute denial [d]; and this
+disappointment, added to so many other reasons of disgust, induced
+that nobleman and his brother to concur with their incensed
+countrymen, and to make one general effort for the recovery of their
+ancient liberties.  William knew the importance of celerity in
+quelling an insurrection, supported by such powerful leaders, and so
+agreeable to the wishes of the people, and having his troops always in
+readiness, he advanced by great journeys to the north.  On his march
+he gave orders to fortify the castle of Warwick, of which he left
+Henry de Beaumont governor, and that of Nottingham, which he committed
+to the custody of William Peverell, another Norman captain [e].  He
+reached York before the rebels were in any condition for resistance,
+or were joined by any of the foreign succours which they expected,
+except a small reinforcement from Wales [f]; and the two earls found
+no means of safety, but having recourse to the clemency of the victor.
+Archil, a potent nobleman in those parts, imitated their example and
+delivered his son as a hostage for his fidelity [g]; nor were the
+people, thus deserted by their leaders, able to make any farther
+resistance.  But the treatment which William gave the chiefs was very
+different from that which fell to the share of their followers.  He
+observed religiously the terms which he had granted to the former, and
+allowed them for the present to keep possession of their estates; but
+he extended the rigours of his confiscations over the latter, and gave
+away their lands to his foreign adventurers.  These, planted
+throughout the whole country, and in possession of the military power,
+left Edwin and Morcar, whom he pretended to spare, destitute of all
+support, and ready to fall, whenever he should think proper to command
+their ruin.  A peace which he made with Malcolm, who did him homage
+for Cumberland, seemed at the same time to deprive them of all
+prospect of foreign assistance [h].
+[FN [d] Order. Vital. p. 511.  [e] Ibid.  [f] Ibid.  [g] Ibid.  [h]
+Order. Vital. p. 511.]
+
+[MN Rigours of the Norman government.]
+The English were now sensible that their final destruction was
+intended; and that instead of a sovereign, whom they had hoped to gain
+by their submission, they had tamely surrendered themselves, without
+resistance, to a tyrant and a conqueror.  Though the early
+confiscation of Harold's followers might seem iniquitous, being
+inflicted on men who had never sworn fealty to the Duke of Normandy,
+who were ignorant of his pretensions, and who only fought in defence
+of the government which they themselves had established in their own
+country; yet were these rigours, however contrary to the ancient Saxon
+laws, excused on account of the urgent necessities of the prince; and
+those who were not involved in the present ruin hoped that they should
+thenceforth enjoy, without molestation, their possessions and their
+dignities.  But the successive destruction of so many other families
+convinced them that the king intended to rely entirely on the support
+and affections of foreigners; and they foresaw new forfeitures,
+attainders, and acts of violence as the necessary result of this
+destructive plan of administration.  They observed that no Englishman
+possessed his confidence, or was intrusted with any command or
+authority; and that the strangers, whom a rigorous discipline could
+have but ill restrained, were encouraged in their insolence and
+tyranny against them.  The easy submission of the kingdom on its first
+invasion had exposed the natives to contempt; the subsequent proofs of
+their animosity and resentment had made them the object of hatred; and
+they were now deprived of every expedient by which they could hope to
+make themselves either regarded or beloved by their sovereign.
+Impressed with the sense of this dismal situation, many Englishmen
+fled into foreign countries with an intention of passing their lives
+abroad free from oppression, or of returning on a favourable
+opportunity to assist their friends in the recovery of their native
+liberties [i].  Edgar Atheling himself, dreading the insidious
+caresses of William, was persuaded by Cospatric, a powerful
+Northumbrian, to escape with him into Scotland; and he carried thither
+his two sisters, Margaret and Christina.  They were well received by
+Malcolm, who soon after espoused Margaret, the elder sister; and
+partly with a view of strengthening his kingdom by the accession of so
+many strangers, partly in hopes of employing them against the growing
+power of William, he gave great countenance to all the English exiles.
+Many of them settled there; and laid the foundation of families which
+afterwards made a figure in that country.
+[FN [i] Order. Vital. p. 508.  M. West. p. 225.  M. Paris, p. 4.  Sim.
+Dun. p. 197.]
+
+While the English suffered under these oppressions, even the
+foreigners were not much at their ease; but finding themselves
+surrounded on all hands by enraged enemies, who took every advantage
+against them, and menaced them with still more bloody effects of the
+public resentment, they began to wish again for the tranquillity and
+security of their native country.  Hugh de Grentmesnil, and Humphry de
+Teliol, though intrusted with great commands, desired to be dismissed
+the service; and some others imitated their example: a desertion which
+was highly resented by the king, and which he punished by the
+confiscation of all their possessions in England [k].  But William's
+bounty to his followers could not fail of alluring many new
+adventurers into his service; and the rage of the vanquished English
+served only to excite the attention of the king and those warlike
+chiefs, and keep them in readiness to suppress every commencement of
+domestic rebellion or foreign invasion.
+[FN [k] Order. Vitalis, p. 512.]
+
+[MN 1069.  New insurrections.]
+It was not long before they found occupation for their prowess and
+military conduct.  Godwin, Edmond, and Magnus, three sons of Harold,
+had, immediately after the defeat at Hastings, sought a retreat in
+Ireland; where, having met with a kind reception from Dermot and other
+princes of that country, they projected an invasion on England, and
+they hoped that all the exiles from Denmark, Scotland, and Wales,
+assisted by forces from these several countries, would at once
+commence hostilities, and rouse the indignation of the English against
+their haughty conquerors.  They landed in Devonshire; but found Brian,
+son of the Count of Britany, at the head of some foreign troops, ready
+to oppose them; and being defeated in several actions, they were
+obliged to retreat to their ships, and to return with great loss to
+Ireland [l].  The efforts of the Normans were now directed to the
+north, where affairs had fallen into the utmost confusion.  The more
+impatient of the Northumbrians had attacked Robert de Comyn, who was
+appointed governor of Durham; and gaining the advantage over him from
+his negligence, they put him to death in that city, with seven hundred
+of his followers [m].  This success animated the inhabitants of York,
+who, rising in arms, slew Robert Fitz-Richard, their governor [n]; and
+besieged in the castle William Mallet, on whom the command now
+devolved.  A little after, the Danish troops landed from three hundred
+vessels; Osberne, brother to King Sweyn, was intrusted with the
+command of these forces, and he was accompanied by Harold and Canute,
+two sons of that monarch.  Edgar Atheling appeared from Scotland, and
+brought along with him Cospatric, Waltheof, Siward, Bearne,
+Merleswain, Adelin, and other leaders, who, partly from the hopes
+which they gave of Scottish succours, partly from their authority in
+those parts, easily persuaded the warlike and discontented
+Northumbrians to join the insurrection.  Mallet, that he might better
+provide for the defence of the citadel of York, set fire to some
+houses which lay contiguous; but this expedient proved the immediate
+cause of his destruction.  The flames, spreading into the neighbouring
+streets, reduced the whole city to ashes: the enraged inhabitants,
+aided by the Danes, took advantage of the confusion to attack the
+castle, which they carried by assault; and the garrison, to the number
+of three thousand men, was put to the sword without mercy [o].
+[FN [l] Gul. Gemet. p. 290.  Order. Vital. p. 513.  Anglia Sacra, vol.
+i. p. 246.  [m] Order. Vital. p. 512.  Chron. de Mailr. p. 116.
+Hoveden, p. 450.  M. Paris, p. 5.  Sim. Dun. p. 198.  [n] Order.
+Vital. p. 512.  [o] Order. Vital. p. 513.  Hoveden, p. 451.]
+
+This success proved a signal to many other parts of England, and gave
+the people an opportunity of showing their malevolence to the Normans.
+Hereward, a nobleman in East Anglia celebrated for valour, assembled
+his followers, and taking shelter in the Isle of Ely, made inroads on
+all the neighbouring country [p].  The English in the counties of
+Somerset and Dorset rose in arms, and assaulted Montacute, the Norman
+governor; while the inhabitants of Cornwall and Devon invested Exeter,
+which, from the memory of William's clemency, still remained faithful
+to him.  Edric the Forester, calling in the assistance of the Welsh,
+laid siege to Shrewsbury, and made head against Earl Brient and
+Fitz-Osberne, who commanded in those quarters [q].  The English, every
+where, repenting their former easy submission, seemed determined to
+make by concert one great effort for the recovery of their liberties,
+and for the expulsion of their oppressors.
+[FN [p] Ingulph. p. 71.  Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 47.  [q]
+Order. Vital. p. 514.]
+
+William, undismayed amidst this scene of confusion, assembled his
+forces, and animating them with the prospect of new confiscations and
+forfeitures, he marched against the rebels in the north, whom he
+regarded as the most formidable, and whose defeat he knew would strike
+a terror into all the other malecontents.  Joining policy to force, he
+tried before his approach to weaken the enemy, by detaching the Danes
+from them; and he engaged Osberne, by large presents, and by offering
+him the liberty of plundering the sea-coast, to retire, without
+committing farther hostilities, into Denmark [r].  Cospatric, also, in
+despair of success, made his peace with the king, and paying a sum of
+money as an atonement for his insurrection, was received into favour,
+and even invested with the earldom of Northumberland.  Waltheof, who
+long defended York with great courage, was allured with this
+appearance of clemency; and as William knew how to esteem valour, even
+in an enemy, that nobleman had no reason to repent of his confidences
+[s].  Even Edric, compelled by necessity, submitted to the conqueror,
+and received forgiveness, which was soon after followed by some degree
+of trust and favour.  Malcolm, coming too late to support his
+confederates, was constrained to retire; and all the English rebels in
+other parts, except Hereward, who still kept in his fastnesses,
+dispersed themselves, and left the Normans undisputed masters of the
+kingdom.  Edgar Atheling, with his followers, sought again a retreat
+in Scotland from the pursuit of his enemies.
+[FN [r] Hoveden, p. 451.  Chron Abb. St Petri de Burgo, p. 47.  Sim.
+Dun. p. 199.  [s] Malmes. p. 104.  H. Hunt. p. 369.]
+
+[MN 1070.  New rigours of the government.]
+But the seeming clemency of William towards the English leaders
+proceeded only from artifice, or from his esteem of individuals: his
+heart was hardened against all compassion towards the people; and he
+scrupled no measure, however violent or severe, which seemed requisite
+to support his plan of tyrannical administration.  Sensible of the
+restless disposition of the Northumbrians, he determined to
+incapacitate them ever after from giving him disturbance, and he
+issued orders for laying entirely waste that fertile country which,
+for the extent of sixty miles, lies between the Humber and the Tees
+[t].  The houses were reduced to ashes by the merciless Normans; the
+cattle seized and driven away; the instruments of husbandry destroyed;
+and the inhabitants compelled either to seek for a subsistence in the
+southern parts of Scotland, or if they lingered in England, from a
+reluctance to abandon their ancient habitations, they perished
+miserably in the woods from cold and hunger.  The lives of a hundred
+thousand persons are computed to have been sacrificed to this stroke
+of barbarous policy [u], which, by seeking a remedy for a temporary
+evil, thus inflicted a lasting wound on the power and populousness of
+the nation.
+[FN [t] Chron. Sax. p. 174.  Ingulph. p. 79.  Malmes. p. 103.
+Hoveden, p. 451.  Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 47.  M. Paris, p.
+5.  Sim. Dun. p. 199.  Brompton, p. 966.  Knyghton, p. 2344.  Anglia
+Sacra, vol. i. p. 702.  [u] Order. Vital. p. 515.]
+
+But William finding himself entirely master of a people who had given
+him such sensible proofs of their impotent rage and animosity, now
+resolved to proceed to extremities against all the natives of England,
+and to reduce them to a condition in which they should no longer be
+formidable to his government.  The insurrections and conspiracies in
+so many parts of the kingdom had involved the bulk of the landed
+proprietors, more or less, in the guilt of treason; and the king took
+advantage of executing against them, with the utmost rigour, the laws
+of forfeiture and attainder.  Their lives were indeed commonly spared;
+but their estates were confiscated, and either annexed to the royal
+demesnes, or conferred with the most profuse bounty on the Normans and
+other foreigners [w].  While the king's declared intention was to
+depress, or rather entirely extirpate the English gentry [x], it is
+easy to believe that scarcely the form of justice would be observed in
+those violent proceedings [y]; and that any suspicions served as the
+most undoubted proofs of guilt against a people thus devoted to
+destruction.  It was crime sufficient in an Englishman to be opulent,
+or noble, or powerful; and the policy of the king, concurring with the
+rapacity of foreign adventurers, produced almost a total revolution in
+the landed property of the kingdom.  Ancient and honourable families
+were reduced to beggary; the nobles themselves were every where
+treated with ignominy and contempt; they had the mortification of
+seeing their castles and manors possessed by Normans of the meanest
+birth and lowest stations [z]; and they found themselves carefully
+excluded from every road which led either to riches or preferment [a].
+[FN [w] W. Malmes. p. 104.  [x] H. Hunt p. 370.  [y] See note [H], at
+the end of the volume.  [z] Order. Vitalis, p. 521.  M. West. p. 229.
+[a] See note [I], at the end of the volume.]
+
+[MN Introduction of the feudal law.]
+As power naturally follows property, this revolution alone gave great
+security to the foreigners; but William, by the new institutions which
+he established, took also care to retain for ever the military
+authority in those hands which had enabled him to subdue the kingdom.
+He introduced into England the feudal law, which he found established
+in France and Normandy, and which, during that age, was the foundation
+both of the stability and of the disorders in most of the monarchical
+governments of Europe.  He divided all the lands of England, with very
+few exceptions, beside the royal demesnes, into baronies, and he
+conferred these, with the reservation of stated services and payments,
+on the most considerable of his adventurers.  These great barons, who
+held immediately of the crown, shared out a great part of their lands
+to other foreigners, who were denominated knights or vassals, and who
+paid their lord the same duty and submission in peace and war, which
+he himself owed to his sovereign.  The whole kingdom contained about
+seven hundred chief tenants, and sixty thousand two hundred and
+fifteen knights-fees [b]; and as none of the native English were
+admitted into the first rank, the few who retained their landed
+property were glad to be received into the second, and under the
+protection of some powerful Norman, to load themselves and their
+posterity with this grievous burden, for estates which they had
+received free from their ancestors [c].  The small mixture of English
+which entered into this civil or military fabric (for it partook of
+both species) was so restrained by subordination under the foreigners,
+that the Norman dominion seemed now to be fixed on the most durable
+basis, and to defy all the efforts of its enemies.
+[FN [b] Order. Vital. p. 523.  Secretum Abbatis, apud Selden, Titles
+of Honour, p. 573.  Spellm. Gloss. in verbo FEODUM.  Sir Robert
+Cotton.  [c] M. West. p. 225.  M. Paris, p. 4.  Bracton, lib. 1. cap.
+II. num. 1.  Fleta, lib i. cap. 8. n. 2.]
+
+The better to unite the parts of the government, and to bind them into
+one system, which might serve both for defence against foreigners, and
+for the support of domestic tranquillity, William reduced the
+ecclesiastical revenues under the same feudal law; and though he had
+courted the church on his invasion and accession, he now subjected it
+to services which the clergy regarded as a grievous slavery, and as
+totally unbefitting their profession.  The bishops and abbots were
+obliged, when required, to furnish to the king, during war, a number
+of knights, or military tenants, proportioned to the extent of
+property possessed by each see or abbey; and they were liable, in case
+of failure, to the same penalties which were exacted from the laity
+[d]  The pope and the ecclesiastics exclaimed against this tyranny, as
+they called it; but the king's authority was so well established over
+the army, who held every thing from his bounty, that superstition
+itself, even in that age, when it was most prevalent, was constrained
+to bend under his superior influence.
+[FN [d] M. Paris, p. 5.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 248.]
+
+But as the great body of the clergy were still natives, the king had
+much reason to dread the effects of their resentment; he therefore
+used the precaution of expelling the English from all the considerable
+dignities, and of advancing foreigners in their place.  The partiality
+of the Confessor towards the Normans had been so great, that, aided by
+their superior learning, it had promoted them to many of the sees in
+England; and even before the period of the Conquest, scarcely more
+than six or seven of the prelates were natives of the country.  But
+among these was Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury; a man who, by his
+address and vigour, by the greatness of his family and alliances, by
+the extent of his possessions, as well as by the dignity of his
+office, and his authority among the English, gave jealousy to the king
+[e].  Though William had, on his accession, affronted this prelate by
+employing the Archbishop of York to officiate at his consecration, he
+was careful on other occasions to load hint with honours and caresses,
+and to avoid giving him farther offence till the opportunity should
+offer of effecting his final destruction [f].  The suppression of the
+late rebellions, and the total subjection of the English, made him
+hope that an attempt against Stigand, however violent, would be
+covered by his great successes, and be overlooked amidst the other
+important revolutions which affected so deeply the property and
+liberty of the kingdom.  Yet, notwithstanding these great advantages,
+he did not think it safe to violate the reverence usually paid to the
+primate; but under cover of a new superstition, which he was the great
+instrument of introducing into England.
+[FN [e] Parker, p. 161.  [f] Ibid. p. 164.]
+
+[MN Innovation in ecclesiastical government.]
+The doctrine which exalted the papacy above all human power had
+gradually diffused itself from the city and court of Rome; and was,
+during that age, much more prevalent in the southern than in the
+northern kingdoms of Europe.  Pope Alexander, who had assisted William
+in his conquests, naturally expected that the French and Normans would
+import into England the same reverence for his sacred character with
+which they were impressed in their own country; and would break the
+spiritual as well as civil independency of the Saxons, who had
+hitherto conducted their ecclesiastical government, with an
+acknowledgment indeed of primacy in the see of Rome, but without much
+idea of its title to dominion or authority.  As soon, therefore, as
+the Norman prince seemed fully established on the throne, the pope
+despatched Ermenfroy, Bishop of Sion, as his legate into England; and
+this prelate was the first that had ever appeared with that character
+in any part of the British islands.  The king, though he was probably
+led by principle to pay this submission to Rome, determined, as is
+usual, to employ the incident as a means of serving his political
+purposes, and of degrading those English prelates who were become
+obnoxious to him.  The legate submitted to become the instrument of
+his tyranny; and thought, that the more violent the exertion of power,
+the more certainly did it confirm the authority of that court from
+which he derived his commission.  He summoned, therefore, a council of
+the prelates and abbots at Winchester; and being assisted by two
+cardinals, Peter and John, he cited before him Stigand, Archbishop of
+Canterbury, to answer for his conduct.  The primate was accused of
+three crimes: the holding of the see of Winchester, together with that
+of Canterbury; the officiating in the pall of Robert his predecessor;
+and the having received his own pall from Benedict IX., who was
+afterwards deposed for simony, and for intrusion into the papacy [g].
+These crimes of Stigand were mere pretences; since the first had been
+a practice not unusual in England, and was never any where subjected
+to a higher penalty than a resignation of one of the sees; the second
+was a pure ceremonial; and as Benedict was the only pope who then
+officiated, and his acts were never repealed, all the prelates of the
+church, especially those who lay at a distance, were excusable for
+making their applications to him.  Stigand's ruin, however, was
+resolved on, and was prosecuted with great severity.  The legate
+degraded him from  his dignity: the king confiscated his estate, and
+cast him into prison, where he continued, in poverty and want, during
+the remainder of his life.  Like rigour was exercised against the
+other English prelates: Agelric, Bishop of Selesey and Agelmare, of
+Elmham, were deposed by the legate, and imprisoned by the king.  Many
+considerable abbots shared the same fate: Egelwin, Bishop of Durham,
+fled the kingdom: Wulstan, of Worcester, a man of an inoffensive
+character, was the only English prelate that escaped this general
+proscription [h], and remained in possession of his dignity.  Aldred,
+Archbishop of York, who had set the crown on William's head, had died
+a little before of grief and vexation, and had left his malediction to
+that prince on account of the breach of his coronation oath, and of
+the extreme tyranny with which he saw he was determined to treat his
+English subjects [i].
+[FN [g] Hoveden, p. 453.  Diceto, p. 482.  Knyghton, p. 2345.  Anglia
+Sacra, vol. i. p. 5, 6.  Ypod. Neust. p. 438.  [h] Brompton relates,
+that Wulstan was also deprived by the synod; but refusing to deliver
+his pastoral staff and ring to any but the person from whom he first
+received it, he went immediately to King Edward's tomb, and struck the
+staff so deeply into the stone, that none but himself was able to pull
+it out: upon which he was allowed to keep his bishopric.  This
+instance may serve, instead of many, as a specimen of the monkish
+miracles.  See also the annals of Burton, p. 284.  [i] Malmes. de
+Gest. Pont. p. 154.]
+
+It was a fixed maxim in this reign, as well as in some of the
+subsequent, that no native of the island should ever be advanced to
+any dignity, ecclesiastical, civil, or military [k]  The king,
+therefore, upon Stigand's deposition, promoted Lanfranc, a Milanese
+monk, celebrated for his learning and piety, to the vacant see.  This
+prelate was rigid in defending the prerogatives of his station; and
+after a long process before the pope, he obliged Thomas, a Norman
+monk, who had been appointed to the see of York, to acknowledge the
+primacy of the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Where ambition can be so
+happy as to cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under
+the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible
+of all human passions.  Hence Lanfranc's zeal in promoting the
+interests of the papacy, by which he himself augmented his own
+authority, was indefatigable; and met with proportionable success.
+The devoted attachment to Rome continually increased in England; and
+being favoured by the sentiments of the conquerors, as well as by the
+monastic establishments formerly introduced by Edred and by Edgar, it
+soon reached the same height at which it had, during some time, stood
+in France and Italy [l].  [MN 1070.]  It afterwards went much farther;
+being favoured by that very remote situation which had at first
+obstructed its progress; and being less checked by knowledge and a
+liberal education, which were still somewhat more common in the
+southern countries.
+[FN [k] Ingulph. p. 70, 71.  [l] M. West. p. 228.  Lanfranc wrote in
+defence of the real presence against Berengarius; and in those ages of
+stupidity and ignorance, he was greatly applauded for that
+performance.]
+
+The prevalence of this superstitious spirit became dangerous to some
+of William's successors, and incommodious to most of them; but the
+arbitrary sway of this king over the English, and his extensive
+authority over the foreigners, kept him from feeling any immediate
+inconveniences from it.  He retained the church in great subjection,
+as well as his lay subjects; and would allow none, of whatever
+character, to dispute his sovereign will and pleasure.  He prohibited
+his subjects from acknowledging any one for pope whom he himself had
+not previously received: he required that all the ecclesiastical
+canons, voted in any synod, should first be laid before him, and be
+ratified by his authority: even bulls or letters from Rome could not
+legally be produced, till they received the same sanction: and none of
+his ministers or barons, whatever offences they were guilty of, could
+be subjected to spiritual censures till he himself had given his
+consent to their excommunication [m].  These regulations were worthy
+of a sovereign, and kept united the civil and ecclesiastical powers,
+which the principles introduced by this prince himself had an
+immediate tendency to separate.
+[FN [m] Eadmer, p. 6.]
+
+But the English had the cruel mortification to find that their king's
+authority, however acquired or however extended, was all employed in
+their oppression; and that the scheme of their subjection, attended
+with every circumstance of insult and indignity [n], was deliberately
+formed by the prince, and wantonly prosecuted by his followers [o].
+William had even entertained the difficult project of totally
+abolishing the English language; and, for that purpose, he ordered,
+that in  all schools throughout the kingdom, the youth should be
+instructed in the French tongue; a practice which was continued from
+custom till after the reign of Edward III., and was never indeed
+totally discontinued in England.  The pleadings in the supreme courts
+of judicature were in French [p]: the deeds were often drawn in the
+same language: the laws were composed in that idiom [q]: no other
+tongue was used at court: it became the language of all fashionable
+company; and the English themselves, ashamed of their own country,
+affected to excel in that foreign dialect.  From this attention of
+William, and from the extensive foreign dominions long annexed to the
+crown of England, proceeded that mixture of French which is at present
+to be found in the English tongue, and which composes the greatest and
+best part of our language.  But amidst those endeavours to depress the
+English nation, the king, moved by the remonstrances of some of his
+prelates, and by the earnest desires of the people, restored a few of
+the laws of King Edward [r]; which, though seemingly of no great
+importance towards the protection of general liberty, gave them
+extreme satisfaction, as a memorial of their ancient government, and
+an unusual mark of complaisance in their imperious conquerors [s].
+[FN [n] Order. Vital. p. 523.  H. Hunt. p. 370.  [o] Ingulph. p. 71.
+[p] 36 Edw. III. cap. 15.  Selden Spicileg. ad Eadmer, p. 189.
+Fortescue de laud leg. Angl. cap. 48.  [q] Chron. Rothom. A. D. 1066.
+[r] Ingulph. p. 88.  Brompton, p. 982.  Knyghton, p. 2355.  Hoveden,
+p. 600.  [s] See note [K], at the end of the volume.]
+
+[MN 1071.]  The situation of the two great earls, Morcar and Edwin,
+became now very disagreeable.  Though they had retained their
+allegiance during this general insurrection of their countrymen, they
+had not gained the king's confidence, and they found themselves
+exposed to the malignity of the courtiers, who envied them on account
+of their opulence and greatness, and at the same time involved them in
+that general contempt which they entertained for the English.
+Sensible that they had entirely lost their dignity, and could not even
+hope to remain long in safety; they determined, though too late, to
+share the same fate with their countrymen.  While Edwin retired to his
+estate in the north, with a view of commencing an insurrection, Morcar
+took shelter in the Isle of Ely with the brave Hereward, who, secured
+by the inaccessible situation of the place, still defended himself
+against the Normans.  But this attempt served only to accelerate the
+ruin of the few English who had hitherto been able to preserve their
+rank or fortune during the past convulsions.  William employed all his
+endeavours to subdue the Isle of Ely; and having surrounded it with
+flat-bottomed boats, and made a causeway through the morasses to the
+extent of two miles, he obliged the rebels to surrender at discretion.
+Hereward alone forced his way, sword in hand, through the enemy; and
+still continued his hostilities by sea against the Normans, till at
+last William, charmed with his bravery, received him into favour, and
+restored him to his estate.  Earl Morcar, and Egelwin, Bishop of
+Durham, who had joined the malecontents, were thrown into prison, and
+the latter soon after died in confinement.  Edwin, attempting to make
+his escape into Scotland, was betrayed by some of his followers, and
+was killed by a party of Normans, to the great affliction of the
+English, and even to that of William, who paid a tribute of generous
+tears to the memory of this gallant and beautiful youth.  The King of
+Scotland, in hopes of profiting by these convulsions, had fallen upon
+the northern counties; but on the approach of William, he retired; and
+when the king entered his country, he was glad to make peace, and to
+pay the usual homage to the English crown.  To complete the king's
+prosperity, Edgar Atheling himself, despairing of success, and weary
+of a fugitive life, submitted to his enemy; and receiving a decent
+pension for his subsistence, was permitted to live in England
+unmolested.  But these acts of generosity towards the leaders were
+disgraced, as usual, by William's rigour against the inferior
+malecontents.  He ordered the hands to be lopt off; and the eyes to be
+put out, of many of the prisoners whom he had taken in the Isle of
+Ely; and he dispersed them in that miserable condition throughout the
+country, as monuments of his severity.
+
+[MN 1073.]  The province of Maine, in France, had, by the will of
+Herbert, the last count, fallen under the dominion of William some
+years before his conquest of England; but the inhabitants,
+dissatisfied with the Norman government, and instigated by Fulk, Count
+of Anjou, who had some pretensions to the succession, now rose in
+rebellion, and expelled the magistrates whom the king had placed over
+them.  The full settlement of England afforded him leisure to punish
+this insult on his authority; but being unwilling to remove his Norman
+forces from this island, he carried over a considerable army, composed
+almost entirely of English; and joining them to some troops levied in
+Normandy, he entered the revolted province.  The English appeared
+ambitious of distinguishing themselves on this occasion, and of
+retrieving that character of valour which had long been national among
+them; but which their late easy subjection under the Normans had
+somewhat degraded and obscured.  Perhaps too they hoped that, by their
+zeal and activity, they might recover the confidence of their
+sovereign, as their ancestors had formerly, by like means, gained the
+affections of Canute; and might conquer his inveterate prejudices in
+favour of his own countrymen.  The king's military conduct, seconded
+by these brave troops, soon overcame all opposition in Maine: the
+inhabitants were obliged to submit, and the Count of Anjou
+relinquished his pretensions.
+
+[MN 1074.  Insurrection of the Norman barons.]
+But during these transactions the government of England was greatly
+disturbed; and that too by those very foreigners who owed every thing
+to the king's bounty, and who were the sole object of his friendship
+and regard.  The Norman barons, who had engaged with their duke in the
+conquest of England, were men of the most independent spirit; and
+though they obeyed their leader in the field, they would have regarded
+with disdain the richest acquisitions, had they been required in
+return to submit, in their civil government, to the arbitrary will of
+one man.  But the imperious character of William, encouraged by his
+absolute dominion over the English, and often impelled by the
+necessity of his affairs, had prompted him to stretch his authority
+over the Normans themselves beyond what the free genius of that
+victorious people could easily bear.  The discontents were become
+general among those haughty nobles; and even Roger, Earl of Hereford,
+son and heir of Fitz-Osberne, the king's chief favourite, was strongly
+infected with them.  This nobleman, intending to marry his sister to
+Ralph de Guader, Earl of Norfolk, had thought it his duty to inform
+the king of his purpose, and to desire the royal consent; but meeting
+with a refusal, he proceeded nevertheless to complete the nuptials,
+and assembled all his friends, and those of Guader, to attend the
+solemnity.  The two earls, disgusted by the denial of their request,
+and dreading William's resentment for their disobedience, here
+prepared measures for a revolt; and during the gaiety of the festival,
+while the company was heated with wine, they opened the design to
+their guests.  They inveighed against the arbitrary conduct of the
+king; his tyranny over the English, whom they affected on this
+occasion to commiserate; his imperious behaviour to his barons of the
+noblest birth; and his apparent intention of reducing the victors and
+the vanquished to a like ignominious servitude.  Amidst their
+complaints, the indignity of submitting to a bastard [t] was not
+forgotten; the certain prospect of success in a revolt, by the
+assistance of the Danes and the discontented English, was insisted on;
+and the whole company, inflamed with the same sentiments, and warmed
+by the jollity of the entertainment, entered, by a solemn engagement,
+into the design of shaking off the royal authority.  Even Earl
+Waltheof; who was present, inconsiderately expressed his approbation
+of the conspiracy, and promised his concurrence towards its success.
+[FN [t] William was so little ashamed of his birth, that be assumed
+the appellation of bastard in some of his letters and charters.
+Spellm. Gloss. in verb. BASTARDUS.  Camden in RICHMONDSHIRE.]
+
+This nobleman, the last of the English who, for some generations,
+possessed any power or authority, had, after his capitulation at York,
+been received into favour by the Conqueror; had even married Judith,
+niece to that prince; and had been promoted to the earldoms of
+Huntingdon and Northampton [u].  Cospatric, Earl of Northumberland,
+having, on some new disgust from William, retired into Scotland, where
+he received the earldom of Dunbar from the bounty of Malcolm; Waltheof
+was appointed his successor in that important command, and seemed
+still to possess the confidence and friendship of his sovereign [w].
+But as he was a man of generous principles, and loved his country, it
+is probable that the tyranny exercised over the English lay heavy upon
+his mind, and destroyed all the satisfaction which he could reap from
+his own grandeur and advancement.  When a prospect, therefore, was
+opened of retrieving their liberty, he hastily embraced it; while the
+fumes of the liquor, and the ardour of the company, prevented him from
+reflecting on the consequences of that rash attempt.  But after his
+cool judgment returned, he foresaw that the conspiracy of those
+discontented barons was not likely to prove successful against the
+established power of William; or if it did, that the slavery of the
+English, instead of being alleviated by that event, would become more
+grievous, under a multitude of foreign leaders, factious and
+ambitious, whose union and whose discord would be equally oppressive
+to the people.  Tormented with these reflections, he opened his mind
+to his wife Judith, of whose fidelity he entertained no suspicion, but
+who, having secretly fixed her affections on another, took this
+opportunity of ruining her easy and credulous husband.  She conveyed
+intelligence of the conspiracy to the king, and aggravated every
+circumstance, which, she believed, would tend to incense him against
+Waltheof, and render him absolutely implacable [x].  Meanwhile the
+earl, still dubious with regard to the part which he should act,
+discovered the secret in confession to Lanfranc, on whose probity and
+judgment he had a great reliance: he was persuaded by the prelate,
+that he owed no fidelity to those rebellious barons, who had by
+surprise gained his consent to a crime; that his first duty was to his
+sovereign and benefactor; his next to himself and his family; and
+that, if he seized not the opportunity of making atonement for his
+guilt by revealing it, the temerity of the conspirators was so great,
+that they would give some other person the means of acquiring the
+merit of the discovery.  Waltheof, convinced by these arguments, went
+over to Normandy; but though he was well received by the king, and
+thanked for his fidelity, the account previously transmitted by Judith
+had sunk deep into William's mind, and had destroyed all the merit of
+her husband's repentance.
+[FN [u] Order. Vital. p. 522.  Hoveden, p. 454.  [w] Sim. Dun. p. 205.
+[x] Order. Vital. p. 536.]
+
+The conspirators, hearing of Waltheof's departure, immediately
+concluded their design to be betrayed; and they flew to arms before
+their schemes were ripe for execution, and before the arrival of the
+Danes, in whose aid they placed their chief confidence.  The Earl of
+Hereford was checked by Walter de Lacy, a great baron in those parts,
+who, supported by the Bishop of Worcester and the Abbot of Evesham,
+raised some forces, and prevented the earl from passing the Severn, or
+advancing into the heart of the kingdom.  The Earl of Norfolk was
+defeated at Fagadun, near Cambridge, by Odo, the regent, assisted by
+Richard de Bienfaite and William de Warenne, the two justiciaries.
+The prisoners taken in this action had their right foot cut off, as a
+punishment of their treason: the earl himself escaped to Norwich,
+thence to Denmark; where the Danish fleet, which had made an
+unsuccessful attempt upon the coast of England [y], soon after
+arrived, and brought him intelligence, that all his confederates were
+suppressed, and were either killed, banished, or taken prisoners [z].
+Ralph retired in despair to Britany, where he possessed a large estate
+and extensive jurisdictions.
+[FN [y] Chron. Sax. p. 183.  M. Paris, p. 7.  [z] Many of the
+fugitive Normans are supposed to have fled into Scotland; where they
+were protected, as well as the fugitive English, by Malcolm.  Whence
+come the many French and Norman families, which are found at present
+in that country.]
+
+The king, who hastened over to England in order to suppress the
+insurrection, found that nothing remained but the punishment of the
+criminals, which he executed with great severity.  Many of the rebels
+were hanged; some had their eyes put out; others their hands cut off.
+But William, agreeably to his usual maxims, showed more lenity to
+their leader, the Earl of Hereford, who was only condemned to a
+forfeiture of his estate, and to imprisonment during pleasure.  The
+king seemed even disposed to remit this last part of the punishment,
+had not Roger, by a fresh insolence, provoked him to render his
+confinement perpetual.  [MN 1075.]  But Waltheof, being an Englishman,
+was not treated with so much humanity; though his guilt, always much
+inferior to that of the other  conspirators, was atoned for by an
+early repentance and return to his duty.  William, instigated by his
+niece, as well as by his rapacious courtiers, who longed for so rich a
+forfeiture, ordered him to be tried, condemned, and executed.  [MN
+29th April 1075.]  The English, who considered this nobleman as the
+last resource of their nation, grievously lamented his fate, and
+fancied that miracles were wrought by his relics, as a testimony of
+his innocence and sanctity.  The infamous Judith, falling soon after
+under the king's displeasure, was abandoned by all the world, and
+passed the rest of her life in contempt, remorse, and misery.
+
+Nothing remained to complete William's satisfaction but the punishment
+of Ralph de Guader; and he hastened over to Normandy in order to
+gratify his vengeance on that criminal.  But though the contest seemed
+very unequal between a private nobleman and the King of England, Ralph
+was so well supported both by the Earl of Britany and the King of
+France, that William, after besieging him for some time in Dol, was
+obliged to abandon the enterprise, and make with those powerful
+princes a peace, in which Ralph himself was included.  England, during
+his absence, remained in tranquillity, and nothing remarkable
+occurred, except two ecclesiastical synods which were summoned, one at
+London, another at Winchester.  In the former the precedency among the
+episcopal sees was settled, and the seat of some of them was removed
+from small villages to the most considerable town within the diocese.
+In the second was transacted a business of more importance.
+
+[MN 1076.  Dispute about investitures]
+The industry and perseverance are surprising, with which the popes had
+been treasuring up powers and pretensions during so many ages of
+ignorance; while each pontiff employed every fraud for advancing
+purposes of imaginary piety, and cherished all claims which might turn
+to the advantage of his successors, though he himself could not expect
+ever to reap any benefit from them.  All this immense store of
+spiritual and civil authority was now devolved on Gregory VII. of the
+name of Hildebrand, the most enterprising pontiff that had ever filled
+that chair, and the least restrained by fear, decency, or moderation.
+Not content with shaking off the yoke of the emperors, who had
+hitherto exercised the power of appointing the pope on every vacancy,
+or at least of ratifying his election; he undertook the arduous task
+of entirely disjoining the ecclesiastical from the civil power, and of
+excluding profane laymen from the right which they had assumed of
+filling the vacancies of bishoprics, abbeys, and other spiritual
+dignities [a].  The sovereigns who had long exercised this power, and
+who had acquired it not by encroachments on the church, but on the
+people, to whom it originally belonged [b], made great opposition to
+this claim of the court of Rome; and Henry IV., the reigning emperor,
+defended this prerogative of his crown with a vigour and resolution
+suitable to its importance.  The few offices, either civil or
+military, which the feudal institutions left the sovereign the power
+of bestowing, made the prerogative of conferring the pastoral ring and
+staff the most valuable jewel of the royal diadem; especially as the
+general ignorance of the age bestowed a consequence on the
+ecclesiastical offices, even beyond the great extent of power and
+property which belonged to them.  Superstition, the child of
+ignorance, invested the clergy with an authority almost sacred; and as
+they engrossed the little learning of the age, their interposition
+became requisite in all civil business, and a real usefulness in
+common life was thus superadded to the spiritual sanctity of their
+character.
+[FN [a] L'Abbe Conc. tom. x. p. 371, 372. com. 2.  [b] Padre Paolo
+sopra benef. eccles. p. 30.]
+
+When the usurpations, therefore, of the church had come to such
+maturity as to embolden her to attempt extorting the right of
+investitures from the temporal power, Europe, especially Italy and
+Germany, was thrown into the most violent convulsions, and the pope
+and the emperor waged implacable war on each other.  Gregory dared to
+fulminate the sentence of excommunication against Henry and his
+adherents, to pronounce him rightfully deposed, to free his subjects
+from their oaths of allegiance; and instead of shocking mankind by
+this gross encroachment on the civil authority, he found the stupid
+people ready to second his most exorbitant pretensions.  Every
+minister, servant, or vassal of the emperor, who received any disgust,
+covered his rebellion under the pretence of principle; and even the
+mother of this  monarch, forgetting all the ties of nature, was
+seduced to countenance the insolence of his enemies.  Princes
+themselves, not attentive to the pernicious consequences of those
+papal claims, employed them for their present purposes; and the
+controversy, spreading into every city of Italy, engendered the
+parties of Guelf and Ghibbelin; the most durable and most inveterate
+factions that ever arose from the mixture of ambition and religious
+zeal.  Besides numberless assassinations, tumults, and convulsions to
+which they gave rise, it is computed that the quarrel occasioned no
+less than sixty battles in the reign of Henry IV., and eighteen in
+that of his successor, Henry V., when the claims of the sovereign
+pontiff finally prevailed [c].
+[FN [c] Padre Paolo sopra benef. eccles. p. 113.]
+
+But the bold spirit of Gregory, not dismayed with the vigorous
+opposition which he met with from the emperor, extended his
+usurpations all over Europe; and well knowing the nature of mankind,
+whose blind astonishment ever inclines them to yield to the most
+impudent pretensions, he seemed determined to set no bounds to the
+spiritual, or rather temporal monarchy, which he had undertaken to
+erect.  He pronounced the sentence of excommunication against
+Nicephorus, Emperor of the East: Robert Guiscard, the adventurous
+Norman, who had acquired the dominion of Naples, was attacked by the
+same dangerous weapon: he degraded Boleslas, King of Poland, from the
+rank of king; and even deprived Poland of the title of a kingdom: he
+attempted to treat Philip, King of France, with the same rigour which
+he had employed against the emperor [d]: he pretended to the entire
+property and dominion of Spain; and he parcelled it out amongst
+adventurers, who undertook to conquer it from the Saracens, and to
+hold it in vassalage under the see of Rome [e]: even the Christian
+bishops, on whose aid he relied for subduing the temporal princes, saw
+that he was determined to reduce them to servitude; and by assuming
+the whole legislative and judicial power of the church, to centre all
+authority in the sovereign pontiff [f].
+[FN [d] Epist. Greg. VII. epist. 32, 35. lib. 2. epist. 5.  [e] Epist.
+Greg. VII. lib. 1. epist. 7.  [f] Greg. epist. lib. 2. epist. 55.]
+
+William the Conqueror, the most potent, the most haughty, and the most
+vigorous prince in Europe, was not, amidst all his splendid successes,
+secure from the attacks of this enterprising pontiff.  Gregory wrote
+him a letter, requiring him to fulfil his promise in doing homage for
+the kingdom of England to the see of Rome, and to send him over that
+tribute, which all his predecessors had been accustomed to pay to the
+vicar of Christ.  By the tribute he meant Peter's pence; which, though
+at first a charitable donation of the Saxon princes, was interpreted,
+according to the usual practice of the Romish court, to be a badge of
+subjection acknowledged by the kingdom.  William replied, that the
+money should be remitted as usual; but that neither had he promised to
+do homage to Rome, nor was it in the least his purpose to impose that
+servitude on his state [g].  And the better to show Gregory his
+independence, he ventured, notwithstanding the frequent complaints of
+the pope, to refuse to the English bishops the liberty of attending a
+general council which that pontiff had summoned against his enemies.
+[FN [g] Spicileg. Seldeni ad Eadmer, p. 4.]
+
+But though the king displayed this vigour in supporting the royal
+dignity, he was infected with the general superstition of the age, and
+he did not perceive the ambitious scope of those institutions, which,
+under colour of strictness in religion, were introduced or promoted by
+the court of Rome.  Gregory, while he was throwing all Europe into
+combustion by his violence and impostures, affected an anxious care
+for the purity of manners; and even the chaste pleasures of the
+marriage-bed were inconsistent, in his opinion, with the sanctity of
+the sacerdotal character.  He had issued a decree prohibiting the
+marriage of priests, excommunicating all clergymen who retained their
+wives, declaring such unlawful commerce to be fornication, and
+rendering it criminal in the laity to attend divine worship, when such
+profane priests officiated at the altar [h].  This point was a great
+object in the politics of the Roman pontiffs; and it cost them
+infinitely more pains to establish it, than the propagation of any
+speculative absurdity which they had ever attempted to introduce.
+Many synods were summoned in different parts of Europe before it was
+finally settled; and it was there constantly remarked, that the
+younger clergymen complied cheerfully with the pope's decrees in this
+particular, and that the chief reluctance appeared in those who were
+more advanced in years: an event so little consonant to men's natural
+expectations, that it could not fail to be glossed on, even in that
+blind and superstitious age.  William allowed the pope's legate to
+assemble, in his absence, a synod at Winchester, in order to establish
+the celibacy of the clergy; but the church of England could not yet be
+carried the whole length expected.  The synod was content with
+decreeing, that the bishops should not thenceforth ordain any priests
+or deacons without exacting from them a promise of celibacy; but they
+enacted, that none, except those who belonged to collegiate or
+cathedral churches, should be obliged to separate from their wives.
+[FN [h] Hoveden, p. 455, 457.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 638.  Spellm. Concil.
+fol. 13 A. D. 1076.]
+
+[MN Revolt of Prince Robert.]
+The king passed some years in Normandy; but his long residence there
+was not entirely owing to his declared preference of that duchy: his
+presence was also necessary for composing those disturbances which had
+arisen in that favourite territory, and which had even originally
+proceeded from his own family.  Robert, his eldest son, surnamed
+Gambaron or Curthose, from his short legs, was a prince who inherited
+all the bravery of his family and nation; but without that policy and
+dissimulation, by which his father was so much distinguished, and
+which, no less than his military valour, had contributed to his great
+successes.  Greedy of fame, impatient of contradiction, without
+reserve in his friendships, declared in his enmities, this prince
+could endure no control even from his imperious father, and openly
+aspired to that independence, to which his temper, as well as some
+circumstances in his situation, strongly invited him [i].  When
+William first received the submissions of the province of Maine, he
+had promised the inhabitants that Robert should be their prince; and
+before he undertook the expedition against England, he had, on the
+application of the French court, declared him his successor in
+Normandy, and had obliged the barons of that duchy to do him homage as
+their future sovereign.  By this artifice, he had endeavoured to
+appease the jealousy of his neighbours, as affording them a prospect
+of separating England from his dominions on the continent; but when
+Robert demanded of him the execution of those engagements, he gave him
+an absolute refusal, and told him, according to the homely saying,
+that he never intended to throw off his clothes till he went to bed
+[k].  Robert openly declared his discontent; and was suspected of
+secretly instigating the King of France and the Earl of Britany to the
+opposition which they made to William, and which had formerly
+frustrated his attempts upon the town of Dol.  And as the quarrel
+still augmented, Robert proceeded to entertain a strong jealousy of
+his two surviving brothers, William and Henry, (for Richard was killed
+in hunting by a stag,) who, by greater submission and complaisance,
+had acquired the affections of their father.  In this disposition on
+both sides, the greatest trifle sufficed to produce a rupture between
+them.
+[FN [i] Order. Vital. p. 545.  Hoveden, p. 457.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 639.
+[k] Chron. de Mailr. p. 160.]
+
+The three princes, residing with their father in the castle of L'Aigle
+in Normandy, were one day engaged in sport together; and after some
+mirth and jollity, the two younger took a fancy of throwing over some
+water on Robert as he passed through the court on leaving their
+apartment [l]; a frolic, which he would naturally have regarded as
+innocent, had it not been for the suggestions of Alberic de
+Grentmesnil, son of that Hugh de Grentmesnil whom William had formerly
+deprived of his fortunes, when that baron deserted him during his
+greatest difficulties in England.  The young man, mindful of the
+injury, persuaded the prince that this action was meant as a public
+affront, which it behoved him in honour to resent; and the choleric
+Robert, drawing his sword, ran upstairs, with an intention of taking
+revenge on his brothers [m].  The whole castle was filled with tumult,
+which the king himself, who hastened from his apartment, found some
+difficulty to appease.  But he could by no means appease the
+resentment of his eldest son, who, complaining of his partiality, and
+fancying that no proper atonement had been made him for the insult,
+left the court that very evening, and hastened to Rouen, with an
+intention of seizing the citadel of that place [n].  But being
+disappointed in this view by the precaution and vigilance of Roger de
+Ivery, the governor, he fled to Hugh de Neufchatel, a powerful Norman
+baron, who gave him protection in his castles; and he openly levied
+war against his father [o].  The popular character of the prince, and
+a similarity of manners, engaged all the young nobility of Normandy
+and Maine, as well as of Anjou and Britany, to take part with him; and
+it was suspected, that Matilda, his mother, whose favourite he was,
+supported him in his rebellion by secret remittances of money, and by
+the encouragement which she gave his partisans.
+[FN [l] Order. Vital. p. 545.  [m] Ibid.  [n] Order. Vital. p. 545.
+[o] Ibid.  Hoveden, p. 457.  Sim. Dun. p. 210.  Diceto, p. 487.]
+
+[MN 1079.]  All the hereditary provinces of William, as well as his
+family, were, during several years, thrown into convulsions by this
+war; and he was at last obliged to have recourse to England, where
+that species of military government which he had established gave him
+greater authority than the ancient feudal institutions permitted him
+to exercise in Normandy.  He called over an army of English under his
+ancient captains, who soon expelled Robert and his adherents from
+their retreats, and restored the authority of the sovereign in all his
+dominions.  The young prince was obliged to take shelter in the castle
+of Gerberoy in the Beauvoisis, which the King of France, who secretly
+fomented all these dissensions, had provided for him.  In this
+fortress he was closely besieged by his father, against whom, having a
+strong garrison, he made an obstinate defence.  There passed under the
+walls of this place many rencounters, which resembled more the single
+combats of chivalry than the military actions of armies; but one of
+them was remarkable for its circumstances and its event.  Robert
+happened to engage the king, who was concealed by his helmet; and both
+of them being valiant, a fierce combat ensued, till at last the young
+prince wounded his father in the arm, and unhorsed him.  On his
+calling out for assistance, his voice discovered him to his son, who,
+struck with remorse for his past guilt, and astonished with the
+apprehensions of one much greater, which he had so nearly incurred,
+instantly threw himself at his father's feet, craved pardon for his
+offences, and offered to purchase forgiveness by any atonement [p].
+The resentment harboured by William was so implacable, that he did not
+immediately correspond to this dutiful submission of his son with like
+tenderness; but giving him his malediction, departed for his own camp,
+on Robert's horse, which that prince had assisted him to mount.  He
+soon after raised the siege, and marched with his army to Normandy;
+where the interposition of the queen, and other common friends,
+brought about a reconcilement, which was probably not a little
+forwarded by the generosity of the son's behaviour in this action, and
+by the returning sense of his past misconduct.  The king seemed so
+fully appeased, that he even took Robert with him into England; where
+he intrusted him with the command of an army, in order to repel an
+inroad of Malcolm, King of Scotland, and to retaliate by a like inroad
+into that country.  The Welsh, unable to resist William's power, were,
+about the same time, necessitated to pay a compensation for their
+incursions; and every thing was reduced to full tranquillity in this
+island.
+[FN [p] Malmes. p. 106.  H. Hunt. p. 369.  Hoveden, p. 457.  Flor.
+Wig. p. 639.  Sim. Dun. p. 210.  Diceto, p. 287.  Knyghton, p. 2351.
+Alur. Beverl. p. 135.]
+
+[MN 1081.  Doomsday-book.]
+The state of affairs gave William leisure to begin and finish an
+undertaking, which proves his extensive genius, and does honour to his
+memory: it was a general survey of all the lands in the kingdom, their
+extent in each district, their proprietors, tenures, value; the
+quantity of meadow, pasture, wood, and arable land, which they
+contained; and in some counties the number of tenants, cottagers, and
+slaves of all denominations, who lived upon them.  He appointed
+commissioners for this purpose, who entered every particular in their
+register by the verdict of juries; and after a labour of six years
+(for the work was so long in finishing) brought him an exact account
+of all the landed property of his kingdom [q].  This monument, called
+Doomsday-book, the most valuable piece of antiquity possessed by any
+nation, is still preserved in the Exchequer; and though only some
+extracts of it have hitherto been published, it serves to illustrate
+to us, in many particulars, the ancient state of England.  The great
+Alfred had finished a like survey of the kingdom in his time, which
+was long kept at Winchester, and which probably served as a model to
+William in this undertaking [r].
+[FN [q] Chron. Sax. p. 190.  Ingulph, p. 79.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 23.
+H. Hunt. p. 370.  Hoveden, p. 460.  M. West. p. 229.  Flor. Wigorn. p.
+641.  Chron. Abb. de Petri de Burgo, p. 51.  M. Paris, p. 8.  The more
+northern counties were not comprehended in this survey; I suppose
+because of their wild, uncultivated state.  [r] Ingulph, p. 8.]
+
+The king was naturally a great economist; and though no prince had
+ever been more bountiful to his officers and servants, it was merely
+because he had rendered himself universal proprietor of England, and
+had a whole kingdom to bestow.  He reserved an ample revenue for the
+crown; and in the general distribution of land among his followers, he
+kept possession of no less than one thousand four hundred and twenty-
+two manors in different parts of England [s], which paid him rent,
+either in money, or in corn, cattle, and the usual produce of the
+soil.  An ancient historian computes, that his annual fixed income,
+besides escheats, fines, reliefs, and other casual profits to a great
+value, amounted to near four hundred thousand pounds a year [t]; a sum
+which, if all circumstances be attended to, will appear wholly
+incredible.  A pound in that age, as we have already observed,
+contained three times the weight of silver that it does at present;
+and the same weight of silver, by the most probable computation, would
+purchase near ten times more of the necessaries of life, though not in
+the same proportion of the finer manufactures.  This revenue,
+therefore, of William, would be equal to at least nine or ten millions
+at present; and as that prince had neither fleet nor army to support,
+the former being only an occasional expense, and the latter being
+maintained without any charge to him by his military vassals, we must
+thence conclude, that no emperor or prince, in any age or nation, can
+be compared to the Conqueror for opulence and riches.  This leads us
+to suspect a great mistake in the computation of the historian:
+though, if we consider that avarice is always imputed to William, as
+one of his vices, and that having by the sword rendered himself master
+of all the lands in the kingdom, he would certainly in the partition
+retain a great proportion for his own share; we can scarcely be guilty
+of any error in asserting, that perhaps no king of England was ever
+more opulent, was more able to support by his revenue the splendour
+and magnificence of a court, or could bestow more on his pleasures, or
+in liberalities to his servants and favourites [u].
+[FN [s] West's inquiry into the manner of creating peers, p. 24.  [t]
+Order. Vital. p. 523.  He says one thousand and sixty pounds and some
+odd shillings and pence a day.  [u] Fortescue, de Dom. reg. et
+politic. cap. 111.]
+
+[MN The new forest.]
+There was one pleasure to which William, as well as all the Normans
+and ancient Saxons, was extremely addicted, and that was hunting; but
+this pleasure he indulged more at the expense of his unhappy subjects,
+whose interests he always disregarded, than to the loss or diminution
+of his own revenue.  Not content with those large forests which former
+kings possessed in all parts of England, he resolved to make a new
+forest near Winchester, the usual place of his residence; and for that
+purpose he laid waste the country in Hampshire for an extent of thirty
+miles, expelled the inhabitants from their houses, seized their
+property, even demolished churches and convents, and made the
+sufferers no compensation for the injury [w].  At the same time, he
+enacted new laws, by which he prohibited all his subjects from hunting
+in any of his forests, and rendered the penalties more severe than
+ever had been inflicted for such offences.  The killing of a deer or
+boar, or even a hare, was punished with the loss of the delinquent's
+eyes; and that at a time, when the killing of a man could be atoned
+for by paying a moderate fine or composition.
+[FN [w] Malmes. p. 3.  H. Hunt. p. 731.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p.
+258.]
+
+The transactions recorded during the remainder of this reign may be
+considered more as domestic occurrences which concern the prince, than
+as national events which regard England.  Odo, Bishop of Baieux, the
+king's uterine brother, whom he had created Earl of Kent, and
+intrusted with a great share of power during his whole reign, had
+amassed immense riches; and agreeably to the usual progress of human
+wishes, he began to regard his present acquisitions but as a step to
+farther grandeur.  He had formed the chimerical project of buying the
+papacy; and though Gregory, the reigning pope, was not of advanced
+years, the prelate had confided so much in the predictions of an
+astrologer, that he reckoned upon the pontiff's death, and upon
+attaining, by his own intrigues and money, that envied state of
+greatness.  Resolving, therefore, to remit all his riches to Italy, he
+had persuaded many considerable barons, and among the rest, Hugh, Earl
+of Chester, to take the same course; in hopes that, when he should
+mount the papal throne, he would bestow on them more considerable
+establishments in that country.  [MN 1082.]  The king, from whom all
+these projects had been carefully concealed, at last got intelligence
+of the design, and ordered Odo to be arrested.  His officers, from
+respect to the immunities which the ecclesiastics now assumed,
+scrupled to execute the command, till the king himself was obliged in
+person to seize him; and when Odo insisted that he was a prelate, and
+exempt from all temporal jurisdiction, William replied, that he
+arrested him not as Bishop of Baieux, but as Earl of Kent.  He was
+sent prisoner to Normandy; and, notwithstanding the remonstrances and
+menaces of Gregory, was detained in custody during the remainder of
+this reign.
+
+[MN 1083.]  Another domestic event gave the king much more concern: it
+was the death of Matilda, his consort, whom he tenderly loved, and for
+whom he had ever preserved the most sincere friendship.  Three years
+afterwards he passed into Normandy, and carried with him Edgar
+Atheling, to whom he willingly granted permission to make a pilgrimage
+to the Holy Land.  [MN 1087.  War with France.]  He was detained on
+the continent by a misunderstanding, which broke out between him and
+the King of France, and which was occasioned by inroads made into
+Normandy by some French barons on the frontiers.  It was little in the
+power of princes at that time to restrain their licentious nobility;
+but William suspected, that these barons durst not have provoked his
+indignation, had they not been assured of the countenance and
+protection of Philip.  His displeasure was increased by the account he
+received of some railleries which that monarch had thrown out against
+him.  William, who was become corpulent, had been detained in bed some
+time by sickness; upon which Philip expressed his surprise that his
+brother of England should be so long in being delivered of his big
+belly.  The king sent him word, that, as soon as he was up, he would
+present so many lights at Notre-dame, as would perhaps give little
+pleasure to the King of France; alluding to the usual practice at that
+time of women after childbirth.  Immediately on his recovery, he led
+an army into L'Isle de France, and laid every thing waste with fire
+and sword.  He took the town of Mante, which he reduced to ashes.  But
+the progress of these hostilities was stopped by an accident which
+soon after put an end to William's life.  His horse starting aside of
+a sudden, he bruised his belly on the pommel of the saddle; and being
+in a bad habit of body, as well as somewhat advanced in years, he
+began to apprehend the consequences, and ordered himself to be carried
+in a litter to the monastery of St. Gervas.  Finding his illness
+increase, and being sensible of the approach of death, he discovered
+at last the vanity of all human grandeur, and was struck with remorse
+for those horrible cruelties and acts of violence, which, in the
+attainment and defence of it, he had committed during the course of
+his reign over England.  He endeavoured to make atonement by presents
+to churches and monasteries; and he issued orders, that Earl Morcar,
+Siward, Bearne, and other English prisoners, should be set at liberty.
+He was even prevailed on, though not without reluctance, to consent,
+with his dying breath, to release his brother Odo, against whom he was
+extremely incensed.  He left Normandy and Maine to his eldest son
+Robert: he wrote to Lanfranc, desiring him to crown William King of
+England: he bequeathed to Henry nothing but the possessions of his
+mother Matilda; but foretold that he would one day surpass both his
+brothers in power and opulence.  He expired in the sixty-third year of
+his age, in the twenty-first year of his reign over England, and in
+the fifty-fourth of that over Normandy.
+
+[MN 9th Sept.  Death and character of William the Conqueror.]
+Few princes have been more fortunate than this great monarch, or were
+better entitled to grandeur and prosperity, from the abilities and the
+vigour of mind which he displayed in all his conduct.  His spirit was
+bold and enterprising, yet guided by prudence: his ambition, which was
+exorbitant, and lay little under the restraints of justice, still less
+under those of humanity, ever submitted to the dictates of sound
+policy.  Born in an age when the minds of men were intractable and
+unacquainted with submission, he was yet able to direct them to his
+purposes; and partly from the ascendant of his vehement character,
+partly from art and dissimulation, to establish an unlimited
+authority.  Though not insensible to generosity, he was hardened
+against compassion; and he seemed equally ostentatious and equally
+ambitious of show and parade in his clemency and in his severity.  The
+maxims of his administration were austere; but might have been useful,
+had they been solely employed to preserve order in an established
+government [x]; they were ill calculated for softening the rigours
+which, under the most gentle management, are inseparable from
+conquest.  His attempt against England was the last great enterprise
+of the kind which, during the course of seven hundred years, has fully
+succeeded in Europe; and the force of his genius broke through those
+limits, which first the feudal institutions, then the refined policy
+of princes, have fixed to the several states of Christendom.  Though
+he rendered himself infinitely odious to his English subjects, he
+transmitted his power to his posterity, and the throne is still filled
+by his descendants: a proof, that the foundations which he laid were
+firm and solid, and that, amidst all his violence, while he seemed
+only to gratify the present passion, he had still an eye towards
+futurity.
+[FN [x] M. West. p. 230.  Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 258.]
+
+Some writers have been desirous of refusing to this prince the title
+of Conqueror, in the sense which that term commonly bears; and, on
+pretence that the word is sometimes in old books applied to such as
+make an acquisition of territory by any means, they are willing to
+reject William's title, by right of war, to the crown of England.  It
+is needless to enter into a controversy, which, by the terms of it,
+must necessarily degenerate into a dispute of words.  It suffices to
+say, that the Duke of Normandy's first invasion of the island was
+hostile; that his subsequent administration was entirely supported by
+arms; that in the very frame of his laws, he made a distinction
+between the Normans and English, to the advantage of the former [y];
+that he acted in every thing as absolute master over the natives,
+whose interest and affections he totally disregarded; and that if
+there was an interval when he assumed the appearance of a legal
+sovereign, the period was very short, and was nothing but a temporary
+sacrifice, which he, as has been the case with most conquerors, was
+obliged to make of his inclination to his present policy.  Scarce any
+of those revolutions, which both in history and in common language,
+have always been denominated conquests, appear equally violent, or
+were attended with so sudden an alteration both of power and property.
+The Roman state, which spread its dominion over Europe, left the
+rights of individuals in a great measure untouched; and those
+civilized conquerors, while they made their own country the seat of
+empire, found that they could draw most advantage from the subjected
+provinces, by securing to the natives the free enjoyment of their own
+laws and of their private possessions.  The barbarians who subdued the
+Roman empire, though they settled in the conquered countries, yet
+being accustomed to a rude uncultivated life, found a part only of the
+land sufficient to supply all their wants; and they were not tempted
+to seize extensive possessions, which they knew neither how to
+cultivate nor enjoy.  But the Normans and other foreigners, who
+followed the standard of William, while they made the vanquished
+kingdom the seat of government, were yet so far advanced in arts as to
+be acquainted with the advantages of a large property; and having
+totally subdued the natives, they pushed the rights of conquest (very
+extensive in the eyes of avarice and ambition, however narrow in those
+of reason) to the utmost extremity against them.  Except the former
+conquest of England by the Saxons themselves, who were induced, by
+peculiar circumstances, to proceed even to the extermination of the
+natives, it would be difficult to find in all history a revolution
+more destructive, or attended with a more complete subjection of the
+ancient inhabitants.  Contumely seems even to have been wantonly added
+to oppression [z]; and the natives were universally reduced to such a
+state of meanness and poverty, that the English name became a term of
+reproach; and several generations elapsed before one family of Saxon
+pedigree was raised to any considerable honours; or could so much as
+attain the rank of baron of the realm [a].  These facts are so
+apparent from the whole tenour of the English history, that none would
+have been tempted to deny or elude them, were they not heated by the
+controversies of faction; while one party was ABSURDLY afraid of those
+ABSURD consequences, which they saw the other party inclined to draw
+from this event.  But it is evident that the present rights and
+privileges of the people, who are a mixture of English and Normans,
+can never be affected by a transaction, which passed seven hundred
+years ago; and as all ancient authors [b] who lived nearest the time,
+and best knew the state of the country, unanimously speak of the
+Norman dominion as a conquest by war and arms, no reasonable man, from
+the fear of imaginary consequences, will ever be tempted to reject
+their concurring and undoubted testimony.
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 600.  [z] H. Hunt. p. 370.  Brompton, p. 980.  [a]
+So late as the reign of King Stephen, the Earl of Albemarle, before
+the battle of the Standard, addressed the officers of his army in
+these terms, PROCERES ANGLIAE CLARISSIMI ET GENERE NORMANNI, &c.
+Brompton, p. 1026.  See farther Abbas Rieval, p. 339, &c.  All the
+barons and military men of England still called themselves Normans.
+[b] See note [L], at the end of the volume.]
+
+King William had issue, besides his three sons who survived him, five
+daughters, to wit, (1.) Cicely, a nun in the monastery of Feschamp,
+afterwards abbess in the Holy Trinity at Caen, where she died in 1127.
+(2.) Constantia, married to Alan Fergent, Earl of Britany.  She died
+without issue.  (3.) Alice, contracted to Harold.  (4.) Adela, married
+to Stephen, Earl of Blois, by whom she had four sons, William,
+Theobald, Henry, and Stephen; of whom the elder was neglected on
+account of the imbecility of his understanding.  (5.) Agatha, who died
+a virgin, but was betrothed to the King of Gallicia.  She died on her
+journey thither, before she joined her bridegroom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+WILLIAM RUFUS.
+
+ACCESSION OF WILLIAM RUFUS.--CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE KING.--INVASION OF
+NORMANDY.--THE CRUSADES.--ACQUISITION OF NORMANDY.--QUARREL WITH
+ANSELM, THE PRIMATE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF WILLIAM RUFUS
+
+
+
+[MN 1087.  Accession of William Rufus.]
+William, surnamed RUFUS, or the RED, from the colour of his hair, had
+no sooner procured his father's recommendatory letter to Lanfranc, the
+primate, than he hastened to take measures for securing to himself the
+government of England.  Sensible that a deed so unformal, and so
+little prepared, which violated Robert's right of primogeniture, might
+meet with great opposition, he trusted entirely for success to his own
+celerity; and having left St. Gervas, while William was breathing his
+last, he arrived in England before intelligence of his father's death
+had reached that kingdom [a].  Pretending orders from the king, he
+secured the fortresses of Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings, whose
+situation rendered them of the greatest importance; and he got
+possession of the royal treasure at Winchester, amounting to the sum
+of sixty thousand pounds, by which he hoped to encourage and increase
+his partisans [b].  The primate, whose rank and reputation in the
+kingdom gave him great authority, had been intrusted with the care of
+his education, and had conferred on him the honour of knighthood [c];
+and being connected with him by these ties, and probably deeming his
+pretensions just, declared that he would pay a willing obedience to
+the last will of the Conqueror, his friend and benefactor.  Having
+assembled some bishops, and some of the principal nobility, he
+instantly proceeded to the ceremony of crowning the new king [d]; and
+by this despatch endeavoured to prevent all faction and resistance.
+At the same time Robert, who had been already  acknowledged successor
+to Normandy, took peaceable possession of that duchy.
+[FN [a] W. Malmes, p. 120.  M. Paris, p. 10.  [b] Chron. Sax. p. 192.
+Brompton, p. 983.  [c] W. Malmes. p. 120.  M. Paris, p. 10. Thom.
+Rudborne, p. 263.  [d] Hoveden, p. 461.]
+
+[MN 1087.  Conspiracy against the king.]
+But though this partition appeared to have been made without any
+violence or opposition, there remained in England many causes of
+discontent, which seemed to menace that kingdom with a sudden
+revolution.  The barons, who generally possessed large estates both in
+England and in Normandy, were uneasy at the separation of those
+territories; and foresaw, that as it would be impossible for them to
+preserve long their allegiance to two masters, they must necessarily
+resign either their ancient patrimony or their new acquisitions [e].
+Robert's title to the duchy they esteemed incontestable; his claim to
+the kingdom plausible; and they all desired that this prince, who
+alone had any pretensions to unite these states, should be put in
+possession of both.  A comparison also of the personal qualities of
+the two brothers led them to give the preference to the elder.  The
+duke was brave, open, sincere, generous: even his predominant faults,
+his extreme indolence and facility, were not disagreeable to those
+haughty barons, who affected independence, and submitted with
+reluctance to a vigorous administration in their sovereign.  The king,
+though equally brave, was violent, haughty, tyrannical, and seemed
+disposed to govern more by the fear than by the love of his subjects.
+Odo, Bishop of Baieux, and Robert, Earl of Mortaigne, maternal
+brothers of the Conqueror, envying the great credit of Lanfranc, which
+was increased by his late services, enforced all these motives with
+their partisans, and engaged them in a formal conspiracy to dethrone
+the king.  They communicated their design to Eustace, Count of
+Boulogne; Roger, Earl of Shrewsbury and Arundel; Robert de Belesme,
+his eldest son; William, Bishop of Durham; Robert de Moubray; Roger
+Bigod; Hugh de Grentmesnil; and they easily procured the assent of
+these potent noblemen.  The conspirators, retiring to their castles,
+hastened to put themselves in a military posture; and expecting to be
+soon supported by a powerful army from Normandy, they had already
+begun hostilities in many places.
+[FN [e] Order. Vital. p. 666.]
+
+The king, sensible of his perilous situation, endeavoured to engage
+the affections of the native English.  As that people were now so
+thoroughly subdued that they no longer aspired to the recovery of
+their ancient liberties, and were content with the prospect of some
+mitigation in the tyranny of the Norman princes, they zealously
+embraced William's cause, upon receiving general promises of good
+treatment, and of enjoying the license of hunting in the royal
+forests.  The king was soon in a situation to take the field; and as
+he knew the danger of delay, he suddenly marched into Kent; where his
+uncles had already seized the fortresses of Pevensey and Rochester.
+These places he successively reduced by famine; and though he was
+prevailed on by the Earl of Chester, William de Warenne, and Robert
+Fitz-Hammon, who had embraced his cause, to spare the lives of the
+rebels, he confiscated all their estates, and banished them the
+kingdom [f].  This success gave authority to his negotiations with
+Roger, Earl of Shrewsbury, whom he detached from the confederates; and
+as his powerful fleet, joined to the indolent conduct of Robert,
+prevented the arrival of the Norman succours, all the other rebels
+found no resource but in flight or submission.  Some of them received
+a pardon; but the greater part were attainted; and the king bestowed
+their estates on the Norman barons, who had remained faithful to him.
+[FN [f] Chron. Sax. p. 195.  Order. Vital. p. 668.]
+
+[MN 1089.]  William, freed from the danger of these insurrections,
+took little care of fulfilling his promises to the English, who still
+found themselves exposed to the same oppresions which they had
+undergone during the reign of the Conqueror, and which were rather
+augmented by the insolent impetuous temper of the present monarch.
+The death of Lanfranc, who retained great influence over him, gave
+soon after a full career to his tyranny; and all orders of men found
+reason to complain of an arbitrary and illegal administration.  Even
+the privileges of the church, held sacred in those days, were a feeble
+rampart against his usurpations.  He seized the temporalities of all
+the vacant bishoprics and abbeys; he delayed the appointment of
+successors to those dignities, that he might the longer enjoy the
+profits of their revenue; he bestowed some of the church lands in
+property on his captains and favourites; and he openly set to sale
+such sees and abbeys as he thought proper to dispose of.  Though the
+murmurs of the ecclesiastics; which were quickly propagated to the
+nation, rose high against this grievance, the terror of William's
+authority, confirmed by the suppression of the late insurrections,
+retained every one in subjection, and preserved general tranquillity
+in England.
+
+[MN 1090.  Invasion of Normandy.]
+The king even thought himself enabled to disturb his brother in the
+possession of Normandy.  The loose and negligent administration of
+that prince had emboldened the Norman barons to affect a great
+independency; and their mutual quarrels and devastations had rendered
+the whole territory a scene of violence and outrage.  Two of them,
+Walter and Odo, were bribed by William to deliver the fortresses of
+St. Valori and Albemarle into his hands: others soon after imitated
+the example of revolt; while Philip, King of France who ought to have
+protected his vassal in the possession of his fief, was, after making
+some efforts in his favour, engaged by large presents to remain
+neuter.  The duke had also reason to apprehend danger from the
+intrigues of his brother Henry.  This young prince, who had inherited
+nothing of his father's great possessions, but some of his money, had
+furnished Robert, while he was making his preparations against
+England, with the sum of three thousand marks; and in return for so
+slender a supply, had been put in possession of the Cotentin, which
+comprehended near a third of the duchy of Normandy.  Robert
+afterwards, upon some suspicion, threw him into prison; but finding
+himself exposed to invasion from the King of England, and dreading the
+conjunction of the two brothers against him, he now gave Henry his
+liberty, and even made use of his assistance in suppressing the
+insurrections of his rebellious subjects.  Conan, a rich burgess of
+Rouen, had entered into a conspiracy to deliver that city to William;
+but Henry, on the detection of his guilt, carried the traitor up to a
+high tower, and with his own hands flung him from the battlements.
+
+The king appeared in Normandy at the head of an army; and affairs
+seemed to have come to extremity between the brothers; when the
+nobility on both sides, strongly connected by interest and alliances,
+interposed and mediated an accommodation.  The chief advantage of this
+treaty accrued to William, who obtained possession of the territory of
+Eu, the towns of Aumale, Fescamp, and other places; but in return, he
+promised that he would assist his brother in subduing Maine, which had
+rebelled; and that the Norman barons, attainted in Robert's cause,
+should be restored to their estates in England.  The two brothers also
+stipulated, that on the demise of either without issue, the survivor
+should inherit all his dominions; and twelve of the most powerful
+barons on each side swore, that they would employ their power to
+ensure the effectual execution of the whole treaty [g]: a strong proof
+of the great independence and authority of the nobles in those ages!
+[FN [g] Chron. Sax. p. 197.  W. Malmes. p. 121.  Hoveden, p. 462.  M.
+Paris, p. 11.  Annal. Waverl. p. 137.  W. Heming. p. 463.  Sim.
+Dunelm. p. 216.  Brompton, p. 986.]
+
+Prince Henry, disgusted that so little care had been taken of his
+interests in this accommodation, retired to St. Michael's Mount, a
+strong fortress on the coast of Normandy, and infested the
+neighbourhood with his incursions.  Robert and William, with their
+joint forces, besieged him in this place, and had nearly reduced him
+by the scarcity of water; when the elder, hearing of his distress,
+granted him permission to supply himself, and also sent him some pipes
+of wine for his own table.  Being reproved by William for this
+ill-timed generosity, he replied, WHAT, SHALL I SUFFER MY BROTHER TO
+DIE OF THIRST?  WHERE SHALL WE FIND ANOTHER WHEN HE IS GONE?  The king
+also, during this siege, performed an act of generosity which was less
+suitable to his character.  Riding out one day alone, to take a survey
+of the fortress, he was attacked by two soldiers and dismounted.  One
+of them drew his sword in order to despatch him; when the king
+exclaimed, HOLD, KNAVE!  I AM THE KING OF ENGLAND.  The soldier
+suspended his blow; and raising the king from the ground, with
+expressions of respect, received a handsome reward, and was taken into
+his service.  Prince Henry was soon  after obliged to capitulate; and
+being despoiled of all his patrimony, wandered about for some time
+with very few attendants, and often in great poverty.
+
+[MN 1091.]  The continued intestine discord among the barons was alone
+in that age destructive; the public wars were commonly short and
+feeble, produced little bloodshed, and were attended with no memorable
+event.  To this Norman war, which was so soon concluded, there
+succeeded hostilities with Scotland, which were not of longer
+duration.  Robert here commanded his brother's army, and obliged
+Malcolm to accept of peace, and do homage to the crown of England.
+This peace was not more durable.  [MN 1093.]  Malcolm, two years
+after, levying an army, invaded England; and after ravaging
+Northumberland, he laid siege to Alnwick, where a party of Earl
+Moubray's troops falling upon him by surprise, a sharp action ensued,
+in which Malcolm was slain.  This incident interrupted for some years
+the regular succession to the Scottish crown.  Though Malcolm left
+legitimate sons, his brother, Donald, on account of the youth of these
+princes, was advanced to the throne; but kept not long possession of
+it.  Duncan, natural son of Malcolm, formed a conspiracy against him;
+and being assisted by William with a small force, made himself master
+of the kingdom.  New broils ensued with Normandy.  The frank, open,
+remiss temper of Robert was ill fitted to withstand the interested,
+rapacious character of William, who, supported by greater power, was
+still encroaching on his brother's possessions, and instigating his
+turbulent barons to rebellion against him.  [MN 1094.]  The king,
+having gone over to Normandy to support his partisans, ordered an army
+of twenty thousand men to be levied in England and to be conducted to
+the sea-coast, as if they were instantly to be embarked.  Here Ralph
+Flambard, the king's minister, and the chief instrument of his
+extortions, exacted ten shillings a-piece from them, in lieu of their
+service, and then dismissed them into their several counties.  This
+money was so skilfully employed by William that it rendered him better
+service than he could have expected from the army.  He engaged the
+French king by new presents to depart from the protection of Robert,
+and he daily bribed the Norman barons to desert his service; but was
+prevented from pushing his advantages by an incursion of the Welsh,
+which obliged him to return to England.  He found no difficulty in
+repelling the enemy; but was not able to make any considerable
+impression on a country guarded by its mountainous situation.  [MN
+1095.]  A conspiracy of his own barons, which was detected at this
+time, appeared a more serious concern, and engrossed all his
+attention.   Robert Moubray, Earl of Northumberland, was at the head
+of this combination; and he engaged in it the Count d'Eu, Richard de
+Tunbridge, Roger de Lacy, and many others.  The purpose of the
+conspirators was to dethrone the king, and to advance in his stead
+Stephen, Count of Aumale, nephew to the Conqueror.  William's despatch
+prevented the design from taking effect, and disconcerted the
+conspirators.  Moubray made some resistance, but being taken prisoner,
+was attainted, and thrown into confinement, where he died about thirty
+years after.  [MN 1096.]  The Count d'Eu denied his concurrence in the
+plot; and to justify himself, fought, in the presence of the court at
+Windsor, a duel with Geoffrey Bainard, who accused him.  But being
+worsted in the combat, he was condemned to be castrated, and to have
+his eyes put out.  William de Alderi, another conspirator, was
+supposed to be treated with more rigour, when he was sentenced to be
+hanged.
+
+[MN The Crusades.]
+But the noise of these petty wars and commotions was quite sunk in the
+tumult of the crusades, which now engrossed the attention of Europe,
+and have ever since engaged the curiosity of mankind, as the most
+signal and most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared
+in any age or nation.  After Mahomet had, by means of his pretended
+revelations, united the dispersed Arabians under one head, they issued
+forth from their deserts in great multitudes; and being animated with
+zeal for their new religion, and supported by the vigour of their new
+government, they made deep impression on the eastern empire, which was
+far in the decline, with regard both to military discipline and to
+civil policy.  Jerusalem, by its situation, became one of their most
+early conquests; and the Christians had the mortification to see the
+holy sepulchre, and the other places, consecrated by the presence of
+their religious founder, fallen into the possession of infidels.  But
+the Arabians or Saracens were so employed in military enterprises, by
+which they spread their empire, in a few years, from the banks of the
+Ganges to the Straits of Gibraltar, that they had no leisure for
+theological controversy; and though the Alcoran, the original monument
+of their faith, seems to contain some violent precepts, they were much
+less infected with the spirit of bigotry and persecution than the
+indolent and speculative Greeks, who were continually refining on the
+several articles of their religious system.  They gave little
+disturbance to those zealous pilgrims who daily flocked to Jerusalem;
+and they allowed every man, after paying a moderate tribute, to visit
+the holy sepulchre, to perform his religious duties, and to return in
+peace.  But the Turcomans or Turks, a tribe of Tartars, who had
+embraced Mahometanism, having wrested Syria from the Saracens, and
+having, in the year 1065, made themselves masters of Jerusalem,
+rendered the pilgrimage much more difficult and dangerous to the
+Christians.  The barbarity of their manners, and the confusions
+attending their unsettled government, exposed the pilgrims to many
+insults, robberies, and extortions; and these zealots, returning from
+their meritorious fatigues and sufferings, filled all Christendom with
+indignation against the infidels, who profaned the holy city by their
+presence, and derided the sacred mysteries in the very place of their
+completion.  Gregory VII., among the other vast ideas which he
+entertained, had formed the design of uniting all the western
+Christians against the Mahometans; but the egregious and violent
+invasions of that pontiff on the civil power of princes had created
+him so many enemies, and had rendered his schemes so suspicious, that
+he was not able to make great progress in this undertaking.  The work
+was reserved for a meaner instrument, whose low condition in life
+exposed him to no jealousy, and whose folly was well calculated to
+coincide with the prevailing principles of the times.
+
+Peter, commonly called the Hermit, a native of Amiens in Picardy, had
+made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  Being deeply affected with the
+dangers to which that act of piety now exposed the pilgrims, as well
+as with the instances of oppression under which the eastern Christians
+laboured, he entertained the bold, and in all appearance
+impracticable, project of leading into Asia, from the farthest
+extremities of the West, armies sufficient to subdue those potent and
+warlike nations which now held the holy city in subjection [h].  He
+proposed his views to Martin II., who filled the papal chair, and who,
+though sensible of the advantages which the head of the Christian
+religion must reap from a religious war, and though he esteemed the
+blind zeal of Peter a proper means for effecting the purpose [i],
+resolved not to interpose his authority, till he saw a greater
+probability of success.  He summoned a council at Placentia, which
+consisted of four thousand ecclesiastics, and thirty thousand
+seculars; and which was so numerous that no hall could contain the
+multitude, and it was necessary to hold the assembly in a plain.  The
+harangues of the pope, and of Peter himself, representing the dismal
+situation of their brethren in the East, and the indignity suffered by
+the Christian name, in allowing the holy city to remain in the hands
+of infidels, here found the minds of men so well prepared, that the
+whole multitude, suddenly and violently, declared for the war, and
+solemnly devoted themselves to perform this service, so meritorious,
+as they believed it, to God and religion.
+[FN [h] Gul. Tyrius, lib. 1. cap. 11.  M. Paris, p. 17.  [i] Gul.
+Tyrius, lib. 1. cap. 13.]
+
+But though Italy seemed thus to have zealously embraced the
+enterprise, Martin knew that, in order to ensure success, it was
+necessary to enlist the greater and more warlike nations in the same
+engagement; and having previously exhorted Peter to visit the chief
+cities and sovereigns of Christendom, he summoned another council at
+Clermont in Auvergne [k].  The fame of this great and pious design
+being now universally diffused, procured the attendance of the
+greatest prelates, nobles, and princes; and when the pope and the
+Hermit renewed their pathetic exhortations, the whole assembly, as if
+impelled by an immediate inspiration, not moved by their preceding
+impressions, exclaimed with one voice, IT IS THE WILL OF GOD!  IT IS
+THE WILL OF GOD!  Words deemed so memorable, and so much the result of
+a divine influence, that they were employed as the signal of
+rendezvous and battle in all the future exploits of those adventurers
+[l].  Men of all ranks flew to arms with the utmost ardour; and an
+exterior symbol too, a circumstance of chief moment, was here chosen
+by the devoted combatants.  The sign of the cross, which had been
+hitherto so much revered among Christians, and which, the more it was
+an object of reproach among the pagan world, was the more passionately
+cherished by them, became the badge of union, and was affixed to the
+right shoulder, by all who enlisted themselves in this sacred warfare
+[m].
+[FN [k] Concil. tom. x.  Concil. Clarom.  Matth. Paris, p. 16.  M.
+West. p. 233.  [l] Historia Bell. Sacri, tom. i.  Musaei Ital.  [m]
+Hist. Bell. Sacri, tom. i.  Mus. Ital.  Order. Vital. p. 721.]
+
+Europe was at this time sunk into profound ignorance and superstition:
+the ecclesiastics had acquired the greatest ascendant over the human
+mind: the people, who, being little restrained by honour, and less by
+law, abandoned themselves to the worst crimes and disorders, knew of
+no other expiation than the observances imposed on them by their
+spiritual pastors; and it was easy to represent the holy war as an
+equivalent for all penances [n], and an atonement for every violation
+of justice and humanity.  But, amidst the abject superstition which
+now prevailed, the military spirit also had universally diffused
+itself; and though not supported by art or discipline, was become the
+general passion of the nations governed by the feudal law.  All the
+great lords possessed the right of peace and war: they were engaged in
+perpetual hostilities with each other: the open country was become a
+scene of outrage and disorder: the cities, still mean and poor, were
+neither guarded by walls, nor protected by privileges, and were
+exposed to every insult: individuals were obliged to depend for safety
+on their own force, or their private alliances: and valour was the
+only excellence which was held in esteem, or gave one man the
+pre-eminence above another.  When all the particular superstitions,
+therefore, were here united in one great object, the ardour for
+military enterprises took the same direction; and Europe, impelled by
+its two ruling passions, was loosened, as it  were, from its
+foundations, and seemed to precipitate itself in one united body upon
+the East.
+[FN [n] Order. Vital. p. 720.]
+
+All orders of men, deeming the crusades the only road to Heaven,
+enlisted themselves under these sacred banners, and were impatient to
+open the way with their sword to the holy city.  Nobles, artisans,
+peasants, even priests [o], enrolled their names; and to decline this
+meritorious service, was branded with the reproach of impiety, or what
+perhaps was esteemed still more disgraceful, of cowardice and
+pusillanimity [p].  The infirm and aged contributed to the expedition
+by presents and money; and many of them, not satisfied with the merit
+of this atonement, attended it in person, and were determined, if
+possible, to breathe their last in sight of that city where their
+Saviour had died for them.  Women themselves, concealing their sex
+under the disguise of armour, attended the camp; and commonly forgot
+still more the duty of their sex, by prostituting themselves, without
+reserve, to the army [q].  The greatest criminals were forward in a
+service which they regarded as a propitiation for all crimes; and the
+most enormous disorders were, during the course of those expeditions,
+committed by men inured to wickedness, encouraged by example, and
+impelled by necessity.  The multitude of the adventurers soon became
+so great, that their more sagacious leaders, Hugh, Count of
+Vermandois, brother to the French king, Raymond, Count of Toulouse,
+Godfrey of Bouillon, Prince of Brabant, and Stephen, Count of Blois,
+became apprehensive lest the greatness itself of the armament should
+disappoint its purpose; and they permitted an undisciplined multitude,
+computed at three hundred thousand men, to go before them, under the
+command of Peter the Hermit, and Walter the Moneyless [s].  These men
+took the road towards Constantinople through Hungary and Bulgaria; and
+trusting that Heaven, by supernatural assistance, would supply all
+their necessities, they made no provision for subsistence on their
+march.  They soon found themselves obliged to obtain by plunder what
+they had vainly expected from miracles; and the enraged inhabitants of
+the countries through which they passed, gathering together in arms,
+attacked the disorderly multitude, and put them to slaughter without
+resistance.  The more disciplined armies followed after; and passing
+the straits at Constantinople, they were mustered in the plains of
+Asia, and amounted in the whole to the number of seven hundred
+thousand combatants [t].
+[FN [o] Order. Vital. p. 720.  [p] W. Malm. p. 133.  [q] Vertot, Hist.
+de Chev. de Malte, vol. i. p. 46.  [r] Sim. Dunelm. p. 222.  [s]
+Matth. Paris, p. 17.  [t] Matth. Paris, p. 20, 21.]
+
+Amidst this universal frenzy, which spread itself by contagion
+throughout Europe, especially in France and Germany, men were not
+entirely forgetful of their present interests; and both those who went
+on this expedition, and those who stayed behind, entertained schemes
+of gratifying, by its means, their avarice or their ambition.  The
+nobles who enlisted themselves were moved, from the romantic spirit of
+the age, to hope for opulent establishments in the East, the chief
+seat of arts and commerce during those ages; and in pursuit of these
+chimerical projects, they sold at the lowest price their ancient
+castles and inheritances, which had now lost all value in their eyes.
+The greater princes, who remained at home, besides establishing peace
+in their dominions by giving occupation abroad to the inquietude and
+martial disposition of their subjects, took the opportunity of
+annexing to their crown many considerable fiefs, either by purchase,
+or by the extinction of heirs.  The pope frequently turned the zeal of
+the crusaders from the infidels against his own enemies, whom he
+represented as equally criminal with the enemies of Christ.  The
+convents and other religious societies bought the possessions of the
+adventurers, and as the contributions of the faithful were commonly
+intrusted to their management, they often diverted to this purpose
+what was intended to be employed against the infidels [u].  But no one
+was a more immediate gainer by this epidemic fury than the King of
+England, who kept aloof from all connexions with those fanatical and
+romantic warriors.
+[FN [u] Padre Paolo Hist. delle benef. ecclesiast. p. 128.]
+
+[MN Acquisition of Normandy.]
+Robert, Duke of Normandy, impelled by the bravery and mistaken
+generosity of his spirit, had early enlisted himself in the crusade;
+but being always unprovided with money, he found that it would be
+impracticable for him to appear in a manner suitable to his rank and
+station, at the head of his numerous vassals and subjects, who,
+transported with the general rage, were determined to follow him into
+Asia.  He resolved, therefore, to mortgage, or rather to sell his
+dominion; which he had not talents to govern; and he offered them to
+his brother William for the very unequal sum of ten thousand marks
+[w].  The bargain was soon concluded: the king raised the money by
+violent extortions on his subjects of all ranks, even on the convents,
+who were obliged to melt their plate in order to furnish the quota
+demanded of them [x]: he was put in possession of Normandy and Maine,
+and Robert, providing himself with a magnificent train, set out for
+the Holy Land, in pursuit of glory, and in full confidence of securing
+his eternal salvation.
+[FN [w] W. Malm. p. 123.  Chron. T. Wykes. p. 24.  Annal. Waverl. p.
+139.  W. Heming. p. 467.  Flor. Wig. p. 648.  Sim. Dunelm. p. 222.
+Knyghton, p. 2564.  [x] Eadmer, p. 35.  W. Malm. p. 123.  W. Heming.
+p. 467.]
+
+The smallness of this sum, with the difficulties which William found
+in raising it, suffices alone to refute the account which is
+heedlessly adopted by historians, of the enormous revenue of the
+Conqueror.  Is it credible that Robert would consign to the rapacious
+hands of his brother such considerable dominion, for a sum, which,
+according to that account, made not a week's income of his father's
+English revenue alone?  Or that the King of England could not on
+demand, without oppressing his subjects, have been able to pay him the
+money?  The Conqueror, it is agreed, was frugal as well as rapacious;
+yet his treasure, at his death, exceeded not sixty thousand pounds,
+which hardly amounted to his income for two months: another certain
+refutation of that exaggerated account.
+
+The fury of the crusades, during this age, less infected England than
+the neighbouring kingdoms; probably because the Norman conquerors,
+finding their settlement in that kingdom still somewhat precarious,
+durst not abandon their homes in quest of distant adventures.  The
+selfish interested spirit also of the king, which kept him from
+kindling in the general flame, checked its progress among his
+subjects: and as he is accused of open profaneness [y], and was endued
+with a sharp wit [z], it is likely that he made the romantic chivalry
+of the crusaders the object of his perpetual raillery.  As an instance
+of his irreligion, we are told, that he once accepted of sixty marks
+from a Jew, whose son had been converted to Christianity, and who
+engaged him by that present to assist him in bringing back the youth
+to Judaism.  William employed both menaces and persuasion for that
+purpose; but finding the convert obstinate in his new faith, he sent
+for the father and told him, that as he had not succeeded, it was not
+just that he should keep the present; but as he had done his utmost,
+it was but equitable that he should be paid for his pains; and he
+would therefore retain only thirty marks of the money [a].  At another
+time, it is said, he sent for some learned Christian theologians and
+some rabbies, and bade them fairly dispute the question of their
+religion in his presence: he was perfectly indifferent between them;
+had his ears open to reason and conviction; and would embrace that
+doctrine which upon comparison should be found supported by the most
+solid arguments [b].  If this story be true, it is probable that he
+meant only to amuse himself by turning both into ridicule: but we must
+be cautious of admitting every thing related by the monkish historians
+to the disadvantage of this prince: he had the misfortune to be
+engaged in quarrels with the ecclesiastics, particularly with Anselm,
+commonly called St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury; and it is no
+wonder his memory should be blackened by the historians of that order.
+[FN [y] G. Newbr. p. 358.  W. Gemet. p. 292.  [z] W. Malm. p. 122.
+[a] Eadmer, p. 47.  [b] W. Malm. p. 123.]
+
+[MN Quarrel the Anselm, the primate.]
+After the death of Lanfranc, the king, for several years, retained in
+his own hands the revenues of Canterbury, as he did those of many
+other vacant bishoprics; but falling into a dangerous sickness, he was
+seized with remorse, and the clergy represented to him, that he was in
+danger of eternal perdition, if before his death he did not make
+atonement for those multiplied impieties and sacrileges of which he
+had been guilty [c].  He resolved therefore to supply instantly the
+vacancy of Canterbury; and for that purpose he sent for Anselm, a
+Piedmontese by birth, Abbot of Bec in Normandy, who was much
+celebrated for his learning and piety.  The abbot earnestly refused
+the dignity, fell on his knees, wept, and entreated the king to change
+his purpose [d]; and when he found the prince obstinate in forcing the
+pastoral staff upon him, he kept his fist so fast clenched, that it
+required the utmost violence of the bystanders to open it, and force
+him to receive that ensign of spiritual dignity [e].  William soon
+after recovered; and his passions regaining their wonted vigour, he
+returned to his former violence and rapine.  He detained in prison
+several persons whom he had ordered to be freed during the time of his
+penitence; he still preyed upon the ecclesiastical benefices; the sale
+of spiritual dignities continued as open as ever; and he kept
+possession of a considerable part of the revenues belonging to the see
+of Canterbury [f].  But he found in Anselm that persevering opposition
+which he had reason to expect from the ostentatious humility which
+that prelate had displayed in refusing his promotion.
+[FN [c] Eadmer, p. 16.  Chron. Sax. p. 198.  [d] Eadmer, p. 17.
+Diceto, p. 494.  [e] Eadmer, p. 18.  [f] Eadmer, p. 19, 43.  Chron.
+Sax. p. 119.]
+
+The opposition made by Anselm was the more dangerous on account of the
+character of piety which he soon acquired in England by his great zeal
+against all abuses, particularly those in dress and ornament.  There
+was a mode, which, in that age, prevailed throughout Europe, both
+among men and women, to give an enormous length to their shoes, to
+draw the toe to a sharp point, and to affix to it the figure of a
+bird's bill, or some such ornament, which was turned upwards, and
+which was often sustained by gold or silver chains tied to the knee
+[g].  The ecclesiastics took exception at this ornament, which they
+said was an attempt to belie the scripture, where it is affirmed, that
+no man can add a cubit to his stature; and they declaimed against it
+with great vehemence, nay, assembled some synods, who absolutely
+condemned it.  But, such are the strange contradictions in human
+nature! though the clergy, at that time, could overturn thrones, and
+had authority sufficient to send above a million of men on THEIR
+errand to the deserts of Asia, they could never prevail against these
+long pointed shoes: on the contrary, that caprice, contrary to all
+other modes, maintained its ground during several centuries; and if
+the clergy had not at last desisted from their persecution of it, it
+might still have been the prevailing fashion in Europe.
+[FN [g] Order. Vital. p. 682.  W. Malmes. p. 123.  Knyghton, p. 2369.]
+
+But Anselm was more fortunate in decrying the particular mode which
+was the object of his aversion, and which probably had not taken such
+fast hold of the affections of the people.  He preached zealously
+against the long hair and curled locks which were then fashionable
+among the courtiers; he refused the ashes on Ash-Wednesday to those
+who were so accoutred; and his authority and eloquence had such
+influence, that the young men universally abandoned that ornament, and
+appeared in the cropped hair, which was recommended to them by the
+sermons of the primate.  The noted historian of Anselm, who was also
+his companion and secretary, celebrates highly this effort of his zeal
+and piety [h].
+[FN [h] Eadmer, p. 23.]
+
+When William's profaneness therefore returned to him with his health,
+he was soon engaged in controversies with this austere prelate.  There
+was at that time a schism in the church between Urban and Clement, who
+both pretended to the papacy [i]; and Anselm, who, as Abbot of Bec,
+had already acknowledged the former, was determined, without the
+king's consent, to introduce his authority into England [k].  William,
+who, imitating his father's example, had prohibited his subjects from
+recognizing any pope whom he had not previously received, was enraged
+at this attempt; and summoned a synod at Rockingham, with an intention
+of deposing Anselm: but the prelate's suffragans declared, that
+without the papal authority, they knew of no expedient for inflicting
+that punishment on their primate [l].  The king was at last engaged by
+other motives to give the preference to Urban's title: Anselm received
+the pall from that pontiff; and matters seemed to be accommodated
+between the king and the primate [m], when the quarrel broke out
+afresh from a new cause.  William had undertaken an expedition against
+Wales, and required the archbishop to furnish his quota of soldiers
+for that service; but Anselm, who regarded the demand as an oppression
+on the church, and yet durst not refuse compliance, sent them so
+miserably accoutred, that the king was extremely displeased, and
+threatened him with a prosecution [n].  Anselm, on the other hand,
+demanded positively that all the revenues of his see should be
+restored to him; appealed to Rome against the king's injustice [o];
+and affairs came to such extremities, that the primate, finding it
+dangerous to remain in the kingdom, desired and obtained the king's
+permission to retire beyond sea.  All his temporalities were seized
+[p]; but he was received with great respect by Urban, who considered
+him as a martyr in the cause of religion, and even menaced the king on
+account of his proceedings against the primate and the church, with
+the sentence of excommunication.  Anselm assisted at the council of
+Bari, where, besides fixing the controversy between the Greek and
+Latin churches, concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost [q], the
+right of election to church preferments was declared to belong to the
+clergy alone, and spiritual censures were denounced against all
+ecclesiastics, who did homage to laymen for their sees or benefices,
+and against all laymen who exacted it [r].  The right of homage, by
+the feudal customs, was, that the vassal should throw himself on his
+knees, should put his joined hands between those of his superior, and
+should in that posture swear fealty to him [s].  But the council
+declared it execrable, that pure hands, which could create God, and
+could offer him up as a sacrifice for the salvation of mankind, should
+be put, after this humiliating manner, between profane hands, which,
+besides being inured to rapine and bloodshed, were employed day and
+night in impure purposes, and obscene contacts [t].  Such were the
+reasonings prevalent in that age; reasonings which, though they cannot
+be passed over in silence, without omitting the most curious, and
+perhaps not the least instructive part of history, can scarcely be
+delivered with the requisite decency and gravity.
+[FN [i] Hoveden, p. 463.  [k] Eadmer, p. 25.  M. Paris, p. 13.
+Diceto, p. 494.  Spellm. Conc. vol ii. p. 16.  [l] Eadmer, p. 30.  [m]
+Diceto, p. 495.  [n] Eadmer, p. 37, 43.  [o] Ibid. p. 40.  [p] M.
+Paris, p. 13.  Parker, p. 178.  [q] Eadmer, p. 49.  M. Paris, p. 13.
+Sim. Dun. p. 224.  [r] M. Paris, p. 14.  [s] Spellman, Du Cange, in
+verb. HOMINIUM.  [t] W. Heming. p. 467.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 649.  Sim.
+Dunelm. p. 224.  Brompton, p. 994.]
+
+[MN 1097.]  The cession of Normandy and Maine by Duke Robert increased
+the king's territories; but brought him no great increase of power,
+because of the unsettled state of those countries, the mutinous
+disposition of the barons, and the vicinity of the French king, who
+supported them in all their insurrections.  Even Helie, Lord of La
+Fleche, a small town in Anjou, was able to give him inquietude; and
+this great monarch was obliged to make several expeditions abroad,
+without being able to prevail over so petty a baron, who had acquired
+the confidence and affections of the inhabitants of Maine.  He was,
+however, so fortunate as at last to take him prisoner in a rencounter;
+but having released him at the intercession of the French king and the
+Count of Anjou, he found the province of Maine still exposed to his
+intrigues and incursions.  Helie, being introduced by the citizens
+into the town of Mans, besieged the garrison in the citadel: [MN
+1099.] William, who was hunting in the new forest when he received
+intelligence of this hostile attempt, was so provoked, that he
+immediately turned his horse, and galloped to the sea-shore at
+Dartmouth; declaring, that he would not stop a moment till he had
+taken vengeance for the offence.  He found the weather so cloudy and
+tempestuous, that the mariners thought it dangerous to put to sea: but
+the king hurried on board, and ordered them to set sail instantly;
+telling them, that they never yet heard of a king that was drowned
+[u].  By this vigour and celerity, he delivered the citadel of Mans
+from its present danger: and pursuing Helie into his own territories,
+he laid siege to Majol, a small castle in those parts: [MN 1100.] but
+a wound, which he received before this place, obliged him to raise the
+siege; and he returned to England.
+[FN [u] W. Malm. p. 124.  H. Hunt. p. 378.  M. Paris, p. 36.  Ypod.
+Neust p. 442.]
+
+The weakness of the greatest monarchs, during this age, in their
+military expeditions against their nearest neighbours, appears the
+more surprising, when we consider the prodigious numbers which even
+petty princes, seconding the enthusiastic rage of the people, were
+able to assemble, and to conduct in dangerous enterprises to the
+remote provinces of Asia.  William, Earl of Poitiers and Duke of
+Guienne, inflamed with the glory, and not discouraged by the
+misfortunes, which had attended the former adventurers in the
+crusades, had put himself at the head of an immense multitude,
+computed by some historians to amount to sixty thousand horse, and a
+much greater number of foot [w], and he purposed to lead them into the
+Holy Land against the infidels.  He wanted money to forward the
+preparations requisite for this expedition, and he offered to mortgage
+all his dominions to William, without entertaining any scruple on
+account of that rapacious and iniquitous hand to which he resolved to
+consign them [x].  The king accepted the offer, and had prepared a
+fleet and an army, in order to escort the money, and take possession
+of the rich provinces of Guienne and Poictou; [MN 2d August.] when an
+accident put an end to his life, and to all his ambitious projects.
+He was engaged in hunting, the sole amusement, and indeed the chief
+occupation of princes in those rude times, when society was little
+cultivated, and the arts afforded few objects worthy of attention.
+Walter Tyrrel, a French gentleman, remarkable for his address in
+archery, attended him in this recreation, of which the new forest was
+the scene; and as William had dismounted after a chase, Tyrrel,
+impatient to show his dexterity, let fly an arrow at a stag, which
+suddenly started before him.  The arrow, glancing from a tree, struck
+the king in the breast, and instantly slew him [y]; while Tyrrel,
+without informing any one of the accident, put spurs to his horse,
+hastened to the sea-shore, embarked for France, and joined the crusade
+in an expedition to Jerusalem; a penance which he imposed on himself
+for this involuntary crime.  The body of William was found in the
+forest by the country people, and was buried without any pomp or
+ceremony at Winchester.  His courtiers were negligent in performing
+the last duties to a master who was so little beloved; and every one
+was too much occupied in the interesting object of fixing his
+successor, to attend the funeral of a dead sovereign.
+[FN [w] W. Malm. p. 149.  The whole is said by Order. Vital., p. 789,
+to amount to three hundred thousand men.  [x] W. Malmes. p. 127.  [y]
+Ibid. p. 126.  H. Hunt. p. 378.  M. Paris, p. 37.  Petr. Blois, p.
+110.]
+
+[MN Death and character of William Rufus.]
+The memory of this monarch is transmitted to us with little advantage
+by the churchmen, whom he had offended; and though we may suspect, in
+general, that their account of his vices is somewhat exaggerated, his
+conduct affords little reason for contradicting the character which
+they have assigned him, or for attributing to him any very estimable
+qualities.  He seems to have been a violent and tyrannical prince; a
+perfidious, encroaching, and dangerous neighbour; an unkind and
+ungenerous relation.  He was equally prodigal and rapacious in the
+management of his treasury; and if he possessed abilities, he lay so
+much under the government of impetuous passions, that he made little
+use of them in his administration; and he indulged, without reserve,
+that domineering policy, which suited his temper, and which, if
+supported, as it was in him, with courage and vigour, proves often
+more successful in disorderly times, than the deepest foresight and
+most refined artifice.
+
+The monuments which remain of this prince in England, are the Tower,
+Westminster-hall, and London-bridge, which he built.  The most
+laudable foreign enterprise which he undertook, was the sending of
+Edgar Atheling, three years before his death, into Scotland with a
+small army, to restore Prince Edgar, the true heir of that kingdom,
+son of Malcolm, and of Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling; and the
+enterprise proved successful.  It was remarked in that age, that
+Richard, an elder brother of William's, perished by an accident in the
+new forest; Richard, his nephew, natural son of Duke Robert, lost his
+life in the same place, after the same manner; and all men, upon the
+king's fate, exclaimed, that, as the Conqueror had been guilty of
+extreme violence, in expelling all the inhabitants of that large
+district to make room for his game, the just vengeance of Heaven was
+signalized, in the same place, by the slaughter of his posterity.
+William was killed in the thirteenth year of his reign, and about the
+fortieth of his age.  As he was never married, he left no legitimate
+issue.
+
+In the eleventh year of this reign, Magnus, King of Norway, made a
+descent on the Isle of Anglesea, but was repulsed by Hugh, Earl of
+Shrewsbury.  This is the last attempt made by the northern nations
+upon England.  That restless people seem about this time to have
+learnt the practice of tillage, which thenceforth kept them at home,
+and freed the other nations of Europe from the devastations spread
+over them by those piratical invaders.  This proved one great cause of
+the subsequent settlement and improvement of the southern nations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+HENRY I.
+
+THE CRUSADES.--ACCESSION OF HENRY.--MARRIAGE OF THE KING.--INVASION BY
+DUKE ROBERT.--ACCOMMODATION WITH ROBERT.--ATTACK OF NORMANDY.--CONQUEST
+OF NORMANDY.--CONTINUATION OF THE QUARREL WITH ANSELM, THE PRIMATE.--
+COMPROMISE WITH HIM.--WARS ABROAD.--DEATH OF PRINCE WILLIAM.--KING'S
+SECOND MARRIAGE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF HENRY
+
+
+
+[MN 1100.  The Crusades.]
+After the adventurers in the holy war were assembled on the banks of
+the Bosphorus, opposite to Constantinople, they proceeded on their
+enterprise; but immediately experienced those difficulties which their
+zeal had hitherto concealed from them, and for which, even if they had
+foreseen them, it would have been almost impossible to provide a
+remedy.  The Greek emperor, Alexius Comnenus, who had applied to the
+western Christians for succour against the Turks, entertained hopes,
+and those but feeble ones, of obtaining such a moderate supply, as,
+acting under his command, might enable him to repulse the enemy: but
+he was extremely astonished to see his dominions overwhelmed, on a
+sudden, by such an inundation of licentious barbarians, who, though
+they pretended friendship, despised his subjects as unwarlike, and
+detested them as heretical.  By all the arts of policy, in which he
+excelled, he endeavoured to divert the torrent; but while he employed
+professions, caresses, civilities, and seeming services towards the
+leaders of the crusade, he secretly regarded those imperious allies as
+more dangerous than the open enemies by whom his empire had been
+formerly invaded.  Having effected that difficult point of
+disembarking them safely in Asia, he entered into a private
+correspondence with Soliman, Emperor of the Turks; and practised every
+insidious art, which his genius, his power, or his situation enabled
+him to employ, for disappointing the enterprise, and discouraging the
+Latins from making thenceforward any such prodigious migrations.  His
+dangerous policy was seconded by the disorders inseparable from so
+vast a multitude, who were not united under one head, and were
+conducted by leaders of the most independent, intractable spirit,
+unacquainted with military discipline, and determined enemies to civil
+authority and submission.  The scarcity of provisions, the excess of
+fatigue, the influence of unknown climates, joined to the want of
+concert in their operations, and to the sword of a warlike enemy,
+destroyed the adventurers by thousands, and would have abated the
+ardour of men impelled to war by less powerful motives.  Their zeal,
+however, their bravery, and their irresistible force, still carried
+them forward, and continually advanced them to the great end of their
+enterprise.  After an obstinate siege they took Nice, the seat of the
+Turkish empire; they defeated Soliman in two great battles; they made
+themselves masters of Antioch; and entirely broke the force of the
+Turks, who had so long retained those countries in subjection: the
+Soldan of Egypt, whose alliance they had hitherto courted, recovered,
+on the fall of the Turkish power, his former authority in Jerusalem;
+and he informed them by his ambassadors, that if they came disarmed to
+that city, they might now perform their religious vows, and that all
+Christian pilgrims, who should thenceforth visit the holy sepulchre,
+might expect the same good treatment which they had ever received from
+his predecessors.  The offer was rejected; the soldan was required to
+yield up the city to the Christians; and on his refusal, the champions
+of the Cross advanced to the siege of Jerusalem, which they regarded
+as the consummation of their labours.  By the detachments which they
+had made, and the disasters which they had undergone, they were
+diminished to the number of twenty thousand foot and fifteen hundred
+horse; but these were still formidable, from their valour, their
+experience, and the obedience which, from past calamities, they had
+learned to pay to their leaders.  After a siege of five weeks, they
+took Jerusalem by assault; and, impelled by a mixture of military and
+religious rage, they put the numerous garrison and inhabitants to the
+sword without distinction.  Neither arms defended the valiant, nor
+submission the timorous: no age or sex was spared: infants on the
+breast were pierced by the same blow with their mothers, who implored
+for mercy: even a multitude, to the number of ten thousand persons,
+who had surrendered themselves prisoners, and were promised quarter,
+were butchered in cool blood by those ferocious conquerors [a].  The
+streets of Jerusalem were covered with dead bodies [b]; and the
+triumphant warriors, after every enemy was subdued and slaughtered,
+immediately turned themselves, with the sentiments of humiliation and
+contrition, towards the holy sepulchre.  They threw aside their arms,
+still streaming with blood: they advanced with reclined bodies, and
+naked feet and heads, to the sacred monument: they sung anthems to
+their Saviour who had there purchased their salvation by his death and
+agony: and their devotion, enlivened by the presence of the place
+where he had suffered, so overcame their fury, that they dissolved in
+tears, and bore the appearance of every soft and tender sentiment.  So
+inconsistent is human nature with itself! and so easily does the most
+effeminate superstition ally, both with the most heroic courage and
+with the fiercest barbarity!
+[FN [a] Vertot, vol. i. p. 57.  [b] M. Paris, p. 34.  Order. Vital. p.
+756.  Diceto, p. 498.]
+
+This great event happened on the 5th of July, in the last year of the
+eleventh century.  The Christian princes and nobles, after choosing
+Godfrey of Bouillon King of Jerusalem, began to settle themselves in
+their new conquests; while some of them returned to Europe, in order
+to enjoy at home that glory which their valour had acquired them in
+this popular and meritorious enterprise.  Among these was Robert, Duke
+of Normandy, who, as he had relinquished the greatest dominions of any
+prince that attended the crusade, had all along distinguished himself
+by the most intrepid courage, as well as by that affable disposition
+and unbounded generosity which gain the hearts of soldiers, and
+qualify a prince to shine in a military life.  In passing through
+Italy, he became acquainted with Sibylla, daughter of the Count of
+Conversana, a young lady of great beauty and merit, whom he espoused:
+indulging himself in this new passion, as well as fond of enjoying
+ease and pleasure after the fatigues of so many rough campaigns, he
+lingered a twelvemonth in that delicious climate; and though his
+friends in the north looked every moment for his arrival, none of them
+knew when they could with certainty expect it.  By this delay he lost
+the kingdom of England, which the great fame he had acquired during
+the crusades, as well as his undoubted title, both by birth, and by
+the preceding agreement with his deceased brother, would, had he been
+present, have infallibly secured to him.
+
+[MN Accession of Henry.]
+Prince Henry was hunting with Rufus in the new forest, when
+intelligence of that monarch's death was brought him; and being
+sensible of the advantage attending the conjuncture, he hurried to
+Winchester, in order to secure the royal treasure, which he knew to be
+a necessary implement for facilitating his designs on the crown.  He
+had scarcely reached the place when William of Breteuil, keeper of the
+treasure, arrived, and opposed himself to Henry's pretensions.  This
+nobleman, who had been engaged in the same party of hunting, had no
+sooner heard of his master's death, than he hastened to take care of
+his charge; and he told the prince that this treasure, as well as the
+crown, belonged to his elder brother, who was now his sovereign; and
+that he himself, for his part, was determined, in spite of all other
+pretensions, to maintain his allegiance to him.  But Henry, drawing
+his sword, threatened him with instant death if he dared to disobey
+him; and as others of the late king's retinue, who came every moment
+to Winchester, joined the prince's party, Breteuil was obliged to
+withdraw his opposition, and to acquiesce in this insolence [c].
+[FN [c] Order. Vital. p. 782.]
+
+Henry, without losing a moment, hastened with the money to London; and
+having assembled some noblemen and prelates, whom his address, or
+abilities, or presents, gained to his side, he was suddenly elected,
+or rather saluted, king, and immediately proceeded to the exercise of
+royal authority.  In less than three days after his brother's death,
+the ceremony of his coronation was performed by Maurice, Bishop of
+London, who was persuaded to officiate on that occasion [d]; and thus
+by his courage and celerity, he intruded himself into the vacant
+throne.  No one had sufficient spirit or sense of duty to appear in
+defence of the absent prince: all men were seduced or intimidated:
+present possession supplied the apparent defects in Henry's title,
+which was indeed founded on plain usurpation: and the barons, as well
+as the people, acquiesced in a claim which, though it could neither be
+justified nor comprehended, could now, they found, be opposed through
+the perils alone of civil war and rebellion.
+[FN [d] Chron. Sax. p. 208.  Order. Vital. p. 783.]
+
+But as Henry foresaw that a crown, usurped against all rules of
+justice, would sit unsteady on his head, he resolved, by fair
+professions at least, to gain the affections of all his subjects.
+Besides taking the usual coronation oath to maintain the laws and
+execute justice, he passed a charter, which was calculated to remedy
+many of the grievous oppressions which had been complained of during
+the reigns of his father and brother [e].  He there promised, that, at
+the death of any bishop or abbot, he never would seize the revenues of
+the see or abbey during the vacancy, but would leave the whole to be
+reaped by the successor; and that he would never let to farm any
+ecclesiastical benefice, nor dispose of it for money.  After this
+concession to the church, whose favour was of so great importance, he
+proceeded to enumerate the civil grievances which he purposed to
+redress.  He promised, that, upon the death of any earl, baron, or
+military tenant, his heir should be admitted to the possession of his
+estate, on paying a just and lawful relief; without being exposed to
+such violent exactions as had been usual during the late reigns: he
+remitted the wardship of minors, and allowed guardians to be
+appointed, who should be answerable for the trust: he promised not to
+dispose of any heiress in marriage but by the advice of all the
+barons; and if any baron intended to give his daughter, sister, niece,
+or kinswoman in marriage, it should only be necessary for him to
+consult the king, who promised to take no money for his consent, nor
+ever to refuse permission, unless the  person to whom it was purposed
+to many her should happen to be his enemy: he granted his barons and
+military tenants the power of bequeathing, by will, their money or
+personal estates; and if they neglected to make a will, he promised
+that their heirs should succeed to them: he renounced the right of
+imposing money-age, and of levying taxes at pleasure on the farms
+which the barons retained in their own hands [f]: he made some general
+professions of moderating fines: he offered a pardon for all offences;
+and he remitted all debts due to the crown: he required that the
+vassals of the barons should enjoy the same privileges which he
+granted to his own barons: and he promised a general confirmation and
+observance of the laws of King Edward.  This is the substance of the
+chief articles contained in that famous charter [g].
+[FN [e] Chron. Sax. p. 208.  Sim. Dunelm. p. 225.  [f] See Appendix
+II.  [g] M. Paris, p. 38.  Hoveden, p. 468.  Brompton, p. 1021.
+Hagulstadt, p. 310.]
+
+To give greater authenticity to these concessions, Henry lodged a copy
+of his charter in some abbey of each county, as if desirous that it
+should be exposed to the view of all his subjects, and remain a
+perpetual rule for the limitation and direction of his government: yet
+it is certain, that, after the present purpose was served, he never
+once thought, during his reign, of observing one single article of it;
+and the whole fell so much into neglect and oblivion, that in the
+following century, when the barons, who had heard an obscure tradition
+of it, desired to make it the model of the great charter which they
+exacted from King John, they could with difficulty find a copy of it
+in the kingdom.  But as to the grievances here meant to be redressed,
+they were still continued in their full extent; and the royal
+authority, in all those particulars, lay under no manner of
+restriction.  Reliefs of heirs, so capital an article, were never
+effectually fixed till the time of Magna Charta [h]; and it is evident
+that the general promise here given, of accepting a just and lawful
+relief, ought to have been reduced to more precision, in order to give
+security to the subject.  The oppression of wardship and marriage was
+perpetuated even till the reign of Charles II.  And it appears from
+Glanville [i], the famous justiciary of Henry II., that in his time,
+where any man died intestate, an accident which must have been very
+frequent when the art of writing was so little known, the king, or the
+lord of the fief, pretended to seize all the movables, and to exclude
+every heir, even the children of the deceased: a sure mark of a
+tyrannical and arbitrary government.
+[FN [h] Glanv. lib. 2. cap. 36.  What is called a relief in the
+Conqueror's laws, preserved by Ingulph, seems to have been the heriot;
+since reliefs, as well as the other burdens of the feudal law, were
+unknown in the age of the Confessor, whose laws these originally were.
+[i] Lib. 7. cap. 16.  This practice was contrary to the laws of King
+Edward ratified by the Conqueror, as we learn from Ingulph, p. 91.
+But laws had at this time very little influence: power and violence
+governed every thing.]
+
+The Normans, indeed, who domineered in England, were, during this age,
+so licentious a people, that they may be pronounced incapable of any
+true or regular liberty; which requires such improvement in knowledge
+and morals as can only be the result of reflection and experience, and
+must grow to perfection during several ages of settled and established
+government.  A people so insensible to the rights of their sovereign
+as to disjoint, without necessity, the hereditary succession, and
+permit a younger brother to intrude himself into the place of the
+elder, whom they esteemed, and who was guilty of no crime, but being
+absent, could not expect that that prince would pay any greater regard
+to their privileges, or allow his engagements to fetter his power and
+debar him from any considerable interest or convenience.  They had,
+indeed, arms in their hands, which prevented the establishment of a
+total despotism, and left their posterity sufficient power, whenever
+they should attain a sufficient degree of reason, to assure true
+liberty: but their turbulent disposition frequently prompted them to
+make such use of their arms, that they were more fitted to obstruct
+the execution of justice, than to stop the career of violence and
+oppresion.  The prince, finding that greater opposition was often made
+to him when he enforced the laws than when he violated them, was apt
+to render his own will and pleasure the sole rule of government; and,
+at every emergence, to consider more the power of the persons whom he
+might offend, than the rights of those whom he might injure.  The very
+form of this charter of Henry proves that the Norman barons (for they,
+rather than the people of England, were chiefly concerned in it) were
+totally ignorant of the nature of united monarchy, and were ill
+qualified to conduct, in conjunction with their sovereign, the machine
+of government.  It is an act of his sole power, is the result of his
+free grace, contains some articles which bind others as well as
+himself, and is therefore unfit to be the deed of any one who
+possesses not the whole legislative power, and who may not at pleasure
+revoke all his concessions.
+
+Henry, farther to increase his popularity, degraded and committed to
+prison Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, who had been the chief
+instrument of oppresion under his brother [k]: but this act was
+followed by another, which was a direct violation of his own charter,
+and was a bad prognostic of his sincere intentions to observe it: he
+kept the see of Durham vacant for five years, and during that time
+retained possession of all its revenues.  Sensible of the great
+authority which Anselm had acquired by his character of piety, and by
+the persecutions which he had undergone from William, he sent repeated
+messages to him at Lyons, where he resided, and invited him to return
+and take possession of his dignities [l].  On the arrival of the
+prelate, he proposed to him the renewal of that homage which he had
+done his brother, and which he had never been refused by any English
+bishop: but Anslem  had acquired other sentiments by his journey to
+Rome, and gave the king an absolute refusal.  He objected to the
+decrees of the council of Bari, at which he himself had assisted; and
+he declared, that so far from doing homage for his spiritual dignity,
+he would not so much as communicate with any ecclesiastic who paid
+that submission, or who accepted of investitures from laymen.  Henry;
+who expected, in his present delicate situation, to reap great
+advantages from the authority and popularity of Anselm, durst not
+insist on his demand [m]: he only desired that the controversy might
+be suspended: and that messengers might be sent to Rome, in order to
+accommodate matters with the pope, and obtain his confirmation of the
+laws and customs of England.
+[FN [k] Chron. Sax. p. 208.  W. Malm. p. 156.  Matth. Paris, p. 39.
+Alur. Beverl. p. 144.  [l] Chron. Sax. p. 208.  Order. Vital. p. 783.
+Matth. Paris, p. 39.  T. Rudborne, p. 273.  [m] W. Malm. p. 225.]
+
+[MN 1100.  Marriage of the king.]
+There immediately occurred an important affair, in which the king was
+obliged to have recourse to the authority of Anselm.  Matilda,
+daughter of Malcolm III., King of Scotland, and niece to Edgar
+Atheling, had, on her father's death, and the subsequent revolutions
+in the Scottish government, been brought to England, and educated
+under her aunt Christina, in the nunnery of Rumsey.  This princess
+Henry purposed to marry; but as she had worn the veil, though never
+taken the vows, doubts might arise concerning the lawfulness of the
+act; and it behoved him to be very careful not to shock, in any
+particular, the religious prejudices of his subjects.  The affair was
+examined by Anselm in a council of the prelates and nobles, which was
+summoned at Lambeth; Matilda there proved that she had put on the
+veil, not with the view of entering into a religious life, but merely
+in consequence of a custom familiar to the English ladies, who
+protected their chastity from the brutal violence of the Normans by
+taking shelter under that habit [n], which, amidst the horrible
+licentiousness of the times, was yet generally revered.  The council,
+sensible that even a princess had otherwise no security for her
+honour, admitted this reason as valid; they pronounced that Matilda
+was still free to marry [o] and her espousals with Henry were
+celebrated by Anselm with great pomp and solemnity [p].  No act of the
+king's reign rendered him equally popular with his English subjects,
+and tended more to establish him on the throne.  Though Matilda,
+during the life of her uncle and brothers, was not heir of the Saxon
+line, she was become very dear to the English on account of her
+connexions with it: and that people, who, before the Conquest, had
+fallen into a kind of indifference towards their ancient royal family,
+had felt so severely the tyranny of the Normans, that they reflected
+with extreme regret on their former liberty, and hoped for more equal
+and mild administration, when the blood of their native princes should
+be mingled with that of their new sovereigns [q].
+[FN [n] Eadmer, p. 57.  [o] Ibid.  [p] Hoveden, p. 468.  [q] M. Paris,
+p. 40.]
+
+[MN 1100.  Invasion by Duke Robert.]
+But the policy and prudence of Henry, which, if time had been allowed
+for these virtues to produce their full effect, would have secured him
+possession of the crown, ran great hazard of being frustrated by the
+sudden appearance of Robert, who returned to Normandy about a month
+after the death of his brother William.  [MN 1101.]  He took
+possession, without opposition, of that duchy; and immediately made
+preparations for recovering England, of which, during his absence, he
+had, by Henry's intrigues, been so unjustly defrauded.  The great fame
+which he had acquired in the East forwarded his pretensions; and the
+Norman barons, sensible of the consequences, expressed the same
+discontent at the separation of the duchy and kingdom, which had
+appeared on the accession of William.  Robert de Belesme, Earl of
+Shrewsbury and Arundel, William de la Warenne, Earl of Surrey, Arnulf
+de Montgomery, Walter Giffard, Robert de Pontefract, Robert de Mallet,
+Yvo de Grentmesnil, and many others of the principal nobility [r],
+invited Robert to make an attempt upon England, and promised, on his
+landing, to join him with all their forces.  Even the seamen were
+affected with the general popularity of his name, and they carried
+over to him the greater part of a fleet which had been equipped to
+oppose his passage.  Henry, in this extremity, began to be
+apprehensive for his life, as well as for his crown, and had recourse
+to the superstition of the people, in order to oppose their sentiment
+of justice.  He paid diligent court to Anselm, whose sanctity and
+wisdom he pretended to revere.  He consulted him in all difficult
+emergencies; seemed to be governed by him in every measure; promised a
+strict regard to ecclesiastical privileges; professed a great
+attachment to Rome, and a resolution of persevering in an implicit
+obedience to the decrees of councils, and to the will of the sovereign
+pontiff.  By these caresses and declarations, he entirely gained the
+confidence of the primate, whose influence over the people, and
+authority with the barons, were of the utmost service to him in his
+present situation.  Anselm scrupled not to assure the nobles of the
+king's sincerity in those professions which he made of avoiding the
+tyrannical and oppressive government of his father and brother: he
+even rode through the ranks of the army, recommended to the soldiers
+the defence of their prince, represented the duty of keeping their
+oaths of allegiance, and prognosticated to them the greatest happiness
+from the government of so wise and just a sovereign.  By this
+expedient, joined to the influence of the Earls of Warwick and
+Mellent, of Roger Bigod, Richard de Redvers, and Robert Fitz-Hamon,
+powerful barons, who still adhered to the present government, the army
+was retained in the king's interest, and marched, with seeming union
+and firmness, to oppose Robert, who had landed with his forces at
+Portsmouth.
+[FN [r] Order. Vital. p. 785.]
+
+[MN Accommodation with Robert.]
+The two armies lay in sight of each other for some days without coming
+to action; and both princes, being apprehensive of the event, which
+would probably be decisive, hearkened the more willingly to the
+counsels of Anselm and the other great men, who mediated an
+accommodation between them.  After employing some negotiation, it was
+agreed that Robert should resign his pretensions to England, and
+receive in lieu of them an annual pension of three thousand marks;
+that, if either of the princes died without issue, the other should
+succeed to his dominions; that the adherents of each should be
+pardoned and restored to all their possessions either in Normandy or
+England; and that neither Robert nor Henry should thenceforth
+encourage, receive, or protect the enemies of the other [s].
+[FN [s] Chron. Sax. p. 209.  W. Malmes. p. 156.]
+
+[MN 1102.]  This treaty, though calculated so much for Henry's
+advantage, he was the first to violate.  He restored, indeed, the
+estates of all Robert's adherents; but was secretly determined, that
+noblemen so powerful and so ill-affected, who had both inclination and
+ability to disturb his government, should not long remain unmolested
+in their present opulence and grandeur.  He began with the Earl of
+Shrewsbury, who was watched for some time by spies, and then indicted
+on a charge, consisting of forty-five articles.  This turbulent
+nobleman, knowing his own guilt, as well as the prejudices of his
+judges and the power of his prosecutor, had recourse to arms for
+defence; but, being soon suppressed by the activity and address of
+Henry, he was banished the kingdom, and his great estate was
+confiscated.  His ruin involved that of his two brothers, Arnulf de
+Montgomery, and Roger Earl of Lancaster.  Soon after followed the
+prosecution and condemnation of Robert de Pontefract, and Robert de
+Mallet, who had distinguished themselves among Robert's adherents.
+[MN 1103.]  William de Warenne was the next victim: even William Earl
+of Cornwall, son of the Earl of Mortaigne, the king's uncle, having
+given matter of suspicion against him, lost all the vast acquisitions
+of his family in England.  Though the usual violence and tyranny of
+the Norman barons afforded a plausible pretence for those
+prosecutions, and it is probable that none of the sentences pronounced
+against these noblemen was wholly iniquitous, men easily saw or
+conjectured, that the chief part of their guilt was not the injustice
+or illegality of their conduct.  Robert, enraged at the fate of his
+friends, imprudently ventured to come into England; and he
+remonstrated with his brother, in severe terms, against this breach of
+treaty; but met with so bad a reception, that he began to apprehend
+danger to his own liberty, and was glad to purchase an escape by
+resigning his pension.
+
+The indiscretion of Robert soon exposed him to more fatal injuries.
+This prince, whose bravery and candour procured him respect while at a
+distance, had no sooner attained the possession of power and enjoyment
+of peace, than all the vigour of his mind relaxed, and he fell into
+contempt among those who approached his person, or were subjected to
+his authority.  Alternately abandoned to dissolute pleasures and to
+womanish superstition, he was so remiss, both in the care of his
+treasure and the exercise of his government, that his servants
+pillaged his money with impunity, stole from him his very clothes, and
+proceeded thence to practise every species of extortion on his
+defenceless subjects.  The barons, whom a severe administration alone
+could have restrained, gave reins to their unbounded rapine upon their
+vassals, and inveterate animosities against each other; and all
+Normandy, during the reign of this benign prince, was become a scene
+of violence and depredation.  [MN 1103.  Attack of Normandy.]  The
+Normans, at last, observing the regular government which Henry,
+notwithstanding his usurped title, had been able to establish in
+England, applied to him, that he might use his authority for the
+suppression of these disorders, and they thereby afforded him a
+pretence for interposing in the affairs of Normandy.  Instead of
+employing his mediation to render his brother's government
+respectable, or to redress the grievances of the Normans, he was only
+attentive to support his own partisans, and to increase their number
+by every art of bribery, intrigue, and insinuation.  Having found, in
+a visit which he made to that duchy, that the nobility were more
+disposed to pay submission to him than to their legal sovereign, he
+collected, by arbitrary extortions on England, a great army and
+treasure [MN 1105.], and returned next year to Normandy, in a
+situation to obtain, either by violence or corruption, the dominion of
+that province.  He took Bayeux by storm, after an obstinate siege: he
+made himself master of Caen by the voluntary submission of the
+inhabitants; but, being repulsed at Falaise, and obliged by the winter
+season to raise the siege, he returned into England, after giving
+assurance to his adherents, that he would persevere in supporting and
+protecting them.
+
+[MN 1106.  Conquest of Normandy.]
+Next year he opened the campaign with the siege of Tenchebray; and it
+became evident, from his preparations and progress, that he intended
+to usurp the entire possession of Normandy.  Robert was at last roused
+from his lethargy; and being supported by the Earl of Mortaigne and
+Robert de Bellesme, the king's inveterate enemies, he raised a
+considerable army, and approached his brother's camp, with a view of
+finishing, in one decisive battle, the quarrel between them.  He was
+now entered on that scene of action in which alone he was qualified to
+excel; and he so animated his troops by his example, that they threw
+the English into disorder, and had nearly obtained the victory [t];
+when the flight of Bellesme spread a panic among the Normans, and
+occasioned their total defeat.  Henry, besides doing great execution
+on the enemy, made near ten thousand prisoners, among whom was Duke
+Robert himself, and all the most considerable barons who adhered to
+his interests [u].  This victory was followed by the final reduction
+of Normandy: Rouen immediately submitted to the conqueror: Falaise,
+after some negotiation, opened its gates; and by this acquisition,
+besides rendering himself master of an important fortress, he got into
+his hands Prince William, the only son of Robert: he assembled the
+states of Normandy; and having received the homage of all the vassals
+of the duchy, having settled the government, revoked his brother's
+donations, and dismantled the castles lately built, he returned into
+England, and carried along with him the duke as prisoner.  That
+unfortunate prince was detained in custody during the remainder of his
+life, which was no less than twenty-eight years, and he died in the
+castle of Cardiff, in Glamorganshire, happy if, without losing his
+liberty, he could have relinquished that power which he was not
+qualified either to hold or exercise.  Prince William was committed to
+the care of Helie de St. Saen, who had married Robert's natural
+daughter, and who, being a man of probity and honour beyond what was
+usual in those ages, executed the trust with great affection and
+fidelity.  Edgar Atheling, who had followed Robert in the expedition
+to Jerusalem, and who had lived with him ever since in Normandy, was
+another illustrious prisoner taken in the battle of Tenchebray [w].
+Henry gave him his liberty, and settled a small pension on him, with
+which he retired; and he lived to a good old age in England, totally
+neglected and forgotten.  This prince was distinguished by personal
+bravery: but nothing can be a stronger proof of his mean talents in
+every other respect, than that, notwithstanding he possessed the
+affections of the English, and enjoyed the only legal title to the
+throne, he was allowed, during the reigns of so many violent and
+jealous usurpers, to live unmolested, and go to his grave in peace.
+[FN [t] H. Hunt. p. 379.  M. Paris, p .43.  Brompton, p. 1002.  [u]
+Eadmer, p. 90.  Chron. Sax. p. 214.  Order. Vital. p. 821.  [w] Chron.
+Sax. p. 214.  Ann. Waverl. n. 144.]
+
+[MN 1107.  Continuation of the quarrel with Anselm, the primate.]
+A little after Henry had completed the conquest of Normandy, and
+settled the government of that province, he finished a controversy,
+which had been long depending between him and the pope, with regard to
+the investitures in ecclesiastical benefices; and though he was here
+obliged to relinquish sonic of the ancient rights of the crown, he
+extricated himself from the difficulty on easier terms than most
+princes who, in that age, were so unhappy as to be engaged in disputes
+with the apostolic see.  The king's situation, in the beginning of his
+reign, obliged him to pay great court to Anselm: the advantages which
+he had reaped from the zealous friendship of that prelate had made him
+sensible how prone the minds of his people were to superstition, and
+what an ascendant the ecclesiastics had been able to assume over them.
+He had seen, on the accession of his brother Rufus, that, though the
+rights of primogeniture were then violated, and the inclinations of
+almost all the barons thwarted, yet the authority of Lanfranc, the
+primate, had prevailed over all other considerations: his own case,
+which was still more unfavourable, afforded an instance in which the
+clergy had more evidently shown their influence and authority.  These
+recent examples, while they made him cautious not to offend that
+powerful body, convinced him, at the same time, that it was extremely
+his interest to retain the former prerogative of the crown in filling
+offices of such vast importance, and to check the ecclesiastics in
+that independence to which they visibly aspired.  The choice, which
+his brother, in a fit of penitence, had made of Anselm, was so far
+unfortunate to the king's pretensions, that this prelate was
+celebrated for his piety and zeal, and austerity of manners; and
+though his monkish devotion and narrow principles prognosticated no
+great knowledge of the world or depth of policy, he was, on that very
+account, a more dangerous instrument in the hands of politicians, and
+retained a greater ascendant over the bigoted populace.  The prudence
+and temper of the king appeared in nothing more conspicuous than in
+the management of this delicate affair; where he was always sensible
+that it had become necessary for him to risk his whole crown in order
+to preserve the most invaluable jewel of it [x].
+[FN [x] Eadmer, p. 56.]
+
+Anselm had no sooner returned from banishment, than his refusal to do
+homage to the king raised a dispute, which Henry evaded at that
+critical juncture, by promising to send a messenger, in order to
+compound the matter with Pascal II., who then filled the papal throne.
+The messenger, as was probably foreseen, returned with an absolute
+refusal of the king's demands [y]; and that fortified by many reasons,
+which were well qualified to operate on the understandings of men in
+those ages.  Pascal quoted the Scriptures to prove that Christ was the
+door; and he thence inferred, that all ecclesiastics must enter into
+the church through Christ alone, not through the civil magistrate, or
+any profane laymen [z].  "It is monstrous," added the pontiff, "that a
+son should pretend to beget his father, or a man to create his God:
+priests are called gods in Scripture, as being the vicars of God: and
+will you, by your abominable pretensions to grant them their
+investiture, assume the right of creating them [a]?"
+[FN [y] W. Malm. p. 225.  [z] Eadmer, p. 60.  This topic is farther
+enforced in p. 73, 74.  See also W. Malm. p. 163.  [a] Eadmer, p. 61.
+I much suspect that this text of Scripture is a forgery of his
+holiness; for I have not been able to find it.  Yet it passed current
+in those ages, and was often quoted by the clergy as the foundation of
+their power.  See St. Thom. p. 169.]
+
+But how convincing soever these arguments, they could not persuade
+Henry to resign so important a prerogative; and perhaps, as he was
+possessed of great reflection and learning, he thought that the
+absurdity of a man's creating his God, even allowing priests to be
+gods, was not urged with the best grace by the Roman pontiff.  But as
+he desired still to avoid, at least to delay, the coming to any
+dangerous extremity with the church, he persuaded Anselm, that he
+should be able, by farther negotiation, to obtain some composition
+with Pascal; and for that purpose he despatched three bishops to Rome,
+while Anselm sent two messengers of his own to be more fully assured
+of the pope's intentions [b].  Pascal wrote back letters equally
+positive and arrogant, both to the king and primate; urging to the
+former, that, by assuming the right of investitures, he committed a
+kind of spiritual adultery with the church, who was the spouse of
+Christ, and who must not admit of such a commerce with any other
+person [c]; and insisting with the latter, that the pretension of
+kings to confer benefices was the source of all simony: a topic which
+had but too much foundation in those ages [d].
+[FN [b] Eadmer, p. 62.  W. Malm. p. 225.  [c] Eadmer, p. 63.  [d]
+Eadmer, p. 64, 66.]
+
+Henry had now no other expedient than to suppress the letter addressed
+to himself, and to persuade the three bishops to prevaricate, and
+assert, upon their episcopal faith, that Pascal had assured them in
+private of his good intentions towards Henry, and of his resolution
+not to resent any future exertion of his prerogative in granting
+investitures; though he himself scrupled to give this assurance under
+his hand, lest other princes should copy the example, and assume a
+like privilege [e].  Anselm's two messengers, who were monks, affirmed
+to him that it was impossible this story could have any foundation:
+but their word was not deemed equal to that of three bishops; and the
+king, as if he had finally gained his cause, proceeded to fill the
+sees of Hereford and Salisbury, and to invest the new bishops in the
+usual manner [f].  But Anselm, who, as he had good reason, gave no
+credit to the asseveration of the king's messengers, refused not only
+to consecrate them, but even to communicate with them, and the bishops
+themselves, finding how odious they were become, returned to Henry the
+ensigns of their dignity.  The quarrel every day increased between the
+king and the primate: the former, notwithstanding the prudence and
+moderation of his temper, threw out menaces against such as should
+pretend to oppose him in exerting the ancient prerogatives of his
+crown; and Anselm, sensible of his own dangerous situation, desired
+leave to make a journey to Rome, in order to lay the case before the
+sovereign pontiff.  Henry, well pleased to rid himself, without
+violence, of so inflexible an antagonist, readily granted him
+permission.  The prelate was attended to the shore by infinite
+multitudes, not only of monks and clergymen, but people of all ranks,
+who scrupled not in this manner to declare for their primate against
+their sovereign, and who regarded his departure as the final abolition
+of religion and true piety in the kingdom [g].  The king, however,
+seized all the revenues of his see; and sent William de Warelwast to
+negotiate with Pascal, and to find some means of accommodation in this
+delicate affair.
+[FN [e] Ibid. p. 65.  W. Malm. p. 225.  [f] Eadmer, p. 66.  W. Malm.
+p. 225.  Hoveden, p. 469.  Sim. Dunelm. p. 228.  [f] Eadmer, p. 71.]
+
+The English minister told Pascal, that his master would rather lose
+his crown than part with the right of granting investitures.  "And I,"
+replied Pascal, "would rather lose my head than allow him to retain it
+[h]."  Henry secretly prohibited Anselm from returning, unless he
+resolved to conform himself to the laws and usages of the kingdom; and
+the primate took up his residence at Lyons, in expectation that the
+king would at last be obliged to yield the point which was the present
+object of controversy between them.  Soon after he was permitted to
+return to his monastery at Bec in Normandy; and Henry, besides
+restoring to him the revenues of his see, treated him with the
+greatest respect, and held several conferences with him, in order to
+soften his opposition, and bend him to submission [i].  The people of
+England, who thought all differences now accommodated, were inclined
+to blame their primate for absenting himself so long from his charge;
+and he daily received letters from his partizans, representing the
+necessity of his speedy return.  The total extinction, they told him,
+of religion and Christianity were likely to ensue from the want of his
+fatherly care: the most shocking customs prevail in England; and the
+dread of his severity being now removed, sodomy, and the practice of
+wearing long hair, gain ground among all ranks of men, and these
+enormities openly appear every where without sense of shame or fear of
+punishment [k].
+[FN [h] Eadmer, p. 73.  W. Malm. p. 226.  M. Paris, p. 40.  [i]
+Hoveden, p. 471.  [k] Eadmer, p. 81.]
+
+The policy of the court of Rome has commonly been much admired; and
+men, judging by success, have bestowed the highest eulogies on that
+prudence by which a power from such slender beginnings, could advance,
+without force of arms, to establish an universal and almost absolute
+monarchy in Europe.  But the wisdom of so long a succession of men who
+filled the papal throne, and who were of such different ages, tempers,
+and interests, is not intelligible, and could never have place in
+nature.  The instrument, indeed, with which they wrought, the
+ignorance and superstition of the people, is so gross an engine, of
+such universal prevalence, and so little liable to accident or
+disorder, that it may be successful even in the most unskilful hands;
+and scarce any indiscretion can frustrate its operations.  While the
+court of Rome was openly abandoned to the most flagrant disorders,
+even while it was torn with schisms and factions, the power of the
+church daily made a sensible progress in Europe; and the temerity of
+Gregory and caution of Pascal were equally fortunate in promoting it.
+The clergy, feeling the necessity which they lay under of being
+protected against the violence of princes or rigour of the laws, were
+well pleased to adhere to a foreign head, who, being removed from the
+fear of the civil authority, could freely employ the power of the
+whole church, in defending her ancient or usurped properties and
+privileges, when invaded in any particular country: the monks,
+desirous of an independence of their diocesans, professed a still more
+devoted attachment to the triple crown; and the stupid people
+possessed no science or reason, which they could oppose to the most
+exorbitant pretensions.  Nonsense passed for demonstration: the most
+criminal means were sanctified by the piety of the end: treaties were
+not supposed to be binding, where the interests of God were concerned:
+the ancient laws and customs of states had no authority against a
+divine right: impudent forgeries were received as authentic monuments
+of antiquity: and the champions of holy church, if successful, were
+celebrated as heroes; if unfortunate, were worshipped as martyrs; and
+all events thus turned out equally to the advantage of clerical
+usurpations.  Pascal himself, the reigning pope, was, in the course of
+this very controversy concerning investitures, involved in
+circumstances and necessitated to follow a conduct, which would have
+drawn disgrace and ruin on any temporal prince that had been so
+unfortunate as to fall into a like situation.  His person was seized
+by the Emperor, Henry V., and he was obliged, by a formal treaty, to
+resign to that monarch the right of granting investitures, for which
+they had so long contended [l].  In order to add greater solemnity to
+this agreement, the emperor and pope communicated together on the same
+host, one half of which was given to the prince, the other taken by
+the pontiff: the most tremendous imprecations were publicly denounced
+on either of them who should violate the treaty: yet no sooner did
+Pascal recover his liberty, than he revoked all his concessions, and
+pronounced the sentence of excommunication against the emperor, who,
+in the end, was obliged to submit to the terms required of him, and to
+yield up all his pretensions, which he never could resume [m].
+[FN [l] W. Malm. p. 167.  [m] Padre Paolo sopra benef. eccles. p. 112.
+W. Malmes. p. 170.  Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 63.  Sim.
+Dunelm. p. 233.]
+
+The King of England had very nearly fallen into the same dangerous
+situation: Pascal had already excommunicated the Earl of Mellent, and
+the other ministers of Henry, who were instrumental in supporting his
+pretensions [n]: he daily menaced the king himself with a like
+sentence; and he suspended the blow only to give him leisure to
+prevent it by a timely submission.  The malecontents waited
+impatiently for the opportunity of disturbing his government by
+conspiracies and insurrections [o]: the king's best friends were
+anxious at the prospect of an incident which would set their religious
+and civil duties at variance; and the Countess of Blois, his sister, a
+princess of piety, who had great influence over him, was affrightened
+with the danger of her brother's eternal damnation [p].  Henry, on the
+other hand, seemed determined to run all hazards, rather than resign a
+prerogative of such importance, which had been enjoyed by all his
+predecessors; and it seemed probable, from his great prudence and
+abilities, that he might be able to sustain his rights, and finally
+prevail in the contest.  While Pascal and Henry thus stood mutually in
+awe of each other, it was the more easy to bring about an
+accommodation between them, and to find a medium in which they might
+agree.
+[FN [n] Eadmer, p. 79.  [o] Ibid. p. 80.  [p] Ibid. p. 79.]
+
+[MN Compromise with Anselm.]
+Before bishops took possession of their dignities, they had formerly
+been accustomed to pass through two ceremonies: they received from the
+hands of the sovereign a ring and crosier, as symbols of their office;
+and this was called their INVESTITURE: they also made those
+submissions to the prince which were required of vassals by the rights
+of the feudal law, and which received the name of HOMAGE.  And as the
+king might refuse both to grant the INVESTITURE and to receive the
+HOMAGE, though the chapter had, by some canons of the middle age, been
+endowed with the right of election, the sovereign had in reality the
+sole power of appointing prelates.  Urban II. had equally deprived
+laymen of the rights of granting investiture and of receiving homage
+[q]: the emperors never were able, by all their wars and negotiations,
+to make any distinction be admitted between them: the interposition of
+profane laymen, in any particular, was still represented as impious
+and abominable; and the church openly aspired to a total independence
+on the state.  But Henry had put England as well as Normandy in such a
+situation as gave greater weight to his negotiations; and Pascal was
+for the present satisfied with his resigning the right of granting
+investitures, by which the spiritual dignity was supposed to be
+conferred; and he allowed the bishops to do homage for their temporal
+properties and privileges [r].  The pontiff was well pleased to have
+made this acquisition, which, he hoped, would in time involve the
+whole; and the king, anxious to procure an escape from a very
+dangerous situation, was content to retain some, though a more
+precarious authority, in the election of prelates.
+[FN [q] Eadmer, p. 91.  W. Malm. p. 163.  Sim. Dunelm. p. 230.  [r]
+Eadmer, p. 91.  W. Malm. p. 164, 227.  Hoveden, p. 471.  M. Paris, p.
+43.  T. Rudb. p. 274.  Brompton, p. 1000.  Wilkins, p. 303.  Chron.
+Dunst. p. 21.]
+
+After the principal controversy was accommodated, it was not difficult
+to adjust the other differences.  The pope allowed Anselm to
+communicate with the prelates who had already received investitures
+from the crown; and he only required of them some submissions for
+their past misconduct [s].  He also granted Anselm a plenary power of
+remedying every other disorder, which, he said, might arise from the
+barbarousness of the country [t].  Such was the idea which the popes
+then entertained of the English; and nothing can be a stronger proof
+of the miserable ignorance in which that people were then plunged,
+than that a man who sat on the papal throne, and who subsisted by
+absurdities and nonsense, should think himself entitled to treat them
+as barbarians.
+[FN [s] Eadmer p. 87.  [t] Ibid. p. 91.]
+
+During the course of these controversies, a synod was held at
+Westminster, where the king, intent only on the main dispute, allowed
+some canons of less importance to be enacted, which tended to promote
+the usurpations of the clergy.  The celibacy of priests was enjoined,
+a point which it was still found very difficult to carry into
+execution; and even laymen were not allowed to marry within the
+seventh degree of affinity [u].  By this contrivance the pope
+augmented the profits which he reaped from granting dispensations, and
+likewise those from divorces.  For as the art of writing was then
+rare, and parish registers were not regularly kept, it was not easy to
+ascertain the degrees of affinity even among people of rank; and any
+man who had money sufficient to pay for it, might obtain a divorce, on
+pretence that his wife was more nearly related to him than was
+permitted by the canons.  The synod also passed a vote, prohibiting
+the laity from wearing long hair [w].  The aversion of the clergy to
+this mode was not confined to England.  When the king went to
+Normandy, before he had conquered that province, the Bishop of Seez,
+in a formal harangue, earnestly exhorted him to redress the manifold
+disorders under which the government laboured, and to oblige the
+people to poll their hair in a decent form.  Henry, though he would
+not resign his prerogatives to the church, willingly parted with his
+hair: he cut it in the form which they required of him, and obliged
+all the courtiers to imitate his example [x].
+[FN [u] Eadmer, p. 67, 68.  Spellm. Conc. vol. ii. p. 22.  [w] Eadmer,
+p. 68.  [x] Order. Vital. p. 816.]
+
+[MN Wars abroad.]
+The acquisition of Normandy was a great point of Henry's ambition;
+being the ancient patrimony of his family, and the only territory,
+which, while in his possession, gave him any weight or consideration
+on the continent: but the injustice of his usurpation was the source
+of great inquietude, involved him in frequent wars, and obliged him to
+impose on his English subjects those many heavy and arbitrary taxes,
+of which all the historians of  that age unanimously complain [y].
+His nephew, William, was but six years of age when he committed him to
+the care of Helie de St. Saen; and it is probable, that his reason for
+intrusting that important charge to a man of so unblemished a
+character was to prevent all malignant suspicions, in case any
+accident should befall the life of the young prince.  [MN 1110.]  He
+soon repented of his choice, but when he desired to recover possession
+of William's person, Helie withdrew his pupil, and carried him to the
+court of Fulk, Count of Anjou, who gave him protection [z].  In
+proportion as the prince grew up to man's estate, he discovered
+virtues becoming his birth; and wandering through different courts of
+Europe, he excited the friendly compassion of many princes, and raised
+a general indignation against his uncle, who had so unjustly bereaved
+him of his inheritance.  Lewis the Gross, son of Philip, was at this
+time King of France, a brave and generous prince, who having been
+obliged, during the lifetime of his father, to fly into England, in
+order to escape the persecutions of his step-mother, Bertrude, had
+been protected by Henry, and had thence conceived a personal
+friendship for him.  But these ties were soon dissolved after the
+accession of Lewis, who found his interests to be in so many
+particulars opposite to those of the English monarch, and who became
+sensible of the danger attending the annexation of Normandy to
+England.  He joined, therefore, the Counts of Anjou and Flanders in
+giving disquiet to Henry's government; and this monarch, in order to
+defend his foreign dominions, found himself obliged to go over to
+Normandy, where he resided two years.  The war which ensued amongst
+those princes was attended with no memorable event, and produced only
+slight skirmishes on the frontiers, agreeable to the weak condition of
+the sovereigns in that age whenever their subjects were not roused by
+some great and urgent occasion.  Henry, by contracting his eldest son,
+William, to the daughter of Fulk, detached the prince from the
+alliance, and obliged the others to come to an accommodation with him.
+This peace was not of  long duration.  His nephew, William, retired to
+the court of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, who espoused his cause; and
+the King of France having soon after, for other reasons, joined the
+party, a new war was kindled in Normandy, which produced no event more
+memorable than had attended the former.  [MN 1113.]  At last the death
+of Baldwin, who was slain in an action near Eu, gave some respite to
+Henry, and enabled him to carry on war with more advantage against his
+enemies.
+[FN [y] Eadmer, p. 83.  Chron. Sax. p. 211, 212, 213, 219, 220, 228.
+H. Hunt p. 380.  Hoveden, p. 470.  Ann. Waverl. p. 143.  [z] Order
+Vital. p. 837.]
+
+Lewis, finding himself unable to wrest Normandy from the king by force
+of arms, had recourse to the dangerous expedient of applying to the
+spiritual power, and of affording the ecclesiastics a pretence to
+interpose in the temporal concerns of princes.  He carried young
+William to a general council, which was assembled at Rheims by Pope
+Calixtus II., presented the Norman prince to them, complained of the
+manifest usurpation and injustice of Henry, craved the assistance of
+the church for reinstating the true heir in his dominions, and
+represented the enormity of detaining in captivity so brave a prince
+as Robert, one of the most eminent champions of the cross, and who, by
+that very quality, was placed under the immediate protection of the
+holy see.  Henry knew how to defend the rights of his crown with
+vigour, and yet with dexterity.  He had sent over the English bishops
+to this synod; but at the same time had warned them, that if any
+farther claims were started by the pope or the ecclesiastics, he was
+determined to adhere to the laws and customs of England, and maintain
+the prerogatives transmitted to him by his predecessors.  "Go," said
+he to them, "salute the pope in my name; hear his apostolical
+precepts; but take care to bring none of his new inventions into my
+kingdom."  Finding, however, that it would be easier for him to elude
+than oppose the efforts of Calixtus, he gave his ambassadors orders to
+gain the pope and his favourites by liberal presents and promises.
+[MN 1119.]  The complaints of the Norman prince were thenceforth heard
+with great coldness by the council; and Calixtus confessed, after a
+conference which he had the same summer with Henry, and when that
+prince probably renewed his presents, that, of all men whom he had
+ever yet been acquainted with, he was, beyond comparison, the most
+eloquent and persuasive.
+
+The warlike measures of Lewis proved as ineffectual as his intrigues.
+He had laid a scheme for surprising Noyon; but Henry having received
+intelligence of the design, marched to the relief of the place, and
+suddenly attacked the French at Brenneville, as they were advancing
+towards it.  A sharp conflict ensued, where Prince William behaved
+with great bravery, and the king himself was in the most imminent
+danger.  He was wounded in the head by Crispin, a gallant Norman
+officer, who had followed the fortunes of William [a]; but, being
+rather animated than terrified by the blow, he immediately beat his
+antagonist to the ground, and so encouraged his troops by the example,
+that they put the French to total rout, and had very nearly taken
+their king prisoner.  The dignity of the persons engaged in this
+skirmish rendered it the most memorable action of the war; for, in
+other respects, it was not of great importance.  There were nine
+hundred horsemen, who fought on both sides; yet were there only two
+persons slain.  The rest were defended by that heavy armour worn by
+the cavalry in those times [b].  An accommodation soon after ensued
+between the Kings of France and England; and the interests of young
+William were entirely neglected in it.
+[FN [a] H. Hunt. p. 381.  M. Paris, p. 47.  Diceto, p. 503.  [b]
+Order. Vital. p. 854.]
+
+[MN 1120.  Death of Prince William.]
+But this public prosperity of Henry was much overbalanced by a
+domestic calamity which befel him.  His only son, William, had now
+reached his eighteenth year, and the king, from the facility with
+which he himself had usurped the crown, dreading that a like
+revolution might subvert his family, had taken care to have him
+recognized successor by the states of the kingdom, and had carried him
+over to Normandy, that he might receive the homage of the barons of
+that duchy.  The king, on his return, set sail from Barfleur, and was
+soon carried by a fair wind out of sight of land.  The prince was
+detained by some accident; and his sailors, as well as their captain,
+Thomas Fitz-Stephens, having spent the interval in drinking, were so
+flustered, that being in  a hurry to follow the king, they heedlessly
+carried the ship on a rock, where she immediately foundered.  William
+was put into the long boat, and had got clear of the ship, when,
+hearing the cries of his natural sister, the Countess of Perche, he
+ordered the seamen to row back in hopes of saving her; but the numbers
+who then crowded in soon sunk the boat; and the prince, with all his
+retinue, perished.  Above a hundred and forty young noblemen, of the
+principal families of England and Normandy, were lost on this
+occasion.  A butcher of Rouen was the only person on board who escaped
+[c].  He clung to the mast, and was taken up next morning by
+fishermen.  Fitz-Stephens also took hold of the mast, but being
+informed by the butcher that Prince William had perished, he said that
+he would not survive the disaster; and he threw himself headlong into
+the sea [d].  Henry entertained hopes for three days, that his son had
+put into some distant port of England; but when certain intelligence
+of the calamity was brought him, he fainted away; and it was remarked,
+that he never after was seen to smile, nor ever recovered his wonted
+cheerfulness [e].
+[FN [c] Sim. Dunelm. p. 242.  Alured Beverl. p. 148.  [d] Order.
+Vital. p. 868.  [e] Hoveden, p. 476.  Order. Vital. p. 869.]
+
+The death of William may be regarded, in one respect, as a misfortune
+to the English; because it was the immediate source of those civil
+wars, which, after the demise of the king, caused such confusion in
+the kingdom; but it is remarkable, that the young prince had
+entertained a violent aversion to the natives; and had been heard to
+threaten, that when he should be king, he would make them draw the
+plough, and would turn them into beasts of burden.  These
+prepossessions he inherited from his father, who, though he was wont,
+when it might serve his purpose, to value himself on his birth, as a
+native of England [f], showed, in the course of his government, an
+extreme prejudice against that people.  All hopes of preferment, to
+ecclesiastical as well as civil dignities, were denied them during
+this whole reign; and any foreigner, however ignorant or worthless,
+was sure to have the preference in every competition [g].  As the
+English had given no disturbance to the government during the course
+of fifty years, this inveterate antipathy in a prince of so much
+temper as well as penetration, forms a presumption that the English of
+that age were still a rude and barbarous people, even compared to the
+Normans, and impresses us with no very favourable idea of the Anglo-
+Saxon manners.
+[FN [f] Gu1. Neub. lib. 1. cap. 3.  [g] Eadmer, p. 110.]
+
+Prince William left no children; and the king had not now any
+legitimate issue, except one daughter, Matilda, whom, in 1110, he had
+betrothed, though only eight years of age [h], to the Emperor Henry
+V., and whom he had then sent over to be educated in Germany [i].  But
+as her absence from the kingdom, and her marriage into a foreign
+family, might endanger the succession, Henry, who was now a widower,
+was induced to marry, in hopes of having male heirs; [MN King's second
+marriage.  1121.] and he made his addresses to Adelais, daughter of
+Godfrey, Duke of Lovaine, and niece of Pope Calixtus, a young princess
+of an amiable person [k].  But Adelais brought him no children; and
+the prince who was most likely to dispute the succession, and even the
+immediate possession of the crown, recovered hopes of subverting his
+rival, who had successively seized all his patrimonial dominions.
+William, the son of Duke Robert, was still protected in the French
+court; and as Henry's connexions with the Count of Anjou were broken
+off by the death of his son, Fulk joined the party of the unfortunate
+prince, gave him his daughter in marriage, and aided him in raising
+disturbances in Normandy.  But Henry found the means of drawing off
+the Count of Anjou, by forming anew with him a nearer connexion than
+the former, and one more material to the interests of that count's
+family.  [MN 1127.]  The emperor, his son-in-law, dying without issue,
+he bestowed his daughter on Geoffrey, the eldest son of Fulk, and
+endeavoured to ensure her succession by having her recognized heir to
+all his dominions, and obliging the barons, both of Normandy and
+England to swear fealty to her.  [MN 1128.]  He hoped that the choice
+of this husband would be more agreeable to all his subjects than that
+of the emperor; as securing them from the danger of falling under the
+dominion of a great and distant potentate, who might bring them into
+subjection, and reduce their country to the rank of a province: but
+the barons were displeased that a step so material to national
+interests had been taken without consulting them [l]; and Henry had
+too sensibly experienced the turbulence of their disposition, not to
+dread the effects of their resentment.  It seemed probable, that his
+nephew's party might gain force from the increase of the malecontents:
+an accession of power which that prince acquired a little after,
+tended to render his pretensions still more dangerous.  Charles, Earl
+of Flanders, being assassinated during the celebration of divine
+service, King Lewis immediately put the young prince in possession of
+that country, to which he had pretensions in the right of his
+grandmother Matilda, wife to the Conqueror.  But William survived a
+very little time this piece of good fortune, which seemed to open the
+way to still farther prosperity.  He was killed in a skirmish with the
+Landgrave of Alsace, his competitor for Flanders; and his death put an
+end, for the present, to the jealousy and inquietude of Henry.
+[FN [h] Chron. Sax. p. 215.  W. Malm. p. 166.  Order. Vital. p. 83.
+[i] See note [M], at the end of the volume.  [k] Chron. Sax. p. 223.
+W. Malm. p. 165.  [l] W. Malm. p. 175.  The annals of Waverly, p. 150,
+say, that the king asked and obtained the consent of all the barons.]
+
+The chief merit of this monarch's government consists in the profound
+tranquillity which he established and maintained throughout all his
+dominions during the greater part of his reign.  The mutinous barons
+were retained in subjection; and his neighbours, in every attempt
+which they made upon him, found him so well prepared, that they were
+discouraged from continung or renewing their enterprises.  In order to
+repress the incursions of the Welsh, he brought over some Flemings, in
+the year 1111, and settled them in Pembrokeshire, where they long
+maintained a different language, and customs, and manners, from their
+neighbours.  Though his government seems to have been arbitrary in
+England, it was judicious and prudent; and was as little oppressive as
+the necessity of his affairs would permit.  He wanted not attention to
+the redress of grievances; and historians mention in particular the
+levying of purveyance, which he endeavoured to moderate and restrain.
+The tenants in the king's demesne lands were at that time obliged to
+supply, GRATIS, the court with provisions, and to furnish carriages on
+the same hard terms, when the king made a progress, as he did
+frequently, into any of the counties.  These exactions were so
+grievous, and levied in so licentious a manner, that the farmers, when
+they heard of the approach of the court, often deserted their houses
+as if an enemy had invaded the country [m], and sheltered their
+persons and families in the woods from the insults of the king's
+retinue.  Henry prohibited those enormities, and punished the persons
+guilty of them by cutting off their hands, legs, or other members [n].
+But the prerogative was perpetual; the remedy applied by Henry was
+temporary; and the violence itself of this remedy, so far from giving
+security to the people, was only a proof of the ferocity of the
+government, and threatened a quick return of like abuses.
+[FN [m] Eadmer, p. 94.  Chron. Sax. p. 212.  [n] Eadmer, p. 94.]
+
+One great and difficult object of the king's prudence was, the
+guarding against the encroachments of the court of Rome, and
+protecting the liberties of the church of England.  The pope, in the
+year 1101, had sent Guy, Archbishop of Vienne, as legate into Britain;
+and though he was the first that for many years had appeared there in
+that character, and his commission gave general surprise [o], the
+king, who was then in the commencement of his reign, and was involved
+in many difficulties, was obliged to submit to this encroachment on
+his authority.  But in the year 1116, Anselm, Abbot of St. Sabas, who
+was coming over with a like legatine commission, was prohibited from
+entering the kingdom [p]; and Pope Calixtus who, in his turn, was then
+labouring under many difficulties, by reason of the pretensions of
+Gregory, an anti-pope, was obliged to promise that he never would for
+the future, except when solicited by the king himself, send any legate
+into England [q].  Notwithstanding this engagement, the pope, as soon
+as he had suppressed his antagonist, granted the Cardinal de Crema a
+legatine commission over that kingdom; and the king, who, by reason of
+his nephew's intrigues and invasions, found himself at that time in a
+dangerous situation, was obliged  to submit to the exercise of this
+commission [r].  A synod was called by the legate at London; where,
+among other canons, a vote passed, enacting severe penalties on the
+marriages of the clergy [s].  The cardinal, in a public harangue,
+declared it to be an unpardonable enormity, that a priest should dare
+to consecrate and touch the body of Christ immediately after he had
+risen from the side of a strumpet; for that was the decent appellation
+which he gave to the wives of the clergy.  But it happened that, the
+very next night, the officers of justice, breaking into a disorderly
+house, found the cardinal in bed with a courtezan [t]; an incident
+which threw such ridicule upon him, that he immediately stole out of
+the kingdom: the synod broke up; and the canons against the marriage
+of clergymen were worse executed than ever [u].
+[FN [o] Ibid. p. 58.  [p] Hoveden, p. 474.  [q] Eadmer, p. 125, 137,
+138.  [r] Chron. Sax. p. 229.  [s] Spellm. Conc. vol. ii. p. 34.  [t]
+Hoveden, p. 478.  M. Paris, p. 48.  Matth. West. ad. ann. 1125.  H.
+Huntingdon, p. 382.  It is remarkable that this last writer, who was a
+clergyman as well as the others, makes an apology for using such
+freedom with the fathers of the church; but says, that the fact was
+notorious, and ought not to be concealed.  [u] Chron. Sax. p. 234.]
+
+Henry, in order to prevent this alternate revolution of concessions
+and encroachments, sent William, then Archbishop of Canterbury, to
+remonstrate with the court of Rome against those abuses, and to assert
+the liberties of the English church.  It was a usual maxim with every
+pope, when he found that he could not prevail in any pretension, to
+grant princes or states a power which they had always exercised, to
+resume, at a proper juncture, the claim which seemed to be resigned,
+and to pretend that the civil magistrate had possessed the authority
+only from a special indulgence of the Roman pontiff.  After this
+manner, the pope, finding that the French nation would not admit his
+claim of granting investitures, had passed a bull, giving the king
+that authority; and he now practised a like invention to elude the
+complaints of the King of England.  He made the Archbishop of
+Canterbury his legate, renewed his commission from time to time, and
+still pretended that the rights which that prelate had ever exercised
+as metropolitan were entirely derived from the indulgence of the
+apostolic see.  The English princes, and Henry in particular, who were
+glad to avoid any immediate contest of so dangerous a nature, commonly
+acquiesced by their silence in these pretensions of the court of Rome
+[w].
+[FN [w] See note [N], at the end of the volume.]
+
+As every thing in England remained in tranquillity, Henry took the
+opportunity of paying a visit to Normandy, to which he was invited, as
+well by his affection for that country, as by his tenderness for his
+daughter, the Empress Matilda, who was always his favourite.  [MN
+1132.]  Some time after, that princess was delivered of a son, who
+received the name of Henry; and the king, farther to ensure her
+succession, made all the nobility of England and Normandy renew the
+oath of fealty, which they had already sworn to her [x].  The joy of
+this event, and the satisfaction which he reaped from his daughter's
+company, who bore successively two other sons, made his residence in
+Normandy very agreeable to him [y]; [MN 1135.] and he seemed
+determined to pass the remainder of his days in that country; when an
+incursion of the Welsh obliged him to think of returning into England.
+He was preparing for the journey, but was seized with a sudden illness
+at St. Dennis le Forment [MN 1st. Dec.], from eating too plentifully
+of lampreys, a food which always agreed better with his palate than
+his constitution [z].  [MN Death, and character of Henry.]  He died in
+the sixty-seventh year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his reign;
+leaving by will his daughter, Matilda, heir of all his dominions,
+without making any mention of her husband Geoffrey, who had given him
+several causes of displeasure [a].
+[FN [x] W. Malm. p. 177.  [y] H. Hunt. p. 385.  [z] Ibid. p. 385.  M.
+Paris, p. 50.  [a] W. Malm. p. 178.]
+
+This prince was one of the most accomplished that has filled the
+English throne, and possessed all the great qualities both of body and
+mind, natural and acquired which could fit him for the high station to
+which he attained.  His person was manly, his countenance engaging,
+his eyes clear, serene, and penetrating.  The affability of his
+address encouraged those who might be overawed by the sense of his
+dignity or of his wisdom; and though he often indulged his facetious
+humour, he knew how to temper it with discretion, and ever kept at a
+distance from all indecent familiarities with his courtiers.  His
+superior eloquence and judgment would have given him an ascendant,
+even had he been born in a private station; and his personal bravery
+would have procured him respect, though it had been less supported by
+art and policy.  By his great progress in literature, he acquired the
+name of BEAUCLERK, or the Scholar: but his application to those
+sedentary pursuits abated nothing of the activity and vigilance of his
+government; and though the learning of that age was better fitted to
+corrupt than improve the understanding, his natural good sense
+preserved itself untainted both from the pedantry and superstition
+which were then so prevalent among men of letters.  His temper was
+susceptible of the sentiments as well of friendship as of resentment
+[b]; and his ambition though high, might be deemed moderate and
+reasonable, had not his conduct towards his brother and nephew showed
+that he was too much disposed to sacrifice to it all the maxims of
+justice and equity.  But the total incapacity of Robert for government
+afforded his younger brother a reason or pretence for seizing the
+sceptre both of England and Normandy; and when violence and usurpation
+are once begun, necessity obliges a prince to continue in the same
+criminal course, and engages him in measures which his better judgment
+and sounder principles would otherwise have induced him to reject with
+warmth and indignation.
+[FN [b] Order. Vital. p. 805.]
+
+King Henry was much addicted to women; and historians mention no less
+than seven illegitimate sons and six daughters born to him [c].
+Hunting was also one of his favourite amusements; and he exercised
+great rigour against those who encroached on the royal forests, which
+were augmented during his reign [d], though their number and extent
+were already too great.  To kill a stag was as criminal as to murder a
+man: he made all the dogs be mutilated which were kept on the borders
+of his forests; and he sometimes deprived his subjects of the liberty
+of hunting on their own lands, or even cutting their own woods.  In
+other respects, he executed justice, and that with rigour; the best
+maxim which a prince in that age could follow.  Stealing was first
+made capital in this reign [e]; false coining, which was then a very
+common crime, and by which the money had been extremely debased, was
+severely punished by Henry [f].  Near fifty criminals of this kind
+were at one time hanged or mutilated; and though these punishments
+seem to have been exercised in a manner somewhat arbitrary, they were
+grateful to the people, more attentive to present advantages than
+jealous of general laws.  There is a code which passes under the name
+of Henry I., but the best antiquaries have agreed to think it
+spurious.  It is however a very ancient compilation, and may be useful
+to instruct us in the manners and customs of the times.  We learn from
+it, that a great distinction was then made between the English and
+Normans, much to the advantage of the latter [g].  The deadly feuds,
+and the liberty of private revenge, which had been avowed by the Saxon
+laws, were still continued, and were not yet wholly illegal [h].
+[FN [c] Gul. Gemet. lib. 8. cap. 29.  [d] W. Malm. p. 179.  [e] Sim.
+Dunelm p. 231.  Brompton, p. 1000.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 653.  Hoveden, p.
+471.  [f] Sim. Dunelm. p. 231.  Brompton, p. 1000.  Hoveden, p. 471.
+Annal. Waverl. p. 149.  [g] LL. Hen. I. Sec, 18, 75.  [h] Ibid. Sec.
+82.]
+
+Among the laws granted on the king's accession, it is remarkable that
+the reunion of the civil and ecclesiastical courts, as in the Saxon
+times, was enacted [i].  But this law, like the articles of his
+charter, remained without effect, probably from the opposition of
+Archbishop Anselm.
+[FN [i] Spellm. p. 305.  Blackstone, vol. iii. p. 63.  Coke, 2 Inst.
+70.]
+
+Henry, on his accession, granted a charter to London, which seems to
+have been the first step towards rendering that city a corporation.
+By this charter, the city was empowered to keep the farm of Middlesex
+at three hundred pounds a year, to elect its own sheriff and
+justiciary, and to hold pleas of the crown: and it was exempted from
+scot, Danegelt, trials by combat, and lodging the king's retinue.
+These, with a confirmation of the privileges of their court of
+hustings, wardmotes, and common halls, and their liberty of hunting in
+Middlesex and Surrey, are the chief articles of this charter [k].
+[FN [k] Lambardi Archaionomia ex edit. Twisden.  Wilkins, p. 235.]
+
+It is said [l], that this prince, from indulgence to his tenants,
+changed the rents of his demesnes, which were formerly paid in kind,
+into money, which was more easily  remitted to the exchequer.  But the
+great scarcity of coin would render that commutation difficult to be
+executed, while at the same time provisions could not be sent to a
+distant quarter of the kingdom.  This affords a probable reason why
+the ancient kings of England so frequently changed their place of
+abode: they carried their court from one place to another, that they
+might consume upon the spot the revenue of their several demesnes.
+[FN [l] Dial. de Scaccario, lib. 1. cap. 7.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+STEPHEN.
+
+ACCESSION OF STEPHEN--WAR WITH SCOTLAND.--INSURRECTION IN FAVOUR OF
+MATILDA.--STEPHEN TAKEN PRISONER.--MATILDA CROWNED.--STEPHEN RELEASED.
+--RESTORED TO THE CROWN.--CONTINUATION OF THE CIVIL WARS.--COMPROMISE
+BETWEEN THE KING AND PRINCE HENRY.--DEATH OF THE KING.
+
+
+
+[MN 1135.]  In the progress and settlement of the feudal law, the male
+succession to fiefs had taken place some time before the female was
+admitted; and estates being considered as military benefices, not as
+property, were transmitted to such only as could serve in the armies,
+and perform in person the conditions upon which they were originally
+granted.  But when the continuance of rights, during some generations,
+in the same family, had in a great measure, obliterated the primitive
+idea, the females were gradually admitted to the possession of feudal
+property; and the same revolution of principles which procured them
+the inheritance of private estates naturally introduced their
+succession to government and authority.  The failure, therefore, of
+male heirs to the kingdom of England and duchy of Normandy seemed to
+leave the succession open, without a rival, to the Empress Matilda;
+and as Henry had made all his vassals, in both states, swear fealty to
+her, he presumed that they would not easily be induced to depart at
+once from her hereditary right, and from their own reiterated oaths
+and engagements.  But the irregular manner in which he himself had
+acquired the crown might have instructed him, that neither his Norman
+nor English subjects were as yet capable of adhering to a strict rule
+of government; and as every precedent of this kind seems to give
+authority to new usurpations, he had reason to dread, even from his
+own family, some invasion of his daughter's title which he had taken
+such pains to establish.
+
+Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, had been married to Stephen,
+Count of Blois, and had brought him several sons, among whom Stephen
+and Henry, the two youngest, had been invited over to England by the
+late king, and had received great honours, riches, and preferment,
+from the zealous friendship which that prince bore to every one that
+had been so fortunate as to acquire his favour and good opinion.
+Henry, who had betaken himself to the ecclesiastical profession, was
+created Abbot of Glastonbury and Bishop of Winchester; and though
+these dignities were considerable, Stephen had, from his uncle's
+liberality, attained establishments still more solid and durable [a].
+The king had married him to Matilda, who was daughter and heir of
+Eustace Count of Boulogne, and who brought him, besides that feudal
+sovereignty in France, an immense property in England, which, in the
+distribution of lands, had been conferred by the Conqueror on the
+family of Boulogne.  Stephen also by this marriage acquired a new
+connexion with the royal family of England; as Mary, his wife's
+mother, was sister to David the reigning King of Scotland, and to
+Matilda, the first wife of Henry, and mother of the empress.  The
+king, still imagining that he strengthened the interests of his family
+by the aggrandizement of Stephen, took pleasure in enriching him by
+the grant of new possessions; and he conferred on him the great estate
+forfeited by Robert Mallet in England, and that forfeited by the Earl
+of Mortaigne in Normandy.  Stephen, in return, professed great
+attachment to his uncle; and appeared so zealous for the succession of
+Matilda, that when the barons swore fealty to that princess, he
+contended with Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the king's natural son, who
+should first be admitted to give her this testimony of devoted zeal
+and fidelity [b].  Meanwhile he continued to cultivate, by every art
+of popularity, the friendship of the English nation; and many virtues,
+with which he seemed to be endowed, favoured the success of his
+intentions.  By his bravery, activity, and vigour, he acquired the
+esteem of the barons: by his generosity, and by an affable and
+familiar address, unusual in that age among men of his high quality,
+he obtained the affections of the people, particularly of the
+Londoners [c].  And though he dared not to take any steps towards his
+farther grandeur, lest he should expose himself to the jealousy of so
+penetrating a prince as Henry; he still hoped that, by accumulating
+riches and power, and by acquiring popularity, he might in time be
+able to open his way to the throne.
+[FN [a] Gul. Neubr. p. 360.  Brompton, p. 1023.  [b] W. Malm. p. 192.]
+
+No sooner had Henry breathed his last, than Stephen, insensible to all
+the ties of gratitude and fidelity, and blind to danger, gave full
+reins to his criminal ambition, and trusted that, even without any
+previous intrigue, the celerity of his enterprise, and the boldness of
+his attempt, might overcome the weak attachment which the English and
+Normans in that age bore to the law and to the rights of their
+sovereign.  He hastened over to England; and though the citizens of
+Dover, and those of Canterbury, apprized of his purpose, shut their
+gates against him, he stopped not till he arrived at London, where
+some of the lower rank, instigated by his emissaries, as well as moved
+by his general popularity, immediately saluted him king.  His next
+point was to acquire the good will of the clergy; and by performing
+the ceremony of his coronation, to put himself in possession of the
+throne, from which he was confident it would not be easy afterwards to
+expel him.  His brother, the Bishop of Winchester, was useful to him
+in these capital articles: having gained Roger, Bishop of Salisbury,
+who, though he owed a great fortune and advancement to the favour of
+the late king, preserved no sense of gratitude to that prince's
+family, he applied, in conjunction with that prelate, to William,
+Archbishop of Canterbury, and required him, in virtue of his office,
+to give the royal unction to Stephen.  The primate, who, as all the
+others, had shown fealty to Matilda, refused to perform this ceremony;
+but his opposition was overcome by an expedient equally dishonourable
+with the other steps by which this revolution was effected.  Hugh
+Bigod, steward of the household, made oath before the primate, that
+the late king, on his deathbed, had shown a dissatisfaction with his
+daughter Matilda, and had expressed his intention of leaving the Count
+of Boulogne heir to all his dominions [d].  [MN 1135. 22d. Dec.]
+William, either believing, of feigning to believe, Bigod's testimony,
+anointed Stephen, and put the crown upon his head; and from this
+religious ceremony that prince, without any shadow either of
+hereditary title, or consent of the nobility or people, was allowed to
+proceed to the exercise of sovereign authority.  Very few barons
+attended his coronation [e]; but none opposed his usurpation, however
+unjust or flagrant.  The sentiment of religion, which, if corrupted
+into superstition, has often little efficacy in fortifying the duties
+of civil society, was not affected by the multiplied oaths taken in
+favour of Matilda, and only rendered the people obedient to a prince,
+who was countenanced by the clergy, and who had received from the
+primate the rite of royal unction and consecration [f].
+[FN [c] W. Malm. p. 179.  Gest. Steph. p. 928.  [d] Matt. Paris, p.
+51.  Diceto, p. 505.  Chron. Dunst. p. 23.  [e] Brompton, p. 1023.
+[f] Such stress was formerly laid on the rite of coronation, that the
+monkish writers never give any prince the title of king till he is
+crowned; though he had for some time been in possession of the crown,
+and exercised all the powers of sovereignty.]
+
+Stephen, that he might farther secure his tottering throne, passed a
+charter, in which he made liberal promises to all orders of men: to
+the clergy, that he would speedily fill all vacant benefices, and
+would never levy the rents of any of them during the vacancy; to the
+nobility, that he would reduce the royal forests to their ancient
+boundaries, and correct all encroachments; and to the people, that he
+would remit the tax of Danegelt, and restore the laws of King Edward
+[g].  The late king had a great treasure at Winchester, amounting to a
+hundred thousand pounds; and Stephen, by seizing this money,
+immediately turned against Henry's family the precaution, which that
+prince had employed for their grandeur and security: an event which
+naturally attends the policy of amassing treasures.  By means of this
+money, the usurper ensured the compliance, though not the attachment,
+of the principal clergy and nobility; but not trusting to this frail
+security, he invited over from the continent, particularly from
+Britany and Flanders, great numbers of these bravoes or disorderly
+soldiers, with whom every country in Europe, by reason of the general
+ill police and turbulent government, extremely abounded [h].  These
+mercenary troops guarded his throne by the terrors of the sword; and
+Stephen, that he might also overawe all malecontents by new and
+additional terrors of religion, procured a bull from Rome, which
+ratified his title, and which the pope, seeing this prince in
+possession of the throne, and pleased with an appeal to his authority
+in secular controversies, very readily granted him [i].
+[FN [g] W. Malmes. p. 179.  Hoveden, p. 482.  [h] W. Malm. p. 179.
+[i] Hagulstadt, p. 259, 313.]
+
+[MN 1136.]  Matilda, and her husband Geoffrey, were as unfortunate in
+Normandy as they had been in England.  The Norman nobility, moved by
+an hereditary animosity against the Angevins, first applied to
+Theobald, Count of Blois, Stephen's elder brother, for protection and
+assistance; but hearing afterwards that Stephen had got possession of
+the English crown, and having many of them the same reasons as
+formerly for desiring a continuance of their union with that kingdom,
+they transferred their allegiance to Stephen, and put him in
+possession of their government.  Lewis the younger, the reigning King
+of France, accepted the homage of Eustace, Stephen's eldest son, for
+the duchy; and the more to corroborate his connexions with that
+family, he betrothed his sister, Constantia, to the young prince.  The
+Count of Blois resigned all his pretensions, and received, in lieu of
+them, an annual pension of two thousand marks; and Geoffrey himself
+was obliged to conclude a truce for two years with Stephen, on
+condition of the king's paying him, during that time, a pension of
+five thousand [k].  Stephen, who had taken a journey to Normandy,
+finished all these transactions in person, and soon after returned to
+England.
+[FN [k] M. Paris, p. 52.]
+
+Robert, Earl of Gloucester, natural son of the late king, was a man of
+honour and abilities; and as he was much attached to the interests of
+his sister, Matilda, and zealous for the lineal succession, it was
+chiefly from his intrigues and resistance that the king had reason to
+dread a new revolution of government.  This nobleman, who was in
+Normandy when he received intelligence of Stephen's accession, found
+himself much embarrassed concerning the measures which he should
+pursue in that difficult emergency.  To swear allegiance to the
+usurper appeared to him dishonourable, and a breach of his oath to
+Matilda: to refuse giving this pledge of his fidelity, was to banish
+himself from England, and be totally incapacitated from serving the
+royal family, or contributing to their restoration [l].  He offered
+Stephen to do him homage, and to take the oath of fealty; but with an
+express condition, that the king should maintain all his stipulations,
+and should never invade any of Robert's rights or dignities: and
+Stephen, though sensible that this reserve, so unusual in itself, and
+so unbefitting the duty of a subject, was meant only to afford Robert
+a pretence for a revolt on the first favourable opportunity, was
+obliged, by the numerous friends and retainers of that nobleman, to
+receive him on those terms [m].  The clergy, who could scarcely, at
+this time, be deemed subjects to the crown, imitated that dangerous
+example: they annexed to their oaths of allegiance this condition,
+that they were only bound so long as the king defended the
+ecclesiastical liberties, and supported the discipline of the church
+[n].  The barons, in return for their submission, exacted terms still
+more destructive of public peace, as well as of royal authority: many
+of them required the right of fortifying their castles, and of putting
+themselves in a posture of defence; and the king found himself totally
+unable to refuse his consent to this exorbitant demand [o].  All
+England was immediately filled with those fortresses, which the
+noblemen garrisoned either with their vassals, or with licentious
+soldiers, who flocked to them from all quarters.  Unbounded rapine was
+exercised upon the people for the maintenance of these troops; and
+private animosities, which had with difficulty been restrained by law,
+now breaking out without control, rendered England a scene of
+uninterrupted violence and devastation.  Wars between the nobles were
+carried on with the utmost fury in every quarter; the barons even
+assumed the right of coining money, and of exercising, without appeal,
+every act of jurisdiction [p]; and the inferior gentry, as well as the
+people, finding no defence from the laws during this total dissolution
+of sovereign authority, were obliged for their immediate safety, to
+pay court to some neighbouring chieftain, and to purchase his
+protection, both by submitting to his exactions, and by assisting him
+in his rapine upon others.  The erection of one castle proved the
+immediate cause of building many others; and even those who obtained
+not the king's permission, thought that they were entitled, by the
+great principle of self-preservation, to put themselves on an equal
+footing with their neighbours, who commonly were also their enemies
+and rivals.  The aristocratical power, which is usually so oppressive
+in the feudal governments, had now risen to its utmost height, during
+the reign of a prince, who, though endowed with vigour and abilities,
+had usurped the throne without the pretence of a title, and who was
+necessitated to tolerate in others the same violence, to which he
+himself had been beholden for his sovereignty.
+[FN [l] W Malmes. p. 179.  [m] Ibid.  M. Paris, p. 51.  [n] W. Malm,
+p. 179.  [o] Ibid. p. 180.  [p] Trivet, p. 19  Gill. Neub. p. 372.
+Chron. Heming. p. 487.  Brompton, p. 1035.]
+
+But Stephen was not of a disposition to submit long to these
+usurpations, without making some effort for the recovery of royal
+authority.  Finding that the legal prerogatives of the crown were
+resisted and abridged, he was also tempted to make his power the sole
+measure of his conduct; and to violate all those concessions which he
+himself had made on his accession [q], as well as the ancient
+privileges of his subjects.  The mercenary soldiers, who chiefly
+supported his authority, having exhausted the royal treasure,
+subsisted by depredations; and every place was filled with the best
+grounded complaints against the government.  [MN 1137.]  The Earl of
+Gloucester, having now settled with his friends the plan of an
+insurrection, retired beyond sea, sent the king a defiance, solemnly
+renounced his allegiance, and upbraided him with the breach of those
+conditions which had been annexed to the oath of fealty sworn by that
+nobleman [r]. [MN 1138.  War with Scotland.]  David, King of Scotland,
+appeared at the head of an army in defence of his niece's title, and
+penetrating into Yorkshire, committed the most barbarous devastations
+on that country.  The fury of his massacres and ravages enraged the
+northern nobility, who might otherwise  have been inclined to join
+him; and William, Earl of Albemarle, Robert de Ferrers, William
+Piercy, Robert de Brus, Roger Moubray, Ilbert Lacey, Walter l'Espec,
+powerful barons in those parts, assembled an army with which they
+encamped at North-Allerton, and awaited the arrival of the enemy.  [MN
+22d. Aug.]  A great battle was here fought, called the battle of the
+STANDARD, from a high crucifix, erected by the English on a waggon,
+and carried along with the army as a military ensign.  The King of
+Scots was defeated, and he himself, as well as his son Henry, narrowly
+escaped falling into the hands of the English.  This success overawed
+the malecontents in England, and might have given some stability to
+Stephen's throne, had he not been so elated with prosperity as to
+engage in a controversy with the clergy, who were at that time an
+overmatch for any monarch.
+[FN [q] W. Malm. p. 180.  M. Paris, p. 51.  [r] W. Malm. p. 180.]
+
+Though the great power of the church, in ancient times, weakened the
+authority of the crown, and interrupted the course of the laws, it may
+be doubted, whether, in ages of such violence and outrage, it was not
+rather advantageous that some limits were set to the power of the
+sword, both in the hands of the prince and nobles, and that men were
+taught to pay regard to some principles and privileges.  The chief
+misfortune was, that the prelates on some occasions acted entirely as
+barons, employed military power against their sovereign or their
+neighbours, and thereby often increased those disorders which it was
+their duty to repress.  The Bishop of Salisbury, in imitation of the
+nobility, had built two strong castles, one at Sherborne, another at
+Devizes, and had laid the foundations of a third at Malmesbury: his
+nephew, Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, had erected a fortress at
+Newark: and Stephen, who was now sensible from experience of the
+mischiefs attending these multiplied citadels, resolved to begin with
+destroying those of the clergy, who, by their function, seemed less
+entitled than the barons to such military securities [s].  [MN 1139.]
+Making pretence of a fray which had arisen in court between the
+retinue of the Bishop of Salisbury and that of the Earl of Britany, he
+seized both that prelate and the Bishop of Lincoln, threw them into
+prison, and obliged them by menaces to deliver up those places of
+strength which they had lately erected [t].
+[FN [s] Gul. Neubr. p. 362.  [t] Chron. Sax. p. 238.  W. Malmes. p.
+181.]
+
+Henry, Bishop of Winchester, the king's brother, being armed with a
+legatine commission, now conceived himself to be an ecclesiastical
+sovereign, no less powerful than the civil; and, forgetting the ties
+of blood which connected him with the king, he resolved to vindicate
+the clerical privileges, which, he pretended, were here openly
+violated.  [MN 30th Aug.]  He assembled a synod at Westminster, and
+there complained of the impiety of Stephen's measures, who had
+employed violence against the dignitaries of the church, and had not
+awaited the sentence of a spiritual court, by which alone, he
+affirmed, they could lawfully be tried and condemned, if their conduct
+had anywise merited censure or punishment. [u].  The synod ventured to
+send a summons to the king charging him to appear before them, and to
+justify his measures [w]; and Stephen, instead of resenting this
+indignity, sent Aubrey de Vere to plead his cause before that
+assembly.  De Vere accused the two prelates of treason and sedition;
+but the synod refused to try the cause, or examine their conduct, till
+those castles, of which they had been dispossessed, were previously
+restored to them [x].  The Bishop of Salisbury declared that he would
+appeal to the pope; and had not Stephen and his partisans employed
+menaces, and even shown a disposition of executing violence by the
+hands of the soldiery, affairs had instantly come to extremity between
+the crown and the mitre [y].
+[FN [u] W. Malm. p. 182.  [w] Ibid.  M Paris, p. 53.  [x] W. Malm. p.
+183.  [y] Ibid.]
+
+While this quarrel, joined to so many other grievances, increased the
+discontents among the people, the empress, invited by the opportunity,
+and secretly encouraged by the legate himself, landed in England with
+Robert Earl of Gloucester, and a retinue of a hundred and forty
+knights.  She fixed her residence at Arundel Castle, whose gates were
+opened to her by Adelais, the queen-dowager, now married to William de
+Albini, Earl of Sussex; and she excited, by messengers, her partisans
+to take arms in every county of England.  [MN 1139.  22d Sept.
+Insurrection in favour of Matilda.]  Adelais, who had expected that
+her daughter-in-law would have invaded the kingdom with a much greater
+force, became apprehensive of danger; and Matilda, to ease her of her
+fears, removed, first to Bristol, which belonged to her brother
+Robert, thence to Gloucester, where she remained under the protection
+of Milo, a gallant nobleman in those parts, who had embraced her
+cause.  Soon after Geoffrey Talbot, William Mohun, Ralph Lovel,
+William Fitz-John, William Fitz-Alan, Paganell, and many other barons,
+declared for her; and her party, which was generally favoured in the
+kingdom, seemed every day to gain ground upon that of her antagonist.
+
+Were we to relate all the military events transmitted to us by
+contemporary and authentic historians, it would be easy to swell our
+accounts of this reign into a large volume: but those incidents, so
+little memorable in themselves, and so confused both in time and
+place, could afford neither instruction nor entertainment to the
+reader.  It suffices to say, that the war was spread into every
+quarter, and that those turbulent barons, who had already shaken off,
+in a great measure, the restraint of government, having now obtained
+the pretence of a public cause, carried on their devastations with
+redoubled fury, exercised implacable vengeance on each other, and set
+no bounds to their oppressions over the people.  The castles of the
+nobility were become receptacles of licensed robbers; who, sallying
+forth day and night, committed spoil on the open country, on the
+villages, and even on the cities, put the captives to torture, in
+order to make them reveal their treasures; sold their persons to
+slavery; and set fire to their houses, after they had pillaged them of
+every thing valuable.  The fierceness of their disposition, leading
+them to commit wanton destruction, frustrated their rapacity of its
+purpose; and the property and persons even of the ecclesiastics,
+generally so much revered, were at last, from necessity, exposed to
+the same outrage which had laid waste the rest of the kingdom.  The
+land was left untilled; the instruments of husbandry were destroyed or
+abandoned; and a grievous famine, the natural result of those
+disorders, affected equally both parties, and reduced the spoilers as
+well as the defenceless people to the most extreme want and indigence
+[z].
+[FN [z] Chron. Sax. p. 238.  W. Malmes. p. 185.  Gest. Steph p. 961.]
+
+[MN 1140.]  After several fruitless negotiations and treaties of
+peace, which never interrupted these destructive hostilities, there
+happened at last an event, which seemed to promise some end of the
+public calamities.  Ralph, Earl of Chester, and his half-brother,
+William de Roumara, partisans of Matilda, had surprised the castle of
+Lincoln; but the citizens, who were better affected to Stephen, having
+invited him to their aid, that prince laid close siege to the castle,
+in hopes of soon rendering himself master of the place, either by
+assault or by famine.  The Earl of Gloucester hastened with an army to
+the relief of his friends; and Stephen, informed of his approach, took
+the field with a resolution of giving him battle.  [MN 1141.  2d Feb.]
+After a violent shock, the two wings of the royalists were put to
+flight; and Stephen himself, surrounded by the enemy, was at last,
+after exerting great efforts of valour, borne down by numbers, and
+taken prisoner.  [MN Stephen taken prisoner.]  He was conducted to
+Gloucester; and though at first treated with humanity was soon after,
+on some suspicion, thrown into prison and loaded with irons.
+
+Stephen's party was entirely broken by the captivity of their leader,
+and the barons came in daily from all quarters, and did homage to
+Matilda.  The princess, however, amidst all her prosperity, knew that
+she was not secure of success unless she could gain the confidence of
+the clergy; and as the conduct of the legate had been of late very
+ambiguous, and shown his intentions to have rather aimed at humbling
+his brother than totally ruining him, she employed every endeavour to
+fix him in her interests.  [MN 2d March.]  She held a conference with
+him in an open plain near Winchester, where she promised, upon oath,
+that if he would acknowledge her for sovereign, would recognize her
+title as the sole descendant of the late king, and would again submit
+to the allegiance which he, as well as the rest of the kingdom, had
+sworn to her, he should in return be entire master of the
+administration, and, in particular, should, at his pleasure, dispose
+of all vacant bishoprics and abbeys.  Earl Robert, her brother, Brian
+Fitz-Count, Milo of Gloucester, and other great men, became guarantees
+for her observing these engagements [a]; and the prelate was at last
+induced to promise her allegiance, but that still burdened with the
+express condition, that she should, on her part, fulfil her promises.
+He then conducted her to Winchester, led her in procession to the
+cathedral, and with great solemnity, in the presence of many bishops
+and abbots, denounced curses against all those who cursed her, poured
+out blessings on those who blessed her, granted absolution to such as
+were obedient to her, and excommunicated such as were rebellious [b].
+Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, soon after came also to court, and
+swore allegiance to the empress [c].
+[FN [a] W. Malm. p. 187.  [b] Chron. Sax. p. 242.  Contin. Flor. Wig.
+p. 676.  [c] W. Malmes p. 187.]
+
+[MN Matilda crowned.]  Matilda, that she might farther ensure the
+attachment of the clergy, was willing to receive the crown from their
+hands; and instead of assembling the states of the kingdom, the
+measure which the constitution, had it been either fixed or regarded,
+seemed necessarily to require, she was content that the legate should
+assemble an ecclesiastical synod, and that her title to the throne
+should there be acknowledged.  The legate, addressing himself to the
+assembly, told them, that in the absence of the empress, Stephen, his
+brother, had been permitted to reign, and, previously to his ascending
+the throne, had induced them by many fair promises, of honouring and
+exalting the church, of maintaining the laws, and of reforming all
+abuses: that it grieved him to observe how much that prince had, in
+every particular, been wanting to his engagements; public peace was
+interrupted, crimes were daily committed with impunity, bishops were
+thrown into prison and forced to surrender their possessions, abbeys
+were put to sale, churches were pillaged, and the most enormous
+disorders prevailed in the administration: that he himself, in order
+to procure a redress of these grievances, had formerly summoned the
+king before a council of bishops; but, instead of inducing him to
+amend his conduct, had rather offended him by that expedient: that,
+how much soever misguided, that prince was still his brother, and the
+object of his aflections; but his interests, however, must be regarded
+as subordinate to those of their heavenly Father, who had now rejected
+him, and thrown him into the hands of his enemies: that it principally
+belonged to the clergy to elect and ordain kings; he had summoned them
+together for that purpose and having invoked the divine assistance; he
+now pronounced Matilda, the only descendant of Henry, the late
+sovereign, Queen of England.  The whole assembly by their acclamations
+or silence, gave, or seemed to give, their assent to this declaration
+[d].
+[FN [d] W. Malmes. p. 188.  This author, a judicious man, was present,
+and says, that he was very attentive to what passed.  This speech,
+therefore, may he regarded as entirely genuine.]
+
+The only laymen summoned to this council, which decided the fate of
+the crown, were the Londoners; and even these were required not to
+give their opinion but to submit to the decrees of the synod.  The
+deputies of London, however, were not so passive: they insisted that
+their king should be delivered from prison; but were told by the
+legate, that it became not the Londoners, who were regarded as
+noblemen in England, to take part with those barons, who had basely
+forsaken their lord in battle, and who had treated the holy church
+with contumely [e]: it is with reason that the citizens of London
+assumed so much authority, if it be true, what is related by
+Fitz-Stephen, a contemporary author, that that city could at this time
+bring into the field no less than eighty thousand combatants [f].
+[FN [e] W. Malmes. p. 188.  [f] P. 4. Were this account to be depended
+on, London must at that time have contained near four hundred thousand
+inhabitants, which is above double the number it contained at the
+death of Queen Elizabeth.  But these loose calculations, or rather
+guesses, deserve very little credit.  Peter of Blois, a contemporary
+writer, and a man of sense, says there were then only forty thousand
+inhabitants in London, which is much more likely.  See Epist. 151.
+What Fitz-Stephen says of the prodigious riches, splendour, and
+commerce of London, proves only the great poverty of the other towns
+of the kingdom, and indeed of all the northern parts of Europe.]
+
+London, notwithstanding its great power, and its attachment to
+Stephen, was at length obliged to submit to Matilda; and her
+authority, by the prudent conduct of Earl Robert, seemed to be
+established over the whole kingdom: but affairs remained not long in
+this situation.  That princess, besides the disadvantages of her sex,
+which weakened her influence over a turbulent and martial people, was
+of a passionate, imperious spirit, and knew not how to temper with
+affability the harshness of a refusal.  Stephen's queen, seconded by
+many of the nobility, petitioned for the liberty of her husband; and
+offered that, on this condition, he should renounce the crown and
+retire into a convent.  The legate desired that Prince Eustace, his
+nephew, might inherit Boulogne and the other patrimonial estates of
+his father [g]: the Londoners applied for the establishment of King
+Edward's laws, instead of those of King Henry, which, they said, were
+grievous and oppressive [h].  All these petitions were rejected in the
+most haughty and peremptory manner.
+[FN [g] Brompton, p. 1031.  [h] Contin. Flor. Wig. p. 577.  Gervase,
+p. 1355.]
+
+The legate, who had probably never been sincere in his compliance with
+Matilda's government, availed himself of the ill-humour excited by
+this imperious conduct, and secretly instigated the Londoners to a
+revolt.  A conspiracy was entered into to seize the person of the
+empress; and she saved herself from the danger by a precipitate
+retreat.  She fled to Oxford: soon after she went to Winchester;
+whither the legate, desirous to save appearances, and watching the
+opportunity to ruin her cause, had retired.  But having assembled all
+his retainers, he openly joined his force to that of the Londoners,
+and to Stephen's mercenary troops, who had not yet evacuated the
+kingdom; and he besieged Matilda in Winchester.  The princess, being
+hard pressed by famine, made her escape; but in the flight, Earl
+Robert, her brother, fell into the hands of the enemy.  This nobleman,
+though a subject, was as much the life and soul of his own party, as
+Stephen was of the other; [MN Stephen released.] and the empress,
+sensible of his merit and importance, consented to exchange the
+prisoners on equal terms.  The civil war was again kindled with
+greater fury than ever.
+
+[MN 1142.]  Earl Robert, finding the successes on both sides nearly
+balanced, went over to Normandy, which, during Stephen's captivity,
+had submitted to the Earl of Anjou; and he persuaded Geoffrey to allow
+his eldest son, Henry, a young prince of great hopes, to take a
+journey into England, and appear at the head of his partisans.  This
+expedient, however, produced nothing decisive.  Stephen took Oxford
+after a long siege [MN 1143.]: he was defeated by Earl Robert at
+Wilton: and the empress, though of a masculine spirit, yet being
+harassed with a variety of good and bad fortune, and alarmed with
+continual dangers to her person and family, at last retired into
+Normandy, whither she had sent her son some time before.  [MN 1146.
+Continuation of the civil wars.]  The death of her brother, which
+happened nearly about the same time, would have proved fatal to her
+interests, had not some incidents occurred which checked the course of
+Stephen's prosperity.  This prince, finding that the castles built by
+the noblemen of his own party encouraged the spirit of independence,
+and were little less dangerous than those which remained in the hands
+of the enemy, endeavoured to extort from them a surrender of those
+fortresses; and he alienated the affections of many of them by this
+equitable demand.  The artillery also of the church, which his brother
+had brought over to his side, had, after some interval, joined the
+other party.  Eugenius III. had mounted the papal throne; the Bishop
+of Winchester was deprived of the legatine commission, which was
+conferred on Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, the enemy and rival
+of the former legate.  That pontiff also, having summoned a general
+council at Rheims, in Champaigne, instead of allowing the church of
+England, as had been usual, to elect its own deputies, nominated five
+English bishops to represent that church, and required their
+attendance in the council.  Stephen, who, notwithstanding his present
+difficulties, was jealous of the rights of his crown, refused them
+permission to attend [i]; and the pope, sensible of his advantage in
+contending with a prince who reigned by a disputed title, took revenge
+by laying all Stephen's party under an interdict [k].  [MN 1147.]  The
+discontents of the royalists, at being thrown into this situation,
+were augmented by a comparison with Matilda's party, who enjoyed all
+the benefits of the sacred ordinances; and Stephen was at last
+obliged, by making proper submissions to the see of Rome, to remove
+the reproach from his party [l].
+[FN [i] Epist. St. Thom. p. 225.  [k] Chron. W. Thorn. p. 1807.  [l]
+Epist St. Thom. p. 226.]
+
+[MN 1148.]  The weakness of both sides, rather than any decrease of
+mutual animosity, having produced a tacit cessation of arms in
+England, many of the nobility, Roger de Moubray, William de Warenne,
+and others, finding no opportunity to exert their military ardour at
+home, enlisted themselves in a new crusade, which, with surprising
+success, after former disappointments and misfortunes, was now
+preached by St. Bernard [m].  But an event soon after happened which
+threatened a revival of hostilities in England.  Prince Henry, who had
+reached his sixteenth year, was desirous of receiving the honour of
+knighthood; a ceremony which every gentleman in that age passed
+through before he was admitted to the use of arms, and which was even
+deemed requisite for the greatest princes.  He intended to receive his
+admission from his great-uncle, David, King of Scotland; and for that
+purpose he passed through England with a great retinue, and was
+attended by the most considerable of his partisans.  He remained some
+time with the King of Scotland; made incursions into England; and by
+his dexterity and vigour in all manly exercises, by his valour in war,
+and his prudent conduct in every occurrence, he roused the hopes of
+his party, and gave symptoms of those great qualities which he
+afterwards displayed when he mounted the throne of England.  [MN
+1150.]  Soon after his return to Normandy, he was, by Matilda's
+consent, invested in that duchy; and upon the death of his father,
+Geoffrey, which happened in the subsequent year, he took possession
+both of Anjou and Maine, and concluded a marriage, which brought him a
+great accession of power, and rendered him extremely formidable to his
+rival.  Eleanor, the daughter and heir of William, Duke of Guienne and
+Earl of Poictou, had been married sixteen years to Lewis VII. King of
+France, [MN 1152.] and had attended him in a crusade, which that
+monarch conducted against the infidels; but having there lost the
+affections of her husband, and even fallen under some suspicion of
+gallantry with a handsome Saracen, Lewis, more delicate than politic,
+procured a divorce from her, and restored her those rich provinces,
+which by her marriage she had annexed to the crown of France.  Young
+Henry, neither discouraged by the inequality of years, nor by the
+reports of Eleanor's gallantries, made successful courtship to that
+princess, and, espousing her six weeks after her divorce, got
+possession of all her dominions as her dowry.  The lustre which he
+received from this acquisition, and the prospect of his rising
+fortune, had such an effect in England, that, when Stephen, desirous
+to ensure the crown to his son Eustace, required the Archbishop of
+Canterbury to anoint that prince as his successor, the primate refused
+compliance, and made his escape beyond sea, to avoid the violence and
+resentment of Stephen.
+[FN [m] Hagulst. p. 275, 276.]
+
+[MN 1153.]  Henry, informed of these dispositions in the people, made
+an invasion on England.  Having gained some advantage over Stephen at
+Malmesbury, and having taken that place, he proceeded thence to throw
+succours into Wallingford, which the king had advanced with a superior
+army to besiege.  A decisive action was every day expected; when the
+great men of both sides, terrified at the prospect of farther
+bloodshed and confusion, interposed with their good offices, and set
+on foot a negotiation between the rival princes.  The death of
+Eustace, during the course of the treaty, facilitated its conclusion;
+[MN Compromise between the king and Prince Henry.] an accommodation
+was settled, by which it was agreed, that Stephen should possess the
+crown during his lifetime, that justice should be administered in his
+name, even in the provinces which had submitted to Henry, and that
+this latter prince should, on Stephen's demise, succeed to the
+kingdom, and William, Stephen's son, to Boulogne and his patrimonial
+estate.  After all the barons had sworn to the observance of this
+treaty, and done homage to Henry, as to the heir of the crown, that
+prince evacuated the kingdom; [MN Death of the king, Oct. 25, 1154.]
+and the death of Stephen, which happened the next year, after a short
+illness, prevented all those quarrels and jealousies which were likely
+to have ensued in so delicate a situation.
+
+England suffered great miseries during the reign of this prince: but
+his personal character, allowing for the temerity and injustice of his
+usurpation, appears not liable to any great exception; and he seems to
+have been well qualified, had he succeeded by a just title, to have
+promoted the happiness and prosperity of his subjects [n].  He was
+possessed of industry, activity, and courage, to a great degree;
+though not endowed with a sound judgment, he was not deficient in
+abilities; he had the talent of gaining men's affections; and
+notwithstanding his precarious situation, he never indulged himself in
+the exercise of any cruelty or revenge [o].  His advancement to the
+throne procured him neither tranquillity nor happiness; and though the
+situation of England prevented the neighbouring states from taking any
+durable advantage of her confusions, her intestine disorders were to
+the last degree ruinous and destructive.  The court of Rome was also
+permitted, during those civil wars, to make farther advances in her
+usurpations; and appeals to the pope, which had always been strictly
+prohibited by the English laws, became now common in every
+ecclesiastical controversy [p].
+[FN [n] W. Malm. p. 180.  [o] M. Paris, p. 51.  Hagul. p. 312.  [p] H.
+Hunt. p. 395.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HENRY II.
+
+STATE OF EUROPE--OF FRANCE.--FIRST ACTS OF HENRY'S GOVERNMENT--
+DISPUTES BETWEEN THE CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POWERS.--THOMAS A BECKET,
+ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.--QUARREL BETWEEN THE KING AND BECKET.--
+CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON.--BANISHMENT OF BECKET.--COMPROMISE WITH
+HIM.--HIS RETURN FROM BANISHMENT.--HIS MURDER--GRIEF AND SUBMISSION OF
+THE KING.
+
+
+
+[MN 1154.  State of Europe]
+The extensive confederacies by which the European potentates are now
+at once united and set in opposition to each other, and which, though
+they are apt to diffuse the least spark of dissension throughout the
+whole, are at least attended with this advantage, that they prevent
+any violent revolutions or conquests in particular states, were
+totally unknown in ancient ages; and the theory of foreign politics,
+in each kingdom, formed a speculation much less complicated and
+involved than at present.  Commerce had not yet bound together the
+most distant nations in so close a chain: wars, finished in one
+campaign, and often in one battle, were little affected by the
+movements of remote states: the imperfect communication among the
+kingdoms, and their ignorance of each other's situation, made it
+impracticable for a great number of them to combine in one project or
+effort: and above all, the turbulent spirit and independent situation
+of the barons or great vassals in each state gave so much occupation
+to the sovereign, that he was obliged to confine his attention chiefly
+to his own state and his own system of government, and was more
+indifferent about what passed among his neighbours.  Religion alone,
+not politics, carried abroad the views of princes; while it either
+fixed their thoughts on the Holy Land, whose conquest and defence was
+deemed a point of common honour and interest, or engaged them in
+intrigues with the Roman pontiff, to whom they had yielded the
+direction of ecclesiastical affairs, and who was every day assuming
+more authority than they were willing to allow him.
+
+Before the conquest of England by the Duke of Normandy, this island
+was as much separated from the rest of the world in politics as in
+situation; and except from the inroads of the Danish pirates, the
+English, happily confined at home, had neither enemies nor allies on
+the continent.  The foreign dominions of William connected them with
+the king and great vassals of France; and while the opposite
+pretensions of the pope and emperor in Italy produced a continual
+intercourse between Germany and that country, the two great monarchs
+of France and England formed, in another part of Europe, a separate
+system; and carried on their wars and negotiations, without meeting
+either with opposition or support from the others.
+
+[MN State of France.]
+On the decline of the Carlovingian race, the nobles in every province
+of France, taking advantage of the weakness of the sovereign, and
+obliged to provide, each for his own defence, against the ravages of
+the Norman freebooters, had assumed, both in civil and military
+affairs, an authority almost independent, and had reduced within very
+narrow limits the prerogative of their princes.  The accession of Hugh
+Capet, by annexing a great fief to the crown, had brought some
+addition to the royal dignity; but this fief, though considerable for
+a subject, appeared a narrow basis of power for a prince who was
+placed at the head of so great a community.  The royal demesnes
+consisted only of Paris, Orleans, Estampes, Compeigne, and a few
+places scattered over the northern provinces: in the rest of the
+kingdom, the prince's authority was rather nominal than real: the
+vassals were accustomed, nay entitled, to make war, without his
+permission, on each other: they were even entitled, if they conceived
+themselves injured, to turn their arms against their sovereign: they
+exercised all civil jurisdiction, without appeal, over their tenants
+and inferior vassals: their common jealousy of the crown easily united
+them against any attempt on their exorbitant privileges; and as some
+of them had attained the power and authority of great princes, even
+the smallest baron was sure of immediate and effectual protection.
+Besides six ecclesiastical peerages, which, with the other immunities
+of the church, cramped extremely the general execution of justice,
+there were six lay peerages, Burgundy, Normandy, Guienne, Flanders,
+Toulouse, and Champaigne, which formed very extensive and puissant
+sovereignties.  And though the combination all those princes and
+barons could, on urgent occasions, muster a mighty power; yet it was
+very difficult to set that great machine in movement; it was almost
+impossible to preserve harmony in its parts; a sense of common
+interest alone could, for a time, unite them under their sovereign
+against a common enemy; but if the king attempted to turn the force of
+the community against any mutinous vassal, the same sense of common
+interest made the others oppose themselves to the success of his
+pretensions.  Lewis the Gross, the last sovereign, marched at one time
+to his frontiers against the Germans at the head of an army of two
+hundred thousand men; but a petty lord of Corbeil, of Puiset, of
+Couci, was able, at another period, to set that prince at defiance,
+and to maintain open war against him.
+
+The authority of the English monarch was much more extensive within
+his kingdom, and the disproportion much greater between him and the
+most powerful of his vassals.  His demesnes and revenue were large,
+compared to the greatness of his state: he was accustomed to levy
+arbitrary exactions on his subjects; his courts of judicature extended
+their jurisdiction into every part of the kingdom: he could crush by
+his power, or by a judicial sentence, well or ill founded, any
+obnoxious baron: and though the feudal institutions which prevailed in
+his kingdom had the same tendency as in other states to exalt the
+aristocracy and depress the monarchy, it required, in England,
+according to its present constitution, a great combination of the
+vassals to oppose their sovereign lord, and there had not hitherto
+arisen any baron so powerful, as of himself to levy war against the
+prince, and to afford protection to the inferior barons.
+
+While such were the different situations of France and England, and
+the latter enjoyed so many advantages above the former, the accession
+of Henry II., a prince of great abilities, possessed of so many rich
+provinces on the continent, might appear an event dangerous, if not
+fatal, to the French monarchy, and sufficient to break entirely the
+balance between the states.  He was master, in the right of his
+father, of Anjou and Touraine; in that of his mother, of Normandy and
+Maine; in that of his wife, of Guienne, Poictou, Xaintogne, Auvergne,
+Perigord, Angoumois, the Limousin.  He soon after annexed Britany to
+his other states, and was already possessed of the superiority over
+that province, which, on the first cession of Normandy to Rollo, the
+Dane, had been granted by Charles the Simple, in vassalage to that
+formidable ravager.  These provinces composed above a third of the
+whole French monarchy, and were much superior, in extent and opulence,
+to those territories which were subjected to the immediate
+jurisdiction and government of the king.  The vassal was here more
+powerful than his liege lord: the situation which had enabled Hugh
+Capet to depose the Carlovingian princes seemed to be renewed, and
+that with much greater advantages on the side of the vassal; and when
+England was added to so many provinces, the French king had reason to
+apprehend, from this conjuncture, some great disaster to himself and
+to his family: but in reality, it was this circumstance, which
+appeared so formidable, that saved the Capetian race, and, by its
+consequences, exalted them to that pitch of grandeur which they at
+present enjoy.
+
+The limited authority of the prince in the feudal constitutions
+prevented the King of England from employing with advantage the force
+of so many states, which were subjected to his government; and these
+different members, disjoined in situation, and disagreeing in laws,
+language, and manners, were never thoroughly cemented into one
+monarchy.  He soon became, both from his distant place of residence,
+and from the incompatibility of interests, a kind of foreigner to his
+French dominions; and his subjects on the continent considered their
+allegiance as more naturally due to their superior lord, who lived in
+their neighbourhood, and who was acknowledged to be the supreme head
+of their nation.  He was always at hand to invade them; their
+immediate lord was often at too great a distance to protect them; and
+any disorder in any part of his dispersed dominions gave advantages
+against him.  The other powerful vassals of the French crown were
+rather pleased to see the expulsion of the English, and were not
+affected with that jealousy, which  would have arisen from the
+oppression of a co-vassal, who was of the same rank with themselves.
+By this means, the King of France found it more easy to conquer those
+numerous provinces from England, than to subdue a Duke of Normandy or
+Guienne, a Count of Anjou, Maine, or Poictou.  And after reducing such
+extensive territories, which immediately incorporated with the body of
+the monarchy, he found greater facility in uniting to the crown the
+other great fiefs which still remained separate and independent.
+
+But as these important consequences could not be foreseen by human
+wisdom, the King of France remarked with terror the rising grandeur of
+the house of Anjou, or Plantagenet; and, in order to retard its
+progress, he had ever maintained a strict union with Stephen, and had
+endeavoured to support the tottering fortunes of that bold usurper.
+But after this prince's death it was too late to think of opposing the
+succession of Henry, or preventing the performance of those
+stipulations which, with the unanimous consent of the nation, he had
+made with his predecessor.  The English, harassed with civil wars, and
+disgusted with the bloodshed and depredations which, during the course
+of so many years, had attended them, were little disposed to violate
+their oaths, by excluding the lawful heir from the succession of their
+monarchy [a].  Many of the most considerable fortresses were in the
+hands of his partisans; the whole nation had had occasion to see the
+noble qualities with which he was endowed [b], and to compare them
+with the mean talents of William the son of Stephen; and as they were
+acquainted with his great power, and were rather pleased to see the
+accession of so many foreign dominions to the crown of England, they
+never entertained the least thoughts of resisting them.  Henry
+himself, sensible of the advantages attending his present situation,
+was in no hurry to arrive in England; and being engaged in the siege
+of a castle on the frontiers of Normandy, when he received
+intelligence of Stephen's death, [MN Dec.] he made it a point of
+honour not to depart from his enterprise till he had brought it to an
+issue.  He then set out on his journey and was received in England
+with the acclamations of all orders of men, who swore with pleasure
+the oath of fealty and allegiance to him.
+[FN [a] Matt. Paris, p. 65.  [b] Gul. Neubr. p. 381.]
+
+[MN 1155.  First acts of Henry's government.]
+The first acts of Henry's government corresponded to the high idea
+entertained of his abilities, and prognosticated the re-establishment
+of justice and tranquillity, of which the kingdom had so long been
+bereaved.  He immediately dismissed all those mercenary soldiers who
+had committed great disorders in the nation; and he sent them abroad,
+together with William of Ypres, their leader, the friend and confidant
+of Stephen [c].  He revoked all the grants made by his predecessor
+[d], even those which necessity had extorted from the Empress Matilda;
+and that princess, who had resigned her rights in favour of Henry,
+made no opposition to a measure so necessary for supporting the
+dignity of the crown.  He repaired the coin, which had been extremely
+debased during the reign of his predecessor; and he took proper
+measures against the return of a like abuse [e].  He was vigorous in
+the execution of justice, and in the suppression of robbery and
+violence; and that he might restore authority to the laws, he caused
+all the new erected castles to be demolished, which had proved so many
+sanctuaries to freebooters and rebels [f].  The Earl of Albemarle,
+Hugh Mortimer, and Roger the son of Milo of Gloucester, were inclined
+to make some resistance to this salutary measure; but the approach of
+the king with his forces soon obliged them to submit.
+[FN [c] Fitz-Steph. p. 13.  M. Paris, p. 65.  Neubr. p. 381.  Chron.
+T. Wykes, p. 30.  [d] Neub. p. 382.  [e] Hoveden, p. 491.  [f]
+Hoveden, p. 491.  Fitz-Steph. p. 13.  M. Paris, p. 65.  Neubr. p. 381.
+Brompton, p. 1043.]
+
+[MN 1156.]  Every thing being restored to full tranquillity in
+England, Henry went abroad in order to oppose the attempts of his
+brother Geoffrey, who, during his absence, had made an incursion into
+Anjou and Maine, had advanced some pretensions to those provinces, and
+had got possession of a considerable part of them [g].  On the king's
+appearance, the people returned to their allegiance; and Geoffrey,
+resigning his claim for an annual pension of a thousand pounds,
+departed and took possession of the county of Nantz, which the
+inhabitants, who had expelled Count Hoel, their prince, had put into
+his hands.  [MN 1157.]  Henry returned to England the following year:
+the incursions of the Welsh then provoked him to make an invasion upon
+them; where the natural fastnesses of the country occasioned him great
+difficulties, and even brought him into danger.  His vanguard, being
+engaged in a narrow pass, was put to rout.  Henry de Essex, the
+hereditary standard-bearer, seized with a panic, threw down the
+standard, took to flight and exclaimed, that the king. was slain: and
+had not the prince immediately appeared in person, and led on his
+troops with great gallantry, the consequences might have proved fatal
+to the whole army [h].  For this misbehaviour, Essex was afterwards
+accused of felony by Robert de Montfort; was vanquished in single
+combat; his estate was confiscated; and he himself was thrust into a
+convent [i].  The submissions of the Welsh procured them an
+accommodation with England.
+[FN [g] See note [O], at the end of the volume.  [h] Neubr. p. 383.
+Chron. W. Heming. p. 492.  [i] M. Paris, p. 70  Neubr. p. 383.]
+
+[MN 1158.]  The martial disposition of the princes in that age engaged
+them to head their own armies in every enterprise, even the most
+frivolous; and their feeble authority made it commonly impracticable
+for them to delegate, on occasion, the command to their generals.
+Geoffrey, the king's brother, died soon after he had acquired
+possession of Nantz: though he had no other title to that county than
+the voluntary submission or election of the inhabitants two years
+before, Henry laid claim to the territory as devolved to him by
+hereditary right, and he went over to support his pretensions by force
+of arms.  Conan, Duke or Earl of Britany, (for these titles are given
+indifferently by historians to those princes,) pretended that Nantz
+had been lately separated by rebellion from his principality, to which
+of right it belonged; and immediately on Geoffrey's death he took
+possession of the disputed territory.  Lest Lewis, the French king,
+should interpose in the controversy, Henry paid him a visit; and so
+allured him by caresses and civilities, that an alliance was
+contracted between them; and they agreed that young Henry, heir to the
+English monarchy, should be affianced to Margaret of France though the
+former was only five years of age, and the latter was still in her
+cradle.  Henry, now secure of meeting with no interruption on this
+side, advanced with his army into Britany; and Conan, in despair of
+being able to make resistance, delivered up the county of Nantz to
+him.  The able conduct of the king procured him farther and more
+important advantages from this incident.  Conan, harassed with the
+turbulent disposition of his subjects, was desirous of procuring to
+himself the support of so great a monarch; and he betrothed his
+daughter and only child, yet an infant, to Geoffrey, the king's third
+son, who was of the same tender years.  The Duke of Britany died about
+seven years after; and Henry being MESNE lord, and also natural
+guardian to his son and daughter-in-law, put himself in possession of
+that principality, and annexed it for the present to his other great
+dominions.
+
+[MN 1159.]  The king had a prospect of making still farther
+acquisitions; and the activity of his temper suffered no opportunity
+of that kind to escape him.  Philippa, Duchess of Guienne, mother of
+Queen Eleanor, was the only issue of William IV., Count of Toulouse;
+and would have inherited his dominions, had not that prince, desirous
+of preserving the succession in the male line, conveyed the
+principality to his brother, Raymond de St. Gilles, by a contract of
+sale which was in that age regarded as fictitious and illusory.  By
+this means the title to the county of Toulouse came to be disputed
+between the male and female heirs; and the one or the other, as
+opportunities favoured them, had obtained possession.  Raymond,
+grandson of Raymond de St. Gilles, was the reigning sovereign; and on
+Henry's reviving his wife's claim, this prince had recourse for
+protection to the King of France, who was so much concerned in policy
+to prevent the farther aggrandizement of the English monarch.  Lewis
+himself, when married to Eleanor, had asserted the justice of her
+claim, and had demanded possession of Toulouse [k]; but his sentiments
+changing with his interest, he now determined to defend, by his power
+and authority, the title of Raymond.  Henry found that it would be
+requisite to support his pretensions against potent antagonists; and
+that nothing but a formidable army could maintain a claim which he had
+in vain asserted by arguments and manifestoes.
+[FN [k] Neubr. p. 387.  Chron. W. Heming. p. 494.]
+
+An army, composed of feudal vassals, was commonly very intractable and
+undisciplined, both because of the independent spirit of the persons
+who served in it, and because the commands were not given, either by
+the choice of the sovereign, or from the military capacity and
+experience of the officers.  Each baron conducted his own vassals: his
+rank was greater or less, proportioned to the extent of his property:
+even the supreme command under the prince was often attached to birth;
+and as the military vassals were obliged to serve only forty days at
+their own charge; though if the expedition were distant, they were put
+to great expense; the prince reaped little benefit from their
+attendance.  Henry, sensible of these inconveniences, levied upon his
+vassals in Normandy, and other provinces which were remote from
+Toulouse, a sum of money in lieu of their service; and this
+commutation, by reason of the great distance, was still more
+advantageous to his English vassals.  He imposed, therefore, a scutage
+of one hundred and eighty thousand pounds on the knight's fees, a
+commutation to which, though it was unusual, and the first perhaps to
+be met with in history [l], the military tenants willingly submitted;
+and with this money he levied an army which was more under his
+command, and whose service was more durable and constant.  Assisted by
+Berenger, Count of Barcelona, and Trincaval, Count of Nismes, whom he
+had gained to his party, he invaded the county of Toulouse; and after
+taking Verdun, Castlenau, and other places, he besieged the capital of
+the province, and was likely to prevail in the enterprise: when Lewis,
+advancing before the arrival of his main body, threw himself into the
+place with a small reinforcement.  [MN 1160.]  Henry was urged by some
+of his ministers to prosecute the siege, to take Lewis prisoner, and
+to impose his own terms in the pacification; but he either thought it
+so much his interest to maintain the feudal principles, by which his
+foreign dominions were secured, or bore so much respect to his
+superior lord, that he declared he would  not attack a place defended
+by him in person; and he immediately raised the siege [m].  He marched
+into Normandy, to protect that province against an incursion which the
+Count of Dreux, instigated by King Lewis, his brother, had made upon
+it.  War was now openly carried on between the two monarchs, but
+produced no memorable event: it soon ended in a cessation of arms, and
+that followed by a peace, which was not, however, attended with any
+confidence or good correspondence between those rival princes.  The
+fortress of Gisors, being part of the dowry stipulated to Margaret of
+France, had been consigned by agreement to the Knights Templars, on
+condition that it should be delivered into Henry's hands after the
+celebration of the nuptials.  The king, that he might have a pretence
+for immediately demanding the place, ordered the marriage to be
+solemnized between the prince and princess, though both infants [n];
+and he engaged the Grand Master of the Templars, by large presents, as
+was generally suspected, to put him in possession of Gisors [o].  [MN
+1161.]  Lewis, resenting this fraudulent conduct, banished the
+Templars, and would have made war upon the King of England, had it not
+been for the mediation and authority of Pope Alexander III., who had
+been chased from Rome by the anti-pope, Victor IV., and resided at
+that time in France.  That we may form an idea of the authority
+possessed by the Roman pontiff during those ages, it may be proper to
+observe, that the two kings had, the year before, met the pope at the
+castle of Torci, on the Loire; and they gave him such marks of
+respect, that both dismounted to receive him, and holding each of them
+one of the reins of his bridle, walked on foot by his side, and
+conducted him in that submissive manner into the castle [p].  A
+SPECTACLE, cries Baronius in an ecstasy, TO GOD, ANGELS AND MEN; AND
+SUCH AS HAD NEVER BEFORE BEEN EXHIBITED TO THE WORLD!
+[FN [l] Madox, p. 435.  Gervase, p. 1381.  See Note [P], at the end of
+the volume.  [m] Fitz-Steph. p. 22.  Diceto, p. 531.  [n] Hoveden, p.
+492.  Neubr. p. 400.  Diceto, p. 532.  Brompton, p. 1450.  [o] Since
+the first publication of this history, Lord Lyttelton has published a
+copy of the treaty between Henry and Lewis, by which it appears, if
+there was no secret article, that Henry was not guilty of any fraud in
+this transaction.  [p] Trivet, p. 48.]
+
+[MN 1162.]  Henry, soon after he had accommodated his differences with
+Lewis, by the pope's mediation, returned to England; where he
+commenced an enterprise which, though required by sound policy, and
+even conducted in the main with prudence, bred him great disquietude,
+involved him in danger, and was not concluded without some loss and
+dishonour.
+
+[MN Disputes between the civil and ecclesiastical powers.]
+The usurpations of the clergy, which had at first been gradual, were
+now become so rapid, and had mounted to such a height, that the
+contest between the regale and pontificale was really arrived at a
+crisis in England, and it became necessary to determine whether the
+king or the priests, particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury, should
+be sovereign of the kingdom [q].  The aspiring spirit of Henry, which
+gave inquietude to all his neighbours, was not likely long to pay a
+tame submission to the encroachments of subjects; and as nothing
+opened the eyes of men so readily as their interests, he was in no
+danger of falling, in this respect, into that abject superstition
+which retained his people in subjection.  From the commencement of his
+reign, in the government of his foreign dominions, as well as of
+England, he had shown a fixed purpose to repress clerical usurpations,
+and to maintain those prerogatives which had been transmitted to him
+by his predecessors.  During the schism of the papacy between
+Alexander and Victor, he had determined, for some time, to remain
+neuter: and when informed that the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop
+of Mans had, from their own authority, acknowledged Alexander as
+legitimate pope, he was so enraged, that, though he spared the
+archbishop on account of his great age, he immediately issued orders
+for overthrowing the houses of the Bishop of Mans and Archdeacon of
+Rouen [r]; and it was not till he had deliberately examined the
+matter, by those views which usually enter into the councils of
+princes, that he allowed that pontiff to exercise authority over any
+of his dominions.  In England, the mild character and advanced years
+of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, together with his merits in
+refusing to put the crown on the head of Eustace, son of Stephen,
+prevented Henry, during the lifetime of that primate, from taking  any
+measures against the multiplied encroachments of the clergy; but after
+his death, the king resolved to exert himself with more activity, and
+that he might be secure against any opposition, he advanced to that
+dignity Becket, his chancellor, on whose compliance he thought he
+could entirely depend.
+[FN [q] Fitz-Stephen, p. 27.  [r] See note [Q], at the end of the
+volume.]
+
+[MN June 3.  Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.]
+Thomas a Becket, the first man of English descent who, since the
+Norman conquest, had, during the course of a whole century, risen to
+any considerable station, was born of reputable parents in the city of
+London; and being endowed both with industry and capacity, he early
+insinuated himself into the favour of Archbishop Theobald, and
+obtained from that prelate some preferments and offices.  By their
+means he was enabled to travel for improvement to Italy, where he
+studied the civil and canon law at Bologna; and on his return, he
+appeared to have made such proficiency in knowledge, that he was
+prompted by his patron to the Archdeaconry of Canterbury, an office of
+considerable trust and profit.  He was afterwards employed with
+success by Theobald, in transacting business at Rome; and, on Henry's
+accession, he was recommended to that monarch as worthy of farther
+preferment.  Henry. who knew that Becket had been instrumental in
+supporting that resolution of the archbishop, which had tended so much
+to facilitate his own advancement to the throne, was already pre-
+possessed in his favour; and finding, on farther acquaintance, that
+his spirit and abilities entitled him to any trust, he soon promoted
+him to the dignity of chancellor, one of the first civil offices in
+the kingdom.  The chancellor, in that age, besides the custody of the
+great seal, had possession of all vacant prelacies and abbeys; he was
+the guardian of all such minors and pupils as were the king's tenants;
+all baronies which escheated to the crown were under his
+administration; he was entitled to a place in council, even though he
+were not particularly summoned; and as he exercised also the office of
+secretary of state, and it belonged to him to countersign all
+commissions, writs, and letters patent, he was a kind of prime
+minister, and was concerned in the despatch of every business of
+importance [s].  Besides exercising this high office, Becket, by the
+favour of the king or archbishop, was made Provost of Beverley, Dean
+of Hastings, and Constable of the Tower: he was put in possession of
+the honours of Eye and Berkham, large baronies that had escheated to
+the crown: and, to complete his grandeur, he was intrusted with the
+education of Prince Henry, the king's eldest son, and heir of the
+monarchy [t].  The pomp of his retinue, the sumptuousness of his
+furniture, the luxury of his table, the munificence of his presents,
+corresponded to these great preferments; or rather exceeded any thing
+that England had ever before seen in any subject.  His historian and
+secretary, Fitz-Stephens [u], mentions, among other particulars, that
+his apartments were every day in winter covered with clean straw or
+hay, and in summer with green rushes or boughs; lest the gentlemen who
+paid court to him, and who could not, by reason of their great number,
+find a place at table, should soil their fine clothes by sitting on a
+dirty floor [w].  A great number of knights were retained in his
+service; the greatest barons were proud of being received at his
+table; his house was a place of education for the sons of the chief
+nobility; and the king himself frequently vouchsafed to partake of his
+entertainments.  As his way of life was splendid and opulent, his
+amusements and occupations were gay, and partook of the cavalier
+spirit, which, as he had only taken deacon's orders, he did not think
+unbefitting his character.  He employed himself at leisure hours in
+hunting, hawking, gaming, and horsemanship; he exposed his person in
+several military actions [x]; he carried over, at his own charge,
+seven hundred knights to attend the king in his wars at Toulouse; in
+the subsequent wars on the frontiers of Normandy he maintained, during
+forty days, twelve hundred knights, and four thousand of their train
+[y]; and in an embassy to France, with which he was intrusted, he
+astonished that court with the number and magnificence of his retinue.
+[FN [s] Fitz-Steph. p. 13.  [t] Fitz-Steph. p. 15.  Hist. Quad. p. 9,
+14.  [u] P. 15.  [w] John Baldwin held the manor of Oterarsfee, in
+Aylesbury, of the king by soccage, by the service of finding litter
+for the king's bed, viz. in summer, grass or herbs, and two grey
+geese; and in winter, straw, and three eels, thrice in the year if the
+king should come thrice in the year to Aylesbury.  Madox, Bar.
+Anglica, p. 247.  [x] Fitz-Steph. p. 23.  Hist. Quad. p. 9.  [y] Fitz-
+Steph. p. 19, 20, 22, 23.]
+
+Henry, besides committing all his more important business to Becket's
+management, honoured him with his friendship and intimacy; and
+whenever he was disposed to relax himself by sports of any kind, he
+admitted his chancellor to the party [z]  An instance of their
+familiarity is mentioned by Fitz-Stephens, which, as it shows the
+manners of the age, it may not be improper to relate.  One day, as the
+king and the chancellor were riding together in the streets of London,
+they observed a beggar, who was shivering with cold.  Would it not be
+very praiseworthy, said the king, to give that poor man a warm coat in
+this severe season?  It would, surely, replied the chancellor; and you
+do well, sir, in thinking of such good actions.  Then he shall have
+one presently, cried the king; and seizing the skirt of the
+chancellor's coat, which was scarlet, and lined with ermine, began to
+pull it violently.  The chancellor defended himself for some time; and
+they had both of them liked to have tumbled off their horses in the
+street, when Becket, after a vehement struggle, let go his coat; which
+the king bestowed on the beggar, who, being ignorant of the quality of
+the persons, was not a little surprised at the present [a].
+[FN [z] Fitz-Steph. p. 16.  Hist. Quad. p. 8.  [a] Fitz-Steph. p. 16.]
+
+Becket, who, by his complaisance and good humour, had rendered himself
+agreeable, and by his industry and abilities useful, to his master,
+appeared to him the fittest person for supplying the vacancy made by
+the death of Theobald.  As he was well acquainted with the king's
+intentions [b] of retrenching, or rather confining within the ancient
+bounds, all ecclesiastical privileges, and always showed a ready
+disposition to comply with them [c], Henry, who never expected any
+resistance from that quarter, immediately issued orders for electing
+him Archbishop of Canterbury.  But this resolution, which was taken
+contrary to the opinion of Matilda, and many of the ministers [d],
+drew after it very unhappy consequences; and never prince of so great
+penetration appeared, in the issue, to have so little understood the
+genius and character of his minister.
+[FN [b] Ibid. p. 17.  [c] Ibid p. 23.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 232.  [d]
+Epist. St. Thom. p. 167.]
+
+No sooner was Becket installed in this high dignity, which rendered
+him for life the second person in the kingdom, with some pretensions
+of aspiring to be the first, than he totally altered his demeanour and
+conduct, and endeavoured to acquire the character of sanctity, of
+which his former busy and ostentatious course of life might, in the
+eyes of the people, have naturally bereaved him.  Without consulting
+the king, he immediately returned into his hands the commission of
+chancellor; pretending that he must thenceforth detach himself from
+secular affairs, and be solely employed in the exercise of his
+spiritual function; but in reality, that he might break off all
+connexions with Henry, and apprize him, that Becket, as Primate of
+England, was now become entirely a new personage.  He maintained in
+his retinue and attendants alone his ancient pomp and lustre, which
+was useful to strike the vulgar: in his own person he affected the
+greatest austerity and most rigid mortification, which, he was
+sensible, would have an equal or a greater tendency to the same end.
+He wore sackcloth next his skin, which, by his affected care to
+conceal it, was necessarily the more remarked by all the world: he
+changed it so seldom, that it was filled with dirt and vermin: his
+usual diet was bread; his drink water, which he even rendered farther
+unpalatable by the mixture of unsavoury herbs: he tore his back with
+the frequent discipline which he inflicted on it: he daily on his
+knees washed, in imitation of Christ, the feet of thirteen beggars,
+whom he afterwards dismissed with presents [e]: he gained the
+affections of the monks by his frequent charities to the convents and
+hospitals: every one who made profession of sanctity was admitted to
+his conversation, and returned full of panegyrics on the humility as
+well as on the piety and mortification of the holy primate: he seemed
+to be perpetually employed in reciting prayers and pious lectures, or
+in perusing religious discourses: his aspect wore the appearance of
+seriousness and  mental recollection, and secret devotion: and all men
+of penetration plainly saw that he was meditating some great design
+and that the ambition and ostentation of his character had turned
+itself towards a new and more dangerous object.
+[FN [e] Fitz-Steph. p. 25.  Hist. Quad. p. 19.]
+
+[MN 1163.  Quarrel between the king and Becket.]
+Becket waited not till Henry should commence those projects against
+the ecclesiastical power, which, he knew, had been formed by that
+prince: he was himself the aggressor; and endeavoured to overawe the
+king by the intrepidity and boldness of his enterprises.  He summoned
+the Earl of Clare to surrender the barony of Tunbridge, which, ever
+since the Conquest, had remained in the family of that nobleman, but
+which, as it had formerly belonged to the see of Canterbury, Becket
+pretended his predecessors were prohibited by the canons to alienate.
+The Earl of Clare, besides the lustre which he derived from the
+greatness of his own birth, and the extent of his possessions, was
+allied to all the principal families in the kingdom; his sister, who
+was a celebrated beauty, had farther extended his credit among the
+nobility, and was even supposed to have gained the king's affections;
+and Becket could not better discover, than by attacking so powerful an
+interest, his resolution of maintaining with vigour the rights, real
+or pretended, of his see [f].
+[FN [f] Fitz-Steph. p. 28  Gervase, p. 1384.]
+
+William de Eynsford, a military tenant of the crown, was patron of a
+living which belonged to a manor that held of the Archbishop of
+Canterbury: but Becket, without regard to William's right, presented,
+on a new and illegal pretext, one Laurence to that living, who was
+violently expelled by Eynsford.  The primate, making himself, as was
+usual in spiritual courts, both judge and party, issued, in a summary
+manner, the sentence of excommunication against Eynsford, who
+complained to the king, that he who held IN CAPITE of the crown
+should, contrary to the practice established by the Conqueror, and
+maintained ever since by his successors, be subjected to that terrible
+sentence, without the previous consent of the sovereign [g].  Henry,
+who had now broken off all personal intercourse with Becket, sent him,
+by a messenger, his orders to absolve Eynsford; but received for
+answer, that it belonged not to the king to inform him whom he should
+absolve and whom excommunicate [h]: and it was not till after many
+remonstrances and menaces, that Becket, though with the worst grace
+imaginable, was induced to comply with the royal mandate.
+[FN [g] M. Paris, p. 7.  Diceto, p. 536.  [h] Fitz-Steph. p. 28.]
+
+Henry, though he found himself thus grievously mistaken in the
+character of the person whom he had promoted to the primacy,
+determined not to desist from his former intention of retrenching
+clerical usurpations.  He was entirely master of his extensive
+dominions: the prudence and vigour of his administration, attended
+with perpetual success, had raised his character above that of any of
+his predecessors [i]: the papacy seemed to be weakened by a schism
+which divided all Europe: and he rightly judged, that if the present
+favourable opportunity were neglected, the crown must, from the
+prevalent superstition of the people, be in danger of falling into an
+entire subordination under the mitre.
+[FN [i] Epist. St. Thom. p. 130.]
+
+The union of the civil and ecclesiastic power serves extremely, in
+every civilized government, to the maintenance of peace and order; and
+prevents those mutual encroachments which, as there can be no ultimate
+judge between them, are often attended with the most dangerous
+consequences.  Whether the supreme magistrate, who unites these
+powers, receives the appellation of prince or prelate, is not
+material: the superior weight which temporal interests commonly bear
+in the apprehensions of men above spiritual, renders the civil part of
+his character most prevalent; and in time prevents those gross
+impostures and bigoted persecutions, which, in all false religions,
+are the chief foundation of clerical authority.  But during the
+progress of ecclesiastical usurpations, the state, by the resistance
+of the civil magistrate, is naturally thrown into convulsions; and it
+behoves the prince, both for his own interest and for that of the
+public, to provide, in time, sufficient barriers against so dangerous
+and insidious a rival.  This precaution had hitherto been much
+neglected in England, as well as in other Catholic countries; and
+affairs at last seemed to have come to a dangerous crisis: a sovereign
+of the greatest abilities was now on the throne: a prelate of the most
+inflexible and intrepid character was possessed of the primacy: the
+contending powers appeared to be armed with their full force, and it
+was natural to expect some extraordinary event to result from their
+conflict.
+
+Among their other inventions to obtain money, the clergy had
+inculcated the necessity of penance as an atonement for sin; and
+having again introduced the practice of paying them large sums as a
+commutation, or species of atonement, for the remission of those
+penances, the sins of the people, by these means, had become a revenue
+to the priests; and the king computed that, by this invention alone,
+they levied more money upon his subjects than flowed, by all the funds
+and taxes, into the royal exchequer [k]  That he might ease the people
+of so heavy and arbitrary an imposition, Henry required that a civil
+officer of his appointment should be present in all ecclesiastical
+courts, and should, for the future, give his consent to every
+composition which was made with sinners for their spiritual offences.
+[FN [k] Fitz-Steph. p. 32.]
+
+The ecclesiastics, in that age, had renounced all immediate
+subordination to the magistrate: they openly pretended to an
+exemption, in criminal accusations, from a trial before courts of
+justice; and were gradually introducing a like exemption in civil
+causes: spiritual penalties alone could be inflicted on their
+offences; and as the clergy had extremely multiplied in England, and
+many of them were consequently of very low characters, crimes of the
+deepest dye, murders, robberies, adulteries, rapes, were daily
+committed with impunity by the ecclesiastics.  It had been found, for
+instance, on inquiry, that no less than a hundred murders had, since
+the king's accession, been perpetrated by men of that profession, who
+had never been called to account for these offences [l]; and holy
+orders were become a full protection for all enormities.  A clerk in
+Worcestershire, having debauched a gentleman's daughter, had, at this
+time, proceeded to murder the father: and the general indignation
+against this crime moved the king to attempt the remedy of an abuse
+which was become so palpable, and to require that the clerk should be
+delivered up, and receive condign punishment from the magistrate [m].
+Becket insisted on the privileges of the church; confined the criminal
+in the bishop's prison, lest he should be seized by the king's
+officers; maintained that no greater punishment could be inflicted on
+him than degradation; and when the king demanded, that, immediately
+after he was degraded, he should be tried by the civil power, the
+primate asserted, that it was iniquitous to try a man twice upon the
+same accusation, and for the same offence [n].
+[FN [l] Neubr. p. 394.  [m] Fitz-Steph. p. 33.  Hist. Quad. p. 32.
+[n] Fitz-Steph. p. 29.  Hist. Quad. p. 33, 45.  Hoveden, p. 492.  M.
+Paris, p. 72.  Diceto, p. 536, 537.  Brompton, p. 1058.  Gervase, p.
+1384.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 208, 209.]
+
+Henry, laying hold of so plausible a pretence, resolved to push the
+clergy with regard to all their privileges, which they had raised to
+an enormous height, and to determine at once those controversies,
+which daily multiplied between the civil and the ecclesiastical
+jurisdictions.  He summoned an assembly of all the prelates of
+England; and he put to them this concise and decisive question,
+Whether or not they were willing to submit to the ancient laws and
+customs of the kingdom?  The bishops unanimously replied, that they
+were willing, SAVING THEIR OWN ORDER [o]: a device by which they
+thought to elude the present urgency of the king's demand, yet reserve
+to themselves, on a favourable opportunity, the power of resuming all
+their pretensions.  The king was sensible of the artifice, and was
+provoked to the highest indignation.  He left the assembly, with
+visible marks of his displeasure: he required the primate instantly to
+surrender the honours and castles of Eye and Berkham: the bishops were
+terrified, and expected still farther effects of his resentment.
+Becket alone was inflexible; and nothing but the interposition of the
+pope's legate and almoner, Philip, who dreaded a breach with so
+powerful a prince at so unseasonable a juncture, could have prevailed
+on him to retract the saving clause, and give a general and absolute
+promise of observing the ancient customs [p].
+[FN [o] Fitz-Steph. p. 31.  Hist. Quad. p. 34.  Hoveden, p. 492.  [p]
+Hist. Quad. p. 37.  Hoveden, p. 493.  Gervase, p. 1385.]
+
+But Henry was not content with a declaration in these general terms:
+he resolved, ere it was too late, to define expressly those customs
+with which he required compliance, and to put a stop to clerical
+usurpations before they were fully consolidated, and could plead
+antiquity, as they already did a sacred authority, in their favour.
+The claims of the church were open and visible.  After a gradual and
+insensible progress during many centuries, the mask had at last been
+taken off; and several ecclesiastical councils, by their canons which
+were pretended to be irrevocable and infallible, had positively
+defined those privileges and immunities which gave such general
+offence, and appeared so dangerous to the civil magistrate.  Henry,
+therefore, deemed it necessary to define with the same precision the
+limits of the civil power; to oppose his legal customs to their divine
+ordinances; to determine the exact boundaries of the rival
+jurisdictions; and for this purpose he summoned a general council of
+the nobility and prelates at Clarendon, to whom he submitted this
+great and important question.
+
+[MN 1164.  15th Jan.  Constitutions of Clarendon.]
+The barons were all gained to the king's party, either by the reasons
+which he urged, or by his superior authority: the bishops were
+overawed by the general combination against them: and the following
+laws, commonly called the CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON, were voted
+without opposition by this assembly [q].  It was enacted, that all
+suits concerning the advowson and presentation of churches should be
+determined in the civil courts: that the churches belonging to the
+king's see should not be granted in perpetuity without his consent:
+that clerks, accused of any crime, should be tried in the civil
+courts: that no person, particularly no clergyman of any rank, should
+depart the kingdom without the king's licence: that excommunicated
+persons should not be bound to give security for continuing in their
+present place of abode: that laics should not be accused in spiritual
+courts, except by legal and reputable promoters and witnesses: that no
+chief tenant of the crown should be excommunicated, nor his lands be
+put under an interdict, except with the king's consent: that all
+appeals in spiritual causes should be carried from the archdeacon to
+the bishop, from the bishop to the primate, from him to the king; and
+should be carried no farther without the king's consent: that if any
+lawsuit arose between a layman and a clergyman concerning a tenant,
+and it be disputed whether the land be a lay or an ecclesiastical fee,
+it should first be determined by the verdict of twelve lawful men to
+what class it belonged; and if it be found to be a lay-fee, the cause
+should finally be determined in the civil courts: that no inhabitant
+in demesne should be excommunicated for non-appearance in a spiritual
+court, till the chief officer of the place where he resides be
+consulted, that he may compel him by the civil authority to give
+satisfaction to the church: that the archbishops, bishops, and other
+spiritual dignitaries, should be regarded as barons of the realm;
+should possess the privileges and be subjected to the burdens
+belonging to that rank; and should be bound to attend the king in his
+great councils, and assist at all trials, till the sentence, either of
+death or loss of members, be given against the criminal: that the
+revenue of vacant sees should belong to the king; the chapter, or such
+of them as he pleases to summon, should sit in the king's chapel till
+they made the new election with his consent, and that the bishop-elect
+should do homage to the crown: that if any baron or tenant IN CAPITE
+should refuse to submit to the spiritual courts, the king should
+employ his authority in obliging him to make such submissions; if any
+of them throw off his allegiance to the king, the prelates should
+assist the king with their censures in reducing him: that goods
+forfeited to the king should not be protected in churches or
+churchyards: that the clergy should no longer pretend to the right of
+enforcing payment of debts contracted by oath or promise; but should
+leave these lawsuits, equally with others, to the determination of the
+civil courts: and that the sons of villains should not be ordained
+clerks, without the consent of their lord [r].
+[FN [q] Fitz-Steph. p. 33.  [r] Hist. Quad. p. 163.  M. Paris, p. 70,
+71.  Spellm. Conc. vol. ii. p. 63.  Gervase, p. 1386, 1387.  Wilkins,
+p. 321.]
+
+These articles, to the number of sixteen, were calculated to prevent
+the chief abuses which had prevailed in ecclesiastical affairs, and to
+put an effectual stop to the usurpations of the church, which,
+gradually stealing on, had threatened the total destruction of the
+civil power.  Henry, therefore, by reducing those ancient customs of
+the realm to writing, and by collecting them in a body, endeavoured to
+prevent all future dispute with regard to them; and by passing so many
+ecclesiastical ordinances in a national and civil assembly, he fully
+established the superiority of the legislature above all papal decrees
+or spiritual canons, and gained a signal victory over the
+ecclesiastics.  But as he knew that the bishops, though overawed by
+the present combination of the crown and the barons, would take the
+first favourable opportunity of denying the authority which had
+enacted these constitutions, he resolved that they should all set
+their seal to them, and give a promise to observe them.  None of the
+prelates dared to oppose his will, except Becket, who, though urged by
+the Earls of Cornwall and Leicester, the barons of principal authority
+in the kingdom, obstinately withheld his assent.  At last, Richard de
+Hastings, Grand Prior of the Templars in England, threw himself on his
+knees before him; and with many tears entreated him, if he paid any
+regard, either to his own safety or that of the church, not to
+provoke, by a fruitless opposition, the indignation of a great
+monarch, who was resolutely bent on his purpose, and who was
+determined to take full revenge on every one that should dare to
+oppose him [s].  Becket, finding himself deserted by all the world,
+even by his own brethren, was at last obliged to comply; and he
+promised, LEGALLY, WITH GOOD FAITH, AND WITHOUT FRAUD OR RESERVE [t],
+to observe the constitutions; and he took an oath to that purpose [u].
+The king, thinking that he had now finally prevailed in this great
+enterprise, sent the constitutions to Pope Alexander, who then resided
+in France; and he required that pontiff's ratification of them: but
+Alexander, who, though he had owed the most important obligations to
+the king, plainly saw that these laws were calculated to establish the
+independency of England on the papacy, and of the royal power on the
+clergy, condemned them in the strongest terms; abrogated, annulled,
+and rejected them.  There were only six articles, the least important,
+which, for the sake of peace, he was willing to ratify.
+[FN [s] Hist. Quad. p. 38.  Hoveden, p. 493.  [t] Fitz-Steph. p. 35.
+Epist. St. Thom. p. 25.  [u] Fitz-Steph. p. 45.  Hist. Quad. p. 39.
+Gervase, p. 1386.]
+
+Becket, when he observed that he might hope for support in an
+opposition, expressed the deepest sorrow for his compliance; and
+endeavoured to engage all the other bishops in a confederacy to adhere
+to their common rights, and to the ecclesiastical privileges, in which
+he represented the interest and honour of God to be so deeply
+concerned.  He redoubled his austerities, in order to punish himself
+for his criminal assent to the constitutions of Clarendon: he
+proportioned his discipline to the enormity of his supposed offence;
+and he refused to exercise any part of his archiepiscopal function,
+till he should receive absolution from the pope; which was readily
+granted him.  Henry, informed of his present dispositions, resolved to
+take vengeance for this refractory behaviour; and he attempted to
+crush him, by means of that very power which Becket made such merit in
+supporting.  He applied to the pope, that he should grant the
+commission of legate in his dominions to the Archbishop of York; but
+Alexander, as politic as he, though he granted the commission, annexed
+a clause, that it should not empower the legate to execute any act of
+prejudice of the Archbishop of Canterbury [w]; and the king, finding
+how fruitless such an authority would prove, sent back the commission
+by the same messenger that brought it [x].
+[FN [w] Epist. St. Thom. p. 13, 14.  [x] Hoveden, p.493.  Gervase, p.
+1388.]
+
+The primate, however, who found himself still exposed to the king's
+indignation, endeavoured twice to escape secretly from the kingdom,
+but was as often detained by contrary winds; and Henry hastened to
+make him feel the effects of an obstinacy which he deemed so criminal.
+He instigated John, mareschal of the exchequer, to sue Becket in the
+archiepiscopal court for some lands, part of the manor of Pageham; and
+to appeal thence to the king's court for justice [y].  On the day
+appointed for trying the cause, the primate sent four knights to
+represent certain irregularities in John's appeal; and at the same
+time to excuse himself, on account of sickness, for not appearing
+personally that day in the court.  This slight offence (if it even
+deserve the name) was represented as a grievous contempt; the four
+knights were menaced and with difficulty escaped being sent to prison,
+as offering falsehoods to the court [z].  And Henry, being determined
+to prosecute Becket to the utmost, summoned, at Northampton, a great
+council, which he purposed to make the instrument of his vengeance
+against the inflexible prelate.
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 494.  M. Paris, p. 72.  Diceto, p. 537.  [z] See
+note [R], at the end of the volume.]
+
+The king had raised Becket from a low station to the highest offices,
+had honoured him with his countenance and friendship, had trusted to
+his assistance in forwarding his favourite project against the clergy;
+and when he found him become of a sudden his most rigid opponent,
+while every one beside complied with his will, rage at the
+disappointment, and indignation against such signal ingratitude,
+transported him beyond all bounds of moderation; and there seems to
+have entered more of passion than of justice, or even of policy, in
+this violent prosecution [a].  The barons, notwithstanding, in the
+great council, voted whatever sentence he was pleased to dictate to
+them; and the bishops themselves, who undoubtedly bore a secret favour
+to Becket, and regarded him as the champion of their privileges,
+concurred with the rest in the design of oppressing their primate.  In
+vain did Becket urge that his court was proceeding with the utmost
+regularity and justice in trying the maresehal's cause; which,
+however, he said, would appear, from the sheriff's testimony, to be
+entirely unjust and iniquitous: that he himself had discovered no
+contempt of the king's court; but, on the contrary, by sending four
+knights to excuse his absence, had virtually acknowledged its
+authority: that he also, in consequence of the king's summons,
+personally appeared at present in the great council, ready to justify
+his cause against the mareschal, and to submit his conduct to their
+inquiry and jurisdiction: that even should it be found that he had
+been guilty of non-appearance, the laws had affixed a very slight
+penalty to that offence: and that, as he was an inhabitant of Kent,
+where his archiepiscopal palace was seated, he was by law entitled to
+some greater indulgence than usual in the rate of his fine [b].
+Notwithstanding these pleas, he was condemned as guilty of a contempt
+of the king's court, and as wanting in the fealty which he had sworn
+to his sovereign; all his goods and chattels were confiscated [c]; and
+that this triumph over the church might be carried to the utmost,
+Henry, Bishop of Winchester, the prelate who had been so powerful in
+the former reign, was, in spite of his remonstrances, obliged, by
+order of the court, to pronounce the sentence against him [d].  The
+primate submitted to the decree; and all the prelates, except Folliot,
+Bishop of London, who paid court to the king by this singularity,
+became sureties for him [e].  It is remarkable that seven Norman
+barons voted in this council; and we may conclude, with some
+probability, that a like practice had prevailed in many of the great
+councils summoned since the Conquest.  For the contemporary historian,
+who has given us a full account of these transactions, does not
+mention this circumstance as anywise singular [f]; and Becket, in all
+his subsequent remonstrances with regard to the severe treatment which
+he had met with, never founds any objection on an irregularity which
+to us appears very palpable and flagrant.  So little precision was
+there at that time in the government and constitution!
+[FN [a] Neubr. p. 394.  [b] Fitz-Steph. p. 37, 42.  [c] Hist. Quad. p.
+47  Hoveden, p. 494.  Gervase, p. 1389.  [d] Fitz-Steph. p. 37.  [e]
+Ibid.  [f] Ibid. p. 36.]
+
+The king was not content with this sentence, however violent and
+oppressive.  Next day, he demanded of Becket the sum of three hundred
+pounds, which the primate had levied upon the honours of Eye and
+Berkham, while in his possession.  Becket, after premising that he was
+not obliged to answer to this suit, because it was not contained in
+his summons; after remarking that he had expended more than that sum
+in the repair of those castles, and of the royal palace at London;
+expressed however his resolution, that money should not be any ground
+of quarrel between him and his sovereign; he agreed to pay the sum;
+and immediately gave surety for it [g].  In the subsequent meeting,
+the king demanded five hundred marks, which, he affirmed, he had lent
+Becket during the war at Toulouse [h]; and another sum in the same
+amount for which that prince had been surety for him to a Jew.
+Immediately after these two claims, he preferred a third of still
+greater importance: he required him to give in the accounts of his
+administration while chancellor, and to pay the balance due from the
+revenues of all the prelacies, abbeys, and baronies, which had, during
+that time, been subjected to his management [i].  Becket observed,
+that, as this demand was totally unexpected, he had not come prepared
+to answer it; but he required a delay, and promised in that case to
+give satisfaction.  The king insisted upon sureties; and Becket
+desired leave to consult his suffragans in a case of such importance
+[k].
+[FN [g] Ibid. p. 38.  [h] Hist. Quad. p. 47.  [i] Hoveden, p. 494.
+Diceto, p. 537.  [k] Fitz-Steph. p. 38.]
+
+It is apparent, from the known character of Henry, and from the usual
+vigilance of his government, that, when he promoted Becket to the see
+of Canterbury, he was on good grounds, well pleased with his
+administration in the former high office with which he had entrusted
+him; and that, even if that prelate had dissipated money beyond the
+income of his place, the king was satisfied that his expenses were not
+blameable, and had in the main been calculated for his service [l].
+Two years had since elapsed; no demand had, during that time, been
+made upon him; it was not till the quarrel arose concerning
+ecclesiastical privileges that the claim was started, and the primate
+was, of a sudden, required to produce accounts of such intricacy and
+extent before a tribunal which had showed a determined resolution to
+ruin and oppress him.  To find sureties that he should answer so
+boundless and uncertain a claim, which in the king's estimation
+amounted to forty-four thousand marks [m], was impracticable; and
+Becket's suffragans were extremely at a loss what counsel to give him
+in such a critical emergency.  By the advice of the Bishop of
+Winchester, he offered two thousand marks as a general satisfaction
+for all demands: but this offer was rejected by the king [n].  Some
+prelates exhorted him to resign his see, on condition of receiving an
+acquittal: others were of opinion that he ought to submit himself
+entirely to the king's mercy [o]: but the primate, thus pushed to the
+utmost, had too much courage to sink under oppression: he determined
+to brave all his enemies, to trust to the sacredness of his character
+for protection, to involve his cause with that of God and religion,
+and to stand the utmost efforts of royal indignation.
+[FN [l] Hoveden, p. 495.  [m] Epist. St. Thom. p. 315.
+[n] Fitz-Steph. p. 38.  [o] Ibid. p. 39.  Gervase, p. 1390.]
+
+After a few days spent in deliberation, Becket went to church and said
+mass, where he had previously ordered that the introit to the
+communion service should begin with these words, PRINCES SAT, AND
+SPAKE AGAINST ME; the passage appointed for the martyrdom of St.
+Stephen, whom the primate thereby tacitly pretended to resemble, in
+his sufferings for the sake of righteousness.  He went thence to
+court, arrayed in his sacred vestments: as soon as he arrived within
+the palace gate, he took the cross into his own hands, bore it aloft
+as his protection, and marched, in that posture, into the royal
+apartments [p].  The king, who was in an inner room, was astonished at
+this parade, by which the primate seemed to menace him and his court
+with the sentence of excommunication; and he sent some of the prelates
+to remonstrate with him on account of such audacious behaviour.  These
+prelates complained to Becket, that, by subscribing himself to the
+constitutions of Clarendon, he had seduced them to imitate his
+example; and that now, when it was too late, he pretended to shake off
+all subordination to the civil power, and appeared desirous of
+involving them in the guilt which must attend any violation of those
+laws, established by their consent, and ratified by their
+subscriptions [q].  Becket replied, that he had indeed subscribed the
+constitutions of Clarendon, LEGALLY, WITH GOOD FAITH, AND WITHOUT
+FRAUD OR RESERVE; but in these words was virtually implied a salvo for
+the rights of their order, which, being connected with the cause of
+God and his church, could never be relinquished by their oaths and
+engagements: that if he and they had erred in resigning the
+ecclesiastical privileges, the best atonement they could now make was
+to retract their consent, which, in such a case, could never be
+obligatory, and to follow the pope's authority, who had solemnly
+annulled the constitutions of Clarendon, and had absolved them from
+all oaths which they had taken to observe them: that a  determined
+resolution was evidently embraced to oppress the church; the storm had
+first broken upon him; for a slight offence, and which too was falsely
+imputed to him, he had been tyrannically condemned to a grievous
+penalty; a new and unheard-of claim was since started, in which he
+could expect no justice; and he plainly saw, that he was the destined
+victim, who, by his ruin, must prepare the way for the abrogation of
+all spiritual immunities; that he strictly inhibited them who were his
+suffragans from assisting at any such trial, or giving their sanction
+to any sentence against him; he put himself and his see under the
+protection of the supreme pontiff; and appealed to him against any
+penalty which his iniquitous judges might think proper to inflict upon
+him: and that, however terrible the indignation of so great a monarch
+as Henry, his sword could only kill the body; while that of the
+church, intrusted into the hands of the primate, could kill the soul,
+and throw the disobedient into infinite and eternal perdition [r].
+[FN [p] Fitz-Steph. p. 40.  Hist. Quad. p. 53.  Hoveden, p. 404.
+Neubr. p. 394.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 43.  [q] Fitz-Steph. p. 35.  [r]
+Fitz-Steph. p. 42, 44, 45, 46.  Hist. Quad. p. 57.  Hoveden, p. 495.
+M. Paris, p. 72.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 45, 195.]
+
+Appeals to the pope, even in ecclesiastical causes, had been abolished
+by the constitutions of Clarendon, and were become criminal by law;
+but an appeal in a civil cause, such as the king's demand upon Becket,
+was a practice altogether new and unprecedented; it tended directly to
+the subversion of the government, and could receive no colour of
+excuse, except from the determined resolution, which was but too
+apparent, in Henry and the great council, to effectuate, without
+justice, but under colour of law, the total ruin of the inflexible
+primate.  The king, having now obtained a pretext so much more
+plausible for his violence, would probably have pushed the affair to
+the utmost extremity against him; but Becket gave him no leisure to
+conduct the prosecution.  He refused so much as to hear the sentence,
+which the barons, sitting apart from the bishops, and joined to some
+sheriffs and barons of the second rank [s], had given upon the king's
+claim: he departed from the palace; [MN Banishment of Becket.] asked
+Henry's immediate permission to leave Northampton, and upon meeting
+with a refusal, he withdrew secretly, wandered about in disguise for
+some time; and at last took shipping, and arrived safely at
+Gravelines.
+[FN [s] Fitz-Steph. p. 46.  This historian is supposed to mean the
+more considerable vassals of the chief barons: these had no title to
+sit in the great council, and the giving them a place there was a
+palpable irregularity; which, however, is not insisted on in any of
+Becket's remonstrances.  A farther proof how little fixed the
+constitution was at that time.]
+
+The violent and unjust prosecution of Becket had a natural tendency to
+turn the public favour on his side and to make men overlook his former
+ingratitude toward the king, and his departure from all oaths and
+engagements, as well as the enormity of those ecclesiastical
+privileges, of which he affected to be the champion.  There were many
+other reasons which procured his countenance and protection in foreign
+countries.  Philip, Earl of Flanders [t], and Lewis, King of France
+[u], jealous of the rising greatness of Henry, were well pleased to
+give him disturbance in his government; and, forgetting that this was
+the common cause of princes, they affected to pity extremely the
+condition of the exiled primate; and the latter even honoured him with
+a visit at Soissons, in which city he had invited him to fix his
+residence [w].  The pope, whose interests were more immediately
+concerned in supporting him, gave a cold reception to a magnificent
+embassy which Henry sent to accuse him; while Becket himself, who had
+come to Sens in order to justify his cause before the sovereign
+pontiff, was received with the greatest marks of distinction.  The
+king, in revenge, sequestered the revenues of Canterbury; and, by a
+conduct which might be esteemed arbitrary, had there been at that time
+any regular check on royal authority, he banished all the primate's
+relations and domestics, to the number of four hundred, whom he
+obliged to swear, before their departure, that they would instantly
+join their patron.  But this policy, by which Henry endeavoured to
+reduce Becket sooner to necessity, lost its effect: the pope, when
+they arrived beyond sea, absolved them from their oath, and
+distributed them among the convents in France and Flanders: a
+residence was assigned to Becket himself in the convent of Pontigny,
+where he lived for some years in great magnificence, partly from a
+pension granted him on the revenues of the abbey, partly from
+remittances made him by the French monarch.
+[FN [t] Epist. St. Thom. p. 35.  [u] Ibid. p. 36, 37.  [w] Hist. Quad.
+p. 76.]
+
+[MN 1165.]  The more to ingratiate himself with the pope, Becket
+resigned into his hands the see of Canterbury, to which, he affirmed,
+he had been uncanonically elected by the authority of the royal
+mandate; and Alexander, in his turn, besides investing him anew with
+that dignity, pretended to abrogate, by a bull, the sentence which the
+great council of England had passed against him.  Henry, after
+attempting in vain to procure a conference with the pope, who departed
+soon after for Rome, whither the prosperous state of his affairs now
+invited him, made provisions against the consequences of that breach
+which impended between his kingdom and the apostolic see.  He issued
+orders to his justiciaries, inhibiting, under severe penalties, all
+appeals to the pope or archbishop; forbidding any one to receive any
+mandates from them, or apply in any case to their authority; declaring
+it treasonable to bring from either of them an interdict upon the
+kingdom, and punishable in secular clergymen by the loss of their eyes
+and by castration, in regulars by amputation of their feet, and in
+laics with death; and menacing, with sequestration and banishment, the
+persons themselves, as well as their kindred, who should pay obedience
+to any such interdict: and he farther obliged all his subjects to
+swear to the observance of those orders [x].  These were edicts of the
+utmost importance, affected the lives and properties of all the
+subjects, and even changed, for the time, the national religion, by
+breaking off all communication with Rome: yet were they enacted by the
+sole authority of the king, and were derived entirely from his will
+and pleasure.
+[FN [x] Hist. Quad. p. 88, 167.  Hoveden, p. 496.  M. Paris, p. 73.]
+
+The spiritual powers, which, in the primitive church, were, in a great
+measure, dependent on the civil, had, by a gradual progress, reached
+an equality and independence; and though the limits of the two
+jurisdictions were difficult to ascertain or define, it was not
+impossible, but, by moderation on both sides, government might still
+have been conducted in that imperfect and irregular manner which
+attends all human  institutions.  But as the ignorance of the age
+encouraged the ecclesiastics daily to extend their privileges, and
+even to advance maxims totally incompatible with civil government [y],
+Henry had thought it high time to put an end to their pretensions, and
+formally, in a public council, to fix those powers which belonged to
+the magistrate, and which he was for the future determined to
+maintain.  In this attempt, he was led to re-establish customs, which,
+though ancient, were beginning to be abolished by a contrary practice,
+and which were still more strongly opposed by the prevailing opinions
+and sentiments of the age.  Principle, therefore, stood on the one
+side; power on the other; and if the English had been actuated by
+conscience more than by present interest, the controversy must soon,
+by the general defection of Henry's subjects, have been decided
+against him.  Becket, in order to forward this event, filled all
+places with exclamations against the violence which he had suffered.
+He compared himself to Christ, who had been condemned by a lay
+tribunal [z], and who was crucified anew in the present oppressions
+under which his church laboured: he took it for granted, as a point
+incontestable, that his cause was the cause of God [a]: he assumed the
+character of champion for the patrimony of the Divinity: he pretended
+to be the spiritual father of the king and all the people of England
+[b]: he even told Henry that kings reigned solely by the authority of
+the church [c]: and though he had thus torn off the veil more openly
+on the one side than that prince had on the other, he seemed still,
+from the general favour borne him by the ecclesiastics, to have all
+the advantage in the argument.  The king, that he might employ the
+weapons of temporal power remaining in his hands, suspended the
+payment of Peter's pence; he made advances towards an alliance with
+the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, who was at that time engaged in
+violent wars with Pope Alexander; he discovered some intentions of
+acknowledging Pascal III., the present anti-pope, who was protected by
+that emperor; and by these expedients he endeavoured to terrify the
+enterprising though prudent pontiff from proceeding to extremities
+against him.
+[FN [y] QUIS DUBITET, says Becket to the king, SACERDOTES CHRISTI
+REGUM ET PRINCIPUM OMNIUMQUE FIDELIIUM PATRES ET MAGISTROS CENSERI,
+Epist St. Thom. p. 97, 148.  [z] Epist. St. Thom. p. 63, 105, 194.
+[a] Ibid. p. 29, 30, 31, 226.  [b] Fitz-Steph. p. 46.  Epist. St Thom.
+p. 52, 148.  [c] Brady's Append. No. 36.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 94, 95,
+97, 99, 197.  Hoveden, p. 497.]
+
+[MN 1166.]  But the violence of Becket, still more than the nature of
+the controversy, kept affairs from remaining long in suspense between
+the parties.  That prelate, instigated by revenge, and animated by the
+present glory attending his situation, pushed matters to a decision,
+and issued a censure, excommunicating the king's chief ministers by
+name, and comprehending in general all those who favoured or obeyed
+the constitutions of Clarendon: these constitutions he abrogated and
+annulled; he absolved all men from the oaths which they had taken to
+observe them; and he suspended the spiritual thunder over Henry
+himself, only that the prince might avoid the blow by a timely
+repentance [d].
+[FN [d] Fitz-Steph. p. 56.  Hist. Quad. p. 93.  M. Paris, p. 74.
+Beaulieu, Vie de St. Thom. p. 213.  Epist. St. Thom. p 149, 229.
+Hoveden, p. 499.]
+
+The situation of Henry was so unhappy, that he could employ no
+expedient for saving his ministers from this terrible censure, but by
+appealing to the pope himself, and having recourse to a tribunal whose
+authority he had himself attempted to abridge in this very article of
+appeals, and which, he knew, was so deeply engaged on the side of his
+adversary.  But even this expedient was not likely to be long
+effectual.  Becket had obtained from the pope a legatine commission
+over England; and in virtue of that authority, which admitted of no
+appeal, he summoned the Bishops of London, Salisbury, and others, to
+attend him, and ordered, under pain of excommunication, the
+ecclesiastics, sequestered on his account, to be restored in two
+months to all their benefices.  But John of Oxford, the king's agent
+with the pope, had the address to procure orders for suspending this
+sentence: and he gave the pontiff such hopes of a speedy reconcilement
+between the king and Becket, that two legates, William of Pavia and
+Otho, were sent to Normandy, where the king then resided, and they
+endeavoured to find expedients for that purpose.  But the pretensions
+of the parties were, as yet, too opposite to admit of an
+accommodation: the king required, that all the constitutions of
+Clarendon should be ratified: Becket, that previously to any
+agreement, he and his adherents should be restored to their
+possessions: and as the legates had no power to pronounce a definitive
+sentence on either side, the negotiation soon after came to nothing.
+The Cardinal of Pavia also, being much attached to Henry, took care to
+protract the negotiation; to mitigate the pope, by the accounts which
+he sent of that prince's conduct; and to procure him every possible
+indulgence from the see of Rome.  About this time, the king had also
+the address to obtain a dispensation for the marriage of his third
+son, Geoffrey, with the heiress of Britany; a concession which,
+considering Henry's demerits towards the church, gave great scandal
+both to Becket, and to his zealous patron, the King of France.
+
+[MN 1167.]  The intricacies of the feudal law had, in that age,
+rendered the boundaries of power between the prince and his vassals,
+and between one prince and another, as uncertain as those between the
+crown and the mitre; and all wars took their origin from disputes,
+which, had there been any tribunal possessed of power to enforce their
+decrees, ought to have been decided only before a court of judicature.
+Henry, in prosecution of some controversies, in which he was involved
+with the Count of Auvergne, a vassal of the duchy of Guienne, had
+invaded the territories of that nobleman, who had recourse to the King
+of France, his superior lord, for protection, and thereby kindled a
+war between the two monarchs.  But this war was, as usual, no less
+feeble in its operations than it was frivolous in its cause and
+object; and after occasioning some mutual depredations [e], and some
+insurrections among the barons of Poictou and Guienne, was terminated
+by a peace.  The terms of this peace were rather disadvantageous to
+Henry, and prove that that prince had, by reason of his contest with
+the church, lost the  superiority which he had hitherto maintained
+over the crown of France: an additional motive to him for
+accommodating those differences.
+[FN [e] Hoveden, p. 517.  M. Paris, p. 75.  Diceto, p. 547.  Gervase,
+p. 1402, 1403.  Robert de Monte.]
+
+The pope and the king began at last to perceive, that, in the present
+situation of affairs, neither of them could expect a final and
+decisive victory over the other, and that they had more to fear than
+to hope from the duration of the controversy.  Though the vigour of
+Henry's government had confirmed his authority in all his dominions,
+his throne might be shaken by a sentence of excommunication; and if
+England itself could, by its situation, be more easily guarded against
+the contagion of superstitious prejudices, his French provinces at
+least, whose communication was open with the neighbouring states,
+would be much exposed, on that account, to some great revolution or
+convulsion [f].  He could not, therefore, reasonably imagine that the
+pope, while he retained such a check upon him, would formally
+recognize the constitutions of Clarendon, which both put an end to
+papal pretensions in England, and would give an example to other
+states of asserting a like independency [g].  [MN 1168.]  Pope
+Alexander, on the other hand, being still engaged in dangerous wars
+with the Emperor Frederic, might justly apprehend that Henry, rather
+than relinquish claims of such importance, would join the party of his
+enemy; and as the trials hitherto made of the spiritual weapons by
+Becket had not succeeded to his expectation, and every thing had
+remained quiet in all the king's dominions, nothing seemed impossible
+to the capacity and vigilance of so great a monarch. The disposition
+of minds on both sides, resulting from these circumstances, produced
+frequent attempts towards an accommodation; but as both parties knew
+that the essential articles of the dispute could not then be
+terminated, they entertained a perpetual jealousy of each other, and
+were anxious not to lose the least advantage in the negotiation.  The
+nuncios, Gratian and Vivian, having received a commission to endeavour
+a reconciliation, met with the king in Normandy; and after all
+differences seemed to be adjusted, Henry offered to sign the treaty,
+with a salvo to his royal dignity; which gave such umbrage to Becket,
+that the negotiation, in the end, became fruitless, and the
+excommuications were renewed against the king's ministers.  Another
+negotiation was conducted at Montmirail, in presence of the King of
+France, and the French prelates; where Becket also offered to make his
+submissions, with a salvo to the honour of God and the liberties of
+the church; which, for the like reason, was extremely offensive to the
+king, and rendered the treaty abortive.  [MN 1169.]  A third
+conference, under the same mediation, was broken off, by Becket's
+insisting on a like reserve in his submissions; and even in a fourth
+treaty, when all the terms were adjusted, and when the primate
+expected to be introduced to the king, and to receive the kiss of
+peace, which it was usual for princes to grant in those times, and
+which was regarded as a sure pledge of forgiveness, Henry refused him
+that honour; under pretence that, during his anger, he had made a rash
+vow to that purpose.  This formality served, among such jealous
+spirits, to prevent the conclusion of the treaty; and though the
+difficulty was attempted to be overcome by a dispensation which the
+pope granted to Henry from his vow, that prince could not be prevailed
+on to depart from the resolution which he had taken.
+[FN [f] Epist. St. Thom. p. 230.  [g] Ibid. p. 276.]
+
+In one of these conferences, at which the French king was present,
+Henry said to that monarch: "There have been many kings of England,
+some of greater, some of less authority than myself; there have also
+been many Archbishops of Canterbury, holy and good men, and entitled
+to every kind of respect: let Becket but act towards me with the same
+submission which the greatest of his predecessors have paid to the
+least of mine, and there shall be no controversy between us."  Lewis
+was so struck with this state of the case, and with an offer which
+Henry made to submit his cause to the French clergy, that he could not
+forbear condemning the primate, and withdrawing his friendship from
+him during some time: but the bigotry of that prince, and their common
+animosity against Henry, soon produced a renewal of their former good
+correspondence.
+
+[MN 1170.  22d July.]  All difficulties were at last adjusted between
+the parties; and the king allowed Becket to return, on conditions
+which may be esteemed both honourable and advantageous to that
+prelate.  [MN Compromise with Becket.]  He was not required to give up
+any rights of the church, or resign any of those pretensions which had
+been the original ground of the controversy.  It was agreed that all
+these questions should be buried in oblivion; but that Becket and his
+adherents should, without making farther submission, be restored to
+all their livings, and that even the possessors of such benefices as
+depended on the see of Canterbury, and had been filled during the
+primate's absence, should be expelled, and Becket have liberty to
+supply the vacancies [h].  In return for concessions which intrenched
+so deeply on the honour and dignity of the crown, Henry reaped only
+the advantage of seeing his ministers absolved from the sentence of
+excommunication pronounced against them, and of preventing the
+interdict, which, if these hard conditions had not been complied with,
+was ready to be laid on all his dominions [i].  It was easy to see how
+much he dreaded that event, when a prince of so high a spirit could
+submit to terms so dishonourable in order to prevent it.  So anxious
+was Henry to accommodate all differences, and to reconcile himself
+fully with Becket, that he took the most extraordinary steps to
+flatter his vanity, and even, on one occasion, humiliated himself so
+far as to hold the stirrup of that haughty prelate while he mounted
+[k].
+[FN [h] Fitz-Steph. p. 68, 69.  Hoveden, p. 520.  [i] Hist. Quad. p.
+104.  Brompton, p. 1062.  Gervase, p. 1408.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 704,
+705, 706, 707, 792, 793, 794.  Benedict. Abbas, p. 70.  [k] Epist. 45.
+lib. 5.]
+
+But the king attained not even that temporary tranquillity which he
+had hoped to reap from these expedients.  During the heat of his
+quarrel with Becket, while he was every day expecting an interdict to
+be laid on his kingdom, and a sentence of excommunication to be
+fulminated against his person, he had thought it prudent to have his
+son, Prince Henry, associated with him in the royalty, and to make him
+be crowned king by the hands of Roger, Archbishop of York.  By this
+precaution he both insured the succession of that prince, which,
+considering the many past irregularities in that point, could not but
+be esteemed somewhat precarious; and he preserved at least his family
+on the throne, if the sentence of excommunication should have the
+effect which he dreaded, and should make his subjects renounce their
+allegiance to him.  Though this design was conducted with expedition
+and secrecy, Becket, before it was carried into execution, had got
+intelligence of it; and being desirous of obstructing all Henry's
+measures, as well as anxious to prevent this affront to himself, who
+pretended to the sole right, as Archbishop of Canterbury, to officiate
+in the coronation, he had inhibited all the prelates of England from
+assisting at this ceremony, had procured from the pope a mandate to
+the same purpose [l], and had incited the King of France to protest
+against the coronation of young Henry, unless the princess, daughter
+of that monarch, should at the same time receive the royal unction.
+There prevailed in that age an opinion, which was akin to its other
+superstitions, that the royal unction was essential to the exercise of
+royal power [m]: it was therefore natural both for the King of France,
+careful of his daughter's establishment, and for Becket, jealous of
+his own dignity, to demand, in the treaty with Henry, some
+satisfaction in this essential point.  Henry, after apologizing to
+Lewis for the omission with regard to Margaret, and excusing it on
+account of the secrecy and despatch requisite for conducting that
+measure, promised that the ceremony should be renewed in the persons
+both of the prince and princess: and he assured Becket that, besides
+receiving the acknowledgments of Roger and the other bishops for the
+seeming affront put on the see of Canterbury, the primate should, as a
+farther satisfaction, recover his rights by officiating in this
+coronation.  But the violent spirit of Becket, elated by the power of
+the church, and by the victory which he had already obtained over his
+sovereign, was not content with this voluntary compensation, but
+resolved to make the injury which he pretended to have suffered a
+handle for taking revenge on all his enemies.  [MN Becket's return
+from banishment.]  On his arrival in England, he met the Archbishop of
+York, and the Bishops of London and Salisbury, who were on their
+journey to the king in Normandy: he notified to the archbishop the
+sentence of suspension, and to the two bishops that of
+excommunication, which, at his solicitation, the pope had pronounced
+against them.  Reginald de Warenne, and Gervase de Cornhill, two of
+the king's ministers who were employed on their duty in Kent, asked
+him, on hearing of this bold attempt, whether he meant to bring fire
+and sword into the kingdom?  But the primate, heedless of the reproof,
+proceeded, in the most ostentatious manner, to take possession of his
+diocese.  In Rochester, and all the towns through which he passed, he
+was received with the shouts and acclamations of the populace.  As he
+approached Southwark, the clergy, the laity, men of all ranks and
+ages, came forth to meet him, and celebrated with hymns of joy his
+triumphant entrance.  And though he was obliged, by order of the young
+prince, who resided at Woodstoke, to return to his diocese, he found
+that he was not mistaken when he reckoned upon the highest veneration
+of the public towards his person and his dignity.  He proceeded,
+therefore, with the more courage, to dart his spiritual thunders: he
+issued the sentence of excommunication against Robert de Brock, and
+Nigel de Sackville, with many others, who either had assisted at the
+coronation of the prince, or been active in the late persecution of
+the exiled clergy.  This violent measure, by which he in effect
+denounced war against the king himself, is commonly ascribed to the
+vindictive disposition and imperious character of Becket; but as this
+prelate was also a man of acknowledged abilities, we are not, in his
+passions alone, to look for the cause of his conduct, when he
+proceeded to these extremities against his enemies.  His sagacity had
+led him to discover all Henry's intentions; and he proposed, by this
+bold and unexpected assault, to prevent the execution of them.
+[FN [l] Hist. Quad. p. 103.  Epist. St. Thom. p. 682.  Gervase, p.
+1412.  [m] Epist. St. Thom. p. 708.]
+
+The king, from his experience of the dispositions of the people, was
+become sensible that his enterprise had been too bold in establishing
+the constitutions of Clarendon, in defining all the branches of royal
+power, and in endeavouring to extort from the Church of England, as
+well as from the pope, an express avowal of these disputed
+prerogatives.  Conscious also of his own violence in attempting to
+break or subdue the inflexible primate, he was not displeased to undo
+that measure which had given his enemies such advantage against him;
+and he was contented that the controversy should terminate in that
+ambiguous manner, which was the utmost that princes, in those ages,
+could hope to attain in their disputes with the see of Rome.  Though
+he dropped, for the present, the prosecution of Becket, he still
+reserved to himself the right of maintaining that the constitutions of
+Clarendon, the original ground of the quarrel, were both the ancient
+customs and the present law of the realm: and though he knew that the
+papal clergy asserted them to be impious in themselves, as well as
+abrogated by the sentence of the sovereign pontiff, he intended, in
+spite of their clamours, steadily to put those laws in execution [n],
+and to trust to his own abilities, and to the course of events, for
+success in that perilous enterprise.  He hoped that Becket's
+experience of a six years' exile would, after his pride was fully
+gratified by his restoration, be sufficient to teach him more reserve
+in his opposition; or, if any controversy arose, he expected
+thenceforth to engage in a more favourable cause, and to maintain with
+advantage, while the primate was now in his power [o], the ancient and
+undoubted customs of the kingdom against the usurpations of the
+clergy.  But Becket determined not to betray the ecclesiastical
+privileges by his connivance [p], and apprehensive lest a prince of
+such profound policy, if allowed to proceed in his own way, might
+probably in the end prevail, he resolved to take all the advantage
+which his present victory gave him, and to disconcert the cautious
+measures of the king, by the vehemence and vigour of his own conduct
+[q].  Assured of support from Rome, he was little intimidated by
+dangers which his courage taught him to despise, and which, even if
+attended with the most fatal consequences, would serve only to gratify
+his ambition and thirst of glory [r].
+[FN [n]  Epist. St. Thom. p. 837, 839.  [o] Fitz-Steph. p. 65.  [p]
+Epist. St. Thom. p. 345.  [q] Fitz-Steph. p. 74.  [r] Epist. St. Thom.
+p. 818, 848.]
+
+When the suspended and excommunicated prelates arrived at Baieux,
+where the king then resided, and complained to him of the violent
+proceedings of Becket, he instantly perceived the consequences; was
+sensible that his whole plan of operations was overthrown; foresaw
+that the dangerous contest between the civil and spiritual powers, a
+contest which he himself had first aroused, but which he had
+endeavoured, by all his late negotiations and concessions, to appease,
+must come to an immediate and decisive issue; and he was thence thrown
+into the most violent commotion.  The Archbishop of York remarked to
+him, that, so long as Becket lived, he could never expect to enjoy
+peace or tranquillity: the king himself being vehemently agitated,
+burst forth into an exclamation against his servants, whose want of
+zeal, he said, had so long left him exposed to the enterprises of that
+ungrateful and imperious prelate [s].  Four gentlemen of his
+household, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de Traci, Hugh de Moreville,
+and Richard Brito, taking these passionate expressions to be a hint
+for Becket's death, immediately communicated their thoughts to each
+other; and swearing to revenge their prince's quarrel, secretly
+withdrew from court [t].  Some menacing expressions which they had
+dropped gave a suspicion of their design; and the king despatched a
+messenger after them, charging them to attempt nothing against the
+person of the primate [u]: but these orders arrived too late to
+prevent their fatal purpose.  The four assassins, though they took
+different roads to England, arrived nearly about the same time at
+Saltwoode, near Canterbury; and being there joined by some assistants,
+they proceeded in great haste to the archiepiscopal palace.  They
+found the primate, who trusted entirely to the sacredness of his
+character, very slenderly attended; and though they threw out many
+menaces and reproaches against him, he was so incapable of fear, that,
+without using any precautions against their violence, he immediately
+went to St. Benedict's church to hear vespers.  They followed him
+thither, attacked him before the altar, and having cloven his head
+with many blows, retired without meeting any opposition.  [MN 1170.
+Dec. 29.  Murder of Thomas a Becket.]  This was the tragical end of
+Thomas a Becket, a prelate of the most lofty, intrepid, and inflexible
+spirit, who was able to cover to the world, and probably to himself,
+the enterprises of pride and ambition under the disguise of sanctity
+and of zeal for the interests of religion: an extraordinary personage,
+surely had he been allowed to remain in his first station, and had
+directed the vehemence of his character to the support of law and
+justice; instead of being engaged, by the prejudices of the times, to
+sacrifice all private duties and public connexions to ties which he
+imagined or represented as superior to every civil and political
+consideration.  But no man who enters into the genius of that age can
+reasonably doubt of this prelate's sincerity.  The spirit of
+superstition was so prevalent, that it infallibly caught every
+careless reasoner, much more every one whose interest, and honour, and
+ambition were engaged to support it.  All the wretched literature of
+the times was enlisted on that side: some faint glimmerings of common
+sense might sometimes pierce through the thick cloud of ignorance, or
+what was worse, the illusions of perverted science, which had blotted
+out the sun, and enveloped the face of nature: but those who preserved
+themselves untainted by the general contagion proceeded on no
+principles which they could pretend to justify: they were more
+indebted to their total want of instruction than to their knowledge,
+if they still retained some share of understanding: folly was
+possessed of all the schools as well as all the churches; and her
+votaries assumed the garb of philosophers, together with the ensigns
+of spiritual dignities.  Throughout that large collection of letters,
+which bears the name of St. Thomas, we find, in all the retainers of
+the aspiring prelate, no less than in himself, a most entire and
+absolute conviction of the reason and piety of their own party, and a
+disdain of their antagonists: nor is there less cant and grimace in
+their style, when they address each other, than when they compose
+manifestos for the perusal of the public.  The spirit of revenge,
+violence, and ambition, which accompanied their conduct, instead of
+forming a presumption of hypocrisy, are the surest pledges of their
+sincere attachment to a cause, which so much flattered these
+domineering passions.
+[FN [s] Gervase, p. 1414.  Parker, p. 207.  [t] M. Paris, p. 86.
+Brompton, p. 1065.  Benedict. Abbas, p. 10.  [u] Hist. Quad. p. 144.
+Trivet, p. 55.]
+
+[MN Grief,]  Henry, on the first report of Becket's violent measures,
+had purposed to have him arrested, and had already taken some steps
+towards the execution of that design: but the intelligence of his
+murder threw the prince into great consternation; and he was
+immediately sensible of the dangerous consequences which he had reason
+to apprehend from so unexpected an event.  An archbishop of reputed
+sanctity, assassinated before the altar, in the exercise of his
+functions, and on account of his zeal in maintaining ecclesiastical
+privileges, must attain the highest honours of martyrdom; while his
+murderer would be ranked among the most bloody tyrants that ever were
+exposed to the hatred and detestation of mankind.  Interdicts and
+excommunications, weapons in themselves so terrible, would, he
+foresaw, be armed with double force when employed in a cause so much
+calculated to work on the human passions, and so peculiarly adapted to
+the eloquence of popular preachers and declaimers.  In vain would he
+plead his own innocence, and even his total ignorance of the fact: he
+was sufficiently guilty, if the church thought proper to esteem him
+such; and his concurrence in Becket's martyrdom, becoming a religious
+opinion, would be received with all the implicit credit which belonged
+to the most established articles of faith.  These considerations gave
+the king the most unaffected concern; and as it was extremely his
+interest to clear himself from all suspicion, he took no care to
+conceal the depth of his affliction [w].  He shut himself up from the
+light of day, and from all commerce with his servants: he even
+refused, during three days, all food and sustenance [x]: the
+courtiers, apprehending dangerous effects from his despair, were at
+last obliged to break in upon his solitude; and they employed every
+topic of consolation, induced him to accept of nourishment, and
+occupied his leisure in taking precautions against the consequences
+which he so justly apprehended from the murder of the primate.
+[FN [w] Ypod. Neust. p. 447.  M. Paris, p. 87.  Diceto, p. 556.
+Gervase, p. 1419.  [x] Hist. Quad. p. 143.]
+
+[MN 1171.  and submission of the king.]  The point of chief importance
+to Henry was to convince the pope of his innocence; or rather, to
+persuade him that he would reap greater advantages from the
+submissions of England, than from proceeding to extremities against
+that kingdom.  The Archbishop of Rouen, the Bishops of Worcester and
+Evreux, with five persons of inferior quality, were immediately
+despatched to Rome [y], and orders were given them to perform their
+journey with the utmost expedition.  Though the name and authority of
+the court of Rome were so terrible in the remote countries of Europe,
+which were sunk in profound ignorance, and were entirely unacquainted
+with its character and conduct; the pope was so little revered at
+home, that his inveterate enemies surrounded the gates of Rome itself,
+and even controlled his government in that city; and the ambassadors,
+who, from a distant extremity of Europe, carried to him the humble or
+rather abject submissions of the greatest potentate of the age, found
+the utmost difficulty to make their way to him, and to throw
+themselves at his feet.  It was at length agreed, that Richard Barre,
+one of their number, should leave the rest behind, and run all the
+hazards of the passage [z]; in order to prevent the fatal consequences
+which might ensue from any delay in giving satisfaction to his
+holiness.  He found, on his arrival, that Alexander was already
+wrought up to the greatest rage against the king; that Becket's
+partisans were daily stimulating him to revenge; that the king of
+France had exhorted him to fulminate the most dreadful sentence
+against England; and that the very mention of Henry's name before the
+sacred college was received with every expression of horror and
+execration.  The Thursday before Easter was now approaching, when it
+is customary for the pope to denounce annual curses against all his
+enemies; and it was expected that Henry should, with all the
+preparations peculiar to the discharge of that sacred artillery, be
+solemnly comprehended in the number.  But Barre found means to appease
+the pontiff, and to deter him from a measure, which, if it failed of
+success, could not afterwards be easily recalled: the anathemas were
+only levelled in general against all the actors, accomplices, and
+abettors of Becket's murder.  The Abbot of Valasse, and the
+Archdeacons of Salisbury and Lisieux, with others of Henry's
+ministers, who soon after arrived, besides asserting their prince's
+innocence, made oath before the whole consistory that he would stand
+to the pope's judgment in the affair, and make every submission that
+should be required of him.  The terrible blow was thus artfully
+eluded; the Cardinals Albert and Theodin were appointed legates to
+examine the cause, and were ordered to proceed to Normandy for that
+purpose; and though Henry's foreign dominions were already laid under
+an interdict by the Archbishop of Sens, Becket's great partisan, and
+the pope's legate in France, the general expectation that the monarch
+would easily exculpate himself from any concurrence in the guilt, kept
+every one in suspense, and prevented all the bad consequences which
+might be dreaded from that sentence.
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 526.  M. Paris, p. 87.  [z] Hoveden, p. 26.
+Epist. St. Thom. p. 863.]
+
+The clergy, meanwhile, though their rage was happily diverted from
+falling on the king, were not idle in magnifying the sanctity of
+Becket; in extolling the merits of his martyrdom; and in exalting him
+above all that devoted tribe, who in several ages had, by their blood,
+cemented the fabric of the temple.  Other saints had only borne
+testimony by their sufferings to the general doctrines of
+Christianity; but Becket had sacrificed his life to the power and
+privileges of the clergy; and this peculiar merit challenged, and not
+in vain, a suitable acknowledgment to his memory.  Endless were the
+panegyrics on his virtues; and the miracles wrought by his relics were
+more numerous, more nonsensical, and more impudently attested, than
+those which ever filled the legend of any confessor or martyr.  Two
+years after his death he was canonized by Pope Alexander; a solemn
+jubilee was established for celebrating his merits; his body was
+removed to a magnificent shrine, enriched with presents from all parts
+of Christendom; pilgrimages were performed to obtain his intercession
+with Heaven; and it was computed, that in one year above a hundred
+thousand  pilgrims arrived in Canterbury, and paid their devotions at
+his tomb.  It is indeed a mortifying reflection to those who are
+actuated by the love of fame, so justly denominated the last infirmity
+of noble minds, that the wisest legislator, and most exalted genius
+that ever reformed or enlightened the world, can never expect such
+tributes of praise as are lavished on the memory of pretended saints,
+whose whole conduct was probably to the last degree odious or
+contemptible, and whose industry was entirely directed to the pursuit
+of objects pernicious to mankind.  It is only a conqueror, a personage
+no less entitled to our hatred, who can pretend to the attainment of
+equal renown and glory.
+
+It may not be amiss to remark, before we conclude the subject of
+Thomas a Becket, that the king, during his controversy with that
+prelate, was on every occasion more anxious than usual to express his
+zeal for religion, and to avoid all appearance of a profane negligence
+on that head.  He gave his consent to the imposing of a tax on all his
+dominions for the delivery of the Holy Land, now threatened by the
+famous Saladine: this tax amounted to two-pence a pound for one year,
+and a penny a pound for the four subsequent [a].  Almost all the
+princes of Europe laid a like imposition on their subjects, which
+received the name of Saladine's tax.  During this period, there came
+over from Germany about thirty heretics of both sexes, under the
+direction of one Gerard; simple ignorant people, who could give no
+account of their faith, but declared themselves ready to suffer for
+the tenets of their master.  They made only one convert in England, a
+woman as ignorant as themselves; yet they gave such umbrage to the
+clergy, that they were delivered over to the secular arm, and were
+punished by being burned on the forehead, and then whipped through the
+streets.  They seemed to exult in their sufferings, and, as they went
+along, sung the beatitude, BLESSED ARE YE, WHEN MEN HATE YOU AND
+PERSECUTE YOU [b].  After they were whipped, they were thrust out
+almost naked in the midst of winter and perished through cold and
+hunger; no one daring or being willing, to give them the least relief.
+We are ignorant of the particular tenets of these people; for it would
+be imprudent to rely on the representations left of them by the
+clergy, who affirmed that they denied the efficacy of the sacraments,
+and the unity of the church.  It is probable that their departure from
+the standard of orthodoxy was still more subtle and minute.  They seem
+to have been the first that ever suffered for heresy in England.
+[FN [a] Chron. Gervase, p. 1399.  M. Paris, p. 74.  [b] Neubr. p. 391.
+M. Paris, p. 74.  Heming. p. 494.]
+
+As soon as Henry found that he was in no immediate danger from the
+thunders of the Vatican, he undertook an expedition against Ireland; a
+design which he had long projected, and by which he hoped to recover
+his credit, somewhat impaired by his late transactions with the
+hierarchy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+STATE OF IRELAND.--CONQUEST OF THAT ISLAND.--THE KING'S ACCOMMODATION
+WITH THE COURT OF ROME.--REVOLT OF YOUNG HENRY AND HIS BROTHERS.--WARS
+AND INSURRECTIONS.--WAR WITH SCOTLAND.--PENANCE OF HENRY FOR BECKET'S
+MURDER.--WILLIAM, KING OF SCOTLAND, DEFEATED AND TAKEN PRISONER.--THE
+KING'S ACCOMMODATION WITH HIS SONS.--THE KING'S EQUITABLE
+ADMINISTRATION.--CRUSADES.--REVOLT OF PRINCE RICHARD.--DEATH AND
+CHARACTER OF HENRY.--MISCELLANEOUS TRANSACTIONS OF HIS REIGN.
+
+
+
+[MN 1172.  State of Ireland.]
+As Britain was first peopled from Gaul, so was Ireland probably from
+Britain; and the inhabitants of all these countries seem to have been
+so many tribes of the Celtae, who derive their origin from an
+antiquity that lies far beyond the records of any history or
+tradition.  The Irish, from the beginning of time, had been buried in
+the most profound barbarism and ignorance; and as they were never
+conquered, or even invaded by the Romans, from whom all the western
+world derived its civility, they continued still in the most rude
+state of society, and were distinguished by those vices alone, to
+which human nature, not tamed by education, or restrained by laws, is
+for ever subject.  The small principalities into which they were
+divided exercised perpetual rapine and violence against each other;
+the uncertain succession of their princes was a continual source of
+domestic convulsions; the usual title of each petty sovereign was the
+murder of his predecessor; courage and force, though exercised in the
+commission of crimes, were more honoured than any pacific virtues; and
+the most simple arts of life, even tillage and agriculture, were
+almost wholly unknown among them.  They had felt the invasions of the
+Danes and the other northern tribes; but these inroads, which had
+spread barbarism in other parts of Europe, tended rather to improve
+the Irish; and the only towns which were to be found in the island had
+been planted along the coast by the freebooters of Norway and Denmark.
+The other inhabitants exercised pasturage in the open country; sought
+protection from any danger in their forests and morasses; and being
+divided by the fiercest animosities against each other, were still
+more intent on the means of mutual injury, than on the expedients for
+common or even for private interest.
+
+Besides many small tribes, there were in the age of Henry II. five
+principal sovereignties in the island, Munster, Leinster, Meath,
+Ulster, and Connaught; and as it had been usual for the one or the
+other of these to take the lead in their wars, there was commonly some
+prince, who seemed, for the time, to act as monarch of Ireland.
+Roderic O'Connor, King of Connaught, was then advanced to this dignity
+[a]; but his government, ill obeyed even within his own territory,
+could not unite the people in any measures either for the
+establishment of order, or for defence against foreigners.  The
+ambition of Henry had, very early in his reign, been moved by the
+prospect of these advantages to attempt the subjecting of Ireland; and
+a pretence was only wanting to invade a people who, being always
+confined to their own island, had never given any reason of complaint
+to any of their neighbours.  For this purpose, he had recourse to
+Rome, which assumed a right to dispose of kingdoms and empires; and,
+not foreseeing the dangerous disputes which he was one day to maintain
+with that see, he helped, for present, or rather for an imaginary,
+convenience, to give sanction to claims which were now become
+dangerous to all sovereigns.  Adrian III., who then filled the papal
+chair, was by birth an Englishman; and being, on that account, the
+more disposed to oblige Henry, he was easily persuaded to act as
+master of the world, and to make, without any hazard or expense, the
+acquisition of a great island to his spiritual jurisdiction. The Irish
+had, by precedent missions from the Britons, been imperfectly
+converted to Christianity; and, what the pope regarded as the surest
+mark of their imperfect conversion, they followed the doctrines of
+their first teachers, and had never acknowledged any subjection to the
+see of Rome.  Adrian, therefore, in the year 1156, issued a bull in
+favour of Henry; in which, after premising that this prince had ever
+shown an anxious care to enlarge the church of God on earth, and to
+increase the number of his saints and elect in heaven; he represents
+his design of subduing Ireland as derived from the same pious motives:
+he considers his care of previously applying for the apostolic
+sanction as a sure earnest of success and victory; and having
+established it as a point incontestable, that all Christian kingdoms
+belong to the patrimony of St. Peter, he acknowledges it to be his own
+duty to sow among them the seeds of the gospel, which might in the
+last day fructify to their eternal salvation: he exhorts the king to
+invade Ireland, in order to extirpate the vice and wickedness of the
+natives, and oblige them to pay yearly, from every house, a penny to
+the see of Rome: he gives him entire right and authority over the
+island, commands all the inhabitants to obey him as their sovereign,
+and invests with full power all such godly instruments as he should
+think proper to employ in an enterprise thus calculated for the glory
+of God and the salvation of the souls of men [b].  Henry, though armed
+with this authority, did not immediately put his design in execution;
+but being detained by more interesting business on the continent,
+waited for a favourable opportunity of invading Ireland.
+[FN [a] Hoveden, p. 527.  [b] M. Paris, p. 67.  Girald. Cambr. Spellm.
+Concil. vol. ii. p. 51.  Rymer, vol. i. p. 15.]
+
+Dermot Macmorrogh, King of Leinster, had, by his licentious tyranny,
+rendered himself odious to his subjects, who seized with alacrity the
+first occasion that offered of throwing off the yoke, which was become
+grievous and oppressive to them.  This prince had formed a design on
+Dovergilda, wife of Ororic, Prince of Breffny; and taking advantage of
+her husband's absence, who, being obliged to visit a distant part of
+his territory, had left his wife secure, as he thought, in an island
+surrounded by a bog, he suddenly invaded the place and carried off the
+princess [c].  This exploit, though usual among the Irish, and rather
+deemed a proof of gallantry and spirit [d], provoked the resentment of
+the husband; who, having collected forces, and being strengthened by
+the alliance of Roderic, King of Connaught, invaded the dominions  of
+Dermot, and expelled him his kingdom.  The exiled prince had recourse
+to Henry, who was at this time in Guienne, craved his assistance in
+restoring him to his sovereignty, and offered, on that event, to hold
+his kingdom in vassalage under the crown of England.  Henry, whose
+views were already turned towards making acquisitions in Ireland,
+readily accepted the offer; but being at that time embarrassed by the
+rebellions of his French subjects, as well as by his disputes with the
+see of Rome, he declined for the present embarking in the enterprise,
+and gave Dermot no farther assistance than letters patent, by which he
+empowered all his subjects to aid the Irish prince in the recovery of
+his dominions [e].  Dermot, supported by this authority, came to
+Bristol; and after endeavouring, though for some time in vain, to
+engage adventurers in the enterprise, he at last formed a treaty with
+Richard, surnamed Strongbow, Earl of Strigul.  This nobleman, who was
+of the illustrious house of Clare, had impaired his fortune by
+expensive pleasures; and being ready for any desperate undertaking, he
+promised assistance to Dermot, on condition that he should espouse
+Eva, daughter of that prince, and be declared heir to all his
+dominions [f].  While Richard was assembling his succours, Dermot went
+into Wales; and meeting with Robert Fitz-Stephens, Constable of
+Abertivi, and Maurice Fitz-Gerald, he also engaged them in his
+service, and obtained their promise of invading Ireland.  Being now
+assured of succour, he returned privately to his own state; and
+lurking in the monastery of Fernes, which he had founded, (for this
+ruffian was also a founder of monasteries,) he prepared every thing
+for the reception of his English allies [g].
+[FN [c] Girald. Cambr. p. 760.  [d] Spencer, vol. vi.  [e] Girald.
+Cambr. p. 760.  [f] Ibid. p. 761.  [g] Ibid.]
+
+[MN Conquest of that island.]
+The troops of Fitz-Stephens were first ready.  That gentleman landed
+in Ireland with thirty knights, sixty esquires, and three hundred
+archers; but this small body, being brave men, not unacquainted with
+discipline, and completely armed, a thing almost unknown in Ireland,
+struck a great terror into the barbarous inhabitants, and seemed to
+menace them with some signal revolution.  The conjunction of Maurice
+de Pendergast, who, about the same time, brought over ten knights and
+sixty archers, enabled Fitz-Stephens to attempt the siege of Wexford,
+a town inhabited by the Danes; and after gaining an advantage, he made
+himself master of the place [h].  Soon after, Fitz-Gerald arrived with
+ten knights, thirty esquires, and a hundred archers [i]; and being
+joined by the former adventurers, composed a force which nothing in
+Ireland was able to withstand.  Roderic, the chief monarch of the
+island, was foiled in different actions; the Prince of Ossory was
+obliged to submit, and give hostages for his peaceable behaviour; and
+Dermot, not content with being restored to his kingdom of Leinster,
+projected the dethroning of Roderic, and aspired to the sole dominion
+over the Irish.
+[FN [h] Girald. Cambr. p. 761, 762.  [i] Ibid. p. 766.]
+
+In prosecution of these views, he sent over a messenger to the Earl of
+Strigul, challenging the performance of his promise, and displaying
+the mighty advantages which might now be reaped by a reinforcement of
+warlike troops from England.  Richard, not satisfied with the general
+allowance given by Henry to all his subjects, went to that prince,
+then in Normandy; and having obtained a cold or ambiguous permission,
+prepared himself for the execution of his designs.  He first sent over
+Raymond, one of his retinue, with ten knights and seventy archers,
+who, landing near Waterford, defeated a body of three thousand Irish,
+that had ventured to attack him [k]; and as Richard himself, who
+brought over two hundred horse, and a body of archers, joined, a few
+days after, the victorious English, they made themselves masters of
+Waterford, and proceeded to Dublin, which was taken by assault.
+Roderic, in revenge, cut off the head of Dermot's natural son, who had
+been left as a hostage in his hands; and Richard, marrying Eva, became
+soon after, by the death of Dermot, master of the kingdom of Leinster,
+and prepared to extend his authority over all Ireland.  Roderic, and
+the other Irish princes, were alarmed at the danger; and, combining
+together, besieged Dublin with an army of thirty thousand men; but
+Earl Richard making a sudden sally at the head of ninety knights, with
+their followers, put this numerous army to rout, chased them off the
+field, and pursued  them with great slaughter.  None in Ireland now
+dared to oppose themselves to the English [l].
+[FN [k] Ibid. p. 767.  [l] Girald. Cambr. p. 773.]
+
+Henry, jealous of the progress made by his own subjects, sent orders
+to recall all the English, and he made preparations to attack Ireland
+in person [m]: but Richard, and the other adventurers, found means to
+appease him by making him the most humble submissions, and offering to
+hold all their acquisitions in vassalage to his crown [n].  That
+monarch landed in Ireland at the head of five hundred knights, besides
+other soldiers: he found the Irish so dispirited by their late
+misfortunes, that, in a progress which he made through the island, he
+had no other occupation than to receive the homage of his new
+subjects.  He left most of the Irish chieftains or princes in
+possession of their ancient territories; bestowed some lands on the
+English adventurers; gave Earl Richard the commission of Seneschal of
+Ireland; and after a stay of a few months, returned in triumph to
+England.  By these trivial exploits, scarcely worth relating, except
+for the importance of the consequences, was Ireland subdued, and
+annexed to the English crown.
+[FN [m] Ibid. p. 770.  [n] Ibid. p. 775.]
+
+The low state of commerce and industry, during those ages, made it
+impracticable for princes to support regular armies, which might
+retain a conquered country in subjection; and the extreme barbarism
+and poverty of Ireland could still less afford means of bearing the
+expense.  The only expedient, by which a durable conquest could then
+be made or maintained, was by pouring in a multitude of new
+inhabitants, dividing among them the lands of the vanquished,
+establishing them in all offices of trust and authority, and thereby
+transforming the ancient inhabitants into a new people.  By this
+policy, the northern invaders of old, and of late the Duke of
+Normandy, had been able to fix their dominions, and to erect kingdoms,
+which remained stable on their foundations, and were transmitted to
+the posterity of the first conquerors.  But the state of Ireland
+rendered that island so little inviting to the English, that only a
+few of desperate fortunes could be persuaded, from time to time, to
+transport themselves thither [o]; and instead of reclaiming the
+natives from their uncultivated manners, they were gradually
+assimilated to the ancient inhabitants, and degenerated from the
+customs of their own nation.  It was also found requisite to bestow
+great military and arbitrary powers on the leaders, who commanded a
+handful of men amidst such hostile multitudes; and law and equity, in
+a little time, became as much unknown in the English settlements as
+they had ever been among the Irish tribes.  Palatinates were erected
+in favour of the new adventurers; independent authority conferred; the
+natives, never fully subdued, still retained their animosity against
+the conquerors; their hatred was retaliated by like injuries; and from
+these causes, the Irish, during the course of four centuries, remained
+still savage and untractable: it was not till the latter end of
+Elizabeth's reign that the island was fully subdued; nor till that of
+her successor that it gave hopes of becoming a useful conquest to the
+English nation.
+[FN [o] Brompton, p. 1069.  Neubrig. p. 403.]
+
+Besides that the easy and peaceable submission of the Irish left Henry
+no farther occupation in that island, he was recalled from it by
+another incident, which was of the last importance to his interest and
+safety.  The two legates, Albert and Theodin, to whom was committed
+the trial of his conduct in the murder of Archbishop Becket, were
+arrived in Normandy; and being impatient of delay, sent him frequent
+letters, full of menaces, if he protracted any longer making his
+appearance before them [p].  He hastened therefore to Normandy, and
+had a conference with them at Savigny, where their demands were so
+exorbitant, that he broke off the negotiation, threatened to return to
+Ireland, and bade them do their worst against him.  They perceived
+that the season was now past for taking advantage of that tragical
+incident; which, had it been hotly pursued by interdicts and
+excommunications, was capable of throwing the whole kingdom into
+combustion.  But the time which Henry had happily gained had
+contributed to appease the minds of men: the event could not now have
+the same influence as when it was recent; and as the clergy every day
+looked for an accommodation with the king, they had not opposed the
+pretensions of his partisans, who had been very industrious in
+representing to the people his entire innocence in the murder of the
+primate, and his ignorance of the designs formed by the assassins.
+The legates, therefore, found themselves obliged to lower their terms;
+and Henry was so fortunate as to conclude an accommodation with them.
+He declared upon oath, before the relics of the saints, that, so far
+from commanding or desiring the death of the archbishop, he was
+extremely grieved when he received intelligence of it: but as the
+passion which he had expressed on account of that prelate's conduct
+had probably been the occasion of his murder, he stipulated the
+following conditions, as an atonement for the offence.  [MN The king's
+accommodation with the court of Rome.]  He promised, that he should
+pardon all such as had been banished for adhering to Becket, and
+should restore them to their livings; that the see of Canterbury
+should be reinstated in all its ancient possessions; that he should
+pay the Templars a sum of money for the subsistence of two hundred
+knights during a year in the Holy Land; that he should himself take
+the cross at the Christmas following, and, if the pope required it,
+serve three years against the infidels either in Spain or Palestine;
+that he should not insist on the observance of such customs,
+derogatory to ecclesiastical privileges, as had been introduced in his
+own time; and that he should not obstruct appeals to the pope in
+ecclesiastical causes, but should content himself with exacting
+sufficient security from such clergymen as left his dominions to
+prosecute an appeal, that they should attempt nothing against the
+rights of his crown [q].  Upon signing these concessions, Henry
+received absolution from the legates, and was confirmed in the grant
+of Ireland made by Pope Adrian [r]; and nothing proves more strongly
+the great abilities of this monarch, than his extricating himself on
+such easy terms from so difficult a situation.  He had always insisted
+that the laws established at Clarendon contained not any new claims,
+but the ancient customs of the kingdom; and he was still at liberty,
+notwithstanding the articles of this agreement, to maintain his
+pretensions.  Appeals to the pope were indeed permitted by that
+treaty; but as the king was also permitted to exact reasonable
+securities from the parties, and might stretch his demands on this
+head as far as he pleased, he had it virtually in his power to prevent
+the pope from reaping any advantage by this seeming concession.  And
+on the whole, the constitutions of Clarendon remained still the law of
+the realm; though the pope and his legates seem so little to have
+conceived the king's power to lie under any legal limitations, that
+they were satisfied with his departing, by treaty, from one of the
+most momentous articles of these constitutions, without requiring any
+repeal by the states of the kingdom.
+[FN [p] Girald. Cambr. p. 778.  [q] M. Paris, p. 88.  Benedict. Abb.
+p. 34.  Hoveden, p. 529.  Diceto, p 560.  Chron. Gerv. p. 1422.  [r]
+Brompton, p. 1071  Liber Nig. Scac. p. 47.]
+
+Henry, freed from this dangerous controversy with the ecclesiastics
+and with the see of Rome, seemed now to have reached the pinnacle of
+human grandeur and felicity, and to be equally happy in his domestic
+situation and in his political government.  A numerous progeny of sons
+and daughters gave both lustre and authority to his crown, prevented
+the dangers of a disputed succession, and repressed all pretensions of
+the ambitious barons.  The king's precaution, also, in establishing
+the several branches of his family, seemed well calculated to prevent
+all jealousy among the brothers, and to perpetuate the greatness of
+his family.  He had appointed Henry, his eldest son, to be his
+successor in the kingdom of England, the duchy of Normandy, and the
+counties of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine; territories which lay
+contiguous, and which, by that means, might easily lend to each other
+mutual assistance, both against intestine commotions and foreign
+invasions.  Richard, his second son, was invested in the duchy of
+Guienne and county of Poictou; Geoffrey, his third son, inherited, in
+right of his wife, the duchy of Britany; and the new conquest of
+Ireland was destined for the appanage of John, his fourth son.  He had
+also negotiated, in favour of this last prince, a marriage with
+Adelais, the only daughter of Humbert, Count of Savoy and Maurienne;
+and was to receive as her dowry considerable demesnes in Piedmont,
+Savoy, Bresse, and  Dauphiny [s].  But this exaltation of his family
+excited the jealousy of all his neighbours, who made those very sons,
+whose fortunes he had so anxiously established, the means of
+embittering his future life, and disturbing his government.
+[FN [s] Ypod. Neust. p. 448.  Bened. Abb. p. 38.  Hoveden, p. 532.
+Diceto, p. 562.  Brompton, p. 1081.  Rymer, vol. i. p. 33.]
+
+Young Henry, who was rising to man's estate, began to display his
+character, and aspire to independence: brave, ambitious, liberal,
+munificent, affable; he discovered qualities which give great lustre
+to youth; prognosticate a shining fortune; but unless tempered in
+mature age with discretion, are the forerunners of the greatest
+calamities [t].  It is said, that at the time when this prince
+received the royal unction, his father, in order to give greater
+dignity to the ceremony, officiated at table as one of the retinue;
+and observed to his son, that never king was more royally served.  IT
+IS NOTHING EXTRAORDINARY, said young Henry to one of his courtiers, IF
+THE SON OF A COUNT SHOULD SERVE THE SON OF A KING.  This saying, which
+might pass only for an innocent pleasantry, or even for an oblique
+compliment to his father, was however regarded as a symptom of his
+aspiring temper; and his conduct soon after justified the conjecture.
+[FN [t] Chron. Gerv. p. 1463.]
+
+Henry, agreeably to the promise which he had given both to the pope
+and French king, permitted his son to be crowned anew by the hands of
+the Archbishop of Rouen, and associated the Princess Margaret, spouse
+to young Henry, in the ceremony [u]  [MN 1173.]  He afterwards allowed
+him to pay a visit to his father-in-law at Paris, who took the
+opportunity of instilling into the young prince those ambitious
+sentiments, to which he was naturally but too much inclined [w].  [MN
+Revolt of young Henry and his brothers.]  Though it had been the
+constant practice of France, ever since the accession of the Capetian
+line, to crown the son during the lifetime of the father, without
+conferring on him any present participation of royalty, Lewis
+persuaded his son-in-law, that, by this ceremony, which in those ages
+was deemed so important, he had acquired a title to sovereignty, and
+that the king could not, without injustice, exclude him from immediate
+possession of the whole or at least a part of his dominions.  In
+consequence of these extravagant ideas, young Henry, on his return,
+desired the king to resign to him either the crown of England, or the
+duchy of Normandy; discovered great discontent on the refusal; spake
+in the most undutiful terms of his father; and soon after, in concert
+with Lewis, made his escape to Paris, where he was protected and
+supported by that monarch.
+[FN [u] Hoveden, p. 529.  Diceto, p. 560.  Brompton, p. 1080.  Chron.
+Gerv. p. 1421.  Trivet, p. 58.  It appears from Madox's History of the
+Exchequer, that silk garments were then known in England, and that the
+coronation robes of the young king and queen cost eighty-seven pounds
+ten shillings and four pence, money of that age.  [w] Girald. Camb. p.
+782.]
+
+While Henry was alarmed at this incident, and had the prospect of
+dangerous intrigues, or even of a war, which, whether successful or
+not, must be extremely calamitous and disagreeable to him, he received
+intelligence of new misfortunes, which must have affected him in the
+most sensible manner.  Queen Eleanor, who had disgusted her first
+husband by her gallantries, was no less offensive to her second by her
+jealousy; and after this manner carried to extremity, in the different
+periods of her life, every circumstance of female weakness.  She
+communicated her discontents against Henry to her two younger sons,
+Geoffrey and Richard; persuaded them that they were also entitled to
+present possession of the territories assigned to them; engaged them
+to fly secretly to the court of France; and was meditating, herself,
+an escape to the same court, and had even put on man's apparel for
+that purpose; when she was seized by orders from her husband, and
+thrown into confinement.  Thus, Europe saw with astonishment the best
+and most indulgent of parents at war with his whole family; three
+boys, scarcely arrived at the age of puberty, required a great
+monarch, in the full vigour of his age and height of his reputation,
+to dethrone himself in their favour; and several princes not ashamed
+to support them in these unnatural and absurd pretensions.
+
+Henry, reduced to this perilous and disagreeable situation, had
+recourse to the court of Rome: though sensible of the danger attending
+the interposition of ecclesiastical authority in temporal disputes, he
+applied to the pope, as his superior lord, to excommunicate his
+enemies, and by these censures to reduce to obedience his undutiful
+children, whom he found such reluctance to punish by the sword of the
+magistrate [x].  Alexander, well pleased to exert his power in so
+justifiable a cause, issued the bulls required of him; but it was soon
+found that these spiritual weapons had not the same force as when
+employed in a spiritual controversy; and that the clergy were very
+negligent in supporting a sentence which was nowise calculated to
+promote the immediate interests of their order.  The king, after
+taking in vain this humiliating step, was obliged to have recourse to
+arms, and to enlist such auxiliaries as are the usual resource of
+tyrants, and have seldom been employed by so wise and just a monarch.
+[FN [x] Epist. Petri Bles. epist. 136. in Biblioth. Patr. tom. xxiv.
+p. 1048.  His words are, VESTRAE JURISDICTIONIS EST REGNUM ANGLIAE, ET
+QUANTUM AD FEUDATORII JURIS OBLIGATIONEM, VOBIS DUNTAXAT OBNOXIUS
+TENEOR.  The same strange paper is in Rymer, vol. i. p. 35, and
+Trivet, vol. i. p. 62.]
+
+The loose government which prevailed in all the states of Europe, the
+many private wars carried on among the neighbouring nobles, and the
+impossibility of enforcing any general execution of the laws, had
+encouraged a tribe of banditti to disturb every where the public
+peace, to infest the highways, to pillage the open country, and to
+brave all the efforts of the civil magistrate, and even the
+excommunications of the church, which were fulminated against them
+[y].  Troops of them were sometimes enlisted in the service of one
+prince or baron, sometimes in that of another: they often acted in an
+independent manner, under leaders of their own: the peaceable and
+industrious inhabitants, reduced to poverty by their ravages, were
+frequently obliged, for subsistence, to betake themselves to a like
+disorderly course of life; and a continual intestine war, pernicious
+to industry, as well as to the execution of justice, was thus carried
+on in the bowels of every kingdom [z].  Those desperate ruffians
+received the name sometimes of Brabancons, sometimes of Routiers or
+Cottereaux; but for what reason is not agreed by historians; and they
+formed a kind of society or government among themselves, which set at
+defiance the rest of mankind.  The greatest monarchs were not ashamed,
+on occasion, to have recourse to their assistance; and as their habits
+of war and depredation had given them experience, hardiness, and
+courage, they generally composed the most formidable part of those
+armies which decided the political quarrels of princes.  Several of
+them were enlisted among the forces levied by Henry's enemies [a]; but
+the great treasures amassed by that prince enabled him to engage more
+numerous troops of them in his service; and the situation of his
+affairs rendered even such banditti the only forces on whose fidelity
+he could repose any confidence.  His licentious barons, disgusted with
+a vigilant government, were more desirous of being ruled by young
+princes, ignorant of public affairs, remiss in their conduct, and
+profuse in their grants [b]; and as the king had ensured to his sons
+the succession to every particular province of his dominions, the
+nobles dreaded no danger in adhering to those who, they knew, must
+some time become their sovereigns.  Prompted by these motives, many of
+the Norman nobility had deserted to his son Henry; the Breton and
+Gascon barons seemed equally disposed to embrace the quarrel of
+Geoffrey and Richard.  Disaffection had crept in among the English;
+and the Earls of Leicester and Chester in particular had openly
+declared against the king.  Twenty thousand Brabancons, therefore,
+joined to some troops which he brought over from Ireland, and a few
+barons of approved fidelity, formed the sole force with which he
+intended to resist his enemies.
+[FN [y] Neubrig. p 413.  [z] Chron. Gerv. p. 1461.  [a] Petr. Bles.
+epist. 47.  [b] Diceto, p. 570.]
+
+Lewis, in order to bind the confederates in a close union, summoned at
+Paris an assembly of the chief vassals of the crown, received their
+approbation of his measures, and engaged them by oath to adhere to the
+cause of young Henry.  This prince, in return, bound himself by a like
+tie never to desert his French allies; and having made a new great
+seal, he lavishly distributed among them many considerable parts of
+those territories which he purposed to conquer from his father.  The
+Counts of Flanders, Boulogne, Blois, and Eu, partly moved by the
+general jealousy arising from Henry's power and ambition, partly
+allured by the prospect of reaping advantage from the inconsiderate
+temper and the necessities of the young prince, declared openly in
+favour of the latter.  William, King of Scotland, had also entered
+into this great confederacy; and a plan was concerted for a general
+invasion on different parts of the king's extensive and factious
+dominions.
+
+Hostilities were first commenced by the Counts of Flanders and
+Boulogne on the frontiers of Normandy.  Those princes laid siege to
+Aumale, which was delivered into their hands by the treachery of the
+count of that name: this nobleman surrendered himself prisoner; and,
+on pretence of thereby paying his ransom, opened the gates of all his
+other fortresses.  The two counts next besieged and made themselves
+masters of Drincourt; but the Count of Boulogne was here mortally
+wounded in the assault; and this incident put some stop to the
+progress of the Flemish arms.
+
+[MN Wars and insurrections.]
+In another quarter, the King of France, being strongly assisted by his
+vassals, assembled a great army of seven thousand knights and their
+followers on horseback, and a proportionable number of infantry:
+carrying young Henry along with him, he laid siege to Verneuil, which
+was vigorously defended by Hugh de Lacy and Hugh de Beauchamp, the
+governors.  After he had lain a month before the place, the garrison,
+being straitened for provisions, were obliged to capitulate; and they
+engaged, if not relieved within three days, to surrender the town, and
+to retire into the citadel.  On the last of these days, Henry appeared
+with his army upon the heights above Verneuil.  Lewis, dreading an
+attack, sent the Archbiship of Sens and the Count of Blois to the
+English camp, and desired that next day should be appointed for a
+conference, in order to establish a general peace, and terminate the
+difference between Henry and his sons.  The king, who passionately
+desired this accommodation, and suspected no fraud, gave his consent;
+but Lewis, that morning, obliging the garrison to surrender, according
+to the capitulation, set fire to the place, and began to retire with
+his army.  Henry, provoked at this artifice, attacked the rear with
+vigour, put them to rout, did some execution, and took  several
+prisoners.  The French army, as their time of service was now expired,
+immediately dispersed themselves into their several provinces; and
+left Henry free to prosecute his advantages against his other enemies.
+
+The nobles of Britany, instigated by the Earl of Chester and Ralph de
+Fougeres, were all in arms; but their progress was checked by a body
+of Brabancons which the king, after Lewis's retreat, had sent against
+them.  The two armies came to an action near Dol, where the rebels
+were defeated, fifteen hundred killed on the spot, and the leaders,
+the Earls of Chester and Fougeres, obliged to take shelter in the town
+of Dol.  Henry hastened to form the siege of that place, and carried
+on the attack with such ardour, that he obliged the governor and
+garrison to surrender themselves prisoners.  By these vigorous
+measures and happy successes the insurrections were entirely quelled
+in Britany; and the king, thus fortunate in all quarters, willingly
+agreed to a conference with Lewis, in hopes that his enemies, finding
+all their mighty efforts entirely frustrated, would terminate
+hostilities on some moderate and reasonable conditions.
+
+The two monarchs met between Trie and Gisors; and Henry had here the
+mortification to see his three sons in the retinue of his mortal
+enemy.  As Lewis had no other pretence for war than supporting the
+claims of the young princes, the king made them such offers as
+children might be ashamed to insist on, and could be extorted from him
+by nothing but his parental affection, or by the present necessity of
+his affairs [c].  He insisted only on retaining the sovereign
+authority in all his dominions; but offered young Henry half the
+revenues of England, with some places of surety in that kingdom; or,
+if he rather chose to reside in Normandy, half the revenues of that
+duchy, with all those of Anjou.  He made a like offer to Richard in
+Guienne: he promised to resign Britany to Geoffrey; and if these
+concessions were not deemed sufficient, he agreed to add to them
+whatever the pope's legates, who were present, should require of him
+[d].  The Earl of Leicester was also present at the negotiation; and
+either from the impetuosity of his temper, or from a view of abruptly
+breaking off a conference which must cover the allies with confusion,
+he gave vent to the most violent reproaches against Henry, and he even
+put his hand to his sword, as if he meant to attempt some violence
+against him.  This furious action threw the whole company into
+confusion, and put an end to the treaty [e].
+[FN [c] Hoveden, p. 538.  [d] Ibid. p. 536.  Brompton, p. 1088.  [e]
+Hoveden, p. 536.]
+
+The chief hopes of Henry's enemies seemed now to depend on the state
+of affairs in England, where his authority was exposed to the most
+imminent danger.  One article of Prince Henry's agreement with his
+foreign confederates was, that he should resign Kent, with Dover, and
+all its other fortresses, into the hands of the Earl of Flanders [f]:
+yet so little national or public spirit prevailed among the
+independent English nobility, so wholly bent were they on the
+aggrandizement each of himself and his own family, that
+notwithstanding this pernicious concession, which must have produced
+the ruin of the kingdom, the greater part of them had conspired to
+make an insurrection, and to support the prince's pretensions.  The
+king's principal resource lay in the church and the bishops, with whom
+he was now in perfect agreement; whether that the decency of their
+character made them ashamed of supporting so unnatural a rebellion, or
+that they were entirely satisfied with Henry's atonement for the
+murder of Becket, and for his former invasion of ecclesiastical
+immunities.  That prince, however, had resigned none of the essential
+rights of his crown in the accommodation; he maintained still the same
+prudent jealousy of the court of Rome; admitted no legate into
+England, without his swearing to attempt nothing against the royal
+prerogatives; and he had even obliged the monks of Canterbury, who
+pretended to a free election on the vacancy made by the death of
+Becket, to choose Roger, prior of Dover, in the place of that
+turbulent prelate [g].
+[FN [f] Ibid. p. 533.  Brompton, p. 1084.  Neubr. p. 508.  [g]
+Hoveden, p. 537.]
+
+[MN War with Scotland.]
+The King of Scotland made an irruption into Northumberland, and
+committed great devastations; but being opposed by Richard de Lucy,
+whom Henry had left guardian of the realm, he retreated into his own
+country, and agreed to a cessation of arms.  This truce enabled the
+guardian to march southward with his army, in order to oppose an
+invasion, which the Earl of Leicester, at the head of a great body of
+Flemings, had made upon Suffolk.  The Flemings had been joined by Hugh
+Bigod, who made them masters of his castle of Framlingham; and
+marching into the heart of the kingdom, where they hoped to be
+supported by Leicester's vassals, they were met by Lucy, who, assisted
+by Humphrey Bohun, the constable, and the Earls of Arundel,
+Gloucester, and Cornwall, had advanced to Farnham, with a less
+numerous but braver army to oppose them.  The Flemings, who were
+mostly weavers and artificers, (for manufactures were now beginning to
+be established in Flanders,) were broken in an instant, ten thousand
+of them were put to the sword, the Earl of Leicester was taken
+prisoner, and the remains of the invaders were glad to compound for a
+safe retreat into their own country.
+
+[MN 1174.]  This great defeat did not dishearten the malecontents;
+who, being supported by the alliance of so many foreign princes, and
+encouraged by the king's own sons, determined to persevere in their
+enterprise.  The Earl of Ferrars, Roger de Mowbray, Architel de
+Mallory, Richard de Morreville, Hamo de Mascie, together with many
+friends of the Earls of Leicester and Chester, rose in arms: the
+fidelity of the Earls of Clare and Gloucester was suspected; and the
+guardian, though vigorously supported by Geoffrey, Bishop of Lincoln,
+the king's natural son by the fair Rosamond, found it difficult to
+defend himself on all quarters from so many open and concealed
+enemies.  The more to augment the confusion, the King of Scotland, on
+the expiration of the truce, broke into the northern provinces with a
+great army [h] of eighty thousand men; which, though undisciplined and
+disorderly, and better fitted for committing devastation than for
+executing any military enterprise, was become dangerous from the
+present factious and turbulent spirit of the kingdom.  Henry, who had
+baffled all his enemies in France, and had put his frontiers in a
+posture of defence, now found England the seat of danger; and he
+determined by his presence to overawe the malecontents, or by his
+conduct and courage to subdue them. [MN 8th July.  Penance of Henry
+for Becket's murder.]  He landed at Southampton; and knowing the
+influence of superstition over the minds of the people, he hastened to
+Canterbury, in order to make atonement to the ashes of Thomas a
+Becket, and tender his submissions to a dead enemy.  As soon as he
+came within sight of the church of Canterbury, he dismounted, walked
+barefoot towards it, prostrated himself before the shrine of the
+saint, remained in fasting and prayer during a whole day, and watched
+all night the holy relics.  Not content with this hypocritical
+devotion towards a man whose violence and ingratitude had so long
+disquieted his government, and had been the object of his most
+inveterate animosity, he submitted to a penance still more singular
+and humiliating.  He assembled a chapter of the monks, disrobed
+himself before them, put a scourge of discipline into the hands of
+each, and presented his bare shoulders to the lashes which these
+ecclesiastics successively inflicted upon him.  Next day he received
+absolution; and departing for London, got soon after the agreeable
+intelligence of a great victory which his generals had obtained over
+the Scots, and which being gained, as was reported, on the very day of
+his absolution, was regarded as the earnest of his final
+reconciliation with Heaven and with Thomas a Becket.
+[FN [h] Heming, p. 501.]
+
+William, King of Scots, though repulsed before the castle of Prudhow,
+and other fortified places, had committed the most horrible
+depredations upon the northern provinces: but on the approach of Ralph
+de Glanville, the famous justiciary, seconded by Bernard de Baliol,
+Robert de Stuteville, Odonel de Umfreville, William de Vesci, and
+other northern barons, together with the gallant Bishop of Lincoln, he
+thought proper to retreat nearer his own country, and he fixed his
+camp at Alnwick.  He had here weakened his army extremely, by sending
+out numerous detachments in order to extend his ravages; and he lay
+absolutely safe, as he imagined, from any attack of the enemy.  But
+Glanville, informed of his situation, made a hasty and fatiguing march
+to Newcastle; and, allowing his soldiers only a small interval for
+refreshment, he immediately set out towards evening for Alnwick.  [MN
+13th July.]  He marched that night above thirty miles; arrived in the
+morning, under cover of a mist, near the Scottish camp; and regardless
+of the great numbers of the enemy, he began the attack with his small
+but determined body of cavalry.  William was living in such supine
+security that he took the English, at first, for a body of his own
+ravagers, who were returning to the camp; but the sight of their
+banners convincing him of his mistake, he entered on the action with
+no greater body than a hundred horse in confidence that the numerous
+army which surrounded him would soon hasten to his relief.  [MN
+William, King of Scotlamd, defeated and taken prisoner.]  He was
+dismounted on the first shock, and taken prisoner; while his troops,
+hearing of this disaster, fled on all sides with the utmost
+precipitation.  The dispersed ravagers made the best of their way to
+their own country; and discord arising among them, they proceeded even
+to mutual hostilities, and suffered more from each other's sword than
+from that of the enemy.
+
+This great and important victory proved at last decisive in favour of
+Henry, and entirely broke the spirit of the English rebels.  The
+Bishop of Durham, who was preparing to revolt, made his submissions;
+Hugh Bigod, though he had received a strong reinforcement of Flemings,
+was obliged to surrender all his castles, and throw himself on the
+king's mercy; no better resource was left to the Earl of Ferrars and
+Roger de Mowbray; the inferior rebels imitating the example, all
+England was restored to tranquillity in a few weeks; and as the king
+appeared to lie under the immediate protection of Heaven, it was
+deemed impious any longer to resist him.  The clergy exalted anew the
+merits and powerful intercession of Becket; and Henry, instead of
+opposing this superstition, plumed himself on the new friendship of
+the saint, and propagated an opinion which was so favourable to his
+interests [i].
+[FN [i] Hoveden, p. 539.]
+
+Prince Henry, who was ready to embark at Gravelines, with the Earl of
+Flanders and a great army, hearing that his partisans in England were
+suppressed, abandoned all thoughts of the enterprise, and joined the
+camp of Lewis, who, during the absence of the king, had made an
+irruption into Normandy, and had laid siege to Rouen [k].  The place
+was defended with great vigour by the inhabitants [l]; and Lewis,
+despairing of success by open force, tried to gain the town by a
+stratagem, which, in that superstitious age, was deemed not very
+honourable.  He proclaimed in his own camp a cessation of arms, on
+pretence of celebrating the festival of St. Laurence; and when the
+citizens, supposing themselves in safety, were so imprudent as to
+remit their guard, he proposed to take advantage of their security.
+Happily, some priests had, from mere curiosity, mounted a steeple
+where the alarm-bell hung; and, observing the French camp in motion,
+they immediately rang the bell, and gave warning to the inhabitants,
+who ran to their several stations.  The French who, on hearing the
+alarm, hurried to the assault, had already mounted the walls in
+several places; but being repulsed by the enraged citizens, were
+obliged to retreat with considerable loss [m].  Next day, Henry, who
+had hastened to the defence of his Norman dominions, passed over the
+bridge in triumph, and entered Rouen in sight of the French army.  The
+city was now in absolute safety; and the king, in order to brave the
+French monarch, commanded the gates, which had been walled up, to be
+opened; and he prepared to push his advantages against the enemy.
+Lewis saved himself from this perilous situation by a new piece of
+deceit, not so justifiable.  He proposed a conference for adjusting
+the terms of a general peace, which he knew would be greedily embraced
+by Henry; and while the king of England trusted to the execution of
+his promise, he made a retreat with his army into France.
+[FN [k] Brompton, p. 1096.  [l] Diceto, p. 578.  [m] Brompton, p.
+1096.  Neubrig. p. 411.  Heming, p. 503.]
+
+There was, however, a necessity on both sides for an accommodation.
+Henry could no longer bear to see his three sons in the hands of his
+enemy; and Lewis dreaded lest this great monarch, victorious in all
+quarters, crowned with glory, and absolute master of his dominions
+might take revenge for the many dangers and disquietudes which the
+arms, and still more the intrigues of France had, in his disputes both
+with Becket and his sons, found means to raise him.  After making a
+cessation of arms, a conference was agreed on near Tours; where Henry
+granted his sons much less advantageous terms than he had formerly
+offered, and he received their submissions.  [MN The king's
+accommodation with his sons.]  The most material of his concessions
+were some pensions which he stipulated to pay them, and some castles
+which he granted them for the place of their residence; together with
+an indemnity for all their adherents, who were restored to their
+estates and honours [n].
+[FN [n] Rymer, vol. i. p. 35.  Bened. Abb. p. 88.  Hoveden, p. 540.
+Diceto, p. 584.  Brompton, p. 1098.  Heming. p. 505.  Chron. Dunst. p.
+36.]
+
+Of all those who had embraced the cause of the young princes, William,
+King of Scotland, was the only considerable loser by that invidious
+and unjust enterprise.  Henry delivered from confinement, without
+exacting any ransom, about nine hundred knights whom he had taken
+prisoners; but it cost William the ancient independency of his crown
+as the price of his liberty.  He stipulated to do homage to Henry for
+Scotland, and all his other possessions; he engaged that all the
+barons and nobility of his kingdom should also do homage; that the
+bishops should take an oath of fealty; that both should swear to
+adhere to the King of England against their native prince, if the
+latter should break his engagements; and that the fortresses of
+Edinburgh, Stirling, Berwick, Roxburgh, and Jedburgh, should be
+delivered into Henry's hands, till the performance of articles [o].
+[MN 1175.  10th Aug.]  This severe and humiliating treaty was excuted
+in its full rigour.  William, being released, brought up all his
+barons, prelates, and abbots; and they did homage to Henry in the
+cathedral of York, and acknowledged him and his successors for their
+superior lord [p].  The English monarch stretched still farther the
+rigour of the conditions which he exacted.  He engaged the king and
+states of Scotland to make a perpetual cession of the fortresses of
+Berwick and Roxburgh, and to allow the castle of Edinburgh to remain
+in his hands for a limited time.  This was the first great ascendancy
+which England obtained over Scotland; and indeed the first important
+transaction which had passed between the kingdoms.  Few princes have
+been so fortunate as to gain considerable advantages over their weaker
+neighbours with less violence and injustice than was practised by
+Henry against the King of Scots, whom he had taken prisoner in battle,
+and who had wantonly engaged in a war, in which all the neighbours of
+that prince, and even his own family, were, without provocation,
+combined against him [q].
+[FN [o] M. Paris, p. 91.  Chron. Dunst. p. 36.  Hoveden, p. 545.  M.
+West. p. 251.  Diceto, p. 584.  Brompton, p. 1103.  Rymer, vol. i. p.
+39.  Liber Niger Scaccarii, p. 36.  [p] Bened. Abb. p. 113.  [q] Some
+Scotch historians pretend that William paid, besides, 100,000 pounds
+of ransom, which is quite incredible.  The ransom of Richard I., who,
+besides England, possessed so many rich territories in France, was
+only 150,000 marks, and yet was levied with great difficulty.  Indeed,
+two-thirds of it only could he paid before his deliverance.]
+
+[MN 1175.  King's equitable administration.]
+Henry having thus, contrary to expectation, extricated himself with
+honour from a situation in which his throne was exposed to great
+danger, was employed for several years in the administration of
+justice, in the execution of the laws, and in guarding against those
+inconveniences, which either the past convulsions of his state, or the
+political institutions of that age, unavoidably occasioned.  The
+provisions which he made show such largeness of thought as qualified
+him for being a legislator; and they were commonly calculated as well
+for the future as the present happiness of his kingdom.
+
+[MN 1176.]  He enacted severe penalties against robbery, murder, false
+coining, arson; and ordained that these crimes should be punished by
+the amputation of the right hand and right foot [r].  The pecuniary
+commutation for crimes which has a false appearance of lenity, had
+been gradually disused, and seems to have been entirely abolished by
+the rigour of these statutes.  The superstitious trial by water
+ordeal, though condemned by the church [s], still subsisted; but Henry
+ordained, that any man accused of murder, or any heinous felony, by
+the oath of the legal knights of the county, should, even though
+acquitted by the ordeal, be obliged to abjure the realm [t].
+[FN [r] Bened. Abb. p. 132.  Hoveden, p. 549.  [s] Seld. Spicileg. ad
+Eadm. p. 204.  [t] Bened. Abb. p. 132.]
+
+All advances towards reason and good sense are slow and gradual.
+Henry, though sensible of the great absurdity attending the trial by
+duel or battle, did not venture to abolish it: he only admitted either
+of the parties to challenge a trial by an assize or jury of twelve
+freeholders [u].  This latter method of trial seems to have been very
+ancient in England, and was fixed by the laws of King Alfred: but the
+barbarous and violent genius of the age had of late given more credit
+to the trial by battle, which had become the general method of
+deciding all important controversies.  It was never abolished by law
+in England; and there is an instance of it so late as the reign of
+Elizabeth; but the institution revived by this king, being found more
+reasonable and more suitable to a civilized people, gradually
+prevailed over it.
+[FN [u] Glanv. lib. 2. cap. 7.]
+
+The partition of England into four divisions, and the appointment of
+itinerant justices to go the circuit in each division, and to decide
+the causes in the counties, was another important ordinance of this
+prince, which had a direct tendency to curb the oppressive barons, and
+to protect the inferior gentry and common people in their property
+[w].  Those justices were either prelates or considerable noblemen;
+who, besides carrying the authority of the king's commission, were
+able, by the dignity of their own character, to give weight and credit
+to the laws.
+[FN [w] Hoveden, p. 590.]
+
+That there might be fewer obstacles to the execution of justice, the
+king was vigilant in demolishing all the new-erected castles of the
+nobility, in England as well as in his foreign dominions; and he
+permitted no fortress to remain in the custody of those whom he found
+reason to suspect [x].
+[FN [x] Benedict. Abbas, p. 202.  Diceto, p. 585.]
+
+But lest the kingdom should be weakened by this demolition of the
+fortresses, the king fixed an assize of arms, by which all his
+subjects were obliged to put themselves in a situation for defending
+themselves and the realm.  Every man possessed of a knight's fee was
+ordained to have for each fee a coat of mail, a helmet, a shield, and
+a lance; every free layman, possessed of goods to the value of sixteen
+marks, was to be armed in like manner; every one that possessed ten
+marks was obliged to have an iron gorget, a cap of iron, and a lance;
+all burgesses were to have a cap of iron, a lance, and a wambais; that
+is, a coat quilted with wool, tow, or such like materials [y].  It
+appears that archery, for which the English were afterwards so
+renowned, had not, at this time, become very common among them.  The
+spear was the chief weapon employed in battle.
+[FN [y] Bened. Abb. p. 305  Annal. Waverl. p. 161.]
+
+The clergy and the laity were, during that age, in a strange situation
+with regard to each other, and such as may seem totally incompatible
+with a civilized, and, indeed, with any species of government.  If a
+clergyman were guilty of murder, he could be punished by degradation
+only: if he were murdered, the murderer was exposed to nothing but
+excommunication and ecclesiastical censures; and the crime was atoned
+for by penances and submission [z].  Hence the assassins of Thomas a
+Becket himself, though guilty of the most atrocious wickedness, and
+the most repugnant to the sentiments of that age, lived securely in
+their own houses, without being called to account by Henry himself,
+who was so much concerned, both in honour and interest, to punish that
+crime, and who professed, or affected on all occasions, the most
+extreme abhorrence of it.  It was not till they found their presence
+shunned by every one as excommunicated persons that they were induced
+to take a journey to Rome, to throw themselves at the feet of the
+pontiff, and to submit to the penances imposed upon them: after which
+they continued to possess, without molestation, their honours and
+fortunes, and seemed even to have recovered the countenance and good
+opinion of the public.  But as the king, by the constitutions of
+Clarendon, which he endeavoured still to maintain [a], had subjected
+the clergy to a trial by the civil magistrate, it seemed but just to
+give them the protection of that power to which they owed obedience;
+it was enacted, that the murderers of clergymen should be tried before
+the justiciary, in the presence of the bishop or his official; and
+besides the usual punishment for murder, should be subjected to a
+forfeiture of their estates, and a confiscation of their goods and
+chattels [b].
+[FN [z] Petri Blessen. epist. 73. apud Bibl. Patr. tom. xxiv. p. 992.
+[a] Chron. Gervase, p. 1433.  [b] Diceto, p. 592.  Chron. Gervase,
+1433.]
+
+The king passed an equitable law, that the goods of a vassal should
+not be seized for the debt of his lord, unless the vassal be surety
+for the debt; and that the rents of vassals should be paid to the
+creditors of the lord, not to the lord himself.  It is remarkable that
+this law was enacted by the king in a council which he held at
+Verneuil, and which consisted of some prelates and barons of England,
+as well as some of Normandy, Poictou, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and
+Britany; and the statute took place in all these last-mentioned
+territories [c], though totally unconnected with each other [d]; a
+certain proof how irregular the ancient feudal government was, and how
+near the sovereigns, in some instances, approached to despotism,
+though in others they seemed scarcely to possess any authority.  If a
+prince, much dreaded and revered, like Henry, obtained but the
+appearance of general consent to an ordinance which was equitable and
+just, it became immediately an established law, and all his subjects
+acquiesced in it.  If the prince was hated or despised; if the nobles
+who supported him had small influence; if the humours of the times
+disposed the people to question the justice of his ordinance; the
+fullest and most authentic assembly had no authority.  Thus all was
+confusion and disorder; no regular idea of a constitution; force and
+violence decided every thing.
+[FN [c] Bened. Abb. p. 248. It was usual for the kings of England,
+after the conquest of Ireland, to summon barons and members of that
+country to the English Parliament.  Mollineux's case of Ireland, p.
+64, 65, 66.  [d] Spellman even doubts whether the law were not also
+extended to England.  If it were not, it could only be because Henry
+did not choose it; for his authority was greater in that kingdom than
+in his transmarine dominions.]
+
+The success which had attended Henry in his wars did not much
+encourage his neighbours to form any attempt against him; and his
+transactions with them during several years, contain little memorable.
+Scotland remained in that state of feudal subjection to which he had
+reduced it, and gave him no farther inquietude.  He sent over his
+fourth son, John, into Ireland, with a view of making a more complete
+conquest of the island; but the petulance and incapacity of this
+prince, by which he enraged the Irish chieftains, obliged the king
+soon after to recall him [e].  The King of France had fallen into an
+abject superstition; and was induced, by a devotion more sincere than
+that of Henry, to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Becket, in order to
+obtain his intercession for the cure of Philip, his eldest son.  He
+probably thought himself well entitled to the favour of that saint on
+account of their ancient intimacy; and hoped that Becket, whom he had
+protected while on earth, would not now, when he was so highly exalted
+in heaven, forgot his old friend and benefactor.  The monks, sensible
+that their saint's honour was concerned in the case, failed not to
+publish that Lewis's prayers were answered, and that the young prince
+was restored to health by Becket's intercession.  That king himself
+was soon after struck with an apoplexy, which deprived him of his
+understanding: Philip, though a youth of fifteen, took on him the
+administration, till his father's death, which happened soon after,
+opened his way to the throne; and he proved the ablest and greatest
+monarch that had governed that kingdom since the age of Charlemagne.
+The superior years, however, and experience of Henry, while they
+moderated his ambition, gave him such an ascendant over this prince,
+that no dangerous rivalship, for a long time, arose between them.  [MN
+1180.]  The English monarch, instead of taking advantage of his own
+situation, rather employed his good offices in composing the quarrels
+which arose in the royal family of France; and he was successful in
+mediating a reconciliation between Philip and his mother and uncles.
+These services were but ill requited by Philip, who, when he came to
+man's estate, fomented all the domestic discords in the royal family
+of England, and encouraged Henry's sons in their ungrateful and
+undutiful behaviour towards him.
+[FN [e] Bened. Abb. p. 437, &c.]
+
+Prince Henry, equally impatient of obtaining power, and incapable of
+using it, renewed to the king the demand of his resigning Normandy;
+and on meeting with a refusal, he fled with his consort to the court
+of France: but not finding Philip at that time disposed to enter into
+war for his sake, he accepted of his father's offers of
+reconciliation, and made him submissions.  It was a cruel circumstance
+in the king's fortune, that he could hope for no tranquillity from the
+criminal enterprises of his sons but by their mutual discord and
+animosities, which disturbed his family, and threw his state into
+convulsions.  Richard, whom he had made master of Guienne, and who had
+displayed his valour and military genius by suppressing the revolts of
+his mutinous barons, refused to obey Henry's orders, in doing homage
+to his elder brother for that duchy, and he defended himself against
+young Henry and Geoffrey, who, uniting their  arms, carried war into
+his territories [f].  The king, with some difficulty, composed this
+difference; but immediately found his eldest son engaged in
+conspiracies, and ready to take arms against himself.  While the young
+prince was conducting these criminal intrigues, he was seized with a
+fever at Martel, [MN 1183.] a castle near Turenne, to which he had
+retired in discontent; and seeing the approaches of death, he was at
+last struck with remorse for his undutiful behaviour towards his
+father.  He sent a message to the king, who was not far distant;
+expressed his contrition for his faults; and entreated the favour of a
+visit, that he might at least die with the satisfaction of having
+obtained his forgiveness.  Henry, who had so often experienced the
+prince's ingratitude and violence, apprehended that his sickness was
+entirely feigned, and he durst not intrust himself into his son's
+hands: but when he soon after received intelligence of young Henry's
+death, [MN 11th June.  Death of young Henry.] and the proofs of his
+sincere repentance, this good prince was affected with the deepest
+sorrow; he thrice fainted away; he accused his own hard-heartedness in
+refusing the dying request of his son; and he lamented that he had
+deprived that prince of the last opportunity of making atonement for
+his offences, and of pouring out his soul in the bosom of his
+reconciled father [s].  This prince died in the twenty-eighth year of
+his age.
+[FN [f] Ypod. Neust. p. 451.  Bened. Abb. p. 383.  Diceto, p. 617.
+[g] Bened. Abb. p. 393.  Hoveden, p. 621.  Trivet, vol. i. p. 84.]
+
+The behaviour of his surviving children did not tend to give the king
+any consolation for the loss.  As Prince Henry had left no posterity,
+Richard was become heir to all his dominions; and the king intended
+that John, his third surviving son and favourite, should inherit
+Guienne as his appanage; but Richard refused his consent, fled into
+that duchy, and even made preparations for carrying on war, as well
+against his father as against his brother Geoffrey, who was now put in
+possession of Britany.  Henry sent for Eleanor his queen, the heiress
+of Guienne, and required Richard to deliver up to her the dominion of
+these territories; which the prince, either dreading an insurrection
+of the Gascons in her favour, or retaining some sense of duty towards
+her, readily performed; and he peaceably returned to his father's
+court.  No sooner was this quarrel accommodated, than Geoffrey, the
+most vicious perhaps of all Henry's unhappy family, broke out into
+violence; demanded Anjou to be annexed to his dominions of Britany;
+and on meeting with a refusal, fled to the court of France, and levied
+forces against his father [h].  [MN 1185.]  Henry was freed from this
+danger by his son's death, who was killed in a tournament at Paris
+[i].  The widow of Geoffrey, soon after his decease, was delivered of
+a son, who received the name of Arthur, and was invested in the duchy
+of Britany, under the guardianship of his grandfather, who, as Duke of
+Normandy, was also superior lord of that territory.  Philip, as lord
+paramount, disputed some time his title to this wardship; but was
+obliged to yield to the inclinations of the Bretons, who preferred the
+government of Henry.
+[FN [h] Neubrig. p. 422.  [i] Bened. Abb. p. 451  Chron. Gervase, p.
+1480.]
+
+[MN Crusades.]
+But the rivalship between these potent princes, and all their inferior
+interests, seemed now to have given place to the general passion for
+the relief of the Holy Land, and the expulsion of the Saracens.  Those
+infidels, though obliged to yield to the immense inundation of
+Christians in the first crusade, had recovered courage after the
+torrent was past; and attacking on all quarters the settlements of the
+Europeans, had reduced these adventurers to great difficulties, and
+obliged them to apply again for succours from the West.  A second
+crusade, under the Emperor Conrade and Lewis VII., King of France, in
+which there perished above two hundred thousand men, brought them but
+a temporary relief; and those princes, after losing such immense
+armies, and seeing the flower of their nobility fall by their side,
+returned with little honour into Europe.  But these repeated
+misfortunes, which drained the western world of its people and
+treasure, were not yet sufficient to cure men of their passion for
+those spiritual adventures; and a new incident rekindled with fresh
+fury the zeal of the ecclesiastics and military adventurers among the
+Latin Christians.  Saladin, a prince of great generosity, bravery, and
+conduct, having fixed himself on the throne of Egypt, began to extend
+his conquests over the East; and finding the settlement of the
+Christians in Palestine an invincible obstacle to the progress of his
+arms, he bent the whole force of his policy and valour to subdue that
+small and barren, but important territory.  Taking advantage of
+dissensions which prevailed among the champions of the cross, and
+having secretly gained the Count of Tripoli, who commanded their
+armies, he invaded the frontiers with a mighty power; and, aided by
+the treachery of that count, gained over them at Tiberiade a complete
+victory, which utterly annihilated the force of the already
+languishing kingdom of Jerusalem.  The holy city itself fell into his
+hands, after a feeble resistance; the kingdom of Antioch was almost
+entirely subdued; and except some maritime towns, nothing considerable
+remained of those boasted conquests, which, near a century before, it
+had cost the efforts of all Europe to acquire [k].
+[FN [k] M. Paris, p. 100.]
+
+[MN 1187.]  The western Christians were astonished on receiving this
+dismal intelligence.  Pope Urban III, it is pretended, died of grief,
+and his successor, Gregory VIII., employed the whole time of his short
+pontificate in rousing to arms all the Christians who acknowledged his
+authority.  The general cry was, that they were unworthy of enjoying
+any inheritance in heaven, who did not vindicate from the dominion of
+the infidel the inheritance of God on earth, and deliver from slavery
+that country which had been consecrated by the footsteps of their
+Redeemer.  [MN 1188.  21st Jan.]  William, Archbishop of Tyre, having
+procured a conference between Henry and Philip near Gisors, enforced
+all these topics; gave a pathetic description of the miserable state
+of the eastern Christians, and employed every argument to excite the
+ruling passions of the age, superstition and jealousy of military
+honour [l].  The two monarchs immediately took the cross; many of
+their most considerable vassals imitated the example [m]; and as the
+Emperor Frederick I. entered into the same confederacy, some
+well-grounded hopes of success were entertained; and men flattered
+themselves that an enterprise which had failed under the conduct of
+many independent leaders, or of impruddent princes, might, at last, by
+the efforts of such potent and able monarchs, be brought to a happy
+issue.
+[FN [l] Bened. Abb. p. 531.  [m] Neubrig. p. 435.  Heming, p. 512.]
+
+The kings of France and England imposed a tax, amounting to the tenth
+of all moveable goods on such as remained at home [n]; but as they
+exempted from this burden most of the regular clergy, the secular
+aspired to the same immunity; pretended that their duty obliged them
+to assist the crusade with their prayers alone; and it was with some
+difficulty they were constrained to desist from an opposition, which
+in them who had been the chief promoters of those pious enterprises,
+appeared with the worst grace imaginable [o].  This backwardness of
+the clergy is perhaps a symptom, that the enthusiastic ardour which
+had at first seized the people for crusades, was now by time and ill
+success considerably abated; and that the frenzy was chiefly supported
+by the military genius and love of glory in the monarchs.
+[FN [n] Bened. Abb. p. 498.  [o] Petri Blessen. epist. 112.]
+
+But before this great machine could be put in motion, there were still
+many obstacles to surmount.  Philip, jealous of Henry's power, entered
+into a private confederacy with young Richard; and, working on his
+ambitious and impatient temper, persuaded him, instead of supporting
+and aggrandizing that monarchy which he was one day to inherit, to
+seek present power and independence by disturbing and dismembering it.
+[MN 1189.  Revolt of Prince Richard.]  In order to give a pretence for
+hostilities between the two kings, Richard broke into the territories
+of Raymond, Count of Toulouse, who immediately carried complaints of
+this violence before the King of France as his superior lord.  Philip
+remonstrated with Henry; but received for answer, that Richard had
+confessed to the Archbishop of Dublin, that his enterprise against
+Raymond had been undertaken by the approbation of Philip himself, and
+was conducted by his authority.  The King of France, who might have
+been covered with shame and confusion by this detection, still
+prosecuted his design, and invaded the provinces of Berri and
+Auvergne, under colour of revenging the quarrel of the Count of
+Toulouse [p].  Henry retaliated by making inroads upon the frontiers
+of France, and burning Dreux.  As this war, which destroyed all hopes
+of success in the projected crusade, gave great scandal, the two kings
+held a conference at the accustomed place between Gisors and Trie, in
+order to find means of accommodating their differences: they separated
+on worse terms than before; and Philip, to show his disgust, ordered a
+great elm, under which the conferences had been usually held, to be
+cut down [q]; as if he had renounced all desire of accommodation, and
+was determined to carry the war to extremities against the King of
+England.  But his own vassals refused to serve under him in so
+invidious a cause [r]; and he was obliged to come anew to a conference
+with Henry, and to offer terms of peace.  These terms were such as
+entirely opened the eyes of the King of England, and fully convinced
+him of the perfidy of his son, and his secret alliance with Philip, of
+which he had before only entertained some suspicion.  The King of
+France required that Richard should be crowned King of England in the
+lifetime of his father, should be invested in all his transmarine
+dominions, and should immediately espouse Alice, Philip's sister, to
+whom he had formerly been affianced, and who had already been
+conducted into England [s].  Henry had experienced such fatal effects
+both from the crowning of his eldest son, and from that prince's
+alliance with the royal family of France, that he rejected these
+terms; and Richard, in consequence of his secret agreement with
+Philip, immediately revolted from him [t], did homage to the King of
+France for all the dominions which Henry held of that crown, and
+received the investitures as if he had already been the lawful
+possessor.  Several historians assert, that Henry himself had become
+enamoured of young Alice and mention this as an additional reason for
+his refusing these conditions: but he had so many other just and
+equitable motives for his conduct, that it is superfluous to assign a
+cause, which the great prudence and advanced age of that monarch
+rendered somewhat improbable.
+[FN [p] Bened. Abb. p. 508.  [q] Bened. Abb. p. 517, 532.  [r] Ibid.
+p. 519.  [s] Ibid. p. 521.  Hoveden, p. 652.  [t] Brompton, p. 114.
+Neubrig. p. 437.]
+
+Cardinal Albano, the pope's legate, displeased with these increasing
+obstacles to the crusade, excommunicated Richard, as the chief spring
+of discord: but the sentence of excommunication, which, when it was
+properly prepared, and was zealously supported by the clergy, had
+often great influence in that age, proved entirely ineffectual in the
+present case.  The chief barons of Poictou, Guienne, Normandy, and
+Anjou, being attached to the young prince, and finding that he had now
+received the investiture from their superior lord, declared for him,
+and made inroads into the territories of such as still adhered to the
+king.  Henry, disquieted by the daily revolts of his mutinous
+subjects, and dreading still worse effects from their turbulent
+disposition, had again recourse to papal authority; and engaged the
+Cardinal Anagni, who had succeeded Albano in the legateship, to
+threaten Philip with laying an interdict on all his dominions.  But
+Philip, who was a prince of great vigour and capacity, despised the
+menace, and told Anagni, that it belonged not to the pope to interpose
+in the temporal disputes of princes, much less in those between him
+and his rebellious vassal.  He even proceeded so far as to reproach
+him with partiality, and with receiving bribes from the king of
+England [u]; while Richard, still more outrageous, offered to draw his
+sword against the legate, and was hindered by the interposition alone
+of the company from committing violence upon him [w].
+[FN [u] M. Paris, p. 104.  Bened. Abb. p. 542.  Hoveden, p. 652.  [w]
+M. Paris, p. 104.]
+
+The King of England was now obliged to defend his dominions by arms,
+and to engage in a war with France, and with his eldest son, a prince
+of great valour, on such disadvantageous terms.  Ferte-Barnard fell
+first into the hands of the enemy: Mans was next taken by assault; and
+Henry, who had thrown himself into that place, escaped with some
+difficulty [x]: Amboise, Chaumont, and Chateau de Loire, opened their
+gates on the appearance of Philip and Richard: Tours was menaced; and
+the king, who had retired to Saumur, and had daily instances of the
+cowardice or infidelity of his governors, expected the most dismal
+issue to all his enterprises.  While he was in this state of
+despondency, the Duke of Burgundy, the Earl of Flanders, and the
+Archbishop of Rheims, interposed with their good offices; and the
+intelligence which he received of the taking of Tours, and which made
+him fully sensible of the desperate situation of his affairs, so
+subdued his spirit that he submitted to all the rigorous terms which
+were imposed upon him.  He agreed that Richard should marry the
+Princess Alice; that that prince should receive the homage and oath of
+fealty of all his subjects both in England and his transmarine
+dominions; that he himself should pay twenty thousand marks to the
+King of France as a compensation for the charges of the war; that his
+own barons should engage to make him observe this treaty by force, and
+in case of his violating it, should promise to join Philip and Richard
+against him; and that all his vassals who had entered into confederacy
+with Richard, should receive an indemnity for the offence [y].
+[FN [x] Ibid. p. 105.  Bened. Abb. p. 543.  Hoveden, p. 653.  [y] M.
+Paris, p. 106.  Bened. Abb. p. 545.  Hoveden, p. 653.]
+
+But the mortification which Henry, who had been accustomed to give the
+law in most treaties, received from these disadvantageous terms, was
+the least that he met with on this occasion.  When he demanded a list
+of those barons, to whom he was bound to grant a pardon for their
+connexions with Richard, he was astonished to find at the head of them
+the name of his second son John [z]; who had always been his
+favourite, whose interests he had ever anxiously at heart, and who had
+even, on account of his ascendant over him, often excited the jealousy
+of Richard [a].  The unhappy father, already overloaded with cares and
+sorrows, finding this last disappointment in his domestic tenderness,
+broke out into expressions of the utmost despair, cursed the day in
+which he received his miserable being, and bestowed on his ungrateful
+and undutiful children a malediction which he never could be prevailed
+on to retract [b].  The more his heart was disposed to friendship and
+affection, the more he resented the barbarous return which his four
+sons had successively made to his parental care; and this finishing
+blow, by depriving him of every comfort in life, quite broke his
+spirit and threw him into a lingering fever, of which he expired at
+the Castle of Chinon, near Saumur.  [MN 1189.  6th July.  Death,]  His
+natural son Geoffrey, who alone had behaved dutifully towards him,
+attended his corpse to the nunnery of Fontevrault; where it lay in
+state in the abbey church.  Next day Richard, who came to visit the
+dead body of his father, and who, notwithstanding his criminal
+conduct, was not wholly destitute of generosity, was struck with
+horror and remorse at the sight; and as the attendants observed, that,
+at that very instant, blood gushed from the mouth and nostrils of the
+corpse [c], he exclaimed, agreeably to a vulgar superstition, that he
+was his father's murderer; and he expressed a deep sense, though too
+late, of that undutiful behaviour which had brought his parent to an
+untimely grave [d].
+[FN [z] Hoveden. p. 654.  [a] Bened. Abb. p. 541.  [b] Hoveden, p.
+654.  [c] Bened. Abb. p. 547.  Brompton, p. 1151.  [d] M. Paris, p.
+107.]
+
+[MN and character of Henry.]  Thus died, in the fifty-eighth year of
+his age, and thirty-fifth of his reign, the greatest prince of his
+time, for wisdom, virtue, and abilities, and the most powerful in
+extent of dominion of all those that had ever filled the throne of
+England.  His character, in private as well as in public life, is
+almost without a blemish; and he seems to have possessed every
+accomplishment, both of body and mind, which makes a man either
+estimable or amiable.  He was of a middle stature, strong and well
+proportioned; his countenance was lively and engaging; his
+conversation affable and entertaining; his elocution easy, persuasive,
+and ever at command.  He loved peace, but possessed both bravery and
+conduct in war; was provident without timidity; severe in the
+execution of justice without rigour; and temperate without austerity.
+He preserved health, and kept himself from corpulency, to which he was
+somewhat inclined, by an abstemious diet and by frequent exercise,
+particularly hunting.  When he could enjoy leisure, he recreated
+himself either in learned conversation or in reading; and he
+cultivated his natural talents by study, above any prince of his time.
+His affections, as well as his enmities, were warm and durable; and
+his long experience of the ingratitude and infidelity of men never
+destroyed the natural sensibility of his temper, which disposed him to
+friendship and society.  His character has been transmitted to us by
+several writers who were his contemporaries [e]; and it extremely
+resembles, in its most remarkable features, that of his maternal
+grandfather Henry I.: excepting only that ambition, which was a ruling
+passion in both, found not in the first Henry such unexceptionable
+means of exerting itself, and pushed that prince into measures which
+were both criminal in themselves, and were the cause of farther
+crimes, from which his grandson's conduct was happily exempted.
+[FN [e] Petri Bles. epist. 46, 47. in Bibliotheca Patrum, vol. xxiv.
+p. 985, 986, &c.  Girald. Camb. p. 783, &c.]
+
+[MN Miscellaneous transactions of this reign.]
+This prince, like most of his predecessors of the Norman line, except
+Stephen, passed more of his time on the continent than in this island:
+he was surrounded with the English gentry and nobility, when abroad:
+the French gentry and nobility attended him when he resided in
+England: both nations acted in the government as if they were the same
+people: and, on many occasions, the legislatures seem not to have been
+distinguished.  As the king and all the English barons were of French
+extraction, the manners of that people acquired the ascendant, and
+were regarded as the models of imitation.  All foreign improvements,
+therefore, such as they were, in literature and politeness, in laws
+and arts, seem now to have been, in a good measure, transplanted into
+England; and that kingdom was become little inferior, in all the
+fashionable accomplishments, to any of its neighbours on the
+continent.  The more homely but more sensible manners and principles
+of the Saxons were exchanged for the affectations of chivalry, and the
+subtleties of school philosophy: the feudal ideas of civil government,
+the Romish sentiments in religion, had taken entire possession of the
+people: by the former, the sense of submission towards princes was
+somewhat diminished in the barons; by the latter the devoted
+attachment to papal authority was much augmented among the clergy.
+The Norman and other foreign families established in England had now
+struck deep root; and being entirely incorporated with the people,
+whom at first they oppressed and despised, they no longer thought that
+they needed  protection of the crown for the enjoyment of their
+possessions, or considered their tenure as precarious.  They aspired
+to the same liberty and independence which they saw enjoyed by their
+brethren on the continent, and desired to restrain those exorbitant
+prerogatives and arbitrary practices, which the necessities of war and
+the violence of conquest had at first obliged them to indulge in their
+monarch.  That memory also of a more equal government under the Saxon
+princes, which remained with the English, diffused still farther the
+spirit of liberty, and made the barons both desirous of more
+independence to themselves, and willing to indulge it to the people.
+And it was not long ere this secret revolution in the sentiments of
+men produced, first violent convulsions in the state, then an evident
+alteration in the maxims of government.
+
+The history of all the preceding Kings of England since the Conquest
+gives evident proofs of the disorders attending the feudal
+institutions; the licentiousness of the barons, their spirit of
+rebellion against the prince and laws, and of animosity against each
+other: the conduct of the barons in the transmarine dominions of those
+monarchs afforded perhaps still more flagrant instances of these
+convulsions; and the history of France, during several ages, consists
+almost entirely of narrations of this nature.  The cities, during the
+continuance of this violent government, could neither be very numerous
+nor populous; and there occur instances which seem to evince, that
+though these are always the first seat of law and liberty, their
+police was in general loose and irregular, and exposed to the same
+disorders with those by which the country was generally infested.  It
+was a custom in London for great numbers, to the amount of a hundred
+or more, the sons and relations of considerable citizens, to form
+themselves into a licentious confederacy, to break into rich houses
+and plunder them, to rob and murder the passengers, and to commit with
+impunity all sorts of disorder.  By these crimes, it had become so
+dangerous to walk the streets by night, that the citizens durst no
+more venture abroad after sunset than if they had been exposed to the
+incursions of a public enemy.  The brother of the Earl of Ferrars had
+been murdered by some of those nocturnal rioters; and the death of so
+eminent a person, which was much more regarded than that of many
+thousands of an inferior station, so provoked the king, that he swore
+vengeance against the criminals and became thenceforth more rigorous
+in the execution of the laws [f].
+[FN [f] Bened. Abb. p. 196.]
+
+There is another instance given by historians, which proves to what a
+height such riots had proceeded, and how open these criminals were in
+committing their robberies.  A band of them had attacked the house of
+a rich citizen, with an intention of plundering it; had broken through
+a stone wall with hammers and wedges; and had already entered the
+house sword in hand; when the citizen armed cap-a-pie, and supported
+by his faithful servants, appeared in the passage to oppose them; he
+cut off the right hand of the first robber that entered; and made such
+stout resistance, that his neighbours had leisure to assemble, and
+come to his relief.  The man who lost his hand was taken; and was
+tempted by the promise of pardon to reveal his confederates; among
+whom was one John Senex, esteemed among the richest and best-born
+citizens in London.  He was convicted by the ordeal; and though he
+offered five hundred marks for his life, the king refused the money,
+and ordered him to be hanged [g].  It appears from a statute of Edward
+I. that these disorders were not remedied even in that reign.  It was
+then made penal to go out at night after the hour of the curfew, to
+carry a weapon, or to walk without a light or lantern [h].  It is said
+in the preamble to this law, that, both by night and by day, there
+were continual frays in the streets of London.
+[FN [g] Ibid. p. 197, 198.  [h] Observations on the ancient Statutes,
+p. 216.]
+
+Henry's care in administering justice had gained him so great a
+reputation, that even foreign and distant princes made him arbiter,
+and submitted their differences to his judgment.  Sanchez, King of
+Navarre, having some controversies with Alphonso, King of Castile, was
+contented, though Alphonso had married the daughter of Henry, to
+choose this prince for a referee; and they agreed each of them to
+consign three castles into neutral hands as a pledge of their not
+departing from his award.  Henry  made the cause be examined before
+his great council, and gave a sentence, which was submitted to by both
+parties.  These two Spanish kings sent each a stout champion to the
+court of England, in order to defend his cause by arms, in case the
+way of duel had been chosen by Henry [i].
+[FN [i] Rymer, vol. iv. p. 43.  Bened. Abb. p. 172.  Diceto, p. 597.
+Brompton, p. 1120.]
+
+Henry so far abolished the barbarous and absurd practice of
+confiscating ships which had been wrecked on the coast, that he
+ordained, if one man or animal were alive in the ship, that the vessel
+and goods should be restored to the owners [k].
+[FN [k] Rymer, vol. i. p. 36.]
+
+The reign of Henry was remarkable also for an innovation which was
+afterwards carried farther by his successors, and was attended with
+the most important consequences.  This prince was disgusted with the
+species of military force which was established by the feudal
+institutions, and which, though it was extremely burdensome to the
+subject, yet rendered very little service to the sovereign.  The
+barons, or military tenants, came late into the field; they were
+obliged to serve only forty days; they were unskilful and disorderly
+in all their operations; and they were apt to carry into the camp the
+same refractory and independent spirit, to which they were accustomed
+in their civil government.  Henry, therefore, introduced the practice
+of making a commutation of their military service for money; and he
+levied scutages from his baronies and knights' fees, instead of
+requiring the personal attendance of his vassals.  There is mention
+made, in the History of the Exchequer, of these scutages in his
+second, fifth, and eighteenth year [l]; and other writers give us an
+account of three more of them [m].  When the prince had thus obtained
+money, he made a contract with some of those adventurers in which
+Europe at that time abounded: they found him soldiers of the same
+character with themselves, who were bound to serve for a stipulated
+time: the armies were less numerous, but more useful, than when
+composed of all the military vassals of the crown: the feudal
+institutions began to relax: the kings became rapacious for money, on
+which all their power depended: the barons, seeing no end of
+exactions, sought to defend their property: and as the same causes had
+nearly the same effects in the different countries of Europe, the
+several crowns either lost or acquired authority, according to their
+different success in the contest.
+[FN [l] Madox, p. 435, 436, 437, 438.  [m] Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 466,
+from the records.]
+
+This prince was also the first that levied a tax on the moveables or
+personal estates of his subjects, nobles as well as commons.  Their
+zeal for the holy wars made them submit to this innovation; and a
+precedent being once obtained, this taxation became, in following
+reigns, the usual method of supplying the necessities of the crown.
+The tax of Danegelt, so generally odious to the nation, was remitted
+in this reign.
+
+It was a usual practice of the Kings of England to repeat the ceremony
+of their coronation thrice every year, on assembling the states at the
+three great festivals.  Henry, after the first years of his reign,
+never renewed this ceremony, which was found to be very expensive and
+very useless.  None of his successors revived it.  It is considered as
+a great act of grace in this prince, that he mitigated the rigour of
+the forest laws, and punished any transgressions of them, not
+capitally, but by fines, imprisonments, and other more moderate
+penalties.
+
+Since we are here collecting some detached incidents which show the
+genius of the age, and which could not so well enter into the body of
+our history, it may not be improper to mention the quarrel between
+Roger, Archbishop of York, and Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury.  We
+may judge of the violence of military men and laymen, when
+ecclesiastics could proceed to such extremities.  Cardinal Haguezun
+being sent, in 1176, as legate into Britain, summoned an assembly of
+the clergy at London; and as both the archbishops pretended to sit on
+his right hand, this question of precedency begat a controversy
+between them.  The monks and retainers of Archbishop Richard fell upon
+Roger, in the presence of the cardinal and of the synod, threw him to
+the ground, trampled him under foot, and so bruised him with blows
+that he was taken up half dead, and his life was with difficulty saved
+from their violence.  The Archbishop of Canterbury was obliged to pay
+a large sum of money to the legate, in order to suppress all
+complaints with regard to this enormity [n].
+[FN [n] Bened. Abb. p. 138, 139.  Brompton, p. 1109.  Chron Gerv. p.
+1433.  Neubrig. p. 413.]
+
+We are told by Giraldus Cambrensis, that the monks and prior of St.
+Swithun threw themselves one day prostrate on the ground and in the
+mire before Henry, complaining, with many tears and much doleful
+lamentation, that the Bishop of Winchester, who was also their abbot,
+had cut off three dishes from their table.  How many has he left you?
+said the king.  Ten only, replied the disconsolate monks.  I myself,
+exclaimed the king, never have more than three; and I enjoin your
+bishop to reduce you to the same number [o].
+[FN [o] Gir. Camb. cap. 5. in Anglia Sacra, vol. ii.]
+
+This king left only two legitimate sons, Richard who succeeded him,
+and John who inherited no territory, though his father had often
+intended to leave him a part of his extensive dominions.  He was
+thence commonly denominated LACKLAND.  Henry left three legitimate
+daughters: Maud, born in 1156, and married to Henry, Duke of Saxony;
+Eleanor, born in 1162, and married to Alphonso, King of Castile; Joan,
+born in 1165, and married to William, King of Sicily [p].
+[FN [p] Diceto, p. 616.]
+
+Henry is said by ancient historians to have been of a very amorous
+disposition: they mention two of his natural sons by Rosamond,
+daughter of Lord Clifford; namely, Richard Longespee, or Longsword,
+(so called from the sword he usually wore,) who was afterwards married
+to Ela, the daughter and heir of the Earl of Salisbury; and Geoffrey,
+first Bishop of Lincoln, then Archbishop of York.  All the other
+circumstances of the story, commonly told of that lady, seem to be
+fabulous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+RICHARD I.
+
+THE KING'S PREPARATIONS FOR THE CRUSADE.--SETS OUT ON THE CRUSADE.--
+TRANSACTIONS IN SICILY.--KING'S ARRIVAL IN PALESTINE.--STATE OF
+PALESTINE.--DISORDERS IN ENGLAND.--THE KING'S HEROIC ACTIONS IN
+PALESTINE.--HIS RETURN FROM PALESTINE.--CAPTIVITY IN GERMANY.--WAR
+WITH FRANCE.--THE KING'S DELIVERY.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--WAR WITH
+FRANCE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF THE KING.--MISCELLANEOUS TRANSACTIONS
+OF THIS REIGN.
+
+
+
+[MN 1189.]  The compunction of Richard for his undutiful behaviour
+towards his father was durable, and influenced him in the choice of
+his ministers and servants after his accession.  Those who had
+seconded and favoured his rebellion, instead of meeting with that
+trust and honour which they expected, were surprised to find that they
+lay under disgrace with the new king, and were on all occasions hated
+and despised by him.  The faithful ministers of Henry, who had
+vigorously opposed all the enterprises of his sons, were received with
+open arms, and were continued in those offices which they had
+honourably discharged to their former master [a].  This prudent
+conduct might be the result of reflection; but in a prince like
+Richard, so much guided by passion, and so little by policy, it was
+commonly ascribed to a principle still more virtuous and more
+honourable.
+[FN [a] Hoveden, p. 655.  Bened. Abb. p. 547.  M. Paris, p. 107.]
+
+Richard, that he might make atonement to one parent for his breach of
+duty to the other, immediately sent orders for releasing the queen-
+dowager from the confinement in which she had long been detained; and
+he intrusted her with the government of England till his arrival in
+that kingdom.  His bounty to his brother John was rather profuse and
+imprudent.  Besides bestowing on him the county of Mortaigne, in
+Normandy, granting him a pension of four thousand marks a year, and
+marrying him to Avisa, the daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, by whom
+he inherited all the possessions of that opulent family, he increased
+his appanage, which the late king had destined him, by other extensive
+grants and concessions.  He conferred on him the whole estate of
+William Peverell, which had escheated to the crown: he put him in
+possession of eight castles, with all the forests and honours annexed
+to them: he delivered over to him no less than six earldoms, Cornwall,
+Devon, Somerset, Nottingham, Dorset, Lancaster, and Derby.  And
+endeavouring by favours, to fix that vicious prince in his duty, he
+put it too much in his power, whenever he pleased, to depart from it.
+
+[MN The king's preparations for the crusade.]
+The king, impelled more by the love of military glory than by
+superstition, acted from the beginning of his reign, as if the sole
+purpose of his government had been the relief of the Holy Land, and
+the recovery of Jerusalem from the Saracens.  This zeal against
+infidels, being communicated to his subjects, broke out in London on
+the day of his coronation, and made them find a crusade less
+dangerous, and attended with more immediate profit.  The prejudices of
+the age had made the lending of money on interest pass by the
+invidious name of usury; yet the necessity of the practice had still
+continued it, and the greater part of that kind of dealing fell
+everywhere into the hands of the Jews; who being already infamous on
+account of their religion, had no honour to lose, and were apt to
+exercise a profession, odious in itself, by every kind of rigour, and
+even sometimes by rapine and extortion.  The industry and frugality of
+this people had put them in possession of all the ready money, which
+the idleness and profusion, common to the English with other European
+nations, enabled them to lend at exorbitant and unequal interest.  The
+monkish writers represent it as a great stain on the wise and
+equitable government of Henry, that he had carefully protected this
+infidel race from all injures and insults; but the zeal of Richard
+afforded the populace a pretence for venting their animosity against
+them.  The king had issued an edict prohibiting their appearance at
+his coronation; but some of them, bringing him large presents from
+their nation, presumed, in confidence of that merit, to approach the
+hall in which he dined: being discovered, they were exposed to the
+insults of the bystanders; they took to flight; the people pursued
+them; the rumour was spread that the king had issued orders to
+massacre all the Jews; a command so agreeable was executed in an
+instant on such as fell into the hands of the populace; those who had
+kept at home were exposed to equal danger; the people, moved by
+rapacity and zeal, broke into their houses, which they plundered,
+after having murdered the owners; where the Jews barricaded their
+doors, and defended themselves with vigour, the rabble set fire to the
+houses, and made way through the flames to exercise their pillage and
+violence; the usual licentiousness of London, which the sovereign
+power with difficulty restrained, broke out with fury, and continued
+these outrages; the houses of the richest citizens, though Christians,
+were next attacked and plundered; and weariness and satiety at last
+put an end to the disorder: yet, when the king empowered Glanville,
+the justiciary, to inquire into the authors of these crimes, the guilt
+was found to involve so many of the most considerable citizens, that
+it was deemed more prudent to drop the prosecution; and very few
+suffered the punishment due to this enormity.  But the disorder
+stopped not at London.  The inhabitants of the other cities of
+England, hearing of this slaughter of the Jews, imitated the example:
+in York, five hundred of that nation, who had retired into the castle
+for safety, and found themselves unable to defend the place, murdered
+their own wives and children, threw the dead bodies over the walls
+upon the populace, and then setting fire to the houses perished in the
+flames.  The gentry of the neighbourhood, who were all indebted to the
+Jews, ran to the cathedral, where their bonds were kept, and made a
+solemn bonfire of the papers before the altar.  The compiler of the
+Annals of Waverley, in relating these events, blesses the Almighty for
+thus delivering over this impious race to destruction [b].
+[FN [b] Gale's Collect. vol. iii. p. 165.]
+
+The ancient situation of England, when the people possessed little
+riches and the public no credit, made it impossible for sovereigns to
+bear the expense of a steady or durable war, even on their frontiers;
+much less could they find regular means for the support of distant
+expeditions like those into Palestine, which were more the result of
+popular frenzy than of sober reason or deliberate policy.  Richard,
+therefore, knew that he must carry with him all the treasure necessary
+for his enterprise, and that both the remoteness of his own country
+and its poverty made it unable to furnish him with those continued
+supplies, which the exigencies of so perilous a war must necessarily
+require.  His father had left him a treasure of above a hundred
+thousand marks; and the king, negligent of every consideration but his
+present object, endeavoured to augment this sum by all expedients, how
+pernicious soever to the public, or dangerous to royal authority.  He
+put to sale the revenues and manors of the crown; the offices of
+greatest trust and power, even those of forester and sheriff, which
+anciently were so important [c], became venal; the dignity of chief
+justiciary, in whose hands was lodged the whole execution of the laws,
+was sold to Hugh de Puzas, Bishop of Durham, for a thousand marks; the
+same prelate bought the earldom of Northumberland for life [d]; many
+of the champions of the cross, who had repented of the vow, purchased
+the liberty of violating it; and Richard, who stood less in need of
+men than of money, dispensed, on these conditions, with their
+attendance.  Elated with the hopes of fame, which, in that age,
+attended no wars but those against the infidels, he was blind to every
+other consideration; and when some of his wiser ministers objected to
+this dissipation of the revenue and power of the crown, he replied
+that he would sell London itself, could he find a purchaser [e].
+Nothing, indeed, could be a stronger proof how negligent he was of all
+future interests in comparison of the crusade, than his selling, for
+so small a sum as ten thousand marks, the vassalage of Scotland,
+together with the fortresses of Roxburgh and Berwick, the greatest
+acquisition that had been made by his father during the course of his
+victorious reign; and his accepting the homage of William in the usual
+terms, merely for the territories which that prince held in England
+[f].  The English of all ranks and stations were oppressed by numerous
+exactions; menaces were employed, both against the innocent and the
+guilty, in order to extort money from them; and where a pretence was
+wanting against the rich, the king obliged them, by the fear of his
+displeasure, to lend him sums which, he knew, it would never be in his
+power to repay.
+[FN [c] The sheriff had anciently both the administration of justice
+and the management of the king's revenue committed to him in the
+county. See HALE, OF SHERIFF'S ACCOUNTS.  [d] M. Paris, p. 109.  [e]
+W. Heming. p. 519.  Knyghton, p. 2402.  [f] Hoveden, p. 662.  Rymer,
+vol. i. p. 64.  M. West. p. 257.]
+
+But Richard, though he sacrificed every interest and consideration to
+the success of this pious enterprise, carried so little the appearance
+of sanctity in his conduct, that Fulk, curate of Neuilly, a zealous
+preacher of the crusade, who, from that merit, had acquired the
+privilege of speaking the boldest truths, advised him to rid himself
+of his notorious vices, particularly his pride, avarice, and
+voluptuousness, which he called the king's three favourite daughters.
+YOU COUNSEL WELL, replied Richard, and I HEREBY DISPOSE OF THE FIRST
+TO THE TEMPLARS, OF THE SECOND TO THE BENEDICTINES, AND OF THE THIRD
+TO MY PRELATES.
+
+Richard, jealous of attempts which might be made on England during his
+absence, laid Prince John, as well as his natural brother, Geoffrey,
+Archbishop of York, under engagements, confirmed by their oaths, that
+neither of them should enter the kingdom till his return; though he
+thought proper, before his departure, to withdraw this prohibition.
+The administration was left in the hands of Hugh, Bishop of Durham,
+and of Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, whom he appointed justiciaries and
+guardians of the realm.  The latter was a Frenchman, of mean birth,
+and of a violent character; who, by art and address, had insinuated
+himself into favour, whom Richard had created chancellor, and whom he
+had engaged the pope also to invest with the legatine authority, that,
+by centering every kind of power in his person, he might the better
+ensure the public tranquillity.  All the military and turbulent
+spirits flocked about the person of the king, and were impatient to
+distinguish themselves against the infidels in Asia; whither his
+inclinations, his engagements, led him, and whither he was impelled by
+messages from the King of France, ready to embark in this enterprise.
+
+The Emperor Frederic, a prince of great spirit and conduct, had
+already taken the road to Palestine, at the head of one hundred and
+fifty thousand men, collected from Germany and all the northern
+states.  Having surmounted every obstacle thrown in his way by the
+artifices of the Greeks and the power of the infidels, he had
+penetrated to the borders of Syria; when, bathing in the cold river
+Cydnus during the greatest heat of the summer season, he was seized
+with a mortal distemper, which put an end to his life and his rash
+enterprise [g].  His army, under the command of his son, Conrade,
+reached Palestine; but was so diminished by fatigue, famine, maladies,
+and the sword, that it scarcely amounted to eight thousand men; and
+was unable to make any progress against the great power, valour, and
+conduct of Saladin.  These reiterated calamities attending the
+crusades had taught the Kings of France and England the necessity of
+trying another road to the Holy Land; and they determined to conduct
+their armies thither by sea, to carry provisions along with them, and,
+by means of their naval power, to maintain an open communication with
+their own states, and with the western parts of Europe.  The place of
+rendezvous was appointed in the plains of Vezelay, on the borders of
+Burgundy [h]: [MN 1190.  29th June.] Philip and Richard, on their
+arrival there, found their combined army amount to one hundred
+thousand men [i]; a mighty force, animated with glory and religion,
+conducted by two warlike monarchs, provided with every thing which
+their several dominions could supply, and not to be overcome but by
+their own misconduct, or by the unsurmountable obstacles of nature.
+[FN [g] Bened. Abb. p. 556.  [h] Hoveden, p. 660.  [i] Vinisauf, p.
+305.]
+
+[MN King sets out on the crusade.]
+The French prince and the English here reiterated their promises of
+cordial friendship, pledged their faith not to invade each other's
+dominions during the crusade, mutually exchanged the oaths of all
+their barons and prelates to the same effect, and subjected themselves
+to the penalty of interdicts and excommunications, if they should ever
+violate this public and solemn engagement.  They then separated;
+Philip took the road to Genoa, Richard that to Marseilles, with a view
+of meeting their fleets, which were severally appointed to rendezvous
+in these harbours.  [MN 14th Sept.]  They put to sea; and, nearly
+about the same time, were obliged, by stress of weather, to take
+shelter in Messina, where they were detained during the whole winter.
+This incident laid the foundation of animosities which proved fatal to
+their enterprise.
+
+Richard and Philip were, by the situation and extent of their
+dominions, rivals in power; by their age and inclinations, competitors
+for glory; and these causes of emulation which, had the princes been
+employed in the field against the common enemy, might have stimulated
+them to martial enterprises, soon excited, during the present leisure
+and repose, quarrels between monarchs of such a fiery character.
+Equally haughty, ambitious, intrepid, and inflexible, they were
+irritated with the least appearance of injury, and were incapable, by
+mutual condescensions, to efface those causes of complaint, which
+unavoidably arose between them.  Richard, candid, sincere,
+undesigning, impolitic, violent, laid himself open, on every occasion,
+to the designs of his antagonist; who, provident, interested,
+intriguing, failed not to take all advantages against him: and thus,
+both the circumstances of their disposition in which they were
+similar, and those in which they differed, rendered it impossible for
+them to persevere in that harmony which was so necessary to the
+success of their undertaking.
+
+[MN Transactions in Sicily.]
+The last King of Sicily and Naples was William II., who had married
+Joan, sister to Richard, and who, dying without issue, had bequeathed
+his dominions to his paternal aunt, Constantia, the only legitimate
+descendant surviving of Roger, the first sovereign of those states who
+had been honoured with the royal title.  This princess had, in
+expectation of that rich inheritance, been married to Henry VI., the
+reigning emperor [k]; but Tancred, her natural brother, had fixed such
+an interest among the barons, that, taking advantage of Henry's
+absence, he had acquired possession of the throne, and maintained his
+claim, by force of arms, against all the efforts of the Germans [l].
+The approach of the crusaders naturally gave him apprehensions for his
+unstable government; and he was uncertain, whether he had most reason
+to dread the presence of the French or of the English monarch.  Philip
+was engaged in a strict alliance with the emperor his competitor;
+Richard was disgusted by his rigours towards the queen-dowager, whom
+the Sicilian prince had confined in Palermo, because she had opposed
+with all her interest his succession to the crown.  Tancred,
+therefore, sensible of the present necessity, resolved to pay court to
+both these formidable princes; and he was not unsuccessful in his
+endeavours.  He persuaded Philip that it was highly improper for him
+to interrupt his enterprise against the infidels, by any attempt
+against a Christian state: he restored Queen Joan to her liberty; and
+even found means to make an alliance with Richard, who stipulated by
+treaty to marry his nephew, Arthur, the young Duke of Britany, to one
+of the daughters of Tancred [m].  But before these terms of friendship
+were settled, Richard, jealous both of Tancred and of the inhabitants
+of Messina, had taken up his quarters in the suburbs, and had
+possessed himself of a small fort, which commanded the harbour; and he
+kept himself extremely on his guard against their enterprises.  [MN 3d
+Oct.]  The citizens took umbrage.  Mutual insults and attacks passed
+between them and the English: Philip, who had quartered his troops in
+the town, endeavoured to accommodate the quarrel, and held a
+conference with Richard for that purpose.  While the two kings,
+meeting in the open fields, were engaged in discourse on this subject,
+a body of those Sicilians seemed to be drawing towards them; and
+Richard pushed forwards, in order to inquire into the reason of this
+extraordinary movement [n].  The English, insolent from their power,
+and inflamed with former animosities, wanted but a pretence for
+attacking the Messinese: they soon chased them off the field, drove
+them into the town, and entered with them at the gates.  The king
+employed his authority to restrain them from pillaging and massacring
+the defenceless inhabitants; but he gave orders, in token of his
+victory, that the standard of England should be erected on the walls.
+Philip, who considered that place as his quarters, exclaimed against
+the insult, and ordered some of his troops to pull down the standard:
+but Richard informed him by a messenger, that, though he himself would
+willingly remove that ground of offence, he would not permit it to be
+done by others; and if the French king attempted such an insult upon
+him, he should not succeed but by the utmost effusion of blood.
+Philip, content with this species of haughty submission, recalled his
+orders [o]; the difference was seemingly accommodated; but still left
+the remains of rancour and jealousy in the breasts of the two
+monarchs.
+[FN [k] Bened. Abb. p. 580.  [1] Hoveden, p. 663.  [m] Hoveden, p.
+676, 677.  Bened Abb. p. 615.  [n] Bened. Abb. p. 608.  [o] Hoveden,
+p. 674.]
+
+Tancred, who, for his own security, desired to inflame their mutual
+hatred, employed an artifice which might have been attended with
+consequences still more fatal.  [MN 1191.]  He showed Richard a
+letter, signed by the French king, and delivered to him, as he
+pretended, by the Duke of Burgundy; in which that monarch desired
+Tancred to fall upon the quarters of the English, and promised to
+assist him in putting them to the sword, as common enemies.  The
+unwary Richard gave credit to the information; but was too candid not
+to betray his discontent to Philip, who absolutely denied the letter,
+and charged the Sicilian prince with forgery and falsehood.  Richard
+either was, or pretended to be, entirely satisfied [p].
+[FN [p] Ibid. p. 688.  Bened. Abb. p. 642, 643.  Brompton, p. 1195.]
+
+Lest these jealousies and complaints should multiply between them, it
+was proposed, that they should, by a solemn treaty, obviate all future
+differences, and adjust every point that could possibly hereafter
+become a controversy between them.  But this expedient started a new
+dispute, which might have proved more dangerous than any of the
+foregoing, and which deeply concerned the honour of Philip's family.
+When Richard, in every treaty with the late king, insisted so
+strenuously on being allowed to marry Alice of France, he had only
+sought a pretence for quarrelling; and never meant to take to his bed
+a princess suspected of a criminal amour with his own father.  After
+he became master, he no longer spake of that alliance: he even took
+measures for espousing Berengaria, daughter of Sanchez, King of
+Navarre, with whom he had become enamoured during his abode in Guienne
+[q]; Queen Eleanor was daily expected with that princess at Messina
+[r] and when Philip renewed to him his applications for espousing his
+sister Alice, Richard was obliged to give him an absolute refusal.  It
+is pretended by Hoveden and other historians [s], that he was able to
+produce such convincing proofs of Alice's infidelity, and even of her
+having borne a child to Henry, that her brother desisted from his
+applications, and chose to wrap up the dishonour of his family in
+silence and oblivion.  It is certain, from the treaty itself, which
+remains [t], that whatever were his motives, he permitted Richard to
+give his hand to Berengaria; and having settled all other
+controversies with that prince, he immediately set sail for the Holy
+Land.  Richard awaited some time the arrival of his mother and bride;
+and when they joined him, he separated his fleet into two squadrons,
+and set forward on his enterprise.  Queen Eleanor returned to England,
+but Berengaria and the queen-dowager of Sicily, his sister, attended
+him on the expedition [u].
+[FN [q] Vinisauf, p. 316.  [r] M. Paris, p. 112.  Trivet, p. 102.  W.
+Heming, p. 519.  [s] Hoveden, p. 688.  [t] Rymer, vol. i. p. 69.
+Chron. de Dunst, p. 44.  [u] Bened. Abb. p. 644.]
+
+The English fleet, on leaving the port of Messina, met with a furious
+tempest, and the squadron on which the two princesses were embarked
+was driven on the coast of Cyprus, and some of the vessels were
+wrecked near Limisso in that island.  [MN 12th April.]  Isaac, Prince
+of Cyprus, who assumed the magnificent title of Emperor, pillaged the
+ships that were stranded, threw the seamen and passengers into prison,
+and even refused to the princesses liberty, in their dangerous
+situation, of entering the harbour of Limisso.  But Richard, who
+arrived soon after, took ample vengeance on him for the injury.  He
+disembarked his troops; defeated the tyrant, who opposed his landing;
+entered Limisso by storm; gained next day a second victory; obliged
+Isaac to surrender at discretion; and established governors over the
+island.  The Greek prince, being thrown into prison and loaded with
+irons, complained of the little regard with which he was treated: upon
+which, Richard ordered silver fetters to be made for him; and this
+emperor, pleased with the distinction, expressed a sense of the
+generosity of his conqueror [w].  [MN 1191.  12th May.]  The king here
+espoused Berengaria, who, immediately embarking, carried along with
+her to Palestine the daughter of the Cypriot prince; a dangerous
+rival, who was believed to have seduced the affections of her husband.
+Such were the libertine character and conduct of the heroes engaged in
+this pious enterprise!
+[FN [w] Bened. Abb. p. 650.  Ann. Waverl. p. 164.  Vinisauf, p. 328.
+W. Heming. p. 523.]
+
+[MN The king's arrival in Palestine.]
+The English army arrived in time to partake in the glory of the siege
+of Acre or Ptolemais, which had been attacked for above two years by
+the united forces of all the Christians in Palestine, and had been
+defended by the utmost efforts of Saladin and the Saracens.  The
+remains of the German army, conducted by the Emperor Frederic, and the
+separate bodies of adventurers who continually poured in from the
+West, had enabled the King of Jerusalem to form this important
+enterprise [x]: but Saladin, having thrown a strong garrison into the
+place under the command of Caracos, his own master in the art of war,
+and molesting the besiegers with continual attacks and sallies, had
+protracted the success of the enterprise, and wasted the force of his
+enemies.  The arrival of Philip and Richard inspired new life into the
+Christians; and these princes, acting by concert, and sharing the
+honour and danger of every action, gave hopes of a final victory over
+the infidels.  They agreed on this plan of operations: when the French
+monarch attacked the town, the English guarded the trenches: next day,
+when the English prince conducted the assault, the French succeeded
+him in providing for the safety of the assailants.  The emulation
+between those rival kings and rival nations produced extraordinary
+acts of valour: Richard in particular, animated with a more
+precipitate courage than Philip, and more agreeable to the romantic
+spirit of that age, drew to himself the general attention, and
+acquired a great and splendid reputation.  But this harmony was of
+short duration; and occasions of discord soon arose between these
+jealous and haughty princes.
+[FN [x] Vinisauf, p. 269, 271, 279.]
+
+[MN 1191.  State of Palestine.]
+The family of Bouillon, which had first been placed on the throne of
+Jerusalem, ending in a female, Fulk, Count of Anjou, grandfather to
+Henry II. of England, married the heiress of that kingdom, and
+transmitted his title to the younger branches of his family.  The
+Anjevin race ending also in a female, Guy de Lusignan, by espousing
+Sibylla, the heiress, had succeeded to the title; and though he lost
+his kingdom by the invasion of Saladin, he was still acknowledged by
+all the Christians for king of Jerusalem [y].  But as Sibylla died
+without issue, during the siege of Acre, Isabella, her younger sister,
+put in her claim to that titular kingdom, and required Lusignan to
+resign his pretensions to her husband, Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat.
+Lusignan maintaining that the royal title was unalienable and
+indefeasible, had recourse to the protection of Richard, attended on
+him before he left Cyprus, and engaged him to embrace his cause [z].
+There needed no other reason for throwing Philip into the party of
+Conrade; and the opposite views of these great monarchs brought
+faction and dissension into the Christian army, and retarded all its
+operations.  The Templars, the Genoese, and the Germans declared for
+Philip and Conrade; the Flemings, the Pisans, the Knights of the
+Hospital of St. John, adhered to Richard and Lusignan.  But
+notwithstanding these disputes, as the length of the siege had reduced
+the Saracen garrison to the last extremity, [MN 12th July.] they
+surrendered themselves prisoners; stipulated, in return for their
+lives, other advantages to the Christians, such as the restoring of
+the Christian prisoners, and the delivery of the wood of the true
+cross [a]; and this great enterprise, which had long engaged the
+attention of all Europe and Asia, was, at last, after the loss of
+three hundred thousand men, brought to a happy period.
+[FN [y] Vinisauf, p. 281.  [z] Trivet, p. 134.  Vinisauf, p. 342.  W.
+Heming. p. 524.  [a] This true cross was lost in the battle of
+Tiberiade, to which it had been carried by the crusaders for their
+protection.  Rigord, an author of that age, says, that after this
+dismal event, all the children who were born throughout all
+Christendom had only twenty or twenty-two teeth, instead of thirty or
+thirty-two, which was their former complement, p. 14.]
+
+But Philip, instead of pursuing the hopes of farther conquest, and of
+redeeming the holy city from slavery, being disgusted with the
+ascendant assumed and acquired by Richard, and having views of many
+advantages, which he might reap by his presence in Europe, declared
+his resolution of returning to France; and he pleaded his bad state of
+health as an excuse for his desertion of the common cause.  He left,
+however, to Richard ten thousand of his troops, under the command of
+the Duke of Burgundy; and he renewed his oath never to commence
+hostilities against that prince's dominions during his absence.  But
+he had no sooner reached Italy than he applied, it is pretended, to
+Pope Celestine III. for a dispensation from his vow; and when denied
+that request, he still proceeded, though after a covert manner, in a
+project, which the present situation of England rendered inviting, and
+which gratified, in an eminent degree, both his resentment and his
+ambition.
+
+[MN Disorders in England.]
+Immediately after Richard had left England, and begun his march to the
+Holy Land, the two prelates, whom he had appointed guardians of the
+realm, broke out into animosities against each other, and threw the
+kingdom into combustion.  Longchamp, presumptuous in his nature,
+elated by the favour which he enjoyed with his master, and armed with
+the legatine commission, could not submit to an equality with the
+Bishop of Durham: he even went so far as to arrest his colleague, and
+to extort from him a resignation of the earldom of Northumberland, and
+of his other dignities, as the price of his liberty [b].  The king,
+informed of these dissensions, ordered, by letters from Marseilles,
+that the bishop should be reinstated in his offices; but Longchamp had
+still the boldness to refuse compliance, on pretence that he himself
+was better acquainted with the king's secret intentions [c].  He
+proceeded to govern the kingdom by his sole authority; to treat all
+the nobility with arrogance; and to display his power and riches with
+an invidious ostentation.  He never travelled without a strong guard
+of fifteen hundred foreign soldiers, collected from that licentious
+tribe with which the age was generally infested: nobles and knights
+were proud of being admitted into his train: his retinue wore the
+aspect of royal magnificence: and when, in his progress through the
+kingdom, he lodged in any monastery, his attendants, it is said, were
+sufficient to devour, in one night, the revenue of several years [d].
+The king, who was detained in Europe longer than the haughty prelate
+expected, hearing of this ostentation, which exceeded even what the
+habits of that age indulged in ecclesiastics; being also informed of
+the insolent, tyrannical conduct of his minister, thought proper to
+restrain his power: he sent new orders, appointing Walter Archbishop
+of Rouen, William Mareschal Earl of Strigul, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter,
+William Briewere, and Hugh Bardolf, counsellors to Longchamp, and
+commanding him to take no measure of importance without their
+concurrence and approbation.  But such general terror had this man
+impressed by his violent conduct, that even the Archbishop of Rouen
+and the Earl of Strigul durst not produce this mandate of the king's;
+and Longchamp still maintained an uncontrolled authority over the
+nation.  But when he proceeded so far as to throw into prison
+Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, who had opposed his measures, this
+breach of ecclesiastical privileges excited such an universal ferment,
+that Prince John, disgusted with the small share he possessed in the
+government, and personally disobliged by Longchamp, ventured to
+summon, at Reading, a general council of the nobility and prelates,
+and cite him to appear before them.  Longchamp thought it dangerous to
+intrust his person in their hands, and he shut himself up in the Tower
+of London; but being soon obliged to surrender that fortress, he fled
+beyond sea, concealed under a female habit, and was deprived of his
+offices of chancellor and chief justiciary; the last of which was
+conferred on the Archbishop of Rouen, a prelate of prudence and
+moderation.  The commission of legate, however, which had been renewed
+to Longchamp by Pope Celestine, still gave him, notwithstanding his
+absence, great authority in the kingdom, enabled him to disturb the
+government, and forwarded the views of Philip, who watched every
+opportunity of annoying Richard's dominions.  [MN 1192.]  That monarch
+first attempted to carry open war into Normandy; but as the French
+nobility refused to follow him in an invasion of a state which they
+had sworn to protect, and as the pope, who was the general guardian of
+all princes that had taken the cross, threatened him with
+ecclesiastical censures, he desisted from his enterprise, and employed
+against England the expedient of secret policy and intrigue.  He
+debauched Prince John from his allegiance; promised him his sister
+Alice in marriage; offered to give him possession of all Richard's
+transmarine dominions; and had not the authority of Queen Eleanor, and
+the menaces of the English council, prevailed over the inclinations of
+that turbulent prince, he was ready to have crossed the seas, and to
+have put in execution his criminal enterprises.
+[FN [b] Hoveden, p. 665.  Knyghton, p. 2403.  [c] W. Heming. p. 528.
+[d] Hoveden, p. 680.  Bened. Abb. p. 626, 700.  Brompton, p. 1193.]
+
+[MN The king's heroic actions in Palestine.]
+The jealousy of Philip was every moment excited by the glory which the
+great actions of Richard were gaining him in the East, and which,
+being compared to his own desertion of that popular cause, threw a
+double lustre on his rival.  His envy, therefore, prompted him to
+obscure that fame which he had not equalled; and he embraced every
+pretence of throwing the most violent and most improbable calumnies on
+the King of England.  There was a petty prince in Asia, commonly
+called THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, who had acquired such an ascendant
+over his fanatical subjects, that they paid the most implicit
+deference to his commands; esteemed assassination meritorious when
+sanctified by his mandate; courted danger, and even certain death, in
+the execution of his orders; and fancied, that when they sacrificed
+their lives for his sake, the highest joys of paradise were the
+infallible reward of their devoted obedience [e].  It was the custom
+of this prince, when he imagined himself injured, to despatch secretly
+some of his subjects against the aggressor, to charge them with the
+execution of his revenge, to instruct them in every art of disguising
+their purpose; and no precaution was sufficient to guard any man,
+however powerful, against the attempts of these subtle and determined
+ruffians.  The greatest monarchs stood in awe of this Prince of the
+Assassins, (for that was the name of his people; whence the word has
+passed into most European languages,) and it was the highest
+indiscretion in Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat, to offend and affront
+him.  The inhabitants of Tyre, who were governed by that nobleman, had
+put to death some of this dangerous people: the prince demanded
+satisfaction; for, as he piqued himself on never beginning any offence
+[f], he had his regular and established formalities in requiring
+atonement: Conrade treated his messengers with disdain: the prince
+issued the fatal order: two of his subjects, who had insinuated
+themselves in disguise among Conrade's guards, openly, in the streets
+of Sidon, wounded him mortally; and when they were seized and put to
+the most cruel tortures, they triumphed amidst their agonies, and
+rejoiced that they had been destined by heaven to suffer in so just
+and meritorious a cause.
+[FN [e] W. Heming. p. 532.  Brompton, p. 1243.  [f] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+71.]
+
+Every one in Palestine knew from what hand the blow came.  Richard was
+entirely free from suspicion.  Though that monarch had formerly
+maintained the cause of Lusignan against Conrade, he had become
+sensible of the bad effects attending those dissensions, and had
+voluntarily conferred on the former the kingdom of Cyprus, on
+condition that he should resign to his rival all pretensions to the
+crown of Jerusalem [g].  Conrade himself, with his dying breath, had
+recommended his widow to the protection of Richard [h]; the Prince of
+the Assassins avowed the action in a formal narrative which he sent to
+Europe [i]; yet, on this foundation, the King of France thought fit to
+build the most egregious calumnies, and to impute to Richard the
+murder of the Marquis of Montferrat, whose elevation he had once
+openly opposed.  He filled all Europe with exclamations against the
+crime; appointed a guard for his own person, in order to defend
+himself against a like attempt [k]; and endeavoured, by these shallow
+artifices, to cover the infamy of attacking the dominions of a prince
+whom he himself had deserted, and who was engaged with so much glory
+in a war, universally acknowledged to be the common cause of
+Christendom.
+[FN [g] Vinisauf, p. 391.  [h] Brompton, p. 1243.  [i] Rymer, vol. i.
+p. 71.  Trivet, p. 124.  W. Heming. p. 544.  Diceto, p. 680.  [k] W
+Heming. p. 532.  Brompton, p. 1245.]
+
+But Richard's heroic actions in Palestine were the best apology for
+his conduct.  The Christian adventurers under his command determined,
+on opening the campaign, to attempt the siege of Ascalon, in order to
+prepare the way for that of Jerusalem; and they marched along the sea-
+coast with that intention.  Saladin purposed to intercept their
+passage; and he placed himself on the road with an army, amounting to
+three hundred thousand combatants.  On this occasion was fought one of
+the greatest battles of that age; and the most celebrated, for the
+military genius of the commanders, for the number and valour of the
+troops, and for the great variety of events which attended it.  Both
+the right wing of the Christians, commanded by d'Avesnes, and the
+left, conducted by the Duke of Burgundy, were, in the beginning of the
+day, broken and defeated; when Richard, who led on the main body,
+restored the battle; attacked the enemy with intrepidity and presence
+of mind; performed the part both of a consummate general and gallant
+soldier; and not only gave his two wings leisure to recover from their
+confusion, but obtained a complete victory over the Saracens, of whom
+forty thousand are said to have perished in the field [l].  Ascalon
+soon after fell into the hands of the Christians: other sieges were
+carried on with equal success: Richard was even able to advance within
+sight of Jerusalem, the object of his enterprise, when he had the
+mortification to find that he must abandon all hopes of immediate
+success, and must put a stop to his career of victory.  The crusaders,
+animated with an enthusiastic ardour for the holy wars, broke at first
+through all regards to safety or interest in the prosecution of their
+purpose; and trusting to the immediate assistance of Heaven, set
+nothing before their eyes but fame and victory in this world, and a
+crown of glory in the next.  But long absence from home, fatigue,
+disease, want, and the variety of incidents which naturally attend
+war, had gradually abated that fury, which nothing was able directly
+to withstand; and every one, except the King of England, expressed a
+desire of speedily returning into Europe.  The Germans and the
+Italians declared their resolution of desisting from the enterprise:
+the French were still more obstinate in this purpose: the Duke of
+Burgundy, in order to pay court to Philip, took all opportunities of
+mortifying and opposing Richard [m]: and there appeared an absolute
+necessity of abandoning for the present all hopes of farther conquest,
+and of securing the acquisitions of the Christians by an accommodation
+with Saladin.  Richard, therefore, concluded a truce with that
+monarch; and stipulated that Acre, Joppa, and other sea-port towns of
+Palestine, should remain in the hands of the Christians, and that
+every one of that religion should have liberty to perform his
+pilgrimage to Jerusalem unmolested.  This truce was concluded for
+three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours; a
+magical number, which had probably been devised by the Europeans, and
+which was suggested by a superstition well suited to the object of the
+war.
+[FN [l] Hoveden, p. 698.  Bened. Abb. p. 677.  Diceto, p. 662.
+Brompton, p. 1214.  [m] Vinisauf, p. 380.]
+
+The liberty, in which Saladin indulged the Christians, to perform
+their pilgrimages to Jerusalem, was an easy sacrifice on his part; and
+the furious wars which he waged in defence of the barren territory of
+Judea were not with him, as with the European adventurers, the result
+of superstition, but of policy.  The advantage indeed of science,
+moderation, humanity, was at that time entirely on the side of the
+Saracens; and this gallant emperor, in particular, displayed, during
+the course of the war, a spirit and generosity, which even his bigoted
+enemies were obliged to acknowledge and admire.  Richard, equally
+martial and brave, carried with him more of the barbarian character,
+and was guilty of acts of ferocity, which threw a stain on his
+celebrated victories.  When Saladin refused to ratify the capitulation
+of Acre, the king of England ordered all his prisoners, to the number
+of five thousand, to be butchered; and the Saracens found themselves
+obliged to retaliate upon the Christians by a like cruelty [n].
+Saladin died at Damascus soon after concluding this truce with the
+princes of the crusade: it is memorable that, before he expired, he
+ordered his winding-sheet to be carried as a standard through every
+street of the city; while a crier went before, and proclaimed with a
+loud voice, THIS IS ALL THAT REMAINS TO THE MIGHTY SALADIN, THE
+CONQUEROR OF THE EAST.  By his last will he ordered charities to be
+distributed to the poor without distinction of Jew, Christian, or
+Mahometan.
+[FN [n] Hoveden, p. 697.  Bened. Abb. p. 673.  M. Paris, p. 115.
+Vinisauf, p. 346.  W. Heming. p. 531.]
+
+[MN 1192.  The king's return from Palestine.]
+There remained, after the truce, no business of importance to detain
+Richard in Palestine; and the intelligence which he received,
+concerning the intrigues of his brother John, and those of the King of
+France, made him sensible that his presence was necessary in Europe.
+As he dared not to pass through France, be sailed to the Adriatic; and
+being shipwrecked near Aquileia, he put on the disguise of a pilgrim,
+with a purpose of taking his journey secretly through Germany.
+Pursued by the governor of Istria, he was forced out of the direct
+road to England, and was obliged to pass by Vienna, [MN 20th Dec.]
+where his expenses and liberalities betrayed the monarch in the habit
+of the pilgrim; and he was arrested by orders of Leopold, Duke of
+Austria.  This prince had served under Richard at the siege of Acre;
+but being disgusted by some insult of that haughty monarch, he was so
+ungenerous as to seize the present opportunity of gratifying at once
+his avarice and revenge; and he threw the king into prison.  [MN
+1193.]  The emperor, Henry VI., who also considered Richard as an
+enemy, on account of the alliance contracted by him with Tancred, King
+of Sicily, despatched messengers to the Duke of Austria, required the
+royal captive to be delivered to him, and stipulated a large sum of
+money as a reward for this service.  [MN Captivity in Germany.]  Thus,
+the King of England, who had filled the whole world with his renown,
+found himself, during the most critical state of his affairs, confined
+in a dungeon, and loaded with irons, in the heart of Germany [o], and
+entirely at the mercy of his enemies, the basest and most sordid of
+mankind.
+[FN [o] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 35.]
+
+The English council was astonished on receiving this fatal
+intelligence; and foresaw all the dangerous consequences which might
+naturally arise from that event.  The queen-dowager wrote reiterated
+letters to Pope Celestine, exclaiming against the injury which her son
+had sustained; representing the impiety of detaining in prison the
+most illustrious prince that had yet carried the banners of Christ
+into the Holy Land; claiming the protection of the apostolic see,
+which was due even to the meanest of those adventurers; and upbraiding
+the pope, that in a cause where justice, religion, and the dignity of
+the church, were so much concerned, a cause which it might well befit
+his holiness himself to support, by taking in person a journey to
+Germany, the spiritual thunders should so long be suspended over those
+sacrilegious offenders [p].  The zeal of Celestine corresponded not to
+the impatience of the queen-mother; and the regency of England were,
+for a long time, left to struggle alone with all their domestic and
+foreign enemies.
+[FN [p] Rymer, vol. i. p. 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, &c.]
+
+[MN War with France.]
+The King of France, quickly informed of Richard's confinement by a
+message from the emperor [q], prepared himself to take advantage of
+the incident; and he employed every means of force and intrigue, of
+war and negotiation, against the dominions and the person of his
+unfortunate rival.  He revived the calumny of Richard's assassinating
+the Marquis of Montferrat; and by that absurd pretence he induced his
+barons to violate their oaths, by which they had engaged that, during
+the crusade, they never would, on any account, attack the dominions of
+the King of England.  He made the emperor the largest offers, if he
+would deliver into his hands the royal prisoner, or at least detain
+him in perpetual captivity: he even formed an alliance by marriage
+with the King of Denmark, desired that the ancient Danish claim to the
+crown of England should be transferred to him, and solicited a supply
+of shipping to maintain it.  But the most successful of Philip's
+negotiations was with Prince John, who, forgetting every tie to his
+brother, his sovereign, and his benefactor, thought of nothing but how
+to make his own advantage of the public calamities.  That traitor, on
+the first invitation from the court of France, suddenly went abroad,
+had a conference with Philip, and made a treaty, of which the object
+was the perpetual ruin of his unhappy brother.  He stipulated to
+deliver into Philip's hands a great part of Normandy [r]; he received,
+in return, the investiture of all Richard's transmarine dominions; and
+it is reported by several historians, that he even did homage to the
+French king for the crown of England.
+[FN [q] Ibid. p. 70.  [r] Rymer, vol. i. p. 85.]
+
+In consequence of this treaty, Philip invaded Normandy; and by the
+treachery of John's emissaries, made himself master, without
+opposition, of many fortresses, Neuf-chatel, Neaufle, Gisors, Pacey,
+Ivree: he subdued the counties of Eu and Aumale; and advancing to form
+the siege of Rouen, he threatened to put all the inhabitants to the
+sword if they dared to make resistance.  Happily, Robert, Earl of
+Leicester, appeared in that critical moment; a gallant nobleman, who
+had acquired great honour during the crusade, and who, being more
+fortunate than his master in finding his passage homewards, took on
+him the command in Rouen, and exerted himself, by his exhortations and
+example, to infuse courage into the dismayed Normans.  Philip was
+repulsed in every attack; the time of service from his vassals
+expired; and he consented to a truce with the English regency,
+received in return the promise of twenty thousand marks, and had four
+castles put into his hands, as security for the payment [s].
+[FN [s] Hoveden, p.730, 731.  Rymer, vol. i. p. 81.]
+
+Prince John, who, with a view of increasing the general confusion,
+went over to England, was still less successful in his enterprises.
+He was only able to make himself master of the castles of Windsor and
+Wallingford; but when he arrived in London, and claimed the kingdom as
+heir to his brother, of whose death he pretended to have received
+certain intelligence, he was rejected by all the barons, and measures
+were taken to oppose and subdue him [t].  The justiciaries, supported
+by the general affection of the people, provided so well for the
+defence of the kingdom, that John was obliged, after some fruitless
+efforts, to conclude a truce with them; and before its expiration, he
+thought it prudent to return to France, where he openly avowed his
+alliance with Philip [u].
+[FN [t] Hoveden, p. 724.  [u] W. Heming. p. 536.]
+
+Meanwhile the high spirit of Richard suffered in Germany every kind of
+insult and indignity.  The French ambassadors, in their master's name,
+renounced him as a vassal to the crown of France, and declared  all
+his fiefs to be forfeited to his liege lord.  The emperor, that he
+might render him more impatient for the recovery of his liberty, and
+make him submit to the payment of a larger ransom, treated him with
+the greatest severity, and reduced him to a condition worse than that
+of the meanest malefactor.  He was even produced before the diet of
+the empire at Worms, and accused by Henry of many crimes and
+misdemeanours; of making an alliance with Tancred, the usurper of
+Sicily; of turning the arms of the crusade against a Christian prince,
+and subduing Cyprus; of affronting the Duke of Austria before Acre; of
+obstructing the progress of the Christian arms by his quarrels with
+the King of France; of assassinating Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat;
+and of concluding a truce with Saladin, and leaving Jerusalem in the
+hands of the Saracen emperor [w].  Richard, whose spirit was not
+broken by his misfortunes, and whose genius was rather roused by these
+frivolous or scandalous imputations; after premising, that his dignity
+exempted him from answering before any jurisdiction, except that of
+Heaven; yet condescended, for the sake of his reputation, to justify
+his conduct before that great assembly.  He observed, that he had no
+hand in Tancred's elevation, and only concluded a treaty with a prince
+whom he found in possession of the throne; that the king, or rather
+tyrant of Cyprus, had provoked his indignation by the most ungenerous
+and unjust proceedings; and though he chastised this aggressor, he had
+not retarded a moment the progress of his chief enterprise: that if he
+had at any time been wanting in civility to the Duke of Austria, he
+had already been sufficiently punished for that sally of passion; and
+it better became men, embarked together in so holy a cause, to forgive
+each other's infirmities, than to pursue a slight offence with such
+unrelenting vengeance: that it had sufficiently appeared by the event,
+whether the King of France or he were most zealous for the conquest of
+the Holy Land, and were most likely to sacrifice private passions and
+animosities to that great object: that if the whole tenour of his life
+had not shown him incapable of a base assassination, and justified him
+from that imputation in the eyes of his very enemies, it was in vain
+for him, at present, to make his apology, or plead the many
+irrefragable arguments which he could produce in his own favour: and
+that, however he might regret the necessity, he was so far from being
+ashamed of his truce with Saladin, that he rather gloried in that
+event; and thought it extremely honourable, that, though abandoned by
+all the world, supported only by his own courage, and by the small
+remains of his national troops, he could yet obtain such conditions
+from the most powerful and most warlike emperor that the East had ever
+yet produced.  Richard, after thus deigning to apologize for his
+conduct, burst out into indignation at the cruel treatment which he
+had met with; that he, the champion of the cross, still wearing that
+honourable badge, should, after expending the blood and treasure of
+his subjects in the common cause of Christendom, be intercepted by
+Christian princes in his return to his own country, be thrown into a
+dungeon, be loaded with irons, be obliged to plead his cause, as if he
+were a subject and a malefactor; and what he still more regretted, be
+thereby prevented from making preparations for a new crusade, which he
+had projected, after the expiration of the truce, and from redeeming
+the sepulchre of Christ, which had so long been profaned by the
+dominion of infidels.  The spirit and eloquence of Richard made such
+impression on the German princes, that they exclaimed loudly against
+the conduct of the emperor; the pope threatened him with
+excommunication; and Henry, who had hearkened to the proposals of the
+King of France and Prince John, found that it would be impracticable
+for him to execute his and their base purposes, or to detain the King
+of England any longer in captivity.  [MN The king's delivery.]  He
+therefore concluded with him a treaty for his ransom, and agreed to
+restore him to his freedom for the sum of a hundred and fifty thousand
+marks, about three hundred thousand pounds of our present money; of
+which a hundred thousand marks were to be paid before he received his
+liberty, and sixty-seven hostages delivered for the remainder [x].
+The emperor, as if to gloss over the infamy of this transaction, made
+at the same time a present to Richard of the kingdom of Arles,
+comprehending Provence, Dauphiny, Narbonne, and other states, over
+which the empire had some antiquated claims; a present which the king
+very wisely neglected.
+[FN [w] M Paris, p. 121.  W. Heming. p. 536.  [x] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+84.]
+
+The captivity of the superior lord was one of the cases provided for
+by the feudal tenures; and all the vassals were in that event obliged
+to give an aid for his ransom.  Twenty shillings were therefore levied
+on each knight's fee in England; but as this money came in slowly, and
+was not sufficient for the intended purpose, the voluntary zeal of the
+people readily supplied the deficiency.  The churches and monasteries
+melted down their plate, to the amount of thirty thousand marks; the
+bishops, abbots, and nobles, paid a fourth of their yearly rent; the
+parochial clergy contributed a tenth of their tithes; [MN 1194.  4th
+Feb.] and the requisite sum being thus collected, Queen Eleanor, and
+Walter, Archbishop of Rouen, set out with it for Germany; paid the
+money to the emperor and the Duke of Austria at Mentz; delivered them
+hostages for the remainder; and freed Richard from captivity.  His
+escape was very critical.  Henry had been detected in the
+assassination of the Bishop of Liege, and in an attempt of a like
+nature on the Duke of Louvaine; and finding himself extremely
+obnoxious to the German princes on account of these odious practices,
+he had determined to seek support from an alliance with the King of
+France; to detain Richard, the enemy of that prince, in perpetual
+captivity; to keep in his hands the money which he had already
+received for his ransom; and to extort fresh sums from Philip and
+Prince John, who were very liberal in their offers to him.  He
+therefore gave orders that Richard should be pursued and arrested; but
+the king, making all imaginable haste, had already embarked at the
+mouth of the Schelde, and was out of sight of land, when the
+messengers of the emperor reached Antwerp.
+
+[MN King's return to England, 20th March.]
+The joy of the English was extreme on the appearance of their monarch,
+who had suffered so many calamities, who had acquired so much glory,
+and who had spread the reputation of their name into the farthest
+East, whither their fame had never before been able to extend.  He
+gave them, soon after his arrival, an opportunity of publicly
+displaying their exultation, by ordering himself to be crowned anew at
+Winchester; as if he intended, by that ceremony, to reinstate himself
+in his throne, and to wipe off the ignominy of his captivity.  Their
+satisfaction was not damped, even when he declared his purpose of
+resuming all those exorbitant grants, which he had been necessitated
+to make before his departure for the Holy Land.  The barons, also, in
+a great council, confiscated, on account of his treason, all Prince
+John's possessions in England; and they assisted the king in reducing
+the fortresses which still remained in the hands of his brother's
+adherents [y].  Richard, having settled every thing in England, passed
+over with an army into Normandy; being impatient to make war on
+Philip, and to revenge himself for the many injuries which he had
+received from that monarch [z].  As soon as Philip heard of the king's
+deliverance from captivity, he wrote to his confederate John in these
+terms: TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF: THE DEVIL IS BROKEN LOOSE [a].
+[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 737.  Ann. Waverl. p. 165.  W. Heming, p. 540.
+[z] Hoveden, p. 740.  [a] Ibid. p. 739.]
+
+[MN War with France.]
+When we consider such powerful and martial monarchs inflamed with
+personal animosity against each other, enraged by mutual injuries,
+excited by rivalship, impelled by opposite interests, and instigated
+by the pride and violence of their own temper; our curiosity is
+naturally raised, and we expect an obstinate and furious war,
+distinguished by the greatest events, and concluded by some remarkable
+catastrophe.  Yet are the incidents which attend those hostilities so
+frivolous that scarce any historian can entertain such a passion for
+military descriptions as to venture on a detail of them: a certain
+proof of the extreme weakness of princes in those ages, and of the
+little authority they possessed over their refractory vassals!  The
+whole amount of the exploits on both sides is, the taking of a castle,
+the surprise of a straggling party, a rencounter of horse, which
+resembles more a rout than a battle.  Richard obliged Philip to raise
+the siege of Verneuil; he took Loches, a small town in Anjou: he made
+himself master of Beaumont, and some other places of little
+consequence; and after these trivial exploits, the two kings began
+already to hold conferences for an accommodation.  Philip insisted
+that, if a general peace were concluded, the barons on each side
+should, for the future, be prohibited from carrying on private wars
+against each other: but Richard replied, that this was a right claimed
+by his vassals, and he could not debar them from it.  After this
+fruitless negotiation, there ensued an action between the French and
+English cavalry at Fretteval, in which the former were routed, and the
+King of France's cartulary and records, which commonly at that time
+attended his person, were taken.  But this victory leading to no
+important advantages, a truce for a year was at last, from mutual
+weakness, concluded between the two monarchs.
+
+During this war, Prince John deserted from Philip, threw himself at
+his brother's feet, craved pardon for his offences, and by the
+intercession of Queen Eleanor was received into favour.  I FORGIVE
+HIM, said the king, AND HOPE I SHALL AS EASILY FORGET HIS INJURIES AS
+HE WILL MY PARDON.  John was incapable even of returning to his duty,
+without committing a baseness.  Before he left Philip's party, he
+invited to dinner all the officers of the garrison, which that prince
+had placed in the citadel of Evreux: he massacred them during the
+entertainment: fell, with the assistance of the townsmen, on the
+garrison, whom he put to the sword; and then delivered up the place to
+his brother.
+
+The King of France was the great object of Richard's resentment and
+animosity: the conduct of John, as well as that of the emperor and
+Duke of Austria, had been so base, and was exposed to such general
+odium and reproach, that the king deemed himself sufficiently revenged
+for their injuries; and he seems never to have entertained any project
+of vengeance against any of them.  The Duke of Austria, about this
+time, having crushed his leg by the fall of his horse at a tournament,
+was thrown into a fever; and being struck, on the approaches of death,
+with remorse for his injustice to  Richard, he ordered, by will, all
+the English hostages in his hands to be set at liberty, and the
+remainder of the debt due to him to be remitted: his son, who seemed
+inclined to disobey these orders, was constrained by his ecclesiastics
+to execute them [b].  [MN 1195.]  The emperor also made advances for
+Richard's friendship, and offered to give him a discharge of all the
+debt not yet paid to him provided he would enter into an offensive
+alliance against the King of France; a proposal which was very
+acceptable to Richard, and was greedily embraced by him.  The treaty
+with the emperor took no effect; but it served to rekindle the war
+between France and England before the expiration of the truce.  This
+war was not distinguished by any more remarkable instances than the
+foregoing.  After mutually ravaging the open country, and taking a few
+insignificant castles, the two kings concluded a peace at Louviers,
+and made an exchange of some territories with each other [c].  [MN
+1196.]  Their inability to wage war occasioned the peace: their mutual
+antipathy engaged them again in war before two months expired.
+Richard imagined that he had now found an opportunity of gaining great
+advantages over his rival, by forming an alliance with the Counts of
+Flanders, Toulouse, Boulogne, Champagne, and other considerable
+vassals of the crown of France [d].  But he soon experienced the
+insincerity of those princes, and was not able to make any impression
+on that kingdom, while governed by a monarch of so much vigour and
+activity as Philip.  The most remarkable incident of this war was the
+taking prisoner in battle the Bishop of Beauvais, a martial prelate,
+who was of the family of Dreux, and a near relation of the French
+king's.  Richard, who hated that bishop, threw him into prison and
+loaded him with irons; and when the pope demanded his liberty, and
+claimed him as his son, the king sent to his holiness the coat of mail
+which the prelate had worn in battle, and which was all besmeared with
+blood; and he replied to him, in the terms employed by Jacob's sons to
+that patriarch, THIS HAVE WE FOUND: KNOW NOW WHETHER IT BE THY SON'S
+COAT OR NO [e].  This  new war between England and France, though
+carried out with such animosity that both kings frequently put out the
+eyes of their prisoners, was soon finished by a truce of five years;
+and immediately after signing this treaty, the kings were ready, on
+some new offence, to break out again into hostilities; when the
+mediation of the Cardinal of St. Mary, the pope's legate, accommodated
+the difference [f].  This prelate even engaged the princes to commence
+a treaty for a more durable peace; but the death of Richard put an end
+to the negotiation.
+[FN [b] Rymer, vol i. p. 88, 102.  [c] Ibid. p. 91.  [d] W. Heming, p.
+549.  Brompton, p. 1273.  Rymer, vol. i. p. 94.  [e] Genesis, chap.
+xxxvii. ver. 32.  M. Paris, p. 128.  Brompton, p. 1273.  [f] Rymer,
+vol. i. p. 109, 110.]
+
+[MN 1199.]  Vidomar, Viscount of Limoges, a vassal of the king's, had
+found a treasure, of which he sent part to that prince as a present.
+Richard, as superior lord, claimed the whole; and at the head of some
+Brabancons, besieged the viscount in the castle of Chalons, near
+Limoges, in order to make him comply with his demand [g].  The
+garrison offered to surrender; but the king replied, that, since he
+had taken the pains to come thither and besiege the place in person,
+he would take it by force, and would hang every one of them.  The same
+day, Richard, accompanied by Marcadee, leader of his Brabancons,
+approached the castle in order to survey it; when one Bertrand de
+Gourdon, an archer, took aim at him, and pierced his shoulder with an
+arrow.  [MN 28th March.]  The king, however, gave orders for the
+assault, took the place, and hanged all the garrison, except Gourdon,
+who had wounded him, and whom he reserved for a more deliberate and
+more cruel execution [h].
+[FN [g] Hoveden, p. 791.  Knyghton, p. 2413.  [h] Ibid.]
+
+The wound was not in itself dangerous; but the unskilfulness of the
+surgeon made it mortal: he so rankled Richard's shoulder in pulling
+out the arrow, that a gangrene ensued; and that prince was now
+sensible that his life was drawing towards a period.  He sent for
+Gourdon, and asked him, WRETCH, WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE TO YOU, TO
+OBLIGE YOU TO SEEK MY LIFE?--WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME? replied coolly
+the prisoner: YOU KILLED WITH YOUR OWN HANDS MY FATHER AND MY TWO
+BROTHERS; AND YOU INTENDED TO HAVE HANGED MYSELF: I AM NOW IN YOUR
+POWER, AND YOU MAY TAKE REVENGE, BY INFLICTING ON ME THE MOST SEVERE
+TORMENTS: BUT I SHALL ENDURE THEM ALL WITH PLEASURE, PROVIDED I CAN
+THINK THAT I HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY AS TO RID THE WORLD OF SUCH A NUISANCE
+[i].  Richard, struck with the reasonableness of this reply, and
+humbled by the near approach of death, ordered Gourdon to be set at
+liberty, and a sum of money to be given him: but Marcadee, unknown to
+him, seized the unhappy man, flayed him alive, and then hanged him.
+[MN 6th April.  Death,]  Richard died in the tenth year of his reign,
+and the forty-second of his age; and he left no issue behind him.
+[FN [i] Hoveden, p. 791.  Brompton, p. 1277.  Knyghton, p. 2413.]
+
+[MN and character of the king.]
+The most shining parts of this prince's character are his military
+talents.  No man, even in that romantic age, carried personal courage
+and intrepidity to a greater height; and this quality gained him the
+appellation of the lion-hearted, COEUR DE LION.  He passionately loved
+glory, chiefly military glory; and as his conduct in the field was not
+inferior to his valour, he seems to have possessed every talent
+necessary for acquiring it.  His resentments also were high; his pride
+unconquerable; and his subjects, as well as his neighbours, had
+therefore reason to apprehend, from the continuance of his reign, a
+perpetual scene of blood and violence.  Of an impetuous and vehement
+spirit, he was distinguished by all the good as well as the bad
+qualities incident to that character: he was open, frank, generous,
+sincere, and brave; he was revengeful, domineering, ambitious,
+haughty, and cruel; and was thus better calculated to dazzle men by
+the splendour of his enterprises, than either to promote their
+happiness or his own grandeur by a sound and well-regulated policy.
+As military talents made great impression on the people, he seems to
+have been much beloved by his English subjects; and he is remarked to
+have been the first prince of the Norman line that bore any sincere
+regard to them.  He passed however only four months of his reign in
+that kingdom: the crusade employed him near three years; he was
+detained about fourteen months in captivity; the rest of his reign was
+spent either in war, or preparations for war, against France; and he
+was so pleased with the fame which he had acquired in the East, that
+he determined, notwithstanding his past misfortunes, to have farther
+exhausted his kingdom, and to have exposed himself to new hazards, by
+conducting another expedition against the infidels.
+
+[MN Miscellaneous transactions of this reign.]
+Though the English pleased themselves with the glory which the king's
+martial genius procured them, his reign was very oppressive and
+somewhat arbitrary, by the high taxes which he levied on them, and
+often without consent of the states or great council.  In the ninth
+year of his reign, he levied five shillings on each hide of land; and
+because the clergy refused to contribute their share, he put them out
+of the protection of law, and ordered the civil courts to give them no
+sentence for any debts which they might claim [k].  Twice in his reign
+he ordered all his charters to be sealed anew, and the parties to pay
+fees for the renewal [l].  It is said that Hubert, his justiciary,
+sent him over to France, in the space of two years, no less a sum than
+one million one hundred thousand marks, besides bearing all the
+charges of the government in England.  But this account is quite
+incredible, unless we suppose that Richard made a thorough
+dilapidation of the demesnes of the crown, which it is not likely he
+could do with any advantage after his former resumption of all grants.
+A king who possessed such a revenue could never have endured fourteen
+months' captivity for not paying a hundred and fifty thousand marks to
+the emperor, and be obliged at last to leave hostages for a third of
+the sum.  The prices of commodities in this reign are also a certain
+proof that no such enormous sum could be levied on the people.  A hide
+of land, or about a hundred and twenty acres, was commonly let at
+twenty shillings a year, money of that time.  As there were two
+hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred hides in England, it is
+easy to compute the amount of all the landed rents of the kingdom.
+The general and stated price of an ox was four shillings; of a
+labouring horse the same; of a sow, one shilling; of a sheep with fine
+wool, tenpence; with coarse wool, sixpence [m].  These commodities
+seem not to have advanced in their prices since the conquest [n], and
+to have still been ten times cheaper than at present.
+[FN [k] Hoveden, p. 743.  Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 563.  [l] Prynne's
+Chronol. Vindic. tom. i. p. 1133.  [m] Hoveden, p. 745.  [n] See note
+[S], at the end of the volume.]
+
+Richard renewed the severe laws against transgressors in his forests,
+whom he punished by castration and putting out their eyes, as in the
+reign of his great-grandfather.  He established by law one weight and
+measure throughout his kingdom [o]: a useful institution, which the
+mercenary disposition and necessities of his successor engaged him to
+dispense with for money.
+[FN [o] M. Paris, p. 109, 134.  Trivet, p. 127.  Ann. Waverl. p. 165.
+Hoveden, p. 774.]
+
+The disorders in London, derived from its bad police, had risen to a
+great height during this reign; and in the year 1196, there seemed to
+be formed so regular a conspiracy among the numerous malefactors, as
+threatened the city with destruction.  There was one William
+Fitz-Osbert, commonly called LONGBEARD, a lawyer, who had rendered
+himself extremely popular among the lower rank of citizens; and, by
+defending them on all occasions, had acquired the appellation of the
+advocate or saviour of the poor.  He exerted his authority, by
+injuring and insulting the more substantial citizens, with whom he
+lived in a state of hostility, and who were every moment exposed to
+the most outrageous violences from him and his licentious emissaries.
+Murders were daily committed in the streets; houses were broken open
+and pillaged in daylight; and it is pretended that no less than fifty-
+two thousand persons had entered into an association, by which they
+bound themselves to obey all the orders of this dangerous ruffian.
+Archbishop Hubert, who was then chief justiciary, summoned him before
+the council to answer for his conduct; but he came so well attended,
+that no one durst accuse him, or give evidence against him; and the
+primate, finding the impotence of law, contented himself with exacting
+from the citizens hostages for their good behaviour.  He kept,
+however, a watchful eye on Fitz-Osbert; and seizing a favourable
+opportunity, attempted to commit him to custody; but the criminal,
+murdering one of the public officers, escaped with his concubine to
+the church of St. Mary le Bow, where he defended himself by force of
+arms.  He was at last forced from his retreat, condemned, and
+executed, amidst the regrets of the populace, who were so devoted to
+his memory, that they stole his gibbet, paid the same veneration to it
+as to the cross, and were equally zealous in propagating and attesting
+reports of the miracles wrought by it [p].  But though the sectaries
+of this superstition were punished by the justiciary [q], it received
+so little encouragement from the established clergy, whose property
+was endangered by such seditious practices, that it suddenly sunk and
+vanished.
+[FN [p] Hoveden, p 765.  Diceto, p. 691.  Neubrig. p. 492, 493.  [q]
+Gervase, p. 1551.]
+
+It was during the crusades that the custom of using coats of arms was
+first introduced into Europe.  The knights, cased up in armour, had no
+way to make themselves be known and distinguished in battle but by the
+devices on their shields; and these were gradually adopted by their
+posterity and families, who were proud of the pious and military
+enterprises of their ancestors.
+
+King Richard was a passionate lover of poetry; there even remain some
+poetical works of his composition; and he bears a rank among the
+Provencal poets or TROBADORES, who were the first of the modern
+Europeans that distinguished themselves by attempts of that nature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+JOHN.
+
+ACCESSION OF THE KING.--HIS MARRIAGE.--WAR WITH FRANCE.--MURDER OF
+ARTHUR, DUKE OF BRITANY.--THE KING EXPELLED THE FRENCH PROVINCES.--THE
+KING'S QUARREL WITH THE COURT OF ROME.--CARDINAL LANGTON APPOINTED
+ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.--INTERDICT OF THE KINGDOM.--EXCOMMUNICATION
+OF THE KING.--THE KING'S SUBMISSION TO THE POPE.--DISCONTENTS OF THE
+BARONS.--INSURRECTION OF THE BARONS.--MAGNA CHARTA.--RENEWAL OF THE
+CIVIL WARS.--PRINCE LEWIS CALLED OVER.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF THE
+KING.
+
+
+
+[MN 1199.  Accession of the king.]
+The noble and free genius of the ancients, which made the government
+of a single person be always regarded as a species of tyranny and
+usurpation, and kept them from forming any conception of a legal and
+regular monarchy, had rendered them entirely ignorant both of the
+rights of PRIMOGENITURE, and a REPRESENTATION in succession;
+inventions so necessary for preserving order in the lines of princes,
+for obviating the evils of civil discord and of usurpation, and for
+begetting moderation in that species of government, by giving security
+to the ruling sovereign.  These innovations arose from the feudal law,
+which, first introducing the right of primogeniture, made such a
+distinction between the families of the elder and younger brothers,
+that the son of the former was thought entitled to succeed to his
+grandfather, preferably to his uncles, though nearer allied to the
+deceased monarch.  But though this progress of ideas was natural, it
+was gradual.  In the age of which we treat, the practice of
+representation was indeed introduced, but not thoroughly established;
+and the minds of men fluctuated between opposite principles.  Richard,
+when he entered on the holy war, declared his nephew, Arthur, Duke of
+Britany, his successor; and by a formal deed he set aside, in his
+favour, the title of his brother John, who was younger than Geoffrey,
+the father of that prince [a].  But John so little acquiesced in that
+destination, that when he gained the ascendant in the English
+ministry, by expelling Longchamp, the chancellor and great justiciary,
+he engaged all the English barons to swear that they would maintain
+his right of succession; and Richard, on his return, took no steps
+towards restoring or securing the order which he had at first
+established.  He was even careful, by his last will, to declare his
+brother John heir to all his dominions [b]; whether that he now
+thought Arthur, who was only twelve years of age, incapable of
+asserting his claim against John's faction, or was influenced by
+Eleanor, the queen-mother, who hated Constantia, mother of the young
+duke, and who dreaded the credit which that princess would naturally
+acquire if her son should mount the throne.  The authority of a
+testament was great in that age, even where the succession of a
+kingdom was concerned; and John had reason to hope that this title,
+joined to his plausible right in other respects, would ensure him the
+succession. But the idea of representation seems to have made, at this
+time, greater progress in France than in England: the barons of the
+transmarine provinces, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, immediately
+declared in favour of Arthur's title, and applied for assistance to
+the French monarch as their superior lord.  Philip, who desired only
+an occasion to embarrass John, and dismember his dominions, embraced
+the cause of the young Duke of Britany, took him under his protection,
+and sent him to Paris to be educated, along with his own son Lewis
+[c].  In this emergence, John hastened to establish his authority in
+the chief members of the monarchy; and after sending Eleanor into
+Poictou and Guienne, where her right was incontestable, and was
+readily acknowledged, he hurried to Rouen, and having secured the
+duchy of Normandy, he passed over, without loss of time, to England.
+Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, William Mareschal, Earl of Strigul,
+who also passes by the name of Earl of Pembroke, and Geoffrey
+Fitz-Peter, the justiciary, the three most favoured ministers of the
+late king, were already engaged on his side [d]; and the submission or
+acquiescence of all the other barons put him, without opposition, in
+possession of the throne.
+[FN [a] Hoveden, p. 677.  M Paris, p. 112.  Chron. de Dunst. p. 43.
+Rymer, vol i p. 66, 68.  Bened. Abb. p. 619.  [b] Hoveden, p. 791.
+Trivet, p. 138.  [c] Hoveden, p. 792.  M. Paris, p. 137.  M. West. p.
+263.  Knyghton, p. 2414.  [d] Hoveden, p. 793.  M. Paris, p. 137.]
+
+The king soon returned to France, in order to conduct the war against
+Philip, and to recover the revolted provinces from his nephew Arthur.
+The alliances which Richard had formed with the Earl of Flanders [e],
+and other potent French princes, though they had not been very
+effectual, still subsisted, and enabled John to defend himself against
+all the efforts of his enemy.  In an action between the French and
+Flemings, the elect Bishop of Cambray was taken prisoner by the
+former; and when the Cardinal of Capua claimed his liberty, Philip,
+instead of complying, reproached him with the weak efforts which he
+had employed in favour of the Bishop of Beauvais, who was in a like
+condition.  The legate, to show his impartiality, laid, at the same
+time, the kingdom of France and the duchy of Normandy under an
+interdict; and the two kings found themselves obliged to make an
+exchange of these military prelates.
+[FN [e] Rymer, vol. i. p. 114.  Hoveden, p. 794.  M. Paris, p. 138.]
+
+[MN 1200.]  Nothing enabled the king to bring this war to a happy
+issue so much as the selfish intriguing character of Philip, who acted
+in the provinces that had declared for Arthur, without any regard to
+the interests of that prince.  Constantia, seized with a violent
+jealousy that he intended to usurp the entire dominion of them [f],
+found means to carry off her son secretly from Paris: she put him into
+the hands of his uncle; restored the provinces which had adhered to
+the young prince; and made him do homage for the duchy of Britany,
+which was regarded as a rerefief of Normandy.  From this incident,
+Philip saw that he could not hope to make any progress against John;
+and being threatened with an interdict on account of his irregular
+divorce from Ingelburga, the Danish princess whom he had espoused, he
+became desirous of concluding a peace with England.  After some
+fruitless conferences, the terms were at last adjusted; and the two
+monarchs seemed in this treaty to have an intention, besides ending
+the present quarrel, of preventing all future causes of discord, and
+of obviating every controversy which could thereafter arise between
+them.  They adjusted the limits of all their territories, mutually
+secured the interests of their vassals; and, to render the union more
+durable, John gave his niece, Blanche of Castile, in marriage to
+Prince Lewis, Philip's eldest son, and with her the baronies of
+Issoudun and Gracai, and other fiefs in Berri.  Nine barons of the
+King of England, and as many of the King of France, were guarantees of
+this treaty; and all of them swore that if their sovereign violated
+any article of it, they would declare themselves against him, and
+embrace the cause of the injured monarch [g].
+[FN [f] Hoveden, p.795.  [g] Norman Duchesnii, p. 1055.  Rymer, vol.
+i. p. 117, 118, 119.  Hoveden, p. 814.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 47.]
+
+John, now secure, as he imagined, on the side of France, indulged his
+passion for Isabella, the daughter and heir of Aymar Tailleffer, Count
+of Angouleme, a lady with whom he had become much enamoured.  His
+queen, the heiress of the family of Gloucester, was still alive:
+Isabella was married to the Count de la Marche, and was already
+consigned to the care of that nobleman; though, by reason of her
+tender years, the marriage had not been consummated.  The passion of
+John made him overlook all these obstacles: he persuaded the Count of
+Angouleme to carry off his daughter from her husband; and having, on
+some pretence or other, procured a divorce from his own wife, he
+espoused Isabella; [MN The king's marriage.] regardless both of the
+menaces of the pope, who exclaimed against these irregular
+proceedings, and of the resentment of the injured count, who soon
+found means of punishing his powerful and insolent rival.
+
+[MN 1201.]  John had not the art of attaching his barons either by
+affection or by fear.  The Count de la Marche, and his brother, the
+Count d'Eu, taking advantage of the general discontent against him,
+excited commotions in Poictou and Normandy, and obliged the king to
+have recourse to arms, in order to suppress the insurrection of his
+vassals.  He summoned together the barons of England, and required
+them to pass the sea under his standard, and to quell the rebels: he
+found that he possessed as little authority in that kingdom as in his
+transmarine provinces.  The English barons unanimously replied, that
+they would not attend him on this expedition, unless he would promise
+to restore and preserve their privileges [h]: the first symptom of a
+regular association and plan of liberty among those noblemen! but
+affairs were not yet fully ripe for the revolution projected.  John,
+by menacing the barons, broke the concert; and both engaged many of
+them to follow him into Normandy, and obliged the rest who stayed
+behind to pay him a scutage of two marks on each knight's fee, as the
+price of their exemption from the service.
+[FN [h] Annal. Burton, p. 262.]
+
+The force which John carried abroad with him, and that which joined
+him in Normandy, rendered him much superior to his malecontent barons;
+and so much the more as Philip did not publicly give them any
+countenance, and seemed as yet determined to persevere steadily in the
+alliance which he had contracted with England.  But the king, elated
+with his superiority, advanced claims which gave an universal alarm to
+his vassals, and diffused still wider the general discontent.  As the
+jurisprudence of those times required that the causes in the lords'
+court should chiefly be decided by duel, he carried along with him
+certain bravos, whom he retained as champions, and whom he destined to
+fight with his barons, in order to determine any controversy which he
+might raise against them [i].  The Count de la Marche, and other
+noblemen, regarded this proceeding as an affront, as well as an
+injury; and declared that they would never draw their swords against
+men of such inferior quality.  The king menaced them with vengeance;
+but he had not vigour to employ against them the force in his hands,
+or to prosecute the injustice, by crushing entirely the nobles who
+opposed it.
+[FN [i] Ibid.]
+
+[MN War with France.]
+This government, equally feeble and violent, gave the injured barons
+courage, as well as inclination, to carry farther their opposition;
+they appealed to the King of France; complained of the denial of
+justice in John's court; demanded redress from him as their superior
+lord; and entreated him to employ his authority, and prevent their
+final ruin and oppression.  [MN 1202.]  Philip perceived his
+advantage, opened his mind to great projects, interposed in behalf of
+the French barons, and began to talk in a high and menacing style to
+the King of England.  John, who could not disavow Philip's authority,
+replied, that it belonged to himself first to grant them a trial by
+their peers in his own court; it was not till he failed in this duty
+that he was answerable to his peers in the supreme court of the French
+king [k]; and he promised, by a fair and equitable judicature, to give
+satisfaction to his barons.  When the nobles, in consequence of this
+engagement, demanded a safe conduct, that they might attend his court,
+he at first refused it; upon the renewal of Philip's menaces, he
+promised to grant their demand; he violated this promise; fresh
+menaces extorted from him a promise to surrender to Philip the
+fortresses of Tillieres and Boutavant, as a security for performance;
+he again violated his engagement; his enemies, sensible both of his
+weakness and want of faith, combined still closer in the resolution of
+pushing him to extremities; and a new and powerful ally soon appeared
+to encourage them in their invasion of this odious and despicable
+government.
+[FN [k] Philipp. lib. vi.]
+
+[MN 1203.]  The young Duke of Britany, who was now rising to man's
+estate, sensible of the dangerous character of his uncle, determined
+to seek both his security and elevation by a union with Philip and the
+malecontent barons.  He joined the French army, which had begun
+hostilities against the King of England: he was received with great
+marks of distinction by Philip; was knighted by him; espoused his
+daughter Mary; and was invested not only in the duchy of Britany, but
+in the counties of Anjou and Maine, which he had formerly resigned to
+his uncle [l].  Every attempt succeeded with the allies.  Tillieres
+and Boutavant were taken by Philip, after making a feeble defence:
+Mortimar and Lyons fell into his hands almost without resistance.
+That prince next invested Gournai; and opening the sluices of a lake
+which lay in the neighbourhood, poured such a torrent of water into
+the place, that the garrison deserted it, and the French monarch,
+without striking a blow, made himself master of that important
+fortress.  The progress of the French arms was rapid, and promised
+more considerable success than usually in that age attended military
+enterprises.  In answer to every advance which the king made towards
+peace, Philip still insisted that he should resign all his transmarine
+dominions to his nephew, and rest contented with the kingdom of
+England; when an event happened which seemed to turn the scales in
+favour of John, and to give him a decisive superiority over his
+enemies.
+[FN [l] Trivet, p. 142.]
+
+Young Arthur, fond of military renown, had broken into Poictou at the
+head of a small army; and passing near Mirebeau, he heard that his
+grandmother, Queen Eleanor, who had always opposed his interests, was
+lodged in that place, and was protected by a weak garrison and ruinous
+fortifications [m].  He immediately determined to lay siege to the
+fortress, and make himself master of her person: but John, roused from
+his indolence by so pressing an occasion, collected an army of English
+and Brabancons, and advanced from Normandy with hasty marches to the
+relief of the queen-mother.  He fell on Arthur's camp before that
+prince was aware of the danger; dispersed his army; took him prisoner,
+together with the Count de la Marche, Geoffrey de Lusignan, and the
+most considerable of the revolted barons; and returned in triumph to
+Normandy [n].  [MN 1st Aug.]  Philip, who was lying before Arques in
+that duchy, raised the siege, and retired upon his approach [o].  The
+greater part of the prisoners were sent over to England; but Arthur
+was shut up in the castle of Falaise.
+[FN [m] Ann. Waverl. p. 167.  M. West. p. 264.  [n] Ann. Marg. p. 213.
+M. West. p. 264.  [o] M. West. p. 264.]
+
+The king had here a conference with his nephew; represented to him the
+folly of his pretensions; and required him to renounce the French
+alliance, which had encouraged him to live in a state of enmity with
+all his family: but the brave, though imprudent youth, rendered more
+haughty from misfortunes, maintained the justice of his cause;
+asserted his claim not only to the French provinces, but to the crown
+of England; and in his turn, required the king to restore the son of
+his elder brother to the possession of his inheritance [p].  John,
+sensible from these symptoms of spirit that the young prince, though
+now a prisoner, might hereafter prove a dangerous enemy, determined to
+prevent all future peril by despatching his nephew; and Arthur was
+never more heard of.  [MN 1203.  Murder of Arthur, Duke of Britany.]
+The circumstances which attended this deed of darkness were, no doubt,
+carefully concealed by the actors, and are variously related by
+historians: but the most probable account is as follows: the king, it
+is said, first proposed to William de la Bray, one of his servants, to
+despatch Arthur; but William replied that he was a gentleman, not a
+hangman; and he positively refused compliance.  Another instrument of
+murder was found, and was despatched with proper orders to Falaise;
+but Hubert de Bourg, chamberlain to the king, and constable of the
+castle, feigning that he himself would execute the king's mandate,
+sent back the assassin, spread the report that the young prince was
+dead, and publicly performed all the ceremonies of his interment; but
+finding that the Bretons vowed revenge for the murder, and that all
+the revolted barons persevered more obstinately in their rebellion, he
+thought it prudent to reveal the secret, and to inform the world that
+the Duke of Britany was still alive, and in his custody.  This
+discovery proved fatal to the young prince: John first removed him to
+the castle of Rouen; and coming in a boat, during the night-time, to
+that place, commanded Arthur to be brought forth to him.  The young
+prince, aware of his danger, and now more subdued by the continuance
+of his misfortunes, and by the approach of death, threw himself on his
+knees before his uncle, and begged for mercy: but the barbarous
+tyrant, making no reply, stabbed him with his own hands; and fastening
+a stone to the dead body, threw it into the Seine.
+[FN [p] Ibid. p. 264.]
+
+All men were struck with horror at this inhuman deed; and from that
+moment the king, detested by his subjects, retained a very precarious
+authority over both the people and the barons in his dominions.  The
+Bretons, enraged at this disappointment in their fond hopes, waged
+implacable war against him; and fixing the succession of their
+government, put themselves in a posture to revenge the murder of their
+sovereign.  John had got into his power his niece, Eleanor, sister to
+Arthur, commonly called THE DAMSEL OF BRITANY; and carrying her over
+to England, detained her ever after in captivity [q]; but the Bretons,
+in despair of recovering this princess, chose Alice for their
+sovereign; a younger daughter of Constantia, by her second marriage
+with Guy de Thouars; and they intrusted the government of the duchy to
+that nobleman.  The states of Britany, meanwhile, carried their
+complaints before Philip, as their liege lord, and demanded justice
+for the violence committed by John on the person of Arthur, so near a
+relation, who, notwithstanding the homage which he did to Normandy,
+was always regarded as one of the chief vassals of the crown.  Philip
+received their application with pleasure; summoned John to stand a
+trial before him, and on his non-appearance passed sentence, with the
+concurrence of the peers, upon that prince; declared him guilty of
+felony and parricide; and adjudged him to forfeit to his superior lord
+all his seignories and fiefs in France [r].
+[FN [q] Trivet, p. 145.  T. Wykes, p. 36.  Ypod. Neust. p. 459.  [r]
+W. Heming, p. 455.  M. West. p. 264.  Knyghton, p. 2420.]
+
+[MN The King expelled from the French provinces.]
+The King of France, whose ambitious and active spirit had been
+hitherto confined, either by the sound policy of Henry, or the martial
+genius of Richard, seeing now the opportunity favourable against this
+base and odious prince, embraced the project of expelling the English,
+or rather the English king, from France, and of annexing to the crown
+so many considerable fiefs, which, during several ages, had been
+dismembered from it.  Many of the other great vassals, whose jealousy
+might have interposed, and have obstructed the execution of this
+project, were not at present in a situation to oppose it; and the rest
+either looked on with indifference, or gave their assistance to this
+dangerous aggrandizement of their superior lord.  The Earls of
+Flanders and Blois were engaged in the holy war: the Count of
+Champagne was an infant, and under the guardianship of Philip: the
+duchy of Britany, enraged at the murder of their prince, vigorously
+promoted all his measures: and the general defection of John's vassals
+made every enterprise easy and successful against him.  Philip, after
+taking several castles and fortresses beyond the Loire, which he
+either garrisoned or dismantled, received the submissions of the Count
+of Alencon, who deserted John, and delivered up all the places under
+his command to the French: upon which Philip broke up his camp, in
+order to give the troops some repose after the fatigues of the
+campaign.  John, suddenly recollecting some forces, laid siege to
+Alencon; and Philip, whose dispersed army could not be brought
+together in time to succour it, saw himself exposed to the disgrace of
+suffering the oppression of his friend and confederate.  But his
+active and fertile genius found an expedient against this evil.  There
+was held at that very time a tournament at Moret, in the Gatinois;
+whither all the chief nobility of France and the neighbouring
+countries had resorted, in order to signalize their prowess and
+address.  Philip presented himself before them; craved their
+assistance in his distress; and pointed out the plains of Alencon, as
+the most honourable field in which they could display their generosity
+and martial spirit.  Those valorous knights vowed that they would take
+vengeance on the base parricide, the stain of arms and of chivalry;
+and putting themselves, with all their retinue, under the command of
+Philip, instantly marched to raise the siege of Alencon.  John,
+hearing of their approach, fled from before the place; and, in the
+hurry, abandoned all his tents, machines, and baggage, to the enemy.
+
+This feeble effort was the last exploit of that slothful and cowardly
+prince for the defence of his dominions.  He thenceforth remained in
+total inactivity at Rouen; passing all his time with his young wife in
+pastimes and amusements, as if his state had been in the most profound
+tranquillity, or his affairs in the most prosperous condition.  If he
+ever mentioned war, it was only to give himself vaunting airs, which,
+in the eyes of all men, rendered him still more despicable and
+ridiculous.  LET THE FRENCH GO ON, said he, I WILL RETAKE IN A DAY
+WHAT IT HAS COST THEM YEARS TO ACQUIRE [s].  His stupidity and
+indolence appeared so extraordinary, that the people endeavoured to
+account for the infatuation by sorcery, and believed that he was
+thrown into this lethargy by some magic or witchcraft.  The English
+barons, finding that their time was wasted to no purpose, and that
+they must suffer the disgrace of seeing, without resistance, the
+progress of the French arms, withdrew from their colours, and secretly
+returned to their own country [t].  No one thought of defending a man
+who seemed to have deserted himself; and his subjects regarded his
+fate with the same indifference to which in this pressing exigency
+they saw him totally abandoned.
+[FN [s] M. Paris, p. 146.  M. West. p. 266.  [t] M. Paris, p. 146.  M.
+West. p. 264.]
+
+John, while he neglected all domestic resources, had the meanness to
+betake himself to a foreign power, whose protection he claimed: he
+applied to the pope, Innocent III., and entreated him to interpose his
+authority between him and the French monarch.  Innocent, pleased with
+any occasion of exerting his superiority, sent Philip orders to stop
+the progress of his arms, and to make peace with the King of England.
+But the French barons received the message with indignation;
+disclaimed the temporal authority assumed by the pontiff; and vowed
+that they would, to the uttermost, assist their prince against all his
+enemies; Philip, seconding their ardour, proceeded, instead of obeying
+the pope's envoys, to lay siege to Chateau Gaillard, the most
+considerable fortress which remained to guard the frontiers of
+Normandy.
+
+[MN 1204.]  Chateau Gaillard was situated partly on an island in the
+river Seine, partly on a rock opposite to it; and was secured by every
+advantage which either art or nature could bestow upon it.  The late
+king, having cast his eye on this favourable situation, had spared no
+labour or expense in fortifying it; and it was defended by Roger de
+Laci, Constable of Chester, a determined officer, at the head of a
+numerous garrison.  Philip, who despaired of taking the place by
+force, purposed to reduce it by famine; and, that he might cut off its
+communication with the neighbouring country, he threw a bridge across
+the Seine, while he himself, with his army, blockaded it by land.  The
+Earl of Pembroke, the man of greatest vigour and capacity in the
+English court, formed a plan for breaking through the French
+intrenchments, and throwing relief into the place.  He carried with
+him an army of four thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, and
+suddenly attacked, with great success, Philip's camp in the
+night-time; having left orders that a fleet of seventy flat-bottomed
+vessels should sail up the Seine, and fall at the same instant on the
+bridge.  But the wind and the current of the river, by retarding the
+vessels, disconcerted this plan of operations; and it was morning
+before the fleet appeared; when Pembroke, though successful in the
+beginning of the action, was already repulsed with considerable loss,
+and the King of France had leisure to defend himself against these new
+assailants, who also met with a repulse.  After this misfortune, John
+made no farther efforts for the relief of Chateau Gaillard; and Philip
+had all the leisure requisite for conducting and finishing the siege.
+Roger de Laci defended himself for a twelvemonth with great obstinacy;
+and having bravely repelled every attack, and patiently borne all the
+hardships of famine, he was at last overpowered by a sudden assault in
+the night-time, and made prisoner of war, with his garrison [u].
+Philip, who knew how to respect valour even in an enemy, treated him
+with civility, and gave him the whole city of Paris for the place of
+his confinement.
+[FN [u] Trivet, p. 144.  Gul. Britto, lib. 7.  Ann. Waverl. p. 168.]
+
+When this bulwark of Normandy was once subdued, all the province lay
+open to the inroads of Philip; and the King of England despaired of
+being any longer able to defend it.  He secretly prepared vessels for
+a scandalous flight, and that the Normans might no longer doubt of his
+resolution to abandon them, he ordered the fortifications of Pont de
+l'Arche, Molineaux, and Montfort l'Amauri, to be demolished.  Not
+daring to repose confidence in any of his barons, whom he believed to
+be universally engaged in a conspiracy against him, he intrusted the
+government of the province to Archas Martin and Lupicaire, two
+mercenary Brabancons, whom he had retained in his service.  Philip,
+now secure of his prey, pushed his conquests with vigour and success
+against the dismayed Normans.  Falaise was first besieged; and
+Lupicaire, who commanded in this impregnable fortress, after
+surrendering the place, enlisted himself with his troops in the
+service of Philip, and carried on hostilities against his ancient
+master.  Caen, Coutance, Seez, Evreux, Baieux, soon fell into the
+hands of the French monarch, and all the Lower Normandy was reduced
+under his dominion.  To forward his enterprises on the other division
+of the province, Gui de Thouars, at the head of the Bretons, broke
+into the territory, and took Mount St. Michael, Avranches, and all the
+other fortresses in that neighbourhood.  The Normans, who abhorred the
+French yoke, and who would have defended themselves to the last
+extremity if their prince had appeared to conduct them, found no
+resource but in submission; and every city opened its gates as soon as
+Philip appeared before it.  [MN 1205.]  Rouen alone, Arques, and
+Verneuil, determined to maintain their liberties, and formed a
+confederacy for mutual defence.  Philip began with the siege of Rouen:
+the inhabitants were so inflamed with hatred to France, that, on the
+appearance of his army, they fell on all the natives of that country
+whom they found within their walls, and put them to death.  But after
+the French king had begun his operations with success, and had taken
+some of their outworks, the citizens, seeing no resource, offered to
+capitulate; and demanded only thirty days to advertise their prince of
+their danger, and to require succours against the enemy.  [MN 1st
+June.]  Upon the expiration of the term, as no supply had arrived,
+they opened their gates to Philip [w]; and the whole province soon
+after imitated the example, and submitted to the victor.  Thus was
+this important territory re-united to the crown of France, about three
+centuries after the cession of it by Charles the Simple to Rollo, the
+first duke: and the Normans, sensible that this conquest was probably
+final, demanded the privilege of being governed by French laws; which
+Philip, making a few alterations on the ancient Norman customs,
+readily granted them.  But the French monarch had too much ambition
+and genius to stop in his present career of success.  He carried his
+victorious army into the western provinces; soon reduced Anjou, Maine,
+Touraine, and part of Poictou [x]; and in this manner the French
+crown, during the reign of one able and active prince, received such
+an accession of power and grandeur, as in the  ordinary course of
+things, it would have required several ages to attain.
+[FN [w] Trivet. p. 147.  Ypod. Neust. p. 459.  [x] Trivet, p. 149.]
+
+John, on his arrival in England, that he might cover the disgrace of
+his own conduct, exclaimed loudly against his barons, who, he
+pretended, had deserted his standard in Normandy; and he arbitrarily
+extorted from them a seventh of all their moveables, as a punishment
+for the offence [y].  Soon after he forced them to grant him a scutage
+of two marks and a half on each knight's fee for an expedition into
+Normandy; but he did not attempt to execute the service for which he
+pretended to exact it.  Next year he summoned all the barons of his
+realm to attend him on this foreign expedition, and collected ships
+from all the sea-ports; but meeting with opposition from some of his
+ministers, and abandoning his design, he dismissed both fleet and
+army, and then renewed his exclamations against the barons for
+deserting him.  He next put to sea with a small army, and his subjects
+believed that he was resolved to expose himself to the utmost hazard
+for the defence and recovery of his dominions: but they were
+surprised, after a few days, to see him return again into harbour,
+without attempting any thing.  [MN 1206.]  In the subsequent season,
+he had the courage to carry his hostile measures a step farther.  Gui
+de Thouars, who governed Britany, jealous of the rapid progress made
+by his ally, the French king, promised to join the King of England
+with all his forces; and John ventured abroad with a considerable
+army, and landed at Rochelle.  He marched to Angers, which he took and
+reduced to ashes.  But the approach of Philip with an army threw him
+into a panic; and he immediately made proposals for peace, and fixed a
+place of interview with his enemy: but instead of keeping his
+engagement, he stole off with his army, embarked at Rochelle, and
+returned, loaded with new shame and disgrace, into England.  The
+mediation of the pope, procured him at last a truce for two years with
+the French monarch [z]; almost all the transmarine provinces were
+ravished from him; and his English barons, though harassed with
+arbitrary taxes and fruitless expeditions, saw themselves and their
+country baffled and affronted in every enterprise.
+[FN [y] M. Paris, p. 146.  M. West. p. 265.  [z] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+141.]
+
+In an age when personal valour was regarded as the chief
+accomplishment, such conduct as that of John, always disgraceful, must
+be exposed to peculiar contempt; and he must thenceforth have expected
+to rule his turbulent vassals with a very doubtful authority.  But the
+government exercised by the Norman princes had wound up the royal
+power to so high a pitch, and so much beyond the usual tenour of the
+feudal constitutions, that it still behoved him to be debased by new
+affronts and disgraces, ere his barons could entertain the view of
+conspiring against him, in order to retrench his prerogatives.  The
+church, which at that time declined not a contest with the most
+powerful and vigorous monarchs, took first advantage of John's
+imbecility; and, with the most aggravating circumstances of insolence
+and scorn, fixed her yoke upon him.
+
+[MN 1207.  The king's quarrel with the court of Rome.]
+The papal chair was then filled by Innocent III., who, having attained
+that dignity at the age of thirty-seven years, and being endowed with
+a lofty and enterprising genius, gave full scope to his ambition, and
+attempted, perhaps more openly than any of his predecessors, to
+convert that superiority which was yielded him by all the European
+princes into a real dominion over them.  The hierarchy, protected by
+the Roman pontiff, had already carried to an enormous height its
+usurpations upon the civil power; but in order to extend them farther,
+and render them useful to the court of Rome, it was necessary to
+reduce the ecclesiastics themselves under an absolute monarchy, and to
+make them entirely dependent on their spiritual leader.  For this
+purpose, Innocent first attempted to impose taxes at pleasure upon the
+clergy; and in the first year of this century, taking advantage of the
+popular frenzy for crusades, he sent collectors over all Europe, who
+levied, by his authority, the fortieth of all ecclesiastical revenues
+for the relief of the Holy Land, and received the voluntary
+contributions of the laity to a like amount [a].  The same year
+Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, attempted another innovation,
+favourable to ecclesiastical and papal power: in the king's absence,
+he summoned, by his legatine authority, a synod of all the English
+clergy, contrary to the inhibition of Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, the chief
+justiciary; and no proper censure was ever passed on this
+encroachment, the first of the kind, upon the royal power.  But a
+favourable incident soon after happened, which enabled so aspiring a
+pontiff as Innocent to extend still farther his usurpations on so
+contemptible a prince as John.
+[FN [a] Rymer, vol. i. p. 119.]
+
+Hubert the primate died in 1205; and as the monks or canons of Christ-
+Church, Canterbury, possessed a right of voting in the election of
+their archbishop, some of the juniors of the order, who lay in wait
+for that event, met clandestinely the very night of Hubert's death,
+and, without any conge d'elire from the king, chose Reginald, their
+sub-prior, for the successor; installed him in the archiepiscopal
+throne before midnight; and, having enjoined him the strictest
+secrecy, sent him immediately to Rome, in order to solicit the
+confirmation of his election [b].  The vanity of Reginald prevailed
+over his prudence; and he no sooner arrived in Flanders, than he
+revealed to every one the purpose of his journey, which was
+immediately known in England [c].  The king was enraged at the novelty
+and temerity of the attempt, in filling so important an office without
+his knowledge or consent: the suffragan bishops of Canterbury, who
+were accustomed to concur in the choice of their primate, were no less
+displeased at the exclusion given them in this election: the senior
+monks of Christ-Church were injured by the irregular proceedings of
+their juniors: the juniors themselves, ashamed of their conduct, and
+disgusted with the levity of Reginald, who had broken his engagements
+with them, were willing to set aside his election [d]: and all men
+concurred in the design of remedying the false measures which had been
+taken.  But as John knew that this affair would be canvassed before a
+superior tribunal, where the interposition of royal authority in
+bestowing ecclesiastical benefices was very invidious; where even the
+cause of suffragan bishops was not so favourable as that of monks; he
+determined to make the new election entirely unexceptionable: he
+submitted the affair wholly to the canons of Christ-Church, and,
+departing from the right claimed by his predecessors, ventured no
+farther than to inform them privately, that they would do him an
+acceptable service if they chose John de Gray, Bishop of Norwich, for
+their primate [e].  The election of that prelate was accordingly made
+without a contradictory vote; and the king, to obviate all contests,
+endeavoured to persuade the suffragan bishops not to insist on their
+claim of concurring in the election; but those prelates, persevering
+in their pretensions, sent an agent to maintain their cause before
+Innocent; while the king and the convent of Christ-Church, despatched
+twelve monks of that order to support, before the same tribunal, the
+election of the Bishop of Norwich.
+[FN [b] M. Paris, p. 148.  M. West. p. 266.  [c] Ibid.  [d] M. West.
+p. 266.  [e] M. Paris, p. 149.  M. West. p. 266.]
+
+Thus there lay three different claims before the pope, whom all
+parties allowed to be the supreme arbiter in the contest.  The claim
+of the suffragans, being so opposite to the usual maxims of the papal
+court, was soon set aside: the election of Reginald was so obviously
+fraudulent and irregular, that there was no possibility of defending
+it; but Innocent maintained that, though this election was null and
+invalid, it ought previously to have been declared such by the
+sovereign pontiff, before the monks could proceed to a new election;
+and that the choice of the Bishop of Norwich was of course as
+uncanonical as that of his competitor [f].  Advantage was therefore
+taken of this subtlety for introducing a precedent, by which the see
+of Canterbury, the most important dignity in the church after the
+papal throne, should ever after be at the disposal of the court of
+Rome.
+[FN [f] M. Paris, p. 155.  Chron. de Mailr. p. 182.]
+
+While the pope maintained so many fierce contests, in order to wrest
+from princes the right of granting investitures, and to exclude laymen
+from all authority in conferring ecclesiastical benefices, he was
+supported by the united influence of the clergy, who, aspiring to
+independence, fought with all the ardour of ambition, and all the zeal
+of superstition, under his sacred banners.  But no sooner was this
+point, after a great effusion of blood, and the convulsions of many
+states, established in some tolerable degree, than the victorious
+leader, as is usual, turned his arms against his own community, and
+aspired to centre all power in his person.  By the invention of
+reserves, provisions, commendants, and other devices, the pope
+gradually assumed the right of filling vacant benefices; and the
+plenitude of his apostolic power, which was not subject to any
+limitations, supplied all defects of title in the person on whom he
+bestowed preferment.  The canons which regulated elections were
+purposely rendered intricate and involved: frequent disputes arose
+among candidates: appeals were every day carried to Rome: the
+apostolic see, besides reaping pecuniary advantages from these
+contests, often exercised the power of setting aside both the
+litigants, and, on pretence of appeasing faction, nominated a third
+person, who might be more acceptable to the contending parties.
+
+The present controversy about the election to the see of Canterbury
+afforded Innocent an opportunity of claiming this right; and he failed
+not to perceive and avail himself of the advantage.  He sent for the
+twelve monks deputed by the convent to maintain the cause of the
+Bishop of Norwich; and commanded them, under the penalty of
+excommunication, to choose for their primate Cardinal Langton, an
+Englishman by birth, but educated in France, and connected, by his
+interest and attachments, with the see of Rome [g].  [MN Cardinal
+Langton appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.]  In vain did the monks
+represent, that they had received from their convent no authority for
+this purpose; that an election, without a previous writ from the king,
+would be deemed highly irregular; and that they were merely agents for
+another person, whose right they had no power or pretence to abandon.
+None of them had the courage to persevere in this opposition, except
+one, Elias de Brantefield: all the rest, overcome by the menaces and
+authority of the pope, complied with his orders, and made the election
+required of them.
+[FN [g] M. Paris, p. 155.  Ann. Waverl. p. 169.  W. Heming. p. 553.
+Knyghton, p. 2415.]
+
+Innocent, sensible that this flagrant usurpation would be highly
+resented by the court of England, wrote John a mollifying letter; sent
+him four golden rings set with precious stones; and endeavoured to
+enhance the value of the present by informing him of the many
+mysteries implied in it.  He begged him to consider seriously the FORM
+of the rings, their NUMBER, their MATTER, and their COLOUR.  Their
+form, he said, being round, shadowed out eternity, which had neither
+beginning nor end; and he ought thence to learn his duty of aspiring
+from earthly objects to heavenly, from things temporal to things
+eternal.  The number four, being a square, denoted steadiness of mind,
+not to be subverted either by adversity or prosperity, fixed for ever
+on the firm basis of the four cardinal virtues.  Gold, which is the
+matter, being the most precious of metals, signified wisdom, which is
+the most valuable of all accomplishments, and justly preferred by
+Solomon to riches, power, and all exterior attainments.  The blue
+colour of the sapphire represented faith; the verdure of the emerald,
+hope; the redness of the ruby, charity; and the splendour of the
+topaz, good works [h].  By these conceits Innocent endeavoured to
+repay John for one of the most important prerogatives of his crown,
+which he had ravished from him; conceits probably admired by Innocent
+himself: for it is easily possible for a man, especially in a
+barbarous age, to unite strong talents for business with an absurd
+taste for literature and the arts.
+[FN [h] Rymer, vol. i. p. 139.  M. Paris, p. 155.]
+
+John was inflamed with the utmost rage when he heard of this attempt
+of the court of Rome [i]; and he immediately vented his passion on the
+monks of Christ-Church, whom he found inclined to support the election
+made by their fellows at Rome.  He sent Fulke de Cantelupe, and Henry
+de Cornhulle, two knights of his retinue, men of violent tempers and
+rude manners, to expel them the convent, and take possession of their
+revenues.  These knights entered the monastery with drawn swords,
+commanded the prior and the monks to depart the kingdom, and menaced
+them, that, in case of disobedience, they would instantly burn them
+with the convent [k].  Innocent, prognosticating, from the violence
+and imprudence of these measures, that John would finally sink in the
+contest, persevered the more vigorously in his pretensions, and
+exhorted the king not to oppose God and the church any longer, nor to
+prosecute that cause for which the holy martyr, St. Thomas, had
+sacrificed his life, and which had exalted him equal to the highest
+saints in heaven [l]: a clear hint to John to profit by the example of
+his father; and to remember the prejudices and established principles
+of his subjects, who bore a profound veneration to that martyr, and
+regarded his merits as the subject of their chief glory and
+exultation.
+[FN [i] Rymer, vol. i. p. 143.  [k] M. Paris, p. 156.  Trivet, p. 151.
+Ann. Waverl. p. 169.  [l] M. Paris, p. 157.]
+
+Innocent, finding that John was not sufficiently tamed to submission,
+sent three prelates, the Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, to
+intimate, that if he persevered in his disobedience, the sovereign
+pontiff would be obliged to lay the kingdom under an interdict [m].
+All the other prelates threw themselves on their knees before him, and
+entreated him, with tears in their eyes, to prevent the scandal of
+this sentence, by making a speedy submission to his spiritual father,
+by receiving from his hands the new-elected primate, and by restoring
+the monks of Christ-Church to all their rights and possessions.  He
+burst out into the most indecent invectives against the prelates;
+swore by God's teeth, (his usual oath,) that if the pope presumed to
+lay his kingdom under an interdict, he would send to him all the
+bishops and clergy of England, and would confiscate all their estates;
+and threatened that, if thenceforth he caught any Romans in his
+dominions, he would put out their eyes and cut off their noses, in
+order to set a mark upon them which might distinguish them from all
+other nations [n].  Amidst all this idle violence, John stood on such
+bad terms with his nobility, that he never dared to assemble the
+states of the kingdom, who, in so just a cause, would probably have
+adhered to any other monarch, and have defended with vigour the
+liberties of the nation against these palpable usurpations of the
+court of Rome.  [MN Interdict of the kingdom.]  Innocent, therefore,
+perceiving the king's weakness, fulminated at last the sentence of
+interdict, which he had for some time held suspended over him [o].
+[FN [m] Ibid.  [n] Ibid.  [o] M. Paris, p. 157.  Trivet, p. 152.  Ann.
+Waverl. p. 170.  M. West. p. 268.]
+
+The sentence of interdict was at that time the great instrument of
+vengeance and policy employed by the court of Rome; was denounced
+against sovereigns for the lightest offences; and made the guilt of
+one person involve the ruin of millions, even in their spiritual and
+eternal welfare.  The execution of it was calculated to strike the
+senses in the highest degree, and to operate with irresistible force
+on the superstitious minds of the people.  The nation was of a sudden
+deprived of all exterior exercise of its religion: the altars were
+despoiled of their ornaments: the crosses, the relics, the images, the
+statues of the saints, were laid on the ground; and, as if the air
+itself were profaned, and might pollute them by its contact, the
+priests carefully covered them up, even from their own approach and
+veneration.  The use of bells entirely ceased in all the churches: the
+bells themselves were removed from the steeples, and laid on the
+ground with the other sacred utensils.  Mass was celebrated with shut
+doors, and none but the priests were admitted to that holy
+institution.  The laity partook of no religious rite, except baptism
+to new-born infants, and the communion to the dying: the dead were not
+interred in consecrated ground: they were thrown into ditches, or
+buried in common fields; and their obsequies were not attended with
+prayers or any hallowed ceremony.  Marriage was celebrated in the
+church-yard [p]; and that every action in life might bear the marks of
+this dreadful situation, the people were prohibited the use of meat,
+as in Lent, or times of the highest penance; were debarred from all
+pleasures and entertainments; and were forbidden even to salute each
+other, or so much as to shave their beards, and give any decent
+attention to their person and apparel.  Every circumstance carried
+symptoms of the deepest distress, and of the most immediate
+apprehension of divine vengeance and indignation.
+[FN [p] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 51.]
+
+The king, that he might oppose HIS temporal to THEIR spiritual
+terrors, immediately, from his own authority, confiscated the estates
+of all the clergy who obeyed the interdict [q]; banished the prelates,
+confined the monks in their convent, and gave them only such a small
+allowance from their own estates as would suffice to provide them with
+food and raiment.  He treated with the utmost rigour all Langton's
+adherents, and every one that showed any disposition to obey the
+commands of Rome; and in order to distress the clergy in the tenderest
+point, and at the same time expose them to reproach and ridicule, he
+threw into prison all their concubines, and required high fines as the
+price of their liberty [r].
+[FN [q] Ann. Waverl. p. 170.  [r] M. Paris, p. 158.  Ann. Waverl. p.
+170.]
+
+After the canons which established the celibacy of the clergy were, by
+the zealous endeavours of Archbishop Anselm, more rigorously executed
+in England, the ecclesiastics gave, almost universally, and avowedly,
+in to the use of concubinage; and the court of Rome, which had no
+interest in prohibiting this practice, made very slight opposition to
+it.  The custom was become so prevalent, that, in some cantons of
+Switzerland, before the reformation, the laws not only permitted, but,
+to avoid scandal, enjoined the use of concubines to the younger clergy
+[s]; and it was usual every where for priests to apply to the
+ordinary, and obtain from him a formal liberty for this indulgence.
+The bishop commonly took care to prevent the practice from
+degenerating into licentiousness: he confined the priest to the use of
+one woman, required him to be constant to her bed, obliged him to
+provide for her subsistence and that of her children; and though the
+offspring was, in the eye of the law, deemed illegitimate, this
+commerce was really a kind of inferior marriage, such as is still
+practised in Germany among the nobles; and may be regarded by the
+candid as an appeal from the tyranny of civil and ecclesiastical
+institutions, to the more virtuous and more unerring laws of nature.
+[FN [s] Padre Paolo, Hist. Conc. Trid. lib. I.]
+
+The quarrel between the king and the see of Rome continued for some
+years; and though many of the clergy, from the fear of punishment,
+obeyed the orders of John, and celebrated divine service, they
+complied with the utmost reluctance, and were regarded, both by
+themselves and the people, as men who betrayed their principles, and
+sacrificed their conscience to temporal regards and interests.  During
+this violent situation, the king, in order to give a lustre to his
+government, attempted military expeditions against Scotland, against
+Ireland, against the Welsh [t]; and he commonly prevailed, more from
+the weakness of his enemies, than from his own vigour or abilities.
+Meanwhile, the danger to which his government stood continually
+exposed from the discontents of the ecclesiastics increased his
+natural propension to tyranny; and he seems to have even wantonly
+disgusted all orders of men, especially his nobles, from whom alone he
+could reasonably expect support and assistance.  He dishonoured their
+families by his licentious amours; he published edicts, prohibiting
+them from hunting feathered game, and thereby restrained them from
+their favourite occupation and amusement [u]; he ordered all the
+hedges and fences near his forests to be levelled, that his deer might
+have more ready access into the fields for pasture; and he continually
+loaded the nation with arbitrary impositions.  [MN 1208.]  Conscious
+of the general hatred which he had incurred, he required his nobility
+to give him hostages for security of their allegiance; and they were
+obliged to put into his hands their sons, nephews, or near relations.
+When his messengers came with like orders to the castle of William de
+Braouse, a baron of great note, the lady of that nobleman replied,
+that she would never intrust her son into the hands of one who had
+murdered his own nephew while in his custody.  Her husband reproved
+her for the severity of this speech; but, sensible of his danger, he
+immediately fled with his wife and son into Ireland, where he
+endeavoured to conceal himself.  The king discovered the unhappy
+family in their retreat; seized the wife and son, whom he starved to
+death in prison; and the baron himself narrowly escaped, by flying
+into France.
+[FN [t] W. Heming. p. 556.  Ypod. Neust, p. 460.  Knyghton, p. 2420.
+[u] M. West. p. 268.]
+
+[MN 1209.]  The court of Rome had artfully contrived a gradation of
+sentences, by which it kept offenders in awe; still affording them an
+opportunity of preventing the next anathema by submission; and in case
+of their obstinacy, was able to refresh the horror of the people
+against them by new denunciations of the wrath and vengeance of
+Heaven.  As the sentence of interdict had not produced the desired
+effect on John, and as his people, though extremely discontented, had
+hitherto been restrained from rising in open rebellion against him, he
+was soon to look for the sentence of excommunication; and he had
+reason to apprehend, that, notwithstanding all his precautions, the
+most dangerous consequences might ensue from it.  He was witness of
+the other scenes, which, at that very time, were acting in Europe, and
+which displayed the unbounded and uncontrolled power of the papacy.
+Innocent, far from being dismayed at his contests with the King of
+England, had excommunicated the Emperor Otho, John's nephew [w]; and
+soon brought that powerful and haughty prince to submit to his
+authority.  He published a crusade against the Abigenses, a species of
+enthusiasts in the south of France, whom he denominated heretics,
+because, like other enthusiasts, they neglected the rites of the
+church, and opposed the power and influence of the clergy: the people
+from all parts of Europe, moved by their superstition and their
+passion for wars and adventures, flocked to his standard: Simon de
+Montfort, the general of the crusade, acquired to himself a
+sovereignty in these provinces: the Count of Toulouse, who protected,
+or perhaps only tolerated the Albigenses, was stripped of his
+dominions: and these sectaries themselves, though the most innocent
+and inoffensive of mankind, were exterminated with all the
+circumstances of extreme violence and barbarity.  Here were therefore
+both an army and a general, dangerous from their zeal and valour, who
+might be directed to act against John; and Innocent, after keeping the
+thunder long suspended, gave, at last, authority to the Bishops of
+London, Ely, and Worcester, to fulminate the sentence of
+excommunication against him [x].  [MN Excommunication of the king.]
+These prelates obeyed; though their brethren were deterred from
+publishing, as the pope required of them, the sentence in the several
+churches of their dioceses.
+[FN [w] M. Paris, p. 160.  Trivet, p. 154.  M. West. p. 269.  [x] M.
+Paris, p. 159.  M. West. p. 270.]
+
+No sooner was the excommunication known, than the effects of it
+appeared.  Geoffrey, Archdeacon of Norwich, who was intrusted with a
+considerable office in the court of exchequer, being informed of it
+while sitting on the bench, observed to his colleagues the danger of
+serving under an excommunicated king; and he immediately left his
+chair, and departed the court.  John gave orders to seize him, to
+throw him into prison, to cover his head with a great leaden cope;
+and, by this and other severe usage, he soon put an end to his life
+[y]: nor was there any thing wanting to Geoffrey, except the dignity
+and rank of Becket, to exalt him to an equal station in heaven with
+that great and celebrated martyr.  Hugh de Wells, the chancellor,
+being elected by the king's appointment Bishop of Lincoln, upon a
+vacancy in that see, desired leave to go abroad, in order to receive
+consecration from the Archbishop of Rouen; but he no sooner reached
+France than he hastened to Pontigny, where Langton then resided, and
+paid submissions to him as his primate.  The bishops, finding
+themselves exposed either to the jealousy of the king or hatred of the
+people, gradually stole out of the kingdom; and, at last, there
+remained only three prelates to perform the functions of the episcopal
+office [z].  Many of the nobility, terrified by John's tyranny, and
+obnoxious to him on different accounts, imitated the example of the
+bishops; and most of the others who remained were, with reason,
+suspected of having secretly entered into a confederacy against him
+[a].  John was alarmed at his dangerous situation; a situation which
+prudence, vigour, and popularity might formerly have prevented, but
+which no virtues or abilities were now sufficient to retrieve.  He
+desired a conference with Langton at Dover; offered to acknowledge him
+as primate, to submit to the pope, to restore the exiled clergy, even
+to pay them a limited sum as a compensation for the rents of their
+confiscated estates.  But Langton, perceiving his advantage, was not
+satisfied with these concessions: he demanded that full restitution
+and reparation should be made to all the clergy; a condition so
+exorbitant, that the king, who probably had not the power of
+fulfilling it, and who foresaw that this estimation of damages might
+amount to an immense sum, finally broke off the conference [b].
+[FN [y] M. Paris, p. 159.  [z] Ann. Waverl. p. 170.  Ann. Marg. p. 14.
+[a] M. Paris, p. 162.  M. West. p. 270, 271.  [b] Ann. Waverl. p.
+171.]
+
+[MN 1212.]  The next gradation of papal sentences was to absolve
+John's subjects from their oaths of fidelity and allegiance, and to
+declare every one excommunicated who had any commerce with him in
+public or in private; at his table, in his council, or even in private
+conversation [c]; and this sentence was accordingly, with all
+imaginable solemnity, pronounced against him.  But as John still
+persevered in his contumacy, there remained nothing but the sentence
+of deposition; which, though intimately connected with the former, had
+been distinguished from it by the artifice of the court of Rome; and
+Innocent determined to dart this last thunderbolt against the
+refractory monarch.  But as a sentence of this kind required an armed
+force to execute it, the pontiff, casting his eyes around, fixed at
+last on Philip, King of France, as the person into whose powerful hand
+he could most properly intrust that weapon, the ultimate resource of
+his ghostly authority.  And he offered the monarch, besides the
+remission of all his sins and endless spiritual benefits, the property
+and possession of the kingdom of England, as the reward of his labour
+[d].
+[FN [c] M. Paris, p. 161.  M. West. p. 270.  [d] M. Paris, p. 162.  M.
+West. p. 271.]
+
+[MN 1213.]  It was the common concern of all princes to oppose these
+exorbitant pretensions of the Roman pontiff, by which they themselves
+were rendered vassals, and vassals totally dependent, of the papal
+crown: yet even Philip, the most able monarch of the age, was seduced
+by present interest, and by the prospect of so tempting a prize, to
+accept this liberal offer of the pontiff, and thereby to ratify that
+authority which, if he ever opposed its boundless usurpations, might,
+next day, tumble him from the throne.  He levied a great army;
+summoned all the vassals of the crown to attend him at Rouen;
+collected a fleet of seventeen hundred vessels, great and small, in
+the sea-ports of Normandy and Picardy; and partly from the zealous
+spirit of the age, partly from the personal regard universally paid
+him, prepared a force, which seemed equal to the greatness of his
+enterprise.  The king, on the other hand, issued out writs, requiring
+the attendance of all his military tenants at Dover, and even of all
+able-bodied men, to defend the kingdom in this dangerous extremity.  A
+great number appeared; and he selected an army of sixty thousand men;
+a power invincible, had they been united in affection to their prince,
+and animated with a becoming zeal for the defence of their native
+country [e].  But the people were swayed by superstition, and regarded
+their king with horror, as anathematized by papal censures: the
+barons, besides lying under the same prejudices, were all disgusted by
+his tyranny, and were, many of them, suspected of holding a secret
+correspondence with the enemy; and the incapacity and cowardice of the
+king himself, ill fitted to contend with those mighty difficulties,
+made men prognosticate the most fatal effects from the French
+invasion.
+[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 163.  M. West. p. 271.]
+
+Pandolf, whom the pope had chosen for his legate, and appointed to
+head this important expedition, had, before he left Rome, applied for
+a secret conference with his master, and had asked him, whether, if
+the King of England, in this desperate situation, were willing to
+submit to the apostolic see, the church should, without the consent of
+Philip, grant him any terms of accommodation [f]!  Innocent, expecting
+from his agreement with a prince so abject both in character and
+fortune, more advantages than from his alliance with a great and
+victorious monarch, who, after such mighty acquisitions, might become
+too haughty to be bound by spiritual chains, explained to Pandolf the
+conditions on which he was willing to be reconciled to the King of
+England.  The legate, therefore, as soon as he arrived in the north of
+France, sent over two Knights Templars to desire an interview with
+John at Dover, which was readily granted: he there represented to him,
+in such strong and probably in such true colours, his lost condition,
+the disaffection of his subjects, the secret combination of his
+vassals against him, the mighty armament of France, that John yielded
+at discretion [g], and subscribed to all the conditions which Pandolf
+was pleased to impose upon him.  [MN 13th May.  The king's submission
+to the pope.]  He promised, among other articles, that he would submit
+himself entirely to the judgment of the pope; that he would
+acknowledge Langton for primate; that he would restore all the exiled
+clergy and laity, who had been banished on account of the contest;
+that he would make them full restitution of their goods, and
+compensation for all damages, and instantly consign eight thousand
+pounds in part of payment; and that every one outlawed or imprisoned
+for his adherence to the pope should immediately be received into
+grace and favour [h].  Four barons swore, along with the king, to the
+observance of this ignominious treaty [i].
+[FN [f] M. Paris, p. 162.  [g] M. West. p. 271.  [h] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+166.  M. Paris, p. 163.  Annal. Burt. p. 268.  [i] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+170.  M. Paris, p. 163.]
+
+But the ignominy of the king was not yet carried to its full height.
+Pandolf required him, as the first trial of obedience, to resign his
+kingdom to the church; and he persuaded him, that he could nowise so
+effectually disappoint the French invasion as by thus putting himself
+under the immediate protection of the apostolic see.  John, lying
+under the agonies of present terror, made no scruple of submitting to
+this condition.  He passed a charter, in which he said, that, not
+constrained by fear, but of his own free will, and by the common
+advice and consent of his barons, he had, for remission of his own
+sins, and those of his family, resigned England and Ireland, to God,
+to St. Peter and St. Paul, and to Pope Innocent and his successors in
+the apostolic chair: he agreed to hold these dominions as feudatory of
+the church of Rome, by the annual payment of a thousand marks; seven
+hundred for England, three hundred for Ireland: and he stipulated that
+if he or his successors should ever presume to revoke or infringe this
+charter, they should instantly, except upon admonition they repented
+of their offence, forfeit all right to their dominions [k].
+[FN [k] Rymer, vol. i. p. 176.  M. Paris, p. 165.]
+
+[MN 15th May.]  In consequence of this agreement, John did homage to
+Pandolf, as the pope's legate, with all the submissive rites which the
+feudal law required of vassals before their liege lord and superior.
+He came disarmed into the legate's presence, who was seated on a
+throne; he flung himself on his knees before him; he lifted up his
+joined hands, and put them within those of Pandolf; he swore fealty to
+the pope; and he paid part of the tribute which he owed for his
+kingdom as the patrimony of St. Peter.  The legate, elated by this
+supreme triumph of sacerdotal power, could not forbear discovering
+extravagant symptoms of joy and exultation: he trampled on the money,
+which was laid at his feet as an earnest of the subjection of the
+kingdom; an insolence of which, however offensive to all the English,
+no one present, except the Archbishop of Dublin, dared to take any
+notice.  But though Pandolf had brought the king to submit to these
+base conditions, he still refused to free him from the excommunication
+and interdict, till an estimation should be taken of the losses of the
+ecclesiastics, and full compensation and restitution should be made
+them.
+
+John, reduced to this abject situation under a foreign power, still
+showed the same disposition to tyrannize over his subjects, which had
+been the chief cause of all his misfortunes.  One Peter of Pomfret, a
+hermit, had foretold that the king, this very year, should lose his
+crown; and for that rash prophecy he had been thrown into prison in
+Corfe-castle.  John now determined to bring him to punishment as an
+impostor; and though the man pleaded that his prophecy was fulfilled,
+and that the king had lost the royal and independent crown which he
+formerly wore, the defence was supposed to aggravate his guilt: he was
+dragged at horses' tails to the town of Warham, and there hanged on a
+gibbet with his son [l].
+[FN [l] M. Paris, p. 165.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 56.]
+
+When Pandolf, after receiving the homage of John, returned to France,
+he congratulated Philip on the success of his pious enterprise; and
+informed him that John, moved by the terror of the French arms, had
+now come to a just sense of his guilt; had returned to obedience under
+the apostolic see, and even consented to do homage to the pope for his
+dominions; and having thus made his kingdom a part of St. Peter's
+patrimony, had rendered it impossible for any Christian prince,
+without the most manifest and most flagrant impiety, to attack him
+[m].  Philip was enraged on receiving this intelligence: he exclaimed
+that having, at the pope's instigation, undertaken an expedition,
+which had cost him above sixty thousand pounds sterling, he was
+frustrated of his purpose, at the time when its success was become
+infallible: he complained that all the expense had fallen upon him;
+all the advantages had accrued to Innocent: he threatened to be no
+longer the dupe of these hypocritical pretences; and, assembling his
+vassals, he laid before them the ill-treatment which he had received,
+exposed the interested and fraudulent conduct of the pope, and
+required their assistance to execute his enterprise against England,
+in which he told them, that, notwithstanding the inhibitions and
+menaces of the legate, he was determined to persevere.  The French
+barons were, in that age, little less ignorant and superstitious than
+the English: yet, so much does the influence of those religious
+principles depend on the present dispositions of men, they all vowed
+to follow their prince on his intended expedition, and were resolute
+not to be disappointed of that glory and those riches which they had
+long expected from this enterprise.  The Earl of Flanders alone, who
+had previously formed a secret treaty with John, declaring against the
+injustice and impiety of the undertaking, retired with his forces [n];
+and Philip, that he might not leave so dangerous an enemy behind him,
+first turned his arms against the dominions of that prince.
+Meanwhile, the English fleet was assembled under the Earl of
+Salisbury, the king's natural brother; and though inferior in number,
+received orders to attack the French in their harbours.  Salisbury
+performed this service with so much success, that he took three
+hundred ships; destroyed a hundred more [o]; and Philip, finding it
+impossible to prevent the rest from falling into the hands of the
+enemy, set fire to them himself, and thereby rendered it impossible
+for him to proceed any farther in his enterprise.
+[FN [m] Trivet, p. 160.  [n] M. Paris, p. 166.  [o] Ibid. p. 166.
+Chron. Dunst, vol. i. p. 59.  Trivet, p. 157.]
+
+John, exulting in his present security, insensible to his past
+disgrace, was so elated with this success, that he thought of no less
+than invading France in his turn, and recovering all those provinces
+which the prosperous arms of Philip had formerly ravished from him.
+He proposed this expedition to the barons, who were already assembled
+for the defence of the kingdom.  But the English nobles both hated and
+despised their prince: they prognosticated no success to any
+enterprise conducted by such a leader; and pretending that their time
+of service was elapsed, and all their provisions exhausted, they
+refused to second his undertaking [p].  The king, however, resolute in
+his purpose, embarked with a few followers, and sailed to Jersey, in
+the foolish expectation that the barons would at last be ashamed to
+stay behind [q].  But finding himself disappointed, he returned to
+England; and, raising some troops, threatened to take vengeance on all
+his nobles for their desertion and disobedience.  The Archbishop of
+Canterbury, who was in a confederacy with the barons, here interposed;
+strictly inhibited the king from thinking of such an attempt; and
+threatened him with a renewal of the sentence of excommunication, if
+he pretended to levy war upon any of his subjects, before the kingdom
+were freed from the sentence of interdict [r].
+[FN [p] M. Paris, p. 166.  [q] M. Paris, p. 166.  [r] Ibid. p. 167.]
+
+The church had recalled the several anathemas pronounced against John,
+by the same gradual progress with which she had at first issued them.
+By receiving his homage, and admitting him to the rank of a vassal,
+his deposition had been virtually annulled, and his subjects were
+again bound by their oaths of allegiance.  The exiled prelates had
+then returned in great triumph, with Langton at their head; and the
+king, hearing of their approach, went forth to meet them, and throwing
+himself on the ground before them, he entreated them, with tears, to
+have compassion on him and the kingdom of England [s].  [MN July.]
+The primate, seeing these marks of sincere penitence, led him to the
+chapter-house of Winchester, and there administered an oath to him, by
+which he again swore fealty and obedience to Pope Innocent and his
+successors; promised to love, maintain, and defend holy church and the
+clergy; engaged that he would re-establish the good laws of his
+predecessors, particularly those of St. Edward, and would abolish the
+wicked ones; and expressed his resolution of maintaining justice and
+right in all his dominions [t].  The primate next gave him absolution
+in the requisite forms, and admitted him to dine with him, to the
+great joy of all the people.  The sentence of interdict, however, was
+still upheld against the kingdom.  A new legate, Nicholas, Bishop of
+Frescati, came into England in the room of Pandolf; and he declared it
+to be the pope's intentions never to loosen that sentence till full
+restitution were made to the clergy of every thing taken from them,
+and ample reparation for all damages which they had sustained.  He
+only permitted mass to be said with a low voice in the churches, till
+those losses and damages could be estimated to the satisfaction of the
+parties.  Certain barons were appointed to take an account of the
+claims; and John was astonished at the greatness of the sums to which
+the clergy made their losses to amount.  No less than twenty thousand
+marks were demanded by the monks of Canterbury alone; twenty-three
+thousand for the see of Lincoln; and the king, finding these
+pretensions to be exorbitant and endless, offered the clergy the sum
+of a hundred thousand marks for a final acquittal.  The clergy
+rejected the offer with disdain; but the pope, willing to favour his
+new vassal, whom he found zealous in his declarations of fealty, and
+regular in paying the stipulated tribute to Rome, directed his legate
+to accept of forty thousand.  The issue of the whole was, that the
+bishops and considerable abbots got reparation beyond what they had
+any title to demand; the inferior clergy were obliged to sit down
+contented with their losses; and the king, after the interdict was
+taken off, renewed, in the most solemn manner, and by a new charter,
+sealed with gold, his professions of homage and obedience to the see
+of Rome.
+[FN [s] Ibid. p. 166.  Ann. Waverl. p. 178.  [t] M. Paris, p. 166.]
+
+[MN 1214.]  When this vexatious affair was at last brought to a
+conclusion, the king, as if he had nothing farther to attend to but
+triumphs and victories, went over to Poictou, which still acknowledged
+his authority [u]; and he carried war into Philip's dominions.  He
+besieged a castle near Angiers; but the approach of Prince Lewis,
+Philip's son, obliged him to raise the siege with such precipitation,
+that he left his tents, machines, and baggage behind him; and he
+returned to England with disgrace.  About the same time he heard of
+the great and decisive victory gained by the King of France at Bovines
+over the Emperor Otho, who had entered France at the head of a hundred
+and fifty thousand Germans; a victory which established for ever the
+glory of Philip, and gave full security to all his dominions.  John
+could, therefore, think henceforth of nothing farther than of ruling
+peaceably his own kingdom; and his close connexions with the pope,
+which he was determined at any price to maintain, ensured him, as he
+imagined, the certain attainment of that object.  But the last and
+most grievous scene of this prince's misfortunes still awaited him;
+and he was destined to pass through a series of more humiliating
+circumstances than had ever yet fallen to the lot of any other
+monarch.
+[FN [u] Queen Eleanor died in 1203 or 1204.]
+
+[MN Discontents of the barons.]
+The introduction of the feudal law into England by William the
+Conqueror had much infringed the liberties, however imperfect, enjoyed
+by the Anglo-Saxons in their ancient government, and had reduced the
+whole people to a state of vassalage under the king or barons, and
+even the greater part of them to a state of real slavery.  The
+necessity also of intrusting great power in the hands of a prince, who
+was to maintain military dominion over a vanquished nation, had
+engaged the Norman barons to submit to a more severe and absolute
+prerogative than that to which men of their rank, in other feudal
+governments, were commonly subjected.  The power of the crown, once
+raised to a high pitch, was not easily reduced; and the nation, during
+the course of a hundred and fifty years, was governed by an authority
+unknown, in the same degree, to all the kingdoms founded by the
+northern conquerors.  Henry I., that he might allure the people to
+give an exclusion to his elder brother Robert, had granted them a
+charter, favourable in many particulars to their liberties; Stephen
+had renewed the grant; Henry II. had confirmed it: but the concessions
+of all these princes had still remained without effect; and the same
+unlimited, at least irregular authority, continued to be exercised
+both by them and their successors.  The only happiness was, that arms
+were never yet ravished from the hands of the barons and people: the
+nation, by a great confederacy, might still vindicate its liberties;
+and nothing was more likely than the character, conduct, and fortunes
+of the reigning prince to produce such a general combination against
+him.  Equally odious and contemptible, both in public and private
+life, he affronted the barons by his insolence, dishonoured their
+families by his gallantries, enraged them by his tyranny,  and gave
+discontent to all ranks of men by his endless exactions and
+impositions [w].  The effect of these lawless practices had already
+appeared in the general demand made by the barons of a restoration of
+their privileges; and after he had reconciled himself to the pope, by
+abandoning the independence of the kingdom, he appeared to all his
+subjects in so mean a light, that they universally thought they might
+with safety and honour insist upon their pretensions.
+[FN [w] Chron Mailr. p. 188.  T. Wykes, p. 36.  Ann. Waverl. p. 181.
+W. Heming. p. 557.]
+
+But nothing forwarded this confederacy so much as the concurrence of
+Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury; a man whose memory, though he was
+obtruded on the nation by a palpable encroachment of the see of Rome,
+ought always to be respected by the English.  This prelate, whether he
+was moved by the generosity of his nature and his affection to public
+good; or had entertained an animosity against John on account of the
+long opposition made by that prince to his election; or thought that
+an acquisition of liberty to the people would serve to increase and
+secure the privileges of the church; had formed the plan of reforming
+the government, and had prepared the way for that great innovation, by
+inserting those singular clauses above-mentioned in the oath which he
+administered to the king, before he would absolve him from the
+sentence of excommunication.  Soon after, in a private meeting of some
+principal barons at London, he showed them a copy of Henry I.'s
+charter, which, he said, he had happily found in a monastery; and he
+exhorted them to insist on the renewal and observance of it: the
+barons swore, that they would sooner lose their lives than depart from
+so reasonable a demand [x].  The confederacy began now to spread
+wider, and to comprehend almost all the barons in England; and a new
+and more numerous meeting was summoned by Langton at St. Edmondsbury,
+under colour of devotion.  [MN Nov. 1.]  He again produced to the
+assembly the old charter of Henry; renewed his exhortations of
+unanimity and vigour in the prosecution of their purpose; and
+represented in the strongest colours the tyranny to which they had so
+long been subjected, and from which it now behoved them to free
+themselves and their posterity [y].  The barons, inflamed by his
+eloquence, incited by the sense of their own wrongs, and encouraged by
+the appearance of their power and numbers, solemnly took an oath,
+before the high altar, to adhere to each other, to insist on their
+demands, and to make endless war on the king, till he should submit to
+grant them [z].  They agreed that, after the festival of Christmas,
+they would prefer in a body their common petition; and, in the mean
+time, they separated, after mutually engaging that they would put
+themselves in a posture of defence, would enlist men and purchase
+arms, and would supply their castles with the necessary provisions.
+[FN [x] M. Paris, p. 167.  [y] M. Paris, p. 175.  [z] Ibid. p. 176.]
+
+[MN 1215.  6th Jan.]
+The barons appeared in London on the day appointed, and demanded of
+the king, that, in consequence of his own oath before the primate, as
+well as in deference to their just rights, he should grant them a
+renewal of Henry's charter, and a confirmation of the laws of St.
+Edward.  The king, alarmed with their zeal and unanimity, as well as
+with their power, required a delay; promised that, at the festival of
+Easter, he would give them a positive answer to their petition; and
+offered them the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Ely, and the
+Earl of Pembroke, the mareschal, as sureties for his fulfilling this
+engagement [a].  The barons accepted of the terms, and peaceably
+returned to their castles.
+[FN [a] Ibid. p. 176.  M. West. p. 273.]
+
+[MN 15th Jan.]  During this interval, John, in order to break or
+subdue the league of his barons, endeavoured to avail himself of the
+ecclesiastical power, of whose influence he had, from his own recent
+misfortunes, had such fatal experience.  He granted to the clergy a
+charter, relinquishing for ever that important prerogative, for which
+his father and all his ancestors had zealously contended; yielding to
+them the free election on all vacancies; reserving only the power to
+issue a conge d'elire, and to subjoin a confirmation of the election;
+and declaring that, if either of these were withheld, the choice
+should nevertheless be deemed just and valid [b].  He made a vow to
+lead an army into Palestine against the infidels, and he took on him
+the cross; in hopes that he should receive from the church that
+protection which she tendered to every one that had entered into this
+sacred and meritorious engagement [c].  And he sent to Rome his agent,
+William de Mauclerc, in order to appeal to the pope against the
+violence of his barons, and procure him a favourable sentence from
+that powerful tribunal [d].  The barons also were not negligent on
+their part in endeavouring to engage the pope in their interests: they
+despatched Eustace de Vescie to Rome; laid their case before Innocent
+as their feudal lord: and petitioned him to interpose his authority
+with the king, and oblige him to restore and confirm all their just
+and undoubted privileges [e].
+[FN [b] Rymer, vol. i. p. 197.  [c] Rymer, vol. i. p. 200.  Trivet, p.
+162.  T. Wykes, p. 37.  M. West. p. 273.  [d] Rymer, vol. i. p. 184.
+[e] Ibid.]
+
+Innocent beheld with regret the disturbances which had arisen in
+England, and was much inclined to favour John in his pretensions.  He
+had no hopes of retaining and extending his newly-acquired superiority
+over that kingdom, but by supporting so base and degenerate a prince,
+who was willing to sacrifice every consideration to his present
+safety: and he foresaw that, if the administration should fall into
+the hands of those gallant and high-spirited barons, they would
+vindicate the honour, liberty, and independence of the nation, with
+the same ardour which they now exerted in defence of their own.  He
+wrote letters therefore to the prelates, to the nobility, and to the
+king himself.  He exhorted the first to employ their good offices in
+conciliating peace between the contending parties, and putting an end
+to civil discord: to the second he expressed his disapprobation of
+their conduct in employing force to extort concessions from their
+reluctant sovereign: the last he advised to treat his nobles with
+grace and indulgence, and to grant them such of their demands as
+should appear just and reasonable [f].
+[FN [f] Ibid. p. 196, 197.]
+
+The barons easily saw, from the tenour of these letters, that they
+must reckon on having the pope, as well as the king, for their
+adversary; but they had already advanced too far to recede from their
+pretensions, and their passions were so deeply engaged, that it
+exceeded even the power of superstition itself any longer to control
+them.  They also foresaw, that the thunders of Rome, when not seconded
+by the efforts of the English ecclesiastics, would be of small avail
+against them; and they perceived that the most considerable of the
+prelates, as well as all the inferior clergy, professed the highest
+approbation of their cause.  Besides that these men were seized with
+the national passion for laws and liberty, blessings of which they
+themselves expected to partake, there concurred very powerful causes
+to loosen their devoted attachment to the apostolic see.  It appeared
+from the late usurpations of the Roman pontiff, that he pretended to
+reap alone all the advantages accruing from that victory which, under
+his banners, though at their own peril, they had every where obtained
+over the civil magistrate.  The pope assumed a despotic power over all
+the churches: their particular customs, privileges, and immunities,
+were treated with disdain: even the canons of general councils were
+set aside by his dispensing power: the whole administration of the
+church was centered in the court of Rome: all preferments ran of
+course in the same channel: and the provincial clergy saw, at least
+felt, that there was a necessity for limiting these pretensions.  The
+legate, Nicholas, in filling those numerous vacancies which had fallen
+in England during an interdict of six years, had proceeded in the most
+arbitrary manner; and had paid no regard, in conferring dignities, to
+personal merit, to rank, to the inclination of the electors, or to the
+customs of the country.  The English church was universally disgusted;
+and Langton himself, though he owed his elevation to an encroachment
+of the Romish see, was no sooner established in his high office than
+he became jealous of the privileges annexed to it, and formed
+attachments with the country subjected to his jurisdiction.  These
+causes, though they opened slowly the eyes of men, failed not to
+produce their effect: they set bounds to the usurpations of the
+papacy: the tide first stopped, and then turned against the sovereign
+pontiff: and it is otherwise inconceivable how that age, so prone to
+superstition, and so sunk in ignorance, or rather so devoted to a
+spurious erudition, could have escaped falling into an absolute and
+total slavery under the court of Rome.
+
+[MN 1215.  Insurrection of the barons.]
+About the time that the pope's letters arrived in England, the
+malecontent barons, on the approach of the festival of Easter, when
+they were to expect the king's answer to their petition, met by
+agreement at Stamford; and they assembled a force, consisting of above
+two thousand knights, besides their retainers and inferior persons
+without number.  [MN 27th April.]  Elated with their power, they
+advanced in a body to Brackley, within fifteen miles of Oxford, the
+place where the court then resided; and they there received a message
+from the king, by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl of
+Pembroke, desiring to know what those liberties were which they so
+zealously challenged from their sovereign.  They delivered to these
+messengers a schedule containing the chief articles of their demands;
+which was no sooner shown to the king than he burst into a furious
+passion, and asked why the barons did not also demand of him his
+kingdom? swearing that he would never grant them such liberties as
+must reduce himself to slavery [g].
+[FN [g] M. Paris, p. 176.]
+
+No sooner were the confederated nobles informed of John's reply than
+they chose Robert Fitz-Walter their general, whom they called THE
+MARESCHAL OF THE ARMY OF GOD AND OF HOLY CHURCH; and they proceeded
+without farther ceremony to levy war upon the king.  They besieged the
+castle of Northampton during fifteen days, though without success [h]:
+the gates of Bedford castle were willingly opened to them by William
+Beauchamp, its owner: [MN 24th May.] they advanced to Ware in their
+way to London, where they held a correspondence with the principal
+citizens: they were received without opposition into that capital: and
+finding now the great superiority of their force, they issued
+proclamations, requiring the other barons to join them; and menacing
+them, in case of refusal or delay, with committing devastation on
+their houses and estates [i].  In order to show what might be expected
+from their prosperous arms, they made incursions from London, and laid
+waste the king's parks and palaces; and all the barons, who had
+hitherto carried the semblance of supporting the royal party, were
+glad of this pretence for openly joining a cause which they always had
+secretly favoured.  The king was left at Odiham in Hampshire, with a
+poor retinue of only seven knights; and after trying several
+expedients to elude the blow, after offering to refer all differences
+to the pope alone, or to eight barons, four to be chosen by himself,
+and four by the confederates [k], he found himself at last obliged to
+submit at discretion.
+[FN [h] Ibid. p. 177.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 71.  [i] M. Paris, p.
+177.  [k] Rymer, vol. i. p. 200.]
+
+[MN 15th June.  Magna Charta.]
+A conference between the king and the barons was appointed at
+Runnemede, between Windsor and Staines; a place which has ever since
+been extremely celebrated on account of this great event.  The two
+parties encamped apart, like open enemies; and after a debate of a few
+days, the king, with a facility somewhat suspicious, signed and sealed
+the charter which was required of him.  [MN 19th June.]  This famous
+deed, commonly called the GREAT CHARTER, either granted or secured
+very important liberties and privileges to every order of men in the
+kingdom; to the clergy, to the barons, and to the people.
+
+The freedom of elections was secured to the clergy; the former charter
+of the king was confirmed, by which the necessity of a royal conge'
+d'elire and confirmation was superseded: all check upon appeals to
+Rome was removed, by the allowance granted every man to depart the
+kingdom at pleasure: and the fines to be imposed on the clergy for any
+offence were ordained to be proportional to their lay estates, not to
+their ecclesiastical benefices.
+
+The privileges granted to the barons were either abatements in the
+rigour of the feudal law, or determinations in points which had been
+left by that law, or had become, by practice, arbitrary and ambiguous.
+The reliefs of heirs succeeding to a military fee were ascertained; an
+earl's and baron's at a hundred marks, a knight's at a hundred
+shillings.  It was ordained by the charter, that, if the heir be a
+minor, he shall immediately, upon his majority, enter upon his estate,
+without paying any relief: the king shall not sell his  wardship: he
+shall levy only reasonable profits upon the estate, without committing
+waste, or hurting the property: he shall uphold the castles, houses,
+mills, parks, and ponds: and if he commit the guardianship of the
+estate to the sheriff or any other, he shall previously oblige them to
+find surety to the same purpose.  During the minority of a baron,
+while his lands are in wardship, and are not in his own possession, no
+debt which he owes to the Jews shall bear any interest.  Heirs shall
+be married without disparagement; and before the marriage be
+contracted, the nearest relations of the person shall be informed of
+it.  A widow, without paying any relief, shall enter upon her dower,
+the third part of her husband's rents: she shall not be compelled to
+marry, so long as she chooses to continue single; she shall only give
+security never to marry without her lord's consent.  The king shall
+not claim the wardship of any minor who hold lands by military tenure
+of a baron, on pretence that he also holds lands of the crown by
+soccage or any other tenure.  Scutages shall be estimated at the same
+rate as in the time of Henry I.; and no scutage or aid, except in the
+three general feudal cases, the king's captivity, the knighting of his
+eldest son, and the marrying of his eldest daughter, shall be imposed
+but by the great council of the kingdom: the prelates, earls, and
+great barons, shall be called to this great council, each by a
+particular writ; the lesser barons by a general summons of the
+sheriff.  The king shall not seize any baron's land for a debt to the
+crown, if the baron possesses as many goods and chattels as are
+sufficient to discharge the debt.  No man shall be obliged to perform
+more service for his fee than he is bound to by his tenure.  No
+governor or constable of a castle shall oblige any knight to give
+money for castle-guard, if the knight be willing to perform the
+service in person, or by another able-bodied man; and if the knight be
+in the field himself, by the king's command, he shall be exempted from
+all other service of this nature.  No vassal shall be allowed to sell
+so much of his land as to incapacitate himself from performing his
+service to his lord.
+
+These were the principal articles calculated for the interest of the
+barons; and had the charter contained nothing farther, national
+happiness and liberty had been very little promoted by it, as it would
+only have tended to increase the power and independence of an order of
+men who were already too powerful, and whose yoke might have become
+more heavy on the people than even that of an absolute monarch.  But
+the barons, who alone drew and imposed on the prince this memorable
+charter, were necessitated to insert in it other clauses of a more
+extensive and more beneficent nature: they could not expect the
+concurrence of the people without comprehending, together with their
+own, the interests of inferior ranks of men; and all provisions which
+the barons, for their own sake, were obliged to make, in order to
+ensure the free and equitable administration of justice, tended
+directly to the benefit of the whole community.  The following were
+the principal clauses of this nature.
+
+It was ordained, that all the privileges and immunities above-
+mentioned, granted to the barons against the king, should be extended
+by the barons to their inferior vassals.  The king bound himself not
+to grant any writ, empowering a baron to levy aids from his vassals,
+except in the three feudal cases.  One weight and one measure shall be
+established throughout the kingdom.  Merchants shall be allowed to
+transact all business, without being exposed to any arbitrary tolls
+and impositions; they and all freemen shall be allowed to go out of
+the kingdom and return to it at pleasure: London, and all cities and
+burghs, shall preserve their ancient liberties, immunities, and free
+customs: aids shall not be required of them but by the consent of the
+great council: no towns or individuals shall be obliged to make or
+support bridges but by ancient custom: the goods of every freeman
+shall be disposed of according to his will: if he die intestate, his
+heirs shall succeed to them.  No officer of the crown shall take any
+horses, carts, or wood, without the consent of the owner.  The king's
+courts of justice shall be stationary, and shall no longer follow his
+person: they shall be open to every one; and justice shall no longer
+be sold, refused, or delayed by them.  Circuits shall be regularly
+held every year: the inferior tribunals of justice, the county court,
+sheriff's turn, and court leet, shall meet at their appointed time and
+place: the sheriffs shall be incapacitated to hold pleas of the crown,
+and shall not put any person upon his trial from rumour or suspicion
+alone, but upon the evidence of lawful witnesses.  No freeman shall be
+taken or imprisoned, or dispossessed of his free tenement and
+liberties, or outlawed, or banished, or anywise hurt or injured,
+unless by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land;
+and all who suffered otherwise, in this or the two former reigns,
+shall be restored to their rights and possessions.  Every freeman
+shall be fined in proportion to his fault; and no fine shall be levied
+on him to his utter ruin: even a villain or rustic shall not, by any
+fine, be bereaved of his carts, ploughs, and implements of husbandry.
+This was the only article calculated for the interests of this body of
+men, probably at that time the most numerous in the kingdom.
+
+It must be confessed, that the former articles of the great charter
+contain such mitigations and explanations of the feudal law as are
+reasonable and equitable; and that the latter involve all the chief
+outlines of a legal government, and provide for the equal distribution
+of justice and free enjoyment of property; the great objects for which
+political society was at first founded by men, which the people have a
+perpetual and unalienable right to recall, and which no time, nor
+precedent, nor statute, nor positive institution, ought to deter them
+from keeping ever uppermost in their thoughts and attention.  Though
+the provisions made by this charter might, conformably to the genius
+of the age, be esteemed too concise, and too bare of circumstances, to
+maintain the execution of its articles, in opposition to the chicanery
+of lawyers, supported by the violence of power; time gradually
+ascertained the sense of all the ambiguous expressions; and those
+generous barons who first extorted this concession still held their
+swords in their hands, and could turn them against those who dared, on
+any pretence, to depart from the original spirit and meaning of the
+grant.  We may now, from the tenour of this charter, conjecture what
+those laws were of King Edward, which the English nation, during so
+many generations, still desired, with such an obstinate perseverance,
+to have recalled and established.  They were chiefly these latter
+articles of MAGNA CHARTA; and the barons who, at the beginning of
+these commotions, demanded the revival of the Saxon laws, undoubtedly
+thought that they had sufficiently satisfied the people, by procuring
+them this concession, which comprehended the principal objects to
+which they had so long aspired.  But what we are most to admire is,
+the prudence and moderation of those haughty nobles themselves, who
+were enraged by injuries, inflamed by opposition, and elated by a
+total victory over their sovereign.  They were content, even in this
+plenitude of power, to depart from some articles of Henry I.'s
+charter, which they made the foundation of their demands, particularly
+from the abolition of wardships, a matter of the greatest importance;
+and they seem to have been sufficiently careful not to diminish too
+far the power and revenue of the crown.  If they appear, therefore, to
+have carried other demands to too great a height, it can be ascribed
+only to the faithless and tyrannical character of the king himself, of
+which they had long had experience, and which, they foresaw, would, if
+they provided no farther security, lead him soon to infringe their new
+liberties, and revoke his own concessions.  This alone gave birth to
+those other articles, seemingly exorbitant, which were added as a
+rampart for the safeguard of the great charter.
+
+The barons obliged the king to agree that London should remain in
+their hands, and the Tower be consigned to the custody of the primate,
+till the fifteenth of August ensuing, or till the execution of the
+several articles of the great charter [l].  The better to ensure the
+same end, he allowed them to choose five-and-twenty members from their
+own body, as conservators of the public liberties; and no bounds were
+set to the authority of these men either in extent or duration.  If
+any complaint were made of a violation of the charter, whether
+attempted by the king, justiciaries, sheriffs, or foresters, any four
+of these barons might admonish the  king to redress the grievance: if
+satisfaction were not obtained, they could assemble the whole council
+of twenty-five, who, in conjunction with the great council, were
+empowered to compel him to observe the charter, and, in case of
+resistance, might levy war against him, attack his castles, and employ
+every kind of violence, except against his royal person, and that of
+his queen and children.  All men throughout the kingdom were bound,
+under the penalty of confiscation, to swear obedience to the twenty-
+five barons; and the freeholders of each county were to choose twelve
+knights, who were to make report of such evil customs as required
+redress, conformably to the tenour of the great charter [m].  The
+names of those conservators were, the Earls of Clare, Albemarle,
+Gloucester, Winchester, Hereford, Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, Robert
+de Vere, Earl of Oxford, William Mareschal the younger, Robert
+Fitz-Walter, Gilbert de Clare, Eustace de Vescey, Gilbert Delaval,
+William de Mowbray, Geoffrey de Say, Roger de Mombezon, William de
+Huntingfield, Robert de Ros, the constable of Chester, William de
+Aubenie, Richard de Perci, William Malet, John Fitz-Robert, William de
+Lanvalay, Hugh de Bigod, and Roger de Montfichet [n].  These men were,
+by this convention, really invested with the sovereignty of the
+kingdom: they were rendered co-ordinate with the king, or rather
+superior to him, in the exercise of the executive power: and as there
+was no circumstance of government which, either directly or
+indirectly, might not bear a relation to the security or observance of
+the great charter, there could scarcely occur any incident in which
+they might not lawfully interpose their authority.
+[FN [l] Rymer, vol. i. p. 201.  Chron. Dunst vol. i. p. 73.  [m] This
+seems a very strong proof that the House of Commons was not then in
+being; otherwise the knights and burgesses from the several counties
+could have given in to the Lords a list of grievances, without so
+unusual an election.  [n] M. Paris, p. 181.]
+
+John seemed to submit passively to all these regulations, however
+injurious to majesty: he sent writs to all the sheriffs, ordering them
+to constrain every one to swear obedience to the twenty-five barons
+[o]: he dismissed all his foreign forces: he pretended that his
+government was thenceforth to run in a new tenour, and be more
+indulgent to the liberty and independence of his people.  But he only
+dissembled, till he should find a favourable opportunity for annulling
+all his concessions.  The injuries and indignities which he had
+formerly suffered from the pope and the King of France, as they came
+from equals or superiors, seemed to make but small impression on him:
+but the sense of this perpetual and total subjection under his own
+rebellious vassals sunk deep in his mind, and he was determined, at
+all hazards, to throw off so ignominious a slavery [p].  He grew
+sullen, silent, and reserved: he shunned the society of his courtiers
+and nobles: he retired into the Isle of Wight, as if desirous of
+hiding his shame and confusion; but in this retreat he meditated the
+most fatal vengeance against all his enemies [q].  He secretly sent
+abroad his emissaries to enlist foreign soldiers, and to invite the
+rapacious Brabancons into his service, by the prospect of sharing the
+spoils of England, and reaping the forfeitures of so many opulent
+barons, who had incurred the guilt of rebellion by rising in arms
+against him [r]: and he despatched a messenger to Rome, in order to
+lay before the pope the great charter, which he had been compelled to
+sign, and to complain, before that tribunal, of the violence which had
+been imposed upon him [s].
+[FN [o] Ibid. p. 182.  [p] M. Paris, p. 183.  [q] Ibid.  [r] Ibid.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p.72.  Chron. Malr. p. 188.  [s] M. Paris, p.
+183.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 73.]
+
+Innocent, considering himself as feudal lord of the kingdom, was
+incensed at the temerity of the barons, who, though they pretended to
+appeal to his authority, had dared, without waiting for his consent,
+to impose such terms on a prince, who, by resigning to the Roman
+pontiff his crown and independence, had placed himself immediately
+under the papal protection.  He issued, therefore, a bull, in which,
+from the plenitude of his apostolic power, and from the authority
+which God had committed to him, to build and destroy kingdoms, to
+plant and overthrow, he annulled and abrogated the whole charter, as
+unjust in itself, as obtained by compulsion, and as derogatory to the
+dignity of the apostolic see.  He prohibited the barons from exacting
+the observance of it: he even prohibited the king himself from paying
+any regard to it: he absolved him and his  subjects from all oaths
+which they had been constrained to take to that purpose: and he
+pronounced a general sentence of excommunication against every one who
+should persevere in maintaining such treasonable and iniquitous
+pretensions [t].
+[FN [t] Rymer, vol. i. p. 203, 204, 205, 208.  M. Paris, p. 184, 185,
+187.]
+
+[MN Renewal of the civil wars.]
+The king, as his foreign forces arrived along with this bull, now
+ventured to take off the mask; and, under sanction of the pope's
+decree, recalled all the liberties which he had granted to his
+subjects, and which he had solemnly sworn to observe.  But the
+spiritual weapon was found, upon trial, to carry less force with it
+than he had reason from his own experience to apprehend.  The primate
+refused to obey the pope in publishing the sentence of excommunication
+against the barons: and though he was cited to Rome, that he might
+attend a general council there assembled, and was suspended, on
+account of his disobedience to the pope, and his secret correspondence
+with the king's enemies [u]; though a new and particular sentence of
+excommunication was pronounced by name against the principal barons
+[w]; John still found, that his nobility and people, and even his
+clergy, adhered to the defence of their liberties, and to their
+combination against him: the sword of his foreign mercenaries was all
+he had to trust to for restoring his authority.
+[FN [u] M. Paris, p. 189.  [w] Rymer, vol. i. p. 211.  M. Paris, p.
+192.]
+
+The barons, after obtaining the great charter, seem to have been
+lulled into a fatal security, and to have taken no rational measures,
+in case of the introduction of a foreign force, for reassembling their
+armies.  The king was, from the first, master of the field; and
+immediately laid siege to the castle of Rochester, which was
+obstinately defended by William de Aubenie, at the head of a hundred
+and forty knights with their retainers, but was at last reduced by
+famine.  [MN 30th Nov.]  John, irritated with the resistance, intended
+to have hanged the governor and all the garrison; but, on the
+representation of William de Mauleon, who suggested to him the danger
+of reprisals, he was content to sacrifice, in this barbarous manner,
+the inferior prisoners only [x].  The captivity of William de Aubenie,
+the best officer among the confederated barons, was an irreparable
+loss to their cause; and no regular opposition was thenceforth made to
+the progress of the royal arms.  The ravenous and barbarous
+mercenaries, incited by a cruel and enraged prince, were let loose
+against the estates, tenants, manors, houses, parks of the barons, and
+spread devastation over the face of the kingdom.  Nothing was to be
+seen but the flames of villages and castles reduced to ashes, the
+consternation and misery of the inhabitants, tortures exercised by the
+soldiery to make them reveal their concealed treasures, and reprisals
+no less barbarous committed by the barons and their partisans on the
+royal demesnes, and on the estates of such as still adhered to the
+crown.  The king, marching through the whole extent of England, from
+Dover to Berwick, laid the provinces waste on each side of him; and
+considered every estate, which was not his immediate property, as
+entirely hostile, and the object of military execution.  The nobility
+of the north, in particular, who had shown the greatest violence in
+the recovery of their liberties, and who, acting in a separate body,
+had expressed their discontent even at the concessions made by the
+great charter, as they could expect no mercy, fled before him with
+their wives and families, and purchased the friendship of Alexander,
+the young King of Scots, by doing homage to him.
+[FN [x] M. Paris, p. 187.]
+
+[MN Prince Lewis called over.]
+The barons, reduced to this desperate extremity, and menaced with the
+total loss of their liberties, their properties, and their lives,
+employed a remedy no less desperate; and making applications to the
+court of France, they offered to acknowledge Lewis, the eldest son of
+Philip, for their sovereign, on condition that he would afford them
+protection from the violence of their enraged prince.  Though the
+sense of the common rights of mankind, the only rights that are
+entirely indefeasible, might have justified them in the deposition of
+their king; they declined insisting, before Philip, on a pretension
+which is commonly so disagreeable to sovereigns, and which sounds
+harshly in the royal ears.  They affirmed, that John was incapable of
+succeeding to the crown, by reason of the attainder passed upon him
+during his brother's reign; though that attainder had been reversed,
+and Richard. had even, by his last will, declared him his  successor.
+They pretended that he was already legally deposed by sentence of the
+Peers of France, on account of the murder of his nephew; though that
+sentence could not possibly regard any thing but his transmarine
+dominions, which alone he held in vassalage to that crown.  On more
+plausible grounds they affirmed, that he had already deposed himself
+by doing homage to the pope, changing the nature of his sovereignty,
+and resigning an independent crown for a fee under a foreign power.
+And as Blanche of Castile, the wife of Lewis, was descended by her
+mother from Henry II., they maintained, though many other princes
+stood before her in the order of succession, that they had not shaken
+off the royal family, in choosing her husband for their sovereign.
+
+Philip was strongly tempted to lay hold on the rich prize which was
+offered to him.  The legate menaced interdicts and excommunications,
+if he invaded the patrimony of St. Peter, or attacked a prince who was
+under the immediate protection of the holy see [y]: but as Philip was
+assured of the obedience of his own vassals, his principles were
+changed with the times, and he now undervalued as much all papal
+censures, as he formerly pretended to pay respect to them.  His chief
+scruple was with regard to the fidelity which he might expect from the
+English barons in their new engagements, and the danger of intrusting
+his son and heir into the hands of men, who might, on any caprice or
+necessity, make peace with their native sovereign, by sacrificing a
+pledge of so much value.  He therefore exacted from the barons twenty-
+five hostages of the most noble birth in the kingdom [z]; and having
+obtained this security, he sent over first a small army to the relief
+of the confederates; then more numerous forces, which arrived with
+Lewis himself at their head.
+[FN [y] M. Paris, p. 194.  M. West. p. 275.  [z] M. Paris, p. 193.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 74.]
+
+The first effect of the young prince's appearance in England was the
+desertion of John's foreign troops, who, being mostly levied in
+Flanders, and other provinces of France, refused to serve against the
+heir of their monarchy [a].  The Gascons and Poictevins alone, who
+were still John's subjects, adhered to his cause; but they were too
+weak to maintain that superiority in the field which they had hitherto
+supported against the confederated barons.  Many considerable noblemen
+deserted John's party, the Earls of Salisbury, Arundel, Warrenne,
+Oxford, Albemarle, and William Mareschal the younger: his castles fell
+daily into the hands of the enemy; Dover was the only place which,
+from the valour and fidelity of Hubert de Burgh, the governor, made
+resistance to the progress of Lewis [b]: and the barons had the
+melancholy prospect of finally succeeding in their purpose, and of
+escaping the tyranny of their own king, by imposing on themselves and
+the nation a foreign yoke.  But this union was of short duration
+between the French and English nobles: and the imprudence of Lewis,
+who, on every occasion, showed too visible a preference to the former,
+increased that jealousy which it was so natural for the latter to
+entertain in their present situation [c].  The Viscount of Melun, too,
+it is said, one of his courtiers, fell sick at London, and finding the
+approaches of death, he sent for some of his friends among the English
+barons, and warning them of their danger, revealed Lewis's secret
+intentions of exterminating them and their families as traitors to
+their prince, and of bestowing their estates and dignities on his
+native subjects, in whose fidelity he could more reasonably place
+confidence [d]: this story, whether true or false, was universally
+reported and believed; and concurring with other circumstances which
+rendered it credible, did great prejudice to the cause of Lewis.  The
+Earl of Salisbury, and other noblemen, deserted again to John's party
+[e]; and as men easily change sides in a civil war, especially where
+their power is founded on an hereditary and independent authority, and
+is not derived from the opinion and favour of the people, the French
+prince had reason to dread a sudden reverse of fortune.  The king was
+assembling a considerable army, with a view of fighting one great
+battle for his crown; but passing from Lynn to Lincolnshire, his road
+lay along the sea-shore, which was overflowed at high water; and not
+choosing the proper time for his journey, he lost in the inundation
+all his carriages, treasure,  baggage, and regalia.  The affliction
+for this disaster, and vexation from the distracted state of his
+affairs, increased the sickness under which he then laboured; and
+though he reached the castle of Newark, he was obliged to halt there,
+[MN 17th Oct.  Death,] and his distemper soon after put an end to his
+life, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and eighteenth of his reign;
+and freed the nation from the dangers to which it was equally exposed
+by his success or by his misfortunes.
+[FN [a] M. Paris, p. 195.  [b] M. Paris, p. 198.  Chron. Dunst. vol.
+i. p. 75, 76.  [c] W. Heming. p. 559.  [d] M. Paris, p. 199.  M. West.
+p. 277.  [e] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 76.]
+
+[MN and character of the king.]  The character of this prince is
+nothing but a complication of vices, equally mean and odious; ruinous
+to himself, and destructive to his people.  Cowardice, inactivity,
+folly, levity, licentiousness, ingratitude, treachery, tyranny, and
+cruelty; all these qualities appear too evidently in the several
+incidents of his life, to give us room to suspect that the
+disagreeable picture has been anywise overcharged by the prejudices of
+the ancient historians.  It is hard to say whether his conduct to his
+father, his brother, his nephew, or his subjects, was most culpable;
+or whether his crimes, in these respects, were not even exceeded by
+the baseness which appeared in his transactions with the King of
+France, the pope, and the barons.  His European dominions, when they
+devolved to him by the death of his brother, were more extensive than
+have ever, since his time, been ruled by an English monarch; but he
+first lost, by his misconduct, the flourishing provinces in France,
+the ancient patrimony of his family: he subjected his kingdom to a
+shameful vassalage under the see of Rome: he saw the prerogatives of
+his crown diminished by law, and still more reduced by faction: and he
+died at last, when in danger of being totally expelled by a foreign
+power, and of either ending his life miserably in prison, or seeking
+shelter, as a fugitive, from the pursuit of his enemies.
+
+The prejudices against this prince were so violent, that he was
+believed to have sent an embassy to the Miramoulin, or Emperor of
+Morocco, and to have offered to change his religion and become
+Mahometan, in order to purchase the protection of that monarch.  But
+though this story is told us, on plausible authority, by Matthew Paris
+[f], it is in itself utterly improbable; except that there is nothing
+so incredible but may be believed to proceed from the folly and
+wickedness of John.
+[FN [f] P. 169.]
+
+The monks throw great reproaches on this prince for his impiety and
+even infidelity; and as an instance of it, they tell us, that having
+one day caught a very fat stag, he exclaimed, HOW PLUMP AND WELL FED
+IS THIS ANIMAL! AND YET, I DARE SWEAR, HE NEVER HEARD MASS [g].  This
+sally of wit upon the usual corpulency of the priests, more than all
+his enormous crimes and iniquities, made him pass with them for an
+atheist.
+
+John left two legitimate sons behind him; Henry, born on the first of
+October, 1207, and now nine years of age; and Richard, born on the
+sixth of January, 1209; and three daughters; Jane, afterwards married
+to Alexander King of Scots; Eleanor, married first to William
+Mareschal the younger, Earl of Pembroke, and then to Simon Mountfort,
+Earl of Leicester; and Isabella, married to the Emperor Frederic II.
+All these children were born to him by Isabella of Angoulesme, his
+second wife.  His illegitimate children were numerous, but none of
+them were anywise distinguished.
+
+It was this king who, in the ninth year of his reign, first gave by
+charter, to the city of London, the right of electing, annually, a
+mayor out of its own body, an office which was till now held for life.
+He gave the city also power to elect and remove its sheriffs at
+pleasure, and its common-councilmen annually.  London-bridge was
+finished in this reign.  The former bridge was of wood.  Maud, the
+empress, was the first that built a stone bridge in England.
+[FN [g] M. Paris, p. 170.]
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX II.
+
+THE FEUDAL AND ANGLO-NORMAN GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
+
+ORIGIN OF THE FEUDAL LAW.--ITS PROGRESS.--FEUDAL GOVERNMENT OF
+ENGLAND.--THE FEUDAL PARLIAMENT.--THE COMMONS.--JUDICAL POWER.--
+REVENUE OF THE CROWN.--COMMERCE.--THE CHURCH.--CIVIL LAWS.--MANNERS.
+
+
+
+The feudal law is the chief foundation, both of the political
+government and of the jurisprudence established by the Normans in
+England.  Our subject therefore requires, that we should form a just
+idea of this law, in order to explain the state, as well of that
+kingdom, as of all other kingdoms of Europe, which, during those ages,
+were governed by similar institutions.  And though I am sensible, that
+I must here repeat many observations and reflections which have been
+communicated by others [a]; yet, as every book, agreeably to the
+observation of a great historian [b], should be as complete as
+possible within itself, and should never refer, for any thing
+material, to other books, it will be necessary, in this place, to
+deliver a short plan of that prodigious fabric, which, for several
+centuries, preserved such a mixture of liberty and oppression, order
+and anarchy, stability and revolution, as was never experienced in any
+other age, or any other part of the world.
+[FN [a] L'Esprit des Loix.  Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland.  [b]
+Padre Paolo, Hist. Conc. Trid.]
+
+[MN Origin of the feudal law.]
+After the northern nations had subdued the provinces of the Roman
+empire, they were obliged to establish a system of government which
+might secure their conquests, as well against the revolt of their
+numerous subjects, who remained in the provinces, as from the inroads
+of other tribes, who might be tempted to ravish from them their new
+acquisitions.  The great change of circumstances made them here depart
+from those institutions which prevailed among them while they remained
+in the forests  of Germany; yet it was still natural for them to
+retain, in their present settlement, as much of their ancient customs
+as was compatible with their new situation.
+
+The German governments, being more a confederacy of independent
+warriors than a civil subjection, derived their principal force from
+many inferior and voluntary associations, which individuals formed
+under a particular head or chieftain, and which it became the highest
+point of honour to maintain with inviolable fidelity.  The glory of
+the chief consisted in the number, the bravery, and the zealous
+attachment of his retainers: the duty of the retainers required, that
+they should accompany their chief in all wars and dangers, that they
+should fight and perish by his side, and that they should esteem his
+renown or his favour a sufficient recompense for all their services
+[c].  The prince himself was nothing but a great chieftain, who was
+chosen from among the rest on account of his superior valour or
+nobility; and who derived his power from the voluntary association or
+attachment of the other chieftains.
+[FN [c] Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]
+
+When a tribe, governed by these ideas, and actuated by these
+principles, subdued a large territory, they found, that though it was
+necessary to keep themselves in a military posture, they could neither
+remain united in a body, nor take up their quarters in several
+garrisons, and that their manners and institutions debarred them from
+using these expedients; the obvious ones, which, in a like situation,
+would have been employed by a more civilized nation.  Their ignorance
+in the art of finances, and perhaps the devastations inseparable from
+such violent conquests, rendered it impracticable for them to levy
+taxes sufficient for the pay of numerous armies; and their repugnance
+to subordination, with their attachment to rural pleasures, made the
+life of the camp or garrison, if perpetuated during peaceful times,
+extremely odious and disgustful to them.  They seized, therefore, such
+a portion of the conquered lands as appeared necessary; they assigned
+a share for supporting the dignity of their prince and government;
+they distributed other parts, under the title of fiefs, to the chiefs;
+these made a new partition among their retainers: the express
+condition  of all these grants was, that they might be resumed at
+pleasure, and that the possessor, so long as he enjoyed them, should
+still remain in readiness to take the field for the defence of the
+nation.  And though the conquerors immediately separated, in order to
+enjoy their new acquisitions, their martial disposition made them
+readily fulfil the terms of their engagement: they assembled on the
+first alarm; their habitual attachment to the chieftain made them
+willingly submit to his command; and thus a regular military force,
+though concealed, was always ready to defend, on any emergence, the
+interest and honour of the community.
+
+We are not to imagine that all the conquered lands were seized by the
+northern conquerors; or that the whole of the land thus seized was
+subjected to those military services.  This supposition is confuted by
+the history of all the nations on the continent.  Even the idea given
+us of the German manners by the Roman historian may convince us, that
+that bold people would never have been content with so precarious a
+subsistence, or have fought to procure establishments which were only
+to continue during the good pleasure of their sovereign.  Though the
+northern chieftains accepted of lands, which, being considered as a
+kind of military pay, might be resumed at the will of the king or
+general; they also took possession of estates, which being hereditary
+and independent, enabled them to maintain their native liberty, and
+support, without court favour, the honour of their rank and family.
+
+[MN Progress of the feudal law.]
+But there is a great difference, in the consequences, between the
+distribution of a pecuniary subsistence, and the assignment of lands
+burdened with the condition of military service.  The delivery of the
+former, at the weekly, monthly, or annual terms of payment, still
+recalls the idea of a voluntary gratuity from the prince, and reminds
+the soldier of the precarious tenure by which he holds his commission.
+But the attachment naturally formed with a fixed portion of land
+gradually begets the idea of something like property, and makes the
+possessor forget his dependent situation, and the condition which was
+at first annexed to the grant.  It seemed equitable that one who had
+cultivated and sowed a field should reap the harvest: hence fiefs,
+which were at first entirely precarious, were soon made annual.  A man
+who had employed his money in building, planting, or other
+improvements, expected to reap the fruits of his labour or expense:
+hence they were next granted during a term of years.  It would be
+thought hard to expel a man from his possessions, who had always done
+his duty, and performed the conditions on which he originally received
+them: hence the chieftains, in a subsequent period, thought themselves
+entitled to demand the enjoyment of their feudal lands during life.
+It was found that a man would more willingly expose himself in battle,
+if assured that his family should inherit his possessions, and should
+not be left by his death in want and poverty: hence fiefs were made
+hereditary in families, and descended, during one age, to the son,
+then to the grandson, next to the brothers, and afterwards to more
+distant relations [d].  The idea of property stole in gradually upon
+that of military pay; and each century made some sensible addition to
+the stability of fiefs and tenures.
+[FN [d] Lib. Feud. lib. I. tit. 1.]
+
+In all these successive acquisitions, the chief was supported by his
+vassals; who, having originally a strong connexion with him, augmented
+by the constant intercourse of good offices, and by the friendship
+arising from vicinity and dependence, were inclined to follow their
+leader against all his enemies, and voluntarily, in his private
+quarrels, paid him the same obedience, to which, by their tenure, they
+were bound in foreign wars.  While he daily advanced new pretensions
+to secure the possession of his superior fief, they expected to find
+the same advantage, in acquiring stability to their subordinate ones;
+and they zealously opposed the intrusion of a new lord, who would be
+inclined, as he was fully entitled, to bestow the possession of their
+lands on his own favourites and retainers.  Thus the authority of the
+sovereign gradually decayed; and each noble, fortified in his own
+territory by the attachment of his vassals, became too powerful to be
+expelled by an order from the throne; and he secured by law what he
+had at first acquired by usurpation.
+
+During this precarious state of the supreme power, a difference would
+immediately be experienced between those portions of territory which
+were subjected to the feudal tenures, and those which were possessed
+by an allodial or free title.  Though the latter possessions had at
+first been esteemed much preferable, they were soon found, by the
+progressive changes introduced into public and private law, to be of
+an inferior condition to the former.  The possessors of a feudal
+territory, united by a regular subordination under one chief, and by
+the mutual attachments of the vassals, had the same advantages over
+the proprietors of the other, that a disciplined army enjoys over a
+dispersed multitude; and were enabled to commit with impunity all
+injuries on their defenceless neighbours.  Every one, therefore,
+hastened to seek that protection which he found so necessary; and each
+allodial proprietor, resigning his possessions into the hands of the
+king, or of some nobleman respected for power or valour, received them
+back with the condition of feudal services [e], which, though a burden
+somewhat grievous, brought him ample compensation, by connecting him
+with the neighbouring proprietors, and placing him under the
+guardianship of a potent chieftain.  The decay of the political
+government thus necessarily occasioned the extension of the feudal:
+the kingdoms of Europe were universally divided into baronies, and
+these into inferior fiefs: and the attachment of vassals to their
+chief, which was at first an essential part of the German manners, was
+still supported by the same causes from which it at first arose; the
+necessity of mutual protection, and the continued intercourse between
+the head and the members, of benefits and services.
+[FN [e] Marculf. Form. 47. apud Lindenbr. p. 1238.]
+
+But there was another circumstance which corroborated these feudal
+dependencies, and tended to connect the vassals with their superior
+lord by an indissoluble bond of union.  The northern conquerors, as
+well as the more early Greeks and Romans, embraced a policy which is
+unavoidable to all nations that have made slender advances in
+refinement: they every where united the civil jurisdiction with the
+military power.  Law, in its commencement, was not an intricate
+science, and was  more governed by maxims of equity, which seem
+obvious to common sense, than by numerous and subtle principles,
+applied to a variety of cases by profound reasonings from analogy.  An
+officer, though he had passed his life in the field, was able to
+determine all legal controversies which could occur within the
+district committed to his charge; and his decisions were the most
+likely to meet with a prompt and ready obedience, from men who
+respected his person, and were accustomed to act under his command.
+The profit arising from punishments, which were then chiefly
+pecuniary, was another reason for his desiring to retain the judicial
+power; and when his fief became hereditary, this authority, which was
+essential to it, was also transmitted to his posterity.  The counts
+and other magistrates, whose power was merely official, were tempted,
+in imitation of the feudal lords, whom they resembled in so many
+particulars, to render their dignity perpetual and hereditary; and in
+the decline of the regal power, they found no difficulty in making
+good their pretensions.  After this manner, the vast fabric of feudal
+subordination became quite solid and comprehensive; it formed every
+where an essential part of the political constitution; and the Norman
+and other barons, who followed the fortunes of William, were so
+accustomed to it that they could scarcely form an idea of any other
+species of civil government [f].
+[FN [f] The ideas of the feudal government were so rooted, that even
+lawyers, in those ages, could not form a notion of any other
+Constitution  REGNUM (says Bracton, lib. 2. cap. 34.) QUOD EX
+COMITATIBUS ET BARONIBUS DICITUR ESSE CONSTITUTUM.]
+
+The Saxons who conquered England, as they exterminated the ancient
+inhabitants, and thought themselves secured by the sea against new
+invaders, found it less requisite to maintain themselves in a military
+posture: the quantity of land which they annexed to offices seems to
+have been of small value; and for that reason continued the longer in
+its original situation, and was always possessed during pleasure by
+those who were intrusted with the command.  These conditions were too
+precarious to satisfy the Norman barons, who enjoyed more independent
+possessions and jurisdictions in their own country; and William was
+obliged, in the new distribution of land, to copy the tenures which
+were now become universal on the continent.  England of a sudden
+became a feudal kingdom [g]; and received all the advantages, and was
+exposed to all the inconveniences, incident to that species of civil
+polity.
+[FN [g] Coke, Comm. on Lit. p. 1, 2. ad sect. 1.]
+
+[MN The feudal government of England.]
+According to the principles of the feudal law, the king was the
+supreme lord of the landed property: all possessors, who enjoyed the
+fruits or revenue of any part of it, held those privileges, either
+mediately or immediately, of him; and their property was conceived to
+be in some degree conditional [h].  The land was still apprehended to
+be a species of BENEFICE, which was the original conception of a
+feudal property; and the vassal owed, in return for it, stated
+services to his baron, as the baron himself did for his land to the
+crown.  The vassal was obliged to defend his baron in war; and the
+baron, at the head of his vassals, was bound to fight in defence of
+the king and kingdom.  But besides these military services, which were
+casual, there were others imposed of a civil nature, which were more
+constant and durable.
+[FN [h] Somner of Gavelk. p. 109.  Smith de Rep. lib. 3. cap. 10.]
+
+The northern nations had no idea that any man, trained up to honour,
+and inured to arms, was ever to be governed, without his own consent,
+by the absolute will of another; or that the administration of justice
+was ever to be exercised by the private opinion of any one magistrate,
+without the concurrence of some other persons, whose interest might
+induce them to check his arbitrary and iniquitous decisions.  The
+king, therefore, when he found it necessary to demand any service of
+his barons or chief tenants, beyond what was due by their tenures, was
+obliged to assemble them in order to obtain their CONSENT: and when it
+was necessary to determine any controversy which might arise among the
+barons themselves, the question must be discussed in their presence,
+and be decided according to their opinion or ADVICE.  In these two
+circumstances of consent and advice consisted chiefly the civil
+services of the ancient barons; and these implied all the considerable
+incidents of government.  In one view, the barons regarded this
+attendance as their principal PRIVILEGE; in another, as a grievous
+BURDEN.  That no momentous affairs could be transacted without their
+consent and advice was in GENERAL esteemed the great security of their
+possessions and dignities: but as they reaped no immediate profit from
+their attendance at court, and were exposed to great inconvenience and
+charge by an absence from their own estates, every one was glad to
+exempt himself from each PARTICULAR exertion of this power; and was
+pleased both that the call for that duty should seldom return upon
+him, and that others should undergo the burden in his stead.  The
+king, on the other hand, was usually anxious, for several reasons,
+that the assembly of the barons should be full at every stated or
+casual meeting: this attendance was the chief badge of their
+subordination to his crown, and drew them from that independence which
+they were apt to affect in their own castles and manors; and where the
+meeting was thin or ill attended, its determinations had less
+authority, and commanded not so ready an obedience from the whole
+community.
+
+The case was the same with the barons in their courts, as with the
+king in the supreme council of the nation.  It was requisite to
+assemble the vassals, in order to determine by their vote any question
+which regarded the barony; and they sat along with the chief in all
+trials, whether civil or criminal, which occurred within the limits of
+their jurisdiction.  They were bound to pay suit and service at the
+court of their baron: and as their tenure was military, and
+consequently honourable, they were admitted into his society, and
+partook of his friendship.  Thus, a kingdom was considered only as a
+great barony, and a barony as a small kingdom.  The barons were peers
+to each other in the national council, and, in some degree, companions
+to the king: the vassals were peers to each other in the court of
+barony, and companions to their baron [i].
+[FN [i] Du Cange, Gloss. in verb. PAR  Cujac. Commun. in Lib. Feud.
+lib. I. tit. p. 18.  Spellm. Gloss. in verb.]
+
+But though this resemblance so far took place, the vassals, by the
+natural course of things, universally, in the feudal constitutions,
+fell into a greater subordination under the baron, than the baron
+himself under his  sovereign; and these governments had a necessary
+and infallible tendency to augment the power of the nobles.  The great
+chief, residing in his country-seat, which he was commonly allowed to
+fortify, lost, in a great measure, his connexion or acquaintance with
+the prince; and added every day new force to his authority over the
+vassals of the barony.  They received from him education in all
+military exercises: his hospitality invited them to live and enjoy
+society in his hall: their leisure, which was great, made them
+perpetual retainers on his person, and partakers of his country sports
+and amusements: they had no means of gratifying their ambition but by
+making a figure in his train: his favour and countenance was their
+greatest honour: his displeasure exposed them to contempt and
+ignominy: and they felt every moment the necessity of his protection,
+both in the controversies which occurred with other vassals, and, what
+was more material, in the daily inroads and injuries which were
+committed by the neighbouring barons.  During the time of general war,
+the sovereign, who marched at the head of his armies, and was the
+great protector of the state, always acquired some accession to his
+authority, which he lost during the intervals of peace and
+tranquillity: but the loose police, incident to the feudal
+constitutions, maintained a perpetual, though secret hostility,
+between the several members of the state; and the vassals found no
+means of securing themselves against the injuries to which they were
+continually exposed, but by closely adhering to their chief, and
+falling into a submissive dependence upon him.
+
+If the feudal government was so little favourable to the true liberty
+even of the military vassal, it was still more destructive of the
+independence and security of the other members of the state, or what,
+in a proper sense, we call the people.  A great part of them were
+SERFS, and lived in a state of absolute slavery or villanage: the
+other inhabitants of the country paid their rents in services, which
+were in a great measure arbitrary; and they could expect no redress of
+injuries, in a court of barony, from men who thought they had a right
+to oppress and tyrannize over them.  The towns were situated either
+within the demesnes of the king, or the lands of the great barons, and
+were almost entirely subjected to the absolute will of their master.
+The languishing state of commerce kept the inhabitants poor and
+contemptible; and the political institutions were calculated to render
+that poverty perpetual.  The barons and gentry, living in rustic
+plenty and hospitality, gave no encouragement to the arts, and had no
+demand for any of the more elaborate manufactures: every profession
+was held in contempt but that of arms: and if any merchant or
+manufacturer rose by industry and frugality to a degree of opulence,
+he found himself but the more exposed to injuries, from the envy and
+avidity of the military nobles.
+
+These concurring causes gave the feudal governments so strong a bias
+towards aristocracy, that the royal authority was extremely eclipsed
+in all the European states; and, instead of dreading the growth of
+monarchical power, we might rather expect, that the community would
+every where crumble into so many independent baronies, and lose the
+political union by which they were cemented.  In elective monarchies,
+the event was commonly answerable to this expectation; and the barons,
+gaining ground on every vacancy of the throne, raised themselves
+almost to a state of sovereignty, and sacrificed to their power both
+the rights of the crown and the liberties of the people.  But
+hereditary monarchies had a principle of authority which was not so
+easily subverted; and there were several causes which still maintained
+a degree of influence in the hands of the sovereign.
+
+The greatest baron could never lose view entirely of those principles
+of the feudal constitution which bound him, as a vassal, to submission
+and fealty towards his prince; because he was every moment obliged to
+have recourse to those principles, in exacting fealty and submission
+from his own vassals.  The lesser barons, finding that the
+annihilation of royal authority left them exposed, without protection,
+to the insults and injuries of more potent neighbours, naturally
+adhered to the crown, and promoted the execution of general and equal
+laws.  The people had still a stronger interest to desire the grandeur
+of the sovereign; and the king, being the legal magistrate, who
+suffered by every internal convulsion or oppression, and who regarded
+the great nobles as his immediate rivals, assumed the salutary office
+of general guardian or protector of the Commons.  Besides the
+prerogatives with which the law invested him, his large demesnes and
+numerous retainers rendered him, in one sense, the greatest baron in
+his kingdom; and where he was possessed of personal vigour and
+abilities, (for his situation required these advantages,) he was
+commonly able to preserve his authority, and maintain his station as
+head of the community, and the chief fountain of law and justice.
+
+The first kings of the Norman race were favoured by another
+circumstance, which preserved them from the encroachments of their
+barons.  They were generals of a conquering army, which was obliged to
+continue in a military posture, and to maintain great subordination
+under their leader, in order to secure themselves from the revolt of
+the numerous natives, whom they had bereaved of all their properties
+and privileges.  But though this circumstance supported the authority
+of William and his immediate successors, and rendered them extremely
+absolute, it was lost as soon as the Norman barons began to
+incorporate with the nation, to acquire a security in their
+possessions, and to fix their influence over their vassals, tenants,
+and slaves: and the immense fortunes which the Conqueror had bestowed
+on his chief captains served to support their independence, and make
+them formidable to their sovereign.
+
+He gave, for instance, to Hugh de Abrincis, his sister's son, the
+whole county of Chester, which he erected into a palatinate, and
+rendered by his grant almost independent of the crown [k].  Robert,
+Earl of Mortaigne, had 973 manors and lordships: Allan, Earl of
+Britany and Richmond, 442: Odo, Bishop of Baieux, 439 [l]: Geoffrey,
+Bishop of Coutance, 280 [m]: Walter Giffard, Earl of Buckingham, 107:
+William, Earl Warrenne, 298, besides 28 towns or hamlets in Yorkshire:
+Todenei, 81: Roger Bigod, 123: Robert, Earl of Eu, 119: Roger
+Mortimer, 132, besides several hamlets: Robert de Stafford, 130:
+Walter de Eurus, Earl of Salisbury, 46: Geoffrey de Mandeville, 118:
+Richard de Clare, 171: Hugh de Beauchamp, 47: Baldwin de Ridvers, 164:
+Henry de Ferrars, 222: William de Percy, 119 [n]: Norman d'Arcy, 33
+[o].  Sir Henry Spellman computes, that, in the large county of
+Norfolk, there were not, in the Conqueror's time, above sixty-six
+proprietors of land [p].  Men, possessed of such princely revenues and
+jurisdictions, could not long be retained in the rank of subjects.
+The great Earl Warrenne, in a subsequent reign, when he was questioned
+concerning his right to the lands which he possessed, drew his sword,
+which he produced as his title; adding, that William the Bastard did
+not conquer the kingdom himself; but that the barons, and his ancestor
+among the rest, were joint adventurers in the enterprise [q].
+[FN [k] Camd. in Chesh.  Spellm. Gloss. in verb. COMES PALATINUS.  [l]
+Brady's Hist. p. 198, 200.  [m] Order. Vital.  [n] Dugdale's Baronage,
+from Doomsday Book, vol. i. p. 60, 74; iii. 112, 132, 136, 138, 156,
+174, 200, 207, 223, 254, 257, 269.  [o] Ibid. p. 369.  It is
+remarkable, that this family of d'Arcy seems to be the only male
+descendants of any of the Conqueror's barons now remaining among the
+Peers.  Lord Holdernesse is the heir of that family.  [p] Spellm.
+Gloss. in verb. DOMESDAY.  [q] Dugd. Bar. vol. i. p. 79.  Ibid.
+Origines Juridicales, p. 13.]
+
+[MN The feudal Parliament.]
+The supreme legislative power of England was lodged in the king and
+great council, or what was afterwards called the Parliament.  It is
+not doubted but the archbishops, bishops, and most considerable
+abbots, were constituent members of this council.  They sat by a
+double title: by prescription, as having always possessed that
+privilege, through the whole Saxon period, from the first
+establishment of Christianity; and by their right of baronage, as
+holding of the king IN CAPITE, by military service.  These two titles
+of the prelates were never accurately distinguished.  When the
+usurpations of the church had risen to such a height as to make the
+bishops affect a separate dominion, and regard their seat in
+Parliament as a degradation of their episcopal dignity; the king
+insisted, that they were barons, and, on that account, obliged, by the
+general principles of the feudal law, to attend on him in his great
+councils [r].  Yet there still remained some practices, which
+supposed their title to be derived merely from ancient possession.
+When a bishop was elected, he sat in Parliament before the king had
+made him restitution of his temporalities; and during the vacancy of a
+see, the guardian of the spiritualities was summoned to attend along
+with the bishops.
+[FN [r] Spellm. Gloss. In verb. BARO.]
+
+The barons were another constituent part of the great council of the
+nation.  These held immediately of the crown by a military tenure:
+they were the most honourable members of the state, and had a RIGHT to
+be consulted in all public deliberations: they were the immediate
+vassals of the crown, and owed as a SERVICE their attendance in the
+court of their supreme lord.  A resolution taken without their consent
+was likely to be but ill executed; and no determination of any cause
+or controversy among them had any validity, where the vote and advice
+of the body did not concur.  The dignity of earl or count was official
+and territorial, as well as hereditary; and as all the earls were also
+barons, they were considered as military vassals of the crown, were
+admitted in that capacity into the general council, and formed the
+most honourable and powerful branch of it.
+
+But there was another class of the immediate military tenants of the
+crown, no less, or probably more numerous than the barons, the tenants
+IN CAPITE by knights' service; and these, however inferior in power or
+property, held by a tenure which was equally honourable with that of
+the others.  A barony was commonly composed of several knights' fees;
+and though the number seems not to have been exactly defined, seldom
+consisted of less than fifty hides of land [s]: but where a man held
+of the king only one or two knights' fees, he was still an immediate
+vassal of the crown, and as such had a title to have a seat in the
+general councils.  But as this attendance was usually esteemed a
+burden, and one too great for a man of slender fortune to bear
+constantly, it is probable that, though he had a title, if he pleased,
+to be admitted, he was not obliged, by any penalty, like the barons,
+to pay a regular attendance.  All the immediate military tenants of
+the crown amounted not fully to 700, when Doomsday Book was framed;
+and as the members were well pleased, on any pretext, to excuse
+themselves from attendance, the assembly was never likely to become
+too numerous for the despatch of public business.
+[FN [s] Four hides made one knight's fee: the relief of a barony was
+twelve times greater than that of a knight's fee; whence we may
+conjecture its usual value.  Spellm. Gloss. in verb. FEODUM.  There
+were 243,600 hides in England, and 60,215 knights' fees; whence it is
+evident, that there were a little more than four hides in each
+knight's fee.]
+
+[MN The Commons.]
+So far the nature of a general council, or ancient Parliament, is
+determined, without any doubt or controversy.  The only question seems
+to be with regard to the Commons, or the representatives of counties
+and boroughs, whether they were also, in more early times, constituent
+parts of Parliament?  This question was once disputed in England with
+great acrimony; but such is the force of time and evidence, that they
+can sometimes prevail, even over faction; and the question seems by
+general consent, and even by their own, to be at last determined
+against the ruling party.  It is agreed, that the Commons were no part
+of the great council, till some ages after the Conquest; and that the
+military tenants alone of the crown composed that supreme and
+legislative assembly.
+
+The vassals of a baron were, by their tenure, immediately dependent on
+him, owed attendance at his court, and paid all their duty to the
+king, through that dependence which their lord was obliged by HIS
+tenure to acknowledge to his sovereign and superior.  Their land,
+comprehended in the barony, was represented in Parliament by the baron
+himself, who was supposed, according to the fictions of the feudal
+law, to possess the direct property of it; and it would have been
+deemed incongruous to give it any other representation.  They stood in
+the same capacity to him, that he and the other barons did to the
+king.  The former were peers of the barony; the latter were peers of
+the realm.  The vassals possessed a subordinate rank within their
+district; the baron enjoyed a superior dignity in the great assembly:
+they were in some degree his companions at home; he the king's
+companion at court: and nothing can be more evidently repugnant to all
+feudal ideas, and to that gradual subordination which was essential to
+those ancient institutions, than to imagine that the king would apply
+either for the advice or consent of men, who were of a rank so much
+inferior, and whose duty was immediately paid to the MESNE lord that
+was interposed between them and the throne [t].
+[FN [t] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. BARO.]
+
+If it be unreasonable to think that the vassals of a barony, though
+their tenure was military, and noble, and honourable, were ever
+summoned to give their opinion in national councils, much less can it
+be supposed, that the tradesmen or inhabitants of boroughs, whose
+condition was so much inferior, would be admitted to that privilege.
+It appears from Doomsday, that the greatest boroughs were, at the time
+of the Conquest, scarcely more than country villages; and that the
+inhabitants lived in entire dependence on the king or great lords, and
+were of a station little better than servile [u].  They were not then
+so much as incorporated; they formed no community; were not regarded
+as a body politic; and being really nothing but a number of low
+dependent tradesmen, living, without any particular civil tie, in
+neighbourhood together, they were incapable of being represented in
+the states of the kingdom.  Even in France, a country which made more
+early advances in arts and civility than England, the first
+corporation is sixty years posterior to the Conquest under the Duke of
+Normandy; and the erecting of these communities was an invention of
+Lewis the Gross, in order to free the people from slavery under the
+lords, and to give them protection, by means of certain privileges and
+a separate jurisdiction [w].  An ancient French writer calls them a
+new and wicked device, to procure liberty to slaves, and encourage
+them in shaking off the dominion of their masters [x].  The famous
+charter, as it is called, of the Conqueror to the city of London,
+though granted at a time when he assumed the appearance of gentleness
+and lenity, is nothing but a letter of protection, and a declaration
+that the citizens should not be treated as slaves [y].  By the English
+feudal law, the superior lord was prohibited from marrying his female
+ward to a burgess or a villain [z]; so near were these two ranks
+esteemed to each other, and so much inferior to the nobility and
+gentry.  Besides possessing the advantages of birth, riches, civil
+powers, and privileges, the nobles and gentlemen alone were armed; a
+circumstance which gave them a mighty superiority, in an age when
+nothing but the military profession was honourable, and when the loose
+execution of laws gave so much encouragement to open violence, and
+rendered it so decisive in all disputes and controversies [a].
+[FN [u]  LIBER HOMO anciently signified a gentleman; for scarce any
+one beside was entirely free.  Spellm. Gloss. in verbo.  [w] Du
+Cange's Gloss in verb. COMMUNE, COMMUNITAS.  [x] Guibertus, de vita
+sua, lib. 2. cap. 7.  [y] Stat. of Merton, 1235. cap. 6.  [z]
+Hollingshed, vol. iii. p. 15.  [a] Madox's Baron. Angl. p. 19.]
+
+The great similarity among the feudal governments of Europe is well
+known to every man that has any acquaintance with ancient history; and
+the antiquaries of all foreign countries, where the question was never
+embarrassed by party disputes, have allowed, that the Commons came
+very late to be admitted to a share in the legislative power.  In
+Normandy particularly, whose constitution was most likely to be
+William's model in raising his new fabric of English government, the
+states were entirely composed of the clergy and nobility; and the
+first incorporated boroughs or communities of that duchy were Rouen
+and Falaise, which enjoyed their privileges by a grant of Philip
+Augustus in the year 1207 [b].  All the ancient English historians,
+when they mention the great council of the nation, call it an assembly
+of the baronage, nobility, or great men; and none of their
+expressions, though several hundred passages might be produced, can,
+without the utmost violence, be tortured to a meaning, which will
+admit the Commons to be constituent members of that body [c].  If in
+the long period of two hundred years, which elapsed between the
+Conquest and the latter end of Henry III., and which abounded in
+factions, revolutions, and convulsions of all kinds, the House of
+Commons never performed one single legislative act, so considerable as
+to be once mentioned by any of the numerous historians of that age,
+they must have been totally insignificant: and, in that case, what
+reason can be assigned for their ever being assembled?  Can it be
+supposed that men of so little weight or importance possessed a
+negative voice against the king and the barons?  Every page of the
+subsequent histories discovers their existence; though these histories
+are not written with greater accuracy than the preceding ones, and
+indeed scarcely equal them in that particular.  The MAGNA CHARTA of
+King John provides, that no scutage or aid should be imposed, either
+on the land or towns, but by consent of the great council; and for
+more security, it enumerates the persons entitled to a seat in that
+assembly, the prelates and immediate tenants of the crown, without any
+mention of the Commons: an authority so full, certain, and explicit,
+that nothing but the zeal of party could ever have procured credit to
+any contrary hypothesis.
+[FN [b] Norman. Du Chesnii, p. 1066.  Du Cange, Gloss, in verb.
+COMMUNE.  [c] Sometimes the historians mention the people, POPULUS, as
+part of the Parliament; but they always mean the laity, in opposition
+to the clergy.  Sometimes the word COMMUNITAS is found; but it always
+means COMMUNITAS BARONAGII.  These points are clearly proved by Dr.
+Brady.  There is also mention sometimes made of a crowd or multitude
+that thronged into the great council on particular interesting
+occasions; but as deputies from boroughs are never once spoken of, the
+proof that they had not then any existence becomes the more certain
+and undeniable.  These never could make a crowd, as they must have had
+a regular place assigned them, if they had made a regular part of the
+legislative body.  There were only one hundred and thirty boroughs who
+received writs of summons from Edward I.  It is expressly said in
+Gesta. Reg. Steph. p. 932, that it was usual for the populace, VULGUS,
+to crowd into the great councils; where they were plainly mere
+spectators, and could only gratify their curiosity.]
+
+It was probably the example of the French barons which first
+emboldened the English to require greater independence from their
+sovereign: it is also probable, that the boroughs and corporations of
+England were established in imitation of those of France.  It may,
+therefore, be proposed as no unlikely conjecture, that both the chief
+privileges of the Peers in England and the liberty of the Commons were
+originally the growth of that foreign country.
+
+In ancient times, men were little solicitous to obtain a place in the
+legislative assemblies; and rather regarded their attendance as a
+burden, which was not compensated by any return of profit or honour
+proportionate to the trouble and expense.  The only reason for
+instituting those public councils was, on the part of the subject,
+that they desired some security from the attempts of arbitrary power;
+and on the part of the sovereign, that he despaired of governing men
+of such independent spirits without their own consent and concurrence.
+But the Commons, or the inhabitants of boroughs, had not as yet
+reached such a degree of consideration as to desire SECURITY against
+their prince, or to imagine that, even if they were assembled in a
+representative body, they had power or rank sufficient to enforce it.
+The only protection which they aspired to, was against the immediate
+violence and injustice of their fellow-citizens; and this advantage
+each of them looked for, from the courts of justice, or from the
+authority of some great lord, to whom, by law or his own choice, he
+was attached.  On the other hand, the sovereign was sufficiently
+assured of obedience in the whole community, if he procured the
+concurrence of the nobles; nor had he reason to apprehend, that any
+order of the state could resist his and their united authority.  The
+military sub-vassals could entertain no idea of opposing both their
+prince and their superiors: the burgesses and tradesmen could much
+less aspire to such a thought: and thus, even if history were silent
+on the head, we have reason to conclude, from the known situation of
+society during those ages, that the Commons were never admitted as
+members of the legislative body.
+
+The EXECUTIVE power of the Anglo-Norman government was lodged in the
+king.  Besides the stated meetings of the national council at the
+three great festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide [d], he
+was accustomed, on any sudden exigence, to summon them together.  He
+could at his pleasure command the attendance of his barons and their
+vassals, in which consisted the military force of the kingdom; and
+could employ them, during forty days, either in resisting a foreign
+enemy, or reducing his rebellious subjects.  And what was of great
+importance, the whole JUDICIAL power was ultimately in his hands, and
+was exercised by officers and ministers of his appointment.
+[FN [d] Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 15.  Spellm. Gloss. In verbo
+PARLIAMENTUM.]
+
+[MN Judicial power.]
+The general plan of the Anglo-Norman government was, that the court of
+barony was appointed to decide  such controversies as arose between
+the several vassals or subjects of the same barony; the hundred court
+and county court, which were still continued as during the Saxon times
+[e], to judge between the subjects of different baronies [f]; and the
+CURIA REGIS, or king's court, to give sentence among the barons
+themselves [g].  But this plan, though simple, was attended with some
+circumstances which, being derived from a very extensive authority
+assumed by the Conqueror, contributed to increase the royal
+prerogative: and, as long as the state was not disturbed by arms,
+reduced every order of the community to some degree of dependence and
+subordination.
+[FN [e] Ang. Sacra, vol. i. p. 334, &c.  Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 27, 29.
+Madox, Hist. of Exch. p. 75, 76.  Spellm. Gloss. in verbo HUNDRED.
+[f] None of the feudal governments in Europe had such institutions as
+the county courts, which the great authority of the Conqueror still
+retained from the Saxon customs.  All the freeholders of the county,
+even the greatest barons, were obliged to attend the sheriffs in these
+courts, and to assist them in the administration of justice.  By these
+means they received frequent and sensible admonitions of their
+dependence on the king or supreme magistrate: they formed a kind of
+community with their fellow barons and freeholders: they were often
+drawn from their individual and independent state, peculiar to the
+feudal system, and were made members of a political body: and,
+perhaps, this institution of county courts in England has had greater
+effects on the government than has yet been distinctly pointed out by
+historians, or traced by antiquaries.  The barons were never able to
+free themselves from this attendance on the sheriffs and itinerant
+justices till the reign of Henry III.  [g] Brady, Pref. p. 143.]
+
+The king himself often sat in his court, which always attended his
+person [h]: he there heard causes and pronounced judgment [i]; and
+though he was assisted by the advice of the other members, it is not
+to be imagined that a decision could easily be obtained contrary to
+his inclination or opinion.  In his absence the chief justiciary
+presided, who was the first magistrate in the state, and a kind of
+viceroy, on whom depended all the civil affairs of the kingdom [k]
+The other chief officers of the crown, the constable, mareschal,
+seneschal, chamberlain, treasurer, and chancellor [l], were members,
+together with such feudal barons as thought proper to attend, and the
+barons of the exchequer, who at first were also feudal barons,
+appointed by the king [m].  This court, which was sometimes called the
+king's court, sometimes the court of exchequer, judged in all causes,
+civil and criminal, and comprehended the whole business which is now
+shared out among four courts, the chancery, the king's-bench, the
+common-pleas, and the exchequer [n].
+[FN [h] Madox, Hist. of Exch. p. 103.  [i] Bracton, lib. 3. cap. 9.
+Sec. 1. cap. 10. Sec. 1.  [k] Spellm. Gloss. in verbo JUSTICIARII.
+[l] Madox, Hist. Exch. p. 27, 29, 33, 38, 41, 54.  The Normans
+introduced the practice of sealing charters; and the chancellor's
+office was to keep the great seal.  Ingulph. Dugd. p. 33, 34.  [m]
+Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 134, 135.  Gerv. Dorob. p. 1387.  [n]
+Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 56, 70.]
+
+Such an accumulation of powers was itself a great source of authority,
+and rendered the jurisdiction of the court formidable to all the
+subjects; but the turn which judicial trials took soon after the
+Conquest served still more to increase its authority, and to augment
+the royal prerogatives.  William, among the other violent changes
+which he attempted and effected, had introduced the Norman law into
+England [o], had ordered all the pleadings to be in that tongue, and
+had interwoven, with the English jurisprudence, all the maxims and
+principles, which the Normans, more advanced in cultivation, and
+naturally litigious, were accustomed to observe in the distribution of
+justice.  Law now became a science, which at first fell entirely into
+the hands of the Normans; and which, even after it was communicated to
+the English, required so much study and application, that the laity,
+in those ignorant ages, were incapable of attaining it, and it was a
+mystery almost solely confined to the clergy, and chiefly to the monks
+[p]. The great officers of the crown, and the feudal barons, who were
+military men, found themselves unfit to penetrate into those
+obscurities; and though they were entitled to a seat in the supreme
+judicature, the business of the court was wholly managed by the chief
+justiciary and the law barons, who were men appointed by the king and
+entirely at his disposal [q].  This natural course of things was
+forwarded by the multiplicity of business which flowed into that
+court, and which daily augmented by the appeals from all the
+subordinate judicatures of the kingdom.
+[FN [o] Dial. de Scac. p. 30. apud Madox, Hist. of the Exchequer.  [p]
+Malmes. lib. 4. p. 123.  [q] Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 25.]
+
+In the Saxon times, no appeal was received in the king's court, except
+upon the denial or delay of justice by the inferior courts; and the
+same practice was still observed in most of the feudal kingdoms of
+Europe.  But the great power of the Conqueror established, at first,
+in England, an authority, which the monarchs in France were not able
+to attain till the reign of St. Lewis, who lived near two centuries
+after: he empowered his court to receive appeals both from the courts
+of barony and the county courts, and by that means brought the
+administration of justice ultimately into the hands of the sovereign
+[r].  And lest the expense or trouble of a journey to courts should
+discourage suitors, and make them acquiesce in the decision of the
+inferior judicatures, itinerant judges were afterwards established,
+who made their circuits throughout the kingdom, and tried all causes
+that were brought before them [s].  By this expedient the courts of
+barony were kept in awe; and if they still preserved some influence,
+it was only from the apprehensions which the vassals might entertain
+of disobliging their superior, by appealing from his jurisdiction.
+But the county courts were much discredited; and as the freeholders
+were found ignorant of the intricate principles and forms of the new
+law, the lawyers gradually brought all business before the king's
+judges, and abandoned the ancient simple and popular judicature.
+After this manner, the formalities of justice, which, though they
+appear tedious and cumbersome, are found requisite to the support of
+liberty in all monarchical governments, proved at first, by a
+combination of causes, very advantageous to royal authority in
+England.
+[FN [r] Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 65.   Glanv. lib. 12. cap. 1. 7.
+LL. Hen. I. Sec. 31, apud Wilkins, p. 248.  Fitz-Stephens, p. 36.
+Coke's Comment. on the statute of Marlbridge, cap. 20.  [s] Madox,
+Hist. of the Exch. p. 83, 84, 100.  Gerv. Dorob. p. 1410.  What made
+the Anglo-Norman barons more readily submit to appeals from their
+court to the king's court of exchequer, was their being accustomed to
+like appeals in Normandy to the ducal court of exchequer.  See
+Gilbert's History of the Exchequer, p. 1, 2; though the author thinks
+it doubtful, whether the Norman court was not rather copied from the
+English, p. 6.]
+
+[MN Revenue of the crown.]
+The power of the Norman kings was also much supported by a great
+revenue; and by a revenue that was fixed, perpetual, and independent
+of the subject.  The people, without betaking themselves to arms, had
+no check upon the king, and no regular security for the due
+administration of justice.  In those days of violence, many instances
+of oppression passed unheeded; and soon after were openly pleaded as
+precedents, which it was unlawful to dispute or control.  Princes and
+ministers were too ignorant to be themselves sensible of the
+advantages attending an equitable administration; and there was no
+established council or assembly which could protect the people, and,
+by withdrawing supplies, regularly and peaceably admonish the king of
+his duty, and ensure the execution of the laws.
+
+The first branch of the king's stated revenue was the royal demesnes
+or crown lands, which were very extensive, and comprehended, besides a
+great number of manors, most of the chief cities of the kingdom.  It
+was established by law, that the king could alienate no part of his
+demesne, and that he himself, or his successor, could at any time
+resume such donations [t]: but this law was never regularly observed;
+which happily rendered in time the crown somewhat more dependent.  The
+rent of the crown lands, considered merely as so much riches, was a
+source of power: the influence of the king over his tenants and the
+inhabitants of his towns increased this power: but the other numerous
+branches of his revenue, besides supplying his treasury, gave, by
+their very nature, a great latitude to arbitrary authority, and were a
+support of the prerogative; as will appear from an enumeration of
+them.
+[FN [t] Fleta, lib. 1. cap. 8. Sec. 17. lib. 3. cap. 6. Sec. 3.
+Bracton, lib. 2. cap. 5.]
+
+The king was never content with the stated rents, but levied heavy
+talliages at pleasure on the inhabitants both of town and country, who
+lived within his demesne.  All bargains of sale, in order to prevent
+theft, being prohibited, except in boroughs and public markets [u], he
+pretended to exact tolls, on all goods which were there sold [w].  He
+seized two hogsheads, one before and one behind the mast, from every
+vessel that imported wine.  All goods paid to his customs a
+proportionable part of their value [x]: passage over bridges and on
+rivers was loaded with tolls at pleasure [y]: and though the boroughs
+by degrees bought the liberty of farming these impositions, yet the
+revenue profited by these bargains: new sums were often exacted for
+the renewal and confirmation of their charters [z] and the people were
+thus held in perpetual dependence.
+[FN [u] LL. Will. I. cap. 61.  [w] Madox, p. 530.  [x] Ibid. p. 529.
+This author says a fifteenth.  But it is not easy to reconcile this
+account to other authorities.  [y] Madox, p. 529.  [z] Madox's Hist.
+of the Exch. p. 275, 276, 277, &c.]
+
+Such was the situation of the inhabitants within the royal demesnes.
+But the possessors of land, or the military tenants, though they were
+better protected both by law, and by the great privilege of carrying
+arms, were, from the nature of their tenures, much exposed to the
+inroads of power, and possessed not what we should esteem, in our age,
+a very durable security.  The Conqueror ordained, that the barons
+should be obliged to pay nothing beyond their stated services [a],
+except a reasonable aid to ransom his person if he were taken in war,
+to make his eldest son a knight, and to marry his eldest daughter.
+What should, on these occasions, be deemed a reasonable aid, was not
+determined; and the demands of the crown were so far discretionary.
+[FN [a] LL. Will. Conq. Sec. 55.]
+
+The king could require in war the personal attendance of his vassals,
+that is, of almost all the landed proprietors; and if they declined
+the service, they were obliged to pay him a composition in money,
+which was called a scutage.  The sum was, during some reigns,
+precarious and uncertain; it was sometimes levied without allowing the
+vassal the liberty of personal service [b]; and it was an usual
+artifice of the king, to pretend an expedition, that he might be
+entitled to levy the scutage from his military tenants.  Danegelt was
+another species of land-tax levied by the early Norman kings,
+arbitrarily, and contrary to the laws of the Conqueror [c].  Moneyage
+was also a general land-tax of the same nature, levied by the two
+first Norman kings, and abolished by the charter of Henry I. [d].  It
+was a shilling paid every three years by each hearth, to induce the
+king not to use his prerogative in debasing the coin.  Indeed it
+appears from that charter, that though the Conqueror had granted his
+military tenants an immunity from all taxes and talliages, he and his
+son William had never thought themselves bound to observe that rule,
+but had levied impositions at pleasure on all the landed estates of
+the kingdom.  The utmost that Henry grants, is, that the land
+cultivated by the military tenant himself shall not be so burdened;
+but he reserves the power of taxing the farmers; and as it is known
+that Henry's charter was never observed in any one article, we may be
+assured that this prince and his successors retracted even this small
+indulgence, and levied arbitrary impositions on all the lands of all
+their subjects.  These taxes were sometimes very heavy; since
+Malmesbury tells us, that in the reign of William Rufus, the farmers,
+on account of them, abandoned tillage, and a famine ensued [e].
+[FN [b] Gervase de Tilbury, p. 25.  [c] Madox's Hist of the Exch. p.
+475.  [d] Matth. Paris, p. 38.  [e] So also Chron. Abb. St. Petri de
+Burgo, p. 55.  Knyghton, p. 2366.]
+
+The escheats were a great branch both of power and of revenue,
+especially during the first reigns after the Conquest.  In default of
+posterity from the first baron, his land reverted to the crown, and
+continually augmented the king's possessions.  The prince had indeed
+by law a power of alienating these escheats; but by this means he had
+an opportunity of establishing the fortunes of his friends and
+servants, and thereby enlarging his authority.  Sometimes he retained
+them in his own hands; and they were gradually confounded with the
+royal demesnes, and became difficult to be distinguished from them.
+This confusion is probably the reason why the king acquired the right
+of alienating his demesnes.
+
+But besides escheats from default of heirs, those which ensued from
+crimes, or breach of duty towards the superior lord, were frequent in
+ancient times.  If the vassal, being thrice summoned to attend his
+superior's court, and do fealty, neglected or refused obedience, he
+forfeited all title to his land [f].  If he denied his tenure, or
+refused his service, he was exposed to the same penalty [g].  If he
+sold his estate without licence from his lord [h], or if he sold it
+upon any other tenure or title than that by which he himself held it
+[i], he lost all right to it.  The adhering to his lord's enemies [k],
+deserting him in war [l], betraying his secrets [m], debauching his
+wife, or his near relations [n], or even using indecent freedoms with
+them [o], might be punished by forfeiture.  The higher crimes, rapes,
+robbery, murder, arson, &c., were called felony; and being interpreted
+want of fidelity to his lord, made him lose his fief [p].  Even where
+the felon was vassal to a baron, though his immediate lord enjoyed the
+forfeiture, the king might retain possession of his estate during a
+twelvemonth, and had the right of spoiling and destroying it, unless
+the baron paid him a reasonable composition [q].  We have not here
+enumerated all the species of felonies, or of crimes by which
+forfeiture was incurred: we have said enough to prove, that the
+possession of feudal property was anciently somewhat precarious, and
+that the primary idea was never lost, of its being a kind of FEE or
+BENEFICE.
+[FN [f] Hottom. de Feud. Disp. cap. 38. col. 886.  [g] Lib. Feud. lib.
+3. tit. 1; lib. 4. tit. 21, 39.  [h] Id. lib. 1. tit. 21.  [i] Id.
+lib. 4. tit. 44.  [k] Id. lib. 3. tit. 1.  [l] Id. lib. 4. tit. 14,
+21.  [m] Id. lib. 4. tit. 14.  [n] Id. lib. 1. tit. 14, 23.  [o] Id.
+lib. 1. tit. 1.  [p] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. FELONIA.  [q] Ibid.
+Glanville, lib. 7 cap. 17.]
+
+When a baron died, the king immediately took possession of the estate;
+and the heir, before he recovered his right, was obliged to make
+application to the crown, and desire that he might be admitted to do
+homage for his land, and pay a composition to the king.  This
+composition was not at first fixed by law, at least by practice: the
+king was often exorbitant in his demands, and kept possession of the
+land till they were complied with.
+
+If the heir were a minor, the king retained the whole profit of the
+estate till his majority; and might grant what sum he thought proper
+for the education and maintenance of the young baron.  This practice
+was also founded on the notion, that a fief was a benefice, and that
+while the heir could not perform his military services, the revenue
+devolved to the superior, who employed another in his stead.  It is
+obvious, that a great proportion of the landed property must, by means
+of this device, be continually in the hands of the prince, and that
+all the noble families were thereby held in perpetual dependence.
+When the king granted the wardship of a rich heir to any one, he had
+the opportunity of enriching a favourite or minister: if he sold it,
+he thereby levied a considerable sum of money.  Simon de Mountfort
+paid Henry III. ten thousand marks, an immense sum in those days, for
+the wardship of Gilbert de Umfreville [r].  Geoffrey de Mandeville
+paid to the same prince the sum of twenty thousand marks, that he
+might marry Isabel, Countess of Gloucester, and possess all her lands
+and knights' fees.  This sum would be equivalent to three hundred
+thousand, perhaps four hundred thousand pounds in our time [s].
+[FN [r] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 223.  [s] Madox's Hist. of the
+Exch. p. 322.]
+
+If the heir were a female, the king was entitled to offer her any
+husband of her rank he thought proper; and if she refused him, she
+forfeited her land.  Even a male heir could not marry without the
+royal consent; and it was usual for men to pay large sums for the
+liberty of making their own choice in marriage [t].  No man could
+dispose of his land, either by sale or will, without the consent of
+his superior.  The possessor was never considered as full proprietor:
+he was still a kind of beneficiary; and could not oblige his superior
+to accept of any vassal that was not agreeable to him.
+[FN [t] Ibid. p. 320.]
+
+Fines, amerciaments, and oblatas, as they were called, were another
+considerable branch of the royal power and revenue.  The ancient
+records of the exchequer, which are still preserved, give surprising
+accounts of the numerous fines and amerciaments levied in those days
+[u] and of the strange inventions fallen upon to exact money from the
+subject.  It appears that the ancient kings of England put themselves
+entirely on the footing of the barbarous eastern princes, whom no man
+must approach without a present, who sell all their good offices, and
+who intrude themselves into every business that they may have a
+pretence for extorting money.  Even justice was avowedly bought and
+sold; the king's court itself, though the supreme judicature of the
+kingdom, was open to none that brought not presents to the king; the
+bribes given for the expedition, delay [w], suspension, and, doubtless
+for the perversion of justice, were entered in the public registers of
+the royal revenue, and remain as monuments of the perpetual iniquity
+and tyranny of the times.  The barons of the exchequer, for instance,
+the first nobility of the kingdom, were not ashamed to insert, as an
+article in their records, that the county of Norfolk paid a sum that
+they might be fairly dealt with [x]; the borough of Yarmouth, that the
+king's charters, which they have for their liberties, might not be
+violated [y]; Richard, son of Gilbert, for the king's helping him to
+recover his debt from the Jews [z]; Serlo, son of Terlavaston, that he
+might be permitted to make his defence in case he were accused of a
+certain homicide [a]; Walter de Burton, for free law, if accused of
+wounding another [b]; Robert de Essart, for having an inquest to find
+whether Roger the Butcher, and Wace and Humphrey, accused him of
+robbery and theft out of envy and ill-will or not [c]; William
+Buhurst, for having an inquest to find whether he were accused of the
+death of one Godwin out of ill-will, or for just cause [d].  I have
+selected these few instances from a great number of a like kind, which
+Madox had selected from a still greater number, preserved in the
+ancient rolls of the exchequer [e].
+[FN [u] Id. p. 272.  [w] Id. p. 274, 309.  [x] Id. p. 295.  [y] Id.
+ibid.  [z] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 296.  He paid two hundred
+marks, great sum in those days.  [a] Id. p. 296.  [b] Id. ibid.  [c]
+Id. p. 298.  [d] Id. p. 302.  [e] Id. chap. 12.]
+
+Sometimes the party litigant offered the king a certain portion, a
+half, a third, a fourth, payable out of the debts, which he, as the
+executor of justice, should assist him in recovering [f].  Theophania
+de Westland agreed to pay the half of two hundred and twelve marks,
+that she might recover that sum against James de Fughleston [g];
+Solomon, the Jew, engaged to pay one mark out of every seven that he
+should recover against Hugh de la Hose [h]; Nicholas Morrel promised
+to pay sixty pounds, that the Earl of Flanders might be distrained to
+pay him three hundred and forty-three pounds, which the earl had taken
+from him; and these sixty pounds were to be paid out of the first
+money that Nicholas should recover from the earl [i].
+[FN [f] Id. p. 311.  [g] Id. ibid.  [h] Id. p. 79, 312.  [i] Id. p.
+312.]
+
+As the king assumed the entire power over trade, he was to be paid for
+a permission to exercise commerce or industry of any kind [k].  Hugh
+Oisel paid four hundred marks for liberty to trade in England [l];
+Nigel de Havene gave fifty marks for the partnership in merchandize
+which he had with Gervase de Hanton [m]; the men of Worcester paid one
+hundred shillings, that they might have the liberty of selling and
+buying dyed cloth as formerly [n]; several other towns paid for a like
+liberty [o].  The commerce indeed of the kingdom was so much  under
+the control of the king, that he erected guilds, corporations, and
+monopolies, wherever he pleased; and levied sums for these exclusive
+privileges [p].
+[FN [k] Id. p. 323.  [l] Id. ibid.  [m] Id. ibid.  [n] Id. p. 324.
+[o] Id. ibid.  [p] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 232, 233, &c.]
+
+There were no profits so small as to be below the king's attention.
+Henry, son of Arthur, gave ten dogs to have a recognition against the
+Countess of Copland for one knight's fee [q].  Roger, son of Nicholas,
+gave twenty lampreys and twenty shads for an inquest to find, whether
+Gilbert, son of Alured, gave to Roger two hundred muttons to obtain
+his confirmation for certain lands, or whether Roger took them from
+him by violence [r]; Geoffrey Fitz-Pierre, the chief justiciary, gave
+two good Norway hawks, that Walter le Madine might have leave to
+export a hundred weight of cheese out of the king's dominions [s].
+[FN [q] Id. p. 298.  [r] Id. p. 305.  [s] Id. p. 325.]
+
+It is really amusing to remark the strange business in which the king
+sometimes interfered, and never without a present.  The wife of Hugh
+de Neville gave the king two hundred hens, that she might lie with her
+husband one night [t]; and she brought with her two sureties, who
+answered each for a hundred hens.  It is probable that her husband was
+a prisoner, which debarred her from having access to him.  The Abbot
+of Rucford paid ten marks for leave to erect houses and place men upon
+his land near Welhang, in order to secure his wood there from being
+stolen [u].  Hugh, Archdeacon of Wells, gave one tun of wine for leave
+to carry six hundred sums of corn whither he would [w]; Peter de
+Peraris gave twenty marks for leave to salt fishes, as Peter Chevalier
+used to do [x].
+[FN [t] Id. p. 320.  [u] Id. p. 326.  [w] Id. p. 320.  [x] Id. p.
+326.]
+
+It was usual to pay high fines, in order to gain the king's good-will,
+or mitigate his anger.  In the reign of Henry II., Gilbert, the son of
+Fergus, fines in nine hundred and nineteen pounds, nine shillings, to
+obtain that prince's favour; William de Chataignes, a thousand marks,
+that he would remit his displeasure.  In the reign of Henry III., the
+city of London fines in no less a sum than twenty thousand pounds on
+the same account [y].
+[FN [y] Id. p. 327, 329.]
+
+The king's protection and good offices of every kind were bought and
+sold.  Robert Grislet paid twenty marks of silver, that the king would
+help him against the Earl of Mortaigne, in a certain plea [z]: Robert
+de Cundet gave thirty marks of silver, that the king would bring him
+to an accord with the Bishop of Lincoln [a]: Ralph de Breckham gave a
+hawk, that the king would protect him [b]; and this is a very frequent
+reason for payments: John, son of Ordgar, gave a Norway hawk, to have
+the king's request to the king of Norway to let him have his brother
+Godard's chattels [c]: Richard de Neville gave twenty palfreys to
+obtain the king's request to Isolda Bisset, that she should take him
+for a husband [d]: Roger Fitz-Walter gave three good palfreys to have
+the king's letter to Roger Bertram's mother, that she should marry him
+[e]: Eling, the dean, paid one hundred marks, that his whore and his
+children might be let out upon bail [f]: the Bishop of Winchester gave
+one tun of good wine for his not putting the king in mind to give a
+girdle to the Countess of Albemarle [g]: Robert de Veaux gave five of
+the best palfreys, that the king would hold his tongue about Henry
+Pinel's wife [h].  There are in the records of exchequer, many other
+singular instances of a like nature [i].  It will, however, be just to
+remark, that the same  ridiculous practices and dangerous abuses
+prevailed in Normandy, and probably in all the other states of Europe
+[k]: England was not, in this respect, more barbarous than its
+neighbours.
+[FN [z] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 329.  [a] Id. p. 330.  [b] Id.
+p. 332.  [c] Id. ibid.  [d] Id. p. 333.  [e] Id. ibid.  [f] Id. p.
+342.  PRO HABENDA AMICA SUA ET FILIIS, &c.  [g] Id. p. 352.  [h] Id.
+ibid.  UT REX TACERET DE UXORE HENRICI PINEL.  [i] WE SHALL GRATIFY
+THE READER'S CURIOSITY BY SUBJOINING A FEW MORE INSTANCES FROM MADOX,
+p. 332.  Hugh Oisel was to give the king two robes of a good green
+colour, to have the king's letters patent to the merchants of
+Flanders, with a request to render him one thousand marks, which he
+lost in Flanders.  The Abbot of Hyde paid thirty marks, to have the
+king's letters of request to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to remove
+certain monks that were against the abbot.  Roger de Trihanton paid
+twenty marks and a palfrey, to have the king's request to Richard de
+Umfreville to give him his sister to wife, and to the sister, that she
+would accept him for a husband.  William de Cheveringworth paid five
+marks, to have the king's letter to the Abbot of Perfore, to let him
+enjoy peaceably his tithes as formerly.  Matthew de Hereford, clerk,
+paid ten marks for a letter of request to the Bishop of Llandaff, to
+let him enjoy peaceably his church of Schenfrith.  Andrew Neulun gave
+three Flemish caps for the king's request to the Prior of Chikesand,
+for performance of an agreement made between them.  Henry de Fontibus
+gave a Lombardy horse of value, to have the king's request to Henry
+Fitz-Hervey, that he would grant him his daughter to wife.  Roger, son
+of Nicholas, promised all the lampreys he could get, to have the
+king's request to Earl William Marshall, that he would grant him the
+manor of Langeford at Firm.  The burgesses of Gloucester promised
+three hundred lampreys, that they might not be distrained to find the
+prisoners of Poictou with necessaries, unless they pleased.  Id. p.
+352.  Jordan, son of Reginald, paid twenty marks, to have the king's
+request to William Paniel, that he would grant him the land of Mill
+Nieresult, and the custody of his heirs: and if Jordan obtained the
+same, he was pay the twenty marks, otherwise not.  Id. p. 333.  [k]
+Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 359.]
+
+These iniquitous practices of the Norman kings were so well known,
+that on the death of Hugh Bigod, in the reign of Henry II., the best
+and most just of these princes, the eldest son and the widow of this
+nobleman came to court, and strove, by offering large presents to the
+king, each of them to acquire possession of that rich inheritance.
+The king was so equitable as to order the cause to be tried by the
+great council!  But, in the mean time, he seized all the money and
+treasure of the deceased [l].  Peter of Blois, a judicious, and even
+an elegant writer for that age, gives a pathetic description of the
+venality of justice, and the oppressions of the poor, under the reign
+of Henry; and he scruples not to complain to the king himself of these
+abuses [m].  We may judge what the case would be under the government
+of worst princes.  The articles of inquiry concerning the conduct of
+sheriffs, which Henry promulgated in 1170, show the great power, as
+well as the licentiousness of these officers [n].
+[FN [l] Bened. Abb. p. 180, 181.  [m] Petri Bles. Epist. 95. apud
+Bibl. Patrum, tom. p. xxiv. 2014.  [n] Hoveden, Chron. Gerv. p. 1410.]
+
+Amerciaments, or fines for crimes and trespasses, were another
+considerable branch of the royal revenue [o].  Most crimes were atoned
+for by money; the fines imposed were not limited by any rule or
+statute; and frequently occasioned the total ruin of the person, even
+for the slightest trespasses.  The forest-laws, particularly, were a
+great source of oppression.  The king possessed sixty-eight forests,
+thirteen chases, and seven hundred and eighty-one parks, in different
+parts of England [p]; and considering the extreme passion of the
+English and Normans for hunting, these were so many snares laid for
+the people, by which they were allured into trespasses, and brought
+within the reach of arbitrary and rigorous laws, which the king had
+thought proper to enact by his own authority.
+[FN [o] Madox, chap. 14.  [p] Spellm. Gloss. in verbo FORESTA.]
+
+But the most barefaced acts of tyranny and oppression were practised
+against the Jews, who were entirely out of the protection of law, were
+extremely odious from the bigotry of the people, and were abandoned to
+the immeasurable rapacity of the king and his ministers.  Besides many
+other indignities to which they were continually exposed, it appears
+that they were once all thrown into prison, and the sum of sixty-six
+thousand marks exacted for their liberty [q]: at another time, Isaac
+the Jew paid alone five thousand one hundred marks [r]; Brun, three
+thousand marks [s]; Jurnet, two thousand; Bennet, five hundred: at
+another, Licorica, widow of David, the Jew of Oxford, was required to
+pay six thousand marks; and she was delivered over to six of the
+richest and discreetest Jews in England, who were to answer for the
+sum [t].  Henry III. borrowed five thousand marks from the Earl of
+Cornwall; and for his repayment, consigned over to him all the Jews in
+England [u].  The revenue arising from exactions upon this nation was
+so considerable, that there was a particular court of exchequer set
+apart for managing it [w].
+[FN [q] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 151.  This happened in the reign
+of King John.  [r] Id. p. 151.  [s] Id. p. 153.  [t] Id. p. 168.  [u]
+Id. p. 156.  [w] Id. chap. 7.]
+
+[MN Commerce.]
+We may judge concerning the low state of commerce among the English,
+when the Jews, notwithstanding these oppressions, could still find
+their account in trading among them, and lending them money.  And as
+the improvements of agriculture were also much checked by the immense
+possessions of the nobility, by the disorders of the times, and by the
+precarious state of feudal property, it appears that industry of no
+kind could then have place in the kingdom [x].
+[FN [x] We learn from the extracts given us of Doomsday by Brady, in
+his Treatise of Boroughs, that almost all the boroughs of England had
+suffered in the shock of the Conquest, and had extremely decayed
+between the death of the Confessor, and the time when Doomsday was
+framed.]
+
+It is asserted by Sir Henry Spellman [y], as an undoubted truth, that,
+during the reigns of the first Norman princes, every edict of the
+king, issued with the consent of his privy council, had the full force
+of law.  But the barons, surely, were not so passive as to intrust a
+power, entirely arbitrary and despotic, into the hands of the
+sovereign.  It only appears, that the constitution had not fixed any
+precise boundaries to the royal power; that the right of issuing
+proclamations on any emergence, and of exacting obedience to them, a
+right which was always supposed inherent in the crown, is very
+difficult to be distinguished from a legislative authority; that the
+extreme imperfection of the ancient laws, and the sudden exigencies
+which often occurred in such turbulent governments, obliged the prince
+to exert frequently the latent powers of his prerogative; that he
+naturally proceeded, from the acquiescence of the people, to assume,
+in many particulars of moment, an authority from which he had excluded
+himself by express statutes, charters, or concessions, and which was,
+in the main, repugnant to the general genius of the constitution; and
+that the lives, the personal liberty, and the properties of all his
+subjects, were less secured by law against the exertion of his
+arbitrary authority, than by the independent power and private
+connexions of each individual.  It appears from the great charter
+itself, that not only John, a tyrannical prince, and Richard, a
+violent one, but their father, Henry, under whose reign the prevalence
+of gross abuses is the least to be suspected, were accustomed, from
+their sole authority, without process of law, to imprison, banish, and
+attaint the freemen of their kingdom.
+[FN [y] Gloss. in verb. JUDICIUM DEI.  The author of the MIROIR DES
+JUSTICES complains, that ordinances are only made by the king and his
+clerks, and by aliens and others, who dare not contradict the king,
+but study to please him.  Whence, he concludes, laws are oftener
+dictated by will, than founded on right.]
+
+A great baron, in ancient times, considered himself as a kind of
+sovereign within his territory; and was attended by courtiers and
+dependents more zealously attached to him than the ministers of state
+and the great officers were commonly to THEIR sovereign.  He often
+maintained in his court the parade of royalty, by establishing a
+justiciary, constable, mareschal, chamberlain, seneschal, and
+chancellor, and assigning to each of these officers a separate
+province and command.  He was usually very assiduous in exercising his
+jurisdiction; and took such delight in that image of sovereignty, that
+it was found necessary to restrain his activity, and prohibit him by
+law from holding courts too frequently [z].  It is not to be doubted,
+but the example, set him by the prince of a  mercenary and sordid
+extortion, would be faithfully copied, and that all his good and bad
+offices, his justice and injustice, were equally put to sale.  He had
+the power, with the king's consent, to exact talliages even from the
+free citizens who lived within his barony; and as his necessities made
+him rapacious, his authority was usually found to be more oppressive
+and tyrannical than that of the sovereign [a].  He was ever engaged in
+hereditary or personal animosities or confederacies with his
+neighbours, and often gave protection to all desperate adventurers and
+criminals, who could be useful in serving his violent purposes.  He
+was able alone, in times of tranquillity, to obstruct the execution of
+justice within his territories; and by combining with a few
+malecontent barons of high rank and power, he could throw the state
+into convulsions.  And, on the whole, though the royal authority was
+confined within bounds, and often within very narrow ones, yet the
+check was irregular, and frequently the source of great disorders; nor
+was it derived from the liberty of the people, but from the military
+power of many petty tyrants, who were equally dangerous to the prince
+and oppressive to the subject.
+[FN [z] Dugd. Jurid. Orig. p. 26.  [a] Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p.
+520.]
+
+[MN The Church.]
+The power of the church was another rampart against royal authority;
+but this defence was also the cause of many mischiefs and
+inconveniences.  The dignified clergy, perhaps, were not so prone to
+immediate violence as the barons; but as they pretended to a total
+independence on the state, and could always cover themselves with the
+appearances of religion, they proved, in one respect, an obstruction
+to the settlement of the kingdom, and to the regular execution of the
+laws.  The policy of the Conqueror was in this particular liable to
+some exception.  He augmented the superstitious veneration for Rome,
+to which that age was so much inclined; and he broke those bands of
+connexion, which, in the Saxon times, had preserved an union between
+the lay and the clerical orders.  He prohibited the bishops from
+sitting in the county courts; he allowed ecclesiastical causes to be
+tried in spiritual courts only [b]; and he so much exalted the power
+of the clergy, that of sixty thousand two hundred and fifteen knights'
+fees, into which he divided England, he placed no less than twenty-
+eight thousand and fifteen under the church [c].
+[FN [b] Char. Will. apud Wilkins, p. 230.  Spellm. Conc. vol. ii. p.
+14.  [c] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. MANUS MORTUA.  We are not to imagine,
+as some have done, that the church possessed lands in this proportion,
+but only that they and their vassals enjoyed such a proportionable
+part of the landed property.]
+
+[MN Civil laws.]
+The right of primogeniture was introduced with the feudal law: an
+institution which is hurtful, by producing and maintaining an unequal
+division of private property; but is advantageous, in another respect,
+by accustoming the people to a preference in favour of the eldest son,
+and thereby preventing a partition or disputed succession in the
+monarchy.  The Normans introduced the use of surnames, which tend to
+preserve the knowledge of families and pedigrees.  They abolished none
+of the old absurd methods of trial by the cross or ordeal; and they
+added a new absurdity, the trial by single combat [d], which became a
+regular part of jurisprudence, and was conducted with all the order,
+method, devotion, and solemnity imaginable [e].  The ideas of chivalry
+also seem to have been imported by the Normans: no traces of those
+fantastic notions are to be found among the plain and rustic Saxons.
+[FN [d] LL. Will. cap. 68.  [e] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. CAMPUS.  The
+last instance of these duels was in the 15th of Eliz.  So long did
+that absurdity remain.]
+
+[MN Manners.]
+The feudal institutions, by raising the military tenants to a kind of
+sovereign dignity, by rendering personal strength and valour
+requisite, and by making every knight and baron his own protector and
+avenger, begat that martial pride and sense of honour, which, being
+cultivated and embellished by the poets and romance-writers of the
+age, ended in chivalry.  The virtuous knight fought not only in his
+own quarrel, but in that of the innocent, of the helpless, and, above
+all, of the fair, whom he supposed to be for ever under the
+guardianship of his valiant arm.  The uncourteous knight who, from his
+castle, exercised robbery on travellers, and committed violence on
+virgins, was the object of his perpetual indignation; and he put him
+to death, without scruple, or trial, or appeal, whenever he met with
+him.  The great independence of men made personal honour and fidelity
+the chief tie among them; and rendered it the capital virtue of every
+true knight, or genuine professor of chivalry.  The solemnities of
+single combat, as established by law, banished the notion of every
+thing unfair or unequal in rencounters; and maintained an appearance
+of courtesy between the combatants till the moment of their
+engagement.  The credulity of the age grafted on this stock the notion
+of giants, enchanters, dragons, spells [f], and a thousand wonders,
+which still multiplied during the time of the crusades; when men,
+returning from so great a distance, used the liberty of imposing every
+fiction on their believing audience.  These ideas of chivalry infected
+the writings, conversation, and behaviour of men, during some ages;
+and even after they were, in a great measure, banished by the revival
+of learning, they left modern GALLANTRY and the POINT OF HONOUR, which
+still maintain their influence, and are the genuine offspring of those
+ancient affectations.
+[FN [f] In all legal single combats, it was part of the champion's
+oath, that he carried not about him any herb, spell, or enchantment,
+by which he might procure victory.  Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 82.]
+
+The concession of the great charter, or rather its full establishment,
+(for there was a considerable interval of time between the one and the
+other,) gave rise, by degrees, to a new species of government, and
+introduced some order and justice into the administration.  The
+ensuing scenes of our history are therefore somewhat different from
+the preceding.  Yet the great charter contained no establishment of
+new courts, magistrates, or senates, nor abolition of the old.  It
+introduced no new distribution of the powers of the commonwealth, and
+no innovation in the political or public law of the kingdom.  It only
+guarded, and that merely by verbal clauses, against such tyrannical
+practices as are incompatible with civilized government, and, if they
+become very frequent, are incompatible with all government.  The
+barbarous license of the kings, and perhaps of the nobles, was
+thenceforth somewhat more restrained: men acquired some more security
+for their properties and their liberties: and government approached a
+little nearer to that end for which it was originally instituted, the
+distribution of justice, and the equal protection of the citizens.
+Acts of violence and iniquity in the crown, which before were only
+deemed injurious to individuals, and were hazardous chiefly in
+proportion to the number, power, and dignity of the persons affected
+by them, were now regarded, in some degree, as public injuries, and as
+infringements of a charter calculated for general security.  And thus
+the establishment of the great charter, without seeming anywise to
+innovate in the distribution of political power, became a kind of
+epoch in the constitution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+HENRY III.
+
+SETTLEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT.--GENERAL PACIFICATION.--DEATH OF THE
+PROTECTOR.--SOME COMMOTIONS.--HUBERT DE BURGH DISPLACED.--THE BISHOP
+OF WINCHESTER MINISTER.--KING'S PARTIALITY TO FOREIGNERS.--
+GRIEVANCES.--ECCLESIASTICAL GRIEVANCES.--EARL OF CORNWALL ELECTED KING
+OF THE ROMANS.--DISCONTENT OF THE BARONS.--SIMON DE MOUNTFORT, EARL OF
+LEICESTER.--PROVISIONS OF OXFORD.--USURPATION OF THE BARONS.--PRINCE
+EDWARD.--CIVIL WARS OF THE BARONS.--REFERENCE TO THE KING OF FRANCE.--
+RENEWAL OF THE CIVIL WARS.--BATTLE OF LEWES.--HOUSE OF COMMONS.--
+BATTLE OF EVESHAM AND DEATH OF LEICESTER.--SETTLEMENT OF THE
+GOVERNMENT.--DEATH--AND CHARACTER OF THE KING.--MISCELLANEOUS
+TRANSACTIONS OF THIS REIGN.
+
+
+
+[MN 1216.]  Most sciences, in proportion as they increase and improve,
+invent methods by which they facilitate their reasonings; and,
+employing general theorems, are enabled to comprehend, in a few
+propositions, a great number of inferences and conclusions.  History
+also, being a collection of facts which are multiplying without end,
+is obliged to adopt such arts of abridgment, to retain the more
+material events, and to drop all the minute circumstances, which are
+only interesting during the time, or to the persons engaged in the
+transactions.  This truth is no where more evident than with regard to
+the reign upon which we are going to enter.  What mortal could have
+the patience to write or read a long detail of such frivolous events
+as those with which it is filled, or attend to a tedious narrative
+which would follow, through a series of fifty-six years, the caprices
+and weaknesses of so mean a prince as Henry?  The chief reason why
+Protestant writers have been so anxious to spread out the incidents of
+this reign is, in order to expose the rapacity, ambition, and
+artifices of the court of Rome; and to prove that the great
+dignitaries of the Catholic church, while they pretended to have
+nothing in view but the salvation of souls, had bent all their
+attention to the acquisition of riches, and were restrained by no
+sense of justice or of honour in the pursuit of that great object [a].
+But this conclusion would readily be allowed them, though it were not
+illustrated by such a detail of uninteresting incidents; and follows,
+indeed, by an evident necessity, from the very situation in which that
+church was placed with regard to the rest of Europe.  For, besides
+that ecclesiastical power, as it can always cover its operations under
+a cloak of sanctity, and attacks men on the side where they dare not
+employ their reason, lies less under control than civil government;
+besides this general cause, I say, the pope and his courtiers were
+foreigners to most of the churches which they governed; they could not
+possibly have any other object than to pillage the provinces for
+present gain; and as they lived at a distance, they would be little
+awed by shame or remorse, in employing every lucrative expedient which
+was suggested to them.  England being one of the most remote provinces
+attached to the Romish hierarchy, as well as the most prone to
+superstition, felt severely during this reign, while its patience was
+not yet fully exhausted, the influence of these causes; and we shall
+often have occasion to touch cursorily upon such incidents.  But we
+shall not attempt to comprehend every transaction transmitted to us;
+and, till the end of the reign, when the events become more memorable,
+we shall not always observe an exact chronological order in our
+narration.
+[FN [a] M. Paris, p. 623.]
+
+[MN Settlement of the government.]
+The Earl of Pembroke, who, at the time of John's death, was Mareschal
+of England, was, by his office, at the head of the armies, and
+consequently, during a state of civil wars and convulsions, at the
+head of the government; and it happened fortunately for the young
+monarch and for the nation, that the power could not have been
+intrusted into more able and more faithful hands.  This nobleman, who
+had maintained his loyalty unshaken to John, during the lowest fortune
+of that monarch, determined to support the authority of the infant
+prince; nor was he dismayed at the number and violence of his enemies.
+Sensible that Henry, agreeably to the prejudices of the times, would
+not be deemed a sovereign till crowned and anointed by a churchman, he
+immediately carried the young prince to Gloucester, [MN 1216.  28th
+Oct.] where the ceremony of coronation was performed, in the presence
+of Gualo, the legate, and of a few noblemen, by the Bishops of
+Winchester and Bath [b].  As the concurrence of the papal authority
+was requisite to support the tottering throne, Henry was obliged to
+swear fealty to the pope, and renew that homage to which his father
+had already subjected the kingdom [c]; and in order to enlarge the
+authority of Pembroke, and to give him a more regular and legal title
+to it, a general council of the barons was soon after summoned at
+Bristol, [MN 11th Nov.] where that nobleman was chosen protector of
+the realm.
+[FN [b] M. Paris, p. 200.  Hist. Croyl. cont. p. 474.  W. Heming. p.
+562  Trivet, p. 168.  [c] M. Paris, p. 200.]
+
+Pembroke, that he might reconcile all men to the government of his
+pupil, made him grant a new charter of liberties, which, though mostly
+copied from the former concessions extorted from John, contains some
+alterations which may be deemed remarkable [d].  The full privilege of
+elections in the clergy, granted by the late king, was not confirmed,
+nor the liberty of going out of the kingdom, without the royal
+consent: whence we may conclude, that Pembroke and the barons, jealous
+of the ecclesiastical power, both were desirous of renewing the king's
+claim to issue a conge d'elire to the monks and chapters, and thought
+it requisite to put some check to the frequent appeals to Rome.  But
+what may chiefly surprise us, is, that the obligation to which John
+had subjected himself, of obtaining the consent of the great council
+before he levied any aids or scutages upon the nation, was omitted;
+and this article was even declared hard and severe, and was expressly
+left to future deliberation.  But we must consider, that, though this
+limitation may perhaps appear to us the most momentous in the whole
+charter of John, it was not regarded in that light by the ancient
+barons, who were more jealous in guarding against particular acts of
+violence in the crown, than against such general impositions, which,
+unless they were evidently reasonable and necessary, could scarcely,
+without general consent, be levied upon men who had arms in their
+hands, and who could repel any act of oppression by which they were
+all immediately affected.  We accordingly find, that Henry, in the
+course of his reign, while he gave frequent occasions for complaint,
+with regard to his violations of the great charter, never attempted,
+by his mere will, to levy any aids or scutages; though he was often
+reduced to great necessities, and was refused supply by his people.
+So much easier was it for him to transgress the law, when individuals
+alone were affected, than even to exert his acknowledged prerogatives,
+where the interest of the whole body was concerned.
+[FN [d] Rymer, vol. i. p. 215.]
+
+This charter was again confirmed by the king in the ensuing year, with
+the addition of some articles, to prevent the oppressions by sheriffs;
+and also with an additional charter of forests, a circumstance of
+great moment in those ages, when hunting was so much the occupation of
+the nobility, and when the king comprehended so considerable a part of
+the kingdom within his forests, which he governed by peculiar and
+arbitrary laws.  All the forests which had been enclosed since the
+reign of Henry II. were disafforested; and new perambulations were
+appointed for that purpose: offences in the forests were declared to
+be no longer capital; but punishable by fine, imprisonment, and more
+gentle penalties: and all the proprietors of land recovered the power
+of cutting and using their own wood at their pleasure.
+
+Thus these famous charters were brought nearly to the shape in which
+they have ever since stood; and they were, during many generations,
+the peculiar favourites of the English nation, and esteemed the most
+sacred rampart to national liberty and independence.  As they secured
+the rights of all orders of men, they were anxiously defended by all,
+and became the basis, in a manner, of the English monarchy, and a kind
+of original contract, which both limited the authority of the king,
+and ensured the conditional allegiance of his subjects.  Though often
+violated, they were still claimed by the nobility and people; and as
+no precedents were supposed valid that infringed them, they rather
+acquired than lost authority, from the frequent attempts made against
+them, in several ages, by regal and arbitrary power.
+
+While Pembroke, by renewing and confirming the great charter, gave so
+much satisfaction and security to the nation in general, he also
+applied himself successfully to individuals.  He wrote letters, in the
+king's name, to all the malecontent barons; in which he represented to
+them, that, whatever jealousy and animosity they might have
+entertained against the late king, a young prince, the lineal heir of
+their ancient monarchs, had now succeeded to the throne, without
+succeeding either to the resentments or principles of his predecessor:
+that the desperate expedient, which they had employed of calling in a
+foreign potentate, had, happily for them, as well as for the nation,
+failed of entire success; and it was still in their power, by a speedy
+return to their duty, to restore the independence of the kingdom, and
+to secure that liberty for which they so zealously contended: that as
+all past offences of the barons were now buried in oblivion, they
+ought, on their part, to forget their complaints against their late
+sovereign, who, if he had been anywise blameable in his conduct, had
+left to his son the salutary warning, to avoid the paths which had led
+to such fatal extremities; and that, having now obtained a charter for
+their liberties, it was their interest to show, by their conduct, that
+this acquisition was not incompatible with their allegiance, and that
+the rights of king and people, so far from being hostile and opposite,
+might mutually support and sustain each other [e].
+[FN [e] Rymer, vol i. p. 25.  Brady's App. No. 143.]
+
+These considerations, enforced by the character of honour and
+constancy which Pembroke had ever maintained, had a mighty influence
+on the barons; and most of them began secretly to negotiate with him,
+and many of them openly returned to their duty.  The diffidence which
+Lewis discovered of their fidelity forwarded this general propension
+towards the king; and when the French prince refused the government of
+the castle of Hertford to Robert Fitz-Walter, who had been so active
+against the late king, and who claimed that fortress as his property,
+they plainly saw that the English were excluded from every trust, and
+that foreigners had engrossed all the confidence and affection of
+their new sovereign [f].  The excommunication, too, denounced by the
+legate against all the adherents of Lewis, failed not, in the turn
+which men's dispositions had taken, to produce a mighty effect upon
+them; and they were easily persuaded to consider a cause as impious,
+for which they had already entertained an unsurmountable aversion [g].
+Though Lewis made a journey to France, and brought over succours from
+that kingdom [h], he found, on his return, that his party was still
+more weakened by the desertion of his English confederates, and that
+the death of John had, contrary to his expectations, given an
+incurable wound to his cause.  The Earls of Salisbury, Arundel, and
+Warrenne, together with William Mareschal, eldest son of the
+protector, had embraced Henry's party, and every English nobleman was
+plainly watching for an opportunity of returning to his allegiance.
+Pembroke was so much strengthened by these accessions that he ventured
+to invest Mountsorel; though, upon the approach of the Count de Perche
+with the French army, he desisted from his enterprise, and raised the
+siege [i].  The count, elated with this success, marched to Lincoln;
+and being admitted into the town, he began to attack the castle, which
+he soon reduced to extremity.  The protector summoned all his forces
+from every quarter, in order to relieve a place of such importance;
+and he appeared so much superior to the French, that they shut
+themselves up within the city, and resolved to act upon the defensive
+[k].  But the garrison of the castle having received a strong
+reinforcement, made a vigorous sally upon the besiegers; while the
+English army, by concert, assaulted them in the same instant from
+without, mounted the walls by scalade, and bearing down all
+resistance, entered the city sword in hand.  Lincoln was delivered
+over to be pillaged; the French army was totally routed; the Count de
+Perche, with only two persons more, was killed; but many of the chief
+commanders, and about four hundred knights, were made prisoners by the
+English [l].  So little blood was shed in this important action, which
+decided the fate of one of the most powerful kingdoms in Europe; and
+such wretched soldiers were those ancient barons, who yet were
+unacquainted with every thing but arms!
+[FN [f] M. Paris, p. 200, 202.  [g] Ibid. p. 200.  M. West. p. 277.
+[h] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 79.  M. West. p. 277.  [i] M. Paris, p.
+203.  [k] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 81.  [l] M. Paris, p.204, 205.
+Chron. de Mailr. p. 195.]
+
+Prince Lewis was informed of this fatal event while employed in the
+siege of Dover, which was still valiantly defended against him by
+Hubert de Burgh.  He immediately retreated to London, the centre and
+life of his party; and he there received intelligence of a new
+disaster, which put an end to all his hopes.  A French fleet, bringing
+over a strong reinforcement, had appeared on the coast of Kent, where
+they were attacked by the English, under the command of Philip
+d'Albiney, and were routed with considerable loss.  D'Albiney employed
+a stratagem against them, which is said to have contributed to the
+victory.  Having gained the wind of the French, he came down upon them
+with violence; and throwing in their faces a great quantity of
+quicklime, which he purposely carried on board, he so blinded them,
+that they were disabled from defending themselves [m].
+[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 206.  Ann. Waverl. p. 183.  W. Heming. p. 563.
+Trivet, p. 169.  M. West. p. 277.  Knyghton, p. 2428.]
+
+After this second misfortune of the French, the English barons
+hastened every where to make peace with the protector, and, by an easy
+submission, to prevent those attainders to which they were exposed on
+account of their rebellion.  Lewis, whose cause was now totally
+desperate, began to be anxious for the safety of his person, and was
+glad, on any honourable conditions, to make his escape from a country
+where he found every thing was now become hostile to him.  He
+concluded a peace with Pembroke, promised to evacuate the kingdom, and
+only stipulated, in return, an indemnity to his adherents, and a
+restitution of their honours and fortunes, together with the free and
+equal enjoyment of those liberties which had been granted to the rest
+of the nation [n].  Thus was happily ended a civil war, which  seemed
+to be founded on the most incurable hatred and jealousy, and had
+threatened the kingdom with the most fatal consequences.
+[FN [n] Rymer, vol. i. p. 221.  M. Paris, p. 207.  Chron. Dunst. vol.
+i. p. 83.  M. West. p. 278.  Knyghton, p. 2429.]
+
+[MN 1216.  General pacification.]
+The precautions which the King of France used in the conduct of this
+whole affair are remarkable.  He pretended that his son had accepted
+of the offer from the English barons without his advice, and contrary
+to his inclination: the armies sent to England were levied in Lewis's
+name.  When that prince came over to France for aid, his father
+publicly refused to grant him any assistance, and would not so much as
+admit him to his presence.  Even after Henry's party acquired the
+ascendant, and Lewis was in danger of falling into the hands of his
+enemies, it was Blanche of Castile, his wife, not the king, his
+father, who raised armies, and equipped fleets for his succour [o].
+All these artifices were employed, not to satisfy the pope, for he had
+too much penetration to be so easily imposed on; nor yet to deceive
+the people, for they were too gross even for that purpose.  They only
+served for a colouring to Philip's cause; and, in public affairs, men
+are often better pleased that the truth, though known to every body,
+should be wrapped up under a decent cover, than if it were exposed in
+open daylight to the eyes of all the world.
+[FN [o] M. Paris, p. 256.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 82.]
+
+After the expulsion of the French, the prudence and equity of the
+protector's subsequent conduct contributed to cure entirely those
+wounds which had been made by intestine discord.  He received the
+rebellious barons into favour; observed strictly the terms of peace
+which he had granted them; restored them to their possessions; and
+endeavoured, by an equal behaviour, to bury all past animosities in
+perpetual oblivion.  The clergy alone, who had adhered to Lewis, were
+sufferers in this revolution.  As they had rebelled against their
+spiritual sovereign, by disregarding the interdict and
+excommunication, it was not in Pembroke's power to make any
+stipulations in their favour; and Gualo, the legate, prepared to take
+vengeance on them for their disobedience [p].  Many of them were
+deposed; many suspended; some banished; and all who escaped punishment
+made atonement for their offence by paying large sums to the legate,
+who amassed an immense treasure by this expedient.
+[FN [p] Brady's App. No. 144  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 83.]
+
+[MN Death of the protector.]
+The Earl of Pembroke did not long survive the pacification, which had
+been chiefly owing to his wisdom and valour [q]; and he was succeeded
+in the government by Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, and
+Hubert de Burgh, the justiciary.  The councils of the latter were
+chiefly followed; and had he possessed equal authority in the kingdom
+with Pembroke, he seemed to be every way worthy of filling the place
+of that virtuous nobleman.  [MN Some commotions.]  But the licentious
+and powerful barons, who had once broken the reins of subjection to
+their prince, and had obtained, by violence, an enlargement of their
+liberties and independence, could ill be restrained by laws under a
+minority; and the people, no less than the king, suffered from their
+outrages and disorders.  They retained by force the royal castles,
+which they had seized during the past convulsions, or which had been
+committed to their custody by the protector [r]: they usurped the
+king's demesnes [s]: they oppressed their vassals: they infested their
+weaker neighbours: they invited all disorderly people to enter in
+their retinue, and to live upon their lands: and they gave them
+protection in all their robberies and extortions.
+[FN [q] M. Paris, p. 210.  [r] Trivet p. 174.  [s] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+276.]
+
+No one was more infamous for these violent and illegal practices than
+the Earl of Albemarle; who, though he had early returned to his duty,
+and had been serviceable in expelling the French, augmented to the
+utmost the general disorder, and committed outrages in all the
+counties of the north.  In order to reduce him to obedience, Hubert
+seized an opportunity of getting possession of Rockingham Castle,
+which Albemarle had garrisoned with his licentious retinue: but this
+nobleman, instead of submitting, entered into a secret confederacy
+with Fawkes de Breaute, Peter de Mauleon, and other barons, and both
+fortified the castle of Biham for his defence, and made himself
+master, by surprise, of that of Fotheringay.  Pandolf, who was
+restored to his legateship, was active in suppressing this rebellion;
+and, with the concurrence of eleven bishops, he pronounced the
+sentence of excommunication against Albemarle and his adherents [t]:
+an army was levied: a scutage of ten shillings a knight's fee was
+imposed on all the military tenants: Albemarle's associates gradually
+deserted him: and he himself was obliged at last to sue for mercy.  He
+received a pardon, and was restored to his whole estate.
+[FN [t] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 102.]
+
+This impolitic lenity, too frequent in those times, was probably the
+result of a secret combination among the barons, who never could
+endure to see the total ruin of one of their own order: but it
+encouraged Fawkes de Breaute, a man whom King John had raised from a
+low origin, to persevere in the course of violence to which he had
+owed his fortune, and to set at nought all law and justice.  When
+thirty-five verdicts were at one time found against him, on account of
+his violent expulsion of so many freeholders from their possessions,
+he came to the court of justice with an armed force, seized the judge
+who had pronounced the verdicts, and imprisoned him in Bedford castle.
+He then levied open war against the king; but being subdued and taken
+prisoner, his life was granted him; but his estate was confiscated,
+and he was banished the kingdom [u].
+[FN [u] Rymer, vol. i. p. 198.  M. Paris, p. 221, 224.  Ann. Waverl.
+p. 188.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 141, 146.  M. West. p. 283.]
+
+[MN 1222.]  Justice was executed with greater severity against
+disorders less premeditated, which broke out in London.  A frivolous
+emulation in a match of wrestling, between the Londoners on the one
+hand, and the inhabitants of Westminster and those of the neighbouring
+villages on the other, occasioned this commotion.  The former rose in
+a body, and pulled down some houses belonging to the Abbot of
+Westminster: but this riot, which, considering the tumultuous
+disposition familiar to that capital, would have been little regarded,
+seemed to become more serious by the symptoms which then appeared of
+the former attachment of the citizens to the French interest.  The
+populace, in the tumult, made use of the cry of war commonly employed
+by the French troops: MOUNTJOY, MOUNTJOY, GOD HELP US AND OUR LORD
+LEWIS!  The justiciary made inquiry into the disorder; and finding one
+Constantine Fitz-Arnulf to have been the ringleader, an insolent man,
+who justified his crime in Hubert's presence, he proceeded against him
+by martial law, and ordered him immediately to be hanged, without
+trial or form of process.  He also cut off the feet of some of
+Constantine's accomplices [w].
+[FN [w] M. Paris, p. 217, 218, 259.  Ann. Waverl. p. 187.  Chron.
+Dunst. vol. i. p. 129.]
+
+This act of power was complained of as an infringement of the great
+charter: yet the justiciary, in a Parliament summoned at Oxford, (for
+the great councils about this time began to receive that appellation,)
+made no scruple to grant, in the king's name, a renewal and
+confirmation of that charter.  When the assembly made application to
+the crown for this favour, as a law in those times seemed to lose its
+validity if not frequently renewed, William de Briewere, one of the
+council of regency, was so bold as to say openly, that those liberties
+were extorted by force, and ought not to be observed: but he was
+reprimanded by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and was not countenanced
+by the king or his chief ministers [x].  A new confirmation was
+demanded and granted two years after; and an aid, amounting to a
+fifteenth of all moveables, was given by the Parliament, in return for
+this indulgence.  The king issued writs anew to the sheriffs,
+enjoining the observance of the charter; but he inserted a remarkable
+clause in the writs, that those who paid not the fifteenth should not
+for the future be entitled to the benefit of those liberties [y].
+[FN [x] M. West. p. 282.  [y] Clause 9. H. 3. m. 9. and m. 6. d.]
+
+The low state into which the crown was fallen made it requisite for a
+good minister to be attentive to the preservation of the royal
+prerogatives, as well as to the security of public liberty.  Hubert
+applied to the pope, who had always great authority in the kingdom,
+and was now considered as its superior lord, and desired him to issue
+a bull declaring the king to be of full age, and entitled to exercise
+in person all the acts of royalty [z].  In consequence of this
+declaration, the justiciary resigned into Henry's hands the two
+important fortresses of the Tower and Dover Castle, which had been
+intrusted to his custody; and he required the other barons to imitate
+his example.  They refused compliance: the Earls of Chester and
+Albemarle, John Constable of Chester, John de Lacy, Brian de l'Isle,
+and William de Cantel, with some others, even formed a conspiracy to
+surprise London, and met in arms at Waltham with that intention: but
+finding the king prepared for defence, they desisted from their
+enterprise.  When summoned to court in order to answer for their
+conduct, they scrupled not to appear, and to confess the design: but
+they told the king, that they had no bad intentions against his
+person, but only against Hubert de Burgh, whom they were determined to
+remove from his office [a].  They appeared too formidable to be
+chastised; and they were so little discouraged by the failure of their
+first enterprise, that they again met in arms at Leicester, in order
+to seize the king, who then resided at Northampton: but Henry,
+informed of their purpose, took care to be so well armed and attended
+that the barons found it dangerous to make the attempt; and they sat
+down and kept Christmas in his neighbourhood [b].  The archbishop and
+the prelates, finding every thing tending towards a civil war,
+interposed with their authority, and threatened the barons with the
+sentence of excommunication, if they persisted in detaining the king's
+castles.  This menace at last prevailed: most of the fortresses were
+surrendered; though the barons complained that Hubert's castles were
+soon after restored to him, while the king still kept theirs in his
+own custody.  There are said to have been eleven hundred and fifteen
+castles at that time in England [c].
+[FN [z] M. Paris, p. 220.  [a] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 137.  [b] M.
+Paris, p. 221.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 138.  [c] Coke's Comment. on
+Magna Charta, chap. 17.]
+
+It must be acknowledged that the influence of the prelates and the
+clergy was often of great service to the public.  Though the religion
+of that age can merit no better name than that of superstition, it
+served to unite together a body of men who had great sway over the
+people, and who kept the community from falling to pieces, by the
+factions and independent power of the nobles; and what was of great
+importance, it threw a mighty authority into the hands of men, who, by
+their profession, were averse to arms and violence; who tempered by
+their mediation the general disposition towards  military enterprises;
+and who still maintained, even amidst the shock of arms, those secret
+links, without which it is impossible for human society to subsist.
+
+Notwithstanding these intestine commotions in England, and the
+precarious authority of the crown, Henry was obliged to carry on war
+in France; and he employed to that purpose the fifteenth which had
+been granted him by Parliament.  Lewis VIII., who had succeeded his
+father Philip, instead of complying with Henry's claim, who demanded
+the restitution of Normandy, and the other provinces wrested from
+England, made an irruption into Poictou, took Rochelle [d], after a
+long siege, and seemed determined to expel the English from the few
+provinces which still remained to them.  Henry sent over his uncle,
+the Earl of Salisbury, together with his brother, Prince Richard, to
+whom he had granted the earldom of Cornwall, which had escheated to
+the crown.  Salisbury stopped the progress of Lewis's arms, and
+retained the Poictevin and Gascon vassals in their allegiance: but no
+military action of any moment was performed on either side.  The Earl
+of Cornwall, after two years' stay in Guienne, returned to England.
+[FN [d] Rymer, vol. i. p. 269.  Trivet, p. 179.]
+
+[MN 1227.]  This prince was nowise turbulent or factious in his
+disposition: his ruling passion was to amass money, in which he
+succeeded so well as to become the richest subject in Christendom: yet
+his attention to gain threw him sometimes into acts of violence; and
+gave disturbance to the government.  There was a manor which had
+formerly belonged to the earldom of Cornwall, but had been granted to
+Waleran de Ties, before Richard had been invested with that dignity,
+and while the earldom remained in the crown.  Richard claimed this
+manor, and expelled the proprietor by force: Waleran complained: the
+king ordered his brother to do justice to the man, and restore him to
+his rights: the earl said, that he would not submit to these orders,
+till the cause should be decided against him by the judgment of his
+peers: Henry replied, that it was first necessary to reinstate Waleran
+in possession, before the cause could be tried; and he reiterated his
+orders to the earl [e].  We may judge of the state of the government,
+when this  affair had nearly produced a civil war.  The Earl of
+Cornwall, finding Henry peremptory in his commands, associated himself
+with the young Earl of Pembroke, who had married his sister, and who
+was displeased on account of the king's requiring him to deliver up
+some royal castles which were in his custody.  These two malecontents
+took into the confederacy the Earls of Chester, Warrenne, Gloucester,
+Hereford, Warwick, and Ferrers, who were all disgusted on a like
+account [f].  They assembled an army; which the king had not the power
+or courage to resist; and he was obliged to give his brother
+satisfaction, by grants of much greater importance than the manor
+which had been the first ground of the quarrel [g].
+[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 233.  [f] M. Paris, p. 233.  [g] Ibid.]
+
+The character of the king, as he grew to man's estate, became every
+day better known; and he was found in every respect unqualified for
+maintaining a proper sway among those turbulent barons, whom the
+feudal constitution subjected to his authority.  Gentle, humane, and
+merciful even to a fault, he seems to have been steady in no other
+circumstance of his character; but to have received every impression
+from those who surrounded him, and whom he loved, for the time, with
+the most imprudent and most unreserved affection.  Without activity or
+vigour, he was unfit to conduct war: without policy or art, he was ill
+fitted to maintain peace: his resentments, though hasty and violent,
+were not dreaded, while he was found to drop them with such facility;
+his friendships were little valued, because they were neither derived
+from choice, nor maintained with constancy.  A proper pageant of state
+in a regular monarchy, where his ministers could have conducted all
+affairs in his name and by his authority; but too feeble in those
+disorderly times to sway a sceptre, whose weight depended entirely on
+the firmness and dexterity of the hand which held it.
+
+[MN Hugh de Burgh displaced.]
+The ablest and most virtuous minister that Henry ever possessed was
+Hubert de Burgh [h]; a man who had been steady to the crown in the
+most difficult and dangerous times, and who yet showed no disposition,
+in the height of his power, to enslave or oppress the people.  The
+only exceptionable part of his conduct is that which is mentioned by
+Matthew Paris [i], if the fact be really true; and proceeded from
+Hubert's advice, namely, the recalling publicly and the annulling of
+the charter of forests, a concession so reasonable in itself, and so
+passionately claimed both by the nobility and people: but it must be
+confessed that this measure is so unlikely, both from the
+circumstances of the times and character of the minister, that there
+is reason to doubt of its reality, especially as it is mentioned by no
+other historian.  Hubert, while he enjoyed his authority, had an
+entire ascendant over Henry, and was loaded with honours and favours
+beyond any other subject.  Besides acquiring the property of many
+castles and manors, he married the eldest sister of the King of Scots,
+was created Earl of Kent, and, by an unusual concession, was made
+chief justiciary of England for life: [MN 1231.] yet Henry, in a
+sudden caprice, threw off this faithful minister, and exposed him to
+the violent persecutions of his enemies.  Among other frivolous crimes
+objected to him, he was accused of gaining the king's affections by
+enchantment, and of purloining from the royal treasury a gem, which
+had the virtue to render the wearer invulnerable, and of sending this
+valuable curiosity to the Prince of Wales [k].  The nobility, who
+hated Hubert on account of his zeal in resuming the rights and
+possessions of the crown, no sooner saw the opportunity favourable,
+than they inflamed the king's animosity against him, and pushed him to
+seek the total ruin of his minister.  Hubert took sanctuary in a
+church: the king ordered him to be dragged from thence: he recalled
+those orders: he afterwards renewed them: he was obliged by the clergy
+to restore him to the sanctuary: he constrained him soon after to
+surrender himself prisoner, and he confined him in the castle of
+Devizes.  Hubert made his escape, was expelled the kingdom, was again
+received into favour, recovered a great share of the king's
+confidence, but never showed any inclination to reinstate himself in
+power and authority [l].
+[FN [h] Ypod. Neustriae, p. 464.  [i] P. 232.  M. West. p. 216,
+ascribes this counsel to Peter, Bishop of Winchester.  [k] M. Paris,
+p. 259.  [l] Ibid. p. 259, 260, 261, 266.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 41, 42.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 220, 221.  M. West. p. 291, 301.]
+
+[MN Bishop of Winchester minister.]
+The man who succeeded him in the government of the king and kingdom
+was Peter, Bishop of Winchester, a Poictevin by birth, who had been
+raised by the late king, and who was no less distinguished by his
+arbitrary principles and violent conduct, than by his courage and
+abilities.  This prelate had been left by King John justiciary and
+regent of the kingdom during an expedition which that prince made into
+France; and his illegal administration was one chief cause of that
+great combination among the barons which finally extorted from the
+crown the charter of liberties, and laid the foundations of the
+English constitution.  Henry, though incapable, from his character, of
+pursuing the same violent maxims which had governed his father, had
+imbibed the same arbitrary principles; and, in prosecution of Peter's
+advice, he invited over a great number of Poictevins, and other
+foreigners, who, he believed, could more safely be trusted than the
+English, and who seemed useful to counterbalance the great and
+independent power of the nobility [m].  Every office and command was
+bestowed on these strangers: they exhausted the revenues of the crown,
+already too much impoverished [n]; they invaded the rights of the
+people; and their insolence, still more provoking than their power,
+drew on them the hatred and envy of all orders of men in the kingdom
+[o].
+[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 263.  [n] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 151.  [o] M.
+Paris, p. 268.]
+
+[MN 1233.]  The barons formed a combination against this odious
+ministry, and withdrew from Parliament, on pretence of the danger to
+which they were exposed from the machinations of the Poictevins.  When
+again summoned to attend, they gave for answer, that the king should
+dismiss his foreigners, otherwise they would drive both him and them
+out of the kingdom, and put the crown on another head more worthy to
+wear it [p]: such was the style they used to their sovereign!  They at
+last came to Parliament, but so well attended, that they seemed in a
+condition to prescribe laws to the king and ministry.  Peter des
+Roches, however, had in the interval found means of sowing dissension
+among them, and of bringing over to his party the Earl of Cornwall, as
+well as the Earls of Lincoln and Chester.  The confederates were
+disconcerted in their measures: Richard, Earl Mareschal, who had
+succeeded to that dignity on the death of his brother William, was
+chased into Wales; he thence withdrew into Ireland, where he was
+treacherously murdered by the contrivance of the Bishop of Winchester
+[q].  The estates of the more obnoxious barons were confiscated,
+without legal sentence or trial by their peers [r], and were bestowed
+with a profuse liberality on the Poictevins.  Peter even carried his
+insolence so far as to declare publicly, that the barons of England
+must not pretend to put themselves on the same footing with those of
+France; or assume the same liberties and privileges: the monarch in
+the former country had a more absolute power than in the latter.  It
+had been more justifiable for him to have said, that men, so unwilling
+to submit to the authority of laws, could with the worst grace claim
+any shelter or protection from them.
+[FN [p] Ibid. p. 265.  [q] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 219.  [r] M.
+Paris, p. 265.]
+
+When the king at any time was checked in his illegal practices, and
+when the authority of the great charter was objected to him, he was
+wont to reply, "Why should I observe this charter, which is neglected
+by all my grandees, both prelates and nobility?"  It was very
+reasonably said to him, "You ought, sir, to set them the example [s]."
+[FN [s] Ibid. p. 609.]
+
+So violent a ministry as that of the Bishop of Winchester could not be
+of long duration; but its fall proceeded at last from the influence of
+the church, not from the efforts of the nobles.  Edmond, the primate,
+came to court, attended by many of the other prelates, and represented
+to the king the pernicious measures embraced by Peter des Roches, the
+discontents of his people, the ruin of his affairs; and, after
+requiring the dismission of the minister and his associates,
+threatened him with excommunication in case of his refusal.  Henry,
+who knew that an excommunication so agreeable to the sense of the
+people could not fail of producing the most dangerous effects, was
+obliged to submit: foreigners were banished: the natives were restored
+to their place in council [t]: the primate, who was a man of prudence,
+and who took care to execute the laws, and observe the charter of
+liberties, bore the chief sway in the government.
+[FN [t] Ibid. p. 271, 272.]
+
+[MN 1236.  Jan.]  But the English in vain flattered themselves that
+they should be long free from the dominion of foreigners.  [MN King's
+partiality to foreigners.]  The king having married Eleanor, daughter
+of the Count of Provence [u], was surrounded by a great number of
+strangers from that country, whom he caressed with the fondest
+affection, and enriched by an imprudent generosity [w].  The Bishop of
+Valence, a prelate of the house of Savoy, and maternal uncle to the
+queen, was his chief minister, and employed every art to amass wealth
+for himself and his relations.  Peter of Savoy, a brother of the same
+family, was invested in the honour of Richmond, and received the rich
+wardship of Earl Warrenne: Boniface of Savoy was promoted to the see
+of Canterbury.  Many young ladies were invited over from Provence, and
+married to the chief noblemen in England, who were the king's wards
+[x].  And as the source of Henry's bounty began to fail, his Savoyard
+ministry applied to Rome, and obtained a bull, permitting him to
+resume all past grants; absolving him from the oath which he had taken
+to maintain them; even enjoining him to make such a resumption, and
+representing those grants as invalid, on account of the prejudice
+which ensued from them to the Roman pontiff, in whom the superiority
+of the kingdom was vested [y].  The opposition made to the intended
+resumption prevented it from taking place; but the nation saw the
+indignities to which the king was willing to submit, in order to
+gratify the avidity of his foreign favourites.  About the same time he
+published in England the sentence of excommunication pronounced
+against the Emperor Frederic, his brother-in-law [z]; and said, in
+excuse, that, being the pope's vassal, he was obliged by his
+allegiance to obey all the commands of his holiness.  In this weak
+reign, when any neighbouring potentate insulted the king's dominions,
+instead of taking revenge for the injury, he complained to the pope as
+his superior lord, and begged him to give protection to his vassal
+[a].
+[FN [u] Rymer, vol. i. p. 448.  M. Paris, p. 286.  [w] M. Paris, p.
+236, 301, 305, 316, 541.  M. West. p. 302, 304.  [x] M. Paris, p. 484.
+M. West. p. 338.  [y] M. Paris, p. 295, 301.  [z] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+383.  [a] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 150.]
+
+[MN 1236.  Grievances.]
+The resentment of the English barons rose high at the preference given
+to foreigners; but no remonstrance or complaint could ever prevail on
+the king to abandon them, or even to moderate his attachment towards
+them.  After the Provencals and Savoyards might have been supposed
+pretty well satiated with the dignities and riches which they had
+acquired, a new set of hungry foreigners were invited over, and shared
+among them those favours, which the king ought in policy to have
+conferred on the English nobility, by whom his government could have
+been supported and defended.  His mother, Isabella, who had been
+unjustly taken by the late king from the Count de la Marche, to whom
+she was betrothed, was no sooner mistress of herself, by the death of
+her husband, than she married that nobleman [b]; [MN 1247.] and she
+had borne him four sons, Guy, William, Geoffrey, and Aymer, whom she
+sent over to England, in order to pay a visit to their brother.  The
+good-natured and affectionate disposition of Henry was moved at the
+sight of such near relations; and he considered neither his own
+circumstances, nor the inclinations of his people, in the honours and
+riches which he conferred upon them [c].  Complaints rose as high
+against the credit of the Gascon, as ever they had done against that
+of the Poictevin and of the Savoyard favourites; and to a nation
+prejudiced against them, all their measures appeared exceptionable and
+criminal.  Violations of the great charter were frequently mentioned;
+and it is indeed more than probable that foreigners, ignorant of the
+laws, and relying on the boundless affections of a weak prince, would,
+in an age when a regular administration was not any where known, pay
+more attention to their present interest than to the liberties of the
+people.  It is reported that the Poictevins and other strangers, when
+the laws were at any time appealed to, in opposition to their
+oppressions, scrupled not to reply, WHAT DID THE ENGLISH LAWS SIGNIFY
+TO THEM?  THEY MINDED THEM NOT.  And as words are often more offensive
+than actions, this open contempt of the English tended much to
+aggravate the general discontent, and made every act of violence
+committed by the foreigners appear not only an injury but an affront
+to them [d].
+[FN [b] Trivet, p. 174.  [c] M. Paris, p. 491.  M. West. p. 338.
+Knyghton, p. 2436.  [d] M. Paris, p. 566, 666.  Ann. Waverl. p. 214.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 335.]
+
+I reckon not among the violations of the great charter some arbitrary
+exertions of prerogative, to which Henry's necessities pushed him, and
+which, without producing any discontent, were uniformly continued by
+all his successors till the last century.  As the Parliament often
+refused him supplies, and that in a manner somewhat rude and indecent
+[e], he obliged his opulent subjects, particularly the citizens of
+London, to grant him loans of money; and it is natural to imagine,
+that the same want of economy which reduced him to the necessity of
+borrowing, would prevent him from being very punctual in the repayment
+[f].  He demanded benevolences, or pretended voluntary contributions,
+from his nobility and prelates [g].  He was the first king of England
+since the Conquest that could fairly be said to lie under the
+restraint of law; and he was also the first that practised the
+dispensing power, and employed the clause of NON OBSTANTE in his
+grants and patents.  When objections were made to this novelty, he
+replied, that the pope exercised that authority; and why might not he
+imitate the example?  But the abuse which the pope made of his
+dispensing power, in violating the canons of general councils, in
+invading the privileges and customs of all particular churches, and in
+usurping on the rights of patrons, was more likely to excite the
+jealousy of the people, than to reconcile them to a similar practice
+in their civil government.  Roger de Thurkesby, one of the king's
+justices, was so displeased with the precedent, that he exclaimed,
+ALAS!  WHAT TIMES ARE WE FALLEN INTO!  BEHOLD, THE CIVIL COURT IS
+CORRUPTED IN IMITATION OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL, AND THE RIVER IS
+POISONED FROM THE FOUNTAIN.
+[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 301.  [f] Ibid. p. 406.  [g] Ibid. p. 507.]
+
+The king's partiality and profuse bounty to his foreign relations, and
+to their friends and favourites, would have appeared more tolerable to
+the English, had any thing been done meanwhile for the honour of the
+nation; or had Henry's enterprises in foreign countries been attended
+with any success or glory to himself or to the public: at least, such
+military talents in the king would have served to keep his barons in
+awe, and have given weight and authority to his government.  But
+though he declared war against Lewis IX. in 1242, and made an
+expedition into Guienne, upon the invitation of his father-in-law, the
+Count de la Marche, who promised to join him with all his forces, he
+was unsuccessful in his attempts against that great monarch, was
+worsted at Taillebourg, was deserted by his allies, lost what remained
+to him of Poictou, and was obliged to return, with loss of honour,
+into England [h].  The Gascon nobility were attached to the English
+government, because the distance of their sovereign allowed them to
+remain in a state of almost total independence; [MN 1253.] and they
+claimed, some time after, Henry's protection against an invasion,
+which the King of Castile made upon that territory.  Henry returned
+into Guienne, and was more successful in this expedition; but he
+thereby involved himself and his nobility in an enormous debt, which
+both increased their discontents, and exposed him to greater danger
+from their enterprises [i].
+[FN [h] M. Paris, p. 393, 394, 398, 399, 405.  W. Heming. p. 574.
+Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 153.  [i] M. Paris, p. 614.]
+
+Want of economy, and an ill-judged liberality, were Henry's great
+defects; and his debts, even before this expedition, had become so
+troublesome, that he sold all his plate and jewels, in order to
+discharge them.  When this expedient was first proposed to him, he
+asked where he should find purchasers?  It was replied, the citizens
+of London.  ON MY WORD, said he, IF THE TREASURY OF AUGUSTUS WERE
+BROUGHT FOR SALE, THE CITIZENS ARE ABLE TO BE THE PURCHASERS: THESE
+CLOWNS, WHO ASSUME TO THEMSELVES THE NAME OF BARONS, ABOUND IN EVERY
+THING, WHILE WE ARE REDUCED TO NECESSITIES [k].  And he was
+thenceforth observed to be more forward and greedy in his exactions
+upon the citizens [l].
+[FN [k] Ibid. p. 501.  [l] Ibid. p. 501, 507, 518, 578, 606, 625,
+648.]
+
+[MN Ecclesiastical grievances.]
+But the grievances, which the English during this reign had reason to
+complain of in the civil government, seem to have been still less
+burdensome than those which they suffered from the usurpations and
+exactions of the court of Rome.  [MN 1253.]  On the death of Langton
+in 1228, the monks of Christ-church elected Walter de Hemesham, one of
+their own body, for his successor: but as Henry refused to confirm the
+election, the pope, at his desire, annulled it [m]; and immediately
+appointed Richard, Chancellor of Lincoln, for archbishop, without
+waiting for a new election.  On the death of Richard in 1231, the
+monks elected Ralph de Neville, Bishop of Chichester; and though Henry
+was much pleased with the election, the pope, who thought that prelate
+too much attached to the crown, assumed the power of annulling his
+election [n].  He rejected two clergymen more, whom the monks had
+successively chosen; and he at last told them, that, if they would
+elect Edmond, treasurer of the church of Salisbury, he would confirm
+their choice; and his nomination was complied with.  The pope had the
+prudence to appoint both times very worthy primates; but men could not
+forbear observing his intention of thus drawing gradually to himself
+the right of bestowing that important dignity.
+[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 224.  [n] Ibid. p. 254.]
+
+The avarice, however, more than the ambition, of the see of Rome,
+seems to have been in this age the ground of general complaint.  The
+papal ministers, finding a vast stock of power amassed by their
+predecessors, were desirous of turning it to immediate profit which
+they enjoyed at home, rather than of enlarging their authority in
+distant countries, where they never intended to reside.  Every thing
+was become venal in the Romish tribunals; simony was openly practised;
+no favours, and even no justice, could be obtained without a bribe;
+the highest bidder was sure to have the preference, without regard
+either to the merits of the person or of the cause; and besides the
+usual perversions of right in the decision of controversies, the pope
+openly assumed an absolute and uncontrolled authority of setting
+aside, by the plenitude of his apostolic power, all particular rules,
+and all privileges of patrons, churches, and convents.  On pretence of
+remedying these abuses, Pope Honorius, in 1226, complaining of the
+poverty of his see as the source of all grievances, demanded from
+every cathedral two of the best prebends, and from every convent two
+monks' portions, to be set apart as a perpetual and settled revenue of
+the papal crown: but all men being sensible that the revenue would
+continue for ever, the abuses immediately return, his demand was
+unanimously rejected.  About three years after, the pope demanded and
+obtained the tenth of all ecclesiastical revenues, which he levied in
+a very oppressive manner; requiring payment before the clergy had
+drawn their rents or tithes, and sending about usurers, who advanced
+them the money at exorbitant interest.  In the year 1240, Otho, the
+legate, having in vain attempted the clergy in a body, obtained
+separately, by intrigues and menaces, large sums from the prelates and
+convents, and on his departure is said to have carried more money out
+of the kingdom than he left in it.  This experiment was renewed four
+years after with success by Martin the nuncio, who brought from Rome
+powers of suspending and excommunicating all clergymen that refused to
+comply with his demands.  The king, who relied on the pope for the
+support of his tottering authority, never failed to countenance those
+exactions.
+
+Meanwhile, all the chief benefices of the kingdom were conferred on
+Italians; great numbers of that nation were sent over at one time to
+be provided for; non-residence and pluralities were carried to an
+enormous height; Mansel, the king's chaplain, is computed to have held
+at once seven hundred ecclesiastical livings; and the abuses became so
+evident as to be palpable to the blindness of superstition itself.
+The people, entering into associations, rose against the Italian
+clergy; pillaged their barns; wasted their lands; insulted the persons
+of such of them as they found in the kingdom [o]; and when the
+justices made inquiry into the authors of this disorder, the guilt was
+found to involve so many, and those of such high rank, that it passed
+unpunished.  At last, when Innocent IV., in 1245, called a general
+council at Lyons, in order to excommunicate the Emperor Frederic, the
+king and nobility sent over agents to complain before the council of
+the rapacity of the Romish church.  They represented, among many other
+grievances, that the benefices of the Italian clergy in England had
+been estimated, and were found to amount to sixty thousand marks [p] a
+year, a sum which exceeded the annual revenue of the crown [q].  They
+obtained only an evasive answer from the pope; but as mention had been
+made before the council of the feudal subjection of England to the see
+of Rome, the English agents, at whose head was Roger Bigod, Earl of
+Norfolk, exclaimed against the pretension, and insisted that King John
+had no right, without the consent of his barons, to subject the
+kingdom to so ignominious a servitude [r].  The popes, indeed, afraid
+of carrying matters too far against England, seem thenceforth to have
+little insisted on that pretension.
+[FN [o] Rymer, vol. i. p. 323.  M. Paris, p. 255, 257.  [p] Innocent's
+bull in Rymer, vol. i. p. 471, says only fifty thousand marks a year.
+[q] M. Paris, p. 451.  The customs were part of Henry's revenue, and
+amounted to six thousand pounds a year: they were at first small sums
+paid by the merchants for the use of the king's warehouses, measures,
+weights, &c.  See Gilbert's History of the Exch. p. 214.  [r] M.
+Paris, p. 460.]
+
+This check, received at the council of Lyons, was not able to stop the
+court of Rome in its rapacity; Innocent exacted the revenues of all
+vacant benefices, the twentieth of all ecclesiastical revenues without
+exception; the third of such as exceeded a hundred marks a year, and
+the half of such as were possessed by non-residents [s].  He claimed
+the goods of all intestate clergymen [t]; he pretended a title to
+inherit all money gotten by usury; he levied benevolences upon the
+people; and when the king, contrary to his usual practice, prohibited
+these exactions, he threatened to pronounce against him the same
+censures which he had emitted against the Emperor Frederic [u].
+[FN [s] Ibid. p. 480.  Ann. Burt. p. 305, 373.  [t] M. Paris, p. 474.
+[u] Ibid. p. 476.]
+
+[MN 1255.]  But the most oppressive expedient employed by the pope was
+the embarking of Henry in a project for the conquest of Naples or
+Sicily on this side the Fare, as it was called; an enterprise, which
+threw much dishonour on the king, and involved him, during some years,
+in great trouble and expense.  The Romish church, taking advantage of
+favourable incidents, had reduced the kingdom of Sicily to the same
+state of feudal vassalage which she pretended to extend over England,
+and which, by reason of the distance, as well as high spirit of this
+latter kingdom, she was not able to maintain.  After the death of the
+Emperor Frederic II., the succession of Sicily devolved to Conradine,
+grandson of that monarch; and Mainfroy, his natural son, under
+pretence of governing the kingdom during the minority of the prince,
+had formed a scheme of establishing his own authority.  Pope Innocent,
+who had carried on violent war against the Emperor Frederic, and had
+endeavoured to dispossess him of his Italian dominions, still
+continued hostilities against his grandson; but being disappointed in
+all his schemes by the activity and artifices of Mainfroy, he found
+that his own force alone was not sufficient to bring to a happy issue
+so great an enterprise.  He pretended to dispose of the Sicilian
+crown, both as superior lord of that particular kingdom, and as vicar
+of Christ, to whom all kingdoms of the earth were subjected; and he
+made a tender of it to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, whose immense
+riches, he flattered himself, would be able to support the military
+operations against Mainfroy.  As Richard had the prudence to refuse
+the present [w], he applied to the king, whose levity and thoughtless
+disposition gave Innocent more hopes of success; and he offered him
+the crown of Sicily for his second son, Edmond [x].  Henry, allured by
+so magnificent a present, without reflecting on the consequences,
+without consulting either with his brother or the Parliament, accepted
+of the insidious proposal; and gave the pope unlimited credit to
+expend whatever sums he thought necessary for completing the conquest
+of Sicily.  Innocent, who was engaged by his own interests to wage war
+with Mainfroy, was glad to carry on his enterprises at the expense of
+his ally: Alexander IV., who succeeded him in the papal throne,
+continued the same policy; and Henry was surprised to find himself on
+a sudden involved in an immense debt, which he had never been
+consulted in contracting.  The sum already amounted to one hundred and
+thirty-five thousand five hundred and forty-one marks, besides
+interest [y]; and he  had the prospect, if he answered this demand, of
+being soon loaded with more exorbitant expenses; if he refused it, of
+both incurring the pope's displeasure, and losing the crown of Sicily,
+which he hoped soon to have the glory of fixing on the head of his
+son.
+[FN [w] M. Paris, p. 650.  [x] Rymer, vol. i. p. 502, 512, 530.  M.
+Paris, p. 599, 613.  [y] Rymer, vol. i. p. 587.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i.
+p. 319.]
+
+He applied to the Parliament for supplies; and that he might be sure
+not to meet with opposition, he sent no writs to the more refractory
+barons; but even those who were summoned, sensible of the ridiculous
+cheat imposed by the pope, determined not to lavish their money on
+such chimerical projects; and making a pretext of the absence of their
+brethren, they refused to take the king's demands into consideration
+[z].  In this extremity the clergy were his only resource; and as both
+their temporal and spiritual sovereign concurred in loading them, they
+were ill able to defend themselves against this united authority.
+[FN [z] M. Paris, p. 614.]
+
+The pope published a crusade for the conquest of Sicily; and required
+every one, who had taken the cross against the infidels, or had vowed
+to advance money for that service, to support the war against
+Mainfroy, a more terrible enemy, as he pretended, to the Christian
+faith than any Saracen [a].  He levied a tenth on all ecclesiastical
+benefices in England for three years; and gave orders to excommunicate
+all bishops who made not punctual payment.  He granted to the king the
+goods of intestate clergymen; the revenues of vacant benefices; the
+revenues of all non-residents [b].  But these taxations, being levied
+by some rule, were deemed less grievous than another imposition, which
+arose from the suggestion of the Bishop of Hereford, and which might
+have opened the door to endless and intolerable abuses.
+[FN [a] Rymer, vol. i. p. 547, 548, &c.  [b] Ibid. vol. i. p. 597,
+598.]
+
+This prelate, who resided at the court of Rome, by a deputation from
+the English church, drew bills of different values, but amounting on
+the whole to one hundred and fifty thousand five hundred and forty
+marks, on all the bishops and abbots of the kingdom; and granted these
+bills to Italian merchants, who, it was pretended, had advanced money
+for the service of the war against Mainfroy [c].  As there was no
+likelihood of the English prelates submitting, without compulsion, to
+such an extraordinary demand, Rustand, the legate, was charged with
+the commission of employing authority to that purpose; and he summoned
+an assembly of the bishops and abbots, whom he acquainted with the
+pleasure of the pope and of the king.  Great were the surprise and
+indignation of the assembly.  The Bishop of Worcester exclaimed, that
+he would lose his life rather than comply: the Bishop of London said,
+that the pope and king were more powerful than he; but if his mitre
+were taken off his head, he would clap on a helmet in its place [d].
+The legate was no less violent on the other hand; and he told the
+assembly, in plain terms, that all ecclesiastical benefices were the
+property of the pope, and he might dispose of them, either in whole or
+in part, as he saw proper [e].  In the end, the bishops and abbots,
+being threatened with excommunication, which made all the revenues
+fall into the king's hands, were obliged to submit to the exaction;
+and the only mitigation which the legate allowed them was, that the
+tenths, already granted, should be accepted as a partial payment of
+the bills.  But the money was still insufficient for the pope's
+purpose: the conquest of Sicily was as remote as ever: the demands
+which came from Rome were endless: Pope Alexander became so urgent a
+creditor, that he sent over a legate to England, threatening the
+kingdom with an interdict, and the king with excommunication, if the
+arrears, which he pretended to be due to him, were not instantly
+remitted [f].  And at last Henry, sensible of the cheat, began to
+think of breaking off the agreement, and of resigning into the pope's
+hands that crown, which it was not intended by Alexander, that he or
+his family should ever enjoy [g].
+[FN [c] M. Paris, p. 612, 628.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 54.  [d] M. Paris,
+p. 614.  [e] Ibid. p. 619.  [f] Rymer, vol. i. p. 624.  M. Paris, p.
+648.  [g] Rymer, vol. i. p. 630.]
+
+[MN Earl of Cornwall elected King of the Romans.]
+The Earl of Cornwall had now reason to value himself on his foresight,
+in refusing the fraudulent bargain with Rome, and in preferring the
+solid honours of an opulent and powerful prince of the blood of
+England, to the empty and precarious glory of a foreign dignity.  But
+he had not always firmness sufficient to adhere to this resolution:
+his vanity and ambition prevailed at last over his prudence and his
+avarice; and he was engaged in an enterprise no less extensive and
+vexatious than that of his brother, and not attended with much greater
+probability of success.  The immense opulence of Richard having made
+the German princes cast their eye on him as a candidate for the
+empire, he was tempted to expend vast sums of money on his election;
+and he succeeded so far as to be chosen King of the Romans, which
+seemed to render his succession infallible to the imperial throne.  He
+went over to Germany, and carried out of the kingdom no less a sum
+than seven hundred thousand marks, if we may credit the account given
+by some ancient authors [h], which is probably much exaggerated [i].
+His money, while it lasted, procured him friends and partisans; but it
+was soon drained from him by the avidity of the German princes; and
+having no personal or family connexions in that country, and no solid
+foundation of power, he found at last that he had lavished away the
+frugality of a whole life in order to procure a splendid title; and
+that his absence from England, joined to the weakness of his brother's
+government, gave reins to the factious and turbulent dispositions of
+the English barons, and involved his own country and family in great
+calamities.
+[FN [h] M. Paris, p. 638.  The same author, a few pages before, makes
+Richard's treasures amount to little more than half the sum, p. 634.
+The king's dissipations and expenses, throughout his whole reign,
+according to the same author, had amounted only to about nine hundred
+and forty thousand marks, p. 638.  [i] The sums mentioned by ancient
+authors, who were almost all monks, are often improbable, and never
+consistent.  But we know, from an infallible authority, the public
+remonstrance to the council of Lyons, that the king's revenues were
+below sixty thousand marks a year: his brother, therefore, could never
+have been master of seven hundred thousand marks; especially as he did
+not sell his estates in England, as we learn from the same author: and
+we hear afterwards of his ordering all his woods to be cut, in order
+to satisfy the rapacity of the German princes.  His son succeeded to
+the earldom of Cornwall, and his other revenues.]
+
+[MN Discontents of the barons.]
+The successful revolt of the nobility from King John, and their
+imposing on him and his successors limitations of their royal power,
+had made them feel their own weight and importance, had set a
+dangerous precedent of resistance, and being followed by a long
+minority, had impoverished as well as weakened that crown, which they
+were at last induced, from the fear of worse consequences, to replace
+on the head of young Henry.  In the king's situation, either great
+abilities and vigour were requisite to overawe the barons, or great
+caution and reserve to give them no pretence for complaints; and it
+must be confessed that this prince was possessed of neither of these
+talents.  He had not prudence to choose right measures; he wanted even
+that constancy, which sometimes gives weight to wrong ones; he was
+entirely devoted to his favourites, who were always foreigners; he
+lavished on them, without discretion, his diminished revenue; and
+finding that his barons indulged their disposition towards tyranny,
+and observed not to their own vassals the same rules which they had
+imposed on the crown, he was apt, in his administration, to neglect
+all the salutary articles of the great charter, which he remarked to
+be so little regarded by his nobility.  This conduct had extremely
+lessened his authority in the kingdom; had multiplied complaints
+against him; and had frequently exposed him to affronts, and even to
+dangerous attempts upon his prerogative.  In the year 1244, when he
+desired a supply from Parliament, the barons, complaining of the
+frequent breaches of the great charter, and of the many fruitless
+applications which they had formerly made for the redress of this and
+other grievances, demanded, in return, that he should give them the
+nomination of the great justiciary and of the chancellor, to whose
+hands chiefly the administration of justice was committed; and if we
+may credit the historian [k], they had formed the plan of other
+limitations, as well as of associations to maintain them, which would
+have reduced the king to be an absolute cipher; and have held the
+crown in perpetual pupilage and dependence.  The king, to satisfy
+them, would agree to nothing but a renewal of the charter, and a
+general permission to excommunicate all the violaters of it; and he
+received no supply, except a scutage of twenty shillings on each
+knight's fee, for the marriage of his eldest daughter to the King of
+Scotland; a burden which was expressly annexed to their feudal
+tenures.
+[FN [k] M. Paris, p. 432.]
+
+Four years after, in a full Parliament, when Henry demanded a new
+supply, he was openly reproached with a breach of his word, and the
+frequent violations of the charter.  He was asked, whether he did not
+blush to desire any aid from his people, whom he professedly hated and
+despised, to whom, on all occasions, he preferred aliens and
+foreigners, and who groaned under the oppressions which he either
+permitted or exercised over them.  He was told that, besides
+disparaging his nobility, by forcing them to contract unequal and mean
+marriages with strangers, no rank of men was so low as to escape
+vexatious from him or his ministers; that even the victuals consumed
+in his household, the clothes which himself and his servants wore,
+still more the wine which they used, were all taken by violence from
+the lawful owners, and no compensation was ever made them for the
+injury; that foreign merchants, to the great prejudice and infamy of
+the kingdom, shunned the English harbours, as if they were possessed
+by pirates, and the commerce with all nations was thus cut off by
+these acts of violence; that loss was added to loss, and injury to
+injury, while the merchants, who had been despoiled of their goods,
+were also obliged to carry them at their own charge to whatever place
+the king was pleased to appoint them; that even the poor fishermen on
+the coast could not escape his oppressions and those of his courtiers;
+and finding that they had not full liberty to dispose of their
+commodities in the English market, were frequently constrained to
+carry them to foreign ports, and to hazard all the perils of the
+ocean, rather than those which awaited them from his oppressive
+emissaries; and that his very religion was a ground of complaint to
+his subjects, while they observed, that the waxen tapers and splendid
+silks, employed in so many useless processions, were the spoils which
+he had forcibly ravished from the true owners [l].  Throughout this
+remonstrance, in which the complaints, derived from an abuse of the
+ancient right of purveyance, may be supposed to be somewhat
+exaggerated, there appears a strange mixture of regal tyranny in the
+practices which gave rise to it, and of aristocratical liberty, or
+rather licentiousness, in the expressions employed by the Parliament.
+But a mixture of this kind is observable in all the ancient feudal
+governments; and both of them proved equally hurtful to the people.
+[FN [l] M. Paris, p. 498.  See farther, p. 578.  M. West. p. 348.]
+
+As the king, in answer to their remonstrance, gave the Parliament only
+good words and fair promises, attended with the most humble
+submissions, which they had often found deceitful, he obtained at that
+time no supply; and therefore, in the year 1253, when he found himself
+again under the necessity of applying to Parliament, he had provided a
+new pretence, which he deemed infallible, and taking the vow of a
+crusade, he demanded their assistance in that pious enterprise [m].
+The Parliament, however, for some time hesitated to comply; and the
+ecclesiastical order sent a deputation, consisting of four prelates,
+the primate, and the Bishops of Winchester, Salisbury, and Carlisle,
+in order to remonstrate with him on his frequent violations of their
+privileges, the oppressions with which he had loaded them and all his
+subjects [n], and the uncanonical and forced elections which were made
+to vacant dignities.  "It is true," replied the king, "I have been
+somewhat faulty in this particular: I obtruded you, my Lord of
+Canterbury, upon your see: I was obliged to employ both entreaties and
+menaces, my Lord of Winchester, to have you elected: my proceedings, I
+confess, were very irregular, my Lords of Salisbury and Carlisle, when
+I raised you from the lowest stations to your present dignities: I am
+determined henceforth to correct these abuses; and it will also become
+you, in order to make a thorough reformation, to resign your present
+benefices, and try to enter again in a more regular and canonical
+manner [o]."  The bishops, surprised at these unexpected sarcasms,
+replied, that the question was not at present how to correct past
+errors, but to avoid them for the future.  The king promised redress
+both of ecclesiastical and civil grievances; and the Parliament in
+return agreed to grant him a supply, a tenth of the ecclesiastical
+benefices, and a scutage of three marks on each knight's fee: but as
+they had experienced his frequent breach of promise, they required
+that he should ratify the great charter in a manner still more
+authentic and more solemn than any which he had hitherto employed.
+All the prelates and abbots were assembled: they held burning tapers
+in their hands: the great charter was read before them: they denounced
+the sentence of excommunication against every one who should
+thenceforth violate that fundamental law: they threw their tapers on
+the ground, and exclaimed, MAY THE SOUL OF EVERY ONE WHO INCURS THIS
+SENTENCE SO STINK AND CORRUPT IN HELL!  The king bore a part in this
+ceremony, and subjoined, "So help me God, I will keep all these
+articles inviolate, as I am a man, as I am a Christian, as I am a
+knight, and as I am a king crowned and anointed [p]."  Yet was the
+tremendous ceremony no sooner finished, than his favourites, abusing
+his weakness, made him return to the same arbitrary and irregular
+administration; and the reasonable expectations of his people were
+thus perpetually eluded and disappointed [q].
+[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 518, 558, 568.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 293.
+[n] M. Paris, p. 568.  [o] Ibid. p. 579.  [p] M. Paris, p. 580.  Ann.
+Burt. p. 323.  Ann. Waverl. p. 210.  W. Heming. p. 571.  M. West. p.
+353.  [q] M. Paris, p. 597, 608.]
+
+[MN 1258.  Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester.]
+All these imprudent and illegal measures afforded a pretence to Simon
+de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, to attempt an innovation in the
+government, and to wrest the sceptre from the feeble and irresolute
+hand which held it.  This nobleman was a younger son of that Simon de
+Montfort, who had conducted, with such valour and renown, the crusade
+against the Albigenses, and who, though he tarnished his famous
+exploits by cruelty and ambition, had left a name very precious to all
+the bigots of that age, particularly to the ecclesiastics.  A large
+inheritance in England fell by succession to this family; but as the
+elder brother enjoyed still more opulent possessions in France, and
+could not perform fealty to two masters, he transferred his right to
+Simon, his younger brother, who came over to England, did homage for
+his lands, and was raised to the dignity of Earl of Leicester.  In the
+year 1238, he espoused Eleanor, dowager of William, Earl of Pembroke,
+and sister to the king [r]; but the marriage of this princess with a
+subject and a foreigner, though contracted with Henry's consent, was
+loudly complained of by the Earl of Cornwall and all the barons of
+England; and Leicester was supported against their violence by the
+king's favour and authority alone [s].  But he had no sooner
+established himself in his possessions and dignities, than he
+acquired, by insinuation and address, a strong interest with the
+nation, and gained equally the affections of all orders of men.  He
+lost, however, the friendship of Henry, from the usual levity and
+fickleness of that prince; he was banished the court; he was recalled;
+he was intrusted with the command of Guienne [t], where he did good
+service and acquired honour; he was again disgraced by the king, and
+his banishment from court seemed now final and irrevocable.  Henry
+called him traitor to his face: Leicester gave him the lie, and told
+him, that if he were not his sovereign, he would soon make him repent
+of that insult.  Yet was this quarrel accommodated, either from the
+good nature or timidity of the king; and Leicester was again admitted
+into some degree of favour and authority.  But as this nobleman was
+become too great to preserve an entire complaisance to Henry's
+humours, and to act in subserviency to his other minions, he found
+more advantage in cultivating his interest with the public, and in
+inflaming the general discontents which prevailed against the
+administration.  He filled every place with complaints against the
+infringement of the great charter, the acts of violence committed on
+the people, the combination between the pope and the king in their
+tyranny and extortions, Henry's neglect of his native subjects and
+barons; and though he himself a foreigner, he was more loud than any
+in representing the indignity of submitting to the dominion of
+foreigners.  By his hypocritical pretensions to devotion, he gained
+the favour of the zealots and clergy: by his seeming concern for
+public good, he acquired the affections of the public: and besides the
+private friendships which he had cultivated with the barons, his
+animosity against the favourites created an union of interests between
+him and that powerful order.
+[FN [r] Ibid. p. 314.  [s] M. Paris, p. 315.  [t] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+459, 513.]
+
+A recent quarrel, which broke out between Leicester and William de
+Valence, Henry's half-brother, and chief favourite, brought matters to
+extremity [u], and determined the former to give full scope to his
+bold and unbounded ambition, which the laws and the king's authority
+had hitherto with difficulty restrained.  He secretly called a meeting
+of the most considerable barons, particularly Humphrey de Bohun, high
+constable, Roger Bigod, earl mareschal, and the Earls of Warwick and
+Gloucester; men who by their family and possessions stood in the first
+rank of the English nobility.  He represented to this company the
+necessity of reforming the state, and of putting the execution of the
+laws into other hands than those which had hitherto appeared, from
+repeated experience, so unfit for the charge with which they were
+intrusted.  He exaggerated the oppressions exercised against the lower
+orders of the state, the violations of the barons' privileges, the
+continued depredations made on the clergy; and in order to aggravate
+the enormity of his conduct, he appealed to the great charter, which
+Henry had so often ratified, and which was calculated to prevent for
+ever the return of those intolerable grievances.  He magnified the
+generosity of their ancestors, who, at a great expense of blood, had
+extorted that famous concession from the crown; but lamented their own
+degeneracy, who allowed so important an advantage, once obtained, to
+be wrested from them by a weak prince and by insolent strangers.  And
+he insisted, that the king's word, after so many submissions and
+fruitless promises on his part, could no longer be relied on; and that
+nothing but his absolute inability to violate national privileges
+could henceforth ensure the regular observance of them.
+[FN [u] M. Paris, p. 649.]
+
+These topics, which were founded in truth, and suited so well to the
+sentiments of the company, had the desired effect; and the barons
+embraced a resolution of redressing the public grievances, by taking
+into their own hands the administration of government.  Henry having
+summoned a Parliament, in expectation of receiving supplies for his
+Sicilian project, the barons appeared in the hall, clad in complete
+armour, and with their swords by their side: the king on his entry,
+struck with the unusual appearance, asked them what was their purpose,
+and whether they intended to make him their prisoner [w]: Roger Bigod
+replied, in the name of the rest, that he was not their prisoner, but
+their sovereign; that they even intended to grant him large supplies,
+in order to fix his son on the throne of Sicily; that they only
+expected some return for this expense and service; and that, as he had
+frequently made submissions to the Parliament, had acknowledged his
+past errors, and had still allowed himself to be carried into the same
+path, which gave them such just reason of complaint, he must now yield
+to more strict regulations, and confer authority on those who were
+able and willing to redress the national grievances.  Henry, partly
+allured by the hopes of supply, partly intimidated by the union and
+martial appearance of the barons, agreed to their demand: and promised
+to summon another Parliament at Oxford, in order to digest the new
+plan of government, and to elect the persons who were to be intrusted
+with the chief authority.
+[FN [w] Annal. Theokesbury.]
+
+[MN 11th June.  Provisions of Oxford.]
+This Parliament, which the royalists, and even the nation, from
+experience of the confusions that attended its measures, afterwards
+denominated the MAD PARLIAMENT, met on the day appointed; and as all
+the barons brought along with them their military vassals, and
+appeared with an armed force, the king, who had taken no precautions
+against them, was in reality a prisoner in their hands, and was
+obliged to submit to all the terms which they were pleased to impose
+upon him.  Twelve barons were selected from among the king's
+ministers; twelve more were chosen by Parliament: to these twenty-
+four, unlimited authority was granted to reform the state; and the
+king himself took an oath, that he would maintain whatever ordinances
+they should think proper to enact for that purpose [x].  Leicester was
+at the head of the supreme council, to which the legislative power was
+thus in reality transferred; and all their measures were taken by his
+secret influence and direction.  Their first step bore a specious
+appearance, and seemed well calculated for the end which they
+professed to be the object of all these innovations: they ordered that
+four knights should be chosen by each county; that they should make
+inquiry into the grievances of which their neighbourhood had reason to
+complain, and should attend the ensuing Parliament, in order to give
+information to that assembly of the state of their particular counties
+[y]: a nearer approach to our present constitution than had been made
+by the barons in the reign of King John, when the knights were only
+appointed to meet in their several counties, and there to draw up a
+detail of their grievances.  Meanwhile the twenty-four barons
+proceeded to enact some regulations as a redress of such grievances as
+were supposed to be sufficiently notorious.  They ordered that three
+sessions of Parliament should be regularly held every year in the
+months of February, June, and October; that a new sheriff should be
+annually elected by the votes of the freeholders in each county [z];
+that the sheriffs should have no power of fining the barons who did
+not attend their courts, or the circuits of the justiciaries; that no
+heirs should be committed to the wardship of foreigners, and no
+castles intrusted to their custody; and that no new warrens or forests
+should be created, nor the revenues of any counties or hundreds be let
+to farm.  Such were the regulations which the twenty-four barons
+established at Oxford, for the redress of public grievances.
+[FN [x] Rymer, vol. i. p. 655.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 334.
+Knyghton, p. 2445.  [y] M. Paris, p. 657.  Addit. p. 140.  Ann. Burt.
+p. 412.  [z] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 336.]
+
+But the Earl of Leicester and his associates, having advanced so far
+to satisfy the nation, instead of continuing in this popular course,
+or granting the king that supply which they had promised him,
+immediately provided for the extension and continuance of their own
+authority.  They roused anew the popular clamour which had long
+prevailed against foreigners; and they fell with the utmost violence
+on the king's half-brothers, who were supposed to be the authors of
+all national grievances, and whom Henry had no longer any power to
+protect.  The four brothers, sensible of their danger, took to flight,
+with an intention of making their escape out of the kingdom; they were
+eagerly pursued by the barons; Aymer, one of the brothers, who had
+been elected to the see of Winchester, took shelter in his episcopal
+palace, and carried the others along with him; they were surrounded in
+that place, and threatened to be dragged out by force, and to be
+punished for their crimes and misdemeanors; and the king, pleading the
+sacredness of an ecclesiastical sanctuary, was glad to extricate them
+from this danger by banishing them the kingdom.  In this act of
+violence, as well as in the former usurpations of the barons, the
+queen and her uncles were thought to have secretly concurred; being
+jealous of the credit acquired by the brothers, which they found had
+eclipsed and annihilated their own.
+
+[MN Usurpations of the barons.]
+But the subsequent proceedings of the twenty-four barons were
+sufficient to open the eyes of the nation, and to prove their
+intention of reducing for ever both the king and the people under the
+arbitrary power of a very narrow aristocracy, which must at last have
+terminated either in anarchy, or in a violent usurpation and tyranny.
+They pretended that they had not yet digested all the regulations
+necessary for the reformation of the state and for the redress of
+grievances; and they must still retain their power, till that great
+purpose were thoroughly effected: in other words, that they must be
+perpetual governors, and must continue to reform, till they were
+pleased to abdicate their authority.  They formed an association among
+themselves, and swore that they would stand by each other with their
+lives and fortunes; they displaced all the chief officers of the
+crown, the justiciary, the chancellor, the treasurer; and advanced
+either themselves or their own creatures in their place: even the
+officers of the king's household were disposed of at their pleasure:
+the government of all the castles was put into hands in whom they
+found reason to confide: and the whole power of the state being thus
+transferred to them, they ventured to impose an oath, by which all the
+subjects were obliged to swear, under the penalty of being declared
+public enemies, that they would obey and execute all the regulations,
+both known and unknown, of the twenty-four barons; and all this for
+the greater glory of God, the honour of the church, the service of the
+king, and the advantage of the kingdom [a].  No one dared to withstand
+this tyrannical authority.  Prince Edward himself, the king's eldest
+son, a youth of eighteen, who began to give indications of that great
+and manly spirit which appeared throughout the whole course of his
+life, was, after making some opposition, constrained to take that oath
+which really deposed his father and his family from sovereign
+authority [b].  Earl Warrenne was the last person in the kingdom that
+could be brought to give the confederated barons this mark of
+submission.
+[FN [a] Chron T. Wykes, p. 52.  [b] Ann. Burt. p. 411.]
+
+But the twenty-four barons, not content with the usurpation of the
+royal power, introduced an innovation in the constitution of
+Parliament, which was of the utmost importance.  They ordained that
+this assembly should choose a committee of twelve persons, who should,
+in the intervals of the sessions, possess the authority of the whole
+Parliament, and should attend, on a summons, the person of the king in
+all his motions.  But so powerful were these barons, that this
+regulation was also submitted to; the whole government was overthrown,
+or fixed on new foundations; and the monarchy was totally subverted,
+without its being possible for the king to strike a single stroke in
+defence of the constitution against the newly-elected oligarchy.
+
+[MN 1259.]  The report that the King of the Romans intended to pay a
+visit to England gave alarm to the ruling barons, who dreaded lest the
+extensive influence and established authority of that prince would be
+employed to restore the prerogatives of his family, and overturn their
+plan of government [c].  They sent over the Bishop of Worcester, who
+met him at St. Omars; asked him, in the name of the barons, the reason
+of his journey, and how long he intended to stay in England; and
+insisted that, before he entered the kingdom, he should swear to
+observe the regulations established at Oxford.  On Richard's refusal
+to take this oath, they prepared to resist him as a public enemy; they
+fitted out a fleet, assembled an army, and exciting the inveterate
+prejudices of the people against foreigners, from whom they had
+suffered so many oppressions, spread the report that Richard, attended
+by a number of strangers, meant to restore by force the authority of
+his exiled brothers, and to violate all the securities provided for
+public liberty.  The King of the Romans was at last obliged to submit
+to the terms required of him [d].
+[FN [c] M. Paris, p. 661.  [d] Ibid. p. 661, 662.  Chron. T. Wykes, p.
+53.]
+
+But the barons, in proportion to their continuance in power, began
+gradually to lose that popularity which had assisted them in obtaining
+it; and men repined that regulations, which were occasionally
+established for the reformation of the state, were likely to become
+perpetual, and to subvert entirely the ancient constitution.  They
+were apprehensive lest the power of the nobles, always oppressive,
+should now exert itself without control, by removing the counterpoise
+of the crown; and their fears were increased by some new edicts of the
+barons, which were plainly calculated to procure to themselves an
+impunity in all their violences.  They appointed that the circuits of
+the itinerant justices, the sole check on their arbitrary conduct,
+should be held only once in seven years; and men easily saw that a
+remedy, which returned after such long intervals against an oppressive
+power, which was perpetual, would prove totally insignificant and
+useless [e].  The cry became loud in the nation, that the barons
+should finish their intended regulations.  The knights of the shires,
+who seem now to have been pretty regularly assembled, and sometimes in
+a separate house, made remonstrances against the slowness of their
+proceedings.  They represented that, though the king had performed all
+the conditions required of him, the barons had hitherto done nothing
+for the public good, and had only been careful to promote their own
+private advantage, and to make inroads on the royal authority; and
+they even appealed to Prince Edward, and claimed his interposition for
+the interests of the nation and the reformation of the government [f].
+The prince replied, that though it was from constraint, and contrary
+to his private sentiments, he had sworn to maintain the provisions of
+Oxford, he was determined to observe his oath: but he sent a message
+to the barons, requiring them to bring their undertaking to a speedy
+conclusion, and fulfil their engagements to the public: otherwise he
+menaced them, that, at the expense of his life, he would oblige them
+to do their duty, and would shed the last drop of his blood in
+promoting the interests, and satisfying the just wishes of the nation
+[g].
+[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 667.  Trivet, p. 209.  [f] Annal. Burt. p. 427.
+[g] Id. ibid.]
+
+The barons, urged by so pressing a necessity, published at last a new
+code of ordinances for the reformation of the state [h]; but the
+expectations of the people were extremely disappointed, when they
+found that these consisted only of some trivial alterations in the
+municipal law, and still more, when the barons pretended that the task
+was not yet finished, and that they must farther prolong their
+authority, in order to bring the work of reformation to the desired
+period.  The current of popularity was now much turned to the side of
+the crown; and the barons had little to rely on for their support,
+besides the private influence and power of their families, which,
+though exorbitant, was likely to prove inferior to the combination of
+king and people.  Even this basis of power was daily weakened by their
+intestine jealousies and animosities; their ancient and inveterate
+quarrels broke out when they came to share the spoils of the crown;
+and the rivalship between the Earls of Leicester and Gloucester, the
+chief leaders among them, began to disjoint the whole confederacy.
+The latter, more moderate in his pretensions, was desirous of stopping
+or retarding the career of the barons' usurpations; but the former,
+enraged at the opposition which he met with in his own party,
+pretended to throw up all concern in English affairs, and he retired
+into France [i].
+[FN [h] Ann. Burt. p. 428, 439.  [i] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 348.]
+
+The kingdom of France, the only state with which England had any
+considerable intercourse, was at this time governed by Lewis IX., a
+prince of the most singular character that is to be met with in all
+the records of history.  This monarch united, to the mean and abject
+superstition of a monk, all the courage and magnanimity of the
+greatest hero; and, what may be deemed more extraordinary, the justice
+and integrity of a disinterested patriot, the mildness and humanity of
+an accomplished philosopher.  So far from taking advantage of the
+divisions among the English, or attempting to expel those dangerous
+rivals from the provinces which they still possessed in France, he had
+entertained many scruples with regard to the sentence of attainder
+pronounced against the king's father, had even expressed some
+intention of restoring the other provinces, and was only prevented
+from taking that imprudent resolution by the united remonstrances of
+his own barons, who represented the extreme danger of such a measure
+[k], and, what had a greater influence on Lewis, the justice of
+punishing, by a legal sentence, the barbarity and felony of John.
+Whenever this prince interposed in English affairs, it was always with
+an intention of composing the differences between the king and his
+nobility; he recommended to both parties every peaceable and
+reconciling measure; and he used all his authority with the Earl of
+Leicester, his native subject, to bend him to compliance with Henry.
+[MN 20th May.]  He made a treaty with England, at a time when the
+distractions of that kingdom were at the greatest height, and when the
+king's authority was totally annihilated; and the terms which he
+granted might, even in a more prosperous state of their affairs, be
+deemed reasonable and advantageous to the English.  He yielded up some
+territories which had been conquered from Poictou and Guienne; he
+ensured the peaceable possession of the latter province to Henry; he
+agreed to pay that prince a large sum of money; and he only required
+that the king should, in return, make a final cession of Normandy and
+the other provinces, which he could never entertain any hopes of
+recovering by force of arms [l].  This cession was ratified by Henry,
+by his two sons, and two daughters, and by the King of the Romans and
+his three sons: Leicester alone, either moved by a vain arrogance, or
+desirous to ingratiate himself with the English populace, protested
+against the deed, and insisted on the right, however distant, which
+might accrue to his consort [m].  Lewis saw, in his obstinacy, the
+unbounded ambition of the man; and as the barons insisted that the
+money due by treaty should be at their disposal, not at Henry's, he
+also saw, and probably with regret, the low condition to which this
+monarch, who had more erred from weakness than from any bad intention,
+was reduced by the turbulence of his own subjects.
+[FN [k] M. Paris, p. 604.  [l] Rymer, vol. i. p. 675.  M. Paris, p.
+566.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 53.  Trivet, p. 208.  M. West. p. 371.  [m]
+Chron. T. Wykes, p. 53.]
+
+[MN 1261.]  But the situation of Henry soon after wore a more
+favourable aspect.  The twenty-four barons had now enjoyed the
+sovereign power near three years; and had visibly employed it, not for
+the reformation of the state, which was their first pretence, but for
+the aggrandizement of themselves and of their families.  The breach of
+trust was apparent to all the world: every order of men felt it, and
+murmured against it: the dissensions among the barons themselves,
+which increased the evil, made also the remedy more obvious and easy;
+and the secret desertion, in particular, of the Earl of Gloucester to
+the crown, seemed to promise Henry certain success in any attempt to
+resume his authority.  Yet durst he not take that step, so
+reconcilable both to justice and policy, without making a previous
+application to Rome, and desiring an absolution from his oaths and
+engagements [n].
+[FN [n] Ann. Burt. p. 389.]
+
+The pope was at this time much dissatisfied with the conduct of the
+barons, who, in order to gain the favour of the people and clergy of
+England, had expelled all the Italian ecclesiastics, had confiscated
+their benefices, and seemed determined to maintain the liberties and
+privileges of the English church, in which the rights of patronage,
+belonging to their own families, were included.  The extreme animosity
+of the English clergy against the Italians was also a source of his
+disgust to this order; and an attempt, which had been made by them for
+farther liberty and greater independence on the civil power, was
+therefore less acceptable to the court of Rome [o].  About the same
+time that the barons at Oxford had annihilated the prerogatives of the
+monarchy, the clergy met in a synod at Merton, and passed several
+ordinances, which were no less calculated to promote their own
+grandeur at the expense of the crown.  They decreed, that it was
+unlawful to try ecclesiastics by secular judges; that the clergy were
+not to regard any prohibitions from civil courts; that lay patrons had
+no right to confer spiritual benefices; that the magistrate was
+obliged, without farther inquiry, to imprison all excommunicated
+persons; and that ancient usage, without any particular grant or
+charter, was a sufficient authority for any clerical possessions or
+privileges [p].  About a century before, these claims would have been
+supported by the court of Rome beyond the most fundamental articles of
+faith: they were the chief points maintained by the great martyr,
+Becket; and his resolution in defending them had exalted him to the
+high station which he held in the catalogue of Romish saints.  But
+principles were changed with the times: the pope was become somewhat
+jealous of the great independence of the English clergy, which made
+them stand less in need of his protection, and even imboldened them to
+resist his authority, and to complain of the preference given to the
+Italian courtiers, whose interests, it is natural to imagine, were the
+chief object of his concern.  He was ready, therefore, on the king's
+application, to annul these new constitutions of the church of England
+[q].  And, at the same time, he absolved the king, and all his
+subjects, from the oath which they had taken to observe the provisions
+of Oxford [r].
+[FN [o] Rymer, vol. i. p. 755.  [p] Ann. Burt. p. 389.  [q] Rymer,
+vol. i. p. 755.  [r] Ibid. p. 722.  M. Paris, p. 666.  W. Heming. p.
+580.  Ypod. Neust. p. 463.  Knyghton, p. 2446.]
+
+[MN Prince Edward.]
+Prince Edward, whose liberal mind, though in such early youth, had
+taught him the great prejudice which his father had incurred, by his
+levity, inconstancy, and frequent breach of promise, refused for a
+long time to take advantage of this absolution; and declared, that the
+provisions of Oxford, how unreasonable soever in themselves, and how
+much soever abused by the barons, ought still to be adhered to by
+those who had sworn to observe them [s]: he himself had been
+constrained by violence to take that oath; yet he was determined to
+keep it.  By this scrupulous fidelity, the prince acquired the
+confidence of all parties, and was afterwards enabled to recover fully
+the royal authority, and to perform such great actions, both during
+his own reign and that of his father.
+[FN [s] M. Paris, p. 667.]
+
+The situation of England, during this period, as well as that of most
+European kingdoms, was somewhat peculiar.  There was no regular
+military force maintained in the nation: the sword, however, was not,
+properly speaking, in the hands of the people: the barons were alone
+intrusted with the defence of the community; and after any effort
+which they made, either against their own prince or against
+foreigners, as the military retainers departed home, the armies were
+disbanded, and could not speedily be re-assembled at pleasure.  It was
+easy, therefore, for a few barons, by a combination, to get the start
+of the other party, to collect suddenly their troops, and to appear
+unexpectedly in the field with an army, which their antagonists,
+though equal, or even superior in power and interest, would not dare
+to encounter.  Hence the sudden revolutions which often took place in
+those governments: hence the frequent victories obtained, without a
+blow, by one faction over the other: and hence it happened, that the
+seeming prevalence of a party was seldom a prognostic of its long
+continuance in power and authority.
+
+[MN 1262.]  The king, as soon as he received the pope's absolution
+from his oath, accompanied with menaces of excommunication against all
+opponents, trusting to the countenance of the church, to the support
+promised him by many considerable barons, and to the returning favour
+of the people, immediately took off the mask.  After justifying his
+conduct by a proclamation, in which he set forth the private ambition,
+and the breach of trust, conspicuous in Leicester and his associates,
+he declared, that he had resumed the government, and was determined
+thenceforth to exert the royal authority for the protection of his
+subjects.  He removed Hugh le Despenser and Nicholas de Ely, the
+justiciary and chancellor appointed by the barons; and put Philip
+Basset and Walter de Merton in their place.  He substituted new
+sheriffs in all the counties, men of character and honour: he placed
+new governors in most of the castles: he changed all the officers of
+his household: [MN 23d April.] he summoned a Parliament, in which the
+resumption of his authority was ratified, with only five dissenting
+voices: and the barons, after making one fruitless effort to take the
+king by surprise at Winchester, were obliged to acquiesce in those new
+regulations [t].
+[FN [t] M. Paris, p. 668.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 55.]
+
+The king, in order to cut off every objection to his conduct, offered
+to refer all the differences between  him and the Earl of Leicester,
+to Margaret, Queen of France [u].  The celebrated integrity of Lewis
+gave a mighty influence to any decision which issued from his court;
+and Henry probably hoped, that the gallantry, on which all barons, as
+true knights, valued themselves, would make them ashamed not to submit
+to the award of that princess.  Lewis merited the confidence reposed
+in him.  By an admirable conduct, probably as political as just, he
+continually interposed his good offices to allay the civil discords of
+the English: he forwarded all healing measures, which might give
+security to both parties: and he still endeavoured, though in vain, to
+soothe, by persuasion, the fierce ambition of the Earl of Leicester,
+and to convince him how much it was his duty to submit peaceably to
+the authority of his sovereign.
+[FN [u] Rymer, vol. i. p. 724.]
+
+[MN 1263.]  That bold and artful conspirator was nowise discouraged by
+the bad success of his past enterprises.  The death of Richard, Earl
+of Gloucester, who was his chief rival in power, and who, before his
+decease, had joined the royal party, seemed to open a new field to his
+violence, and to expose the throne to fresh insults and injuries.  It
+was in vain that the king professed his intentions of observing
+strictly the great charter, even of maintaining all the regulations
+made by the reforming barons at Oxford or afterwards, except those
+which entirely annihilated the royal authority: these powerful
+chieftains, now obnoxious to the court, could not peaceably resign the
+hopes of entire independence and uncontrolled power, with which they
+had flattered themselves, and which they had so long enjoyed.  [MN
+Civil wars of the barons.]  Many of them engaged in Leicester's views;
+and among the rest, Gilbert, the young Earl of Gloucester, who brought
+him a mighty accession of power, from the extensive authority
+possessed by that opulent family.  Even Henry, son of the King of the
+Romans, commonly called Henry d'Allmaine, though a prince of the
+blood, joined the party of the barons against the king, the head of
+his own family.  Leicester himself, who still resided in France,
+secretly formed the links of this great conspiracy, and planned the
+whole scheme of operations.
+
+The princes of Wales, notwithstanding the great power of the monarchs,
+both of the Saxon and Norman line, still preserved authority in their
+own country.  Though they had often been constrained to pay tribute to
+the crown of England, they were with difficulty retained in
+subordination, or even in peace; and almost through every reign since
+the Conquest, they had infested the English frontiers with such petty
+incursions and sudden inroads, as seldom merit to have place in a
+general history.  The English, still content with repelling their
+invasions, and chasing them back into their mountains, had never
+pursued the advantages obtained over them, nor been able, even under
+their greatest and most active princes, to fix a total, or so much as
+a feudal subjection on the country.  This advantage was reserved to
+the present king, the weakest and most indolent.  In the year 1237,
+Lewellyn, Prince of Wales, declining in years, and broken with
+infirmities, but still more harassed with the rebellion and undutiful
+behaviour of his youngest son, Griffin, had recourse to the protection
+of Henry; and consenting to subject his principality, which had so
+long maintained, or soon recovered, its independence, to vassalage
+under the crown of England, had purchased security and tranquillity on
+these dishonourable terms.  His eldest son and heir, David, renewed
+the homage to England; and having taken his brother prisoner,
+delivered him into Henry's hands, who committed him to custody in the
+Tower.  That prince, endeavouring to make his escape, lost his life in
+the attempt; and the Prince of Wales, freed from the apprehensions of
+so dangerous a rival, paid thenceforth less regard to the English
+monarch, and even renewed those incursions, by which the Welsh, during
+so many ages, had been accustomed to infest the English borders.
+Lewellyn, however, the son of Griffin, who succeeded to his uncle, had
+been obliged to renew the homage, which was now claimed by England as
+an established right; but he was well pleased to inflame those civil
+discords, on which he rested his present security, and founded his
+hopes of future independence.  He entered into a confederacy with the
+Earl of Leicester, and collecting all the force of his principality,
+invaded England with an army of thirty thousand men.  He ravaged the
+lands of Roger de Mortimer, and of all the barons who adhered to the
+crown [w]; he marched into Cheshire, and committed like depredations
+on Prince Edward's territories; every place where his disorderly
+troops appeared was laid waste with fire and sword; and though
+Mortimer, a gallant and expert soldier, made stout resistance, it was
+found necessary that the prince himself should head the army against
+this invader.  Edward repulsed Prince Lewellyn, and obliged him to
+take shelter in the mountains of North Wales: but he was prevented
+from making farther progress against the enemy, by the disorders which
+soon after broke out in England.
+[FN [w] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 354.]
+
+The Welsh invasion was the appointed signal for the malecontent barons
+to rise in arms, and Leicester, coming over secretly from France,
+collected all the forces of his party, and commenced an open
+rebellion.  He seized the person of the Bishop of Hereford; a prelate
+obnoxious to all the inferior clergy, on account of his devoted
+attachment to the court of Rome [x].  Simon, Bishop of Norwich, and
+John Mansel, because they had published the pope's bull, absolving the
+king and kingdom from their oaths to observe the provisions of Oxford,
+were made prisoners, and exposed to the rage of the party.  The king's
+demesnes were ravaged with unbounded fury [y]: and as it was
+Leicester's interest to allure to his side, by the hopes of plunder,
+all the disorderly ruffians in England, he gave them a general licence
+to pillage the barons of the opposite party, and even all neutral
+persons.  But one of the principal resources of his faction was the
+populace of the cities, particularly of London; and as he had, by his
+hypocritical pretensions to sanctity, and his zeal against Rome,
+engaged the monks and lower ecclesiastics in his party, his dominion
+over the inferior ranks of men became uncontrollable.  Thomas
+Fitz-Richard, Mayor of London, a furious and licentious man, gave the
+countenance of authority to these disorders in the capital; and having
+declared war against the substantial citizens, he loosened all the
+bands of government, by which that turbulent city was commonly but ill
+restrained.  On the approach of Easter, the zeal of superstition, the
+appetite for plunder, or what is often as prevalent with the populace
+as either of these motives, the pleasure of committing havoc and
+destruction, prompted them to attack the unhappy Jews, who were first
+pillaged without resistance, then massacred to the number of five
+hundred persons [z].  The Lombard bankers wore next exposed to the
+rage of the people; and though, by taking sanctuary in the churches,
+they escaped with their lives, all their money and goods became a prey
+to the licentious multitude.  Even the houses of the rich citizens,
+though English, were attacked by night; and way was made by sword and
+by fire to the pillage of their goods, and often to the destruction of
+their persons.  The queen, who, though defended by the Tower, was
+terrified by the neighbourhood of such dangerous commotions, resolved
+to go by water to the castle of Windsor; but as she approached the
+bridge, the populace assembled against her: the cry ran, DROWN THE
+WITCH; and besides abusing her with the most opprobrious language, and
+pelting her with rotten eggs and dirt, they had prepared large stones
+to sink her barge, when she should attempt to shoot the bridge; and
+she was so frightened, that she returned to the Tower [a].
+[FN [x] Trivet, p. 211.  M. West. p. 382, 392.  [y] Trivet, p. 211.
+M. West. p. 382.  [z] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 59.  [a] Ibid. p. 57.]
+
+The violence and fury of Leicester's faction had risen to such a
+height in all parts of England, that the king, unable to resist their
+power, was obliged to set on foot a treaty of peace; and to make an
+accommodation with the barons on the most disadvantageous terms [b].
+[MN July.]  He agreed to confirm anew the provisions of Oxford, even
+those which entirely annihilated the royal authority; and the barons
+were again reinstated in the sovereignty of the kingdom.  They
+restored Hugh le Despenser to the office of chief justiciary; they
+appointed their own creatures sheriffs in every county in England;
+they took possession of all the royal castles and fortresses; they
+even named all the officers of the king's household; and they summoned
+a Parliament to meet at Westminster, in order to settle more fully
+their plan of government.  [MN 1263.  14th Oct.]  They here produced a
+new list of twenty-four barons, to whom they proposed that the
+administration should be entirely committed; and they insisted that
+the authority of this junto should continue, not only during the reign
+of the king, but also during that of Prince Edward.
+[FN [b] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 358.  Trivet, p. 211.]
+
+This prince, the life and soul of the royal party, had unhappily,
+before the king's accommodation with the barons, been taken prisoner
+by Leicester in a parley at Windsor [c]; and that misfortune, more
+than any other incident, had determined Henry to submit to the
+ignominious conditions imposed upon him.  But Edward, having recovered
+his liberty by the treaty, employed his activity in defending the
+prerogatives of his family; and he gained a great party even among
+those who had at first adhered to the cause of the barons.  His cousin
+Henry d'Allmaine, Roger Bigod, earl marshal, Earl Warrenne, Humphrey
+Bohun, Eaff of Hereford, John Lord Basset, Ralph Basset, Hammond
+l'Estrange, Roger Mortimer, Henry de Piercy, Robert do Brus, Roger de
+Leybourne, with almost all the lords marchers, as they were called, on
+the borders of Wales and of Scotland, the most warlike parts of the
+kingdom, declared in favour of the royal cause; and hostilities, which
+were scarcely well composed, were again renewed in every part of
+England.  But the near balance of the parties, joined to the universal
+clamour of the people, obliged the king and barons to open anew the
+negotiations for peace; and it was agreed, by both sides, to submit
+their differences to the arbitration of the King of France [d].
+[FN [c] M. Paris, p. 669.  Trivet, p. 213.  [d] M. Paris, p. 668.
+Chron. T. Wykes, p. 58.  W. Heming, p. 580.  Chron Dunst. vol. i. p.
+363.]
+
+[MN Reference to the King of France.]
+This virtuous prince, the only man who, in like circumstances, could
+safely have been intrusted with such an authority by a neighbouring
+nation, had never ceased to interpose his good offices between the
+English factions; and had even, during the short interval of peace,
+invited over to Paris both the king and the Earl of Leicester, in
+order to accommodate the differences between them; but found, that the
+fears and animosities on both sides, as well as the ambition of
+Leicester, were so violent, as to render all his endeavours
+ineffectual.  But when this solemn appeal, ratified by the oaths and
+subscriptions of the leaders in both factions, was made to his
+judgment, he was not discouraged from pursuing his honourable purpose:
+[MN 1264.] he summoned the states of France at Amiens; and there, in
+the presence of that assembly, as well as in that of the King of
+England, and Peter de Montfort, Leicester's son, he brought this great
+cause to a trial and examination.  It appeared to him, that the
+provisions of Oxford, even had they not been extorted by force, had
+they not been so exorbitant in their nature, and subversive of the
+ancient constitution, were expressly established as a temporary
+expedient, and could not, without breach of trust, be rendered
+perpetual by the barons.  [MN 23d Jan.]  He therefore annulled these
+provisions; restored to the king the possession of his castles, and
+the power of nomination to the great offices; allowed him to retain
+what foreigners he pleased in his kingdom, and even to confer on them
+places of trust and dignity; and, in a word, re-established the royal
+power in the same condition on which it stood before the meeting of
+the Parliament at Oxford.  But while he thus suppressed dangerous
+innovations, and preserved unimpaired the prerogatives of the English
+crown, he was not negligent of the rights of the people; and besides
+ordering that a general amnesty should be granted for all past
+offences, he declared that his award was not anywise meant to derogate
+from the privileges and liberties which the nation enjoyed by any
+former concessions or charters of the crown [e].
+[FN [e] Rymer, vol. i. p. 776, 777, &c.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 58.
+Knyghton, p. 2446.]
+
+This equitable sentence was no sooner known in England, than Leicester
+and his confederates determined to reject it, and to have recourse to
+arms, in order to procure to themselves more safe and advantageous
+conditions [f].  [MN Renewal of the civil wars.]  Without regard to
+his oaths and subscriptions, that enterprising conspirator directed
+his two sons, Richard and Peter de Montfort, in conjunction with
+Robert de Ferrars, Earl of Derby, to attack the city of Worcester;
+while Henry and Simon de Montfort, two others of his sons, assisted by
+the Prince of Wales, were ordered to lay  waste the estate of Roger de
+Mortimer.  He himself resided at London; and employing, as his
+instrument, Fitz-Richard, the seditious mayor, who had violently and
+illegally prolonged his authority, he wrought up that city to the
+highest ferment and agitation.  The populace formed themselves into
+bands and companies; chose leaders; practised all military exercises;
+committed violence on the royalists; and to give them greater
+countenance in their disorders, an association was entered into
+between the city and eighteen great barons, never to make peace with
+the king but by common consent and approbation.  At the head of those
+who swore to maintain this association were the Earls of Leicester,
+Gloucester, and Derby, with le Despenser, the chief justiciary; men
+who had all previously sworn to submit to the award of the French
+monarch.  Their only pretence for this breach of faith was, that the
+latter part of Lewis's sentence was, as they affirmed, a contradiction
+to the former: he ratified the charter of liberties, yet annulled the
+provisions of Oxford; which were only calculated, as they maintained,
+to preserve that charter; and without which, in their estimation, they
+had no security for its observance.
+[FN [f] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 363.]
+
+The king and prince finding a civil war inevitable, prepared
+themselves for defence; and summoning the military vassals from all
+quarters, and being reinforced by Baliol, Lord of Galloway, Brus, Lord
+of Annandale, Henry Piercy, John Comyn [g], and other barons of the
+north, they composed an army, formidable, as well from its numbers as
+its military prowess and experience.  The first enterprise of the
+royalists was the attack of Northampton, which was defended by Simon
+de Montfort, with many of the principal barons of that party; and a
+breach being made in the walls by Philip Basset, the place was carried
+by assault, and both the governor and the garrison were made
+prisoners.  [MN 5th April.]  The royalists marched thence to Leicester
+and Nottingham; both which places having opened their gates to them,
+Prince Edward proceeded with a detachment into the county of Derby, in
+order to ravage with fire and sword the lands of the earl of that
+name, and take revenge on him for his disloyalty.  Like maxims of war
+prevailed with both parties throughout England; and the kingdom was
+thus exposed in a moment to greater devastation, from the animosities
+of the rival barons, than it would have suffered from many years of
+foreign or even domestic hostilities, conducted by more humane and
+more generous principles.
+[FN [g] Rymer, vol. i. p 772.  M. West. p. 385.  Ypod. Neust. p. 469.]
+
+The Earl of Leicester, master of London, and of the counties in the
+south-east of England, formed the siege of Rochester, which alone
+declared for the king in those parts, and which, besides Earl
+Warrenne, the governor, was garrisoned by many noble and powerful
+barons of the royal party.  The king and prince hastened from
+Nottingham, where they were then quartered, to the relief of the
+place; and on their approach, Leicester raised the siege, and
+retreated to London, which, being the centre of his power, he was
+afraid might, in his absence, fall into the king's hands, either by
+force, or by a correspondence with the principal citizens, who were
+all secretly inclined to the royal cause.  Reinforced by a great body
+of Londoners, and having summoned his partisans from all quarters, he
+thought himself strong enough to hazard a general battle with the
+royalists, and to determine the fate of the nation in one great
+engagement; which, if it proved successful, must be decisive against
+the king, who had no retreat for his broken troops in those parts;
+while Leicester himself, in case of any sinister accident, could
+easily take shelter in the city.  To give the better colouring to his
+cause, he previously sent a message with conditions of peace to Henry,
+submissive in the language, but exorbitant in the demands [h]; and
+when the messenger returned with the lie and defiance from the king,
+the prince, and the King of the Romans, he sent a new message,
+renouncing in the name of himself and of the associated barons, all
+fealty and allegiance to Henry.  He then marched out of the city, with
+his army divided into four bodies: the first commanded by his two
+sons, Henry and Guy de Montfort, together with Humphrey de Bohun, Earl
+of Hereford, who had deserted to the barons; the second led by the
+Earl of Gloucester, with William de Montchesney and John Fitz-John;
+the third, composed of Londoners, under the command of Nicholas de
+Segrave; the fourth headed by himself in person.  The Bishop of
+Chichester gave a general absolution to the army, accompanied with
+assurances that, if any of them fell in the ensuing action, they would
+infallibly be received into heaven, as the reward of their suffering
+in so meritorious a cause.
+[FN [h] M. Paris, p. 669.  W. Heming. p. 583.]
+
+[MN Battle of Lewes.  14th May.]
+Leicester, who possessed great talents for war, conducted his march
+with such skill and secrecy, that he had well nigh surprised the
+royalists in their quarters at Lewes in Sussex: but the vigilance and
+activity of Prince Edward soon repaired this negligence; and he led
+out the king's army to the field in three bodies.  He himself
+conducted the van, attended by Earl Warrenne and William de Valence:
+the main body was commanded by the King of the Romans and his son
+Henry: the king himself was placed in the rear at the head of his
+principal nobility.  Prince Edward rushed upon the Londoners, who had
+demanded the post of honour in leading the rebel army, but who, from
+their ignorance of discipline and want of experience, were ill fitted
+to resist the gentry and military men, of whom the prince's body was
+composed.  They were broken in an instant; were chased off the field;
+and Edward, transported by his martial ardour, and eager to revenge
+the insolence of the Londoners against his mother [i], put them to the
+sword for the length of four miles, without giving them any quarter,
+and without reflecting on the fate which in the mean time attended the
+rest of the army.  The Earl of Leicester, seeing the royalists thrown
+into confusion by their eagerness in the pursuit, led on his remaining
+troops against the bodies commanded by the two royal brothers: he
+defeated, with great slaughter, the forces headed by the King of the
+Romans; and that prince was obliged to yield himself prisoner to the
+Earl of Gloucester; he penetrated to the body where the king himself
+was placed, threw it into disorder, pursued his advantage, chased it
+into the town of Lewes, and obliged Henry to surrender himself
+prisoner [k].
+[FN [i] M. Paris, p. 670.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 62.  W. Heming. p. 583.
+M. West. p. 387.  Ypod. Neust. p. 469.  H. Knyghton, p. 2450.  [k] M.
+Paris, p. 670.  M. West. p. 387.]
+
+Prince Edward, returning to the field of battle from his precipitate
+pursuit of the Londoners, was astonished to find it covered with the
+dead bodies of his friends and still more to hear, that his father and
+uncle were defeated and taken prisoners, and that Arundel, Comyn Brus,
+Hamond L'Estrange, Roger Leybourne, and many considerable barons of
+his party, were in the hands of the victorious enemy.  Earl Warrenne,
+Hugh Bigod, and William de Valence, struck with despair at this event,
+immediately took to flight, hurried to Pevensey, and made their escape
+beyond sea [l]: but the prince, intrepid amidst the greatest
+disasters, exhorted his troops to revenge the death of their friends,
+to relieve the royal captives, and to snatch an easy conquest from an
+enemy disordered by their own victory [m].  He found his followers
+intimidated by their situation; while Leicester, afraid of a sudden
+and violent blow from the prince, amused him by a feigned negotiation,
+till he was able to recall his troops from the pursuit, and to bring
+them into order [n].  There now appeared no farther resource to the
+royal party, surrounded by the armies and garrisons of the enemy,
+destitute of forage and provisions, and deprived of their sovereign,
+as well as of their principal leaders, who could alone inspirit them
+to an obstinate resistance.  The prince, therefore, was obliged to
+submit to Leicester's terms, which were short and severe, agreeably to
+the suddenness and necessity of the situation: he stipulated, that he
+and Henry d'Allmaine should surrender themselves prisoners as pledges
+in lieu of the two kings; that all other prisoners on both sides
+should be released [o]; and that, in order to settle fully the terms
+of agreement, application should be made to the King of France, that
+he should name six Frenchmen, three prelates, and three noblemen:
+these six to choose two others of their own country; and these two to
+choose one Englishman, who, in conjunction with themselves, were to be
+invested by both parties with full powers to make what regulations
+they thought proper for the settlement of the kingdom.  The prince and
+young Henry accordingly delivered themselves into Leicester's hands,
+who sent them under a guard to Dover castle.  Such are the terms of
+agreement commonly called the MISE of Lewes, from an obsolete French
+term of that meaning: for it appears, that all the gentry and nobility
+of England, who valued themselves on their Norman extraction, and who
+disdained the language of their native country, made familiar use of
+the French tongue till this period, and for some time after.
+[FN [l] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 63.  [m] W. Heming. p. 584.  [n] Ibid.
+[o] M. Paris, p. 671  Knyghton, p. 2451.]
+
+Leicester had no sooner obtained this great advantage, and gotten the
+whole royal family in his power, than he openly violated every article
+of the treaty, and acted as sole master, and even tyrant of the
+kingdom.  He still detained the king in effect a prisoner, and made
+use of that prince's authority to purposes the most prejudicial to his
+interests, and the most oppressive of his people [p].  He every where
+disarmed the royalists, and kept all his own partisans in a military
+posture [q]: he observed the same partial conduct in the deliverance
+of the captives, and even threw many of the royalists into prison,
+besides those who were taken in the battle of Lewes: he carried the
+king from place to place, and obliged all the royal castles, on
+pretence of Henry's commands, to receive a governor and garrison of
+his own appointment: all the officers of the crown and of the
+household were named by him; and the whole authority, as well as arms
+of the state, was lodged in his hands: he instituted in the counties a
+new kind of magistracy, endowed with new and arbitrary powers, that of
+conservators of the peace [r]: his avarice appeared bare-faced, and
+might induce us to question the greatness of his ambition, at least
+the largeness of his mind, if we had not reason to think, that he
+intended to employ his acquisitions as the instruments for attaining
+farther power and grandeur.  He seized the estates of no less than
+eighteen barons, as his share of the spoil gained in the battle of
+Lewes: he engrossed to himself the ransom of all the prisoners; and
+told his barons, with a wanton insolence, that it was sufficient for
+them that he had saved them, by that victory, from the forfeitures
+and attainders which hung over them [s]: he even treated the Earl of
+Gloucester in the same injurious manner, and applied to his own use
+the ransom of the King of the Romans, who, in the field of battle, had
+yielded himself prisoner to that nobleman.  Henry, his eldest son,
+made a monopoly of all the wool in the kingdom, the only valuable
+commodity for foreign markets which it at that time produced [t].  The
+inhabitants of the cinque-ports, during the present dissolution of
+government, betook themselves to the most licentious piracy, preyed on
+the ships of all nations, threw the mariners into the sea, and, by
+these practices, soon banished all merchants from the English coasts
+and harbours.  Every foreign commodity rose to an exorbitant price;
+and woollen cloth, which the English had not then the art of dyeing,
+was worn by them white, and without receiving the last hand of the
+manufacturer.  In answer to the complaints which arose on this
+occasion, Leicester replied, that the kingdom could well enough
+subsist within itself, and needed no intercourse with foreigners; and
+it was found that he even combined with the pirates of the
+cinque-ports, and received as his share the third of their prizes [u].
+[FN [p] Rymer, vol. i. p. 790, 791, &c.  [q] Ibid. p. 795.  Brady's
+Appeals, No. 211, 212.  Chron. T. Wykes, p. 63.  [r] Rymer, vol. i. p.
+792.  [s] Knyghton, p. 2451.  [t] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 65.  [u] Ibid.]
+
+No farther mention was made of the reference to the King of France, so
+essential an article in the agreement of Lewes; and Leicester summoned
+a Parliament, composed altogether of his own partisans, in order to
+rivet, by their authority, that power which he had acquired by so much
+violence, and which he used with so much tyranny and injustice.  An
+ordinance was there passed, to which the king's consent had been
+previously extorted, that every act of royal power should be exercised
+by a council of nine persons, who were to be chosen and removed by the
+majority of three, Leicester himself, the Earl of Gloucester, and the
+Bishop of Chichester [w].  By this intricate plan of government, the
+sceptre was really put into Leicester's hands; as he had the entire
+direction of the Bishop of Chichester, and thereby commanded all the
+resolutions of the council of three, who could  appoint or discard at
+pleasure every member of the supreme council.
+[FN [w] Rymer, vol. i. p. 793.  Brady's App. No. 213.]
+
+But it was impossible that things could long remain in this strange
+situation.  It behoved Leicester either to descend with some peril
+into the rank of a subject or to mount up with no less into that of a
+sovereign; and his ambition, unrestrained either by fear or by
+principle, gave too much reason to suspect him of the latter
+intention.  Meanwhile he was exposed to anxiety from every quarter;
+and felt that the smallest incident was capable of overturning that
+immense and ill-cemented fabric which he had reared.  The queen, whom
+her husband had left abroad, had collected in foreign parts an army of
+desperate adventurers, and had assembled a great number of ships, with
+a view of invading the kingdom, and of bringing relief to her
+unfortunate family.  Lewis, detesting Leicester's usurpations and
+perjuries, and disgusted at the English barons, who had refused to
+submit to his award, secretly favoured all her enterprises, and was
+generally believed to be making preparations for the same purpose.  An
+English army, by the pretended authority of the captive king, was
+assembled on the seacoast to oppose this projected invasion [x]; but
+Leicester owed his safety more to cross winds, which long detained and
+at last dispersed and ruined the queen's fleet, than to any resistance
+which, in their present situation, could have been expected from the
+English.
+[FN [x] Brady's App. No. 216, 217.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 373.  M.
+West. p. 385.]
+
+Leicester found himself better able to resist the spiritual thunders
+which were levelled against him.  The pope, still adhering to the
+king's cause, against the barons, despatched Cardinal Guido as his
+legate into England, with orders to excommunicate, by name, the three
+earls, Leicester, Gloucester, and Norfolk, and all others, in general,
+who concurred in the oppression and captivity of their sovereign [y].
+Leicester menaced the legate with death, if he set foot within the
+kingdom; but Guido, meeting in France the Bishops of Winchester,
+London, and Worcester, who had been sent thither on a negotiation,
+commanded them, under the penalty of ecclesiastical censures, to carry
+his bull into England, and to publish it against the barons.  When the
+prelates arrived off the coast, they were boarded by the piratical
+mariners of the cinque-ports, to whom probably they gave a hint of the
+cargo which they brought along with them: the bull was torn and thrown
+into the sea; which furnished the artful prelates with a plausible
+excuse for not obeying the orders of the legate.  Leicester appealed
+from Guido to the pope in person; but before the ambassadors,
+appointed to defend his cause, could reach Rome, the pope was dead;
+and they found the legate himself, from whom they had appealed, seated
+on the papal throne, by the name of Urban IV.  That daring leader was
+nowise dismayed with this incident; and as he found that a great part
+of his popularity in England was founded on his opposition to the
+court of Rome, which was now become odious, he persisted with the more
+obstinacy in the prosecution of his measures.
+[FN [y] Rymer, vol. i. p. 798.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 373.]
+
+[MN 1265.  20th Jan.]  That he might both increase and turn to
+advantage his popularity, Leicester summoned a new Parliament in
+London, where he knew his power was uncontrollable; and he fixed this
+assembly on a more democratical basis than any which had ever been
+summoned since the foundation of the monarchy.  Besides the barons of
+his own party, and several ecclesiastics who were not immediate
+tenants of the crown, he ordered returns to be made of two knights
+from each shire, and what is more remarkable, of deputies from the
+boroughs, an order of men which, in former ages, had always been
+regarded as too mean to enjoy a place in the national councils [z].
+[MN House of Commons.]  This period is commonly esteemed the epoch of
+the House of Commons in England; and it is certainly the first time
+that historians speak of any representatives sent to Parliament by the
+boroughs.  In all the general accounts given in preceding times of
+those assemblies, the prelates and barons only are mentioned as the
+constituent members; and even in the most particular narratives
+delivered of parliamentary transactions, as in the trial of Thomas a
+Becket, where the events of each day, and almost of each hour, are
+carefully recorded by contemporary authors [a], there is not,
+throughout the whole, the least appearance of a House of Commons.  But
+though that House derived  its existence from so precarious and even
+so invidious an origin as Leicester's usurpation, it soon proved, when
+summoned by the legal princes, one of the most useful, and, in process
+of time, one of the most powerful members of the national
+constitution; and gradually rescued the kingdom from aristocratical as
+well as from regal tyranny.  But Leicester's policy, if we must
+ascribe to him so great a blessing, only forwarded by some years an
+institution, for which the general state of things had already
+prepared the nation; and it is otherwise inconceivable, that a plant
+set by so inauspicious a hand could have attained to so vigorous a
+growth, and have flourished in the midst of such tempests and
+convulsions.  The feudal system, with which the liberty, much more the
+power of the Commons, was totally incompatible, began gradually to
+decline; and both the king and the commonalty, who felt its
+inconveniences, contributed to favour this new power, which was more
+submissive than the barons to the regular authority of the crown, and
+at the same time afforded protection to the inferior orders of the
+state.
+[FN [z] Rymer, vol. i. p. 802.  [a] Fitz-Stephen, Hist. Quadrip.
+Hoveden, &c.]
+
+Leicester having thus assembled a Parliament of his own model, and
+trusting to the attachment of the populace of London, seized the
+opportunity of crushing his rivals among the powerful barons.  Robert
+de Ferrars, Earl of Derby, was accused in the king's name, seized, and
+committed to custody without being brought to any legal trial [b].
+John Gifford, menaced with the same fate, fled from London, and took
+shelter in the borders of Wales.  Even the Earl of Gloucester, whose
+power and influence had so much contributed to the success of the
+barons, but who of late was extremely disgusted with Leicester's
+arbitrary conduct, found himself in danger from the prevailing
+authority of his ancient confederate; and he retired from Parliament
+[c].  This known dissension gave courage to all Leicester's enemies
+and to the king's friends, who were now sure of protection from so
+potent a leader.  Though Roger Mortimer, Hamond L'Estrange, and other
+powerful marchers of Wales, had been obliged to leave the kingdom,
+their authority still remained over the territories subjected to their
+jurisdiction; and there were many others who were disposed to give
+disturbance to the new government.  The animosities, inseparable from
+the feudal aristocracy, broke out with fresh violence, and threatened
+the kingdom with new convulsions and disorders.
+[FN [b] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 66.  Ann. Waverl. p. 216.  [c] M. Paris,
+p. 671.  Ann. Waverl. p. 216.]
+
+The Earl of Leicester, surrounded with these difficulties, embraced a
+measure from which he hoped to reap some present advantages, but which
+proved in the end the source of all his future calamities.  The active
+and intrepid Prince Edward had languished in prison ever since the
+fatal battle of Lewes; and as he was extremely popular in the kingdom,
+there arose a general desire of seeing him again restored to liberty
+[d].  Leicester, finding that he could with difficulty oppose the
+concurring wishes of the nation, stipulated with the prince, that, in
+return, he should order his adherents to deliver up to the barons all
+their castles, particularly those on the borders of Wales; and should
+swear neither to depart the kingdom during three years, nor introduce
+into it any foreign forces [e].  The king took an oath to the same
+effect, and he also passed a charter, in which he confirmed the
+agreement or MISE of Lewes; and even permitted his subjects to rise in
+arms against him if he should ever attempt to infringe it [f].  So
+little care did Leicester take, though he constantly made use of the
+authority of this captive prince, to preserve to him any appearance of
+royalty or kingly prerogatives!
+[FN [d] Knyghton, p. 2451.  [e] Ann. Waverl. p. 216.  [f] Blackstone's
+Mag. Charta.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 378.]
+
+[MN 11th Mar.]  In consequence of this treaty, Prince Edward was
+brought into Westminster-hall, and was declared free by the barons:
+but instead of really recovering his liberty, as he had vainly
+expected, he found that the whole transaction was a fraud on the part
+of Leicester; that he himself still continued a prisoner at large, and
+was guarded by the emissaries of that nobleman; and that, while the
+faction reaped all the benefit from the performance of his part of the
+treaty, care was taken that he should enjoy no advantage by it.  As
+Gloucester, on his rupture with the barons, had retired for safety to
+his estates on the borders of Wales, Leicester followed him with an
+army to Hereford [g]; continued still to menace and negotiate; and
+that he might add authority to his cause, he carried both the king and
+prince along with him.  The Earl of Gloucester here concerted with
+young Edward the manner of that prince's escape.  He found means to
+convey to him a horse of extraordinary swiftness; and appointed Roger
+Mortimer, who had returned into the kingdom, to be ready at hand with
+a small party to receive the prince, and to guard him to a place of
+safety.  Edward pretended to take the air with some of Leicester's
+retinue, who were his guards; and making matches between their horses,
+after he thought he had tired and blown them sufficiently, he suddenly
+mounted Gloucester's horse and called to his attendants, that he had
+long enough enjoyed the pleasure of their company, and now bid them
+adieu.  They followed him for some time, without being able to
+overtake him; and the appearance of Mortimer with his company put an
+end to their pursuit.
+[FN [g] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 67.  Ann. Waverl. p. 218.  W. Heming. p.
+585.  Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 383, 384.]
+
+The royalists, secretly prepared for this event, immediately flew to
+arms; and the joy of this gallant prince's deliverance, the
+oppressions under which the nation laboured, the expectation of a new
+scene of affairs, and the countenance of the Earl of Gloucester,
+procured Edward an army which Leicester was utterly unable to
+withstand.  This nobleman found himself in a remote quarter of the
+kingdom, surrounded by his enemies, barred from all communication with
+his friends by the Severn, whose bridges Edward had broken down, and
+obliged to fight the cause of his party under these multiplied
+disadvantages.  In this extremity he wrote to his son, Simon de
+Montfort, to hasten from London with an army for his relief; and Simon
+had advanced to Kenilworth with that view, where, fancying that all
+Edward's force and attention were directed against his father, he lay
+secure and unguarded.  But the prince, making a sudden and forced
+march, surprised him in his camp, dispersed his army, and took the
+Earl of Oxford and many other noblemen prisoners, almost without
+resistance.  Leicester, ignorant of his son 's fate, passed the Severn
+in boats during Edward's absence, and lay at Evesham, in expectation
+of being every hour joined by his friends from London; when the
+prince, who availed himself of every favourable moment, appeared in
+the field before him.  [MN Battle of Evesham and death of Leicester.
+4th Aug.]  Edward made a body of his troops advance from the road
+which led to Kenilworth, and ordered them to carry the banners taken
+from Simon's army; while he himself, making a circuit with the rest of
+his forces, purposed to attack the enemy on the other quarter.
+Leicester was long deceived by this stratagem, and took one division
+of Edward's army for his friends; but at last, perceiving his mistake,
+and observing the great superiority and excellent disposition of the
+royalists, he exclaimed that they had learned from him the art of war,
+adding, "The Lord have mercy on our souls, for I see our bodies are
+the prince's!"  The battle immediately began, though on very unequal
+terms.  Leicester's army, by living on the mountains of Wales without
+bread, which was not then much used among the inhabitants, had been
+extremely weakened by sickness and desertion, and was soon broken by
+the victorious royalists; while his Welsh allies, accustomed only to a
+desultory kind of war, immediately took to flight, and were pursued
+with great slaughter.  Leicester himself; asking for quarter, was
+slain in the heat of the action, with his eldest son Henry, Hugh le
+Despenser, and about one hundred and sixty knights, and many other
+gentlemen of his party.  The old king had been purposely placed by the
+rebels in the front of the battle; and being clad in armour, and
+thereby not known by his friends, he received a wound, and was in
+danger of his life; but crying out, I AM HENRY OF WINCHESTER, YOUR
+KING, he was saved, and put in a place of safety by his son, who flew
+to his rescue.
+
+The violence, ingratitude, tyranny, rapacity, and treachery of the
+Earl of Leicester, give a very bad idea of his moral character, and
+make us regard his death as the most fortunate event which, in this
+conjuncture, could have happened to the English nation; yet must we
+allow the man to have possessed great abilities, and the appearance of
+great virtues, who, though a stranger, could at a time when strangers
+were the most odious, and the most universally decried, have acquired
+so extensive an interest in the kingdom, and have so nearly paved his
+way to the throne itself.  His military capacity and his political
+craft were equally eminent: he possessed the talents both of governing
+men and conducting business: and though his ambition was boundless, it
+seems neither to have exceeded his courage nor his genius; and he had
+the happiness of making the low populace, as well as the haughty
+barons, co-operate towards the success of his selfish and dangerous
+purposes.  A prince of greater abilities and vigour than Henry, might
+have directed the talents of this nobleman either to the exaltation of
+his throne, or to the good of his people: but the advantages given to
+Leicester by the weak and variable administration of the king, brought
+on the ruin of royal authority, and produced great confusions in the
+kingdom, which however, in the end, preserved and extremely improved
+national liberty and the constitution.  His popularity, even after his
+death, continued so great, that though he was excommunicated by Rome,
+the people believed him to be a saint; and many miracles were said to
+be wrought upon his tomb [h].
+[FN [h] Chron. de Mailr. p. 232.]
+
+[MN Settlement of the government.]
+The victory of Evesham, with the death of Leicester, proved decisive
+in favour of the royalists, and made an equal, though an opposite,
+impression on friends and enemies in every part of England.  The King
+of the Romans recovered his liberty: the other prisoners of the royal
+party were not only freed, but courted by their keepers: Fitz-Richard,
+the seditious Mayor of London, who had marked out forty of the most
+wealthy citizens for slaughter, immediately stopped his hand on
+receiving intelligence of this great event: and almost all the
+castles, garrisoned by the barons, hastened to make their submissions,
+and to open their gates to the king.  The isle of Axholme alone, and
+that of Ely, trusting to the strength of their situation, ventured to
+make resistance; but were at last reduced, as well as the castle of
+Dover, by the valour and activity of Prince Edward [i].  [MN 1266.]
+Adam de Gourdon, a courageous baron, maintained himself during some
+time in the forests of Hampshire, committed depredations in the
+neighbourhood, and obliged the prince to lead a body of troops into
+that county against him.  Edward attacked the camp of the rebels; and
+being transported by the ardour of battle, leaped over the trench with
+a few followers, and encountered Gourdon in single combat.  The
+victory was long disputed between these valiant combatants; but ended
+at last in the prince's favour, who wounded his antagonist, threw him
+from his horse, and took him prisoner.  He not only gave him his life,
+but introduced him that very night to the queen at Guildford, procured
+him his pardon, restored him to his estate, received him into favour,
+and was ever after faithfully served by him [k].
+[FN [i] M. Paris, p. 676.  W. Heming, p. 588.  [k] M. Paris, p. 675.]
+
+A total victory of the sovereign over so extensive a rebellion
+commonly produces a revolution of government, and strengthens as well
+as enlarges, for some time, the prerogatives of the crown: yet no
+sacrifices of national liberty were made on this occasion; the great
+charter remained still inviolate; and the king, sensible that his own
+barons, by whose assistance alone he had prevailed, were no less
+jealous of their independence than the other party, seems thenceforth
+to have more carefully abstained from all those exertions of power
+which had afforded so plausible a pretence to the rebels.  The
+clemency of this victory is also remarkable: no blood was shed on the
+scaffold: no attainders, except of the Montfort family, were carried
+into execution: and though a Parliament, assembled at Winchester,
+attainted all those who had borne arms against the king, easy
+compositions were made with them for their lands [1]; and the highest
+sum levied on the most obnoxious offenders exceeded not five years'
+rent of their estate.  Even the Earl of Derby, who again rebelled,
+after having been pardoned and restored to his fortune, was obliged to
+pay only seven years' rent, and was a second time restored.  The mild
+disposition of the king, and the prudence of the prince, tempered the
+insolence of victory, and gradually restored order to the several
+members of the state, disjointed by so long a continuance of civil
+wars and commotions.
+[FN [l] Id. ibid.]
+
+The city of London, which had carried farthest the rage and animosity
+against the king, and which seemed determined to stand upon its
+defence after almost all the kingdom had submitted, was, after some
+interval, restored to most of its liberties and privileges; and
+Fitz-Richard the mayor, who had been guilty of so much illegal
+violence, was only punished by fine and imprisonment.  The Countess of
+Leicester, the king's sister, who had been extremely forward in all
+attacks on the royal family, was dismissed the kingdom with her two
+sons, Simon and Guy, who proved very ungrateful for this lenity.  Five
+years afterwards, they assassinated, at Viterbo in Italy, their cousin
+Henry d'Allmaine, who at that very time was endeavouring to make their
+peace with the king; and by taking sanctuary in the church of the
+Franciscans, they escaped the punishment due to so great an enormity
+[m].
+[FN [m] Rymer, vol. i. p. 879. vol. ii. p. 4, 5.  Chron. T. Wykes, p.
+94.  W. Heming. p. 589.  Trivet, p. 240.]
+
+[MN 1267.]  The merits of the Earl of Gloucester, after he returned to
+his allegiance, had been so great in restoring the prince to his
+liberty, and assisting him in his victories against the rebellious
+barons, that it was almost impossible to content him in his demands;
+and his youth and temerity, as well as his great power, tempted him,
+on some new disgust, to raise again the flames of rebellion in the
+kingdom.  The mutinous populace of London, at his instigation, took to
+arms; and the prince was obliged to levy an army of thirty thousand
+men in order to suppress them.  Even this second rebellion did not
+provoke the king to any act of cruelty; and the Earl of Gloucester
+himself escaped with total impunity.  He was only obliged to enter
+into a bond of twenty thousand marks, that he should never again be
+guilty of rebellion: a strange method of enforcing the laws, and a
+proof of the dangerous independence of the barons in those ages!
+These potent nobles were, from the danger of the precedent, averse to
+the execution of the laws of forfeiture and felony against any of
+their fellows; though they could not, with a good grace, refuse to
+concur in obliging them to fulfil any voluntary contract and
+engagement into which they had entered.
+
+[MN 1270.]  The prince, finding the state of the kingdom tolerably
+composed, was seduced, by his avidity for glory and by the prejudices
+of the age, as well as by the earnest solicitations of the King of
+France, to undertake an expedition against the infidels in the Holy
+Land [n]; and he endeavoured previously to settle the state in such a
+manner as to dread no bad effects from his absence.  As the formidable
+power and turbulent disposition of the Earl of Gloucester gave him
+apprehensions, he insisted on carrying him along with him, in
+consequence of a vow which that nobleman had made to undertake the
+same voyage: in the mean time, he obliged him to resign some of his
+castles, and to enter into a new bond not to disturb the peace of the
+kingdom [o].  He sailed from England with an army, and arrived in
+Lewis's camp before Tunis in Africa, where he found that monarch
+already dead from the intemperance of the climate and the fatigues of
+his enterprise.  The great, if not only, weakness of this prince in
+his government, was the imprudent passion for crusades; but it was his
+zeal chiefly that procured him from the clergy the title of St. Lewis,
+by which he is known in the French history; and if that appellation
+had not been so extremely prostituted, as to become rather a term of
+reproach, he seems by his uniform probity and goodness, as well as his
+piety, to have fully merited the title.  He was succeeded by his son
+Philip, denominated the Hardy; a prince of some merit, though much
+inferior to that of his father.
+[FN [n] M. Paris, p. 677.  [o] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 90.]
+
+[MN 1271.]  Prince Edward, not discouraged by this event, continued
+his voyage to the Holy Land, where he signalized himself by acts of
+valour; revived the glory of the English name in those parts; and
+struck such terror into the Saracens, that they employed an assassin
+to murder him, who wounded him in the arm, but perished in the attempt
+[p].  Meanwhile, his absence from England was attended with many of
+those pernicious consequences  which had been dreaded from it.  The
+laws were not executed: the barons oppressed the common people with
+impunity [q]: they gave shelter on their estates to bands of robbers,
+whom they employed in committing ravages on the estates of their
+enemies: the populace of London returned to their usual
+licentiousness: and the old king, unequal to the burden of public
+affairs, called aloud for his gallant son to return [r], and to assist
+him in swaying that sceptre which was ready to drop from his feeble
+and irresolute hands.  [MN 1272.  16th Nov.  Death,]  At last,
+overcome by the cares of government and the infirmities of age, he
+visibly declined, and he expired at St. Edmondsbury, in the
+sixty-fourth year of his age, and fifty-sixth of his reign; the
+longest reign that is to be met with in the English annals.  His
+brother, the King of the Romans, (for he never attained the title of
+Emperor,) died about seven months before him.
+[FN [p] M. Paris, p. 678, 679.  W. Heming. p. 520.  [q] Chron. Dunst.
+vol. i. p. 404.  [r] Rymer, vol. i. p. 869.  M. Paris, p. 678.]
+
+[MN and character of the king.]  The most obvious circumstance of
+Henry's character is his incapacity for government, which rendered him
+as much a prisoner in the hands of his own ministers and favourites,
+and as little at his own disposal, as when detained a captive in the
+hands of his enemies.  From this source, rather than from insincerity
+or treachery, arose his negligence in observing his promises; and he
+was too easily induced, for the sake of present convenience, to
+sacrifice the lasting advantages arising from the trust and confidence
+of his people.  Hence too were derived his profusion to favourites,
+his attachment to strangers, the variableness of his conduct, his
+hasty resentments, and his sudden forgiveness and return of affection.
+Instead of reducing the dangerous power of his nobles, by obliging
+them to observe the laws towards their inferiors, and setting them the
+salutary example in his own government, he was seduced to imitate
+their conduct, and to make his arbitrary will, or rather that of his
+ministers, the rule of his actions.  Instead of accommodating himself,
+by a strict frugality, to the embarrassed situation in which his
+revenue had been left by the military expeditions of his uncle, the
+dissipations of his father, and the usurpations of the barons; he was
+tempted to levy money by irregular exactions, which, without enriching
+himself, impoverished, at least disgusted, his people.  Of all men,
+nature seemed least to have fitted him for being a tyrant; yet there
+are instances of oppression in his reign, which, though derived from
+the precedents left him by his predecessors, had been carefully
+guarded against by the great charter, and are inconsistent with all
+rules of good government.  And on the whole, we may say, that greater
+abilities, with his good dispositions, would have prevented him from
+falling into his faults; or, with worse dispositions, would have
+enabled him to maintain and defend them.
+
+This prince was noted for his piety and devotion, and his regular
+attendance on public worship; and a saying of his on that head is much
+celebrated by ancient writers.  He was engaged in a dispute with Lewis
+IX. of France, concerning the preference between sermons and masses:
+he maintained the superiority of the latter, and affirmed that he
+would rather have one hour's conversation with a friend, than hear
+twenty of the most elaborate discourses pronounced in his praise [s].
+[FN [s] Walsing. Edw. I. p. 43.]
+
+Henry left two sons, Edward, his successor, and Edmond, Earl of
+Lancaster; and two daughters, Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and
+Beatrix, Duchess of Britany.  He had five other children, who died in
+their infancy.
+
+[MN Miscellaneous transactions of the reign.]
+The following are the most remarkable laws enacted during this reign.
+There had been great disputes between the civil and ecclesiastical
+courts concerning bastardy.  The common law had deemed all those to be
+bastards who were born before wedlock; by the canon law they were
+legitimate: and when any dispute of inheritance arose, it had formerly
+been usual for the civil courts to issue writs to the spiritual,
+directing them to inquire into the legitimacy of the person.  The
+bishop always returned an answer agreeable to the canon law, though
+contrary to the municipal law of the kingdom.  For this reason the
+civil courts had changed the terms of their writ; and instead of
+requiring the spiritual courts to make inquisition concerning the
+legitimacy of the person, they only proposed the simple question of
+fact, whether he were born, before or after wedlock?  The prelates
+complained of this practice to the Parliament assembled at Merton in
+the twentieth of this king, and desired that the municipal law might
+be rendered conformable to the canon; but received from all the
+nobility the memorable reply, NOLUMUS LEGES ANGLIAE MUTARE!  We will
+not change the laws of England [t].
+[FN [t] Statute of Merton, chap. 9.]
+
+After the civil wars, the Parliament, summoned at Marlebridge, gave
+their approbation to most of the ordinances which had been established
+by the reforming barons, and which, though advantageous to the
+security of the people, had not received the sanction of a legal
+authority.  Among other laws, it was there enacted, that all appeals
+from the courts of inferior lords should be carried directly to the
+king's courts without passing through the courts of the lords
+immediately superior [u].  It was ordained that money should bear no
+interest during the minority of the debtor [w].  This law was
+reasonable, as the estates of minors were always in the hands of their
+lords, and the debtors could not pay interest where they had no
+revenue.  The charter of King John had granted this indulgence: it was
+omitted in that of Henry III., for what reason is not known; but it
+was renewed by the statute of Marlebridge.  Most of the other articles
+of this statute are calculated to restrain the oppressions of
+sheriffs, and the violence and iniquities committed in distraining
+cattle and other goods.  Cattle and the instruments of husbandry
+formed at that time the chief riches of the people.
+[FN [u] Statute of Marleb. chap. 20.  [w] Ibid. chap. 16.]
+
+In the thirty-fifth year of this king an assize was fixed of bread,
+the price of which was settled, according to the different prices of
+corn, from one shilling a quarter to seven shillings and sixpence [x],
+money of that age.  These great variations are alone a proof of bad
+tillage [y]: yet did the prices often rise much higher than any taken
+notice of by the statute.  The Chronicle of Dunstable tells us, that,
+in this reign, wheat was once sold for a mark, nay, for a pound, a
+quarter, that is, three pounds of our present money [z].  The same law
+affords us a proof of the little communication between the parts of
+the kingdom, from the very different prices which the same commodity
+bore at the same time.  A brewer, says the statute, may sell two
+gallons of ale for a penny in cities, and three or four gallons for
+the same price in the country.  At present, such commodities, by the
+great consumption of the people, and the great stocks of the brewers,
+are rather cheapest in cities.  The Chronicle above mentioned
+observes, that wheat one year was sold in many places for eight
+shillings a quarter, but never rose in Dunstable above a crown.
+[FN [x] Statutes at Large, p. 6.  [y] We learn from Cicero's Orations
+against Verres, lib. 3, cap. 84, 92, that the price of corn in Sicily
+was, during the praetorship of Sacerdos, five Denarii a Modius; during
+that of Verres, which immediately succeeded, only two Sesterces; that
+is, ten times lower; a presumption, or rather a proof, of the very bad
+state of tillage in ancient times.  [z]  Knyghton, p. 2444.]
+
+Though commerce was still very low, it seems rather to have increased
+since the Conquest; at least if we may judge of the increase of money
+by the price of corn.  The medium between the highest and lowest
+prices of wheat, assigned by the statute, is four shillings and three
+pence a quarter, that is, twelve shillings and nine pence of our
+present money.  This is near half of the middling price in our time.
+Yet the middling price of cattle, so late as the reign of King
+Richard, we find to be above eight, near ten times lower than the
+present.  Is not this the true inference, from comparing these facts,
+that, in all uncivilized nations, cattle, which propagate of
+themselves, bear always a lower price than corn, which requires more
+art and stock to render it plentiful than those nations are possessed
+of?  It is to be remarked that Henry's assize of corn was copied from
+a preceding assize established by King John; consequently, the prices
+which we have here compared of corn and cattle may be looked on as
+contemporary; and they were drawn, not from one particular year, but
+from an estimation of the middling prices for a series of years.  It
+is true, the prices assigned by the assize of Richard were meant as a
+standard for the accompts of sheriffs and escheators; and as
+considerable profits were allowed to these ministers, we may naturally
+suppose, that the common value of cattle was somewhat higher: yet
+still, so great a difference between the prices of corn and cattle as
+that of four to one, compared to the present rates, affords important
+reflections concerning the very different state of industry and
+tillage in the two periods.
+
+Interest had in that age amounted to an enormous height, as might be
+expected from the barbarism of the times and men's ignorance of
+commerce.  Instances occur of fifty per cent paid for money [a].
+There is an edict of Philip Augustus near this period, limiting the
+Jews in France to forty-eight per cent [b].  Such profits tempted the
+Jews to remain in the kingdom, notwithstanding the grievous
+oppressions to which, from the prevalent bigotry and rapine of the
+age, they were continually exposed.  It is easy to imagine how
+precarious their state must have been under an indigent prince,
+somewhat restrained in his tyranny over his native subjects, but who
+possessed an unlimited authority over the Jews, the sole proprietors
+of money in the kingdom, and hated, on account of their riches, their
+religion, and their usury: yet will our ideas scarcely come up to the
+extortions which, in fact, we find to have been practised upon them.
+In the year 1241, twenty thousand marks were exacted from them [c]:
+two years after money was again extorted; and one Jew alone, Aaron of
+York, was obliged to pay above four thousand marks [d].  In 1250,
+Henry renewed his oppressions; and the same Aaron was condemned to pay
+him thirty thousand marks upon an accusation of forgery [e]: the high
+penalty imposed upon him, and which, it seems, he was thought able to
+pay, is rather a presumption of his innocence than of his guilt.  In
+1255, the king demanded eight thousand marks from the Jews, and
+threatened to hang them if they refused compliance.  They now lost all
+patience, and desired leave to retire with their effects out of the
+kingdom.  But the king replied: "How can I remedy the oppressions you
+complain of?  I am myself a beggar.  I am spoiled, I am stripped of
+all my revenues: I owe above two hundred thousand marks; and if I had
+said three hundred thousand, I should not exceed the truth: I am
+obliged to pay my son, Prince Edward, fifteen thousand marks a year: I
+have not a farthing; and I must have money, from any hand, from any
+quarter, or by any means."  He then delivered over the Jews to the
+Earl of Cornwall, that those whom the one brother had flayed, the
+other might embowel, to make use of the words of the historian [f].
+King John, his father, once demanded ten thousand marks from a Jew of
+Bristol; and on his refusal, ordered one of his teeth to be drawn
+every day till he should comply.  The Jew lost seven teeth, and then
+paid the sum required of him [g].  One talliage paid upon the Jews in
+1243 amounted to sixty thousand marks [h]; a sum equal to the whole
+yearly revenue of the crown.
+[FN [a] M. Paris, p. 586.  [b] Brussel, Traite des Fiefs, vol. i. p.
+576  [c] M. Paris, p. 372.  [d] Ibid. p. 410.  [e] Ibid. p. 525.  [f]
+M. Paris, p. 606.  [g] Ibid. p. 160.  [h] Madox, p. 152.]
+
+To give a better pretence for extortions, the improbable and absurd
+accusation, which has been at different times advanced against that
+nation, was revived in England, that they had crucified a child in
+derision of the sufferings of Christ.  Eighteen of them were hanged at
+once for this crime [i]: though it is nowise credible, that even the
+antipathy borne them by the Christians, and the oppressions under
+which they laboured, would ever have pushed them to be guilty of that
+dangerous enormity.  But it is natural to imagine, that a race,
+exposed to such insults and indignities, both from king and people,
+and who had so uncertain an enjoyment of their riches, would carry
+usury to the utmost extremity, and by their great profits make
+themselves some compensation for their continual perils.
+[FN [i] M. Paris, p. 613.]
+
+Though these acts of violence against the Jews proceeded much from
+bigotry, they were still more derived from avidity and rapine.  So far
+from desiring in that age to convert them, it was enacted by law in
+France, that if any Jew embraced Christianity, he forfeited all his
+goods, without exception, to the king, or his superior lord.  These
+plunderers were careful, lest the profits, accruing from their
+dominion over that unhappy race, should be diminished by their
+conversion [k].
+[FN [k] Brussel, vol. i. p. 622.  Du Cange, verbo JUDAEI.]
+
+Commerce must be in a wretched condition, where interest was so high,
+and where the sole proprietors of money employed it in usury only, and
+were exposed to such extortion and injustice.  But the bad police of
+the country was another obstacle to improvements; and rendered all
+communication dangerous, and all property precarious.  The Chronicle
+of Dunstable says [l], that men were never secure in the houses, and
+that whole villages were often plundered by bands of robbers, though
+no civil wars at that time prevailed in the kingdom.  In 1249, some
+years before the insurrection of the barons, two merchants of Brabant
+came to the king at Winchester, and told him that they had been
+spoiled of all their goods by certain robbers, whom they knew, because
+they saw their faces every day in his court; that like practices
+prevailed all over England, and travellers were continually exposed to
+the danger of being robbed, bound, wounded, and murdered; that these
+crimes escaped with impunity, because the ministers of justice
+themselves were in a confederacy was the robbers; and that they, for
+their part, instead of bringing matters to a fruitless trial by law,
+were willing, though merchants, to decide their cause with the robbers
+by arms and a duel.  The king, provoked at these abuses, ordered a
+jury to be enclosed, and to try the robbers: the jury, though
+consisting of twelve men of property in Hampshire, were found to be
+also in a confederacy with the felons, and acquitted them.  Henry, in
+a rage, committed the jury to prison, threatened them with a severe
+punishment, and ordered a new jury to be enclosed, who, dreading the
+fate of their fellows, at last found a verdict against the criminals.
+Many of the king's own household were discovered to have participated
+in the guilt; and they said for their excuse, that they received no
+wages from him, and were obliged to rob for a maintenance [m].
+KNIGHTS AND ESQUIRES, says the Dictum of Kenilworth, WHO WERE ROBBERS,
+IF THEY HAVE NO LAND, SHALL PAY THE HALF OF THEIR GOODS, AND FIND
+SUFFICIENT SECURITY TO KEEP HENCEFORTH THE PEACE OF THE KINGDOM.  Such
+were the matters of the times!
+[FN [1] Vol. i. p. 155.  [m] M. Paris, p. 509.]
+
+One can the less repine, during the prevalence of such manners, at the
+frauds and forgeries of the clergy; as it gives less disturbance to
+society, to take men's money from them with their own consent, though
+by deceits and lies, than to ravish it by open force and violence.
+During this reign the papal power was at its summit, and was even
+beginning insensibly to decline, by reason of the immeasurable avarice
+and extortions of the court of Rome, which disgusted the clergy as
+well as laity, in  every kingdom of Europe.  England itself, though
+sunk in the deepest abyss of ignorance and superstition, had seriously
+entertained thoughts of shaking off the papal yoke [n]; and the Roman
+pontiff was obliged to think of new expedients for riveting it faster
+upon the Christian world.  For this purpose, Gregory IX. published his
+decretals [o], which are a collection of forgeries, favourable to the
+court of Rome, and consist of the supposed decrees of popes in the
+first centuries.  But these forgeries are so gross, and confound so
+palpably all language, history, chronology, and antiquities, matters
+more stubborn than any speculative truths whatsoever, that even that
+church, which is not startled at the most monstrous contradictions and
+absurdities, has been obliged to abandon them to the critics.  But in
+the dark period of the thirteenth century they passed for undisputed
+and authentic; and men, entangled in the mazes of this false
+literature, joined to the philosophy, equally false, of the times, had
+nothing wherewithal to defend themselves, but some small remains of
+common sense, which passed for profaneness and impiety, and the
+indelible regard to self-interest, which, as it was the sole motive in
+the priests for framing these impostures, served also, in some degree,
+to protect the laity against them.
+[FN [n] M. Paris, p. 421.  [o] Trivet, p. 191.]
+
+Another expedient, devised by the church of Rome, in this period, for
+securing her power, was the institution of new religious orders,
+chiefly the Dominicans and Franciscans, who proceeded with all the
+zeal and success that attend novelties; were better qualified to gain
+the populace than the old orders, now become rich and indolent;
+maintained a perpetual rivalship with each other in promoting their
+gainful superstitions; and acquired a great dominion over the minds,
+and, consequently, over the purses of men, by pretending a desire of
+poverty and a contempt for riches.  The quarrels which arose between
+these orders, lying still under the control of the sovereign pontiff,
+never disturbed the peace of the church, and served only as a spur to
+their industry in promoting the common cause; and though the
+Dominicans lost some popularity by their denial of the immaculate
+conception, a point in which they unwarily engaged too far to be able
+to recede with honour, they counterbalanced this disadvantage, by
+acquiring more solid establishments, by gaining the confidence of
+kings and princes, and by exercising the jurisdiction assigned them,
+of ultimate judges and punishers of heresy.  Thus, the several orders
+of monks became a kind of regular troops or garrisons of the Romish
+church; and though the temporal interests of society, still more the
+cause of true piety, were hurt, by their various devices to captivate
+the populace, they proved the chief supports of that mighty fabric of
+superstition, and till the revival of true learning, secured it from
+any dangerous invasion.
+
+The trial by ordeal was abolished in this reign by order of council: a
+faint mark of improvement in the age [p].
+[FN [p] Rymer, vol. i. p. 228.  Spellman, p. 326.]
+
+Henry granted a charter to the town of Newcastle, in which he gave the
+inhabitants a licence to dig coal.  This is the first mention of coal
+in England.
+
+We learn from Madox [q], that this king gave, at one time, one hundred
+shillings to master Henry, his poet: also the same year he orders this
+poet ten pounds.
+[FN [q] Page 268.]
+
+It appears from Selden, that, in the forty-seventh of his reign, a
+hundred and fifty temporal, and fifty spiritual barons were summoned
+to perform the service due by their tenures [r].  In the thirty-fifth
+of the subsequent reign, eighty-six temporal barons, twenty bishops,
+and forty-eight abbots, were summoned to a Parliament convened at
+Carlisle [s].
+[FN [r] Titles of Honour, part ii. Chap. 3.  [s] Parl. Hist. vol. i.
+p. 151.]
+
+
+
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+
+NOTE [A]
+
+This question has been disputed with as great zeal and even acrimony,
+between the Scotch and Irish antiquaries, as if the honour of their
+respective countries were the most deeply concerned in the decision.
+We shall not enter into any detail on so uninteresting a subject, but
+shall propose our opinion in a few words.  It appears more than
+probable, from the similitude of language and manners, that Britain
+either was originally peopled, or was subdued, by the migration of
+inhabitants from Gaul, and Ireland from Britain: the position of the
+several countries is an additional reason that favours this
+conclusion.  It appears also probable, that the migration of that
+colony of Gauls or Celts, who peopled or subdued Ireland, was
+originally made from the north-west parts of Britain; and this
+conjecture (if it do not merit a higher name) is founded both on the
+Irish language, which is a very different dialect from the Welsh, and
+from the language anciently spoken in South Britain; and on the
+vicinity of Lancashire, Cumberland, Galloway, and Argyleshire, to that
+island.  These events, as they passed long before the age of history
+and records, must be known by reasoning alone, which in this case
+seems to be pretty satisfactory: Caesar and Tacitus, not to mention a
+multitude of other Greek and Roman authors, were guided by like
+inferences.  But besides these primitive facts, which lie in a very
+remote antiquity, it is a matter of positive and undoubted testimony,
+that the Roman province of Britain, during the time of the lower
+empire, was much infested by bands of robbers or pirates, whom the
+provincial Britons called Scots or Scuits; a name which was probably
+used as a term of reproach, and which these banditti themselves did
+not acknowledge or assume.  We may infer from two passages in
+Claudian, and from one in Orosius, and another in Isidore, that the
+chief seat of these Scots was in Ireland.  That some part of the Irish
+freebooters migrated back to the north-west parts of Britain, whence
+their ancestors had probably been derived in a more remote age, is
+positively asserted by Bede, and implied in Gildas.  I grant that
+neither Bede nor Gildas are Caesars or Tacituses; but such as they
+are, they remain the sole testimony on the subject, and therefore must
+be relied on for want of better: happily, the frivolousness of the
+question corresponds to the weakness of the authorities.  Not to
+mention, that if any part of the traditional history of a barbarous
+people can be relied on, it is the genealogy of nations, and even
+sometimes that of families.  It is in vain to argue against these
+facts from the supposed warlike disposition of the Highlanders, and
+unwarlike of the ancient Irish.  Those arguments are still much weaker
+than the authorities.  Nations change very quickly in these
+particulars.  The Britons were unable to resist the Picts and Scots,
+and invited over the Saxons for their defence, who repelled those
+invaders: yet the same Britons valiantly resisted for one hundred and
+fifty years, not only this victorious band of Saxons, but infinite
+numbers more, who poured in upon them from all quarters.  Robert
+Bruce, in 1322, made a peace, in which England, after many defeats,
+was constrained to acknowledge the independence of his country: yet in
+no more distant period than ten years after, Scotland was totally
+subdued by a small handful of English, led by a few private noblemen.
+All history is full of such events.  The Irish Scots, in the course of
+two or three centuries, might find time and opportunities sufficient
+to settle in North Britain, though we can neither assign the period
+nor causes of that revolution.  Their barbarous manner of life
+rendered them much fitter than the Romans for subduing these
+mountaineers.  And, in a word, it is clear from the language of the
+two countries, that the Highlanders and the Irish are the same people,
+and that the one are a colony from the other.  We have positive
+evidence which, though from neutral persons, is not perhaps the best
+that may be wished for, that the former, in the third or fourth
+century, sprang from the latter: we have no evidence at all that the
+latter sprang from the former.  I shall add, that the name of Erse or
+Irish given by the low-country Scotch to the language of the Scotch
+Highlanders, is a certain proof of the traditional opinion delivered
+from father to son, that the latter people came originally from
+Ireland.
+
+
+NOTE [B]
+
+There is a seeming contradiction in ancient historians with regard to
+some circumstances in the story of Edwy and Elgiva.  It is agreed that
+this prince had a violent passion for his second or third cousin,
+Elgiva, whom he married, though within the degrees prohibited by the
+canons.  It is also agreed, that he was dragged from a lady on the day
+of his coronation, and that the lady was afterwards treated with the
+singular barbarity above mentioned.  The only difference is, that
+Osberne and some others call her his strumpet, not his wife, as she is
+said to be by Malmesbury.  But this difference is easily reconciled;
+for if Edwy married her contrary to the canons, the monks would be
+sure to deny her to be his wife, and would insist that she could be
+nothing but his strumpet; to that, on the whole, we may esteem this
+representation of the matter as certain, at least, as by far the most
+probable.  If Edwy had only kept a mistress, it is well known that
+there are methods of accommodation with the church, which would have
+prevented the clergy from proceeding to such extremities against him:
+but his marriage contrary to the canons, was an insult on their
+authority, and called for their highest resentment.
+
+
+NOTE [C]
+
+Many of the English historians make Edgar's ships amount to an
+extravagant number, to three thousand, or three thousand six hundred:
+see Hoveden, p. 426.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 607.  Abbas Rieval. p. 360.
+Brompton, p. 869, says, that Edgar had four thousand vessels.  How can
+these accounts be reconciled to probability, and to the state of the
+navy in the time of Alfred?  W. Thorne makes the whole number amount
+only to three hundred, which is more probable.  The fleet of Ethelred,
+Edgar's son, must have been short of one thousand ships; yet the Saxon
+Chronicle, p. 137, says, it was the greatest navy that ever had been
+seen in England.
+
+
+NOTE [D]
+
+Almost all the ancient historians speak of this massacre of the Danes
+as if it had been universal, and as if every individual of that nation
+throughout England had been put to death.  But the Danes were almost
+the sole inhabitants in the kingdoms of Northumberland and East-
+Anglia, and were very numerous in Mercia.  This representation,
+therefore, of the matter is absolutely impossible.  Great resistance
+must have been made, and violent wars ensued; which was not the case.
+This account given by Wallingford, though he stands single, must he
+admitted as the only true one.  We are told that the name LURDANE,
+LORD DANE, for an idle lazy fellow, who lives at other people's
+expense, came from the conduct of the Danes, who were put to death.
+But the English princes had been entirely masters for several
+generations; and only supported a military corps of that nation.  It
+seems probable, therefore, that it was these Danes only that were put
+to death.
+
+
+NOTE [E]
+
+The ingenious author of the article GODWIN, in the Biographia
+Britannica, has endeavoured to clear the memory of that nobleman, upon
+the supposition, that all the English annals had been falsified by the
+Norman historians after the Conquest.  But that this supposition has
+not much foundation, appears hence, that almost all these historians
+have given a very good character to his son Harold, whom it was much
+more the interest of the Norman cause to blacken.
+
+
+NOTE [F]
+
+The whole story of the transactions between Edward, Harold, and the
+Duke of Normandy, is told so differently by the ancient writers, that
+there are few important passages of the English history liable to so
+great uncertainty.  I have followed the account which appeared to me
+the most consistent and probable.  It does not seem likely, that
+Edward ever executed a will in the duke's favour, much less that he
+got it ratified by the states of the kingdom, as is affirmed by some.
+The will would have been known to all, and would have been produced by
+the Conqueror, to whom it gave so plausible, and really so just a
+title; but the doubtful and ambiguous manner in which he seems always
+to have mentioned it, proves that he could only plead the known
+intentions of that monarch in his favour, which he was desirous to
+call a will.  There is indeed a charter of the Conqueror preserved by
+Dr. Hickes, vol. i., where he calls himself REX HEREDITARIUS, meaning
+heir by will; but a prince possessed of so much power, and attended
+with so much success, may employ what pretence he pleases: it is
+sufficient to refute his pretences, to observe that there is a great
+difference and variation among historians, with regard to a point
+which, had it been real, must have been agreed upon by all of them.
+
+Again, some historians, particularly Malmesbury and Matthew of
+Westminster, affirm that Harold had no intention of going over to
+Normandy, but, that taking the air in a pleasure boat on the coast, he
+was driven over, by stress of weather, to the territories of Guy,
+Count of Ponthieu: but besides that this story is not probable in
+itself, and is contradicted by most of the ancient historians, it is
+contradicted by a very curious and authentic monument lately
+discovered.  It is a tapestry, preserved in the ducal palace of Rouen,
+and supposed to have been wrought by orders of Matilda, wife to the
+emperor: at least it is of very great antiquity.  Harold is there
+represented as taking his departure from King Edward in execution of
+some commission, and mounting his vessel with a great train.  The
+design of redeeming his brother and nephew, who were hostages, is the
+most likely cause that can be assigned; and is accordingly mentioned
+by Eadmer, Hoveden, Brompton, and Simeon of Durham.  For a farther
+account of this piece of tapestry, see Histoire de l'Academie de
+Litterature, tom. ix. p. 535.
+
+
+NOTE [G]
+
+It appears from the ancient translations of the Saxon annals and laws,
+and from King Alfred's translation of Bede, as well as from all the
+ancient historians, that COMES in Latin, ALDERMAN in Saxon, and EARL
+in Dano-Saxon, were quite synonymous.  There is only a clause in a law
+of King Athelstan's (see Spellm. Conc. p. 406) which has stumbled some
+antiquaries, and has made them imagine that an earl was superior to an
+alderman.  The weregild, or the price of an earl's blood, is there
+fixed at fifteen thousand thrimsas, equal to that of an archbishop;
+whereas that of a bishop and alderman is only eight thousand thrimsas.
+To solve this difficulty we must have recourse to Selden's conjecture,
+(see his Titles of Honour, chap. v. p. 603, 604,) that the term of
+earl was in the age of Athelstan just beginning to be in use in
+England, and stood at that time for the atheling or prince of the
+blood, heir to the crown.  This he confirms by a law of Canute, Sec.
+55, where an atheling and an archbishop are put upon the same footing.
+In another law of the same Athelstan, the weregild of the prince, or
+atheling, is said to be fifteen thousand thrimsas.  See Wilkins, p.
+71.  He is therefore the same who is called earl in the former law.
+
+
+NOTE [H]
+
+There is a paper or record of the family of Sharneborn, which
+pretends, that that family, which was Saxon, was restored upon proving
+their innocence, as well as other Saxon families which were in the
+same situation.  Though this paper was able to impose on such great
+antiquaries as Spellman (see Gloss. in verbo DRENGES) and Dugdale,
+(see Baron. vol. i. p. 118,) it is proved by Dr. Brady (see Answ. to
+Petyt, p. 11, 12) to have been a forgery; and is allowed as such by
+Tyrrel, though a pertinacious defender of his party notions (see his
+Hist. vol. ii. introd. p. 51, 73).  Ingulf, p. 70, tells us, that very
+early, Hereward, though absent during the time of the Conquest, was
+turned out of all his estate, and could not obtain redress.  William
+even plundered the monasteries.  Flor. Wigorn. p. 636.  Chron. Abb.
+St. Petri de Burgo, p. 48.  M. Paris, p. 5.  Sim. Dun. p. 200.
+Diceto, p. 482.  Brompton, p. 967.  Knyghton, p. 2344.  Alur. Beverl.
+p. 130.  We are told by Ingulf, that Ivo de Taillebois plundered the
+monastery of Croyland of a great part of its land, and no redress
+could be obtained.
+
+
+NOTE [I]
+
+The obliging of all the inhabitants to put out their fires and lights
+at certain hours, upon the sounding of a bell called the COURFEU, is
+represented by Polydore Vergil, lib. 9, as a mark of the servitude of
+the English.  But this was a law of police, which William had
+previously established in Normandy.  See Du Moulin, Hist. de
+Normandie, p. 160.  The same law had place in Scotland.  LL. Burgor
+cap. 86.
+
+
+NOTE [K]
+
+What these laws were of Edward the Confessor, which the English, every
+reign during a century and a half, desire so passionately to have
+restored, is much disputed by antiquaries, and our ignorance of them
+seems one of the greatest defects in the ancient English history.  The
+collection of laws in Wilkins, which pass under the name of Edward,
+are plainly a posterior and an ignorant compilation.  Those to be
+found in Ingulf are genuine; but so imperfect, and contain so few
+clauses favourable to the subject, that we see no great reason for
+their contending for them so vehemently.  It is probable, that the
+English meant the COMMON LAW, as it prevailed during the reign of
+Edward; which we may conjecture to have been more indulgent to liberty
+than the Norman institutions.  The most material articles of it were
+afterwards comprehended in Magna Charta.
+
+
+NOTE [L]
+
+Ingulf, p. 70.  H. Hunt. p. 370, 372.  M. West. p. 225.  Gul. Neub. p.
+357.  Alured. Beverl. p. 124.  De Gest. Angl. p. 333.  M. Paris, p. 4.
+Sim. Dun. p. 206.  Brompton, p. 962, 980, 1161.  Gervase Tilb. lib. i.
+cap. 16.  Textus Roffensis apud Seld. Spicileg. ad Eadm. p. 179.  Gul.
+Pict. p. 206.  Ordericus Vitalis, p. 621, 666, 853.  Epist. St. Thom.
+p. 801.  Gul. Malmes. p. 52, 57.  Knyghton, p. 2354.  Eadmer. p. 110.
+Thom. Rudborne in Ang. Sacra, vol. i. p. 248.  Monach. Roff. in Ang
+Sacra, vol. ii. p. 276.  Girald. Camb. in eadem, vol. ii. p. 413.
+Hist Elyensis, p. 516.  The words of this last historian, who is very
+ancient, are remarkable and worth transcribing: "REX ITAQUE FACTUS
+WILLIELMUS, QUID IN PRINCIPES ANGLORUM, QUI TANTAE CLADI SUPERESSE
+POTERANT, FECERIT, DICERE, CUM NIHIL PROSIT, OMITTO.  QUID ENIM
+PRODESSET, SI NEC UNUM IN TOTO REGNO DE ILLIS DICEREM PRISTINA
+POTESTATE UTI PERMISSUM, SED OMNES AUT IN GRAVEM PAUPERTATIS AERUMNAM
+DETRUSOS, AUT EXHAEREDATOS, PATRIA PULSOS, AUT EFFOSSIS OCULIS, VEL
+CAETERIS AMPUTATIS MEMBRIS OPPROBRIUM HOMINUM FACTOS, AUT CERTE
+MISERRIME AFFLICTOS, VITA PRIVATOS?  SIMILI MODO UTILITATE CARERE
+EXISTIMO DICERE QUID IN MINOREM POPULUM, NON SOLUM AB EO, SED A SUIS
+ACTUM SIT, CUM ID DICTU SCIAMUS DIFFICILE, ET OB IMMANEM CRUDELITATEM,
+FORTASSIS INCREDIBILE."
+
+
+NOTE [M]
+
+Henry, by the feudal customs, was entitled to levy a tax for the
+marrying of his eldest daughter, and he exacted three shillings a hide
+on all England.  H. Hunt. p. 379.  Some historians (Brady, p. 270, and
+Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 182) heedlessly make this sum amount to above
+eight hundred thousand pounds of our present money: but it could not
+exceed one hundred and thirty-five thousand.  Five hides, sometimes
+less, made a knight's fee, of which there were about sixty thousand in
+England, consequently near three hundred thousand hides; and at the
+rate of three shillings a hide, the sum would amount to forty-five
+thousand pounds, or one hundred and thirty-five thousand of our
+present money.  See Rudborne, p. 257.  In the Saxon times, there were
+only computed two hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred hides
+in England.
+
+
+NOTE [N]
+
+The legates A LATERE, as they were called, were a kind of delegates
+who possessed the full power of the pope in all the provinces
+committed to their charge, and were very busy in extending as well as
+exercising it.  They nominated to all vacant benefices, assembled
+synods, and were anxious to maintain ecclesiastical privileges, which
+never could be fully protected without encroachments on the civil
+power.  If there were the least concurrence or opposition, it was
+always supposed that the civil power was to give way: every deed which
+had the least pretence of holding of any thing spiritual, as
+marriages, testaments, promissory oaths, were brought into the
+spiritual court, and could not be canvassed before a civil magistrate.
+These were the established laws of the church; and where a legate was
+sent immediately from Rome, he was sure to maintain the papal claims
+with the utmost rigour: but it was an advantage to the king to have
+the Archbishop of Canterbury appointed legate, because the connexions
+of that prelate with the kingdom tended to moderate his measures.
+
+
+NOTE [O]
+
+William of Newbridge, p. 383, (who is copied by later historians,)
+asserts, that Geoffrey had some title to the counties of Maine and
+Anjou.  He pretends that Count Geoffrey, his father, had left him
+these dominions by a secret will, and had ordered that his body should
+not be buried, till Henry should swear to the observance of it, which
+he, ignorant of the contents, was induced to do.  But besides that
+this story is not very likely in itself, and savours of monkish
+fiction, it is found in no other ancient writer, and is contradicted
+by some of them, particularly the monk of Marmoutier, who had better
+opportunities than Newbridge of knowing the truth.  See Vita Gauf.
+Duc. Norman. p. 103.
+
+
+NOTE [P]
+
+The sum scarcely appears credible, as it would amount to much above
+half the rent of the whole land.  Gervase is indeed a contemporary
+author; but churchmen are often guilty of strange mistakes of that
+nature, and are commonly but little acquainted with the public
+revenues.  This sum would make five hundred and forty thousand pounds
+of our present money.  The Norman Chronicle, p. 995, says that Henry
+raised only sixty Angevin shillings on each knight's fee in his
+foreign dominions: this is only a fourth of the sum which Gervase says
+he levied on England; an inequality nowise probable.  A nation may, by
+degrees, be brought to bear a tax of fifteen shillings in the pound,
+but a sudden and precarious tax can never be imposed to that amount,
+without a very visible necessity, especially in an age so little
+accustomed to taxes.  In the succeeding reign the rent of a knight's
+fee was computed at four pounds a year.  There were sixty thousand
+knights' fees in England.
+
+
+NOTE [Q]
+
+Fitz-Stephens, p. 18.  This conduct appears violent and arbitrary, but
+was suitable to the strain of administration in those days.  His
+father Geoffrey, though represented as a mild prince, set him an
+example of much greater violence.  When Geoffrey was master of
+Normandy, the chapter of sees presumed, without his consent, to
+proceed to the election of a bishop; upon which be ordered all of
+them, with the bishop elect, to be castrated, and made all their
+testicles be brought him in a platter.  Fitz-Steph. p. 44.  In the war
+of Toulouse, Henry laid a heavy and an arbitrary tax on all the
+churches within his dominions.  See Epist. St. Thom. p. 232.
+
+
+NOTE [R]
+
+I follow here the narrative of Fitz-Stephens, who was secretary to
+Becket; though, no doubt, he may be suspected of partiality towards
+his patron.  Lord Lyttleton chooses to follow the authority of a
+manuscript letter, or rather manifesto, of Folliot, Bishop of London,
+which is addressed to Becket himself, at the time when the bishop
+appealed to the pope from the excommunication pronounced against him
+by his primate.  My reasons, why I give the preference to
+Fitz-Stephens, are, (1.) If the friendship of Fitz-Stephens might
+render him partial to Becket, even after the death of that prelate,
+the declared enmity of the bishop must, during his lifetime, have
+rendered him more partial on the other side.  (2.) The bishop was
+moved by interest, as well as enmity, to calumniate Becket.  He had
+himself to defend against the sentence of excommunication, dreadful to
+all, especially to a prelate: and no more effectual means than to
+throw all the blame on his adversary.  (3.) He has actually been
+guilty of palpable calumnies in that letter.  Among these, I reckon
+the following:--He affirms that, when Becket subscribed the
+Constitutions of Clarendon, he said plainly to all the bishops of
+England, "It is my master's pleasure that I should forswear myself,
+and at present I submit to it, and do resolve to incur a perjury, and
+repent afterwards as I may."  However barbarous the times, and however
+negligent zealous churchmen were then of morality, these are not words
+which a primate of great sense, and of much seeming sanctity, would
+employ in an assembly of his suffragans: he might act upon these
+principles, but never surely would publicly avow them.  Folliot also
+says, that all the bishops were resolved obstinately to oppose the
+Constitutions of Clarendon, but the primate himself betrayed them from
+timidity, and led the way to their subscribing.  This is contrary to
+the testimony of all the historians, and directly contrary to Becket's
+character, who surely was not destitute either of courage or of zeal
+for ecclesiastical immunities.  (4.) The violence and injustice of
+Henry, ascribed to him by Fitz-Stephens, is of a piece with the rest
+of the prosecution.  Nothing could be more iniquitous, than, after two
+years' silence, to make a sudden and unprepared demand upon Becket to
+the amount of forty-four thousand marks, (equal to a sum of near a
+million in our time,) and not allow him the least interval to bring in
+his accounts.  If the king was so palpably oppressive in one article,
+he may he presumed to be equally so in the rest.  (5.) Though
+Folliot's letter, or rather manifesto, be addressed to Becket himself,
+it does not acquire more authority on that account.  We know not what
+answer was made by Becket: the collection of letters cannot he
+supposed quite complete.  But that the collection was not made by one
+(whoever he were) very partial to that primate, appears from the tenor
+of them, where there are many passages very little favourable to him:
+insomuch that the editor of them at Brussels, a jesuit, thought proper
+to publish them with great omissions, particularly of this letter of
+Folliot's.  Perhaps Becket made no answer at all, as not deigning to
+write to an excommunicated person, whose very commerce would
+contaminate him; and the bishop, trusting to this arrogance of his
+primate, might calumniate him the more freely.  (6.) Though the
+sentence pronounced on Becket by the great council implies that he had
+refused to make any answer to the king's court, this does not fortify
+the narrative of Folliot.  For if his excuse was rejected as false and
+frivolous, it would he treated as no answer.  Becket submitted so far
+to the sentence of confiscation of goods and chattels, that he gave
+surety, which is a proof that he meant not at that time to question
+the authority of the king's courts.  (7.) It may be worth observing,
+that both the author of Historia quadripartita, and Gervase,
+contemporary writers, agree with Fitz-Stephens; and the latter is not
+usually very partial to Becket.  All the ancient historians give the
+same account.
+
+
+NOTE [S]
+
+Madox, in his Baronia Anglica, cap. 14, tells us, that in the
+thirtieth of Henry II. thirty-three cows and two bulls cost but eight
+pounds seven shillings, money of that age; five hundred sheep, twenty-
+two pounds ten shillings, or about ten pence three farthings per
+sheep; sixty-six oxen, eighteen pounds three shillings; fifteen
+breeding mares, two pounds twelve shillings and sixpence; and
+twenty-two hogs, one pound two shillings.  Commodities seem then to
+have been about ten times cheaper than at present; all except the
+sheep, probably on account of the value of the fleece.  The same
+author, in his Formulare Anglicanum, p. 17, says, "that in the tenth
+year of Richard I. mention is made of ten per cent. paid for money:
+but the Jews frequently exacted much higher interest."
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
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